I'm sorry. This isn't an Alec/Magnus chapter. This isn't even a Jace and Isabelle chapter. No. To my ever-growing shame, this is a Clary chapter. I don't like Clary. She irks me. But for the future of this fic's plot, this chapter had to be included. And because I know I left you on a cliffy with Alec and Magnus, I will do my very best to get one of them uploaded early tomorrow. No promises though.

Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

"Troubles are a lot like people - they grow bigger if you nurse them." -Author Unknown

Jace didn't call back. Three days passed and he didn't call back. Clary was getting worried.

"Stop pacing," Luke said from the couch, giving her a steely glare laced with parental warmth. Clary just pushed back the straggling lengths of her hair and spun on her heels. Luke sighed and folded the cover flap between the pages of the hardcover perched in his lap, keeping his place with fastidious care. "You're going to wear a hole in my floor."

"Why wouldn't he call back, Luke?" Clary asked, fiddling with the hem of her shirt, wrinkling it between her fingers before smoothing it back out. She turned to her stepfather with a pleading look, as if he could snap his fingers and Jace would appear out of thin air. Fathers were supposed to be able to make everything better. He isn't your real father, whispered the treacherous little part of her brain. He is in all the ways that count, she snapped back, fully aware that she was arguing with herself. At least she wasn't doing it aloud. "He always calls back."

"For the thirteenth time," Luke said, falling backwards, letting the squashy gray velour cradle his head, mussing his close-cropped hair. He looked as disheveled as always; all faded work jeans and messily buttoned shirts and crooked glasses. But he looked happy. Even considering the circumstances. "I have no idea. Why don't you call him?"

"I've tried!" Clary yelled, shaking her hands. "He doesn't answer the phone. Did I do something?"

Luke raised a single eyebrow her way, something she still could not do and still envied of people who could. "What could you have done?" he asked. "You haven't seen him for three days."

"I know, I just…" she paused mid-sentence, and a horrible, terrified look crept over her elfin features. "Do you think he's hurt?"

Setting his book on the coffee table, Luke scooted to the side and patted the space next to him. Clary sat down, bouncing slightly, as if she were a shark, who'd drown if it stopped swimming. "If it was anyone but Jace," Luke said, peering down at her over his glasses, in a way that was somehow comforting instead of condescending. "Yes, that's what I would assume." Clary's screwed her face up, pursing her lips and pulling her eyebrows together. Luke brushed back her hair and smiled sadly.

"But it is Jace," he said. "And that kid would come away without a scratch from a fight with a tank."

It was a long moment before Clary spoke. "But then where is he?" Her voice was soft, afraid.

"Did you try calling the Institute?" Luke asked, trying not to show how worried he was himself. Jace had grown on him, despite all his sarcasm and arrogance and the fact that he was dating his stepdaughter. Not knowing where he was or if he was even alive made Luke anxious. But he wouldn't show it.

Clary's brow dropped, etching thick lines into her forehead. "No."

"Well you probably should," Luke said, shoving her shoulder playfully. He was reaching for her cell on the coffee table when the doorbell tolled. Tossing the slim silver phone into her lap, he rose to his feet. "I'll be right back." And he disappeared into the next room.

Clary dialed the well-memorized number and held the receiver to her ear, waiting for the series of rings to break and someone to answer. A minute passed. No one answered. "Luke, no one's picking up!" she called, wandering in the general direction of the front door. She heard people talking in low hushed voices.

"I think I have a good idea why," Luke said, suddenly appeared in the living room doorway, beckoning for her to follow. She walked through the familiar bookshelves, weaving around piles that stood in the aisles like leather and paper roadblocks.

When she got to the door, she just…stopped.

Robert and Maryse Lightwood stood on the stoop, dark coats pulled tight around their shoulders, their black hair turned faintly blue by the overhead lights, the faint wrinkles in their porcelain skin casting long shadows over their faces.

"Hello Clary," Robert said, the sound of her name in his voice strange and alien. She couldn't remember ever exchanging more than two words with this mountain of a man. He must've seen the surprise on her face, because his lips quirked in a faint smile.

"Maryse?" she asked, bracing herself against the doorframe, less from danger of falling and more for something to hold onto. "Robert? What…what're you doing here?"

"I thought…" Maryse said, and then her voice trailed off. She sounded like she'd been crying, her normally neat and tidy…well, everything, looked disheveled and unorganized. Her sweater lay askew beneath her jacket, her make-up smudged and running, her hair falling from its bun in bits and clumps. She looked like hell. "Do you know where my children are?"

Luke sighed and Clary couldn't help the start that ran up her spine. She hadn't realized he'd been standing that close behind her. "Come on inside," he said, sounding tired as he waved the couple over the threshold. "It's getting cold."

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The despondent figures of Maryse and Robert Lightwood looked horribly out of place in the tiny living room, with it's mismatched furniture and cheery paintings and well-thumbed books scattered over the floor. Robert sat still as a statue, one hand resting on his wife's arm, his eyes somewhere else entirely. Maryse had her hands fisted in her lap, tears in her eyes. Luke and Clary stood across the room, leaning against the wall.

"Have you talked to any of them?" Robert asked, loathe to start the conversation—to say the words they were all thinking—but smart enough to realize that no one else would.

"I talked to Jace," Clary said, fingering her cell phone, flipping it open and closed again, as if the constant action might make it ring. "But all he said was that there was a car accident. Then he said he'd call me back and hung up. But he didn't call back." She looked between the couple's faces, Robert's, strong features hiding a broken man that peeked through only in the depths of his eyes, and Maryse's, streaked with shimmering with tears and dull make-up. "Haven't you heard from them?"

"No," Maryse said, sniffing quietly and wiping the back of her hand across her nose. It was a strangely human gesture; something Clary had never seen the woman do. "And it's been days. If Jace and Isabelle came back saying Alec refused to come home, at least I would know they were safe." She shook her head. "Robert and I went to Central Park; we searched the whole damn place. But none of them were there."

"I was there that night," Luke said, crossing his arms over his chest, his pale blue eyes sympathetic. "I saw them fight a fairy with green hair. My pack started howling, all of us at once, and the fairy disappeared. Isabelle, Jace, and Magnus walked away before I could reach them."

There was hope in the twist of Maryse's lips when she looked up. "What about Alec?"

Pressing his lips together, Luke dragged one hand across his eyes behind the twin ovals of his glasses. Somewhere between telling Clary things were okay, and opening the door, he had given up on sugarcoating. "They…" he started, and when his voice faltered, he began again, even quieter than before. "They were carrying him. Isabelle was crying. I'm so sorry Maryse."

Her face fell in tiny, measurable increments. "He's dead?" she asked, and the muscles in Robert's neck tensed.

"I don't know," Luke said quickly, holding up both hands, palms facing her. It was a defensive stance. A don't-run-me-through-please stance. When it became evident she planned on doing no such thing, he relaxed back into his leaning against the wall, arm's crossed, yeah-I'm-cool-like-that stance. "I don't know anything that happened after that."

Clary took advantage of the silence to throw in her two cents. "We know there was a car accident. We know Jace was alive three days ago. We think Alec was hurt. We think Jace was alone when I talked to him." And then she shrugged; an apologetic hike of her shoulders. "But we're not sure."

Maryse eyes narrowed and her face changed to something that looked almost…calculating. "So Jace had his phone with him?" she asked, peering up at Clary. It was strangely disorienting. She wasn't used to people looking up at her.

"Yes," she answered warily.

Maryse got to her feet and looked around the room, a sense of purpose in each move she made. It was a dramatic change from the crying wreck she'd been a few moments before.

"Where are you going?" Luke asked, unhitching himself from the wall.

"Where's the computer?" she asked, using one hand to expertly tie back the loose ends of her hair. Behind her, Robert got to his feet, silent despite his menacing bulk.

"The computer?" Clary said, making a face. "Why? Do you even know how to use one?"

Maryse shot her a withering glare, setting her hands firmly on her hips. "I'm a Shadowhunter, Clarissa, not an imbecile. There's a GPS tracker in Jace's phone, courtesy of AT&T." There was a silent moment, as if this was a bad TV drama, with a note in the script reading 'pause for effect'. "I'm going to find my children."

And if I end up not updating for a few days, blame the people who gave me money and then drove me to the bookstore. This isn't the only thing I've been putting off. Sleep comes to mind. *reaches for the coffee*

Reviews are like coffee. They keep me writing when my head wants to hit the keyboard.