A/N: welcome back! I hope you've all had a good holiday – I wanted to get this up on Christmas Day as a gifts, but alas, life is busy even when I'm not in school it seems. Anyway, enjoy chapter 4!

Disclaimer: the usual, the world of shadowhunters belongs to Cassandra Clare

An hour later, Isabelle and I sit in the sitting room, staring at the walls. At first it was awkward, but now you could cut the tension with a knife. Neither of us has anything to say. Every time I do think of something, it's too heavy a subject.

I'm about to give in and ask what happened to our friendship years ago, but Iz beats me to it - on a lighter subject but not entirely one I want to discuss.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

The question startles me. "What?"

"At The Clave meeting; you… I don't know, blacked-out or something… are you okay?"

"Oh, that. Yeah, I'm fine," I lie.

"You scared us all, you know. The entire time Penhallow and Aldertree kept blabbing on, we were just anxious for it to be over to figure out what was going on with you."

"No one else noticed?"

She shakes her head. "Didn't seem like it. Except Aldertree. He kept staring. But he probably just thought you were upset."

I shudder at the idea of Aldertree staring at me while I was trying to fight off the impulse to blow the place up.

Isabelle doesn't miss it. "I know. The guy freaks me out."

"He sort of reminds me of a worm," I say, and Isabelle immediately doubles over laughing and I join in, because it is funny, nightmares aside.

When the laughter stops, Iz has another question that surprises me. "How different do you think our lives would be if our parents hadn't done what they did?"

"We don't even know what they did."

"Yeah, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is where they ended up."

"I guess so," I say, really thinking about it. The Clave would have a fit if they found out Isabelle said that - it doesn't matter what they did. But it's true, in the eyes of their children. Despite what happened, we still have gone more than half our lives without real parents around. It's possible that it affected us more than anything else. "I guess our lives would be a lot different."

"Jace would still have parents."

"My brother wouldn't have run away."

"When he comes back, they'll strip his marks, you know," Isabelle says.

My chest aches suddenly. After all of this I might not just be without parents, I'll be without a brother. "What if they did that to our parents?" My voice doesn't sound like my voice, it sounds like the voice of someone who has nothing left.

"It'd be crueler than just executing them. I don't love them enough to follow, though. It's not like life would be any different either way."

Her words don't affect me like Jonathan's did. He flat out said he didn't love our parents; Isabelle simply doesn't love her's enough to stop being a shadowhunter. I don't think I do, either.

"You know what else?" She pauses and I nod. "I would have another sibling."

What? "Pardon?"

She just nods. "After whatever happened... happened, she had a miscarriage. She was three months along."

I just stare at her. There could be two explanations. One; a simple miscarriage. Tragic. But it does happen. Two; a fight. A fight much larger than we were led to believe. I think of Consul Malachi, how he suddenly disappeared after the Clave brought down the Circle. He must've died somehow for them to elect Penhallow as Consul. I wonder what happened the night they took our parents away.

"So we would have much different lives. But I just want to know what really happened with The Circle. It kills me; not knowing."

"Then we'll find out," I say.

"What?"

"There has to be something, somewhere. We all want to know what The Circle did, so we should all go looking for it."

"What about the Mortal Sword?"

I shrug. "There's not much we could do about that. Just because we know doesn't mean we were involved. They can ask us, and we'll answer."

I look out the window to my right, the sun is just starting to set.

"Wanna go train?" I ask Iz. "I'm sure there's still time."

She smiles. "Might as well."

We quickly change into comfortable, training clothes and jog over to the training centre; taking shortcuts through alleyways to not just get there faster, but to avoid clumps of population and watching eyes.

When we get to our training room, Jace and Alec turn from their dagger throwing.

I stifle a laugh. "Wow, there's a lot of manly shadowhunter training going on right now, Iz," I say. "We should leave them to it."

We turn and fain walking out the door, but Jace retorts and we turn back. "Dagger throwing is an important skill alright?"

I pick up a dagger hanging on the wall by the door where we keep them and focus on one of the targets. With a quick wrist flick, I throw it across the room; at least 10 metres away. It sinks into the target; not right in the bullseye, like I was hoping, but close enough.

Alec lets out a low whistle.

"Not fair. Daggers are like… your thing," Jace says.

"My thing?" I question.

"Yeah. Alec's good with the bow, Iz is good with a whip."

"And you?"

He pats the seraph blade at his side.

Iz scoffs beside me.

"Alright, Herondale," I say. I turn back to where we keep the weapons hung up and pick up a seraph blade. "Let's go."

He raises an eyebrow, but meets me in the middle on the thin mat at the centre of the room.

"No way!" Alec shouts. "Can't you use blades that aren't powered by the heavens? The wounds are much easier to heal!"

I'm shaking my head before he's even done talking. "Jace thinks seraph blades are his thing so we're testing it."

"No. I'm not letting you guys kill each other."

"For some reason I feel like we've all had this conversation before," Iz says.

She's right. It happens almost everytime Jace and I want to duel each other.

"Yes, and Alec always loses," Jace says. "So just be ready with a stele or something, alright?"

Alec mutters something under his breath, but steps off the mat anyway.

"Hand to hand combat?" I ask.

"Allowed," Jace says. "Cuts?"

"Minor."

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on you," he says, flashing me the runes drawn up his arms. He and Alec must've been doing hand-to-hand before we got here. I've hardly got any on.

I smirk. "No need. Good luck."

I swing the seraph blade at his waist, but he blocks it with his and heaves it back. I launch myself back at him, not letting the fight pause, with a solid grip on the hilt of my blade and he has to jump back, swinging his blade at me, which I block with my own.

Then I side step around and try to thrust a hit to his torso. It throws him off but not enough. I watch his blade come at me, but I'm not quick enough and earn a slice on my bare shoulder. I suck in a breath through my teeth from the pain.

He doesn't stop though, the blade come straight towards me, horizontally, and I twist mine around it.

"Going easy on me?" Jace asks as we meet eyes.

"You wish."

I pull my blade back and aim high this time, but I'm not careful enough and Jace blocks and tries to throw it out of my hand. It almost does. My grip loosens, and I have no time to readjust before he's coming back at me, officially knocking my blade to the ground.

It doesn't stop me, though. I jump quick enough to be behind him and throw a fist to his side. But he turns and I get a cut to my calf, the seraph blade burning away the fabric of my pants. The movement puts me right next to my own seraph blade. I pick it up and immediately drive it towards him. The blow is hard enough to throw his block off so that my blade is inches from his face. I don't quite pull it away, instead drawing a small cut on his shoulder to match the one on mine.

"Do you two really have to do this?" I hear Alec say.

As he does I block Jace's sword with mine, but we're so close together I earn a punch to the jaw, throwing my head to the side.

Alec continues grumbling and I feel anger and adrenaline start to boil up inside me. Jace and I pull our swords away and I come back harder, stronger. One blow, one block, another blow, another block.

Another cut to Jace's arm throws him off and I throw another punch to his side.

I should've expected it, I should've blocked it. Jace's blade scrapes along my torso and I feel the blade burning and dragging smoothly through the thicker skin there. I immediately feel warm blood start to gush from the long, deep cut. I don't scream but it's pretty close. I drop my blade to clutch at the pain and double over onto my knees.

"Clary!"

The pain burns more than any of the other cuts I received from Jace's blade. I squeeze my eyes shut and wrap my arms tighter around my stomach, as if it would numb the pain.

Jace's hands are me. "Clary, you have to move. Let us see it."

I let Jace's hands guide me to lay on the ground and remove my hands from the gash. My fingers are slick and warm with my own blood when I pull them away.

"This is why you shouldn't ignore me," Alec says. My eyes are still squeezed shut but I can feel him right above me. Everytime I suck air in and out of my lungs through my teeth, it pumps more blood out from the long gash.

"Shut up and draw the freaking rune, Alec," I say through my teeth.

I hardly feel the burn from the stele as my wound continues to outdo it. But I feel when the rune is done, and the bleeding is reigned in. I open my eyes as the burning fades, and grab Jace's shoulder to sit up, earning a sting from my torso in the process.

"Careful," Alec says. "That gash was pretty bad. Probably won't be fully healed until tomorrow night."

I smile at Alec as Jace helps me up to me feet. "Thanks."

"Yeah. Would you two just listen next time?"

Jace smirks. "Not a chance."

Alec rolls his eyes and starts towards the door. "We should head home now, anyways."

I look down at my torso, blood still trickles onto my stomach. I look up to say something, but Isabelle is already passing me the gauze. I use it to patch up the gash.

I start to pull away from Jace, but his grip on me tightens. "I can walk fine, you know." His arm leaves my waist and I take a step, but it turns into a limp because of the cut in my calf. Breathing still makes the gash on my torso sting, as the rune tries to heal it with my lungs constantly expanding against it.

"I'm really sorry," Jace says, putting his arms back around my waist, we start to walk and I hope no one can notice that he holds a lot of my weight.

I shrug. "I guess seraph blades are your thing, then."

Back at the house, Jace starts to help me get up the stairs.

"I could just carry you up, you know."

I roll my eyes. My breathing is more like hissing through the pain as I make my way up the stairs, Jace's arm tight around my waist.

"Do you need another rune?" he asks.

I shrug. "Probably," I say, as we get to my room. I sit on my bed and let myself collapse backwards, sighing and pulling my stele from my pocket.

We're quiet as I draw a healing rune on my torso.

"Clary…" Jace's voice is almost a whisper.

I sit up to find myself looking at his back. He stands at my desk, looking down at a piece of paper in his hands. He turns and shows me the paper. One of the ones I stuffed into my desk drawer after the fight with Jonathan. I cleaned it up a bit when I grabbed one to put in my dad's pocket, but now I'm realizing I should've just burned the rest.

I jump up from the bed and run over to shut my bedroom door, wincing a little from a flare of pain from the gash in my side.

"Jace," I say quietly, walking towards him slowly. "Please, you can tell anyone, okay? If the Clave finds out they'll- I don't know what they'll do… they'll kill me."

"What is this?" His voice is quiet as mine and confused.

"I'm going insane."

His face turns sad, all his features go slack. He puts his hands on my shoulders. "No you're not-"

"I've never seen those runes before, but I know exactly what they all do. You can't tell anyone, you can't mention a word. I'm dead, Jace. They'll kill me and I don't even know why…" the words keep coming out of my mouth, I'm going into hysterics. I grip onto Jace's wrists. "Jace, please." I think of my dad, and how he probably knows, and how he told me to stick with Jace. But my mind just can't figure it out, there has to be missing pieces.

"Clary, what did you really put into Valentine's pocket?"

I swallow hard. "One of those," I say, nodding towards the drawer.

"So your parents know, right? And if it were something really bad, they wouldn't leave you on your own to figure it out. Valentine said they were watching us… us. We'll stick together."

"Are you drawing runes that don't exist, too?" I ask, a bit of humour in my voice.

Jace smiles. "No, but I think Valentine gave us a clue to why we did so well at the Academy…"

"Without even trying," I add.

"Exactly."

"You can't tell anyone, Jace. Please."

Jace sighs and pulls me into his arms. I wrap my arm around his waist as his go around my shoulders. "I won't." I feel his head rest on top of mine. "I promise."

The stone walls around me are damp and darkness engulfs me between the torches on the walls. Something ahead calls towards me. But the tunnel keeps going straight, until it looks like a never ending black hole at the very end. I walk for what feels like forever, all that passes by are the torches with their fiery glow.

Suddenly every torch burns out. The darkness startles me, but I keep walking, something calls me towards it. Then my foot hits something and I trip forward, when I fall my hands meet an edge and I start climbing the stairs in front of me, blind.

I climb until light appears. A single lit torch mounted beside a door. I turn the handle and emerge into a room from between two bookshelves.

Not just any room, the library of the Morgenstern Manor.

And Jonathan sits at the huge desk by the stain glass window; the centerpiece of our library. I call Jonathan's name, but he doesn't look up from the desk, and when I take a step, it doesn't make a sound.

I keep moving towards the desk and whatever Jonathan continues to look at. When I eventually get to him and look over his shoulder, he flips the page of the photo album.

The photos are of a group of ten different shadowhunters, all in their gear with their blades sheathed. They look like they're just getting ready to graduate from the Academy.

Jonathan flips the page again, and then I've no doubt who the people in the pictures are. My parents stand side by side, decked out in their gear; Mom has a hand on a dagger, Dad unsheathing a seraph blade. In the picture next to it, Dad has his arm slung around Mom's shoulder, holding her against him. She looks straight into the camera, but he looks down at her like she's his entire world. The next picture is almost the same, except they're both gazing at each other like the camera isn't even there.

Suddenly, Jonathan slams the book shut, pushes himself out of his chair, and storms out of the library, slamming the door behind him.

Just as I'm about to open the photo album to look through it myself, I hear my name being called. Not like a normal voice, but like a whisper in my head. It comes from the door I just came out of.

Except when I look up at it, the door is no longer there, instead there's a bookshelf in it's place.

"Clarissa," the voice sings.

I walk towards the bookshelf and feel around for someway to move it, but it's as if it's bolted shut.

"Clarissa, you must save me."

I stare at the bookshelf desperate for a way back. "How?" I ask.

"I will show you, you have to trust me."

I find my hand reaching for my stele. I pull it out as a rune flashes through my mind. I'm prepared to draw it on the bookshelf but I know that's not what it's meant for. I press the tip of the stele to the inside of my forearm.

I feel the familiar sting on the rune on my arm as the voice continues in my head. "You must find what you are seeking, Clarissa. Or may Raziel help us all."

"Clary?" A different voice. I turn to find Jonathan behind me.

And then my dream disappears. I slip into consciousness and slowly open my eyes up to the ceiling above me. It felt real. Not just one of those dreams where you thought it was real but it's easy to shake off. This one was real. So much so that I can still feel the stinging on my forearm. I scratch at it to go away.

My room is still and dark. My eyes feel puffy and my head sore; probably from last night, with Jace. My heart shudders when I think about it. But he promised not to tell, and I trust him. I just have to make sure that I'm first under the mortal sword, in case a question triggers the answer.

But it's our secret to share. Both of us advanced way too fast in the Academy. Dad says the two of us need to stick together.

My room is still dark, but when I look out the window I can see the beginnings of dawn. Birds flying in the dark sky, the glow of witchlight in nearby windows.

I pull my own witchlight off my nightstand and pull on a sweater to keep away the chill of the morning, and make my way downstairs to the kitchen. Might as well stay up if it'll just be light out soon. My side is sore I as walk down the stairs, and I have to take it slower than I'd like. The gash is my side is almost gone. Only scab and pink puffy skin remain.

With nothing better to do, and the words from my dream caught in my head - You must find what you are seeking, Clarissa. Or may Raziel help us all - I find myself making pancakes. Probably enough to feed an entire army of shadowhunters.

The sound of pounding feet startles me as I flip the last pancake onto a plate. Alec appears at the mouth of the kitchen. "Clary? Is that you? I don't think I've ever seen you up this early!" He checks his watch as sarcasm drips from his voice.

I shove his shoulder a little. "I couldn't fall back asleep," I explain.

He eyes all the pancakes. "Obviously." He grabs one and sits at the table with it, I follow suit. "How's your side?"

I shrug. "Mostly better. Only a little sore."

Alec frowns. "You two are so lucky you didn't kill each other. Fighting with seraph blades like that is dangerous. You know that."

I don't know how older brothers do it, or maybe it's just Jonathan and Alec practically raising us, but they've got a way of making you feel guilty when you don't want to be. And suddenly the pain of my missing brother flares in my chest.

"I do."

"You and Jace just get so reckless sometimes." He sighs. "I'm glad you're feeling better."

I want to ask him about Jonathan. If he might know where my brother went, because I want to find him. But he's practically already given me the answer: no. Alec wouldn't tell me in fear of me doing something reckless.

I smile, "thanks."

Izzy and Jace don't get up too much later. Their reactions to my early-morning rise are similar to Alec's; both much less forgiving. Izzy proceeds to ask me if I'm sick, and Jace wonders if Sleeping Beauty has been kidnapped. I wonder what Jonathan would say.

That's when a pounding at our front door fills my ears. We all stand up from the table, startled but ready for something that might burst through. We all rush towards it. My mind fills with hope; that it's Jonathan, that it's my parents and they've been pardoned. But when Alec opens the door, my heart sinks into my stomach and beats aggressively. At our door are Clave guards. Again.

"The Consul and Inquisitor wish to speak with you," one guard says.

"All of you," the other adds.

"What is this about?"Alex asks. As he does, Jace steps up beside him, I watch as their shoulders expand, blocking Iz asks and I from the guards.

"The Mortal Cup is missing."

"What? And you think it was us?" I ask.

"Follow us," the first guard replies, ignoring my question.

We follow the guards down the streets of Alicante, the streets are quiet, but only as we pass. Behind me, I hear whispers beginning, and suspect something has already leaked to the public about the missing Mortal cup. We stay many steps behind the two guards but huddle in closely to each other. Alec and Jace remain shoulder to shoulder in front of Iz and I. And I keep my ears sharp, my senses on edge as my back is exposed to the world. Jace reaches a hand back to me. I take it and he gently squeezes and releases my hand before anyone notices.

But when his hand is gone from mine, I begin to miss the warmth, and wrap my arm around Isabelle next to me. She obliges and puts her arm around my shoulders.

Our footsteps echo through the halls of the Gard, sharp on the marble floor. The dagger and a stele in my belt grow warm, I pat them once under the surface of my shirt to make sure they're still there. We climb a set of stairs at the end of a hall and then walk all the way to another before coming to a set of double doors with two more guards on either side. No questions asked, they open the doors for us. Our escorts step inside and we follow. The only thing inside is a desk with a few stacks of paper and a window the size of the whole back wall, the view of Alicante gleams below, all the way out to the shadows of Brocelind forest.

Inquisitor Aldertree and Consul Penhallow both stand behind the desk, backs to the view.

"We'll get right to it," Penhallow says. "I know that most of you are- or perhaps seem oblivious to the schemes of your parents, but with Jonathan Morgenstern and the Mortal Cup both missing, I have no choice but to assume."

"If it means anything," I say, trying to sound calm and keep my tone even, "I don't think my brother has any intention of wrong-doing. And I don't think he did this."

"Would you like to suggest another suspect, perhaps?" Aldertree asks. "It certainly wasn't your parents. They're under lock and key at the moment."

"I don't wish to lock you all up before we can get you back under the Mortal Sword. I cannot speed up the trial process either," Penhallow continues, as if Aldertree and I said nothing. "You kids hardly know the life of a true shadowhunter, you grew up in Idris and are bound to stay here for the rest of your lives."

Jace and Alec tense in front of me and I realize what Penhallow means: we were never going to be allowed to leave - to become shadowhunters outside of Idris - because of our parents.

I told Jonathan in our fight that our parents were thinking of us when they rebelled against the Clave, but I'm not sure they thought about what might happen if they failed.

"So I have a deal to make, assuming you all make it through. I'm sending you off to retrieve Jonathan and the Mortal Cup by the time of your parents trial. If you succeed, I may reconsider your futures."

"Three days," Aldertree confirms.

"Do we have a choice?" Jace asks.

Penhallow and Aldertree glance at each other; a silent conversation. "Not if you'd like to one day live a life or fight outside of Idris," Penhallow confirms.

I take a deep breath. "I'll do it." Because I want my brother back. Because I don't want to just train other shadowhunters for the rest of my life. Because I want to find out what I am and what my parents really did.

Iz nods. "I will too."

Jace and Alec glance at each other, then back at us. "We're in," Alec says.

And just like that, we've turned our backs on our parents.

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed, don't forget to review to let me know what you thought! Favourite the story if you're enjoying it and follow if you want to be notified when I post new chapters!