ALTHEA - DISCONTINUED

18

"Have you been doing parkour or something?" Clary asked Simon as she, Thea and Alec began climbing the ladder after Simon.

"You’ve gotten a lot better at this." Simon complimented to which Clary smiled, "I was just gonna say the same thing about you."

"Climbing a fire escape excites mundanes." Alec muttered, "I’ll never understand these people."

"Whoa." Clary breathed out, "I don’t remember it like this."Clary looked at the runes on the brick walls.

"These are runes and wards of protection cast by a warlock." Thea explained as she traced them with the tip of her fingers.

"Dot." Clary said in realization.

"Some of these have been here for years." Alec added which made Clary glance at them, "The only difference is now I can actually see them."

"Yo, Clary." Simon called out, "What are all these tags?"

"You can see the runes?" Alec asked as he furrowed his brows at Simon who nodded before replying with a 'duh' tone, "yeah, kinda hard to miss."

"For a Shadowhunter." Thea added as both her and Alec stared at Simon in confusion. "They should be invisible to most mundanes. When did you get the Sight?"

"I don’t know." Simon shrugged, "But whoever drew these should take some lessons from Clary. Their, uh, work is pretty sloppy."

Clary was looking and touching a drawn heart that said SL+CF. "This is from when Simon and I were engaged to be married."

"You were engaged? I’m almost certain I don’t wanna hear this story—" Alec was cut off by Simon, "We were eight years old."

"That was a whole other world ago." Clary said as she tried to open the back door but it was locked. "There’s only one flaw in your plan here, Simon."

"Here, let me try." Simon said as he pulled and the whole door broke open.

Thea nudged Alec before whispering in his ears, "something is wrong with this mundane."

"I know but What'd you think is wrong?"

"At first I thought maybe he drank energy drinks this morning but this..." She pointed to the broken door, "not possible. I have a theory. I'll tell you about it later."

"After you," Clary said to Clary who smiled before entering.  Alec was about to enter when Simon stopped him and nodded to Thea, "after you." Thea smirked at Alec who looked like he was ready to kill the mundane. However, Thea held Alec's hand and pulled him with her. Alec smirked at Simon who rolled his eyes as they made their way inside the loft.

They went into Clary’s room and found it all burnt. Simon let out a gasp, "Holy crap, Clary. Who torched your loft? Yeah, I can see this, too."

Clary grabbed a picture of her “dad” from her nightstand and Simon flashed her a soft look, "Hey. You okay?"

"There’s nothing left of me here."

"Of course, there isn’t." Thea scoffed as Alec said, "your mother was trying to erase any trace that you existed. So that you couldn’t be tracked. She was protecting you."

"Let’s see how well that worked." Clary said to which Alec rolled his eyes, "You’re alive aren’t you?"

Simon noticed some creaks in the floorboards, "These floorboards… They sound different in these two spots. Can’t you hear it? There’s something under here." Simon took away a plank. "Another score for Brooklyn."

"Hey, out of the way." Alec said to Simon as he got down on one knee before putting his hand inside the hole. He removed a box and showed it to Clary, "is this the box you remember?"

"Yeah." Clary grabbed the box, "she used to wait till she thought I was asleep and then take it out."

"Well, let’s open it." Simon suggested as Clary opened the box. She frowned at what she found inside, "I don’t know what any of this is."

They heard something falling, alerting all of them.

"There’s someone here." Alec spoke, "get what you need. Do not move until I get back. We’ve been here too long."

"I'll come with you." Thea stepped forward making Alec look at her, "no. You stay with them and protect them if anything happens."

"What if—" Thea was cut off by Alec, "hey, I'll be fine. Just stay here with them. I'll be right back."

Thea reluctantly nodded as Alec walked away. She turned around and looked at Clary and Simon.

"Alaric?" Clary questioned making Thea furrow her brows as she turned around and saw Alaric there. Alaric's eyes widened when she saw Thea, "Althea? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Thea said, staring at Alaric warily.

"Wait you guys know each other?" Clary asked, her eyes widening. "What's going on?"

Just then, two guys came behind and hand cuffed Simon and Clary.  "What the fuck are you doing?" Thea questioned Alaric who sighed, "Theo's orders. Sorry."

"Wh—" Thea was cut off when she felt a sharp pain in her neck making her slowly lose consciousness. The last thing she remembered seeing was Alaric's apologetic face.