When Light Meets Fire! // Alec Lightwood

Chapter 3: What is a mundane doing in the institute?

"Simon, I think Jace can help us." Clary says making Simon look at Clary in disbelief. His best friend who he loves chose a guy she met today instead of him. Silas almost laughed seeing the look of betrayal and horror on Simon's face. It was truly funny.

Simon looked at Silas for back-up but he only shrugged in response. Simon signed and turned to Clary.

"How do we know this Mick Jagger - looking guy-" Simon argues but gets cut off by Clary who says, "Come on, Simon. Let's go."

Silas heads inside while the others follow him. He thought that it was going to be more interesting and heartbreaking but it was just boring. He blocked out the conversation and waited for Jace to do his thing so Simon could see the institute.

The institute appears for Simon. Silas just walks away while Simon looks around in fascination.

"Where are we?" Simon stammers. "What the hell? Clary is there a war going on that I don't know about?"

"There is now. I think my mother's at the center of it." Clary answers with a frown. She missed her mom and regretted not talking to her before.

"Actually the mortal cup is in the center of it and your mother stole it so..." Silas trails off seeing the hurt on Clary's face.

"You coming?" Jace grumbled in annoyance of the noisy mundane.

"What is this place? There's a lot of gear in here. What'd they do, Rob a tech shop? So this cold-blooded killer is gonna help us?" Simon asked Clary.

Silas wrapped his arm around Simon's shoulder and whispered,
"I probably killed more people than the number of times you jerked off while thinking of Clary." Simon turns red and Silas laughs loudly making Jace smile while Clary looks at them confused.

"He's not a killer. He's protecting us." Clary answers Simon. Silas scoffed and muttered, "Specifically, you."

"It's sort of our thing."

"Your thing? You guys have a thing?" Simon says thinking the wrong thing.

"He means a Shadowhunter thing." Clary reassures him making Simon sign in relief.

"That's what they do, protecting humans from demons." Silas informs him looking around to see if the hot archer was there.

"Demons, right. That makes perfect sense, 'cause there are demons' running all around New York." Simon scoffs not believing anything they were saying.

"That is the first correct thing you've said all day."

"Won't they find us?" Clary asked. "No." Jace answers.

"Our wards will deter them." He continues. "And the NYPD will do their typical mundie thing for a few hours and then the area will be clear."

"What is going on? Why is there a mundane in the institute?" The raven haired boy (who Silas missed) questioned. Silas moved next to Alec. Alec unnoticeably, shuffled a bit closer to the bad boy.

"A circle member followed him to get to Clary."

"A circle rune, just like the guys that took my mother."

"What exactly is a circle member and why are they trying to kill us?" Simon questions. Silas was annoyed by him and his questions.

"All we know is a long time ago the circle led a revolt. A lot of Shadowhunters got killed including my father."

"And since the revolt we've been forbidden to even hear about the circle." Alec informs the group.

"But, how is that even possible? It's your history." Clary asks them. She was surprised they didn't know.  They should at least know a bit of it.

"Says the girl who didn't know she was a Shadowhunter."

"Because of her mother."

"And now the only person who knows the truth is missing, so I don't care about you're rules or what's forbidden, there's got to be someone out there who can tell us - why they've taken my mother." Clary looks at Silas. Everybody turned to look at him while Silas was looking around. When he turned to look at them, he got a bit startled.

"What?"

"Do you know anything about the circle?"

Silas signs and looks at Clary, "I don't know the details but I only know that Jocelyn took the cup and you and hid. Because of that, circle members were after you both. She searched ways to protect you and that led to me. She never did trust me so I don't know much."

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Clary takes a step closer to him making Alec get closer to Silas. She thought he was her brother. He was there her whole life.

"Those memories you have of me before 15? Well they aren't real." Silas says making all of them look at him shocked. "I'm a Downworlder that likes to make deals and well Jocelyn made a deal with me. I protect you for something in exchange."

"What was it?" Clary asks with clenched teeth. She was finding this hard to believe. "A chance to change my mind about your family."

Everybody looked at him shocked at this revelation. There was so much anger and fury in his eyes that made Simon back away a little. Alec, being the closest, took a hold of his hand and intertwined their fingers. Silas smiled softly at this.

"Do you guys have anyone or anything that could help with this?" Silas asked. Jace thought about it and nodded when he remembered Hodge.

"You coming?" Jace asked Clary. She nods her head and Jace grabbed Clary's hand and Clary grabbed Simon's.

"No, no, no, not you." Jace said looking at Simon in distaste. Silas laughed a bit. "Hey, we're a package deal." Clary defends the mundane.

"There are runes all over the training room floor that would kill your mundie boyfriend."

"He's not my-" "I'm not, like we're, uh, just friends." They say at the same time. "Best friends." Silas muffles his laughter by smothering his face in Alec's shoulder.

"Yeah, and I'm tough. I can handle runes. So, uh, bring on the runes. What exactly are runes?"

"They give Shadowhunters our demon fighting powers." Isabelle walks in and smiles at Alec and Silas. She was probably the only person that shipped them.

"So hot." Simon whispers looking at her.

"Don't worry, Clary. I'll watch over the best friend. In fact, I was about to make breakfast."

"On second thought, the runes might be less lethal." Alec muttered making Silas giggle. A small smile appeared on Alec's face.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Please excuse my brother's lack of manners. This is Alec and I'm Isabelle." Isabelle signs and gives a smirk at Simon.

"Lewis. Simon, Simon Lewis. Two first names. Am I still talking?" Simon embarrasses himself and mentally face palms.

"See? Best friend's safe and sound here."

"Jace, if anything happens to him-"

"Go on, I'll be fine. I think." Simon rubs his neck looking at Isabelle.

"Where are we going?" Clary asks Jace.

"Training room." Jace says to Clary and then looks at Simon, "Hey, uh don't eat the food. Dangerous."

Jace and Clary leaves to the training room while Isabelle drags Simon elsewhere, leaving Silas and Alec alone.

Alec grabs Silas's hand and they go sit down somewhere where Silas has not seen yet. They both talk about everything they could in a short amount of time. What they didn't notice was that both of them was falling more and more for each other.