Scars of her Blood • Shadowhunters

Chapter 45: General Suspicion

Celia had only walked into the Institute about ten minutes ago when the alarm went off in the command center. Celia sighed. Most of all she was glad that Ophelia had stayed at home today. Everyone turned to the entrance, where four Shadowhunters brought in two bodies in on stretchers.

Celia raised her eyebrow, as the smell of blood started filling the entire room.

"What happened?", Jace asked Clary, who was accompanying the group of Shadowhunters bringing in the dead bodies.

"We found Rosegreen and Penmount dead, runes carved out just like with Keytower."

Celia took a closer look at the bodies. Shit! Alec had seen the same details as her:

"Except these two were killed by a Vampire and a Seelie – not a wolf."

"So this is the work of multiple Downworlders.", Clary stated.

Jace nodded:

"Luke was right all along: the Downworld wants revenge, this could be the start of an uprising!"

Celia could already feel an uncomfortable number of judgmental eyes on her. Still, she spoke up:

"Let's not get overzealous here. This does not have to be the entire Downworld, this could be a small group - "

"Or a single Hybrid.", someone in crowd around them said.

"Celia is right", Alec took her side before Celia could say anything to defend herself. Even though she would not have known what to say. The man was right.

"We have to be careful", Alec continued, "but we can't jump to conclusions and create a bias against all Downworlders."

Only a few hours later, the next body was being brought in, causing Inquisitor Herondale to hold a meeting in the command center. Celia was attending, but kept herself in the background. The mood in the Institute had shifted against her drastically.

"There was another Shadowhunter found dead in Williamsburg. This time he was killed by a Warlock.", Herondale took a deep breath, "in this time of crisis we have to maintain strong leadership. That's why I'm naming Jace Herondale the new Head of the Institute, effective as soon as I depart for Idris. Dismissed."

Celia snorted quietly. She wants a strong leadership and she appoints Jace... Jace was a strong fighter, Celia had nothing to say against that, but he was no leader. He was too impulsive. He was like Celia. But Celia knew precisely why she had not taken the throne yet. The rest of the crowd also had mixed expressions showing on their faces. Izzy was obviously happy to hear about Jace's promotion, Clary and Alec both seemed rather irritated, probably for different reasons.

Celia waited until the crowd had dissolved a bit before she joined the four of them at one of the tables.

"The Inquisitor would like us to reach out to our allies, to see what they know.", Jace was saying, when Celia joined them, "at this point she considers all Downworlders suspects."

"Great...", Celia mumbled. She could see an exact reflection of her own emotions in the other's faces.

"She can't possibly think that any of our friends did this.", Clary threw in. Of course that's the only thing she thinks about.

"Well, we will prove that to her", Jace made an attempt to calm her down, "Luke's DNA is already cleared, so now we should focus on collecting samples from the rest of our friends to clear them as well."

Clary nodded:

"I'll go talk to Simon.", and simply left.

"I will go see Raphael", Izzy added.