Heart of the Father

Jace looked down at the ring in his hand. The silver shone in the light of his bedroom in the Institute, and the engraved image of a bird taking flight reflected in his golden eyes.

"I wonder why she had it," he mused in a hushed voice, twisting it in his fingers. He knew that somehow Tessa Gray had a deep connection with the Shadowhunters, but it was decidedly unlike any Shadowhunter to leave such a personal heirloom with a Downworlder. He supposed Alec would do something of the like with Magnus – but they were a new situation entirely – unique to Shadowhunter history.

"She said it belonged to James Herondale," said Clary, her green eyes watching him from her perch beside him on the bed. "He must be at least a generation or two back; Imogen was married to a Marcus, right?"

Jace didn't know a lot about the Herondale family – only what his father had left in scrawled handwriting. Words of love and praise – worlds away and about as real to Jace as a Heffelump or Woozle. How was he supposed to understand a man whom he'd never known to exist a year ago? Blood was thick but… it didn't feel quite as thick as ages of praise had made it seem.

Jace nodded and looked up. "Institutes usually keep records of family trees and lineages in the library. Maybe there will be something in there about James Herondale."

Clary looked surprised. "Maybe." She paused. Jace implored her with his eyes, looking into hers quizzically. She chewed on her lip, gazing at him curiously before speaking. "I was just thinking – if they keep family histories in the library, why haven't you looked in there before? You know… just… to understand more? You've seemed so confused…"

"Yes," Jace conceded. He knew it would have been the rational thing to do. But one long lost relative had been enough for him at the time. And besides, they'd been dealing with so much, it had hardly seemed the time to start perusing old books to see what sort of ridiculous mustache his great-great-great-great grandfather had fashioned for himself in the eighteen hundreds. "But, I wasn't sure…" he shrugged, and ran his fingers through his hair, and Clary noticed he had put the Herondale ring on his finger again. "It seemed overwhelming. And also… distant." He looked at the ring on his hand, and shrugged. "I guess this gives me an excuse. Come on, let's go before Maryse goes in there."

"Do all the Institutes keep the same records?" Clary asked as Jace led her through the shelves, eyes scanning the gold plated shelf labels.

He nodded. "The Silent Brothers have the real library in the Bone City. The Institutes keep the basics, the necessities; the Shadowhunter Codex, instruction manuals, demonologies, the histories, and Shadowhunter records. And then, every institute has its own unique collection. But the books that every Institute contains, those are all linked to the originals in the Bone City."

"The originals?"

"Information needs to be updated frequently. There are runes that bind things together – not unlike the one tying me to Sebastian," he scowled at the thought as he paused in front of a stack and began to climb the ladder upward. "What is in one book is in the other. As the librarians of the Shadowhunters, the Silent Brothers are responsible for keeping the records up to date."

His fingers skim, twiddling, along the rows of spines. Light poured in through the stained glass window depicting the familiar image of Raziel rising from the lake. The colored light shadowed his face, illuminating half with magentas and navies, and casting the other half into darkness. To Clary, he looked like a work of art himself; carefully sculpted and colored… an angel among the earthly planes.

"Here," said Jace in small triumph, pulling a large brown mass from a shelf, and began to climb back down the ladder.

Taking Clary's hand, he pulled her toward one of the tables in the middle of the room. They sat, and Jace set the book on the table. It was brown, heavy leather, a golden medallion emblazoned in the center, the same image of a bird taking flight as on the Herondale ring, and below it, in elegant script the word "Herondale" shining proudly.

Tentatively, Jace opened the front page. There laid an inscription, written in hand with a flourish.

"Is not this house as nigh heaven as my own?" – Sir Thomas Moore

The next page had a dedication, general words about the strength and honor of the Herondale family and name. Jace, not having much patience with it, turned the page again. "Table of Contents;" with the outlined family tree, the descriptions of the family members individually (birth and death dates, special or unusual characteristics, marriages, children, parabatai, counsel positions… etc.), and even family portraits at the very back.

"Individual descriptions," Jace mutters, and finds the page number. His long fingers flip through the pages delicately. "Excellent. There's only one James." He says, and begins to read aloud.

James Herondale; 1886 – 1963

m. Cordelia Carstairs

p. Matthew Fairchild

Child of William and Theresa Herondale

Elder brother of Lucie Herondale

Father to Owen Herondale

Warlock blood present; effects – various

"Warlock blood?" Clary piped up in surprise. "I didn't know that was possible. Aren't warlocks sterile?"

"It isn't possible," Jace agrees, his brow furrowed. "Effects various?" He mused, and turned the page back one, hoping for an explanation. Surely Hodge would have mentioned if such a thing were possible? It seemed like an inexcusable gap in their tutoring. Shadowhunters generally burdened themselves with the task of knowing every tiny detail about the Downworld community and their physical abilities or limits. It helped them keep tabs – records. And came in handy if they were to need some sort of upper hand on a group of unruly Downworlders…

He flipped the page.

William Herondale; 1861 – 1937

m. Theresa Gray (warlock/ unmarked Shadowhunter)

p. James Carstairs

Child of Edmund and Lynette Herondale

Younger to Ella, elder to Cecily Herondale

Father to James and Lucie Herondale

William Herondale… he recognized the name. For a moment he couldn't place it, and then he remembered; It was the same name in the copy of A Tale of Two Cities he'd gotten from Valentine. And below that, married to…

"Theresa Gray?" Jace looked up, meeting Clary's equally surprised eyes. "As in… Tessa Gray?"

"She is a warlock," Clary's said fervently, and Jace could practically feel the excitement radiating off of her like waves of heat. "And that would make sense for her to have the ring – if James Herondale were her son… But warlocks are sterile!"

"It says she's both warlock and unmarked Shadowhunter." Whatever clarification Jace had hoped to find about James Herondale by turning the page back, immediately vanished. And he suddenly felt a little bitterness toward his former tutor for clearly not having explained the logistics of warlock-ism thoroughly. "A Shadowhunter without marks? And a warlock? What kind of Shadowhunter is unmarked? But it makes no sense. Everything we know about Warlock and Shadowhunter procreation says that the offspring are stillborn."

"But look! James Carstairs!" Clary pointed at the page, her finger jamming hard against the paper. "James as in Brother Zachariah?"

Jace shook his head instinctively. "No… family names are usually kept throughout generations… there could be five different James Carstairs for all we know, Clary."

"But Jace, that would fit too! He's been a Silent Brother for a long time, he said. And if he were William Herondale's parabatai, that would explain his devotion to the Herondales, and how he knows Tessa –" she stopped, and screwed up her face. "That's… that would mean…"

Jace knew what she meant, and his nose crinkled. Suddenly he had a frightening image in his mind of Alec becoming one of the Brotherhood, and years after he himself were dead and buried, Alec and Clary somehow… He shook his head vehemently.

"That would mean William Herondale's parabatai and wife from… a hundred and thirty years ago are now doing the horizontal tango." He shook his head in disbelief. "As long as a hundred and thirty years is…" He stared at the page with intense focus.

A warlock Shadowhunter. No, that didn't add up.

A warlock Shadowhunter who could have children. Nephilim children. That was like saying two and two equated to five.

A warlock Shadowhunter living years past her Shadowhunter husband's death, only to eventually end up with her Shadowhunter husband's parabatai who was a Silent Brother until he wasn't…

It clearly did not add up.

"I'm still confused." He slumped in his chair. "Maybe…" he sat a little straighter, then grimaced and slumped again in his chair with a huff. "Nope. This makes no sense. Color me confused." He was beginning to think he'd been right before when the thought of trying to piece together any more family history than simply Stephen Herondale would be too much.

"Tessa did say that if you ever wanted to talk to someone about your family – I mean, I guess if any of this is true it would make her technically… your…" Clary counted backward on her fingers, mouthing silently. "Your great, great, great, great grandmother."

Jace's eyes widened. "Sure, I have a great- times-four great grandmother casually hanging out down the lane from me despite the fact that she looks like she could be my older sister." If this were true. Which it wasn't. Because it was impossible. Physically, historically, supernaturally impossible.

And yet…

He dropped his face into his hands. "I could have living family," he whispered. He had living family – a hundred and fifty year old family that still lived, when none of the appropriately aged family had lived. It made his head spin. And his great-whatever grandmother was a Warlock? A warlock-Shadowhunter? His head was pounding and he could feel a headache coming on…

It was a moment before he looked up, Clary waiting silently with her concerned eyes, and said, "How do I contact Tessa Gray?"