Thank you so so much for the reviews!! I don't have enough time to reply to you all yet... sorry :( This chapter- in my opinion- is not a very good one. However it's all I could come up with in the time i had. The delays between chapters is awful, I know and I hate it- but my tests start this week so it will be another long wait i'm afraid :(
Thank you again- I hope this chapter isn't too awful xx

"Izzy?" Max sounded out hesitantly.

His sister never stopped walking- it was a brisk, purposeful stride that made people ahead immediately swerve out of her way. Alec wasn't much different, although he was slightly less intimidating. He was more sullenly angry then blazingly furious like Isabelle.

"What?" Isabelle snapped sharply.

"Well," Max bit his lower lip and frowned. He had been mulling over his question for the past few minutes and wasn't quite sure how to ask it without getting on Isabelle's bad side. He didn't like Isabelle's bad side. No one really did- and he really didn't want to end up locked in his room again.

"Weren't you kind of… mean to Clary?" he asked hesitantly.

"No." Came the simultaneous short reply from his siblings. They wouldn't look at him, they were glaring at the street ahead. Their minds were clearly elsewhere… and elsewhere didn't seem like a very nice place.

"Oh… I thought you were. And I don't understand why. Clary's nice, you said she was too! I think she's nice…" the boy trailed off at the end in confusion.

"Clary is not nice," Isabelle growled. Alec sighed as they walked into the Institute and opened the door to the sitting room. Both he and Isabelle sat down wearily on the couch and the youngest Lightwood eased down in the chair across from them.

"Look, Max," Alec began gently. "Jace and Clary… had an argument, and because of that Jace left us."

"Maybe she didn't mean it, maybe she didn't know," Max interrupted innocently through big doe eyes.

"She did," Isabelle sneered shortly. Alec shot her a pointed look and turned back to his brother. He leant forward, closing the space between them and looked his brother straight in the eyes. Somehow Alec knew that his answer would not be well received.

"Max, do you know how Mom and Dad sometimes say that the things they are talking about are 'adult conversations that-"

"That I wouldn't understand," Max quoted with a huff and a roll of his wide eyes. This was certainly not the answer he wanted- in his opinion this was the answer that meant he wasn't going to get any answer at all. Every single time Max had a question, this was how his parents glossed over sticky situations and never gave him concrete replies.

Alec sighed again. "Well this time it's true. Clary did a lot of things to hurt Jace, and that means that she hurt us too. You might think we were too… mean… but what Clary did to Jace was worse. Do you understand?"

Max nodded slowly. "I suppose… but I still think it was mean. If Jace is really gone, are we going to find him? I think we should, Jace belongs here with us. He needs to come home- even if it means I don't get to keep his dagger. Where are we going to find Jace?"

Isabelle and Alec glanced at each other with worried expressions. "I don't know… I really, really don't know." And suddenly Isabelle sounded very small and fragile, the furious wrath evaporated completely. No more ornery dragon-like bravado.

The anger was easy to hide behind, it was so simple to succumb to it completely. Fury made words flow easily- hurtful, cruel words but words none the less. The kind of words you couldn't stop and couldn't take back. When the anger was gone, it made Isabelle face up to the truth. The cold, hard, horrid truth that she wasn't so sure she could handle.
Jace was gone- and that made her horribly anxious and afraid. Anger and wrath were easier for Isabelle to deal with then fear and threatening tears. But if they wanted Jace back, Isabelle knew that she couldn't really be any of those things. She had to be strong, shrewd and alert. Jace could be anywhere in the world right now… and the world was an awfully big place.

Maybe she had thought Clary was nice once upon a time. But Jace had been her family for as long as she could remember- as much of a brother to her as Alec and Max were. Maybe the words she had spoken were cruel and cutting. But they couldn't be taken back… and she wasn't sure if she even wanted to take them back. Jace was her family and anyone who hurt her family was not someone Isabelle Lightwood could bring herself to be kind to. False smiles and sweet words laced with lies were not her thing. Jace had always valued the truth, and Isabelle had always tried to live by it. She wasn't going to change now.

The world was a big place and Jace was only one person. This would be much harder then trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack. The sooner they started the better. But with such a big area to cover- how were they going to even start?

"I think we can rule out New York," Alec said quietly.

"Can we really rule out anywhere?" Isabelle asked diplomatically.

Alec looked at his sister sombrely. "No, we can't. But Jace is pretty much running away here, Izzy. And does Jace Wayland ever do anything by halves?"

The raven-haired Shadowhunter shook her head slowly. Jace was very good at disappearing when he wanted to. He wouldn't make this easy for them and he wouldn't be coming home any time soon, unless he was forced. The Lightwoods could do forceful. Isabelle was the master of forceful and Jace was going to get a good dose of forcing… as soon as they managed to find him.

"Jace might be good at disappearing, Alec, but we have to be better at finding him. He has a head start but we need to get at least one step ahead. We both saw what happened when he went off on his own to look for Clarissa."

"Jace is well able to take care of himself," Alec rebutted chastising.

Isabelle rolled her eyes dismissively. "I know that Alec, but I also now that Jace can go too far. He is a Shadowhunter through and through, and he focuses completely on the mission. Apart from us, the mission is all that matters. When Jace starts a job, he gets too involved and he doesn't think of himself. We always made him look after himself like that before, without us… You saw him after one week. If he goes after demons in that state, he will be unbelievably disadvantaged."

Alec stared at the ground beneath him grimly. Isabelle was right- a step ahead would not be enough. The world was too big and too dangerous. They needed to act fast, they were already too far behind.