*Disclaimer: Characters belng to Cassandra Clare. Newsflash: I'm not her. Also, I got the thunderstorm idea from Robin Wasserman's Skinned.
Chapter 2
The sound of a piano filled the room. Jace tried to immerse himself in the music but he couldn't. This place just brought up too much speculation. He was in the Morgenstern Manor, located in the countryside of Idris. While he had been brought up in the Wayland Manor, he had a replica, a shadow, a doppelganger of himself living in this very house. The thought sent his mind down a neverending spiral of who he was. Jonathon truly believed himself to be working towards the greater good, yet he had been killed. Jace himself, had been the killer. Did that make him any better of a person? Killing a demon was one thing, but killing a human, even one with demon blood was still a sin, wasn't it? Thou shalt not kill, was written in the Bible. But he had killed. Taking up arms against a felow Nephilim was worse than anything else. Did that mean he should be punished? And worse yet, he had killed his own parabatai. Again, it was the same argument Valentine had used, the greater good. Valentine. The name still sent shudders through his body. And Clary. Hurting her hurt himself the most. But it was necessary, Jace reminded himself.
Suddenly, a loud crash caught his attention. It was accompanied by a noise that sounded like Church when he had accidentally been thrown out of the training room into the storm outside. Whirling around, Jace had grabbed and named his seraph blades, Nakir and Gabriel, before the heavy, maghony book shelf hit the floor. It was connected to the rest of the shelves by a rope of some sort that Jace could not see. Slamming into the floor like dominoes, Jace couldn't help but be reminded of the time Clary and he had went to Wayland Manor. At the base of the wall, there was a hole, just enough room to fit a large man like Valentine through. Jace gazed at it warily, thinking abouth what he and Clary had found last time there was an opening in a wall. Enough with the sentimentality, he snarled at himself silently. With that thought, he dropped through the hole.
The darkness and fall felt like it would never end. Finally, Jace hit the bottom of the cellar. Raising his witchlight, he looked around and found himself in an labyrinth of tunnels. The darkness was overwhelming. Never having been afraid of the dark, he found his stifling fear eerie. The last time he had experienced this sensation was on Valentine's ship, on the East River. That was because of Agramon. Arbitrarily, he chose a tunnel and started a trek that only God knew how long would last.
Eventually, after what felt like hours, Jace saw a speck of light in the distance. Swallowing against his parched throat, he moved his aching feet forwards. Step by step, he neared the light that was steadily growing larger. Finally, Jace emerged from the tunnel. It was night, the moon high in the sky. He had left when it was only beginning to set, around five o' clock. Why was the Morgenstern manor connected to here? Did the other tunnels lead to other manor houses? Were all of the properties connected, was it something Valentine had done, or was it the Circle members? Observing his surroundings, he saw a stele and a note. A strange sense of foreboding washed over him, as quickly as the tide of a tsunami would. Picking it up and turning it over in his hands, Jace felt that ghostly imprint of the owner. It was his own. The note was his, too. Despite everything, I can't bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more than I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I can't choose about the one, at least I can choose about the other. It was his note to Clary. How had it gotten here?
Jace sat down in the rubble of the house he had been raised in, where he had seen his "father's" death, where he had received his first mark. He stared up at the stars, marking their positions. He wandered around, finding his first seraph blade, his first stele, and his first chakhram. Finally, he found the skull of a falcon. Kneeling down, he gingerly picked it up. His mouth twisted as he fought to hold back the tears that hadn't escaped in ten years. Meandering some more, to not think about the conclusion he had already reached, Jace found a thick manuscript. It was lettered with tidy writing and drawn with immaculate and meticulous precision. Flipping through it, he saw names; Jocelyn Morgenstern, Jonathon Christopher Morgenstern, Celine Herondale, Valentine Morgenstern. The notes beneath each one were incredibly detailed, to the perfection of a scientist. Some of the Downworlder pages included grotesque drawings, of werewolves writhing, vampires with their skin peeled off, fey with iron burns everywhere. He almost gagged at the detail, but Jace knew that there was no other choice. Forcing thoughts of how he had to go see Clary from his mind and his second thoughts about betraying his family, he was suprised at how quickly they left, almost of their own volition. He settled down, picking up a falcon feather as a bookmark, and read the notes, not stopping until the sun rose again. Truth be told, he had finished a while ago, contemplating whether or not he should read the next chapter, entitled Jonathon Herondale.
Good? Bad? Horrid? Pleas review, I don't care if they say this story is terrible, as long as it says why. I'm not going to update until Christmas as a present to anyone who wanted this story continued and reviewed unless I get a total of ten reviews. So, that's six about this chapter.