Phase One (Book One: Experiment Series TMI)✔

.CHAPTER SEVEN.

"Well, how about that,"
said Jace, still without looking at Clary- actually, he hadn't looked at anyone face to face every since me, Simon and Clary had arrived on the Lightwoods front doorstep.

Instead he was leaning against one of the high windows in the living room, staring out toward the rapidly darkening sky.
"A guy attends the funeral of his nine-year-old brother and misses all the fun."

"Jace, don't."
Alec said, in a tired voice.

Alec was slumped in one of the worn, overstuffed chairs that were the only things to sit on in the room. The house had the odd, alien feel of houses belonging to strangers: It was decorated in floral-printed fabrics, frilly and pastel, and everything in it was slightly worn or tattered. There was a glass bowl filled with chocolates on the small end table near Alec.

"Don't what?" Jace asked; it was dark enough outside now. He was wearing Shadowhunter mourning clothes-they didn't wear black to funerals, since black was the color of gear and fighting. The color of death was white, and the white jacket Jace wore had scarlet runes woven into the material around the collar and wrists. Unlike battle runes, which were all about aggression and protection, these spoke a gentler language of healing and grief. There were bands of hammered metal around his wrists, too, with similar runes on them. Alec was dressed the same way, all in white with the same red-gold runes traced over the material. It made his hair look very black.

"You're not mad at Clary. Or Simon," Alec said. "At least," he added, with a faint, worried frown, "I don't think you're mad at Simon."

I half-expected Jace to snap, but all he said was, "Clary knows I'm not angry at her." Simon, leaning his elbows on the back of the sofa, rolled his eyes but said only,
"What I don't get is how Valentine managed to kill the Inquisitor. I thought Projections couldn't actually affect anything."

"They shouldn't be able to," I said. "They're just illusions. So much colored air, so to speak."

"Well, not in this case. He reached into the Inquisitor and he twisted..." Clary shuddered.
"There was a lot of blood."

"Like a special bonus for you," Jace said to Simon.

Simon ignored this.
"Has there ever been an Inquisitor who didn't die a horrible death?" he wondered aloud. "It's like being the drummer in Spial Tap."

Alec rubbed a hand across his face. "I can't believe my parents don't know about this yet," he said. "I can't say I'm looking forward to telling them."

"Where are your parents?" asked Clary. "I thought they were upstairs."

Alec shook his head.
"They're still at the necropolis. At Max's grave. They sent us back. They wanted to be there alone for a while."

"What about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "Where is she?"

The humor, such as it was, left Jace's expression.

"She won't come out of her room," he said. "She thinks what happened to Max was her fault. She wouldn't even come to the funeral."

"Have you tried talking to her?"

"No," Jace said,
"we've been punching her repeatedly in the face instead. Why, do you think that won't work?"