Hello, lovely readers and reviewers. :) Somebody recently reminded me that I haven't clarified the setting of this fic. For those of you who are confused, it takes place about a year after City of Glass as if the last two books never happened.

"I just don't understand what went wrong." Magnus sighed from his seat next to Alec at the kitchen table.

I couldn't believe he was still going on about that spell from weeks ago. Across the room, I shrugged. "Something about the spell was off and it didn't quite work. Weirder things have happened."

"Really?" Magnus argued. (Because God forbid Magnus the magnificent make a mistake.) "I can't think of any."

I politely refrained from listing a few examples. Such as the covert but comical way I had caught him trying to sneak out of the Institute undetected in the early hours of the morning. Or you know, the fact that the spell had malfunctioned because I was pregnant and not sick—though sometimes the two were arguably the same thing. If that wasn't strange enough, I could always top it all off with the fact that the father just so happened to be a seventeen year old vampire.

I envied Magnus for the belief that the strangest thing in this world was a failed spell. Because I was sitting here watching the world as I knew it fade away.

"Does it really matter?" I asked, eager to change the subject. "Either way I'm fine," I lied.

More to distract them than anything, I set two plates heaped high with pancakes on the table.

The sparkly warlock ignored his lovely, if slightly burnt, plate of pancakes. Pursing his lips, he studied me for a moment. I shifted uncomfortably. It was hard to keep the aloof façade I always wore firmly in place when he was staring at me so intently that it felt as if he could read my mind.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm fine?" I complained. Neither of them said a word. "Fine," I sighed. "Keep staring. Maybe if you do it long enough, I'll do a trick."

Magnus' searching gaze turned skeptical and inwardly, I let out a sigh of relief. If he was going to say something snarky, then he must not have noticed that anything was wrong. "For some reason, I doubt that." He informed me. "Maryse and Robert didn't do a very good job of house training you."

I scowled at him.

"Hey, at least she's housebroken." Alec spoke up with a small smile.

Magnus's lips turned up in a lazy half-smirk. "They were probably too busy trying to teach Jace proper manners to even think about training Izzy."

"Yes, well, they failed with Jace." I informed no one in particular. "Epically."

Thinking about Jace made my stomach start to roil again. He was still out cold and showing no signs of waking up. I knew deep down that he was practically invulnerable, but that was no comfort when he was lying unconscious in the infirmary.

Not to mention my other issues.

Magnus and Alec were chatting away obliviously. Neither had any idea what was going on. By now, I'd had almost three weeks time to get adjusted to thought that I was… pregnant. It hurt to even think that word, but I was going to have to get used to it. Even worse, I was going to have to tell someone. Everyone. Inwardly, I groaned.

My life was over.

Just the thought of having to share my "happy news" made me the exact opposite of happy.

"Shut up and eat your pancakes." I ordered the two of them grumpily. Neither one had so much as touched the lovely breakfast I cooked especially for them.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was just going to have to man up—despite the fact that my purple sundress and brown suede open-toed cut-out pumps (courtesy of Michael Kors) indicated that I was not, in fact, a man—and tell them.

…But not quite yet.

"These are pancakes?" Magnus asked. "I thought they were some sort of experimental exploding bricks to throw at demons."

"Of course not." I scoffed. "What good would that do?"

Magnus apparently had no reply for that. His cat-like eyes followed my movements as I busied myself at the stove cooking another course to go with it. "What are you making now?" He asked.

I glanced down at what was clearly a piece of sausage. Or maybe it was bacon. …I wasn't sure. Then, I narrowed my eyes at him, unsure if he was actually curious or just being nasty. "Food." I answered decisively. "And you're going to eat it."

Magnus lifted one perfectly plucked brow. "Why ever would I do that?" He inquired.

"Because if you don't, my parents might inadvertently discover that I caught you trying to sneak out of my brother's room at four in the morning."

"Now you're just being nasty." Magnus smirked.

"A bad habit I developed from spending too much time in your presence." I retorted flipping my long, black locks out of the way so I could lean forward to heat up the stove.

"No, Isabelle dearest," The warlock corrected with a smug smile. "If you had spent too much time in my presence, the correct adjective would more likely be naughty."

Alec almost choked on his coffee. Apparently the thought of his warlock lover teaching his sister how to be naughty was not a pleasant one.

That, I could honestly say, was a sentiment we shared. I frowned at the warlock. "Did you ever think maybe I don't like you?" I quipped.

"Yes, that did cross my mind." Magnus grinned. "But then I remembered that you spend your free time consorting with vampires and werewolves, so your standards are probably pretty low." He let out a low chuckle at his own joke and added, "Plus, I'm dating your brother. You have to like me."

I smiled innocently back. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"Shut up."

My retort only made Magnus's smile wider. "Nasty, nasty," he smirked. But I noticed he did eat his pancakes.

Alec rolled his eyes. "I'm just glad you didn't say naughty this time."

An amused snort sounded from the doorway. "I think I picked the wrong time to enter this conversation," said Simon.

I looked up to find him standing in the doorway looking all too comfortable there. He was outfitted in jeans, engineer boots, and one of his typical T-shirts. This one was a worn blue tee that said 'Does your family have a zombie infestation plan?' across the front. Depicted on the shirt was a house filled with dead stick figures and what was presumably an escaping zombie.

"Typically," I said, lapsing into Shadowhunter lecture-mode. "Zombies are only found farther south—"

"Where the voudun priests are," Simon finished irritably. "Yes, I know. I bought this shirt before I knew zombies actually existed though. Now it's just…"

"Weird?" I suggested.

"Ironic." Alec supplied.

Ignoring me, Simon acknowledged Alec's assessment with a nod. He and Magnus greeted each other with nods as well in that way that guys think is badass but is actually only extremely annoying.

"Do you want bacon?" I asked cheerfully. I held up the plate of meat fresh off of the skillet.

"Just because I'm a vampire doesn't mean I stopped being a vegetarian, Isabelle." Simon reminded me. "I'll take some coffee. Black, please."

"That's right." I rolled my eyes. "Coffee's good for you. Drink it so you can be five foot even for the rest of your life like Clary."

"Considering the fact that I'm already five ten," Simon said wryly, "I think I'll risk it."

Over the next few days, we were going to have to do a lot of research to find out how to wake Jace. Not to mention uncovering the mysterious item the Greater Demon had demanded we procure. If we needed information a year ago, we simply would have called on Hodge. Now, however, we had only ourselves to rely on and research had never particularly been my strong point. Or Jace's for that matter— not that it really made a difference while he was unconscious.

So I had called on my handy dandy nerd. (Or geek, as he preferred to be called.)

"Are you ready to get started?" I asked him after he had downed two cups of black coffee.

"Almost." He answered. "Hey, have any of you guys seen Clary? I, um, went to her house earlier, but she wasn't there."

Of course he went to see Clary first. He always went to see Clary first. "She's here." I told him, making a vague motion in the direction of nothing in particular. "Somewhere."

"I'll just go see how she's doing before we get started." Simon pushed back his chair and got up from the table.

"I'll go with you," I volunteered immediately.

"As much as I'd love to join you on your quest for the Holy Grail," Magnus announced, pushing his empty (empty!) plate of pancakes away from him, "I've got some business that needs tending." He kissed Alec on the cheek and made a quick departure.

"I guess I'll go with you guys then." Alec spoke up, rising to his feet.

"We're off to see the Wizard, then?" Simon asked.

He was looking at me expectantly. I frowned. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Simon mumbled something that sounded like "With new-and-improved badass Dorothy," but I couldn't be sure. He was too busy laughing at his own private joke to clarify.

"Let's go," I tugged on his arm, pulling him out of the room and down the hall.

Our search for Clary lasted only minutes. She was, unsurprisingly, in the infirmary. With Jace. Exactly where I had left her the night before.

"Hey, Isabelle!" Alec called, rounding the corner and seeing the open door. "I think she's in here." He peered around the door into the room. And his mouth dropped abruptly.

Coming up behind him, I gave him a playful shove to get him to move. Then my eyes landed on the cause of his astonishment. There, on the crisp white sheets of the infirmary cot, lay the one and only blonde Lightwood. In and of itself, that fact was no surprise. The shock came upon the realization that he was awake.

"JACE!" I screeched, running to hug him.

"Nice to see you too, Izzy." He told me, his expression slightly wary. Of course that may have been because my arms were locked around him in a death grip of a hug.

I couldn't believe it. He looked fine, better than ever actually. His blonde curls framed a flawless expanse of skin and bright, clear tawny eyes. He had no dark circles under them like the rest of us. It was as if last night's battle and the problems that ensued had never even happened for him.

I knew it. Clary must have had one of her visions where she created a new Mark that did the impossible.

"What did you do?" I asked her eagerly. "Did you make a new rune to wake him up?"

"Um, no." Clary tugged at one of her bright red curls uncomfortably.

"Actually," Jace said. He was grinning that stupid, annoying, insufferable grin that I had never loved more. "I woke myself up."

Somewhere behind me, Alec snorted.

Jace assumed an injured air. "What?" he asked.

"You woke yourself up?" Alec, ever the logical one, proceeded to point out, "Jace, you were in a coma. You can't just wake yourself up from that."

"I can do it," Jace said haughtily. "And I don't get why I have to stay in the infirmary. I'm totally fine."

"Don't make me say it again," Alec told him. "You were in a coma."

"But I'm fine now," Jace protested.

I relinquished my hold on him with a smile. His protests sounded exactly like mine had earlier this morning and they were getting him just as far. It was undeniable, though, how well he looked. Especially in comparison with the rest of us.

"You know, Jace," Simon spoke up for the first time, "You're acting kind of butch. They say that guys who act like that are just trying to—"

"Cover up the fact that they're gay?" Jace interrupted.

I gave him a disapproving frown. Sexuality was kind of a sore subject in the Lightwood family, as Jace knew well.

Simon shot Alec an apologetic look. The boy had tried unsuccessfully for years to cover up the fact that he was gay. Until Clary came along, Jace and I were the only ones who knew his secret. "No," Simon corrected. "I was going to say that it means you're trying to make up for your lack of… you know, size."

Jace snorted a laugh. "I don't think so, idiot bloodsucker. I chose the nickname Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein for a reason." He practically oozed masculinity. Of course Jace would be…

"Okay, totally bad mental picture Jace," I grimaced. This was my brother we were talking about. "I think I'm scarred for life."

"Not my fault," Jace held up his hands in mock innocence. "Your boyfriend brought it up." Of course, Simon would have no problem bringing a subject like that up. He certainly wasn't lacking in the size department either.

"And what's he doing here, anyway?"

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly what Simon was doing here, but before I could, Simon himself answered. "I was doing something beneficial," he griped. "Unlike some pompous…"

By the by, someone was grumpy today.

"Simon," Clary warned. Turning to the rest of us, she added, "I didn't finish telling Jace what happened."

I thought back to the beginning of the night, when we had been out to kill a few relatively harmless demons at Pandemonium. It felt like days ago. Thinking back, Jace had only been out for a surprisingly short amount of time. "There's not much to tell, really," I told him. "You went comatose, the demon told us to get its 'possession' back from the werewolves, and Luke had no idea what he wanted."

"Possession?" Jace asked. He had an insatiable curiosity, a desire for answers that rivaled mine. "What did it want?"

"It wouldn't tell us."

"So," Jace started. His usual bored expression was in full force today, but I could see his evident interest peeking through the façade. "Let me see if I've got this straight. Basically, we've got to stop the demon, figure out what it's after, find the thing, and find out why it wanted the thing in the first place?"

I nodded. "Basically, yeah."

"And how long do we have to do this?" he inquired.

"Less than a week."

"A week?" Jace looked decidedly interested now. "That would be hard to do in a month. Even for me, and we all know how awesome I am. Do we have any idea what it is? Like a clue or anything?"

"That's why I'm here," Simon put in. "I was researching this stuff. And in the institute's library, I found only three objects besides the Mortal Instruments powerful enough for Greater Demons to fight over."

I hadn't realized he had already started his research. He must have been in the Institute for a while before he came to find us. Belatedly, I noticed the pile of notes he held clutched in his hand.

"And they are….?"

"A cup, not unlike the Mortal Cup. It lets the holder have control over demons. And yes, only demons. It can bind them." He looked up to make sure we were still listening before he continued. "The second one is a book full of dark spells that can summon demons and do all sorts of evil things. It's like all the dark books in the world combined. And the last one is a ring. The wearer controls the minds of anything. Demons, humans, downworlders, shadowhunters."

"And do we know the whereabouts of any of these items?" Clary asked.

"The cup is missing. The book is…" He checked his notes. "Missing. And for the ring, it says whereabouts unknown. So, I'd say that's missing too."

"So we have to figure out which one of these items the demon is after," Jace said thoughtfully. "It couldn't have been something the dead werewolf had, or they would have taken it off of him, so what could it be?"

"That," Clary chimed in, "Is a very good question."

And tomorrow, we soon decided, was an excellent time to begin.

In the meantime, Simon was lying across my bed, his shoes hastily discarded on the floor and his head propped up on my favorite pink pillow. He was staring at Church pensively. The cat was stretched out on his back across my lap with all four paws in the air. A low, satisfied purr rumbled from his throat as I scratched his belly.

"What is it?"

Simon jumped a little, almost as if he'd forgotten I was in the room. "Nothing." He assured me, meeting my onyx eyes with his equally dark ones. As he reclined on my bed, a little of his messy brown hair parted across his forehead and I could just make out his Mark. It was so much a part of him now that I sometimes forgot that it was there.

"Are you sure?" I asked. As much as I hated this whole sharing business, I had to admit that now would be the perfect time to tell him. Maybe if I could just get him to open up, I'd be able to…"Because you know, I'm always here for you."

He smiled and one side of his mouth lifted before the other in that way that always made my breath catch in my throat.

"We're not dating though!" I hastily assured him. The words came out before I could stop them, a reminder of days past when I wanted nothing more than a good time from him. Now, however, things were different.

His smile turned skeptical. "We're not?"

"Okay…" I sighed. "Maybe a little."

"A little?" Simon repeated.

I scowled at him. "What are you, a parrot?" I could tell he was about to make some annoyingly clever sarcastic repartee, so I cut him off before he could. "Fine. We're dating. Happy?"

"Ecstatic."

"Oh, shut up."

"What a sweet, elegant girlfriend I've picked for myself." His words were dripping with sarcasm, but the smile on his face tempered their sting. Within seconds, I found myself smiling back. "So, gorgeous girlfriend of mine, does this mean you'll finally go to one of my band rehearsals?"

"Only if you win our bet."

"Oh, I plan to," he sat up on the bed with a sneaky gleam in his eye. "I have experience with this band-naming thing."

"Good," I ran my fingers through Church's fur with a grin. "Because you're going to need it."

He laughed. It was a clean, crisp, reassuring sound. "Are you sure you're ready for this, Isabelle?" He teased. "Because words are like bullets, you can't take them back."

I rolled my eyes. "What would you know about bullets? You're not exactly Mr. Adventure."

"Sure I am," he countered. "How many other humans do you know who would follow their best friends into a world where people with angel blood work with vampires and werewolves to kill demons?"

There was really no disputing that.

"Mr. Adventure it is then," I conceded. "Actually, I'd rather you were Mr. Ninja Assassin, but a girl can't be too choosy in this boyfriend market."

"The Ninja Assassins," Simon laughed, still thinking about band names. "That has a nice ring to it."

"Surely you can do better than that." I chided.

"I can." He told me. "But I'd like to see you try."

"Fine." I tried to lift Church from my lap to get him out of the way. Suddenly catching sight—and scent—of Simon, he let out a loud yowl and scurried towards the door. Church had never particularly liked Simon. Even before he was a vampire.

"Well…" I started.

"I'm waiting."

I glared at him and went back to thinking. "Um…" This was harder than I thought.

"How about...?" I glanced down at my arms and caught sight of the rune-made scars covering them. Each was a mark permanently etched into my skin, a reminder of the trials and tribulations of life. "After Innocence?"

"Pretty good," Simon admitted. "I'll go with The Damned."

Of course he would. Between the Mark of Cain and his vampire state, he seemed to believe he was well and truly damned. And pretty soon, he was going to receive news that would probably make him feel even more so.

"Worlds Collide." I whispered. Now, that little voice at the back of my brain was suddenly insisting. You should tell him now.

"Benevolent Anarchy."

"Plastic Hearts."

Simon made a face.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Izzy," he said. "My band is made up completely of guys. Straight guys. Well, sometimes I wonder about Kirk, but still… that's a little too chick."

Okay, I didn't care about this stupid competition anymore. "Simon, there's something I need to tell you." I blurted suddenly.

"Okay…" He looked vaguely uncomfortable. My outburst had been random to say the least. One sentence in and this was already sounding like one of those 'we need to talk' situations. And the Angel knew, those never turned out well. For anyone.

"There's something I need to-"

A sharp buzzing noise cut through the middle of my sentence as his phone went off. He pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I thought he looked relieved.

"Simon…" I tried again, but the phone was already pressed to his ear.

I sighed and leaned back. So much for that opportune moment.

"Sorry, it's my mom." He mumbled, getting up to go out into the hallway."I've got to take this."

His mom? The same nagging alarm bells from the night before exploded in my head once again. The answer hit me suddenly. His mom. He said it was her, but Elaine Lewis wasn't calling. She had told me herself that she had kicked him out.

That meant he was lying to me. Again.

I was stunned. The usual markers that gave him away were virtually nonexistent, and the tell I had noted earlier was nowhere to be found.

My Shadowhunter reflexes allowed me to be on my feet and out the door in a matter of seconds, but I was too late.

Simon was already gone.

I stood there in the hallway, my electrum whip pulsing from its place coiled around my arm and my face twisted into a scowl. The next time we met, Simon and I were going to have a long talk. I was going to tell him everything. And I meant everything.

If it took every last drop of my will power and feminine wiles, he was going to return the favor.

Sorry that this story is moving so slowly, but I'm trying to throw an actual plot in there with all this drama. Looks like it's finally starting to pick up though; Isabelle plans to tell Simon the truth. And this time, I promise, she'll actually go through with it.

Anyway, hope you liked it! Next chapter will be up within the week.

So... what'd you think?