Fourtris Meets Clace

Chapter 4 - Jace

JACE

Evelyn walks quite quickly for a human, I notice. Then again, she's not really a normal human. She knows about us. The Shadowhunters.

When Evelyn travelled the world last year, she came to New York, and just so happened to encounter a Shax demon, which nearly killed her if it hadn't been for Clary and Isabelle. Of course, Evelyn had the Sight - when glamours cannot cover the Shadow World for a human - because an ancient descendant of hers was a Shadowhunter. It was Alec who killed the demon, along with the help of Isabelle. He brought her back to the Institute - she was badly wounded, and had ichor all over her skin. Evelyn, being curious, asked us lots of questions, and no matter how much detail we gave her about how we were 'special nurses', she carried on. So we had no choice but to tell her about our lives, and the demons within it. She swore on her son's life not to breathe a word to anyone, and if so, she knew her and her entire family would be slaughtered. But, last week, the Institute received a letter from Evelyn, asking for Clary and I to take a visit to Chicago and to meet her son and his girlfriend (Tris and Tobias). She explained in the letter - which was five pages long - about the old city that was demolished, and how there were some people there that the old Government called 'Divergent' and that her son and his girlfriend were 100% Divergent, but she, as a scientist, wanted to carry out some tests to check the quality of their Divergence. She also asked if Tris and Tobias were allowed permission to have the Shadow World revealed to them - we had to consult the Clave, and reluctantly they said yes, because our job is to care for humans; one request wouldn't harm, anyway. But the cost was this: if any of the three spilled the secrets of the Shadow World to anyone, all would be killed and the person who was told would be completely brainwashed.

I really hope Evelyn has taken this into account. The Clave aren't very piteous when it comes to the Law.

Sed lex, dura lex.

The Law is hard, but it is the Law.

Wow, I'm dramatic today.

We have reached what seems to be the library. Evelyn holds the door open for us, but I don't say thank you - I am in utter shock. It's a library, alright, but the biggest I've seen; bigger than the one at the Institute, and that's huge. Books are basically towering over my head. Thousands of shelves line the walls, and around one hundred ladders are placed on top of them to reach the novels that are up high near the ceiling. The room itself is humongous, but all the books make it seem a hundred times bigger. It's every bookworm's dream. There must be millions of books, maybe even billions.

"Bet you there's no Codex," Clary says to me, waking me up from my daydream. I grin.

"Don't be so sure," I tell her. "Evelyn has the Sight, remember?"

Clary is lost in thought. As Evelyn sits down in a plush chair in the centre of the room, I drag Clary along whilst she thinks, and practically push her into a chair next to me. Another maid comes along as soon as my butt hits the cushion, and offers us an afternoon tea, consisting of biscuits, cakes and coffee. I take a cookie and a mug of steaming coffee, and Clary nibbles on a cream cake. Evelyn shoos away the maid, who scurries off out of the library doors.

"So, Evelyn," Clary says after swallowing the pastry and cream. "If you don't mind me asking, how'd you get this house? It must have been a lot of money."

"I don't mind at all," Evelyn says. "I bought it when we moved into Chicago from the old city, after my old house was burnt to rubble. It was around six months after the war, and I'd become a scientist. My experiments paid the mortgage, and eventually I upgraded from a small house to this mansion. I made sure it had a library. I love to read."

"Clary is more of an artist," I tell her, much to Clary's dismay.

"Really?" Evelyn looks shocked. "I also heard you can create those tattoos... what are they called again?"

"Runes," we say together. Clary smiles.

"That's it," Evelyn says. "You know, your world really is fascinating."

"Compared to the human world, yes," I say. "I'm used to it."

"And me," Clary pipes up. "I was only introduced to it two years ago. My mother kept the Shadow World hidden from me-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but I really have to discuss some things with you," Evelyn cuts her off guiltily. "It's about the experiment."

"That's fine," Clary says. I know I'll get a rant on 'how swearword rude that woman is!' afterwards.

"So, Tris and Tobias have not the faintest idea who you are," Evelyn says. "To be honest, they don't even know the name of your... kind. I need to ask you a favour. I need you to not give them any clue whatsoever about who you are. You see, the plan initially is to see the way they react to the news, not the fact they have to guess. Hopefully they'll come to me and ask me who the hell you guys are, and then I can tell them. In the old city, people used to go through things called simulations, in which a serum was injected into their veins and in their head, a landscape of all their worst fears was played out, as if in real life. We called it a fear landscape, obviously. Normal people who were not Divergent, or not genetically repaired, would panic and think it was real. The simulation stopped when they had calmed down, and each fear usually took around five minutes. However, Divergents would be able to manipulate the simulation, and they wouldn't really panic - they'd be telling themselves it wasn't real. This is how Tris and Tobias acted in fear landscapes. My son only had four fears: everyone in his faction Dauntless called him Four, and therefore he wore his excellence in his name. I think Tris had six fears. Anyway, the point is, the simulations were supposed to make people react to things better. I want to record my son and Tris's reactions, and show the scientific world an example of Divergent people in the present day."

"But what if they react wrongly and go and tell everyone?" Clary asks worriedly. I was thinking the same question.

"Don't worry," Evelyn reassures us. "I'll have them locked in a room so they can't run off and tell anyone, and if they are utterly shocked I will wait until they have calmed down. Also I'll be monitoring them to check they can't escape and say things. If they do, however, I guess we'll have to deal with the consequences. Tris and Tobias aren't really like that - they're pretty calm - so I haven't really thought about if they react badly." She wrings her hands together.

"Okay," I say. "So that's it?"

"Yes," Evelyn says. "You can go now. And remember, don't give away any information. I'll have a car drive you back to Tobias's apartment."

She leaves the room, and we follow behind her.