Chapter 2

Clary stared down into the greasy hills in her slice of pizza. Why did everything feel so wrong? This wasn't anywhere near the first time she had slept over at Simon's and nothing had happened to make her night bad. After all, just this morning she was dancing at Pandemonium like usual, and the only reason she had fallen was because she was tired. Right?

So then why did she feel like she was missing something?

Simon was still staring at her as if at any moment she might die, right there on the spot.

"Stop," she said, shooting him a glare. "I'm FINE. I slept for twelve hours, there is nothing wrong with me."

He nodded, looking down. "I know, I know, you just scared me. I thought I was going to have to give you CPR or something."

She laughed. "Well lucky that you didn't have to."

He blushed. "Yeah, I would have had to bleach my mouth or something after."

Her eyebrows twitched together. That was taking it a little far, wasn't it? She looked back down at the pizza in her hand.

"So…uh…was your mom cool with us going over to support Eric?"

She had called her mom on the taxi ride over to Simon's, explaining to her why she would not be home until late that night. Her mother had seemed fine, if not a little worried for her health, but had stressed that she be home by midnight that night.

"But you'll be home by midnight, correct?" She had asked repeatedly followed by a, "I have something really important to discuss with you before tomorrow."

It was all very sporadic and nagging, the way her mother usually behaved whenever Clary expressed even a little bit of freedom.

"Yeah, she's fine with it." Clary said and Simon flipped on a made-for-TV movie and the need for talking ended.

Hours later, they walked into the coffee house where Eric was going to give his truly horrendous poetry reading.

"You find the seats, I'll get the drinks?" Simon offered. Clary nodded, drifting towards the mismatched couches.

She found one, hidden in shadows and near the back that would be perfect if an emergency escape was needed. Plopping down into the worn cushions that swallowed up her skinny hips, she rolled her shoulders. She would leave early tonight, to make sure she got enough sleep to drown out the feeling off loss she kept having.

"Hey,"

Clary turned. Behind her couch and to the left a little was a girl sitting at a bar-table. She leaned toward Clary. "Is he your boyfriend?" She pointed at Simon, making his way, slowly, across the sea of furniture.

Clary looked the girl over, a weird tightening happened in her chest when she thought of her checking out Simon. "No," Clary answered after a moment.

The girl quirked her eyebrows and opened her mouth for another question.

"No trays, no lids," Simon said placing the steaming cups down on the coffee table in front of the couch.

The girl leaned away, suddenly interested in the texture of the table she was sitting at.

"Thanks," Clary said. She stopped, should she tell him? He sat down next to her and took a sip of his coffee. She leaned over. "Behind us, red shirt, thinks you're hot."

He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

"How long ago did he pass by?" He asked pretending to look out the windows behind them as an excuse to look at the girl.

He turned back and lowered his voice. "Not my type. And anyway, I'm kind of into someone else."

Clary raised her eyebrows, this was the first she had heard of this. "Oh yeah? Who?"

Simon's face was turning red. First the ears, then the neck, and then his cheeks. "Well, umm, it all started- well not really started because I knew I liked- because I was talking to Eric and, you know, complaining about my lack of a girlfriend. And he listed a couple of the single girls that he knew but I told him that wouldn't work because I already liked someone. And I told him who. And he, well you know Eric, he said I should tell her, and so I figured I should, you know, tell you. Not tell you as in tell YOU, but you know-"

"So who is it?" Clary asked, a little bored with his rambling.

"Umm," he licked his lips, glanced once around the room, and started tapping his foot. "Well…it's…it's umm…you."

"What?" Clary lost the little smile that had been teasing her lips.

Simon looked down at his lap. "I…like…you."

Loud feedback sounded from the microphone at the front.

"Look, Simon, I-"

Clary's phone went off. She dove for it. "Hello?"

"Clary?" Her mom sounded winded.

"Testing, testing," Came a loud reply from the front of the room.

"Hold on a sec, mom, I can't hear you," She left the couch, and Simon, and stood outside next to the door. "Alright, what did you say?"

"Honey, I need you to come home right now."

A protest started on her lips but then died. What was waiting for her back in that coffee shop? The last awkward moments left of her friendship with Simon? "Yeah, yeah, okay, give me a sec to grab a cab okay? And I'll be right home."

"Perfect," her mom sounded relieved.

Minutes later she gave the cabbie her address and settled back into the seat. She pulled out her phone. Sorry my mom needs me at home, it's urgent. Come over tomorrow to talk about it, okay? She texted. Waited.

Fine, see you then.

It was the most she could allow herself: the rest of the day to ignore the fact that her best friend had a crush on her. And that she did not feel the same.

She left the cab in front of her old brownstone, now a few dollars short, and entered into the hall. Madame Dorothea's door was closed and no light spilled under the crack between the door and the floor. Mounting the wide staircase, Clary reached her own door only to hear conversation leaking out of the thin walls.

"-said she'd be here in a couple of minutes." Her mother's voice.

"I am a busy man, Jocelyn, I can't wait around for every teenage girl to feel like coming home."

"She-"

"Especially when I think you and I both know who could be showing up at any moment."

Clary rushed to fit her key in the lock. What were they talking about?

"Clary! Thank goodness," her mother met her at the door, closing it behind her. "This is-"

"Clary would you come here a moment?" The man asked. Clary gasped.

"Your eyes!" She shouted, sounding like an impolite five-year-old.

"Clary," Her mother scolded.

But it was the eyes, cats' eyes, lined in charcoal and staring at her that held her attention.

"Yes, strange aren't they?" The man continued dreamily. Her eyes stayed locked on his, but her vision swam. She felt strangely as if she were floating. "But, you have no need to worry yourself with them," He continued in the soft careful tones. "In fact, I'm sure you've seen many strange things like these this past year, haven't you?"

Suddenly visions of her talking with Simon at Central park and seeing little flying people came back. She remembered walking down the street and a man suddenly being murdered with an arrow in front of her, and then watching him disappear. Dozens of strange memories that she did not think were hers, because they were clearly illogical, swam into focus.

She shuddered, what was happening?

"That's right, they are unpleasant. But you can let them go. Let them go Clary." And because he asked her to, she did.


"Next year the same time?" Jocelyn asked Magnus while paying him. Clary lay unconscious at their feet.

Magnus folded the money into one of the pockets on this leather, studded pants. "Send me the new address as soon as you get settled."

Jocelyn nodded, stepping over Clary and leading Magnus to the door. "Of course."

Magnus turned and left, and Jocelyn surveyed the task in front of her. She may have quit being a shadowhunter years ago, but muscles always remember what they used to do.

She grunted under the weight of her daughter, shifted her position, and proceeded down the stairs, leaving the apartment for the final time. Dorothea's door opened without her having to knock and she crept through the parlor and came to a stop in front of the portal.

"He left with the bags a half-hour ago." Dorothea's gravelly voice drifted from the far corner. Jocelyn could make out her hunched form in the shadows. She thanked the stars that Luke had been there to take her belongings, there was no way she could have carried them with Clary comatose.

"You will change its course after I am through?"

"He will not find you," Dorothea guaranteed, and Jocelyn believed her.

She took a breath and grabbed the doorknob.

Falling was always the hardest part, now harder with a body in her arms. Jocelyn relaxed her shoulders and her body prepared itself, after years training, for impact. She rolled on the hard packed dirt, protecting Clary from as much damage as possible, and came to a stop.

A figure rushed in from the path between the shoulder height corn in front of her. Luke looked down at her.

"Are you alright?"

She nodded and handed Clary up to him. He took one glance at her face and sighed in disgust. "You had her swiped. Didn't you?"

Jocelyn stood and began leading the way towards the towering farmhouse and barn in the distance. "It's the last time, I swear. After this, we'll hopefully have another decade free and I'll tell her."

Luke laughed, loud and harsh.

"I will," she said sternly, stopping to look him in the eye. "She was too young before and then he kept getting to close to finding us, it wouldn't have been safe for her to know. Now we're moving again and we have time."

Luke brushed past her. "When a new problem comes up, I want you to remember you said that."

Jocelyn hated that she knew he was right.