Hey all! I know I said fortnightly updates, but it turns out I have to go away for a week and will miss next week's update day, which means y'all get a third chapter early? Do with this what ye will, and hopefully I can return to a proper schedule ASAP after this trip is over.
Chapter Two
Trusting a complete stranger to keep something secret was, unsurprisingly, just as stressful as trusting them with your life.
She didn't even know what she expected when she made the deal with him, but it certainly wasn't an annoyingly heightened awareness to the… strange things happening around her. The strange appendages some people had or the way some of them looked almost mesmerising when they met her gaze. Worst of all was the way her suspicions—her childhood beliefs—had been confirmed by a moss-haired man with no concept of personal space.
"Are you a faerie?" she'd asked him just days ago. He'd looked up at her with a bored expression at first, green eyes almost dim. But once he realised that she was, as Jace had put it, a mundane, he was all smiles and invitation.
Yu was sick of it after three days. She punched him square in the jaw when he harassed her during an outing with Clary, and for the rest of the day her knuckles were sore and shaking. Clary was still scared to ask what it was about, but at this point a lot of Yu's outbursts were chalked up to a simple "group mother instinct".
She didn't want to believe that this Jace Wayland character was right about the dog that attacked her being a hellhound, and she certainly didn't want to believe that the world wasn't what she'd thought it was for the last seventeen years. But the evidence was astounding; she'd actually run into a woman who smelled of wet dog during a morning run and commented on Yu owning a dog, which had been written off as Yu "looking like a dog person". She'd bumped into a pixie on his way to a club with other fair folk, and had even spotted a bouncer that had red skin and clawed hands.
The world was unraveling around her, and she wasn't sure if she liked it very much. Especially not when everyone else was still oblivious to it.
But at least she had a guide through it all. An annoying, stupidly pretty guide, but a guide nonetheless. They'd exchanged phone numbers after the first encounter, Jace promising to look into what was "wrong" with her—which she still took offense in—as long as she had enough information about herself to dig through. She wasn't sure what one lone boy could do, especially in a world like the one he lived and breathed each day, but he sure did seem confident in himself at least.
Today seemed to say otherwise, though. He'd called her out to a diner she'd never heard of, walking her inside and finding a booth for them. Yu thought Jace would go into his usual spiel about how he was so close to an answer that he could taste it, but instead he rested his chin atop his hands and announced, "I've hit a wall."
Yu snorted at him. A waitress stopped by their booth and handed them each a menu, then left them to decide their meals. "In other words," she sang, "I'm not the one who's messed up."
Jace pouted at her, appalled at the way she'd phrased the situation. "I never said you were messed up. I just said there was something wrong with you."
She glared at him.
"Who cares about what was said by who, though?" he added. He looked over his menu once before setting it down entirely. "The only ideas I have left are you either being a Shadowhunter, or you being an insanely strong mundane."
"I like that second one."
"That second one is the least likely."
Yu rolled her eyes at him. She looked over some of the items—the pancakes looked particularly tempting today—before flipping over the page. This was clearly the supernatural menu, as the first thing available was deep fried bat wings and raw meat.
"That's the Downworlder menu," Jace said idly. Yu scrunched up her face at him. She didn't dare give him the satisfaction of an infamous infodump by asking what Downworlder meant.
She continued to read over it, imagining what each one would look like on a plate. Fairy plums, fish eyes, blood types A through O— "The only other thing I haven't talked much about is an accident I was in," she mentioned, "but that only resulted in a transfusion from a friend."
Jace's interest was piqued. The waitress returned before he could say anything, and yet he still beat Yu to their orders. "Pancakes, a BLT, a caramel milkshake and some green tea. Make sure to put a lot of sugar in the tea," he added. The waitress left with a nod, handing the order to the rather hairy man behind the counter at the front of the diner. Yu didn't bother worrying about how much fur would wind up in her food, though—she was more concerned about the fact that Jace just ordered for the both of them.
"You get pancakes and over sweetened tea everywhere I take you," he scoffed. "Don't think it wouldn't stick. Now tell me about this transfusion you had."
"It was just that. Put the tube in the arm and bleed into someone else." Yu shook her head. "I was out of it with the painkillers. I couldn't tell you when I started seeing this stuff afterwards, but the transfusion was the last time I didn't."
He nodded, humming. "What's the friend you got it from like?"
Clary? Boy, how did Yu sum up Clary Fray? "Mundane?" she said. "A small spitfire of a mundane?"
Jace grunted in distaste. "Not helping the case of your second option," he deadpanned. "I'll get your birthday and the area you were born in for reference. See if I can just look into the archives without getting interrogated." A bitter look passed over him then, like the scenario running through his mind was the worst thing he could conjure up on the spot. "By the Angel, this is going to be a pain…"
She shrugged at him. Over by the counter she could see meals being pumped out one by one, cooked almost too fast to be real. "Have fun checking the Toronto birth records, then."
"You're Canadian?" Jace looked her up and down in shock. "You don't sound Canadian."
"Canadian-born. And what the hell is a Canadian supposed to sound like?"
He stared her down with a contemplative gaze. Just as the waitress came back to set down the plates with their food, Jace replied glibly, "A Canadian."
He was impossible. Yu couldn't wait for the day where he finally admitted she was normal and then leave her alone. Their drinks were set down soon after, and Yu could've sworn she saw the waitress's solid blue eye wink at her. She was dumbfounded and excited—she liked it when pretty girls flirted with her, mundane or not at this point—and the feeling was only multiplied when she looked down at her tea. Perched next to the mug was a napkin with a phone number written on it, as well as the name Sebille.
Yu picked up the number, the dumb smile still on her face, and looked back over at the waitress. So her name was Sebille. It was a pretty name. It wasn't very often that she met cute girls that were interested in her, let alone any that openly flirted. Maybe she could ask Sebille out through a phone call and—
As Jace bit into his BLT, he said, "She collects elf-locks."
Yu glared daggers at him. "Don't ruin it!" she snapped.
He just laughed at her. "Glad to know you're educated enough to not give a faerie your hair when they ask you for it."
There was no argument to be had here. She refused to start one like every other day he'd ruined something for her. She may have been dismayed over the fact that werewolves didn't walk around on two legs when the full moon came out and argued the possibility of it, but she wasn't going to touch fey lore this early in the morning.
So instead of saying anything, she tore apart her pancakes violently with her fork.
They ate in silence for a few moments, the slowly growing amount of customers in the diner conversing animatedly around them. One person in the booth behind them was insisting that a popular actor in the movie scene right now was a warlock to their friends; at the table closest to Jace, where three faeries sat and munched blankly on their fruits, a conversation about an upcoming party that was being hosted in Brooklyn went on. If there was one thing Yu was having trouble with swallowing, it was the fact that the supernatural world functioned just as normally as the mundane world. Talks of parties and conspiracy theories, eating at a diner and hanging out with friends. They did it all, with just a simple addition of being slightly more separating them from the mundanes.
She got halfway through the small stack before she sighed heavily. Jace was already three-quarters of the way through his own food, pausing on occasion to sip at the milkshake. Even what she and Jace were doing was normal, to a degree. If they sat in silence, they were doing the very same thing Yu would do with Simon and Clary after school some days. If they talked, they were recreating a much more serious version of some of the Dungeons and Dragons campaigns she attended.
Sebille came back to ask if they wanted anything else once their plates were empty, and to Yu's surprise Jace declined politely. The faerie collected their plates, throwing a quick smile in Yu's direction as she did so. Once Sebille was gone again, Jace chugged the remainder of his milkshake.
"I'll see how far I can get without being asked what I'm doing," he told her. "Once someone catches on, though, I won't be able to keep this a secret."
Which would mean that Yu would have to go to the Institute Jace lived at, like he'd originally suggested. Her heart sank at the realisation. Since they'd started the investigation she'd been afraid of being whisked away somewhere—the fact that this place was called the Institute didn't help her fears of being labelled crazy.
"Alright," she sighed. "I hate it, but alright."
"How was the run?"
Yu kicked off her sneakers with a grunt. "Not enough dogs," she told the redhead. Clary just laughed softly, barely even looking up from her sketch.
"Don't forget to call your parents, by the way," Clary added. She tilted her head to an almost uncomfortable angle, her elbow lifted up into the air as her pencil softly poked at the page.
She hummed, thankful for the reminder, and power walked to the bedroom they shared. In her haste, Yu almost tripped over the mattress on the floor. Her toe ached horrendously, even as she took her weight off of it to reach under Clary's bed. It wasn't until she'd opened the laptop and lifted her foot up onto Clary's bed that the aching began to subside, but even then it still bothered her.
If it weren't for Clary's reminders every few days, Yu would completely forget the time difference between Trabzon and New York. She'd forget to see how her parents were doing, and then she would panic about not going with them to Turkey for the summer. It was a trip to celebrate Pembe giving birth at the start of the year, and Yu really wanted to go—but a phobia of flying was harder to curb than she'd hoped. She was lucky that Jocelyn had a spare mattress and free time to keep an eye on Yu for the summer; luckier that Clary had more sense to remember when would be the best time to call the Burakgazi family over Skype than Yu did.
It'd be about five in the afternoon in Trabzon—just an hour or so before Nine and Dede hosted everyone for dinner. The sheer size of their dinners was legendary, from what Erkan would tell her of his youth; a long table that, once upon a time, only had to fit seven children, would be lined with an array of dishes for everyone to pick at over the course of the night. Tales of Nine's desserts always made Yu envious of her cousins.
The program rang for a minute or so, the icon of her parents' wedding photo teasing her with the possibility of them picking up. Yu felt her lips tug into a frown as the dial tone slowly faded into the flat beeps signalling no answer.
They were probably busy. She would probably have to settle for sending them a message for now, try again tomorrow.
She shut the laptop and slid it back under the bed. Her toe was no longer hurting, back to its normal self, and she took advantage of this to return to the small living room Clary was still sitting in. The redhead was no longer in her bent-head and raised-elbow position, her back laid flat against the wall by the window and her knees bent just high enough to provide a stable surface for her sketchbook.
When Yu flopped onto the couch face-first, Clary asked, "No answer?"
"Probably went out," Yu said into one of the cushions. Clary hummed in agreement. "New project? Or just doodling?"
"Bit of both." Paper was flipped and turned, gaining Yu's attention. From what she could see once her face was out of the cushion, Clary's presented sketch looked almost like a class photo. Yu raised a brow at it. Clary pulled a photo reference from just a few pages beneath the sketch, and immediately Yu recognised the St. Francis Xavier uniform. "Thought I'd try facial details from a distance and sitting positions."
"Nice." Yu gave her a thumbs up. "It looks pretty good so far. You gonna colour it, or leave it?"
Clary let out a thoughtful groan. She was asking herself the very same question, from the looks of it. "I might add colour. Don't know right now."
Yu nodded. She went back to stuffing her face into the cushion while Clary pressed pencil to paper once more. Moments passed, filled only by the sounds of cars driving past and horns tooting in the distance. The sound of activity had always been Yu's favourite background noise during the day, but some nights it was too annoying to sleep through. She wasn't sure how Clary and Jocelyn put up with it every night—though then again, after almost eleven years of living in New York Yu could almost say she was used to it as well. She didn't like it, per se, but she was getting used to it.
Eventually the sound of pencil scritches was replaced by smooth sweeps. She listened for a few seconds, assumed Clary had made a mistake once she heard the girl blow softly at the sketchbook. The sound of art—Yu still couldn't believe a normally visual medium had a sound—was something else she'd grown used to during her time in the brownstone so far. She'd never noticed it before, convinced that it was something people always did in silence and solitude, but now she couldn't stop hearing the careful brush strokes Jocelyn left on a canvas or the delicate shapes Clary would draw in her sketchbook late at night.
Sometimes she wished she had some kind of artistic inclining like theirs. Yu enjoyed taking photos every so often, but sometimes she wished she could create things against a blank canvas like the Frays rather than search for a scene that was just right.
Maybe she could start looking for references and give it a whirl once school started back up. She'd always liked how watercolour paintings and charcoal sketches looked. But that could wait for another time, she told herself. No need to rush into something that'll take lots of practice and testing.
She shifted her focus to the fact that the sounds of a worried Fray in the house were absent this morning, to the fact that Clary was drawing freely in the living room and not in her bedroom.
"Jocelyn out?" Yu asked. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up onto her hand.
Clary nodded. "She's getting more supplies. Ran out last night, apparently."
"Must be a monster of a painting, then." She watched as Clary frowned at her sketch and erased another corner of it. "Does that mean it's safe to double check with Simon for Pandemonium tonight?"
Clary looked up in alarm. She may have remembered the things important to Yu's day, but she was terrible at remembering plans that didn't involve a coffee shop most times. Yu grinned as the girl scrambled for her phone and quickly searched for Simon's number.
"I can't believe I forgot," Clary whispered in horror. Her hand was over her mouth as she waited for the boy to pick up, and very soon she was spluttering out their plans without giving Simon much of a chance to say anything. "You'll meet us at the diner, right?"
Silence hung through the air of the living room. Yu could only watch on in amusement as Clary nodded over and over to Simon's replies. She did know he couldn't see her, didn't she?
"Okay. Cool. We'll meet you at six." Clary hung up. She let out a monster of a relieved breath, practically dropping to the floor beside her sketchbook.
"Dinner at six? Club at seven?" Yu propped herself up until she was sitting normally on the couch. She stretched her arms as Clary picked up her pencil and book, tucking them safely under her arm.
"If it all goes right," Clary sighed, "yes."
Yu snorted at her. "Since when do your shenanigans with Simon go wrong?" she teased.