Monroe, Louisiana 2008

Liam Trueblood was eleven years old the day the Clave apprehended him and his sister. The weather was warm, as it usually was during July, and his father was barbecuing just for the three of them excluding any of his clients or friends from work.

Eva was bouncing around the backyard as usual, sprinting from end to the other with no apparent reason. Ignorance truly was bliss. Liam was never blissfully ignorant. He was always thinking about something, how things worked, how things were structured together. Unlike his sister, Liam knew of his heritage and everything that came along with it. His father, Max Trueblood, never trusted him with anything but that information strictly.

"Race me Liam!" cried Eva as she stopped at the wooden fence. "Ready…set…GO!"

Even without the use of Marks, Eva was incredibly quick and agile. She moved like a blur, blond hair whirling in the wind like a whip of sunlight. No matter what sort of head start Liam had, the small blond child always left him in the dust. Which was exactly why Eva laughed loudly and exclaimed her victory like she did every other time they raced.

"I need to stop letting you win," Liam laughed with her. His sister had the contagious laughter that made everyone around her—even a total stranger—laugh alongside her.

"Yeah, sure," replied Eva.

"I'm going to go inside and get some juice, do you want some?"

"Apple!"

Liam nodded on his way through the sliding door noting the smell of burning meat as he did. If it was one thing Max Trueblood absolutely loathed it was burned or overcooked food. It was bad enough when someone else burned it, but how could he let his own food burn?

Something was wrong. Obviously.

"The Clave is in need—"

"I don't care about a single thing the Clave needs," Liam heard the snappy retort from his father. Oh no, he got really bad when he was angry. He peered his head from the corner he hid behind and caught a glimpse of a lean woman with the same black hair and blue eyes as his father. She looked familiar for some reason, Liam couldn't put his finger on it.

"Maryse," spoke a dark-skinned man standing behind the woman, Maryse. "We need to apprehend the children now."

"Give me a moment, Kadir," she replied, moving her sharp gaze to Liam's eyes, and her own eyes softened. "Hello."

Max turned and sighed upon seeing his son overhearing his conversation. Liam, with his head hung as if in shame, tip-toed over beside his father as Maryse bent down on one knee. She placed a finger under his chin and brought his gaze to hers. "What's your name?" She asked.

"L-Liam," he mumbled, still shyly looking at the ground. The familiarity was getting stronger and he felt like he could see a memory reflect in Maryse's eyes.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

Maryse smiled, then stood again. "I'm sorry Max, but we have to take him and—"

"Liam? Where'd you go—and where's my apple juice?" pouted Eva as she entered the small hallway, and the situation that Liam knew was going to take a sharp turn quick.

"Are you going to take us to Idris?" Liam mumbled.

"You told them about the Shadow World?" demanded Maryse.

"Not Evie, just Liam, Evie's too young to learn about that," Max answered. "If you're going to take them, then take me with them. I'd rather die than watch my two children enter the life I left behind."

"You are no longer a Shadowhunter," Kadir bluntly stated. "Therefore, we cannot take you with us."

After that, Liam spaced out of the conversation. It didn't matter what Max said, threatened or did; because in the end, both he and Eva would be going with Maryse and Kadir to be trained as real Shadowhunters.

Alicante, Idris 2010

Liam drew back the bowstring, placing it against the corner of his mouth, which was scarred from so many times of a bow's retaliation or his loosened grip. But after two years, he felt he had came a long way. Besides, during the majority of his training he was being trained by his two older cousins: Alec and Isabelle Lightwood.

"Fire," Alec ordered, but Liam didn't need the direction to do so. The arrow had already soared through the training room, a square room the size of a cafeteria, with three of its walls made of magically warded glass. A loud THUD! echoed as the arrowhead lodged itself in between the nine and the bullseye.

"Almost there," encouraged Alec as he moved to retrieve the projectile. As he did so, Magnus Bane, Alec's husband and the High Warlock of Brooklyn, entered the training room.

"I see you're still training the Nephilim boy," he commented. Sunlight made his sparkled button-up glitter as he walked to his husband. He then jabbed a finger in Liam's direction. "You better not end up becoming a wayward Shadowhunter whose problems I must magically fix—pun intended. Lord, if there is one, knows I've dealt with too many in my time."

Alec chuckled, kissing Magnus quickly on the lips before asking, "Where are the kids?"

"Clary and Simon are watching them," since their marriage, the couple had adopted two warlock children and one Shadowhunter boy: Lilliana, Ragnor and Tobias. Not only that, they had started the Downworlder organization, the Praetor Veneficus, which aided warlocks in their becoming of magic-users. Especially those unwelcome to their mundane parents.

As they conversed with each other, Liam sat down on a bench nearby and twisted tightly on the arrowheads and ran his fingers up and down the bowstring. Alec approached the boy and knelt before him. "Hey, I want to give you something," he stood again and walked over to a metal trunk in the corner of the training room. It was narrow enough to hold a bow. Alec flipped open the locks, revealing a recurve bow, the same bow that belonged to him. "This is my bow," he stated.

"I know," Liam replied. "I've seen it before."

Alec took his bow out of the trunk and handed it to Liam. "I'm giving it to you."

"What? I can't take your bow, Alec."

"Yes, you can," the oldest Lightwood placed his bow in Liam's hand. The bow that had killed the Greater Demon Abaddon, saved Consul Penhallow's life and killed the faerie warrior Meliorn. And not it suddenly belonged to Liam.

"Just take the bow," Magnus called out.

He took Alec's bow in his hands. "Alexandros," he said, "That is its name. Alexander in Latin. After the one who used it first."

Eva Trueblood walked through Angel Square in Alicante alongside her cousin, Isabelle Lightwood. Izzy decided it would be good to let Eva decide her own weapon. Every Shadowhunter had their own preference for weapons, whether it be long-ranged or short-ranged, shortsword or longsword.

"How are you with bows?" asked Isabelle as they entered the weapons shop, Diana's Arrow.

"Terrible," Eva answered. "Bows are more Liam's thing than mine."

"What about a spear?"

Eva made a face of disapproval and walked along the aisles of oak shelves that held a variety of weapons. She had heard from Izzy's friend, Clary, that this was the same place she had received her own weapon: A shortsword by the name of Heosphoros.

After what seemed to be hours of searching—at least, that's what it always felt like when Eva went shopping with Isabelle—she finally discovered a blade with a spiral pattern of leaves on both sides. Eva ran her finger down the leaf pattern and she knew that this was the one.

"Eva, that's a faery sword," Isabelle informed the girl. Since the Clave's sanctions against the Fair Folk, all of their weapons had been apprehended and either destroyed or given to Shadowhunters who claimed them. And since the fey were now a disrespected culture among the Nephilim, hardly anyone claimed the weapons or bought them from weapon stores.

"I know," Eva, being half-fey like her brother, replied absently and picked the blade from the shelf. "I want this one."

"Its name is Grass Blade," spoke Kale Blackwood, the new owner of Diana's Arrow since Diana left to become the new tutor at the Los Angeles Institute. "Due to the leaf pattern along the blade."

"We'll take it," Eva beamed.