Disclaimer: I do not own the Mortal Instruments series. Everything recognisable belongs to Cassandra Clare.
Hope this can be considered a fast update. Thank you so much for all the reviews, and I'm glad you liked the Daylighter thing.
Jace sat with his back leaned against the hard back of the chair. Staring at the young copy of his own face. Iwan looked so much young when he slept, all the lines in his face disappeared and people who didn't know him would probably guess his age to be around ten.
"What are you doing here?" a dour voice called out for him.
Jace didn't bother turning around, he had already heard the same voice a million times today.
"If you haven't noticed, my brother is not exactly in the greatest state, and as I told you earlier, I'm not leaving until he is." Jace never let his eyes leave his tired looking brother. Max lay in the bed next to Iwan, his face pallid and sunken with dark shadows under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks.
Both Isabelle and Alec had been torn from their younger brother's bedside, none of them willing to leave the boy's side. But the Silent Brothers working on him, trying their hardest to get the boy up and going again had forced them out in the end. Jace suspected some sort of mind control, who knew what those brothers were capable of.
"JACE HERONDALE! Don't you dare imply something like that. Of course I know, and I care about my grandsons more than you will ever know, but when the Silent Brothers said you had to leave, that meant-" Jace rolled his eyes at her, and if he had turned around, he would be sure Imogen would've scolded him for that too.
"I'm staying."
He heard the woman's light footsteps coming closer to Iwan's bed, "Jace." the voice spoke softer now, but it still held the same strong, leadership voice his grandmother had. "I know you're afraid-" "I'm not afraid." Jace cut her off.
She didn't bother arguing with him, and continued her sentence where she left off, "but you have to understand there are certain rules in our world, and we have to follow them no matter how hard it is." God, was she really giving him the speech? ´The Law is hard, but it is The Law.´ Jace felt a small smile twitch at his lips, but he couldn't let himself laugh.
"Don't. I know what you're going to say, and I honestly could not care less. The Law don't reach a higher echelon than my brother in this case grandmother." he regretted the vexed voice he spat the words in as soon as they left his mouth.
"Excuse me?" the woman hissed back, "I'm not-" "Yes you are." Jace jumped out of the chair reaching a few inches above the older woman's head.
"You always are, you confuse family with Clave and you don't care if we get hurt as long as it is for the greater good." When Jace drew in a breath he saw Imogen eye the third and final patient in the Infirmary, she sighed and sent him a saddened look, "She is affecting you, all of you, aren't she."
Jace sent her a confused look, filled with irritation, "What? Clary?" he asked.
"Yes. I knew it was a bad idea to let Jocelyn have her here." Imogen told him, giving the sleeping girl a disgusted look.
"It's funny, when a person is sleeping you couldn't unfold their background, their life choices nor their personality trades. She could be just another Shadowhunter when she is sleeping." Jace sent his grandmother a confused glance, where the hell was she going with this?
"She's good at masking her true intentions. Just like her father." The way she spat the word 'father' sent a wave of cool air down Jace's back.
"What would her true intentions be?" Jace asked, he calmed his voice down as he looked at her, he didn't want Imogen to hear how irritated he was with her at the moment.
"That's what I don't know yet, but she obviously has something planned. I just want you to be careful Jace. I don't want you to end up hurt, or even worse.." he could finish the sentence for her, dead.
Jace raised an eyebrow; "Fine?" he said sceptically, it wasn't like he had spent that much time with Clary for her to be concerned.
Jace actually didn't believe Clary had any deep, cruel intentions, what he knew she had, was no way to get home. He did understand her in a way; it must be frustrating being around people one considered the enemy all the time. Was he really sympathising with a girl with demon blood? Jace looked over at the redhead, he shook his head and turned back to Iwan.
"All I am saying Jace, is that there are some people in the world who are extremely good at hiding their true intentions, murderous sociopaths don't share the same human emotions as we do, and if I know this girl right, don't trust her." Imogen turned to look over at Iwan again too, her face stern.
"You can stay, but I want you to tell us when he wakes up." Imogen instructed before she left the infirmary with the same light steps, the only way of knowing she was walking was by listening to the careful clicking sound of the woman's heels.
Jace sighed irritated, but without any further ado he sat back down in the chair. He tried to watch Iwan like he had before, but somehow his eyes wandered over to the red hair lying sprawled out on the pillow and the pale, bruised face of the so called sociopath.
xxxx
Clary had always had the ability to sense when she was being watched. And right now, someone was watching her with great intensity.
"Is my face all screwed up or something or do you just enjoy a pretty view?" Clary asked opening her green eyes. She noticed there were two other occupied beds, one for Iwan and one for Max.
She breathed out in relief as she realised both had survived the attack and her portal had sent them safely home.
"The latter." A laughing voice called out to her and she sat up straighter. She saw Jace sitting in a chair next to Iwan's bed, but his eyes were on her.
"Good to know." Clary replied sarcastically.
Jace pushed himself out of the chair and began walking towards her, as she eyed him suspiciously.
"How do you feel?" he asked with a lopsided smile.
"Honestly." Clary surprised herself, "like someone slammed my head into a wall a million times and then let a herd of horses free to gallop over me."
Jace let out a strangled laugh, "Well, sounds pretty accurate if you ask me."
She smiled carefully at him, before her guard lifted over her like a physical wall. "Why do you care?"
"Hey, stop that." He answered irritated.
"Stop what?" Clary replied. "It's a legitimate question."
Jace shrugged, "Fine. First of all, you saved my brother." He replied and linked his golden eyes with her emerald.
"It was nothing, I was just at the right place to the right time-" Jace laughed, "Oh, okay." He laughed at her stupid attempt to keep her fearsome reputation.
"Why are you even talking to me?" Clary asked, "I thought they told you to keep away from the murderous psychopath." Clary snapped, again her walls closing around her.
"You were awake?" he asked surprised.
"Yeah, you weren't exactly having a quiet conversation." She replied with a shrug, which sent a sting of pain through her aching head.
"Sorry. My grandmother-""The Inquisitor." Clary spat angry back at him, "well yeah, she.. she can be a bit.." he didn't find the right words.
"Fucked up?" Clary asked.
"I wouldn't use those exact words, but yeah." Jace smiled, "And it was sociopath, not psychopath." Jace argued.
"Whatever." Clary rolled her eyes. Jace saw her swing her legs over the bedside, a twisted grimace formed on her face, "I think you should stay in that bed." He told her, touching her shoulder to keep her from falling.
Clary didn't answer; she stared straight through him, like he was nothing but thin air.
xxxx
"Seems like your daughter got herself into quite the mess Valentine." Hodge chuckled.
Valentine sent him a malicious gaze, shutting the Shadowhunter up.
"What happened?" he asked angry. He could not believe Clarissa had again been outside the wards of the Institute without them being able to get her back.
"From what the inside information told us, two young Shadowhunters appeared in front of the New York Institute, and they came through an unregistered five-dimensional door."
"So, she did what? Send them through the portal because?" Valentine felt his anger triple; he did not have time for the Shadowhunter's games.
"Apparently, she saved them from vampires." Hodge explained.
"Why would she do that?" Magdalena shot in.
"Isn't it obvious?" Valentine snapped back, he knew this would be the biggest problem with losing Clary. "We all know dear Clarissa has a way of saving those who are not capable of defending themselves. One of her only flaws." Valentine sighed.
He had trained his daughter so well; she would kill on his command, she would even die protecting him if that was the case, but shaking her out of the idea that she had to help people who couldn't help themselves, that idea never left her pretty little red head.
Valentine sat for a few minutes, before he asked. "How long will it be before we can get her back?"
"The team of Circle members working on Wrangel Island said two weeks, so if we can't get a Warlock's help, that's what we'll have to settle on." Hodge Starkweather explained carefully.
Two weeks. He could manage that. It had already been over one month; he could deal with another two weeks. At least as long as she didn't find out the truth.
xxxx
The voice echoed loudly in her aching head, 'Clarissa, there you are. We've been trying to reach you for the past ten hours.' Maggie's soft voice spoke in her head.
Clary didn't know what to do, she couldn't ignore Jace as he sat staring at her, but she had to know what they had found out, maybe they could get her out.
'Sorry, I've been out, something happened-' 'We already know about the Hotel Dumont incident.' Maggie explained calmly, of course they did. Her father always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else.
'What did he say?' Clary asked, they hadn't found a way out, her father was probably just furious with her for endangering her own life.
'Why don't you ask him face to face in two weeks?' Clary could almost feel the smile on Maggie's lips as she spoke. 'WHAT?' Clary didn't know if one could actually scream inside someone's head, but she felt like she had.
'The wards will be down on Saturday in two weeks. We will give you further information when the time is near, but we thought you should know.' Clary had to use all her self-control to keep from smiling, 'Thank you Maggie. Tell father I will be looking forward to seeing him again.' Clary said, and with a short 'yes' Clary's head felt empty again. Only filled with her thoughts.
"Clary?" Jace said again, his voice was hard to read. "Clary are you okay?" he asked when he saw her looking at him.
"Yeah, sorry, I just got a little bit dizzy." Clary explained carefully.
"You should probably not get out of bed yet." Jace repeated.
"No, I'm fine." Clary brushed him off with a smile. "It didn't last that long."
Jace couldn't find a good argument, so he moved out of the way letting her leave the Infirmary.
xxxx
The next day passed slowly, Clary hadn't seen much of any of the younger Shadowhunters all day. Both of the Lightwood children had been camping inside the Infirmary waiting for there youngest brother to recover, and Jace had kept his word and stayed with Iwan until he would be ready to leave.
Clary felt a lot better than she had the previous day. Her headache had dimmed and being able to walk around without the usual mess of Shadowhunters was surprisingly calming.
Clary was heading towards the Sanctuary, the vampire Simon Lewis, or something like that, had asked her to meet him there. Clary had not planned on coming until she realised it was in the middle of the day, which set off an alarm inside the short Shadowhunter.
"Glad you could make it." the boyish voice of the vampire called out to her.
"Don't think it'll be happening again, vampire." Clary shot at him.
"Don't think I'll ask you to meet me again either," "Shadowhunter." He added after a short break.
Clary looked at him in disbelief, she saw the stream of sunlight hitting the back of his neck. How could he be standing there, how could he walk in the sunlight without burning up.
"What are you?" Clary asked taking an intimidating step forward.
"You mean this?" Simon waved his hands awkwardly at the sun. "I hoped you could explain it." He said matter-of-factly.
"Me?" Clary shot back at him. "Why the hell would I be able to tell you how you can walk in the sun?"
"Because it happened four days ago." That was the same day as they had broken out of the Hotel.
"So?" Clary muttered angry, she didn't have anything to do with the vampire's daylight abilities.
"After I drank your blood." He finished.
Clary looked up at him with angry green eyes. "That doesn't mean I had anything to do with it!"
"I just thought since you have demon blood-" Simon began, but Clary sent him another vexed look, cutting his sentence short, "Demons can't walk in sunlight."
"But you can." Simon answered calmly, like he was trying to explain the most obvious thing in the world to a five year old.
"But I'm not a demon." Clary said roughly. "Part, yes, but you, you're one hundred per cent vampire." Clary spat the words at him.
"I didn't help you, I didn't give you anything and my blood certainly didn't give you the ability to walk in the damn sun." Clary said the words with extreme carefulness, her voice barely above whispering level.
Clary turned around, hearing Simon's irritated voice behind her as she walked away, "Okay, call me if you change your mind or whatever."
xxxx
Clary crashed loudly into the only living thing in the hallway as she ran angry towards the staircase.
"Wow, what got you in such a hurry?" Jonathan asked with his usual carefree smile.
"Not now Fairchild." Clary snapped at him.
"And a mood." He finished his sentence as he studied Clary with his deep, bottle green eyes.
"I'm not in a mood, I just don't like talking to you." Clary snarled at him.
"Hey, it's okay. I don't really want to fight with you." He replied in a voice that annoyed Clary even more, why did he have to be so damn calm all the time.
"Why are you even here? You don't live here?" Clary asked, trying to collect her voice.
"Because of all the fuss with the Max and Iwan, and then.. you know." He didn't know how she would react to him talking about her injuries so he just sent her an askew smile, "Well, mom told Maryse she could help out with food and stuff."
Clary didn't answer, Jocelyn Fairchild was apparently in the Institute as well.
"If you want to talk to her, I think she's in the kitchen." Jonathan finished.
"No. I don't want to." Clary snapped back, walking away from him.
"Ok, but Clary!" He hurried to say before she disappeared up the stairs. "I just wanted to apologise."
Clary sent him a bewildered glance, her green eyes hardening on his lean figure. "For what?" she asked.
"For the other day. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that." Jonathan told her with a rueful expression.
"Huh?" Clary looked at him in even more confusion, when had he snapped at her.
"That day in the training room. I'm sorry." He answered her thoughts.
"Oh, you mean when you told me to go to hell." Clary asked, ignoring the hurt glance that passed his expression.
Clary looked away from the older boy with a sigh and walked up the stairs. She saw his shadow as Jonathan walked the other direction without another word.
Clary began walking down the long corridor of doors, towards her bedroom.
She was about to open her door when she saw another door in the end of the corridor; the door set ajar and light streaming from it.
Again, Clary's curious side took over. She walked past her own room and continued towards the large oak door.
The door was decorated with beautiful runes, Clary recognised all of them, and they were old runes. Safekeeping, strength and barrier runes to keep intruders out, all kinds of different protection runes. What kind of room would need this type of protection? And why had Clary never seen the door before?
Clary pushed the wooden door open, feeling a prickle of magic flow through her fingers as she touched the door.
She didn't know if she would be able to pass through the barriers of the door, but for some reason she didn't stop. Something, something magical kept pulling her inside.
When she reached the threshold she stopped. She held out her index finger, touching the air in front of her. Nothing happened.
Eventually, Clary took the last step inside the seemingly boring room.
As soon as her foot landed on the floor, the room changed. The grey walls around her turned a brilliant purple colour and large, red curtains fell from the windows. A large bookshelf stood behind a desk. Old books she had never seen before were placed in the self and Clary felt herself drawn to it.
There was an antique, claw-footed sofa and a chair placed in front of a fireplace. Swords crossed over the fireplace like a big silver X.
The part of Clary that liked weapons and destroying things wanted to walk over to the rune-covered swords, but her subconscious pulled her in the other direction.
On the desk lay a bunch of white-yellow papers and Clary picked one of them up carefully.
'Valentine Morgenstern's first—' she couldn't read the rest of the text, everything else was smeared out.
'The plan was to find the Mortal Instruments. We knew they had the sword, what we needed was the mirror and the cup. We have a lead on where to find the Mortal Cup, it's supposed to be place inside—' the text became unreadable.
"Placed inside what?" Clary whispered.
She looked through the papers, who had written these?
Before Clary could think more about it she heard voices coming from the hallway and hurried out of the room. Before she locked the door she saw the room transfigure back into grey walls. She didn't close the door completely, leaving it like she had found it.
Clary couldn't understand what she had just found, but she knew she had to get back inside it. Soon.
Can we make a deal? Because I have something good planned for the next chapter, something you've all been asking for. So if you review, next chapter will be up faster than you can say Clace.