Chapter Five

A/N: Thank you to Genius-626, Charl, Katie and Veridissima for reviewing the last chapter.

Luke was fighting not to bang his head against the polished wood of the table. It had been three hours since he had sat down with the Council and they had spent the majority of that time going round in circles. It was extremely frustrating, especially when he wanted to do nothing more than to go home to his family.

"There is no use trying to state the obvious." sighed Jia Penhallow, glaring across the table at a particular spot on the wall, as if that one spot could be the cause of all their problems. "We all know that there is only one person who has ever left such a message here: Jonathan Morgenstern."

"I don't know if it's escaped your notice," Magnus pointed out, not bothering to disguise the boredom in his voice. "But it's pretty hard to send blood messages from beyond the grave."

"How do we know he is really dead?" asked Robert Lightwood, who seemed eager to cling to any possibility that may get them out of this meeting faster.

"He is. I saw him die." Luke answered. The memory still pained him immensely. Of course, Jonathan had not been a particularly beloved boy to anyone, but he had still been Jocelyn's son, and since she had held him as his life slipped away, there was a weight of guilt and sadness in her eyes that he doubted would ever go away. "This cannot be Jonathan. It's impossible."

"But who else would do such a thing?" Jia wondered out loud, glancing out of the window, as if the offending person was strolling the streets of the Glass City. "Who else would harbor such a grudge against the Fairchilds, that they would threaten them in such a public way?"

"Clarissa has made quite a few enemies in the Mortal War," Magnus pointed out. "And her mother already has twice as many, given how she spent her youth."

"But she wasn't the only one involved in the Circle." Luke responded, his eyes moving pointedly towards the Inquisitor, and his wife who sat beside him. "There were dozens of us. Why would people single her out?"

"You know exactly why." Robert sighed, as if he were tired of stating the obvious. "She was Valentine's wife."

"And now she's mine." he bit back, the edge of frustration cutting in his voice. The wedding ring on his left hand cut into his finger as he clenched his fists beneath the table. "Jocelyn severed all ties with Valentine when she abandoned him sixteen years ago. His sins ever since are nothing to do with her."

"All the same, he was still her husband when he took Alicante," Robert persisted. There was something about the way he was speaking that Luke did not like, for it sounded like he was revelling in the blame being directed at someone else. "As was Jonathan Morgenstern her son when he Turned the Endarkened and almost destroyed all we hold dear."

"And Clarissa, the one who saved us all, is her daughter, whom she loved and raised since she was a baby." Luke argued passionately, feeling his heart beat a little faster with pride in his daughter's achievements. "Does that count for nothing at all?"

"I'm sorry to say it does not count for enough to most people." Maryse spoke for the first time, her eyes turned down towards the elaborately carved table. "In the aftermath of such a disaster, it is always the good that outweighs the bad, Lucian. That is simply the way of the world."

There was no doubting that this was the truth. Of course, in the fortnight since the end of the war, Lucian had married the love of his life and seen their daughter fall as deeply in love as he had done all those years ago. But he had also seen his country fall to pieces, heard Jocelyn's whimpers as she regained her son then lost him once again, seen Clary's heart break over Simon losing his memories. There was not a person in Alicante, perhaps in all of Idris, who did not bear the red marks of mourning. No one had been untouched by the war.

Abruptly, Magnus rose from the table, swiping his blue-streaked hair out of his eyes. All eyes in the room had turned to him, yet no one rose in recognition of his gesture. Luke was hardly surprised. 'Even after all that has changed for the better, Nephilim counsellors will not rise for a Downworlder.'

"We're getting nowhere here," Magnus began with a shrug, seemingly unfazed by the obvious culling from the other Council members. "So I see no point in wasting further hours of my life going round in circles, especially when I have a date in forty-five minutes."

Luke was tempted to take the opportunity, and the sceptical glares of those who had once been his friends made the temptation all too great. He rose to stand beside Magnus.

"I agree." he stated, relishing the looks of shock now directed at him. After all, he had once been a Shadowhunter and still, on some level, was expected to show loyalty to the Clave above loyalty to Downworld, even when he had not been a part of the institution for almost two decades. "I'm not going to stay here just to listen to bitter people raking up the past in search of someone to blame for all the hurt the war has caused."

Without another word, Luke swept out of the room, closely followed by Magnus, who seemed to be impressed by the younger man's behaviour, judging by the smirk on his face. Luke inclined his head briefly to Magnus, then set off for home. After all the time he had spent listening to slander and accusations, he wanted nothing more than to curl up on the sofa with his wife and have a good chat with Clary.

Those accusations ran in circles through his head until long into the night, no matter how many times he denied them. But what was far more prominent was the same question he had asked himself ever since he had been summoned from the Gard: If Jonathan Morgenstern did not leave this message, and he could not have done... then who did?

A/N: Please review!