City of Heavenly Fire

The Call

Isabelle's foot tapped gently against the pavement, waiting for the other line to pick up. Simon and Jace stood around her, each of them praying that Magnus would pick up on the other line. Arlim had so graciously given away that the Warlock had passed through Idris and was, with any luck, still there. Isabelle guessed he was lounging on a couch watching reruns of Gilligan's Island with his cat.

"C'mon," she chided quietly, listening to the redundant beep that indicated that the line was still ringing. Even if they found Magnus, would he even help them? If he knew as much as they did, they would be stuck. Clary would get worse. Answers would be harder to find . . .

The line disconnected.

"Ugh! She yelled in frustration, nearly hurling the phone at the wall but stopping when she remembered that her mother would kill her if she did. "Great," she said sarcastically. "Just great. Magnus is probably already gone. So what's the plan now?"

Jace bit his lip. "He definitely didn't go to Peru, that's for sure," he said, but his voice was hard and edgy.

"Can we go to any other warlock?" she asked, "Maybe the Silent Brothers can-"

"Do nothing," Jace interrupted. "Jocelyn already tried. And you know just as well as I that Warlocks don't much fancy the idea of helping out Shadowhunters. Besides," he added, "Magnus has had more experience and is most-likely to know something than any of the others."

A hopeless silence fell over them then, Isabelle hating herself for how much hope she'd actually allow to grow in her. Now it was wilting away as their options disappeared, leaving them with practically nothing. "You're still adamant that Sebastian had anything to do with this, aren't you, Jace?" she asked, glancing up to meet his golden eyes. He shook his head. "You said he didn't want her dead. So why he would send those . . . things after her is beyond me."

"Maybe he changed his mind," she said. "It does kind of sound like something he would do. What his father did." She was very careful not to use the word 'Valentine.'

Jace sighed, thinking. "Sebastian may be a neurotic psychopath in desperate need of counseling and imprisonment, but it's not that easy to change his mind. But I still think it was someone else. You said you were young when you saw those creatures so either Sebastian was playing Mad Scientist at an early age or someone else was already performing those experiments or whatever you want to call them."

Simon was silent throughout this and Isabelle wondered if he'd lost his hope like she had. "What now?" she asked hesitantly.

Jace shrugged. "We go back to Clary's, I guess. Maybe there's been some improvement," he said, but Isabelle knew what a long shot that was and kept quiet.

Clary entire being was screaming at her. Her muscles ached, her breaths were ragged, and she felt her will seeping out of her by the hour. The hallucinations had tampered down a bit and she could make out her mom's panicked face; could even manage a few words of comfort, but the darkness kept sucking her back in and pushing her back out like a yo-yo.

She kept looking around for Jace, calling out to him, but her mother had informed Clary that Jace was out looking for help. She prayed that he would find it but if worse came to worst, she wanted him here with her, holding his hand.

She didn't know how much time had past when she heard a new pair of feet enter and, as if her prayers had been answered, Jace wandered over to her, looking desperate and helpless. She saw rings under his eyes and vaguely wondered how long it had been since the last time he'd slept. In the background, Clary saw her mom and made an imperceptible gesture to go and leave them alone for a bit. Jocelyn, looking just as tired, nodded and left, closing the door behind them. Jace took a seat in her mother's chair, looking down at her with longing and sorrow as if he'd failed her.

"Hey," he said, grabbing her hand tightly in his. "How're you feeling?"

Not wanting to cause him any more pain, Clary shrugged which just made her wince. Her neck wasn't swollen but it was still a hideous sight, even with the bandage. Red and just gross.

"Better," she lied through her teeth, praying he didn't see straight through her.

But this was Jace. He always saw through her. He shook his head, appalled. "I'm so sorry, Clary," he said, his voice breaking.

Clary gave him the hardest look she could muster, staring into his face. "You better not-blame yourself f-for t-this," she said, her voice cracking due to the pain and heavy with exhaustion. "It's not-your f-fault."

He looked as if she'd just sucker punched him right in the gut, hearing her voice so brittle and . . . dead. The thought sent shivers down her spine.

"It is my fault, Clary," he said, and she saw the tears pooling in the eyes of the boy who never cried. "If I'd-"

"I still would-would have g-gone, Jace," she said, squelching the urge to whimper. "I love-loved it." And then, as if an after thought she added, "I love you," and her voice didn't even break this time.

Then one of his tears fell down his cheek as he laid his head against her and she ran her hands through his hair soothingly. She thought of things to say that would help but nothing came to mind. They just stayed that way for a long time, embraced in each other's arms.

Isabelle sat outside, the evening crisp and cool as she sat on the sidewalk with a paper in hand, trying to think of every possibility that could help Clary. So far all she had was REACH MAGNUS but she had scribbled that out. The rest of the paper was blank.

In a sudden fury, Isabelle stood up and crumpled the paper, hurling it into the street along with the pencil. How could things have gotten so bad all of a sudden? Over night? Everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. Alec was no longer with them, Magnus was gone, Jace still had his Fire problem, and now Clary was . . .

She gulped. She knew the life of a Shadowhunter was not supposed to be easy. Hey, she didn't want easy, she just wanted possible.

Which none of this seemed to be.

And that was just inside her little social circle. Outside, there was still psychotic brothers and dead not-fathers, and the confusing Clave and it all seemed like too much for any family to handle. Not to mention the death of one of them that had really been hard on everybody.

And now all of this had to happen.

Izzy knew that if Clary died, she'd lose Jace forever, even possibly Simon as well. She couldn't bear to lose any more people. Isabelle had already lost too much and she was willing to fight.

But who to fight was the question she kept asking herself. Faults were everywhere. She couldn't just go and set flame to all the people that have caused her and her family harm. Nope. That was Sebastian's job and she refused to have anything in common with him.

She screamed in frustration, almost making it impossible for her to hear her mother's phone buzz in her pocket.

She expected it to be Alec's call for a check in, but when she flipped it open, the voice did not belong to her brother.

The voice belonged to . . .

"I'm gone for a few weeks and already things have fallen apart. What is it now, Isabelle?"

Magnus had stayed in Idris after all.