Clockwork Heart | ✓

octo.

London, 1903

Brooklyn was a little surprised that that first kiss wasn't nearly as awful as her technical first kiss. Unlike that other boy when she was--how old? Fourteen? Fifteen? She couldn't remember then--James knew what he was doing. He tipped her chin up and pulled her a little closer, and she shut her eyes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

When they pulled apart, James grinned down at her. "Well?"

She smacked his arm. "You are such a cliché, James Herondale."

"Oh, am I?" He offered his arm, and she took it, and they continued back to the Institute. "You see, Brooklyn? Now we're going to be late for dinner. Shame on you."

Brooklyn shook her head. "Shame on you. You didn't have to kiss me."

"Oh, but I did." He says. "I can't have you leave London without being able to say that you kissed James Herondale, Greatest Shadowhunter to Exist and King of the Ducks."

"King of the ducks?"

"Don't tell my father," He whispered. "Or my grandfather. They despise ducks. Hate them with a burning passion."

"Why?"

James shook his head. "Just accept it and never ask my father. You'll earn yourself one of his infamously long rants about it. Don't ask him about demon pox, either. He'll sing the whole song."

"Will he dance, too?" She giggled.

"If he's in the mood for it." He shrugged. "He's lucky I'm difficult to embarrass. I wouldn't be able to stand him otherwise. He bit a vampire once, you know. Intentionally. Actually, I believe it was more than once."

Brooklyn knew, from reading the Codex, that biting a vampire was not a good thing. If you did, you would have to drink holy water immediately to avoid becoming a darkling. "Your father is a man that should be feared."

"Well, he is a bloody brilliant Shadowhunter." James laughed. "Uncle Jem said he always was reckless..."

"Oh, like you?" Brooklyn teased. "What were you doing the night I met you, anyway?"

James grinned. "You wouldn't want to know."

"That makes me want to know." She said. "I'd have to place my money on drinking and gambling."

"Drinking and doing bets for money, yes." He shrugged. "I seem to meet everyone that way."

"Well, now I don't feel special." Brooklyn said, pouting.

James laughed once more, and Brooklyn found herself falling in love with the sound. "Don't worry," he said, "I never once kissed Magnus Bane."

When they returned to the Institute, they found everyone in the library. There were two strangers there--a man of Asian descent, his black hair carefully brushed back from his eyes, and a man in a thin, bone-colored robe. He was a Silent Brother, Brooklyn could tell, but he didn't fit the description--he still had his eyes, and his hair, and his youthful appearance, and his mouth was not sewn shut.

James didn't seem to find this strange, and in fact, he brightened considerably. "Uncle Jem!" He raced across the room and wrapped his arms around the man, quietly speaking to him. The Silent Brother smiled and returned the hug.

There were others in the room, Brooklyn noticed, that she didn't know. Cordelia and Lucie came to stand with her. "See that woman over there with the scar?" Cordelia asked. "That's Sophie Lightwood, and the man next to her is her husband, Gideon. The two girls with them are Barbara and Eugenia, their daughters, and the boy is their son, Thomas."