Authors Note: This chapter was much harder to do. Jace is a really complicated person, truly like no other, but I like how it turned out and I hope you do too. Happy reading.

(Again, all characters, plot, and most of the dialogue belong to Cassandra Clare)

After badgering Hodge for two solid hours until he finally caved, Jace was finally on his way to find the mundie girl who he couldn't stop thinking, talking, about. Needless to say, Alec had lost his patience with Jace's incessant talk of Clary and Isabelle seemed to be getting slightly jealous, so Jace hadn't wanted either of them to come.

Jace thought of his last conversation with his best-friend and partner. The night before, Jace had followed Clary home when she left the club, no longer interested in anything Pandemonium had to offer. He had gone alone. He knew Alec didn't like it when he went girl chasing but Alec had seemed personally offended when Jace had told him that he was again going after Clary alone today.

Jace took in the people passing him on the street, which was close to the neighborhood where he had followed Clary to the night before. He had been in the area less than five minutes when he spotted her stepping out of a restaurant.

She was with the tall, dark-haired mundie boy (again); he was starting to annoy Jace.

He followed them undetected through the humid air as they traveled down the street and through the door of a middling sized coffee joint that was advertising a free poetry reading, always several paces behind them. When he got inside he followed the wall and melted into the crowd, luckily before the girl suddenly turned toward the door, as if she was trying to leave. She tugged at the mundane boy's hand.

After a brief conversation between the two, she turned around and they parted ways. Jace watched the girl look for a place to sit and then settle herself onto an unoccupied love seat. He moved from his post by the pay-phone to sit on a lumpy, threadbare green couch a few feet away from where Clary sat on the loveseat, close enough to hear her speak to a blonde girl who was interested in the boy she always seemed to be with. He resisted the urge to snort when the blonde girl asked if the dark haired mundie was gay. After the blonde went back to her seat the boy appeared, back from an apparent coffee run, and handed Clary a white Styrofoam cup. The boy sat. Jace's amusement was quickly replaced with a feeling he wasn't familiar with as he watched the tiny redheaded girl stare quizzically at her friend. It was like she was looking for something.

He didn't bother trying to listen to the whispers they exchanged, but did notice the boy flick his eyes in the blonde's direction. She was telling him of the blonde's interest, obviously not trying to horde him to herself. She said the boy's name. Simon.

Clary moved her gaze to the front of the room; apparently, the boy on the stage was an acquaintance of hers.

Jace, who tended to enjoy poetry, shifted his body slightly to face the stage.

"Come my faux juggernaut, my nefarious loins! Slather every protuberance with arid zeal!"

Jace felt the mad urge to simultaneously laugh and gag.

Unable to listen to another second of the boy wailing about his juggernaut, Jace's eyes left the stage and fixed again on the two people seated on the loveseat, just in time to catch a pained look cross the boy's features. He had flushed a deep red while Clary laughed. Jace liked the sound, but felt a rush of that unfamiliar emotion again, and again he was unexplainably annoyed with the mundane boy.

With a start, Jace realized he was jealous.

Why would Jace Wayland ever be jealous of anyone? He was the most skilled Shadowhunter his age, and he knew he was good-looking, with his golden skin, tawny hair and amber eyes. Quite literally the Shadowhunter golden-boy. He was ridiculously popular with girls. Jace was not materialistic so no one ever had a possession he was jealous of.

Jace could only recall being jealous of someone once in his life. It was seven years ago, and he had just moved to New York. He had been jealous of Alec, who had both a father and a mother. Jace, whose father had just died and had never known his mother, had an almost painful envy of Alec, though it didn't last long. The Lightwoods accepted Jace into their family like one of their own, albeit maybe a little wary of the stoic warrior boy. It was under the Lightwood's care that Jace learned there was more to life than just his studies and he was ever grateful for it.

Jace, needing something to clear his head, closed his eyes and listened to a few more lines of poetry. Sure enough, the deplorable verses burned away his thoughts like a shot of liquor would burn down one's throat. It was quite impossible to think of anything else while listening to that. It inspired a bemused sort of awful curiosity that a person just couldn't ignore.

Better now, he focused his hearing on Clary's loveseat. The boy brought up the matter of girlfriends, his voice was pained. Jace opened his eyes to see Clary's face. Jace was amused by her oblivious expression as the dark haired boy dropped not-so-subtle hints about where his passions truly lay (he wasn't hinting at the blonde).

Jace looked on, and couldn't help but brood a little on human feelings. He couldn't imagine himself ever looking at a girl like the boy was looking at Clary.

"So, who is it then?" Clary asked the boy. He couldn't believe she hadn't caught on yet. Last night he had observed, safely hidden behind one of the city's many dumpsters, as she and the tall boy hugged goodbye. He had watched the boy watch her with a hungry yet patient look in his eyes, and couldn't help but smile. The boy was doomed, even if he did not yet know it. The girl treated the boy like a beloved brother.

Jace couldn't help but feel bewildered by the boy. He didn't understand him. If the boy wanted the Clary so bad, he should do something about it. What's a guy got to lose? People can't just wait for everything they want to fall into their lap. Of course, the boy might not have pushed his suit because he too had noticed what it had taken Jace only moments to see. It was blaringly obvious. And amusing, at least to Jace.

Jace let himself laugh a little at the doomed mundane boy loud enough for Clary to hear. It was time for them to talk.

She whirled around, eyes searching for the source of the sound. Her eyes landed on his. The mundie boy looked around also but did not see him. She was learning quickly. He had not needed to lift his glamour for her to find him. He was pleased.

Jace raised his left hand smoothly off the back of the couch where it had been resting and waggled his fingers at Clary. He was left-handed, though that didn't mean much to him. What kind of warrior would he be if he couldn't do everything with both hands? He rose, lightly getting to his feet, and headed for the door of the crowded coffee bar, wanting her to follow.

He waited a short distance away from the exit for her, lounging against the wall in an alley, and texting Alec, who was asking when Jace would get back to the Institute. Being parabatai with Alec was like having a nanny, albeit a demon killing one.

Jace was startled when he heard the door to the coffee bar shut. He looked up and saw Clary, who, it seemed, moved a lot faster than he expected. His eyes fixed on her face and he was again struck by how pretty she was.

Annoyed she could sidetrack him with just the sight of her face, Jace decided to return the favor and unbalance her.

"You're friends poetry is horrible." She blinked and he knew he had succeeded.

"What?" was all she said.

"I said his poetry was terrible. It sounds like he ate a dictionary and started vomiting up the words at random." Jace was pleased with the mental picture, and gave himself a mental pat on the back.

The comment seemed to have a different effect on Clary. "I don't care about Eric's poetry." Her voice was shaking. "I want to know why you are following me."

She couldn't have noticed him following her; there weren't many people, Shadowhunter and Downworlder alike, who could. She was being impertinent.

"Who said I was following you?" he inquired, not being able to resist baiting her. It was fun. She displayed her emotions freely, unlike Jace.

"Nice try. And you were eavesdropping, too. Do you want to tell me what this is about, or should I just call the police?"

Jace toyed briefly with asking her what her deal with the police was but decided not to. How could he get her to realize she was no longer dealing with something any ordinary mundie could help her with? "And tell them what?" he asked her, scathingly. "That invisible people are bothering you? Trust me, little girl, the police aren't going to arrest someone they cant see."

Her eyes flashed. "I told you before, my name is not little girl. Its Clary," she ground out.

Like I could forget, thought Jace, though all he said was, "I know. Pretty name. Like the herb, clary sage. In the old days people thought eating the seeds would let you see the Fair Folk. Did you know that?" Again, Jace thought how ironic it was that the first ordinary person to see the Shadowhunters in a century was a girl named Clary.

"I have no idea what you are talking about," she replied.

Only the mundane are so oblivious to the world around them. This girl seemed even more so. "You don't know much, do you? You seem to be a mundane like any other mundane, yet you can see me. It's a conundrum."Jace didn't mention that he and Hodge suspected she wasn't all mundane because he didn't know just what she was, other than mundane. He also didn't mention that Hodge thought she might be a threat.

"What's a mundane?" she asked.

Jace tended to read people well and was a good judge of character; to him, the girl seemed to be honestly bewildered. If there was something other than mundane in her lineage, she didn't seem to know of it. Which meant she didn't really pose a threat to anyone; how could she, when she didn't even know what a mundane was? "Someone of the human world. Someone like you."

"But you're human," countered Clary.

"I am," Jace allowed, "But I'm not like you."It was true. He was a Shadowhunter, more than human. Plus, Jace regarded himself as exclusively one-of-a-kind. He was arrogant, but there was nothing wrong with talking the talk if you could walk the walk.

And Jace Wayland didn't walk. He sauntered-strolled-swaggered with a look of good-humored and extremely charming boldness that bordered on insolence always on his face.

"You think you're better. That's why you were laughing at us."

He felt like telling her that he didn't think he was better, he knew it, but he knew she didn't know him well enough to see he was joking with her. She would skip the laughing part and head straight for Jace-is-a-pretentious-ass-ville.

Instead, he answered her question. "I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited, and because your Simon is one of the most mundane mundanes I've ever encountered. And because Hodge thought you might be dangerous, but if you are, you certainly don't know it."

"I'm dangerous?" she repeated, like she was sure she had heard him wrong. "I saw you kill someone last night. I saw you drive a knife up under his ribs, and--" She broke off, unable to finish.

"I may be a killer, but I know what I am. Can you say the same?" Killing things was what Jace was good at, he always had been.

"I'm an ordinary human being, just like you said." She paused, then asked, "Who's Hodge?" She had her head tilted in a way Jace could only describe as adorable.

"My tutor," Jace explained. "And I wouldn't be so quick to brand myself as ordinary, if I were you." He had an idea, one that would serve his mission, as well as give him an excuse to touch her. "Let me see your right hand."

"My right hand?" Again, she repeated his words back to him like she hadn't heard him correctly. She could be a parrot, what with her habits and her brightly colored hair. "If I show you my hand, will you leave me alone?"

Harsh, thought Jace, amused. "Certainly." Not, he added silently.

She extended her hand to him, almost as if against her better judgment, watching him warily. He looked down at her hand, white, tiny, and alone in the light falling down on them from the streets many establishments. He reached out and took it, swallowing it with his own, examining first the front and then the back. He decided he liked freckles, even though what he was looking for was not on her hand. "Nothing. You're not left-handed, are you?"

"No. Why?"

He let go of her hand, somewhat unwillingly, and shrugged. Jace liked girls who knew what they wanted (and after meeting Jace, they usually wanted him, which Jace was totally fine with). He didn't usually have to sneak touches and caresses with girls, as his charm did all the work for him. Jace wasn't one to say no to a no-strings-attached involvement with a girl, because to him this was the only involvement to be had.

"Most Shadowhunter children get Marked on their right hands--or left, if they're left-handed like I am--when they're still young. It's a permanent rune that lends an extra skill with weapons." Jace looked down at the black, eye-shaped rune that identified him as Nephilim on his hand and motioned it to Clary.

"I don't see anything." Jace wasn't surprised, as he had purposely glamoured it to see if she could again look through it if she wanted to. If she couldn't do it on command then it was just fluke.

"Let your mind relax," he urged her calmly, ever patient in the pursuit of his goal. He was glad Alec and Isabelle weren't there: they would be hissing at him to be careful, to watch his step. "Wait for it to come to you. Like waiting for something to rise to the surface of water."

"You're crazy," she accused him, but without any real volition. He could tell she wanted to see if she could do it. She dropped her eyes to his hand. He saw her eyes slide out of focus and then sharply focus again and he knew she penetrated the glamour. She blinked and asked him, shakily, "A tattoo?"

Jace couldn't help but feel extremely pleased with himself. "I thought you could do it. And it's not a tattoo-it's a Mark. They're runes, burned into our skin."

"They make you handle weapons better?" She asked carefully, as if trying to get her brain to accept what she was seeing and what he was telling her.

"Different Marks do different things," he explained. "Some are permanent but the majority vanish when they've been used."

"That's why your arms aren't all inked up today? Even when I concentrate?"

Had she been looking at his arms? Concentrating, even? Jace hadn't noticed, but her question pleased him nonetheless. "That's exactly why," was all he said. "I knew you had the Sight, at least." Jace looked up at the sky. Hodge expected him back soon. "It's nearly fully dark. We should go."

"We? I thought you said you were going to leave me alone."

As if he could stay away. She was fascinating. He couldn't help but want to spend more time with her. "I lied," Jace said. He didn't lie often, but he certainly didn't regret lying a few moments ago. "Hodge said I have to bring you to the Institute with me. He wants to talk to you." Which means I get to get to know you better, added Jace silently. He couldn't wait.

"Why does he want to talk to me?"

"Because you know the truth now," explained Jace. He hoped she wouldn't remember that he had told her all she knew about the Shadow world. He had just spilled secrets in the past few minutes that he didn't have to, just because it make it more necessary to get her to the Institute later. Jace admitted it was kind of twisted, but didn't care. "There hasn't been a mundane who knew about us for at least a hundred years."

"About us?" She was doing the parrot thing again. "You mean people like you. People who believe in demons?"

"People who kill them," Jace clarified. "We're called Shadowhunters. At least, that's what we call ourselves. The Downworlders have less complimentary names for us." Quite a few of the New York Downworlders had a few choice names for Jace specifically, the thought of which never failed to brighten his day.

"Downworlders?" Clary echoed. Again. Jace was starting to feel slightly suspicious and briefly considered asking her if she had recently accepted a brightly colored drink from an odd stranger. Sometimes, if the Fair Folk got bored, they liked to play tricks on mundies. One of their concoctions could certainly be the behind her parrot-like behavior.

No, he decided. She was probably just in shock. He hoped. "The Night Children. Warlocks. The fey. The magical folk of this dimension."

Jace watched Clary's hair shimmer in the half-light of the street as she shook her head. "Don't stop there. I suppose there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and zombies?"

There was something odd about her tone, and he suspected she was making fun of him. "Of course there are. Although you mostly find zombies farther south, where the voudun priests are."

"What about mummies? Do they only hang around in Egypt?"

Yep. She was making fun of him. "Don't be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies."

"They don't?"

"Of course not." For what seemed to be the first time in his life, Jace was tired of shop talk. He was anxious to get her to the Institute, where she could learn all about Downworlders and demons. "Look, Hodge will explain all this to you when you see him."

Jace, with his eyes fixed on Clary's, saw it when she mentally dug in her heels. "What if I don't want to see him?" She sounded like a petulant child, like Max.

"That's your problem. You can either come willingly or unwillingly." He would have a lot of fun if she chose unwillingly.

"Are you threatening to kidnap me?"

Ah, she was catching on. How pleasant. "If you want it to look that way, yes."

Jace studied her mouth as it opened, her eyes narrowed into furious slits. Her words, most likely harsh ones, Jace suspected, never formed. Jace instead heard the indignant vibrating of a phone. Probably that Simon character wondering where she had run off to.

Jace, ever the gentleman, told Clary, in what he hoped was an immensely self-sacrificing tone, "Go ahead and answer it if you like."He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and sigh.

He examined her slender back through the shirt she was wearing when she turned away from him and answered the phone. "Mom?" After a pause, she said, "It's all right, Mom. I'm fine. I'm on my way home--"

Just as Jace was going to interrupt and say that she was going to the Institute if he had to drag her there himself, Clary whirled back around to face him, seemingly forgetting her attempt at shutting him out of her conversation, and yelled. "Mom! Mom, are you all right?" Another pause, this one shorter. "Who's found you?" Clary was frantic now. "Mom, did you call the police? Did you--"

Jace, bewildered, watched as Clary blanched and screamed for her mother into the phone she clutched to her ear so tightly. He watched as she looked at her phone and redialed. He watched as she began shaking. He had an absurd urge to reach out to her, to hold her. He watched as she hit redial again, and he watched as her trembling hands lost their grip on her phone, watched as it hit the pavement and cracked. He helplessly stood by as she sunk to her knees, and not knowing it was broken, grabbed at the ruined phone.

He was startled from his stiff, awkward post when she shrieked, Dammit!" and hurled the now-useless bit of technology back down. He saw tears swimming in her eyes.

"Stop that," Jace said. He pulled her to her feet, where she swayed, his left hand fastened all the way around her wrist. He was afraid she would fall, afraid she would shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. "Has something happened?" Idiot, Jace cursed himself. Of course something has happened.

Clary's unfocused eyes fastened on something and she made a sudden movement, snatching at his shirt and grabbing the Sensor he has put there. "Give me your phone. I have to--"

"It's not a phone," Jace said, thought he didn't try to take it back from her. He didn't care about the damn Sensor, he was worried about her. "It's a Sensor. You won't be able to use it."

"But I need to call the police!" Jace didn't stop to muse again about Clary and the police. She was wild-eyed. He needed to calm her down. He needed to understand what was going on before he could help her.

"Tell me what happened first," Jace told her, but Clary didn't seem interested in explaining. She went to tear her wrist from his grip, but he was ready for her. His hand tightened. She was being ridiculous. "I can help you," Jace pleaded. He never pleaded. Clary didn't know him well enough to know that, and he suspected if she did, she would be too far gone to care. He didn't think she even processed his words or considered the option that he could help her. She had a lot to learn.

Jace paused as she raised her eyes to his. Hold on. Did she hear me? Her green eyes no longer brought to mind an Idris hillside, but acid. Out of nowhere, her free hand rose up and she hit him hard across the face, her rounded nails leaving furrows on his cheek. Startled, Jace drew away and regretted it instantly, because she took advantage of his surprise and wrenched her captive wrist away.

She took off like a bat out of hell, heading in the direction of her house. Jace's eyes blazed after her, annoyed; the molten gold burning brightly through the darkness. He didn't bother going directly after her. He would catch up in no time. He turned stiffly and began walking towards the back of the alley. He drew out his stele and reconnected the iratze on his arm with.

After he was finished, he replaced the stele into one of his many pockets. He shook out his neck before moving to the entrance of the alley, and then began the walk to Clary's house. He had a feeling she would need back-up, and even though he was quite upset with her right now, he figured he was the only one who could help her.