Disclaimer: I do not own the Mortal Instruments series. Everything recognisable belongs to Cassandra Clare.
Answer: To the people who asked for a second love interest or a love-triangle I am really sorry, but I will not be writing in anyone that has that sort of powers. It will not fit with the plot of the story and I do not think I would be very good at writing that stuff. But I do love reading your ideas, and whenever I see something that do fit I try to please you guys. So don't be afraid of asking.
"See what?" Jace asked, repeating his thoughts.
Clary didn't answer. Her eyes wandered around the grey room, the ferocity in her stare was startling.
Jace walked besides her looking around. "See what?" he asked again. This time Clary snapped out of her disoriented state, her virescent eyes looking at him with a bemused expression on her face.
"Everything. You seriously don't see it, or are you just fucking with me Jace?" Again, she absentmindedly called him by his first name, and if he hadn't been so confused by her angry tone of voice, he would've said something about it.
"If you could explain what the hell you want me to see, maybe I could answer that question. All I'm seeing is grey walls, an ugly desk and an empty bookshelf. Is that what you're getting so worked up about?" His snapped back, his voice breathing of sarcasm.
Clary's shoulders dropped. It told Jace enough. She saw something else, which one of them was seeing the real room though?
"What do you see?" He asked curiously, but Clary just shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Nothing, just a grey room as well."
"Okay, now you're just insulting my intelligence." Jace told her, laughing mockingly at her, "You really think I believe that?"
"I don't.. I-" Clary stuttered, her eyes wandering from the large oak door to the back of the room and back again. "I.." he had never heard her so confused before. "I, why? Why can't you see it?" she looked up at him after scanning the room for a good three minutes, maybe five.
"See what?" he hadn't meant for his voice to sound so angry, but the whole thing confused him too much.
"All the books, the papers, the walls, everything!" It sounded like a pleading, a pleading for him to see past the greyness, to see past the barrier keeping him from the truth.
"I don't see it." He shrugged, uncertain how he should approach the whole thing.
Clary looked into his eyes, her eyes so intense, so green, he almost looked away. Forcing his eyes to keep the connection.
She broke away first, her eyes drifting to the large door. Suddenly she reached out for him, her fingers clutching around his arm. She dragged him to the door with such force he stumbled over his own feet.
He had more or less forgotten about the strength in the short redheaded girl. She was no taller than 5´2, and still her powers amazed him. He remembered seeing the room in Hotel Dumort, vampires slaughtered, lying headless or impaled by wooden sticks. All dead. All dead because of this girl. The girl almost ten inches shorter than him.
He followed her over to the door, thinking she would try to throw him out of the room. She didn't do that, which surprised him. He eyed the door carefully, seeing the large runes scorched into the wood.
"What do you see?" Clary asked him surprisingly calm.
"Runes." Jace observed the runes closer "For the most part protection runes." He added after a while.
"Okay." Clary nodded. "Me too." She sounded relieved.
"What's going on?" Jace asked. He didn't like the situation, why was there a room in the Institute only Clary could see, and what was in this room?
"I don't know. I just stumbled upon the room a week ago, but I didn't get to see anything of what the room's treasures." Clary smirked, her eyes scanning the room eagerly.
Jace held out his hand, holding her back. "I don't know what you're seeing, but just because you can see it, it doesn't give you the right to go around snooping."
"Oh, and who's gonna stop me? You?" She laughed, a bitter tone to her voice.
"You don't think I could take you." Jace asked intimidatingly. "Nope." With the short answer Clary pushed his hand aside and walked back to the empty bookshelf.
The bookshelf seemed old and empty when Jace looked at it, but when Clary laid eyes on the same shelf it had books tucked beside each other and pressed into the small spaces left on top of the perfect lines of books. They looked old; some of them had definitely seen their better days a few years ago. Or maybe a hundred.
Clary pulled out one of the books. In the corner of her eye she could see Jace watching her with great intensity. He stood tall, shielding the door from her, keeping her inside the room.
Her hands looked like they were holding something, but he couldn't make out exactly what. Like his mind tried to fight past a wall of fog or smoke. He could see the outlines of a book, but the cover and pages where nothing more than silvery smoke.
"What's that?" he asked curiously as she began flipping the pages.
"A book." She replied absentmindedly.
Jace rolled his eyes visibly, sighing slightly. "Thank you Captain Obvious." Jace murmured sarcastically, receiving a strange and confused look form Clary.
She tuned another page, scanning it fast, her brows neatly pressed together at the middle. Making her squint her eyes slightly.
"It doesn't make sense." Clary whispered irritated.
"What?" Jace asked, growing more and more irritated with the fact he couldn't see the things she saw. Maybe she has just gone completely crazy. The thought crossed his mind, but he didn't think it was possible; he could after all see her holding the book.
"I can't make out any of the sentences, they just stop halfway through or get smeared out like someone wanted to hide the rest of the words." Clary threw the book on the desk, picking another old book off the shelf.
"Maybe they've been soaked in water, maybe someone really didn't want you to find out the information they hold." Jace suggested. Clary took no notice of his words, flipping through the next books invisible pages.
"God, they are all the same!" Clary exclaimed after going thought five more books.
"What does the sentences you can read say?" Jace asked, he felt stupid for asking, was she even telling him the truth? He knew she was hiding something. If it wasn't something in this room, it was something. The way she had freaked out and left last time they'd spoken, after he picked up her ring. The way she had seemed to read his mind.
Jace shook his head. He could think about that later, ask her about it even. He just had to get on her good side again, and for some reason, he felt like he was not on that side right now. Not yet.
"Nothing. They don't say anything logical at all." Clary shifted the book in her hand from one hand to the other. "As I said earlier, they are all the same." Clary looked down at the book again.
"Oh God." Clary whispered.
"What?" Jace asked again, walking up to her side. "Did you find something?"
Clary stared at all the books. Her eyes wide, emotions swimming clear in her emerald orbs.
"They are all the same." Clary told him, opening three of the books at random pages.
Jace couldn't see the words on each page, but he knew Clary had found something, she had stopped breathing for a second, just looking at the words.
"There must be something in here." Clary pointed at the blank page.
"I can't see anything, so you're on your own on this one darlin'." Jace joked, but Clary barely registered his words. She was too engrossed in her realisation.
"You." She said. Jace looked at her with a weird expression. "Yeah?"
"No, not you. It's the word. You." Clary looked around the room, picking up a pen that had apparently been lying on the desk. She drew a straight line on the page of the first book right in front of her.
She turned to the next page. Back to the first page. She drew another line. Repeated the motion, reading something, drawing a line under a word.
She repeated it six times. Six lines were drawn on the page. She opened another book on a random page, lining under the exact same words. "How did I not see this before? Seriously!" Clary exclaimed irritated.
Jace watched her in mixed confusion and interest. "Did you find something?" he asked again.
"You have to ask for it." Clary said clearly.
"Yeah, I kind of just did. I asked if you-" Clary looked up at him, "No, that's what I found." Said Clary strong voiced.
"You have to ask for it?" Jace repeated, "Ask for what?"
"Dunno." Clary answered rolling her shoulders backwards, "But it's the same on every page, every smudged sentence says something different, but these six words are repeated at the exact same place on every page."
"You." She pointed to the first line, "have" the next line, "to" the third highlighted invisible word, "'ask', 'for' and there at the end, 'it'." Clary pointed out the three last words in a rapid motion.
Jace tried to force through the glamour, tried breaking the walls keeping the barrier between Clary's vision and his. He imagined a door, similar to the protection door. The door kept him away from what he wanted. He wanted to see. He tried to open the door. Force the runes away, giving him the power to see the room as it really was.
It did not work. The room's protection kept him out. He was not allowed past the grey walls.
Then it hit him. What if he had to ask the room? As stupid as it sounded, that was exactly what the books told Clary to do. 'To ask for it.'
"Ask for it." He told her, "Maybe we have to ask for the room to let us see it." Jace continued, sharing his thoughts.
Clary looked up at him again, closing one of the books. She sent him a hesitant glance. "I didn't ask to see any of this."
Jace bit his lip, searching his mind for another answer. "Maybe.." he stopped, not knowing if he should ask the next question or not.
"Maybe what?" Clary forced him to continue.
"Maybe you can see it because of..of the.." he didn't want to upset her, looking around the room, avoiding her gaze. Clary finished his sentence. "Demon blood. It is possible." She said, ignoring Jace's discomforted expression.
"But you could try." Clary said after a while.
Jace smiled carefully, not knowing exactly what to ask the room for. He didn't know how to talk to a room. Jace opened his mouth. "Ehh." He began. "Let me see." He said.
Nothing changed.
Suddenly, Clary looked up at him, her eyes full of annoyance. "Really?" She snapped.
"You call that asking?"
Jace bit his lip, keeping his small smile away from his lips. "What? You think you can do it?"
Clary smirked at him, "Maybe." Her eyes lit up in an incredible, bright green colour. "Can you please let this dumbass, fuck-up see what I can see?" she asked sarcastically. Okay, so she didn't believe him. The back of his mind told him.
"Yeah, that was great, really fantastic Clary." Jace told her, looking down at the redheaded girl.
Just as her name left his lips he saw a something flicker in the corner of his eye. He turned around quickly. "What the-?" he stared at the room, mouth open, eyes wide.
"Shut up." Clary said. "Please tell me that didn't work." Clary laughed scornfully.
A thick flow of magic filled Jace's body. It hit him like a tidal wave. In front of Jace's golden eyes he saw the grey walls turn purple. Long, red curtains swept the floor.
A much smoother, much cleaner wooden floor replaced the dusty floor. The same large bookshelf stood behind a desk, only now he could see the books Clary had pulled out of it clearly. Or rather the holes where the books had been before Clary took them all out.
His eyes fell on an antique, claw-footed sofa and a chair placed in front of a lit fireplace. Swords crossed over the fireplace like a big silver X. He saw a few rolls of parchment papers stacked into a small pyramid on the end of the desk with a colourful quill dipped into a vial of ink next to it.
"Wow." The word left his mouth without him meaning it.
"I take that as a 'it did.'" Clary answered him.
"Where are we?" Jace asked flabbergasted. "Are you sure we're still in the Institute?" Jace asked, he couldn't believe a room as magical as this existed in their Institute.
"Yes. If we walk out of that door, we're back in the residential wing," Clary explained.
"So.." Jace dragged out the word, "What do you think this room is?"
"I haven't figured that out yet." Clary told him, "But I'm working on it."
Jace nodded, his eyes still wide, scanning the room's many items. His fingers brushed over a stack of cards. "Maybe it's like a storage room." He guessed.
"Not very likely, why would they need to protect a storage room with as powerful runes as they've used here?" Clary dismissed his guess.
Jace picked up the deck of cards, looking at them absentmindedly. Shuffling them between his fingers. He looked down at them after a while. All the cards were painted with beautiful figures, the sun, ten swords, and the moon with a pack of wolves howling at it. He turned to the next card, giving it a quick glace, but when Clary began speaking again, he put the cards down on the desk again.
"Read this." Clary told him, giving him a bunch of curled, ripped papers.
Jace glanced over the page before he read, "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 rest of the sentence was, as Clary had told him earlier, impossible to read.
"Well, this is most likely a report or something from the Circle. Dad told me one time Valentine was obsessed with the instruments." Jace said, not thinking about whom he was talking to.
"Don't speak of my father that way." Clary snapped, turning to the shelf reorganising it to look exactly the way it had when they came.
Jace didn't answer, leaving an awkward silence lingering in the air.
When Clary pushed the last book inside the shelf they heard a loud voice outside the room. "Shit." Jace muttered.
He grabbed Clary's wrist, pulling her after him out of the room. To his relief she did not protest, following him out. As they closed the large oak door, they saw Alec and Jonathan walk down the corridor. They were too engrossed in their conversation to notice the two of them slipping out of the room.
Jace didn't release Clary right away, keeping her hand in his, making sure she followed him away from the 'magic room'.
"What are you two doing here?" Jonathan had registered the redhead and the golden boy. His eyes scanned them carefully, his eyes showing disbelief and bewilderment.
"Ehhm, we-" Jace began, "We.." he looked over at Clary, hoping she would come up with something, but she just stared at her brother with intense fury.
"I just.. I just found Clary to see if she wanted some food. You know, before the two of you ate everything and we had to go to Taki's for more." Jace gave them an innocent smile.
"Oh, okay." Jonathan nodded, but Jace's eyes wandered to the smug smile on Alec's lips.
"And, do you need to hold hand to do that?" Jonathan continued, his voice changed into an overprotective brotherly voice.
Jace looked down at his hand, half wrapped over Clary's wrist, half curled around her small fingers.
He felt his face heat up, letting go of Clary's hand and brushing his hand through his loose curls.
Clary took a step forward; she had been completely silent since the two other boys showed up.
Her eyes burned into Jon's. "Why the fuck do you care what I do and with who?" Clary snapped.
Jonathan sighed, "I don't, it was just a question." He told her, trying to keep his own voice calm and steady.
"It was a stupid question, and something that's got nothing to do with you." Clary told him harshly.
Jon sent Jace an irritated gaze, which Jace answered with a one-shouldered shrug.
xxxx
A few days passed, and soon it was time for the Academy to open after a break. Jace and Isabelle had to stay back, after being deprived of their rights to go to the school. The words of what had happened spread like wildfire through the Shadowhunter community.
Clarissa Morgenstern alive. Valentine Morgenstern alive. Silent City breakout. Silent Brothers dead. Vampire attack.
Everything had changed in such a short time. It hadn't even been two full months since Jace and the others had captured Clary. And now Iwan had already left for the Academy.
It was strange how quiet the Institute became without the two young boys running around.
Jace sat with the others in the library. They had gotten back from the training room a few minutes ago. "I can't believe I'm not going this semester." Izzy complained.
"Yeah, you've already said that about a trillion times." Alec muttered, propping his feet on the couch, receiving a glare form his sister as his bare feet touched her.
"Ehww. Get off." She pushed him away in a childish manner.
"Hey!" Alec shot back, lifting his feet back up inches away from her skin. "My feet aren't even touching you."
"No, but it's disgusting." Isabelle pushed his feet away again.
"Now you're touching them by free will." Alec pointed out as she pulled back sending him an irritated glower.
"I wouldn't have to be in contact with your gross feet if you just kept them on the ground as a normal human being." Isabelle answered, leaning her back against the couch.
"Would you two stop, or are you trying to burlesque the two twelve-year-olds that just left?" Jonathan asked, an amused expression showing on his calm face.
He hadn't spoken with Clary for the past few days; she had obviously been ignoring him, disappearing even. He didn't know where she went; of course it had to be somewhere inside the Institute, but from time to time she would just disappear an hour or two.
"No. I'm not, but I don't know about my older brother Alec over here." Isabelle answered him, seeing his carefree smile, the corner of her lips turned slightly upwards.
"It's kind of weird, Max seems so small. I don't feel like I was ever that young." Alec explained.
"No, of course you just skipped a few years." Isabelle replied sarcastically.
"Ha-ha. You know what I mean, I can't even remember being that young. Do any of you remember going to the Academy for the first time?" he asked.
"Ahh, it's such a long time ago." Jonathan replied, ruffling his messy white hair with his slim fingers.
"I hope nobody ask them about the vampire encounter." Isabelle said worriedly.
"Ahh, they'll be fine." Jace replied, propping down in the couch next to Isabelle, putting his arm around her shoulder.
"They're probably three times better than any of the other new trainees." He sighed, even though Jace pretended to not be concerned with his brother leaving, he was.
xxxx
Clary sat with her legs pressed up to her chest. A book balanced on her knees.
"Tell me about the wards." Clary asked. She had searched through every page on the first ten books in the Institute's 'magic room'. They had held no secrets. At least not about the things she wanted to know.
This book didn't appear to be any more useful than the others.
"Wrangel Island. Can you tell me anything about Wrangel Island?" Clary asked. She had stopped feeling embarrassed about the fact that she was talking to a room full of books. So far the room hadn't showed her much, but whenever she managed to say something, or ask for something the room held the information about, it would gladly give it to her.
"No. Okay, fine." Clary muttered, throwing the useless book in the pile of worthless books.
She got back up on two feet, about to go back to the shelf for another book when she heard something strange. It was like a rattling, choking sound. Like something dying, but fighting at the same time.
Clary turned around. The sound came from the desk.
She walked over to the old, beautiful desk. The sound died in her ears.
Turning over a few pages, opening the closed books lying on the desktop, she found nothing.
She began turning back around when the sound came again. I t was louder and shrieking more than last time.
Clary opened the drawers, one by one, searching for the sound.
She didn't know how long she stood there staring at her hands. She had reached for a small box. When her fingers closed around the box it turned a golden colour. It's shape changed. It grew taller.
Clary recognised the box as soon as it reached its true size and form. A Pyxis.
The biggest give-away was the snake, or the ouroboros, a snake biting its own tale. The mark was burned into the wood, leaving a dark pattern in the golden wood.
The pyxis was used to safely trap a demon's consciousness, or energy. Demon energy. Why would this be here?
Clary turned the box around in her hands. Did it hold information? Was that why it had begun shaking?
Clary didn't open the box, but she placed it on top of the desktop. She wouldn't leave it here, not if it could somehow give her the information she needed.
We're getting closer and closer guys. You have no idea what's going to happen.. haha.
Sorry, I'm just having so much fun reading your reviews, they are awesome and I love all of you so much. You make writing this story a million times more amazing. So please review, tell me what you think will happen and I will see you soon with another update.
Hope you liked this chapter, and don't worry, the action will be back soon.