Alec was sitting at a desk in the library, listening to Hodge's argument with Jace while Isabelle played with her stele beside him.
"...but Hodge, she could see us. She can't be a mundane- I would have sensed it. She has to be one of us."
Hodge pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly. "Jace, I don't know what to tell you. There's nothing we can do, it's not our responsibility to rush after everybody. You're forgetting something important. She might be dangerous, why else would she have been at Pandemonium that night? She's probably bluffing, to get information."
"Hodge! She was completely unaware, confused out of her minds. There's no way she's a spy, and if she is dangerous she definitely doesn't know it. Let me find her; she has to be confused! If we explain it right, teach her... we could make a great Shadowhunter out of her, I know it. Tell him, Alec! Isabelle... please? You saw her. You know I'm right."
Jace turned to the siblings in desperation.
Isabelle looked taken aback. "Jace... I don't know, for sure. I mean, she seemed harmless enough, and she was definitely confused..."
Alec interrupted her. "The risk is too high, Jace. What if she is a spy? We can't just let her into the Institute."
Alec was more worried about the different side of Jace they were all seeing- a good side, brought on by the mysterious mundane. Alec almost couldn't bear to watch him.
Jace glared at him, turning to Hodge.
"She's more a liability to us if she's lost and confused. Let me find her- explain to her- and then maybe she will understand, and stay quiet. Just let me find her, I'll bring her here, you can tlak to her. She's just a girl, Hodge."
The old tutor watched Jace carefully before replying. "Yes, it seems as though she is just 'a girl' to you, Jace. Let's hope your feelings for her aren't influencing your actions too strongly. Remember that if this ends badly- it's your fault."
At that he stood up, and left.
Alec was glaring at the hardwood desk, letting his bangs cover his eyes to hide his anxiety.
Isabelle silently stood up and left the room as well, after a half-hearted smile at Jace and an anxious glance at Alec.
"Careful, Jace." She whispered.
He nodded at her.
Why are they all so worried? Clary can't be dangerous, can she?
No.
When the room was empty but for Alec and Jace, Alec looked up at his best friend and frowned.
He opened his mouth to say something -anything- that could change his mind. But one look at Jace's face, and he knew it was worthless.
All Jace wants is what he can't have. Alec thought to himself, and looked back down at the desk.
There was a noise from the other side of the library, and Jace was gone.
A single, shining tear hit the desk and Alec's shoulders shook with silent sobs as his will crumbled under the sheer force of his feelings for Jace.
"Isabelle, have you checked on the mundane?" Alec asked his sister as he finished putting breakfast's dishes away. She looked up at him and shook her head.
"No- she's still out I think. Talking about said mundane, I'd say Jace is probably playing the piano. Says it clears his head. I reckon he's just a show-off, if you ask me."
Alec laughed for what felt like the first time in days.
"That's nice, I'm glad I made you laugh. You haven't been doing much of it for a few days... Alec, are you alright?"
He swore under his breath. If anybody could get under his pretenses, it was Isabelle.
"Yeah. I'm okay. I think I'm going to check on his mundie girl again, Hodge said she might die in her sleep." Isabelle frowned, a little crease appearing in between her brows.
"Alec..." she put her hand on his arm.
"Leave it, Izzy." He shrugged her hand off and stalked out of the kitchen.
When he got to the infirmary, the girl was still exactly as she had been the day before, and the day before that... asleep and small.
He froze when he heard Isabelle speak; he hadn't realized that she'd followed him.
"I told you it was the same girl."
He sighed. "I know, little thing isn't she? Jace said she killed a Ravener."
"Yeah. I thought she was a pixie the first time we saw her. She's not pretty enough to be a pixie, though." Alec laughed at that.
"Well, nobody looks their best with demon poison in their veins. Is Hodge going to call on the Brothers?"
"I hope not. They give me the creeps. Anyone who mutilates themselves like that-"
He interrupted her. "We mutilate ourselves."
"I know, Alec, but when we do it, it isn't permanent. And it doesn't always hurt..."
"If you're old enough. Speaking of which, where is Jace? He saved her, didn't he? I would have thought he'd take some interest in her recovery."
"Hodge said he hasn't been to see her since he brought her here. I guess he doesn't care."
"Sometimes I wonder if he-Look! She moved!" The girl turned her head and frowned.
"I guess she's alive after all." Alec sighed. "I'll tell Hodge." He turned and left.
Everyone was in the library, listening to Hodge talk to the mundane.
She laughed and shook Hodge's outstretched hand. "Clary Fray."
"Honoured to make your acquaintance," he said. "I would be honoured to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with her bare hands."
"It wasn't my bare hands." She looked mortified. "It was Jace's-well, I don't remember what it was called, but-"
"She means my Sensor," Jace said. "She shoved it down the thing's throat. The runes must have choked it. I guess I'll need another one," he added, almost as an afterthought. "I should have mentioned that."
"There are several extra in the weapons room," said Hodge. When he smiled at Clary, a thousand small lines rayed out from around his eyes, like the cracks in an old painting. "That was quick thinking. What gave you the idea of using the Sensor as a weapon?"
Before she could reply, a sharp laugh sounded through the room.
Clary had been so distracted by Hodge that she hadn't seen Alec sprawled in an overstuffed red armchair by the empty fireplace.
"I can't believe you buy that story, Hodge," he said, bitterly.
She spun to look at him.
"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Alec." Hodge raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that she didn't kill that demon after all?"
"Of course she didn't. Look at her-she's a mundie, Hodge, and a little kid, at that. There's no way she took on a Ravener."
"I'm not a little kid," Clary interrupted. "I'm sixteen years old-well, I will be on Sunday."
"The same age as Isabelle," Hodge said. "Would you call her a child?"
"Isabelle hails from one of the greatest Shadowhunter dynasties in history," Alec said dryly. "This girl, on the other hand, hails from New Jersey."
"I'm from Brooklyn!" Clary was outraged. "And so what? I just killed a demon in my own house, and you're going to be a dickhead about it because I'm not some spoiled-rotten rich brat like you and your sister?"
Alec was astonished. "What did you call me?"
Jace laughed. "She has a point, Alec," Jace said. "It's those bridge-and-tunnel demons you really have to watch out for-"
"It's not funny, Jace," Alec interrupted, jumping to his feet in rage. Who was he to stick up for her? "Are you just going to let her stand there and call me names?"
"Yes," Jace said kindly. "It'll do you good- try to think of it as endurance training."
"We may be parabatai," Alec said tightly. "But your flippancy is wearing on my patience."
"And your obstinacy is wearing on mine. When I found her, she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a dying demon practically on top of her. I watched as it vanished. If she didn't kill it, who did?"
Alec refused to believe that this mundane girl had killed a demon, while he- almost-adult Shadowhunter Alec Lightwood- still had yet to.
"Raveners are stupid. Maybe it got itself in the neck with its stinger. It's happened before-"
"Now you're suggesting it committed suicide?"
Alec's mouth tightened. "It isn't right for her to be here. Mundies aren't allowed in the Institute, and there are good reasons for that. If anyone knew about this, we could be reported to the Clave."
"That's not entirely true," Hodge said. "The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Clary's mother-she could well have been next."
Alec scowled at them all. "Raveners are search-and-destroy machines," he said. "They act under orders from warlocks or powerful demon lords. Now, what interest would a warlock or demon lord have in an ordinary mundane household?" His eyes when he looked at Clary were bright with dislike. "Any thoughts?"
Clary said, "It must have been a mistake."
"Demons don't make those kind of mistakes. If they went after your mother, there must have been a reason. If she were innocent-" Alec was interrupted.
"What do you mean, 'innocent'?" Clary's voice was quiet.
He looked taken aback. "I-"
"What he means," said Hodge, "is that it is extremely unusual for a powerful demon, the kind who might command a host of lesser demons, to interest himself in the affairs of human beings. No mundane may summon a demon-they lack that power-but there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a witch or warlock to do it for them."
"My mother doesn't know any warlocks. She doesn't believe in magic." She seemed to remember something. "Madame Dorothea- she lives downstairs-she's a witch. Maybe the demons were after her and got my mom by mistake?"
Hodge's eyebrows shot up into his hair. "A witch lives downstairs from you?"
"She's a hedge-witch-a fake," Jace said. "I already looked into it. There's no reason for any warlock to be interested in her unless he's in the market for non-functional crystal balls."
"And we're back where we began." Hodge reached up to stroke the bird on his shoulder. "It seems the time has come to notify the Clave."
"No!" Jace said. "We can't-"
"It made sense to keep Clary's presence here a secret while we were not sure she would recover," Hodge said. "But now she has, and she is the first mundane to pass through the doors of the Institute in over a hundred years. You know the rules about mundane knowledge of Shadowhunters, Jace. The Clave must be informed."
"Absolutely," Alec agreed. "I could get a message to my father-"
"She's not a mundane," Jace said quietly.
Hodge's eyebrows shot back up to his hairline and stayed there. Alec, caught in the middle of a
sentence, choked with surprise. In the sudden silence they could hear the sound of Hugo's wings rustling.
"But I am," she said.
"No," said Jace. "You aren't." He turned to Hodge, and Alec saw the slight movement of his throat as he swallowed. He found this glimpse of his nervousness oddly reassuring. "That night-there were Du'sien demons, dressed like police officers. We had to get past them. Clary was too weak to run, and there wasn't time to hide-she would have died. So I used my stele- put a mendelin rune on the inside of her arm. I thought-"
"Are you out of your mind?" Hodge slammed his hand down on top of the desk so hard that they thought the wood might crack. "You know what the Law says about placing Marks on mundanes! You-you of all people ought to know better!"
"But it worked," said Jace. "Clary, show them your arm."
She held out her bare arm. Just below the crease of her wrist, Alec could see three faint overlapping circles, the lines as faint as the memory of a scar that had faded with the
passage of years.
"See, it's almost gone," Jace said. "It didn't hurt her at all."
"That's not the point." Hodge could barely control his anger. "You could have turned her into a
Forsaken."
Two bright spots of colour burned high up on Alec's cheekbones. "I can't believe you, Jace. Only Shadowhunters can receive Covenant Marks- they kill mundanes-"
"She's not a mundane. Haven't you been listening? It explains why she could see us. She must have Clave blood."
Clary lowered her arm, feeling suddenly cold. "But I don't. I couldn't."
"You must," Jace said, without looking at her. "If you didn't, that Mark I made on your arm..."
"That's enough, Jace," said Hodge, the displeasure clear in his voice. "There's no need to frighten her further."
"But I was right, wasn't I? It explains what happened to her mother, too. If she was a Shadowhunter in exile, she might well have Downworld enemies."
"My mother wasn't a Shadowhunter!"
"Your father, then," Jace said. "What about him?"
Clary returned his gaze with a flat stare. "He died. Before I was born."
Jace flinched, almost imperceptibly.
It was Alec who spoke. "It's possible," he said uncertainly. "If her father were a Shadowhunter, and her mother a mundane-well, we all know it's against the Law to marry a mundie. Maybe they were in hiding."
"My mother would have told me," Clary said, although she sounded unsure.
"Not necessarily," said Jace. "We all have secrets."
"Luke," Clary said. "Our friend. He would know." She frowned again. "It's been three days-he must be frantic. Can I call him? Is there a phone?" She turned to Jace.
"Please."
Jace hesitated, looking at Hodge, who nodded and moved aside from the desk. Behind him was a globe, made of beaten brass, that didn't look quite like other globes she had seen; there was something subtly strange about the shape of the countries and continents. Next to the globe was an old-fashioned black telephone with a silver rotary dial. Clary lifted it to her ear, her expression blank.
"Luke!" She sagged against the desk. "It's me. It's Clary." There was a pause as she listened.
"I'm fine," she said. "I'm sorry I didn't call you before. Luke, my mom-" She paused again.
"Then you haven't heard from her." She sounded defeated. "What did the police say?" Another pause. "I'm in the city," Clary said. "I don't know where exactly. With some friends. My wallet's gone, though. If you've got some cash, I could take a cab to your place-"
She was cut off. The phone slipped in her sweaty hand. She caught it. "What? We could call-"
She stopped talking. "But I don't want to stay here." Alec heard the whine in her voice, like a child's. "I don't know these people. You-" She grew teary as the silence stretched on. "I'm sorry. It's just-" There was a beep as the phone disconnected.
She stood and stared at the receiver, the dial tone buzzing in her ear like a big ugly wasp. She dialled Luke's number again, waited. This time it went to voice mail. She banged the phone down, her hands trembling.
Jace was leaning against the armrest of Alec's chair, watching her. "I take it he wasn't happy to hear from you?"
She looked like she was about to cry.
"I think I'd like to have a talk with Clary," said Hodge. "Alone," he added firmly, seeing Jace's expression.
Alec stood up. "Fine. We'll leave you to it."
"That's hardly fair," Jace objected. "I'm the one who found her. I'm the one who saved her life! You want me here, don't you?" he appealed, turning to Clary.
Clary looked away, knowing that if she opened her mouth, she'd start to cry. From a distance, Alec laughed.
"Not everyone wants you all the time, Jace," he said. Doesn't mean that's not the case for me, of course, he added silently.
"Don't be ridiculous," he heard Jace say, but he sounded disappointed. "Fine, then. We'll be in the weapons room."
The door closed behind them with a definitive click as they left for training.
"Last one to the room has to pack up afterwards." Jace shot, eyes sparkling and grin blinding as he started to sprint up the stairs. Alec laughed, and followed close behind.