Inside of Me ━ Isabelle Lightwood

XVIII. A WHOLE NEW WORLD

            "So, do you have any clue where we're going?" Isaac asked them, speaking for the first time since he had joined them.

         Isaac had decided not to speak to them during their journey. At least, not until he had to or there was some sort of miracle that allowed him and Clary to magically make up and become friends again. But, as they continued to walk through the woods (which was always like a second home to Isaac) and he hadn't a clue where they were going, he had no other option except to speak.

         Clary turned to him, a part of her shocked that Isaac had spoken, quickly covered it before answering, "I don't know. Just that we'll find Valentine there."

         Isaac nodded, not really believing her at all. It wasn't that Clary was too untrustworthy (though, that could be debated), it was that they were currently walking through the woods without an end in sight.

         But, sighing, he decided not to speak, but to think about Clary had said before. We're gonna take Valentine down for good, are you in? Of course, he had already been persuaded by Isabelle, so he had agreed. But did he want to?

         Clary was ready to fight her father, but Isaac wasn't. He didn't like fighting. He hated violence, yet he was so ready to use it. He was so ready to fight, to kill, and he hated that. He hated how willing he was to kill someone else. He would be a killer if it wasn't for Scott. He would be just like his father. Just like Valentine.

         Isaac didn't want to fight. He wasn't prepared – mentally or physically. Mentally, he wasn't in the right state to. He knew that he would see a proud smirk on Valentine's face right before Isaac clawed his throat out because he was just as violent as him. That was if he knew that Isaac was alive and his son.

         But as they continued to walk and light began to pour in where there was once darkness, Isaac saw speckles in the wind like fairies, and little things that reminded him of magic and reading Harry Potter with Jocelyn (mom) on Sunday mornings. And sadness filled him once more.

         "Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore," Clary commented, trying to joke. Isaac cracked a smile.

         "A Wizard of Oz joke," Isaac mused, looking at her up and down with pride, "I've taught you well."

         Clary laughed, diffusing the tension between them for a second as she rolled her eyes and hit him lightly. "Shut up," she muttered.

         There was silence for only a moment more before Meliorn opened his arms grandly, "Welcome to the Seelie Glade, Cray Fairchild. The remotest edges of it."

         "How did we get here?" Clary asked, looking around in awe like Isaac.

         "There are entrances all through the mundane world," Jace told her, eyeing everything in suspicion.

         "You just have to know where to look," Meliorn added.

         Clary then stepped forward with her eyebrows knitted in confusion, "Why did we have to come here to find my father?"

         My. Mine. Hers. No one else's. Those words she spoke so easily were ones that Isaac wanted in the darkest hours of the night. He truly wished that the words meant nothing to him, that he didn't find himself correcting her in his mind. But he did. He corrected himself because Valentine was also his father – not just Clary's.

         "Because of your necklace," Meliorn said, "It's a Portal shard."

         Of course it was. Isaac already knew that, he could have said something...but he didn't. He didn't, he didn't say anything because Jocelyn (mom) told him not to. And he trusted her. What an awful mistake he made.