a/n: hey, guys! Thanks for giving this a shot! I'm thinking of turning this story into a cross-X with a very random, yet useful, character! Tell me what you guys think so far! Enjoy!

Tessa was sitting in a chair. It was wooden, uncomfortable, but she was too scared to make herself more comfortable. The Dark sisters had walked in, closed the door quietly behind them, and locked it. Tessa gulped and tried to stop shaking so violently.

"Don't worry, Theresa. You are back with us now; there is no reason to be scared. It will be just like old times," Ms. Black said.

"You're not real," Tessa whispered, and the chair disappeared from under her. She was falling toward the earth, she could clearly see the tops of trees and streets and buildings and people, small as ants- growing larger. The ground swam up to greet her, hard and uninviting, an almost certain death.

She hit the ground…

And shot up in her bed.

It was just a dream, Tessa told herself. Just a very bad, unrealistic dream. The Dark sisters were dead. Still, even though she reassured herself over and over, she could not find sleep once more. With a weary sigh, Tessa slid out of her bed and went to go find a robe.

It was summer- at least that's what Tessa was told. The weather in London was absolutely dreadful. The sky was always dark. A nice day in England compared to a nice day in America varied so differently it was as if Tessa was thrown into a different world.

And she practically was, wasn't she? By coming to London to find her brother (the wicked traitor) she had been thrown by force into a world that she had no idea existed. She was told of things that she would have never imagined. And she was one of those things. No one knew exactly what, but Tessa had a dawning sense of dread that, whatever it was, it was not anything good.

She shivered and wondered what time it was. Would anyone still be up? She decided against looking for anyone to talk to, it must have been extremely late- or early. She would get a quick glass of water to calm her nerves and then go back to bed.

It had been so long before the nightmares had started back up again. Tessa had almost begun to hope that the Dark sisters and everything that they had brought with them was in the past, behind her, completely forgotten.

But it wasn't, of course. If it was she wouldn't be in this Institute in London, she wouldn't have met Charlotte, or Henry, or Jessabelle, Jem, Will… Will, with his dark tussled hair, blue eyes, and all over perfect face. Will, with his stubborn attitude, menacing smile, and sweet lips. Will, the same very man who had rescued her from the Dark sisters, the same very man who will hardly speak to her now.

Tessa sighed. "Oh, Will…" she whispered, more in a tone of annoyance than anything else. Why couldn't he just say what he was really feeling? Like the heroes in her novels would. They would admit their love for the woman unabashedly.

"You rang?" came from the shadows.

Tessa gasped and whirled around to see Will stepping from behind a corner. He looked carelessly frayed, as always, but tonight the disarray didn't exactly look planned, Tessa thought as he sauntered towards her. He moved gracefully, like and angel, truly.

Even in the dim light, Tessa was unnerved by the blue of Will's eyes as they looked her over casually.

All of the events leading up to the carefully contained look Will was giving Tessa right then bored into her head. The Dark Sister's house, the battle at de Quincey's town house—the way Will had kissed her, the Institute's attack brought on by Mortmain and his mechanical army, the way he had held her in the Sanctuary when he thought that he had been too late to save her… The Institute's roof where he told her that it would never work between them—was impossible.

"Is there any particular reason you're wandering the halls at this hour?" Will asked.

Tessa was not sure of the hour, or why she was even still talking to Mr. Herondale, but she knew she did not want to stop anytime soon. Being near Will was like being allowed a drink of water after wandering in the desert for days. All of this came into her mind at that question, but out loud she only said, "I could ask you the same question, Mr. Herondale."

He smiled, though it did not quite reach his fathomless eyes. "I tend to stumble upon you at the most random of times," he mused, though he really did not seem entertained by that fact, "yet, you never seem surprised to see me."

"I couldn't sleep," Tessa said, "I had a bad dream."

"About me?"

Tessa flushed. She was thankful for the sparse light in the corridor, hoping that Will wouldn't notice. "Must you think everything is about—"

"You said my name," Will cut in smoothly. "I find it odd that I would be in a bad dream, which is why I asked." His grin was simply angelic.

"You," Tessa said, more grave than she had thought intended, "are truly only in my worst nightmares, William Herondale."

His grin only faltered for an instant, if at all. "Even so," he said quietly, "nightmare or not, I seem to be in your head, with no chance of ever leaving."

Tessa had only begun to think of a response when Will turned on his heels and strode away, disappearing once again into the shadows. As she watched him go, she was oddly reminded of one of the first days that she was here, when Will showed her around the large institute. When he had read the lines of Horace to her.

We are dust and shadows, Will's voice whispered in the back of her head.

"Ugh," Jessamine said in disgust as she pushed the newspaper away from her with one finger, as if it were covered in slime. "There is no way any person with any sort of class would be seen at one of those—those shows."

Jem picked up the abandoned paper and read aloud, "Ladies and gentleman, Trommain and Company brings you the newest, most horrifying Freakshow of the century."

Tessa, who had overslept and arrived late to breakfast, still munched on toast and jam while all of the shadowhunters around her talked.

Nephlim, she thought as she watched all of them, are an odd, odd group of people… and not bad to look at, either, she mused. They were all beautiful people in their own ways. Jem, with his ivory and silver, reminded her of a true angel, shining through his complexion as well as his personality. Jessamine was pale and slender as well, the real life Madonna, with blonde curled hair and brown doe eyes. Charlotte was small, but you could almost forget her size compared to her superiority, which along with her brown hair and stern eyes was beautiful in and of itself. Henry, on the other hand, was all bright colors and lights from his shock of ginger hair, to his striped waistcoat. And Will…

Was staring at her. Both of them were momentarily transfixed as she studied him and he studied her. Will was a dark Knight, Sir Galahad gone bad. With a mess of black hair, golden skin, and those incomparable blue irises of his, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

Will, though it would kill him to admit, was looking at her as if what he saw wasn't entirely horrid either, though Tessa could never guess why. She had always been fine with the fact that she was "plain as a pin", as Jessie had once put it. Brown hair, a pale face, and grey eyes, were not really much to look at. For once, she was the first to break their gazes apart.

"Personally," Jessamine went on, "I think that a show like that is only for the ignorant and low class. Besides," she said, examining her nails as Will skimmed through the advertisement beside Jem, "it's not as if they're even real."

"Oh," Will said, "this one is real, you can count on that. In fact," he said with a smile, "one of our dear friends is starring in it." He lay the paper down in front of everyone so they could see what he meant. Tessa leaned forward to see, curious.

Pictured advertisements were not usually so large, or so detailed. The owner of this circus must have put a great deal of money into the making and publicity of the show. The ad on the table before her took up an entire page, and the pictures were drawn of the main events of the show.

The one that caught her attention, though, was of a beautifully girl with fangs and blood dripping down her chin. She was smiling wickedly.

"Camille?" Tessa asked in shock. "But… she's on our side, right?"

Will deftly snatched the paper from Tessa's reaching fingers. He looked at the picture closely, his black hair falling in front of his face. "Obviously a fake," he announced, tossing the paper back onto the table. "Camille would never wear anything that dreadfully drab."

"But it could very well still be her," Charlotte said, picking the paper back up and examining it herself.

"You know what this means, then," said Will, his blue eyes lighting with excitement.

Charlotte sighed, shaking her head. "No, Will, you will not go gallivanting into a freak-show, arresting the ringmaster on the spot. I forbid it." Though her tone rang with finality, Charlotte looked more weary than angry. Tessa wondered if Charlotte ever regretted never being able to have any children of her own, or if the adopted children here were enough to drive her out of that wishful state.

"Of course not," Will said, assuming an injured air. After a pause he added, "We will be in disguise, of course."

"I hope you get to wear the woman's wig and bodice this time," Jem said ruefully into his teacup.

"Tessa can come along as a date to make it more convincing," Jessamine, surprisingly, cut in and suggested. "Well, of course I am to accompany her," she continued as everyone at the table looked at her with shock. "It would look awfully strange if only one of the boys has a date." It looked like she knew she was going to win this argument, though, however shocked anyone was.

"Well, I don't know," Charlotte began, still uncertain.

"Don't worry, Charlotte," Jem said with an earnest look. "It's only a circus act. What's the worst that can happen?"

"The worst that can happen?" Will said with a frown as they stalked toward the circus tent. "Hmm, I don't know, maybe the fact that this could be a trap."

Jem rolled his eyes.

"Must you always think of the worst possible scenario?" Tessa asked, half jogging to keep up with the boy's long legged stride. Unlike Jessie said, she did not stay with them as they left for the circus, she demanded to be dropped off in town, where she said she would be until the other three had finished what business they were planning on doing.

"Yes," Will said, deciding for once to respond directly to Tessa- though he didn't look at her, "I must."

Once the tickets were bought, and Jem and Will's argument over how realistic the bearded ladies beard at the ticket booth was, the three found a seat.

"So this is what we're doing the whole time?" Tessa asked, looking around her. To her surprise, the seats were filling up quickly.

Jem nodded. "If we see that Camille is here willingly, we do nothing. If not, we will confront those who have taken her, but we will do so inconspicuously."

Once it was time for the show to start, the lights flipped off. Tessa jumped and grabbed at her armrest, which was already sporting Will's arm. She could almost feel him smiling in the dark.

A single spotlight shone down in the pit where the show was to take place, bringing into light the ring master, who was dressed in a red suit with matching gloves and a large black hat, the shadow hiding his bent face so you could only see his smile. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice echoing impressively through the stadium. He laughed slowly and said, "It's time."

The lights turned off, and the screams that erupted through the theatre sounded eerily inhuman. Tessa shivered as she tried- in vain- to look and see what was happening.

"Not good," Will muttered, and she felt him search around for something next to her.

A moment later a dull pulsing light blazed to life, illuminating the space all around the three, but no more than that. Jem raised the witchlight in his hand higher, the light spilling through his fingers like a tiny bleeding sun, but the darkness was still overwhelming.

Will looked at Jem sideways. His eyes glowed in the light emanating from the small stone, making them look like fire behind a sheet of ice. "I think 'I told you so' is a little out of the question," he said slyly.

Jem ignored that comment, rising from his seat and walking down into the pit that the show was just in.

But something was wrong. Tessa rose out of her seat, looked around. "They're gone," she said, wheeling to look at Jem, who was staring at her curiously. "They're all gone."

And it was true. Every single person that had once inhabited the tent that they were just in had disappeared.

Neither of the shadowhunters said a word, both of their faces looked like they were carved from stone, the shadows casted from the witchlight highlighting their prominent cheek bones- though Jem's were much more sallow and sunken in. In the light of the stone he looked more I'll than he could have ever let on in the light of the day.

There was suddenly a crash and what seemed to be a faint roar coming from outside of the tents. Within seconds the boys were disappearing out of the entrance of the tent, seraph blades brandished.

Leaving Tessa in darkness. But before she could think of what to do, a voice came from the darkness.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the voice rang out, Tessa whirled around, but saw nothing. "Gather round, gather round! Come from far, come from wide!"

Suddenly, a light blazed through the darkness, making Tessa wince. It was a single spotlight, in the middle of the pit that the chairs were circling around. In the center of the light was the figure of a man, an unmistakable man that Tessa never thought she would see again. From this distance, she could see Axil Mortmain smile wickedly up at her. "Tonight, the moment you've all been waiting for!" He moved his arms in a wide arc, a movement that she had incorporated with ring leaders. "Join us as we explore the spine-chilling mystery of death, and the miracle of resurrection!"

Tessa whirled to see two people walking quickly toward her. There was something inhuman about the way they moved..

And then they were dragging her by the arms down to the spotlight, where the magister was patiently waiting for her.

Tessa kicked and clawed, all to no avail. In no time she was dragged to face the Magister.

"Well, well," the Magister said, his breath sickly-sweet as it her face, "Tessa, it has been quite some time. I nearly believed you were dead."

Tessa said nothing, looked down at the floor, trying to think of a plan.

"I hope you realize the amount of trouble you're in for pulling that little stunt with me," he said gravely. "Trust me when I say this, I don't want to kill you. It's nothing personal, but if I can't have you..." he shrugged, then held up a hand as Tessa opened her mouth to call for Will and Jem. "I wouldn't worry about your shadowhunter friends. I locked them out of the tent, and distracted them with a couple of Ravener demons. They won't be here to save you this time."

Tessa's stomach fell as the Magister grinned evilly. "I hope I didn't crush your hopes too much?" he asked kindly, rolling his eyes. "Please, Tess-"

"Do not call me Tess," was all Tessa said to that.

He raised an eyebrow. "Nickname from a special friend?" he asked curiously. Stupidly, Tessa blushed. He smiled. "I thought so. Do not look so surprised, my dear," he said as Tessa pulled her eyebrows together- how did he know so much?- and looked down, "I know of your affections for Master William." He pulled something out then, something long and sharp- Tessa didn't look at it. "I see the way you say his name in your sleep," the Magister said carelessly.

He was right in front of her now, whispering in her ear, sending chills down her spine. The grips of the mechanical people holding on to her arms did not let up at all. She felt something sharp and cold pressing into the soft skin of her neck. "I'll let you in on a secret, Tess," he whispered confidingly, "he said your name as well."

Tessa heard a horrible ripping sound, just then, and knew it was her skin, peeling away from bone, sending her into a world she was not ready for.

a/n: And theres chapter one! Hope you guys liked it! Tell me what you all think! Peace!