Her room at the NY Institute was bigger than her last but lacked a sense of home. Not that Sarah considered the LA Institute her home, but it had, at the very least, given her a false sense of familial security.
This room, from the moment Brother Enoch had brought her up, seemed to give her nothing except a new void to fill. With that last thought in mind, Sarah threw her suitcase onto her bed, allowing the heavy object to sink slowly into the puffed quilt that had been stuffed into the mattress. She let out a small gasp in surprise as the leather lid popped open, the golden button that had before so tightly kept it closed falling with a loud clank to the floor.
However, as the light reflected off of something that lay in the case, Sarah's attention was suddenly caught, and her breathing faltered. Diana packed this, she thought, the world around her going blank. Where'd she even find it?
Picking up the item, a dusty photo within a wooden frame, the memories that she had fought so hard the past year came flooding back into her in a single second. Sarah's cheeks burned, and her vision became glassy, yet what she held remained clear. Setting herself lightly against the wall to keep from falling, her gaze kept itself locked steadily on the young version of herself in the photo in an attempt to keep them from the boy next to her. No, no, no, she chanted in her head, but it wasn't enough and, deep down, Sarah knew nothing could ever be enough. Not when it came to her parabatai, not when it came to Ni-
Knock, knock, knock
The door rattled almost violently and shook Sarah from her reverie. Like a reflex, she threw the picture from her hand into the drawer of her bedside table and tried her best to regain composure. Wiping her eyes roughly with her sleeve and pulling her hair tighter in her ponytail, Sarah lept over to the door, her skin still slightly flushed from the shock.
A tall, dark-haired man stood outside the door, and, if it weren't for his icy blue eyes, she might have mistaken him for a Blackthorn. He fiddled his hands at his waist uncomfortably, flickering in and out of eye contact with her constantly.
"Hi, I'm Alec Lightwood." Stooping down slightly so that he could reach her height, Alec stuck his hand out for her to shake. Sarah took it, her own hand dwarfed and pinked in comparison to his long, slender, ivory fingers. "I'll be one of your instructors here at the New York Institute," he continued. "I teach mostly long-range work, but we'll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few months."
"I'm Sarah. Blackthorn," she nodded, "although you probably already knew that."
Alec cracked a light smile, the skin near the corners of his eyes crinkling. "Yes, we received a message from the Clave a couple of days ago, but we don't know that much about you." There was a warmth and amiability in his voice that nearly made Sarah grin, but before she could, Alec broke the small silence that had begun after he had finished speaking and shook his head, smiling down at his feet, "Anyways, I was sent up to bring you down for dinner. We ordered from the Jade Dragon which is a local favourite, so I hope you're a fan of Chinese food because you'll be having a lot of it."