Author's note:

This chapter is still leading up to the events. I will add some action in soon, though. That much I promise. I've just been carefully introducing the characters and the relationships they have with the people around them, leaking it all in, bit by bit. This chapter is really a slow one, not there for much purpose, aside from adding Simon to the mix.

Simon picked up on the third ring.

"Hello?" he asked, groggy and dazed from only just waking up.

"Simon?"

Simon sat up, tiredness forgotten. "Izzy, yeah, it's me," he babbled, "what's up? How'd that demon hunting go last night?"

"Ask later," Izzy answered shortly. "Look, can I meet you at Taki's in an hour?"

"Of course," Simon answered eagerly. "What will we be doing there, exactly?"

"Emergency meeting," the teenage Nephilim replied curtly, and hung up.

Simon groaned. When Izzy usually said Meet me at Taki's, it meant a nice hour of chatting pleasantly, and then heading off to some destination. It was a great meeting point, sometimes a rendezvous, but when his girlfriend asked him to meet him there, it was the location of an impromptu date. Unfortunately, not this time.

He looked at his alarm clock. It read 11:51 am in bright blocky letters, Simon's sleep-in day wake-up time. Fortunately for him, Ellen hadn't going to scold him for that...yet. She disliked him going to bed late, finally pressuring him to study for at least an hour every day, to cut ties to the "bad influences" that his friends were. Not that he actually went to school anymore, but he kept up the appearance that he was a mundane after being a Daylighter, not one of the Ascending, particularly for his family. They didn't have to know otherwise, not yet.

Simon trudged into his kitchen in a sleepy sludge, discovering that his mother had already left. He yawned. It's too early, his common sense screamed at him, get back to bed and sleep a little more, come on, you know you want to.

He shook his head. I'm meeting Izzy at Taki's in an hour, he told that voice firmly, forcing it to shut down.

Clary giggled. "That was fun."

Jace smiled down at her as the two of them clambered out. "No more than usual though, was it?"

"Remind me," Clary answered, "what standard should I have been aiming for?"

He tossed his damp hair back, teeth flashing briefly. "Let's get changed."

"Where's your stele?"

"Here," he said, passing it to her.

Clary took it and shivered her way to the lockers, Jace's (smooth-they hadn't been in long) hand on her shoulder warming her, a little. She found their locker and quickly cancelled out the Locking rune, then keyed in their code. The door opened, exposing the two plastic bags with their clothes, their two separate toiletry bags, their shoes at the bottom and the two towels that they'd hung on the hooks on the door. Those two towels were immediately put to their uses and wrapped around Clary and Jace's drenched bodies.

"We should shower, too?" Clary suggested.

Jace kissed her, briefly. "I'll meet you back here in half an hour, if you like."

"Isabelle?"

Isabelle looked up from brushing her hair. "Come in," she called, recognising her mother's voice.

Maryse entered her daughter's lair, where clothes clashed with weaponry, where shades collided to create colours too vivid to look at for long. Isabelle turned to Maryse, in black leggings and singlet. Maryse closed the door behind her and sat on the bed. "You haven't eaten anything yet," she said, in motherly fashion. "I made breakfast. Do you want to join me?"

Isabelle shrugged. "I was planning to eat at Taki's, but why not?"

"That boy," Maryse sighed, shaking her head. "He isn't your usual type, although I am glad about that-"

"Because he's a Shadowhunter soon, you mean."

"He was a Downworlder, remember. A vampire. But a Daylighter also, I might add-and he assisted the Clave on many occasions. Now, he is the mundane you met, with a few memories, born of his subconscious. But yes, he will be Nephilim."

"That's all you care about? About what he is? What about who he is?"

"I don't know who he is, aside from being Simon Lewis, a keen, if somewhat sarcastic, Ascending mundane. Now, what he is, I know."

"He's Simon," Isabelle answered. "He sees me."

"I can see that," Maryse replied. "The same way I can see that he looks at you the way Robert once looked at me." She looked at the unusually chaotic mess on the floor and smiled. "Are you having wardrobe issues?"

"A bit," Isabelle admitted. "I don't know if I should just go wearing something casual, and if he'd be disappointed. But I don't want to overdo it and look like I'm trying to hard."

Maryse laughed a little, amused at the dilemma. "Let's see," she mused, "how about this?"

She tossed an aggressively orange shirt in Isabelle's direction. Isabelle examined it. It had a V-cut to it, so she would have to wear the singlet underneath, and the sleeves were frilly. She shrugged and watched her mother filch out some dark blue jeans and grab two red stud earrings from her jewellery collection. "Is that good enough?"

Isabelle nodded, pleased.

"Join me when you're ready," Maryse ordered her daughter, and walked cautiously out of Isabelle's bedroom.