Happily Ever After

          It went like this: Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden who lived in a cottage in the woods, and her name was Clary Fray. She spent her days singing to the birds and hearing the birds sing back to her, as one does. At night she opened a book by the fire or spent ages tracing a pencil over a page in her sketchbook fashioned specially by the vendors in the market. Sometimes her friends from town came to visit or she went to them, and they would bring her supplies from the market and she would pay them in smiles and a picture (Raphael always told her that they weren’t suitable payment for his goods, but Simon assured her that he hung each and every one of them somewhere in their house).

          One particular morning, when the sky was very blue and the clouds were puffy and white, Clary gathered her supplies in a basket that she hung over her arm and tied her shawl around her shoulders.

          “I’ll be back tonight,” she said to the tabby cat that slunk around her garden sometimes. “I need to gather more supplies for my paint.”

          He meowed back at her. Clary laughed a tinkling laugh.

          “I’ll tell you what,” she said, as she crouched down so that she was at the tabby’s level. She reached into her basket and produced an apple, one of the snacks she had packed in anticipation of her hunger later. She held it out for the cat’s inspection, and he crept closer to examine it. “You eat this now, and you make sure no more mice get in under my front steps. Then, if I get all of my dyes this afternoon, I’ll make sure to find you something good for dinner later. Does that sound fair?”

          He didn’t answer her, but when she put the apple down, he tentatively crouched near it and began worrying at it with his sharp, tiny teeth. Clary smiled and patted him on the head.

          “I’ll see you tonight,” she said, pushing herself to her feet.

          The woods were bright and open at this time of day, when the sun was just barely reaching high noon and it was filtering in airily through the permeable canopy that the trees made above her. Clary hummed as she set off into the woods away from her cottage.

          When her home was just out of view, Clary began swinging her basket gently off of her arm. She spotted a bird, plump and baby blue, sitting on a tree branch over her head and she tilted her face up towards it.

          “What do you think?” she asked it, an idea forming in her head only as she began to speak. “Should I go visit my mother today?”

          The bird opened its mouth, but it didn’t start singing; instead it turned away from her and started fluffing up its own feathers. Clary frowned.

          “You’re right,” she said decisively, “It’s her and Luke’s anniversary tomorrow. I should go then.”

          The bird, apparently paying her no attention whatsoever, continued grooming itself and did not answer.

          Clary was set in her choice now, though, and it was with renewed vigor that she set off again into the forest. She could find a clearing and lay down and paint how the sky looked, opened up and framed by the trees. She thought she could fashion that into a perfectly suitable anniversary present for her mom and Luke, as long as she got the scene just right.

          She spent the first part of the afternoon gathering berries and other materials that she could fashion into dyes for her paints, but the summer was bright and warm and it was still very sunny and beautiful when Clary found a clearing she liked and laid herself down in the center of it. The treeline formed nearly a perfect circle around her; the grass was lush and green. Clary saw the forest thriving here and thought: faeries.

          She thought she saw the shimmering of fae twirling around in the light breeze that ruffled the grass, but none appeared to her on this plane. Nonetheless she made sure to draw in the opalescent snatches of air she was sure she saw above her, and it made the whole picture glow even before it was complete. It would be perfect for her parents’ anniversary. Clary shone just thinking about it.

          The afternoon faded into night quickly, and as the sun set, Clary rolled over and put the finishing touches on the painting from memory, her brush a gentle stroke across the page. When it was done, the night was nearing in fuller force. Hoping to get home before it got truly dark, Clary rolled her artwork up and placed it back into her basket along with her dyes and supplies.

          It really was dark by the time Clary was halfway home, but it only spurred her on faster, although she did begin to stand a little straighter. She wasn’t afraid of somebody in the woods—she knew this place better than anyone else around, and she was a decent hand in a fight besides—but she was afraid of something in the woods. With good reason, too; the dryads were nice enough, and the faeries too, but Clary had patched up Luke’s wounds enough times to know well enough that not everything there was benevolent. Her best friend Magnus had slept over at hers too many times to count just because they stayed up together and accidentally talked through sundown. He lived just over the way across the brook, but they both felt safer knowing that he didn’t try the short trek.

          She was nearing the tree with the orange fungus, her thirteen minute marker, when she felt the breeze ghost over the back of her neck, and it didn’t feel natural. Clary stopped walking, but she kept her head held high. Most of the forest creatures near her home left her alone when they knew it who it was, but confidence and a thick skin was still an asset in her forest.

          “I’m not afraid of you,” Clary called in a clear voice. “Reveal yourself. Now.”

          A high-pitched giggling came from between the trees. Clary squinted in the direction that she thought it had come from.

          “Where are you?” she demanded. She tried to keep her voice level; it was always best not to let on any emotion, even if that emotion was just frustration.

          The giggling came again.

          Clary could either ignore it and go home, or find the source of the noise. She really just wanted to slip into her cottage peacefully and go to bed so that she could be up and on her way bright and early the next morning, because it was quite a trek to where her mother and stepfather lived on the other side of the woods, but she did not much care for the idea of wandering through the trees with an unknown presence watching her go. With a sigh, Clary turned towards where the voice had come from and started wending her way towards it.

          “If you jump out and attack me, I have several friends in these parts,” she warned. In truth, her closest ally that she knew for sure would come to her rescue was an elf that lived in a cave just outside of shouting distance, but she wasn’t going to tell them that.

          There was a brief silence. Then the voice said—deeper now, more lecherous—in a smooth and confident alto, “You won’t call for anyone.”

          “How do you know?”

          “Because it’s my job to know,” they said simply.

          “You’re infuriating,” Clary said as she wound her way around another tree in her path. She wanted them to know, but she also wanted them to keep talking. It helped soothe her nerves somewhat to know that the mysterious voice was at least not breathing right down her neck or something.

          “That’s my job too,” the voice returned, still somewhere in front of her. It was only a mildly comforting reassurance; Clary knew well that certain creatures could throw their voices, or perform any number of tricks to fool her into mistaking their perceived location for her safety.

          She was close now, and she knew it. Clary pushed aside some underbrush and found herself at the foot of a small pool of water. It wasn’t even big enough to be called a pond.

          There was a woman lying in the water, half of her body dragged out so that her forearms rested on the grass and dirt. She was beautiful in a dangerous way, and Clary was immediately on her guard.

          “Who are you?” she demanded.

          Through the water, she could clearly see the woman’s flippers. There was no way she lived in a pool this small; there had to be underwater passageways, leading away into somewhere bigger. Besides, sirens rarely lived alone.

          The woman snorted. “You must know better than that by now,” she chided. “Surely you recognize a water sprite when you see one?”

          Clary narrowed her eyes. “That’s not what I’d call you.”

          The woman wrinkled her nose. “Siren’s a derogatory term that pissed-off men gave us,” she said, correctly guessing Clary’s preferred epithet. “You can call me Camille, though.”

          “Camille,” Clary said carefully. “What do you want with me?”

          Camille did not immediately answer. She inspected her nails, flipped her tail in the water. She sounded spectacularly disinterested (though Clary suspected this was not genuine) when she said, “Who said I wanted anything with you?”

          “Water sprites don’t tease random girls in the forest,” said Clary. “Water sprites don’t do anything without wanting something.”

          Camille grinned at her. That seemed dangerous, too.

          “You’re right,” she said. “We don’t tease random girls.”

          Clary crossed her arms. It seemed a defensive gesture, but she was guarded, too. Anything this water sprite had to say was not something Clary was sure she wanted to hear.

          “So why are you watching me?” asked Clary in a hard voice.

          “Because I have a message for you,” said Camille. When she smiled, all of her teeth gleamed in the burgeoning moonlight.

          “From who?” she asked guardedly.

          Camille tapped her nails against the ground on which her hands were lying. She scraped them a little, dirt digging up beneath them, but she didn’t seem bothered, not even when she pressed her hands to her cheeks and left smears of brown there. She looked a little unhinged. Clary was starting to suspect, as her concern and fear receded to be replaced with impatience and careful doubt, that this was all a deliberate part of her image.

          “Nobody commands me,” Camille spat. “Don’t you know who I am?”

          “Uh,” said Clary. She was starting to realize that Camille was likely not just any old water sprite, but it was still just a little fun to say, “A mermaid with serious issues?”

          “Don’t call me a mermaid!” Camille snapped. She paused, eyes closing as she visibly worked to control herself and calm down. “Okay. I know you’re just trying to rile me. But seriously, that is not cool. I will not be compared to whatever romanticized dream-girl version of a water sprite that men cooked up to subdue me. I eat men. Like, literally.”

          “Alright, Flippers,” said Clary, holding up her hands defenselessly. “I’m not picking any fights here.”

          Camille rolled her eyes. “You’re very annoying,” she said.

          “You threatened to eat me,” Clary pointed out.

          “No, I said that I eat men. Gods, does anyone listen to me anymore? I’m the prodigal princess of this entire ocean-forest.”

          “What’s an ocean-forest?”

          “It’s the all the water in this forest,” Camille snapped. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you what I came here to tell you. You’re kind of an idiot.”

          “Hey!” said Clary. Thoughtlessly, she uncrossed her arms, and they swung down by her sides with her hands curled into fists.

          Camille grinned. Clary immediately recognized that she was playing right into whatever strange game the water sprite was playing (and they played many games, always about five games ahead of whomever they talking to) and gritted her teeth as she forcibly relaxed.

          “What are you talking about?” Clary asked, regretfully calmer.

          Camille flipped her long dark hair over her shoulder. Pieces of it were already starting to curl and wave the longer it dried out in the summer air, turning delicately browner, although most if it was pitch-black with the wet and running in long, flat strands that stuck to her back.

          “I came here to give you a message, Clary Fray.”

          Clary just sighed impatiently. Camille was not going to rile her up just because she knew her name. Clary had a lot more self-control than that—she hoped.

          “What’s the message? And who’s it from, anyway?”

          “It’s from me,” Camille drawled.

          Clary’s jaw worked. “I meant,” she said thickly, “Who gave you the message?”

          “The otherworld.” Camille said it lightly, like it was of no real consequence to her. “The heavens. The hells. Whatever you want to call it. You know, the Otherworld.”

          “Like…the afterlife?”

          “No, like the Otherworld,” said Camille, sounding much like she had when Clary had said siren. “It’s where all our prophecies come from.”

          Clary’s eyes widened. “There’s a prophecy about me?” she asked.

          “It’s more of a fortune,” Camille mused. “Do you want to hear it or not? I don’t have all day. I kind of have an ocean-forest to run, in case you forgot.”

          “I thought you were just a princess.”

          “You’re insufferable, you know that?” Camille said conversationally. “I said I’m in charge of the ocean-forest, so I am.”

          “Okay…” Clary tongued at her cheek thoughtfully. She still wasn’t sure she wanted to believe anything Camille had to say—water sprites were known tricksters, after all, and just because they knew the future didn’t mean they couldn’t lie, or spin it, or do whatever they wanted. At length she decided that she could come to her own conclusions after she heard out Camille, so she said, “Okay, what’s the fortune?”

          Camille rolled her eyes. “There’s no need to be glib,” she said, with a special curl of her lip that Clary thought might also be affected more for her fearsome image than for anything else, as much that Camille did seemed to be. “I’m already taking a risk telling you this at all.”

          “Are you going to tell me or not?” Clary said, a little more than fed up just now.  “You’re building it up so much, I’m not so sure I believe it’s even real.”

          “That’s your mistake,” Camille said, snarling for real now. Then she cleared her throat, and she sounded unlike herself when she spoke again—there was a bit of a robotic and angelic lilt to her voice, like some other power was flowing through her to remind her of the words. She said,

“There are two parts to this, maiden fair:

First, you will make your journey, dark and deep,

through the trees, to where your parents keep,

and you will find your mother fast asleep.

Second, you will meet the girl with long dark hair,

who will say she knows the way from there.

But if you trust her, first beware,

all power has a price to bear—

Even for young maidens fair.”

          Camille sat back into the pond a little more when she was through with her little poem, clearly pleased with herself. Clary just stared for a long while. Then she blinked rapidly at her, trying to make some sense out of what Camille had just said.

          “Do you…” Clary started slowly. She stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “What does that mean?”

          Camille’s answering smile was just a little bit mocking, but mostly cruel and self-satisfied.

          “It means,” she said, “what you think it means.”

          “I don’t think it means anything,” Clary said. “I don’t know what it means.”

          “That,” said Camille, “is half the fun of fortune-telling.”

          “You haven’t told me anything!” said Clary, her temper flaring again. “Aren’t fortunes meant to be changed? Don’t I get a choice?”

          “You always have a choice, Clary Fray,” Camille said in her most mysterious voice. She was already backing away into the water, and now she was slipping away from the shoreline, already up to her chest in the pond. “It’s your choices that led you to this fortune. And your choices that will propel you forward into it.”

          “That doesn’t make any sense,” Clary snapped. “What are you—Come back here!”

          “I have to return to the Cave,” Camille said, back to her usual bored snark. “Where we rule from, I mean. I do more than chase sharp-tempered girls around the woods, you know.”

          “But you can’t—”

          “Goodbye, Clary Fray,” said Camille, and she sank all the way under the water.

          Clary spluttered for a few seconds, then shouted, “Camille!”

          She ran to the water’s edge, but Camille was already gone. Whatever tunnels and waterways ran at the bottom of the pool, Camille had already taken off through them, out and beyond to places that Clary did not know to do things that Clary could not follow to. She crossed her arms, aware that she was close to throwing a fit, and stomped her foot hard into the dirt.

          “Damn it!” she shouted. Nothing and nobody answered her.

          It was in a fit of mild rage and predominately frustration that Clary flipped her hair over her shoulder, looked around in the trees, and stomped off in the direction that she thought might lead to her cottage. Her skirts swished around her legs, and she almost tripped on a couple of tree branches stray on the ground, but she made it to her house with much less fear than she usually harbored after dark. Now with a prophecy at her back, she knew she would at least make it in one piece long enough to see her parents tomorrow.

- - -

          Clary rather loved the cottage in the early mornings. She woke gradually, with the kind of effortless peace that harbored good will and a lightness in her chest, and with none of the usual frustration of being awake so early. Instead she rose early enough to take the coffee she brewed (special, bought from town with the last of her birthday money as a present to herself as the summer came on, just because) out on her front porch. There wasn’t much standing room, but she leaned over the railing beside the steps, watching the trees and rising sun, laughing and singing along with the birds. Clary was a morning person, when she was awake enough to enjoy mornings.

          When the sun was nearing the mid-morning stages, Clary stood up and away the edge of her porch and went inside to gather what she would need for the upcoming journey. Her mother and stepfather lived just on the other side of the forest, but she would still need lunch for when she stopped to picnic at noon by the riverbank, as well as the present she had painted for their anniversary. She even brought a bottle of wine—maybe she would stop in to see Magnus on her way home that evening. His home was a bit out of the way, but not terribly.

          The sun had barely moved in the sky by the time she set out, swinging her basket from one arm and humming peacefully. A bluejay spotted her from the treetops, and she caught sight of it following her along the canopies as she went.

          She didn’t see any more water sprites when she stopped for lunch at the river, but she did see plenty of fish and even a few fossegrims singing their haunting music. More creatures, some she didn’t have names for, swam and swirled around her feet where she stuck them in the water, making her giggle when they tickled her toes. After she was done eating, she got up and brushed off her skirts and continued on her journey. It was just turning to suppertime when she finally reached her parents’ cottage.

          Clary had always liked Luke and Jocelyn’s. It was quaint, just barely bigger than her own home—but then, they had built it specifically for two, scavenging parts from the forest so that the cedar and oak fit together like another live thing amongst the trees. Clary would almost expect there to be creatures living inside of it—although she was much more prone to carry in hurt animals and stray fauna in need of fattening up—and oftentimes they had in weary travelers, or a new wild pet every other week. Clary supposed she must have gotten her gentle heart from somewhere.

          The forest was quiet though, quieter than was natural around here. It was like the forest was in mourning. Clary knew how well these parts of the woods loved Jocelyn and Luke, and for a moment her heart stopped.

          You will find your mother asleep, Camille’s voice echoed in her head.

          Clary shook it severely. Water sprites were known tricksters, twisting everything to make situations seem more ominous and dire than they really were. Camille had meant to worry her, and Clary would not let her.

          Still, she was a little more set and fierce than she normally was as she lifted her chin and marched up the walk to her parents’ front door. She considered just barging in, her concerns making her strange and volatile, but at last she just took a deep breath and raised her fist to knock.

          For a long moment, there was no answer. Clary swallowed her panic, cleared her throat, and knocked again. They were just busy. It was all fine.

          Luke look frazzled and torn frayed with worry when he opened the door. Clary dropped her basket.

          “What happened?” she said at once.

          Luke gestured her in hastily but wordlessly. Swallowing hard, Clary brushed past him to get inside. He plucked up her basket and followed behind her, closing the door as he went.

          “What happened?” she repeated, whirling on him in their kitchen nook. Camille’s voice resounded through her again. “Where is my mother?”

          Luke did not immediately answer her; his eyes were fixated on his hands as he set the basket carefully on the counter and then folded them together. Clary crossed her arms.

          “Luke,” she said, trying to sound hard but knowing she just sounded desperate, “Please. Tell me what happened.”

          “How do you know something’s happened?” he said at last.

          But Clary knew he was just stalling, trying to withhold the pain from her just a little bit longer. She was old enough for this though. The worst scenarios all flooded her mind and she shifted through them, wondering which was right, which was the closest. Anything would be better than what she was imagining.

          “The forest sounds like…” Death, she almost said. It feels like something has gone horribly, irrevocably wrong. Instead she finished, “Quieter than usual.”

          Luke sighed deeply, and covered his face with his hands. He had rolled up the sleeves to his plain tunic shirt, and Clary could see these deep scratches on his arm. She reached a hand out hesitantly, but he didn’t stop her as she lightly ran her fingers over one of the cut marks.

          “What happened here?” she asked, softly.

          Luke uncovered his face. “I was trying to concoct a cure. I got scratched by some thorns when I was scavenging through the bushes.”

          Clary blinked up at him. She felt about as small and young as she sounded when she said, “A cure for what?”

          She had a deep, sinking feeling in her gut that she already knew the answer. Luke sighed again and pulled away, but he waved at her and said in a defeated voice, “Come with me. There’s something I think you need to see.”

          She held her breath as she wound around the counter and followed Luke into the other room. Their cottage was sort of one big room, no real doors or anything, but they still had to turn a corner to get to the bedroom nook. Clary rounded the corner and stopped dead. Her eyes widened. She gave a great, shuddering breath.

          “Mom?” she croaked.

          Jocelyn was laying there in her bed. She was wearing plain dayclothes, and if Clary ignored the obvious, she could almost pretend that she was asleep.

          But Clary couldn’t ignore the obvious. And it was pretty clear that Jocelyn wasn’t just napping, or resting. She was very still, just lying on her back the way she never did—Clary had inherited a habit of only being able to sleep on her side—with her hands folded together on her stomach. She looked the way Clary imagined someone might look on a funeral pyre, except Clary had never seen one and this was her mother. Clary was too old for romantic notions of immortality and indestructibility, but some small, childish part of her still believed her mother would live forever.

          “Is…Is she…?”

          “She’s not dead,” said Luke quietly. He settled his hand on her shoulder. Clary gave a sound that could have been classified as a whimper, were she a less proud young woman. Luke said, “She’s resting.”

          “That sounds like dead,” Clary said, her voice climbing inexorably towards hysteria. “That sounds like a word people use when they don’t want to say ‘dead’!”

          “She’s not dead,” Luke repeated, calmly, the way one might to a child. Clary could hear it though, the way he was clearly just barely holding it together himself. It did not calm her to think that Luke, who was strong and solid and good, was feeling this blow so severely. That meant that she was not overreacting, letting her immediate emotions cloud a more calm way to view the situation. That mean that there was a blow to feel.

          “What is she then?” asked Clary, trying for Luke’s determined calm but feeling as though she did not pull it off half as well as he always could.

          “She’s enchanted,” said Luke.

          For a wild moment, Clary wanted to laugh. It felt like another lifetime ago that Clary had been here on their last anniversary, by to drop off another present—a blueberry and cherry pie for which she had spent hours and hours gathering ingredients and baking to perfection—and her mother had been decked out in a beautiful gown with jewelry fit for a queen, and Luke had been dressed just as immaculately, and the entire room had been lit up in candlelight as they waltzed to a minstrel Luke had hired for the evening, and Luke had said, “Isn’t she just enchanting, Clary? Isn’t she just the most wonderful woman you’ve ever seen?” and Jocelyn had laughed a blissful laugh that sounded so much more unrestrained than she usually had to be, and she had said, “Isn’t he just perfect, Clary? Isn’t he just the most wonderful man you’ve ever met?” and Clary, of course, had delightedly said yes to both of them.

          Clary swallowed hard. Tenuously, she asked, “What does that mean?”

          “She’s under a magician’s spell,” Luke said wearily. “She was out this morning…I think she was gathering flowers. For me,” he added—shakily. Then he cleared his throat, and Clary looked away to allow him to gain his composure in peace. When she turned back around, Luke gestured with his chin towards the bedside table, where a wicker basket rested. “I found her like that, just lying there in the grass…there were roses and chrysanthemums and aubrietas beside her. And a few others—I didn’t know all of their names.”

          “She was picking flowers for you,” Clary repeated numbly.

          Somehow it still wasn’t fully sinking in; Clary’s mother had been doing as she did, picking flowers for her husband—and now she was lying here. There were pieces to the puzzle missing, and without them, the picture refused to consolidate in Clary’s head. There was something missing, and if she could just figure it out, she could fix this.

          “What do we,” Clary started, then stopped. She swallowed again. She was Clary Fray, and she was in control. She repeated that a couple of times in her head, then said, so steadily she was sort of proud, “What do we do?”

          Luke didn’t say anything; when Clary looked at him a second later, he had withdrawn his hand in a recoil. His eyes were wide.

          “We don’t do anything,” he said. “Clary. This isn’t something for you to fix.”

          “I’m not just going to leave her—”

          “Clary,” he said, and he grabbed both her shoulders now, leaning his face closer to hers. Something about being near him was automatically soothing, which was a little annoying at the moment. “This isn’t your fight. Just…Go home and figure out what you’re going to wear to Jocelyn’s birthday celebration next month.” The joke fell flat, try as he did for a halfhearted smile. “I’m going to fix this.”

          “I’m going to help you,” said Clary. “Luke, don’t say no. This is my mother we’re talking about, I have to help her—”

          “There’s nothing you can do,” Luke said urgently. “First thing in the morning, I’m going straight into town. I’m going to try and get a meeting with the court warlock, or the potioneer. I don’t have the ingredients or the supplies to concoct a cure this strong, but they might have somebody up to it up at the castle. For now, you should just go home and rest.”

          Clary grabbed blindly for him like he was pushing her out the door himself, although he was still just leaning close to her, looking at her with his warm and calm eyes. She grasped at his forearm and said, “Luke, I can’t just leave you here alone all evening.”

          “Nothing’s going to attack me,” he said, and because he was Luke, Clary knew it was true. Her stepfather commanded some kind of strange power—it wasn’t anything solid, or anything real, but because he had said it, she believed him. He was Luke Garroway—what could touch him?

          But Clary had thought the same thing of Jocelyn, and here they were now—standing around her sickbed. Around her deathbed, maybe.

          “I can’t leave you,” Clary said, softer.

          “Yes you can,” Luke said, all persuasion and charm. “I’ll be fine. I need to prepare to ride to town tomorrow, anyway. Besides, it’s a full moon. You shouldn’t be around these parts come sundown anyway.”

          “You’re taking potions for your lycanthropy,” Clary said. She sounded a little sad, even to her own ears, so she knew the battle was already lost with her heart even if her head hadn’t gotten the picture yet. “You won’t attack me. You’ll be docile.”

          “I don’t want to risk it anyway,” said Luke. “I could never live with myself if I hurt you, Clary.”

          For some reason, that was what broke the dam—Clary flung herself forwards into his arms and broke down sobbing. Luke rubbed her back and murmured soft reassurances to her, but nothing was enough to stem the tide. They stood like that for a long, long time—Clary didn’t know just how long. Finally, she stepped back from the circle of his arms, wiping her hand under her eyes.

          “Okay,” she hiccupped. “Okay.”

          Luke accompanied her to the front door with a hand at the small of her back. She turned around in the entryway and hugged him again, better this time—squeezing tight with her arms around his neck and her face pressed to his shoulder. He stroked her hair.

          “I’ll see you soon,” she said. “Tell me as soon as you get in from town.”

          “I’ll do you one better,” Luke said with a little smile. She knew it was contrived, but it still made her feel a little better, like Luke really could do what he was promising. “How about we both come and see you when she wakes up?”

          “Yeah,” Clary agreed on a breath. “Yeah, that sounds perfect.”

          They hugged one more time, and then Clary turned and headed off back into the trees. She had only gone a few sycamores away when she heard her name being called from the front steps.

          “Yeah?” she shouted back, turning around on her heel.

          “Your basket!” said Luke. “You left it!”

          He was holding it up, waving with his other hand. For some reason, the gesture was very human, and something like peace bubbled up in her chest. She laughed.

          “Happy anniversary!” she called back. “Your present’s inside. Make sure it’s the first thing she sees when she wakes up.”

          Luke’s laughter followed her into the trees.

          At the brook, Clary decided to turn towards her cottage instead of heading to Magnus’s; she had left the wine at Jocelyn and Luke’s, and anyway she wasn’t much up to seeing anyone at the moment. She just wanted to sleep until she woke to the knock on her door that would reveal that her mother was alive and well once more. If it took days, Clary wanted to sleep until it was true.

          She knew she wouldn’t, though. Whatever she had promised Luke, Clary was not going to rest until she saved her mother—or avenged her.

- - -

          Sunset hadn’t yet touched the horizon when Clary came upon the trees that would open up to the clearing where her cottage lay. She brushed aside the pine branches, a light trickling of sweat just barely overlaying the back of her neck. She wanted nothing more than to strip down to her underclothes and go out to the stream to cool down, maybe lay there in the warm heat of the setting sun and wait out everything that was happening. She needed to form a plan, she thought as she stepped into the clearing where her cottage was, she needed to come up with a way to make sure whoever did this to her mother paid the price for it…

          Her musings were cut short as she walked up her front porch and noticed, quite abruptly, that she was being watched.

          Clary whirled around in a flutter of hair and skirt. She tensed, ready to fight. Her eyes landed immediately on the intruder.

          It was a young woman, lounging in the tiny garden that Clary was attempting to cultivate. She was sitting cross-legged amongst the flowers and weeds, sitting back on her hands. As she giggled—presumably at Clary’s expression—her wine-red lips turned up entrancingly, and her long ringlets of black hair swayed in the light breeze.

          “You weren’t here a minute ago,” Clary said, nonplussed. She would have noticed as she walked up to her front steps, as the garden was just below her kitchen windowsill.

          “No,” the woman agreed.

          Still on her guard, Clary descended the steps she had climbed and stood in front of her, arms crossed. She was getting a little tired of magical women appearing out of nowhere. Especially so close to what was happening with her mother—Clary immediately did not trust her.

          You will meet a girl with long dark hair, Camille’s voice chimed in her head. First beware, all power has a price to bear.

          At first, Clary had been half-sure that Camille was talking about herself. It had made sense, really. A dark-haired girl appearing out of nowhere, powerful, not to be trusted. It seemed just the thing a water sprite princess might do, inserting themselves into passerby’s prophecies to seem much more important than they really were. Clary had been almost sure.

          Now, with this new woman standing up fluidly in front of her, Clary wasn’t feeling quite so confident.

          “Who are you?” she asked guardedly. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Why are you at my house?”

          The young woman smiled again, but it was more of the type of indulgent smile that one might bestow upon a precocious child, and Clary was not mollified. When she stepped forward and outstretched her arm, and brushed a piece of Clary’s hair away from her face, Clary flinched away. The young woman did not seem offended. Clary took a step back.

          “Who are you?” she repeated, even harder than before.

          The woman giggled again and stuck her hand out. Something about it did not soothe Clary’s mistrust, but heightened it; it reminded Clary of how she had always imagined a pixie might introduce themselves, all giggling charm, right before they ruined your life. Clary didn’t know; she had never met a pixie. She knew they were more devious and more angry than the fae folk were, but she hadn’t met any kind of will o’ the wisp—trickster or not.

          Clary regarded her hand but did not meet it. The young woman retracted it quickly and used it to tuck her hair behind her ear instead.

          “I’m Isabelle,” she said airily, “and I hear you’ve got a problem.”

          Clary continued regarding her warily. She had not expected a full name, as she knew what kind of power names wielded in other realms, but she was pleased nonetheless to have something to call her. It was highly possible that that wasn’t even her real first name, but it was better than nothing.

          “Who are you?” she said again. “What are you?”

          “Well, that’s sort of rude,” said Isabelle, crossing her arms now too, and pouting slightly. “I don’t go around asking what you are.”

          “Oh, come on,” said Clary, rolling her eyes.

          “No, go on,” said Isabelle, lifting her chin a little. “What are you?”

          Clary thought it was rather unfair of her to magically appear on her doorstep and then tell her that she was being rude.

          “I’m a human girl just trying to go home and get some peace,” said Clary, a little snippily, but she felt that it was warranted. “I’m not really having the best day. So go on; it’s your turn.”

          “I’m a witch,” Isabelle said matter-of-factly. “I was coming here to offer my magical services, but if you’re going to get insolent about it—”

          “Oh, no. You can’t tell the future too, can you?”

          Isabelle’s mouth dropped open in a very offended gesture.

          “No,” she said at last. “You are very very ill-mannered, Clary Fray.”

          “I thought you weren’t a seer,” Clary said wryly. “How do you know my name then?”

          Isabelle seemed a little happier to be back on grounds that she could control. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and said smugly, “I’m friends with some very powerful clairvoyants.”

          “Is that how you knew to come here?” Clary said, cocking her head. “Last I checked, I hadn’t used any sage leaves or tried to summon anything. Oh, no. Luke didn’t send you, did he?”

          “Who’s Luke?” Isabelle asked curiously.

          Clary waved her hand. “Forget about it.” She shifted her weight between her feet and looked down. She sounded a tad more unsure of herself when she said, “So—did Camille send you?”

          Isabelle regarded her with a furrowed brow. “No,” she said, phrasing it like it was a question. “Did you—Do you mean, like, Princess Camille? Of the ocean-forest?”

          She sounded mildly impressed.

          “Yes,” Clary said.

          She tucked a small smile to her chest, pleased that Isabelle seemed impressed by her titleless first-name basis with a member of the water sprite royal family. Granted, Clary didn’t actually know Camille all that well, but she was glad to have some kind of status established here. She didn’t particularly care whether or not Isabelle thought she was all that important or not, but she liked having some kind of elevating ground beneath her so that Isabelle didn’t think that she held all the cards in her hands. Clary knew some things, too.

          “Wow,” said Isabelle; Clary was mildly shocked that Isabelle was willfully displaying her impression. Although that might have all been part of a carefully constructed ruse, too, to get Clary’s guard down so that she would be more likely to fall for whatever con Isabelle was pushing here.

          “I know,” she said anyway. She wanted Isabelle to believe that she was falling for whatever game she was playing, so that she would be more forthcoming with her motives. “Not bad for a maiden fair, huh?”

          Isabelle just regarded her like she was a strange creature after all. So Camille hadn’t told her the whole fortune; maybe she was even serious about Camille not sending her at all.

          Evidently, Isabelle decided to wave off her confusion, as she said, “No, I’ve made friends with some of the korrigans who live in the tree trunks near my parents’ lands. They didn’t tell me all that much, just to come here and meet with you. But now I can see that you definitely need my help.”

          Clary blinked. “What?” she asked. Was it that obvious?

          “What can I do?” said Isabelle. She sounded like she was all-business though, not at all sympathetic or anything. “You’re living here by yourself, right? So what do you want? Your parents back from the dead? A boyfriend? A dog?”

          “What?” Clary repeated. “Wha—No. No! None of the above! I don’t want a boyfriend or a pet, and—and my parents aren’t dead!”

          She was shouting now. Isabelle seemed unaffected by the outburst, though she did tap her long nails against her forearm and raise her smooth eyebrows, a calculating look.

          “But it is your parents, then?” she wheedled. Clary inhaled sharply, and a pleased smile crossed Isabelle’s face. “Ah, I knew it! I knew I’d hit a nerve.”

          “Shut up,” Clary snapped. “I don’t need your help.”

          She turned and stormed away. But where Isabelle called, “Clary, wait—” sounding genuinely apologetic, Clary just turned and sat down on her front steps, hard enough to jar her entire frame. She knew she was acting childish, but she couldn’t help it as she propped her elbows up on her knees and set her chin moodily in her hands. Isabelle watched her for a second, and then, hesitantly, sat down beside her.

          “You’re being nice,” Clary said accusatorily, and Isabelle snatched back her hands where they had reached consolingly for Clary’s shoulders. “Aren’t witches supposed to be all-business a-and—mysterious, or whatever?”

          Isabelle snorted. She rolled her eyes.

          “You’ve been visiting the court warlock,” she said disparagingly.

          “Those are supposed to be the only witches left,” Clary pointed out.

          “Well, they’re not,” Isabelle said shortly. “The rest of us went into hiding when the king went on his witch-hunt and rounded us all up or had us burned. Whoever survived fled. Now we live elsewhere. Whoever wasn’t captured or didn’t escape was sent to different courts across the land to serve whomever was in power there. And so on, and so on, across the ages.”

          “So you’re a fugitive?”

          “We’re all fugitives,” Isabelle mused. Then her voice got hard, and she glared at Clary when she added, “And I can disappear in a second, and you’ll never find us, so don’t you dare even think about trying to go to the king. I’ll have your house burned down and hexed before you can gather your horse together.”

          Clary raised her hands innocently. “I wasn’t trying to out you guys,” she said, and she meant it. She knew next to nothing about the witches—she’d known some of them had escaped the widespread persecution, but Isabelle was making it sound like even more of them had escaped than she had known—but she knew, already, that they weren’t all bad. They came in shades, just like anyone else. Isabelle, for one, seemed genuinely interested in helping her, whatever her reasons were.

          Isabelle only seemed slightly mollified. “Good,” she said. “So, about your little problem. I can fix anything you want. There are rules, of course. The only one that should really concern you as of this moment is: The bigger the favor, the bigger the price.”

          Clary sighed. She knew not to trust folk like witches; they were almost always going to twist her words, make her promise into something she hadn’t intended it to be. But this was her mother, and she just knew that Luke wasn’t going to have much luck with the court warlock. This sounded like dark magic, whatever had tried to hurt her mother and had only failed because of Luke’s unexpected arrival; it needed powerful magic to counteract it, and a warlock under the royals’ thumb wasn’t going to cut it.

          “We should talk,” Clary decided.

          Isabelle regarded her with mild interest. “Before I can solve your problem, I need to know what your problem is,” she pointed out.

          Clary looked down, plucking at a thread on her dress. This was a bad, bad idea…

          She explained the situation with mother as plainly as she could. She neither wanted Isabelle to fully understand her desperation, nor did she need her getting any more information on her family than was strictly necessary. Clary did not trust her, not at all.

          Isabelle grew more and more excited as Clary told her story, until she was practically bubbling with it.

          “I know just the thing,” she said when Clary was done. “Oh, Clary. Clary, Clary, Clary. I can fix that no problem.”

          She snapped her fingers together as though to demonstrate just how easy she really found it.

          “You can?” Despite herself, a glimmer of hope had entered her. She immediately got her guard back up. “How?”

          “Magic,” said Isabelle. She reached out as though to grab her arm, but Clary jerked away from her.

          “What’s the price?” Clary said. All power has a price to bear. “There’s always something you want in return.”

          “You mean witches, or me?” Isabelle asked. Her voice had gone a little harder than before. “We’re not all the same, you know.”

          “I didn’t mean it like that,” Clary said hurriedly, but Isabelle had put up some walls of her own, crossing her arms together. Clary wasn’t sure that mutual dislike and even deeper distrust was a good way to start off a working relationship, but there they were.

          “You’re right,” Isabelle said, “there is a price. It’s simple: Life for life.”

          “You’re going to…kill me?”

          Isabelle’s eyebrows jumped up her forehead.

          “What? No. What kind of witches have you been dealing with?”

          “I don’t know,” said Clary exasperatedly. “I don’t usually deal in magic if I can help it. The prices are usually too high for me. So what did you mean then, by ‘life for life’?”

          Isabelle pressed her lips together grimly. Clary knew she would not like whatever she was about to say.

          And she was not wrong: When Isabelle arched a perfect eyebrow and said, “I will wake your mother. And in return, you will give me your firstborn child.”

          It was like the earth falling out from under her feet. Clary didn’t have any children—but she wanted some, sometime, somewhere down the line in the very distant future. She had always imagined herself in a cottage like hers, with kids running through a garden that would hopefully be thriving by then, with birdsong and children’s laughter filling her days. Isabelle could have asked for her right hand and Clary didn’t think it would have winded her quite so much. It was like Isabelle had known exactly what would hurt her, and she asked for it anyway.

          Clary swallowed hard. She took a few deep breaths. She said, “When can you do it?”

          Isabelle was still watching her, now even more incredulously, like she hadn’t expected Clary to fold so quickly.

          “Right now, if you’d like,” she said.

          “And she’ll come back?” Clary’s voice wavered. She swallowed again. “I mean, it will be her, won’t it? She’ll be exactly as she was?”

          “From what you’ve said, she’s just in an enchanted sleep, Clary. Nothing’s been altered about her, and I don’t have to alter anything to wake her up.”

          “Is that a yes?” said Clary, hard.

          Isabelle’s lips were a thin line again, like she found Clary somewhat distasteful again.

          “That’s a yes,” she confirmed, a touch of annoyance still coloring her tone. “When did you want the favor done?”

          Clary looked away. She squinted out into the trees. It was still light out, dusk just touching the edges of the forest. She couldn’t see very far anyway because of the flora, but it gave her something to do besides look at the witch beside her, which she wasn’t especially keen on doing anyway.

          “As soon as you can,” she said.

          When she looked back, Isabelle was gone.

          It was there when Clary stood up, and there when she brushed off her skirts, and there when she turned and silently reentered her home. She had just entered into a contract—the worst kind, a magical contract—and there was no going back now.

          Clary did end up gathering her things and going for a wash in the river. She was careful as she chopped up vegetables for her dinner. She was quiet as she sat by the window to eat. And the whole time, it was there, simmering in the back of her head, waiting for her to panic over it:

          But if you trust her, first beware, all power has a price to bear—Even for young maidens fair.

          Clary did not trust Isabelle. But she would still bear the price, because this was her mother at stake, and that was what daughters did.

- - -

          Clary had finally tucked herself into bed, the moon high outside her window, when she heard it: Tap tap tap. Then, after a minute, there again, a little faster now: Taptaptap.

          Clary sat up, her blankets pooling around her waist. Isabelle was standing outside her window, grinning and waving at her through the glass.

          Clary scrambled out of bed and hurried to push up the pane in the way.

          “Is it done?” she asked breathlessly.

          “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Isabelle countered, her voice all sickly sweet.

          Clary arched an eyebrow delicately and said, “That sounds like something you say when you can’t come in without an invite, and once I do you murder me just like that.”

          Isabelle rolled her eyes. She shoved her hand through the window, so Clary had to jump out of the way so she wouldn’t get pushed.

          “See?” Isabelle said. “I can come in, I was just being polite. I’ll take that as a no, then? Fine,” she added staunchly, before Clary could make sense of her confused whirl of thoughts and figure out which one of them was being rude right now, “I can conduct my business just fine from out here.”

          Rather than once more risk offending the powerful witch to whom she owed a favor, Clary crossed her arms and nodded briskly.

          “It’s done then?” she asked. She melted a little as she said it, that edge of desperation just creeping into her voice. “My…my mother’s awake?”

          “Alive and well,” Isabelle said. She was examining her cuticles closely and seemed disinterested in their conversation, all business. Clary’s heart was pumping quickly.

          “She is?”

          “I just said she is,” Isabelle said, exasperated. “Don’t you trust me or something?”

          “I just gambled away my firstborn for my mother,” Clary snorted. “I’m not sure which one of us is the terrible person.”

          “Hey, it’s all fair and square,” said Isabelle.

          “I’m not complaining,” Clary said quickly. She didn’t fully understand how witches’ powers worked, but she did think that she would rather avoid annoying her more than she already seemed to be doing flawlessly, just in case Isabelle decided to go back and put Jocelyn in another enchanted sleep or something. She wasn’t sure what constituted a loophole in their contract, or if it would be considered a breach for Isabelle to grant her wish only to undo it, but she thought it best to keep each other on mostly pleasant terms just in case.

          “Good,” said Isabelle. She bounced a little on her heels, all pleased and excited with her work. “Gods, a good bout of magic always gets my energy up! You want to do something?”

          “Do something?” Clary repeated. She couldn’t really keep up with Isabelle. One second she seemed to hate her, the next she was inviting her on adventures unknown. “I was just going to go back to bed for another bunch of hours. I have to go visit my mother in the morning.”

          “You don’t trust me?”

          “It’s not about that,” said Clary. “I just want to see her, that’s all.”

          Isabelle furrowed her brow like she didn’t quite understand that. Then she shook her head, waving it off, and she pouted at Clary through the window.

          “So that’s a no on doing something right now?” she checked.

          “I’m tired,” said Clary. “It’s the middle of the night. You woke me up before the sun’s even come up.”

          “To do you a favor,” Isabelle reminded her. “You owe me.”

          “And I’ll pay you,” said Clary, trying to remain even. “We worked out our terms. When I have a firstborn, you’ll be the first to know. Promise.”

          Isabelle looked a little frustrated. “Come on,” she said, “Play nice. I did just work my witchy powers to bring your mother back from the almost-dead.”

          Clary rolled her eyes. “Goodnight, Isabelle.”

          “Besides,” Isabelle added, getting louder now as Clary backed away a step, “you and me are going to be mothers together. Don’t you think we should get along?”

          Clary snorted.

          “Goodnight, Isabelle,” she said archly.

          Strangely, she thought heard Isabelle snickering just before she slammed her window shut.

- - -

          By the time Clary woke up for the second time, the sun had passed the treetops and was shining brightly in through her closed bedroom window. Clary sat up and stretched for a moment, feeling properly rejuvenated in ways she hadn’t during her midnight visit—

          The thought paused her mid-stretch. She remembered then: Her mother was better.

          Clary threw her covers off and scrambled out of bed. She was eager to go down to her parents’ house, and she wasted no time; she made quick work of getting dressed and double-checking she had everything she needed for the day. She grabbed an apple for the road and headed out. She had left her basket with Luke the other day, so she had nothing in which to bring supplies even if she wanted to. She would have to wait to have lunch with her parents. They wouldn’t be expecting her—but then again, maybe they would once they found out exactly how Isabelle had happened upon their little family problem.

          The walk was shorter than it had been yesterday with her anxious speed; and gods, Clary couldn’t believe that her mother had only been asleep for one day. She felt like she had been worried about her for months and months.

          Clary hurried up her parents’ front walk and rapped smartly on the door, quick and repetitive. She rocked on the balls of her feet and pressed her lips together, hardly able to wait.

          The door swinging open was like a breath of life for Clary. She threw herself forwards into her mother’s arms as soon as she saw her face, and she heard Jocelyn give a shaky exhale by her ear.

          “Clary,” she breathed. “Oh, Clary.”

          “Mom.”

          Clary knew she was trembling minutely, but she was relieved that her mother said nothing about it; rather, Jocelyn drew back and pressed her hand to Clary’s cheek, just looking at her for a moment. Clary saw the moment that her gaze hardened though, and Jocelyn glanced over Clary’s head, searching the woods. Her hand moved to Clary’s shoulder.

          “Come inside,” she said sharply. “We should talk about all this.”

          Clary let Jocelyn usher her inside. She figured that they must have assumed her visit after all, as Luke was already sitting at the table when she entered, and he did not seem surprised to see her. He just said her name in greeting and nodded his head, and that was that. Clary sat down across the small window-side table from him and looked to her mother, who was pacing in front of her, chewing her lip with her cheek in her hand.

          “What happened?” Clary implored when nobody spoke. She leaned forwards on her knees, peering up at her mother. Jocelyn looked back at her.

          “Luke already told you the story,” she said, gesturing at her husband. Clary waited as she took a breath, and with what seemed a tremendous effort, stopped pacing. “I didn’t see them, Clary. I don’t know who did it.”

          “You must know something.”

          “It was a man,” Jocelyn said, sounding as though she was choosing her words carefully. Even still, Clary might have believed this was all she knew, but she saw the glance that Jocelyn shot to Luke. She narrowed her eyes.

          “You have an idea of who it was,” Clary said.

          “Not necessarily,” Luke said quickly. “Just guesses so far.”

          “Who is it?” Clary insisted. “We know it’s a warlock.”

          “Not necessarily,” Jocelyn pointed out, but Clary rather thought she was just trying to deflect her from the path she was on. “It could be anyone we know who hired a warlock.”

          “Be straight with me, Mom,” Clary said. Beside her, she heard Luke snort down a laugh. She pressed on, “Who do you think it is?”

          There was another long silence. Clary looked between the two of them desperately, beseechingly, but neither of them answered. Luke was avoiding her gaze altogether.

          At long last, Jocelyn sighed and said in a quiet voice, “You know who we think it is.”

          Clary stared at her, her eyes going wide. Then, as the seconds crept on, they got smaller and smaller until she was basically just squinting at her. She said, “You really think so? What beef does he have with us anymore? I thought that was all settled and smoothed out years ago.”

          Jocelyn sighed. “Men like that don’t forgive, Clary. Which reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to tell you: Stay away from men like that.”

          Clary scoffed. “So what? Avoid all men for the rest of my life?”

          Luke laughed.

          “Your last boyfriend was nice,” he said. “What was his name? The boy from the bread stand in town?”

          “Simon?” Clary said. “Yeah, he was.”

          “What’s he doing now?” Jocelyn asked, but she sounded just a little too interested.

          Clary rolled her eyes. “He’s with one of the water boys, Mom. Raphael. Anyway, don’t change the subject.”

          Before she could press on with her line of questioning, Luke cut in smoothly, “What I’d like to know is how Jocelyn woke up before I even made it into town. Before I even changed back and managed to get the horses ready, even.”

          He said this part hard, not quite accusatory but definitely letting her know that he detected her hand. Clary looked away, not able to look at him all of a sudden, hating the abrupt mood shift.

          “Oh, Clary,” Jocelyn sighed. “What did you do?”

          Clary did not immediately answer; hearing her mother speak to her that way was nearly as unpleasant as finding her in an enchanted sleep. She sounded disappointed and worried and unhappy all at once, like she already wished she could take on whatever burden Clary had brought upon herself.

          “I met someone,” she admitted. “Or, uhm—I guess somebody met me.”

          And she explained the story: How she had gone home to find Isabelle sitting on her front porch; how Isabelle had offered her a way out; how Clary had taken it, and the price she now bore. By the end of it, Jocelyn was standing there looking horrified, her hand covering her mouth. It was Luke who ultimately spoke first to break the long, heavy silence that had befallen them.

          “There’s no way out of this, is there?”

          He sounded like none of the things that her mother did; he was resigned, mostly, and Clary thought that she might have detected a hint of pride beneath his disappointment. Slowly, Clary shook her head.

          “I don’t think there is, no.”

          Luke sighed. “I told you I would take care of it,” he told her.

          Clary shrugged feebly. “Don’t pretend with me, Luke. You know the court warlock couldn’t have done anything. Untethered witches are infinitely more powerful.”

          “That’s what I’m worried about,” he said.

          Jocelyn was covering her face by this point, shaking her head dully from side to side like she couldn’t face what Clary had done. Clary got up from her seat and went to her, gently prying at her wrist until Jocelyn met her gaze miserably.

          “You shouldn’t have done that for me,” she whispered. Clary thought she sounded a tad hoarse too, but it was hard to tell beneath the murmur.

          “I already did,” Clary said, trying for humor. It fell flat. “And now I’m going to find who did this.”

          “No you are not,” Luke said suddenly, sounding for the first time like he was putting his foot down. “Jocelyn and I will take care of this. This time for real.”

          Clary threw up her hands as she spun to look at him. “Luke, I’m already knee-deep in witchcraft and gods know what else is lurking in this forest!”

          She very carefully did not mention that she was also tangled up in a half-unfinished prophecy from the water sprite princess. She was pretty sure that that wouldn’t help her convince her parents to let her do what she needed to do.

          “No,” Jocelyn said, shaking her head. “Clary, please, just go home and let us handle this. We’re your parents. Please.”

          She fought with them, but ultimately they forced her to promise that she wouldn’t meddle in this anymore. They loaded the basket she had left there yesterday with cheese and bread for the lunch she hadn’t had and walked her to the door. She kissed them each on the cheek, wished them a belated anniversary, and set off into the forest again.

          It was only a couple of hours later that she pressed through some underbrush, swept the pines and dirt off of her skirts, and knocked on another door—this one deep purple and warped, looking not much like a door at all, and certainly a shock in the middle of the greens and browns of the forest. The door opened on raised eyebrows and a small curl of a smile that knew they were about to get in trouble.

          “I brought lunch,” Clary said, holding up the basket. “We’re going to take down my father.”

          “Hello Clary,” Magnus Bane said smoothly. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

          Clary explained the last couple of days to him as they made their way through the bread, cheese, and yesterday’s wine in front of his roaring fireplace. He seemed remarkably unconcerned with her desire to blatantly disregard her promise to her parents, not interrupting her at all as she spoke, nodding in all the right places and seeming completely invested in what she was saying. When she was done, he did not say anything for a long time. He turned to the fire and chewed thoughtfully on the last piece of bread.

          “Well?” Clary pushed when he continued to say nothing. She leaned forward, forcing herself into his line of sight. Finally he looked at her.

          “Well?” he repeated calmly.

          “Well, you’re coming right?”

          Magnus rolled his eyes. “Of course I’m coming,” he scoffed. “What kind of friend wouldn’t come on this momentous, life-changing journey with you?”

          “Calm down,” Clary snorted. “It’s not a life-changing journey, it’s just me going to settle some family business.”

          “So you’re going to walk up to Valentine, who if you’ve forgotten is the head of his little band of evil witches, from a long line of the witches who caused the magic-ban in the first place, and ask him to come quietly?” Magnus sounded faintly amused.

          “I don’t know where he is,” Clary admitted. “So first I have to find him. But yes, then, I’m going to try and talk it out! We’re all adults.”

          “He’s an adult who just cast a spell on your mother,” Magnus pointed out. “You only know one witch, and you’re currently indebted to her. How exactly do you plan on taking out your very powerful rogue-witch father? With me and this bottle of wine as your army?”

          Clary slumped forward miserably, burying her face in her hands. She tugged on her hair and let out a long groan.

          “I don’t know,” she said wretchedly. “I don’t know, okay! But I have to figure out a way.”

          “Of course you do,” Magnus said. “You’re Clary Fray. And who’s Clary Fray without a good dose of recklessness and self-sacrifice?”

          Clary raised her head out of her hands so he could see her roll her eyes at him. He was grinning.

          “There she is,” he said, softer now. He ran a hand through her hair soothingly. “I’m just kidding.”

          “I know,” she sighed.

          He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, quietly, like he was afraid he might upset her—or maybe like she was on her deathbed—he said, “Are you sure you want to go up against him like this? It might be a death sentence.”

          “It might be,” Clary agreed. “I don’t think so, though. And I’m not asking you to come with me.” She held up her hand to stop him when he started to speak, and went on, “Don’t. I’m just saying, this is my thing that I have to do. It could really easily go south, and I’m not asking you to risk anything. I just have to do this. For my mother—and for me.”

          Magnus didn’t say anything. For a moment, she wondered if she had convinced him not to come, and her heart squeezed painfully. It would be best for him, but a selfish part of her hoped he would join her anyway.

          At long last, Magnus sighed.

          “How do you know?” he said. “Where are you going to start looking? He could be anywhere.”

          “I have an idea,” she said evasively, because it wasn’t a good idea. “I know somebody who might be able to help. But—they might not be really interested in talking to me, you know? We didn’t leave things on the best terms.”

          “Yes, you have a habit of doing that,” he mused.

          Clary pressed a smile into her hands, remembering their first meeting as she was sure he was as well. They had been children, and she had stolen a ball from him in the marketplace while her mother was doing business with the vendors, and she had made him chase her all around the square for two hours before agreeing to give it back, but only if he let her play with him too. She later found out that he had fashioned the ball with twine and vines all by himself, which made twelve-year-old Clary feel pretty bad about it, even though they had been friends for years by that point.

          Instead of pressing for more information about her informant-unknown, as she had expected him to do, he was quiet again.

          “I meant what I said, you know,” he told her after a pause. “I’m really coming with you.”

          “I know you are,” she said softly, like the moment might break if she was too loud in it. Her heart burst through the constrictions around it, full with his proclamation that he really was coming too. “Thank you.”

          They had nothing left to say after that. She scooted her chair closer to his so she could rest her head on his shoulder, and he let her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pressing his cheek against the top of her head. For a long time, they said nothing else, just stared into the fire together and sat close.

          “When are we leaving?” Magnus said eventually, when Clary was starting to drift closer to the edge of sleep.

          She sat up, rousing herself. She rubbed her fists into her eyes, wondering if she really had dozed off there for a second or not.

          “As soon as possible,” she said at last. “I need to go home and fetch some things first, though.”

          “You’re taking supplies?”

          Clary shrugged. “Not supplies really.”

          She did not let on more than that, and Magnus just stared at her, wide-eyed. “Okay,” he said finally, “I’m a little scared of you right now. But okay. I need to gather some materials too.”

          She finished off the wine while Magnus left to scavenge his little home for anything he wanted to bring. When he came back, now with his pockets stuffed with food supplies and a couple of things he “might need on the road,” Clary set the empty bottle down and spun around to face him.

          “Ready to go?” she said.

          He took a deep breath, then let it out equally slowly.

          “Let’s go,” he said.

          Sundown was touching the trees as they departed from Magnus’s house and off into the forest towards Clary’s. The woods were alive with the usual noises and animals, but something about it sounded off. It took Clary nearly twenty minutes to realize that that was because she wasn’t hearing an animal, or animals, scurrying nearby—that was definitely the sound of a twig snapping, and she spun around as soon as she realized this, eyes searching into the descending darkness behind them.

          “What is it?” Magnus whispered, laying his hand on her arm. He had stopped short with her, and now he joined in her scan of the trees around them.

          “Someone’s following us,” she whispered. Then louder, “Come out! We have weapons and we’re not afraid to use them!”

          For a moment, there was nothing. Clary was sure she hadn’t imagined the noises, but she was a little bit worried that she hadn’t sold the hardened traveler thing very well.

          Just as Clary was about to give up and start walking again in the hopes that she could catch them when they thought her guard was down, the distinctive sound of clapping came out of the trees where she was looking. A figure, swathed in the black of the almost-night, materialized slowly out the trees.

          “Terrible reflexes,” they called. “I was wondering how long it would take for you notice I was here. You could have been dead already.”

          Magnus was staring between Clary and the approaching figure; Clary noticed belatedly that he was holding a small spear-like device out in front of him like a weapon.

          “Isabelle?”

          Isabelle came into the dying light wearing a wide smile and a shirt and shorts combination that hugged her curves and were so deep red that she looked swathed in blood.

          “Good to see you again, Clary,” she said, nodding at her. She turned her smile on Magnus next and inclined her head at him too. “And who are you?”

          “Magnus Bane,” he said, striding forward to clasp her hand with his. He had dropped his spear-like thing down by his side now that Clary had evidently identified her as non-threatening, at least for the immediate future. Clary noticed how it swung from a small twine bracelet he had fashioned around his wrist to hold it.

          “You could gut a woman,” said Isabelle, nodding at his spear, but she was still smiling. Clary felt unaccountably annoyed; she got frustrated with Isabelle’s trespassing and mind games and she wrought ire, but Magnus tried to stab her and Isabelle was all coy smiles and approval. It was so unfair.

          “What do you want?” Clary asked, stepping up beside Magnus so that she was right in front of her.

          Isabelle looked at her then, her smile dipping slightly. “Just came to check on my assets,” she said, raking her eyes down Clary’s body before reaching her face again. “I see you’re still in one piece.”

          “Why wouldn’t I be?” Clary asked, shifting uncomfortably on her feet.

          “A little birdie told me you’re embarking on a very difficult and dangerous journey,” Isabelle said, watching her sharply. “I have an investment in your future. A very personal investment, in case you’ve forgotten.”

          She clasped her hands together like that was that.

          “What are you talking about?” said Clary. “I’m not some…some business venture for you to consider! I’m a human being!”

          “A human being who bargained away part of her future,” Isabelle said sweetly.

          “Yes, but still a person!” Clary stomped her foot. “Who the hell told you about what we were doing anyway?”

          Isabelle raised an eyebrow. “I think we both know the answer to that question.”

          Clary’s mouth fell open. She was momentarily lost for words; her throat kept garbling them to nonsense every time she tried to force them out. Finally she managed,

          “Camille? You’ve been talking to the water sprite princess?”

          “I wouldn’t call us friends,” said Isabelle, wrinkling her nose. “But I know her, yes. She owed me a debt; it’s paid now. She gave me information I found valuable. Namely, that you intend on endangering yourself. And I can’t have that.”

          “What do you care?” said Clary, crossing her arms. “There are other girls who will bargain with you if I end up dying or whatever.”

          Isabelle spread her hands. “You’ll find not many are willing to pay such a price.” She shrugged. “But you are, and who knows how long it will be before I find somebody else willing to do what you’re willing to do? Not many go to the lengths you have—not even for their family. So.” She loped forwards and snaked her arm through Clary’s, spinning her around so they were facing the direction Clary had been going before Isabelle’s unexpected arrival. “Where are we going?”

          Clary stared at her, dragging her to a stop. “You can’t be serious?”

          Isabelle smiled politely. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she said, but Clary rather thought she might be playing with her.

          “You’re not coming with us,” said Clary.

          “I told you,” Isabelle said, now with a bit of a hard edge to her tone, “I’m personally interested in your prosperity on this journey. I’m obviously not to going tell you what to do or not do, but I am going to make sure that you stay out of any…lasting harm.” This time when she looked at Clary again, Clary wasn’t sure that she was doing it solely for the benefit of her possible child. “Any lasting harm,” she said again, but it sounded different this time.

          Clary pulled her arm free from Isabelle’s so that she could cross them over her chest.

          “If you think—” she started, but she was interrupted when Magnus stepped up behind her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She turned her head slightly towards him, and he ducked his down so his mouth was by her ear.

          “She could be an asset,” he murmured. “Clary. Remember, it’s just you, me, and the wine—and we finished the wine. It could be…advantageous for us, to have a witch by our side when we’re going up against a witch.”

          Clary sniffed a little and tightened her arms around her chest. Her gaze found Isabelle again, and she leveled a glare her way.

          “She is offering to help us,” Magnus coaxed. A little more disdainfully he added, “No matter the reason for it.”

          Clary gritted her teeth together. “You really trust her?” she whispered.

          It was kind of silly to be talking about her like she couldn’t hear them; Isabelle was only standing a step or two away, although she was examining her nails and the forest as though she wasn’t listening, which Clary thought (grudgingly) was rather nice of her.

          “Of course not,” said Magnus. “That doesn’t change the fact that we need her.”

          Clary snorted. “Guess that solves that problem then.”

          When she threw a smirk over her shoulder, Magnus did not look amused. Clary cleared her throat and turned back to Isabelle.

          “Okay,” she said, trying for an authoritative tone. “You can come. But if you mess this up for us, I will personally make sure that you never have a peaceful moment ever again.”

          “Don’t bother with threats,” said Isabelle, waving her hand. “You have no leverage.”

          “I have a mean right hook.”

          Isabelle raised her chin, regarding Clary interestedly. Then she said, “Fair enough.”

          Clary tried very hard not to grin; she did not succeed, but she wasn’t happy about it either.

          “Come on then,” said Magnus, clapping his hands together. “Now that that’s all decided, we have to get to Clary’s.”

          “Where are we going after that?”

          They both looked to her. Clary’s jaw worked again. At last, she said, “Then we’re going to see Camille.”

- - -

          After they went to Clary’s so that she could run inside and collect what she needed—a roll of bandages stuffed into her pockets, some spare change just in case, a knife strapped to her thigh—she shut the door behind her and then checked the locks twice.

          “I can charm it so nobody you don’t invite can come in,” Isabelle offered, raising her hands. She wiggled her fingers enticingly.

          Clary raised her eyebrows. The offer was tempting, and Isabelle had been nice since she had appeared out of the woods again, but Clary still did not particularly trust her. Besides, she didn’t need to owe another debt to her. She forced herself to shrug.

          “I’m okay,” she said. Then, because Jocelyn and Luke had raised her right, she tacked on, “But thank you though.”

          Isabelle twirled her hands in the air so that sparks formed around them, twinkling in the shining starlight. They shimmered and then floated to the ground. Clary was enchanted despite herself.

          “Suit yourself,” said Isabelle, but she was smiling coyly, like she had seen Clary’s interest.

          Clary schooled her expression back to impassiveness and tried to gather her scrambling thoughts.

          “So,” she said. “I think we should bypass the marketplace tomorrow morning and head straight for Simon’s tonight.”

          “Why?” said Isabelle. “And who’s Simon?”

          “My ex,” said Clary, “but we’re still friends.”

          “If any of Valentine’s spies see us in the marketplace, this whole thing could blow apart before it even begins,” Magnus agreed. He tapped his fingers against his cheek thoughtfully. “You’re right, we should go directly to Simon. Now, so we can go before anyone thinks to miss him tomorrow morning. He’ll be scheduled to work the market, won’t he?”

          “Probably,” said Clary, chewing on her lip. She was loathe to take him away from the money she knew he needed, but she needed to gather her forces where she could. She couldn’t think of a lot of friends she could trust to join her, and Simon was definitely one of them. She had decided to go see him before Camille, just in case something cropped up after and there wasn’t time to go to Simon’s after.

          “I shouldn’t be seen by too many commoners anyway,” said Isabelle. “Sadly, a lot of them still don’t trust witches. If I’m recognized, I put my entire coven in danger. And the ones beyond that, too. All of my kind would be at stake.”

          “I won’t let that happen,” said Clary immediately.

          Magnus looked between them. “So—Simon’s?”

          “Simon’s,” they both agreed.

          Without further debate, they began to walk. Clary and Magnus were leading, although Isabelle was keeping pace with them anyway, on Clary’s other side. Simon lived nearly a full night’s walk from Clary’s cottage, on the outskirts of the village just beyond the forest treeline, and even if they didn’t stop to rest at all, they wouldn’t be there until nearly sun up.

          They were a strange trio, Clary mused as they fought their way through the underbrush and plants trying to ensnare their ankles. There was Magnus, who was chatting a little too amicably about nothing that Clary found discernably important and swinging his makeshift spear around and around, occasionally using it to cut through twigs and little obstacles. There was Isabelle, who was sweeping along in a half-march in a way that seemed effortless yet beautiful, brushing leaves and insect webs away from her path, seeming completely at ease like she had navigated the path a million times before and would do so a million times again; she was also clearly strung with magic, and not just in the way she moved but also in how there wasn’t a hair out of place, how she carried herself, in her very being. And there was Clary, casting glances at Isabelle every few minutes like she expected her to suddenly attack, graceless but careful in the path she treaded through the leaves and dirt, wondering why she was trusting this witch beside her and yet powerless against her own instincts to do just that.

          It was nearing daybreak when they passed a redwood just under a willow overhang, and they paused. Magnus pressed his hand to the bark and said, “Sh!” with his finger against his lips.

          Isabelle looked at Clary.

          “What is it?” she whispered. “Does he hear something?”

          “Hopefully,” said Clary, and fell silent as well.

          Isabelle mercifully asked no more questions, but instead fell stiller than either of them could manage. Clary glanced at her, trying to copy her pose like that simple act would help to make her more immobile, but she almost immediately toppled over. Clary righted herself, cursing internally. A glance to the side showed Isabelle watching her in amusement. Clary resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.

          Clary counted out one hundred and thirteen seconds before a voice floated to them through the cluster of peony and hydrangea bushes to their right.

          “You seek safe passage to the Merchant Land?”

          Isabelle was watching the other two quizzically, her head tilted to the side. Clary glanced at Magnus.

          “Yes,” she said. She cleared her throat and tried to speak louder. “If you can get us there on the quickest path, without facing any creatures that want to do us harm, we’ll answer you a riddle.” Generally, they loved having their riddles solved, but the voice said nothing. Clary added grudgingly, “And we’ll owe you one favor.”

          Magnus sighed quietly. There was only silence for one second, then two. Clary wondered if her bargain had worked at all; if not, they were going to have to go forward anyway, albeit without the promise of an easy way.

          Then at last, the dragon emerged from the underbrush. It was a tiny little thing, almost cute. Clary knew it could only be a baby of less than two or three years. She giggled helplessly as it flew close to her nose, its wings flapping against her cheek. Then it flew further away to examine the others before circling back to gaze at them all.

          “What’s the riddle then?” Isabelle asked. Clary looked at her, how she stood with her chin held high, dignified even now.

          The dragon said,

“Invisible to every creature

big, small, and in between.

Not magic and not mortal

but I’m there, although unseen.

Everyone can hear me,

and some have called me shy.

I speak back only when spoken to,

now tell me: What am I?”

          The dragon’s little wings buzzed through the air as it laid its claws against its stomach and blinked at them with its big eyes. It was no bigger than Clary’s palm, although she knew that it could likely roast them if it felt so inclined.

          “I know this,” Magnus muttered. “I know this.”

          “Well, I don’t,” said Isabelle, crossing her arms. “This sucks. Can’t we just fight our way to Simon’s?”

          “I’ve done that,” Clary said grimly. “It’s not fun.”

          Isabelle smiled and clicked the heel of one of her pumps against the side of the other. “There’s nothing a witch can’t do in heels.”

          Clary snorted a laugh and turned her head away to hide her smile. She caught Isabelle grinning at her just before she cut her eyes back to the dragon.

          “We can figure this out,” Magnus said reasonably, holding his hand up to halt Isabelle’s fire. “We just have to think for a moment.”

          Clary clicked her tongue. Isabelle said, “Okay, let’s think then. What was the first part again?”

          This last part was directed at the dragon. It cleared its throat—a small plume of smoke escaped its mouth—and repeated the first half of the riddle.

          “‘Invisible to every creature…’” Magnus muttered. “That could be a boggart.”

          “People see those, though,” Clary pointed out. “They turn into whatever you fear most.”

          Isabelle was nodding slowly. “Exactly. And the riddle says they’re not magic…Are there any famous people that could be the answer?”

          “It’s not mortal either,” Magnus reminded her. “Anyway, I own just about every historical book on record. There’s nobody that fits that description.”

          “What about something else?” said Clary, spreading her hands. “An animal or something?”

          “Animals are mortal,” Isabelle pointed out. “It said mortal, not human.” She turned back to the dragon, who was watching them patiently. “Is there a penalty for guessing wrong?”

          It beat its wings harder, lifting it higher into the air to match her eye level. “No,” it said eventually. “But after two or three guesses, people tend to get annoyed and give up. Sometimes they try to get by anyway. They do not like that, either.”

          “Will you tell us the answer if we give up?” asked Clary, her interest now piqued regardless of whether she gave up or not.

          The dragon tilted its head at her. “No.”

          Isabelle sighed. “What was the second half?” she asked the dragon.

          The dragon dutifully repeated the second part of the riddle. It made no more sense the second time, and Clary gave a groan of annoyance.

          “I guess we can’t have a hint, can we?” Clary implored.

          If the dragon could smile, Clary thought it might have smiled.

          “No hints,” it said calmly.

          “Let’s think,” Isabelle said reasonably, resting her palms facedown in the air as though to lower their roiling blood with the gesture. “It’s not magic or mortal, and nobody can see it, but you can hear it. So maybe it’s not physical. Maybe it’s like, a noise of some sort?”

          “It talks though,” Clary reminded her. “Remember? ‘I speak back only when spoken to’?”

          Isabelle grimaced. “Are there any creatures that are just voices or something?”

          Magnus shook his head. “Not that I’ve come across.”

          “Okay, so maybe it’s a noise,” she suggested again, still with that determined calm. Clary was beginning to envy her and her steadfast composure. “A voice, maybe?”

          Magnus glanced at the dragon. “That’s not our guess,” he said quickly. Then to the others, he said, “It only speaks back when spoken to…”

          “A voice that only speaks when spoken to?” Isabelle said, wrinkling her nose. “What is it, trapped in limbo or something?”

          “Limbo’s real?” Magnus asked.

          Clary said, “Can we please focus? So we know it’s a voice that only speaks when spoken to first. So it’s not human, and it’s not animal or magic…Everyone hears it, but nobody sees it…And it speaks back when its spoken to…”

          She fell silent, and the others said nothing; there was only the sounds of the forest, humming and rustling and calling to one another. A bird’s song rang out, only to reverberate around and around through the trees. Clary listened to it, willing it to calm her down. And then she gasped.

          “An echo!” she said excitedly to the dragon. “It’s an echo, isn’t it? Invisible—or intangible or whatever? And it speaks back when it’s spoken to! It’s an echo!”

          She waited with her breath held. Then the dragon beat its wings slower, descending until it was just hovering a few feet off of the ground.

          “You may pass,” it said simply. Then it touched the dirt and melted back into the hydrangeas.

          Clary looked back at the others, excited. They were both grinning at her. Magnus threw his arms around her.

          “That was brilliant,” Isabelle said from behind him, nodding at her in approval. “I’m not sure I would have come up with that.”

          “It was fantastic,” Magnus agreed, releasing her and stepping back. “Shall we go on?”

          The others nodded. As they set off again, a voice called back to them from the peony bush.

          “Don’t forget the favor you owe me!”

          Dread plummeted icily into Clary’s stomach, but she pushed it away for now. Who knows what it would ask, and that was the second magical deal she had sealed in two days. She was really on a risky path.

          They walked on for another hour or so before Simon’s cabin came into view. No candles were lit when they arrived at the place, or if they were, they were impossible to see through the windows. The trio knocked and waited expectantly, and though Clary had expected it to take awhile—if he even answered at all—they were only standing there for maybe twenty seconds before the door opened. Simon was standing there, wearing cotton pants and nothing else but his glasses, which were pushed up and lopsided as he rubbed at his eyes.

          “Clary?” he said, sounding tired. “I just woke up, I’m getting ready to go in to work. What are you—Who is that?”

          He was looking over Clary’s shoulder now that he had noticed the others. Isabelle gave a little wave.

          “I’m hurt,” said Magnus, arching his eyebrows high and sounding annoyed. “It’s only been a few months, Simon, and I’ve known you since you were thirteen.”

          “I know you,” Simon yawned, waving him off. Then he noticed Magnus smiling. “You’re so annoying. I meant her.”

          “This is Isabelle,” said Clary, glancing back at her. “She’s…It’s kind of a long story. You mind if we come in?”

          “I sort of have…”

          “Simon,” said somebody from inside, interrupting him effectively. “Do you have any butter left for breakfast?”

          Simon looked over his shoulder and sighed. “Raphael’s here,” he finished. He opened the door a little wider and added, “Come in, though.”

          They piled in at once. Raphael raised his eyebrows at them when they entered the kitchen. Isabelle and Magnus made themselves at home at once at the table, but Clary stayed standing.

          “You can have the last chair there,” Clary said awkwardly to Raphael. “Since you were, you know. About to sit there anyway.”

          Raphael did not like Clary very much, a difference in personality which they tolerated mainly for Simon’s sake, since there was nothing inherently wrong with either of them. His animosity seemed doubled than usual now, possibly because he was wearing a t-shirt and cotton underwear alone. He grunted, “Thanks,” and took the last remaining chair at the table to eat his bread and butter. Isabelle and Magnus watched him interestedly.

          “What?” he said around a mouthful, looking up at them.

          Isabelle shrugged and turned away. Magnus continued to look at him. They had met before too, and were on slightly better terms than he and Clary. Raphael even smiled at him.

          “So why are you all here before daybreak?” Simon said, coming to stand in front of them and crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you know how early it is?”

          “Very,” said Isabelle.

          Clary rolled her eyes at her and filled Simon in on the details of their quest and circumstances as the sun lightened up the sky little by little. His eyebrows rose higher and higher on his forehead as she spoke, and when she was done, she leaned against the wall behind her and looked at him expectantly.

          “We’re not asking you to come,” she said quickly, when he continued to say nothing. “I get it. You have your job, and it’s going to be dangerous—like, really dangerous. You know how powerful Valentine is, and I would never ask you to risk your safety if it wasn’t really important…but I still don’t expect—”

          “Clary, Clary,” Simon laughed. He approached her, and she looked up at him sheepishly, but he just settled his hands lightly on her arms and looked at her sincerely. “Of course I’ll come with you. You know how important you are to me.”

          She held her breath. “Really?”

          “Really,” Simon said.

          Clary exhaled all at once and arched forwards to wrap him in a hug, tight enough for him to hopefully feel her gratitude. Simon laughed in surprise and embraced her back.

          “You don’t know what this means to me,” said Clary.

          “I know what it means to me,” said Raphael. Clary released Simon and looked up to find Raphael regarding her with a frown.

          “Raph—” Simon started.

          “No, no,” said Raphael, standing up. He was waving his hand casually, but the type of casually that made it clear he was brimming with dissatisfaction. “It’s always been my dream to go on a mission to avenge Clary’s mother from her evil bastard of a blood father.”

          Clary faltered. “I’m not making you come,” she said uncertainly.

          Raphael stomped closer to her. She stood up taller instinctively, meeting his hard stare.

          “Oh no,” said Raphael, jabbing his index finger in her direction. “You are not taking my boyfriend on a long dramatic adventure and leaving me behind. If you think I’m staying behind, you’ve got another thing coming.”

          He turned and strode away towards Simon’s bedroom.

          “He doesn’t need protection,” Clary called after him. “Even if he does, he’s got us!”

          Nothing happened for a good half minute. Then Raphael came striding back out, now wearing pants that were patched and rough but clearly durable. He sat down by the door and started pulling on his shoes.

          “I’m not going to protect him,” he said. “I’m going to be with him.”

          Clary had nothing to say to that. She thought on it for awhile, but then she just nodded and said, “Okay.”

          Raphael fumbled his shoes for a second. Then he hardened his expression back into something determined and said, “Good.”

          “Good,” Simon echoed, breaking their furious stare-off. “I’ll go get my shirt then, okay?”

          They all waited in the kitchen for him to return. Isabelle asked brightly for some coffee, as they were all running on very little sleep and a lot of walking by this juncture, and Simon came back out of his room to suggest that they all catch a couple of hours of sleep before continuing on their way. As much as Clary wanted to protest, the weight of her aching feet and her missed hours of shuteye were coming down on her in force now, and she accepted the offer gratefully. As it was primarily her vendetta, the other two agreed, although Isabelle did pause to ask if she was sure.

          There wasn’t enough room for all of them. Simon and Raphael retired to his bed once more together, and nobody was willing to try to squeeze in with them. Magnus won the couch in a game of rock paper shears, leaving Isabelle and Clary to accept a thick woolen blanket from Simon and curl up on the floor together. They chose a spot by the window so the sun could warm them as much as possible.

          Magnus’s snores overtook the room relatively quickly, but Clary was awake, and not just because of the hardness of the floor. She rolled over only to find that Isabelle was awake too, watching the ceiling. She met her gaze when Clary moved, alerted most likely by the shifting blanket.

          “You’re not sleeping,” Isabelle observed in a soft voice. “You need rest before we continue on.”

          “So do you,” Clary pointed out. “Even witches need to sleep.”

          “We do,” Isabelle agreed, “but first I want to talk to you.”

          Clary blinked at her. She couldn’t think of a single thing that she and Isabelle might have to talk about.

          “Okay,” she said slowly. “What about?”

          Isabelle was silent for a moment. “How are you handling all of this?” she said at last. “It must be difficult—facing your father, I mean. You can’t be looking forward to that.”

          “I’m not,” Clary admitted. “I haven’t seen him since I was a little girl. I don’t think of him as my father, anyway. Luke’s more that than Valentine will ever be to me.”

          “Still,” said Isabelle. “It can’t be easy.”

          “It’s not,” said Clary. She wondered why she was asking.

          Isabelle said nothing for a long moment. Her eyes studied the floor between their faces, uncomfortable but filled with enough imperfections to make it a perfect candidate to study, especially if Isabelle was avoiding her gaze.

          “If you would be open to it,” she said at last, sounding as though she was weighing her words cautiously, and also as though she was starting and stopping intermittently to choose them with care, “I would like to help you however I can.”

          “You already are,” said Clary. “That’s—I mean, that’s part of why we accepted you along in the first place.” She blushed as she admitted this. “We thought it might be helpful to have a witch along, when we’re going up against a witch.”

          Isabelle furrowed her brow. Clary thought she looked a little frustrated, like Clary had misconstrued her meaning. But she only said, “I’m nowhere near as powerful as Valentine.”

          “I didn’t think you were,” said Clary, “but it’s good to have you anyway.”

          Isabelle softened. “I can help in other ways too,” she said. “Seriously, however you need. Even if it’s just to talk.”

          Clary blinked at her. “Thank you,” she said at last. “That means a lot.”

          Isabelle smiled peaceably, seeming pleased that she had said what she wanted to say. Clary smiled back, a bit lopsided with how off-kilter she felt after their conversation. Something had shifted between them. Clary closed her eyes as she thought it over, and drifted further and further towards dreams. She thought the conversation was over and that Isabelle would be wanting to sleep now, too.

          “Do you have a husband, Clary Fray?” asked Isabelle out of the blue.

          Clary opened her eyes and stared at her, trying to fathom this new topic, unaware they were still talking at all. She paused, then burst out laughing at the unexpected question.

          “Nope,” she said lightly. “I don’t even have a boyfriend.”

          “No prospects?” asked Isabelle, smiling now at her. “No suitors at all?”

          “Not in awhile,” Clary said. “I’m not even looking at anyone right now. The last boyfriend I had was awhile ago, and he’s with someone else now. I don’t meet a lot of new people, you know. It’s not like potential lovers just fade out of the woods and show up on my doorstep every other day.” She bit her lip, still smiling now, but gentler than before. “You might have to wait a bit to collect your end of the bargain. Sorry.”

          “That’s okay,” Isabelle said. “I’m a very patient woman.”

          She looked sleepier now, a little closer to how Clary was feeling, and her eyes were drifting shut every now and then like she wanted to stay awake but couldn’t quite manage it. It was very humanizing; Clary pressed her lips together to keep from smiling at it. Isabelle’s lips turned up dreamily.

          “What?” she said, sounding distant and serene. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

          “I’m not,” said Clary. “This is just the first conversation we’ve had with absolutely no animosity.”

          Isabelle smiled fully now, though her eyes were closed completely. “Is it?” she said.

          “It is,” Clary affirmed.

          Isabelle said, “Huh.” Clary waited, but she said no more. After awhile her breathing slowed, and Clary realized that she had fallen asleep. A smile lingered around her lips for a moment, suspended, as she studied Isabelle’s face—softer now in sleep, less sharp and less aware. Clary thought she might be closer now to seeing who Isabelle was beneath her firmly all-business deportment. She thought that it might be someone worth knowing.

          “Goodnight, Isabelle,” she murmured. Then she too closed her eyes and found sleep.

- - -

          They set off as soon as they were all awake, waiting for the last of them to wander into consciousness before they set off. They were an even more motley crew now with their swelled numbers, but Clary was grateful for the backup, even if only half of them were completely amiable towards her.

          “Where are we going?” Raphael said when Simon’s cottage was barely out of sight. “I mean, I know we’re going to find Valentine. But where are we heading now?”

          “How are we going to find him?” Simon piped up.

          “The answer to both of those questions,” said Isabelle, smiling broadly as she turned around to face them, and she continued walking backwards. She spread her hands and finished, “happens to be the same thing.”

          Simon leaned around her to look at Clary, as Isabelle did not go on.

          “Clarification please?” he said.

          Clary glanced back toward him. “We’re going to see Camille,” she explained. “She’s someone I met earlier this week. She’s—well, maybe not open to helping us. But she’s the only person I even know by name who has a chance at being able to.”

          Raphael was looking at her with his eyebrows raised. “How do you know the water sprite princess?”

          “How do you?” Clary returned. She only did not stop short because the rest of the party kept moving, forcing her to keep up.

          “I used to run with her,” he said. He glanced around at them all and added with a hearty roll of his eyes, “Not literally. She has a tail for gods’ sake. I mean, you do know I’m half, right?”

          “Half water sprite?” asked Clary.

          Raphael gave a jerky little nod. “Yes. I used to run with her Cave for awhile. I can turn at will, but I used to spend a lot more time underwater than I do on land. I met Simon while I was on a water run for the marketplace; Camille liked to do trades and things to keep up goodwill with the commoners, plus it spread out her network to further reaches. Anyway, I’m still an envoy of sorts. I just spend more time on two legs.”

          “She let you leave?” said Clary. “She doesn’t seem the type.”

          “Special circumstances,” said Raphael, grinning now. He tapped the side of his head and said, “I’m her cousin.”

          “He’s practically water sprite royalty,” Simon boasted, grinning at them all. He sounded more proud of Raphael than he did at himself for dating him.

          Clary exchanged glances with Magnus. Magnus said, “That will prove very helpful.”

          Raphael shrugged. “I don’t normally call in favors from her,” he said. “She’s very…aware of her power over others, and she demands strict retribution.”

          “Think you can make an exception?” said Clary. She wanted to add, I’ll owe you one, but she didn’t think she needed to be in any more debt than she was already in. First Isabelle, then the dragon. She didn’t need to owe Simon’s boyfriend too, especially since he already barely tolerated her.

          Raphael opened his mouth like he was going to say no. Then he glanced sideways at Simon, who was doing his best pleading face. He sighed and said, “I guess. Just this once.”

          Clary wanted to say something like, Oh no, and I ask for your help so much, but she didn’t think antagonism would be a great move either, so she just thanked him and kept walking.

          The Cave was a two days’ walk through the forest. They slept on the forest floor at night and trekked during the day, with Raphael at their head and Isabelle not far behind. By the time they got there, Clary was feeling the aches in every part of her body.

          “You should let me talk to her,” said Raphael. They had all come to a stop and were circled around again, looking at each other and searching for the best next move.

          “Raph,” Simon protested. Raphael held up his hand.

          “From what you’ve told us,” said Raphael, and this he directed at Clary, “she doesn’t think much of you at all. She hates mortals,” he added, glancing at the rest of them, and then while looking at Isabelle he said, “and she doesn’t like other magic folk operating in her territory. So that leaves me.”

          As none of them wanted, in particular, to speak to the tetchy princess anyway, they agreed to let Raphael go alone. Clary collapsed onto a nearby rock as soon as she was no longer required to be strong. The others were talking amongst themselves nearby, so she pulled off her worn shoes. Her feet were beginning to callous and blister; Clary spent a lot of time wending her way through this type of terrain, but they clearly did not agree with the unending strain.

          “I can help with that.”

          Clary looked up; she had not heard Isabelle come over. She glanced down at where she was rubbing one of her feet in her hands.

          “Can you?” she asked.

          “Sure,” said Isabelle. “Hand me your shoe.”

          Clary did, nonplussed. Isabelle held it in one hand, and with the other performed a series of movements wherein her fingers fluttered neatly in the space around the shoe. In seconds, Clary watched the torn stitches and broken parts where her skin was beginning to show through mend themselves before her very eyes. Isabelle’s fingers glowed and sparked.

          “Wow,” she breathed, transfixed.

          She handed Isabelle the other, and she performed the same magic on that one too. When that one was also handed back, Isabelle moved off into the surrounding trees before Clary could even thank her. She went back to rubbing her feet, although the mended shoes would be a huge improvement once she had to start moving again.

          Isabelle was back in mere minutes though. She presented to Clary a hollowed-out rock filled with a thick paste.

          “It’s balm for your feet,” she explained. “I had to make do with what herbs I could find around here, so it’s not all that it could be. But it should heal and soothe them to some degree.”

          Clary took the rock, speechless. She blinked up at Isabelle.

          “Thank you,” she managed, which was not sufficient at all, but it was all she could conjure up. She was not a wordsmith.

          Isabelle smiled at her. “It was no trouble,” she said. “The shoes are reinforced with magic, too. They won’t break so easily again, and they should provide some support.”

          “Thank you,” Clary said again, because it was all she could think to say.

          Isabelle said nothing, but when she sat, she did not choose a seat near where the boys were talking. She sat down beside Clary. They did not speak, but Isabelle didn’t leave, either.

          Raphael returned awhile later. Clary jumped up, but she knew immediately that it was bad news; Raphael was shaking his head with his hands spread out, like there was nothing more to be done.

          “She doesn’t help mortals,” was all he said. He looked at Clary and cocked his head as he added, “She said you should be grateful for what she did offer you.”

          Clary crossed her arms. “She didn’t offer me much at all!” she said, angry now. “Just a bunch of empty fortunes and no way to change any of it. Now she won’t help me solve it, either? What the hells are we supposed to do?”

          Her question, though not rhetorical, was not met with any offers of a solution either. They all just looked at each other, at a loss. Possibly at the end of the road. Clary deflated minutely; she did not want to have dragged them all out here only to have to tell them to go back home because there was nothing more to be done. Sometimes evil won, and that was that—oh well, pack up and give in, hopefully he won’t torment us again.

          Then at last, Magnus offered, “I could ask Alec.”

          Clary looked up at him. She had only met Magnus’s boyfriend twice, and while she liked him just fine, he was not the first person she would turn to for help when she was in trouble. He was taciturn on good days and downright rude on bad ones; he only seemed to find it in him to be polite to Magnus, and when he was polite he was absolutely lovesick. He never seemed to have much time for anyone else, and especially not for Clary, always just brushing her off instead. Simon had been there one of the times that they had all met in the marketplace, and he too was wrinkling his nose like he didn’t think much of the idea of calling in a favor with Alec. Simon’s steadfastly ingrained enthusiasm never flagged in the face of Alec’s disapproval, but he was clearly aware of his shortcomings too.

          “Who’s Alec?” said Isabelle.

          Clary glanced at Magnus. She looked back at Isabelle and said, “Magnus’s boyfriend. But he’s not exactly…”

          “He’s rough around the edges,” Simon supplied.

          Magnus looked pained. “Alexander does his best,” he said. “He suffered early life losses; give him a break.”

          “I’m trying,” Clary muttered.

          Magnus spoke like he hadn’t heard her.

          “The main problem is getting in touch with him,” he reasoned. “He was supposed to taking some well-earned vacation time with his little brother, and he said he would be out of communication range for awhile.”

          Isabelle perked up. “That shouldn’t be a problem for me,” she said, waggling her fingers which had just recently been strung with sparks. “Tell me who he is and where I can find him. Species wouldn’t hurt either.”

          “He’s mortal,” said Magnus. “Just a clairvoyant. Possibly also preternaturally skilled with a bow, but that could be normal hunting instincts. Anyway, he hasn’t been prosecuted by the kingdom for it.”

          Isabelle nodded. “Any other defining characteristics?” she pressed. “Location? Last name? Anything?”

          “He’s a Lightwood,” said Magnus, which meant little to Clary but which sparked clear interest in Isabelle’s eyes.

          “Oh, finding him will be nothing,” she said brightly. “And I know plenty of creatures that owe favors to the Lightwoods—they can probably have him zapped here in seconds. I’m not powerful enough for transportation, but I have just the person. Give me…oh, ten minutes. I need to scry. Has anybody seen a stream or river around here? A pond maybe?”

          She was livelier than Clary had yet seen her. Magnus pointed her in a direction where water must have been and Isabelle promptly disappeared into the woods. Clary looked at him.

          “Who are the Lightwoods?” she said. “And why is Isabelle so excited about it?”

          Magnus sighed. “The Lightwoods are powerful clairvoyants,” he explained. “They come from a long line of similar powers, although all of them work differently than each other. Alec sees words, for instance, not pictures. But he should be able to wrangle us up an approximate location of where Valentine is hiding.”

          “I didn’t know that,” said Clary.

          Magnus shrugged. “Seers are only well-respected in magical communities anymore,” he said. “Even the king hasn’t outlawed future-telling magic. It’s not legally classified as witchcraft, because a lot of people think they’re just frauds.”

          “Lucky him,” said Simon, looking as dumbstuck as Clary felt.

          Magnus nodded fervently. “You have no idea,” he said, sounding dark. Clary guessed he stayed up a lot of nights thinking about how lucky he was. “Alec is particularly good at what he does; he should be able to help us like it’s nothing.”

          They fell silent. After about twenty minutes, wherein they all resorted to sitting down or sprawling out on the floor, and Magnus began humming loudly, Raphael started craning his neck into the woods like he thought he might be able to see Isabelle coming back already. Clary wanted to go look for her to see what was going on, and maybe to see her perform more magic. She was radiant when she did. But Clary, who knew little about the ins and outs of magical powers and what to do with them, was still aware that scrying was an activity best left uninterrupted.

          “Shouldn’t you be half magic?” Raphael asked her. He jerked his thumb towards where Isabelle had disappeared. “Valentine’s your father, right? Why do we need help from leather Merlin over there?”

          An instinct to retaliate against the slight on Isabelle raised up in Clary, but she pushed it away.

          “I didn’t get any power from my father,” Clary said. “Nothing I know of anyway. I used to be able to like, make pictures come to life when I was a little girl. Nothing big, but I could do like, rocks and stuff. Not so much anymore.”

          Simon pouted sympathetically. “That sounds cool.”

          “It was,” said Magnus. “I had about three magic-bearing years with her before she lost it. Very interesting birthday presents resulted.”

          “Very cool,” Simon said reverently, his eyes wide.

          “What’s very cool?” came Isabelle’s voice, and they turned to see her wending her way back towards them through the trees from a different direction than the one she had left in. “If you’re going to compliment me, you could at least do it to my face.”

          She was grinning. Clary jumped to her feet.

          “Did it work?” she asked eagerly.

          Isabelle spread her arms as she sauntered into their clearing. “See for yourself,” she said, making a sweeping gesture towards the woods behind her.

          Through the trees—ducking under branches and making faces at spiderwebs that flew in his face—Alec came slowly into view. He stopped at the edge of the clearing too and looked around at everyone. He seemed discomfited to find them all staring back.

          “Hey,” he said uncertainly.

          “Alec,” said Magnus. He made it sound so cheery, even just that simple greeting. When he strode forward, a very real and natural smile unfolded itself on Alec’s face.

          “Hey,” he said again, much softer this time. When Magnus came near, he opened his arms for Magnus to step into their circle. They kissed chastely.

          The others all chorused hellos, and Alec waved vaguely at them. Clary gave obligatory introductions.

          “How was your vacation?” said Magnus.

          “Never mind that,” said Isabelle before Alec could say anything. “I debriefed him somewhat earlier, but it’s best to do another, fuller rundown before we start asking for favors, I think.”

          “I’m right here,” said Alec, sounding mildly annoyed. He always sounded mildly annoyed though, so Clary wasn’t overly concerned about it.

          She did oblige though, giving him the short version of the story she had already repeated several times to everybody in their little group. Alec grew more and more concerned as she spoke—or at least his brow furrow got steadily deeper, which she elected to take as his concern.

          “So what do you need from me?” he asked as soon as she was done. It was said very flatly, but he folded his hands together in a way that suggested he was genuinely interested in helping them after all.

          Clary raised her eyebrows at Magnus. She wasn’t really clear on how the whole seer business worked, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t something generally done on command. Magnus noticed her distress and stepped in smoothly, drawing Alec’s attention—already so likely to jump to him at the first sign of an opening—over to him instead.

          “We’re looking for Valentine,” said Magnus. “He committed…certain unsavory acts. Things got personal. We want to set things right. Retribution, you understand.”

          Alec raised his eyebrows. “Valentine committed ‘unsavory acts’ against a lot of people,” he said, looking now like this conversation politely disinterested him. “I don’t generally advise people going near him.”

          “We’re not asking for your advice,” snapped Isabelle.

          Clary gestured with her hand for Isabelle to calm down. Isabelle crossed her arms but backed off. Clary looked at Alec and tried to be significantly more measured than Isabelle had been, because Alec looked like he was getting his guard up again now, and that was the last thing Clary wanted. They were at an advantage with Magnus here as far as convincing him went, but Clary had no illusions about him making it easy.

          “Valentine’s my father,” she said, watching his eyebrows jump up his forehead. “He hurt my mother, and now I want payback.”

          Alec’s eyes narrowed at her, but it seemed more assessing than antagonistic. He crossed his arms as he looked at her. Clary stared back at him, gaze hard but open, refusing to back down or get defensive.

          At last, he said, “Why does it have to be you?”

          Clary shrugged. “It doesn’t. It just is.”

          “Actually,” said Magnus, “her mother and stepfather advised against her going out to do this on her own.”

          Alec looked back at Clary, who was now wondering if Magnus had just slaughtered their chances of getting assistance. If Alec thought she was being unnecessarily pushy about the issue, or if he was sure that someone much more capable was on the job too, she didn’t think he would be as likely to be an asset in their endangerment. But then he grinned.

          “Rebellion,” he said, “Cool. How can I help?”

          Clary glanced at her companions, a little relieved, mostly disbelieving. She looked back at Alec.

          “Are you serious?”

          “Yeah,” said Alec. “Listen. Sometimes our parents don’t know best. Sometimes they want to keep us safe even if we know more about something than they do. Some things you just have to do on your own.”

          Clary watched him carefully. “You’re talking about Magnus,” she said, measured.

          Alec spread his arms out. “My parents didn’t like me seeing a mortal, especially not one who was…”

          “A boy,” Clary finished. “Oh.”

          Alec jerked his shoulders in a mild shrug. “Oh,” he echoed, sounding disinterested again. “So if you’re sure that what you’re doing is right, then I’ll help you. I just don’t want to have anyone pointing fingers at me for anything illegal,” he added severely.

          “No one’s ratting you out,” said Simon, rolling his eyes. Alec shifted his gaze to him instead, and it got just that little bit harder.

          “You’ll forgive me for being cautious,” he said dryly, “but after the last raid by the king’s men that burned down half my community, you don’t really have a say in it. Magnus?”

          Magnus straightened. “Hmm? Oh. You need something to scry with?”

          “Water, or something—”

          “I have the perfect spot,” Isabelle piped up. She strode back over towards him and linked her arm through his. He didn’t pull away, but he seemed equally surprised and displeased about her touching him anyway.

          “Do you?”

          “How do you think I made contact with somebody to get you here?” She rolled her eyes. “Now come on. The sooner this is all over, the sooner Clary can get out of danger. And that’s an investment I’m interested in.”

          Surprise ticked across his face. He glanced at Clary, then back at Isabelle.

          “Seriously?” he said. “Why?”

          Clary grimaced at him and crossed her arms over her chest. Alec didn’t seem apologetic, but Clary didn’t expect or even particularly need his regrets.

          “We’ll talk,” said Isabelle brightly. “I can build a fire if you need to use that, too.”

          She pulled him away into the woods by their linked arms as she began the tale, and their voices and footsteps quickly faded as they headed deeper towards whatever water source Isabelle had used for her own ends earlier. Clary looked over at the others. For a moment, no one said anything. Then Raphael snorted.

          “He’s as charming as you say,” he said, looking at Clary.

          She could feel Magnus’s eyes on her. She shrugged minutely.

          “He’s helping us,” she offered. She wasn’t sure if it made Magnus’s glare soften, but she didn’t want to look at him until they were well off the subject just in case it hadn’t.

          Isabelle and Alec did not return for a long time. Clary alternated between wondering what was taking so long and reminding herself severely that clairvoyance was probably a tricky and specific thing, so patience was advisable. Then she invariably lapsed back into wondering what they were doing every time her mind had just started to stray to something else.

          Finally, they reemerged. Their appearance came first with the rustling of leaves under their feet, and then through the trees came their approaching forms.

          Isabelle smiled as soon as they appeared, and with the advent of good news, Clary didn’t think. She just rushed forward and threw herself into Isabelle’s arms. Isabelle made a little noise of surprise, and Clary could hear Alec snort beside them. She forgot to be embarrassed, though, because then Isabelle wrapped her arms around Clary too and hugged her back. It was tight, like she didn’t want to let Clary go in a second or two. Even though they were the same height, Isabelle leaned back until Clary was lifted off her feet, and she let out a helpless giggle. Her face got tucked further into Isabelle’s neck with the momentum. She smelled like peaches and windflowers; Clary pressed her face there for an extra second before she kicked her feet each once and Isabelle set her down again.

          Clary did not lower her arms completely. She kept one arm slung halfway over her shoulder and the other touching the bare skin of her upper arm. Isabelle was electric.

          “It worked?” Clary said breathlessly.

          “Like a charm,” Isabelle said, smiling back at her.

          For a moment, Clary didn’t move. Then at once she remembered the others, and she stepped back. Isabelle’s hands fell away from her ribs and waist.

          “So where is he?” Clary directed this at Alec, eagerly. “What did you see?”

          “His gift isn’t perfect,” Magnus said quickly. Then he looked towards Alec and added, “But you did see something?”

          Alec cast him a wry smile. “I saw something,” he confirmed. “I’m just…”

          “What?” said Clary. “Not sure where it is?”

          “That’s not it.” Alec shook his head. “It’s just…dangerous. And it will be difficult to get to. He’s up in the mountains.”

          Alec nodded his chin towards the distantly rising slopes. Clary stared off at them for a long moment. The mountains were dangerous. Everything in her hesitated, even though she logically knew that she couldn’t give up now. She was so close; she even had a place to go.

          “Aren’t there trolls in the mountains?” said Simon.

          Raphael’s hand found his back. “And other things,” he said, nodding. “Ogres and griffins and giants.”

          “And other things,” Alec echoed, but not like he was repeating Raphael at all—more like he was tacking on even more things to the list for Clary to have to worry about.

          “Don’t worry, most of them are benevolent,” said Isabelle. She seemed to be looking primarily at Clary. Then she shared a glance with Alec and added, “Well, to mortals anyway. If you don’t antagonize them, they will likely leave you alone.”

          This last part she directed at Raphael, who sneered back at her. Clary rolled her eyes at them both.

          “We’ll behave,” she said decisively. “So…I guess we’re going to the mountains?”

          The others all murmured in agreement, and just like that they were off again.

- - -

          The mountains were very far. They walked for three days before Clary felt like they had made any progress, and only because the peaks had risen so high that they were beginning to obscure the sky. Before it had been difficult to tell when the change was so progressive, but now they were beginning to rise above Clary’s head and the difference was obvious.

          None of them were sleeping much, but Clary awoke on the fourth day before anyone else. She headed towards the stream to get some water to put on the fire to boil. Hopefully, having something to drink would at least put some of the life back in her flagging team. If they were all lucky, she would be there and back in time to gather something for breakfast from the surrounding woods too, and they would all have slightly fuller bellies this morning than the last few. They had run out of their food supplies long ago.

          The thought of nourishment brought a slight spring back in Clary’s step as she headed towards the stream they had camped near. She left the bucket (weaved from twine and leaf and magic, courtesy of Isabelle) beside the bank once she had filled it and decided to give her feet a chance to soak for a moment. A glance at the sun told her it was still early, so she had a few of those for the taking.

          She pulled off her shoes and stuck her feet into the rushing stream. Isabelle had been right; the magically-reinforced shoes were doing wonders for her, and not only had most of her blisters faded, but her callouses weren’t as bad as she had suspected they would be. The shoes, when she picked them up to inspect them, weren’t tearing or breaking or anything of the sort, even though they still looked like the same material that Clary had initially sewn together. She was admittedly impressed.

          She was still admiring one of her shoes when she noticed somebody’s eyes on her, and she looked up.

          “Dragon,” she said, startled.

          The dragon was watching her with its arms crossed and its wings abuzz. Clary recognized this one by the coloring on its snout and the pink sheen of its wings; this was the same dragon that had given them the riddle for safe passage to Simon’s.

          “Hello,” it said back. “I’m afraid the time has come for you to uphold your end of the bargain.”

          Clary’s heart sank. Automatically she glanced up towards the mountains, the foot of which were maybe a folk song’s shout away. She was so close. Her gaze flickered back to the dragon.

          “Now?” she said. She heard how heartbroken she sounded.

          But the dragon held up one of its claws.

          “Do not fret, Clary Fray,” it said. “Fortuitously for both of us, our goals happen to overlap somewhat.”

          Clary squinted at him. “Oh? How’s that?”

          The dragon regarded her calmly, even in the face of her clearly burgeoning mistrust. Just as simply as before, he intoned, “My brethren’s been captured.”

          Clary’s heart stuttered. “Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

          She knew what was coming though, even before the dragon blinked steadily at her and said, “Save it, Clary Fray.”

          “I don’t even know who it is,” said Clary. “Do you have any more information than that? What happened to it? Who took it? Or even—where was it?”

          “It was Valentine,” said the dragon. “All I’m asking is that, as you carry out the mission you’ve already sworn to yourself to complete, that you save my kin along the way. Dragons have magical properties, you remember; he would be keeping it close.”

          “Just one?” Clary said.

          “Just one,” the dragon clarified, bowing its head. “It was out by the river when he came. Valentine would need it to tell its prophecies or grant its magic. We are a powerful family, Clary—all of us dragons.”

          Clary shook her head. “I don’t understand. So he’s—what? Torturing it? Just keeping it locked up in a cage?”

          “That’s very likely the case,” said the dragon.

          Clary wondered how it could be so calm; if any of her kin were endangered, wouldn’t she be freaking out? Wasn’t she already? That was the entire point of this mission, after all—not only to avenge her mother, but to assure that none of them were ever in danger from Valentine ever again.

          “You will do this for me,” said the dragon. It was not a question. “You have our bargain to uphold, remember.”

          “I’ll do it,” said Clary. “Of course I’ll do it. I—”

          She paused. The dragon looked at her.

          “Ask your question,” it said calmly.

          The words came tumbling out of her. “Is there anything else?” she pressed. “What if there are more than just your kin?”

          The dragon sighed deeply. It was sinking towards the ground, back into the river from whence it had come to deliver its request. Clary gathered that it wanted to be going soon, but it stayed long enough to entertain her query.

          “I trust you will do the right thing then,” it said tiredly. “You are no stupid woman. You would not rescue one of us and leave the others, if you are successful.”

          “And will I be?” said Clary. “Will we succeed?”

          The dragon tilted its head at her. Clary thought it looked almost offended, but she didn’t know what she might have said to insult it.

          “We are not fortune-tellers,” said the dragon at last. “If you want those answers, I suggest you ask your friend.”

          “Alec can’t tell things like that,” said Clary.

          The dragon was mostly in the water by now.

          “Then I can’t help you,” it said.

          Clary said, “Wait—” but it was already gone.

          Once the water had swept the dragon away, leaving Clary with her mission, she sat on her rock and stared at the swaying currents for a long time. The sun was coming up, and she would need to be heading back to camp soon. She likely would have no time to gather breakfast now, but at least she could stave off the worries of anyone who woke up before she got back. With a sigh, Clary bent to pull her shoes back onto her feet. Now she had so many missions and debts and loyalties, she wasn’t sure how she would ever keep them all in hand.

          She hadn’t risen from her rock when she felt more than heard someone exit the trees behind her. Before she could turn around, whomever it was lowered themselves onto the riverbank beside her.

          Clary turned; it was Isabelle. She sighed and went back to her shoes.

          “Are you talking to yourself?” Isabelle said, voice lilting in amusement, one eyebrow arching.

          Clary glanced at her. “No,” she said shortly.

          Isabelle continued to watch her expectantly. At length, Clary decided that Isabelle, who had been with her all this time, probably deserved to hear the truth. It was an easy thing to tell anyway, just the two of them on this bank beside the rushing waves. Anything they said would soon by swept away with the current anyway.

          “The dragon came back to speak with me,” said Clary.

          Isabelle seemed only slightly more surprised, but it was delicate and Clary couldn’t tell whether or not it was affected.

          “The one from Simon’s?” said Isabelle.

          Clary sighed again and nodded. “Valentine has its sibling—or family, I guess,” she explained. “It wants me to rescue it when we’re there.”

          “Sounds easy enough,” said Isabelle.

          Clary thought that was a very strange thing to say. Isabelle didn’t seem to agree. Isabelle pulled off her shoes and stuck her feet into the water as well, and she looked off into the distance as she swung her legs beneath the surface. Clary watched her profile for awhile before turning her gaze into the surrounding trees as well. They hung there for a moment, silent, serene.

          Clary didn’t know what made her ask it. One second they were in peaceable silence, listening to the forest come awake around them, and the next she was saying, “Isabelle, why do you want a child so badly?”

          Clary blushed and looked down rather than meet the gaze that Isabelle had leveled at the side of her face. When she finally looked up though, Isabelle did not seem angry or upset, or even surprised. She was just studying her, looking thoughtful. As though she was really thinking over the question. Clary had thought the answer would come naturally, but maybe she was just thinking over how to phrase it so Clary would understand.

          At last, Isabelle began to speak. She did so in a soft voice, as though this moment would be destroyed without that. Maybe it would.

          “I’ve been alone a long time,” she said.

          Clary froze; that was not the answer she had been expecting, or even something along that track. Not wanting to interrupt her and risk losing this moment, though, she let Isabelle go on. She did.

          “Witches don’t have family like you do, Clary,” Isabelle explained gently. “We have covens—that’s our family. Biologically I only have my mother, and I do not know who my father is. Witches rarely do. We are all each other’s cousins and brothers and sisters. And without our covens we are often lost.”

          She paused to breathe deeply. Clary put her hand on Isabelle’s back before she realized what she was doing, and she began to rub there gently. Isabelle looked down at her hands.

          “We age slower than you do, too. Perhaps three years for your one. When I was…maybe eight, in human years, the king’s guard came and ravaged my entire coven. We had set up a village of sorts. It was burned down in minutes, and my coven with it.

          “One of my cousins bid me hide when she heard the king’s guard coming. She managed to whip me up a shelter, and I didn’t see much of it—just a few men on horseback through the window. There was just long enough for me to hide in it before the guard came for her, too. I stayed underground for hours, waiting. It was days before I came out. When I finally did, there was nothing left.”

          Clary realized Isabelle sounded choked up now, and she leaned over to encircle her in her arms. Isabelle leaned into her, letting her hug her, although she was not crying; Clary doubted she would.

          “Witches aren’t built to be alone,” she said.

          “Maybe you can learn to be,” said Clary.

          Isabelle shook her head. “Maybe I don’t want to be,” she returned.

          Isabelle sat up and Clary rested her head on her shoulder instead. She was pleased, really, that Isabelle let her do it; she was surprised when Isabelle put her arm around her shoulders.

          “I wouldn’t go back on our deal anyway,” said Clary softly, “but now I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get to be a mother.”

          “It’s not about being a mother,” said Isabelle, shaking her head. “I’m not even sure I’ll teach them that I am one. Maybe you’ll be their mother after all. I just want to raise them; to be their sister; and their friend.”

          Clary lifted her head. They were a hairsbreadth apart when Isabelle smiled at her. It was beautiful, Clary thought, the kind of smile that a goddess would wear to assure you that she was a benevolent one. If Isabelle assured Clary that she would remain unharmed, but then rained hellfire upon the world, Clary would believe herself safe.

          “Isabelle,” she whispered.

          Through the woods there came a whistling. They both looked behind themselves at once, and knocked their heads together doing it. They looked at each other, each clutching their wounds—but like Clary, Isabelle was giggling.

          “The others are up,” Clary sighed. “We should bring them this water. I wanted to start scavenging for breakfast for us all.”

          Isabelle nodded reluctantly. She got to her feet as gracefully as only a magical woman could, then held her hand out for Clary to take.

          “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go show those boys how to get things done.”

          Clary grinned as she grabbed Isabelle’s hand and let her pull her up. They didn’t let go, even as they started off through the woods together. Back to camp, hand in hand.

- - -

          After they all were fed and watered, Alec stomped out the fire while the others helped—or pretended to help—by throwing the last of their water at it or (in Clary’s case) throwing dirt at the flames until it was gone. Alec threw her a withering glance like he knew that she knew she was being unhelpful.

          “You could try to do something,” he said, before yelping as a last lick of flame snipped at his ankle.

          Clary giggled. “That’s what you get for being mean,” she said. He rolled his eyes.

          “I want to just lay back and do nothing,” said Simon. He had sat back down and was in the process of stretching out on the forest floor. Seeing him get comfortable, Raphael immediately threw himself down too and stretched out with him.

          “I could sleep more,” said Alec, tilting his head at where they were reclining.

          Clary grimaced. She didn’t like to be the contrarian.

          “We should get going,” she hedged. “Valentine could be doing gods know what while we’re sitting here napping. And we’re close to him already; who knows what he’s got lurking in these woods. We should strike now while we still have surprise on our side.”

          She bit her lip, looking around hopefully, but no one joined in to agree with her. In fact, Simon was not the only one who sighed at that, although he was the only one who did it with his eyes closed and his hands cushioning his head. Clary glanced at her companions again.

          “I’m sorry,” she said, spreading her hands towards them all in supplication. “I know this is long and difficult and we’re all tired and our feet hurt, but—”

          “But you don’t have to come with us,” said Isabelle, crossing her arms as she moved swiftly to stand by Clary’s side. Something about the way she said us made Clary’s heart flutter. “If you all want to stay here and camp out for another few hours, fine. But me and Clary are going on ahead to actually do something about the messed up things going on in this forest. You think Valentine’s not responsible for each and every one of your hardships?”

          Simon sat up now, using his hands to keep himself steady. Raphael frowned at her.

          “What do you mean?” he said.

          Isabelle gave him a look.

          “Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “He’s the main driving force behind which all our enemies are rallying. Dragons are being kidnapped! Women are being put to sleep! I can assure you those aren’t the only terrible things he’s done lately.”

          “Why do you think the Cave was so unwilling to help us?” Clary jumped in. She was mostly making it up as she went, but now that she was saying it, it made sense. “Right now, they’re going untouched. They don’t want to bring themselves to his attention. Maybe he’s already threatened them. Camille said she was taking a risk telling me the fortune in the first place.”

          “Then why would she?” said Magnus.

          Raphael answered him. “He must have something over the Cave. She wants him gone. But he’s on the mountain, and she’s not half-sprite like me. She can’t get up on land.”

          “She’s completely under his thumb,” Simon said.

          Raphael shook his head grimly. “They all are.”

          “We have to go,” Alec said suddenly.

          “That’s what I’ve been saying,” muttered Clary, but nobody seemed to hear her.

          Raphael got up, pulling Simon with him. Magnus packed what little they wanted to carry into his pockets—mostly nuts and berries that they had scavenged for breakfast that morning. Isabelle turned to Clary to start discussing strategy.

          “No!” Alec said loudly. They all startled and turned to him. “I mean we have to go now.”

          He looked at them all with clear fire. They all looked back askance at him.

          Magnus understood first. He was at his side in an instant, touching his hand to his arm.

          “What did you see?” he implored, and Clary got it too.

          “You had another vision?” she said, stepping forward as well. Isabelle’s hand touched her elbow, but she joined her at her side.

          “They don’t work like that,” said Alec, “but—yes. Sort of.”

          “What did you see?” asked Simon.

          Alec shook his head. There was a dazed look in his eye as he stared off into the distance.

          “It’s fuzzy—it’s like he’s blocking me out or something. But I think he’s planning on moving soon.”

          “Does he know we’re coming?” Isabelle asked seriously.

          Alec shook his head, the movements all jerky and strange. “No,” he said, “but he knows something’s up.”

          “What did you see, specifically?” Magnus asked. He was much more soothing than the others had been, and he was petting down Alec’s arm like he needed to be calmed or something.

          Alec’s gaze suddenly sharpened and focused on him.

          “Just two words,” he said. “‘Valentine: Run.’”

          Clary heard them all breathe in as one. It should have been a magic, hypnotic thing. Instead it made her heart freeze over in her chest.

          “In that case,” she said, surprising even herself with how calm she sounded. The others all looked at her with wide eyes. She finished neatly, “We have to run faster.”

          They all looked around at each other for a few, precious seconds. Then they took off sprinting into the trees.

- - -

          Clary Fray did not like mountains. She decided this about twenty feet off the ground, but cresting the top of the climb, she realized that this was even more true than she had thought in the beginning.

          Sweat stuck her hair to her forehead no matter how many times she brushed it away. Her legs were in pretty good shape from gallivanting through the forest day in and day out, in search of art supplies or a pretty backdrop and because of her friends and family’s distance from her cottage, but those adventures did not fully account for the pain her thighs were already feeling from the incline. She had to call for a stop once they reached the top, but nobody complained as they all collapsed onto various rocks, panting hard.

          “It’s nearly sundown already,” said Simon, his eyes tracing the red and gold sky. Soon it would be inky black instead.

          “We should stop for the night,” Raphael agreed. He reached over to clasp Simon’s hand.

          They looked at Clary as though waiting for protest, but she only waved her hand vaguely in the air.

          “I can’t walk any more anyway,” she sighed.

          “Just a few hours,” Isabelle said anxiously. Clary saw her eyes flick to Alec, who nodded somberly.

          “We have a few hours,” he conceded, “though not that much more.”

          “A close call is better than being exhausted when we get there,” Magnus reasoned. “He’ll flatten us in seconds. Why don’t we pick this up closer to sunrise?”

          “We should move in the dark,” Clary agreed. “It will be harder for him to spot us coming.”

          They were all aching and tired and desperate for any excuse that allowed them to rest. Nobody argued as they fed each other more reasons to sleep, and they fell into sleepy silence as they found patches of dirt to curl up on; at the top of the mountain, the grass and plants were much sparser than down on the ground.

          Clary had a wonderful view from where she decided to lay down, a little ways away from where the others were murmuring in low voices. It was a moment before she felt somebody coming up behind her.

          She rolled over immediately, to find Isabelle standing beside her. Their eyes met for a long moment.

          “May I join you?” said Isabelle, gesturing to the spot next to Clary.

          Clary nodded. Her eyes watched Isabelle as she lowered herself to the ground, still graceful, but like it was a job that took care. When she didn’t say anything, or even look at Clary, Clary rolled onto her back and turned her eyes up to the sky. It was getting really dark now, the stars and moon coming out to play in place of the streaky sunset. Clary watched the stars emerge, not knowing any of their names or histories, but enjoying them all the same.

          She thought Isabelle had fallen asleep beside her, she was so quiet and her breathing so steady. Then she reached one arm out in front of her so it pointed upwards, and her index finger was extended out too.

          “See that one?” she murmured.

          Clary shuffled closer so she could see what they were looking at. Her shoulder and arm pressed into Isabelle’s; their legs aligned.

          “The one with the tail?”

          Isabelle was wearing a private smile when Clary glanced at her.

          “Actually,” said Isabelle, “it is the tail. That’s the little fox. Vulpecula.”

          “Wow,” said Clary. She tilted her head until Isabelle’s hair brushed her cheek. “What’s it for?”

          Isabelle seemed to understand her. She lowered her arm.

          “It represents a goose and a fox. Well, the goose in the fox’s mouth.”

          “Morbid,” murmured Clary. “There’s no story behind it? No brave fox lifted into the sky?”

          “No,” said Isabelle. “It’s just…a fox. I like to believe it’s supposed to represent power. Cowardice, walking away from a fight…that’s always supposed to be heralded as virtue, right? Well sometimes it’s just as noble to go up against ones enemies and win.”

          Clary hmmed. After a moment, Isabelle pointed elsewhere in the sky.

          “See that?”

          Clary inched closer. “Which one?”

          Isabelle’s finger traced an arc in the sky. “Those stars there,” she said. She jabbed at different points along the line she had made. “Those seven. Know that one’s name?”

          “No,” Clary admitted. She squinted up at the sky as though that would help her discern the pattern. “Is it a bowl?”

          “No,” said Isabelle. She sounded like she was suppressing laughter. Clary elbowed her lightly, making her giggle outright. “It’s a crown. The Northern Crown. Corona Borealis.”

          “Does this one have a story?”

          “It does.” Isabelle dipped her head in a nod, or as much of one as she could make laying down on the ground. “I suppose you know the story of Theseus?”

          “The minotaur he fought?” said Clary in surprise. “It was demanding that Crete feed it with its people, so Theseus killed it to save the city. What does a crown have to do with that battle?”

          “It doesn’t,” said Isabelle. “This is the crown Dionysus gave to his abandoned wife. Women get stories too, you know.” She turned her head to smile at Clary, bright in the ever-burgeoning dark. “After Theseus left Ariadne, Dionysus became besotted with her.”

          “Isn’t she the one who was turned into a spider for going up against Athena?”

          “That was Arachne,” said Isabelle. “Ariadne helped Theseus through the Labyrinth. But much earlier, she became involved with Dionysus. He gave her the Northern Crown as a gift of his love. But she was already in love with another, and so in turn gave the crown to Theseus after he arrived to save Crete. Theseus used its light, which some think is the combined glow of Dionysus and Ariadne’s love—his for her and hers for Theseus—to guide him out of the maze.”

          “Dionysus wasn’t mad?” said Clary. “I thought they were jealous and vengeful gods.”

          “Not really,” said Isabelle. “If any of them, Dionysus was the most understanding and loving. He set the crown in the sky to commemorate them all.”

          “Wow,” said Clary. She leaned her head on Isabelle’s shoulder. “I think I like that constellation the best. Love conquers all is a much better moral than a lot of the myths.”

          “Who said they were myths?” said Isabelle.

          After a moment, Clary felt Isabelle’s fingers threading through hers; she spread them to accommodate her, then squeezed her hand. It was still and silent, and it took a long moment for Clary to realize than the others had stopped talking. She couldn’t hear anything, not even the rustling of their clothes. They must have fallen asleep. They said nothing for a long time, and that was okay too; there was the moon, and Isabelle’s hand in hers, and the warm weight of what was between them.

          Eventually, she felt Isabelle’s other hand trail its fingers down her arm.

          “I told you the truth,” Isabelle whispered.

          Clary turned her head to find Isabelle watching her, her gaze heavy but clear. She smiled faintly. Clary’s heart beat faster.

          “What do you mean?”

          Isabelle sighed and turned her face back towards the moon and stars and dark sky above them.

          “My name really is Isabelle,” she said.

          Clary paused.

          “I never for a second believed you told me your real name,” she said, bewildered. “Names have power, especially for witches.”

          “I know.”

          “Then why did you do it?” Clary breathed.

          Isabelle’s hand, the one not clasped in Clary’s, disappeared from her arm. Isabelle flattened herself on her back, her arm stretched out beside her. Clary’s eyes traced her profile, hungry.

          “I don’t know,” she said, on a breath that seemed to rush out of her. “I met you, and I could just tell. Things were going to be different. Things were going to be interesting.” She paused like she had said something embarrassing. Clary’s heart had never been warmer, or bigger. Isabelle asked, “Don’t you ever feel like that?”

          “Yes,” Clary breathed, “when I met you, too.” Then she laughed. “I thought it was loathing, though.”

          Isabelle laughed too, a beautiful sound, like windchimes on an ocean breeze. Clary grinned at the side of her face.

          “What’s your full name?”

          “Now, now,” chided Isabelle, “don’t go testing your luck. Isn’t this enough for tonight?”

          Clary fell into thought, the quiet kind that needed no words to understand. Isabelle was right, of course. Clary had never thought she would be given even this much.

          They didn’t say anything for a very long time, but their hands stayed clasped. The moon was bright above them, not full, but glowing nevertheless. Even without looking at her, Clary could tell that Isabelle was shining extra brightly with it, because everything in her seemed to reflect the moon and stars.

          “Isabelle?” she whispered.

          “Yeah?”

          “What do you think will happen tomorrow?” she asked. “Do you think we—”

          She cut herself off. The thought was almost too horrible to entertain. In just a few hours, she could be leading her friends into a trap. She could be leading them to die.

          Isabelle squeezed her hand and brought her back to herself.

          “Don’t think like that,” she chastised. “Clary Fray, you are a smart and amazing woman. The odds of you ever not succeeding…The idea never even crossed my mind.”

          Clary blushed, turning her head away from Isabelle’s watchful eyes.

          “Shut up,” she said.

          She was knocked breathless looking back at her; Isabelle’s gaze was unwavering. The heat between their clasped hands was making a flush rise up Clary’s neck, too much to bear.

          “I swear,” Isabelle whispered.

          It didn’t take any thought. Clary closed her eyes and pressed her lips to Isabelle’s.

          Her mouth was soft and warm, and she kissed like the fire Clary always saw scorching behind her eyes. It was chaste and unhurried, but something in it set off a low burn in Clary’s stomach.

          They pulled away and looked at each other. Isabelle was breathing just this side of heavier now, and her eyes were watching Clary’s like she was waiting for a sign. Clary gave it to her in spades.

          She rolled over and pressed her mouth to Isabelle’s again, kissing her hard while she weaved her fingers through her smooth, dark hair. Isabelle’s hand had found her back and was pressing her closer, and Clary was leaning over her now, half on top of her as they kissed. It was intense but unrushed, a slow burn that was making Clary dizzy from head to toe. She didn’t pause when Isabelle parted her lips beneath her, and even less so when she felt the hint of her tongue on hers.

          Clary did not know how long they kissed. She felt that logically it had only been minutes, but inside she felt like she had seen the rise and fall of empires in Isabelle’s hands, in her skin beneath Clary’s fingertips, in her kiss.

          Clary lay back down beside her. They weren’t holding hands anymore, but their shoulders were pressing together. After kissing, it felt almost as delightful. It took a very long time for either of them to find their voice.

          Then Isabelle said, “Wow.”

          Clary exhaled stars. “Wow,” she agreed.

          She could feel Isabelle’s grin where she tucked it into Clary’s collar when she rolled over. Clary laughed.

          “Clary Fray,” said Isabelle, kissing her shoulder and propping herself up on her arms; her hair framed her face, blocking the world behind her and demanding Clary’s full attention—drawing it to her full lips, turned up in a smile, and to her bright eyes and to the elation written in the lines of her face. Clary couldn’t believe she was happy right now, at a time like this, but there it was, mirroring Clary’s gut just the same.

          “Yes?” Clary whispered. She reached up to sweep some of her hair over her shoulder. Isabelle caught her hand and pressed it to her lips.

          “Come with me tomorrow after we win,” she said. “We can go hiking up near the edges of the fae’s land on this plane. I know somewhere there’s a beautiful waterfall that crests into a lake, perfect for swimming.”

          Clary watched her easy smile and found it impossible to say no. Even it was a lie. Even if it was a dream.

          “It’s a date,” she whispered.

          Isabelle laughed and leaned back down to capture her in another kiss, but she pulled away after a second. Clary pulled back, furrowing her brow. Isabelle hesitated.

          Then she said, “It’s Sophia,” she whispered. “Our covens have no last names, but we’re all family anyway. So we go by our middle names as our last.”

          Clary blinked at her. It took her a second to understand what she was saying. When she did, she broke out into a beaming smile. Names had power; Isabelle was giving her just a little bit of hers. Clary thought she could use it.

          “Isabelle Sophia,” Clary murmured. Isabelle blushed. Clary leaned in to kiss her, and against her lips she promised, “I’ll never use it, Izzy. I won’t.”

          Isabelle pulled back to look at her. Clary wondered if she had said something wrong. Then Isabelle was pulling her back against her, kissing her and kissing her.

          “Izzy,” she mumbled, marveling at her own name. “I’ve never had a nickname before.”

          Clary laughed. “It will be like my own special name for you, then. That has power too, right?”

          “It does if you’re the one saying it,” Isabelle breathed.

          Clary’s heart leapt. Isabelle looked breathless but more luminous than Clary had yet seen her, her cheeks dusted red, her beauty radiant beneath the night sky.

          Clary pulled her in for another kiss, and another, and another and another until time fell away around them and it was just Clary and Isabelle, on top of the world.

- - -

          Mornings, Clary deduced, were specifically designed to cause her irritation. Or maybe that was Alec, kicking dirt at her until she woke up with a grunt and a, “What the seven hells—!”

          He crossed his arms. “Get up. Sunup’s in just over an hour, and we have a hike.”

          He jerked his thumb over one shoulder, then abruptly turned around and headed back over to where Clary could now see the others, stretching and talking amongst themselves. Magnus was distributing the last of their nut and berry rations. Clary groaned and dropped her face back into the cradle of her arms.

          She felt a hand on her back, then heard a yawn beside her.

          “Wake up,” Isabelle coaxed, in a much more alluring voice than Alec’s. Clary seriously considered it for a second.

          “We only slept about three hours,” Clary bemoaned.

          Isabelle giggled. “Yes, but I think our distraction was worth it, don’t you?”

          Clary hid her smile in her hands. When she looked up, she could feel that her cheeks were still faintly red with the taste of Isabelle still lurking on her tongue. Isabelle watched her with a soft expression and brushed the back of her hand across Clary’s cheek.

          “Ready for a final fight?” she whispered. She didn’t have to, but Clary thought it might be for her sleepy benefit.

          “I guess,” she sighed, getting up, pulling on her skirt, and readying herself for the walk.

          Isabelle stood beside her, more fluidly as always. Clary looked at her. Even with the rips and dirt and grass stains that had appeared on her blood-red clothing, she seemed a vision, like someone that had been born just to hack their way out of a devouring forest. Clary was sure that her own frizzed hair and torn clothes didn’t look nearly so good, but Isabelle wore the unwashed and haggard aura like a crown. She was looking at Clary like she was thinking the very same thing back at her.

          The rest of their party was chatting idly when Clary walked over to them. Simon looked at her expectantly, and Raphael seemed similar; it was as though they were soldiers waiting for orders. To her relief, Magnus didn’t look at her at all, he just strode over and folded her into a tight hug.

          “We’re gonna be okay,” he whispered into her hair, which was about the exact moment that Clary started squeezing him back. He pulled back and looked right at her. His voice was soft. “Ready to go?”

          Clary took a deep breath in and nodded. Magnus took her hand. They all began to walk.

          Even now that they had made it to the top of the mountain, the terrain was still so rough and unpredictable that Clary felt at times like they were still climbing it. Magnus offered her some breakfast after the sun had moved a little more overhead in the sky, which she took gratefully. She would need all the energy she could get.

          Even though she was supposed to be leading them, Clary didn’t venture to the head of the pack. Instead she released Magnus’s hand after awhile and drifted backwards toward their rear. Isabelle smiled sideways at her when she wandered closer.

          “Need a break from the spearheading authority thing?” she commiserated.

          Clary nodded, grateful for not having to put it into words. Isabelle took her hand, and sparks shot up Clary’s arm that hadn’t been there when Magnus had done the same thing. She smiled at Isabelle.

          Alec had training hunting animals through the woods, and so fell to the front of their pack to lead them all. Magnus stepped up beside him in which Clary assumed to be a gesture of solidarity until she saw their hands clasp together, and she realized that it might be more like a gesture of love. Simon and Raphael trailed a few steps behind the two of them; Clary and Isabelle fell further back still.

          They moved as a silent, watchful pack, and strode across the mountaintop. Clary felt like a rabid, wild animal. She focused on Isabelle’s hand in hers, and kept her attention on the still night around them. It took a long while to realize that the mountain was falling silent around them the further they went, those little sounds that Clary was beginning to recognize as mountaintop life coming to a halt. She looked at Isabelle, and Isabelle looked at her. Clary swallowed and forged on.

          The camp was a wild and messy thing.

          Clary hadn’t known that she had been expecting some kind of clannish order and structure until she was floored by the way their tents and sleeping bags were strewn without pattern across the ground, how their cooking supplies from the night before were left unattended where people had dropped them. Everything was so out of order, so obviously touched by human hands. They hadn’t even begun packing up to move, still spread out and leaving it for the last minute. Clary hadn’t known she was thinking of her monsters as other until she was faced with the evidence that they weren’t.

          This was her father. And this was where her father lived.

          Their group had pulled to a stop at the edge of the camp. Valentine’s followers had chosen their spot well or else had used magic to alter their location to their liking; they were surrounded by large rocks and boulders on all sides, and camp started further inside than that, so nobody could sneak up on even the closest tent without risking detection. Everything was so open that it was easy to see the camp, but unfortunately that meant that the camp could also see them. It also spoke to their hubris; they clearly felt as though they were more than equal to any and all threats to their livelihood, setting up so unprotected (although Clary believed surely as anything that they had protection she just couldn’t yet see). Clary had to agree with them: She wasn’t sure she could do this.

          Clary tugged on Isabelle’s hand, still clasped in hers. She felt Isabelle’s eyes turn to her.

          “Izzy,” she whispered. “How do we…What do we do?”

          Isabelle squeezed her hand back.

          “What do you mean?” she whispered.

          “We don’t even know which one is Valentine’s,” said Clary, looking around at all the tents. Even the people who had been relegated to sleeping bags out in the open were bundled up tight; it was impossible to tell who was who from here, and none of her friends seemed eager to get a closer look without forming a plan first.

          “He’s definitely in a tent.” Magnus’s voice floated back to them on the wind. “He’s too important.”

          They shuffled closer until there wasn’t anyone in front or back; it was just the six of them all clumped together, peering around the rocks.

          “That’s probably true,” whispered Clary, “but how do we know which tent? There’s got to be ten or more in there.”

          “Thirteen,” murmured Alec. “There’s thirteen tents. I counted.”

          Clary struggled to withhold a groan.

          “We got this,” said Simon, gripping her shoulder bracingly and jostling her. “We just have to stop and think a little bit.”

          “What’s to think about?” Raphael hissed. “We go in and destroy them. All of them.”

          “We don’t have weapons,” said Clary. She did a quick count. “We have one spear, one knife, and some magic. That won’t be enough for whatever Valentine has up his sleeve.”

          “It has to be,” Magnus said grimly. “It’s all we’ve got.”

          They fell silent, all contemplating their situation. Clary was sure that like her, they were wondering what they were even doing here, attempting this, six young adults barely out of their teenage years, trying to stop an evil plot that had been going on for a lot, lot longer than any of them. Valentine was a force to be reckoned with, and Clary was no longer sure—now that she was standing here and facing it—that she was up to the challenge.

          Except she had to be. Because it was just the six of them, and nobody else. And Valentine had to be stopped.

          Clary cleared her throat and straightened.

          “I’m going in,” she said. Her voice didn’t even waver. “I’m going to fight.”

          She waited for someone to argue with her, but no one did. Then, one by one, they began to nod.

          “I’m coming too,” said Isabelle fiercely.

          “Me too,” said Simon.

          “Of course I’m coming,” Magnus sighed.

          Raphael and Alec were watching her, mouths tight lines, but their nods clear: They were on her side as well. Clary swallowed, looking back at them all.

          “Then let’s go,” she whispered.

          She was the first to cross the barrier of rocks that blocked them from the encampment. After that it was too late to turn back: she was already here, out in the open. There would be no pretending that they were just travelers who had stumbled upon here: They were infiltrators.

          Clary ducked behind the first tent. Even up close it was impossible to tell who was inside; she could just make out the outlines of a bed, maybe a box, but it was only because the still-present moon shown through the sides of the tent, alighting shadows from inside. Clary hoped that hers wasn’t just as visible from the other side.

          She looked back at the others. “Not his,” she mouthed. It was a wild guess, but one she was willing to bet on; she thought the mastermind’s tent might be more elaborate than just a bed and a box that presumably held clothing, maybe some weaponry. Clary waved them on and they followed.

          There were no prisoners in immediate sight; Clary guessed they must be hidden away, but it wasn’t obvious where. That was another problem she would have to solve, eventually.

          “We should split up,” Magnus whispered, low. “Check out more tents faster.”

          Normally Clary would hate to split up, but the area was small enough that they would still be able to see each other at all times. Additionally, she wasn’t sure that one person sneaking around someone’s tent wasn’t suspicious enough without adding five others. They could cover more ground faster this way anyway. She nodded. The others all did too and split off in different directions. Before she parted from her, Isabelle grabbed Clary’s shoulders and pulled her roughly into a kiss.

          It was hard and fast and over almost before Clary pushed back into her. They drew away from one another, wide eyes on wide eyes. Isabelle touched her cheek.

          “Be safe,” Isabelle whispered. Then her fingers trailed away, and Isabelle turned and split off to search the camp. Clary turned around and crept away to do the same.

          They were searching for maybe five minutes, checking and re-checking tents to see anything they had missed that would identify Valentine’s apart from anyone else’s. It was made extra difficult by the sleeping bags littering the ground, forcing them to step over people and be quiet, always scared someone would lash out and grab their ankles. Clary gave the sleeping people a wide berth where she could, but it was sometimes unavoidable. She was just stepping over somebody’s legs when she heard a low whistle.

          She looked up. Isabelle was crouching next to a tent and waving frantically for them to come to her. They all did, creeping but trying to be fast. Soon they were circled together again.

          “What is it?” said Alec.

          Isabelle glanced at them all seriously. “This is the one,” she said.

          Clary looked up at the tent that they were all huddled near. It seemed just the same as every other tent in the vicinity; she was sure that she had checked this one herself several times.

          “Why?” she said, examining it again, but nothing seemed out of place or strange.

          Then Isabelle pointed to the ground near the tent flap. A symbol was carved into the dirt, and they all leaned forwards to look at it. Clary couldn’t make it out. Alec could.

          “Protection runes,” he said unhappily. “No one with magic blood will be able to cross. He must draw it from inside every night when he goes in to bed.”

          “And another one here, and here,” said Isabelle, pointing at the dirt in two other places. “This one’s against mortals, this one for creatures. He’s untouchable in there.”

          “Not untouchable,” said Clary, shaking her head. “We just have to figure out how to get past the runes.”

          “It’s impossible,” said Alec, but Isabelle held up her hand.

          “Wait a moment,” she cautioned. “Let her think.”

          Clary glanced up at her in silent thanks for believing in her. Then she turned back to study the symbols in the dirt, looking for a way around it. The others fell silent, but she could feel their gazes on her back, watching her pace back and forth along the trio of symbols scratched into the dirt. Clary went out on a limb guessing she couldn’t just erase them. She looked at them for a long time.

          “Tell me about the runes again,” she said decisively. Her eyes did not leave the tracks in the dirt.

          Nobody spoke for a moment, and then Alec said, “They’re designed to keep out mortals, magicians, and creatures. Anyone with a pulse is basically barred from entering—well, except for Valentine, obviously.”

          Clary furrowed her brow. “Say more,” she instructed.

          “He can cross either way, because if there’s an emergency he won’t have to waste time undoing the spell,” said Alec promptly. He pointed at one of the runes. There was a dark smudge in the top left corner of it, almost faded into the dirt. “See that? That’s his blood. He would have had to cut himself to ensure that only he can get through.”

          “He used blood magic?” said Isabelle, sounding a mix of aghast and disgusted.

          Clary turned around as Alec was nodding at Isabelle.

          “Guess so,” he said, spreading his hands. “It’s unfortunate for us, because blood magic binds tight. Even tighter than regular magic, and that’s pretty strong.”

          “Especially for a magician like Valentine,” Isabelle said unhappily. She cast her gaze over the camp. “What if—Wait a minute.”

          They all turned around to follow her gaze; Clary saw Magnus’s hand twist to grab his spear, and her own jumped to the fold in her skirt where, beneath, her blade lay strapped to her thigh. But there was nothing there, just the piles of sleeping bodies.

          Isabelle was striding forward heedlessly though, towards one of the men on the floor. She stood over him, squinting down. Ignoring the hands grasping for her, Clary came up beside her.

          “What is it?” she whispered. She checked her volume even more than she had outside Valentine’s tent, right here by one of his soldier’s sides. Clary tugged on Isabelle’s arm. “We shouldn’t be this close—”

          “I know this man,” Isabelle whispered. She bent down like she was going to touch him, then pulled her arm back abruptly. She straightened, casting her gaze around the rest of the bodies nearby. “And this one, and—”

          Clary pulled her to a stop as she started to walk away. “What are you—”

          “Clary,” Isabelle hissed, with growing alarm. “I know these people. I will never forget their faces.”

          “Who are they?”

          Isabelle didn’t answer for a long, protracted moment. Then she turned her wide eyes on Clary, and Clary saw the other layers to her shock: the anger, the fear, the deep deep hurt. Clary gripped Isabelle’s shoulder.

          Isabelle whispered, “These are the soldiers that killed my coven.”

          Clary was struck dumb. She took a long moment, in which she could hear Isabelle’s breathing accelerating, to find her footing in their back and forth.

          “What?” she hissed. “I thought the king’s guard killed your family.”

          “So did I,” said Isabelle, turning this way and that, like she needed to see all the faces of her offenders that she could. Her eyes were wide, frantic. She was undone as Clary had never seen her. “But I just assumed—they were so hateful towards us, but what if—”

          “What if they weren’t the king’s,” Clary finished in a whisper. “What if Valentine—Oh, Isabelle. Oh no.”

          “My coven would never have joined his crusade,” she murmured. “Clary. Would he have killed them for it?”

          For that, Clary had no answer. She looked helplessly back at the others, who mouthed things at her—“What?” and “Come on!” amongst others—or shrugged at her in question.

          “I—”

          “You have to stop this,” Isabelle said suddenly, grabbing Clary’s arm. “You have to stop him—”

          “I—I don’t know how,” Clary stammered. She could feel Isabelle’s nails digging in. “I don’t know how to—”

          “Clary,” Isabelle said harshly, “He used his blood.”

          Clary felt lost in the conversation again. “For what?”

          “For the runes!” Isabelle pulled her back over towards them, and Clary followed her, stumbling. Isabelle positioned her in front of Valentine’s tent door again. “He used his blood.”

          “So?”

          “So,” and it was Alec now, his eyes wide, his voice awed, “So it’s blood magic. And his blood—”

          “—is my blood,” Clary finished. She was marveling too. “You don’t think I can get past his wards, do you?”

          Isabelle shrugged. “There is only one way to find out,” she said. Then softer, she added, “Clary, please. For my…for my family.”

          The others looked at her sideways, unsure what had transpired amidst all the sleeping bodies. But Clary had eyes only for Isabelle. They locked gazes; Clary nodded. Isabelle stepped closer and wrapped her in a hug.

          “I’m not sure I can kill him,” Clary breathed.

          Isabelle drew away, but her hands stayed tight on Clary’s arms. After a long glance, she rested her forehead against Clary’s.

          “You do what you think is right,” she said. Her lips were so close to Clary’s that she could feel them, like a ghost of a few hours ago. “Nobody’s asking you to kill him. You just have to stop him.”

          The difference seemed a vast, important thing and also a narrow line to walk. Clary nodded.

          “For both of us,” she whispered, and she crushed her lips to Isabelle’s.

          The kiss was fervent but short. After a moment, Clary pulled back and Isabelle let her go easily. Clary took a deep breath and caught the eyes of each of her friends. They nodded encouragingly. Isabelle gave her a brave smile. Clary closed her eyes and thrust her hand out over the runes.

          And it—went.

          The others looked at her with wide eyes. Clary stared back, and then nodded. Without a word she stepped over the threshold and pushed her way past the flaps, and ducked into Valentine’s tent.

          It was better and worse than Clary had been expecting. It was just a plain tent, the same as everyone else’s from what they had gleaned from the outside: in that corner that was a chest, propped up with a stick so that Clary could clearly see the clothes instead, along with a sword and a few other weapons that Clary didn’t care to look at too closely. There were some things strewn on the floor, shoes and crumby plates that she guessed he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning yet, and some papers or books here and there. On the bed there lay a middle-aged man, head shaved and face slack. Clary had only seen him when she was very young, when he had hair and his face was less lined and more angry, but she would know him anywhere—which was far more than she wanted.

          “Valentine,” she whispered.

          At once, the name felt wrong in her mouth. She wasn’t used to saying it at all. She had expected to find here the desire to call him “dad” or “my father,” but it wasn’t there. Those words still just brought up images of Luke, of his kind eyes and bright laugh and whip-sharp wit, and this was not Luke. Before her was just a man who had gotten Jocelyn pregnant and then scampered off to oppress the innocent, far away on a mountaintop where no one had to see him ever again.

          Except then he had begun more widespread evil. And now here was Clary, searching to stop him.

          It was difficult, as she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She supposed she could kill him with one of his many weapons, but she wasn’t sure she had the guts for it. Then, as she got closer to Valentine during her wandering of the tent, she found herself suddenly pushed back. There was a forcefield around the bed. She pushed her hand against it—impenetrable. So there went killing him, even if she wanted to.

          Her friends’ voices were murmuring outside. Clary didn’t know what about, as they were still too low to hear, but she wished they would be quiet when she was this close to the most evil man they knew.

          She resigned herself to searching the tent for a clue as to what to do. The pages she plucked off the floor or rifled through in his books proved unhelpful. Here was one about a spell she had never heard of; this one looked like a potion he was struggling to invent. There was a detailed history of a town, and this one seemed to be a map. The books proved unhelpful too. There was one under the bed that looked leatherbound and important, but she couldn’t get close enough to get her hands on it.

          The others’ voices were getting louder. Clary really wished they would shut up.

          She turned and crouched next to the chest on the floor. After shifting aside some of the clothes in her way, she found more weapons than she knew what to do with: a sword, a mace, an axe, a whip—things she didn’t even know why he needed, because he could do magic. She guessed it was easier to take down an enemy with the enemy’s own weapons, but she had thought him too self-importantly reliant on magic to stoop to that. Maybe his cunning outweighed his pride after all; the thought chilled her.

          Now her friends were basically yelling, but Clary ignored them—because at the bottom of the chest, she found lying there exactly what she was looking for. It was perfect; she could incapacitate Valentine without having to kill him, and the king’s court would deal with him.

          “Yes,” Clary whispered to herself.

          Her fingers had barely brushed the rope when she felt an iron grip on her upper arm. Before she could think, she was being dragged to her feet and spun around, and then she was face to face with a very angry Valentine Morgenstern.

          His whole face was flushed crimson in his wrath, and his mouth was downturned so stubbornly that that, combined with the furious set of his visage, made Clary wonder what her mother had ever found in him worth loving. He raised his hand back as though to strike her, although Clary suspected that he was much, much closer to hexing her straight to her own grave.

          “You’re—” she stammered.

          He turned white, then an even deeper red than before.

          “Clary,” he hissed.

          People had always told her she looked like a young version of her mother. This time it might have just saved her skin.

          Before she could fight back or even protest, Valentine was dragging her outside and into the harsh light of the moon.

          Her friends had retreated several steps away, but that’s not what caught her attention: They were now a circle of seven when they should have been five. Without thinking, Clary gasped.

          “Mom?”

          “Clary,” Jocelyn cried.

          Luke grabbed Jocelyn’s shoulder and pulled her back when she tried to run to Clary. Clary struggled vainly against Valentine’s hold.

          “We told you not to come here, Clary,” Luke called, his voice clear and commanding. Clary shrank in on herself, her father’s disappointment somehow worse than Valentine’s death grip bruising her arm. Luke was already pulling the rest of the group back, away from her. She knew that’s not why he was doing it, to separate her even more from safety than she already was, so she tried not to feel hurt.

          “I needed to do this,” Clary said, still fighting Valentine. “I needed to—”

          “Shut up,” hissed Valentine, shaking her hard. “Shut up. This isn’t a family reunion.”

          “Funny,” called Isabelle, crossing her arms. They were now halfway across the camp. “Looks like somebody just got reunited with their deadbeat dad.”

          Clary wasn’t sure if Isabelle was very brave or very stupid for antagonizing him when she was right here. Her heart was sure though, skipping a beat as she looked at Isabelle across the way. She was standing so brave and so strong, her hair whipping across her face in the altitudinal breeze; her skin might have been glowing in the moonlight, or it might have just been Clary’s brain, twisting her to the heroic Artemis that Clary knew her to be. For a moment she forgot even Valentine’s grip on her, on the surefire death that was swiftly rushing up on her future.

          “Tell your friends to be quiet,” Valentine hissed, bending down so his breath ghosted across Clary’s ear, “before I slaughter every last one of them.”

          “Keep your hands off them,” Clary snarled back, trying to be both menacing and quiet at the same time. Some of Valentine’s nearby soldiers were stirring, obviously roused by the growing fight. Whatever this was about to turn into, she was sure that she didn’t want an audience; they would be too fast to rush to his aid to give her the chance she was still searching for.

          “It’s too late for all of you,” said Valentine. He released her and shoved her away, but not in the direction of her friends. She was still trapped. “You shouldn’t have come looking for me.”

          “You paralyzed my mother!” shouted Clary. Now some of his soldiers were definitely waking up, but she couldn’t help herself.

          “Clary!” Jocelyn called. Whether it was in reproach or anguish, Clary couldn’t tell.

          “I admit that was a stroke of selfish pride,” said Valentine. “Usually I’m not so personal with my attacks. You’ll notice I let her live.”

          Clary stepped forward, holding her ground. “Only because Luke came by before you could finish her off.”

          Valentine tilted his head like he was considering her.

          “True,” he murmured. “True. But it’s no matter to me now. I can dispose of you all just fine right now.”

          He turned his head to the side, looking over his shoulder at one of the tents nearby. Clary took the opportunity to scamper away, back towards the safety of her friends. When she got close, Isabelle grabbed one of her arms, and Luke the other. They pulled her into them, and she felt the others close ranks around her.

          “What’s he doing?” Clary whispered, narrowing her eyes at Valentine.

          He was whistling. It wasn’t an idle tune, even though it sounded like one; Clary knew a bird’s song when she heard one.

          “Summoning someone,” Isabelle whispered back. Her hands were gentle stroking over Clary’s side, like she was checking for wounds only more caring than that. “Or something.”

          It was someone. The flaps on the tent next to Valentine parted, and a tall blond boy appeared from between them. Clary heard someone breathe in hard behind her, but she didn’t know who it was. The blond boy barely glanced at the group huddled across from Valentine. He looked tired, undeadlike, as he slouched over to Valentine. It was more than just being woken up before the sun; he looked haggard and worn, somebody who had seen too much and didn’t want to anymore.

          Valentine slung an arm around his shoulders when he came closer. The boy didn’t look at him either, not directly. His gaze focused somewhere just to the side, lazy and dead.

          “Jace,” Valentine said jovially. “Look what I’ve got for you: New friends to play with.”

          The boy named Jace looked up at them now. Nothing sparked in his eye, not interest or concern, nothing.

          “Thanks,” he said dully, like he didn’t really care one way or another. He sounded almost bored. “Can I go back to bed now?”

          “No,” Valentine snarled, shoving him away too. Clary supposed he was just as merciful to his followers as his enemies. The boy looked uninterested at the development, simply finding his footing again and watching Valentine with a hollow gaze. “We’re in the middle of something.”

          Jace glanced at their group again. This time his gaze lingered slightly, taking them all in for real. Clary couldn’t help remembering how dirty and weary they must all look. Some heroes.

          “Are we going to have to fight him too?” Clary whispered.

          Isabelle’s nails dug into her arm. “He doesn’t look like a warrior,” she breathed into Clary’s ear. Clary wasn’t sure what she meant, because Jace sure looked like a soldier to her. “I don’t think he’s here by choice.”

          Clary could see that a little more: he seemed to be doing the bare minimum, exactly what Valentine asked of him and no more. He moved mechanically, as one did when they were well used to following orders they disliked. She wondered why, then, he was here doing Valentine’s bidding, and unbound, when he looked like he would much rather be doing just about anything else.

          The group was jostling around her, and her mother’s hand left her arm as someone else shouldered their way near her. She expected Luke or Magnus or Simon, but it wasn’t any of them.

          “I know him.” Alec touched her shoulder. She could feel desperation in the touch. “Clary, that’s my old training partner. We went to school together, underground when anti-magic sentiment was high. We all had a partner for safety reasons. He disappeared right out of school one day—went on break and never came back. We all thought he was dead.

          “Clary, he’s not here by choice. Valentine must have been keeping him…” Alec swallowed, his rapid speech halted by emotion. When he continued, he sounded measured in a way that let Clary know just how badly he was freaking out. Clary remembered Magnus then, reminding them all to take it easy on Alec: He suffered early life losses. Alec pleaded, “Don’t hurt him. Whatever’s happened to him, he needs help. Get Valentine, but not Jace.”

          Clary nodded slightly. Alec did not ask for things often. He begged things—especially from her—even less.

          “Okay,” she breathed. “But how am I supposed to—”

          “Shut up!” Valentine shouted.

          They all startled and looked up, but he was not talking to them. He was talking to Jace, who stepped back at his yelling but seemed neither surprised nor alarmed by it. He looked back at their group, and Clary watched him now, for some sign that he recognized Alec—but there was nothing. His gaze was blank as he grazed over their faces in turn, and he did not stop or even hesitate when he passed Alec’s, no flicker of recognition in his eyes. Jace turned back to Valentine, nodded, and stepped away from him again. A fissure appeared in Clary’s heart, strange and sudden, for this boy that she did not know. Isabelle’s hand slipped into hers and squeezed.

          “Clary,” she whispered. Clary turned her head towards her infinitesimally, giving her an ear. “When he attacks, you have to use your magic.”

          Clary looked over at her fully, despite herself. She did not want to appear like any of them were plotting while they waited for Valentine’s hammer to fall, but she couldn’t help it.

          “I don’t have any,” Clary murmured, looking back at Valentine’s furious face as he muttered low to Jace. She tried not to even move her lips too much. “I told you, that part of me never manifested properly—”

          “Then make it manifest,” Isabelle urged in that low volume. “It’s our only chance.”

          Clary glanced nervously at her. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in herself; it was that she knew she didn’t have it in her. She wasn’t magic. It wasn’t something she was born with, and wishing or wanting wasn’t going to change that all she could do was a few bad parlor tricks with drawings back when she was still in pigtails. But that was such a hard thing to say with Isabelle believing in her so hard at her back.

          Before she had to say anything that would break either of their hearts, they were all distracted again from their plans.

          “Let’s get this over with, then,” said Valentine, and just like that he had everyone’s attention. His mouth curled into a smirk, and he beckoned Clary forward with a finger. She saw Jace disappear into Valentine’s tent.

          She didn’t want to submit to him just because he said so; it was clear that her friends didn’t want her to either. She felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, and then Luke’s came to rest right on top of it.

          “Don’t,” Isabelle whispered.

          Valentine said, “Clary, come. Let’s fight this out like the adults we are. You wanted revenge for your mother, no? Well, I’m offering you a one-on-one. I won’t even get my army involved. Unless you don’t do as I say, now.”

          Jace returned then, walking wordlessly up to Valentine’s side. He handed him a blade, silver and shining, almost glowing in the moonlight. For just a second, while Valentine’s attention was on the blade, Clary thought she saw Jace’s eyes flick up to Alec. She thought there was recognition there.

          Then, clearly, Jace mouthed: “I’m sorry.”

          Clary turned her head and saw the others do the same; they were all looking at Alec. His gaze was unwavering on Jace. He swallowed visibly, and hard.

          “Don’t do this,” he said, hoarse. “There’s still time to be the man you were going to be.”

          Valentine looked up. He clearly thought Alec was talking to him. Him and Jace were standing so close together that it was difficult to tell where Alec’s focus lay from so far away, and Valentine obviously thought it was for him.

          “It’s already done,” said Valentine. “Clary.”

          Clary looked around at her friends and family. She wondered if it was her last look. Then, with a tight nod, she tore her arm free of her parents’ grips and stepped out apart from them all. She pulled her kitchen knife—sharp, sleek, useless—out of the strap she had made on her thigh.

          “Let’s do this, then,” she said.

          Valentine didn’t wait for a second command. He was fast, whipping forward and bringing his blade down hard; Clary barely had time to leap out of the way, but she dove to the side, yelping and not even ashamed of it as she rolled out of the way. She got to her feet and saw Valentine smirking at her.

          “A waste,” he drawled, “to have to end my own daughter’s life. But you’ve made us come to this, remember. It was all on you.”

          Jocelyn darted forward; Valentine didn’t even look behind him before extending his hand out towards the group, his palm flat. Clary saw his magic working, the wave of air and energy he sent out towards them all. Jocelyn stopped in her tracks, swaying slightly on her feet.

          “Let me go!” she shouted out, still struggling, but whatever spell he had used had her bound tightly. The others were shuffling around now, but they were trapped as well. And Valentine’s army was waking up for real.

          “Coward,” snarled Clary. “Let my mother go!”

          “His magic will be weaker after a spell like that!” Alec shouted suddenly. “He’ll need time! Go in now!”

          Valentine made a more complicated gesture with his fingers, and Clary watched Alec choke. She panicked, but then he straightened and nodded frantically at her. She watched his chest move, in and out. He was breathing fine. Just momentarily struck mute.

          Valentine was advancing again, pressing her back, forcing her to dodge around him. His attacks were relentless as he swung his sword. A handful of times he caught her skin, slicing cleanly into her arm, her thigh, her ankle, her cheek. She was bleeding freely, but not too wounded to move. She dodged his attacks, not able to do anything. Her knife was too small to do real damage without getting into close range, and he attacked swiftly every time she was near him. She glanced back desperately at her friends as she rolled to the side, ducking behind the camp’s abandoned cooking area.

          “I don’t have a weapon,” she called desperately. “All I have is this!”

          She brandished her useless kitchen knife. Alec was voiceless though, and the others weren’t versed enough in magic to help her—except for Isabelle, but she wasn’t saying anything. The thought that even she had no suggestions did not build Clary’s confidence.

          Valentine’s friends were awake now, and watching with interest. Several times they made moves to grab her or help him as she stepped close, but he kept shouting, “Stop! The girl’s mine!” and all Clary could do was hope that his pride kept him from calling in his considerable reinforcements.

          She was being pressed back and back; she was almost at the edge of the encampment now. If Valentine backed her up any more, she would be at the rocks around the edge of the site soon, and she would be trapped for him to strike however he liked.

          Then out of nowhere came a voice she had never heard call her name.

          “Clary! Catch!”

          She and Valentine turned at the same time; it hadn’t come from any of her friends, but from behind Valentine himself. Valentine’s expression slowly morphed into betrayal as Jace pulled his arm back and threw what he was holding as hard as he could. It landed in a messy pile at Clary’s feet, coiled like rope, but thankfully not knotted. She plunged her knife into her pocket and snatched up Jace’s gift without looking at it.

          “I can’t work a whip!” she cried, lashing it out at random.

          She caught a random soldier on the shoulder and he cried out in pain, clutching his arm. He still didn’t attack her; Valentine’s orders must be more law than she thought. She didn’t understand unwavering loyalty like that; but then, she and her friends were equals, with no one leader to pledge eternal fealty to anyway. Clearly this cult didn’t work like that.

          “Just do it!” Jace called. “Use your instincts, not your head!”

          “Somebody grab him,” Valentine roared. In an instant there were innumerable hands on Jace, pulling him back, pulling him away. Clary found herself relieved when they didn’t hide him away in a tent, but kept him out in the open where she could see he wasn’t being hurt on her behalf. They were just holding him, but no one was doing anything—yet. She couldn’t say the same would hold true if she didn’t win this fight.

          Just as she thought it, she cracked her whip outwards—and Valentine caught it, wrapping it around his wrist in a fluid motion and snatching it right out of her hands. It burned as it left her grip, and she cried out, tugged forward with the motion. In a second Valentine had her pinned down, his sword at her throat. His mouth twisted into something cruel, and foul. It was technically a smile, but there was nothing that should be in a smile there. Fight reared up in her, hot and burning, but there was nothing to do, nowhere to go, with Valentine’s foot on her chest and his swordpoint at her throat.

          Clary snarled anyway, thrashing beneath him. Her adrenaline was pumping hard, her blood boiling. At the brink of defeat, all she felt was power. It rushed through and through her, and she wanted to turn it to her whip, to the knife in her pocket, but they were both out of reach and useless.

          Someone screamed. Several people did, actually. Somebody else whimpered, that awful just-about-to-cry sound. Clary growled up at Valentine above her. He pulled back his sword for the final strike. Above the curve of the earth, the sun broke its first rays over the horizon.

          Valentine said, “Goodnight, Clary.”

          Isabelle shouted out, “Your magic, Clary! I know you can do it—just do it!”

          Clary didn’t think. All instincts, like Jace had said; she draw her hands back until they were flat on the ground beside her head. Then she let out a primal scream and shoved them upwards together, and in between them materialized a sword, golden and shining and bright. There was no spell, no magic words. There was just Clary, and her power coursing through her, and a golden sword whose hilt was in her hands and whose point was on the other side of Valentine’s back.

          Time stopped. It lagged. It made no sense. Then things happened in flashes.

          Clary letting go of the sword. Valentine slumped over beside her. People running. People shouting. Someone tugging on her arm. Someone brushing her hair from her face. A soft voice pleading, “Clary. Clary. Clary.”

          The next thing Clary was really aware of was her fast-paced breathing and tears on her face and Isabelle’s hands on her cheeks, on her throat, checking her pulse, squeezing her hands in both of Isabelle’s.

          “You’re okay,” Isabelle whispered. She sat beside her and cushioned Clary against her chest, her arms a vice around her. “You’re okay. It’s over. It’s over.”

          Clary grabbed Isabelle’s shoulders and let herself sob. She was rocking them both; she was making a fool of herself; she was unable to do anything but sit there and cry and let time settle itself around her.

          When her mind got clearer, the first thing she noticed was that it was quieter. Voices were murmuring in the background, but none of the ruckus from before was happening anymore. She was still crying, but silently now—save for the occasional hiccup from her suddenly sore throat. Clary wiped the backs of her hands across her cheeks and leaned out of Isabelle’s embrace.

          “I’m sorry,” she gasped.

          Isabelle shushed her gently, brushing more of her tears away with soft hands and a softer smile.

          “It’s okay,” she promised, and because she said it, it must be so. Clary hiccupped a few more times but after a while felt well enough to sit up on her own. She did, drawing her knees to her chest and resting her cheek against them.

          “What happened?” she said again, calmer now.

          Isabelle didn’t crowd her. She did stroke her hair though, and when she spoke it was the cadence of somebody soothing the very distressed. Somehow Isabelle made it sound sincere anyway, not contrived or manipulative the way it should have. Clary breathed easier the longer they sat there.

          “He’s gone,” Isabelle said. “Valentine’s gone. His followers either fled or were finished in the ensuing fight; none of them are very skilled with weaponry. Our people are all okay. We’re freeing the prisoners as we speak; he was keeping them underground, but they should all recover. Eventually.”

          Clary closed her eyes, focusing on breathing. That was her deal with the dragon done, too, then.

          “Jace?” she wondered.

          “Back with Alec. They’re talking through some things. He’s deeply traumatized, but I think he’ll be okay. We can take him home with us and make sure he gets what he needs.”

          Clary breathed in. Breathed out.

          “Okay,” she said.

          “Okay?”

          “Okay.”

          Isabelle wrapped her in a hug again. Clary clutched her desperately back, pressing her cheek against her shoulder.

          “I’m never using magic again,” Clary muttered.

          Isabelle sighed. “You don’t have to,” she said.

          Clary swallowed hard. She had choices now, and things to do, and things to consider. Her future was wider than before, and the dead drop into it seemed terrifying. For a moment she didn’t know what to say.

          “Thank you, Izzy.”

          Isabelle’s breathing grew shaky for the first time since they had sat down.

          “You brave, beautiful girl,” Isabelle murmured.

          She kissed the top of Clary’s head. Clary pressed her face into her neck. Isabelle lifted her chin with a finger and kissed her, soft and languid and perfect. Clary exhaled a shaky breath and kissed her back, hard. Then she pulled away and rested her face back in the safe hollow of Isabelle’s throat. Isabelle tightened her arms around Clary’s back and just held her.

          “We did it,” Clary breathed.

          “Yes,” Isabelle agreed, sounding windswept herself, “We did it.”

          Clary felt water prick her eyes, but she thought it might be in a good way, the way it was when emotions were just an overwhelming wave inside her and there was only one way for it to go: out through tears. It was the kind of overwhelming relief, that huge gaping happiness that left the future a hanging question mark of possibilities. It made her sad and elated at the very same time.

          Isabelle laughed, a beautiful but wet-sounding thing. It was over for her too, Clary realized, her coven revenged, her own future open as well, nothing written but the baby Clary would one day give her.

          Clary smiled. The baby Clary would one day give her, which Isabelle had all but promised to let Clary share. Clary clutched greedy fingers into Isabelle’s back, suddenly unable to let her go.

          “What now?” Clary whispered.

          Isabelle rubbed her back. She didn’t say anything for a long time. Then she pressed a kiss to the side of Clary’s face and whispered, “Now you get to be happy, Clary Fray.”

          All power had a price to bear—but with Isabelle there to help shoulder the burden, the big wide emptiness of her future suddenly opened up, streaked with color and alight with possibilities.

          Clary hugged Isabelle and into her neck, she pressed a shaky smile.

- - -

          The meadow was filled with the kind of lush green grass that only came around at certain points in the summertime. Clary was half-convinced that there needed a thousand different factors to line up to get the grass just right: the sunlight filtering through the trees just so, the woodland life giving it just the right amount of attention, the planets aligning. The only thing more beautiful than the meadow was the young woman stretched out in the middle of it.

          Isabelle arched her back and spread her hands so that her fingers ran through the grass, like she was feeling its softness for herself. Her face was open and happy, her eyes closed but her mouth smiling in that way only lazy summer days could ever wrought. The sun shone down on her, a halo of shimmering brightness that seemed designed to light up her golden edges.

          “Stop moving,” Clary instructed sternly, but she was helpless but to grin beneath the look that Isabelle gave her when she opened her eyes, all intensity and adoration.

          Isabelle stretched her arm out so that her hand brushed Clary’s ankle, and Clary grinned, tracing more of Isabelle’s form down on her paper with her water colors. She didn’t have nearly enough ink for the hues of Isabelle, but she wanted to try. Eventually Isabelle retracted her hand so that Clary could go back to drawing her in the position she had originally laid out in.

          “You know what I don’t get?” Clary mused as she painted. “About the whole thing with Valentine, I mean.”

          Isabelle’s eyes had drifted shut again. She looked peaceful, and happy. After a moment she managed, “Hmm?”

          They didn’t talk about that whole ordeal all that much; Clary preferred not to think about it, and Isabelle seemed content talking about other ventures. She seemed open to discussing it, though, now that Clary had brought up the subject.

          “I don’t get why Camille told me not to trust you,” said Clary, forging onward despite her girlfriend’s sleepy inattention.

          “She said that?” said Isabelle, sounding mildly more invested now. “Hmm. I wonder why that would be. Are we sure she was talking about me in the fortune? Tricksters are known to twist the truth so it sounds like one thing to you at the time, only to end up meaning another thing in the end.”

          “I think she meant you,” said Clary uncertainly. “After the part about my mother being cast into a deep sleep, she said, ‘You will meet the girl with really dark hair…’ Uh, something about you saying you knew what to do after that, I guess about my mom. And then she said, ‘If you trust her, you must beware…’ Something about power having a price to bear.”

          “‘Even for young maidens fair,’” Isabelle finished, grinning wryly at her. She clearly had a stronger grasp on Clary’s fortune than Clary did, even though she had only heard it once, repeated in the early days of the revenge quest against Valentine.

          Clary rolled her eyes as she dipped sky blue paint across the page, right where Isabelle’s similarly-colored skirt covered her.

          “Yes,” she indulged her with a blush, “even for fair young maidens, or whatever. But doesn’t that sound like she’s advising me against you?”

          Isabelle cracked an eye open to peek at her. “You’re not doubting me, are you?”

          Clary set her things down hard. She crawled over to where Isabelle was and grabbed her hand. Isabelle laughed as Clary tugged on it until she sat up, and she released her, only to then crawl into her lap. She was kneeling over her more than she was putting her weight on her, her knees bracketing Isabelle’s thighs. Clary cradled Isabelle’s face in her hands and met her eyes, gazing at her.

          “Never,” she whispered, and kissed her soundly.

          Isabelle hummed against her mouth and leaned up into it, and for a moment it was just the two of them on the grass in the center of the meadow. Birds’ song and stray breeze weaved through the trees. After a moment they pulled back. Clary leaned in, their foreheads nearly touched together. She slipped her arms back until they were slung around Isabelle’s neck, and her fingers played idly with the hair that Isabelle was wearing free and loose.

          “You’re absurd,” Isabelle said fondly, smiling at her and pushing some of her hair away from her face. Then, more brightly, she added, “Do you want to finish your painting?”

          “Yes,” said Clary, clamoring backwards off of her lap.

          They both resumed their positions beside each other. Isabelle draped herself on the grass, lazily and erotic. Clary folded her legs together and set her half-finished painting on her knee to finish it.

          The morning faded into afternoon as they sat there beside each other in the meadow, Isabelle alternatively chattering and dozing, Clary intent on her work and happy to listen to Isabelle’s voice, or her sleep-filled breathing. When she was finished tracing the likeness of Isabelle’s arms, Isabelle took it upon herself to move them freely through the air. She began casting spells into the air, creating magic for Clary’s entertainment; a light show, or making the twigs from the surrounding forest dance together, or spelling her name in the dust shining in the rays of sunlight. Clary laughed delightedly as they both worked.

          Midafternoon was settling in, hot and thick. Clary was putting the finishing touches on her art; Isabelle had begun to drift off again. Clary signed her name on the page and laid her things down before rolling over to lay beside Isabelle. She did nothing for a long moment, but then she entwined her fingers through Isabelle’s. Hers were slack and unresponsive, but Clary grinned at the side of her face. Her hands woke up first, easing into a squeeze. Her breaths were next, coming less easily, less slow. At last she opened her eyes.

          “What is it?” she said sleepily, turning to nudge her nose against Clary’s neck as she tucked her face there, like she wanted protection from the sunlight.

          “Look,” Clary whispered, squeezing Isabelle’s hand, “Faeries!”

          It was true; drawn by Isabelle or by her magic, or maybe by the magic that was the two of them there together, the fae had come through onto the mortal plane and were twirling and swirling through the air together. Most likely it was her imagination, but a couple of times, Clary thought she heard their laughter floating back to her on the breeze.

          Isabelle was still beside her.

          “They must have come for you,” she whispered in that way that was not a whisper, not really.

          “For me?”

          Isabelle grinned. “Faeries are drawn to light and beauty,” she said.

          She looked proud of herself. After a moment, Clary burst out laughing. She was still laughing as she rolled to slip her body over Isabelle’s, pressing both of her hands into the grass with her own. She kissed her again, her laughter rolling into Isabelle’s. They forgot themselves after a moment, their tongues slow and searching, their hands beginning to roam. It was not the place, nor the time, but Clary thought that there was nothing more important in the world than Isabelle at that moment. Time elongated and expanded, leaving nothing but Isabelle’s hands, but her smile and her love, nothing but the fire in Clary’s chest and the bright bright happiness floating through her body.

          It went like this: Once upon a time there was a beautiful maiden who lived in a cottage in the woods, and her name was Clary Fray. She spent her days laying in the bright sunshine with a witch named Isabelle Sophia, and they talked and talked about their future and their love and the family they would one day have. At night they lay together by the fire with their friends and their wide open futures, where there was nothing but light and the promise of forever spent just like this.

          It went like this: Clary pressing her lips to Isabelle’s, and asking, “What comes after this?”

          It went like this: Isabelle wrapping Clary in her arms and saying, “Now we live happily ever after.”