DISCLAIMER: Nope, don't own it :(
Chapter Three: Not Her Jace
The brightness of the sun will give me enough
To bury my love in the moondust
I long to hear your voice, but I still make my choice
To bury my love in the moondust
—Jaymes Young, "Moondust"
The windows of the Morgenstern Manor were empty. Jace couldn't see anyone in them even though the heavy, elegant drapes were gone. He wondered where the Morgensterns put them— no one had drapes like that anyone. All the Morgensterns seemed to be like that, like they were all living in Victorian London or a whole different time period from the way they spoke to the girls' old-fashioned dresses to their mannerisms. It was strange, Jace thought as he stared listlessly at his beat-up trainers, slowing down the speed of his stride as much as possible. There wasn't much waiting for him besides an enraged Alec.
Honestly, how does he find out where I am at every damn time? He shook his head, pushing his hair out of his eyes. Word that he'd skipped last period got back to his brother, mysteriously enough. Judging from the amount of angry messages on my voicemail, I'd say he's pretty pissed.
Whatever. Not like it matters at this point.
Shoving his hands deep into his pockets, Jace stole a minute glance from his feet and instantly screeched to a stop: there was someone in front of him— a tall girl with scarlet hair and a faded dress. One of the Morgensterns.
"Sorry," he muttered quickly, attempting to skirt around her. The girl's words made him stop in his tracks, however.
"You haven't seen my sister anywhere in this town, have you?" She sounded worried. Concerned, surprisingly.
"Why?" Jace drew out the word the smallest bit out of curiosity.
The girl's black eyes blinked at him. "That is irrelevant. Have you seen her anywhere?" Each word was laced with an increasing intensity.
"Look," he started, "I've only been walking around for a few minutes."
"You're not answering the question," the girl pressed stubbornly, her dark eyes narrowing in half a glower at him.
"Pushy, aren't you?" he told her coolly. "No, I haven't seen your sister around here, whatever-your-name-may-be."
"It's Lilith," she snapped with a cold glare.
"Lovely name," Jace offered with a hint of charm.
"No, it's not. I quite despise it, as a matter of fact. So if I hear it escape your lips once more, I shall be forced to castrate you," she said evenly.
He smirked. "What should I call you then?"
"My name shall be. . . Lily, I suppose." Lily winced a little at the sound of it.
They talk so weirdly. What era are they from, even? Or are they just immortal? "Why don't you like your name?"
Lily shrugged elegantly without even a shiver as a chilling breeze blew through the street. Isn't she cold or something? "It's nothing at all. I suppose I should be off to find my sister."
Before she turned away and meandered the opposite direction like a crimson leaf ensnared by the rustling wind, Jace called out, "What's your sister's name?"
A pregnant paused filled the space of concrete between Jace and Lily. She hesitated, teetering away with one foot and closer with the other. "Her name is Clarissa. I really should be on my way."
He watched her float down the cracked, withered street, bright hair gleaming. Lily Morgenstern. Clarissa Morgenstern. And their brother.
"Why were you talking to her?"
Jace cursed inwardly. He had shut the door as quietly as possible, locked it soundlessly, and was on the last stair to his room before Alec materialized behind him, metaphorical smoke pouring out of his ears. He turned around to face the other boy.
"Why does it matter who I talk to?"
Alec exhaled a sharp, short puff of air in an attempt to dispel his anger. "The Morgensterns aren't good people, Jace! They're people you should be running away from, if anything!"
Jace gave an incredulous shout of mirthless laughter. "What do you think Lily was going to do, murder me on the spot? Don't be ridiculous! She's completely harmless; her, her sister, and her brother all are! All she wanted to know was if I'd seen her sister anywhere."
"You're calling one of them by her first name now?" hissed Alec, a millimeter away from appalled. "What, are you friends now?"
"Should it matter?" Jace snapped, feeling himself get consistently more annoyed by the second. "Lily's a person like you! I don't know why everyone insists on treating them like dangerous animals!"
"Because they are!" Alec finally yelled furiously, his face tomato red. "They are dangerous and they act like animals, the whole lot of them! The way I see it, everyone in this town seems to have the sense to give them a wide berth but you!"
"You're such a hypocrite! They're outcasts like me—"
"You're not an outcast!"
"Shut up!" snarled Jace, his patience pushed over the cliff. "Just shut up! You don't know anything! They're outcasts just like I am, and if you treat them like that, why should I be any different?"
"Because—"
"I thought I told you to shut your damn mouth! The way I see it, Alec, this prejudiced town treats anyone who's different from them like they're worthless and dangerous and deserve all the hatred they get! And I have a problem with that."
"But—"
He sighed, all the fight gone out of him. "If you're going to play along with everyone else like you are, then leave me alone. I don't want to see you for a while."
Lilith dragged her towards a boy with dark gold hair the farthest away from the front of the room— the same bored, arrogant boy from her maths class who looked like a right prick. Clarissa scowled, dug in her heels, and hissed, "Why are we sitting with him?"
Lilith frowned, her effortlessly lovely features contorting into displeasure. "He seems like a decent enough person. I met him yesterday when we were all searching for you."
Clarissa said nothing in response. She had ran away to the woods after an incident with her father. Lilith had gone out searching for her. Jonathan pretended he didn't care. Life went on like it usually was.
"Hello."
The boy with the golden hair shot upwards in his seat. "Lily, right? And your name is. . . ?"
Lily? Clarissa smiled to herself. "Lily" sounded more like her sister than the formal "Lilith." Realizing that both the boy and Lily were staring pointedly at her, she flushed. "My name is. . . Clarissa. Pleased to be your acquaintance."
The boy shook his head the tiniest amount. "Why are you sitting with me?"
"Why not?" answered Lily with the air of a devil-may-care attitude. "It's not for pity, in case that's why you're wondering."
Oddly enough, a small smile broke out over the boy's features at the mention of pity. Clarissa wondered why. Didn't most people loathe pity? She dismissed it for the time being.
Shaking her head to herself, Clarissa observed the faces of her classmates as they spilled into the classroom. Whispers flew through the door and out windows, some shocked, some accusatory, some worried.
"At least all the freaks are sitting together now. . ."
"Do you think he's. . . one of them?"
"What're the Devil Twins doing with poor Lightwood?"
"I never did learn your name yesterday," she heard Lily say curiously to the golden boy. Clarissa rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest with defiance; she didn't really care about this boy's name. From what she had perceived, he was everything she hated spun into one package. Even worse was that he was not only arrogant, insolent, conceited, and ridiculously handsome but that he knew it. She could tell from the way he smirked at everything, the pretty glint in his amber eyes, from the bold saunter in his stride.
Ugh, he's annoying. I can't believe Lily likes him.
"Nice to officially meet you," Lily announced in her confident way that managed to be somehow twined with seduction. Clarissa smirked; Lily talked to nearly everyone like she was flirting with them and didn't even know it.
"What did you say your name was again?" Clarissa asked neutrally; the first thing she said to the golden boy.
He smirked at her. She stifled the urge to scowl darkly at him. "I'm not going to say it again. Try to listen next time, short-arse."
"Do you know how incredibly obnoxious I find you?" she demanded. "And don't call me short-arse, you arrogant prat."
"Well, you are short and you do seem like quite an arse," he mused. From the tone of his voice, it sounded like he could've been contemplating what one of Picasso's works of art symbolized.
This time, she couldn't help herself and glared at him. "If anyone's an arse, it's you. Bloody prick."
"Clarissa!" hissed Lily snappishly. The boy sniggered rudely.
"What it is that you want, Lily?" questioned Clarissa, still locking her fierce glare upon the boy.
"I want you to stop insulting him!" Lily retorted angrily, her dark gaze darting between Clarissa and the smug golden boy. Clarissa mouthed, Shut up at him. His response was, Not a bloody chance, short-arse.
That arrogant prick! she fumed in her mind as the teacher went on with the dull, sleep-inducing lecture. She could feel Lily's insistent stare and the golden boy's smirk like he was lording his small victory over her head.
Prat. He's a prat.
Dawdling in the center of the road and completely careless to the fact that a car could come whizzing towards her at any minute and splatter her intestines onto the concrete in a sort of gory paint was Lily Morgenstern's short-arsed sister.
Clarissa. Isn't that her name?
Jace slowly approached the strange girl who was sketching a black shape on her bare arm with a fountain pen. He peered at it; a strong, angular shape with a diamond as the centerpiece. . .
"What's that?"
She jumped in shock. The pen fell gracefully from her fingertips to clatter unceremoniously amongst the concrete. "It's nothing." She raised a hand and quickly blurred the ink from defined, geometric lines into a smudged blob.
"Didn't look like nothing." He looked down at her, at the unusual kinetic energy that blazed to life like a furnace in her eyes, and suddenly he felt something in his chest take flight.
"It was," muttered Clarissa. After a small, comfortable lapse where they continued walking slowly down the street, she looked over to him. "What's your name?"
Jace let a glimmer of a grin to slip through his teeth. "I'm not going to repeat it again."
"Come on," she answered, exasperated. "You know mine. It's not my fault I was thinking of how much of a prat you are during History and didn't hear your name. Now tell me."
"Just obsessed with me already, aren't you?" He smirked at her.
"Oh, answer the bloody question."
"Language, Clarissa," he told her smoothly. "Wouldn't your sister murder you for that?"
"Lily's not here right now." Clarissa stared off into the distance and Jace got the impression that he hit a nerve. There was something about that subject that was dipping into dangerous territory.
What is up with the Morgensterns? Something's obviously not right. . .
He sighed in defeat. If it was anyone else, he wouldn't have bothered to tell them his name, to keep walking with them. . . but there was a strange quality that hung in the air around Clarissa like stars in the sky. It was familiar yet foreign all at once; watching galaxies that looked tiny until they were imploding and colliding inches away from his eyes. "I'm Jace."
The reaction was instantaneous. She froze, stopping in mid-step, her face paling rapidly like ancient stone cracking after being dealt a heavy blow. Her freckles stood out as if someone had painted them on with oddly vivid paint. "You're Jace?"
Jace's eyes met hers. The brilliant emerald green was seeping slowly into his field of view until he felt like it was everywhere, piercing him like miniscule swords. As they stared at each other, something seemed so familiar. He knew her, they had met before, except not. . .
Shut up, he commanded himself. You probably just had some weird dream and now you're first remembering it. Yeah, that must be it.
"I just said that," he replied, the beginnings of confusion starting to register. Why had she reacted in such a manner?
"I. . . I must go," stammered Clarissa unevenly when she reached the ornate, spike-tipped gates that lined the front of Morgenstern Manor. Without waiting for a response from Jace, she pulled out a key from her pocket and began the process of unlatching the heavy iron gates.
Jace shrugged to himself and turned away. If he had kept watching her, he would've seen her throw a surreptitious glance at his retreating form, toss the small key back into her pocket, place her hand over the enormous, complicated lock, and smile in satisfaction once she heard the barely audible click of it opening.
Clarissa leapt up the stairs two by two, not caring if her father was parked in his typical spot by the parlor's fireplace or heading down the corridor to see her disobeying the way he wanted her to walk, wanted her to stand. She sprinted past the third landing, clutching a stitch in her side, and fell through the doorway of her room, kicking the door firmly closed with a foot.
Jace. The prick is Jace. Her breathing slowed as she processed the thought. But. . . he can't be the real Jace. The Jace I know and that utter prat may as well be two different people. Yes, she decided, they're not the same person. There's another Jace out there. He might not even exist; perhaps he's not real, like everyone else would say if they knew. . .
Jace the Prat is not my Jace.
Jace peered around the corner of the hallway that went between the living room and the kitchen. To his right was a cabinet with photographs of Isabelle propped up on it. Isabelle had obviously been a very beautiful girl with shiny, dark hair and sparkling dark brown eyes. From what Alec told him about their deceased sister, she was also a very much larger-than-life person with a lot of attitude. In front of him was the hope that Alec was still in his room and not cavorting around in the kitchen. With a breath of relief, Jace looked to the kitchen and it was devoid of people, namely Alec.
Close one, he thought as relief washed throughout him.
He slipped out the back door, squeezing past a gap in the rotting fence that defined the boundaries of the backyard. To Jace, the fence may as well have not existed because he saw the weirwood as part of the place he lived too.
Jace? Clary's voice, uncertain and small, caused him to stop in his tracks, waiting for the continuation of her sentence while watching the weak sunlight filter lazily in through the shedding trees. For a heartbeat, everything was red and gold and orange— fire colors.
When she remained quiet, he prompted, Yes, Clary?
You don't think you're an arrogant and conceited wanker, do you?
He laughed out loud, startling a few stray birds that had perched on the limbs of a sparse tree. The squawked indignantly as Jace ignored them, focusing on Clary. Absolutely not. I'm a handsome and kind person. Clearly.
She relaxed. Oh. Good.
What brought that on?
I, um, just met this person today and he was quite obnoxious. . . I guess I thought I'd met him before. Anyways, I was wrong. I haven't met him prior to the first time I spoke to him, and I certainly didn't know him. Just another jerk at school. Not much to fret over.
Oh. Is that what you were so worried about?
Unfortunately, yes. I'm rather silly, aren't I?
You're not silly, you were just worried, Clary. It's a human thing. Happens to humans. You are human. All right?
Her voice came in softer than he expected and somewhat sad. All right, Jace.
Okay. Was that a fast update or what? But actually, I think that was the fastest update I've ever done. Too bad I'm stuck with all my other stories, though.
Quick clarification: Max Lightwood is also dead. I know it didn't say that at first in Chapter One, but I'm running over to fix that. So both Izzy and Max are dead :( You may be wondering my reasons for that, but I didn't just remove them because I wanted to. So yeah.
I know a lot of people are dying for Clary and Jace to meet (I think that'll either be Chapter Four or Chapter Five) and it's coming up soon! So hold your impatient horses, readers.
There's a lot of names/nicknames in this fic so I thought I'd put in a cheat sheet for anyone who can't keep track of names and things like that:
Valentine and Jocelyn Morgenstern have four children: Jonathan (the oldest at 17), Clarissa and Lilith (Clary and Lily) are twins and both 16 years old, and Andrew, who hasn't been mentioned yet, is the youngest at 12.
Maryse and Robert Lightwood have two children and had four: Alec is 18 years old and in his last year of schooling (12th grade), Jace has been adopted from Celine and Stephen Herondale who are both dead, but he goes by the name of Lightwood and is 16 years old, Isabelle died (murdered), and Max also died. His cause of death was ruled uncertain, but the officials in St. Arren's assume it was murder, probably the same killer that killed Isabelle.
Huge, gigantic thank-you to all reviewers, readers, favoriters, and followers! Is there anything you guys are interested in seeing like characters, events, ect? I take all suggestions into account, so please, don't be shy :) Anyways, y'all are bloody amazing!
I was sending out previews for this chapter, so those that can be PM'ed have already had their reviews answered.
Guest:Sorry! I try to update as quickly as possible. Thanks for reviewing though!
Guest:One of the reasons I have Jace still unknowing of the story of the Morgensterns is because I wanted him to meet them (Clary, specifically) without any of the prejudice the rest of the town has (which they have for admittedly rational reasons). I didn't want him to treat her badly just because she's a Morgenstern, so his mind is very open and accepting of other outcasts like the Morgensterns. Not to mention Clary is very different (Lily, Andrew, and Jonathan too) from the rest of her family, so I thought Jace shouldn't blame her for the crimes her older relatives committed. Thanks for reviewing, and sorry I went off into such a long tangent there :)