Here's chapter 3 :) Thank you guys for all the reviews I've received, they always make my day :)
It was chaos when I brought her back. The whole first day she was in the infirmary I was hounded by the Institute's other residents-just Alec, Isabelle, and Hodge really. They wanted to know every detail about what happened. It wasn't until the next day that I was left alone. I didn't go to see her after I left her in Hodge's care. There was a large chance she wouldn't make it and the chances of her making it through grew slimmer every day her eyes remain closed. I didn't want to see her if the next time I did she was going to be a body. It would be easier just to forget and move on without getting attached.
It was just too bad that it was too late to not be attached. If I was being honest with myself, the first time I saw the fiery girl I was attached. I couldn't help it. I dreamt about her the first night she was here and the night after that. I dreamt about holding her, being around her, kissing her.
How I wished she would wake up. Oh, I wished every second I breathed, but I didn't dare to hope. If I hoped, and she died, I would be disappointed and I didn't want to deal with the heartbreak of hopes being crushed. But however I held back my hopes, I couldn't stop the dreams of her. It was on the third day that I realized that the girl was destroying me. And she wasn't even conscious. We hadn't even really had a full discussion without being interrupted in one way or another. I barely knew her and she was tearing me apart.
It was so unlike me, to allow a girl to get to me like this. And I didn't even know her full name. Or how old she was. That thought froze me in my tracks. I must have looked like a fool, frozen in the middle of the hallway. I shook my head and turned into the music room. Maybe playing the piano would be able to distract me.
I managed to stop thinking about her for probably half an hour while I lost myself in the music I was playing. I was snapped out of it by a sound. I heard something move near the doorway. It was shadowed and I couldn't see who it was.
"Alec? Is that you?" I called.
"It's not Alec, it's me. Clary." She stepped forward into the room and I saw her clearly now.
My fingers were frozen on the keys. She was alive. As soon as my brain got over that little fact, I realized that if I stayed silent any longer she would think that I was brain dead. So I stood smoothly, bumping the piano slightly with my hip.
"Our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?"
"Nobody. I woke up on my own," she replied, her mouth twisting to the side.
"Was there anybody with you?" I asked, hoping that she hadn't just left.
That would cause some trouble if nobody even knew she was awake.
"Isabelle, but she went off to get someone-Hodge I think. She told me to wait, but-"
"I should have warned her about your habit of never doing what you're told," I commented, taking in her appearance.
I saw that the clothes couldn't be hers. They were too big on her, not as tight as I knew they would be on somebody who they fit on. She wore dark jeans which she had rolled up so that they didn't drag on the ground with a blood red tank top. The shirt was seriously low-cut. I had to force myself not to focus on that particular part of her wardrobe.
"Are those Isabelle's clothes? They look ridiculous on you," I commented, only half truthfully.
"I could point out that you burned my clothes," she shot back with a glare.
I hid a smirk, looking down to slide the piano cover down.
"It was purely precautionary. Come on, I'll take you to Hodge."
I saw her face scrunch up at my response about her clothing and bit my lip to keep from laughing. I led her out of the room, not checking to make sure she was following me. I could hear her loud steps and twisted my mouth to the side. She had definitely been raised a mundane. Shadowhunters walk silently, not with loud, clonking footsteps. She moved up beside me when we reached the hall and I saw her looking around in wonder, her eyes widened in marvel. I felt myself smiling as I watched her and wiped the expression from my face before she could see it.
We walked down the empty halls, passing half-opened doors revealing empty rooms. Her footsteps echoed along in the silence. I looked ahead of me when she turned to look at me.
"Why does this place have so many bedrooms? I thought it was a research institute," she commented, peering into one of the bare rooms.
"This is the residential wing," I answered. "We're pledged to offer safety and lodging to any Shadowhunter who requests it. We can house up to two-hundred people here."
"But most of these rooms are empty."
I bit my tongue to keep in a sarcastic remark, not wanting to upset her. I had trouble trying to remember the last time I had bit back a harsh comment just because I didn't want to upset someone.
"People come and go," I said instead. "Nobody stays for long. Usually it's just us-Alec, Isabelle, Max, their parents- and me and Hodge."
"Max?" she questioned.
I shouldn't have expected anything less than an interrogation when I started satisfying her curiosity.
"You met the beauteous Isabelle? Alec is her older brother. Max is the youngest, but he's overseas with his parents," I supplied, thinking fondly of the little boy and his books.
Hodge kept him entertained for hours in the library, getting him book after book to read.
"On vacation?"
She was watching me now, although she was trying to be subtle. If I had been someone like the boy she had been at the coffee house with, I probably wouldn't have noticed.
"Not exactly," I said, uncertainly.
How could I put this that she would understand? I had a brief flicker of doubt-should I be telling her all these things? We had no idea who she was and I was spilling everything about us. I shrugged that off mentally. She had Shadowhunter blood. She could be trusted to hold the secrets of the Shadow world.
"You can think of them as –as foreign diplomats, and of this as an embassy, of sorts," I said, pulling on my limited knowledge of mundane governments. "Right now they're in the Shadowhunter home country, working out some very delicate peace negotiations. They brought Max with them because he's so young."
"Shadowhunter home country?" she fired back immediately. "What's it called?"
"Idris," I replied, thinking of the beautiful city of Alicante with its glass building and sparkling towers.
"I've never heard of it."
I huffed a little, quietly. "You wouldn't have. Mundanes don't know about it. There are wardings-protective spells-up all over the borders. If you tried to cross into Idris, you'd simply be transported instantly from one border to the next. You'd never know what happened."
"So it's not on any maps?" She asked, her eyes still on me.
"Not mundie ones. For our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France," I explained, hoping that it would help her understand better.
"But there isn't anything between Germany and France. Except Switzerland," she said, her eyebrows furrowing together.
"Precisely."
She huffed a bit and I wondered with a feeling of accomplishment if I was annoying her.
"I take it you've been there. To Idris, I mean," she clarified, although I already knew what she meant.
My mind doesn't seem to wander as much as hers does. She seems to flit from one topic to the next easily, while I try to focus on one thing at a time.
"I grew up there," I said, trying to convey in my tone that I didn't want to continue on that subject.
My childhood isn't exactly my favorite topic and I didn't want to change the mood on the conversation. So I continued to speak of Idris instead.
"Most of us do. There are, of course, Shadowhunters all over the world. We have to be everywhere, because demonic activity is everywhere. But to a Shadowhunter, Idris is always 'home'," I said.
"Like Mecca or Jerusalem," she commented.
I blinked quickly. It amazed me how she could take all of that and apply it to what she already knew of the world. But she seemed to understand the concept, so I let it be, even though Idris isn't a religious place.
"So most of you are brought up there, and then when you grow up-"
"We're sent where we're needed," I finished. "And there are a few, like Isabelle and Alec, who grew up away from the home country because that's where their parents are. With all of the resources of the Institute here, with Hodge's training-this is the library."
I looked down at her while she admired the ornate doors. I saw Church, the Institute's lazy, blue Persian, lying at the doors. He picked his head up off his paws and stared at us before yowling loudly. I saw Clary staring at it oddly. I guess she's never seen a blue cat before.
"Hey, Church." I used my foot to pet the lazy beast, watching its eyes slit as I did.
"Wait, Alec and Isabelle and Max-they're the only Shadowhunters your age that you know, that you spend time with?" Her voice was incredulous and it confused me for a moment, my foot moving away from the cat.
"Yes."
"That must get kind of lonely," she said thoughtfully.
I saw her look at me out of the corner of her eye, trying to be discreet. I almost smiled, watching her try to be sneaky.
"I have everything I need," I said simply. I pushed the doors open and stepped into the familiar room.
She followed behind me and I slowed to let her go ahead. I watched her as she took in her surroundings. Her eyes were wide in awe as she looked at the shelves, high enough up that ladders were necessary to reach the higher-up volumes. The books were all carefully placed according to no obvious order. Hodge seemed to know where everything was, so I had no doubt that there was some kind of a system in place. The only question was what exactly that system was. I knew shapeshifters were in one part, demons in another, although I was also aware that books on Eidolons, shape-shifting demons, could be found in both and in several other places. It was all really pretty crazy.
I noticed Clary staring curiously at the floor, the tiny bits of gems, stones, glass, marble, and even some adamas mixed in. I remembered the first time I had stepped foot in the library, asking Hodge what the stones shaped. He told me that I was welcome to climb higher in the tower and find out. So I did. The first time I had seen the mosaic of the angel Raziel. I had known immediately who it was, every Shadowhunter above the age of three knew who Raziel was and they had seen the image of him rising up from the water, holding the mortal instruments that would be used to protect man-kind.
I looked over to see Alec sprawled lazily in an armchair near the empty fireplace. I saw her eyes stop moving around so much when she located Hodge's form behind his large desk.
"A book lover, I see," he said, smiling at Clary. "You didn't tell me that, Jace."
I chuckled, letting my face relax into a grin. "We haven't done much talking in our short acquaintance. I'm afraid our reading habits didn't come up."
I was glad though, that she enjoyed books. Hodge could read people well, and I didn't doubt that he was correct about her. Clary turned around to glare at me and I just grinned back, finding it cute when she tried to be scary.
"How can you tell? That I like books, I mean," she asked, looking to Hodge again.
"The look on your face when you walked in. Somehow I doubted that you were that impressed by me," Hodge answered with a smile. He began to get up, walking towards us around his desk. I heard Clary's muffled gasp as she took him in. I knew how intimidating it was to see Hodge for the first time, that damned bird always perched on his shoulder.
Her eyes were wide as she stared at Hugo, Hodge's bird.
"This is Hugo," Hodge introduced, his hand brushing against the bird. "Hugo is a raven, and, as such, he knows many things. I, meanwhile, am Hodge Starkweather, a professor of history, and, as such, I do not know nearly enough."
Clary laughed, to my surprise, and shook his hand. "Clary Fray," she introduced.
"Honored to make your acquaintance," he began with a warm smile. "I would be honored to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with her bare hands."
I saw an odd look come over her face, as though she found what he'd said to be strange. Thinking on it, I realized that to her it would be strange. She was being prided because she killed something she hadn't even known to exist a few days ago. I guess the closest mundanes got to being congratulated for killing things was when they hunted deer.
"It wasn't my bare hands. It was Jace's-well, I don't remember what it was called, but-"
"She means my sensor," I clarified. "She shoved it down the thing's throat. The runes must have choked it." A second later, I realized that I was no longer the owner of a sensor. "I guess I'll need another one. I should have mentioned that."
"There are several extra in the weapons room." He smiled again at Clary, the lines around his eyes flashing into view, reminding me of his age. "That was quick thinking. What gave you the idea of using the sensor as a weapon?"
I could see on her face that she didn't have an answer. She must've just…done it. Probably instinct, her last shot to not get eaten like a turkey dinner. I was about to cut in, to save her from saying that, when I heard a sharp laugh from Alec's direction. I saw Clary jump. She had clearly overlooked him when she walked in.
"I can't believe you buy that story, Hodge," he said bitterly.
Clary didn't look offended at first, she just stared at him for a moment, taking in his appearance. I felt a wave of jealousy-an unfamiliar emotion for me-as her eyes moved over him. I looked at him as well, noticing how he scowled at Clary, as though she had just spit on his shoes. His bright blue eyes blazed with indignation.
"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Alec. Are you suggesting that she didn't kill that demon after all?" Hodge's voice was still kind, although I could detect a faint hint of sharpness to it. Clary still didn't seem fazed, she turned now to look at Hodge. I could tell that her eyes were resting on the scar across his face. I, however, felt offended for her. How could he question the fact that she had killed the damn thing?
"Of course she didn't. Look at her-she's a mundie, Hodge, and a little kid, at that. There's no way she took on a Ravener," Alec nearly spat. Now, I saw her face harden, her fists clench a little at her sides and her shoulders tense.
"I'm not a little kid. I'm sixteen years old- well, I will be on Sunday," she argued angrily. Ah, I thought then. She always got offended when I called her little girl, and now she was offended about being called a little kid. I could understand it, her dislike of being treated like a child. Shadowhunters were considered children until they were eighteen. There was just something about her that seemed so young, so naïve.
"The same age as Isabelle. Would you call her a child?" Hodge countered, looking pointedly at Alec.
Alec looked offended. Was anyone in this room not offended at this point?
"Isabelle hails from one of the greatest Shadowhunter dynasties in history. This girl, on the other hand, hails from New Jersey."
"I'm from Brooklyn! And so what? I just killed a demon in my own house, and you're going to be a dickhead about it because I'm not some spoiled-rotten rich brat like you and your sister?"
She was clearly furious; her cheeks taking on a red that nearly rivaled her hair. I was a little stunned at her outburst. Although she had unleashed her temper on me before-whenever I called her little girl for one-she always seemed so timid and calm before she suddenly snapped. A hothead, fitting, considering the fiery color of her hair. I could almost imagine it being actual flames instead of hair, fueling her short temper.
"What did you call me?" Alec asked, his face completely stunned.
I let my laughter out, his face too much for me. "She had a point, Alec. It's those bridge-and-tunnel demons you really have to watch out for-"
"It's not funny, Jace," Alec spat, cutting me off. He stood up swiftly, his hands clenched into fists as tight as Clary's already were. "Are you going to stand there and let her call me names?" I had to bite my lip hard enough that I tasted blood to keep from laughing out loud. He sounded like a clingy girlfriend.
"Yes," I said. "It'll do you good-try to think of it as endurance training."
"We may be Parabatai, but your flippancy is wearing on my patience," he snapped, his eyes like daggers as he glared at me.
I narrowed my eyes, all humor dissipating. He had begun to piss me off.
"And your obstinacy is wearing on mine. When I found her, she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a dying demon practically on top of her. I watched as it vanished. If she didn't kill it, who did?"
"Raveners are stupid," Alec fired back. "Maybe it got itself in the back of the neck with its stinger. It's happened before-" I couldn't believe he was still trying to argue this.
"Now you're suggesting it committed suicide?"
Alec's lips were pressed tight. "It isn't right for her to be here. Mundies aren't allowed in the Institute, and there are good reasons for that. If anyone knew about this, we could be reported to the Clave."
It didn't get by me how quickly he changed tactics, trying to make Clary the bad guy no matter what.
"That's not entirely true," Hodge argued. "The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Clary's mother-she could well have been next."
I saw Clary's face go pale at his words. Her eyes glazed over a bit, as though she was far away. Her fists had unclenched already and I saw her shoulders drop a little, as though all the anger had left her, leaving only exhaustion.
"Raveners are search-and-destroy machines," Alec pointed out. "They act under orders from warlocks or powerful demon lords. Now, what interest would a warlock or demon lord have with a mundane household?" He looked at Clary, and I didn't like how cruelly he was treating her. It's not like she had asked for this. "Any thoughts?"
"It could have been a mistake," she said weakly.
"Demons don't make those kind of mistakes If they went after your mother, there must have been a reason. If she were innocent-"
"What do you mean, 'innocent'?" Her voice was scarily quiet. I couldn't tell if she was trying to hide her anger, or if she just was tired of all this.
Alec blinked, confused. "I-"
"What he means, is that it is extremely unusual for a powerful demon, the kind who might command a host of lesser demons, to interest himself in the affairs of human beings. No mundane may summon a demon-they lack that power-but there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a witch or warlock to do it for them."
"My mother doesn't know any warlocks. She doesn't believe in magic." Her face suddenly lit up. "Madame Dorothea-she lives downstairs-she's a witch. Maybe the demons were after her and got my mom by mistake?"
Hodge looked shocked. "A witch lives downstairs from you?"
"She's a hedge-witch—a fake. I already looked into it. There's no reason for any warlock to be interested in her unless he's in the market for non-functional crystal balls." I thought back to how I had waited until the woman left her shop to sneak in and check her place out. Everything was fake, nothing that would concern the Shadow world or Downworld.
"And we're back where we began." Hodge sighed, reaching up to stroke Hugo's sleek feathers. "It seems the time has come to notify the Clave."
"No!" I cried. If he notified the Clave, they would take her, probably to Idris or the Silent City. She would be forced to comply to their tests and interrogations. They wouldn't treat her the way they should a shell-shocked, frightened mundane girl. "We can't-"
"It made sense to keep Clary's presence here a secret while we were not sure she would recover. But now she has, and she is the first mundane to pass through the doors of the Institute in over a hundred years. You know the rules about mundane knowledge of the Shadowhunters, Jace. The Clave must be informed."
"Absolutely," Alec said quickly. "I could get a message to my father-"
"She's not a mundane," I finally admitted.
I knew that I was going to catch some serious hell for this, but I couldn't let her be handed over to the Clave. Everyone went silent. Only Hugo made a noise, his feathers ruffling.
"But I am," Clary retorted finally, looking at me with furrowed eyebrows.
"No. You aren't." I bit back my nervousness, swallowing thickly. Hodge was going to kill me. Forget dying in battle, I was going to be beat to death with a book by my angry instructor.
"That night—there were Du'sien demons, dressed like police officers. We had to get past them. Clary was too weak to run, and there wasn't time to hide—she would have died. So I used my stele—put a mendelin rune on the inside of her arm. I thought—"
"Are you out of your mind?" Hodge yelled suddenly. He slammed his hand down on his desk and I saw Clary jump a little. "You know what the Law says about placing marks on mundanes! You—you of all people ought to know better!"
"But it worked," I argued. "Clary, show them your arm," I ordered. She shot me a confused look but did as I asked. I saw Hodge's eyes zero in on the overlapping circles, faded away to nearly invisible white lines now. "See, it's almost gone," I said, hoping I was convincing them. "It didn't hurt her at all."
"That's not the point," Hodge said. I could see that he was seething, although he held himself together well. I wondered briefly if it was just because Clary was here or if he would've tried to control his anger anyway. "You could have turned her into a Forsaken."
Alec's face was flushed with anger as he stared at me. "I can't believe you, Jace. Only Shadowhunters can receive Covenant Marks—they'll kill mundanes—" I bit back the first thing that came to my mind, only to keep from scaring Clary. I wanted to point out that had I done nothing, she would've died anyway.
"She's not a mundane. Haven't you been listening?" I asked, exasperated. "It explains why she could see us. She must have Clave blood."
Clary just then lowered her arm, as if she had forgotten she was holding it up.
"But I don't, I couldn't," she argued, her head shaking ever so slightly.
"You must," I said, my words tumbling out. I had to convince them. I had to convince her. I wanted her to be one of us, although I couldn't have said why. "If you didn't, that Mark I made on your arm…"
"That's enough, Jace," Hodge cut in, disapproval leaking into his tone. "There's no need to frighten her further."
It was only then that I noticed that her green eyes were wide with shock and I felt guilty, knowing I had been seconds from scaring her completely away from us.
"But I was right, wasn't I?" I asked, unable to help from arguing further. "It explains what happened to her mother, too. If she was a Shadowhunter in exile, she might well have Downworlder enemies."
"My mother wasn't a Shadowhunter!" Clary snapped at me, glaring now.
"Your father then," I compromised. "What about hum?"
She gave me a look, her eyes devoid of any emotion. Her voice was flat when she responded. "He died before I was born."
I flinched a little. Smooth, I thought bitterly.
"It's possible," Alec said finally. "If her father were a Shadowhunter, and her mother a mundane—well, we all know it's against the Law to marry a mundie. Maybe they were in hiding," he suggested, grudgingly.
"My mother would have told me," Clary denied, although I heard the doubt in her statement even as it left her lips.
"Not necessarily. We all have our secrets."
"Luke," Clary said suddenly, her eyes lighting up. "Our friend. He would know." This time there was not an ounce of doubt in her voice, only confidence in this family friend.
"It's been three days—he must be frantic. Can I call him? Is there a phone?" She turned to face me suddenly and I immediately felt overwhelmed by the pleading look she gave me. "Please."
I looked at Hodge. He nodded and moved out of the way of his desk, revealing the brass globe which marked Idris as one of its countries. Beside it was the old phone he kept. Clary went over to it quickly, putting the hearing piece to her ear and quickly punching in a memorized number. Her shoulders were tense and I moved over subtly so that I could see her face. Her expression was a mixture of expectance and hope. From where I stood, I couldn't hear the other side of the conversation so I moved over to the armchair that Alec had previously inhabited. I leaned against it, listening to her half of the conversation.
"Luke!" her shoulders slumped with relief, and she leaned heavily against the wooden desk. "It's me. It's Clary."
"I'm fine. I'm sorry I didn't call you before. Luke, my mom—"
She seemed to deflate a little then.
"Then you haven't heard from her. What did that police say?"
"I'm in the city. I don't know where exactly. With some friends. My wallet's gone, though. If you've got some cash, I could take a cab to your place—"
I tensed, even as she paused, clearly cut off. The phone slipped suddenly from her hand and almost hit the floor. Whatever Luke was saying, it couldn't be good.
"What?" It hurt to hear the pain and shock in her voice. There was a long pause before she replied, her voice turning a little whiny.
"But I don't want to stay here. I don't know these people. You—"
"I'm sorry. It's just—"
She remained silent for a moment before frantically redialing the number. After a few moments, she slammed the phone down. I saw her shaking, biting her lip.
"I take it he wasn't happy to hear from you?" As she turned to face us again, I regretted my words instantly. Her face made her look like a girl who had just lost everything, and hell, it seems like she pretty much has. She had been counting on that Luke, and he had clearly just turned her away, abandoning her. I felt an intense dislike for the man, seeing how pale her face was. Her hands were trembling and I saw that she was biting her lower lip, blinking repetitively.
"I think I'd like to have a talk with Clary," Hodge said. "Alone."
I blinked in shock as Alec stood up. "Fine. We'll leave you to it," he said. I was a little insulted by Hodge's actions. I had saved her life!
"That's hardly fair," I argued hotly. "I'm the one who found her. I'm the one who saved her life! You want me here, don't you?" I asked, turning to face Clary.
I saw how shiny her eyes were and she swallowed tightly, as I knew people did when they were trying to hold tears back. She looked away from me, not answering. Alec laughed and I felt suddenly like punching my parabatai.
"Not everyone wants you all the time, Jace."
"Don't be ridiculous," I said, trying to veil the displeasure in my tone. "Fine, then. We'll be in the weapons room."
I turned sharply, walking briskly over to the library doors. Alec and I walked side-by-side down the empty hallways.
"Mundanes are such crybabies," he said suddenly. I scoffed at him.
"What the hell is with you, today? You're treating Clary like she's got an infectious disease," I said, turning to confront him.
He glared at me. "She's a mundane, Jace. Why does her business matter so much to you?"
I rolled my eyes skyward. "We just went over this," I said through clenched teeth. "She. Is. Not. A. Mundane."
"Maybe not, but you're doting on her like she the queen of fu-"
"Fight nice, boys." I turned my head to see Isabelle coming down the hallway. She looked between us, taking in Alec's clenched fists and reddening face. She raised an eyebrow.
"What is going on?"
Alec and I stared at each other for a minute, not answering.
"Come on, guys. Pull yourselves together. Figure it out and get over it. I'm going to go finish dinner," she announced before brushing by us and leaving.
"Oh Angel save us," I moaned. Alec laughed lightly and shook his head at me. I grinned crookedly, slapping him on his back.
"Come on. We've got seraph blades to work on."
Hope you guys enjoyed this one :)
Don't forget to review!
-Cassidy
