City of Secrets

Chapter 6: The Law Is Hard

Ember reached out tentatively and laid her hand upon Jonathan's cheek. His eyes closed, and she felt him relax under her touch. "You are no monster."

Jonathan's eyes flew open. "I've hidden things from you, Ember. Things that are dangerous and cruel. I'm going to tell you the truth of myself and the Shadow World. Once I tell you, you won't even bear to look at me, and you'll know just how much of a monster I am."

"Nothing could ever change how I feel about you," she whispered. Jonathan placed his hand over hers and removed her hand from his face. He placed it on top of her other hand. He hesitated slightly as he removed his hand from hers.

"You say that now, but anything can happen."

Ember reached for his hand, but Jonathan shied away. "Just tell me, Jonathan. Please, I beg you."

"Shadowhunters are children of the angel Raziel," he began. "You know this. I taught it to you. He poured his blood along with Jonathan Shadowhunter's into the Mortal Cup. Jonathan and his followers drank from it, and the Nephilim were created. Every Shadowhunter has the blood of humans and angels in their veins. I am no exception. When I was a baby still in my mother's womb, my father acquired demon blood from the mother of demons herself, Lillith. He injected that blood into me, hoping to create a faster, better Shadowhunter. Instead, he created a ruthless, cruel Shadowhunter- the perfect weapon to wreak havoc, death, and destruction. He created me. My mother took one look at me and grew fearful. She knew something was wrong with me. She didn't know what, but she knew. That's why she left. My father then faked his own death after an Uprising. He was the leader of a group called the Circle. You just need to know that in the Clave's eyes, they were the bad guys. Instead of letting the Clave get him, he faked his death and burned the Fairchild manor along with my mother's parents and a baby. The Clave assumed Valentine was dead, and he stayed hidden for years, but what my mother and the Clave didn't know was that I was really alive."

"Father had found an abandoned cottage not far from the Wayland manor. Michael Wayland was dead, you see, so my father took it. He brought another boy with us, a baby like me."

"Jace," Ember murmured. "The boy that's in love with your sister."

Jonathan nodded. "Yes. My father disguised himself as Michael Wayland and raised Jace in the Wayland manor. He left me in the cottage," he said bitterly. "Through cold nights and cold winters. Some days I didn't eat, other days I wouldn't drink. He cared more for Jace than his own son. Later I found out through some of my father's notes that Jace had angel blood while I had demon blood. He observed us. He studied us. He kept notes of us. Valentine trained us himself. Jace and I were trained to be cold-blooded killers, to be fierce, swift, deadly. We were trained to do the impossible, but Jace was the soft one- the angel boy. I, on the other hand, killed mercilessly and without question. That's why my father loved Jace. Even though I always did what I was told to gain his affection, he loved Jace for his soft heart. When Jace was ten, he faked his death once again with the help of Circle members, and Jace was sent away to the New York Institute."

"My father reappeared years later along with the Circle. He searched for Jocelyn Fairchild, my birth mother, and when he found her, he also found Clary. He learned that she had special powers, too. Clary was an accidental experiment, but she's the most powerful of us all. She can create new runes. Meanwhile, my father manipulated and killed until he got all the Mortal Instruments. The Cup, the Sword, and the Mirror. According to legend, Raziel gave the Mortal Instruments to Jonathan Shadowhunter so that the Nephilim could summon him in times of great need. There was no literal Mirror. The Mirror was in Idris, the Shadowhunter homeland. It's called Lake Lyn. My father successfully raised the Angel, but Jace had killed me by then."