JACE'S POV
"So I've been thinking," Jace says as he enters the kitchen early Saturday morning. Both Jon and Alec are up but by the look of it, neither of them are fully awake.
"That can be dangerous," Alec says but Jace can hear that his heart wasn't in the sarcasm as he yawns.
"Anyway," Jace ignored the comment. "So this girl isn't willing to tell me her name unless I tell her mine, the only problem with that is I don't want to scare her off. Now throughout the past couple of weeks, there's been drawings, bruises, and conversations that have appeared on my arm. The only main hint we've gotten about this girl is that she's in Alec's lecture with Mr. Wayland and she has a friend that calls her biscuit."
Jace had been walking around the room as he spoke. Jon lazily stared up at him while Alec struggled to keep awake. In fact, the moment Jace stopped talking Alec fell off the stool he had been sitting on as he began to fall asleep.
"Okay," Alec said as he picked himself up off the ground. "But a lot of people could have the nickname biscuit. You can't go around assuming every girl you see is the girl."
"Yeah but she's also in Mr. Wayland's lectures with you," Jace pointed out.
"People drop out of his lectures all the time though, she might not even still be there." Alec's eyes fluttered open and closed as he struggled to stay awake.
Jace rolled his eyes. "Why do you seem so content on me not finding this girl?"
"I'm not," Alec said defensively. "I'm just trying to look at this realistically."
"There's nothing realistic about this," Jon added seemingly more awake now.
"I know," Alec got up and walked across the room. "But this is going to be difficult. I know that we want to try and narrow down the possibilities but when you take everything into consideration that's really difficult to do. I mean Clary and Magnus are in my lectures and I didn't even know that until recently." Jon shifted in his seat uncomfortably when Alec mentioned Clary.
Jace crossed his arms and sighed. "I just want to try," He exclaimed defeated. "Those bruises only just disappeared, I'm worried about this girl, I don't want that to happen again."
"Why don't you ask her where they came from?" Jon suggested though he wasn't looking at Jace.
"I don't know what happened so I don't know if it might be difficult for her to talk about," Jace responded. "I don't think we're well enough acquainted that I can ask her yet."
"Then what do you propose we do to find her?" Alec asked. "There's nothing we could possibly do right now."
Jace scowled. He didn't know what was wrong with Alec but he didn't like it. He grabbed his jacket as he headed for the door and only mumbled as he left. "I'm going out for a bit."
CLARY'S POV
How are you today?
Clary smiled down at the little message. It was still insane to her and the morning after the first time the messages appeared she thought she had been dreaming but after a few more words appeared on Clary's skin that day she had realized it was real. Totally crazy, but real.
Pretty good. You?
Clary scrawled back discreetly. She was hanging out with Isabelle, Simon, and Magnus again. Magnus was still the only one to know about the little messages, he didn't think it would be a great idea to tell the others since even he had a hard time believing it and he had seen it happen.
"What are you drawing now?" Simon suddenly asked and leaned towards Clary. As he tried to look down at her arm Clary yelped and collapsed backward on the couch. Simon sat straight up and stared at his lifelong friend with wide eyes.
"Nothing," Clary said a bit too quickly. "Just, nothing."
"Okay..." Simon said slowly. "Clare, you've been acting really weird lately. Is everything all right?"
"Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't it be?" Clary said with an awkward laughed.
Magnus set a hand on her shoulder and whispered. "Tone it down a bit."
Clary turned back to Simon and Izzy. "Sorry I just... have to go to my parent's next weekend." She blurted out the first thing that came to mind and immediately both Simon and Isabelle's faces dropped.
"Oh," Was all Isabelle said and she gave Clary a sympathetic smile.
"So soon?" Simon asked concerned. "You were just there."
"Yeah, well it's not really a set thing yet," Clary stuttered. "It's just something that might happen and it's been on my mind."
"Understandable," Simon said and rubbed Clary's leg affectionately.
Clary let out a breath of relief when her friends continued on with their previous conversation but that relief soon ended when Clary saw Magnus' curious face and she remembered he had no idea about her home situation.
"I'll tell you some other time," She said as softly as she could and Magnus nodded slowly.
Clary looked down at her arm, there was a new message that she assumed had now been there for a few minutes.
Good. Just wondering who you are.
Tell me your name and I'll tell you mine. That's the deal.
Clary bit her lip as she waited for a response. She was just as curious to find out who this person was but she wasn't going to cave so easily. Clary continued to watch her arm for a little bit longer but there was no response. It was only when her friends spoke to her that Clary looked up from her skin, disappointed he hadn't responded.
"So, do you want to help?" Isabelle's question was directed at Clary.
"Help with what?" She asked looking around at everyone confused.
Magnus chuckled. "With the party we decided to throw next weekend. If you're still in town of course." Magnus gave Clary a knowing look and she smiled.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I won't end up leaving so I think I can help," Clary responded and turned her gaze back to Izzy and Simon.
"Yay!" Isabelle squealed. "I'm so excited, I've always gotten to go to your parties Magnus but now I get to see the behind the scenes."
"It's not as exciting as you make it sound," Magnus said though there was a grin on his face. "We just put out some food, turn on some music, and after we clean up."
"Still," Isabelle said. "It'll be fun."
"If you say so," Simon muttered and Clary laughed.
"Oh," Magnus exclaimed as if remembering something. "And make sure you invite that brother of yours," Magnus said suggestively to Isabelle. "He can even bring along those blonde abominations if he'd like."
"Hey!" Isabelle yelled but she was laughing. "Don't call them that. It's rude to put Jonathon on the same level as Jace, he's far kinder." They all laughed at that.
"Maybe just invite Alec and Jon," Simon suggested. "I don't know why but I get the feeling that Jace doesn't really like me. I mean I don't think that Alec really does either... and now that I think about I'm not too sure that Jon was very fond of me..." Simon trailed off as the other three started laughing again.
"Don't worry Simon," Clary said wrapping her arm around him. "I like you and that's all that matters."
"For the record, I like him too," Isabelle said pointedly.
"Yeah, I guess he's alright," Magnus shrugged and Clary laughed.
Simon threw up his hands. "Why are you all talking about me like I'm not here?"
"Did you guys hear that?" Isabelle said looking at Magnus and Clary.
"No," Magnus shook his head. "I think it was just the wind."
As Magnus and Isabelle continued to ignore Simon much to his dismay, something on Clary's arm caught her eye. She turned her gaze down to see new lines appearing on her right arm. Her lips curved up into a small smile as she realized he was responding. She watched almost breathlessly as two short words were written.
One day...
