Just as Edward Whitelaw was recovering from the obvious shock of being quite literally teleported into Ottawa, a young boy with a close semblance to Celine-he seemed even more angelic than she, if that was even possible-hurled himself down the Church's front steps. Celine, meanwhile, grinned and took off just as he reached her. The boy, once he was within arm's length of Celine, grabbed her waist and pulled her with him to the floor. Within a few seconds, Celine was on the floor, her arms pinned to her sides.

"When are you going to learn that you just will not beat me?" the boy said, his voice full of laughter.

Ah, Edward thought. Siblings. Of course.

"Okay, okay!" Celine was laughing and squirming to get out of the boy's grasp. Edward could have sworn people on the street were looking to see what on Earth was the matter, but they didn't seem interested in any of them, much to his confusion.

"You win, Charles, now let go of me!"

"Nope. What did I tell you about calling me Charles?" the boy said, giving Celine a glare.

"Fine, CHARLIE. Now get off and go play with the seraph blades or something." Charlie nodded, smirking, and stood up off Celine, stepping over her and back into the church.

Seraph blades. Those words stuck out to Edward, entirely unfamiliar. They spoke of something beautiful and dangerous, and yet something he didn't even know existed. He kept it in the back of his mind, something to ask for later.

"Seriously," he muttered, not caring whether he was heard or not, "I'm not even in the building and already I'm getting things I don't know and/or understand thrown at me."

Celine, who heard him due to her proximity, turned around to face him, her face draining of emotion in an instant. "It'll be like that for a while. Trust me, I know." Edward was about to ask how exactly she knew, but she started off toward the door before he could open his mouth.

As Edward watched her disappear into the church, unsure of why he did so, he glanced once more at the massive installation, taking it all in as Katie looked over her shoulder at him.

"Come on," she said, waving for him to follow her. Edward hesitated for a second before following after the girl. Only then did he notice that they all wore black. On both girls, it offset their golden and/or dark brown features in a fascinating way. He liked it when girls wore black, anyway. It made them seem a tad more dangerous when provoked, or so he thought. Then again, girls who wore black were often rather mouthy and malicious.

As he ascended the steps to the church, he wondered how the hell he would avoid telling anyone back home about this. Any of it.

The interior of the church was as Edward would have expected, pews lining the place up and down, with what looked like an elevator on the left-hand side. Katie led him towards the metal grate, not touching him once the whole time. In the shadows of one of the pews, a small feminine figure poked her head out, seemingly nervous. Edward took a step towards her, but Isla's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"That's Irene," Katie said before Edward could ask. "She's driven herself quite mad for our cause, but she is one of our most revered, apparently. Despite what the Clave says. Now come on, she talks to no one but Charlie anyway." With a none too gentle tug, Katie pulled Edward towards the elevator.

The three rode up in silence until Katie spoke up. "I don't understand how a Shadowhunter like you could have bypassed the Clave," she said. Edward understood everything within that sentence save for Shadowhunter and Clave. Then again, that meant he understood basically nothing about it. He looked at the girl with slight bafflement.

"Katie, I don't particularly think it was his fault," Celine countered.

"Why say that?"

"Well, look at him. He barely even knows what we're talking about."

"Fine, fine." Katie sighed as the elevator came to a stop and she stuck her hand out for Edward to take, much to Celine's apparent dismay. "Come on, come meet Matt!" Katie said, her previous expression fading in an instant. Edward took her hand and was pulled out of the elevator with surprising force.

"Or we could literally just do this!" Celine's voice called out from behind them. "MATTHEW WILLIAM CARSTAIRS, GET YOUR BUTT DOWN HERE OR I'LL GET JASON AND TELL HIM YOU'VE BEEN STEALING HIS CHOCOLATE!" she shouted up the stairs, making Edward jump halfway into the ceiling and drop Katie's hand. Suddenly, a boy appeared from around the corner of the hallway's intersection; his silver eyes were the first thing that caught Edward's attention, seeing as they were quite wide.

"You wouldn't dare," the boy, Matt, said in utter shock. Edward couldn't contain a snicker at such a ridiculous threat being taken seriously. "Don't laugh, this is serious!"

"Oh, I would. My brother, remember?"

"You evil little Herondale," Matt said, pushing black hair that was quite wet-making it even darker than it would have normally been-out of his eyes. The boy was rather tall, and Edward would have described him as slender. His eyes and facial features were highly reminiscent of the Far East, and his skin was quite pale, offering a large contrast. His inky hair was around medium length and fell over his forehead in bangs. His hands, as Edward observed, were slight like his body, with thin fingers meant for a violinist, not a warrior. Then again, assassins were technically warriors, and his hands fit the bill perfectly.

Edward stopped himself before he went too far into his own mind, not even noticing that Katie had moved well out of his reach and into Matt's, slamming into him. "I have a boyfriend with longer hair than me," she whined, though it wasn't true. Katie's hair was considerably longer than Matt's. Perhaps she was just teasing, Edward thought.

"Shush, I know I need it cut," he said, pulling the girl to him and kissing her head.

"So this is Matt?" Edward said to no specific person in the room, though the subject of his question responded anyway.

"Yes, Matt Carstairs. But to Katie, my family, Celine, and her family, I'm Will. Or Mattie." He extended his left hand for Edward to shake, and Edward noticed that mark on his hand again. Edward took it with his own hand, shaking it twice and bringing his right hand up to check if the marks were the same. Sure enough, they were, which made Matt furrow his eyebrows.

"Katie, was this guy in an Institute before you brought him here?" He asked, stealing a sidelong glance at his girlfriend and then at Celine.

"No, we found him at a paintball field. And he was wearing some kind of weird gear. Still is." Edward looked down at what Katie had called weird gear; he'd completely forgotten that he was still in his BDU's. Of course they'd think it was weird: Their "gear" was all black. He opened his mouth to protest, but Matt spoke within a half second.

"Really? He's a Shadowhunter, Katie. I can't believe the... where did this guy come from? You guys were assigned to Ottawa, right?" Isla nodded.

Celine piped up. "He didn't even look like he knew what we were talking about."

"As a matter of fact," Edward said, "I still don't! I believe I was offered an explanation." He looked towards Katie hopefully, but somehow she and Matt were already on their way down the corridor. He could have sworn he caught Matt muttering about having to talk to Katie. Matt's voice trailed on about the Ottawa Institute-something Edward had absolutely no idea even existed in his citybefore then-but he was around the corridor before Edward could catch anything of substance.

"Well, you said you wanted an explanation," Celine said, making Edward whirl around to face her. Something made his heart rate increase, but he wasn't sure what. It had to be something about this girl, but he wasn't in love with her.

Was he?

Celine's golden eyebrow was raised and her arms were folded in front of her, as if waiting for something. She somehow looked intimidating yet vulnerable at the same time.

"Well, yeah. The other girl said she'd explain it, but she's kind of, you know, gone."

Celine nodded, biting her lip. "Well, that Mark on your hand, that's not a tattoo, in case you were thinking that. It's a Mark, and if you're not dead by now, a way of knowing whether you're one of us." Edward raised an eyebrow in shock, but Celine wasn't exactly fazed. "When we found you, you asked us how we found you at a paintball field. Well, to be honest, we didn't exactly know you were there at all. I was tracking a demon using something called a Sensor. Specifically made to track demonic energies. The creature you pretty much almost defeated, that was a demon." Her hands fidgeted with her arms, gently pulling at the sleeves of her outfit. "I'm about ninety-nine percent certain that it was an Eidolon, a shapeshifter. I've had several encounters with them, so I know what I'm talking about. You could see it, plus the Shadow World as a whole because you're a Shadowhunter. Do you know exactly what a Shadowhunter is?"

"Well, it's pretty hard to know what that is when you just heard of it." Despite his words, the word did seem vaguely familiar to Edward, like something heard in memory of a dream. "I guess you hunt demons?"

"That's part of it," she replied, nodding. "We do it to protect mundanes-like your adoptive father, I guess-"

"What the hell do you mean, 'mundanes?' Why do you call them that?" At Celine's look, he took a sharp breath. "Sorry, I just have a terrible short-term memory, and I don't want to lose any questions."

Celine nodded, her annoyed expression clearing slightly. "Right. I understand. Well, mundanes to us are basically human beings to the rest of the world. Anyways, we don't just save mundanes from demons. We also have to keep Downworlders from killing each other and breaking the Accords. By Downworlders, I mean vampires, werewolves, warlocks and the like." At Edward's lack of astounded expression, Celine tilted her head. "I guess you've heard of them. In stories. Well, we have a saying around here: 'All the stories are true.'"

Edward nodded, understanding somewhat. "I think I've seen them before, vampires anyway. I thought they were just weird people with very well done Halloween makeup and only went out at night. At least, until I saw their fangs..." He rubbed his neck, which was luckily unbitten. "Anyway, you mentioned something about the Accords?"

"Yeah, the Accords. They're meant to symbolize peace between Downworlders, which is a good thing considering the Clave had kind of been dicks to them over the past few centuries. Also, we're tasked with tracking down and killing any Downworlder that breaks the Accords. Any other questions?" The question was kind of unnecessary: Edward had about a billion more questions, but he decided on one, a word that had been tossed to the wind so casually by Celine earlier. He thought of it because it was so superficial, and everything else could come later.

"What the hell is a seraph blade?"

Celine only smiled at this and pulled out what looked like a bladeless, guardless sword hilt. "Take it," she said, holding it out to him. He did so with a gentle grasp; when nothing happened, he gripped it more tightly. Still nothing.

"Not much from the get-go," he muttered, unimpressed thus far, but he was willing to be patient.

"Just wait. Do you know any angel names?" Celine asked, but Edward merely shook his head. She bit her lip gently, something she seemed to enjoy doing, seeing as she did it so often. "Well, most of my seraph blades are named," she murmured before her eyes lit up once more. "I've got it. Hold it tightly because the next part will be a little bit of a surprise. All I want you to do is hold it and say the name 'Malik'. But you have to say it like you're naming the seraph blade. It's a pretty common name, but this one's only name is Malik. Nothing else."

He looked at the small device. Interesting. He hesitated for a second, then said the magic word. "Malik!"

A blade shot out of the handle, glowing a bright white. It stopped at a knife's length, but it shone with a bright white fire. The effect made it seem like it was made of glass encasing an impossibly luminous flame. Celine gently grabbed the hilt, moving the weapon so that it was held between them. The white light reflected in her eyes, making them a silvery gold and her skin paler.

"That, whatever the hell your name is, is a seraph blade."