HEY ALL,
This is one of my fav chapters so far - I am so excited to write these two now! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Mortal Instruments!
In a single afternoon, Jada Buonavento had gone from tutoring for Thaddeus Ashguard to successfully infiltrating the personal home of the Circle's infamous leader.
Not bad in a day's work, as far as she was concerned.
It had taken most of the afternoon to get (what Valentine had called) a tour of the Manor. His mansion within the Wards was a massive thing – a never-ending maze of marble and silver and tapestry and mahogany. Most would be awed by it, Jada supposed, but she hadn't lingered too long on the impressive architecture. She'd spent the tour memorizing the layout of all four floors, while Martha droned on endlessly, Jonathan plodding beside her like a tiny, angry thundercloud.
It was not until the sun went down that Martha finally led Jada to her rooms (which were nearly half the size of her house in the countryside) and disappeared somewhere with the children. Jada had taken one sweeping glance at the velvet-swathed room, turned on her heels, and wandered her way back to the library, eager to find something to distract her mind for the night.
Much to Jada's relief, the Morgenstern library was supremely better stocked than the Ashguard library had been… Not a surprise, she supposed, considering the vast difference in their size, but it was a pleasant consolation, nonetheless.
Valentine's library was a vast cathedral of towering mahogany bookshelves, broken only by the curving windows against one wall and an expansive fireplace against the other – like a mirror to his office. In reality, it felt more like a set from an elaborate fairy-tail than a room in an actual home. Jada had scaled one of the many wooden ladders, trying to get her fingers on a heavy-looking copy of Paradise Lost floating high above her reach. She had never gotten her Father's gene for imposing height. After spending the last few minutes in a vain attempt, she was all but ready to give up.
A stack of four volumes was on the short table beside her, teetering unsteadily – but it was still not enough to satisfy.
Just as she was about to grasp the book, someone pointedly cleared their throat behind her. Jada froze mid-reach and quickly glanced at the mirrored finish of the golden ladder. Through the blurry haze of the reflection, she noticed a familiar form lounging at the other side of the room, and slowly Jada turned her head to face him.
Valentine Morgenstern was leaning against the library's mahogany doorframe, his posture a textbook example of arrogance. He wore, from what Jada could gather, his typical uniform – a dark suit with the jacket abandoned, the white shirt collar unbuttoned. Something more casual than the tailored-to-perfection suit he had worn earlier that morning. In the triangle of exposed skin, Jada could see that he was fully Marked tonight. Dark Runes snaked under the thin material of his button-up shirt like thick veins, curling to the side of his neck.
A bit overkill for him to come fully Marked, Jada thought – that was unless Valentine was trying to make a point. To assert his dominance.
Jada fought the urge to roll her eyes at him.
He looked at her with a hint of amusement in his eyes, as if he had been watching her struggle all along. "That's quite a few books you have, Miss Buonavento," Valentine offered, his voice deep and resonant. His dark eyes had narrowed at the stack of volumes to her side, pointedly.
Jada forced a thin smile at Valentine and half-turned back to the shelf of books, trying to relocate that thick volume of Paradise Lost she was looking at before. The smell of old parchment seemed to settle her nerves.
"My father once said you can tell a lot about a man," she murmured thoughtfully, "by the books he keeps in his library."
The response seemed to amuse Valentine.
Flashing a momentary smirk, he detached from the ornate door frame and strode towards her, humor now dancing with the suspicion in his dark eyes. There was something intriguing, she had to admit, about the way this man moved: a sort of luxurious conceit in the lilt of his broad shoulders and gait that seemed oddly out of place in such an imposingly tall man. Jada turned back to the tower of shelves, trying to ignore how each of his echoing steps grated on her nerves.
"Ah," he answered, his voice growing closer. "But it seems you are missing one."
Remorselessly, she felt Valentine step up on the lowest rung of the ladder beneath her, his towering body hovering just behind her back as he ascended the ladder and reached the shelf beyond her height. He didn't touch her – God help him if he had – but she felt his closeness burning against her skull and spine like a dull thrum of electricity. The reaction was almost as irking as if he had touched her – but she refused to show her displeasure, to let him win.
He reached for a book two shelves higher than Paradise Lost in a matter of seconds and flashed a superior smirk.
As quickly as he had stepped to the ladder, Valentine descended, swinging from the rail as lightly as a cat. He threw another amused glance her way before striding across the room to the fireplace. From any other man, it would have been an openly flirtatious gesture, but Valentine Morgenstern was not just any man, Jada knew. Seduction was a tool – a utensil to be wielded in its time and place to further an end.
His smile lingered in her mind's eye though, and it made Jada frown. At least it was now easy for her to see where his son had gotten his pale good looks. His good looks and, she suspected, his bad attitude.
She let her eyes dart to where Valentine paced by the fireplace, his body a vague, powerful outline swaying in her peripheral.
When his hand raised, she saw he was holding an inordinately small novel to the firelight, the Morgenstern ring gleaming dully against the weathered leather cover. Valentine flipped to his page with quick precision, the book lying flat in his palm as if he knew the passage by heart. "Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind," he recited. "But for me, helas, I may no more… The vain travail hath worried me so sore, I am of them that furthest come behind."
His voice was beautiful, in an odd way – a bassy, resonant tone as smooth as silver that barely rumbled over the melodic crackling of the fireplace. It was a small wonder, she thought, how this man had been able to summon an army of Nephilim to follow him. There was a powerful magnetism to him as he spoke.
"Yet may I by no means, my worried mind draw from the deer," Valentine continued. "but as she fleeth afore, fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, since in a net I seek to hold the wind."
Jada recognized the line from the one Valentine had quoted at her, earlier this morning in his office. The Circle Leader's eyes darted in her direction now, reflecting the tongues of fire burning in the mantle. It made Jada feel a twist of emotion she could not quite identify, but Valentine did not seem to notice her reaction.
"Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt," he finished in his silken tone. "as well as I, may spend his time in vain; And graven in diamonds in letters plain there is written, her fair neck round about, 'Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am, and wild to hold, though I seem tame.'"
Jada said nothing. Partially because it was not the staff's place to do so in this situation, and partially because, in her experience, silence was a powerful weapon. Most people could not stand silence and rambled to fill the quiet for her. Typically, with useful information.
With a smug smirk, Valentine closed the book, tapping the cover pensively on his lips as he sauntered to a thick leather armchair facing the fireplace. "I've given some thought - to your little game."
Game? Was he referring to her question suggestion, earlier that afternoon?
Anticipation rose in her chest and Jada ruthlessly shoved it back down. Hope was a bandage that always ripped off at a bad time. It was better not to encourage the emotion in the first place.
"And?" she coolly replied.
"It is an intriguing prospect." With flair, Valentine sank into one of the armchairs in front of the fireplace, resting his face against his fist. He may have been imposing in stature, but seeing him now, he looked less like the vicious revolutionary of legend and more like a demure metropolitan businessman. Firelight danced across his pale skin, igniting his irises like jewels in a midnight forge.
"An answer for an answer: that was your bargain, was it not?" he inquired.
"It was." Jada set her jaw, swinging off the ladder to the floor. She was vaguely aware of her hair falling out of its pins, down her neck, but she had no time to fix it. "Did you have a particular question in mind, Mr. Morgenstern?"
Apparently, the answer was yes. Valentine looked up at her and motioned with one hand for her to join him. Jada picked up her books from the side table and silently obeyed, slipping over to the sitting area as quietly as her heeled shoes would let her.
The fireplace before them, Jada noticed, was a solid slab of marble, gilded in places with inlays of what looked like real gold. It looked magnificent, but Valentine didn't seem phased. He glared at it without seeing it, his face set with single-minded focus.
"I've seen your credentials, Miss Buonavento," he began ruthlessly. "You graduated with highest honors from Alicante's Academy. Several impressive academic distinctions. The first student in Clave history to finish your academic specialization before reaching full adulthood. By all accounts…" He waved an airy hand at her. "A genius."
Valentine thrilled the last word with an impressive amount of flattery, even by Jada's standards.
Not that flattery was going to get him anywhere with her.
Jada narrowed her eyes at him.
"I'm not sure what you mean, sir," she answered.
Those black eyes flashed again. That faint flicker of the light. The whisper of a meaning.
Yes, they said. You do.
Jada couldn't help but stare, reigning in her fascination with almost painful force.
Argyle had once tried to describe what it was like - how the Silent Brothers communicated. Jada had never understood, when he had explained it; how their silence could have been said to speak. Logically, it was nonsense, but now, here was Valentine's unspoken voice, ringing in her mind as clearly as words - and the answer suddenly seemed clear.
She only hoped that this telepathy was one-directional.
"You have the intellect and the training of a Council member," Valentine continued aloud, tipping his head curiously to the side. "Yet, you claim to spend your days tutoring children. I want to know why."
'Claim to'?
Jada sighed.
So, Valentine Morgenstern did have a brain after all. Or at the very least, he had an inkling that she was a bit more than what she was letting on.
It had never been difficult for Jada to elaborate and stretch the truth - to embellish fact with the subtle sway of persuasion. But the Circle's leader was not the average, slobbering idiot. He was an expert in persuasion in his own regard.
A few responses formed and dissolved through Jada's mind, but in the end, she chose to tell him the truth:
"I decided to tutor…" she answered, thinking of the orphanage in Alicante. "Because I am fond of children."
At the response, Valentine's eyes narrowed to deadly precision - as sharp as two obsidian arrowheads ready to fly.
"I thought we agreed to be honest, Miss Buonavento," he delicately chided. His tone was conversationally pleasant on the surface, but the muscles of his neck had tightened under the collar of his shirt dangerously.
Jada wasn't in the mood for his suspicion.
"I told you the truth," she insisted, meeting his steely glare head-on. His sculpted features somehow looked more deadly tonight, glowing with the like of the fireplace instead of afternoon sunshine. "If you wanted a different answer, then perhaps you should have framed your question differently."
Irritably, Valentine's lips flattened to a narrow line, like the edge of a blade, but the rage at least, seemed to subside. His expression changed again - another easy smile instead of a blank, emotionless canvas. To the average observer, it would have been helplessly charming, but Jada was not so convinced. She knew how simple it was to school a pleasant expression, regardless of the sentiment behind it.
"Then allow me to rephrase -" Valentine recovered smoothly.
Jada considered letting him finish his sentence but quickly decided against it. It was going to take forever to get what she wanted if she indulged every one of his questions.
"Unfortunately," she cut in, evenly. "You already asked your question, Mr. Morgenstern. It's my turn now."
The spark hit the match and those eyes were alight once more with annoyance - but Valentine, to her satisfaction, said nothing. She was certain he was not used to his staff speaking to him that way – but for some unknown reason, he seemed to let it slide for now. Against the cap of the chair arm, Valentine's pale knuckles were strained. Frustration? Jada wondered absently. Or trepidation over her next question?
She gazed into the fireplace as she thought, watching the tongues of flame dancing in the pale marble hearth.
There were many different questions, Jada supposed, that she would have wanted to ask Valentine Morgenstern, if given the chance. How had he survived the Uprising? How far did the Circle's influence reach in the Clave? What was he planning on doing next? But this was a game of trust - and she would not win his by demanding the most intricate information as soon as she found the first opportunity.
"As far as I know, you offered me a tutoring position knowing nothing but my name," she mused. "What was it about the Buonavento family that interested you, Mr. Morgenstern?"
Valentine's grip on the chair arm loosened. Again, he eyed her over with clinical precision, the muscles of his neck working.
"Your parents were prominent medical researchers at the forefront of Downworlder sciences and Nephilim medical advancement. Some say even more knowledgeable than our own Silent Brotherhood…" His tone seemed pleasant enough, but Jada gritted her teeth silently, hoping he could not see it. She had spoken to enough Circle members to guess what was going to come next: a jab about her parents being idealistic fools. Idiots whose coddling of the inferior races got them killed… Based on her knowledge of the Circle leader's opinions of Downworlders, she could only imagine what he thought of her parents…
But to her surprise, Valentine eased back, rested his arms lazily behind his head, and smiled.
"Much of the Buonavento physicians' discoveries were kept confidential, so I hear…" he explained. The Circle leader's tone was light, conversational. The top of his unbuttoned shirt had gaped open, exposing a triangle of pale, rune-marked muscles. "I had hoped to learn more about what they were studying, during their service to the Clave. Their medical research… intrigues me," Valentine finished.
"Intrigues you?" Jada echoed.
Valentine raised his snowy eyebrows, as if in disbelief. "Does this surprise you?" he inquired.
Sensing that her emotion was written on her face, Jada returned her gaze to the fireplace.
"Based upon my experience," she replied, knotting her fingers, "I assumed you would despise my parents as deeply as the other Circle members do."
"Despise? Is that what you thought?" Valentine's pale eyebrows shot up more now, in what looked like genuine surprise. Another flicker of humor curled one corner of his mouth as he scanned her. "Brilliance is still brilliance, Miss Buonavento. No matter how grievously it is misplaced."
Jada stared at him.
Valentine Morgenstern? Calling her Downworld-loving parents brilliant?
Despite finding him being her obsession for over two years, Jada Buonavento was now suddenly unsure of what to make of the man in front of her. She had thought she was looking for a monster. A bloodthirsty revolutionary. A murderer who was not above killing his own flesh and blood. But now as he sat before her, looking like a tortured king in a fairytale castle, Jada was suddenly hesitant.
The idea made her stomach turn with unease, fascination, and, shockingly, a small tinge of gratitude.
It was a welcome mystery to see that Valentine Morgenstern was somehow, remarkably, different from the ill-mannered lackeys who followed him.
The fire had begun to die down now, its golden flickering transitioning to the rusty glow of smoldering embers. Jada watched the reddish light casting light across Valentine's set jaw with artistic fascination. Something had softened in his face now, something Jada could not quite place. A memory of the distant past stormed like a midnight ocean behind his solemn eyes.
"I can empathize, you know," Valentine finally murmured, distantly.
"With?" she replied, but she was unsure if he heard her. Jada had the sense he was only half-there, caught between his thoughts and the present reality.
"The loss – of your parents," he explained stiffly. He looked carefully still, and to Jada's eyes, vaguely sad. "I lost my father, to a lycanthrope pack near Brocelind forest."
Whatever she had expected Valentine to say, this had not been it.
A slow heat rose to Jada's brown eyes like an unwelcome tide, and she carefully hid it before Valentine could see it. This was not a conversation she was about to have with Valentine Morgenstern.
"I –" Jada felt her voice about to waver and paused, taking a measured breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
He seemed to come back to reality slowly as if stepping out of a dream. Those dark eyes began to focus again, their normal guarded humor, sparking red with the glow of the fireplace.
"Do you remember this morning, when I asked if you had killed the pack leader?"
Jada nodded as Valentine's smile widened.
"The truth is, I didn't know if it was you at all, until you told me."
Valentine hadn't known?
Jada blinked at him – surprise chasing away the remnants of her other emotions. "Then how did you -?"
"I knew what I would have done – what I did. I slaughtered the beast that killed my father… and your answer told me the rest." The eldest Morgenstern's gaze was like a laser now, creating a hot path where it wandered down her frame."There is a certain strength about you, Miss Buonavento," he finished, dropping his tone to a velvet low. "You seemed undoubtedly capable of it."
Capable of it.
Against her will, Jada's mind recalled Argyle, the night she had killed the pack leader. The lanky frame of her closest friend tumbling into the werewolves' lair, all but begging her to stop. Worried she would be killed. Worried she would fail.
Argyle's concern was so completely different from the cool certainty of Valentine's smooth voice. The resoluteness of his glittering eyes. The blindly confident curl at the corner of his lips.
Jada's gaze lingered on those lips, for a moment longer than she would have liked.
The space between her and Valentine began to feel heavy, with an odd gravity Jada couldn't quite place. Her brown eyes darted to the stack of books on the coffee table, looking for an exit.
Valentine seemed to notice.
With another knowing smirk, he returned to his normal, arrogant self - his focus softening.
"Here." Valentine tossed something small and flat at her across the space between the couches, and Jada caught it lightly without thinking. "Perhaps it will make a poetry fan of you yet."
Jada flipped it over, read the gilded title, and scoffed.
The Collected Poems of Sir Thomas Wyatt.
The one he had read from, minutes before.
She saw the wicked glimmer in Valentine's black irises when she looked up and couldn't help but share a smile with him.
Well, Jada thought, looking into his dark eyes, he was persistent if nothing else.
Quietly, Jada added the book to her collection and stood. In a few quick strides, she was at the library's doorway, looking back at him over her shoulder. Despite his height, Valentine looked oddly solitary now, lounging in the grandeur of the towering room. Jada distantly wondered how many nights he had spent there in the past seven years since the Uprising, staring that that magnificent marble hearth in the same way, watching the fire go out alone.
Before she could dwell on it, the ring on her right hand pulsed, emanating a dull, greenish light.
The ring was one of Atrean's contraptions. A tool to summon her if she was ever needed.
Quickly, Jada covered her hand so Valentine could not see and slipped out of the library, softly closing the heavy wooden door behind her.
"You called, Atrean?"
Atrean, who had been pacing the length of his cluttered apartment, looked distinctly tortured as his mistress emerged. She was wearing the modest, business-like clothing she reserved for her tutoring jobs (a discreet black dress and heels, carefully pinned-up hair), but she had thrown on a trenchcoat somewhere in the process, which made her seem more like her wild self.
She exited the portal looking oddly out of place in the strange patchwork of his living room. The space was cluttered and chaotic, with odd artifacts, magical contraptions, and mysterious books strewn haphazardly about. A crystal ball sat on a table, casting a soft glow across the room, while a row of jars filled with strange ingredients lined one wall.
His relief at seeing her quickly morphed into impatience. "I should have put a leash on you years ago," he snapped with a glare. "Will you ever stop disappearing? You're going to give me a heart attack."
Jada brushed off her coat as the portal closed behind her, seemingly unconcerned. "I'm not a fourteen-year-old girl anymore, Atrean. I'm not so easily restrained."
Although it almost broke him to admit it, Atrean had to agree she was right. The little girl who had nursed him back to health after the Uprising was no longer the same Jada Buonavento who stood before him now. Mortal aging was a bizarre thing, he reflected, not for the first time. In a few years, this child had become a woman – and he was not particularly fond of the fact. Especially not when she acted like this.
"Where were you, then?" he insisted, rage subsiding. "In Alicante?"
Apparently, she seemed determined to infuriate him tonight. She had wandered over to the edge of the room, expertly avoiding the mess on the floor, and was absently inspecting a figurine of a hydra on his bookshelf. It was a delicate, intricately crafted piece, made of what appeared to be spun glass, with glittering rubies for eyes.
"I was following a lead actually," replied Jada. "About the Circle…"
Atrean lunged forward and a few emerald sparks flittered from his golden hair like green static. "What kind of lead, my lady?!" he demanded. "Why didn't you inform me?! What if something had happened?!"
"A lady should never reveal all her secrets," Jada answered with a conspiratory wink. At his glower, she added, "Besides, Atrean, if you keep worrying yourself like this, you are going to put grey hairs on that pretty head of yours."
Atrean's acid-green eyes suspiciously narrowed. He blew a stray piece of hair out of his face and scowled. "Well, someone is in a chipper mood. It must be good, whatever it is that you are doing…"
"Unexpectedly good," she confirmed. Jada flopped down on the chaise, looking pleased. "And I assume you didn't summon me for chit chat… Anything to report?"
"Most is just general business, my lady," he sighed. "Oliver mentioned that the tensions between the vampire and wolf packs in Shanghai might be escalating recently. Apparently, the vampires broke into their hideout in the industrial park and changed all their door handles to silver ones."
"Well, of course they did," she scoffed. "It was Tuesday."
Atrean was bewildered. "What does Tuesday have to do with anything?"
At his expression, Jada frowned and waved a dismissive hand at him. "Just forget I said anything."
Lady Orsa truly was a fearsome woman. If knowledge was power, this woman was the mortal equivalent of the sun.
"Genevieve also mentioned something," he recalled cautiously, thinking of Orsa's werewolf general. "About the operation in Madrid."
Jada perked up at that comment. "A curious situation, that one," she replied. "Werewolves have been pillaging the church's supply of Shadowhunter weapons, selling them off for a profit. Of all the Downworld races, the werewolves are the ones that typically aid demon hunters… If the Clave catches wind of it, there could be a bloodbath." Reaching out, Jada plucked that little hydra figurine with beady red eyes off the shelf to her side and inspected it. "Did our contact get any further information?"
"According to the reports, he infiltrated the werewolf side of the arms dealers. The bizarre part is that they are selling to a mortal third party, it seems."
"Mortals?" Jada echoed curiously. She was staring at the figurine still, but Atrean could tell her mind was elsewhere. "Mortals have no use for Shadowhunter weapons. Even if they could see them, they could never use their true power without being a Nephilim."
"We were wondering the same thing. Perhaps they have the Sight?"
Jada didn't seem convinced. Suspicion had darkened her expression like a cloud passing over the moon. "Perhaps," she replied. "Or their buyer is not all they seem. Either way, we will need to monitor this closely." She stood then as if to leave – her black coat whispering against the chaos of his cluttered floor as she passed. "Keep me posted as you hear more. This is one situation that could quickly get out of hand."
"Yes, milady."
"Oh, and one last thing." Jada turned and wiggled her right hand at him. A slim silver ring glinted on her finger, catching the dim light. Atrean knew this ring well – it was a Ring of Valerius – a portal ring he had given Jada years ago. "Try to use this sparingly. It would be very bad if my current 'employer' was to catch wind of it."
Atrean groaned.
"You are undercover again?!" he grumbled, rubbing his irritated temples. "Milady, you know this kind of work is beneath you –"
To his frustration, Jada smiled secretively and ignored his concern. She was stunning in the low light – like some painting of an ancient queen come to life. Like the famed Helen of Troy – the kind of beauty that turned the tides of man.
"Don't worry, Atrean," she assured him with a knowing glimmer in her warm eyes, "I have a feeling this time will be the last."
What did you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts. :) I am loving that the plot is finally picking up!
Love, Fishie.