You know, I love anonymous reviews. I mean, it just means that there are certain people who are unsure of how I'll take their comments. I assure you, I am one of the most open minded authors when it comes to receiving reviews. I love reviews, in all shapes and sizes, though the bigger ones generally take the cake.

Err, I to clarify, this happens at the end of CoLS. Sorry, one bad thing about unsigned reviews is the fact that I can't PM them back. This is a response to someone's question. Dunno who you are, but if you're a guest, please input a name other than guest...really.

Read on.

There was some sort of a hushed and heated argument that was immediately quelled when James strode back in. He carried a cardboard box with him and it was evidently heavy by the way the cords in his hands bulged out. Tessa distantly heard the whispered conversation between Alec, Isabelle and Clary but was unable to process the entire thing. She was busy staring at the things that were inside the box.

Beside her, Magnus squeezed her hand. "Deep breath, you are starting to get pale."

Tessa absently complied, still watching James intently as he settled himself on the sofa again, the box by his feet.

"Sorry I kept you waiting. It took me some time to find this, the attic is packed with boxes." James said. He drew out a family album and there was the picture there of Jem and Will.

Magnus' grip tightened and Tessa breathed again, just to reassure him that she wasn't fainting.

"To those of you who don't know, this here is my great-uncle James," he showed to the group. "And beside him is William Herondale, his parabatai. This was taken before the Clockwork Conspiracy."

"Must be a relative of yours, Jace," someone commented. Tessa didn't know who; she was busy watching the picture, noting how serene Jem's smile was and how complicated Will's expression was. No one else would have understood what that expression meant except Tessa and Magnus. No one else knew his mind so well. He was thinking, this picture shall last a long time and Jem and I will be but shadows and dust.

"My great-uncle was tortured as a child," James continued. "A demon made him addicted to a toxin that was slowly killing him yet withdrawing from the drug would kill him instantly. There was no cure. This was the reason why one of our more inspired cousins, a Cassandra Carstairs, tried to experiment with angel's blood to prevent cases like his. Initially, Cassandra tried to make a cure, but he died before she could finalize it.

"The Enclave and the Silent Brothers made her continue her experiments to prevent cases like my great-uncle from ever repeating."

Tessa shuddered and closed her eyes. No. No one should ever experience what Jem experienced. If it weren't for Magnus' hand squeezing her to death, she would have run away already. Hearing it being talked about so…casually made her want to cry.

Another squeeze.

Breathe.

"There was an accident several years before the cure could be finished," James was saying. "The angel's blood exploded and, technically, it isn't the type of material to explode. It covered Cassandra in a cloud. When she was found, she was raving and delirious. She recovered eventually but she locked up her laboratory and never entered it again."

He removed another picture from an album and showed them Cassandra Carstairs. She was a pretty thing, with smiling eyes and clever face. Tessa saw some semblance to Jem. She had his nose and the shape of his cheekbones.

"Cassie vanished several years later and she turned up half-asleep. No one knew what to do with her. The Silent Brothers would only say that she was exhausted, but no one knew why. No symptoms of vampiric venom, nor of faerie toxins. She even had a healthy amount of the angel's blood in her."

He showed them the duplicate of the report. Jace handled it expertly, so that no one aside from himself would see. Magnus had to give a very deliberate cough before Jace, sheepishly handed it to Simon and Isabelle.

James gave them a look of amusement and then returned to his story. "Her brother, also named James – " he broke off here and made a face. "It gets passed around, I said. Anyway, he got worried and read her journal. He found out that the angel's blood had reacted with her and gave her memories that she ought not to have."

He rummaged in the box for a while before extracting a leather volume. He thumbed through it expertly. "Aha! Here, it says: "Cassie is remembering things she ought not to know. Her journal is covered in the silent language yet I cannot read it. Is it of the Angel's runes or of another being which I dare not speak?" Which, you probably all know is a demon, since this family seems to be cursed by way of demons. Then it got worse. She wrote on another journal, and all in a language no one knows. Its still in our family, undeciphered."

He handed Magnus a white book. Slashed across the leather cover by a knife were the words Inmortalium.

"Why do you give it to me?" Magnus asked.

"I know who you are, sir." James said respectfully. "I hoped, perhaps you knew the language?"

Magnus stared at him for a while before a slow, cat-like smile spread across his face. Then he flipped through the pages. Tessa knew something was wrong before Magnus covered his face. She could feel something hot creeping out of the book. It felt like something was caressing her face.

Then the book was dropped on the floor with a thud! and a summoning circle appeared out of nowhere. Tessa leaped at it, instinctively knowing that if the runes on that circle activated, the book would vanish. She had been around enough warlocks to recognize the spell.

With a wrench, she tore through the summoning circle and grabbed the glowing book. She felt incredible pain searing her but she didn't react to it, adrenaline making her, for the moment, invincible.

The summoning circle vanished and the book stopped glowing. She dropped it on her lap where she hoped it would stay there.

Tessa rounded on Magnus with a glare. "Someone tagged you!" She almost yelled it, she was that upset.

Magnus looked shocked and his cats eyes were dilated. "I – "

"What? What is it?" Alec asked. He caressed his boyfriends arm.

"Don't lie to me Magnus." Tessa warned. "I may not be able to know a spell, but I've not been around for a couple of decades to not recognize a summoning spell. It was stuck to you, and if you ever got close enough to this book, it would activate."

"Tessa," Simon said softly. "Tessa."

"What?" she said loudly.

"Please tie up your hands. It's bleeding and the smell is…" Simon didn't continue the sentence but they all heard it anyway. Appetizing.

Jace removed a roll of bandages from somewhere in his person and handed it to Isabelle. Izzy made a face but did the bandaging at a look from Jace. Tessa forgot about the book as the pain in her hands made itself known to her. It felt like she had held her hands in a fire for a good hour.

Then Clary got up. The dreamy look in her eyes was gone and replaced with a certain sharpness. She looked to James, who still seemed frozen by how fast things were happening. "May I try something? I'm somewhat of an experiment myself, so I think I could try something."

James grinned suddenly. "You don't say?"

The smile was so sudden and good-natured that the tension in the warlocks dissipated by several degrees.

"Yep. My father fancied himself a scientist too. Clary Fairchild," she said and extended her hand.

"Oh. Oh. Pleased to meet you," James said with some dryness. Everybody knew who Clary Fairchild was and by knowing Clary, you knew her father was an evil murderer who was probably insane and certainly delusional. Calling him a scientist was a passably polite term for crazy man with a mission to torture things just to know their secrets.

Then James glanced at the others. "I suppose all of you were the children who were involved rather deeply in the disappearance of the Mortal Instruments?"

"Disappearance and recovery," Isabelle added.

Clary had paid them no mind. She had removed her stele from her belt and was closing her eyes. Then she traced a rune on the cover and the book shone. It wasn't the angry red glow from earlier but a soft, white glow. Jace stood up hurriedly and checked to see if her hands were burning her.

"Clary?" Simon asked. "Are you alright?"

"Hmm?" was the only response they got.

"Clary!"

She finally looked up, her eyes dazed. Unthinkingly, Tessa lurched to her feet, bringing Isabelle with her. Magnus followed, eyes on the book.

"It's a spell!" Clary said in a hushed voice. "The entire book is a spell! It's supposed to make you immortal. And it also holds the secrets of the angels. Like, what can kill them, how to bind them and all that. It's a book all about angels."

Jace turned to a stone-still James. "Was there ever another copy of this book?"

"Not that I know of," he answered. "I suppose we sent a copy to the Silent Brothers in case they ever could decipher it, but, aside from that…what?"

The rest looked like they had swallowed prune juice. Tessa was vaguely confused until someone felt the need to say their dawning horror and comprehension.

"There's a branch of the Silent Brothers in Vienna, isn't there?"

James nodded. "There was. It was abandoned with the rising water levels. Perhaps…" the he seemed to realize what they were getting at. His dark eyes went wide. "Blimey."

When nobody said anything, he continued. "I heard about the massacre just yesterday. Is this what this is all about?"

The silence spoke volumes as they all stared at the book with horror.

It was broken by Simon.

"I don't think you guys have thought of this yet," he started. "But there is only one person I know who can do what Clary does to runes and there seem to be two books."

Jace seemed to wake up. Tessa always thought he seemed to be half-awake ever since he heard about the massacre in Vienna, but the transition seemed to be so smooth, and so quick that it was just startling. It was not that he wasn't paying attention, it was just that his natural state was to give most, if not all, his attention to his girlfriend. Tessa did not see this until it occurred, and she appreciated how it happened. You did not see such concern everyday.

"Clary, you are not leaving my sight until this problem is solved," Jace declared.

Tessa knew trouble brewing when he saw it. Clary raised her chin petulantly and glared.

"Make me," she snapped.

Hmm.

You know, there is really a reason why authors say read and review. I'm one of those types of readers who wonder why, and lo and behold! When I publish my own story, I understand them completely. I want feedback people! Jesus, I'm even trying to make this funny, and I am really not getting the love.

Sorry, just ranting. Probably, when I hit chapter 31, you guys will smell the cafe au lait and start to get guilty, and then leave me something to contemplate when I'm plotting my next chapter..Kidding!

Yours,

Lady Hallen