The girl stared at the photograph with thinly veiled disgust. The woman smiling in the picture resembled the girl—long red locks that fell in a heavy cascade, eyes holding the liveliness of spring, the light spray of freckles across their cheekbones. The girl hated her all the more for it. She could hear her father's voice in her head, as clear as adamas: She abandoned you, and took your brother instead. Because you are an unwanted brat, useless for everything.

How could someone abandon their own child, especially if the child had inherited their traits? The girl flung the photograph into the embers, watching with satisfaction as the hungry flames devoured it. She would be whipped for it, she was sure, but it was worth it.

The photograph had brought her train of thoughts to her brother. The one with the demon blood, the one who her father liked more, despite spending barely a year of time with him. Her father had injected her with Lilith's blood after his failure in the Uprising, but it couldn't replace the blood of the Angel running in her veins. That didn't stop him from continuing his experiments on her. He injected her with the demonic ichor every month, taking notes as she screamed from the following agony and nightmares. The result was a Nephilim child with advanced physical abilities, who suffered from sudden bursts of incredible pain when her body attacked itself.

The girl reached for the glass bottle holding her pills. She relaxed a little when her fingers brushed against its cold, smooth surface. The bottle was for her what a teddy bear is for a normal child of her age. She climbed out the open window and landed on the grass with a soft thud. She treaded through the darkness, occasionally casting her eyes at the moon hanging limply in the dark sky. Her father had gone to meet one of his Circle members, who was hiding from the eyes of the corrupted Clave. This was a great opportunity to escape his close surveillance.

She stood by the door of the Wayland manor. She twisted the handle, only to find it locked, but it was nothing her rune couldn't fix. She scraped the Open rune into the polished wood of the door, smiling with satisfaction when the rune disappeared with a sudden flash of light. The door slid open at her pull. What she didn't expect was the boy curled up by the door like a cat, sound asleep despite the disturbance and his lack of blankets.

So this was the boy. The other Jonathan. The girl observed his tousled blond hair, pale in the dim moonlight. She had heard her father describe him countless times as they sat at the dining table. The hint of affection he couldn't keep out of his voice was all he needed to spark hatred in the girl's heart. She considered killing him, purely to spite her father. It would be almost too easy, to slit his throat with the knife she had stolen from her father's drawer. But his angelic countenance, so serene in his slumber, made her discard the thought. She knelt by the boy instead, studying his delicate features.

He seemed to notice her presence, even in his sleep. He stirred, and when his hand grazed her knee, he woke up with a jolt.

"Wha—who are you?" The girl idly examined his alarmed eyes. They were bright gold, the colour of Heaven's glory. The boy scrambled up to glare at her. "How did you get here?"

"Through the door," she pointed the obvious. It was still open, the moonlight spilling in through the gap. "Please sit. My neck hurts." To her amusement, the boy obediently sat cross-legged in front of her.

"Who are you?"

"No one you should know about, though I'll tell you my name if you swear on the Angel not to tell anyone that you met me." The girl held his gaze with a challenging glint in her eyes.

"I swear," he automatically replied. There was a fierce curiosity burning behind the pale gold of his eyes that the girl, to her own surprise, found captivating.

"My father calls me Seraphina, after his mother. My grandmother, though I've never seen her." It was the first time she had ever introduced herself to someone. The feeling of her own name rolling off her tongue felt strangely alien.

"It doesn't suit you," the boy said with a frown, as if he had heard her thoughts. "It sounds cold. It kind of reminds me of my father, actually." The girl had to bite her tongue to stop herself from laughing. How blind the boy was.

"Then give me another name that suits me," she said.

The boy looked thoughtful as he inspected her with intense eyes. The pondering silence hung over them for a good while before his mouth finally opened. "Clarissa. Clary for short."

The way his lips formed the name, his tongue curling at the r, made her heart twinge with an unfamiliar emotion. Maybe it was the caution in his voice as he suggested her new name, so entirely different from the way her father barked out her previous one. Clary found her own lips curving into a smile, and the boy visibly relaxed.

"My name is Jonathan," the boy continued. "but you can give me another name like I did, if you'd like."

Clary nodded. The name Jonathan reminded her of the hatred toward her brother and the jealousy she had felt toward the boy. She tilted her head, flexing her fingers habitually as she did when she was deep in thought. Jonathan Christopher. JC.

"Jace." The name tumbled out of her mouth before she could even gauge how it sounded in her head. It was a simple, short name, like a clean cut of a sword.

"Jace," repeated the boy. "I like it. Nice and short." Jace grinned, and Clary noticed how one tip of his lips quirked up a millisecond before the other followed.

The magic of this moment, of Clary and Jace sitting across each other with tentative smiles on their faces, was branded into her memories. Whenever she suffered from nightmares, she retreated into the memory, like a wanderer in the desert reaching for a last gulp of water. Since then, she was Clary, and he was Jace. Nothing more, nothing less.

Every night after the incident, when even her father had fallen asleep, Clary slinked in the shadows and snuck into the Wayland manor. Sometimes, they didn't whisper a single word. They just sat in the dim illumination of the moon and stars of Idris, finding relief in each other's presence. Clary never told him anything about herself, and Jace didn't push. When she had asked if it didn't bother him, he simply answered, "You're Clary; that's enough."

And it was enough. The night when her father had broken the neck of Jace's falcon, she had held him in the circle of her arms as he silently let his tears fall. He had to be strong, too strong to weep, but in front of Clary, he just needed to be himself. The very same night, she released her own falcon into the wild. The following night, Jace wiped the blood oozing from the gashes on her back, torn by the demon metal of the whip her father wielded.

A few years later, Clary was twisting her neck to study the scars. As soon as Clary had woken up from her nightmares after the injection, her father had tested her with different trials. He was finishing his notes while she sat across him, trying hard not to look miserable. Her entire body ached, and the bruises along her forearm weren't healing despite her iratzes. Clary looked up when her father cleared his throat, taking an envelope out from between the pages of his journal. Her eyes flickered to the elegant W-shaped wax seal.

"I'm sending Jonathan to the Lightwoods." Clary's eyes snapped to her father in an instant. She carefully hid her dismay behind a mask of nonchalance.

"I thought you liked him," she commented mildly.

"I need a warrior to strike against the Clave. Jonathan is nothing like that. He gets devastated over a dead bird." Clary bit her tongue before she could snap at her father, that the falcon he had killed was not just a bird.

"Wouldn't that draw attention to the Wayland manor?" Clary questioned instead. "You'll have to remove all signs of yourself, father."

"I have ordered Pangborn and Blackwell to assist me in faking my own death."

Clary stiffened, though she maintained her façade of indifference. Jace would no doubt be devastated, losing his only family. And this time, she wouldn't be there to let him weep into her arms. But she knew what was bothering her was not the sorrow Jace would inevitably go through. It was his absence she would have to suffer from, probably for the rest of her life. She hid her grimace by tilting her face down to stare at her grimy laps.

She dismissed herself and returned to her room. She slumped to the ground, leaning on the door, and hugged her knees to her chest. She made a noise when her fingers clamped over a hot dampness. There was an ugly scarlet slash stretching from her knee to her ankle under the torn fabric of her ruined gear. It seemed to be a shallow wound, but it was still spewing blood. She brushed the dirt away with her hands, smearing blood on her leg and palms. With her other hand, she scrawled another iratze on her knee, closing her eyes gratefully as the pleasant burn took away the throbbing pain.

It reminded her of how the boy at the Wayland manor would gently clean her wounds with a wet towel, while he endured his own injuries until they were badly infected. Despite what her father seemed to believe, the boy was the stronger of the two.

She waited by the door, watching the darkness consume the world. The moon had crept up to its peak, and eventually Clary's ears caught the soft footsteps of her father finally going to his bedroom. She waited for what must have been a half-hour, and when she was sure the cottage was silent, she slipped out from her bedroom window.

Her body knew the way before her brain registered the path. Keeping to the shadows, she ignored the protest of her limbs as she hastened her pace. The door was open by a finger's breadth, a signal indicating that the coast was clear. Her fingers had hardly even touched the doorknob when it swung open, revealing a grinning Jace who greeted her with a mock curtsey.

"I thought you weren't coming," he said as he stepped away from the entrance. Clary shut the door behind her before facing the boy. She studied him from head to toe, for what she guessed would be the last time. He was a head taller than her now, his hair ruffled as always. There was always a challenging glint in his eyes and an air of confidence clinging to him. He reminded her of a lion, proud and dangerous, even though he was barely ten years old.

"I always do," she said without amusement. Jace raised an eyebrow, registering her odd gaze.

"Is something up?" Jace asked, peering into her eyes. It was his eyes that Clary liked most. They held the light of the stars, blazing gold like the path to heaven. Clary wondered if his angelic heritage was concentrated in his eyes, and whether the world he saw through them was more radiant than the world she knew.

"If you want to weasel out any information about me, you need to be subtler than that," she replied. She sank to the ground with her grubby legs splayed in front of her before her legs could give out under her. The dirt and dry blood was hidden in the shadows. Jace bent down beside her, curling into a ball and balancing on the soles of his feet.

"Thought I might as well try," he said, his voice filled with all the solemnity a ten-year-old could muster. "I tell you everything about me. Why won't you tell me anything about you?"

"Why are you suddenly so curious about me? You were okay with me not telling you anything before."

Jace paused, his accusing glare faltering. "I have a feeling… that I won't get to see you again."

Clary was surprised, but she kept her face straight. "Listen," she said, pulling him closer. He leaned into her so their foreheads touched. He carried a scent of burnt leaves that she savoured for a moment before whispering, "even if you know it's a lie, I need you to believe this. Believe this with all your heart, for your sake and mine." Well, mine more than yours, she added silently.

"Believe what?" His eyes were widened so the gold disks of his irises were visible even in the darkness.

"I am a figment of your imagination. I am just an imaginary friend you made up." Jace began to protest, but she tightened her grip on his arm to silence him. "I'll always be with you here." She put a finger to the centre of his ribs, where his heart was steadily beating.

"But you're real. I know you're real," he said stubbornly.

"That's why I need you to convince yourself. That all the time we spent together was a dream." Clary took a deep breath, and pushed herself up. Jace stood up too, glaring down at her with blazing eyes. They were no longer touching, but his presence alone made her feel as though he were embracing her. "Tell no one, even the people you meet after… whatever happens, about me."

"What is going to happen? Is something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," she said, her voice as calm as the chilly night air. "I'm just a dream."

Clary reached out for his wrist, which he held out willingly. The white scars of faded Marks and healed injuries were almost identical to hers. She pressed her stele to his skin, and traced a rune almost lazily. His puzzled expression shifted to one of recognition and alarm, but it was too late—he lost his balance, his eyelids sliding shut, as soon as the Sleep Now rune was completed.

She caught him before he could tumble to the ground, and slowly lowered him. He was too tall for her to carry, so she lay him on the wooden boards, just like the young boy she had met years ago. She eased him into a comfortable position and knelt by him. Clary ran her fingers through his soft hair, then cut a lock of it with her knife. Twirling the gold strand between her thumb and forefinger, she straightened up. Casting one last look at the boy, she crept back into the shadows.

Author's Note:

It's the first chapter for my second story! I've been wanting to post this for a long time, but I had to finish The Warlock's Child first.

I hope you all enjoy this story! :D