Chapter 21

Clary woke alone, again. She missed the cuddles and the closeness they use to have, Clary knew the whole Magnus business was taking a lot on Alec. She didn't know whether he still didn't believe them or not, it didn't matter if he believe her or Magnus because she was sure that Luke could get Maryse to look at it and Clary knew that she was no force to be wrecked with.
Clary didn't shower she just wandered down to breakfast in what she was wherein because she was hungry and didn't care the sliest if someone saw her in the dirty all to big t-shirt and her panties. The shirt were probably not hers, taking one wiff at it and she could smell who had last worn it. As she walked down the hall to the kitchen, she literally took the fabric to her nose and smelled it more than once. The sent was mixed now, last night when she had taken it on it had purely smelled like Jace, but now it bore hers as well as Alecs. It had a another sent, something that smelled of sandalwood, properly a new cologne her husband had started wearing. It still felt wired to think of Alec as her husband. She was nineteen years old for god's sake, she wasn't suppose to be married or pregnant, she was suppose to having the time of her life going to art school and using her talent to something other that branding herself.
On the very last of her way to the kitchen, she re-bundled her hair in the elastic band that was still in her hear from yesterday. This way her morning hair wasn't too crazy. She walked in at a mess of people working in the kitchen.

"Clary!" Sounded a cheerful voice, and she was attacked by a half-sized human nearly tumbling over with a hug.

"Max!" she greeted him in the same cheerful mood and spinned around themselves, ending it with a small dance.

"We are making breakfast." He announced and added in a hushed tone "but anyone seems in a bad mood and I don't know why. Alec and mom talked and Izzy overheard, Alec is in trouble. Oh, and Luke have been here before you woke. He just said he had something to drop something of to mom and I didn't need to get you."

"What are you making? It smells like pancakes. And oranges juice?" She asked Max. she didn't really care what was for breakfast she just wanted Max not to worry too much. But as he started telling what they had made and how, Clary dozed out. Instead of listening intensely to what the child in front of her, where telling her she was focused was on a tense Maryse, fidgeting Izzy and stone faced looking Alec.

oo0O0oo

Isabell couldn't believe what she was hearing! She had come to inform her brother and mother the food nearly was ready to set on the table, that they should come out and Alec go wake Clary. But what she heard petrified her. It wasn't shouting or biting comments, that she could handle and deal with. But this, what her brother was saying didn't sound as a threat or bluff, his tone was cold, hard and low. It wasn't spat or bitten back, the words wasn't hasted or mumbled even if said in a more hushed voice. The words, they were perfect clear, it was a warning, an action he had already set his mind to commit if there mother didn't do as he wanted.

oo0O0oo

Just as Maryse arrived home, she found a werewolf in her study. Max had already found Alec in the kitchen preparing breakfast, with baking bread and muffins. Just by that she could see something was wrong. Alec never baked unless thing were wrong, yes he made food to feed his siblings, but he never baked. Max didn't seem to notice the meaning of Alec' baking, her youngest child just found it exiting to help his bigger brother in the kitchen. The whole thing had her so focused that she didn't sense the wolf in her study before seeing it in the room.

"I hope you don't mind, you son let me in the front door and I just let myself in here to wait for you."

"You need something?" she asked strait away, no beating around the bush with the former ally.

"Yes and no, I have something you as head of the institute should look at. It is on your table." She looked at be pictures and skimmed the text.

"You think this is a work of a downworlder?"

"Yes, and to more exact a warlock, Clary if sure this is the work of Magnus Bane."

"I would surprise me that the old drunk head would be killing like this. Do you have any suspicion why?" Luke didn't answer so she turned her dark eyes on him. Only to be met with unsure expiation.

"I unusual don't stick my nose where I doesn't belong anymore, but you son looks a lot like these boys."

"What are trying you say, Garraway?"

"Magnus had a thing for you son, and I think he snapped after Alec getting married."

"Are you hinting that my son is gay? That is absurd, I don't wanting you insulting my family under my roof Have you seen his 3 nearly 4 month pregnant wife?! "

"I don't care nor want to know who your son bed, all I care about is that you find the person responsible for those killings. I can't do it I don't have the resources or the power to open other territory's up to investigate. Maryse please investigate before you act, if you're not 100% sure who did it, it can have fatal consequences for you if you accuse Magnus of something he didn't do. We both know he will remember it for a long time."
Maryse sat in the chair reading the mundane report in depth, as Luke left.

Short after the wolf left there was a knocking on the door.

"Yes" she said, it wasn't a question if the person on the other side wanted something but a permission to enter the room.

"Mother." It was Alexander, her angel. Looking at each other, sizing one another up like to predators preparing to fight. Even though she knew her son to be powerful, she deemed him no threat and continued her work.

"What is it?"

"I need to speak whit you."

"About?" she asked absent-minded again reading the report.

"I know Luke was here and what he wanted and I'm gonna aske you not to proceed hunting down Magnus wright away."

"Why is it your not keen on taking him in to questioning? Has he done something?"

"Because we both know that you will ignore the new clave rules and you won't questioning him, you will torture him." Maryse noted that her son didn't answer her just talked around it and accused her of going against the rules. He had never spoken up against her before and that was what gave him away. He was so much like his sister in that way. Protecting the things, her cares about fiercely, Though she would have expected him to be more carious not to get caught. She knew her son well and could she the desperation in his eyes. Even if she wasn't a good mother to her children she still knew them, there strengths and weakness. And here was one she didn't knew existed. One of her oldest sons weakness was the High Warlock of Brooklyn.

"I am only gonna ask this onetime and I expect you to tell me the truth! Is there something you don't want me to know?"

As Maryse looked at her boy, she saw him realizing his mistake by coming here and asking for something the way he did. His eyes got bigger as he realized it, and then they turned hard and ice cold. It was a coldness she had never seen before, not in her loving sons eyes.

"Yes." He was challenge her for real this time and she began to believe than it ran deeper than just this conviction.

She had two choices to make, hear him out and react calmly about it and brush his challenge aside or she could take it up and loos his trust in her. She signed and she did as she should have done a long time ago.

"I will here you side of the story and let you investigate too, but I need to react on someone handing me a case and a lead. No, do shut up while I speak. Even if I were to push it aside for some time it will be rumored that shadowhunters don't take downworlders serious even if they hand over a case like this. It is politics and you know that I have to do what is in best interest in the institute and the future of it."

"I understand, Maryse. But you need to understand that if you do this, if you take this case and and blaim it on Magnus I will no longer want to be associated with you, this family or this stupid angel blood that runs through my veins." The tone of the voice was cold, hard and low. She had never seen her son like this and it scared her.

"What do you mean?"

"I will willingly go to the Ion sisters and get all my runes removed, to get away from you!" the last part was spat and hurt like poison.

"No!" she shriek. She had only heard of it as a child, a story meant for scarring small children into behaving. But in her circle years knew to be true, that getting ones runes removed could and would most likely kill you. One or two made you very ill, but all of them. That would kill him. She had spent too many years trying to mold him, to let the opportunity of her son getting to be the most powerful Nephilim ever go to waste. She had already given too much up for him to become a real angel. She didn't want to lose her baby boy to the cause of creating an angel. Even if it were the Truebloods secret task, she would never let her son die for what she had been tasked to do.

"Fine, I will do nothing about it. I will get it all to disappear. But be wear Alec, love is you enemy it will make you weak." The shock in his eyes was enough to convince her that her growing suspicion was right.
Her son was in love with the Warlock. Moments when by with them sending electing eyes to one another, until the door was opened by Isabell announcing the food was nearly ready and Alec should help her in the kitchen if he didn't want to eat something she made.

As her children left the room, she grew more and more furious, not on her son. But one that created all this mess. Maryse thought she had hated the red haired, until under an hour ago. But now she loathed her with all her heart. If she hadn't been pregnant with one of the futures greatest shadowhunters she would have killed her. Maryse had disliked many people over the years, hated and still accepted the as allies, but never had she ever had this crazy drive to murder someone in cold blood. Maryse never thought she would be capable of plain murder; she didn't have a problem killing dangerous downworlders. Fighting for a cause she believe in, she had done. However killing for the sole pleasure in killing was the first time she experienced the need for it.
That crazy girl had turned Alec into her wicked ways. He had taken a page out of her book. He had blackmailed her, threatened the family honor and the family safety, if she didn't cooperate with her sons demands. Alec had always been a good boy, a good solider. The best at taking orders, which she always had been very pound of, but he had changed. By the Angel he had changed.

Maryse had been tense through the whole breakfast, thinking, plotting and considering while trying to play corm and collected. When she was done eating, she was the first to leave the table without waiting for her children to finish. If she had to be in the same room as her son and his wife, she was afraid she might start something the others should not be a part of.

oo0O0oo

Eating wasn't the most present activity, but with Maryse storming off like that wasn't normal not even for Lightwood standard. Clary when looking for her to ask what was wrong with her, and tell her of for making Max sad. She found the elder lightwood training with Hodge, and kicking his ass hard time. She was very much like Izzy in the way she moved. Fast striking like snake, soft in her movements like dancing and delivering blows and kicks just as fast, but with the power of a kicking horse. Clary had to admit she admired the strong woman in front of her. Even if she wasn't the best mother she was still a strong woman that was worth admiring. When the victory was hers, she turned around to look at Clary.

"Piss of, girl." Maryse said with a voice as vibrant and poisonous as a snake. Even her eyes had turned cold and reptilian like. "Go along before you are next!" she spat.

The tone the elder Lightwood used made Clary angry, what had she done to piss her off. She hadn't even spoken to her in a long time so what had clary done wrong this time?

"It is your entire fault!" she spat as she let the long tree stick fly in Clarys direction, but she blocked it

"Me!? What did I ever to piss you off? "

"You turned my own family against me!" this time she didn't have the time to react to the flying staff, the blow to the head sent der tumbling disoriented to the floor. Maryse raised the staff to give her a final blow but changed her mind and walked away instead. Clary had never in her life thought she would she her so out of control. It was scary to see her so out of it when she usual was the strictest and most uptight person she had ever meet, even worse than Alec.

Hodge help her up even though he was in a much worse shape than Clary.

"Are you okay?" he asked?

"Yeah" she lied. She needed to figure out what was going on so she went on stacking legs to find the only one she had some idea of what was going on, and why Maryse had suddenly out of the blue attacked her. However, she needed to get some cloths on, before trying to solve all of this and preferable with weapons if someone else wanted to smack her over the head again.

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