Stranded in Time | Matthew Fairchild

Chapter I

You, Y/N Rook - no, Herondale - were having a no-good, very-bad, mind-numbingly-frustrating couple of months.

Dramatic? Maybe. But what else do you call it when your dad gets killed by demons in front of you, your newly orphaned little brother and you get told you're nephilim, which you've been raised all your life to scorn, your new friend gets impaled by the reanimated corpse of her ancestor, and then gets turned into a perpetual ghost by your brother and his unrequited crush via necromancy which is, by the way, VERY VERY MAGICALLY ILLEGAL.

Oh, by the way, let's throw in that you can now see ghosts just to spice things up.

Now, you were slowly adjusting to life with your little brother and two victorian not-shadowhunters (but not not shadowhunters, either. It's confusing.) in their equally victorian manor in England. It felt a little like running away when your brother, Kit, told you that he wanted to take up Tessa and Jem on their offer, but hey, running is a Rook speciality.

Tessa and Jem were as hospitable as could be, but you still had a hard time seeing where you were as permanent. Jem  directed you and Kit through training every morning, and seeing that you secretly enjoyed reading, Tessa made a habit of slipping a new book under your bedroom door every monday morning. She had a lovely (and very valuable) collection in Cirenworth's library, and amidst her and Kit playing "Read that book/Saw that movie," you had been picking up the slack for your brother and reading the books in question.

This week's book was The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Perhaps, it was this book that had led you to go poking around in the attic of the manor, in search of some mystical object. There wasn't much of note so far, save boxes of clothes from decades past, some photos, and a whole lot of dust. You were planning on going back downstairs when a specific box in the corner caught your eye.

It was a steam trunk, the kind that might have been used in past centuries for travel, but something about it drew you over, reaching for the bag identification against on its side.

"Thomas Lightwood, Cirenworth Hall, Devonshire." The tag read - odd, in that the manor was a Carstairs family holding and had been for over two hundred years, and this trunk certainly didn't look like it predated it. Unable to fight the curiosity, you tried the lock, finding it had rusted and came off with a snap. Inside, clothes, photographs, and relics of a nephilim life were neatly arranged inside, clearly by someone who cared for their preservation. Fumbling through, your hand made contact with a metallic object at the bottom of the trunk, and you drew it out to find a crystal that sent a shiver down your spine.

You had seen a crystal like this before. It was a memory crystal.

Normally, only a magic user would have been able to activate it, but both you and Kit had been able to activate the Blackthorn one, for reasons you didn't quite understand - something about having royal faerie blood - and so you tentatively turned it over in your hand. You jumped as the room grew dark and the crystal began to glow, projecting its memory on the wall. The crystal must have been damaged, since it skipped and faltered, it's nature distorted. Flashes of scenes jostled for attention - a ball, probably in the early 1900s, and a man with rich carmel skin and blond hair - a laboratory, and a pervasive feeling of panic - demons, heinously large. You struggled to make sense of it all as the crystal grew hot in your hands, like a computer overheating and burning. You abruptly dropped it in reaction, but as it hit the ground, the room went black.

Waking up, your head ached like you'd been concussed, and the sunlight made you begin to wonder if you'd fallen asleep in the gardens and had a strange dream. As you opened your eyes, you groaned with the sting the light caused. You tried to roll over, by found you were abruptly nauseous. Your body convulsed as you vomited your breakfast onto the grass beside you, then collapsing again.

From behind you came a high voice that struck a memory. "Oh, lord. Who are you?"

You squinted at the translucent girl hovering near you. "Jessamine?" you rasped, wondering why she was here.

"Yes, I am she. But who are you, and why are you... sick in my gardens?" she replied, circling you in the air.

"I- please, get help." you moaned, as another wave of nausea hit.

"Oh! Ack!" she cried, and fizzled out.

You desperately wished for Jessamine to swallow her sensibilities and get whoever was near, as you began to shake violently on the ground, abruptly cold and dizzy. A door opened nearby, and two sets of footsteps came rapidly to your crumpled form.

"By the angel..." A man muttered, and you heard Jessamine chime in, "I told you, she knows who I am, but I haven't the faintest clue who she is."

"Nevermind that now, Jessie," he said, by your side now. "She's marked, though I have no idea who she is either."

Another voice joined them, a familiar one that caused you to open your eyes and squint at the two looking down at you with worry. "Let's get her into the infirmary. We can call for Charlotte later and determine her identity, but she looks grievously ill."

You coughed and whined, but managed a shaky question. "Tessa? Tessa, what's happening?"

Clearly, she wasn't expecting this question, and she exchanged a bewildered glance with the man she was with. You noticed for the first time that she wasn't dressed as she normally was - rather, she was wearing a long dress of cotton lawn with her hair twisted up.

"I'll carry her." The man said, and reached for you. Tessa nodded and helped to move you to a sitting position. You whined in pain, and she touched her hand to your forehead in a very motherly gesture.

"Will, she's burning up." was all you heard before the world went black again.