Clary:…

Chris:…

Clary:…where's Lacie?

Chris: I think that's what everyone wants to know….

*awkward silence*

Chris: Now, what?

Clary: I don't know, what are we supposed to do? This is Lacie's story, she usually does whatever she wants, but now she's not even here to say hi, or thank the reviewers or anything.

Chris: Should…..we do it?

Clary: Um.. okay?

Chris: Alright. I think it's about time to announce that we are over 13,000 views, thought that I should put that out there…Lacie-Abyss doesn't own TMI

Clary: Also, thanks to everyone who has been reading so far and who has been checking up recently to see the new chapter. Sorry for the long delay.

Chris: But that's not our fault, that's Lacie's.

Clary: Not true, it's her teacher's fault, you haven't seen all the work she does every day, it's a miracle she even remembers to update.

Chris: Then where is she?

Clary: Again, I don't know. But we can't start the story without her, she's the author.

Chris: *sudden idea* NO, what if…

Clary: *understands*: You don't mean… we could actually run the story!? No Cassandra Clare, no Lacie! No other fanfiction writers that make us go through all this hell!? *starts to joyfully cry out* I'M NO LONGER A SLAVE FOR YOUR IMAGINATIONS TO CONTROL!

Chris: I can finally do what I want to do, I don't have to be mysterious and hide all of my secrets, I can finally say-

Lacie: MWAHAHAHAH

Clary &Chris jump: WHAT THE HELL

Clary: Lacie *nervous laugh* how have ya been?

Lacie: What's all this about now? Thinking of escaping our little fanfiction world….

Chris: You were listening?!

Lacie: Lacie is always listening….

Chris: *mumbles* that's not stalker-like at all…..

Clary: Uumm…. On with the story?

Lacie: Yes!

Enjoy! (p.s Lacie is not a stalker)

Clary POV

It was the second time that day that Clary woke up after a fitful sleep, and it was only late in the morning.

Feeling a bit jarred, she blinked her eyes, a heavy wool-like grogginess seeming to prevent her from awakening. She felt like she was slowly resurfacing from an ocean of syrup, and it wasn't until she broke through that all her senses truly kicked in.

She stared up, her eyes seeing tree branches crisscrossing each other, causing the light from the sun to come in filtered, shadows streaking across her face. The sky was a mix of clouds, and she could see them moving. She still felt a bit hazy, having little recognition and memory of what happened. She didn't move, feeling like any movement would make her forget, trying to grasp at the images that seemed to have stayed in the syrup ocean which she emerged from, but the thoughts escaped her, and she was left with the sense of fear and terror, though of what she had no clue.

Her awareness expanding, she felt the ground underneath her with her fingers, feeling a cloth, a blanket that did little to prevent the sticks and stones on the Earth from jabbing into her shoulders and back. Attempting to sit up, she felt a sudden throb in her forehead, and slightly eased herself so that she was cross legged.

"How are you feeling?" She quickly looked to her left, causing another throb to flare up, and she winced. Slowly this time, she met Chris's gaze, as he sat on the ground, the picnic blanket beneath her stretching all the way to the base of a tree trunk, where he casually leaned against it, arms folded across his chest.

"I'm fine, I guess," she still felt a fog in the back of her mind, obscuring her of her memories. Looking around them, she saw that her surroundings were pretty much the same, trees everywhere, and a breeze rustling everything up, but it was pleasant.

"Where are we and how long have we been here?" Clary asks him, staring at a squirrel that scampered across the ground.

Chris stretched his legs out in front of him, rather stiffly, as if he'd been in that position for a while now. "We're in some forest, don't ask where, I don't know, but it's pretty secluded, so no one should find us. You've been sleeping on the ground for about four hours, and I was just waiting for you to wake up."

"Four hours?" Clary exclaims, and is met with another throb in her head. Bringing her fingers up, she felt the area where the pain roughly came from, and felt a ridge there where she was pretty certain there hadn't been one before. Looking at her hand, she saw her fingers were covered in dried black blood. "What the…what happened?"

Chris looked at her curiously, and instead of answering, he pulled out a stele from his pocket, "Want me to heal that?"

She was going to nod, but in order to avoid another shock to the head she settled for saying, "Yes."

Coming over to her, he sat cross legged as well, right in front of her. Getting close, he placed his hand on her chin, holding her head in place, while his other hand traced an iratze behind her ear, where her hair could hide it. His hands were warm, as always, and Clary could feel the little hairs on her neck prickle with the slight air of his breath. She felt something sway inside of her, coming from the back of her mind, a heated energy coursing through her veins. It was telling her to get closer to Chris, his blood was calling to her, and like magnets, needed to be pulled together.

But instead of going with what the heat told her to, she traced it back, searching where it came from. It came from the strange, fogged part of her mind, where she knew the memories of what happened only hours ago were hidden. Trying to ignore Chris's fingertips, she willed her consciousness to allow her to open up what was shut out to her, and for a second, she thought she was remembering, it was like a door was opening, and all she had to do was peek inside.

As she drew nearer the image of a small, familiar hand, reached out through the crack in the door, and a shock of memories hit Clary as she immediately recoiled in her mind, blinking as she stared back up at Chris, who was finished with making her iratze.

"You were mumbling in your sleep," he seemed to have been telling her, "You looked pretty upset, and kept saying 'get away, go away.' Do you remember any of it?"

The white, familiar hand that she saw came to mind, and it seemed like it was toying with her, beckoning her to it. How ridiculous, it was her own hand after all. Nothing to be afraid of.

"Nope," she lied.

Isabelle POV

Isabelle was freaking pissed.

She really felt like kicking some ass, whether demon or not, anyone who bothered her was about to get a taste of her electrum whip, or a good look at her stiletto heels when she brought them down on their face. Either way, she was not in a good mood.

She had been walking around town for over an hour and still couldn't find the stupid store her mother had sent her to find.

"It's an old shackle," Maryse had explained to her daughter when Isabelle had gone down to the Library. They were about to have another meeting, and Izzy had just been about to draw a rune to be able to listen in when Maryse came around the corner. She knew her daughter really wanted to know what went on, but these type of things weren't for her, so she had to be sent out on errands so that she could keep her nosy self out of it. At least that's how her mother acted like it was.

"Look Isabelle, it's not the sort of place where Shadowhunters are usually allowed, so be careful okay, especially don't try to act too threatening to the owner, try to be as anonymous as possible." That's what she was told.

Anonymous, sure…. Izzy thought as she stomped her way down yet another street, her blue heels clicking against the cement, legs covered in fishnets as she wore a tight midnight blue dress that ended at her mid-thigh. She was wearing a short black leather jacket that stopped at the waist, but it was open, revealing the low dip the V-neck of her dress did.

Please, it would be a sin to try to let myself be anonymous, she smiled to herself as yet another wolf whistle pierced the air, reaching her ears. She was in a worse for wear looking neighborhood, and there were men outside staring at her like she was prime steak, but she didn't feel an ounce of fear. She'd cut out their throats before they came anywhere near her.

She did, however, have her red amulet tucked nicely in her jacket pocket, her hand wrapped around it. If she was going to some random black magic store (her mother could deny it all she wanted but face it, she was going to a black magic store) she did not want the owner there setting their eyes on what was hers. Her amulet pulsed in her hand, faintly, as she walked past an alley. Finally….

Isabelle wasn't stupid, she knew her mom had only sent her out so that she wouldn't keep sneaking around the Clave, but was it really her fault that she wanted to know what was going on? That she wanted to know about what was being decided about one of her only female friends? That she wanted to help? Clary could be getting dragged to different placed in world so she get tortured along the way, and all they did was have meeting after meeting? She hated the fact that everyone treated her like she was some child that needed to be scolded. She was sixteen, not six! Especially Alec, who felt the need to remind her every day that he was eighteen and she wasn't. She swore, the day she turned eighteen she was going all out, Izzy style, if only to rub it in Alec's face.

Being her age and a Shadowhunter had its advantages, no one from the Clave assumed anything from her, so didn't need to report to them or anything, and she was entitled to do whatever she wanted. The day she turned eighteen would start a bunch of hell and responsibilities that she could even see frustrated even her mother, which made her question why she even cared about the whole thing in the first place.

Oh, yeah, she thought, It was when Alec started being such a show off in the fact that he was considered and adult…. She didn't care if she was thought of as an adult, as long as she knew what was going on she didn't give two-shits about it.

This whole situation surrounded her little red-haired friend, and she deserved to know about it, not just short summaries that she forced from her brother. Damn, if she was this pissed about it, she couldn't even imagine the storm going on in Jace's head.

Pity ran through her heart as she thought of the sad look that haunted her adoptive brother's eyes in the past week, but she immediately shook it off. Jace didn't want pity. He wanted action. She could tell he was tired of just laying around, though maybe he didn't realize it himself. Jace may be smart, but when it came to things about himself, he was pretty dense.

As soon as I get this crap resolved, I'll take him out demon hunting, maybe scout of some vampire coves- Her thought process stopped dead in her tracks, and she quickly erased that last thought. It was out of habit, before Clary came along, she always had a list of things she would do out in the night. Yeah, she was more friendly with Downworlders than Shadowhunters from Alicante, but she was trained to know how to kill them, and it couldn't be helped that if she heard the word 'vampire' or 'werewolf' her brain launched into tactics mode. A stab here, a flick of her wrist and swirling electrum there, and a dead body falling flat on its face afterwards.

Even then, when she would date anyone just to get her parents attention, this was her mindset. But that was before, before Simon and Jordan and Luke and Magnus. But mostly Simon. An image of his face crossed her vision, the feel of his cold hands on her skin, his teeth in her neck, adrenaline rushing through her.

Her thoughts of blood lust were interrupted when she walked past a broken looking shack in between two large and tall buildings and her amulet pulsed again. About time, she was starting to think her mother never expected her to find this place. Stepping close, she scrunched up her nose, it smelled like the time when Church vomited all over the kitchen after having some of Isabelle's soup. Stupid cat, didn't know excellence if it hit it in the nose.

Something was odd about the shack, and she stepped back, taking it in. Slowly, she tried to look past the glamour. The reality wasn't much better than the false image. The store was more of a tool shed than anything that would sell magical items, and she was hesitant at first as she approached the door, unsure if she should knock or just step through.

A voice sounded from inside, it sounded crusty (can voice sound crusty?) like taking two rusty pipes and rubbing them against each other, "Look girlie are you just gonna stand there and stare or are ya' gonna walk yourself in here? Scram, your scaring away the costumers."

What costumers? She didn't give the voice the satisfaction of looking around her, she knew the alley was empty. Obviously it could see her, so she opened the door and stepped in, and masked her shock behind a raised eyebrow.

The place was a lot bigger than it let on. There was a long counter running along the store, opposite of the door, and all around her were shelves packed with random items. Some of them really stood out, such as a large golden crown that was placed onto the skull of a vampires head, its incisors looking polished and fierce. Others looked like they belonged at some mundie, what did Simon say they were, garage sale. An ornate pair of scissors sat at the shelf that ended right on right, they didn't look all that enchanting, just some scissors, but the voice sounded again, its croaky sound paining her ears, though she ignored it.

"Hey don't touch that! They're a collectable, and someone's already got their eye on it for a high price." A pair of eyes peered at her from under the counter, and Isabelle put her hand down from where she was reaching for the blade.

She walked over to the counter, careful to not raise her chin and look down at the little gremlin that was pulling a stool over to be able to see her better. She'd been at these types of places before, and the owners don't like it when their customers act all high and mighty. She knew that that was how most Downworlders thought that Shadowhunters thought of themselves as, not to mention that if she intimidated the thing, it probably wouldn't want to give her what she needed.

Be anonymous first, and if the thing acts like an ass, then use intimidation, she decided.

The little gremlin was an ugly looking thing, and Isabelle was tempted to allow the glamour that surrounded the inside of the shack to take over because she'd rather see a withered old man than the sore sight before her. The gremlin was about three feet tall, with a small, skinny, leathery body that had a curved spine, giving it a hunch like appearance. Its head was large and disproportionate to its body, its large, bat like ears spreading out farther than its shoulders. Two snake like eyes looked through her, jagged teeth cutting through its mouth, making it look like it was hard to speak, and its breaths hissed through its slit for nostrils. There was a rumor that these gremlins were cannibalistic, which is why you never saw them together and why they were so skinny, that they would go to such lengths that they'd shed their own skin like snakes and devour their own dead shell.

Which was why she had no problem with allowing the heavy glamour surrounding him to replace the revolting sight, seeing an old man well into his eighties with a bald head and hair sticking out of his ears, glasses hanging off the edge of his small pudgy nose.

"What can I get ya', doll?" The rasping voice said. Isabelle prickled at the word 'doll', and tried to ignore her disgust.

Anonymous, I'm anonymous…..

Taking out a slip of paper from her jacket pocket, she repeated the words her mother wrote out for her, " I need a salve for," she squinted at her mother's curving letters, "burns made by coming into contact with the saliva of a two horned Ravenor mother."

The gremlin gave her a weird look.

Really mom, did you really want me out of the house this badly? A ravenor mother? The hell….

This was just more proof that her mom didn't really care if Isabelle had actually found the place at all. Now she was even more pissed, not only did she look like an anonymous freak who came into 'contact with ravenor saliva,' but the way the gremlin looked at her made it seem like she was the one who had fangs jabbing out of her lip.

"Well?" she said not too politely, "Do you have any?" She stared at the thing in the eye, despite her promises of not causing trouble. It disappeared through a curtained doorway without another word, muttering something that sounded like, "Stupid Nephilim," and, "Crazy obsessions."

While she waited as the gremlin rummaged through, she looked at random items on the counter. Bizarre looking snow globe-like things that showed a dark cave inside, and when you shook it, instead of white flakes there was red ooze dripping down the side, a sign saying, "Hell, this way," pointing into the cave. There were werewolf claws made into necklaces, sort of like what she's seen mundies do with shark teeth, and little trinkets that supposedly brought good luck. Not that Isabelle believed in luck. As well as weird voodoo dolls, one was stabbed like a pin cushion with needles, and the doll's expression looked too much like one of someone screaming for death than she would like to admit.

What caught her eye was a list nailed next to the curtained doorway, just behind the curtain. In an ugly lettering, though why it was in English she had no clue, was a list of items that customers must have pre-ordered. Amusing herself, she read down the list.

A blade dipped in fairy blood

Steles

A book of 101 demon languages

Two bottles of Strength Enhancer

A magic cupboard

Magic Cupboard? What? You'd think of something and the item would appear when you wanted it? Isabelle liked the idea, the she would be able to have all the ingredients she'd need to cook a fabulous dinner for the whole family!

What else will they invent?

When the gremlin came back from the back of the store, handing her a small round container that was corked at the top, she nodded her head at the list.

"I couldn't help but notice, but what's a magic cupboard? Do you have more of those?"

The gremlin's eyes widened, but then quickly masked its panic. But Isabelle noticed.

"Oh, that's nothing, just some custom made orders," Could a rusty voice sound nervous?

"Custom made? Do you make the cupboard board by board, or do you place some enchantment over any cupboard?" Isabelle asked inquisitively.

"Look doll, I only want my money, and it's not at my disposal to give out information on custom made items." The gremlin thrust its hand out, expecting payment.

Isabelle didn't know why, but she was furious. She was only curious, but now she wanted to know, if only because the little monster was acting completely intransigent.

(Writer's POV: That's right kiddies, Lacie's gonna teach you some vocab. Intransigent, look it up)

Holding the pot of salve to her, she looked down at the gremlin, "I only want to know about this, no need to be so secretive. Why? Did the person who ordered this ask not to give out any information on it?"

Bingo. He was getting fidgety, "Look Shadowhunter, business is business, now hand over the cash or I'll take that salve back."

Oh, now she really wanted to know about this.

"Who ordered that?" She says with a finger pointing at the paper, accusing-like.

"That's not for me to-" Isabelle stopped it before it could finish by smacking her hand down on the counter, items shaking, making the gremlin jump off of its stool.

Anonymous be damned.

I am Isabelle Lightwood and if I want answers, you better expect that the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs before I take no for an answer.

Her lips quirked at bit at her thought. Magnus had told it to her once.

Eyes back on her hand, she said in a cold voice, "No, it's not for you to say." The gremlin looked relieved, but before he could even breathe slowly turned her gaze onto the gremlin, a malicious grin spreading across her features, "It's too bad, now this place will have to be destroyed, and hell will have another creature roaming its grounds." She flicked a seraph blade from where it was neatly tucked in its sheath on her thigh.

If gremlins could pale, this one would have been paper white. It stuttered, "No! Don't do that! Please, I can't tell you, if I do, he'll be-" his breath caught at his revelation.

"He?" Isabelle repeated, "So it's a male." The gremlin kept backing up, heading for the curtained door, where there was probably a way to escape.

Before it could do anything, Isabelle leaped across the counter, blocking the way to the back of the store. Taking the point of the blade, she shoved it underneath the gremlin's neck, not enough to puncture the skin, but enough to see the fear in the gremlin's eyes.

"Look you disgusting lizard, tell me who ordered that cupboard, is it really that bad? I only need a name. Might as well tell me, or else I'll find every single gremlin from miles around and tell them all your address…"

Apparently the cannibal rumor was true, because the gremlin panicked even more, trying to struggle away from her, but he couldn't venture far.

"A name!" she barked, "One freaking name, and maybe I won't be tempted to set this place on fire!"

The gremlin gulped, trying to find its voice, "S….t….n…"

She shook him, pressing the blade even further, "Speak clearly, my patience is wearing thin."

"Sebastian!" he cried out, "That's all he gave me! His name is Sebastian!"

Isabelle's blood turned to ice, her body going rigid.

Slowly, she asked, "Does anyone else know this?" he shook his head.

"Good, don't tell anyone," her voice was off, numb.

But that didn't last long before hot fury ignited in her veins. Taking a wad of payment and throwing it in the gremlins face, she dashed out of the store, knowing she wouldn't get any more out of that ugly thing.

Concealing herself in a glamour before she exited the alley, she ran with all the speed in her, needing to run, to let out all of this sudden anger within her.

Sebastian…Her mind growled like a tiger, You bastard…..

Where there was Sebastian, there was Clary, which is why no one, meaning the Clave, could know about this yet.

Hang in there Clary, we're one step closer…..she thought as the gates to the Institute grew nearer.

Isabelle didn't notice it. She saw a shadow in the corner of her eye, when suddenly, something heavy smacked the back of her head, and everything faded into black.

Clary POV

They'd been walking for a while now, occasionally talking, and now and then falling into silences where they merely accepted each other's company, gazing at the scenery.

They were walking in growing circles, looping farther and farther away from home, but it was always in the center of their little invisible trails.

They were in the middle of another silence, walking side by side, Chris's long legs easily knowing where to step amongst the grassy ground, concealing random pits here and there. Clary knew how to navigate through them too, but her legs were shorter, her stride not as long, so it took her a longer while to track through everything, despite Sebastian's knowledge.

As she was observing a worm that had crawled through dirt she turned up with her shoe, seeing the way its body slithered past, Chris asked, "So how are you doing with your rune?"

She had to think about this for a while, because she really didn't know how to answer.

"Well, you could say I'm doing okay, but then again, I'm worried," she finally said, "Today the rune will move from seven to eight, the end of the eighth day, and really, I don't know what'll happen when the twelfth day is over, nor do I know if I want to know."

"Why? You don't want to go back to being old Clary?" he teased.

She rolled her eyes, "I mean, what's going to happen, by end if it all, will I just return back to normal? Will the rune disappear, or will it permanently stay on my wrist?"

"Don't forget that you don't even know what the completed rune looks like after its done," he added.

"That too." She said.

They walked on for another few minutes, before they reached an overturned log. It must have been there for a while because there were a bunch of plants growing around it. Clary started for it, a perched herself onto it, smoothing her hands over it. The bark was soft, no splinters. Huh.

Chris settled down next to her, staring into the distance. This time Clary broke the silence by asking, "Have there ever been any other cases like this? I know there are runes that last for days, and runes like ones for parabatai that last until one dies, but I've never heard of one that had an expiration date."

Chris shrugged his shoulders, "Not that I've heard of, you're the one with the angel blood," he glanced at her, "or at least, you were the one with the angel blood."

Clary rubbed her thumb over the rune on her wrist, starting at the twelve and moving it clockwise until it reached the seven, where an intricate hand tattooed onto her skin lay.

"Or, do you?" Chris asked.

"Or do I what?" she asked absently imagining how the rune would look like when it was completed.

"Do you still have angel blood? Your special angel blood, the one that gave you the ability to draw your, enhanced runes." Clary could feel his gaze still on her, so much that she pulled her eyes away from her wrist and met his eyes.

Her mind far away, she said, "I don't think so, well, honestly, I haven't tried to draw any runes."

"What about that rune you drew on my back at the Caribbean?" he asked.

"That was just a regular healing iratze," she thought back, her mind drifting back to that moment under the moonlight. Scars and kisses.

Her cheeks heated up. Had that really happened? Ducking her head down, allowing her hair to obscure her face, she continued to finger her rune, trying to say in a neutral voice, "But I wouldn't try to draw any runes while I'm like this, don't want any repercussions to suddenly occur."

Chris's face came into her vision, as he ducked down, looking up at her. He smirked at the sight of her blush, a teasing look in his eyes.

A sudden movement caught her attention. As she followed the sight, it was just a bird, flying to its nest. Her eyes roamed across the treetops, watching as branches interlocked with each other. A breeze tossed her hair up, getting in her face. Clary was used to this, since her normal red hair was so messy, and always getting in her way, so when her hair got into her eyes, as per habit, she left it be.

Chris moved her fingers toward her face, tucking the stray strands behind her ears. "What are you thinking about?"

"I'm thinking about how this place reminds me a lot of the apple trees back on a farm I used to go to a lot." She said, nostalgia changing the shape of the trees to something that fit her memories.

"What farm?" he asked.

"Oh, it was Luke's farm, we used to go there a lot, mostly during the summer, Simon would come with me sometimes, and I remember how he would all tan and brown, and I'd get sunburns that'd turn my skin red making me regret stepping foot outdoors," she smiled, "But I would always go back, no matter what."

Clary suddenly realized that she was talking about her life, and wondered if this would affect Chris, if he would get angry, bringing up her past like that when they were supposed to be together. But his face was expressionless.

He was silent for a moment, and Clary was starting to get fidgety, suddenly wanting to get something out of him, whether it was anger, sadness, something. And she was about to say something off topic, like how these trees were much nicer and taller than any of the ones on Luke's farm, but Chris began to speak again.

"When I used to live with Valentine, we lived in a small house, in a valley, next to a river that snaked through the land, so that at night, it looked like an actual snake eating the land." His eyes took on a look that Clary felt was familiar, one that Clary did all the time.

When she was lost in her own mind.

"Whenever Valentine would leave, to go see his golden boy, Jace, I would sometimes escape the house, and walk down the river and follow it from sunrise to sunset, to see if there was an end to it, because to me, the valley was all I saw for a long time, it was all I believed existed." He was silent again, before starting back up, "I could never go far off, even though I could be left alone at home for days at a time, but never did find the end of the valley. Looking back at it, I think that's why Valentine was never concerned with leaving me alone, I would never make it that far off."

"I always thought that Valentine and I were the only two people in the world, until one day, when I was small, he took me out into a city. I don't remember what we were there for, or where we were, all I could remember was feeling like there was too many people for what I thought. And when we returned back to the house, I never felt the same. I no longer felt like the owner of my own world, I felt isolated, away from where everyone was."

Clary could understand, if she thought that what she saw was all there was, then seeing New York, she'd never be able to go back.

Chris is telling me about his past….

He was being open, about everything, and she wondered if he even realized what he was doing.

Suddenly, without thinking, she slipped off of the log, and waiting for Chris to slip off, they continued their trek through the random forest.

Their empty forest.

Where only the two of them existed.

Jace POV

"Come one Alec, you can do better than that!" Jace called from the beams that intersected at the ceiling in the training room.

Alec was standing up, having fallen from the beams after Jace had given him a while timed kick behind his knees, making them buckle and making him lose his balance and causing him to tumble all the way down to the mats that lined the ground.

Alec cringed, "You cheated! I was taking off my harness for the bungee jump!"

Jace swirled around his seraph blade like a drumstick, "Oh, so if a demon is picking at his teeth, you're just gonna wait until he's done to stab it in the eye?"

"I think you're just taking out all your frustration on me, I'm not a punching bag Jace, I'm your parabatai." Alec pointed out.

Jace jumped down from the beam, landing perfectly in front of Alec.

"Show off," he muttered.

"Oh come on Alec, you're the one who suggested training in the first place." Jace looked at him.

"Only because when I came out from the meeting with the Clave, you were up to your nose in books about the Caribbean, and muttering theories about how maybe the migration pattern of ducks (do ducks migrate?) had equal patterns as to the one with the house, which by the way makes no sense in many ways." Alec argued.

"Hey, I hate ducks, and I hate Sebastian." Jace shrugged, "It was worth a try."

"No, it wasn't," Alec said banally.

"Well!" Jace thrust his hands into the air, "I don't understand you, you don't want me to mope around, but you don't want me to enjoy myself either?"

"I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy yourself," Alec said exasperated, "Just not at my expense, thank you very much."

"Hey, going back to the meeting," Jace's voice abandoned all playful manner and went straight to business, "How are things? Anything new?"

Alec's mind went back to the horrible three hour meeting, which was nothing but adults arguing with each other, "They haven't come up with anything new, they're as stumped as we are, basically the same fights, that Clary is working with Sebastian to overthrow us, that Clary's using her magic angel powers against us, etc, etc."

Alec sighed, "Some people have even 'claimed' to have seen them somewhere, they're lying, of course, because none of the place coincides with what we know, but I didn't point that out."

Jace frowned, "Who were they?"

Alec rolled his eyes, "Just some theorists who believe that even Jocelyn is in on this."

"And does the Council believe them?!"

"Absolutely not, even they know old grudges when they see one. It was just this old family whose had something against the Fairchilds for as long for quite some time now. Mom says it dates back to the eighteen hundreds, some Charlotte Fairchild, and old Consul the Clave had then."

"Huh," Jace said, "Clary's related to a Consul, but who was the person who said things against Jocelyn?"

"I don't know her name, but remember how Isabelle said that if she was ever given the chance to make a scarecrow out of living flesh, that lady would be her first victim?" Alec asked.

"Oh, her." He wrinkled his nose, "Yeah, I totally agree with Isabelle on that one."

"Speaking of Izzy, where is she? I thought she'd be hear by now to get everything she missed, if she hadn't already snuck around to hear it herself." Alec pondered.

Jace picked up a couple of knives and started throwing them at a target, imagining Sebastian's face right in the middle.

Thwack.

Right in the forehead.

"I think I heard your mom sending her off to get some stuff, she made it look important, but by what I could see she just wanted Izzy's and her spying techniques out of the house." Thwack. Between the eyebrows.

"Yeah, but don't you think that she'd be back by no-"Alex was interrupted by a knocking at the door, and turning around, Alec saw a young Shadowhunter, probably no older than Jace and him.

"Are you Alexander Lightwood?" he nodded to Jace, "Jace Lightwood?"

Alec nodded, while Jace muttered, still throwing knives, "Or Wayland, or Morgenstern, or Herondale, whichever people prefer."

Alec ignored that, asking, "What is it? Is something wrong?"

The Shadowhunter tensed, then breathed deeply, "I've been summoned to tell you two that your sister, Isabelle Lightwood, has been accused of cooperating with Jonathan Morgenstern."

Thwack, Damn.

He missed.

Chris POV

They made it back to the house.

Clary was starting to feel her familiar anxiety, and they practically rushed at all speed back to the house, because she really wanted to.

Chris was starting to find routine in this sort of thing. Hard to believe that it had only happened seven times before.

Clary was on the couch, taking in deep breaths, trying to calm herself, but to no avail. She says that she felt like she was better at it now, but honestly, he just thought that it was because she knew what to expect. What she needed was something to distract herself.

"Do you want anything in particular?" he asked.

"Umm," she said before taking in another breath, "I don't know, maybe one of those squishy balls with beads in them, you know the ones meant for medical stuff or something?" she replied.

Walking to the kitchen, quickly forming an image of what she described, he opened a random cupboard, expecting a green plastic ball to appear. What he saw piqued his curiosity.

A white sheet of paper, written in a grotesque handwriting that he had no idea how he read, considering that the writer wrote in a rush. But when he did read it, he froze.

Girl came in. Asked about magic cupboard. She knows you bought it. I'm sorry.

The gremlin that he threatened to kill sold him out. They were one step closer.

But if they were a step closer.

So was the Clave.

Chris: Damn, they're gonna find me.

Clary: *shoots flairs into the sky* I'M RIGHT HERE!

Chris: As if they can see you

Clary: I know.

Lacie: well that took forever to update

Clary: Yeah Lacie, a lot of people are angry

Lacie: hey, it is a school night, and I stayed up to finish this chapter. Reason being because I have an essay that I really need to start on, and I can't do that with the thought that I had to update on my mind.

Chris: Well at least you updated.

Lacie: And now Lacie can disappear once more!

Clary: NO

Lacie: Aww…..well what did you think Lacie's little readers? From a 1 to 10, rate this chapter, and I will, umm, idk, I'll tally up the score, and give you guys an average.

Clary: Review you guys!

Chris: Ask her not to get me caught

Clary: *shoots more flares* SOOOSSSS!

Lacie: See ya next chapter!