Hi everyone! This is my first MI fanfic, a multichapter story set immediately after the events of COG. Jace, Clary, Simon, Isabelle, Alec, Maia, Luke, and all our other favorite characters, plus some new ones, have a new challenge to face when Clary's Alliance rune starts being abused, and rebel Downworlders and Shadowhunters alike are trying to increase their own power by gaining the powers of their enemies. With Marked werewolves and spell-casting Shadowhunters roaming the streets of New York and all the advances of the New Council being threatened, Clary will have to decide whether her ability to create new runes is a gift or a curse. I'm new to this fandom and just finished the books, so if you have any suggestions to offer or think this sounds too cliche, feel free to let me know- I love honest opinions and criticism. Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: The characters and settings belong to Cassandra Clare, not me. Unfortunately.
The sounds and smells of New York hit her like the memory of an old dream, not comforting in themselves but comfortably familiar. Then the ground came, faster than she had expected, and she was falling, raising small clouds of glitter as she hit the wood floor. Clary sighed, wondering if she would ever be able to use a portal without ending up sprawled somewhere in a mess of her own arms and legs. A faceful of glitter was certainly better than a mouthful of Lake Lyn, but she kept picturing Jace, with his fluid, certain movements. Jace wouldn't have fallen; no matter how much she trained, she was never going to be graceful. It was like the dance classes that she had taken when she was six, where they had put on the Swan Princess as their end-of-the-year recital. She had practiced for hours in the living room, hoping to be the star, but she had still been cast as the ugly duckling in the end.
There was something different now, though, that was what she had to keep reminding herself- Jace already thought she was beautiful. Before he had seen her as a Shadowhunter, before he had even known she was anything other than a short hot-tempered mundane with a missing mother and a demon problem. No matter how awful she was during the training he had promised to give her, that wouldn't change, right? Still, it would be nice not to be a total disaster, just this once…it was getting tiring, forever playing the damsel in distress.
Clary stood up slowly, ignoring the protests of her jarred legs. Shaking her hair out of her face, she sent another rain of sparkles to the ground in a thick curtain. Magnus had to be keeping most of the party supply stores in New York in business, considering how many containers of body glitter and packs of faerie lights he went through in decorating just this room. Still, there was something slightly sad about the empty apartment, as if all the life had been sucked out of it, leaving behind bare walls and forgotten disco balls.
No one had known when she was coming back- it wasn't as if she could just text them her return plans from Idris- but she had secretly thought someone would be waiting for her anyways. They had decided that Magnus's apartment would be the best safe site to portal into, after the demon incident at the Institute, but now that she had arrived Clary was overwhelmed by strange feeling of intruding on something private, and couldn't wait to be back out on the streets of the city she'd known since birth.
After finally forcing the warlock's heavy front door open- the knob had stuck, and her toes now stung from the set of futile but satisfying kicks she had given it- Clary set out on the familiar route back to Luke's apartment. She had remained in Idris with Amatis for another week after Luke, her mother, and the Lightwoods had returned to New York, to finish the symbol that she had been asked to draw for the New Council of Shadowhunters and Downworlders. At least that was what she had told her mother- really she had been stalling to give her and Luke some time alone, knowing that after a lifetime of dancing around their feelings it would take a few days to adjust to their new situation. She suspected that for herself, it would seem as if almost nothing had changed. She had always thought of Luke as a father, and besides, she had practically lived in his apartment growing up anyway. Now it would just be more formal, and less awkward, with all those hidden feelings finally out in the open.
Standing on the curb, Clary was raising her hand to hail a taxi when she suddenly changed her mind and started off down the street at a brisk walk. Luke's store wasn't too far, and she had missed New York, with its sharp sweet burned rubber and car exhaust scent. A far cry from the clear, perfect air of Idris, maybe, but to her it would always be home, and it held the same special place in her heart that the Glass City had held for Hodge. Besides, the last month had certainly given her a lot to think about, and after weeks spent trying to do anything but stop and think, she needed some time alone to decompress everything that had changed.
So much of her energy had been concentrated on saving her mom and stopping Valentine, and now that she had done both, she felt lost, as if she was being dragged along in a swirling current without anything solid to hold on to. She needed to find a new mooring, some tangible goal to keep her from being sucked under in the flood of new information and hidden worlds that crashed upon her thoughts…perhaps that was why she had seized onto the idea of training to be a Shadowhunter so strongly. It gave her something to work for, and she needed a distraction more than anything right now.
Walking silently, lost in thought, she didn't notice that she was no longer alone on the street until she had almost passed the mouth of the dark alley. But something made her look up suddenly, and she caught the glint of moonlight on silver claws, a large hulking form leaning over a smaller dark shadow. There were two men in the alley, and at least one of them was a werewolf, half-transformed and clearly angry, for all that he was whispering.
She should have kept walking, heading for Luke and safety as quickly as possible. She should have known better. But the shock of seeing Downworlders on the streets she had walked obliviously for years still got to her, and she stood frozen, staring just a moment too long. The larger man looked up suddenly and met her eyes, his irises glowing green in the soft gloom. Then the other man turned to face her, surprised at the sudden break in the argument, fixing her in a yellow-tinted stare as if memorizing her every feature. She backed up slowly, one step, then another, but it was late and she was alone, without even a weapon to protect her. Why was she so stupid sometimes? Amatis could have found her a stele at least, or a small knife. She was a part of this world now, whether she liked it or not, and she knew now that the streets of New York were never safe.
Clary's eyes scanned the ground, looking for a rock or a bit of piping, anything that could be used as a weapon. She shuddered involuntarily, imaging the feeling of those sharp claws digging into her skin, tearing it as easily as if it were a thin lace. Maybe they were part of Luke's pack; maybe they wouldn't think it worth their time to bother a human girl. Still, she was afraid. Looking up, she met the werewolves' eyes once more, watching as the got to their feet with a strange lupine grace…and ran, right past her out onto the street, never looking back.
There was nothing about her that screamed Shadowhunter, no swirling black designs on her skin or seraph blades in her belt. And she knew from experience that she wasn't an imposing figure in the least. Yet these werewolves, who with their broad shoulders and tattooed arms looked like insane truckers from a slasher movie, had clearly been frightened off by something, and there was no one else around. The larger one was slower than his friend, and she watched the dark form of his retreating figure fade into the distance, her mind swirling with relief and confusion.
As he turned the corner, the harsh glare of an overhead streetlight threw him into sharp relief, illuminating the strong arms and glinting claws that could have been around her throat at that very moment. It was then, in that second, that she realized what was wrong, why she had managed to scare away a man who could have broken her like a twig, Shadowhunter or not. The designs on his arms weren't tattoos like she had assumed at first…they were Marks.