So this one is a new departure for me — and not what I meant to be writing at the moment! But I'm having too much fun with it. And I suppose, really, it's the beginning of, well, everything...

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Sneak Preview #2
of a story by Midwinter Monday

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Alicante 1985

The din in the dining hall at lunchtime was always appalling, but today seemed to be worse than usual: a clatter of china and voices that rose in deafening waves from the crowded tables and ricocheted off the panelled walls with the head-splitting force of a blow from a fencing epee landing ringingly on your unprotected helm.

Setting her lunch tray down with a grimace, Jocelyn slid into a chair across from her best friend. It was fractionally quieter here at the far end of the hall, one reason Maddy liked this little table in the alcove. That and the fact that other people rarely came to bother them in their little lair by the bay window. Maddy was deep in a book as usual, absently scooping up forkfuls of mashed potato and gravy by feel from her plate. At the sound of Jocelyn's arrival, she looked up, a smile of welcome in her grey eyes, before flipping the heavy leather bound volume shut with a little thud.

"You're late," she observed, but her tone was mild, her thoughts clearly elsewhere — Greywall's Abridged Compendium of Demon Toxins no doubt. Which was no bad thing, thought Jocelyn. The full searchlight force of Maddy's attention was the last thing she wanted at the moment.

"Summerhill wanted to see me after class," she said with a shrug, plucking the teabag out of her steaming cup and dropping it on her saucer. She took a small sip of the scalding liquid before adding casually, "So Luke asked me if I'd stop by his precious meeting this afternoon."

She took another sip, eyes on her hands wrapped round the cup. "I told him I might."

Her tone was studiedly nonchalant, but she might just as well have produced a crate marked High Explosives from her satchel and put it down with a flourish beside her lunch tray. Madeleine set down her fork with an clatter you could hear over the noise of the hall and sat back sharply in her chair.

"Oh my God Joss, don't tell me you've joined the fan club."

If Jocelyn hadn't been so annoyed, the look of horror on her best friend's face would have been funny.

"Oh please, Maddy. I have not joined the fan club." The words came out sharper than she intended, but it had been a bad morning, and she wasn't actually at all sure herself how she felt about going with Luke to his meeting — not that she was about to admit that to Maddy. "I'm only going because Luke asked me to specially."

"And you do everything Lucian asks, of course," Madeleine shot back. But it wasn't jealousy of Luke, Jocelyn thought in surprise: Madeleine was genuinely worrying that Luke might just be an excuse, that Jocelyn had a sneaking interest of her own in this stupid meeting.

She drew a hard-held breath. "I do if he really wants something, Maddy." Much as she adored Madeleine, Jocelyn couldn't help wishing that she didn't react so fiercely to everything. Maddy had uncompromising opinions on just about every subject — particularly this one.

"He's my best friend, Maddy," she added patiently. Abstracting her knife and fork from the crowded tray, she began sawing with difficulty at the lamb chop on her plate. School lunches had improved noticeably since their last chef got himself incinerated by an Erebus demon, but they still weren't exactly gourmet. "After you, I mean."

"Before me," Madeleine said promptly, but without rancour. "Everyone knows the two of you are practically like brother and sister." She shot Jocelyn a sidelong look from beneath her straight, dark lashes. "Though I don't think he'd mind if you were something more."

It was Jocelyn's turn to shove herself back from the table in annoyance, the heavy oak chair scraping loudly on the flagstones. "Oh for the love of the Angel, Maddy, it's not like that between me and Luke, I've only told you about a million times. We've known each other since we were kids, that's all." It amazed her sometimes how hard people found it to believe you could just be friends with a boy, even a boy you'd known your whole life.

"Anyway, I think I ought to go. If Luke's made a point of asking, it must really matter to him: I haven't exactly made a secret of my feelings about this precious clique of his. And honestly, Maddy, what's the big deal?" A note of tolerant humour crept into her voice. "We're getting a bit old for all this 'if it's your sandbox, I'm not touching the sand' stuff, don't you think? I'll go this once, and then Luke will stop bugging me about how I need to see what it's all about. I don't see how any harm can possibly come of that..."

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So we all know where this one is going... Hope to get more of it up soon, but in the meantime, if you want to jump a very long way ahead (!), you might enjoy my Valentine and Jocelyn fic Odi et Amo which takes place in the days immediately preceding City of Bones. Or try my post-City of Glass Jace-and-Clary fic Permanent Marks. For links to my cycle of Jace and Valentine stories, see my profile.

** UPDATE: the first chapter of this fic is now up under the title of The Circle Game **