A/N I hope you guys like this chapter. Please review as always.


The kitchen was warm and the salt-sweet smell of takeout filled the room. Hodge and Jace had explained everything and now we were letting it sink in.

"Well, I think it's kind of romantic." Isabelle said.

"What is?" Simon asked, instantly alert.

"The whole business about Clary's mother being married to Valentine. So now's he back from the dead and he's come looking for her. Maybe he wants to get back together." Isabelle suggested.

"I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house because he wants to 'get back together'." Alec said.

"It wouldn't be my move. First the candy and the flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order." Jace said. I kicked him under the table.

"He might have sent her candy and flowers. We don't know." Isabelle protested.

"Isabelle, this is the man who rained down destruction on Idris the like of which had never see, who set Shadowhunter against Downworlder and made the streets of the GlassCity run with blood." Hodge said.

"That's sort of hot that evil thing." Isabelle argued. Simon tried to looking menacing.

"Don't. Just don't." I told him. He stopped, hanging his head.

"So why does Valentine want this cup so badly and why does he think Clary's mom has it?" Simon asked after a minute.

"You said it was so he could make an army. You mean because you can use the Cup to make Shadowhunters." Clary said to Hodge.

"Yes."

"So Valentine could just walk up to any guy on the street and make a Shadowhunter out of him? Just with the Cup? Would it work on me?" Simon asked eagerly. Hodge looked at him for a minute before answering.

"Possibly… But the reason only a few mundanes are ever chosen to Ascend and become Nephilium is that most would never survive the transition. It takes special strength and resilience. Before they can be turned, they must be extensively trained and tested… But Valentine would never bother with that. He would use the Cup on any human he could capture and cull out the twenty percent who survived to be his army. An army he could use to attack the Clave."

"How do you know he'd do that?" Alec asked, looking horrified.

"Because when he was in the Circle, that was his plan. He said it was the only way to build the kind of force that was needed to defend our world."

"But that's murder!" Isabelle said, looking a little green.

"He said that we had made the world safe for humans for a thousand years and now was their time to repay us with their own sacrifice."

"Their lives?" I asked, loosing my appetite.

"That goes against everything we're supposed to be about! Protecting the helpless, safeguarding humanity-." Jace started, cheeks flushed with anger.

"Valentine was insane. Brilliant, but insane. He cared about nothing but killing demons and Downworlders. Nothing but making the world pure. He would have scarified his on son for the cause and could not understand how anyone else would not."

"He had a son?" I asked.

"I was speaking figuratively." Hodge said, reaching for his handkerchief. He used it to mop his forehead before returning it to his pocket.

"When his land burned, when his home was destroyed, it was assumed he had burned himself and the Cup to ashes rather than relinquish either to the Clave. His bones were found in the ashes, along with the bones of his wife." He explained.

"But my mother lived. She didn't die in that fire." Clary protested.

"And neither, it seems now, did Valentine. The Clave will not be pleased to have been fooled. But more importantly, they will want to secure the cup. And more importantly that that, they will want to make sure Valentine does now."

"It seems to me that the first thing we'd better do is find Clary's mother. Find her, find the Cup, get it before Valentine does." Jace said.

"Absolutely not!"

"Then what do we do?"

"Nothing. All this is best left to the skilled, experienced Shadowhunters."

"I am skilled! I am experienced!" Jace protested, waving his hand.

"I know that you are, but you're still a child, or nearly one." Hodge's tone was firm and final.

"I am not a child." Jace looked at Hodge through narrowed eyes.

"Hodge is right. Valentine is dangerous. I know you're a good Shadowhunter. You're probably the best our age. But Valentine's one of the best there ever was. It took a huge battle to bring him down." Alec said.

"And he didn't exactly stay down. Apparently…" I reminded him.

"But we're here. We're here and because of the Accords, nobody else is. If we don't so something-." Jace started.

"We are going to do something. I'll send the Clave a message tonight. They could have a force of Nephilim here by tomorrow if they wanted. They'll take care of this. You have done more than enough." Hodge said.

"I don't like it."

"You don't have to like it. You just have to shut up and not do anything stupid." Isabelle told him.

"But what about my mother? She can't wait for some representative from the Clave to show up. Valentine has her right now! Pangborn and Blackwell said so! And he could be…" Clary trailed off.

"Hurting her." Simon finished for her.

"I thought the Clave was pledged to protect people. Shouldn't there be Shadowhunters here right now? Shouldn't they already be searching for her?" Clary asked.

"That would be easier if we had the slightest idea where to look." Alec snapped.

"But we do." Jace said.

"You do? Where?" Clary looked at him eagerly.

"Here." Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to the side of her temple.

"Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty red curls." Clary reached up to touch her hair protectively.

"I don't think so."

"So what are you doing to do? Cut her head open to get at it?" Simon asked sharply. Jace's eyes sparked at the suggestion but he said calmly:

"Not at all. The Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories."

"You hate the Silent Brothers." Isabelle reminded him.

"I don't hate them. I'm afraid of them. It's not the same thing."

"I thought you said they were librarians." Clary said.

"They are librarians." Simon whistled.

"Those must be some killer late fees."

"The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all they are. In order to strengthen their minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of these runes is so great that the use of them… Well, it warps and twists their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers are of the mind, not the body."

"They can read minds?" Clary asked in a small voice.

"Among other things. They are among the most feared of all demon hunters."

"I don't know. It doesn't sound so bad to me. I'd rather have someone mess around inside my head that chop it off." Simon said.

"Then you're a bigger idiot than you look." Jace snapped.

"Jace is right. The Silent Brothers are really creepy." I interrupted them as they stared each other down.

"They are very powerful. They walk in darkness and do not speak, but they can crack open a man's mind the way you might crack open a walnut and leave him screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire." Hodge told us.

"You want to give me to them?" Clary looked at Jace, looking appalled.

"I want them to help you. Maybe we don't get to look at the Cup. Maybe the Clave will do that. But what's in your mind belongs to you. Someone's hidden secrets in there, secrets you can't see. Don't you want to know the truth about your own life?"

"I don't want someone else inside my head."

"I'll go with you. I'll stay with you while they do it."

"That's enough! Leave her alone!" Simon jumped up from the table. Alec looked over at him.

"What are you still doing here, mundane?" Simon ignored him.

"I said, leave her alone."

"Alec is right. The Institute is sworn to shelter Shadowhunters, not their mundane friends. You have a nice day." I told him. Isabelle got up.

"I'll show him out." Isabelle led him from the room.

"I'm tired. I want to sleep." Clary muttered, standing up.

"You've hardly eaten anything." Jace protested.

"I'm not hungry." She left the kitchen. I got up and left too. She was sitting with her head in her hands against the wall. I walked past her up the stairs to the next floor. I heard Jace coming after me. I turned as he hurried over to me.

"What?" I asked tiredly.

"We need to talk about what happened."

"When?"

"How about when you went crazy on Blackwell?" He suggested, folding his arms across his chest.

"There's nothing to talk about." I started to walk away, but he caught my arm and spun me around to face him again. I yanked my arm back.

"I tried to get revenge on the man that killed our father, Jace! What I don't understand is why you weren't thinking the same thing?"

"Because I was thinking like a warrior. I was weighing our options with an untrained Shadowhunter and a mundane there. You were thinking like a-." He stopped abruptly.

"Like a what?" I pressed through clenched teeth.

"Like a child! This is why I don't like taking you on hunts and missions because you act like a child!" I didn't say anything for a moment. He closed his eyes for a second and then reached for my arm.

"Rissa, you know-."

"I know that? That you didn't mean that? Because we both know you did. And if I'm thinking like a child, you're thinking like a lover!"

"What?" It was his turn to be taken back.

"Let's not pretend you don't have feelings for that Clary girl, Jace! You like her. You didn't want to fight because you were worried about her! So save me the lecture on how I keep messing up because as long as she's here, you're going to be the one screwing up but you don't even care!" I turned and hurried into my bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I slid down the door onto the floor. Hatred for Clary bubbled up inside me. I couldn't wait until she left…