JULES POV

Julian sat up with a sudden jerk. Beside him, still soundly asleep on the sofa was his parabatai, Emma Carstairs. The two of them had slept in the same bed together since they were toddlers, but it had never been awkward. Now, both being 17, not to mention from the opposite gender from each other, it was different. Jules had fallen asleep in the middle of watching Harry Potter, and just before the good part, Emma thought, but she didn't want to wake him and fell to sleep herself sometime during the Sorting Hat ceremony.

Quickly and quietly Jules put on his jacket and sneakers and walked down the steps of the Los Angeles Institute, closing the door behind him. As he made his way to the beach, he heard soft pattering footsteps behind him. Emma he thought, but as he swivelled around he saw his little sister, Livvy. Well he couldn't exactly call her little since she was only a head smaller than him.

Unlike her twin, she had the trademark Blackthorn looks: the bright blue-green eyes; swishing chocolate brown hair swept messily into a bun; long, curled lashes and her tall, slender build, Shadowhunter marks creeping out of the collar of her lilac dress. Tiberius, however, had hair as black as the night and eyes, grey like a thunderstorm. Sometimes their siblings thought Livvy was the only one who understood Ty, even though their personalities, as well as their looks, seemed like polar opposites.

"Uncle Arthur was looking for you, Diana needed some help with training Dru and she thought you would be able to demonstrate throwing knives since you're so good" she said calmly. Diana Wayburn was the institute's tutor and was currently overseeing the training of Drusilla, their 13 year old sister, to

"I just left, I was on my way to the beach," he replied, leaving an awkward silence between them. Before the pause became too pregnant, another set of hurried footsteps came their way. Who is it now? Julian thought. He just wanted to spend the morning at the beach, alone. He suddenly felt himself taking back that thought when he saw Emma, her wavy, blonde hair in a loose plait at her back, wearing her pyjama top and her usual pair of denim shorts that showed her long tanned legs.

"Hey!" he called out to her as she slowed down into a steady walk, making her way towards them.

"Hey!" she smiled. Julian felt his heart twist. Emma was the only one who had ever made him feel like this. But he knew it was wrong, the only love he could feel towards her was as a brother, not a lover; parabatai couldn't be together, it was against the Law. Sed lex, dura lex – the Law is hard, but it is the Law.

Anyways, Emma had a boyfriend, not that she usually kept them for long, but this time it was different. Every time she looked at him she actually seemed as if she was in love. Usually she would hook up with a guy she met at the beach who gave her some stupid, cheesy pickup line and asked for her number, dump them within a month and move on to the next. She never waited long before dating again since it seemed that every Shadowhunter in LA had their eyes on her.

"–smoking is bad for your health!" Emma finished, apparently having gone hopelessly off tangent, and after seeing the blank look on Julian's face she said "were you even listening to a word I just said?"

"Well I did hear the bit about how smoking is bad for your health – not that I wasn't aware of that already" he raised his eyebrows at her pointedly and she rolled her eyes at him. He hated when she nagged him about his habit to smoke clove cigarettes. When he started smoking them, he thought that they were better than usual cigarettes but it turns out that he was wrong. Emma always insisted it was because he's stressed but he was the first to dismiss that, though recently he felt as if she was right. "Whatever," she said and went back to what she was originally talking about.

EMMA POV

They made their way back to the Institute's training room, Livvy walking ahead as if she knew Emma wanted to talk to Julian alone. That's what she liked about Livvy, she always seemed to know what was going on before you did yourself.

"Jules," she said softly and he looked at her as if saying "Yes? Are you alright?" a look of concern and calmness at the same time.

"Charlie and I broke up," she said as if it was no big deal. Obviously thinking about the time when Jace Herondale had told him that he had a job to make sure she ended up with someone who deserved her, Jules looked at her sharply and said "He didn't dump you, did he?!" and muttered something about never liking him anyway. Emma, surprised that Jules had thought he had dumped her, quickly lied and told him that it was mutual. He had actually dumped her, but it wasn't as if she wasn't going to cut it off soon anyway so she was fine. Besides, someone already had hold of her heart, someone who most likely didn't know it.

Making a joke about her dating habits, Julian enter the training room with Emma behind him, shyly smiling, though he didn't know it. They split up, Jules going to the guys changing rooms and Emma to the girls. After she had put her gear on and fastened Cortana to her weapons belt, she went out into the training room. This was by far Emma's favourite room of the Institute, the one place where she felt truly at home. Jules was already there before her and was throwing knives at the target, all of them he had thrown so far reaching the dead centre of the board.

Although they had been too late to help Dru with her knife throwing, they enjoyed training together. When he turned around and saw her, he smiled, lighting up his bright blue-green eyes that were so full of hope and prosperity, the eyes of the boy who comforted her after her parents had found to be dead, the boy who knew what was always best for her, the boy whom she had drawn that parabatai rune on when they were 14. The decision she most regretted in her life.