The first time she appears in front of his apartment he slams the door in her face. Honestly, he's justified in his actions, so she sits on the landing with Clarissa tightly bundled up in her lap and waits for his footsteps to come near the door again. The peephole slides open.
"I know it's presumptuous of me", she says, clutching Clary to her chest, "but I need your help."
He doesn't open the door. She stands up and resolves to come back the next day.
The sixth time she camps on his doorstep with Clary is the first time he talks to her. He has become sneakier, his footfalls barely making any noise anymore, but the telltale sliding sound tells her he's looking out of the peephole again.
"What does a Circle member want with me?"
She starts at the sudden voice. The contempt in his voice does nothing to mask the nervous undertone, and suddenly she feels very tired and very ashamed of herself.
"I'm not in the Circle anymore. I know it doesn't make anything I've done to you and your kind any better, but I am truly sorry."
"Surely you couldn't be caught dead asking a filthy Downworlder for help."
"No, I didn't mean-"
It's too late, she realizes as he stomps away from the door.
She comes back. She keeps coming back, and he keeps ignoring her. She thinks he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the Circle to come bursting into his spacious apartment in downtown Brooklyn, carefully carved into a home and a sanctuary. It makes her sad and it makes her think of her actions. She doesn't know what to do, what to say to him, but she knows that Clary cannot know anything about the world she has left behind. She needs his help.
"This is my daughter, Clarissa", she tells him through the door one morning. She misses Lucian, misses being able to talk to someone about her worries and fears and joys, misses runes. She has nothing here in the mundane world. "The name is a derivative of Clara. It means 'bright'. She's almost a year old now. I caught her swinging her tiny arms at some pixies yesterday."
She smiles at the memory, imagines how she would paint it. Tiny blue spheres of light illuminating her beautiful daughter, casting shadows on the walls of the nursery, and in the middle of it all, Clary, reaching out, sticky fingers splayed, her pink tongue peeking out of her mouth, a small frown of concentration on her forehead. Clarissa truly is a marvel, a bright light in her world of shadows.
"It's strange, starting a life in this world. I've lived my whole life in Idris, in the countryside, and this outside world is so different. There's so much more everything in here. I love these big cities, you know. They're so full of life, so vibrant, they're like runes come to life and I love it."
"Magic."
This is the second time he has talked to her, apart from asking and ordering and threatening her to go away. She's not sure what to say.
"Excuse me?"
"Cities. They're like magic, not runes."
"I wouldn't know. But I'll keep that in mind. I'd like to paint cities like runes and magic and dreams."
"Why are you here? Here in the mundane world, I mean."
She draws in a painful breath. His door cracks open and she stands, dusts her skirt off with one hand and holds Clary close with another. She doesn't know why he would let her in now. She thinks of Valentine, what he would say if he knew she was entering a warlock's den voluntarily and in a peaceful manner. She thinks of Clary, a warm weight against her chest.
Jocelyn Fray steps over the doorstep, stares straight into the yellow eyes of Magnus Bane and dares to hope for a future.