Chapter Three

Isabelle's heeled boots clicked on the pavement as she sped back to the Institute. Her steady footsteps were beginning to pace with her rapid heart beat, and she stopped, trying to calm her breathing. With a deep breath in, and a longer breath out, she started again, slower this time, walking through the cloudy puffs that her breath formed in the cold winter's air.

She was coming back from the park, where she had just met up with Simon. She'd been so glad to see him, and even more so that he had been the one to call her. Things between them had been…stiff, to put it lightly. Tense, since a few nights ago.

Not for a moment had Isabelle been upset with him over the events of that evening, but she had seen it on his face the instant he'd shoved her back by the shoulders that night: Simon wasn't going to forgive himself for this.

None of her reassurances had seemed to reach him in his frantic state of self-loathing though, and it had ended with him taking off, before ignoring her texts, and then turning off his phone after the twelfth time she had called. Izzy had cursed herself for seeming—no, being—so caught up on him. She'd been dating boys since she knew what dating was, dumping them the next week, or even the same day. Isabelle Lightwood did not get caught up on boys. Why was it Simon that got so stuck in her head? What was different about him?

She pushed the question away, along with all the precious, little things that came to mind when she pondered why she liked Simon. They had never officially dated, she supposed—never gave anything a label—but she knew better than anyone that labeling a relationship didn't mean a damn thing. And whether she wanted to or not, she really did care about Simon.

So, after several days of silence, her heart nearly lept from her chest when she saw his name appear on her caller ID earlier that day. But it was followed by a crushing dread, and the realization that this call likely wasn't for any reason she would like. And she hadn't been wrong. For the hundredth time, her mind replayed their conversation in the park.

"Look, Izzy, I just…." He swallowed, his voice cracking and uneven, as if he couldn't breathe. As if he needed oxygen at all. "I just can't do this to you…to us."

"Simon, please. It's not your fault. What happened the other night—I didn't stop you for a reason. It's a part of who you are. You can't run from that. I won't run from that," Izzy said, desperately. She struggled to string her thoughts into sentences, fought to find the right words to make him understand.

He looked exhausted, abnormally pale and weak, face thinned from stress and hunger. Simon looked at her, brows knitting in confusion, but his eyes were resolute. He had already made up his mind, and she knew it.

"No. No, that's not…that's not me. That's a monster."

She grabbed his shoulder, shaking him, forcing his eyes up from the ground to meet her own. "You are not a monster," she said firmly. Even as tall as she was in her heels, she had to look up to hold his eyes. Simon was the perfect height; she liked that about him, as absurd as it sounded. She didn't know there was such a thing as the perfect height before.

"You listen to me: you are not a monster. You never have been, you never will be. If you keep up like this you'll kill yourself. The other night was not you being a monster, it was your body telling you to stop being an idiot and live. I was more than happy to help with that. But, Simon, you haven't eaten since that night, and it's killing you. Look at yourself," she demanded, grabbing his wrists. She turned them over in her hands, running her fingers up the unusually dark veins mapped just under his skin. He was only wearing a t-shirt in the harsh winter weather.

"I'm already dead," he whispered. She scoffed, rolling her eyes. She'd only heard that about a thousand times before—his favorite excuse for torturing himself.

"More dead."

"And wouldn't that be better?" Simon snapped suddenly, ripping his arms away from her. He stumbled back a step, shaking his head, and his voice was much quieter when he said, "I…I couldn't hurt you then."

"Look at me!" she shouted, gesturing to herself wildly, "I'm fine! Simon, I'm okay! You didn't hurt me!" That was half true. It had hurt, but only when his teeth broke her skin—only when he ripped them out carelessly, in his frenzy to get away from her.

Simon looked briefly startled by her outburst, before he shook his head again, disbelieving. "I—I can't—"

"Look," she persisted, and began unraveling her scarf.

You have to believe me, she thought. I'm okay.

She pulled the last loop of the fabric free, holding it loosely in her hand, letting the silk billow in the wind.

"Look," she repeated.

He took a hesitant step forward, eyes scared, and in the moment, Isabelle thought he looked quite like a child, scared to face the monster under the bed. He came up to her slowly, eyes fixed on the right side of her neck, searching for some horrific wound that wasn't there.

His shaking hand rose to touch the skin there, to feel over the two barely visible dots of slightly darker flesh, the only thing left to indicate the skin had even been broken. It had only taken one iratze for the wound to close. The bleeding had practically stopped on its own. She was fine. And she needed him to see it.

A long minute passed, as he inspected her sadly, his fingers circling the same spot over and over. His thumb started to move upward, until it settled in the little dip high on her throat, feeling her pulse thrum hastily under the surface.

All it took was the sensation of blood pumping under his hand, and his eyes flashed, grief and regret instantly supplanted by instinct. By hunger. As weak as he looked, she was surprised by how quick he moved, suddenly gripping her shoulders and dragging her closer to him, his face pressing down to her neck.

Her pulse spiked, and she flinched only slightly before baring her neck freely. She would a hundred times over, if it meant he would eat. But this time, he stopped himself, growling and shoving her away again, staggering backwards with a hand coming up to cover his fangs.

"It…I almost—Izzy, you need to leave," he gasped frantically, before turning abruptly to leave when he realized that she wasn't going to.

"Simon!" Her voice pitched, high, and vulnerable, and utterly weak. "Simon, please, please! You can't leave me—I…I lo—"

Simon froze at the words caught on her tongue. She sucked in a breath, her eyes burning. He turned to face her one last time. "Say it, Isabelle," he said miserably, his lip quivering. "Say it, if you really mean it. If that's really why you need me to stay, say it." Hope and doubt warred on his face, as he awaited the words Isabelle could never give. Just three little words.

She choked down tears, and sputtered, "I…can't. I…I don't know."

Simon swallowed and nodded solemnly. "Thought so." He turned and walked away, leaving her standing shocked, and despite herself, crying. She could have sworn she heard him call out, "It's for the best," over the rising wind, as her scarf slipped from her fingers and fluttered away.

Fresh tears on Izzy's face startled her out of her thoughts. She pulled her coat collar higher around her neck to chase away the cold.

Why couldn't she have just given him that? By the Angel. Three words. What was worse was that they were true. She loved him. She knew she did. So why couldn't she just say it?

She sniffled, and thought it sounded girlish, before trying to smear away the still falling tears on her cheeks.

By the time Isabelle reached the doors of the Institute, her mind had gone blessedly blank, the way it does after crying for hours and having nothing left to give. She walked up the pathway, observed the strong and ancient building, taking in the familiar sight of her home. She wondered what the glamor made it look like. She couldn't imagine it as anything but perfect.

Pushing open the door, she stepped into the warmth of the building, stripping her heavy coat at the entrance. She got on the elevator, let it carry her upward. A sharp ringing from her pocket brought her back to reality, and she pulled her phone out to answer the call.

"Hello?" She said, clearing her throat quickly when she realized she could still hear the tears in her voice. The person on the phone didn't seem to notice. "Thank goodness. Isabelle."

"Hi, Mom," Isabelle said tiredly. The last thing she needed right now was some assignment to work on.

"Are you at the Institute?" Her mother said, a frantic edge to her voice.

Izzy frowned. "Yeah, why?" The elevator dinged and she stepped out, automatically heading towards her room, before changing her mind and turning the other way. She wanted to let off a little steam.

"Jocelyn hasn't seen Clary for a while, and Jace never met us here like he said he would."

"Ah. Jace and Clary are missing at the same time. What a strange coincidence," Isabelle said flatly. She reached the training room, slipping off her shoes and walking over to the rungs on the wall. She pinned the phone between shoulder and ear as she began to climb.

"Come on, just check there for me. It's not like Jace to miss a weapons supplement meeting," Maryse said in a huff, before adding, "and I just have a bad feeling."

Izzy reached the top rung, and turned to pull herself up onto a support beam for the vaulted room, what she'd come to think of as her own personal gymnastics beam. Teetering gracefully down the narrow support, one foot in front of the other, she made her way to the middle and sat down. She liked being up high when she was mad. Or sad. Or whatever she was feeling after the park.

"Alright. I'll check."

"Message me, once you have." And then her mother hung up.

Isabelle looked down over the room, slipping her phone back into her pocket. She pouted to herself for a moment; she didn't want to go all the way to Jace's room to accidentally open the door on him and Clary making out. She'd seen enough of that already.

Isabelle let herself fall backwards off the beam, wrapping her knees around the wood to catch herself so she was hanging upside down. Her long, black hair fell into her face, and she shook it away, sighing at the rush of blood to her head. She closed her eyes, tried to clear her mind as thoughts of Simon crept back into it.

When she peered out at the room again, slanted below her, her eyes scanned over to the weapons rack. It was getting low. Only four seraph blades and three cheap iron swords were slotted on the hooks. Now that she thought about it, it was kind of off that Jace had missed that meeting. She frowned, trying to think back to when she last heard from Jace or Clary. It was just the other day, right?

The sudden feeling of someone else in the room, made her heart jump, and a not a second later, a crash sounded from down the hall.

She flipped down from the ceiling, landing expertly on her feet as a familiar hum of adrenaline settled in her veins. Her whip was already uncurled in her hand, the weapon practically a part of her, as she sprinted towards where the sound had come from. She paused in the center of the hall, just outside Alec's room. Everything was eerily silent.

Then, there was a sharp zap to her neck, and a pulse of red from her necklace. She'd only barely registered movement when she lashed out her whip at the shadow darting across the side of her vision, hearing the tip crack into the wall as the shadow disappeared as quickly as it had come. When she looked down, the glow was already gone from the stone she wore.

Whatever demon that had been here just a moment ago had left.

The bad feeling curling in Izzy's gut did not.

She cracked Alec's door. Nothing. He was out with Magnus. She sprinted down the hall, checking all the rooms, only now realizing how quiet and empty the Institute had been since she returned. Jace's room was empty, and so too were all the spares. Finally, she came to the library doors, shoving open the heavy wood.

And then Isabelle was shouting, her whip slinking to the floor in silvery coils. She stumbled forward and fell to the ground in front of the desk, pressing her hands to the floor to try and steady her spinning vision.

It was as though she was in a dream as she crawled on her hands and knees to the center of the room, her breath heavy and quick. She watched as her hand reached out, her fingertips pressing into one of the sticky, red streaks on the floor, and she lifted her hand away to look at it, to make sure it was real. Her fingers were stained the same dark color.

Another scream caught in her throat as she took in the letters that were scrawled over the hardwood, then turned into a ragged sob. Because splashed on the floor in blood, were two clear words:

Habero eos.

I have them.