Hello! Here's another new chapter ta-daa! I hope you like the story so far. Drop me a review yeah :)

All characters owned by Cassandra Clare.

Clary followed Sebastian down a narrow alley, lined on both sides with tall and regal medieval stone buildings, adorned with statues and gargoyles. Sebastian strode purposefully ahead, not waiting to see if Clary was following. She was busy gawking at the breathtaking architecture and the beautiful skyline, wishing for pencils and canvas to take it all down, that she only realized something was wrong when they made their third awkward turn.

'You don't know where you're going,' she wondered aloud, and the moment she said it she knew it to be true. 'You don't know where to go?' She repeated incredulously at her elder brother who had always seemed to her all-knowing and, well, pretty invincible. Sebastian's jaw tightened visibly.

'I do,' he said.

'No you don't. That's the second time we've crossed that corner; I recognize it.'

'Shut up,' he snapped. 'It's my first time to London, and streets get confusing. It may not the shortest way, but I sure as hell can get us to where we're going in the end.'

'How can you be so sure? I mean, if you haven't even been there before…'

'Call it demonic sixth sense,' said Sebastian drily.

'Well, that's all very well, but I'm sure it'll be more helpful if we could read maps.' Clary mused. Reading maps was her strong suit. She suspected it was related her being such a visual person; she once took a test that told her she was adept at spatial distribution, and sure enough she was always the one dragging Simon in the right direction whenever they had to go anywhere. 'Tell me where we're going.'

'I don't think this place is recorded on any mundane map,' said Sebastian, crossly. 'Look, you tell me you're not going to interfere right? Just get out of my face and follow me.'

'Fine,' said Clary realizing how whiney she sounded but not caring. It felt good, not having to care about what someone else thought of you. Maybe that was what having siblings felt like, she thought suddenly.

Then again, this could be the added advantage of having a sibling whom you deeply hated. Genuinely, sincerely, deeply hated.

Finally Sebastian ducked under a shaded doorway off the corner of a street, so hidden in the shadows that it was almost unnoticeable. They entered what appeared to be a storage room, with heaps of cartons and cardboard boxes; Clary guessed they were at the back of some shop. A glimmer of light came under the gap of a dilapidated wooden door on the far right of the room. Sebastian led the way down a set of stairs to a cellar, lined with wine barrels and dust. The musty smell in the air, however, was not that which was found in most cellars. It reeked of straw, tobacco, and cattle. Clary willed herself to look harder and managed to peel away the glamour to see a small living quarter. Where there were wine barrels, a cozy bed with straw-stuffed bedding, a table and chairs came into view.

A shape groaned and shifted on the bed. Sebastian went over and held his witchlight high, light bursting onto the bed. 'Madison,' he said softly. 'I told you to expect me today.'

The shaped rolled off the bed, seemingly in shock; but it soon righted itself and unfolded into the figure of a boy, or a little man the height of a teenage boy before his growth spurt, in front of Sebastian.

'Valentine's son,' said the man. His tone with scornful yet his voice was thin and high, and did not altogether seemed to pose much threat. 'Always welcome, of course.'

'You hardly have a choice,' said Sebastian calmly. 'I have come to claim what I asked for.'

The man raised his chin defiantly. 'Just because you wanted something does not mean I have to give it to you. I bend to no law, nor power.'

Under Sebastian's witchlight, Clary saw that the little man donned a bristly black goatee. Dark curls clipped tightly around his head and out of them sprouted two thick, brown horns. Clary gasped in surprise, and glanced down. Sure enough, the man had not feet, but hooves, dark and hard and rubber-like.

Her gasp attracted the attention of Madison. 'And this is?'

'My sister,' said Sebastian shortly. 'She is under my care. Now, as we were saying – where are the pearls?'

Madison pursed his lips. 'There now. Wouldn't want to be pushy, if I were you. I am a warlock, and one endowed with greater power than my more human counterparts. I have been alive longer than you, Jonathan Morgenstern, and I know far more. You don't want to cross me.'

'Faun,' said Sebastian, deliberately. 'You may be a stronger warlock, but I have Shadowhunter blood. But no, I don't want to cross you. I am here to persuade you.'

'Persuade me what? For what purpose have you come to retrieve the Adam's Tears?'

'Pure pearls from the deep of the sea,' said Sebastian slowly, 'have seraphic associations. Legend has it that pearls are formed from the tears of angels which dropped into the lakes and seas of this world upon viewing the suffering of man. The earliest, most powerful pearls come from the tears of Adam and Eve. Eve's teardrops gave white pearls while Adam's yielded black ones, full and dark and lustrous as midnight. And only Adam's tears can gain an outsider entrance to the Court of Muirgen.'

'And why,' said Madison, his thin voice unrelenting, 'would you want to meet the Mermaid Queen?'

Clary stifled her gasp this time with difficulty. She guessed it made sense that Sebastian would want to meet with as many powerful creatures of this world as he could, to gain them to their side. After all, the Seelie Queen had allied with Sebastian; and the Mermaid Queen, whom Clary guessed to be somewhat similar to her faerie counterpart, could well do the same.

'That is none of your business. But I have not come to persuade you by words. I have something you might be interested in.'

Sebastian drew out something from the inside of his jacket. It looked like a collection of little bamboo tubes, bounded and tied in order of length, so that a gentle slope was formed. Clary could see nothing out of the ordinary in it, but the faun's eyes lit up. 'A syrinx,' he breathed. 'The instrument of prime faerie music, that only warlocks of goat-demon descent could play. Now where did you get that?'

'I would give you this, and tell you where to get more, if you hand over the pearls,' said Sebastian.

Madison hesitated. He seemed extremely unwilling to cooperate with Sebastian; on the other hand his eyes would not leave the strange musical instrument. Sebastian sensed his hesitation. 'Imagine the power you would weld over the faeries with this, the spells and the magic that would be opened up to you,' he said, coaxingly. 'What of the pearls? Your business with the Mermaid Court was done. They serve no better than souvenirs.'

Madison seemed to make a final decision. 'The Adam's Tears grant a visit to the mermaids, while the Eve's Tears allow one to see the mermen,' he said. 'That is because the merpeople have long had an affinity towards people of the opposite sex. Hence, the Adam's Tears draw strength from a female's touch. I have two of them. If you leave your sister here with me a night and a day, and give strength to my pearls, at the end I can let you have one.'

'A pearl for my sister and a syrinx?' Sebastian raised his eyebrows. 'Faun, you are not good at bargaining. Take it or leave it, a syrinx for a pearl.'

'The Adam's Tear has immense power,' said Madison, sounding secretly pleased. 'It is not something a syrinx can trade for, interesting powers though that may have. I insist on your sister.'

Sebastian's mouth tightened imperceptibly. 'No way you are touching my sister,' he said, his voice low and threatening. 'You are the one who would not want to cross me, faun. I believe you don't keep up much with the affairs of the world. You do not understand my power. If you don't cooperate, I promise you will regret it.'

Madison turned away. 'I have enough of your negotiations, Shadowhunter. Either the girl stays, or you both leave now.'

Sebastian's mouth opened into a snarl and he was about to draw out a seraph blade from his weapon belt when Clary said quickly, 'I'll stay.'

'Clary,' Sebastian said, without turning to look at her. 'Now is not the time to be stupid.'

She ignored him. 'I am willing to stay and help Madison.'

'Well, well,' the faun rubbed his hands gleefully. 'I'm sure I'll like that very much. Shall we?'

'No,' said Sebastian shortly, 'She's not staying.'

'Then go.' Madison shrugged.

'Oh yes I am,' said Clary, looking at Sebastian urgently, willing him to look at her eyes. 'Sebastian - '

'God, Clarissa,' he snapped, finally turning around to glare at her with narrowed eyes. 'Can you don't be so god-damned self-sacrificial all the time? Adam's Tears are ancient and extremely powerful. You don't know what can happen to you if you get bounded to one of those.'

'I want to,' said Clary, staring at Sebastian right in his dark, dark eyes, 'see the Adam's Tears.' She paused. 'I'm really curious about how they look like.'

Sebastian gazed at his sister, his face an indecipherable mask. The witchlight cast haphazard shadows along the contours of his chiseled face. Madison looked at the Morgenstern children curiously. 'So?'

'She stays,' said Sebastian, emotionlessly. He turned to Madison. 'My sister matches myself in ability and power and I trust her unconditionally. Though I do warrant you that if anything, anything at all happens to her,' he leaned in to Madison who almost involuntarily took a step back. 'Your nine hundred years of living are as good as over.' Sebastian straightened. 'I'll be back same time tomorrow.'

Madison showed Sebastian out of the door before turning back to Clary. His eyes were gleaming with near-maniac excitement; he reminded Clary a little of Magnus, at the moment when he got his hands on the White Book. She wondered if all warlocks shared this thirst for deeper, more powerful magic. 'Now, now, little girl,' he said, his thin voice raising goosebumps on Clary's arm. 'You wait here for a moment while I get ready.' His eyes raked Clary's body and he gave her another grin before passing by her towards somewhere deeper in his apartment.

Clary shivered. Somehow the little goat-man had seemed much less sinister when Sebastian had been around. She almost regretted her plan now.

She ran her fingers over her weapons belt. There was a dagger there, a seraph blade, and some knives. Sebastian had not trusted her enough to give her a stele; she kicked herself for forgetting to ask him for one before he left. Now she had to rely fully on her Shadowhunter physical trainings and her innate battle instinct.

Madison hustled in and out of Clary's view, carrying in turn piles of books, ink-splattered parchments, assorted items which looked suspiciously like boars' tusks, snakeskin and an ostrich's feather, bottles of darkly swirling liquids, and, at long last, a box of woven fibre which resembled dried seaweed. This last item was conspicuously well-kept and dust-free, which was how Clary knew she had found what she wanted.

'Now,' he said, setting down the box onto the table, 'We can start. Let me check this book…'

He bent down over the table. Clary didn't wait; with one swift movement she leapt across the room, onto the table, knocking down inkbottles and crystal cylinders on the way; she grabbed hold of the woven box, rolled over, and, from her vantage point on the table, kicked Madison in the stomach, who had been too shocked to move. In the next instant she screamed, 'Sebastian!'

Sebastian promptly burst in just as Madison righted himself, more quickly than Clary would have expected with his little hooves and potbelly, and lunged at Clary with a snarl. Purple flames, burning hot and furious, shot from his fingertips, wounding themselves into serpents who hissed as they flew directly towards Clary. She dodged and rolled off the table, and threw a dagger at the snakes, which were disfigured, but only for a moment; at the next instant they were reassembled and flung themselves viciously at Clary.

But Sebastian was already between them. He swung his seraph blade in quick succession so that it formed a protective shell around them. Madison scowled and started muttering a spell under his breath, but Sebastian was muttering something too, and he was too fast for him. Before the faun could react, he had finished chanting his spell and flung some black powder at the other. Where the powder landed, it burst into dark flames – fire that seemed to absorb instead of emit light, which still hurt Clary's eyes to look at. Madison screamed a sharp, piercing scream, not unlike a goat yelping in agony; he was burning.

'Good job,' said Sebastian, panting lightly. 'That was smart.'

Clary ignored him. She stood up. 'What's that? Is that going to kill him?'

'Demon fire. Well, I guess that might happen in the end. But for now he's just going to burn. Really, really slowly.'

She turned to Sebastian. 'Stop it. Let him go.'

He looked at her incredulously. 'Are you crazy? Didn't you see what he was shooting at you? He was going to kill you!'

'Not really surprising considering I was planning to steal his pearls. Lots of people have wanted to kill me before,' she pointed out. 'Sebastian, let him go.'

'No,' he said shortly.

'Sebastian – '

'Did you see this?' He turned on her, losing his patience, his arm sweeping a wide curve across the table, a mess of books and spilt liquids. The liquids were of strange colours, dark blue and translucent grey and bright, bright red. Sebastian dipped his finger in the liquids and waved his hand in front of Clary. 'This, this is faerie blood. This is the horn of a unicorn, powdered and dissolved. He was going to do some pretty dark magic on you, Clary, not just binding. He was going to leave you mutilated and cursed and god knows what else and was hoping to get away with it. How can I let someone who wanted to do this to my sister live?' He nearly shouted in her face.

Clary flinched; but when she looked at the little warlock writhing and screaming in pain, she made up her mind. 'He didn't do it in the end, did he? That's all that matters. I knew you were always somewhere around me and you'd never let anything happen to me, and we outsmarted him, isn't that enough? Look, I have a better solution.'

Sebastian set his jaw in a stubborn line and refused to look at her. Clary reached out, hesitantly, and touched his hand. 'Sebastian.' She whispered. 'Trust me.'

Still he stayed as immobile and passive as a statue. Clary took this as an encouragement and reached up gently to his waist, feeling along his weapon belt for his stele. He stiffened imperceptibly under her touch and Clary almost drew her hand back, but stopped herself, concentrating her mind on the task. Stele in hand, she approached the faun. With a wave of his hand Sebastian extinguished much of the demon fire, leaving only coils of burning dark flames restricting Madison's wrists and ankles.

Madison had stopped screaming; he leered at Clary when she stopped in front of him. 'Valentine's children,' he breathed. 'Each as cunning as the other. I should have known that beauty never conceal anything but evil.'

'Don't you dare call my sister beautiful,' spat Sebastian, who had soundlessly followed Clary and now stood at her back, looking over her shoulder, 'or evil.'

'Sssshhh,' said Clary, rather soothingly, and bent down.

'Why are you doing this?' whispered Madison, but he was not talking to her. He gazed steadily over her shoulder. 'Why not just kill me?'

'Because,' replied Sebastian, 'My sister wants you to live. And the Morgensterns are united, if nothing else.' Casually he looped an arm around Clary's shoulders.

Under Clary's stele, the Rune was taking shape on the faun's forehead. Delicate curves wounding, drifting, floating off into the distance; smooth, healing and relaxing. Forget. By the time she lifted her stele, Madison had slumped onto the floor, in deep sleep.

Sebastian whistled softly. He extinguished the rest of the flames and they left the room quietly, the woven box nestled in Clary's pocket, Sebastian's arm still resting on her shoulder.