"There's darkness inside you, Clarissa." Jonathan said, more to convince himself than her. Clary was sitting on the red comforter of her bed in the room assigned to her at the institute. She could here the hum of the traffic around her. She could hear the roar of the autumn wind. And she could hear the beat of Jonathan's heart. She shook her head.

"It's Clary," she huffed. "You know that. And you're always saying the same things, Jonathan." she tucked her feet in under her body, making her delicate image appear even more so. "There's darkness inside of you, Clary. You're secretly evil, Clary. Come kill cute, little puppies with me, Clary." she frowned at her drawing of Jace, the guy who was Jonathan's polar opposite and currently his mortal enemy. "When are you going to wake up, Jonathan? I'm not the girl you want me to be."

"I've seen you kill." Jonathan sat next to Clary, watching as her graphite covered hands smudge away at the eyes of the golden boy. In Clary's sketchpad, he was clad in shades of grey, but even there, you could almost see the angelic qualities about him. Gold hues or not, you couldn't hide Jace's true nature. Just like you couldn't hide Jonathan's. He wondered, briefly if Clary drew anything other than Jace, if she ever drew him. The grey of the graphite would suit him well, so would black ink.

"You liked it. I know you did."

"Jace likes to kill things." Clary deflected, and Jonathan masked his visible shudder by standing up. Clary had an uncanny ability to bring Jace into every conversation.

"Jace doesn't deny that there's darkness within him." Jonathan began, but Clary shot up off the bed. Her attempts to defend Jace were futile, but they didn't go unnoticed as Jonathan clinched his fist.

"He is good, Jonathan. The heavenly fire courses through his veins." Jonathan rolled his eye.

"All that did was destroy the darkness already in him, Clarissa. Darkness always festers. Especially with you lurking around these halls." Jonathan knew what his sister thought. What she thought of the way he thought of her. That didn't change the fact that he thought of her though. His gaze raked her body for a moment and rested on his favorite part. Her nose. He could tell her mood just by looking at her nose. For example: in this moment, she was angry.

"You can't say things like that, Jonathan." her nostrils flared and Jonathan's interest is peaked. "I might have made mom a promise to keep you a secret, but I made no promises to keep your limps in tact." And that's why he loved her. Not because she was his sister and he was supposed to. Blood is merely liquid; his mother was proof of that. No, Jonathan loved Clary, because she was, and always would be unpredictable, untamable, and undeniably willful.

Jonathan sighed

"It just slipped out, you can't just turn feelings off, Clarissa." Clary shifted and sat back down on the bed, picking up the sketchpad and staring down at it.

"Clary" she corrected and ran her finger over the binding "I know what you're going through." Jonathan wanted to roar with laughter, but one look at Clary's nose told him she was being earnest.

He felt his heart rate begin to pick up. Surely she didn't mean…

"When I thought Jace was my brother…" she began, and Jonathan felt a new loathing for Jace. She could love him even when she thought he was her blood, but Jonathan was not the same. Not enough. Never enough. He looked into her eyes and saw something he didn't want to see. Pity. "…I had to remind myself 'No, it's not right, he's your brother'."

"Why him?" Jonathan asked, wishing for the briefest moment that he were Jace. Then he wished he could leave Clary. Clary made him feel. Clary made him weak.

"Why" Clary paused, and stood up only to allow herself time to form at answer. "Why Jace?"

Jonathan nodded and flung himself back on the bed waiting for the answer than was going to tear whatever heart he had into shreds.

"I don't know where to begin." She said. "He's strong, in mind, body, and soul. He's selfless and he doesn't even know it. He's funny, in his own sort of way—"

"If I was those things, would you love me?" Jonathan asked, turning to Clary and waiting for her angry flared nostrils.

"Yes." she said, and her tone was serious. Jonathan felt a pinch in his stomach. Hope?

"You're my brother. If you were all of those things, I'd be proud of you."

And just like that, the hope was gone.