i'm pure at heart, it repels the dirt

Years previously, when Long Island City had been a center of industry instead of a trendy neighborhood full of art galleries and coffee shops, the Ironworks was a textile factory. Now it was an enormous brick shell whose inside had been transformed into a spare but beautiful space. The floor was made up of overlapping squares of brushed steel; slender steel beams arced overhead, wrapped with ropes of tiny white lights. Ornate wrought iron staircases spiraled up to catwalks decorated with hanging plants. A massive cantilevered glass ceiling opened onto a view of the night sky. There was even a terrace outside, built out over the East River, with a spectacular view of the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, which loomed overhead, stretching from Queens to Manhattan like a spear of tinseled ice.

( Luke's pack had outdone themselves making the place look nice. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Edited from City of Fallen Angels.]

Isabelle had come back to chaos. Jace had run off somewhere leaving only a note behind, the Clave was actually considering surrendering to Valentine, and Luke and Clary's mother – who had shown up in Alicante unexpected (and revealed to them that Jace wasn't her son with Valentine, but rather Sebastian was) – were trying to forge an alliance between the Shadowhunters and the Downworlders to keep the Clave from caving. It took Clary coming up with a whole new rune to get the Clave on their side. Downworlders and Shadowhunters were getting paired up with runes that made them almost like parabatai. They were going to fight.

Except Isabelle, and the other Shadowhunters who were under eighteen years old. That did not sit well with her. After the few days she'd spent in Fandom, she needed to be a part of the action. Somehow. She needed to try and get her revenge and do her part.

And then she'd seen the little toy Shadowhunter in her bag.

( GDI Sebastian. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Taken with tweaks from City of Glass. Warning for violence and blood and gore.]

Since Alec had taken Simon to the Gard yesterday, things had been quiet and calm. (Or as quiet and calm as things could be in a city bustling with Shadowhunters.) So when there'd been a knock on the door, Isabelle had been quick to get to it. Maybe it would be news of some kind.

( Lol no. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Continuing with City of Glass.]

Predictably, Isabelle had fled Fandom as soon as she'd been able to, on Tuesday. She'd headed back to New York and she hadn't stopped moving before she'd been underneath the lake in Central Park where the fae of the Seelie Court lived. Specifically, Meliorn's quarters. He hadn't seemed thrilled with her just barging in but honestly, she hadn't cared. She'd made him appreciate her presence and help her get her mind off things, and that was that.

Then, yesterday, the same theme of repression and distraction had continued when she'd gone home and convinced Alec – together with Jace – that they needed to go out and hunt, which was how they'd ended up battling a Dragonidae demon in the sewers. They'd returned from their trip (the boys caked in mud while Isabelle was perfectly clean, because she was pure at heart and it repelled the dirt, clearly) just in time to run into Maryse and Max at home, finally returned from Idris. And that had been great! For all of five seconds before things turned to drama.

( And on to book two we dive. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Summarized/taken with from Cassandra Clare's City of Ashes. Warning for minor character death and gore. And also tl;dr.]

All Isabelle had wanted to do was sleep off all of the previous night's woes. So, of course she'd been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by Clary and Jace who'd absolutely had to tell everyone about the former's realization about where the Mortal Cup was, and how they had to plan to go and get them despite the fact that the search was supposed to be in the hands of the Clave now. Not that Isabelle actually objected. She needed to do something heroic and potentially dangerous to live down the humiliation of last night. Besides, Clary and Jace were right. If the Cup really was with Clary's witch neighbor, the keeper of the Sanctuary, they had a much better chance of getting it from her than the Clave.

( Wheee the Mortal Cup. )

[ooc: NFB, tbc in the comments. Summarized from City of Bones.]

The Silent Brothers were not at the beck and call of ordinary mortals, nor was the their domain a place you could just waltz into at will. This meant they'd had to wait until early this morning until Jace had been able to take Clary down to the Silent City so that they could find out things that were perhaps hiding inside her brain, locked away. Simon had showed up at the Institute while Jace and Clary were gone, so once Jace called the Lightwoods to meet them for breakfast at Taki's, he tagged along. Even waited for Isabelle to get ready when Alec already headed out. Kind of like a puppy. Guess that was the type she attracted.

When they arrived at the diner, Jace and Alec and Clary were already in a booth, where the latter was perusing the perfectly ordinary menu selections with a look of stupefaction. It was all too much. "They have smoothies here?"

( There's this apricot-plum smoothie with wildflower honey that's simply divine. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Taken with minor tweakage from City of Bones. More to follow later.]

By the time Isabelle got back to the Institute... not much had changed. The mundane girl was still out of it, lying on a bed in the infirmary, Alec perched on a chair nearby. The sight made Isabelle sigh. "Do you think she'll ever wake up?" she wondered. "It's been three days already."

"You have to give her time," Alec replied, looking up. "Demon poison is strong stuff, and she's a mundane. She hasn't got runes to keep her strong like we do."

( Mundies die awfully easily, don't they? )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Taken with some heavy editing from Cassandra Clare's City of Bones.]

This was how it was supposed to be. Isabelle was in New York, at Club Pandemonium, in a nice white dress that covered up her Marks. The ruby rested against her chest, her whip was wrapped around her arm like a bracelet, and although the club was all darkness and artificial smoke, she knew Alec and Jace were no far at all. They were all hunting. And they'd already spotted their prey.

And their prey was taking the bait. It looked like a boy with blue hair, and it –– he had just snapped to attention, spotting Isabelle across the crowd. Isabelle smirked to herself, then turned that smirk wider and flirtier as she gave it to the guy, moving through the crowd. He followed her, not seeming to notice the two dark figures at his heels, stalking behind him. Isabelle made her way to the wall, and opened a door marked no admittance. She beckoned the blue-haired boy after her. He complied, and they slipped through the door.

( Oh man here we go. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay! Warning for some violence. Alec modded here and in future catch-ups with kind permission. Taken with tweakage from Cassandra Clare's City of Bones. Here we go; brace yourselves for terrible supernatural YA on your flists.]