A short-ish chapter with only one POV this time. I think I'll start writing only one POV in a chapter from now on.

Thanks for the reviews!

Chapter Three

The sunlight filtered through the curtains in Clary's bedroom. She opened her eyes and groaned, twisting around so that she didn't face the window. She covered her head with the pillow and willed herself to go back to sleep so that the pounding headache could go away. Just as Clary was on the edge of falling back into sleep, she felt a sudden weight land on her chest.

Her eyes flew open. She looked out from under her pillow. Chairman Meow had jumped onto her bed and decided to settle on her. "No."

It came out less as an order and more as a whine.

"Good morning, sunshine," came Magnus' voice from her bedroom door. So that was how Chairman had gotten in her room.

Clary sat up and yawned before fixing Magnus with a glare that she hoped was deathly. More than likely she only looked like a disgruntled cat. This time when she spoke, she was firm and short. "No."

"Come on, Clary," said Magnus. He was holding a glass of water in one hand and a couple of small pills in the other. "I brought some ibuprofen."

"'S too early to wake up," Clary said, but she mustered enough energy to drag herself from bed and over to Magnus. She took the pills without a word and downed the entire glass of water.

Magnus waved his hand and the empty glass vanished from her hand. When she was younger, this kind of thing had made her flinch back. Magnus used his magic for even small things like putting away a cup. Now she was used to it. Clary stared at her hand, still curled in a semicircle as though it was holding the glass, and frowned. She had wanted to get more water.

"It's nearly noon," Magnus told her. "Maybe if you weren't out partying until four in the morning, this wouldn't feel like such an early start for you."

Clary scrunched her nose. Part of her wanted to mention that he owned a club and had spent many late nights out, but Magnus was making an attempt at being parental. It wasn't often that he was like this. It wasn't the partying that had him upset.

"No calls. No texts," he said. "Nothing until that boy Alec brought you home."

Her head felt like it was a drum. The ibuprofen wouldn't start to take affect for a few more minutes. She was glad that he kept his voice low. "I'm sorry."

"No excuses?" Magnus asked. "No 'my phone battery died,' no 'I was too drunk,' nothing?"

She hesitated. Clary bit the inside of her cheek and brushed past Magnus, signaling him to follow her until they reached what could be called their living room. She collapsed on one of the couches and waited for Magnus to sit on the other side before she spoke. "This isn't an excuse. I don't have an excuse for not calling you. I should have called you and I didn't."

"And?" Magnus prompted. He knew her well enough to know that there was more to her story than just not calling him.

"I saw Circle members last night," Clary said. Before Magnus could scold her for that, she added, "I didn't do anything. I didn't approach them. I didn't follow them. My runes were glamoured; I looked like a normal mundane. I was with Izzy the whole time."

"What happened with her?" he asked.

"She recognized them," Clary said. "She saw the Circle runes on their necks and got all pale."

She thought back to last night. Parts of it were blurry, courtesy of the alcohol, but she remembered the more important bits. After Simon's gig at the coffee shop where they had met, she and Isabelle had gone to a club.

They flashed their fake IDs and started drinking. The drinks loosened Clary up enough that she started flirting. Isabelle smiled and took a strand of Clary's hair, twirling it around in her fingers. She said that her hair felt so soft. Clary remembered how heated her cheeks had felt and the flutter in her stomach even now. She replied with something about using some special shampoo.

Isabelle's flirtatious little smile dropped suddenly. She looked past Clary at something far behind her. Clary turned around to follow Izzy's gaze to see a man dressed all in black, wearing shades indoors. At night. Clary almost rolled her eyes before she noticed the Mark on his neck.

The Circle rune was black against his pale skin and noticeable from fifty feet away. Clary had to double-check to see if her runes were glamoured, and let out a breath when she saw they were.

Still, her fingers itched for her stele and her seraph blade. She'd hidden them in her jacket.

Isabelle however was tense. She shot a look at her shoulder; she had worn a jacket as well, covering the angelic power rune.

"We need to go," Clary said. "Now."

She paid for the drinks and tipped the bartender, grabbed Isabelle by her upper arm, and walked briskly to the exit. Izzy was lucky not to trip over herself in her heels. She giggled with her nerves. After they left the club came the questions.

"You know about Shadowhunters?" Izzy asked.

"I am a Shadowhunter."

"Me too. Kind of." Kind of. Clary made a note to ask her what she meant about that later. Hopefully she remembered to. "You're not a Circle member?"

"No."

"So then you're a member of the Clave?"

"Wrong."

Izzy furrowed her brow. "How can you be a Shadowhunter without being part of the Clave?"

Clary laughed. She laughed more than the question warranted. They stumbled into another club, blocks away from the one they were at previously. She never answered.

"What happened to the Clave?" Isabelle asked.

"I don't want to talk about the Clave," Clary said.

She ordered them drinks because they needed to take their minds off of the Circle members. And take their minds off of the Circle members they did.

Clary told all of this to Magnus. She remembered a lot of dancing, a lot of flirting after that. Songs with beats that matched the pounding of her heart. Izzy's hand brushing the hair off her shoulder.

She didn't remember when Alec had come looking for his sister. The details were blurred in her mind. But she knew that Alec had taken her home.

Magnus was quiet for a long time. He didn't look angry. Clary waited in agony for him to speak. She didn't know what she expected from him.

"You saw a Circle member," said Magnus, in a voice that withheld any emotion, "and didn't call me."

"Nothing happened," Clary tried. "I left and I took Izzy away with me."

Her mind flew through other things she could say. All she could think about were the things they could do now with this information. They couldfinally start the search for her mother. Clary had trained for years for a chance like this. She knew how to fight. She was as good a Shadowhunter as any trained by the Clave. All she needed to do was track them down.

Unfortunately, Magnus wasn't feeling sympathetic today. She knew he would have forgiven her partying all night without a phone call. He couldn't let something like this go quite as easily.

"Clary Fray, you're grounded."

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