Clockwork Heart | ✓

septendecim.

New York City, 2015

Magnus Bane had been right--Brooklyn would find him.

She told the cab driver the address of his building--thanks to a phone book and Google for that--and he dropped her off not far from it. She paid him in cash and stepped out of the cab. She'd been in New York for nearly a month. It was time to visit him.

She buzzed in and as soon as Brook was out of her mouth, he buzzed her up and swung open the door. "Brooklyn Mathis," he said with a smile. His taste in fashion, she noticed, was a lot different than she remembered. "I've been waiting a century and then some to see you again."

"Really?" She asked. "For me it felt like about a month and a handful of hours. If my phone is correct, it's been exactly three weeks. Down to the minute." Noon. She couldn't have had more perfect timing.

"I hope you don't mind that I have guests," he said. "I tend to entertain Shadowhunters these days."

"And how is that different from the last time I saw you?"

"Exactly." He let her in.

Magnus's apartment was a mess of many colors, and nearly all of the seats on his couches and chairs and floor were filled. There was a blonde boy with golden eyes so much like James's next to a short, beautiful redhead that almost looked like Cordelia, and a tall, dark-haired girl holding the hand of a boy with glasses and curly brown hair. Then there was a boy, tall with black hair and blue eyes--

Will.

But no, this boy was younger and looked much different, which she realized when she really looked at him. He must be a Herondale. A girl with brown hair and a boy with black hair sat on the couch, and when the girl turned, Brooklyn saw gray eyes and a clockwork angel.

"Tessa?" She gasped. The boy looked up too, and she barely recognized him without the runes on his face. Brother Zachariah. "And you're--you were Will's parabatai. James."

He smiled up at her. "Jem." He corrected. "James is my full name, but I prefer Jem."

Tessa stood up and rushed across the room, wrapping her in a hug. "Brooklyn." She sighed, and Brooklyn hugged her back tightly. "It's been too long."

And it had been. For Brooklyn it had been weeks, but a blink of an eye and a step through a portal for her was a hundred and twelve years for Tessa, Magnus, and the rest of the world.

"Brooklyn Mathis," Magnus said. "I'd like to introduce you to my Shadowhunter friends. This is Isabelle Lightwood and Simon Lewis, who just Ascended." The dark-haired girl and her boyfriend smiled at her. "This is Jace Herondale and Clarissa Morgenstern."

"Fairchild." Clarissa corrected. She smiled brightly at Brooklyn, who noticed that she had green paint on her nose. "And call me Clary."

"And this is Alec Lightwood." He said of the Will lookalike. The boy smiled nervously from the couch.

Brooklyn couldn't help but smile sadly. "Alec, you look so much like someone I knew."

"Will?" He guessed bitterly.

Brooklyn nodded. "I thought you were a Herondale at first, honestly." She turned to Jem and Tessa, but not before she saw the look exchanged between Jace and Alec. They must be parabatai. "I have his copy of Vathek. It still has a note Will wrote to James. See?" She removed the book from her messenger bag and handed it to them, and they read the note together.

Tessa laughed sadly. "Oh, Will."

A tear leaked out of Jem's eye. "I miss him."

Brooklyn perched herself on the edge of Magnus's couch near Clary. "How were their lives?"