Once again, so, so sorry about the lateness. There is just so much crap going on that this gets shoved to the back of my mind again and again. But I'm going to try to get better about it, and not leave you hanging so bad.

This chapter really isn't any less confusing than the last, but hopefully the next one will explain it all. Hopefully.

Disclaimer: No Mortal Instruments characters belong to me. Just the crappy, mostly nameless OC's.

Everything was black. Or maybe that was just the back of his eyelids.

"Has he woken yet?" an unfamiliar voice whined. There was a thump, as if someone had stamped their foot against the floor.

"No," answered another, clearly wishing they could bitch-slap some sense into their companion.

"But we've got to get him to the Queen," the first protested. Someone sighed. Jace could feel their breath gushing over his cheek they were so close.

When they spoke, their voice was deafening. Jace wanted to cover his ears but he couldn't find the right muscles to move. "Hold on, hold on," they said. Something sloshed noisily and splattered against the floor. "Just let me rinse him off."

A jolt of shock raced up Jace's spine as his nerves screamed, pimply goosebumps racing up along the length of his arms. He bolted upright, torrents of water gushing from his nose and mouth, his face thick and heavy and burning. The blanket covering him was molded to his skin with water, drenched till it was icy cold. "Gah!" he cried, shaking his hands, droplets of water leaping from his fingers. "Why am I wet?"

"Because I dumped water on you," said a girl from across the room. She was short and slight, her limbs no thicker than toothpicks. Wild curls of electric yellow hair frizzed out around her head in a wiry halo. She had storm-gray eyes. "Duh."

"Who are you?" Jace asked, scanning the room out of instinct. It was small, with the bed he lay in, a table, the stool where the girl sat and a chair beside the fireplace occupied by a bald boy with mottled red and yellow lizard skin and a flicking forked tongue. "Where's Isabelle?"

The stormy girl shrugged and wrapped a curl around her finger before letting it spring back into perfectly random place. She looked like the kind of person who enjoyed sticking her fingers in light sockets. "Didn't see no chick around." Jace noticed that while the room was rather archaic and Spartan, there was evidence of modern influence everywhere. In the strings of Christmas lights hung from the rafters, in the Gameboy resting on the table, in the jeans and sweatshirt sheathing the girl's slim form. "Rot left you on my doorstep all by your lonesome."

"Rot?" Jace asked, sweeping back his sopping hair. He had no weapon, and the lizard boy was between him and the door. Two mundanes he could've taken easily. But whatever these two were, they weren't mundanes. So for the time being he talked and tried to figure out what the hell he was going to do.

Nodding, the stormy girl kicked up her feet on the edge of the table. "Yeah, the rhyming son of a bitch. Listening to him century after century drives one near insane." The smile she gave him was pitying and cruel in one movement. "You're just lucky you weren't around during his limerick phase."

"Century?"

The lizard boy rolled his eyes and spoke in a voice that hissed and crackled like fire. "As in a hundred years."

"I know what a century is, I just..." Jace paused and wriggled under the blanket. His gold eyes widened until they swallowed his now-livid face. "Where, the hell," he said, enunciating clearly. "Are my clothes?"

The girl pointed at the sizzling grate, her tone unruffled by his. "Fireplace," she said, and then tapped her fingers along the length of her chin. Sparks jumped from beneath her nails to skip over her face and sputter through her hair. "Though I don't know if they'd be considered clothes anymore."

Jace's complexion was somewhere between a tomato and a plum. "You burnt my clothes?!" he cried, tugging the blanket closer, even when it made him shiver.

She shrugged again, the material of her dark gray sweatshirt rustling. "They were filthy."

Expression horrified, Jace had to resist the urge to get up and punch her lights out. "You could've washed them!"

Shuddering, she waved his concern away with a flick of her wrist. Her nails were patterned with lightning bolts. "There was no way all that disgusting humanity was coming out." When he raised a dubious eyebrow, she shot him a fleeting smile. "No offense."

It was a moment before Jace was able to string everything together into one stumbling sentence. "So, you're a fairy?" As soon as he spoke the words, he knew they were true. Despite the modernity and offhand manner of these two, they were both--somehow--fey.

Both also managed to roll their eyes in perfectly synchronized union. "No shit Sherlock," snorted the girl. Getting to her feet, she picked a bundle off the table and tossed it his way. "Here, put these on." The package contained a pair of jeans and a loose dark tunic. There were no shoes.

Jace sniffed them warily, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "They smell like the inside of Bath and Body Works."

Another eye roll. "They smell like the fey," she corrected, setting her hands on her dainty hips in a way that reminded him far too much of Isabelle. Isabelle. Alec. Magnus. He had to find them. He would find them. "Put them on."

"No way am I wearing something this..." he struggled after the word, but eventually came up with it. "Gay smelling." He nodded to himself, satisfied with his choice. "I'd rather go naked."

"Suit yourself," she said with a flip of her hair. Her ears rose to needle sharp points. Pointing towards the door--a low round thing more suited for a dog than a human--she yawned. "It's through there then."

"What is?"

She snorted, and pulled the lizard-boy up and towards the door. Opening it with one hand, she drove him through and grinned back at Jace. "What do you think?" The door closed with a quiet whoosh, sealing him in.

It took Jace only about a minute before he stumbled up--amazed that the ache was gone from his chest and the wound was no more than a ragged scar--and slipped on the clothes. They were soft and light against his skin, as if he was still wearing nothing at all.

Isabelle. Alec. Magnus.

There was only one door. Only one choice.

It swung inwards as he neared, making him jump. He was sure it had opened outwards before. Stealing himself, he shouldered his way through, bent almost double, hobbling like an old man without his cane.

His eyes fell on a stunningly gorgeous woman, tall and thin as a rod, dressed in a tattered bloodstained gown that rippled with colors in the light. Her hair was oil slick black and falling nearly to the floor. When she smiled, it lit up her cruel, calculating eyes.

"Welcome," she said, her voice coarse and lovely. "Jace Herondale, to the realm of the Unseelie Court."

That probably raised more questions than it answered. If I contradict myself at any point, please let me know. I want to get better and I just feel like I'm getting worse. :-/

Review and help me improve. Honestly, reviews let me know that people are still reading this and that there's some point in writing more.