Sorry it took so long, guys. I've been seriously sick and hard put to keep up with school, let alone fanfiction. Well, hope you like, but it's nothing much. I like the ending the best, even if I used the F word. Sorry if it's too vulgar for some of you., but for Jace, it was right. Enjoy.

Once out of the library, Jace and Alec headed for the armory. The metal walls, the selection of weapons, the smell—all combined to create the place where Jace felt most at home, aside from the greenhouse, where it smelled like Idris.

Once there, they each grabbed a new pair of boots. Shoes had a high turn-over rate in the fight against evil, therefore, Isabelle owned upwards of what had to be a million. Or two. Who ever knew with Isabelle?

"You know," Alec began, sounding thoughtful, "That girl might not be all that bad if she can resist the famous Jace Wayland."

Resist me, my ass, Jace thought. "You know..," began Jace, drawing out the words. "That girl might not be all too heterosexual if she can resist the famous me." Alec, whose face previously sported a smirk of satisfaction from rubbing Clary's apparent disinterest into Jace's nose, paled when Jace dropped the H-bomb and Jace was immediately contrite. He would have to play the idiot when it came to Alec and his…preferences. He was fine with that.

Wanting to lighten the mood, Jace said, "And since when am I famous? I mean, I knew it was coming, but so soon? It thought it would take a little longer…maybe a year or so more…"

"You wish," Alec muttered, facing the weapons that lined the interior of the room. He reached up and detached three seraph blades. Weapons also didn't last very long in the fight against evil. If Jace didn't visit the weapons room to replenish his supply of killing utensils at least once a day, someone asked if he was feeling sick.

Alec set the blades on the long, rectangular table that occupied the center of the room. Its surface was marred with polish, gouges from weapons, and, in a few instances, blood.

It seemed like Alec planned on taking them all on a hunt, leaving Clary in the Institute by herself. His parabatai was nothing if not consistent. Alec was allergic to change.

Speaking of consistency, where was Izzy? She was usually bothering them by now. Clary was awake, so she wouldn't be in the infirmary; her room was too small, and so stuffed to bursting with clothes, shoes, and glittery things (Jace shivered) to possibly contain her for any extended length of time; that only left—

The kitchen.

Jace shivered again.

Yes, suddenly, leaving the Institute was a very pleasing option, whether Clary got left behind or not. Besides, she apparently didn't want his company anyways. Plus, he wasn't supposed to care anyways. She was totally off limits. Jace wished he could mentally apply a sharpie message to her forehead: NOTICE: OFF LIMITS. NO JACE WAYLANDS ALLOWED. He momentarily debated the merits of smacking a glamour on Clary's ungrateful person and wondering just how large of a lecture Hodge would punish him with, when a light caught his eye, bringing him back to the present.

The long, cylindrical wands that were inactivated seraph blades glowed muted silver on the table's surface in the dimly lit armory. They were named after angels, and in battle, a Shadowhunter called the name of the angel the blade was named after to activate the blade and harness the power of Heaven.

"Do you mind what we name these?" Alec asked. It seemed like Alec was totally going to disregard his technically calling Jace a liar not ten minutes before in the library.

"Name away," Jace told him.

They bent their heads over the blades, Jace watching as Alec named them. Alec touched the first blade with his hand. "Sanvi." He then moved on the next two, touching a blade while naming it. Sansavi. Semangelaf."

Jace grinned at the names, recalling the story from his childhood.

Before God gifted Adam with Eve, Adam was married to Lilith, who was made from filth. Her sexual appetites were not the same as the more pious Adam. They disagreed on how they should have sex: she wanted to be an equal, and sometimes even wanted to be on top. Adam was disgusted by her suggestions and refused. Jace would have been ecstatic.

After Adam tried to take what he wanted from her (i.e. Rape), she left him and Eden. Legend says that she seduced an angel, Lucifer, and his demons. Her children became warlocks and witches and though the origin of the Fair Folk is hazy, some speculate that they are hers also.

Adam missed his wife and complained to God. God sent three angels, Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf, to retrieve Lilith, but she wouldn't comply. To placate Adam, God made him a much meeker wife, named Eve, though Eve too wasn't perfect. (Apple, anyone?) Eve brought about the Fall of Eden and as punishment, God cursed them and their children with mortality.

Lilith, who left before the Fall, was not cursed with mortality. Instead, her children lived forever.

For some reason, Jace imagined Lilith looked like Isabelle. Izzy, he knew, could wreak havoc that would have the angels themselves scurrying for cover. And he doubted she would let herself be considered unequal to anyone, including Gods first man.

After remembering the story, Jace wondered how mundanes managed to make theology and the religion myth so damned boring.

Suddenly, Jace heard the door to the armory snap closed. He looked up and saw Clary. It looked like she needed him after all.

He knew it.

"Where's Hodge?"

"Writing to the Silent Brothers," she replied.

Alec tensed and tried not the shudder. "Ugh," was all he said, which surprised Jace, as it was the most civil thing he said in response to or in the presence of Clary yet. But then Alec probably sensed that Hodge notifying the Silent Brothers about Clary was the first step in getting her out of the Institute.

By now, Jace and Alec were both looking at Clary, who was standing uncertainly in the door way, looking apprehensively around. Her eyes fell on the table and she moved closer. "What are you doing?"

Jace moved over to make room for her beside the table, and then was irritated at himself for positioning her so close. "Putting the last touches on these," he told her, indicating the blades. "Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf. They're seraph blades."

She examined them, her brow furrowed. "They don't look like knives. How did you make them? Magic?"

Alec looked personally affronted, like she had called him a very, very bad name. Again.

Jace just shook his head. She was such a mundane, even though she technically wasn't one. When Clary thought about magic, she probably envisioned broomsticks, Harry Potter, and Disney. Stuff like singing mice. Stuff that made Jace want to gag. "The funny thing about mundies is how obsessed with magic they are for a bunch of people who don't even know what the word means."

"I know what it means," she spat at him. Geez, she sure had a lot of venom stored up in her tiny body.

"No," he corrected, "You don't, you just think you do. Magic is a dark and elemental force, not just a lot of sparkly wands and crystal balls and talking goldfish.

"I never said it was a lot of talking goldfish, you—"

Jace cut her off with a carless wave of her had. He totally sure of what she was going to say, but he was pretty positive it would have something to do with telling him just where he could shove his sparkly wand, which Jace didn't have time for. She didn't understand what magic really was, hell-she didn't know it existed before she met Jace, and the sooner she understood it, the better. How could he explain this in a way that her delicate little mundane brain could understand?

Aha. The rubber duckie was a universally known subject matter.

"Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie."

Clary's gaze on him had turned somewhat clinically pitying. "You're driveling," she stated.

If he were another person, Jace suspected he would be deeply wounded by the matter-of-fact manner in which she dubbed him insane, but he wasn't ordinary. He was Jace Wayland and was therefore never deeply wounded by anything.

"I'm not."

Alec, who had been watching the whole exchange, now spoke, his eyes on Jace. "Yes, you are." He lowered his eyes back to the table, when Jace threw him, a mildly filthy look that said thanks for nothing and a few choice expletives, and then spoke to Clary, again surprising Jace with his civility. He had thought earlier that he would have to pry the two away from each other to prevent major bloodshed. "Look, we don't do magic, okay? That's all you need to know about it."

Clary narrowed eyes sharply at Alec, the green glinting dangerously, but she didn't pursue the subject. Instead, she turned to Jace and dropped a bomb that almost made him do something ungraceful. Like dropping the seraph blade he was holding on his foot. "Hodge said I could go home."

Alec looked fit to start dancing around the room, something that Jace knew the giant stick he had shoved up his—pocket, would never allow. "He said what?" The last time Clary was home, she was attacked by a hulking, alligator like demon who wanted to eat her. Jace suspected Hodge hadn't said any such thing.

He suspected his face said just as much, because she quickly clarified. "To look through my mother's things." She paused, hesitant, and looked up into his eyes. "If you go with me."

"Jace," Alec began, under his breath, but Jace didn't really hear. He kept his eyes on Clary. He didn't know if accompanying her alone was such a good idea.

Probably sensing that Alec was going to try to persuade him from going, Clary stream rolled ahead. "If you really want to prove that my mom or dad was a Shadowhunter, we should look through my mom's things." She looked away from him. "What's left of them." The sadness in her eyes was enough to break his heart.

Wait. Heart? Jace had a heart? Surely not, he thought.

But he looked again into her eyes and knew he did. Ah, hell.

A crooked smile broke out across his face. "Down the rabbit hole," he said, confident that neither Alec nor Clary would catch his meaning. "Good idea. If we go right now we should have another three, maybe four hours of daylight." Jace grabbed the angel blades and stowed them away, as quick and smooth as a trained pick-pocket. Which he was. He pushed off from the table towards the door, Clary following.

This could prove very interesting.

He was halfway to the door when Alec spoke. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No," he said. "That's all right. Clary and I can handle this on our own." Jace let himself out and held the door for Clary, then began walking toward the elevator. He didn't bother slowing his pace, even though he knew that she had a hard time keeping up. Her legs were much shorter than his. "Have you got your house keys?" He wondered if she lost them with her wallet. Plus, he felt he had reached his limit for busting doors for the week.

"Yeah," she answered.

"Good. Not that we couldn't break in, but we'd run a greater chance of disturbing any wards that might be up if we did." He might set them off with such a display of masculine strength.

"If you say so," she said as they hit the foyer in front of the elevator. She probably still associated magic with rubber duckies and a driveling Jace. He jabbed the 'down' button with his knuckle. "Jace?"

"How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood?" He wasn't expecting that. He had thought that she might ask him to take her by the kitchen before they left, or maybe a bathroom. "Was there someway you could tell?"

The elevator finally made its appearance, clanking and wailing. After letting them into the car, he said, "I guessed. It seemed like the most likely explanation." He was aiming for her to be impressed by his superior intellect, intuition, and reasoning skills.

"You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."

He again jabbed a button, this time the one for the ground floor. "I was ninety percent sure." Which was pretty good, Jace thought. He had jumped off buildings for less.

"I see." Something about her tone was odd. Was she going to thank him for saving her life? Jace paused, suddenly hopeful, and thought that the more important question was how she would thank him for saving her life?

Eager, though he knew he shouldn't be, he turned around.

And for the second time that week, she hit him.

To clarify, she slapped him. This slap wasn't as hurried as the other; she had been half-out of her mind then. Now seemed she put all the force her tiny body could summon into this one. She slapped him. He rocked back on his heels, moving with the blow. She slapped him. It stung, yes, but to Jace it was a mere annoyance more than anything. In the back of his mind, Jace wondered what Alec would do if he had seen: jump to Jace's aide, or applaud Clary? She fucking slapped him.

"What the hell was that for?" Which was the much edited version of what he initially wanted to ask her.

Her eyes blazed. "The other ten percent."

The other ten percent, his ass. If she knew him better, she would know that 90 percent was about as good as it got. Better, in fact. He usually acted first and asked questions later. Not meaning to be suggestive, but Jace was a do-er.

Half-serious ideas ran through his mind, one on the heels of another: him strangling Clary, him telling her how he usually handled such situations, him strangling Clary—maybe both.

Knowing he would never do either, Jace chose instead to withdraw himself from her company. Or at least withdraw himself as much as he could, given his predicament of escorting her around town for the day. Operation Clary was Just a Girl, be damned. Now it was Operation Pretend She Didn't Exist.