Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
The world of shadows, a realm unknown to ordinary humans. The Shadowhunters were the only ones, created by the Angel Raziel and Jonathan, the first Shadowhunter. The main goal of this race of warriors was to make the world free of demons and maintain peace with the underworld, for which they created the Accords.
But, as always, not everything could go well. There was a group, the Circle, whose creator and leader, Valentine Morgenstern, hated the Downworlders. He saw them as part-demon beings and inferior to them. Valentine led an uprising during the Ninth Accords, but he never expected the Downworlders to be prepared for that moment. It ended in a massacre. They slaughtered several Shadowhunters and Downworlders. In that confrontation, the last Lovelace and his wife died; they had a newborn son just a week old.
The Downworlder army was too much for the Circle, which was defeated and forced to flee. The surviving members of the Circle surrendered and cooperated with the Clave. The uprising was a failure, as the Ninth Accords were signed a week later.
As far as it is known, Valentine died setting fire to the Fairchild mansion along with Jocelyn's parents inside and their child. The Lovelace baby had disappeared; it is said he died at the hands of Valentine. Michael fled with his son to their ancestral home. Jocelyn disappeared. The Lightwoods were exiled from Idris and tasked with running the New York Institute, though they could go to Idris occasionally. Hodge got the worst of it: he was cursed never to leave the New York Institute.
On August 23, 1991, Clarissa Adele Fairchild was born in New York. Her mother, Jocelyn, thought of raising her as a mundane, but the fear of something similar happening to what had happened to her first child, since she knew deep down that Valentine was alive, made her take drastic measures. She went to the New York Institute, where she was received by Hodge, who was surprised to see her and asked her to call Maryse without giving explanations. Hodge seemed to understand and went to get her.
Maryse arrived at the entrance where she saw Jocelyn with a baby in her arms. She asked what she wanted and why she was coming to the Institute knowing what could happen to her; she had never gotten along well with Jocelyn.
Jocelyn only said that she knew the risk she was taking by doing this, but that it was more important. Then she asked her to take care of her daughter, as she feared something worse happening to her than what happened to Jonathan. Maryse, for a moment, stood in silence processing the request. She looked at Jocelyn's pleading face and, although she had never liked her, finally agreed to help her.
Jocelyn smiled as tears fell down her face. She handed over her daughter, told her her full name, kissed her forehead, and left, as she had another problem to solve. Robert disagreed with Maryse's decision, but in the end, he accepted it.
The Lovelace son, whom his mother had named Simon, had not disappeared; Jocelyn had taken him. The reason was that she knew Valentine would use him for something, though she didn't know what. Valentine smiled when the boy was born, something he didn't even do with his first son. Jocelyn wasn't going to raise him herself, as giving the Lightwoods another burden would have been too much. So she looked for a suitable mundane family for him and, with luck, hoped he wouldn't be born with the Sight. Finally, she found a Jewish family, the Lewises, thanks to meeting Levi Lewis by accident and seeing his good heart. She then hired Magnus to implant memories in the Lewis family that they had had a second son, Simon Lewis. All of this in secret, only Magnus and Jocelyn knew. Magnus asked the reason, but Jocelyn only told him she was doing it for the baby's sake. Magnus didn't ask further, as he wasn't interested in mundane matters. He received his payment and left, warning her that there was a twenty percent chance the spell would fail. Jocelyn accepted the risk and also decided to return to her residence, where she became an artist.
Ten years passed. The Lightwoods learned of Michael Wayland's death and that his son had been left orphaned. Robert, as a gesture towards his former parabatai, decided to adopt Jonathan Wayland. For the first time, Jonathan met people his age: Alexander, who was two years older, and his sisters Isabelle and Clarissa, the same age as him, and baby Max, two years old.
Meanwhile, Jocelyn had become friends with the Lewises, though she also did it for Simon, who was attached to her. Simon would draw scribbles watching Jocelyn draw, and he would try to do it too. That made Jocelyn happy, though she always had in mind her daughter Clary, the nickname the Lightwoods had given her. Luke had found Jocelyn and met Simon, knowing who he really was, but they saw that, so far, at ten years old, he hadn't awakened the Sight. That relieved them. So it continued until six years passed.