Short author's note. I don't usually write these, but I felt the need to apologize for taking so long to upload, but I was away on holidays. I'm lately having writer's block, so it took me a while to actually come up with this chapter. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, and I'll try to post a new chapter soon.

Thank you for taking the time to read, review and add the story to your favorites and alerts. Your support is really encouraging. Any suggestions or questions will be welcome. Again, thank you and I hope you like this.

xoxo MissChemicalReaction


Sunday, September 3rd

"What do we do now?" Jia ran her hands through her hair for the hundredth time.

"We should tell the Silent Brothers, they'll take care of him. After all, he didn't have any family" told her Luke. Charlotte shook her head.

"No way we're letting anyone else know about what has happened. These kids' parents would be furious if they found out!" she exclaimed.

Jia sighed. Why was everything so difficult lately? "Lottie is right. If they knew, the Institute would lose most of the students."

"Am I the only one that noticed that we have a bigger problem in hands? Hodge is dead, and he was poisoned. Someone murdered him!" said Luke.

"Keep your voice down! Someone could hear you!" Jia shushed him "Besides, we don't know it for sure"

"Like hell we don't" replied Magnus. He'd been quiet during the conversation, but Jia's statement made him angry "I checked myself! I might be a Rookie here, but I can tell when someone's been poisoned. And, I know Hodge was kind of crazy, but not enough to poison himself"

"Which leads us back to the main question: what do we do now?" asked the headmistress.

"I have a suggestion" answered Magnus.


The teachers had discovered the body that morning. They'd been surprised when they didn't see him at breakfast, since he was always the first one to wake up. Raphael, one of the school's trainers, went to check if he was okay, and it was him who found Hodge dead.

His eyes were opened, bloodshot, and his lips were blue. His skin was icy and rigid against the touch, which meant that he'd been dead for at least 6 hours. Raphael quickly called the headmistress and the school's doctors. Since Hodge wasn't really young they thought he had died naturally, but Magnus wanted to be concise and to check just in case. The results of his analysis were surprising.

He'd been poisoned. Magnus checked the whole room, and concluded that whatever had been given to him, he'd drunk it with his tea before going to bed. Hodge was a routine man, so whoever had killed him had known him and his usual schedule.

It must have been someone from the school thought Magnus.


4 a.m, that same day.…

The gang and Clary finally were on the girls' dorm. It had taken them a little while to leave the teacher's room after seeing him laying there, cold and still. The events of that night had shaken them a lot, especially Jace, who had been close to him since arriving at the Institute. Jace also knew that what they had witnessed had immediately put them in a position he didn't want to be in. They were involved in something that they couldn't control, something dark and dangerous. By the looks on his schoolmates' faces, they knew it as well.

"So…" Simon was trying to break the uncomfortable silence that had settled upon them. All of them were thinking about Hodge and the other weird events that had happened in the past two days.

"Guys, shouldn't we tell someone?" asked Aline "This shit is starting to scare me"

Jace scoffed "Great idea! We go to Jia and tell her 'Hey, Hodge's dead. We know because we spent all night inside his cupboard'. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that she wouldn't approve of our late night hobbies"

"So what? We keep quiet? He's-" she lowered her voice, realizing that she had started to yell at him "He's dead!"

Jace's face morphed into a surprise look "What? He's dead? I thought it was normal for him to lay that still and pale with his eyes open!"

"Cut the crap, blondie" Clary warned "We appreciate your sarcasm, but this is serious."

Now his shocked face wasn't fake anymore. His blonde eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "You agree with her?"

She shook her head "Even if it hurts my pride, I agree with you. No one can know we were there. For all we know he could've been murdered" she had said it. She had voiced everyone's thoughts. They wanted to deny it, to believe that it was unthinkable that someone had been killed on the Institute. However, it was also unthinkable that there were hidden rooms inside cupboards and that a shadow monster roamed on the school's grounds. It was a very real possibility.

"Am I the only one that sees that it can't be a coincidence?" everyone turned their heads towards Alec. "Come on! Clary arrives in here and all hell breaks loose: a screaming creature on the woods, a dead horse, a dead teacher, the librarian talking about her missing mother…"

"Is there something you want to tell me, Alec?" the redhead's voice was calm and cold as ice. It's almost scary thought Jace.

"No, no, no" he said it while shaking his head, to emphasize it. Jace thought he feared the fire on her eyes "What I'm saying is that it can't be a coincidence, nothing else implied"

She nodded, still glaring at him.

Aline wasn't really into keeping it secret, but agreed nonetheless after all her friends agreed to it. None of them wanted to be on detention, or worse, expelled. After chatting up some more, all about what was taking place on the school, they went to bed.

No one had a good night sleep.


Monday morning, September 4th

Clary was woken up by loud knocks on the door. She stood up, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. She opened the door and found a woman standing outside. She was really beautiful, even if she had a huge scar that went all across one side of her face. The stranger was smiling warmly, which helped her relax, and introduced herself.

"I'm Sophie, the maid. You are Clarissa, aren't you?" The maid? She doesn't look much older than Isabelle or Aline! she thought.

"I go by Clary, but yes, that's me."

"Then this is for you" the woman handed her a big rectangular box "Have a nice day" and with that, she turned around and left.

Clary was still by the door, holding whatever Sophie had given her. "Do you plan on standing there all day and skipping the first day of class?" Izzy was awake and had started to dress up. She took a look at the clock, which said it was six thirty. She had had two hours of bad sleep, perfect to start the new school year.

"No" she murmured. She sat on her bed and opened the box. There were three white shirts, two grey plaid skirts, three black jumpers and a pair of shoes. "Do we have to wear uniform?"

"Unfortunately for fashionistas like me" told her Isabelle "Those are the class clothes. We have our own training gear as well. At least they approve of makeup!"

Clary sighed. Welcome to the Institute she thought I wonder what they like about this prison-like place.


"Who's M. Bane?" Clary asked Sebastian.

He furrowed his brows "Why?"

She shrugged and handed him a sheet of paper, one among the ones that had been hung on the walls or been left at the students' desks. He read it and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"What?" urged Clary.

"Wow" he sighed "It's hard to believe. Magnus Bane a teacher? Never would have guessed "

"Who's him?"

It was Seb's time to shrug "He's a wizard, but he's fairly new here. He came here all the way from England last year. He's quite… extravagant"

"What's he gonna teach?"

He read the paper again "It doesn't say"


"Yes! That's one of my favorite movies as well!" said Clary excitedly.

After getting dressed and having breakfast with the rest of the group (to Clary's surprise, it was Isabelle who asked her to sit with them), Simon and the redhead had spent probably more than half an hour talking about mundane things. Both of them were slightly nerdy and found out that they had a lot of things in common.

"Aren't you jealous?" Seb asked Izzy, their argument long forgotten. Both of them were looking at Simon and the redhead, who were walking quite ahead of them to their first class, which remained to be unknown since they hadn't been given their schedules.

She shrugged "He loves me, and I love him. We've been together for two years now. He's never been jealous of other guys, so why should I?"

"Besides" added Jace, who was also looking at them "it's great that they hit it off. That way he'll have someone to talk about nerd things and, therefore, won't give us a headache"

"Yeah, that too" nodded Izzy. Simon could be really tiresome when he got too excited about comics, or something called Dungeons and Dragons. She loved the way his eyes shone when he talked about anything mundane, but sometimes he got too carried away. She always compared him to Arthur Weasley, who had developed an unhealthy obsession for muggle things (yes, Simon had made her read Harry Potter, and even if she would have never admitted it, she had really enjoyed it).

The group arrived at the classroom and sat on their usual spots, leaving Clary to sit with Sebastian. Since they were an odd number, Aline sat down with "one of the new hotties" as she had put it. Simon and Izzy were sitting in front of them, while Jace and Alec sat behind.

"So, Clary, how are you liking this so far?" asked Seb.

"Well, given the fact that I've been here four days and something weird has happened on each of them, I can say that one won't get bored in here" she chuckled.

"Has any boy caught your attention?"

She laughed "Like I've had time to notice anyone" he chuckled at this. The past couple of days had been…interesting enough to keep them from actually acting like students and teenagers. "Not that I'm interested in boys right now"

He raised one eyebrow "Does that mean you are into girls?" he joked. She just stared at him, frowning. Oh. "Well, it's not a problem, I'm fine with it, really. Long live the rainbow flag! It's fine-" he was stuttering, he knew, but he only stopped when he saw her clutching her sides, laughing silently, as if she was short for air.

"You-" she laughed again. "You should have seen your face" tears were rolling down her cheeks. "I'm into boys, just not looking for one"

"Loverboy" called Jace from behind. "once you stop flirting with Freckles over there you should pay attention to class. It's about to start"

The other blond turned around, anger showing in his eyes. "I wasn't flirting with her" I really like her, don't screw this up! his eyes were trying to say.

She put a hand on his shoulder "Don't bother, he's not worth it." Clary had been on the Institute for four days, yet she had already become Jace's favorite target for his sarcasm and rude jokes. He had come up with several nicknames and was constantly reminding her, among other things, of her height. She would always come up with really witty comebacks, which was probably why he was always picking on her: he wanted to win. Clary knew his kind: cocky, arrogant and competitive. What he didn't know was that she was really competitive as well.

He wanted to say something about what he was worth, but when the door opened, he knew it was time to shut up. He didn't want to start the year getting a teacher angry and risking getting kicked out of the school. Jace didn't want to be kicked out of school, and his father wouldn't want that either.

However, when the teacher got inside he couldn't help but snort "Magnus? Are you teaching now?" he couldn't see how the glitter boy would be able to teach them anything.

"Yes, and for the time being I'd appreciate if you called me Mr. Bane or Professor Bane" his voice was serious, stern. It reminded him of his father's. His smiled slid off his face.

"So, Mr Bane, what are you teaching us?"

"Latin, Greek… Everything Hodge used to teach"

The gang looked at each other, knowing that they'd finally found out the old man's body.

"Where's Hodge?" asked Isabelle innocently.

"Oh, Hodge has retired. He said he wanted to spend some time with his family. He asked us to tell you that he'll really miss seeing your faces every day, guys"

Jace leaned towards Alec "Of course he will" he whispered "It's not like he'll ever be able to see anything anymore"


The redhead woke up. Her head was pounding and her body was sore from fighting. She saw a couple of new bruises around her wrists and legs, and noticed that others were yellowing, starting to fade. She stood up.

She walked towards a big mirror that was hanging on the opposite wall. She was wearing a white, long, silky dress. Somehow, someone had changed her bloody and torn clothes without her noticing. Runes.

She did her daily check up, trying to look for something that she hadn't seen on the previous day. A door, a window, a secret passageway, anything. Something that could lead her out of her prison.

"Good morning, sleepy head. You were asleep for a whole day, you must have been really tired" the man said. He was smiling, looking at her almost lovingly.

"Yes, fighting your minions is kind of a tiring activity." She answered dryly.

His smile disappeared. "You shouldn't have done that. It was totally unnecessary"

She scoffed "Would you have let me out willingly?"

The man sighed. They'd had this conversation for a long time. "You know I can't. It's for the greater good"

"To hell with you and your greater good! I want to be with my daughter!"

"Well, that won't be a problem soon"

She gave him a look, raising a brow "Are you letting me out?"

The man laughed "No, darling. She's on the Institute, and she'll be with you soon"

Her face changed quickly, adopting one of pure horror. If there was something that she wanted more than escaping from wherever she was, was her daughter's safety. "Leave her alone, don't dare to even touch her!" she screamed "Let her go!"

The man laughed again, piercing her ears with his cold and cruel laugh. "You don't understand Jocelyn" he whispered by her ear while playing with her hair. It repulsed her. "Clary was our goal from the beginning"