New York in the Dead of Night:

What are dreams?

Are they merely thoughts we do not realize we have been dwelling on while we are awake? Are they more honest than conscious ideas, as they show us what is in our minds when we do not have our egos to contend with? Are they simply compilations of sounds and images and feelings our sleeping brains have decided will make for pleasant pastimes while we rest? And can one control ones dreams? Are they completely random, or are they selected by us without our knowledge, or if we hold on to fixed ideas, will their influence in our dreams increase or decrease as a result? Fascinating questions all. But this is not about what dreams are. This is about six dreams in particular. Do they reflect what the people who dreamt them want? Do they give accurate representations of their thoughts, their hopes, their wishes and desires? Are they simply jumbles of noise and picture that have no relevance whatsoever? It cannot be determined. This will not tell if you if that is so. But late on a stuffy night in the heart of a building in New York, this is what those six people dreamed, and that, at least, we can tell you.

The Wayland manor stood in front of them, late afternoon light reflecting off its windows set deep into the honey-coloured stones. Their horse slowed to a stop as Jace tugged lightly on the reins, neighing as if in objection to their place of rest.

"I'm not sure about this," Clary mumbled nervously from behind him. "Your dad's kind of intimidating. I really don't know if-"

"Don't be so worried," Jace said reassuringly. "When I met your mother, I thought she was going to rip my head off. And I'm an arrogant bastard. Trust me, my dad's going to love you."

He jumped out of the saddle, turning to help Clary down. She wasn't a huge fan of travel by horse- indeed, she was in search of a more modern way of life in general. He had often wondered if they might move somewhere else when they were older, become part of a Conclave. New York, maybe. His father knew the couple who ran the Institute there, and had done for years. They would surely welcome him with open arms.

He opened the front door, holding it for Clary, and led her into the living room, where he saw his father sitting in a dark green armchair, a book open in his lap, and Jace couldn't tell at first if he was looking down at its pages or if he had fallen asleep. Then he raised his head, and his black eyes travelled past his son and came to rest on Clary, and a small smile appeared on his face.

"Jonathan," Valentine Morgenstern said, his voice warm and polite, "if you had told me we were having visitors, I would have cleared the place up."

Jace looked around at the room- cushions straight and orderly on couches, books alphabetized by author in their shelves, the carpet free of dust. A single cup, half-full of black tea, sat on the table, resting on a porcelain coaster. "Of course," he said dryly. "The place looks like a bomb went off."

His father smiled. "I am a perfectionist. Well, introduce me then. Who is your friend?"

"Actually," Jace said, glancing at Clary and smiling slightly embarrassedly, "this is the girl I was telling you about. You know, Clary Fairchild, Jocelyn's daughter."

"Oh," Valentine said. "Of course. I should have known. You greatly resemble your mother, Miss Fairchild."

Clary smiled a little beside him. "I've been told."

"Well, this way, the next time anyone says it, you can say 'I've been told,' with even more exasperation." His father smiled again, easy-going, content. Just as he always was. "How is Jocelyn, then? I haven't seen her in… by the Angel, it must be nearly twenty years by now. Not since our school days. I trust she is well?"

"Quite well, thank you," Clary said politely. "I'll tell her you were asking about her."

"That would be greatly appreciated." He saw a little wistfulness in his father's eyes. He knew he and Jocelyn had known each other at their agel, had gone out a few times, in fact, but nothing had ever come of it. He had often wondered if perhaps, with both of them single parents, they might take an interest in each other, given that their families were reasonably close- Clary's older brother Sebastian was one of Jace's best friends, and the reason he had met Clary. He had been surprisingly fine with the two of them being together, perhaps making the odd comment or admonishing them occasionally if he found them both in her house. He was relieved now, though, that his father had not in fact tried to woo Jocelyn- that would add a considerable extra layer of awkwardness to his and Clary's relationship. It would almost feel like incest.

"I think I shall finish these elsewhere," his father said. He slipped his book- a history of mundane classical music- under his arm, picked up his half-empty cup and exited the room.

"Not big on 'meet the parents' then?" Clary asked.

Jace shrugged. "I think he thought he was intruding. Wanted to give us some time alone."

Clary smiled, that little mischievous smile that always looked slightly out of place with her, part of a more impish, playful side she rarely displayed. "Well, if we're alone, at sunset, in an old manor house in the country, whatever could we get up to?"

Jace grinned. "I'll show you my room. When did you tell your mother you'd be back?"

Clary's smile broadened. "I didn't."

"Good." He walked to the stairs, Clary at his heels. "Because I think you might be here a while."

Clary had ascended the first few steps already. She looked down at him- not all that far down; even three steps above him she was barely taller than he was. Her green eyes were sparkling with amusement…

Jace's eyes opened slowly. Clary's eyes were sparkling with amusement, and she actually was looking down at him for once, propped up on her elbow beside him, the covers falling around her. Her lips were curved in a smile.

"What?" he asked. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Your expression," she said. "You looked all nostalgic. What were you dreaming about?"

"Just you." He reached out to roll her on top of him, her hair sliding between his fingers. She grinned down at him.

"Just me?" Clary said.

Jace thought for a moment. The manor house. The horse. The living room, neat but for that single stray mug. And his father- her father, really. Casual. Warm. Pleasant. Not at all like he had been in life. Cold. Calculating. Dangerous. Like him.

"Yeah," he said. "Just you."

Alec was jerked out of his reverie by the sounds of running footsteps, and he turned his head to see a pale blonde boy no older than six or seven come running into the living room. Beside him, Magnus leant forwards. His hair was slightly longer now, his gold-green eyes perhaps not quite as bright as they had once been, faint shadows visible beneath them. Quite simply, he looked… older. Surely not. He was immortal, after all. But then, he had performed the spell, hadn't he? His life would now continue as a human's would. For him. So they could grow old together. Alec shook his head, wondering why he hadn't remembered that. "Gideon, what's wrong?" he asked.

"Tessa pushed me!" Gideon said indignantly, pointing with damning authority at the dark-haired eleven-year-old girl who had come sidling into the room.

"Well, you broke the laptop," Tessa said angrily. "And it wasn't even yours to break."

"Well, you said I didn't have any friends!" He sniffed loudly.

Alec looked over at Tessa. "Did you say that?"

Tessa looked away. "I might have."

"Tessa, how could you say that? You know how hurtful that is." Alec was trying to sound scolding, though he was more than likely failing- his 'parenting' voice had made Magnus almost cry with laughter the first time he had used it. Beside him, Gideon sniffed loudly again. "See, you've made your brother cry-"

"He's not even actually crying!" Tessa complained. "You always believe him! Just because he's such a baby-"

"Theresa Elizabeth Lightwood-Bane," Alec said, in a voice with so much parental authority Magnus giggled girlishly beside him, "You don't speak about your brother like that! Apologize to him!"

Tessa sighed. "Sorry," she mumbled half-heartedly.

"Good." Alec sat back as Tessa and Gideon walked slowly back to their rooms. "Thanks for helping me out there," he said sarcastically.

"You were doing fine on your own," Magnus said. "If it isn't broken, and all that."

"I don't want to always be the tough parent, though." He sighed. "You can't always be the nice one."

"Maybe I'm just more kid-friendly than you are," Magnus suggested.

Alec snorted. "You? Kid-friendly? You're about as inappropriate as they come."

"Maybe I've grown up," Magnus mused. "It had to happen sometime."

"Do grown-ups have hair like a transvestite hedgehog?" Alec asked. "Or do they wear electric blue eyeliner on weekends?"

"Well, no," Magnus conceded.

"There you go." He kissed his husband on the cheek and stood up. "I'm going to take a shower." He made his way into the bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him. He looked at the mirror above the purple basin. It was spotted with glitter, and a note reading: Gone out early, Isabelle will pick you up, xxx, in Magnus' writing was taped to it, but Alec could make out his reflection reasonably clearly: his face was faintly lined, and when he turned his head he could see grey hairs at his temples. Many times, years ago now, he had sweated over his inevitable decline and death while Magnus remained young forever. When Magnus had told him, shortly after Luke and Jocelyn's wedding, that he intended to become mortal, he had been too stunned to be relieved. Now, aside from the odd pang of guilt whenever he saw any sign of his husband ageing, he was content, happy with his lot in life. He would grow old with someone he loved, as he had always hoped. He was certain of that?

Was he certain of that? Would Magnus be content to stay with him forever? He knew Magnus was someone prone to changes of mind, knew he was someone who disliked being in one place all the time, but still, he had settled down now, hadn't he?

Memories began flooding up to the surface of Alec's mind- Magnus' 409th birthday party, where a very determined Isabelle had insisted on decorating the cake with four hundred and nine individual candles, and Magnus had tried to look pleased, but he had looked at the huge array of tiny flaming wax lights with some dismay. Magnus looking into a mirror with an expression of shock on his face, and then looking immediately over at him. Magnus determinedly dyeing the roots of his hair in a shade of black that didn't quite match up with his natural colour. Did he perhaps resent him, blame him for the fact that he would now age and die? Surely not. He had not asked Magnus to become mortal, he had simply done it. But did he perhaps regret it, perhaps think that, were it not for Alec, he could spend eternity joking with other Downworlders, roaming the world and throwing parties? Was he a living reminder to Magnus of his own death, a sight that prompted him to remember that, in comparison to what had come before, his life was almost over?

Alec shook his head and stared into the mirror. "We're happy," he told his reflection. "Don't you dare think otherwise. Because that will make you unhappy. Don't you dare."

First sign of madness, he thought to himself. Was he going mad? He certainly didn't seem to know quite what was going on in this world…

Alec's expergo rune flared up on his forearm, and his eyes blinked open, staring around blearily. He looked at the clock on his nightstand. Twenty to three. He must have badly applied the rune. It was meant to wake him up at seven thirty each morning, or so Clary had said. He wondered blearily why he didn't just fix his alarm clock, then remembered he had no idea how he might go about that, and got out his stele from the drawer next to his bed and went to work on the poorly drawn Mark. He was glad of the familiar sting of the adamas wand against his skin. It distracted him from what he had been dreaming.

When he had finished, though, and stored the stele away, the dream returned to him in full force. He knew there was no point putting stock in mere dreams, but still… did this mean that it was what he wanted? Did he wish to see Magnus age and die alongside him? Would he really be satisfied by that?

Alec sighed. Normally, he would have given almost anything to escape his usual nightmares of Abbadon, Brocelind Plain and Edom, but this hit him on a more psychological level than mere rehashes of old terrors he had already braved. He knew how those dreams would pan out. He would be wounded by Abbadon, yes, would fear for his life at Brocelind, would nearly have his heart stop when he realized again how Asmodeus intended to use Magnus, but he was able to predict those events, and able to forget them when he woke. This was far more personal.

Deciding there was no point worrying about it now, Alec tugged the covers straighter on his bed, checked again that his rune was correctly applied, and settled down to sleep.

Clary was lagging slightly behind Jace, who stood between Alec and Isabelle, as they turned into the street where Taki's was found. She wasn't really listening to what the others were saying; she was in the process of texting her mother, letting her know that she wouldn't be home at the usual time, and not to worry about her. Then suddenly she looked up, eyes moving past Jace and the others, and saw a girl watching her from across the street. Her eyes were slightly puzzled, and it took Clary a moment before she recognized her.

She grabbed Jace's arm. "I need to borrow your stele, I left mine at the Institute. Quick."

He looked at her in surprise. "What?"

"Your stele, now." She was very conscious of the fact that Clancy, the red-skinned, menacing ifrit who guarded the diner, was standing a few feet away and looking across the street at the other girl, and that she herself had Jace's red-hilted kindjal hanging from her waist. "I need a glamour. That girl across the street, I used to go to high school with her. She can't see me-"

"Relax," Jace said easily, passing her his stele. She set it to the inside of her arm. "Besides, it's not like she'll recognize you."

She stopped. "What do you mean? We knew each other for years-"

"Yeah, but you're a Shadowhunter now," Jace said.

She glared at him. "So what? If normal human beings didn't recognize us, why would we bother with glamours?"

"They can still see us," Jace said. "But mundanes can never remember Shadowhunters. We fade from their memories over time. The events they see us in, the killings of demons they could by chance witness, those they remember, but not individuals. It's one of the reasons I knew you were a Shadowhunter, the fact that you completely remembered me, when you saw me again."

"But- that makes no sense-"

"Okay, then," Jace said. "Tell me one mundane from your old life you know who knows what you really are. One mundane."

"Fine," she snapped. "There's… well, there's…"

"See?" Jace sounded smug. "Mundanes don't remember Nephilim. We are bound by our vow to Heaven to protect them without their knowledge."

Clary's felt a slight stinging at the backs of her eyes. "Simon remembered me," she sniffed. "You can't deny that. Just because of what Asmodeus did-"

Jace blinked. "Who remembered you?"

"That isn't funny, Jace," she said. "You can't even begin to think how much I miss him-"

"Miss who?" Jace was looking at her blankly, and she wanted to slap him- he had made bad jokes before, but this was his least amusing yet.

"Jace, come on, I know you didn't like him, but this is just mean," she said. This was strange. Jace had never joked at Simon's expense post-Edom. She had thought he knew how hurtful it would be. But the show he was putting on now was so convincing, the confusion, the wide eyes, the hint of concern. She again pushed down the urge to hit him.

"Clary, seriously, who are talking about?" Jace was a good actor, she knew, a convincing one, but there was something a little too real about the way he was looking at her. "You never mentioned anyone called Simon before."

"Jace, you were there!" she half-shouted. "You were there in Edom, with Asmodeus! How can you be acting like this? I know you and Simon didn't get on that well, but I thought you at least missed him-"

"Alec," Jace called out over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off her, "back me up here. Did Clary ever mention having a friend called Simon?"

The other two had stopped by the doors to wait for them. Alec shrugged. "How should I know?"

"Well, did you ever hear her mention it?" Jace was looking at her worriedly. "Even once?"

Alec shook his head. "No. I mean, it could have happened, I suppose, but I don't ever remember-"

"Right," Clary said, turning on her heel, "if you're going to act like this, then you can just stay away from me."

"Clary, don't be like that," Isabelle said. "Can you blame them for not remembering someone if you mentioned them only once or twice?"

Clary turned incredulously to her. "Iz, how can you say that? I saw how hurt you were, when we came back from Edom. How can you joke about him like that, like he didn't mean anything?"

"Clary, to be honest, I can't remember you ever saying anything about any Simon either." Isabelle looked faintly bemused, as if startled to see Clary so obsessed over such an apparently small issue. She was stunned. She had seen Isabelle upon their return from the demon realms, seen the redness of her eyes, the way she never seemed focused on anything, had heard crying on many occasions when she visited the Institute.

"Isabelle, this is sick, okay? It's just sick. He was Simon, he was our friend, he was the love of your life-"

Isabelle stared at her. "I don't fall in love," she hissed. "And if I did, I think I would know, not least from the sense of self-loathing. And it certainly wouldn't be with some stupid mundane you used to know."

Clary looked at her again, saw the curious stare Alec was giving her, the look of over-protective concern on Jace's face, and she suddenly realized that this was no joke- they really did not remember Simon. She wanted to scream at them- how could they have simply forgotten? She remembered Jace, and the two of them arguing in his bedroom, and him telling her that she could never feel about Simon the way she felt about him, that he was nothing more than a distraction. She remembered Alec, offering to let Simon drink his blood, trusting him enough after he had saved Isabelle's life. She remembered Isabelle, in the elevator at the Institute, asking her for advice on how she could tell Simon how she felt, how she could try and see if he felt the same. She saw again the blank looks the others were giving her, and she turned on her heel and ran, not caring where her feet took her, just so long as it was away from this, away from three of the people she most cared about in all the world, away from those stares of disbelief and ignorance and concern that told her that someone she had needed in her life, someone she wasn't sure she could live without, wasn't even worth a few thoughts to them. And so she ran, and she ran, and she ran…

Clary woke, gasping, sheets tangled around her, her heart thundering against her chest with such force she thought it would burst free of her ribcage and fly out of her body. She blinked rapidly, her eyes focusing, and she felt stickiness in her eyelashes, tears that had formed while she slept. She looked down at Jace beside her, and for a moment she was still angry at him, still resentful of what her fitful sleeping mind had conjured up. Then she breathed deeply, and she focused instead on Jace comforting her after Simon's memory loss, and the time on Valentine's ship when Jace had let him drink his blood, and she remembered that Simon was asleep upstairs. Slowly her heart rate returned to normal, and when she next looked down on Jace, she managed to force a slight smile, for her own benefit. Nightmares came and went with her, and even if she still hated them, she had at least grown accustomed to their presence whenever she slept. And feelings of loneliness and abandonment, such as the ones shown to her in this dream, she was no stranger to either. She held on to that thought, which was reassuring in its own bizarre way, as she settled back down. She had gone through this all before. She would do it again. She could cope. She was certain of it. There was nothing to fear.

Nothing to fear.

Nothing.

"Clary."

He was surprised to find himself uttering this, in his last moments- he supposed he couldn't very well say the Shema, not now he was cursed and unable to speak God's name. He saw Valentine's face contort with surprise, and perhaps with a little bit of disgust, and then he swung the Soul-Sword down, and the blade rent open the side of his throat, splitting open his jugular vein, and Simon was aware of a warm wetness soaking into his collar, and of Maia screaming, as the world turned to darkness.

Then suddenly it re-alighted, and suddenly there were fresh screams and the sound of metal on metal around him, and he found himself in the middle of Brocelind Plain, trapped inside a throng of Shadowhunters and Downworlders and demons. He had managed to get hold of a dagger- he did not know how and hadn't the faintest clue how he might go about using it, but it was a slight reassurance in his hand. He knew, somewhere in the midst of all this, Luke would be fighting, and Jocelyn, and Magnus and Alec and so many others. He hadn't seen them since the battle had begun. He didn't even know if they were all still alive.

He slipped suddenly on something slimy and oozing, the carcass of some demon that looked like a gigantic black maggot, and he looked up to see a creature with skin dotted with spikes looming over him. Its claws shot out towards him, and he braced himself for the pain, and suddenly the demon screamed, its skin splitting open seemingly of its own accord, its body collapsing in on itself, and the demon disappeared, almost as if it had been folded into nothingness. At first, he looked around for its killer, then he reached up and touched the Mark on his forehead, and realized that this was the power Clary had given him. He didn't know whether to be pleased or horrified.

He looked around the battlefield, seeing Shadowhunters fighting enemies with lupine claws, or shrugging off what should have been fatal injuries, or darting between opponents with the grace of faerie knights, or even throwing blue sparks and bolts of lightning at their targets, flashing mesmerizingly before his eyes. Likewise, he watched as Downworlders met the charges of demons with drawn seraph blades, and he saw a vampire girl he recognized from New York strike down a monstrous skeletal creature with a golden whip just like Isabelle's. More creatures appeared in front of him, and he felt allies crowd around his shoulders to face them, and as the demons came at them with an array of fangs and talons and misshapen limbs, the world went dark again.

Then he was standing before a lake, and golden light was blazing up, making the waters sparkle, and Raziel hovered before him, suspended in the air, his wings blazing with a thousand glowing golden eyes. He barely had time to take in the angel before this, too, was gone, and now he was in total darkness, alone in a world of nothing, the single extant article in a sightless, soundless, soulless oblivion…

That was what he would have believed, anyway, so isolated was he in this world, had a voice not spoken to him out of the darkness, a voice he couldn't quite place, yet somehow recognized.

"Have you not realized it yet?" the voice asked.

"What?" Simon said. He looked around hopelessly for the source of the voice, then realized his eyes could not penetrate the darkness, and stopped.

"Have you not deduced anything from your visions?" The voice was cold, mocking. It was the tone of someone who did not care about their actions, someone who was not even doing things for a reason. "Why almost all you recollect each time your eyes close is painful? This life you seek to lead is exclusively pain. It does not bother me, of course. But I would like to give you fair warning that, when I left you mundane and with a blank mind, it did you as much good as it did me."

Simon realized then who the voice belonged to. "Why are you here? What did I do to you?"

Asmodeus laughed. "You think I need good reason to hate, or to punish, or to decimate? I am a Prince of Hell. I hate, therefore I am. I see in you, foolish boy, opportunity for great suffering, and I confess myself discontent with just one mere heart-breaking torment inflicted. You yourself escaped almost unscathed from your last one. I shall be honest with you. I want to hurt you. I want to shatter your life into a thousand pieces, then wait for you to try to put them all back together, and then tear it apart again. You escaped the wrath of Asmodeus, and I dislike it very greatly indeed."

Simon's heart rate quickened. "You can't do anything to me," he said, trying to sound brave. "When we were in Edom, you were in control. But I'm home now. You can't reach me."

"Can't I?" The demon's voice was coldly amused. "What about now, when you are asleep, and in your own private little world? In my world of darkness and fear? What can't I do to you then?"

Asmodeus laughed again, and something like a frozen blade went through him, and he gasped with the pain of it. The world started spinning around him, and red spots swam in his vision, and he felt a wrenching pain around his heart, as if it had been grasped between two steel pincers. He pressed a hand to his chest, and saw blood flowing between his fingers, and when he held his hands up and looked at them he saw slashes opening up all along his arms, disappearing under his T-shirt, and blood started to soak through the fabric. His hands tightened into fists, the bones becoming momentarily more prominent as his fingers flexed, and suddenly they were tearing free of his skin, snapping apart like twigs. He thought he could hear screaming in the distance, or perhaps it was himself doing the screaming. At this point he didn't know he could have told the difference. Wake up, he thought desperately, wake up and this will all be over. But he couldn't, couldn't seem to escape Asmodeus' world of torture, and even if he did, what if he simply woke up and died of injuries no iratze could cure? What if he could never sleep again for fear of returning to this? Those thoughts were forced out of his mind by another stabbing pain in his chest, as if it had been pierced with an icicle. He stopped trying to wake up then. If pain like this didn't rouse him, what would? Perhaps, if he just gave up, just lost the will to live, Asmodeus would get bored and kill him quickly…

Simon's eyes snapped open. He was glad of the fact that he had placed a Soundless rune on himself before falling asleep- he was prone to nightmares like this, endless torments specially arranged by his own mind, and he had not wanted to waken anyone with his deranged shouting in the night. He was gasping now, trying to get his breathing back under control. He looked at himself, checking for blood, for any wounds whatsoever, and found himself unmarked but for the few faint silver scars he now possessed. He looked down to see the Soundless rune fading away, wiped clear by his voice. He couldn't remember Asmodeus. He would hear him in the night, taunting him, goading him, and he would see his shadow looming up behind him, but never in his recollection had he clapped eyes on the demon. He knew he had seen him, of course, knew the very reason he could not remember Asmodeus was because he had met him, but the memory of Asmodeus himself remained stubbornly out of reach. These dreams felt like an insult, a mockery of the fact that, while his memories may have all but returned, there were plenty of painful recollections among them. He had known that, of course, known he had gone through a lot before he even remembered what had happened, but experiencing these agonizing nightmares night after night was enough to almost make him wish his memories had stayed buried inside him.

Then his eyes found Isabelle, asleep beside him, and that wish evaporated. If nothing else, the fact that she of all people needed him back had spurred him on to let Magnus help him, to Ascend, to immerse himself once again, even deeper this time, into the world of demons and angels and all those opposed to each. He wanted to know, more than anything, what he had done to earn her love and trust.

He had never figured it out. His memories had slowly returned, and he had grown closer and closer to Izzy as a result, but never had that answer come to him. He had done great things, yes- modesty aside, Simon knew, from his own recollections, and indeed from the manner in which they had faded from his mind, that he had at times been heroic. But what had he done that had specifically taken her interest? What had he possibly done to deserve someone like Isabelle?

Eventually, he had given up on trying to solve the puzzle. Something as enigmatic and unique as love, he thought, particularly theirs, was too complex for him to unravel. Instead, he had focused on building their relationship back up- they had both been hesitant at first, both unwilling to ask for much at the outset; after all, at first, Simon had barely known who she was, and he sensed that Isabelle had felt she barely knew him, either. He had been a different person, and even now, with almost all of his memories back, Simon felt that something- the journey to regaining his lost thoughts, perhaps- had changed him from the person he had been when his memories had been taken. But slowly, tentatively, they had grown back together, and every memory that had come back to him had only made him want her more, and eventually, they had returned to, if not normal, then as normal as things were ever likely to be.

Simon absentmindedly twirled a stray lock of Isabelle's hair between his fingers. He found he slept more soundly whenever she was with him, a now familiar reassurance from memories both old and new. And he enjoyed watching her sleep. When awake, Isabelle was always a little tense, always a little apprehensive, never completely at ease. Only sleeping did she ever seem at peace, and though previously he wouldn't have thought it possible, in sleep she was even more beautiful than when she was awake. Her features were relaxed, seeming softer than usual, and looking down at her now, Simon couldn't help but smile at her expression: it was most un-Isabelle, her face serene, and gentle, and indescribably beautiful.

And then her expression changed.

Isabelle crept quietly through the corridor, trying not to wake her brothers, towards her own room. Again, she was the last of them to turn in. Her nightmares never left her alone these days- at first, she had tried placing runes for sleep and peacefulness on herself at night, but rather than easing her dreams, instead they prevented her from waking, leaving her trapped for what felt like hours at a time in terrifying worlds of her own imagining. After that, she had stumbled upon several of Hodge's old books, in which a draught intended to bring sleep had been mentioned, and she had attempted brewing one. The resultant mixture had been roughly the same texture and colour as vomit, and it had both done nothing to fix her sleep problems and, ironically enough, had made her violently sick. In actual fact, though she didn't like to admit it, the only thing she had found that kept her dreams relatively pleasant was Simon's presence, and fortunately for her, he had taken to spending most nights at the Institute even when she couldn't muster the courage to ask. It hadn't completely taken care of the problem, but as she opened her bedroom door, it was with less trepidation than it may have been before.

Simon was not there. Either he was yet to come up or- more likely- he had headed home to try and get a night away from her and her sleep problems. She sighed. What had she expected? He didn't even have all of his memories of her back. It was surprising he had put up with it as long as he had. Feeling a little dismayed, she sat down slowly on the edge of her bed.

It was then she realized that she was not alone. A figure stood by the window, a child perhaps eight or nine years old. At first, she did not recognize them. Then the figure turned around, and she saw black oversized glasses, and behind them, dark grey eyes, and a chill went down her spine.

"Max?" she whispered.

He ignored her. His eyes flickered to her, briefly, and then he looked away. It was impossible. He couldn't be here. All the same, she wanted to run to her little brother and throw her arms around him and apologize for her carelessness (but if he were here, then did she have anything to apologize for?) but something held her back.

"Max, how are you here? I saw you-" she began, and then stopped. She didn't want to finish the sentence. He was fiddling with something in his hands, something small and black, and when he turned it over, she saw that it was the wooden Shadowhunter Jace had given him. He looked up at her again, but continued to ignore her.

"Max, please," she begged, getting up off the bed, "say something. Say anything."

He looked at her for a second, grey eyes contemplative, and then turned and started to walk towards the door.

"Don't go!" she cried. "Don't leave me-"

"Why?" Max's voice sounded somehow wrong- the accent and pitch and speech patterns were his, but there was something wrong with his tone, the way it echoed, as if several people were speaking at once. "You left me. With that psycho the Penhallows knew." He sounded indignant, and hurt. "You left me to die."

"Max, I didn't know," Isabelle said frantically. How was she meant to explain someone like Sebastian to a nine-year-old? His deceptions, his skill at manipulation… how could she put that into words, when she couldn't fathom him herself? "None of us knew-"

"I knew," Max said sullenly. "I told you. I said someone was climbing the demon towers. I would have told you it was him, too, if you had just listened."

I know, Isabelle thought. She wanted to try and explain herself, wanted to try and make him understand, but at the same time, she agreed with everything he was saying- his words had been her exact thoughts, at one point. It was almost as if he were reading her mind…

"And you never trust people," Max said, sounding suddenly angry, in that way only Max ever sounded. "You don't trust anyone that's not a Lightwood. How come the one person you trust that you don't know is the guy that killed me?"

"I didn't trust him-"

"Then why," a voice said from behind her, "did you leave me alone with your annoying little brother?"

Isabelle whirled. Sebastian was leaning against the wall opposite her, dressed in red Shadowhunter gear, his usual malicious smirk angering her in a way nothing else ever had. Yet somehow, she couldn't sustain her anger for long. She was too busy puzzling over his last statement. Why had she left him alone with Max?

"See, it was easy, getting the others to trust me," Sebastian said, disengaging from the wall. Isabelle stepped protectively in front of Max, who was staring at Sebastian with an expression of horror. "The Penhallows, of course, accepted me straight away. If I was related to them, I had to be perfectly normal, right? They could have done with taking a leaf out of my sister's book." He sounded a little bitter, but his smirk didn't leave his face.

"Your parents," he continued, "were a little harder, but being charming doesn't take too much work, and as for Alec-"he snorted, "Well, he'd trust anyone as long as they're a Shadowhunter. Had I told him I was out on bail for mass murder, he would have forgiven me the second he saw the Voyance rune on my hand."

Isabelle stopped wondering about trust. "You're not a Shadowhunter," Isabelle spat. "You're a demon who poses as one when the need arises. Like when you want to seduce your own sister to help with your plans."

Sebastian shrugged. "Nephilim blood is dominant, as your lot are so fond of saying. But anyway," he continued, "the others were easy to gain trust from. But you… you are rather well known for not trusting anyone who isn't in your family. So why did you trust me? What did I do that convinced you I was a good person in such a short space of time?"

Isabelle paused. Again he was asking, and again she had no answer. Eventually, she said, "You used glamours. To make you look trustworthy. Clary told me."

"But those weren't completely effective, were they?" Sebastian was grinning now. "After all, Jace didn't trust me. So why did you have enough faith in me to leave me alone with your nine-year-old brother while demons rampaged around outside?"

Isabelle felt a coldness start to spread out from the centre of her chest. He was right. Why had she put any kind of faith in him? Why hadn't she seen him for what he was, or at the very least, irrationally assumed he was untrustworthy and had nothing to do with him? Why had she let her guard down?

"You know why, even if you won't admit it," Sebastian said. "It's because you are just like me."

Her thoughts stopped. She wanted then to throw herself at him- she may not have had her whip, or indeed any weapons, but she would have happily tried to kill him unarmed. But she knew, even if she didn't like saying it, that he was better than her, and she feared that if she angered him, he would take it out, again, on her little brother, who was trembling beside her. She contented herself with viciously stating, "I am nothing like you."

Sebastian grinned. "Oh, but you are," he said. "Think about it. Both distrustful. Both a law unto ourselves. Both passionate and talented fighters, even by Nephilim standards. And of course, both seemingly incapable of love until recently."

She wanted to scream at him that he was nothing like her, that he felt nothing, and above all, that whatever twisted, poisonous, sinister feelings he had towards Clary could not compare to how she felt about Simon. But screaming at Sebastian got you nowhere. Instead she took a deep breath, and said, "Jace is more like you than I am. Why should I trust you if he didn't?"

"Jace is different to you," Sebastian said. "He could see our similarities- he still can. But he resented me for it. He was used to being the adored one, the cleverest, the wittiest, the most powerful. He resented me because I was a better version of him. And you may say Jace has human nature that I will never possess, but at the time all he could see was someone just that little bit better at everything than he was. But you- you saw that I was like you, and you appreciated it. That's why you trusted me. If you could trust anyone, it was someone that acted like you, right?" He was grinning now, revelling in her hurt. Revelling in being the one to hurt her. "Speaks volumes about your character, doesn't it? And of course, Jace automatically hated me for being in love with his sister- my sister, really. You couldn't have cared less about it. You were too busy getting cosy with her vampire friend."

Isabelle's fists clenched. "Well, that proves you wrong, doesn't it? Simon's nothing like me. He's not related to me. And I trust him." Her voice was triumphant, but she was not rewarded by any reaction from Sebastian. He simply shrugged again.

"You were in love with the stupid Downworlder. It's a different matter. Clary and I don't have an awful lot in common, but I still-"

"You feel nothing for her!" she hissed. "You have demon instinct and your own screwed-up desires driving you on. That's not love. And you certainly don't trust her."

"Fine, then," Sebastian said, his voice a little louder. "Go on. You tell me why you trusted me not to kill your annoying little prick of a brother-"

Isabelle felt something move beside her, and she looked down to see Max come shooting out past her, charging towards Sebastian. Sebastian looked faintly amused; she watched as his hand moved under his red jacket, saw the flash of metal-

"No!" She threw herself in front of Max as he brought the blade down- she wouldn't let him die again. She wouldn't let Sebastian hurt her further. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the blade to come slicing through her skin-

Nothing happened. She opened her eyes slowly. Sebastian was no longer there. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Then she turned her head.

Neither was Max.

"Max?" she called out. No answer.

"Max, where are you?" Her eyes frantically scanned the room for any sign of her brother. But he was gone. Gone again. She suppressed a sob.

"Memories are painful things, aren't they?" a voice said.

Isabelle stiffened. She knew that voice. She wished she didn't. She had heard it only once, in Sebastian's destroyed throne room in Edom, and she had listened in horror as its owner made its demands.

"See how these people hurt you, even after they are gone from the world," Asmodeus said. "Better, don't you think, simply to forget them? Easier, certainly." He stepped out of the shadows, his hair, coiled on top of his head like barbed wire, barely any darker than his pure white suit. He smiled at her coldly. "Take your lover, for example. I'm sure you envied him his fate, when you had to cope with his loss."

Isabelle glared resolutely at him. "I have him back. He remembers me. He loves me. You failed."

Asmodeus smiled viciously. "Did I now?"

"You failed," Isabelle repeated. "We got out of Edom. We all survived. Simon's memories came back. We beat you, on your own terms."

"I see." He looked at her mockingly. "And I suppose then, you can tell me, at this exact moment, where your friend is?"

Isabelle stopped. Where was Simon? Had he left the Institute? She hadn't heard him leave…

Asmodeus grinned. "Did you truly think you had defeated a Prince of Hell? That I, the Lord of Edom, had made a clumsy mistake? You must be very naïve indeed if you did. I am Asmodeus. You do not outwit me. You do not escape me. And you do not save my victims with nothing more than a cup full of thousand-year-old blood and the help of one of my more pleasant sons. When I take someone away, there is no getting them back, and your punishment shall be greater still for even daring to think it."

Isabelle shook her head. "You're lying," she said, her voice barely audible. "You're just trying to hurt me-"

"Oh, I'm trying to hurt you, alright," Asmodeus said. His voice became low and deadly. "But I don't have to lie." He was smirking. "It would be almost too easy, with his memories still so fragile… barely a task at all…"

Isabelle couldn't help it. Tears started to form in her eyes. "Don't take him away from me," she pleaded. "Please."

Asmodeus grinned savagely. "Perhaps not all at once. I wonder if you could take it, if his memories started to fall away, bit by bit, how long you would go before you just cracked under the strain-"

Isabelle screamed.

The room resolved itself around her, her eyes again taking in her bedroom, and for a moment, she thought she saw Asmodeus looking down on her, and she screamed again. She tried to move, to get away from everything her mind was throwing up, but she found herself pinned down by something heavy and oppressive, some kind of fabric, and then a voice was whispering soothingly in her ear, "It's okay, Izzy, you're okay."

Her heart nearly stopped when she heard his voice. She turned her head to see him there beside her, eyes filled with concern locked firmly on hers, brown hair in disarray, two faint silver scars visible on his throat. Simon. Her Simon.

"What's wrong?" he asked worriedly, looking at her.

Isabelle opened her mouth to tell him that she was fine, that he worried too much, that they all got nightmares now and again, and burst into tears.

She never properly cried- she might shed a few tears on very rare occasions, but even then, it would be minor, a few droplets sneaking silently out of the corners of her eyes. Even when Max had died, she hadn't wept like this. What was it that had caused it? Was it just the reminder of how much she had already lost? The painful notification of how close she had come to Simon disappearing out of her life? For all her independence and self-sufficiency, was it perhaps being left alone that she most feared?

He didn't ask about what she had been dreaming, didn't question her- she loved him for that, how he knew when she needed to be left to her thoughts, and when she needed to share them. He just held her gently against him while she sobbed against his shoulder, and lightly stroked her hair, and pressed the odd kiss to her cheek and forehead.

"Promise me," she said, her voice shaky and muffled. "Promise me you'll never leave me."

"I'll never leave you," he whispered gently, his lips moving against her ear. "I promise."

She eventually stopped trying to curtail her crying, or to calm herself down. Every time she did, she would remember why she was sobbing and restless, and that would set her off again. She was determined not to fall back asleep; she didn't think it would come to her even if she tried, and she feared what it might bring. Her body was tense, her mind alert, almost as if she was expecting the horrors of her dreams to manifest themselves in real life. But having Simon beside her was a reassurance like no other, and in spite of herself, under his ministrations she slowly started to relax.

"Stay with me," she murmured. She needed him with her now. She knew that if he left her, if she was alone, that her fears would find her in her sleep, that her sleeping brain would have no control over the punishments it exacted on itself. "Simon…"

"Always," he said. Her eyes slowly closed, and she heard Simon whispering gently that he loved her, that he was hers, that she was perfect, and finally, just her name. "Isabelle… my Isabelle… my beautiful Isabelle… Isabelle…"

And that was how, in the early hours of that morning, she fell asleep, in her boyfriend's arms, feeling the almost new scars pressed against her skin, and the sound of his voice lulling her gently to sleep.