"You always, I mean always have blood on you," Jace pointed out as soon as we were out of the library.

I waved off his concern. "It's not mine."

"Thank the Angel."

I paused and stared up at him. He was taller than me but not extraordinarily so. "Do you really mean that?"

"Huh?" His gold eyes gave me a searching look. I wasn't entirely certain that he'd heard my question and therefore wasn't confused on purpose just to annoy me.

"Never mind." What I needed was a shower, not a deep conversation with Jace – especially after how my day had gone so far. It was impossible to forget the events of just that morning.

He nodded, surprisingly letting the matter drop and we continued to walk on in silence. The cut on his lip was now a dark line of dried blood. Bruises were gaining coloration over his skin and he looked frankly terrible; not to mention he looked as though he hadn't slept in days.

"That man – at the bar – he had a knife," I said, remembering at random. "He didn't cut you, did he?"

Jace looked down at himself. "I don't think so. Don't worry about it."

"Easier said than done," I murmured, turning to the door of my room. I opened the door to go in without another word before I changed my mind and turned back to him. He was frozen there, in the hall looking unlike himself. "Get some rest. You need it."

A weak smile pulled at his mouth. "I must look bad if you're telling me to rest."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked in a failed attempt at anger.

"Go shower and sleep."

I made a face at him and stepped back into my room. It was only once I was in my bathroom, getting into the shower that I realized I was still smiling. Barely. But still.


I didn't bother to check the time, I didn't want to know. My body told me that it was late and time to sleep once I had finished cleaning up and Peeta's absence from my room told me he'd gone to find a quiet corner to sleep in. He must've mewed by the door until someone let him out.

The cool temperature of my room encouraged me to hurry to bed but I had something to take care of first.

The first part of my adventure was to scour my own room. Previously, I had discovered that the decorative top drawer in my nightstand was actually hollow, just without a functional way to access it which was perfect for hiding one of the books. By carefully removing the back of the cabinet, I was able to expose a random, useless space and I'd stashed City of Ashes in the space before replacing the backing. I checked that first, it was still stowed away safely.

Part the second of my adventure led me to the first room I'd stayed in at the Institute. It was one of many nondescript guest rooms, the only difference was that this one had a conveniently loose floorboard under which I'd placed City of Bones. As I checked to make sure the book was still there, I couldn't help but wonder if Peliel had something to do with these opportune hiding spots.

The third spot was harder to get to, especially unnoticed. The greenhouse was a long journey from the old guest room I had once occupied but fortunately, given the time of night, no one else was out and about. Church greeted me at the foot of the greenhouse steps.

"What are you up to, huh?" I asked him, stooping to scratch his ears. "Are you going up to the greenhouse with me?"

The cat mrowed at me before heading off down the hall, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.

"I'll take that as a no…" So I climbed the steps by myself and shouldered open the doors to the greenhouse, hoping Maryse didn't have Hodge's habit of wandering through the flowers at night.

The glow from the city gave me enough illumination to find the plant I was looking for. It was nothing spectacular, just a small, leafy shrub growing in a far corner of the greenhouse in a wide and shallow pot. The third book was wrapped carefully in a waterproof bag and buried in the soil. I didn't actually need to dig the book up to see that the moss was thankfully undisturbed.

Relieved, I allowed myself to sink down onto the floor and just simply breathe. The fresh clean scent of plant life washed over me. It made me think of home. This city was foreign to me, it wasn't my home. Everything was unknown to me here. What did I even mean with the word, "home?" Hadn't I lived in New York my entire life? Wasn't New York my home? And what were those books even about? Why was I so damned determined to hide them?

My thoughts scared me. If I didn't know the answers to these questions – and I felt that at some point I had known – then did I even know who I was anymore?

The door to my room was ajar when I returned. I wasn't particularly bothered by it, I wasn't sure whether I'd closed it or not. I'd thought I had but maybe I was wrong.

I wasn't wrong.

Jace was there, on my bed as he was wont to be except there was one unusual change; he was asleep – sprawled out on top of my blankets and shivering in his choice of pajama pants with no shirt.

I'd rarely had a chance to see Jace asleep. He looked so much more vulnerable and… volatile. His expression changed with his dream, now blank, now scowling furiously, now almost happy. I could see that he was cold but I didn't want to wake him. Even asleep the poor boy looked tired. Since he was sleeping on his back and rudely using most of the pillow and he looked so uncomfortably cold and I was so hopelessly tired, I did the only reasonable thing I could've in that situation. I closed the door behind me, trusting my memory to guide me through the dark and to the bed, and laid down with my head on his chest, aligning my body with his, and fell asleep to the even tempo of his heart.


"Jaci." He didn't speak loudly, but his voice penetrated the darkness and I woke up immediately.

In response, I kissed the nearest bit of him I could reach which happened to be his collar bone.

Jace hugged me tightly. "You're freezing."

I was a little cold, but not terribly. After all, I was stealing some of his body heat. But now that he'd brought it to my attention, I realized I was a little chilly. "Keep me warm," I mumbled into his neck.

His voice was low and rough when he answered. "I'm trying but your room is apparently situated within the Arctic Circle."

"Blankets," I muttered, trying to smush myself closer to him somehow. I felt, rather than heard his low chuckle.

"You've managed to kick them off the bed."

Which meant he expected me to pick them up. With a groan, I rolled off of his chest – immediately missing his warmth – and felt about blindly until I found the comforter I had somehow managed to maneuver out from underneath two sleeping teenagers and onto the floor. Under any other circumstance, I would've been impressed with my skills. Under the present circumstance, I was annoyed that the blankets were so far away and had made me move.

Irritably, I threw the blanket over us and curled up on my side in an attempt to go back to sleep.

"Jaci," came that irresistible low voice. "Come back, I miss you."

I turned so I was facing Jace. I could just barely make out the features of his face in the darkness. "I'm right here."

"But you were right here," he said, pointing to his chest. "Be there again."

"Demanding much, Jonathan?" I asked with a smile.

"Yes," he answered. "I'm demanding everything that matters to me that's within my reach."

My face grew hot and no words would come out of my mouth. After a few moments, the darkness made me brave and I rested my head back on his chest. I could hear his heart hammering as quickly as mine and I wrapped my arms around his neck feeling suddenly extremely emotional.

"Do you," I began but hesitated, staring up at the ceiling I couldn't distinguish in the darkness.

"Yes, Jaci?"

"Do you think it's… possible to, I don't know, do you…" I took a deep breath. "What are your thoughts on-" I choked back my question. Of course I already knew his answer. To love is to destroy.

He rested his cheek against the top of my head.

"I'm not a falcon," I said finally. "He can't take me away from you."

"I know," Jace whispered. "I won't let him."

"Jace?"

"Yes, Jaci?"

"Do you think it's possible to…" I didn't even know how to form my own question.

He seemed to understand and didn't try to press it.

"The Inquisitor," he began after a lengthy silence, "are you worried?"

"Should I be?" I asked, knowing very well that I was.

"No," Jace answered confidently. "You haven't done anything wrong. She can't hold you or detain you or even accuse you of anything. Except maybe being an orphan but you're not exactly the first Shadowhunter orphan…"

I found his cheek and kissed it. Sometimes, it felt like Jace was more of an orphan than I was. I had Jocelyn and Luke and – when she felt like it – Clary even though none of them, as it turned out, were my real family members. I may as well claim Simon as my brother. I considered the possibility of life if Simon actually was my flesh and blood.

"What if she thinks like Maryse?" I asked quietly.

Jace hesitated before he responded. "She won't."

"Don't lie to me to make me feel better."

He lazily traced a design on my back. "She won't think like Maryse, Jaci. I promise."

"What you mean is she'll be worse, right?"

"Sometimes you understand what I mean too well."

Understand Jace? Was that even possible? Whenever he thought I knew what he meant, I'd really just made an unbelievably brilliant guess.

"It's not fair," he said simply.

I took a moment to try and figure out what he referred to before giving up and asking.

"It's not fair how well you understand me." His arms tightened around my waist. "You're a complete mystery to me."

"I'm not that complicated," I said simply. "I'm pretty straightforward, actually."

"Enlighten me."

"Well," I began and paused to yawn, "I have childhood issues with faeries. My mom has always preferred Clary over me and I've been awfully accepting of that. Let's see, what else… I've never dated anyone because I can't stand boys my age-"

"Ouch," Jace interjected. I could hear the smile in his voice.

"You- you're different."

"Thanks?"

"It's a good thing. You're more mature than anyone else I've ever met. I don't know, we have a lot in common. And a lot of differences. And technically I've still never dated anyone. I don't know, there's really not that much to know about me. I have standards for myself and I never live up to them. I'm always afraid I'm going to mess up. Well, I do mess up, a lot."

"No you don't," Jace said boldly. "You're an exceptional Shadowhunter, especially for the amount of training you've had. And there's something else I'd like to address…"

I waited patiently. Whatever he wanted to talk about was important. His heart was pounding and I was starting to get nervous.

"We always manage to avoid… we always avoid talking- dammit. We've never really talked about us."

I stared wide-eyed at the wall. Jace's words rang in my ears and echoed in my mind. What was he saying? "Do you mean about what we… well, what we are?"

He made a strange grunting-humming noise that I took to mean yes.

I closed my eyes and changed my view from dark shades of muted colors to utter blackness. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to be your girlfriend. If you're okay with that?"

He never told me if he was or wasn't okay with it. His lips were too busy being pressed against mine.


There once was a small family – a mother and her two young daughters – that lived in a small apartment. There was nothing particularly special about the apartment; there were thousands like it in the city. The faeries knew that. They knew that there was nothing magical about the room where the two little girls slept. The magic, the call of the place was the little girls themselves.

The girl with the red hair was only a four years old and she did not see the faeries. Their pretty, sparkling wings did not catch her eye. When she found one of them, she quickly lost interest and returned to her mother. Yes, the little girl was magical, but only inside. She was magical so far inside that even the faeries could not reach it which was odd. Everything else about the little girl was normal-magical. Like all the other Nephilim children, her blood sang of angels and men.

The other little girl was special indeed. She saw the faeries. She tried to talk to them in the park when they would dance for her, but the faeries did not want to talk. They wanted this special girl to dance with them. She was so different from the others and they wanted her. They wanted this pretty trophy for themselves. Yes, this one, they said, this one they would catch. This one they would keep. She would be their pet.

So the faeries set out at night to fetch the little girl, their pet. They had already named her amongst themselves, she was their diamond, Kosmima. They went to her window and crept inside to fetch their magic pet but she did not want to go with them, out into the night. The faeries did not like that. They would have to train their pet and make her theirs.

So they took her outside and the moon watched silently as they led her to the park. Others of their kind danced everywhere for it was the night of the full moon. The dancing stopped when they all saw the little girl with the long brown hair.

She stared at them all with big hazel eyes, she was frightened. She wanted to be back home with her mother and her little sister, she wanted to be safe.

The faeries stared at her. They all could feel it, the pull of this magic child and soon they began the dance again, drawing her into their clutches. They danced and they danced while the moon watched but soon the little girl tried to leave.

The faeries could not have such an unruly pet. She had to be disciplined and taught how to behave. So they led her to the edge of the pool and pushed her in. If she could not behave, they would destroy the spirit that drove the husk they wished to possess. They kept her under the water but she would not stop fighting. The magic in her was much stronger than they had guessed. The faeries were more determined to hold her under.

It was impossible. The little girl would not be broken. She had won her freedom from them all and so was led back to her small family in the small apartment. There, the faeries – disguised as shadows – left her forever with a vow to leave her be, unless she ever came to them willingly.


I woke up in a cold sweat, kicking desperately at the darkness rushing in, crushing me. There was no way to escape it. I was trapped and this was how I would die.

"Jaci!" Jace shouted.

I was so confused, why was Jace here? Where were we that we were both being crushed? What was even happening?

"Jaci?" he said again, sounding much more concerned and less harsh. That's when I realized I was crying and hyperventilating. "It's all right," he murmured, pulling me close to him. "I've got you."

My eyes were finally focusing and taking in my surroundings. I wasn't suffocating or drowning, I was safe in my room in the Institute with Jace.

"I can't do it," I croaked in a horse whisper. "I can't go into that damn city."

He didn't respond but pulled himself up into a sitting position with me on his lap. I rested my head on his shoulder and my arms wrapped around him as though this were the most natural thing in the world. And like that, I cried. I cried pointless, desperate tears and Jace held me, silent through it all.

"I can't," I repeated once my breathing was normal.

"Shh." His arms around me tightened.

"I can't, I can't, I can't."

"Stop that," he commanded, turning my face to his. I stared into his searching golden eyes – the color just visible in the pre-dawn light – and wondered what he thought of me. Here was the Shadowhunter boy who refused to cry, to show true emotion confronted with me, the useless emotional wreck. Gently, he wiped the tears off my cheeks with his thumb. "You can, Jaci. I know you can. You've survived so many things that should've killed you. You can, I know that."

"No, you don't understand," I pleaded. "I can't."

"You can," he said sternly. "And you will."

We looked at each other for a few moments. I felt like this was a test and I still didn't know if I could catch us.

"Hey," he said gently with a smirk, "no one said you'd be alone."

I let out the breath I hadn't even known I'd been holding.


Alec was the one who came to get us and inform us of the Inquisitor's presence in the library. He appeared to be feeling quite fashionable and had a scarf wrapped around his neck. I gave him a suspicious look as I shoved Jace out into the hallway. Apparently Alec had been busy yesterday…

Now alone, I quickly ran a brush through my hair and got myself ready in dark blue jeans and a long sleeved, nondescript shirt. I didn't really know anything about this Inquisitor and I had no intentions of giving her a bad impression.

She's just a person, I told myself. A person who can have my life destroyed, but still just a person.

Jace got to the library moments before I did. He was standing facing a woman clad entirely in grey with silvery hair and pale skin who looked as though she had recently been pressed and starched particularly for this confrontation with a couple of rumpled teenagers.

"You are the boy?" the woman – the Inquisitor – asked.

"Well," the words spilled from my mouth without thought, "he's obviously not the girl."

Frosty eyes turned on me and attempted to bore holes in my ignorant mind. She was one hell of a terrifying person.

"Then you must be the girl, Valentine's little… pet."

Bristling, I advanced into the library, towards her. "I am not Valentine's pet!"

"Jaelyn," Maryse apparently was just behind me in the race of arriving in the library. "That is enough. Yes, Inquisitor. This is Jonathan Morgenstern and Jaelyn…" she looked to me for help.

"Catori," I snapped.

The Inquisitor's eyes flashed to me and then to Jace, measuring us both. "Look at me," she commanded in a voice that was used to being obeyed. In an instant she had one hand under my chin and the other under Jace's, digging into his skin. "You will call me Inquisitor, you will not call me anything else. Do you understand?"

Jace glared at her.

"What else are we supposed to call you?" I asked in a scathing tone. "It's not like we know you by any other name."

"Silence, Jaelyn Morgenstern."

I tried to wrench my face from her grasped but only succeeded in making her draw blood with her nails. "My name is Jaelyn Catori."

Her grip tightened. "You are no Catori, you are Jaelyn Morgenstern. To claim a name of your own fabrication makes you a liar. Just like your father."

"Her father isn't Valentine," Jace stated, appearing extremely calm and staying levelheaded, unlike myself.

"And you insist on spreading his lies," the Inquisitor said with contempt. Her thin lipped mouth turned up into an unpleasant smile. Two grooves ran from the corners of her lips to her chin, making her appear for all the world to be a marionette doll. That was all she was, just a cruel, powerful puppet of the Clave. "Lucifer was rewarded for his rebellion when God cast him into the pits of hell. If either of you defy my authority, I can promise that you will envy him his fate."

I broke away from her hold and felt the air stinging the place where she had scratched me. She was just a person, only a puppet and I was pissed off. "Because a teenager mouthing off is comparable to Lucifer."

The Inquisitor took a step toward me with blazing eyes.

"Imogen-," Maryse cut in. "Inquisitor Herondale, they've agreed to a trial by the Sword. You can find out whether they're telling the truth."

"About their father? Yes, I know I can." Maryse then became a victim of the icy unnatural glare. "You know, Maryse, the Clave is not pleased with you. You and Robert are the guardians of the Institute. Your record has been relatively clean; however, we have sometimes wondered if you'd actually rescinded your allegiance to Valentine. To defend his children now would not bode well for you."

"I'm not his child," I cut in angrily. I could see Jace out of the corner of my eye attempting to stop me.

The blue gaze was back on me. The Inquisitor moved towards me like a lioness sizing up her prey. "One does not have to be blood to be family."

She made no sense, this crazy puppet woman. This newest point contradicted herself terribly. "Then why are you so concerned over us? The Lightwoods are Jace's family just like the Frays are mine!"

The lioness moves in as though for the kill, but waits, toying with her food – a gazelle. Bad manners. "Do you know about the cuckoo bird, Jaelyn Morgenstern?"

"The what?" Jace interjected, unable to keep the disbelief out of his voice.

Her attention caught by movement, the lioness moves to another seemingly helpless gazelle, abandoning – for the moment – her original target. The second gazelle, a male, tries to allow the female to escape while the lioness is distracted but there is no room to run.

"The cuckoo bird," the Inquisitor repeated. "You see, cuckoos are parasites. They lay their eggs in other birds' nests. When the egg hatches, the baby cuckoo pushes the other baby birds out of the nest. The poor parent birds work themselves to death trying to find enough food to feed the enormous cuckoo child who has murdered their babies and taken their places."

"Enormous?" asked Jace. "Did you just call us fat?"

"And last I checked, Alec, Isabelle, Max, and Clary were all still alive," I added. "Despite what you may think, I never shoved Clary out of our apartment window.

"It was an analogy."

"I am not fat."

"That was a terrible analogy."

Perturbed by the gazelles' efforts to each save the other, the lioness soon grows weary of their games and turns her attention on one –

"You are arrogant," the Inquisitor spat. "As well as intolerant. Did Valentine teach you that?"

– her original victim.

"Oh yes," I responded sarcastically. "He taught me from afar to be a sardonic teenager and conquer the world with my inane comments and maddening ability to be clever. His plan was originally to create an entire army of us but he was too caught up with faking his own death."

I heard Maryse gasp.

The lioness moves in for the kill.

"And just like Valentine, you can't keep your temper," the Inquisitor barked. "With your smart comments you seek to gain control over those around you and when you can't you grow angry."

I gave her a bitter smile. "You've caught me."

The gazelle begins to run with the lioness in persuit. The lioness gathers herself,

"Before we do any digging around in that big head of yours, I suggest you cool your temper. And I know just where you can do that best."

"Are you sending her to her room?" Jace asked in surprise.

"I'm sending her to the prisons in the Silent City. After a night there I suspect she'll be a great deal more cooperative."

… and pounces. The female gazelle falls under the cat's claws and fruitlessly, the male makes one last attempt to save her. The lioness has won, as was known all along.

"You can't do that!" Jace shouted, moving towards the Inquisitor who had eyes only for me.

"You are not helping her, Jonathan."

The lioness beams with satisfaction as she walks away from the body of the female gazelle lying amongst the grasses of the savannah and staring lifelessly at the earth.