*Hey, guys(: sry for the year-long wait, but I've been working on my novel, and I'm so excited for it! I hope new fans find this chapter enticing just as much as I hope my older fans still do.
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Thanks for the votes(: Anyway, without further ADO, my chapter starts off with:
"Why does this place have so many bedrooms?"
After a long silence from the music room to the grand hallway, this came as a surprise to Jace that Clary and not he would be the one to speak up first. In the beginning, he was a little relieved for the silence between them. He should've been polite and gave her a tour of the Institute, but was still exhausted from the night before and a little over-dazed to act as a tour guide.
Now, he looked around at the aging, ancient-looking hallway, designed carelessly; stone arches supported by wooden beams stretched out high above them and etchings of angels and swords marked the walls. There were no pictures or portraits on the walls or rugs on the floor; everything was bare. Every few yards is a door leading to a half-empty bedroom with only a stripped bed and wooden bedside table with the occasional wardrobe.
"I thought it was a research institute," she spoke up again.
Not being able to help himself, he answered, "This is the residential wing. We're pledged to offer safety and lodging to any Shadowhunter who requests it. We can house up to two hundred people here."
"But most of these rooms are empty," Clary pointed out.
Jace shrugged. "People come and go. Nobody stays for long. Usually it's just us-.-Alec, Isabelle, Max, their parents-.-and me and Hodge."
"Max?"
"You met the beauteous Isabelle? Alec is her elder brother. Max is the youngest, but he's overseas with his parents."
"On vacation?" Clary asked, prying a conversation out of him.
"Not exactly," he said slowly, rummaging for the appropriate words that would make sense to her. "You can think of them as-.-as foreign diplomats, and of this as an embassy, of sorts. Right now they're in the Shadowhunter home country, working out some very delicate peace negotiations. They brought Max with them because he's so young."
Clary nodded, or so it seemed. "Shadowhunter home country? What's it called?" she asked.
He hesitated for half a split second. "Idris."
"I've never heard of it."
Jace smirked. "You wouldn't have. Mundanes don't know about it. There are wardings," -he paused, then added- "protective spells, up all over the borders. If you tried to cross into Idris, you'd simply find yourself transported instantly from one border to the next. You'd never know what happened."
"So it's not on any maps?" she asked.
"Not mundie ones. For our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France."
"But there isn't anything between Germany and France," Clary said exasperatedly. "Except Switzerland."
"Precisely." Jace took the moment in their conversation to check where they were. A rise in the stone bore the familiar engraving Jace saw daily. The runes like bleeding ink against the angel's white dress and pale arms. The angel also had a blindfold, as a symbol of blindness and isolation, and the runes of Grace and Purity mark where the eyes should be. They were almost to the library.
"I take it you've been there," Clary interrupted his thoughts. "To Idris, I mean."
A great sense of dread washed over Jace as his thoughts drew back to the memory of Idris. Not only the home country of Shadowhunters all over the world, but also the birthplace, a place of precious memories and genuine history. A safe haven. He did his best to avoid the reminiscence of his father, and growing up there. But there are often times he is unwillingly alluded . . .
"I grew up there," Jace said. "Most of us do. There are, of course, Shadowhunters all over the world. We have to be everywhere. But to a Shadowhunter, Idris is always 'home.'"
Clary nodded slowly. "Like Mecca or Jerusalem." They turned the corner onto a short hallway, where a large doorway towered a few yards away. "So most of you are brought up there, and then when you grow up-"
"We're sent where we're needed," Jace finished. "And there are a few, like Isabelle and Alec, who grow up away from the home country because that's where their parents are. With all the resources of the Institute here, with Hodge's training-" They approached the set of doors, and Jace's words trailed off. "This is the library."
Jace was watching Clary when he heard a yowl and felt something brush up against his ankle. He looked down at a pair of slitted yellow eyes.
"Hey, Church," he murmured, stroking the Persian cat's blue fur with his foot.
"Wait-" said Clary. "Alec and Isabelle and Max-they're the only Shadowhunters your age that you know, that you spend time with?"
Jace paused. "Yes."
"That must get kind of lonely."
He half-shrugged, positioning his hands on the door's delicate paneling, said, "I have everything I need," and gave the doors a shove.
"I'm serious, Hodge, I don't trust her. It's safer if we send her on her way."
Hodge, chuckling, stroked his bird, Hugo. "Alec, don't get your own personal grudge in the way of true judgment. Besides, I have my suspicions. There is use for me of her."
"What suspicion is that?"
The double-doors swung open abruptly and in strolled Jace like he owned the place and behind him, a pretty, fragile girl with fiery red hair and small features. By looking at her, Hodge knew right away that she was a curious, adventurous girl with her own strengths. She looked at the myriad of ancient-looking books in wonder.
"A book-lover I see," Hodge smiled in a welcoming way. "You didn't tell me that Jace," he said as he noticed Jace walk up behind her in a possessive way. Even with Jace's well-guarded expression, Hodge saw the reluctance behind it and had the idea that Jace wanted Clary all for his own-to answer all his questions first.
Jace laughed. "We haven't done much talking during our short acquaintance. I'm afraid our reading habits didn't come up."
Clary turned around and did something that only made Jace grin wider. "How can you tell?" she asked, turning to face Hodge again. "That I like books, I mean."
Hodge shrugged and walked out from behind his desk. "The look on your face when you walked in," he said, studying the look on her face right then. From what expression she had when she walked in, it was now gone. She watched Hodge in horror as he stepped out of the shadows. Immediately, he felt exposed. Like retreating back behind his desk. Then he realized she had been looking at his shoulder-which, when he thought about it, might have looked misshapen to her-and took a step closer, watching her face soften with relief.
"This is Hugo," he gestured toward his shoulder where his faithful raven sat, silent. "Hugo is a raven, and, as such, he knows many things. I, meanwhile, am Hodge Starkweather, a professor of history an, as such, I do not know nearly," he attempted a joke, winning a small laugh from the mundane.
Clary held out her hand and Hodge, regardless, shook it. "Clary Fray."
Hodge nodded. "Honored to make your acquaintance. I would be honored to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with her bare hands," he said, bringing up the conversation he couldn't wait to discuss.
"It wasn't my bare hands," she said meekly. "It was Jace's-.-well, I don't remember what it was called, but-.-"
"She means my Sensor," Jace assisted. Clary looked at him-.-due to familiarity, instinct, Hodge didn't know. "She shoved it down the thing's throat. The runes must have choked it. I guess I'll need another one . . . . I should have mentioned that."
"There are several extra in the weapons room," said Hodge absentmindedly, mostly trying to get rid of Jace for a few minutes. But he didn't wait for him to leave. Hodge gave Clary a warm smile. "That was quick thinking. What gave you the idea of using the Sensor as a weapon?"
Clary opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted. Again, Hodge might add with bitterness.
"I can't believe you buy that story, Hodge," Alec cackled, turning the attention of the room. Clary studied him with deep interest, Jace with brotherly disdain, and Hodge edgy patience. Alec met all of their expressions evenly with one of his own.
Hodge raised an eyebrow and said, "I'm not quite sure what you mean, Alec," hoping to get back on subject. It worked. Everyone turned all their attention back on Hodge. Even Clary, who looked over him curiously. "Are you suggesting she didn't kill that demon after all?"
Alec shot him a look of amusement. "Of course she didn't. Look at her-she's a mundie, Hodge, and a little kid, at that," he said as if that explained everything. "There's no way she took on a Ravener."
Jace looked as if he had something to say to that, but was interrupted.
"I'm not a little kid," Clary said as if she's rehearsed it several times. "I'm sixteen years old-.-well, I will be on Sunday."
"The same age as Isabelle," said Hodge as if he just made the biggest point. "Would you call her a child?"
Alec scowled. "Isabelle hails from one of the greatest Shadowhunter dynasties in history. This girl, on the other hand, hails from New Jersey."
Clary's jaw dropped. "I'm from Brooklyn!" she yelled as if this was the greatest offense anyone could give her. "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?"
"What did you call me?"
Hodge had to look away from Alec's face to keep from laughing. Even before he turned away, he caught a glimpse of Jace's amused countenance and look of admiration, what he wished to tell Alec washed away from his mind.
"She has a point, Alec," Jace laughed. "It's those bridge-and-tunnel demons you really have to watch out for-.-"
"It's not funny, Jace," Alec said, his face red and bloated. "Are you just going to let her stand there and call me names?"
"Yes," Jace said, restraining another laugh. "It'll do you good-.-think of it as endurance training."
Alec growled. "We may be parabatai," he said acidly, "but your flippancy is wearing on my patience." Clary looked at Jace as if waiting for an answer.
"And your obstinacy is wearing on mine," he said, irritated. "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," Alec replied quickly. "Maybe it got itself in the neck with its stinger. It's happened before-.-"
"Now you're suggesting it committed suicide?" Jace persisted.
Alec shot him a look that said that yes, he actually believed it did. "It isn't right for her to be here. Mundies aren't allowed in the Institute, and there are good reasons for that," he said. Then, as if realizing something, "If anyone new about this, we could be reported to the Clave."
"That's not entirely true," Hodge said, shooting Alec daggers, reminding him not to get personal grudges in the way of his research. "The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Clary's mother-.-she could well have been next."
Clary's face dropped at Hodge's words and Hodge hoped it would relive the subject at hand. To his satisfaction, it did.
"Raveners are search-and-destroy machines," Alec said. "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?" Alec shot Clary a look of dislike, as if she was a twist in one of his plans, and a disturbance in his routinely life. "Any thoughts?" he said, speaking to Hodge but not taking his eyes off of the mundane.
Clary must've thought he was talking to him, since she was the one who answered him. "It must've been a mistake."
Alec's full attention was on Clary now. "Demons don't make those kind of mistakes. If they were after your mother, there must have been a reason. If she was innocent-.-"
"What do you mean innocent?" Clary interrupted softly.
Alec was caught off guard. You've done it now, thought Hodge. "I-.-"
"What he means," Hodge saved Alec from thoroughly overthrowing his thought-out work, "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 summon a demon-.-they lack that power-.-but there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a witch or warlock to do it for them."
Clary shook her head. "My mom doesn't know any warlocks. She doesn't believe in magic." Then, Clary's eyes widened slightly. "Madame Dorothea-.-she lives downstairs-.-she's a witch. Maybe the demons were after her an got my mom by mistake," her voice raised by the time she finished her sentence, making it sound more like she was asking a question.
Hodge treated it like a statement. "A witch lives downstairs from you?"
"She's a hedge-witch-.-a fake," Jace said, looking as if he's just awoken from a dream and sounding like he was still in it. "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."
"And we're back where we began," Hodge sighed, stroking Hugo absentmindedly. "It seems the time has come to notify the Clave."
"No!" Jace said a little too quickly. "We can't-.-"
Hodge shook his head. If Clary has no more information than what she's already provided, then he has no more use for her . . . "It made sense to keep Clary's presence here a secret while we were not sure she would recover." Hodge shot Jace a glance to remind him of his encounter with the Inquisitor three days ago. "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 informed."
Hodge was surprised when, instead of retorting a reply about the Gard, or shooting back a glare, telling Hodge he didn't care about his talk with the Inquisitor, Jace fell silent, as if falling back into a dream.
"Absolutely," Alec said, beaming. "I could get a message to my father-.-"
"She's not a mundane," Jace murmured.
Hodge stopped moving, watching Jace in expectation. He heard Alec, distant, choke on his next words. Clary looked at Jace in confusion. Even Hugo seemed shaken by the idea and dug his claws deeper into Hodge's shoulder, making it hurt.
"But I am," Clary said, but her voice wavered, as if she wasn't exactly sure.
"No, you aren't," Jace said, recovering. He turned to Hodge as Clary raised an eyebrow. "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." Hodge also raised an eyebrow, wondering why Jace was purposely veering off his point. "She would have died. So I used my stele-.-put a mendelin rune on the inside of her arm. I thought-.-"
"Are you out of your mind?" Hodge bellowed, slamming his hand down on his desk a little too forcefully. He could've spoiled everything! Everyone's plans! Jace flinched away and Clary and Alec jumped, backing away from the oncoming argument between the two. "You know what the Law says about placing Marks on mundanes! You," -.-Hodge boiled-.- "you of all people ought to know better," he scolded, shaming Jace-.-but not into silence.
"But it worked," Jace said evenly. "Clary, show them your arm," he said, reminding Hodge of a defense lawyer in court, ready to present the winning evidence to the jury.
Hodge opened his mouth to scold him some more, telling Jace it didn't matter whether it worked or not. But when Clary shakily held out her arm, revealing three fading overlapping circles like scars, Hodge was sentenced to restraint, holding his breath and going pale.
"See," Jace boasted, like a young child finishing up his presentation at school. "It's almost gone. It didn't hurt her at all."
"That's not the point," Hodge said, a little more calmly-.-but still shaky-.-now. "You could have turned her into a Forsaken."
Alec, who looked disappointed, confused, and outraged at the same time, as if someone has just crushed his dreams, woken him up from sleep, and slapped him on the head hard, said, "I can't believe you, Jace. Only Shadowhunter can receive Covenant Marks-.-they kill mundanes-.-"
Jace rolled his eyes. "She's not a mundane. Haven't you been listening? It explains why she could see us. She must have Clave blood!"
"But I don't. I couldn't," Clary said, still sounding unsure.
"You must," he said, looking at Hodge. "If you didn't, that Mark I made on your arm-.-"
"That's enough Jace," Hodge said before Jace could explain any more. "No need to frighten her further."
Jace partly ignored his tutor. "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 Downworld enemies."
Hodge prepared to tell Jace to stop-.-stop reminding Clary of her possibly-dead mother, stop blurting out their secrets-.-and stop frightening her. She looked pale enough as it is. But, ironically, the little mundie beat him to it.
"My mother wasn't a Shadowhunter!" she said.
"Your father, then," Jace tried. "What about him."
"He died," Clary returned. There was no emotion, no sadness. Not visible in her face, nor her eyes. She did not know him well enough, Hodge concluded of it. "Before I was born."
Jace flinched, and for a moment, Hodge felt sorry for him. It didn't last long, however, because Alec then spoke up.
"It's possible," he said with uncertainty, "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."
It caught Hodge off guard. How Alec dropped his personal debate so quickly just to break the tension his parabatai felt the most. He supported the idea that Clary just might be a Shadowhunter, and that it's possible she is able to stay at the Institute.
"My mother would have told me," Clary said, her face dropping, and Hodge knew it wasn't true.
"Not necessarily," Jace voiced Hodge's thoughts. "We all have secrets."
Clary's face blanked. "Luke," she said, then adding, "Our friend. He would know. It's been three days. He must be frantic. Can I call him? Is there a phone I can use?" She turned to Jace. "Please."
Jace gazed at her for a moment, thinking about something, then looked to Hodge for help. Hodge, finding the name, Luke, extremely familiar, nodded a little too quickly for his taste, and shifted his leg, revealing his old-fashioned telephone that he did not have the privilege to replace.
Clary advanced forward slowly, as if the phone were a bomb that might explode any moment. She brought the receiver to her ear and even carefully dialed in the numbers that she looked to be hard to remember.
Nevertheless, five seconds later, she spoke to someone on the other line. "Luke!" she cried out desperately. "It's me. It's Clary." There was a pause. "I'm fine; I'm sorry I didn't call you before . . . ."
Hodge studied the way Jace watched the mundane. In his face, he found concern and a mere schoolboy's curiosity. Perhaps, there is something else visible under his hard, shielded emotions: interest, admiration, a sense of responsibility for this mundie girl he's brought home to toy around with.
Alec, on the other hand, seemed to do the same, watching Jace, determining his expressions and putting one on of the complete opposite. He displayed nonchalance, bitterness, magnified attitudes Hodge has seen Alec almost always have.
"But I don't want to stay here," Clary's voice cut through Hodge's thoughts. He turned around to see Clary, her cheeks glimmering with tears "I don't know these people. You-.-," she broke off, listening to the other end, and she seemed to choke on her next words, "-.-I'm sorry. It's just-.-"
There was another silence, and Clary stared at the phone as if Luke would call again to apologize and indeed ask to take her home, where she wouldn't have to deal with this world, live as if nothing had happened, and her mom had just gone to an art museum in Brooklyn. She could again be one of the mundies, who saw nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing about the evils that lurk around them every minute of the day.
But that won't happen. She knows, and too much to be certain. Clary can never go through a normal life again, even once she clears her mother's disappearance, there is still much secrets she's already revealed.
Hodge shot a glance at Jace, who surprisingly wasn't watching Clary in curiosity anymore, but more as if he were watching the phone still in Clary's hands with relief.
"I take it he wasn't happy to hear from you?" Jace spoke first.
Clary, though looking as if permanently broken, scowled ferociously at Jace.
"I think I'd like to have a talk with Clary," Hodge said. He saw Jace's face brighten, then eyed him, adding in, "Alone."
Alec, a little too excitedly, jumped up, thinking Hodge was to talk to Clary of another, temporary homestead. "Fine. We'll leave you to it," he said, disguising his voice and heading toward the door. He stopped, however, waiting for Jace. But Jace looked disinterested in leaving.
"That's hardly fair! I'm the one who found her. I'm the one who saved her life!" he objected, then turned to Clary. "You want me here, don't you?" he asked, waiting anxiously for her answer. Clary turned away, and Hodge thought Jace might've hurt her feelings somehow.
Alec chuckled. "Not everyone wants you all the time, Jace."
"Don't be ridiculous." There was a silence as Jace waited for Clary. Hodge thought Jace could've been waiting for her to change her mind, or glaring at her like someone would do a traitor. Hodge didn't know, and he didn't find out, for a moment later, Jace shifted his glance to Hodge. His eyes were full of suspicion. "Fine. We'll be in the weapons room," he finally said, then turned around to leave.
A moment later, the door shut behind them and Hodge and Clary were left alone in the library. It was awkward for a moment as they met each other's eyes, and was still awkward even when Hodge moved to sit down, asking her to do the same.
She wiped away her tears embarrassedly. "I don't cry much usually. It doesn't mean anything. I'll be all right in a minute," she said.
Hodge nodded. "Most people cry when they're upset or frightened, but rather when they're frustrated. Your frustration is understandable. You've been through a most trying time?" he said, trying to be comforting.
"Trying?" Clary said, puzzled. "You could say that."
He dragged his chair over and sat down directly in front of her, more to create a paternal, warming mood. "Is there anything I could get for you?" he offered. "Something to drink? Some tea?"
"I don't want tea," she muttered. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them."
Hodge sighed. "Unfortunately," he said, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing."
Clary stared at the hem of her shirt, shaking her head, obviously not in the mood for refreshments. "What am I supposed to do, then?"
Hodge needed information. He needed to know why this strange girl just suddenly came along and claimed she saw what others could not. What Hodge desired to find out was her heritage and her connections. And when he was finished, personally ask Jace to escort her out.
"You could start with telling me a little about what happened," he said. And we'll work our way in. He removed a handkerchief from his back pocket and lent it to Clary, who stared at him in amazement. "The demon you saw in your apartment-was that the first such creature you'd ever seen?" he inquired, ignoring the way she looked at him. "You had no inkling such creatures existed before?"
"One before," Clary said, thinking, and her answer made Hodge's stomach jump. "But I didn't realize what it was. The first time I saw Jace-"
Hodge's face dropped. "Right, of course, how foolish of me to forget," he said. "In Pandemonium. That was the first time?"
"Yes."
"And your mother never mentioned them to yout?" he pried. "Nothing about another world, perhaps, that most people cannot see? Did she seem particularly interested in myths, fairy tales, legends of the fantastic-.-"
"No. She hated all the stuff." Hodge straightened in his chair, disappointed. "She even hated Disney movies. She didn't like me reading manga. She said it was childish."
"Most peculiar," Hodge said.
"Not really," Clary said, her lips in a tight line. "My mother wasn't peculiar. She was the most normal person in the world."
Perhaps, that was what made her the most unusual. Hodge shook his head. "Normal people don't generally find their homes ransacked by demons."
"Couldn't it have been a mistake?"
"If it had been a mistake, and you were an ordinary girl, you would not have seen the demon that attacked you," Hodge said, speaking mostly to himself. "Or, if you had, your mind would have processed it as something else entirely: a vicious dog, even another human being." He continued talking to himself, in a daze. "That you could see it...that it spoke to you..." It's something altogether.
"How did you know it spoke to me?" Clary asked, surprising Hodge.
"Jace reported that you said 'it talked.'"
Clary nodded, accepting the answer. "It hissed. It talked about wanting to eat me, but I think it wasn't supposed to."
Raveners are generally under the control of a stronger demon," he said, talking to himself again, as if reciting a poem he was required to memorize by heart. "They're not very bright or capable on their own." He glanced at Clary, as if realizing she was there. "Did it say what its master was looking for?"
Clary's eyes seemed to roll to the back of her head in thought. "It said something about a Valentine, but-"
Hodge only realized he startled at the name when he noticed Clary had stopped talking, and looked at him as if he might drop down with a heart attack any moment. "Valentine?" he hissed. What did Valentine need with any mundane girl's mother? Unless...
"Yes," she said, still cautious. "I heard the name in Pandemonium from the boy-I mean, the demon-"
Yes, he rather quite saw it now. Would it hurt to tell her anything?
"It's a name we all know," Hodge spoke shakily. He felt something heavy settle on his shoulders, and realized Hugo had not been there a moment ago.
"A demon?"
"No, Valentine is-" Hodge interrupted himself, and, clearing his throat, said, "-was, a Shadowhunter."
Clary shook her head, confused. "A Shadowhunter? Why do you say 'was?'"
"Because," Hodge answered after a while, finally coming up with the connection. Of course...how could he have not seen it before? "He's been dead for sixteen years," he lied. Hodge looked Clary up and down.
She looked so much like her mother.
"Jace, how could you?"
Jace whirled around to face Alec, who hadn't even took one step away from the door. He searched Alec's face, but found nothing, as usual. They might be parabatai, but sometimes, Alec was just as unreadable as when they first met as little boys. It took Jace a while to realize Alec was talking about Clary.
He shrugged, walking on. Alec fell in beside him. "Are you talking about the fact I brought a mundane-who might rather not be so mundanely-into our forbidden homestead, or when I accepted the fact you were verbally defeated by a female?"
"I preferably thought we were discussing both," Alec replied, more acid-like than returning Jace's humor.
The two passed under a marked archway and descended down a worn-out staircase, that would've collapsed if it weren't for the architects' exceptional work of building a sturdy support for it. They walked deeper down a naked hallway.
"I thought I thoroughly proved her not a mundie," Jace said impatiently. "By the Law, she's legally allowed to stay as long as she needs-"
"Your actions were rash!" Alec interrupted, knowing Jace could go on forever. "Even when you Marked her-Jace, she might not be as she seems! She may never leave..."
"Then I'll make permanent arrangements for her to stay with me in my room," Jace mocked. Alec scowled, causing Jace to grin.
"I'm serious, Jace," Alec said through gritted teeth, as they approached the weapons room.
"What harm could she be?" Jace said, ignoring Alec's low grumbles. "I feel a curiosity. I want her to stay as long as it takes me to know more about how she has the Sight. Until then, she'll have her mother and her home back and Hodge will have found out everything about her and have her out of here in no time." Jace swung the door to the weapons room open, revealing a whitish glow with silver and black gleams of every displayed weapon inside. Alec heard the dread in Jace's voice at the mention of Clary's leaving. It's what scared him the most.
"Tolerate her until then, can you do that, Alec? For me, for parabatai?"
It was a silent for a while, just the two of them still as statues, staring at each other as Jace awaited Alec's answer.
Finally, Alec sighed. "You know, Jace, speaking of which, I believe that term is under question at the moment..." Alec said, reluctantly giving in.
Jace gave Alec his wickedest grin.
Clary nodded, visibly tired after everything that happened today and what she took in just then. Hodge told her everything: the history of the Circle, that Valentine was in it, the Mortal Instruments, the signing of the accords...Suddenly, she stood.
"Is there any chance I could go home?" she asked abruptly.
Hodge stared up at her at first, stunned into silence, then shook his head. "No, I-.-I wouldn't think that would be wise." If he let her leave now, he might not see her again.
"There are things I need there! Even if I'm going to stay here," Clary objected. "Clothes-"
"We can give you money to purchase new clothes."
"Please," Clary pleaded, trying a different angle. "I have to see if-I have to see what's left."
Hodge looked into her eyes, then, and a sudden despair grew inside him. Allowing her to go back is what is right, but he still couldn't let her go alone. And another thing he knew is that Jace would never let her out of his sight.
Hodge nodded. "If Jace agrees to it, you may both go." He shuffled through his papers, looking for a blank scrap, then remembered something. He looked up, saw Clary still there, and said, "He's in the weapon's room."
Clary simply said, "I don't know where that is."
Hodge gestured toward the doorway, where Church sat waiting. "Church will take you."
He didn't wait for her to leave the room before he found a piece of available paper, and began writing. His wrist hurt after a while from the urgency of the written note. An hour later, he threw the note into the fireplace, watching the flames explode with the burden. For a while, he stood there, breathing in the warmth of the flames. It reminded him of the old days. Images-horrid images-suddenly flashed through his mind, forcing Hodge to open his eyes and shake them off.
Moment forgotten, Hodge strode back over to his desk and reached for another piece of paper. I've found her.
