In honor of COHF (don't know when it came out, but I got it in May)! Disclaimer: I own nothing. So, listen to Linkin Park's "Keys To The Kingdom" while you read this. 'Tis awesome.

Prologue

On the day Kattalia Fray's parents died, the weather was bad. Kat didn't care; she was sitting in the living room with a mug of hot chocolate and a TV tray in front of her. The wood—it looked pine—was glossed over for easy cleanup and probably older than Kat herself. Her sketchbook was folded open, the spiraled edges of it touching the thin, small pile of colored pencils next to it. An anime portrayal of her mother, thin, pale, with curling red hair and a smile, looked up at her, but she wasn't paying any attention. She was watching her brother, Jonathon, mime getting stabbing the throat badly.

She laughed as he began playing the air guitar.

He was her younger brother, by almost five years, and he was more immature than her by a long shot, but she was very protective over him.

There was a crash; Jonathon had stopped miming, and looked scared.

Kat set down her coco and looked around, alert. The living room had two couches and a love seat in faded mismatched plaids of red and blue and green. The coffee table, stacked with paperback books, was stained cherry wood, thickly ringed with imprints of wet glasses. The fireplace blazed quietly.

Luke Garroway, Kat's mother's fiancé, had muted the TV on the Frosty the Snowman marathon that nobody was really watching.

Jocelyn, Kat's mother, was pale.

Kat gently patted the couch cushion next to her, and Jonathon went and sat next to her.

"I'll go and . . . ," Luke said, grabbing a shovel from the fireplace before walking cautiously downstairs.

"I've got to go check on the girls," Jocelyn said suddenly, sharply, and hurried down the hallway. Her accent, French and thicker than the ghost of Luke's, rubbed through. Jocelyn had never lived in the UK, but probably wouldn't have told Kat if she had.

There was another crash, and Kat gasped.

"Kattie . . . ," Jonathon whined, eyes big, skin pale, then jumped as it came again.

"It's—mmm—"she said as the front door slammed shut, "—okay, everything's fine."

There was really no reasonable reason for them to be scared. There could be any amount of explanations to the sounds, and—

"Dad!" Exclaimed Jonathon, at the sudden yell and bang that had ripped through the house. He'd stood up. He'd never called Luke "Dad" before.

"Jonathon—"

"No! We have to go—"

"Be quiet! Let's go peek."

Kattalia grabbed her brother's arm and jerked him down the stairs.

Be brave, she was telling herself. For Jonathon.

She was biting through her lip.

Too soon, the stairs were gone, and with them, the railing in which Kattie had been using to hold herself up.

Luke was there. The shovel was on the floor. Three men, with ski masks covering their faces, were coming at her almost-stepfather.

"Dad!" Exclaimed Jonathon again, and Luke looked up. His glasses were smashed.

"Kat—"Luke broke off with a yell as one of the guys punched him in the stomach. "Katana—protect your siblings—"Luke crumbled to the ground.

"Jonathon—"Kat's tone was quick, urgent. "Go to mom—go—protect the girls—"Kat pushed her brother behind her and waited for him to run before she began to stumble backwards up the stairs herself.

"Kat—the office—the key—in the, the—the desk." Luke trailed, and Kat spotted a bit of blood coming from his ear.

Kat turned and ran. She ran upstairs, sharply turned down the hallway on the left and flung open the door to the office.

She went immediately to the desk, and flung open the top drawer. The key was just sitting there. How have I not found that before and snuck it?

Kat had known what Luke had meant the moment he'd described a key: a closet-like room that had been forbidden for years, off of the office.

Kat remembered it from when they'd first moved in. They'd lined it in mirrors, she saw as she opened the door, and shelves, as well, and, though it shouldn't be to a thirteen year old girl, it was beautiful. There were guns, and knives, and swords, and ammo.

Kattalia shook her head to clear it, and grabbed a knife off of a shelf, considered the thought that they should have invented a better way to store weapons, and turned the blade so it glinted in the light.

She turned around and stabbed one of the masked men that had been downstairs in the gut before she could think. He fell to the ground and Kat's adrenaline stalled her panic and shock enough so that she began to run.

Halfway down the stairs, she stopped, looking forward and behind her: the man she'd stabbed was hurrying after her, and the other two were racing up the stairs in front of her. She cursed.

Then, she stuck the dagger between her jeans and belt and pulled up the sleeves of her hoodie, and threw herself off the railing.

Luke Garroway began to crawl forward, but his head hit the carpet.

Exhausted. He was exhausted.

Not yet, he thought. I've got to warn Jocelyn. I've got to help her . . . .

Luke wasn't really all that worried about Jocelyn's eldest daughter. Kattalia may be reckless and daring and sarcastic, but she had a warrior's soul, and Luke knew she'd be the best Shadowhunter Idris would see if her mother would let her be it.

Luke grabbed a fistful of the Persian rug and pulled, dragging himself along the stairs and trying not to scream.

If he were still a Shadowhunter, and maybe if he could find Jocelyn's stele . . . but he wasn't a Shadowhunter, and runes wouldn't work on him, anyways.

He pulled himself along again, grunting.

Kattalia climbed along the stairs, hands on the bar under the railing, pawing downwards, her legs dangling. She hung on until she got to the stairs, where she flipped around, grabbed the back of a step, and then dropped.

She landed in crouch under the stairs, and made as little sound as she could. She grabbed the knife, took a deep breath, and sprinted.

The robbers started yelling and barreling down the stairs. Kat streaked behind the corner and then froze, almost overbalancing.

Someone upstairs was screaming.

Kat spun, running back towards the threat, and knowing all the while that she was stupid for doing it.

She didn't care; her family was in trouble, and she wasn't going to let them die because some poor ass homeless robbers chose her house.

Kattie toed up the stairs, trying to be quiet, and ran into the girls' room: pink and white and bunk beds, color-coded bedspreads, with drawers under the bottom bunks for space. A single crib sat across from the door.

Jonathon was in front of the crib, clutching his mother's keys like they were knives, and Jocelyn was on the ground in front of him. There were bruises across one side of her face and blood was dripping out of one of her ears. The baby, Anne, red-faced and screaming like a demon-child, quieted down when she saw Kat in the doorway.

Jonathon dropped to his knees and began to cry over their mother; the others—four girls, Page, Sabrina, Rosetta, and Margaret—sat shocked in their bunks.

"Uhh!" Kat exclaimed, and sprawled across the ground, the person who'd pushed her standing over her. He withdrew a gun from his coat, and pointed it at Kat, and he was squeezing on the trigger, and Kat was locking eyes with the man, and then, just as the bullet came out—

Jonathon had thrown her across the room with strength she didn't know he'd possessed. "Not her!" Jonathon yelled at the man. "She's my sister!"

The man—the cop—looked at Jonathon. "She has a knife."

"That I used to hurt the fucking robbers—I didn't hear a gunshot. Didn't you kill the—"

The cop was ignoring her, and talking into his walkie-talkie. "We have six minors," He was feeling Jocelyn's pulse. "Two dead upon arrival, and one of the minors has a knife,"

"I'm thirteen!" Kat yelled. Then, she registered his words. "Dead—what do you mean dead—"She struggled up from the ground, sped toward the doorway. The cop caught her, but she struggled. "Luke—Luke! Luke! Lu—"There was a pinch and her hip, and then . . . . Nothing.