Nico woke up to the sound of the door opening and slowly sat up. He stretched his back and moved around to return blood flow to his legs. Of course, he'd fallen asleep still sitting up, the book splayed open in his lap. Jace was still sitting in his chair, but his head hung to the side, casting some of his hair into his eyes. A young woman had entered the room, she had dark hair and eyes, and wore a simple tank top and skin-tight pants, both black. The Marks, the things that gave Shadowhunter's their power as Nico had learned, were displayed all along her arms. Nico decided she could easily compete with any of the children of Aphrodite, as could Jace, in terms of beauty.

She eyed Nico up and down before sliding the tray she carried through the barrier. Nico looked down at the food, frozen waffles, and a carton of orange juice. He shrugged, not a Happy Meal, but it would do, and pulled the tray closer to him then munching on a waffle. She seemed happy that he was eating, but turned to Jace with a frown. Not too gently, she smacked Jace upside the head, causing him to immediately wake up and... fall onto the ground. Nico snickered through his waffles.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Guess watch wasn't that hard huh?" She asked, amusement written across her face.

Jace gave Nico a small glare, and Nico stuck out his tongue, "Nope, all he did was read all night long," Jace yawned.

"So, your name's Nico, right?" She smiled at him. Nico nodded, moving onto the orange juice.

"Well, my name's Isabelle, you've already met my brother and mother." She introduced.

After being told, Nico could make the connection. "I can see the resemblance," he commented before continuing his meal in silence.

After collecting himself and waking up fully, Jace left the room and Isabelle took his place in the chair. Nico began drinking his orange juice slowly while she seemed to observe him. Nico finished what he was willing to eat and pushed the rest to the side, all under her watchful, dark eyes. He'd managed to eat half a waffle and a few sips of orange juice, Will would be proud. Nico picked up the Codex again and continued reading, as much as his ADHD would permit.

"Hey, Nico?" Isabell spoke up, and Nico looked up from reading, "Tell me something about you."

Nico frowned and knit his eyebrows in confusion, "'Something about me'?" he parrotted.

"Yeah! Your interests and stuff, you sure seem to have a thing for daggers." She continued.

Nico remained silent this time, not currently in the mood for an interrogation.

"Please?" She pouted and batted her eyelashes. She was pretty, but Nico was immune to her feminine charm that would definitely have a few of the demigods back at camp flustered.

Nico looked up from his book and let it fall to his lap, met her eyes... then went back to reading. She groaned in frustration. Nico smirked into his book, amused at her attempts at least, but the book was bringing to bore him at this point, and his mind was split between escape, his current situation, and Will. He had today to escape, or his entire situation would end up a lot more chaotic, especially if Will got some of the others involved in his rescue. Utter chaos.

"Aren't you gloomy..." Isabelle huffed and Nico glanced up at her from his book.

"A reasonable response to my current situation," Nico responded.

Isabelle looked exasperated, "I understand that you don't want to be here, or even know fully about the Shadow World, but... we can't let you go."

"And why not?" Nico snapped.

"What you did was powerful dark magic... and whether you knew it or not, it's illegal to mess with that kind of stuff and it usually has some pretty nasty consequences. We just really want to know why. Why can you do magic like that and be fine? And why attack those ghosts?" Isabelle explained.

The last piece of the puzzle finally clicked in place within Nico's mind, exhaustion had clouded him to the full situation earlier, but now he had a solid grasp of his situation.

In their "Shadow World" full of rules, Necromancy of all types was forbidden, and Nico didn't particularly disagree with this. Because he'd been caught in the act, he'd been arrested. He was also an anomaly to them since he was a demigod, which they knew nothing about. Nico also had to take into account what information he'd given them through his actions. He'd given the appearance of a frightened child acting on orders and instinct, but the facade was imperfect. Nico was walking on eggshells, and he knew it.

"I..." Nico began meekly, "I don't know how or why I can do this... but I know what I'm doing..." Nico added.

Isabelle sighed, giving him a small smile, "I believe you, but in the end, it's not me you're going to have to convince," she admitted.

Nico frowned and almost asked who he was supposed to convince when he caught himself and just responded with "Huh?"

"The Inquisitor is going to be arriving tomorrow to investigate not only your situation, but the recent spree of Downworlder murders," she explained, and Nico paled.

The Codex had defined the Inquisitor as one of the main leaders of the Nephilim, and Nico wanted to avoid meeting him at all, but he also didn't overlook the second half of her statement.

"Murders..." Nico echoed.

Isabelle gave him a side glance. "Do you know anything about them?"

"No, not at all, " Nico responded truthfully.

Isabelle sighed, but didn't pursue the topic and seemed to escape into her own thoughts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The assortment of items placed on the table in front of Magnus honestly confused him. There was a small variety of daggers, a plastic bag of something similar to lemon squares, and a corked vial of a golden liquid. It was very uncommon when Magnus had little clue what he was looking at, and now he had taken it as a personal challenge.

Magnus had been given the boy's belongings to try and identify some of the things and had taken then back to his apartment. He didn't know how to feel about taking these things, but he still had a job to do. Unfortunately, this was a solo mission, since the Shadowhunters were spread thin between trying to figure out the current murder spree of Downworlders and were trying to find the killer.

First, he had completely disregarded the silver dagger as an obvious answer and therefore not worthy of his time. The black and bronze daggers were more of a challenge. The bronze one reminded him of a few legendary swords with its soft glow, which struck Magnus as odd since he'd never heard of a legendary dagger and there was no inscription on this dagger, which it should've had if it was something legendary.

The throwing knife was a worrying sight. Jace had helpfully mentioned how odd it was to only carry one throwing knife, but Magnus really could care less. The material rung a few bells, and none of them the pleasant kind. There were many different kinds of demon-metals Magnus had encountered through the years, some he had even used himself, but not exactly like this. Demon-metals were typically more similar to seraph blades, like glass and glowed a bit, just evil. But this one was more like the exact opposite of a seraph blade, opaque black so dark it absorbed light instead of emitting it, instead of fire this blade was ice.

Magnus was seriously concerned where a 14-year-old could get this type of stuff. The Shadow Markets rarely had this type of stuff, maybe once every few centuries, let alone both of the peculiar daggers. Then there was the matter of the other substances.

The lemon-square things and the golden vial. Magnus doubted they were poisons... possible but not like any he'd seen... this, unfortunately, stumped him, even after a few hours in the Institute library and his own personal collection. It was almost frustrating trying to figure it out on his own.

Then there was the final matter of the boy himself. Magnus got an uncomfortable knot in his stomach... not only about the black magic the boy was easily capable of but the boy himself. He knew the boy was lying about not knowing, it wasn't the most convincing or thought-out story Magnus had ever heard. He had met thousands of people through his life, but nothing like the mystery of Nico... whatever his last name was. It upset him on an emotional level, and Magnus didn't like that. Something was seriously wrong, but he didn't know what it was.

There were two many questions Magnus was beginning to need answers too, so why not go to the source of all this confusion itself?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Magnus returned to the Institue (let inside by a tired-looking Simon), and bee-lined to the training room where Nico was being kept. Inside, Isabelle was quietly messing with her phone, occasionally glancing towards the boy trapped in the barrier, who read through and scribbled occasionally in a version of the Shadowhunter's Codex. Magnus perked up at the title written in Latin, interest further peaked.

"Oh, hi Magnus," Isabelle let out a yawn and stretched out in her chair, "what's up?"

Magnus blinked, gathering his thought first, "I wanna talk with Nico here about some stuff."

At his name, Nico looked up from his book before quickly returning to it.

"Alright then, I'm going to take a break... I want some coffee." Isabelle picked herself up from the chair and walked out of the room, casting a back glance at the boy, a thoughtful and concerned glance.

Magnus promptly grabbed the chair, spun it around and straddled it, facing the teen with his face in a book, scribbling something every so often on a page.

Magnus finally took in the full appearance of the boy in front of him, trying to figure everything out just from that. Dark, well-worn clothes, heavy boots, pale skin from lack of sunlight or ill health, shadows under his eyes so very close to black. Scars littered his arms like how Nephilum decorated themselves in runes. In fact, he was so very much like a Shadowhunter in the way he held himself, strong and ready to face the world with a blade in hand like Magnus had seen in the theater, that it was almost uncanny.

But then there were all the differences that stood out just as starkly as the similarities. Nephilim held themselves almost pridefully, as enforcers of good, but this boy did not. He was not an enforcer, but something else, a silent, cunning pride similar to what Magnus often saw in fae and other warlocks, himself included. It immediately reinforced Magnus's belief that his helpless act was false.

"Are you just going to sit there and stare at me all day or say something?" Nico quipped.

"Whoever taught you clearly gave you a well-rounded education if you prefer to read in Latin," Magnus responded in a similar tone.

He looked up from his book, a calculating and curious glance but also cold and irritated. "It's a useful language and a good base to learn other languages, and no one taught me. I taught myself."

"I refuse to believe that you've learned everything by yourself," Magnus argued.

"What do you mean? People learn languages by themselves all the time."

"Not just the languages, magic and swordplay as well. I also refuse to believe that you have no clue about anything." He pushed further.

At this point, Nico just sighed and set down his book, adjusting himself and fully facing Magnus. Magnus didn't feel like he was scolding a child at the moment, despite what he told himself. "Tell me what those golden substances are," he demanded.

"So you have my stuff now, huh?" the boy said, not answering the question.

"What's in the ziplock and the vial?"

"Nothing dangerous if you leave them alone."

Magnus sighed, "Fine... then where'd you get those daggers? The bronze and the demon metal ones."

"Demon metal?" he echoed, "They were gifts."

Some gifts, Magnus thought.

"My turn," Nico said, "Who are you exactly?"

Magnus was taken aback for a moment, then fixed his composure, "Magnus Bane, the High Warlock of Brooklyn," he answered.

The boy tapped the cover of the Codex thoughtfully, "Well, Magnus Bane, since there is no fooling you, just know I don't care about some Laws of a people I've never heard of before, and I fully plan to get out of here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nico was waiting for the right moment to escape when no one was watching him and he could just shadowtravel out. The warlock had his things, which bothered Nico since he was rather fond of his Stygian Iron throwing knife, but at this point, he had more important things. He was more uncomfortable with leaving his stuff with the Nephilim on the point that they continued and try to figure out who he really was.

Nico didn't care that Golden Boy and Magnus knew his act was well... an act, and he couldn't help but try and push their buttons, it was amusing and he was ticked off. Isabelle returned sipping on some coffee not long after Magnus left, leaving Nico yet again unable to do anything without causing a mess. A biased, narcissistic book about the Shadow World his only companion.

After Isabelle left, another Shadowhunter took her place sometime in the mid-afternoon. He had brown hair and eyes, a pair of glasses sat on his nose. He was apparently uncomfortable enough to stay quiet most of the time and was reading through a book of his own, some comic Nico didn't know the name of that read from back to front.

Nico was also getting restless, his window to get back to camp shortening by the minute and he could barely focus on reading any further, and paced diagonally through his area, kicking the blankets to the side. He was given a dinner of take-out Chinese food that Nico barely touched, munching on a few bites of fried rice before pushing it into a corner, and drinking a can of soda. Glasses, since Nico didn't bother with asking his name, didn't question why Nico didn't eat very much, which made him Nico's favorite so far since he didn't try to talk and minded his own business.

Sometime around 7 pm, Nico finally got his chance. Glasses left the room for a little while, and Nico immediately crawled under his blanket to hide in the shadows and attempted to shadowtravel to Camp. Attempted.

Nico slammed into something, blocking him from his direct route of escape. He groaned in a mixture of pain and annoyance, aching all over as if he had slammed into a physical wall instead of whatever was keeping him inside of this Institute. Then, Nico quickly put some dots together and figured he'd slammed into the Institute's wards, thanks Codex, very helpful. He was ejected right back into his cube of space, not even outside of it. Very helpful.

Nico then turned to his secondary escape plan, and eyed the window roughly 30 feet above the training room floor, too high to be reached by ordinary means, luckily, Nico wasn't going to use ordinary means. He felt the weight on his back as he unfurled his wings, shifting them around to avoid hitting the barrier as much as he could but still brushing up against it.

The midnight appendages reached upward before slamming hard into the ground, the sound echoing throughout the empty chamber, and Nico was gone. A few impossibly black feathers were left behind in the folds of the blanket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Simon slammed open the library doors, and Jace thought, just for a moment, he was definitely going to steal his glasses and hide them later.

"He's gone!" Simon exclaimed, "Emo kid is gone!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Clary thrummed her pencil against her desk, staring at her newest collection of scribbles. She watched impatiently out of the window, searching for either the inspiration to draw, research, or just entertain herself.

A flicker of movement caught her eye in the dying sunlight, a dark figure with pale skin fleeing from the institute towards the roads, clearing the spiked fence with little trouble. A sense of deja-vu mixed with recognition overcame her instantly.

He was the same boy Clary had seen a vision of and who currently decorated the previous page of her sketchbook. He vanished into the crowds and afternoon shadows on the other side of the fence before Clary could respond to her own turbulent thoughts.

Mangus walked through the hallways, on his way to talk to Nico about his peculiar belongings.

"Hey Magnus," Jace greeted as he passed by, "Any luck with the kid's stuff?"

Magnus tiredly ran his fingers through his hair but was careful not to mess it up. "I have an okay understanding of the daggers, but the vial and squares have me stumped. I'm going to ask him about them now. Any luck identifying witnesses and suspects for the serial killer case?" Magnus asked in turn, making polite conversation.

"We might have a witness, but there's a ton of written reports to go through first," Jace groaned, "What about the phone? Did you manage to unlock it?"

Magnus was confused, "You didn't give me a phone, only the knives, and the substances."

"Pretty sure I did..." Jace muttered, "Yeah, I definitely gave you the phone to magically get into it."

Magnus shook his head, "Nope, I don't have the phone."

"Damn it."

~~~~

Nico was on a chapter about different kinds of demons, writing in the margins in the section about hellhounds and a few other monsters he recognized, Mrs. O'Leary was not that bad.

A weight suddenly appeared in his back pocket, causing Nico to jump and grasp for whatever had just appeared in his pocket. He stared incredulously at the black device that had somehow found him again and wrote it off as stupid magic. His phone or whatever it technically was apparently could magically return to his pocket.

"Huh," Nico huffed and Glasses glanced back up at him, Nico slipping the device back into his pocket without notice.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Sup. First off, very thankful for the 200 reads so far, happy the book is at least that enjoyable, so here's a chapter I just finished. (8/9/2020)