City of Shadows

by myheartandocean

CoB AU: Jocelyn Morgenstern gave birth to a second child, her daughter, before she betrayed Valentine and The Circle, and when she fled the Shadow World she also left both children behind in fear of what her husband's experiments had done to them. Now, sixteen years later, Valentine sends his daughter to New York City to retrieve the Mortal Cup from her mother.

13. Chapter 13

Probably changing my pen name soon. No need to be alarmed. I do this a lot.

To the guest reviewer who asked why I haven't updated in a year - it's only been a few weeks, darling. I would never abandon you.

Simon lovers, you had your moment in the sun. Jace lovers, rejoice. Your time has come.

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"I desire her and I hate her. I would like to take her in my arms and embrace her till she smothered, till she was crushed and I could drink death from her gushing veins." - Octave Mirbeau

---

When Clary burst through the doors of the Institute, Jace felt it. He didn't know how – a change in the air, maybe; a sudden static energy, sparking through his skin. He didn't want to feel it, but he did. He rose from his perch in the library, closing the book he had been reading and tossing it on the armchair before he left to look for her. Another part of him, almost as strong, wanted to hide from her instead. But he couldn't stop himself from stalking the halls of the Institute, his keen ears alert in the silent dimness for the slightest rustle or the softest footfall to reveal her presence.

Which is why it was even moreimpressive than it would have been when suddenly he was on the ground, a light weight on his chest pinning him down, and Clary above him even though he hadn't heard her creep up on him.

"Fight me, pretty boy," she said, smiling from where she rested above him. He stared up at her, stunned, his skin almost painfully sensitive where she rested against it; where her legs wrapped around his waist, where her long hair brushed his face, where her hands rested on his shoulders.

"I… What?" He couldn't process anything with his heart beating so fast, his mind racing so defenselessly.

"Let's fight." When he didn't answer her, she laughed, as if she found his confusion amusing. "You wanted a rematch, didn't you?"

"You want to… fight?" he repeated.

"If you think you can take me," she answered, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh, I can," he said, his competitive instincts flaring into dominance. "Most definitely."

She flashed him a winning smile that he returned, and he mourned in advance his impending loss of the feeling of her against him, so warm and light.

His heart began to race in anticipation, and then he was moving, tensing his muscles and surging forward in one fluid motion as he pushed Clary off of him and onto the floor, pinning her down.

"Dirty," she chided teasingly where she rested beneath him, her hair splaying across the dark patterned carpet, one of his hands wrapped around her wrists and the other against her waist.

"Oh, and you aren't?" he challenged, and they both knew he was referring to their first encounter.

"Never said I wasn't," she said slyly, and he grinned.

Suddenly, hovering above her, he was struck by how small she was. But even the feeling of her ribs beneath his palm and the delicate, bony wrists enclosed in his hand couldn't bring him to loosen his hold on her. A part of him worried he might be hurting her. But another part saw the fire simmering in her eyes, dormant but coiled, and knew that wasn't possible.

"Where were you last night?" he asked her, careful to sound casual. "You never came home."

"I was with Simon," she said; just as casually, but something about the way her eyes flashed when he asked made him think there was more to it than that.

"With Simon," he repeated.

"Are we going to fight or not?" she demanded, giving one impatient, restless writhe against his grip.

"Yes," he said, releasing her wrists. "But we should go to the training room. Maryse is fond of her vases."

"It's not the vases you should be worried about, Wayland," she challenged with a smirk.

"And what should I be worried about, Nightshade?"

"That pretty face of yours." She was still on the ground and he was still above her, and she reached a hand up to his cheek. Her touch was feathery light, her fingers slender and soft, and goosebumps tingled down his neck. For a moment she only looked at him, her gaze darkening into something more serious than it had been before, and he felt her eyes ripping through his skin like they had the first night he saw her. She was staring into him rather than at him, and he felt the planes of his heart bared to her – it was uncomfortable, unbearable, and he shuddered. Her eyes widened slightly, and his discomfort was replaced with hopeful, disbelieving relief at the thought that she felt this too. Whatever it was, he hoped she felt it.

And then he was sent sprawling to the floor as she shoved him off of her and jumped to her feet, laughing.

"Eyes open," she censured, still smiling her charming half-smile. The words sent a pang through his chest, a nagging sensation that he couldn't place, but before he could discern the cause she was pulling him to his feet and nudging him down the hall. Until Clary, he had never met anyone more restless than he was.

He complied with her urgings and began leading her to the training room, and he found that his mood had improved considerably with her arrival. She seemed happier too, though that wasn't saying much – she was in a different mood every time he saw her.

They were passing through an intersection of four hallways when a shadow moved to their right. Clary skittered and grabbed his hand. He started in surprise but tightened his grip on her fingers instinctually, feeling her soft skin and the delicate bones in her hand against his palm for a warm moment before she pulled away; suddenly, nervously. "Sorry," she gasped. "I thought that was Hodge."

Jace peered into the adjacent hallway, his palm tingling where she had held it. "I think it was Alec. He's always sulking about. Why would Hodge scare you?" The thought of being afraid of Hodge was so ludicrous that he almost laughed, but something told him she wouldn't take kindly to being laughed at. She was a bit touchy.

In more ways than one, luckily, he thought, still marveling over the warm, pulsing energy in his palm.

"He doesn't," she protested indignantly. "I'm not afraid of anything." If anyone else had said that, he would have mocked them for it, but he didn't doubt her.

"I suppose Hodge can be a bit grumpy, when you catch him before his tea."

"Don't patronize me," she complained. "I told you I wasn't afraid. Just startled."

"Startled, afraid. What's the difference?"

"There is one," she protested.

"Perhaps. I imagine it's similar to the difference between 'terrified and 'frightened.'"

She shoved him, and he couldn't help but laugh; it was exactly what he had expected her to do. He felt a sense of satisfaction that, for the first time, she hadn't taken him by complete surprise. Ever since he had met her, he had been struggling – and failing – to understand her. In a part of him, he did understand her – in a way that he couldn't put into words, that only made sense when he didn't think about it too hard. He had to let it breathe, let it remain a shadow, and then he understood her.

But in a more conscious way, he found her infuriatingly indecipherable. Like she was a thousand different people at once, more faceted than a diamond, shadows and smoke instead of flesh and bone. He told himself it was this tendency of hers to allude and escape him at every turn that made him think about her all the time. It made her challenging and intriguing, and all the more exciting for it. But the same part of him that silently understood her knew it was more than fleeting, unfocused interest that was making him this way.

Not for the first time, he thought about making an excuse to leave – she certainly did it to him often enough. It would surely be the best choice for his sanity and his peace of mind. But then her arm brushed carelessly against his, sending a rush of tingling heat through his skin, and he knew he couldn't leave. Peace of mind is boring. The contact was over as soon as he felt it, Clary suddenly as far away from him as she could possibly get, and he barely repressed a sigh. She had started off the day on a good note, but now she was frustrating him again.

Sometimes she would touch him, and her touch would be soft and steady and his heart would beat so hard that it ached, but she always pulled away sharply, as though his skin had burned her. It would bother him more if he didn't do the same thing. He could never decide if he never wanted to see her again or if he wanted her closer, so close that their skin melded and their bones grinded together and their marrows mixed. The feeling of her skin against his was equal parts pain and pleasure, like a cool touch against sunburn.

"So," she caught his attention, distracting him. "All of you still want to come with me tonight?"

"Yeah. Well, not Alec, but he'll come anyway." Clary had mentioned before she left last night that she was going to Magnus Bane's party, and though she hadn't invited them, per se, Isabelle had been quick to jump on the opportunity for excitement.

"You don't have to, you know," said Clary. "I wasn't planning on staying long."

"No, we want to. That is, if you don't mind us tagging along. Isabelle loves parties. And Alec will follow her to make sure she doesn't get into trouble."

"What about you?" she asked, challenging him with a sly grin. "Why do you want to go?"

"I," he pronounced, "am not letting you get into any more trouble without me."

"What makes you think I've been getting into trouble?"

He gave her a jokingly stern look and she grinned, and he barely had time to smile back before she was darting ahead of him, running down the hallway with only a flippant "Race you!" to explain.

"Angel," he muttered under his breath, sprinting after her with a burning, childish excitement. This girl was giving him whiplash. But he didn't mind the way his heart felt, racing in his chest.

---

Clary felt better already. A fight was exactly what she needed. As she ran ahead of Jace towards the training room – at least, where she thought the training room was – she wondered how long they would last against each other in the fight. Jace seemed very certain of himself, but she was too. And she had been mindful not to wear a skirt this time.

She slowed her pace slightly, letting Jace catch up to her. Regardless of his strength, at least she was faster – her father had recognized her physical shortcomings early in her childhood and accommodated her training to account for it. When she darted around a corner, she felt her hair fan out and hit his face, and she laughed as he sputtered behind her.

But when they turned the corner, Clary noticed a slim silhouette at the other end of the hall. The person – Isabelle, she realized – saw them and averted her course. Isabelle reached the training room at the same time Clary and Jace did, and she sprang forward to block the doorway. "I don't think so," she told Jace. "We have a party to get ready for. You are not getting her all sweaty."

"Move it," Jace said irritably, trying to pull her slender frame away from the doors, but Isabelle wouldn't budge. "We aren't leaving for an hour, Isabelle," he groaned.

"Exactly!" she yelled. "Come on, Clary. You can borrow some of my clothes."

"Why can't I wear this?" Clary asked.

Isabelle's expression flattened into a steely, warning anger. "I'm going to forget you just said that."

"She looks fine," Jace snapped. "And she said she wanted to train with me. Didn't you, Clary?"

"I…" Clary floundered, torn and uncomfortable, glancing between Isabelle's firm glare and the doubt swelling under Jace's cool confidence.

"We're wasting time," said Isabelle, reaching forward to grasp Clary's forearm. Her nails were long, and Clary winced when they dug into her skin.

Maybe it was her wince, or maybe it was sibling rivalry, but Jace snapped a warning, "Hey, leave her alone," and then he was holding her other arm, his hand warm and calloused.

"You two fighting over her already?" a bored voice came from down the hallway, and they all turned to see Alec sauntering towards them. He threw a sharp glance at Jace's hand around Clary's arm. "Let the girls get ready, Jace." He looked at Clary as he said it.

"But…" Jace trailed off. "Fine."

"You'll have to forgive them, Clary," said Alec with a smile that didn't reach the cool blue of his eyes. "They aren't used to company. Especially not girls our age. This is all very exciting for them."

Clary didn't miss the implication of his words. That they were only interested in her because she was new and interesting, a novelty, and not because they actually liked her. She knew it was most likely jealousy that fueled his hostility. But she also knew he was probably right, so she held back the sharpness that was keen to lash from her tongue. This was his family, after all. Not hers.

Besides, it was a clever tactic at insulting her without being blatantly hostile. She was starting to like him.

She turned to Jace, deciding that if he looked as disgruntled as she felt, she would argue with Isabelle to stay with him. But when he met her gaze he was cool and expressionless, a faint smirk playing at his lips, distantly amused. So she stayed silent as Isabelle gave everyone in the group a challenging glare, daring them to argue with her.

"Excellent; it's settled, then," Isabelle pronounced primly. "Clary and I will go get ready, and you two can go do… whatever it is you do."

"See you later, Clary," Jace called over his shoulder as he followed Alec in the opposite direction – towards the weapons room, she thought, but she wasn't sure. Alec turned back to her with a devilish, winning smirk, and she couldn't help but grin in return. No, he wasn't bad at all.

"Alec and Jace seem pretty close," remarked Clary, following Isabelle as the girl began leading her away.

Isabelle turned to her sharply, her dark eyes suspicious and narrowed. Clary was surprised at that – she hadn't meant anything by her comment, but Isabelle certainly seemed to think she had. "They're parabatai," said Isabelle shortly, defensive and cross.

Clary, lacking an interest in pursuing friendship with Isabelle, didn't bother to apologize. Instead, she pondered Isabelle's strange reaction as she followed her ink-black hair through the long hallways to the area of the Institute inhabited by the Lightwoods – very near the room Clary herself stayed in when she spent nights there.

From what Clary had seen thus far, Isabelle was prone to melodrama when a situation called for it, and Clary attributed the girl's strange reaction to this tendency. But that didn't mean it wasn't uncomfortable to realize, once again, how little she understood of relationships between people who weren't her and her brother. She resolved to pay more attention to Alec, whom she had dismissed from her attention some days earlier out of disinterest but, she was realizing, may be more interesting than she thought.

Clary had almost lost track of their location in the Institute when finally Isabelle opened a door on their left to reveal –

Complete and utter chaos.

Clary stood frozen in the doorway for a long while after Isabelle had disappeared into the bedlam, staring in awestruck horror at the mess of scattered clothes and glittering colors; the vanity littered with countless colorful bottles and the bed covered in masses of clothing and the jewelry hanging from every surface that allowed it.

Isabelle emerged from a closet holding an assortment of colorful fabrics. When she noticed Clary still standing in the doorway, she stormed over. "Come on," she complained, and before Clary could contemplate running away, Isabelle was holding her arm and dragging her into the bedroom.

"We really need an hour to get ready?" Clary asked.

Isabelle held a glittering green dress up to Clary's frame. "Yes. You're about as far from ready as you could possibly be. You aren't even wearing mascara."

"I'm… sorry?" Clary ventured.

With a wrinkle of her nose, Isabelle pulled the dress away from Clary's shoulders and discarded it on her already buried bed. "Too big," she explained. She grabbed another dress – bright pink this time – but Clary stopped her.

"Do you have anything… black?" she asked.

Isabelle hummed. "You're right," she agreed. "Pink must look awful with that hair of yours."

After some rummaging in her disaster of a closet, she threw a piece of black fabric at Clary. "This one's perfect for you," she said, and pushed Clary into the small, bright blue bathroom, shutting the door behind her.

Clary stared at the dress Isabelle had given her, dubious that it would fit (or that it could even be called a dress), but she had a feeling an argument with Isabelle about fashion wouldn't be the best idea. With grim fortitude, she resolved to let Isabelle have her way – if only to be done with the whole ordeal sooner rather than later.

"Sorry about what I said about your clothes, earlier," Isabelle called through the door, assumedly referring to her horror at Clary's outfit. "You have nice clothes, really. They just aren't party clothes."

"You're right," Clary acquiesced. "I don't go to many parties. At least, not parties like this."

"Any parties in Idris?" Isabelle asked.

"Only a few, in Alicante. In the summer, when everyone's visiting." Sometimes she and her brother snuck out to the larger ones that the teenagers had, where they wouldn't be noticed, but Jonathan didn't like parties as much as she did and he always dragged her away after a few hours.

Isabelle launched into a lengthy complaint about the lack of Shadowhunters their age in New York while Clary struggled with the tight, stretchy fabric.

"Uh, Isabelle?" Clary called, interrupting Isabelle's tirade. "I don't think this dress is going to work out."

"I'm completely certain it fits you, Clary. Don't be a prude. Just put it on."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder."

"I think I dislocated my shoulder."

"Clarissa," warned Isabelle, "I'll come in after you if I have to."

Clary sighed and returned to her task. "I'm not a prude," she grumbled to herself as she finally situated the dress properly on her figure.

Dreading the next onslaught from Isabelle, she emerged from the bathroom. Isabelle had dressed in her absence and now wore a tight silver dress that shimmered like a star when she moved. Clary stared for a moment, mesmerized at the way the light reflected off of the fabric, before Isabelle noticed her reappearance and looked her over with a critical eye.

"It's a little loose in the chest," said Clary.

"That's okay; the straps are adjustable. Here, I'll do it." Isabelle walked over and tightened the thin black straps. Clary tried not to jump at the coolness of her fingers.

When she was finished, Isabelle grasped Clary's shoulders and turned her to face a large mirror on the opposite wall. "See?" she said with a winning smile. "Told you it would fit."

"I look… awkward," Clary observed.

"Your legs are too long for your body," Isabelle agreed. "But we can work with that."

Clary hadn't been referring to her legs when she criticized her appearance, but now her attention was drawn to them and her self-esteem markedly declined. They were too long for her. Maybe that was why she was so fast.

"Alright," said Isabelle, her tone clipped, "I'll go find some tights for you. You can wear your own boots."

Clary wasn't surprised when Isabelle's definition of 'tights' turned out to be fishnets, but she managed not to make a face at them. She consoled herself that at least she got to wear her boots – comfortable and tough and perfect for fighting.

"And now we have to do something about…" Isabelle made a gesture that encompassed the general area of Clary's face. "This."

At the face Clary made, Isabelle rolled her eyes. "You know I didn't mean it like that. You must know you're pretty. We just need to… glam you up a bit."

Isabelle sat her in a stool in front of the mirror and examined her for a moment, pensive.

"Wow. Your hair is red," Isabelle said. "Like, blood red. Do you dye it?"

"No; my father would never let me."

"I've never seen a natural color like this. It's nice. Not too gingery, you know?"

"My mother's hair is gingery," said Clary. She wasn't sure why she had said it. Idiot, she scolded herself. It hadn't been five minutes and she had already mentioned both of her parents – the two things she least wanted to talk about and the two things no one should know about. Ever.

Isabelle, luckily, seemed to think nothing of her comment.

"I love long hair," Isabelle mused, following the crimson waves down to Clary's waist.

Clary had a feeling there was some sort of girl etiquette for responding to compliments from other girls, but she didn't know it and she couldn't be bothered with making the effort, so she didn't. "Thanks. I've been thinking of cutting it off out of spite." Jonathan always pulled her hair, and she knew it only reminded Valentine of her mother, and she had started to hate how it got in the way of everything.

Though she hadn't meant it as a joke, Isabelle laughed, and Clary felt a small layer of tension between them disappear. Isabelle's hands were less hesitant as she ran her fingers through the waves of Clary's hair, smoothing it out, and Clary wondered if this whole situation would feel less strange and uncomfortable if she had ever, in her life, had female companionship. She loved her brother, but they didn't have the kind of relationship where they combed each other's hair.

Clary managed to sit still as Isabelle put the "finishing touches" on her appearance – pinning her hair up in a style far more elegant than her usual ponytails, applying makeup with products and instruments that Clary had never even heard of. As her deft fingers tamed Clary's mane of hair and applied various liquids and powders to her skin, Clary imagined how Isabelle's mother must have taught her these things. There must have been a time when Isabelle sported the same messy ponytails Clary did now, a time when she knew nothing about what colors looked good with what skin tones or how to accentuate someone's cheekbones with brush techniques.

All of it seemed so silly to Clary, who had been raised by her father to devote the entirety of her energy to a "bigger picture." There wasn't an action she took, a trial she was subjected to, that wasn't planned meticulously and reflectively to perpetuate her father's mission, that wasn't a reflection of the purpose that had been assigned to her before she was born. She couldn't count the number of hours she had devoted to wondering how it would feel to be different – or, rather, to be normal.

In her mind, side by side, she saw an ink-haired girl learning to braid her hair for the first time and a girl who could sever a man's spine and pierce his heart in a single stroke, her hair the same color as the blood that welled between her fingers. And then she imagined how it would feel to learn something because it made you happy and not because it was a "necessary evil," to learn something through love and patience instead of fear and pain. And she began to think maybe it wasn't so silly after all.

"And..." Isabelle drew back to look her over, and then she smiled brightly. "You're finished!"

"Thanks," Clary said, staring at her reflection without really seeing it.

"Now I just have to do mine," said Isabelle, her brow furrowed as she examined the different shades on an extremely large palette of eye shadows. Isabelle glanced over her shoulder and said, "You can go find Jace if you don't want to watch. You seem bored, and I know you and he are… well, whatever you are."

Clary shook her head. "I'll stay here."

Isabelle shrugged indifferently, already absorbed in outlining her dark eyes with a silver, shimmering powder.

"Are you an artist?" Clary asked.

"No. Why?"

"I don't know. Makeup seems sort of similar to painting, in some ways. And you're good at it, so…"

"I see what you mean. It does take an eye for color. And lots of brushes. What about you? Are you an artist?"

"I draw. Only for myself though."

Isabelle was quiet for a moment. "I wish I were good at something beautiful."

"You're good at this," Clary offered. "You look beautiful. Doesn't that count?"

Isabelle glanced at herself in the mirror, meeting the eyes of her reflection for only a moment before she looked away again. She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture and said, "This doesn't matter. It doesn't last."

They were silent after that, but it wasn't an uncomfortable silence. Isabelle focused on her tasks, and Clary let her mind wander – though she tried to keep her thoughts steered in comfortable directions. Tonight wouldn't be a good night to become lost in an angst-ridden journey down memory lane.

"Alright, I think I'm done," said Isabelle, examining herself in the mirror. She turned to Clary. "Do I look okay?"

Clary nodded. "Beautiful."

Isabelle grinned. "I'm going to grab a knife. Do you need to borrow anything?"

Clary shook her head. "I have my own."

While Isabelle rummaged around in her closet, Clary attempted to figure out how to stand up without revealing extremely private parts of herself.

Standing before the mirror, Clary fidgeted with the hem of the very tight, very short dress, trying in vain to make it longer. Angel, her father would kill her if he saw her in this. If Jonathan didn't beat him to it, that was. And then she corrected herself – Jonathan wouldn't kill her, he would just kill everyone who had looked at her while she was wearing it.

"Let's go, you little minx. We're late," Isabelle urged from the door, placing a dagger in a thigh sheath.

Clary darted past Isabelle once they were in the hallway. "I need to stop in my room," she called over her shoulder. She noticed that Isabelle quickened her pace to follow her instead of going downstairs by herself.

"That's not your room," Isabelle said as Clary opened a door to her right.

"Damn it," Clary muttered to the empty room she had entered. She always got lost in this place.

Isabelle walked ahead of her and led Clary around a corner to another hallway before gesturing to a door. "It's that one."

"Thanks," said Clary, not bothering to turn on the light as she entered her borrowed room. She grabbed her backpack from where she had left it next to her bed, reluctantly removing her sketchbook and leaving it on her nightstand. As much as she liked to have it with her, she knew she wasn't going to use it that night. She patted her boot to make sure her dagger was still there, and then she reemerged into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

Isabelle was fiddling with one of the silver ribbons she had put it in her hair, her face contorted in concentration.

"Do you need help?" Clary offered uncertainly.

Isabelle shook her head. "No, I think I finally got it out." She pulled the thread of silver free from her hair and walked over to Clary, and for a moment Clary worried she was going to make her wear it somehow. But then Isabelle stepped past her to the bedroom door and tied the ribbon around the doorknob, giving the knot a soft tug when she was finished so she was sure it would hold.

"So you won't have as much trouble finding your room," explained Isabelle with a playful grin.

Though the gesture was simple, Clary felt a warm affection in her chest that nearly overwhelmed her. She smiled back at Isabelle, but the other girl was already rushing down the hallway.

"We're late!" she exclaimed for the tenth time, and Clary giggled as she caught up to her.

Isabelle shot her a sharp look, but by the time they reached the first staircase she was laughing too. Clary was glad for Isabelle's company as they made their way through the Institute – with all of the staircases and hallways and hidden rooms and passages, it almost reminded Clary of a medieval castle. They had finally reached the staircase to the foyer – Clary recognized that much, at least – when Clary almost ran into Isabelle, who had stopped without warning.

"Wait!" Isabelle commanded, flinging out an arm to keep Clary behind her as she peeked around the corner. She pulled back and turned to Clary with a devious smile. "Jace is waiting downstairs," she whispered dramatically.

"Isn't he… supposed to be?" said Clary.

Isabelle ignored her comment. "You go down first," she ordered excitedly, "without me. I'll pretend I forgot something."

"Why?" said Clary, bewildered.

Once again, Isabelle ignored her. "Jace is going to die," she muttered, seemingly to herself.

And before Clary could make sense of what was happening, Isabelle had pulled her forward and then pushed her to the stairs, and Clary was left standing above Jace and Alec. Jace noticed her first, and then both boys were looking at her, and Clary was glad she wasn't the type to blush when she was embarrassed. Because this was mortifying. She turned around, but Isabelle had vanished, and every ounce of affection Clary had felt for her just moments before vanished.

She diverted all of her attention to walking down the stairs without making her dress ride up and without meeting Jace's eyes – but even without seeing him, she felt his gaze warming her exposed skin and her heart jumped.

Her attempts at ignoring Jace proved futile when she reached the bottom of the stairs and he walked forward to meet her. She didn't understand the nervousness in her stomach when he looked at her; it was something about the expression on his face when his gaze took in every part of her, something about the burn in his eyes and the nuance of darkness behind it.

But it didn't feel as uncomfortable as it should have. It wasn't strange that they were simply standing there, silent and staring at each other. It wasn't strange that she felt her pulse jumping in her throat. It wasn't strange that a part of her wanted his approval, or that he saw the question in her eyes and that she saw the answer in his.

"As guilty as I feel for letting Isabelle torture you so," he said with a growing smile, "I have to admit I appreciate the results."

"You should let her do your makeup some time," she said. "You look a bit wan."

"I could never pull off eyeliner as well as you," he said with false shame. "And, excuse me, wan? I maintain a sun-kissed glow year round, little miss. And you're one to talk."

She laughed. "Have you ever seen a tan red-head? It's awful."

"Speaking of hair," he murmured, reaching a hand up to hers. He pulled at the pins that held her hair up until her hair was falling from its coil, brushing the bare skin of her back as it settled into its usual wavy disarray. His lighthearted humor had vanished. "Perfect," he said hoarsely. "You look –"

"Isabelle!" Alec shouted up the stairs, interrupting whatever Jace had been about to say. "Let's go!"

They heard Isabelle's footsteps running down the hallway, and then she appeared on the staircase. "Sorry," she apologized breathlessly, "I decided I should bring a jacket and – WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER HAIR?" she shrieked, staring at Jace in wide-eyed anger.

Jace's callous laughter was cut short when Isabelle sprinted down the last few steps and charged towards him, and then he turned heel and ran to the back stairs that exited to an alley outside, Isabelle shouting as she pursued him.

As amusing as the ordeal was, it left Alec and Clary alone. Clary had a feeling Alec realized it at the same time she did, because he turned to her with narrowed, wary eyes and stiff posture. Clary paid careful attention to his reaction to her, complying with her earlier resolution to understand whatever it was about him that seemed to be escaping her.

He cleared his throat nervously, revealing the discomfort beneath his cool exterior. "We should probably… go after them," he said.

Clary nodded and followed Alec to the stairs. In the harsh lighting of the stairwell, she could see a hint of blue in the blackness of his hair. Where her brother's hair was the moon and stars, Alec's was the midnight sky that sheltered them in a wide expanse of endless darkness.

When they emerged in the alley, Jace and Isabelle were pacing around each other in a circle, Jace grinning devilishly and Isabelle barely managing to suppress her own smile.

"Twenty minutes, Jace Wayland," she said. "Twenty minutes, I spent on her hair."

"Cry me a river," he answered, but his words lacked venom. "That is, if you have any tears left after… Melon," he whispered the – incorrect – name with dramatic longing.

Isabelle made a whining noise as she darted forward and tried to kick at Jace's knee, but her maneuver was slow and Jace easily avoided it.

They continued as such for a while longer. Alec watched their banter affectionately for a few moments, with a smile more genuine than Clary had ever seen on him, but then he interrupted them, "Alright, you two. We should go."

"Before they start a real fight and kill each other," he mumbled to Clary, and she laughed lightly.

"Or Isabelle kills herself, in those shoes."

Alec glanced at Isabelle's extremely-high heels and granted Clary a small smirk.

Jace dodged a last, half-hearted swipe from Isabelle before he alighted at Clary's side, grinning. Isabelle elected to walk next to Alec, still muttering about Jace's "heartless inconsideration for style."

"Do you hear that?" Clary said to Jace. "Heartless. I think you've pushed her too far."

"We always knew her infatuation with aesthetics would be the death of her," he said remorsefully. "It's a fatal attraction."

"I think I'm safe from that particular peril," she said.

"Thank the Angel," said Jace, slinging an arm around her shoulders.

"Hey, where is this party, anyway?" Alec called back to Clary.

"Brooklyn," she answered. Next to her, Jace swore loudly.

"Oh, hush," she chided, bumping him lightly with her shoulder.

The journey to the address listed on Magnus Bane's party invitation was largely uneventful. Isabelle and Alec walked closely together, Isabelle still muttering irritably on occasion and Alec patiently listening. Jace and Clary trailed behind, silent for the most part.

It wasn't until they were very near Magnus Bane's apartment that anything interesting happened, and even that was somewhat disappointing. A group of boys, young and loud and inebriated, shouted rudely and made obscene gestures at Isabelle when she passed. When Alec moved to stand between her and them and said something – Clary couldn't hear exactly what it was, but he sounded angry – they lost interest. Clary was surprised at how anticlimactically the situation had resolved itself; if Jonathan had been there, Clary was certain someone would have gotten seriously injured.

Jace and Clary, at this point, were about half a block behind Alec and Isabelle, and so they didn't pass the group of men until a few moments later.

Jace slipped his hand into hers and threaded their fingers together. She started and glanced up at him, Jonathan stirring into anger in her mind.

"I don't want them to bother you," Jace explained.

She nodded, breaking her gaze from his but allowing her hand to remain in his grasp. As Jonathan raged in her mind, she decided to push herself instead of faltering like she always did. How long could she last, she wondered? How long before her brother's anger was too much to bear?

And as Jace traced aimless patterns on the back of her hand with his thumb and her skin warmed in response, Clary realized that if it weren't for Jonathan she would enjoy this very much.

And as Jace held her hand and Alec watched Jace with darkening blue eyes, Clary felt the beginning of understanding take root in her chest.

Before anything could make enough sense, Isabelle shouted, "This is it!" She was pointing to a large warehouse-like building to their right. From outside it appeared still and silent, not like the location of a party at all. But Magnus Bane was a warlock, after all.

The door on the street level was unlocked, and when they entered they found themselves in a dim stairwell, a large door to their right.

"Of course it's a walkup," Jace muttered.

Clary bumped him with her shoulder again as Isabelle snapped, "Don't be a snob." But Clary had a feeling Isabelle would have agreed with her brother if she weren't so mad at him. As much as the Lightwoods had been confusing her, anger, at least, was something she understood well.

"This is the only buzzer with a name," Alec said, pointing to a piece of tape that read "M. Bane."

"This must be his loft," Isabelle said.

"Thanks, genius," said Jace, and he was rewarded with a slap to the arm from Isabelle.

"What should we… do?" Alec asked uncertainly.

Isabelle marched forward and jabbed the buzzer with a silver-nailed finger.

"That works," Alec muttered.

After a few moments of waiting, occupied largely by Alec restraining Isabelle from hitting the buzzer again, the door was flung open to reveal Magnus Bane towering above them, a striking image of slender limbs and tight clothing and glitter. He narrowed his eyes as he stared at them. "Nephilim?" he said dubiously.

"Hi," said Clary, drawing his attention to her. She showed him the crumpled invitation she had retrieved from her backpack. "You invited me a few days ago."

"Did I?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes. We met at the post office, remember? I'm Clarissa Nightshade."

Recognition sparked in his eyes, and then a dark glow of wariness. "Ah," he said. "Yes." And then the wariness vanished from his eyes like a door had been slammed shut, and he leaned against the doorframe, looking quite glamorous with his casual, easy charm. "Thought you weren't coming, Batman." At the nickname, Jace, Isabelle and Alec threw her a questioning glance in unison, but she didn't acknowledge them.

"I changed my mind," she told Magnus with a bright smile. He turned his gaze to her companions, examining each of them for a thoughtful, quiet moment.

"Well, come in, I suppose," he drawled, shrugging himself away from the wall to swing the door open wider, allowing them inside and shutting it behind him.

Inside, they found an overwhelming scene of moving, sparkling bodies and loud, boisterous voices and the haunting wail of faerie music. As he walked away from them, Magnus advised, "Stay out of my bedroom, don't break anything, don't kill anyone." With a final, rakish wink – directed almost exclusively towards Alec, Clary noticed – he added, "Enjoy," before he retreated into the crowd of Downworlders.

Clary couldn't help an amused smirk at the red blush flushing across Alec's angular cheekbones, and the shocked – perhaps a bit disgruntled – stare that Isabelle was directing towards him.

Amusing as it was, she didn't have time to watch them. She had a book to steal.

She pranced away from them, hoping it looked like she was just excited to be at the party and not hurrying to run a warlock's errand. Her plan to get the spell book quickly and then return to the party, however, was thwarted when Jace decided to follow her instead of staying with his siblings.

"Where are you going?" he asked with a confused smile, glancing at the staircase she had been walking towards.

"I thought I saw Simon," she lied. "But it wasn't him."

Jace's mouth tightened a bit at the corners, but then he shrugged indifferently. "Simon doesn't seem like the partying type."

"You haven't even met him," she pointed out.

"I caught a glimpse of him once. I'm very perceptive." With a glance around the crowd, he concluded, "Nope, no gangly vampires here."

"I think I spot a jealous Shadowhunter, though," she quipped, raising an eyebrow.

"Jealous," Jace scoffed, grinning. "What would I have to be jealous of?"

Though she didn't like the way he spoke about Simon, she couldn't help but smile when he looked at her like that.

She let him lead her into the thick of the party with his hand around her arm; normally she heard Jonathan when he touched her, but it was too loud then, with the music and shouting and laughing. She loved it.

"Isn't this amazing?" she asked Jace, leaning in so he would hear her.

She couldn't make out his expression in the darkness, but he stared at her a long time before he answered, "Yes."

The novelty and excitement of the party, however, soon faded in favor of her nervousness. Stay out of my bedroom, she heard Magnus saying in her head. Would he notice if she slipped upstairs? Is that even where he kept the book? He hadn't said, Stay out of the room where I keep all of my priceless spell books, after all. Bedroom first, then.

Jace was offering her a drink. She took it with a smile that she hoped belied her nervousness.

After a few sips, she asked him, "What is this?"

"Faery something," he answered, and she groaned.

"Not again," she mumbled morosely, staring down into the electric blue liquid that filled her glass.

"Oh, come on," Jace said with a wide grin. "It's a party. And I won't let anything happen to you."

His last words were heavier, more serious, and she couldn't find the words to answer but could only stare at him; at the way his eyes were burning and his fingers shook very slightly and his arrogance had vanished as if a mask had fallen away from his face.

She didn't like the way the weight of his words pulled her down, made her mind stop spinning and her blood surge slower as it burned in her veins. Her safety was in chaos. Not here, where everything was heavy and she was trapped by burning eyes and heavy words.

"Dance with me," she said, desperate to move faster again, to escape the cage of his eyes.

Jace seemed a bit taken aback, perhaps a bit disappointed, but he agreed and followed her into a thick of Downworlders that were moving to the slow, alluring rhythm of the faeries' music.

Clary was more than happy to lose herself in the eerie, melancholy wail of the faery's voice, to release the tension in her muscles in swaying carelessness. Jace moved with her, and despite the confusion that entangled their minds and twisted their emotions, their bodies still understood each other. Clary liked it better that way – everything instinctual, wordless, shadowy and whispering in that world where nothing made sense but it didn't need to, where explanation and facts didn't exist.

And for a while, everything was that way. Light and unpressured, floating through the lilting, discordant melody of a faery song.

Until Jace stepped closer, and her eyes were dragged to meet his gaze. Until his hand tightened on her hip. Until her blood was rushing so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear the music anymore.

And then it happened again – he was pulling her down, down to a depth of severity and restriction. A part of her wanted to let him, if only to be with him. But she couldn't.

This wasn't her life. This wasn't her world. The hands that rested on his shoulders and brushed through his hair weren't hers. She belonged somewhere else. She belonged to someone else. The music was loud enough that she still couldn't hear Jonathan's voice in her head, but her body remembered him – her skin was permanently imprinted where his hands had closed around her, her blood whispered his name, her very mind had been formed by him, and even in lost moments where she wasn't sure who she was or what she wanted, she couldn't let him go.

She pulled away from Jace, and light and sound and chaos filled the space between them. Jace drew back too, wounded, and the space swelled to a gaping chasm that only fearless faith could breach. Faith she didn't have.

And as the space between them grew, she saw his eyes freeze over and harden, the whirling light within them slowing into stillness. And just like that, it was over. She wasn't falling anymore.

I need to leave, she thought, and then she couldn't help but say it out loud. When she did, anger overwhelmed Jace's coolness for a flashing moment, followed by hurt, followed by a quiet, restrained desperation. He grabbed her hand.

"Don't you want to stay?" Jace asked, his eyes wide and burning. "With me?"

"I can't," she told him.

His grip tightened and she felt the callouses of his fingers resting just over the thrum of her heartbeat, pulsing steadily under the thin skin of her wrist, and it felt like her pulse was straining through her skin to be closer to him, her blood burning. The song that had been playing came to an end, and the party collapsed into an abrupt, surprising quietness. "Why are you so afraid?" he asked her softly in the sudden silence.

What are you doing?Jonathan demanded, his deep voice an overwhelming echo now that it was quiet once more. It was too quiet. Too quiet for her to hide, or to forget who she really was. She wasn't lost in noise and excitement anymore. She was trapped between her anguish and her restlessness, her brother's voice in her head and Jace's grip on her wrist. Jonathan's possession of her heart and Jace's fingers around her heartbeat.

And then, in the midst of her chaos, she saw Simon across the room. Safe, quiet, cool Simon. Simon, who didn't make her skin burn when he touched her, who didn't make her brother's ghost jealous, who didn't understand her at all.

She tore her hand from Jace's and ran away from him, darting through the crowd faster than his broader form could follow, ignoring the sound of him calling her name – surprised, hurt, angry. It wasn't as loud as her brother, anyway.

---

Jace downed another drink – yellow, this time – and was pleasantly surprised that it tasted like sparkling lemonade and not like…. well, something worse than lemonade.

"Think you should slow down?" Alec asked, concerned.

"Think you should keep up?" With a grin, he pushed a drink in Alec's direction, but his parabatai shook his head.

"I'm alright," Alec said.

"Oh, come one. This one's clear; it's probably just water."

"Or it isn't water, and I'll end up in Brooklyn with an androgynous faerie and a –"

"Alright, alright. Let's not bring that up again. Besides, we're already in Brooklyn." Jace drank the drink he had offered Alec, wincing as it burned its way down his throat. "That might have just been vodka," he said thoughtfully, peering into the empty glass.

Alec rolled his eyes. "I'm going to find Isabelle."

Jace grunted, deciding to stay where he was.

"Wait," he said, catching Alec's arm. Alec looked back at him, his eyes wide. "Have you seen Clary?"

Alec shook him off, his eyes narrowed again. "No."

"Well, if you do…"

"Yeah, got it," Alec said shortly, and then he was gone, his slender frame disappearing into the crowd quickly despite his height.

Jace wasn't sure how long he sat there, searching the room for a sight of crimson hair or pale skin or green eyes, but his eyes burned from looking for her, unblinking and straining.

He began to miss Alec. Now that he was alone, he found himself brooding – he didn't usually think this much. But now, with the drinks that had warmed his blood and clouded his mind, he felt everything. He thought of everything.

He had never been so aware of his heart. Before, it had been quiet and faint in his chest, a mere whisper of the world that existed outside of his world of scars and killing. Now he felt every beat like it was a clap of thunder; every stutter caused a tremble through his bones. In sheltering his heart, he had left it untouched and un-calloused, its skin fresh and pure, and now the force of her was rubbing it raw. It wasn't used to this. He wasn't ready.

And then he found her. He saw her hair first – a deep crimson, waves that fanned out behind her when she moved quickly enough. And then her eyes, flashing in a dark emerald glimmer as she scanned the crowd. It wasn't him she was looking for. His heart stuttered, his bones trembled with it.

Looking at her, watching her from across the room, he felt an intensity swell in his chest, in his stomach. It was burning and aching, raw, suffocating. It wasn't pleasant at all. He hated it. And even as he hated it, he shivered when her eyes met his.

And then her gaze darted away from his – quickly, nervously – and the storm in his chest collapsed into itself and vanished and left him with nothing but a racing heart and a burning in his throat and an ache in his bones.

He couldn't believe what this girl was doing to him. He barely knew her. And yet he felt as though he understood her more than he had understood anyone in his life. When his father died, Jace had found himself thrust into a world where he couldn't make sense of anything anyone did – of the emotions they felt, of the world they lived in, of the things that mattered to them. And here was this girl, living in the same world he had been alone in for so long, and it was like she didn't feel it at all. Like the storm in his chest and the raw ache of his heart and the burning in his blood was nothing but words to her. It felt like he had found her and understood her and then lost her, all in the same breath.

It was horribly miserable. But more than that, it made him angry. Angry at her, yes, but most of the anger was for himself. Anger for letting such an awful thing happen to him. Anger for being so foolish, for forgetting the things his father had tried so hard to teach him.

Jace latched onto his anger like a leech, blindly hoping that it would save him. He poured all of his energy into it, sheltered it like he was birthing a flame in a damp forest. Rather than finding the strength to forget about her, as he had wished, Jace instead found himself with a different kind of strength. The strength to fight for her.

Jace Wayland did not sit still. Jace Wayland did not wait in anguished silence when longing made him burn.

He saw his father, the life slipping from his veins in a crimson spill across the tiled floor. He saw himself, young and frightened and helpless, silent in the darkness as his entire world was ripped away from him with the swipe of a blade in a monster's hands.

Stillness and silence had cost him everything.

He wouldn't let it happen again.

Jace Wayland didn't let anything go without a fight.

It wasn't until he stood up that he realized how strange he felt – dizzy, breathless, trembling, warm and freezing at the same time. He didn't know how much of it was from the drinks and how much was because of her.

He followed a pull in his chest through the party, up the stairs, down a long hallway until he found her. He opened a heavy wooden door to see her in a lavishly decorated bedroom, bent over her backpack next to a bookshelf. He hovered in the doorway for a moment; just looking at her was enough to exacerbate the raw ache of his thundering heart. Her red hair fanned out across her back, and he could see the knobs of her spine through her thin black dress. Her eyelashes brushed her cheekbones. Her nose was delicate and pointed, her lips full and pink. He felt a burn in his abdomen, slow and deep and hungry. Her name ran through his mind like an alluring chant, and soon she had consumed his thoughts completely.

He didn't realize he had begun to walk towards her until she jumped in surprise, drawing her dagger and whirling around to face him in a single motion. When she saw him, she relaxed, but her eyes alit with anger. "Jace," she breathed exasperatedly. "You scared me."

"Sorry," he said without sincerity, his tongue heavy.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her tone relieved and less hostile.

"I was looking for you," he said, surprisingly blunt. He suddenly realized that coming to find her had been a bad idea. He would say anything, then. He would tell her anything. He was going to ruin everything.

"Why?" she asked offhandedly, her brow slightly furrowed as she dug through the items in her backpack.

It seemed like her mind was elsewhere, like she wasn't really paying attention to him and didn't really care why he had come to find her. The anger that rushed through him took him by surprise, and before he knew it he was slamming the door shut behind him, plunging them both into dark silence.

He had her attention now. "Jace?" she asked softly.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded.

"Excuse me?" she asked, and when she stepped away from him nervously, his anger erupted into vehemence. As if he would ever hurt her. Didn't she know him at all? How did she not understand him, the way he understood her? Surely she must. This couldn't only be happening to him. This wasn't in his head. This was real. He knew it, felt it in the part of his being that must come from something eternal.

"Jace," she said worriedly, "tell me what's wrong."

A warning voice in the back of his mind told him he was being ridiculous; insane, even, and he knew with certainty that something was very, very wrong with him. He needed to find Alec, get some help. More importantly, he needed to get away from her. She was doing this to him, it was her fault; he couldn't stand being around her anymore.

But she was still staring at him, her full attention on him and him alone, because that was what he had wanted just a few moments ago. This had never happened before. He had never possessed her like this, in entirety. Normally at least a part of her was somewhere else, away from him. Normally he was just a distraction for her, and he knew it, but he put up with it anyway. Because even when he only had part of her, his heart raced. Because he wasn't sure he could handle the full force of her anyway.

But now, he could feel that he had finally done it. He finally had her. Her eyes were wide, surprised, almost fearful. This is why he had come. This is what he wanted. He wanted to tell her. He couldn't ignore her eyes.

"Jace, tell me," she pleaded, and then he was lost completely.

"I can't… do this anymore," he said, and he cringed when he heard how desperate he sounded.

"What?" Hurt and confusion filled the softness of her voice, its usual melody marred and twisted and broken. It made him feel regret, but not enough.

And then words were slipping through his lips of their own volition, bypassing his brain completely, spilling from the trembling core of his chest through the hoarseness of his voice "I hate the way you make me feel. I hate the way you always change your mind about me. I hate how I can't help but think about you, all the time, but you're always leaving and changing your mind and I don't understand… All I can do is feel, and think, and it never makes sense, anything, and I…" He stopped then, his thoughts racing ahead of his words until he was nothing but stammering and bitterness and an aching feeling.

Somehow, she seemed to make sense of the tangled mess of half-formed thoughts he had offered her. He could see that she was piecing them together, manipulating the shattered pieces to make something whole. And he found hope that he had been right in thinking she was able to understand him in the way he had always wished someone would. "Do you hate… me?" she asked, and it sounded like the idea pained her.

He was tired of explaining how he felt when she never did the same, but he couldn't help but answer her. "No, I don't hate you."

"Why not?" When he didn't answer, she admitted, "I do."

"Well… I'm trying to."

"Oh," she said, and for the first time she sounded like she really did understand him. Figures, he thought bitterly. His desire to hate her was the only thing she understood. Out of everything, that.

He wanted her to understand the other things, too. He wouldn't leave that room until she did. With all that he was feeling, and all that he was trying to tell her – the thought of her being left with only that single impression was maddening.

"You don't understand," he said.

"You're right," she said.

"Do you at least… feel it?"

"Feel what?"

"This," he said.

She didn't answer him, but he saw her pupils dilate in the darkness until he couldn't tell where black ended and dark green began.

"I'm so sick because of you," he told her, and his voice was quiet and breaking with the weight of the words he spoke.

"Because of me?" She was angry now. "You don't know me. You have no right to feel anything about me."

"That's why I'm sick." He had sensed the desperation in her words and knew she was convincing herself and not him. Anyone else, he would have believed. He would have accepted defeat and put an end to his imaginings and never seen them again. But her, he understood. He saw the way she had thrown herself into her anger. He knew she was only hiding there. Hiding from him. He knew she didn't want him to leave. He knew he would need to push her, drag her down to the depths into which he had so hopelessly fallen, and there they would be together.

"Tell me you don't feel anything," he demanded. "Tell me you have no idea how I feel. And I'll leave. Forever."

When she looked at him, her eyes were burning once more, explosive. There was confusion and resentment and interest and fear, excitement, grief, pain, light, and hatred, and anger, lust and fire and a thousand dying stars. And he didn't mind the hatred, or the resentment or the anger, because he knew with certainty that everything in her eyes was for him and only him, and there was light there too. He looked at her and he could feel everything; the surging storm that was her heart, emotions so chaotic and quick they flickered like fire and beat against him like countless waves of shivers and aching. God, she was glorious, and she just might hate him.

And still, she said nothing. Maybe she didn't need to. Her answer was in her eyes. Her answer was in her silence.

And when he leaned forward, she didn't move away from him.

"Clary," he whispered above her lips.

He couldn't hold himself there any longer – so close but not close enough. He had to move away, or closer, because he couldn't stay there. There, in the shivering, uncertain space between them, was hell.

When her eyes slipped shut, her eyelashes brushed against his cheekbones like the fragile flutter of wings.

And then he kissed her. She didn't kiss him back, and his muscles tensed in anticipation of her rejection. She moved her arms, and he feared she might push him away, but still he couldn't bring himself to pull his lips away from hers. And just as he began mustering the strength to pull away, he felt the cool press of her fingers against his neck, sliding into his hair. And then she was kissing him back.

And if he had thought she felt good before…

This is heaven.

He slipped his fingers into her hair, pressing their mouths more firmly against each other's. She made a soft noise into his mouth and he moaned at the feeling, swaying towards her until her back hit the wall and he was against her, his skin alive and burning where he was touching her.

And it was more than his body that was burning. He felt her in his heart too.

He didn't know if he was feeling his heart splintering and shattering into dust and falling stars, or feeling a universe in his chest swarming together to form a whirling center of light and motion. He didn't know. He didn't know if he was falling apart or becoming something alive for the first time. But he knew it was because of her, so he didn't mind. Beautiful death or beautiful creation. It was beautiful all the same.

He wanted to taste the music of her voice. He wanted to drown in the scent of her skin. He wanted to swallow her sadness. He wanted to crawl into her heartbreaking, heart-making soul.

He clung to her with a desperation he had never felt before. Part of it was disbelieving joy – joy that something like this could exist in a world where before he had seen only darkness and suffering.

And part of it was anger, the same anger he had seen in her eyes moments before. He was angry because, as amazing as this felt, he didn't want to feel anything at all. He was angry because he knew something like this couldn't last forever.

Who was she, to make him feel this way? Why was this happening to him? He tightened his grip on her, gasping when she did the same; pulling his hair, her fingers digging into his shoulder.

He didn't pull away from her until the lack of air had his lungs splintering in his chest.

"This is …weird," she whispered breathlessly, still clutching him tightly against her.

"No it isn't." When he shook his head, his nose brushed hers. "It isn't. I know we just met…" his body was swaying towards her, and he couldn't help but nuzzle her neck, kiss the tender skin there and feel her delicate bones under his lips. He pulled back to look into her eyes, deep green, a forest of trees. "I know you, Clary," he whispered, and he felt the truth of it thrum through his heart, sending a shiver down his spine. "I know you."

A tangled blur of emotions bloomed in her eyes like the petals of a midnight flower, and then they were together again. His mouth moving against hers, her legs tangling with his as they stumbled against a wall. Her hands slid from his shoulders down to his waist and he shivered against her, as her lips parted and he slid his tongue into her mouth, and it still wasn't close enough –

"What is going on in here?" a deep voice boomed behind them, and suddenly Jace's arms were empty and Clary had jumped five feet away from him, startled and slightly breathless.

"Magnus," she said nervously, her voice apologetic.

"Jace?" a different voice asked, and Alec stepped around Magnus's slender frame in the doorway to gaze at them in surprise. "What are you…?" His eyes took in Jace's disarrayed clothes, Clary's tangled hair and swollen lips, and his eyes narrowed.

"What are you doing?" asked Jace, glancing between Alec and Magnus in confusion.

Alec sputtered. "I was looking for you, so I… Magnus was… I…"

Magnus spared him further embarrassment when he interrupted, "What I do in my bedroom is none of your business, Shadowhunter. I recall telling you not to come in here."

"They didn't mean any harm," Alec said reassuringly, nervous despite the fact that Magnus seemed more amused than angry. When Alec addressed Jace, his tone was more firm. "We should go."

"Yes, we should," Clary agreed, resting a protective hand on her backpack as she darted past Magnus, giving him a sheepish glance before she raced down the hall and back to the party.

"Clary!" Jace shouted after her in frustrated surprise, but she had already disappeared, and he was alone with Alec and Magnus.

"She's a flighty thing, isn't she," Magnus remarked insouciantly, leaning against his doorframe. Jace shot him a sullen glare but couldn't bring himself to argue. She was flighty. She was driving him insane.

But he'd be lying if he said he didn't like it, just a little bit. For all her unpredictability, she was thrilling. His heart had never beat so fast.

"Is your friend alright?" he heard Magnus ask, and he turned to see Alec looking at him strangely.

"Why do you look like that?" Alec asked him perplexedly.

"Like what?" Jace asked through the slur of his tongue.

"I'd guess," Magnus interjected, "either your friend has had a copious amount of faery potion, or he's quite infatuated with a certain flighty red-head."

"Both," Jace said dreamily.

Alec rolled his eyes. "Angel," he groaned disgustedly. "Let's go, Jace."

Jace vaguely heard Magnus say something to Alec in a low voice, but he wasn't listening. He was wondering where Clary went, even as he cursed himself for making such a fool of himself. Stop, he told himself, breaking through the haze for a merciful moment of clarity before it came rushing back, and then she was all he could think about.

"Magnus," he moaned desperately. "Help me."

Magnus laughed. "With what?"

"I don't want to feel like this anymore. Are you handing out… infatuation potions, or something?"

"I don't make the drinks at my own party," Magnus said, insulted. "It depends on who you took a drink from."

"It was yellow," said Jace. "It tasted like lemonade."

Magnus smirked knowingly. "I've seen many a Shadowhunter felled by that particular beverage. Maybe if you all weren't so set on suppressing your emotions, it wouldn't be so traumatizing for you."

"What?" Jace demanded. "What does it do?"

"It doesn't do anything; it just lowers inhibitions. Great for parties. Speaking of parties, you should get out of mine."

"We are," said Alec. "Right now."

"Goodbye, Alexander," said Magnus, much more politely. "Find him one of the green drinks and he'll be fine." And then Jace was being shoved out of the room by his parabatai's uncharacteristically rough hold.

Jace strained for a glance of Clary as they emerged into the thick of the party, but he couldn't see her. Once, he thought he saw her hair, but then he realized it was too orange and the girl was too large. Where had she gone?

"Here," said Alec sharply, returning to Jace's side. Jace hadn't even noticed he had left. He took the green beverage that Alec was holding out to him, cringing at the bitter taste.

He could tell that Alec was irritated with him, but still Alec didn't leave his side. He never did. "I'm glad you're here," said Jace, taking advantage of the drink's effects before they vanished completely. He didn't say things like that often enough, nowhere near as often as he wanted to.

Alec's anger faltered, his eyes lightening with his surprise, and then he sighed and leaned against the railing beside them. "You too, Jace." He sounded tired.

"Really?" Jace asked quietly. "Are you really glad I'm here?"

"Of course I am," said Alec, perplexed. "You're my parabatai."

"You're not 18 yet," said Jace. "You could still cut your losses."

He had been joking, but Alec was as solemn as he always was when he said, "I would never do that."

"I know you wouldn't," Jace said. "But… sometimes, I think I'm more trouble than I'm worth."

Alec let out a short, bitter laugh. "Oh, you are," he said with a sardonic smile. "But we put up with you. For whatever reason."

"It's my stunningly good looks, isn't it?"

Alec shook his head in exasperation and didn't answer, knowing their sentimental moment was over.

With relief, Jace noted the blurriness receding from his mind, allowing him to think more clearly.

And then all he felt was crushing, mortifying embarrassment. Had he really said those things? What had he been thinking? He groaned and rested his head on the railing, hiding in the fold of his arms. Alec, as if knowing the source of his anguish, laughed and gave him a sharp pat on the back.

At least it wasn't all bad. At least he had kissed her. At least – he thought, maybe – they were moving towards something more solid, more tangible.

"Jace," he heard a voice cry behind him, her voice, cutting through the noise of the party like a blade. He spun around to face her.

"Clary," he said, taking in her wide eyes and the scarlet blood on her pale skin as a dangerous, dark swell rose in his chest. "What happened?" he demanded.

"Simon," she said breathlessly, her voice raw with distress. "They took Simon. I was… We were talking, outside, and suddenly they were everywhere, and there were too many of them and I couldn't… He's gone. They took him."

"Who?" Alec asked sharply.

"Vampires," she said.

"Vampires," Jace repeated confusedly. "But Simon's a vampire. Why would they attack him?"

"He's in trouble," she said. "They're punishing him for something."

"For what?"

"Me," she said in distress. "Because he's friends with me."

"If he broke the rules of his own coven, there isn't much we can do for him," Alec said grimly.

"But we have to," Clary protested desperately. "You don't understand; this is my fault. I have to do something."

"I'm going with you," Jace told her resolutely.

"Jace," warned Alec with a hand on Jace's shoulder, "We can't interfere."

Clary's desperation had pressed against him and then slipped through his skin and into his heart, and now he was feeling it too. "Alec," he said helplessly. "If she's going, I…"

"You're going too," Alec finished angrily, dropping his hand from Jace's shoulder.

Jace glanced between them, torn, and a spark of anger ignited in Clary's eyes. "Fine," she said. "Stay here."

She turned and began to leave, but Jace whipped out a hand and caught her arm. "No, wait –"

"Jace, there are rules about this sort of thing," Alec was saying worriedly, but he was apologetic when he met Clary's furious gaze.

"Rules?" she repeated incredulously. "What if it was your friend?"

"Well, it isn't my friend. Because I don't have any vampire friends. Because it's a terrible idea," Alec snapped.

Jace had a feeling Clary would have punched Alec if he wasn't holding her good arm.

A faint ringing caught their attention, and Clary quickly pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Hello?" she said breathlessly, and Jace wondered if it was Simon until he saw her shoulders slump in disappointment. Whoever it was did most of the talking as Clary gave one-word responses, so he didn't have any guesses as to who it was.

"Alright," she said, her eyes finding Alec's. "I'll tell him."

She snapped her phone shut. "Isabelle's looking for you," she told Alec.

"Really? Why?"

"She didn't say. Just that she needs you and you didn't answer your phone."

And then Alec was gone, pushing his way through the mass of party guests and looking for his sister.

Jace made to follow him, feeling a growing worry for whatever Isabelle had gotten herself into this time, but Clary pulled him back. He processed the look in her eyes and sighed. "That wasn't Isabelle on the phone, was it?"

"No," she admitted shamelessly. At his groan, she protested, "He wasn't going to let me go."

"Yeah, and I'm not either," he told her firmly.

"Yes you are," she said lowly, and he couldn't doubt her determination any longer.

"Clary, please," he pleaded, but he didn't know what he wanted from her anymore. He was just saying her name, just asking her for… something.

"I shouldn't have told you anything," she lamented, pulling away from him.

"No, Clary," he protested, pulling her towards him again. "You are not running off again. I'm coming with you."

"Well, I'm leaving," she said. "Right now."

"Then I am too."

She looked at him, her panicked desperation calming into a searching, piercing gaze, and once again he was stripped bare by the unwavering force of her being, his skin left raw and sensitive and vulnerable. "Alright," she consented after a long pause, and he gripped her hand tighter in his as she led him away from the party; away from his parabatai, from his brother and sister, away from light and music and into the darkness of the night.

---

Clary didn't let go of Jace's hand as they hurried through the dark streets. Her brother was snarling at her, her mind conjuring memories of cruel whispers and bittersweet bruises, but she ignored all of it for the warmth of Jace's skin and the comfort of his light beside her in the darkness.

"You know where their coven is?" he asked her.

"The Hotel Dumont," she answered. "Simon told me yesterday, when we were… when we…"A strangled feeling clenched her throat, and she couldn't finish the sentence. She remembered Simon's gentleness, his bravery, his selflessness, and she worried she might burst into tears. She couldn't believe she had done to this to him. She couldn't believe she had been this selfish, this foolish.

If Simon was dead, she would never forgive herself. Earlier the previous day, she had thought herself indifferent to the possibility of his death. Now, she felt herself being ripped apart at the mere thought of how it would feel to know he was gone forever, and that it was her fault. Her heart ached with the knowledge that such kindness and innocence and gentleness could be ripped away from the world forever and that she was helpless to stop it.

She shook the thought out of her head. She wasn't helpless. Not yet.

"Alec's going to kill us tomorrow," Jace muttered.

If we're alive by then. She knew Jace had thought the same thing by the way his hand tightened around hers as he leaned closer to her, but neither of them said it out loud.

"Let's stop here," Jace said, pulling her towards a dark, towering church on their right.

At her distressed noise of protest, he wrapped an arm around her waist to drag her with him. "We can't walk into a coven of vampires without weapons, Clary. We'll hurry, I promise." She knew he was right, and so she followed in restless silence as he used a rune to break the lock on the surrounding wrought iron fence and spoke the necessary words before the doors of the church.

The interior of the church was beautiful and empty, dark and silent. She craned her neck to gaze at the engravings along the walls and the stained glass near the roof, hoping the beauty of it would distract her. But, as beautiful as it was, it was too cold, too empty. She turned her attention to Jace instead, though she couldn't see his face as she followed behind him to the altar. The moonlight filtering through high windows muted his sun-gold hair until it was almost silver. Not as silver as her brother's.

Jace had been searching the floor for the rune that marked the location of the weapons, and she suddenly felt guilty for not helping. "There," she said, pointing to a tile to his right engraved with the rune for their people. Nephilim. She could almost hear the word as a whisper in her head.

Once he had used his stele to open it, she reached into the compartment to remove the large wooden box that housed the weapons. Together, they sifted through them to find the ones that they could use.

While she was examining the clear liquid in a vial she had found under a coil of electrum wire, she felt Jace's eyes on her skin. She looked up to find him staring at her with a darkness in his eyes she had never seen before.

"They hurt you," Jace said lowly, reaching a hand to her face. As his fingers traced her skin, she felt the ache of a swelling bruise on her cheek.

"They surprised us," she said. Her voice was very quiet, but it still echoed in the cavernous emptiness of the church. "We were just talking and then… they were everywhere." She remembered it with piercing clarity – the glint of the moonlight against their bared fangs, monstrous snarls, a flurried commotion of shouts and blows and teeth and pained cries, Simon's hand being torn from hers as he disappeared from her and she was helpless to stop it.

"Clary…" Jace sounded distressed. "I know you want to help Simon, but… What do you expect us to do? An entire coven of vampires…."

"I'm hoping we won't have to fight them. I mean, I know it's a risk, but I… I have to try. You don't have to come. You shouldn't actually. This is my fault."

"I'm coming."

"But I –"

"I'm coming." His eyes flashed in the darkness, his tone sharp and final.

She returned to her task, forcing herself to concentrate through the whirling chaos in her head.

Her distraction overwhelmed her every few moments, and when once it brought her gaze to Jace, she found him staring at the statue of Jesus above them, at the stone face etched with suffering.

"Are you praying?" she asked. A part of her had meant the question to be sarcastic. But her fear for Simon and the danger they were all facing and the vast, heavy silence of the church had all crept up and subdued her, choking the shielding bitterness away from her words, leaving only a hoarse, unnerved sincerity.

Jace turned to her and smiled that humorless smile he always seemed to hold over his skin like a shield. That smile without the slightest trace of happiness in its curve, more a grimace than anything else. "You think that would help us?"

Her father believed in God.

"No, I don't," she answered Jace. She knew better.

"I don't either," said Jace. After a long pause, filled with cool air and silence and the smell of blood, he murmured, "My father was religious. He prayed."

It was the first time she had ever heard him mention Valentine, and she found pause with the strange feeling it caused in her chest. The same thought Jace had spoken had crossed her mind just moments ago.

"Is it God you don't believe in?" Jace asked her. "Or his power?"

She had never thought about it before, but now she did. "Neither," she answered. "I don't think myself in a position to contemplate either. It's not God's existence or his power that I doubt. It's his willingness."

"What do you mean?" Jace asked, though she saw the beginning of an almost eager understanding in his eyes.

"I don't know if God exists. And, supposing he does, I don't know what power he holds over us, over our world. But if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that he won't help us. Whether he's the all-powerful being some believe or a phantom dream… it doesn't matter."

"You're saying…" said Jace, "that either way, we're on our own."

"Yes… I suppose that is what I'm saying." Though she and Jace often shared sentiments, she was discovering he was able to put them into words in a way she never could.

"That's exactly what I've always thought," said Jace, and she couldn't help but smirk at the irony of it.

How had a devout man managed to raise two children so certain of their own cynicism, so firm in their belief of the futility of faith?

When she thought of Jonathan, as she often did in silent, dark moments such as this, she corrected herself, Three children.

She thought of her brother, the way he used to pull the wings off of insects when they were children and stare at the struggling, helpless creatures that remained until death stilled them, his brow furrowed as if he didn't understand how such a thing could happen, how something could be alive and then disappear completely in the span of a single, shaking breath – an entire sliver of the universe, gone. And she would watch, as entranced by the tortured, dying creatures as she was by the idea that her brother could summon death with a single motion of his careless fingers.

Three children, Valentine had raised to be hopeless and cynical, almost sadistic in their misery.

Deus volt was her father's motto. "Because God wills it." The words were laced with bitterness in her thoughts, choked her when she tried to say them out loud. Deus volt was the snap and slash of a whip's searing pain, as white and blinding as the light of heaven. Deus volt was hours in a dark cellar, tortured and alone and helpless in the throes of hell. Deus volt was her brother's pain pouring into her heart through his hands around her throat and his teeth in her skin.

Jace interrupted her thoughts, cutting through the noise of them in a way no one else had ever managed. "If not God, is there anything you believe in?" He sounded troubled, like he was hoping for an answer she couldn't give.

"Death," she answered, in her mind seeing dying insects and dying stars and blood welling between her fingers. "I believe in death."

When she was able to tear herself from her memories, it was to find Jace looking at her with an indecipherable expression in his eyes.

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked.

"No one's ever been like me before," he said softly. "But you're like me."

His words made her think of what he had said earlier. I know you, he had said, his voice hoarse and low. She remembered the tremble of his breath against her skin and his hands gripping her as if he could crush their bones together, his mouth moving against hers.

The sound of clashing metal brought her gaze to Jace, who had returned to sorting through the weapons before them, and she shook herself from her thoughts, ashamed. How could she be thinking about such things when Simon was… She couldn't even imagine what Simon was going through. She had no idea. And it was killing her.

Springing into action to appease the restless burning of her blood, she began sheathing the weapons that lay in waiting under the altar, ignoring her artistic instinct to stare, just for a moment, at the way the heavenly metal shone in the moonlight filtering through stained glass windows. There wasn't time for beauty on a night like this.

As she settled into her killer's skin, she thought of the countless other nights she had done the exact same thing.

But this was different. This time, her heart was in it. Her emotions wouldn't be stifled or suffocated, and they wouldn't vanish into that dark part of her chest no matter how hard she tried to push them down. Indifference and callous ruthlessness wouldn't slide over her skin no matter how many times she created her father's voice in her head. Vulnerable and shaking, she realized her father was right. This – the shuddering of her pulse, the cold sweat on her skin, the tremble of her hands and the burning in her muscles - this was weakness. Her father would be ashamed of her.

But with Seraphina hidden under Clary's skin and her father so far away, Valentine was easier to ignore than Simon. She needed to save Simon. And she would.

Emerging back into the hot summer night after the dry coolness of the church was unpleasant and fatiguing, but the weight of the weapons they had acquired was a comfort in the midst of such an awful, perilous night. Cold steel was better than cold sweat. A heavy sword was better than a heavy heart. Clary repeated such things to herself as they hurried to resume their journey to the vampires' lair, but it didn't work as well as she wanted it to.

"You said you were hoping we wouldn't have to fight them," said Jace. "What did you mean?"

"They attacked me too," she said. "They broke the Accords first."

She called to mind the laws of the Clave. She had studied them extensively under her father's instruction, and though his purpose had been to outline the ways in which they failed, she realized she could use them now to her advantage.

"You think that will stop them? The Accords?"

"I said I was hoping. Not that I was certain," she defended herself. "Is that likely? Do the Downworlders here abide by the Accords?"

Jace shrugged. "Some do. Others don't. There are plenty of Simon's. And there are plenty of… Casper Shade's." He said Casper's name bitterly, like he was trying to make her feel guilty.

"Not now, Jace," she said exasperatedly. "Honestly."

He mumbled a grumbling apology, and they didn't speak after that.

They both slowed to a halt when they were a block away from their destination, when they felt the looming danger creeping up on them.

"This is it," she said, staring at a building about a block down – the tallest building they had seen in a while. The Hotel Dumont.

Beside her, Jace nodded.

"It's not too late," she whispered. "You should go."

"No," Jace said, his voice as quiet as hers.

"You can," she promised. "You can leave."

"No, I can't," he said, but instead of the fierce determination she was used to hearing from him, he only sounded tired.

She took a deep breath of warm, metallic air and pretended it was the air in Idris – lighter and cleaner, carrying the smell of rain and forests. She stepped forward and Jace kept pace beside her, fearless and silent.

Sometime during the walk they had begun holding hands, but Clary didn't know who had reached for whom. It had simply happened, like some force had caused their fingers to slip into a desperate embrace.

They didn't speak to each other as they reached the decrepit hotel. They didn't need to. They felt everything they needed to know – their Nephilim blood was coming alive in their veins, filling their bones with whispered, ancient knowledge. Stay away from the windows. Keep your weapons hidden. Check your blind spots. Don't look up. This is where the monster sleeps.

They slipped into a back alley and examined their options. All of the doors were bricked over. She tugged on Jace's sleeve, and when he looked at her she pointed to the only option she saw – a fire escape clinging tenuously to the side of the building, rusted and looking as though it would collapse at any moment.

Jace furrowed his brow and shook his head. Clary ignored him and drew her stele from her boot. As she walked towards the ladder, she felt the sickening crack of bones being crushed beneath her feet, and she shivered. She couldn't imagine Simon in this place, surrounded by such filth and decay and death. When she reached the fire escape, she paused and closed her eyes, reaching deep into her bones for the whisper she needed. She gripped the rusted metal in her fingers and imagined it strong and sturdy, strong enough to hold them.

With mounting relief she saw swirls coming together to form a pattern in her head. Fortify. She carved the newborn rune into the metal, and when she was finished she placed another rune over it to conceal it – Jace couldn't see her hands from where he was standing, watching the mouth of the alley. When the fortify rune was indecipherable under a basic silence rune, she caught Jace's attention with a wave of her hand.

He came over and shook his head again, pointing above them at an area of the fire escape that looked particularly unstable.

She hardened her gaze as she looked at him, tugging his sleeve urgently to pull him closer to the fire escape. She knew it was selfish to expect him to trust her blindly, but she needed him to. She knew he would understand the panicked pleading in her eyes. She only hoped he would submit to it.

Deciding she had done all she could to convince Jace and knowing that Simon's situation must be worsening by the minute, she began the climb. Whether Jace followed her or not, she had found her way into the hotel and she was going to use it.

Relief warmed her blood when she heard the soft clang of Jace's ring against the metal, and she turned to see him climbing after her with a resolved, exasperated expression.

When he saw the silence rune he snorted and rolled his eyes, and though he somehow managed to keep his sarcastic comment to himself, she could almost hear it anyway. Oh, great. At least when we fall to our deaths in a heap of rusted metal, it'll be nice and quiet. Luckily, her fortify rune seemed to be doing its work.

Clary had reached the fourth landing of the fire escape when she heard footsteps nearing the alley, and her heart stopped in her chest. Jace tapped her ankle urgently and she quickened her pace, both of them escalating the stairs as quickly as they could; faster than any human ever could, and – hopefully – fast enough to throw off a vampire for quite a while.

When Clary caught sight of a person at the mouth of the alley, she halted on the next landing and motioned for Jace to do the same. He shot her a dubious glance, but to her relief he consented and crouched beside her. They remained motionless, as close to the brick building as they could possibly get, and watched the figure in the alley step forward with wary alertness.

It was a boy, she saw, in a white shirt and black slacks, with black hair curling against skin that was a strange mixture of tanned and washed out. Something gold around his neck caught the moonlight on occasion and flashed in the darkness – a necklace or a chain of some sort. He stepped into the alley slowly, his gaze sweeping across every corner and shadow. He walked deeper into the alley and checked behind the dumpsters. His searching was too focused to be random curiosity.

But he never looked up. Eventually he left, giving the alley a long backward glance before he disappeared.

Clary met Jace's gaze and knew they both understood. Either the boy was a vampire himself, or the vampires had paid him to keep an eye on the place. Regardless of the boy's identity, one thing was almost certain – their presence had been noticed, despite their chariness.

They resumed their climb, but with less urgency now – it was too late for that, and they needed to conserve whatever energy they could.

They had to climb several floors before they found a window that wasn't bricked over, and even more after that to find a window that was positioned before solid ground and not above a gaping chasm where the floor had rotted away.

She met Jace's eyes. "Stay," she mouthed. During the climb, the reality of their situation had crept up on her and swelled into a dark cloud over her thoughts. She couldn't bring Jace with her. It was wrong.

But he shook his head, his jaw clenched and his eyes steady and stern.

"They know we're here," she whispered. "You saw that boy in the alley."

Jace nodded and agreed grimly, "They know."

She sighed. "Simon wouldn't have been alone when we found him anyway. Not if they're… doing the things they said they would." She couldn't bring herself to utter the tortures out loud.

"You know what that means," said Jace, his usual air of mischief and excitement creeping back with tentative feelers.

"What?" she asked, feeling her own dark excitement awakening in response.

"No use in being quiet," he pointed out, and in the same breath he gripped the railing behind him and kicked the window with both feet, shattering it in a loud clatter of breaking glass.

Clary's gasp fell into uncontrollable, surprised laughter as Jace grinned and gripped her hand, pulling her after him as he leaped into the building.

The interior of the hotel was cold. Colder than the church had been. Her laughter froze in her throat.

Jace was silent then, too. They stayed there for a moment, standing on broken glass as they attempted to figure out where to go. Would the vampires come to find them since they had made so much noise? They were in a large, empty room, covered in a thick layer of dust that revealed how long it had gone unvisited. Simon must be on a different floor, she thought.

And then they heard it – a horrible, chilling scream, echoing through the cavernous space in an agonized cry. It was Simon – his voice was raw and breaking, but she recognized him still.

She followed the noise and Jace followed her. Simon's scream had come from below them, and eventually Clary found it – a large staircase, weak and crumbling in most places though somehow it still stood. She leaped down it as quickly as possible, only touching foot to it when she had to and keeping her steps as light as she could. Jace, behind her, did the same.

They had travelled down three floors when Clary heard a heart-stopping crack behind her, and she turned just as the step below Jace was falling away from him. He threw out a hand and she grabbed it, spinning to throw him in front of her, but the momentum threw them both off balance and they fell down the remainder of the staircase. When they came to a stop on the floor below, Clary glanced up to see that most of the bottom half of the staircase had collapsed.

"Maybe it's a good thing we fell," said Jace, though his pained groan belied his words. "Running wouldn't have gotten us down that fast."

Clary stood and helped Jace to his feet. Below them, Simon screamed. Her heart shuddered. "Ready for another staircase?" she asked quietly, and he nodded.

A glance outside showed that they were on the second floor. When she tried to find a way down to the first floor, where Simon was, she found herself standing above what used to be a staircase but was now a gaping chasm to the floor below. The only way down would be to jump, or to find another staircase.

It was obvious that the room below them used to be a ballroom, but now it was gray and lifeless and collapsing into ruin. And on the opposite end of the room from where Clary watched them, all of them facing away from her, was a group of vampires. And on the floor before them was Simon.

His shirt was gone, and the pale skin of his torso was barely visible beneath a sheening coat of crimson blood. As she watched him in horrified stillness he coughed, his back arching from the floor as blood spurted from his mouth. Jace's arm was around her waist and he was holding her, tightly, but she could barely feel it. She could only stare helplessly as a vampire stepped forward, clutching a flask in his hand that he poised over Simon with sadistic sluggishness, tilting it slowly so that only a drop fell onto Simon's prone skin.

The sickening sizzle and the aching scream the followed meant it could only be holy water.

When the vampire tilted the flask more, eliciting a steady stream instead of the drops from before, her vision went red as Simon's pain filled her ears and flooded her mind and suddenly she was flying, soaring through the air and stopping her fall on the floor below with a shoulder roll. Jace followed and landed in the same fashion, and they shared a last glance before, inevitably, they were noticed, and their battle would begin.

Their leap from the floor above to this one had been swift and silent, but their footsteps were loud enough for a few of the more alert vampires to take notice. Several on the outer edge of the group turned, and then it was a ripple effect, undulating through the group until every cruel, lifeless pair of eyes was trained on the Nephilim who had trespassed on their sick ritual.

"I wondered if you'd come," said the boy with the holy water, a sadistically gleeful smile spreading across his handsome face. She remembered him from the alley, remembered him reminding her of her brother, with his pale skin and white-blond hair. But his eyes were blue, not black, and they held no affection when they looked at her.

Simon let out a strangled moan that sounded like the remains of her name after it had drowned in the blood in his throat.

"I'm glad you did," the boy said, his gaze raking across her with leering pleasure.

"I came for Simon," she said, unable to tear her gaze away from Simon's peeling, burned skin, covered in blood and shivering.

"Like him, do you?" the boy said sneeringly, and then he tipped his hand in a careless gesture that sent more water pouring onto Simon's chest. The distressed noise in Clary's throat was drowned out by Simon's scream and the low, curling laughter of the monsters who watched.

"Can't imagine why," the boy remarked with a disdainful glance at Simon where he lay curled and broken on the floor. "I promise you, I'm much more fun."

Clary forced a slow, deep breath through her clenched jaw, desperately trying to restrain the sparking fury in her bones. "I need to speak to the leader of your coven," she said, as civilly as she could.

The boy shrugged. "He isn't here. I'm the best you'll get."

Clary glanced at the other vampires and saw that they weren't going to challenge him. She pushed away her hopelessness as she pulled a seraph blade from its sheath, whispering the name of an angel into the hell that surrounded her.

"Easy, beautiful," the boy said with a light laugh. "You might hurt yourself." He extended a hand towards her as if he was comforting a small child, and she bristled at his brazenness.

Beside her, she felt Jace bristle much in the same way. He held his own seraph blade before him, the light of it casting the angles of his face in shadows. "Enough of this," Jace said firmly. "We didn't come here for a fight. We came here for –"

"Simon, we get it," a slim, pretty Asian girl snapped from where she stood behind the blonde boy.

"Unfortunately for you," the lead boy drawled, "We have our rules. And Simon broke quite a few of them. Even you mighty Nephilim can't save him now."

"You can save yourselves if you give us Simon," said Clary.

The boy laughed at that, joined by several of his companions. "Look around you, little Shadowhunter. I don't think we're the ones in need of saving."

Clary's plan to use the Accords as a shield, as a bargaining chip, was vanishing. She realized she had been foolish. Here, in the monster's lair, the laws were only words. They held no power over these monsters.

"I have to be honest, though," the boy continued, "I do like you. We could use someone like you around here… Brave, determined, loyal." The last word was punctuated with a kick to Simon's ribs, and Clary fought the urge to run forward. Instead she moved closer to Jace as they readied themselves to take on the coven together. They altered their stances to make themselves smaller targets. They angled their bodies so that their backs were protected by each other.

Behind the lead boy, one of his cohorts scoffed. "Bullshit, Cal. You just like her because she's pretty."

Cal took the jest in stride, smiling as he dragged his gaze over her once more.

"You're not going to touch her," Jace snarled beside her. "You're going to give us Simon and let us leave, or you're going to fight us and we'll take him from you once you're all dead."

Cal looked at Jace as though he had only just noticed him, and his smile hardened into something crueler. "Is that so?" he said flatly.

Rather than answering, Clary and Jace readied their weapons.

"Stop toying with them, Cal," a girl said disdainfully. "This is getting boring."

"We should wait for Raphael," a boy with brown hair interjected nervously, but he went largely ignored by his coven mates.

"Raphael isn't here," Cal snapped. "We can handle this alone."

The vampires snarled in agreement behind them, an eagerness to kill glinting in their eyes like the flicker of a flame.

"Wait," a voice cut through the snarls. The speaker stepped forward, and Clary felt a distant jolt of recognition. It was Eva – one of Casper's friends.

"What," Cal hissed over his shoulder.

Eva stepped forward to stand beside him and whispered her words in his hear, but the Shadowhunters' hearing was sensitive enough that they heard her anyway. "You should be careful. That's Casper's girl."

"Casper?" Cal repeated incredulously. "Casper Shade?" Clary tried to ignore the way Jace stiffened beside her. Now wasn't the time for such petty things.

Cal turned back to her with blue eyes warring between bloodlust and caution. His struggle was brought to an end only when yet another voice interrupted him.

"What's this about Casper Shade?" A boy stepped into view at the other end of the room, and Clary recognized the white shirt and the gold chain glinting against tanned skin. It was the boy from the alley. His dark-eyed gaze took everything in – Clary and Jace, their weapons, Cal's stance ahead of the other vampires, Simon on the ground. He focused on Cal. "Surely you wouldn't heed the fleeting whims of a warlock over my leadership, Cal?"

Cal straightened, his jaw stiffening. "No," he mumbled sullenly, warily. Clary figured the boy who had just arrived must be Raphael.

"Then why," the boy continued, walking forward with a faint, flat smile, "did the romantic interests of Casper Shade dissuade you where my rules did not?"

"Raphael," Cal began, his wariness overwhelming his sullenness. "I was only…"

"Disobeying my orders to consult me when intruders were apprehended?" He examined Jace and Clary with the same distant apathy he did his subjects and continued, "Especially those of the… angelic variety." He had a slight accent, a lilt to his syllables that would have been beautiful if not for the apathetic cruelty in his voice. Just like the church they had been in earlier that night, Clary found him too cold and empty to be beautiful.

"I'll have you know," said Jace with his usual confidence, "that we were not apprehended. We arrived of our own volition. Quite gracefully, might I add."

"And fashionably late, of course." A flicker of amusement rippled beneath his apathy. "Indeed, you missed the beginning of our little ceremony."

"Ceremony? You're killing him," Clary said, trying to stifle the sickness in her stomach.

Raphael laughed delicately. "No, cariña," he said, "we are not. We cannot afford to lose numbers now. To waste a life because of routine disobedience would be careless."

"You expect him to survive that?" Jace said, his disgust sharpening his tone.

"I'm certain he will, Nephilim. Not without damage, of course, but it is the punishment he has earned for himself. We're a far more resilient breed than yours. Though I think you'll find the cruelties of our races fairly equally matched."

Jace scoffed in reproach. "We don't torture our own kind."

"On the contrary, it's your very way of life to put yourselves through unnecessary tortures. Your laws, your customs, your upbringing. If I didn't know better, I'd go as far as to claim your code of honor is merely a veil for your undying masochism." Behind Raphael, his vampires were snarling, clearly impatient with Raphael's formality though none dared take action against him.

Simon let out a barely audible, miserable moan, and Clary interrupted Jace's scathing response to Raphael's insult. "We just want Simon," she reminded Raphael, careful to keep her voice even and firm. "That's all."

"You can't have him," Raphael said simply.

"Then we'll take him," she answered, unable to keep her voice from harshening into threatening anger.

Something in Raphael changed, then, and he stepped towards her.

Behind him, the vampires' snarls rose to a crescendo and a few of the more eager vampires began inching forward, teeth bared and eyes burning. Raphael held up a hand to stop them, an eerily calm center of a torrential storm. "Why did you come, little Shadowhunter? What did you think you could accomplish?" He said the words without any semblance of emotion or threat, only a distant curiosity.

"I came to make a deal," she said. "A bargain."

"A bargain?" Raphael repeated, a hint of amusement creeping into his apathy. "With us?"

"Yes, with you," she said firmly.

"And what is your proposition for me, mi cariña?"

"If you let us leave, with Simon unharmed, I won't hold your vampires responsible for the crimes they committed."

"Crimes," Raphael repeated genteelly. "What crimes?"

"They didn't just attack Simon. They attacked me too. We were on neutral ground, and they attacked me, unprovoked. Whatever obscure laws you claim Simon has broken, I know for a fact they aren't upheld by the Accords. You could never defend yourself before the law for this."

"Are you forgetting that you're alone here?" Raphael asked with a condescending smile. He flicked his gaze to Jace for a moment. "Well, almost alone. You say you won't report my coven if you're allowed to leave peacefully, if Simon isn't harmed."

He paused then, his gentile charm peeling away from him like a shedding second skin until she saw only a monster before her. "You won't report them if you're all dead, either."

"Are you forgetting," said Jace with steely anger, stepping forward to stand between Clary and Raphael, "That Shadowhunters never operate alone? Do you really think no one knows we're here? That they wouldn't know what happened to us if we never came back?"

Raphael laughed delicately. "I'm afraid I have to call your bluff, little Shadowhunter. I know for a fact you are the only Nephilim in our realm this evening. There's no one coming to save you."

"I said no such thing," said Jace, matching Raphael's calmness perfectly. "I don't mean to imply you couldn't kill us if you wanted to. Only that it would mean the destruction of your coven if you did. Our family would never stand for such wanton violation of the Accords, and neither will the Clave. We've killed your kind for less. The lives of your youngest fledgling and two teenage Shadowhunters verse the lives of your entire coven. Is it really worth it, Raphael?"

Raphael gnashed his teeth in frustration, his fangs elongating to pierce his bottom lip, a scarlet bead of blood blooming there and shining with a dark, morbid glint. "Enough," he snarled. "I won't stand for such threats from a… a child."

"We make no threats," said Clary, "Only warnings. We don't want this to end in bloodshed."

Raphael turned his gaze to her, pensive. "Once more, I must call your bluff. You want bloodshed very much. I see it in your eyes. I smell it in your blood. With a bloodlust such as yours, you could be a vampire yourself."

He raked his gaze across her, critical and leering, his eyes more animated than they had been before. When his eyes reached her gaze, he smiled, his fangs flashing, and he licked the blood from his lip. "Perhaps we could arrange that."

His comment elicited low, cruel laughter from his companions. Cal, tall and slender, with blonde hair lighter than Jace's and a smile crueler than Jonathan's stepped forward and snarled, "Let me do it."

"Restrain yourself, Cal," Raphael reprimanded, and for a moment Clary felt hope that there was still a possibility of reasoning with him. But then he continued, "You know I wouldn't let you have the best one." He laughed then, joined by his subordinates, and Clary began to dread the fate that awaited her. Her and Jace. She had come to save Simon, and in the end would get both he and Jace killed.

"Alright, alright," Raphael said, holding his hands before him and smiling once more. "It is a deal you want? I will make you a deal, then."

"What?" Clary said warily.

"As a matter of fact, Simon's punishment is finished. If you wish to take him from us now, you may."

She knew better than to believe that was it; that Raphael would give them Simon without difficulty; so she said nothing. As if to prove himself, he motioned at two vampires who then lifted Simon and threw him towards Clary and Jace, grinning when they heard his bones hit the marble floor with a sickening crack. Clary knelt to move Simon into a less contorted position, brushing his matted hair away from his face. He didn't open his eyes.

"As leader of this coven in Camille's absence, I promise you that, when you leave, you may take Simon with you," said Raphael. Clary stood, and she and Jace stepped forward so that they stood between the vampires and Simon.

"If," Raphael continued after a pause, "you manage to leave at all." His vampires laughed behind him.

"You mean to kill us," spat Jace, reflecting the same hopelessness Clary felt, though he had transferred it into anger.

"Yes," Raphael answered simply. "It is our right. Her," he pointed to Clay, "we may decide to keep. But first, both of you will die, yes."

Just as her father had always told her, love would be the death of them. Caring for people got them killed. Giving your heart to another meant, with certainty, that it would be returned to you in shreds.

Hopeless, the word ran through her mind over and over, the only word her mind could form anymore. Everything else was only feeling and motion, memories and colors.

Jace linked a finger with hers, and she could feel that their pulses matched perfectly. Their heartbeats pushed against each other three times before they separated again, raising their blades before them.

The tense silence before the battle was broken by a deafening crash when the windows to their right shattered inward. Clary felt Jace's hand on her arm as they both ducked, each of them trying to shelter both themselves and Simon's unconscious form from the shower of broken glass. Clary winced as several nicked the skin of her hands where she was holding them above her head.

She whipped her head up as soon as she could to see that the windows had been broken by dark, lithe shapes that were now leaping through the windows and slinking through the wreckage, snarling and crouched, dark fur sparkling with shattered glass.

"Werewolves," Raphael spat in disbelief, his fury evident in his posture and reflected by his companions who stood snarling behind him.

"Greetings, Raphael," boomed a man's voice – the only werewolf not in wolf form, walking towards them. He was tall and muscled, with tanned skin covered in tattoos.

"You dare enter our lair, uninvited and unprovoked?" demanded Raphael with biting anger.

"Oh, yes," the man said. "We dare."

Raphael looked so angry Clary thought he might explode, but when he spoke his voice was deceptively quiet. "You wish a war with us, Moon's Children?"

"No, not a war," the man said, but before he could explain himself he was interrupted by Raphael.

"But a war is what you have started, entering our place against the Covenant."

"If anyone here is starting a war, it's you. Killing two Shadowhunters, Raphael? Two children, at that? And you speak to me of the Covenant."

"They are trespassers."

"You broke the Accords first," Clary snapped, and all eyes turned to her as Jace's hand closed warningly around her wrist.

"I doubt the Clave will care what they were doing when you killed them. If you kill them, you're dead," the werewolf said, and he sounded suddenly like a friend offering concerned advice.

Raphael hissed disdainfully, and the man continued, "And if what the girl says is true, you're in violation of the Covenant."

"Covenant," Raphael spat. "Council. Clave."

"Wrong order," Jace interjected helpfully.

"It's nonsense, all of it. You've heard the news as clearly as we have, Moon's Children, I'm certain. Valentine has returned. Soon there will be no Accords, and no Covenant. Just last night, a warlock raised a horde of Ravener demons in his name."

Clary felt her blood freeze in surprise at the mention of her father, and only Jace's urgent tug on her arm gave her the will to move again. She looked at him and saw him gesture towards a door behind them, most likely a service door. She turned back to the scene before them and saw that the werewolves and vampires were preoccupied with each other. No one was looking at her and Jace anymore.

Together, she and Jace knelt and each took one of Simon's arms, and they began to pull him towards the door as the bitter debate between Raphael and the werewolves' leader continued.

"Why have you come here?" Raphael demanded.

"We're here for her," the werewolf answered, and Clary and Jace froze. He jerked his head towards Clary, his eyes meeting hers for a brief moment before he was looking at Raphael again.

"Her?" Raphael repeated incredulously, as surprised as Clary felt. He stared at her as he, seemingly, tried to make sense of what was happening. He reached an understanding before she did, and answered the man, "Not a chance, wolf. She came into our lair. She's ours to do with what we wish. You can't have her."

"I was hoping you'd say that," the man said with a violent grin, and he leapt for Raphael, transforming into a wolf in mid-air before he collided with Raphael in a flash of glinting teeth and extended claws, the pair of them rolling across the marble floor in a flurry of snarls and snapping fangs.

The remaining werewolves and vampires leapt for each other in the same fashion, and the ballroom burst into chaos. Clary and Jace abandoned their efforts at furtiveness and heaved Simon between them, supporting his weight and running for the door as quickly as they could manage.

Clary swore when the door wouldn't budge. Jace threw his shoulder against it, cursing when he didn't accomplish anything but, undoubtedly, hurt his shoulder quite terribly. She glanced behind them, hoping they were still being ignored by the Downworlders.

But a wolf had detached itself from the churning mass of bodies and was surging towards her, its eyes glowing blue and its gray fur flecked with blood. She gripped her faery dagger and then threw it, knowing without watching that it would find its mark. She turned back to the door just as she heard a thud and a sharp yelp, the wolf collapsing behind her. Jace threw himself against the door a third time and this time it burst inward with a deafening screech. They darted inside, dragging Simon in after them, and saw three wolves charging towards them.

They slammed the door shut. She had drawn her stele, but Jace was already tracing a rune into the door. She smiled when she saw it was the rune she would have chosen, one that would hold the door shut against pursuers – for a time, at least.

They turned away from the door to find themselves in a narrow, dark passageway with a single set of wooden stair that let up into a darkness so thick they could barely see anything at all. Simon was stirring to consciousness on the ground before them, and Clary crouched to press a hand to his cool skin.

"Simon," she said. "Can you hear me?"

He groaned inaudibly and she shook him urgently. "Simon, please. We need to hurry."

Outside, the wolves were throwing themselves against the wooden door with solid thuds.

"We'll have to carry him," Jace said, kneeling to grip on of Simon's arms, but Simon shook his head and made a weak motion to push him away.

"I can do it," he mumbled, sitting up slowly. Clary helped him, wrapping an arm around his waist to support some of his weight as he rose unsteadily to his feet.

"These stairs might not hold," Clary murmured to Jace, who nodded in agreement.

They took the stairs slowly for a while, following them in a spiral up through the building, Clary holding Simon and Jace following behind them. Simon seemed to be regaining his strength as the time passed.

"You're healing, right?" Clary asked, knowing that, eventually, they would have to run.

Simon nodded. "Yeah, I'm healing."

"Now that you aren't being drenched in holy water," Clary muttered with scorn.

Simon sighed. "You didn't have to come. Raphael was telling the truth when he said they were finished punishing me."

"Want to go back, then?" Jace asked brightly. "Door's right down there."

Clary turned around to glare at him. "Shut up. He doesn't have to go back."

"Maybe I should," Simon said grimly.

"You really trust Raphael? You don't think he'd kill you out of anger?" she asked.

Simon winced as he pulled away from her, supporting all of his weight on his own now. "I don't know," he admitted. "He was also telling the truth when he said they can't afford to lose any numbers right now. But he was pretty angry."

After few more steps, Simon seemed to reach a decision. "It should be safe for me to go back tomorrow. Raphael did break the Accords when his vampires attacked you. When he calms down, he'll realize he could be in serious trouble. Especially if Camille finds out."

Just as he finished speaking, an explosive boom echoed beneath them and a cloud of dust billowed up towards them. The werewolves had gotten through the door.

"Damn it," Jace muttered. The three of them burst into a run, ignoring the deafening creaks as the wood strained under their weight. Through the racket, Clary could hear the sound of paws charging up the stairs behind them, the claws making a clacking noise as they gripped the wood for purchase.

The staircase ended abruptly at a landing before a door, and they flung themselves onto it just as the staircase swayed dangerously. The door was steel and propped open with a brick, and Jace kicked it open before pushing Clary and Simon before him and then following, slamming it shut behind him.

They were on the rooftop of the hotel, the sky a deep blue above them and shimmering with a handful of stars.

"Fire escape," Clary said, darting for the edge of the roof.

"That thing is a death trap, Clary," Jace complained behind her, but still he followed her.

Clary eased herself over the edge of the roof, letting herself fall the five feet to the first landing of the fire escape. "Come on," she complained, seeing Jace and Simon hovering behind her.

She held a hand out – for who, she didn't know. Both of them, she supposed. But Jace took it first, when Simon's hand had only just began to move towards hers, gripping her fingers tightly and holding on even after he had alighted beside her on the fire escape. She could hear the steel door on the roof vibrating and rattling as the werewolves pushed against it from within the hotel.

"Simon," she pleaded. "Come on."

"This hardly looks stable," Simon protested.

"Out of all of us, vampire," said Jace, "you're in the least danger here."

"I guess you have a point," Simon grumbled, jumping to land beside them.

"Let's go," Clary said. She led the way down the fire escape, taking the metal stairs two at a time. She had to slow her pace occasionally to let the boys catch up, but they held their own pretty well.

As they flew past the windows on the first floor, Clary saw that, inside, the battle between the werewolves and the vampires was still raging within. As she watched, the vampire closest to the window ripped its teeth through a werewolf's prone throat and blood spattered the window she was watching them through, obscuring her view. She shivered.

She ignored the ladder that led from the last landing to the ground, opting to jump instead. Jace followed suit, and Simon, after a beat of hesitation, did the same.

Once they were all on the ground, they heard a distant, metallic clang – the steel door on the roof being forced open – and Clary grabbed her stele. She swiped it through the fortify rune, severing it, just as a werewolf poked its head over the edge of the roof and saw them. It yelped a signal to its companions, and then more wolves appeared on the edge of the roof, watching them.

The three of them watched as a black wolf, braver than the rest, crept tentatively onto the fire escape. Clary darted backwards when she heard the wailing screech of the metal faltering under the wolf's weight, dragging Jace and Simon with her. The black wolf scrambled frantically to get off of the fire escape and back onto the roof, its companions helpfully using their teeth to drag it up by the scruff of its neck, just as the fire escape wailed again and swayed away from the building, the fixtures holding it to the brick coming apart with a noise like gunfire.

The three of them ran for the mouth of the alley, occasionally slipping on the bones and unidentified dampness that covered the concrete, as the fire escape slowly peeled away from the wall of the hotel. They reached the sidewalk outside the alley just as the metal structure came to a deafening, clamoring collision with the concrete, the wolves yelping from the roof.

"We should get out of here before those wolves find a way down," Jace said, resting a hand on Clary's back. She nodded in agreement and let him lead her away, until she noticed Simon wasn't following them.

"Simon?" she said confusedly.

"I can get home on my own from here," he said, casting a strange look where Jace rested his hand on her back.

"Are you sure?" Clary asked, as Jace stepped closer to her and wrapped an arm around her.

"He's sure," Jace said firmly, but she ignored him.

"I'm sure," Simon agreed, but he glared at Jace as he said it.

Clary pulled away from Jace to run towards Simon. She hugged him even though blood still covered his pale skin, and she was relieved when he held her back. It wasn't like the night before, though, when the moment between them had been fragile and delicate and made of stars. This moment felt as though it was already broken.

"Are you alright?" she asked Simon, still holding on to him.

"I'm alright… You shouldn't have come," he whispered.

"Of course I came," she said.

Simon pulled away from her and she let him, her arms falling to her sides. "You'll get home okay?" she asked uncertainly.

He nodded. "I'll be fine." He glanced at the sky. "I have plenty of time."

She backed away from him, unable to understand what had changed between them. Her worry was relieved when he said, "I'll see you soon."

He turned away from her then, and she walked back to Jace to find him staring intently at something in the opposite direction. "Are you alright?" she asked.

He nodded, but his gaze was blank when he turned to her. "We should get back to the Institute," he said. "They'll be worried."

Clary followed him away from the hotel as the wolves howled angrily from the rooftop, helpless to follow them. The noise was eerie, especially since she knew they had probably come to kill her, and she scampered closer to Jace. He stiffened at first, but then he sighed in defeat and let himself lean into her.

"You lost you dagger," he said as they made their way to a busier street.

Clary hummed in agreement. "It wasn't mine, anyway."

"It was a good throw."

"Thanks."

As they walked, Clary realized she didn't understand a single thing that had happened that night. All she knew was that her blood was burning and she missed her brother and she was very, very tired.

They finally reached the subway, and once they were sitting on a train Clary couldn't help but rest her head on Jace's arm. Despite all that had happened, she was glad he had been with her. Though something had changed in him since they had entered the hotel, he seemed to be softening towards her once more. He toyed with strands of her hair on the subway. His arm brushed hers as they made their way through the underground passageways. And when they emerged to the city above and began making their way to the Institute, he held her hand; his fingers around her heartbeat, their pulses pushing against each other, her blood straining to meet his as they made their way through the darkness of the night.

---

City of Shadows more like City of Melodrama am I right? I literally can't even help it.

Jace's drink is the same thing Will and Tessa drank in TID. Because I said so.

To answer a possible question some people might have: No, Jonathan isn't actually talking to Clary in her head. She's really hearing him, but it isn't a telepathic connection or anything.

She's just crazy.

Haha. Not Really.

But, you know. Sort of.

Thank you to all of the guest reviewers who I couldn't thank personally. I really, really value your feedback (and your unending kindness).

Please review with any comments, thoughts, or questions you might have! Really, anything at all. I'd really appreciate hearing from you.