Isabelle had always thought of herself as being halfway between Jace and Alec in many different respects, but especially when it came to the whole soulmate legend. Where Jace was so desperately against the idea in general, Alec was hopelessly in love with it. She had always seemed to be right in the middle the both of them, seeing as she didn't exactly reject the idea completely, but she was certainly a bit skeptical of it. Izzy certainly wanted it to be true, she often dreamed of what her own soulmate might be like, but she had to admit that she wasn't sure she'd ever find whoever hers was supposed to be.
She'd very quickly taken to wearing her whip almost constantly because of it. Izzy hadn't really chosen the whip because of her tattoo in the way Alec had chosen the bow because of his. But the whip certainly didn't hurt after she'd chosen it. The problem wasn't exactly that she wanted to hide it, but rather, she didn't exactly know what it was. No one she had ever met knew what it was, and after so many years of questions, she finally became tired and began simply covering it up.
Whatever her tattoo was, it had always slightly reminded Izzy of a stele, but she had the sinking feeling that it was something from the mundane world. What looked like the hilt of it had a button on it, and she often wondered what that button actually did. The rest of what came out of the hilt was utterly simple, almost like a stick, except for the fact that it was completely smooth, entirely cylindrical. Jace had often made many different jokes about what the shape of it might actually look like. But Izzy had always held the hope that the moment she understood what it was would likely be the most defining moment of her life.
As she got herself ready for Magnus Bane's party, she couldn't help but think about the look on Jace and Alec's faces. She knew there was something going on, but finding out what it was would have taken up valuable time, and she knew that she could later corner Alec about it. When Clary came in the room, however, she felt compelled to look down at Clary's hand, wondering if the legend could be the cause of whatever was happening with Jace and Alec. Clary's finger had a ring on it at the moment, so Isabelle quickly looked away before Clary had time to notice her staring.
When Isabelle started to help Clary figure out what she should wear, Clary began talking in the way that Izzy knew mundanes always felt they had to. When Clary asked Izzy a question much deeper than small talk, Izzy tried to keep herself calm by staying occupied with their clothes. "Does Jace know how Alec really feels about him?" she asked, her voice not betraying anything other than simple curiosity.
Izzy shook her head, trying to come up with the right thing to say, knowing there was no point in denying it. "No, Jace isn't exactly the most observational. But he can't know, Clary. At the very least, he can't hear it from me or you." Clary nodded, her face serious, and Izzy knew she had to trust her because that was the only option she had.
"What about the legend?" Clary asked, her expression changing to one of deep thought. "Surely if Alec believes in that he wouldn't want to end up so hurt by it. He and Jace don't have the same tattoos, so does Alec not believe in it?" Izzy froze for several seconds. Alec's tattoo was on his foot, so that meant that it was terribly unlikely that Clary had seen it. That also meant that she'd seen Jace's tattoo, and Izzy knew Jace only took his ring off when he was playing piano. Her eyes unwillingly flicked to Clary's own hand once more, and she idly wondered if Clary's ring might be hiding a tattoo much like Jace's hid his.
"Oh, trust me, Alec believes in it," Izzy responded, holding up one of her dresses to see if it would fit Clary. "It's just that Alec loves with all his heart. When he loves, he loves with everything he has. He couldn't help but fall in love with Jace. And once he fell, he couldn't pick himself back up, legend or no legend." Izzy took her whip off and placed it on her bed as she got ready to help Clary with her hair, knowing that it would only get caught in Clary's hair and making things much more difficult.
As Izzy reached up to take hold of Clary's hair, she paused when Clary gave her a strange look. "It's my tattoo," she explained, already put off by it. "I have no idea what it is, so I'm just glad that my whip hides it most of the time." Clary smiled as Isabelle began fixing her hair, and Izzy finally realized that she was just mundane enough to likely know what it was.
"It's called a lightsaber, Izzy," she said, the tone of her voice something that Isabelle couldn't read. "It's a weapon. Almost like one of your seraph blades." Izzy narrowed her eyes, wondering how the mundanes could have a weapon the Shadowhunters didn't know about, but Clary seemed to see that, so she began speaking once more. "They're from a movie series. Trust me, you probably don't want to know."
Izzy acknowledged the fact that she likely didn't want to know what was going on. But then Clary spoke up again, and Izzy felt her heart hit the floor. "I think you should let me call Simon. You know, the mundane?" Izzy had heard Clary talk about her best friend much more than once, but she wasn't sure what he had to do with their current situation seeing as taking him to Magnus's was not a good idea in any way. "I think you're going to want him to meet us at Magnus Bane's. Simon's got the same tattoo."
"This is ridiculously dangerous," Alec mumbled as they began their walk to Magnus's. Isabelle had to admit that he was right, but she was more curious than she'd ever been before. "If anything happens to this mundane, it will be on us, Izzy, you know that." She nodded; Alec was generally right when it came to matters of safety. But right now, she only wanted to see the mundane for herself, still not believing that her soulmate was actually a mundane.
"It's better he's a mundane than a Downworlder," Alec continued, seemingly reading Izzy's thoughts. "At least you don't have to worry about the Clave." Again, Izzy had to admit that Alec was right, but verbally admitting it would only encourage Alec. What Alec was referring to wasn't exactly written in the Law, but everyone took it to be Law. Shadowhunters were forbidden to have Downworlders as soulmates, which had never made any sense to Izzy, seeing as it wasn't exactly a choice. They could date, or even marry, any Downworlder, as long as that Downworlder wasn't their soulmate.
If the Shadowhunter and Downworlder in question were ever discovered to be soulmates, the Downworlder would be arrested and put on trial. That part never made any sense to Izzy either, but all of the Downworlders put on trial had always either been sentenced to either death or life in the Clave's prison. For those who were sentenced to prison, most of them took their own lives, especially those who were immortal. The Clave acted like the trial was a test. Their solution to this was to come up with the newest, most inventive ways to kill the Downworlder.
The part of the trial that was the test was to ask the Shadowhunter if they would be willing to take whatever punishment had been invented for their soulmate. This was usually something that would kill the Downworlder, but it would only be excruciatingly painful to the Shadowhunter. The only time jail was sentenced was if the Shadowhunter had a health issue that could not be worked around. So far in history, no Shadowhunter had ever said yes to this question, even though it would mean the release of their soulmate, and Izzy had the feeling that it was because they knew the social upset that would occur if they did. So Isabelle knew how right Alec was that her soulmate was apparently a mundane.
Simon wasn't there when they reached Magnus's, so they opted on having Alec wait for him outside while they went ahead and tried to find Magnus. Magnus Bane was terribly quirky, and Izzy immediately liked him, finding him almost charming. "And why do you suppose that I'm the one who knows the answer to all of this?" Magnus asked when they'd explained why they were there in the first place.
"At first I thought it was just because you're the High Warlock," Izzy replied, analyzing every change in Magnus's expression. "But then the look of recognition on your face when you first saw Clary told me that you know much more than we first thought you did. So we're going to need you to tell us what exactly is going on here. Otherwise we'll have to report to our parents, and I know that you don't exactly have a wonderful past with them." Izzy watched as Magnus slowly resigned himself to the fact that she was right.
Just as Magnus was getting ready to direct Clary to a room where they could speak in private, Alec showed up with Simon. Her first impression of Simon was that he was completely and utterly mundane. His plain brown eyes matched his messy, plain brown hair. But the longer Izzy looked at him, the more she had to admit that he was more attractive than she usually thought of the average mundane.
When Izzy looked at Simon's shirt, she was forced to finally fully believe Clary. Up until this point, she had slightly doubted what Clary was saying, but when she saw that the person on Simon's shirt was holding what Clary said was a lightsaber, she was forced to understand that this wasn't a game any longer. She stepped over to Simon without listening to Magnus as he asked what a mundane was doing at his party. Izzy grabbed Simon's right hand and pulled his wrist up, looking down at it with slight surprise.
"What's going on?" Simon asked, looking down at his wrist and back up at her with an expression that seemed like he almost desperately wanted his own hunch to be correct. "What's this about?" he asked, his eyes flicking to Clary. Izzy knew that everyone's attention was on them as she moved to start taking her whip off. For once in his life, Jace was completely silent, and Izzy sensed that Magnus was unusually quiet as well. Izzy forced herself to keep from looking at Alec as her whip came off. She watched as Simon's face changed from confusion to joy as he looked down at the tattoo on her wrist.
Let me know your thoughts on the story so far! I hope you're enjoying it as much as I'm enjoying writing it! I may or may not finish the next chapter tonight, but I'm hoping to keep myself from posting it today so I don't do two chapters today, but we'll see!