Broken Pasts (The Mortal Instruments Fanfiction)

Chapter 13: The Manor House

Rose slowly pushed the old red door of the manor house, which let out a satisfying creek. She stepped in slowly and looked around. There were items of furniture here and there; the white sheets thrown over them turned them into humped, unwieldy ghosts. Velvet curtains sagged across huge glass windows; the velvet was grey-white with dust, and motes of dust danced in the orangey glow coming from the sunset through the windows. Her boots tiptoed over the Persian rug thrown over the floor of the large stone-walled room towards the centre of the room.

Valentine was in the manor house, somewhere. She thought to herself.

She shivered at the thought, or was it because of how cold the manor house was. But the cold in the manor was more than physical cold: The place felt cold, as if there had never been warmth or light or laughter inside it.

"Rose!"

Startled, Rose jumped back, "Jace! What the hell are you doing! Shut up! Valentine is somewhere in this house and you are pinpointing our location!"

Concealing a laugh , Jace made his way over passing the odd bits of furniture, "Shh, now you're making more noise than me."

Rose crossed her arms and huffed, "Where's the red head?"

"Here." Clary popped up from behind the red door and made her way to Jace.

Unsure how to start Rose sighed, "No offence Clary," she started, "but at the moment you are, well, extremely useless" she paused "unless you have gained superpowers since the last time I saw you."

"No but I-

"Well then you're useless so either go outside" Rose interrupted, "or be quiet and stay behind us, okay?"

Clary meekly nodded her head and took a step further behind Jace.

Rose began to pace back and forth muttering to herself quietly. She gripped her seraph blade tightly in her right hand, turning her knuckles white, ready to strike Valentine down at any moment.

A crease appeared on Jace's forehead, "Rose what exactly are you going to do?"

Rose stopped pacing and stared straight at Jace, "Either kill Valentine or find a way out of here." She confidently stated.

Jace took a step forward looking Rose right in the eye, "We are not killing him."

"Why not?" Rose challenged, crossing her arms.

"Because I said so," Jace declared.

Rose rolled her eyes, "You would be such a good lawyer," she said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.  "Well, since I'm not allowed to kill him, do you have any ideas where this portal may be?"

A grin formed across Jace's golden face, "Yes, actually" he motioned for them to follow him and began trudging down a long corridor at the side of the room.

Rose quickly followed him dragging Clary behind her; Jace was leading them down a long corridor lined with dozens of mirrors that gave back their own reflections. Rose hadn't realized quite how dishevelled she looked: her leather jacket was streaked with mud, her hair snarled from the wind, once again. She tried to smooth it down discreetly and caught Jace's grin in the next mirror. Of course as usual Jace looked perfect. His hair looked perfect. It always seemed to stay in place no matter what happened, she remembered every time he would go out demon hunting he would come back looking exactly the same, except for maybe the slight smudge of demon blood on his boots. And yet still she debated whether he was using some secret rune to keep his hair in place.

The corridor was lined with doors, some open; through them Rose could glimpse other rooms, as dusty and unused-looking as the front room had been.

They reached a door at the end of the hallway and Jace shouldered it open, standing back to let Rose pass into the room before him. She took a step inside the library; it was not entirely unlike the library at the institute: the same walls filled with row upon row of books, the same ladders on rolling casters so the high shelves could be reached. The ceiling was flat and beamed, though, not conical, and there was no desk. Green velvet curtains, their folds iced with white dust, hung over windows that alternated panes of green and blue glass.

"This is the library?" she said to Jace in a whisper, "and I don't see a portal anywhere." She took a step further into the library "Are you su-

She turned round to where Jace was once standing and stopped dead in her tracks. Jace wasn't there.  And neither was Clary.  She hadn't heard the library door close. Or the bolts fasten. She ran at the door and began to pound her fists against it and kick it with her steel toed boots, as if she could knock it down.

A deep laugh erupted behind her.

Slowly she turned her small frame to face the figure behind her leant again the window frame. But to her surprise the figure was not Valentine or Jace or in that matter even Clary. The figure took a step forward letting the warm light cascade down his tall, muscular and slightly slender frame. The light played over his pale face and high cheekbones, with strands of dark black hair falling in front of his even darker eyes.

 The stranger smiled at her, "My love, there is no use, the door is locked."

In bewilderment Rose stared at the stranger, "And who are you exactly?"

The young man with the dark eyes offered her a smile, "My name is Sebastian, my love."

Authors Note:

Dun-Dun-DUN!!! I thought I had to make a good comeback since it has taken me a while to update. I hope you like where it's going and please continue to comment you opinions and ideas as I said I love to read them. It takes me quite a while to write these chapters, this chapter took me a full 6 hours straight as I promised to update and It takes me so long to write each chapter as I have to find a paragraph in 6 books that describes the setting that the scene is taking place in and then adapt it to the circumstance. Otherwise I feel that the story is inaccurate because I have changed a major place.

Anyway, thank you all so much for reading up until this point and I should have another chapter up by next weekend! LOVE YOU ALL  :*