~Three~

The first week of living in New York flew by, and she figured that she felt pretty settled in her new, grand abode. Her room was slowly but surely being filled up with new clothes and possessions – thanks to the help of the gracious Isabelle. It was beginning to evolve from the plain room she was first encountered with, and she was starting to recognise the room as her own space. She was immensely grateful for the Lightwood woman, that much was true.

The positive start to their new life also seemed to have affected her parents, who appeared to be on better terms than they had been in a long time. She frequently saw them with their heads pressed together intimately, murmuring things that weren't intended for prying ears. It would be sweet if it wasn't so suspicious. Jasmine often noticed that, every now and then, either of them would just stop and stare at her, their expressions battling between warmth and concern. The fair-headed shadowhunter had taken to ignoring their strange behaviour for the time being – she knew that, with time, her lovely mother would buckle under the pressure and spill the beans on whatever was going on.

In regard to the residents of the New York Institute, she was pleasantly surprised to find that she had managed to successfully integrate herself into the fray of shadowhunters. There were many people whom she would consider good allies and acquaintances, and – even more startlingly – a fair amount who she would call her friends. Isabelle was definitely one of them.

Jasmine had decided that she would venture out into the heart of the city, not having actually explored the place that she was expected to call her home. When she had told her parents of her plans - well, to say that they were not best pleased would be an understatement. Jasmine could still see the worried glance they shared between themselves, and quickly pushed the memory aside. She would dwell on that later.

Before departing, Jasmine had asked Isabelle which places were worth visiting or avoiding entirely, and the woman had graciously written down an extensive list in a beautifully cursive script with a blinding smile.

And so, Jasmine was currently trying to locate the third thing on the list, having already visited Central Park, in Manhattan, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was impressed, no doubt, but was also glad that she had glamoured herself before leaving the Institute. It was undeniable that she would have garnered some looks from the wealthy heiresses and tycoons that prowled Manhattan in her tight, ripped jeans - that revealed slithers of her Marks - and leather jacket.

Back in Brooklyn, she glanced down at her list.

No. 3 - Java Jones

Jasmine looked back up at the cafe she stood before and was satisfied when she saw that the names matched. She folded the list neatly and tucked it into her back pocket, black combat boots clunking against the pavement as she approached the establishment.

Through the large, gleaming windows she could make out plush beanbags, armchairs and loveseats, all a variation of a warm burgundy, with mundanes lounging around and laughing amongst their friends, whilst others hunched over laptops as they gulped down huge mugs of coffee. There were large portraits of legendary mundane singers plastered on nearly every inch of wall, and a faint hum of soft music streamed from underneath the door as she approached. It seemed pretty cosy, all things considered.

A bell above the door rang out in a shrill tone as she entered, and she froze, cursing herself. Many occupants of the cafe turned to see who had come in, only to stare in befuddlement when they were greeted with thin air.

But one gaze didn't… A pair of emerald eyes peered straight into hers, unwavering.

A teenage girl with thick, frazzled hair - the shade of rich vermillion - who was lounging on a threadbare armchair, straightened up and something akin to recognition overcame her pretty features.

Jasmine watched with bated breath as the redheaded teenager surveyed her form. She seemed to linger on her visible Marks; the obsidian black runes that curled around her neck and the glaring inky shapes that could be seen through her ripped jeans. A boy, of a similar age, with wild, chestnut hair and glasses was desperately trying to get the redhead's attention, going so far as to wave a hand in front of her face. As if by magic, the trance broke, and she looked away - for all the world seeming to forget the platinum-haired, tattooed woman.

The shadowhunter contemplated leaving the cosy cafe but curiosity outweighed her concern over a mundane with the potential Sight, and Jasmine slunk her way over to an unoccupied booth in the corner of the room. The strong scent of coffee and cigarettes settled over the cafe like a fog, and she deeply inhaled the sweet fragrance.

Flicking through the compact menu, she vaguely hoped that none of the mundanes noticed the pages that seemed to turn by themselves. Jasmine's stomach growled and she was heavily considering removing her glamour and ordering herself a bite to eat. A waffle drizzled in a sweet, sticky syrup would go down rather well.

"Soooo... what's the deal with you and Maureen?" a lilting voice carried over to her. Jasmine glanced over to see the redhead and her friend chatting and laughing happily. The girl was wagging her eyebrows at the bespectacled boy, chuckling as he took an innocent sip of his hot beverage.

"What deal? No deal. We sing together," he answered nonchalantly, gulping his drink in between sentences.

"You seriously don't know she's been crushing on you this whole time?"

The redhead looked astounded, her disbelieving tone obvious. He tried to hide it, but his eyes shone with admiration and warmth and, with the subtle way he brushed his arm against hers, Jasmine could tell that he was smitten with her. Oh, oh. Unrequited love was a bitch.

A ear-splitting burst of microphone feedback startled the pair from their conversation, and Jasmine winced as her sensitive hearing took a beating. Some dude with shaggy hair - "Hi my name's Eric!" - was about to recite a piece of poetry called 'Untitled'.

"Come, my faux juggernaut…" he began wailing out in a shrill cry.

"Oh, Raziel," Jasmine murmured, despondently.

The shadowhunter could only sit and stare in shock as her ears were assaulted for three minutes. She nearly got up and left when the guy screamed 'turgid is my torment' into the poor microphone.

Her ears were ringing by the time the mundane torturer had finished his masterpiece. Isabelle neglected to mention how... eccentric some of the New York mundies were.

Sneaking a glance over towards the dynamic pair, she sighed in sympathy when she saw that the redhead was about to unwittingly friendzone the doting boy. The clincher for her was when the girl curiously asked: "How can someone as smart and perceptive as you not realise that the person sitting right there is in love with you?"

It was painful to watch and she had to look away, turning her face into her palm as she rested her elbow on the table. She hid her features underneath a silky curtain of platinum hair. Mundanes were so dramatic.

The sudden move attracted the attention of the pretty redhead. She frowned and tilted her head, eyes trying to piece together an impossible puzzle. Jasmine could practically feel her stare and glanced at her from under her hair. She watched in astonishment as the girl excused herself, nearly tripping over a chair leg as her shoulder bag caused her to overbalance, and made her way in towards the shadowhunter. The friendzoned boy looked incredibly put out and was obviously itching to follow her.

In a bold move that seemed quite unlike the redhead - from the 5 minutes that you've observed her, Jasmine reprimanded herself - the mundane soon plonked herself down onto the chair in front, staring straight at Jasmine. The shadowhunter exhaled, leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. There was no denying her Sight now.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The girl herself had a growing look of horror on her face as she processed what she had bravely done - that is, forcing herself into the midst of a complete stranger with an accusatory look on her face. Jasmine remained impassive as the redhead started fidgeting and curled a vibrant strand around a dainty finger. She didn't know how to explain her sudden actions, that much was clear.

So Jasmine put her out of her misery. "I like your hair," she complimented, and meant it genuinely. The teenager's hair was a wildfire - powerful and demanding, with a slight frizz to the curls as if they were alive with electricity.

The girl's hand immediately touched her hair, smoothing down the length of it. "Oh," she replied. "Thanks. Yours too," she instinctively returned the compliment, gesturing towards Jasmine's head of platinum hair. The shadowhunter resisted the urge to smirk.

"What's your name?" The redhead asked, a calculating light emerging in her bottle-green eyes.

"Jasmine. Yours?"

"Clary." Clary. The name suited her well; and such a winsome name it was. Cute, like the faint freckles that were splattered across her skin. "I'm sorry, it's just- I feel like we've met before..." She trailed off, her voice etching higher and higher until it sounded like a question.

Azure eyes softened. "I don't think so," she gently told her, smiling apologetically. "I have a good memory for faces."

The light dimmed from Clary's eyes and she visibly slumped, a frustrated look coming across her features. She gazed at her Marks once again, emerald eyes glazed over in a sort of trance.

"What do your tattoos mean?"

Careful fingers reached out and hovered over the visible, midnight, eye-shaped Voyance rune on the back of Jasmine's hand. Clary suddenly gasped and hurriedly pulled her hand back, cradling it in the other and looking rather embarrassed. "I'm sorry- I just recognise the symbols… from somewhere," she ended the last part in an annoyed mutter.

Jasmine was intrigued. Clary obviously had no idea about shadowhunters, but found her runes familiar. The fact that she could even see her Marks - or her for that matter - confirmed her Sight, as much. The glazed look in her eye was reminiscent of someone coming home after years, or finding a long-lost friend. It was intimate, yet she seemed to have no recollection of what it meant to her.

She didn't know why she did it, but Jasmine carefully pulled out her stele, the crystalline tip glittering brightly under the fluorescent lighting of the cafe. She spied Clary glancing down and staring at it intently. Something was definitely locked away, deep underneath those pretty curls of hers.

"What's that?" She whispered, reverently.

Jasmine's gaze fell down to the angelic instrument. It was a thing to behold, a treasure unlike those of the mundane world. "This," she turned the tool over in her hands, as if examining it, "is a stele."

Something about the name must have resonated with Clary. Her pink lips mouthed the word and she quizzically peered at the shadowhunter, and Jasmine could practically see the question that popped into her mind.

She flipped the stele around, crystal into palm and held it out to the mundane, nodding her head and pushing it towards her when she hesitated. "Here, hold it," she encouraged. Upon hindsight, she really didn't know what inspired her to be so open with Clary, she may as well have had a neon 'I'm a Shadowhunter' sign on her forehead .

The stele remained a faint, but pure, white glow at Clary's touch, and Jasmine could feel the instrument humming as her deft fingers examined it. The shadowhunter straightened up in her seat, casting a scrutinising look at the oblivious mundane - or perhaps, not mundane. The stele should have become dormant - the precious stone should have become translucent and inactive. Her touch ignited it, as any shadowhunter's touch would have.

Clary - ignorant to the new question of her heritage - was still mulling over the stele, and a quiet, almost accidental, mumble escaped her lips. "What are you?"

An incessant, rapid movement caught her attention in her periphery and Jasmine glanced over to find the bespectacled boy pacing over by the arm chairs, desperately waving over at Clary with a befuddled expression on his face. In his view, the redhead was sitting by herself, chatting into thin air. She could see how that might be confusing.

"Your - uh - friend is trying to get your attention," she snickered, pointing in his general direction. The strange tension between them was immediately diffused.

Clary's head whipped around, taking in the boy's frantic gestures. Jasmine heard her sigh and she meekly turned back to face her. Her cheeks were a bright, rosy pink. "I should get back to him," she mumbled, more to herself than the shadowhunter. "Simon probably thinks I'm going insane."

Jasmine glanced back at him. He did look like a Simon.

"You're not insane," she declared, voice clear and sharp like a diamond. The certainty in her tone obviously startled Clary.

A bumbling figure suddenly crashed into the table, followed by a high yelp. Clary jumped violently at the collision, grip fumbling on the stele and it was sent skidding across the table and straight into Jasmine's waiting hand. She tucked it safely away into her jacket pocket.

The utterly inelegant entrance was from that of the mundane boy - Simon - and he had apparently tripped over the same chair that Clary had. He straightened out his glasses and not-so-gracefully slid into the side of the booth that Jasmine was situated in. She gracefully moved over before he could accidentally trample her.

"W-what are you doing, Clary?! Who were you just talking to? Have I done something to upset you- do you need space- I don't understand." The barrage of questions and demands rolled off of his tongue fluidly, a waterfall crashing onto the unsuspecting rocks.

The redhead glanced between Simon and Jasmine quizzically, before a stark realisation flooded her features. Jasmine was sure that this probably wasn't helping her existential crisis about being insane.

The wild-haired boy gave the seemingly-empty space next to a side-eye, gaze running straight through Jasmine. He cautiously looked back at Clary, probably trying to find a way to tell her she needed professional help.

The redhead gave Simon a beaming smile, though Jasmine noticed the tightness around her eyes as discomfort. As if she hadn't just met an invisible person, she giggled and placed a hand over his flailing ones. "I'm fine, Simon. I thought that blonde girl was gonna come over to talk to you. I figured I'd give her an opening, since you and Maureen just sing together," she shrugged nonchalantly, gesturing towards a mundane who was sitting on the other side of the room. The mundane indeed kept glancing towards Simon before swiftly averting her eyes as if it burned. Jasmine had to wonder how long Clary had been completely oblivious to his feelings for her.

"What? Clary, I- I-," he sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't want her to talk to me. N-not that I don't think she'd be a nice person," he defended, throwing both of his palms out placatingly, "but I'm just not- interested in any other girls…". He trailed off, tacking on a goofy smile at the end.

Clary obviously missed the 'any other girls' bit, glossing over that crucial bit of information. "That's because you don't put yourself out there enough," she gently chided him.

Jasmine was worried that this poor Simon boy would spontaneously combust with how purple his face was turning.

"And that's such a shame," Clary continued, "because then no-one else would realise how lucky they are to have you."

The shadowhunter resisted the urge to 'aww' at that sentiment and, at that point, she realised that she had been completely forgotten about by the redhead. Perhaps the conversation should be left until it was actually private, if the look of pure joy on Simon's face was anything to go by. So Jasmine waved a hand at Clary, drawing her attention away from her best friend. Emerald eyes widened.

A blinding smile bloomed across her face when she turned to Simon, and - for a moment - Jasmine could have believed that Clary returned the poor boy's feelings. "Simon, could you please get me a biscotti?" She implored sweetly. "I'm absolutely starved after the interview this morning."

He nodded quickly, apparently eager to please. "Yeah, of course," he agreed. He gave her an unreadable glance as he slid out of the booth and strolled up to the cafe counter.

"Interview?" Jasmine inquired, genuinely interested in learning more about the paradox that was Clary.

She smiled warmly, pulling out a large sketchpad from her bag. "Oh yeah, I had an interview at the Brooklyn Academy of Art," she explained, flicking through until she found the page that satisfied her. "They completely flipped out over some of my graphic novel sketches," she stated proudly, flipping the book around so Jasmine could see the illustrations.

The artwork was breath-taking, some of the drawings being so realistic that Jasmine could have believed that the subjects were palpable. They were fantastical, as one would expect of a graphic novel; on one half of the page were images of grotesque creatures with zombie proportions; ragged, gaping holes that depicted their mouths, rotting flesh hanging off of their crippled skeletons. The linework of the sketches were rough, all dark shading and hard edges - perfect for such a gruesome piece. The other half of the page was the antithesis. Soft, careful brushes of feather-thin lines depicted celestial beings; angels and cherubs with large, voluptuous wings; a faerie knight, proudly astride a magnificent unicorn, crystalline horn gleaming in seraphic light.

She was about to voice her admiration when a small illustration at the top of the page caught her eye. What would have gone unnoticed, ignored, to mundanes stood out as clear as day. An enkeli rune was roughly sketched out, so light that she thought it might have been a mindless drawing. But it was most definitely an angelic Mark.

"Clary!" Simon called over to the redhead, waving her biscotti in the air with triumph.

She quickly pulled away her sketchpad, and tucked it underneath her arm, enkeli rune hidden away. Clary smiled at Jasmine warmly as she stood up, hoisting her bag over her other shoulder. "It was nice meeting you. I'll see you around?"

The shadowhunter absently smiled back, mind whirling with possibilities. "Yeah. I'm sure you will," she answered, gazing intently at the redhead as if she could read her mind and soul.

Scarlett locks swayed as she bounded back towards her friend. Jasmine watched as she smiled and laughed at something Simon had said, both sitting down and chatting animatedly. Every so often, Clary would glance back over to her before quickly averting her gaze as if the sight burned her.

Figuring that she had had enough weirdness in the little cafe, the shadowhunter slid out of the booth and strolled past the bizarre pair. As she wrenched open the exit, she thought she heard Clary exclaim: "Simon, where did my biscotti go? I could have sworn it was right in front of me."

Yes, Jasmine was certainly left with some food for thought.

She kept her peculiar meeting with Clary a secret - not actively, but she just didn't volunteer the information. Jasmine wanted time to decipher the strangeness of the encounter without the scolding voice of her father reprimanding her for pushing shadowhunter business onto the mundane. Not that she thought she did much pushing - just testing a theory. Her father was a man of logic, and surely even he couldn't disregard the need to test a hypothesis.

Not to mention, that Alec dude had the aura of someone who was a right stickler for the rules. Everything had to be black or white; shadowhunter or mundane. There could be no grey areas of doubt or uncertainty. She could tell it was undeniable that he would do something rash, like inform the Clave of her indiscretion or worse, try to find the mundane and see how much she knew.

So no, she'd decided as the majestic, grand doors of the Institute creaked open, the mysterious redhead and the hidden information in her head would not become a topic of conversation around the New York Institute. And, for the time being, it was probably best that way.


Clary bounded into the open-floor living room of the apartment she shared with her dear mother, eyes flicking over the familiar bright, orange sofa to the empty kitchen where her mom made the most fantastic meals.

"Mom!" She called out.

A shriek came out from behind one of the four columns erected in the living room. "You did it!" An equally red-headed Jocelyn Fray burst out and embraced her daughter tightly, both of them laughing loudly.

Clary pulled away, holding her mother at arms length. "You also follow Simon?" She questioned, knowingly and unimpressed.

"He only has 92 followers. He needs the retweets," she chuckled, a smile of mirth turning into one of warmth and pride. "Congratulations, darling. Happy birthday."

Jocelyn held out a dark, polished wooden box, donned with an obnoxiously bright green bow. Clary grinned widely at her mother, and eagerly relieved her of the gift. "Thank you, hashtag 'stalker-mom'."

The Frays sat down on the comfortable, orange sofa, settling snugly against the plush striped cushions, and Clary took a good look at her mom.

Jocelyn had always been a beautiful woman, and she'd aged incredibly well - not a hint of a wrinkle or sprout of grey hair. She had the same slender figure as her daughter and the same vibrant red hair - albeit a few shades darker. People always told Clary that she looked like her mother, but she honestly couldn't see it.

Her mother gestured towards the box, leaning forward in a manner that seemed anxious to her daughter.

Smiling gratefully, once again, Clary carefully opened the gift, eyes widening as she was faced with a rich, velvet lining the colour of blood. Primly resting in the centre of the box was something that was easily recognisable to her - she had seen it earlier that morning, after all.

Clary quickly snatched it out of the box, fully expecting it to glow like it did in the cafe during her weird meeting with the white-haired stranger. She frowned, however, when the clear crystal remained transparent.

"It's called a-"

"Stele," Clary mumbled absently, interrupting Jocelyn. She didn't glance up at her mother, somehow knowing the unadulterated shock that she would see. "So what is it, really? Some sort of paperweight?"

Jocelyn smiled tightly. "No, it's much more than that. It's very ancient," the older Fray paused. "I want you to have it - it's a family heirloom."

The younger redhead laughed amusedly, sending a teasing smile to her mom. "We Frays have heirlooms?"

Jocelyn nodded sagely. "A few," she revealed.

"You know, it's weird- I doodled something that looked like this this morning," Clary commented, running a finger over a particular engraved runic symbol, purposely leaving out her familiarity with the stele itself. "I must have seen this around the house somewhere."

And with that tidbit of information, Jocelyn knew that Clary's life would be forever changed from that day.


A/N:

I'm back!

A huuuuuuuge thank you to those of you who have followed and favourited this story - it means the world to me knowing that I have captured a little bit of interest.

We're heading more into the canon features of Shadowhunters and the Mortal Instruments now; meeting Clary being the major one haha. Let me know how I'm doing and what you think on their meeting. I also apologise profusely for the wait - working 4-5 12-hour shifts a week really takes it out of you sometimes. I've gotten a good portion of the next chapter all written, so hopefully you guys can expect that to be up very soon.

Please spend a little time to leave a review - let me know what you like, dislike; any constructive feedback or pointers is always welcome! Let's just chat. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Much love x