The spot was clean, the blood and slime and poison long since wiped away by Alec's careful hands. Still, Jace couldn't help stopping and staring every time he passed the spot, recalling the night as if it had all happened only moments before.

After a half-hour of hauling himself and Clary through the subway and in taxis, Jace finally arrived at the Institute. Practically dead on his feet, he pushed open the door and almost collapsed. Clary was still unconscious and her wound hadn't clotted, something that worried him greatly. He himself was soaked from head-to-toe in deep scarlet blood.

Alec and Isabelle ran into the foyer and stopped dead.

"What the hell!" Alec's hair was mussed and he was dressed only in striped pajama bottoms, meaning that it was a lot later into the night than Jace had originally thought. "Jace, what happened?"

"She's hurt," Jace managed, his vision going slightly blurry. "She needs help. Get Hodge...please, I can't-"

Hodge had come in and lifted Clary's broken, bloody body in his arms. Like a protective grandfather he carried her down the cavernous hallway into the sterile white infirmary, where he laid her down on the bed. Instantly the sheets turned a bright crimson.

"Get Jace some food," he instructed Isabelle. "And go back to bed - I've got this."

Jace was slipping in a pool of Clary's blood and demon poison, mixing the oily black into the thick metallic scarlet. They began to blend, the life fluids from two completely different beings: an innocent and a devil spawn. His breathing was ragged, half from exhaustion, half from worry. A nagging voice in his head told him exactly what he didn't want to hear: It's all your fault.

It's all your fault. It's all your fault. Jace shook his head and rubbed his eyes tiredly. For three nights straight he hadn't been able to sleep, the memories of Clary, the Ravener, and the heart-wracking journey home clouding up his brain. Images of her lifeless and limp in his arms penetrated even the usually calming atmosphere of the training room.

"Jace?" It was Alec, an expression of brotherly concern on his face. "Are you okay?"

He couldn't answer, the memory still holding on to him with a cold, vise-like grip. How could he have let her run off that evening, in front of Java Jones? How could he have let her do it all on her own?

"Jace?" A hand was on his shoulder now, gripping it and steadying him.

He snapped out of the trance and blinked the guilt from his eyes. When he turned to Alec, he was the picture of indifference. "Yes?"

Alec blinked, thoroughly confused. "Well, you were kinda spacing out, so I thought...you know..." He searched for the right words. "I just wanted to know if you were alright," he finished lamely.

"By the Angel, Alec, you don't have to monitor everything about me," said Jace. He shook his head, his tone slightly condescending. "Honestly, you're like a golden retriever, always following me around and panting eagerly at every little thing I do."

Alec flushed angrily and Jace felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but continued anyways. "This little obsession of yours with me is really starting to get on my nerves. Can't you find anyone else to bug 24/7?"

"Sorry," muttered Alec, his eyes bright with anger and embarrassment. "It won't happen again." Jace watched him half walk, half run through the hallway with a sad smile. His parabatai really did have strong feelings for him.

He took one last look at the spot and sighed. Isabelle was on watch this afternoon; she would alert them if anything new happened to Clary. And when she did, by God, he would be the first at her bedside.

Jace didn't know why the mundane girl had him so wound up. Was it the way her crimson locks tumbled about when she shook her head, like a waterfall of brilliant color about her shoulders? The way her emerald green eyes flashed whenever she was angry, or afraid? The way her skin had felt beneath her fingers when he'd taken her hand (her hand for God's sake, he was utterly ridiculous)? He'd firmly stayed away from her bedside these past three days, knowing that when he say her the memories would come back again, and stronger, and he didn't know if he had enough self control to hold himself back.

Dear God, he was hopeless. He needed music.

Jace hadn't touched the piano for ages. For some reason, when ever he played the instrument, the notes always came out sad. Even when he was playing Arabesque and Ants Marching. But now, it seemed perfect. He needed a melody, any melody, that would pierce his thoughts and fill them instead with notes and riffs and crescendos.

The keys were cool under his fingertips, and a light pressure on his left index caused a single note to ring clear and loud in the room, echoing off the cellos and the harps and the drums all surrounding him. He played a quick scale, just to get his fingers warmed up, then began to play properly. The song was one of his more modern favorites, How to Save A Life by The Fray. Softly, he began to sing the words.

Where did I go wrong?

I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness

And I would have stayed up with you all night

Had I known how to save a life

A slight noise cut through his music, a shuffling of feet. Startled, he whirled around on the stool and peered into the darkness. "Alec?" he said. "Is that you?" Come to yell at me for my idiotic behavior? Wouldn't blame you.

"It's not Alec," replied a soft, slightly musical voice he knew only too well. "It's me." She took a step into the room, a slight light illuminating her pale features. "Clary."

As if he hadn't known from the moment she'd spoken. He rose to his feet and faced her, his hands shoved into his pockets. "Our own Sleeping Beauty," he said with a small smile. "Who finally kissed you awake?"

The statement was half true, he supposed, the one about her being a Sleeping Beauty. She was not beautiful, at least not in the conventional way. Her hair and eyes, brilliant colors they were, drew eyes to her like moths to a lamp. From there, the eyes traveled downwards, alighting on the smooth line of her neck and her flat chest, her slim arms and small waist, the narrow hips and slender legs that completed her. She had an innocence about her, as if she didn't know how much attention she attracted to herself. Or how certain people felt towards her. Certain people.

She was telling him about Isabelle's instructions for her to stay put while the Shadowhunter summoned Hodge. Jace couldn't help smiling at this: of course Clary hadn't listened. She was a disobedient free spirit. Someone to respect. "I should have warned her about your habit of never doing what you're told."

Jace focused on her clothes. A red tank-top thats neckline was way too low and a pair of jean that resembled a skirt on her slender frame. Her smirked. She looked like she was drowning in the sheer size of the clothes; he had never known that Isabelle was so...big. For lack of a better word.

"Are those Isabelle's clothes?" he asked incredulously. "They look ridiculous on you."

She rolled her eyes. "I could point out that you burned my clothes."

"It was purely precautionary," he replied, smiling. He slid the cover over the piano and ran a hand through his hair. "Come on, I'll take you to Hodge."

The walk from the music room to the library was a five minute one, but every second seemed to go by too fast.

Clary was, of course, fascinated by everything that was within her view. "Why does this place have so many bedrooms?" she asked. "Who's Max?" "On vacation?" "What's the Shadowhunter home country called?"

So. Many. Questions. He answered them as patiently as possible, trying to keep in mind that she was new to all this and that losing his patience would not help her learn any quicker. Then she started cornering in on her time in Idris, unintentionally prying into the one part of his life he would never share with anyone.

"I take it that you've been there. To Idris, I mean." Her voice was pleasantly conversational.

"I grew up there," he answered quietly, layering his words with a subtle current of warning. She got the message and tried a different question.

"So most of you are brought up there, and the when you grow up-"

She meant well, Jace told himself. She didn't know. His past in Idris was a complete mystery to her; he couldn't blame her for asking the wrong questions. Still, his calm demeanor was slightly cracked by the time they reached the library.

The scent of books and the sound of silence hit him like a familiar wave of comfort, wrapping him up in a warm embrace. Books were his one true love. Other than himself, he added with an amused smile.

Clary too seemed impressed. Her eyes alighted on everything in the room, traveling quickly over the spines of the books with acute interest. Awe was clear in her features. Jace followed her, hands in jeans pockets, matching his tread to hers.

"A book lover, I see," called Hodge from his desk. He gave Clary a welcoming smile. "You didn't tell me that, Jace."

Jace grinned. "We haven't done much talking during our short acquaintance. I'm afraid our reading habits didn't come up."

She spun on her foot and shot him a glare. Turning back to Hodge, she said, "How can you tell? That I like books, I mean."

Hodge rose from the desk, the full gnarled length of his aged body coming into view. Hugo sat on his shoulder, so perfectly still that the bird looked like a part of Hodge's body. "The look on your face when you walked in," he said with a smile. "Somehow I doubted you were impressed by me."

Clary stifled a small gasp at the sight of Hodge and her brilliant eyes grew large. They focused on him with intense curiosity and Jace smiled. She was like a newborn puppy, amazed with everything.

"This is Hugo," Hodge said, stroking the black bird with a single wrinkled finger. "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."

Jace was startled when Clary laughed. Hodge's roundabout remarks and dry jokes often escaped most people; she was quite intelligent for a mundie girl of her age. "Clay Fray," she said, taking Hodge's outstretched hand and shaking it.

Fray. Another word for battle, or fight. It was an interesting last name, and respectable in its meaning. He wondered what it was applied to; the fact that she fought for what she believed in? Or did it imply that one must fight for her?

"Honored to make your acquaintance," Hodge said in his deep, gravelly voice. "I would be honored to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with her bare hands."

Clary blushed. "It wasn't my bare hands," she corrected. "It was Jace's - well, I don't remember what it was called, but-"

He cut in for her. "She means my Sensor. She shoved it down the thing's throat. The runes must have choked it." A thought suddenly struck him. "I guess I'll need another one. I should have mentioned that."

"There are several extras in the weapons room," said Hodge offhandedly. His attention was on Clary. "That was quick thinking," he praised. "What gave you the idea of using the Sensor as a weapon?"

At Hodge's words, a sharp and derisive laugh rang out. Alec was sprawled in an armchair by the fireplace, skepticism and dislike twisting his delicate features. Jace shot him a glare: Back off.

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Alec," said Hodge quietly. "Are you suggesting that she didn't kill that demon after all?" The way he said it seemed to question Alec's sanity.

Alec tilted his sharp chin in the direction of Clary with a hostile glare. "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."

That's what I thought, too, remembered Jace. He'd made the dire mistake of underestimating Clary and it hadn't led to good things. It had, in fact, led to her practically unarmed and alone in an apartment with a Ravener demon.

"I'm not a little kid," Clary snapped. "I'm sixteen years old - well, I will be on Sunday."

"The same age as Isabelle," Hodge said. It occurred to Jace that Hodge was actually backing Clary up, in his own way. Arguing with Alec in the fatherly way he had. "Would you call her a child?"

"Isabelle," Alec shot back dryly, "hails from one of the greatest Shadowhunter dynasties in history. This girl, on the other hand, hails from New Jersey." His tone was condescending and irked Jace.

Apparently, Clary wasn't taking it well either. "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?"

Jace choked back his laughter, eyes streaming with mirth. He couldn't hold it back any longer at Alec's incredulity: "What did you call me?"

"She has a point, Alec," said Jace, still chuckling. "It's those bridge-and-tunnel demons you really have to watch out for-"

Alec rose to his feet, fists clenched. "It's not funny, Jace," he snapped. "Are you just going to let her stand there and call me names?"

He looked at Jace almost desperately, as if expecting him to scold Clary. "Yes," said Jace kindly. "It'll do you good - try to think of it as endurance training."

Alec's face changed. "We may be parabatai," he said through gritted teeth. ""But your flippancy is wearing on my patience."

"And your obstinacy is wearing on mine," Jace returned calmly. "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. Maybe it got itself in the neck with its stinger. It's happened before-"

Jace looked disdainfully at Alec. "Now you're suggesting it committed suicide?"

Alec was plainly furious, but worked to keep his voice under control. "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."

"That's not entirely true." Hodge had maintained his pleasant expression throughout the conversation, but now a hint of annoyance was showing through his wrinkles. "The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Clary's mother - she could very well have been next."

Clary flinched slightly. Hugo, as if sensing the tension in the room, cawed softly.

"Raveners are search-and-destroy machines," Alec said. His voice was monotonous, mechanical, as if he was reciting from a textbook. Knowing Alec, he probably was. "They act under orders from warlocks or powerful demon lords. Now, what interest would a warlock or demon lord have in an ordinary mundane household?" He turned his eyes accusingly to Clary. "Any thoughts?"

Jace watched as Clary looked for an answer. Drawing up nothing, she said, "It must have been a mistake."

Alec laughed. "Demons don't make those kind of mistakes." His tone was dripping condescension and superiority. Jace felt his skin prickle with sudden dislike. "If they were after your mother, there must have been a reason. If she were innocent-"

Clary's eyes flashed hatred and rage. When she spoke, her voice was deathly quiet. "What do you mean, 'innocent'?"

"I-" Alec began, startled.

Hodge cut in. "What he means," he said, "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 safely summon a demon - they lack that power - but there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a warlock to do it for them."

Clary shook her head, sending her scarlet curls bouncing around her shoulders. "My mother doesn't know any warlock. She doesn't believe in magic." Her voice was strong; she was plainly telling the truth. "Madame Dorothea - she lives downstairs - she's a witch. Maybe the demons were after her and got my mom by mistake?"

"She's like most witches - a fake," Jace said. He remember the load of rubbish he'd found about her in tiny pamphlets around the city: Prophetess for Hire, Skilled Seer for Sale. The updated books on witches had nothing on a Madame Dorothea. "I already looked into it. There's no reason for any warlock to be interested in her unless he's in the market for nonfunctional crystal balls." He directed his next words at Clary, who was watching him with a strange expression. "Warlocks are born magic users. Witches are humans who've taught themselves a little magic. But very few are the real thing."

Hodge heaved a sigh and ran a finger over Hugo's glossy feathers. "And we're back where we began. It seems time has come to notify the Clave."

Panic shot through Jace. "No! We can't-" He fumbled for a reason. The Clave, if notified, would surely find a reason to chuck Clary out, probably to her pathetic little friend, Simon. He didn't want her to leave yet, but more for selfish reasons than anything else.

"It made sense to keep Clary's presence here a secret while we were not sure she would recover," Hodge reasoned. "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 Shadowhunters, Jace. The Clave must be notified."

Something Hodge said rang a bell in Jace's head somewhere and he frantically tried to find what.

"Absolutely," Alec agreed triumphantly. "I could get a message to my father-"

Jace found what he was looking for. Sheer desperation threw the words out of his mouth. "She's not a mundane."

Alec choked on his words and stared at Jace with disbelief. Hodge's furry gray eyebrows shot up so high they disappeared into his thinning hairline. Clary was staring at Jace in confusion.

"But I am," she said.

He shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "You aren't." It was too late to go back now; he had to tell Hodge about what he'd done that night. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, and began. "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-"

Hodge's reaction was so much worse than he'd expected. "Are you out of your mind?" The tutor slammed his hand with astonishing force on the antique wooden table, sending a shudder through it. "You know what the Law says about placing Marks on mundanes! You - you of all people should have known better!"

Jace recalled the swirly gold letters. Those who use the God-given gift of rune magic on the mundane population of the world endanger those they have sworn to protect and thus violate the strongest and most primary of all laws: loyalty to duty. The punishment, no matter the circumstance, is immediate removal of all Marks and life-long banishment extending to kin and family members as well. The violator may also face an unhonorable death. He suddenly felt cold. "But it worked," he protested, stomach churning. The prospect of losing his Shadowhunter right was almost too horrible to imagine. He simply hadn't been thinking straight that night. "Clary, show them your arm."

Baffled, she held up her arm. There, barely visible on the pale skin, was the thin scar of three overlapping circles. The rune.

"See," he said triumphantly, looking at Hodge. "It didn't hurt her at all."

Hodge was still furious. "That's not the point. You could have turned her into a Forsaken."

Alec's cheeks were red. "I can't believe you, Jace. Only Mundanes can receive Marks from the Gray Book - they kill mundanes-"

"She's not a mundane." Jace's frustration was leaking into his voice, and he made no effort to stop it. "Haven't you been listening? It explains why she could see us. She must have Clave blood."

Clary looked rather wary. "But I don't," she said slowly, shaking her head. "I couldn't."

"You must," Jace said, still facing Alec and Hodge. "If you didn't, the Mark I made on your arm..."

Hodge's frown was like thunder. "That's enough, Jace," he said, clearly displeased. "There's no need to frighten her further."

"But I was right, wasn't I? 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!"

"Your father, then," Jace said, ignoring the sting of memories resurfacing. "What about him?"

Clary's face lost all expression. When she spoke, her voice was flat. "He died. Before I was born."

Ah. Jace flinched. He knew what it was like to lose his father. However, unlike Clary's father, Michael Wayland had been killed in a fire lit by traitors, backstabbers, betrayers.

"It's possible," Alec said slowly, sounding rather reluctant. "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."

"My mother would have told me," Clary said, though her voice was uncertain.

"Not necessarily," Jace said quietly. "We all have secrets."

A light came to her eyes. "Luke," she said. "Our friend. He would know." Her face changed to a look of guilty horror. "It's been three days - he must be frantic. Can I call him? Is there a phone?" She turned the full force of her innocent face to Jace, who squirmed under her pleading gaze. "Please."

He hesitating, throwing a glancing a Hodge. The old man nodded and shifted aside to let Clary pass. She ran to the antique phone behind Hodge and hastily dialed Luke's number.

Jace leaned against Alec's armchair and watched her. Her body straightened when he picked up and her voice was bursting with relief.

"Luke! It's me. It's Clary." Pause. "I'm fine. I'm sorry I didn't call you before. Luke, my mom-" Pause. "Then you haven't heard from her. What did the police say." Pause. "I'm in the city. I don't know where exactly. With some friends." Jace smiled at the light title. "My wallet's gone, though," she continued. "If you've got some cash, I could take a cab to your place-"

She stopped speaking and listening. Shock tightened her body and the phone half slipped from her hand. "What?" Her voice was breathless, confused. At Luke's answer, she said, "We could call-" Luke interrupted her again and she paused to let him speak. When she answered, it was in a desperate whine. "But I don't want to stay here. I don't know these people. You-"

Whatever Luke said next must have hurt her the most, because her shoulders began to shake, the telltale sign of tears. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "It's just-"

He hung up.

Clary turned around, her eyes red and a picture of unbelievable shock on her face. Jace studied her and felt a small twinge of sympathy. In one of the hardest times of her life, she'd just been dissed by the closest person she had to a father.

"I take it he wasn't happy to hear from you?" Jace was surprised by how light his voice was. She shuddered and remained silent.

Hodge looked at her with a fatherly expression. "I think I'd like to have a talk with Clary." Jace opened his mouth to protest, but Hodge cut him off. "Alone," he said.

Alec rose. "Fine," he said, unperturbed. "We'll leave you to it."

Jace wasn't leaving without a fight. He'd saved the girl's life, after all. The only reason she was still was breathing was because he'd put his own life on the line and rescued her. "That's hardly fair," he objected stubbornly. "I'm the one who found her. I'm the one who saved her life!" Seeing that Hodge would not budge, he turned to Clary. "You want me here, don't you?"

She turned her face away from his, hiding behind the thick curtain of her hair. Alec laughed. "Not everyone wants you around all the time, Jace," he said.

She's upset. Not thinking clearly. She's just focused on not crying. Don't take it personally. Yet somehow he still felt her. "Don't be ridiculous," he shot back at Alec, a slight hint of disappointment in his voice. "Fine, then. We'll be in the weapons room."

He left the library, Alec behind him. They made their way through the labyrinthine hallways to the weapons room, where rows and rows of swords, knives, seraph blades, and whips awaited them.

Jace relaxed as the familiar scent of metal and steel polish washed over him. He and Alec took their customary seats at the island in the center of the room. Alec grabbed a pair of seraph blades from the nearby shelf and tossed one to Jace.

"What do you think of her?" he asked Jace, rather unexpectedly.

Jace looked up at him, startled. "Who?"

"Clary. What do you think of her?"

He frowned in confusion. "I don't think I know what you mean."

"Like, who is she? Inside? What does she act like? Is she whiny? Pathetic? Shallow?"

"None of those," Jace said, picking up a brown rag from a stand in the corner of the room and sliding it across the surface of the seraph tube. "Took everything I told her pretty well. Like she wasn't too surprised. Or at least she didn't show it. And she's got guts, which I like."

"I don't trust her," said Alec darkly.

"And why is that?"

"First of all, she's a redhead." He paused and Jace raised his eyebrows. "She cries too easily. And she relies too much on us, like we owe her something."

Jace burst out laughing. "Your first opinion is just ridiculous. As an answer to your second, she has only cried once since this all started, and that's now. And we do owe her something, on behalf of her Shadowhunter blood."

"On behalf of her supposed Shadowhunter blood," corrected Alec. "We don't know for sure."

"What else could it be?"

"I don't know. Jace, don't you think you're spending too much of your time worrying about her?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"She's become an obsession for you. An unhealthy one. You almost died at her house."

"I couldn't just let her go there on her own! You know what would have happened if I did."

"You could've called me."

"You would've been too late. And besides, I handled it."

"Her mom died. You call that handling it?"

"Alec, if you don't shut up, I am going to ram this blade up your-"

Alex put his hands up in mock surrender. "All right, fine. Just remember that when she breaks your heart, I won't be able to help you."

Silence fell over them like an enormous thick blanket, almost smothering Jace. He continued scrubbing at the spotless seraph tube, painfully aware of Alec's disapproving gaze.

Hi guys! This is now officially my longest writing piece! I want to thank:

Kiera Long

RileyLovesClary

ClaryH

Tamealio

Luvmortalinstruments

flor herondale

jaronkatyaterinabishop4678

tsphonia

burntmatchrekindled

krislhans

matcheddauntless

Oregongirl1992

booksarelife13

blueglassboat

Also, I might not be able to update as often as before.

Thanks for your support!