Golden Guidance
Well, it's not like I don't understand it. He's jealous, obviously that's it. At the end of the day, I'm the one she's with. She may flirt with him like crazy and torture him with the possibility of it but it's nothing more than false hope. Our parents nearly lost it when the two of us started dating and I'm only related to Seraphina through adoption. Jonathan is her biological brother. Even if she wanted to give him a shot, it would most likely be them signing their own death sentences. Sometimes I think that's the only thread I have to hold onto her by. I feel like if it weren't for their blood bond, there'd be no question about who Sera would choose, and it wouldn't be me.
I'm back home now and waiting for Father to finish meeting with his lieutenants so that I can deliver the Praetor head to him. I can't believe they actually succeeded in wiping out the New York Praetor House! Sure, three of the werewolves survived, but that's still a pretty sizable victory for us. I wish I could have been there for it. Sometimes I think my Angel lessons have more to do with keeping me out of the line of fire until the Great War because he will need me then. No one knows what's coming. No one knows what the great Valentine Morgenstern has planned except for his wife and his sons. He would have told Seraphina, too but she can be impulsive and has absolutely no filter. We need the element of surprise or else the Clave will have time to prepare. We need them unprepared if the revolution is to have any chance to succeed.
"You wanted to see me, Jace?" He asks me after sending his lieutenants off with their orders.
"Yes Father. Jon and Sera brought this back for you, as promised." I say, dropping the bag onto the desk in front of him. He looks at the contents and a wide smile spreads over his features.
"It's perfect; I want it mounted on a pike in front of the New York Pack Headquarters. I want Maia Roberts to know that we'll be coming for them next. Her and her doggy boyfriend may have survived the attack on the Praetor House but they won't survive this. And after the trouble they caused Seraphina and Jonathan, I want them to suffer. And afterwards, I am going to pay a little visit to Lucian Graymark in Idris and personally deliver the heads of Praetor Scott and Maia Roberts to him. I want the werewolves to know how easily they fall here in New York and that the remaining lupine population will crumble like a house of cards once we begin attacking them in the other cities as well. We've started here because it is where the North American Praetor Lupus is based, and I like the message that it sends to begin with them."
"Yes Father. I can have that done for you immediately. I will go now and be there and back before they notice anything is amiss." I assure him.
"Perfect, thank you, Jace." He smiles slightly and nods for me to take the bag and depart. I do so, trying not to think about how messy it will be to have to mount this werewolf head on a pike and drive it into the ground. Oh well, that's the kind of thing it means to be a Morgenstern.
"It went okay." I say as Seraphina and I are lying in bed that night. "I did what had to be done, let's just put it that way. How about you?"
"Yeah, Jon and I had a pretty decent day, after the mission, I guess. We had to meet Mom at Renwick's to fetch supplies through the Idris portal from the Circle members who are stationed there. That's where the Lightwood's and the Penhallows are right now as you know, so I got to see Isabelle and Aline." She grins. Isabelle is her best friend, with Aline a close second, so it's been tough on her with the Lightwoods and Penhallows doing a six month stint abroad for Valentine.
We have several moles in Alicante infiltrating the Clave forces, including Malachi Dieudonne, the Consul himself. So, when supplies are needed, they can be received directly via the portal in the Gard. His term is almost up though, so we have Jia Penhallow running for Consul and Robert Lightwood running for the Inquisitor position. We've also been gradually planting Circle members into the Institutes around the world as well over the last few years. To date, fifteen of the Institutes have a Circle member residing there and six of those Circle members represent their Institutes on the Council. It's handy to have friends in high places when you're organizing a revolution.
"What supplies did we get? I could use a new stele myself." I ask.
"Yeah, there were some steles I think, and a whole box of seraph blades. Izzy threw in some Shadowhunter jewelry for me and there were some more Shadowhunter's Codex's cuz Father's recruiting again." She says.
"Oh good, it'll be nice to have some more mundies to harass. We haven't had any new rookies in almost a year." I smirk. Father is continuously making new Shadowhunters with the mortal cup because it's easier if their loyalty is to him from the get-go than trying to sway those loyal to the Clave. Plus we're better off putting unrecognizable newbies in the Institutes because they can just pass themselves off as being from one of the less important Shadowhunter families and no one is the wiser. And Alec Lightwood came up with a brilliant idea which has made it even easier for us to get bodies into Institutes.
He suggested to the Clave that they go back to the old practice of encouraging their young people to travel abroad when they come of age and spend time studying at another Institute. He passed it off as a good experience for the youth themselves as well as the Institutes because the visiting youth may have fresh ideas and better methods of doing some things. They liked the idea and have started promoting it again, so now we can just train up a new member of The Circle of Raziel and pass them off as a visiting Shadowhunter youth. It works every time.
"Yeah, I just hope none of them are good enough to start stealing our missions. The second we start letting ourselves think that father needs any one of us specifically or that we are irreplaceable, he'll take the Red Book off my hands and start doling out copies of it to every new Shadowhunter and I'll be obsolete. We are only of value to him as long as we're useful." Seraphina sighs.
"Yeah well, I doubt any new Shadowhunter could be doing things like what you and Jonathan did today, even if they did have access to the Seraphina Morgenstern collection of original runes. I mean, you two are pretty impressive. Heck, I still can't believe Jon was able to cut the head clean off of Praetor Scott. I know that was a part of the mission, but I'm impressed nonetheless. Werewolves are pretty tough stuff." I tell her, praising my Brother/Parabatai. I want her to see there are no hard feelings between Jon and I.
"What? Did he say that he killed Praetor Scott himself?" Seraphina asks me, looking bewildered.
"Umm, no, Sera, but I saw the head myself and it was just the two of you there on the mission so it's not as if he had anyone else there to do it for him, right?" I say, not too sure what she's getting upset about.
"Jacque Cenclaire Morgenstern! What do I look like to you chopped liver? Why would you assume it was Jonathan?" She must be fuming mad at me. Seraphina knows how much I hate my full name. Jacque is for Jocelyn because she raised me and Cenclaire is for Céline Montclaire (aka my birth-mother's maiden name) so I'm told I should be honored by it, but as a boy named after two women, I personally fail to see the honor in it. So, I use the two first letters of each name and go by Jace. It's short, it's easy and it's a hell of a lot more masculine.
"Seraphina, are you telling me that you personally decapitated Praetor Scott yourself then? What did you do, invent a Now-your-head-falls-off Rune?" I smirk, trying with my lame attempt at humor to calm the raging tempest that is my girlfriend/sister.
"No, asshole! I took an extremely sharp silver blade and brought it down on the unsuspecting Praetor, slicing through his neck. And because of the regenerative healing properties that werewolves have, the fucker stayed conscious for approximately twelve seconds, during which time I recited the Loyalty Oath because I wanted him to know that he was being ended at the hands of The Circle. Jonathan, was getting his ass handed to him, by Praetor Kyle at the time. Thank you, very much!" She huffs.
"Hm, well had I known that earlier, I could have told Father. He probably would have had you nominated for daughter of the year or something. You're definitely a Morgenstern, Seraphina, that's for certain." I say, more to myself than to her. I don't know which I find more unsettling, the fact that Sera severed a man's head, or that she seems to want a pat on the back for it. She's definitely Valentine's daughter alright. It's moments like these when I almost find myself wishing we were a normal family.