Ok, so I feel absolutely terrible! I'm so sorry y'all! But enough with my authors note—on to the story! All my apologies etc. will be after your next chapter ((: (I have a good excuse, I promise!)

-AnniaAngele

Part I, Chapter 9

Jonathan POV

I blinked a couple times to make sure I wasn't hallucinating the gruesome scene before me. I hoped I was. When I opened my eyes after the fifth blink, I was sure of what I saw.

I turned around and bolted out the door, screaming for someone to help me.

Clarissa POV

I awoke the next morning aching in many places. Father refused to use a rune on me until I mastered all my training, so until then I had to heal at the slow, human pace. No iratze.

My brother was a very violent person. Many of the bruises and scrapes were from him, rather than my father's rough handling.

"I see you slept in this morning." Valentine said as he walked into my room. It hadn't changed much since I was a child, only replacing the crib for a bed. The walls were still the asylum white, and there was nothing on them. I would have put up some of the few drawings I had time to do, but I wasn't allowed.

"Yes sir. I was tired from our late play date with Jonathan Christopher last night. And my injuries from him were painful." I explained, hoping he wasn't mad.

"Well, child, I was considering letting you start on runes today, but your pain tolerance hasn't improved much so we must continue on that path for another year. Do you languages first, and then we'll go see your brother. He will make a marvelous pain tolerance enhancer for you."

"Yes sir." My heart sank. The upcoming enhancing session sounded more like punishment to me.

Jonathan POV

"The Lightwoods. Yes that will do perfectly." Said the Clave Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale as she opened up a portal into the institute of New Said the Clave Inquisitor, Imogen Herondale as she opened up a portal into The Institute of New York City.

They stepped from the glass buildings, towers, and old-fashioned homes of Alicante to the swirling sensations of a portal. As they stepped out of the portal on the other side, and library full of books and ornate chairs opened up before their eyes. A man with glasses and a large black raven on his shoulder.

"Ah, Inquisitor Herondale, can I help you?" said the man.

"Yes, Hodge. Could you bring Maryse and Robert Lightwood to me for a conference?" the Inquisitor asked.

"Yes ma'am I can. And I was hoping that this was about my punishment…" He sighed as he began to walk off.

"Your punishment for deeds done in the name of another shall not be lifted. It was a punishment set for life, Mister Hodge. I would expect you to remember that for next time you decide to ask a redundant question." The Inquisitor chastised. The man continued out of the room, which I guessed was the library.

A few minutes later he returned with a man and a woman. The man was big and burly with dark brown hair. The woman was tall and intimidating looking. She had charcoal colored hair and ice blue eyes.

"Inquisitor. We had no idea you were coming or we would have been here waiting for you ourselves!" The woman quickly apologized.

"There's no need to worry Maryse, I hadn't planned on coming myself until this little one showed up in my office yesterday evening." She explained. "You see, I'm here about an adoption."

"An adoption?" The man stammered. "We weren't aware we were on any adoption list."

"You weren't, but as is the usual custom, if a child is orphaned, his father's parabatai is the first person we ask to take him. If I am not mistaken, you were Michael Wayland's parabatai?"

"Yes, I was. But I haven't spoken to him since shortly after the rebellion. And then when the tide started turning on Valentine after all the wars, we got sent here."

"Well, nevertheless, you were still his parabatai and the custom shall be upheld." Her voice held a very stern note to it. "Since you have plenty of room here and unlimited resources it shouldn't be a problem now should it?"

"No ma'am. We will gladly take Michael's son into our home. He seems like a lovely boy." Maryse said decidedly.

"Good, now that that's settled, I will have whatever belongings he has sent over here soon. Farewell." She said and walked back into the portal to Alicante.

"Well son, what's your name?" Maryse knelt and asked him.

"I'm Jonathan." I said simply. No need to pretend like I actually liked the name. "Jonathan Christopher." A strange look crossed her face, like I'd said something wrong, but she quickly covered it up.

"Jonathan, I'm Maryse and this is my husband, Robert." She gestured to the large man. "We'll be taking care of you. Jonathan seems like an awfully big name for you, how about we shorten it to a mix of your first and middle names? Something like… hmm… how about Jace?" she asked kindly.

Jace. I liked how it fit. "Yeah. It's nice."

"How old are you Jace?" Robert asked me.

"I'm 10."

"You're just a little bit younger than our son, Alec. He's really nice. I bet you'll like him. Come on, let's go meet him." Maryse took my hand and led me off. "Isabelle, our daughter, is a little bit younger than you, so you'll all get along great. Our youngest son, Max is two."

"I've never met another kid before."

"Surely you have. Alicante is full of children. And you'd have been going off to school soon too."

"No, I've only ever met my dad, the man that died, and myself." I explained. I knew she would believe that when I said the man that died as a separate person that I was just explaining who my dad was, but I wasn't. The man that died was a separate person. But the adults insisted that I just went into shock and couldn't deal with his loss. They didn't know I could hear them talking.

"Well then it's time you met someone else your own age Jace." She smiled.

She took me on a tour of the Institute first, showing me the training room which was full of windows and mirrors, with pads and weapons. I would have fun in there. Then we went to the kitchen where I met Isabelle. She was apparently trying to cook, but obviously in bad need of lessons because whatever she had in the pot smelled like a wet dog.

"Jace, this is my daughter Isabelle. Isabelle, this is your new brother, Jace." Maryse introduced us.

"Hi, would you like to try my soup?" she asked enthusiastically, her blue-gray eyes sparkling and her mid-length hair, which was the same color as her mother's, swaying as she stirred the concoction.

"No, I'm not too fond of wet dog flavored soup. But I'm sure you'd love it since it smells just like you." I taunted. Her eyes welled up with tears and I felt bad but I didn't say anything. All I did was make fun of her soup.

Maryse gave me a look but it changed to pity within a few seconds. "Isabelle, come talk to me for a second out in the hall. Jace, you stay here." I was left alone in the rather large kitchen while they went into the hallway. I could hear Maryse telling her that my dad had just died so whatever I said I didn't really mean.

I sat at the table and looked around at the stainless steal appliances and white cabinets. The breakfast bar was facing the door to the hall, with bright sunny windows behind it. Maryse's muffled voice kept invading my ears and the concern for me in it made me sick. I was fine. My dad didn't die. Everyone could stop acting like I was grieving him.

The door swung open and Isabelle came back in. She had dried tears on her face but she didn't look as hurt as before.

"Sorry." She said.

She said sorry when I was mean? I didn't get it. Or maybe she was sorry about my dad. I didn't know and didn't really care. I could act however I wanted and still be fine and everyone would think it was normal.

"You should be." I said and walked out to Maryse.

We walked to the room where I would be staying. It was white and very clean, just how I liked it.

"Alec's room is right next door, the elevator is at the end of the hall, and Isabelle's room is 20 doors down on the opposite side. Robert and I are the opposite direction of the elevator, last door on the left past the kitchen, and Max is near us, on the same said as us and you. He'll be moving to near Alec in a few years though. The infirmary is the first door on the right from the elevator. The music room is next door to the weapons room, which is on the next floor near the training room. The library is down the hall from them and there are stairs on that hall that take you up to the greenhouse.

"Hodge will be your tutor, he was the other man in the library today. We will do an analysis of your skills tomorrow. Alec should be in the weapons room right now. He is currently learning how to use a seraph blade. I would show you to him but I have to feed Max right now. You can begin to decorate your room as soon as your belongings get here. We can discuss color schemes tomorrow as well."

"Ok." I said and she turned around and headed in the direction of Max's room. I mentally replayed the conversation in my head and followed her directions up to the weapons room.

I walked in to see a boy that looked just like Isabelle and their mother. He had several seraph blades around him and he looked very concentrated on what he was doing. I saw that array of weapons before me and knew my fighting skills would flourish here.

"Hi Alec, I'm Jace. I'm your new brother. Seraph blades are really simple. Just say an angel name to it, and then say the same angel name to open it. Watch." I grabbed a blade and whispered "Sanvi" then I said it again, and the blade opened up.

"Wow. Are you 11, too?" He gasped, awe etching his face.

"No, I'm only 10, but my dad trained me well."

"We're gonna be best friends, ok?"

Ok, so here are my excuses:

1. I've been moving from one state to another, and I haven't been in my own house for over a month now.

2. While I was in FL I was staying with my friend, and I felt bad spending all my time on the computer so I had to only update once while I was there.

3. Now that I'm in GA I've been staying with another family friend, and I started a new school with extremely different school hours and I'm not used to them. Plus, after school I've had to work on our house so that we can actually move in soon because we rented it while we lived in FL and the renters absolutely trashed it! Like, you don't even want to know.

4. In the evenings, after we get to our friends house from working on ours, my mom wants the computer to do business and find people to clean vents and stuff. So I rarely get the computer and when I do it's not for long.

Again, I'm sosososososososo sorry! Like y'all have no idea! I think we're moving in this weekend, and I'm not making any promises yet, but if we do, hopefully I can start updating at least weekly if not more often! :D

Oh, and I'm still looking for a beta. If I had one, I'd be able to update a lot more hopefully ((:

Oh, and hopefully I'm getting the books soon because once we get into that part of the story, I'm going to need them to cross-reference so that I don't get anything wrong etc.

Ok so if y'all let me know what you think and opinions that would be great! :DD