Half an hour later Clary was walking out of the front doors of the Institute heading back to Luke's apartment where she was staying alone while Luke and her mother were "finishing up some things" in Idris. Clary didn't like to dwell too much on what "things" Luke and her mother were probably "finishing up" after pining for each other for twenty years. The resulting mental images made her epically uncomfortable. In her heart of hearts, though, she was the last one to begrudge them some private time. She and Jace hadn't even known each other for twenty weeks and there had been times where she'd thought the heartache might break her. She couldn't even imagine how her mother and Luke had managed to survive their ordeal.
Still, Clary missed them. Whenever she was at the apartment she felt especially unmoored. Determined to finish high school, Simon had fallen back into his familiar routine. Jace, Isabelle, Alec, and the rest of the Shadowhunters she knew had to go back to business as usual which, Clary was rapidly coming to understand, was routinely crazy. Even though they all felt Max's loss keenly they could take no bereavement leave. In between patrols, demon attacks, and training, they were almost constantly on duty, warriors living on the front lines of a never ending battle.
Clary herself was getting trained as a Shadowhunter but nobody seemed quite sure what, specifically, that training should entail. Everyone agreed that she needed to get up to speed in both her defensive and offensive combat techniques but, as had been pointed out rather memorably by Isabelle at the Institute wide meeting on the subject, the Clave simply didn't have a "training for 16 year old random newbie Nephilim" program all lined up and ready to go.
As a result Maryse dutifully cobbled together what Jace referred to as a "don't get yourself killed" boot camp that involved intense physical conditioning, weapons training, and primers on demons and the Downworld.
Learning how to not get killed was a great first step, Clary thought, but it wasn't the same as carving out a place for herself in the Shadowhunter world. She wanted to shake the yoke of simply being Valentine's daughter and make a name for herself in her own right.
By sixteen Nephilim children had been training to be warriors for over a decade and Clary knew that given her small stature, artistic bent, and late start it was extremely unlikely that she'd make a place for herself as some kind of Amazonian front line warrior. She doubted she'd even want to be one. Not that she didn't want to fight demons. It was just that she didn't really see it happening as "Clary Fray: Warrior Princess.".
An image of Alec acting as a member of an angelic SEAL team while Clary relayed tech geek facts to him via his ear piece flashed across her mind. "The satellite has you a quarter mile directly northwest of a demon infested area! Get there as fast as you can and carve the following runes!" She shook her head and laughed. Judging by the Shadowhunters' lack of affinity for technology "Clary Fray: Ops Geek" seemed like an even more unlikely destiny than "Clary Fray: Warrior Princess."
But the Clave must have something like an Ops Center, right? Maybe instead of satellites it was a combination of sensors, portals, and some kind of psychic connection rune. That sounded crazy but then again if 'all the stories were true' then crazy-sounding was by no means a prohibitive characteristic.
As she turned the idea over in her head, Clary noticed the people she passed on the street. A woman in a power suit talking too loudly on her cell phone. A harried looking policeman acting as a crossing guard for a group of twenty or so small kids who were being shepherded across the avenue by some equally stressed looking people with clipboards. Teachers, maybe? The Shadowhunter world must have business women, cops, and teachers, Clary thought. What exactly were their Nephilim equivalents? What kind of training did they have to go through?
After mastering "don't get yourself killed" did a certain brand of ambitious young Shadowhunter think something along the lines of, "Ok… so demon fighting takes money and I want to increase the Clave's endowment so I'm going to focus on optimizing the revenue stream." Clary Fray: Nephilim Wall Street Wunderkind?
No.
Shadowhunters with an affinity for spreadsheets didn't seem possible but, then again, the Clave got its considerable funds from somewhere so someone like that must exist. Or was there some kind financial acumen rune?
Clary didn't know. That was just the problem. How could she know how she wanted to live her new life if she didn't even really know what her options were?
As much as she loved Jace, she couldn't see herself being content in a life where her sole purposes were remaining alive and seeing her boyfriend whenever he wasn't busy stabbing demons.
She sighed. Maybe she should approach Maryse about getting some sort of "Nephilim Society for Dummies" book. Of course, it wouldn't be called that. It'd be "Societas Nostra Dummies" or something. Also, Clary thought, she should consider stepping up her Latin. Maybe that was something she could handle herself but as for the rest of it Maryse seemed like she would be the one to approach. Being the head of an Institute had to be like being a General or a CEO or something. Maybe she could ask to job shadow different members of the Clave? Was there a Shadowhunter guidance counselor or…
"HOLY HELL, CLARY!" She heard the screech of tires and the blaring of horns. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders and yanked her backwards.
Simon.
"Watch where you're going, woman!" he said half jokingly, clearly panicked. "You can't just wander out into the middle of the street, angel blood or no."
Shaken, Clary let out a breath. "Wow," she said equally amazed and horrified, "I guess… I got lost in my thoughts." Preoccupation with existential malaise was dangerous, apparently. No time like the present to approach Maryse with her concerns especially if Clary wanted to keep in line with the "don't get yourself killed" plan.
"You know," Clary said, "I think I'll head back to the Institute."
Simon still looked concerned, "Good. I'll walk you."
"You're going to the Institute? Why?"
"The Hotel du Mort burned down. And "Hey! there was a politically significant vampire arson" doesn't seem like something you say via text message. Especially when the recipient of the text is from a terrifying race of ancient warriors."