𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐄

𝐱𝐯. 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠

Dear Alia,

we know that you are scared and confused. Lucius wanted to tell you everything, but he was scared. Scared of what your past might do to you. Clarissa Fairchild is dangerously unstable. When she told Lucius what she had done he was horrified. We don't know if the enhanced Mnemosyne is strong enough to heal your amnesia, but Lucius is positive. You have to return to the Institute now. Please, your memories could get you into danger.

Julian Trueblood

Alia tossed the fire-message to the ground. Julian was stupid. He knew that imploring her to come back wouldn't change anything.

Around her, New York shone in the sunrise. Alia had spent the past hour walking around the city, seeing it in a completely different light. She had recognized things she had never looked ed at before. She had recognized the old man on Times Square and a run-down Taco Bell in Harlem- and with everything she recognized, a memory started to form behind her eyelids, spreading through her body, settling in the deepest part of her soul.

And with every memory, her anger grew. She had had a life. A hard, but an honest one. Her name was Alia Zayed, she was 23 years old, she'd grown up in Syria, a place she hardly remembered, having moved to New York at age 4. With every memory she regained, her anger grew. No one had had the right to take her memories. Everything she had worked for was gone, she only had a year-long life of training and getting knocked to the ground again and again.

But who had done this to her? Who was more powerful than the high warlock of New York or, well, anyone really? And even if there was someone who could completely take her memories without anyone being able to get them back, why would they bother with a common mundane?

Among the faces that she had remembered in the past hours, one seemed to have burned itself onto her eyeballs. A young woman with black hair, her best friend. But something was different about her, somehow her image felt somehow different to the ones of her sister and mother. Somehow, she knew that remembering this woman's name was essential for getting answers. But however hard she tried; she couldn't remember it at all- even though she felt like it was something she had said often.

She turned onto another street and ran right into Lucius and Julian with most of the New York Institute. Alia expected him to drag her back to the Institute and make up some lame excuse, but he wasn't even looking at her. His gaze was fixed on the sky. Alia turned and gasped.

The peaceful sunrise had turned purple. The sky was suddenly black, and the air seemed to hum with electricity- everywhere she looked, mundanes pointed to the sky and ran- whatever they saw, it couldn't be better than what this was. A part of her felt like she should run away with them, but she shook herself. She was a Shadowhunter now, and nothing could change that.

Then there was a sudden burst of light and people screamed. But amongst all the chaos Alia could only see one thing.

The eyes of the woman in her mind had turned suddenly purple.

"Ana," she whispered.

The world exploded