It was around 12:30 when Clary and Isabelle came through the door. The party had ended around 12, and everyone was gone, except Jace, Simon, Magnus, and Alec. Jace gasped at the sight of them, and rushed to help, the others at his heels.

They were both dressed in clubbing clothes, Clary in a strapless, backless, skintight green dress that reached the tops of her thighs, and Isabelle in a short, skin-tight white dress and black thigh-high socks, but Clary was limping, her left leg covered in blood with a large black… stinger/claw-like thing sticking out the top of her thigh. There was a large cut on her stomach, that was gushing blood, and she had several large cuts covering the expanse of her body. There was a laceration cut on her hairline, that made blood pour down the right side of her face. Isabelle, on the other hand was unharmed other than a cut on her right shoulder. Isabelle was holding the arm Clary had wrapped around the Isabelle's neck, and had her other arm around Clary's waist.

Clary collapsed, falling onto her right side,before rolling onto her back, her left leg raised slightly, so it wouldn't hit the ground. Isabelle knelt by her leg, while Sebastian and Jonathan knelt by her head, looking her over.

"What the hell happened? Are you alright?"

Jace was about to make a somewhat witty, but mostly concerned remark about how she looked like a million bucks, when she surprised everyone by laughing. "Are you… kidding… that was… the most… fun… I've had in… forever."

She continued to laugh, pausing to groan a few times, before she gasped, her back arching up off the floor, before slowly going back, her eyes fluttering closed.

Sebastian shook her slightly, but when nothing happened, Jonathan slapped her cheeks lightly, saying her name loudly. She groaned. "Not so hard, Jon!"

He moved back an inch. "Sorry. Our telepathy wasn't working so I had to make sure you were still alive."

Huh?

"Sorry… I can't keep it up… when my energy is so… low. It's almost impossible for me to… be able to concentrate on fighting… the poison in my blood… keep the glamour around us… and make a portal… all the while keeping up… the telepathy. My mind can't focus… on projecting so many things at… once. I should've… explained that earlier."

Sebastian shook his head. "Who cares about that right now. We need to heal you."

They turned towards her leg to see several fading iratzes, which weren't working. Alec shook his head. "I've been trying the whole time you guys were talking. Nothing's working."

Magnus pushed his way through kneeling by her torso, and laying a hand on her chest and forehead. "The poison is spreading at an irregularly fast rate. Too fast. It'll reach her heart in a matter of minutes."

He flicked his finger, and the stinger/ claw yanked itself from her leg, and flew across the room, and into the trash can. Jace braced himself for the scream of pain, but it never came, replaced with a loud groan, and the gritting of teeth. He was surprised. He was sure she would have screamed, especially with the amount of pain she must have been feeling. He looked at her carefully, noting the tears in her eyes that were threatening to spill, and the way she seemed to be putting all of her energy into not letting them. She was trying to be strong, he realized. At the moment she was allowed to be at her most vulnerable, she was trying to be strong. Most likely for her brothers, but it was extraordinary nonetheless.

He watched as Magnus pushed Sebastian and Jonathan back gently, moving to her head. He turned back towards them for a moment. "I have to extract the poison. I understand if you won't leave, but you need to stay back."

They moved back to the stairs, within watching distance, but safe from harm. Magnus sighed, before his hands started to glow blue. He raised them over the crown of her head, moving slowly. When he reached her ribs, Clary's back arched off the floor as far as it could go, her head thrown back, and her eyes snapping open, her mouth open as she gasped for air. She snapped her mouth shut, letting out a loud closed-mouth scream, opening her mouth occasionally to catch her breath, letting out a moan. When he passed over her leg, she fell back against the floor, her upper body writhing. Her legs seemed to be paralyzed, starting from where he kept his hand over her leg. He stayed there for about 4 minutes as she continued writhing, uncontrollably.

Suddenly, he swiped his hand up her body, and she stilled for a moment, before lurching to the side, retching up black blood for almost two minutes straight, before she stopped, coughing and sputtering. She glanced at the blood that now made a large puddle in front of her. It bubbled and sizzled, tendrils of smoke rising into the air above it. She snapped her fingers and it was gone, the marble under it undamaged. She collapsed again, her head hitting the marble floors with a loud SMACK! They rushed forward as Magnus sat down slowly, his face covered in a thin layer of sweat, his eyelids drooping.

ALec went to Magnus, lending him some of his strength, as the others went to Clary, who was now unconscious. Jon lifted her into his arms, as the others crowded around. All of her wounds were still there, but she was sleeping peacefully, which meant that her body was free of poison.

Magnus stood up, some of his energy returned. "The wounds won't heal with an iratze. She'll have to heal the mundane way."

He waved his hand, and bandages appeared wrapped around her forehead, arms, thigh, and waist. Jonathan and Sebastian walked up the stairs, Isabelle trailing behind them.

Everyone else sat down in the living room, in a daze. Jace was trying to decide whether this was all just a dream, or if that really had just happened. He was ripped from his reverie when they came back down the steps, Isabelle ahead of them.

She nodded at them. "She's fine. She probably won't wake up until around 6 p.m tomorrow though.''

Alec stood up. "That's good and all, but do you mind telling us exactly what the hell happened?"

Sebastian and Jonathan nodded, sitting in their usual place, as Isabelle leaned against the foyer framing, her white dress stained by a big blotch of blood on her side where Clary had been leaning against her.

She sighed, running a hand through her tousled, midnight black hair. "We went to Pandemonium to meet a friend of Clary's who was stopping through. We hung out with him for about 2 hours, and after he left, Clary and I hung out by ourselves, dancing and drinking. But suddenly around midnight, all the mundanes and downworlders left, as if under a spell or something. Clary and I prepared, just in case this was a trap or something, and before we know it, a whole horde of demons attacks. There were so many. Maybe around 40. Clary and I were standing back to back, before she pushed me into the supply closet and locked the door. Unfortunately for me, there were two in there. After I had killed them, I banged on the door, screamed, and even used a rune, but nothing was working. I couldn't hear anything, but when the door did finally open, Clary fell into me, exactly like she was when we walked through the door. See made a portal with her stele, and we ended up here. I have no idea what happened. Only that it was bad enough that she felt the need to shove me into a closet."

Sebastian and Jonathan looked at each other for a moment, but Jace didn't fail to miss it. Jace stood up. "Is it just me, or does anyone else want to know how Clary made that blood disappear, or how she made a portal with a stele…?"

Jon sighed, raking a hand through his tousled white hair. "We've always tried to keep Clary a secret. When my parents hid her from the outside world when we were little, we were confused. Then when we got older we started noticing that Clary was different. When she was only 3, she took a stele and drew runes all over her body. We were six at the time, and had just gotten our first rune, so we were so jealous, but our mother was horrified. We didn't realize the way our father watched her until it was too late. As she grew, her powers did too. This gold aura surrounded her body for almost 6 years. When she got emotional… the ground would shake, or glass would shatter. Once, when the three of us were fighting out in the backyard, the ground around her burst into flames. Trees nearby folded into themselves, and animals scattered. But Clary… her eyes were literally glowing, and her hair was on fire. Seb and I had been making fun of her. Over the years we'd grown to resent her because of the things she could do that we couldn't. We ignored her, picked at her, threw things at her, shoved her around. We stepped over the line that day. Clary was outside taking care of a rabbit she had saved that had a broken leg. We killed it…. And Clary went into a fury. She almost stabbed Seb, but stopped herself at the last minute. Then, everything stopped. She looked down at the rabbit, and burst into tears, then ran off. We'd never felt more guilty. We apologized that night for everything, and things went back to normal. She grew more and more powerful every day. When she was eight, she became telekinetic. She could read our minds, and control things with her own. The next year, she made a rune that gave us a small portion of her power. We became as fast and strong as she was, and we were able to read each others minds, but nobody else's.

But when she turned 13… that was the worst year of our lives. Valentine, our father, became bloodthirsty. He slaughtered downworlders in cold blood, or tortured them for fun. He started to use Clary. He would pretend he was in danger sa she would be forced to use her powers to kill. Then one day, Clary refused. We had gone on a family hunt, and he had taken down an entire pack of rogue werewolves, without killing them. We thought he was finally coming to his senses and having mercy on them, but then he turned to Clary and told her to finish them off. She refused, and they got into this really bad argument. The building crumbled around us, as Clary's temper flared brighter than ever before. Valentine backed off for now, and we left, but we didn't know what he was planning.''

Sebastian continued for him."That night, when all of us were asleep, he took her. Clary's abilities were way beyond his at the time, so while she was asleep, her put an immobilizing rune on her so she couldn't move or shout, and they vanished. They were gone for almost a year and half, and the Clave had declared her dead, but we still searched for her. Every day, all day. We almost gave up hope, until Clary burst through a portal in our front yard, one morning. … She looked awful. She was so thin, and her skin was almost yellow. She had slash marks all over her skin… we didn't really have time to say anything to her, before Valentine came through behind her. They fought, and we couldn't do anything. Clary had put some sort of barrier between them and us, and we couldn't get through. … He tried to kill her. I remember her falling, and him raising him leaning to down to whisper something in her ear, his sword at her throat. He brought his hand up, and I turned away. I couldn't watch. When i turned back, Valentine was looking at the dagger that was lodged in his rib cage like he couldn't believe she had actually stabbed him. He died a few minutes later, and she stood up, saying the mantra when a shadowhunter dies. She looked at us, and collapsed.

She didn't wake up for almost a week and half. While she was out, we had buried Valentine, and cleared everything with the Clave, but we had to tell them about her. The Silent Brothers stayed at our house for the entire week. EVen though Clary was unconscious and incredibly weak, her abilities had never been stronger. When she had a nightmare, it was like there was no gravity in the room. When her face scrunched or she twitched, something would shatter or g flying out the room or out the window. She sneezed once, and one of the Silent Brothers clothes burst into flames.

But all of that was nothing compared to when she woke up. As soon as her eyes opened, all of the windows shattered, and the electricity started flickering. She looked over at us, and the glass that was falling just froze, mid-air. She started crying, and the whole room started to shake. Things got so out of control that the Silent Brothers had to knock her out. Over the next few weeks she stayed in bed, recovering, but being Clary she had to fight us. She wanted to train, and go out, and finally after what seemed like she would never give up, we gave in. She started training again, and she spent days on end with the silent brothers trying to learn to control her powers. And her training had improved so much, that we could hardly be of any help to her. She practically used us as punching bags. She was on a whole nother level than any shadowhunter ever. And after about a year, she learned to control her powers. The only time she really lets them slip is when she's fighting, or in danger, or dying, or if she's just not paying attention. Which is a lot."

Jon sighed. "And now you know everything. Any questions?"

They sat there for a bit in silence, before Isabelle broke it. "What happened to her while she was gone? When she got kidnapped?"

Jons eyes got a bit darker. "We arent sure. She wouldn't tell us. She still refuses to tell anyone. We arent even sure if she really remembers."

"Did you ask her?"

'' Of course. But Clary's the type of person who'll say they're fine even though it's obvious they aren't. She only said that we didn't need to know."

They sat there for a few minutes in silence, before Jon sighed again. "Let's get some sleep. We can talk more about this in the morning."

He and Sebastian headed up the stairs side-by-side without another word. They watched as they went into Clary's room and shut the door behind them.

Alec stood up. "He's right. We should get some sleep. We can talk more tomorrow."

They all followed eventually, going to their usual rooms. When his door shut tightly behind him, Jace plopped down on his bed. He stared up at the ceiling in deep thought. What was this girl doing to him? He didn't love girls. He used them, then threw them away. If they got hurt it was their own fault. They knew who Jace was and how he played his game. They welcomed it. But Clary… she was unlike any girl he had ever been with. She was beautiful, and fiery. As fiery as that bright red hair of hers. She was stubborn and frustrating, and so intriguing. He couldn't figure out why his alms started to sweat slightly, or why his heart raced when he thought of her. It was crazy. He'd only known her for a day. He shut his eyes, and fell asleep with the image of Clary glued to the back of his eyelids.