"The what?" I asked.
"The Silent Brothers," Jace explained. "They're basically Shadowhunters who have taken special vows and have special runes. I must warn you: They're creepy."
"Like, really creepy," Layla pointed out. "Some of them have holes where their eyes were. And they have their mouths sewn shut! Like, who does that?"
I noticed that the adults weren't too talkative. At least, not to my family. They seemed to be keeping their distance, trying to avoid us. Even the other teenager, Clary, was staying away from us. It was a little scary.
Even though I was eighteen, I thought of myself as a teenager. I wasn't a normal teenager, because I had to raise my siblings. I'd never dated anyone, never even kissed anyone. I was just too busy being the perfect child, hoping that maybe, maybe, my parents would be better.
So maybe that was why I was doing this. Normally, I would have just ran back home and tried to make things go back to normal. I wouldn't even be trusting Jace on the whole Shadow World thing, but some part of me felt like there was something more to the world than just what I could see. Something magical behind all the mundanity I saw every day.
"And now, I don't want to see them," Isabelle said. "What are they going to do to us?"
"Look inside your mind," Jace replied, "and carve out the secrets within."
I shuddered. The idea of someone poking through my mind, finding out my deepest thoughts and secrets. Even someone knowing what I was thinking now really creeped me out. Some magical beings knowing everything about me within a few seconds, was not going to work out.
But if it would help us to find our parents . . . then maybe I'd let them poke around for a little. Long enough to find out what's going on, not enough time for them to figure out I'm gay and very, very insecure about it. They don't need to know about that. No one needs to know about it.
"If this is the only way to get our parents back, than I'll do it," I said. "But as long as the Silent Brothers don't scoop out my mind like a pumpkin, I'll be fine."
Apparently to get to the secret city where the Silent Brothers lived, we had to go to a cemetery. A creepy, old cemetery that hadn't been used in years. That's how the Shadowhunters did things, although they could have done something less creepy.
"You see that building over there?" Jace asked, pointing to a building. "That's the entrance. Above it are some runes that only the Silent Brothers can use."
"Interesting," Max observed.
Jace had come along with us, along with Clary, his girlfriend. She was keeping her distance, like before, staying away from us. Layla was there, too, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. She was like a slightly younger, more annoying version of Izzy. And that was the last thing I needed right now.
I tripped over a tombstone, and fell right into a puddle of mud. I groaned, got up, and just kept walking. I could tell Clary was silently judging me, but I didn't fucking care.
We walked inside the doorway, and as we entered, I muttered under my breath, "We're going down the rabbit hole, Alice, and we ain't going to come back for a long time."
The first thing I noticed was that this place was creepy. It was lit by only a few torches on the wall, and from what I could make out, the walls had bones on them. I shivered, and not just because it was cold.
Welcome to the City of Bones, Alexander Lightwood, a voice, silent yet it carried far, said from behind me. I jumped, turned around, and tried to stifle a scream.
Layla was right. The Silent Brothers were creepy. The one in front of me had both his eyes and mouth sewn shut, runes like blood carved into his cheeks, head bald as an egg. Isabelle actually screamed, twice, and Max stared forward in silent curiosity.
"How-how do you know my name?" I asked.
We know almost everything, the Silent Brother replied, We can read minds. We know all your secrets, every single one.
"Great," I muttered. "That's the last thing I need. Well, shit."
You are here to recover a memory. This will lead you to the warlock who helped hide you from the Shadowhunters, and then you need to talk to them. For all we know, you could be the person who could help defeat Valentine.
"Okay, so what do we need to do?" I asked. "I'll do anything to get my parents back."
This shouldn't take long, the Silent Brother said-thought? He put his clammy, calloused hands on my head, and I took a deep breath, rocketing into the past.
I am two years old. I am running around a grassy field, next to a manor house. I know it's home, and I want to go back.
"No," Father says. "We're leaving."
"Leaving?" I asked. "Why?"
"We need to move," Mother explained. "We need to leave. Stay away from Valentine."
"But Valentine's good," I said, my two-year-old mind struggling to process.
"No," Mother said. "He isn't. We have to leave, and with your baby sister." My mother was holding Baby Isabelle in her arms, shifting her constantly, like she was afraid someone would take her. She glanced back at the house.
"Magnus said we have to go within a few hours," Father said. I smiled, thinking of Magnus.
"Magnus is pretty," I blurted out.
"Handsome," Mother corrected. "Though you're right, Magnus is handsome."
"It's time to go," Father said. He lit a torch, and threw it at the house. We ran away, leaving behind the only home I had ever known.
I got up from the ground, gasping for air. Somehow, I'd ended up kneeling down.
"Oh my God," I said. "What just happened?"
Tell them about the memory. It might just be the key to unlocking your past. That's all we can find.
"What did you see?" Isabelle asked.
"Us leaving a house," I explained. "Our home. Our parents were talking about someone named Magnus." I turned around, slowly, so I was facing my sister. "Does anyone know anything about the name 'Magnus'?"