A/N:
CHAPTER 8~ yeaaah; changed alot of stuff there. :)
lotsa comments bout how Magnus' age was inexact, and some say its 900..some more than a thousand. o.O
the guilt was eating me up inside.
So i did the reasonable thing and GOOGLED it :D
and for the 3rd time since the World War...the internet has failed me :((:(( (waaaaah)
I didnt get to come up with the exact age of Mr. Bane..so i just changed it to a few thousand
Is that ok with you guys? :( im really sorry for that.
Yah..that chappie is really tense; i didnt mean for it to and now that i redid it, i noticed i must have been in a really crappy mood when i made this. SERIOUSLY. im so EMO. o.o (hopefuly im not emo anymore.) and hope that you guys read and review it again (the new edited one ;)) and tell me if it got less confusing.
So sorry for constant TENSE CHANGES too (this applies to all previous and coming soon chapters) ... grammar isnt really my forte. *bows to you all*
But anyway, i finally beat my 3 month hiatus streak :D that IS TOTALLY not a good thing though o.O
So hope you guys havent forgotten this story yet (or if you did, then i only have myslef to slap~ ) and that you guys love nuff to review me! :D (i wont update at all without those little things! soooooooooo best be clicking that ye'r button :D)
If you guys love me for the humorous banter, the Rev. Tom bashing, and for all those wonderful moments where Chairman Meow was compared to Alec~ then read on to glamours CHAPTER 9! :D
Glamours;
a spell or energy of illusion used to hide or disguise beings.
At around 7 30 in the morning the next day, Clary rose from Isabelle's bed with a terrible headache—Which wouldn't be surprising since she only had 2 or so hours of peaceful uninterrupted sleep—and absolutely no memory of the preceding night.
The only thing she remembered was the Magnus Make over session because she noticed that she never had the chance to change out of Magnus' little outfit. She hardly cared though. She stepped into the fluffy slippers and dragged her tired feet down the steps the way a dinosaur might do so.
When she got to the kitchen, the sight shocked her so hard she almost hit the door frame, head first. Amatis was situated in front of the old stove, holding a ladle and stirring like she was something from a Martha Stewart episode.
Maryse was the picture of happiness as she fluffed a bunch of lilies that were already put into neat rows. She was humming a nice working tune while doing it, making Clary both suspicious and freaked out.
"Clary!" Clary heard her mother's voice call from behind her. "Good morning, dear!"
Jocelyn gave Clary a peck on the cheek before walking over to Maryse, handing her a brown envelope.
"These are the invitations. I checked to make sure the names of those in the entourage were spelled correctly and already put who the invitation is addressed to at the back of each envelope." she said.
"Good, let me just wash my hands first—so that the envelope doesn't get wet." With that, she moved to the next room. Jocelyn went back to the living room to fix what she called "a mess".
Clary didn't say a word but chose to sit down in one of the chairs. A minute later, a plate with five layers of pancakes was dropped right in front of her. Apparently, she was expected to eat all it.
"Amatis, I don't think I could seriously finish ALL of this…" she tried to protest.
Amatis cocked her head to the side. "You need a lot of strength in order to cope with all the preparations today. Hectic day, it is. We do first rehearsals and everything! Without food, your stomach may recede."
"Yeah, but with too much of it, it may explode!" she reasoned out, but Amatis was already mixing cake dough to make more pancakes.
Clary was halfway through the third pancake when thumps from upstairs sounded. A while later, a golden haired Alec and an amused Magnus walked in the kitchen. Magnus was wearing a bathrobe that could have been mistaken for the butchered skin a wooly mammoth that died in a pit of glitter.
"Alec—uhm, what happened?" Clary was happy to bring up a question—any excuse to give her stomach a rest from chewing was gladly accepted..
Alec looked at her miserably. "It's my fault—I never should have asked him to hand me some shampoo when I was in the bathroom." He ran his fingers through his hair in vain.
Magnus slid beside Clary and Amatis dropped a plate of pancakes in front of him as well. He smiled as a form of thanks.
"You should have told me you were allergic to my Warlock shampoo. I only wanted to share with you some of my beauty products so you could get all that untamed hair in check, Alec dear." Magnus said, calmly.
"That shampoo was a mixture of different warlock potions and demon blood! It's pretty much dangerous to every other living creature!"
"Chairman Meow doesn't seem to show any negative effects from using it." Magnus retreated into his Chairman Meow cover just to taunt Alec.
Alec's eyes went huge and he looked like he was about the throw up.
"You test your shampoo on cats?" he exclaimed. "That's animal cruelty."
"Now, Alec—all these thoughts on reformation are only taking effect because of the shampoo. They give shadowhunters a sort of liberal spirit—it usually doesn't last long, but you have to be careful not to do anything stupid."
"Animal cruelty is just one thing—what about the economy?" he exclaimed.
"Uhm , what about the economy?" Clary asked, unsure for Alec's stable mental disposition.
"It is unfair and pretty much corrupt! Where are the equal rights in this nation? Don't we all have the right to protest against the imbalance of VAT and taxes?!" Alec roared into a plea for a reform movement.
Magnus clapped his hands, obviously amused. "That's great, Alec! Why don't we protest right now in the bathroom when I wash all that gold and nonsense out of your head, hm?"
"Alright." Alec said firmly. "Just let me go get my campaign posters."
Magnus rose from the table, his food untouched.
He turned to Clary, and flashed her a toothy grin.
"Oh, finish that for me, Clary-love. Seems like such a waste to just throw it away."
In Clary's mind, she was throwing daggers at Magnus' retreating form but she took his plate anyway, and began chewing angrily.
"Ah, always a treat to see young people who don't sacrifice their meals for the sake of diets."
Clary looked up and saw Luke smiling down at her. He had worn his casual clothing, which gave Clary the impression he must have been up for hours already, and clipped to his left arm was a newspaper.
"No, I'm stuffing myself with food for winter. Hibernation" Clary stated, stuffing another bite into her mouth.
Luke let out a nice laugh. "Well, if the hibernation doesn't get to you—the calories will."
Clary groaned. "Everyone is out to get me today."
Luke smiled one last time, then he proceeded to open his paper and read the news.
Clary almost found this picture like a regular family morning. Someone was cooking breakfast on the stove, the father would be reading the sports section of the paper and kids would be consuming their cereal and then heading off to school with lunch boxes that match their uniforms.
Well, Clary's never had a uniform to be matched to before and Luke wasn't reading the sports section—he was playing the crossword—so it didn't count. But it made her think.
Her life would be something similar to that idea—if she had remained in the illusion of being a mundane. Would she still be able to do all that she'd done now if she had remained blind to the magical world?
Clary refused to think of it so she threw it at the very back of her mind. She wouldn't want to change the course of her life since she liked it the way it was—dangers, and all. She was happy to train as a shadowhunter and she loved this world where magical beings exist.
She couldn't imagine herself going back to being an average mundane anymore. She belonged in this world, and she was determined to stay in it.
"Seven letter word for close family member…" Luke muttered. "Mother? Cousin? Father?"
Clary rolled her eyes. She knew the answer. "It's Brother." she said.
Clary gasped suddenly. Her breath got caught and felt a little light-headed. She remembered the dream she kept having—and her mind replayed it in perfect detail. The thought had left her alone for a few hours, but now that she recalls it, she can't help but feel goose bumps all over. She had died in her dream; more specifically, she had killed herself.
"Brother!" Luke's voice brought her back into reality before she could spiral into a hell within her own mind. "B-R-O-T-H-E-R. Good job, Clary!"
Luke didn't seem to notice that she was sweating all over or that she seemed to be shaking from head to toe. Clary rose from the table and excused herself. She was walking up the flight of steps when she caught Jace at the intersection.
And despite herself, she couldn't help but look.
His hair was wet and tousled. He wore a plain black shirt and jeans with sneakers. Clary noted that his jacket was slung over his left shoulder and his eyes were fixated on her.
"Uhm, morning, Jace." Clary tried to sound normal.
"What's wrong?" he said, his eyes still staring into hers.
"'Morning Clary, did you eat breakfast yet?'" Clary tried to crack a pun out of him, but something was off about Jace today—which was more than his usual off-ness.
He beckoned to the upstairs. "You going up to rest?"
"… just… gonna… fix my stuff." Clary tried to formulate a sentence. "Take a bath and freshen up. Change out of Magnus' costume. Wedding stuff today—don't want to be tardy."
Jace didn't nod but he moved to the side to let her pass, then when she was 4 steps above him, he went directly down without even a glance.
Clary couldn't understand what was wrong with him—she didn't understand anything, anymore. She walked solemnly past the bathroom where she could hear squeals from Alec as Magnus sprayed warm water into his head and washed the chemicals away. She entered Isabelle's room, closed it shut, then sat on the floor, rubbing her temples.
"How could I have forgotten about that dream?" Clary wondered out loud. Her head was throbbing but she could distinctly remember that just a few minutes ago she wasn't even sure what happened after the Magnus Make Over session. It had all seemed to black out of her mind—and the next thing she knew, she was waking up and going down to eat breakfast.
'My brother is alive.' Clary didn't dare say it out loud.
She crawled to the foot of Isabelle's bed and rolled herself up into a ball. She tried to rack her brain for something, anything, in relation to what happened last night.
She processed that Magnus made her change into a ridiculous outfit and that Alec was also a victim—Jace was downstairs, and earlier in the afternoon, he had confessed to making a piano piece for her. Clary even remembered how angry she was when she thought Carina was a real person. She remembered every detail about the wedding, her conversation with Aline, Amatis being weird, her first thoughts about Amatis and Stephen, Simon and Izzy leaving—no memory, no thought was tampered with in her mind. But whatever happened in between her dream and waking up remained undeterminable.
A knock came at the door, and though the voice was muffled, Clary was sure it was Jace's.
"Coming," Clary stood up and unhitched the lock.
Jace slid inside carrying a tray holding, you guessed it, pancakes.
Clary couldn't decide where she should stare at—Jace or at those wretched pancakes.
"Amatis wanted me to bring these up to you. You only ate three pieces." He placed the tray on the floor then sat, cross-legged, in front of it. "You aren't eating that well."
"My head has been hurting." Clary remained standing.
Jace looked up at her, his eyes searching for something.
"Eat." He simply stated.
"Only if you do too."
He took a fork and pierced a pancake with it—and in three bites, he finished one. (three bites for Clary wouldn't even be equivalent to two thirds of one pancake)
He stabbed another pancake with the fork again, and pushed it up towards Clary.
"Say, Ah." he said.
"I'm full, Jace." Clary was a little confused how he could have been so indifferent a few minutes ago, and now he's all Mr. Sweet again.
"Jace, are you bipolar?" she blurted.
"Am I what?" The question seemed to strike his interest.
"Are you—bipolar? Two separate personalities that come out once in a while…"
He smiled into the plate. "What made you say that?"
Now Clary felt stupid. "It's nothing—it's just that you were so upset this morning and then now, you—well, you aren't. I don't know what to think except that you're bipolar."
He laughed then; a small polite laugh that made Clary's knees tremble.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you—but I'm not bipolar." He smiled up at her then. "And I'm sorry for the terrible way I acted this morning. I—uh, Alec has some problems coping with some … 'treaties'."
"Jace, are you hiding something? What is—" Jace stood up and held her shoulders.
"… we really shouldn't be talking about this… just let it go, ok? It's not imp—it's ok now. Nothing bad is going to happen."
Clary looked confused. She was. "I don't understand any of it."
Jace's eyes looked sadly at her. And he used that same expression again; like he was searching for something in her eyes.
Clary was happier for the rest of the day—except for the part where Reverend Tom began pulling an all out assault on them. He had thrown a huge fit about the arrangement and the lines and the way people marched. As the flower girls paraded down the isle, they looked more like a military platoon rather than a bunch of exuberant children throwing petals everywhere.
Jace had been pleasant most of the time, but only until Clary starts to show signs of being tired or having a headache. Then he sort of has this demonic look in his eye that would give anybody an impression that he wanted to pick a fight with them.
So Clary tried hard not to look droopy or in pain—and it wasn't seriously that hard. Seeing her mom so happy (disregarding Reverend Tom, she was happy) and everyone thrilled about the wedding fueled her energy and made her stronger. Jace was also acting very oddly.
Tom had scolded him more than thrice in an hour because he kept leaving his post to sit beside her—and though it pissed one person off very greatly, it made Clary all giggly.
NOT in the sense that she was giggly about Jace—ahem—but because of the humorous repartee that Jace would always have prepared just in case Tom says a punch line.
It was near lunch time when Jace and Clary were walking down the path that led back to Amatis' house. Jocelyn had given Clary instructions to stay with Amatis for awhile—or go and work on her speech for what she should say during the reception. Clary had this strange feeling that everyone was trying to hide something from her, but she didn't give it much thought. As of the moment, she was only working on her opening lines which only consisted of the sentence: Everyone, good morning. Is this microphone on?
It was a work in progress; she was getting there.
Jace was walking beside her, totally oblivious to the weight of the huge sack of manure being balanced on his shoulder. Maryse had told him to bring the manure over to Amatis' house so they could fertilize the plants she had been growing for some time now.
As they walked, they talked.
"Jace, can I talk to you about something?" Clary asked.
"I'm not objecting." he replied.
"I know you're a little touchy about this but—just tell me," Clary tried to see if his expression changed. "What happened last night? Please Jace."
He didn't stop in his tracks; he didn't have a horrid expression on his face; Jace was completely composed and by this, Clary knew, that he wouldn't tell her exactly all she needed to know.
"You told me Sebastian was alive. That he was going to use your body to kill me and everyone else" His voice was factual, but by the way his mouth creased downward made Clary think that it wasn't all that black and white. "Then you blacked out on me—sending me into a series of cardiac arrests."
"Sorry," Clary said without redemption.
"And well—that's it. I carried you to Izzy's bed and let you sleep. They called up Luke, let him know you and the others would just spend the night at the Penhallows'."
"I don't remember that."
"I don't remember ever agreeing to carry this bag of dirt—yet here I am now."
Clary pushed him to the left, which made him partially lose his balance.
"Idiot," she laughed. "They don't mean the same thing."
"They don't have to."
"That didn't even make sense."
"It doesn't have to."
Clary pushed him again and this time he had to secure the manure with both his hands just to make sure it wouldn't fall.
"Hey—you almost dropped the manure!" Clary exclaimed.
"And who's fault is that?" he countered.
Clary laughed and they proceeded to walk again. They had already reached the outside of Amatis' small cottage when Clary began saying something again.
"I remember something from a dream, Jace." As Clary spoke, Jace had turned to set his full attention to her.
"Jonathan—his hair really black in the dark—was surrounding me in fire, and he looked really scary. He had this weird look in his eye and he was disheveled with tracks of blood across his face." Clary left out the part where she saw Jace's dead corpse in front of her.
"His dark hair, being all messy and everything was—"
"Wait, I hate to break it to you Clary, but…" Jace said, careful with his words. "Sebastian—Jonathan—he has golden hair." He said while they walked alongside each other along the pathway to the door.
"White gold; not black." Jace corrected.
"What are you talking about Jace—I saw Sebastian ok, I was there and clearly, he had black hair—"
"Clary," Jace took her shoulders and forced her to look at him in the eye. His eyes grew silver in light of the glass window. "Clary," his voice sounded gentle, like a doctor giving news to a mother that her child had just died.
"That was only dye. He has nearly the same gold white hair as Valentine. I saw him when he wasn't wearing his disguise. It was the last thing I saw each time I fainted from his blow."
Clary's eyes casted toward a bare spot in Amatis' garden. "You never told me that you fainted." That you got hurt, more like it.
"I didn't want you to worry." He tilted her face forward. "It's done. Just forget about it."
Clary looked at his eyes again; still silvery as they tried to bribe her into believing him.
"I'll forget, as soon as you forget."
Jace let go of her. "Clary, that is entirely different. I'll never forgive him for torturing you—even if it is only in your dreams—if what you're saying is true and that he's back."
Clary walked forward, towards him—and she couldn't understand what her mind wanted her to say, but she blurted out the first sentence she could construct.
"But what if I'm wrong!"
Jace looked at her funny, and Clary later realized she must have sounded very strange. By the way she described him, she gave a full impression that Sebastian was back from the underworld to kill them all; that he wasn't dead, and he wanted revenge through her—and now she says she might be wrong, that all of this is just a cruel trick of her mind. Was this just a sign she was slowly losing it?
"Clary you don't make sense. At all." Jace said bluntly, and then kissed her forehead. A second later, Amatis opened the door. He dropped the bag of manure carefully beside the garden patch. He gave a small smile to Amatis, and then turned to go the opposite direction.
"I have to go run some errands. Luke told me to tell you that you should stay here for the remainder of the day. You need to rest." he said.
He was walking away again, but then he stopped mid way. He turned to look at her again, then he added "Go rest, please." very gently but Clary was so confused she couldn't say anything except "Yeah. Be careful."
And he was off.
A/N: TENTATIVE: CHAPTER 9 PART 2Well, anywaaaaay..this took far longer than expected o.O
This account has been dead for months. O.O
And we all have only one thing to blame...
SCHOOL.
Sorry for this --ehk-- awhile. *heee
But same thing~ no review no update! :D
And im thinking of changing my user name..any thoughts? :)