"I hope you were joking when you said that."

"What? About keeping the mundane?" Raphael had landed his motorcycle a few blocks away from the Dumort and was driving it on the streets. He was glamoured from sight, so he was breaking almost every traffic law in New York City. "Of course I was; what would I do with a mundane?"

"You shouldn't scare her like that," Eva pressed her cheek against his leather jacket, watching taxis drive by without having a clue Raphael was cutting them off. Otherwise, like typical New Yorkers, they would've honked. "She's Nephilim but was raised mundane and had her memories blocked; it's a lot for her."

"She's dangerous," Raphael said. "She had her memories blocked for a reason, and Wayland is only trying to get in her pants."

"I don't know about that," she laughed. "Clary isn't impressed by Jace like other girls tend to be."

"All the more reason to get in her pants."

"Is that why I was so interesting to you?" She dug her chin into his shoulder blade for emphasis. "Because I wouldn't leave you alone while other girls ignore you?"

"Perhaps." Raphael's motorcycle slowed down and drove into an alley to park. He offered Eva his hand for her to get off the bike. "I would normally park on the roof, but since we're meeting Wayland and his latest conquest out here…"

"Stop it," she nudged him scoldingly, but couldn't help the smile on her face. Clary certainly had a bit of a crush on Jace but was trying not to show it. Jace was always a bit difficult to read emotionally, but it was obvious he was interested.

Jace and Clary were ten minutes late, much to Raphael's annoyance, and they arrived with daggers and seraph blades in their belts. Raphael pointed it out, "Are you two coming to get the mundane or hold me hostage?"

"We should," Jace said. "It would make things very interesting."

Raphael led them through a backdoor entrance he had to yank open due to a rusting handle. The corridors were pitch dark but were lit up nicely with Jace's witchlight stone. After walking through what seemed like an endless maze of hallways, they walked into an enormous grand ballroom with cracked marble floors, chandeliers ridden with cobwebs, and along the upper walls were curved balconies decorated with gold-framed mirrors crowned with gilded Cupid's heads. Windows of dirty glass overlooked pitch black adjacent hallways.

"What a dump," Jace said in his usual snappy tone.

"I assure you the upstairs of the Dumort is as glorious as it once was," Raphael tapped the heel of his leather boot on the marble floor. "This ballroom is rarely used."

"Then why are we here?"

Raphael raised his hand to his lips and produced a whistle so high-pitched, Eva was shocked the mirrors and windows didn't crack. Within seconds, vampires poured into the ballroom in an orderly fashion. They were soundless as they moved and there was certainly no chatter among them. They were all summoned by their leader, and all of their eyes were on Raphael and the Nephilim standing behind him.

"Anyone that attended Magnus Bane's party tonight step forward," Raphael began. When a group of about twenty vampires stepped forward, Raphael continued, "Did any of you bring a rat here from that party?"

"I did," a vampire with dreadlocks raised his hand.

"Was it a brown rat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring it here, please," Raphael said. The dreadlocked boy bowed his head and dashed out of the ballroom in a flash. The ballroom was eerily quiet until a young lady with Asian features and blue-streaked hair stepped forward.

"Sir? Are we in trouble?" she asked, her eyes trailing over the Nephilim behind her; Eva noted a spark of anger in them when she met Eva's glance across the room.

"You're not in trouble, Lily—none of you are, and certainly not with the Nephilim," Raphael explained. "That brown rat is a mundane that stupidly drank a shapeshifting cocktail at the party and he's a friend of theirs."

"Oh, that explains it!" the dreadlocked vampire returned with a squirming rat in his large hand. "I thought this was Zeke! I was wondering why he was copping such an attitude!"

"Simon!" Clary called out from behind them. The rat squeaked in response, telling them all it was indeed Simon. Raphael took the rat from the boy's hands and turned to walk towards them. As he did so, he tossed Simon high into the air and caught him in his other hand. Eva frowned, knowing he did that just to scare the poor mundane.

"Now, you take this rat and never show your faces here again, are we clear?" Raphael said.

"Yes! Thank you!" Clary reached her hands out for Simon, but she never got to take him. The glass windows lining the ballroom suddenly burst in tiny flakes of glass, scattering them all over the ruined marble floors. The shards crunched under everyone's shoes as they stepped back in surprise. Surrounding them were ferocious snarling beasts with sharp teeth and pointed red eyes.

Werewolves.

"How dare you enter our place?" Raphael shouted so loudly, it made Eva jump. She'd never seen him so furious. The largest wolf growled and took a step forward with a large, clawed paw. The wolf meant no harm; however, and merely morphed back into his human self: a tall muscular man with long hair and a weathered face.

"We didn't come here looking for trouble," he said and pointed a stiff arm at Clary. "We came for the girl."

"You can't have her," Raphael spat. "She's in our territory, and you're trespassing. The Children of the Night owe you nothing, wolf."

"I'm so glad you said that," the man grinned and bent over, his body rippling back onto all fours to take his werewolf form. He howled into the frescoed ceiling, and all hell broke loose.

The werewolves charged and the vampires clashed with them head-on in the center of the ballroom. Eva had no weapons on her, only her stele. She quickly whipped it out of her pocket and began drawing a Swiftness rune onto the back of her left hand when she heard Raphael cry out in pain. When she looked up, his hand was gushing blood and a tiny furball was hurrying across the floor, avoiding the enormous paws of werewolves and the boots of vampires.

"You deserve that," Eva said, finishing the rune and feeling its power seeping into her skin. "For tossing him in the air like that."

She expected him to glare at her like he does when he knows she's right, but instead she was met with a look of horror. It was only until she heard the snarls of the wolf did she realize the enormous beast was leaping for her, or for Raphael—she had no idea. The rune on her hand definitely helped and she managed to lunge herself out of the wolf's way, but she crash-landed on a pile of broken glass, the razor-sharp edges digging into her skin like millions of needles. The one day she decides to wear a breezy sleeveless top to combat the hot summer night is the day she has to roll around on broken glass. Lovely.

The next thing she saw was Raphael tangled on the floor with the same wolf. He was snapping at him with his fangs until he finally caught the side of its head and bit down hard. The wolf yelped in pain and pulled away, blood gushing from the deep wound. Raphael would've leapt onto the bleeding wolf to finish the job but a long howl stopped him. The same wolf that had spoken to Raphael earlier was on a dais at the end of the ballroom, howling at his wolves who obediently stopped fighting the vampires and began following him out through the enormous double doors and into the dark hallways. Eva noted Jace and Clary were nowhere to be found, and neither was a brown rat.

"After them!" Raphael cried. Most of the vampires followed orders while the others that remained stayed to check if any of their kin lying on the bloody marble floors were alive. Most were dead.

Eva pulled herself up and with a wince, she curled her elbow to look at the damage. Blood streamed her entire arm and protruding from it like diamonds on the wall of a cavern were sparkling glass shards. Every time she moved, their sharp edges dug deeper and tore at her skin like tiny teeth.

"Mi vida." Raphael looked down at her arm, a swirl of rage and fear looming around him. "Did he bite you? Claw at you?"

"No, he didn't touch me," she shook her head. "The glass did a pretty number on me, though."

Raphael surprised her when he bent down and swept her off her feet, carrying her to the nearest seat he could find, which happened to be a dusty divan in an adjacent room. Eva assumed it was the ballroom's reception hall.

"Déjame ver," he mumbled as he knelt down in front of her. He gently took her wrist and eyed the wound. "There's no healing rune you can use for the bleeding?"

She shook her head. "If I use an iratze, it'll close the wounds over the glass shards."

Just then, Lily appeared in the reception hall. She regarded them both with a scowl before bowing her head respectfully. "The Nephilim boy and the girl with the rat took one of the motorcycles on the roof and flew off. The werewolves ran after that. We chased them to the perimeter of the hotel, but it's almost sunrise, sir."

Raphael nodded. "Start getting rid of the bodies. Feed from the werewolves if you'd like—I don't care."

As Lily left, Raphael studied her arm intently. Eva felt the need to add, "A Silent Brother would be able to pick them out individually; Hodge says they sew their eyes shut, but they see better than anyone."

Raphael said nothing; he only stared at her wounds with wide eyes seething with fury. She could feel his rage oozing out of him like a steady stream and it was suffocating her.

"Rapha, please calm down."

"I am calm."

"No, you're not. I feel it."

He said nothing and stood, pulling her up with him as gently as he could. He swept her into his arms and carried her down the corridor, turning a few times before he walked into what Eva distinguished as perhaps the former boiler room of the hotel. He shouldered open a door and they were in an alley on the east side of the Dumort. The sky was streaked with orange and yellow streaks of sunlight and Eva began to squirm in his arms as he walked up the street.

"Rapha, no—"

"Shush," he set her down and flagged down a taxi driving by. He threw open the door and had Eva go inside first and he followed soon after. Raphael used his encanto to make the taxi driver forget he saw Eva's injury and after telling him the address of the Institute, Raphael made it a point to tell him to floor it for extra cash. As the taxi sped through the streets, Eva's worry was beginning to blossom in her chest. Raphael was eerily quiet and the simmering rage just below the surface was terrifying her. He was in the daylight and wasn't caring one bit, and that was an immediate red flag for her.

The taxi parked across the street from the Institute which to the driver must've looked like a dilapidated church. Raphael helped her out of the car and looked into the driver's eyes when the man rolled down his window. "I already paid you."

Eva couldn't help but feel bad for the mundane as he nodded happily and drove down the street without a worry in the world. She let Raphael scoop her up in his arms again, carrying her as if she weighed absolutely nothing. Eva couldn't help but gawk at him like a schoolgirl with a crush; the rays of morning sunlight made him look stunning as they reflected off his perfect skin, making sharp shadows over his nose and mouth and giving his eyes a honey-glazed glow.

He put her down when they stepped in front of the Institute's main entrance. Eva reached for the handles, but the door inched itself open for her as if it recognized her. Much to her shock, Hodge's hysterical voice traveled into the courtyard and when she pulled the door open further, she saw everyone standing in the foyer: Hodge was flailing his arms as he did when he was giving them a furious lecture, Izzy and Alec standing right behind him with grave expressions, and Jace and Clary, filthy and covered in blood, taking the scolding full force. Simon was thankfully not a rat anymore, and while he was not on the receiving end of Hodge's fury, he looked extremely guilty.

"Pendejo!"

Hodge stopped mid-lecture and everyone turned to look at them, only noticing now that the front door had been opened. But by the time they registered what was happening, Raphael crossed the foyer at breakneck speed and swung a heavy fist into Jace's jaw. There was a sickening crunch and Jace fell back onto the floor from the sudden impact.

"I bring you into my territory and you call the werewolves to fight us?" Raphael cried, his voice echoing in the high ceiling of the Institute. Jace raised his head to meet his eyes in a deadly glare and spit a glob of blood onto the carpet. Raphael pointed at Clary. "There's a reason her memories were blocked! She's a danger to everyone—"

"My mother had Magnus block my memories!" Clary shouted back in anger. "She was running from the Clave!"

"I bet there's a reason for that, too!" Raphael said viciously and turned back to Jace. "Are you so desperate to get laid that you made sure to save the girl and her stupid mundane friend but didn't even think of looking back for Eva?" He pointed at Eva standing at the entrance with Izzy at her side now, her arm encrusted with dried blood and the twinkle of glass. "She could've been bitten by a werewolf! She could've been Turned! She could've been killed!"

It was deathly quiet. Shafts of sunlight were entering the foyer through the open door, outlining Raphael and creating a silhouette of him against the eyes of everyone in the room.

"Yes, I'm a Daylighter." He ran a hand over his face, suddenly exhausted, and gestured at Eva with an open hand. "Can you please call a Silent Brother for her before I lose my mind?"