New York City, the city that never sleeps. I fell in love with it at the age of eight when we came to visit for the first time, running around Central Park and tugging on my little brother's hand as he complained that he didn't want to run anymore. I remember letting go of it and sprinting for as long as I could manage, collapsing on the grass in a breathless heap as I began to laugh, staring up at the autumnal leaves above me. There was something about the electricity in the air here that just made me feel alive and at home all at the same time. At eight, I had no idea that by the time I was thirteen I would be moving to my favourite city on Earth.

My phone buzzed, catching my attention as I paced down the streets of Brooklyn absent-mindedly. Everyone always knows that if they can't find me in the weapons room training that I'm lost to the city, wandering around to wherever my feet will take me.

"Meet you in 15? S x"

I couldn't even stop the smile that stretched itself over my features as I read his message. I was becoming one of those girls Izzy always laughs at, foolishly falling head over heels in love with a boy that surely is only bound to break my heart. "The first one to fall is the first one to get hurt" she once told me, and Izzy tends to know her stuff when it comes to boys. And then there's Jace with his whole "to be loved is to be destroyed" spiel that he doesn't seem to ever get tired of giving me when he catches me looking at some good looking male in Pandemonium or wherever else we might be.

But honestly, I've stopped looking since I met Seb.

I turned around, and headed to our favourite spot. A small coffee shop not far from the little bookshop where we met. I'd stumbled upon it when I was on another of my jaunts and had thought it was too pretty not too at least have a look inside, and I've been thanking Raziel for almost two months now that I had the inclination to check it out - but it was hard to pull me away from books anyway. A child of the Nephilim can't always rely on being good with a seraph blade, being smart helps more than I know Jace would care to admit.

I sat down at 'our' table - okay, it's making even me feel sick how cliched I've become - and ordered a coffee while I waited, it had been ten minutes since his text. When the little bell rang as the door opened my heart jumped in my chest as a flash of platinum blond hair caught my eye and forced that smile back onto my face.

"Hello you," He purred at me as he sat down opposite me and smiled that beautifully crooked grin as he reached one of his graceful hands across the table and curled it around my own, his thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand.

"Good afternoon Seb," I faltered for eloquent words around him, his presence making me lose all sense of the world around me. It took me a moment to shake the haze that fell over me whenever he entered the room, but then I let the smile slip away and took a sip of my coffee whilst he waived over a waitress and ordered himself a tea.

I don't know all that much about Seb to say that he makes me feel this strongly. He's a Shadowhunter but he's asked me not to mention his name to anyone, but all I could tell anyone if I wanted to is that his name is Sebastian, he's nineteen and he makes me feel like someone has set me on fire in the most blissful way possible. His eyes are so dark they're almost black, he's tall and slender but by the Angel, beneath that shirt is a work of sculpted art. He's witty and charming, he is intensely intelligent and he's attentive. He has sat up in the middle of the night on the phone listening to me vent my emotions to him after a huge fight with Jace - more than once. Every part of me thinks he's a perfect angel - and that's why I don't trust him. But I also don't pay much attention to that nagging voice in the back of my mind, I carry on seeing him anyway because how will I ever know why he wants to be kept a secret from my friends if I don't take a leap down the rabbit hole into Wonderland with Alice?

As I began the walk home towards the Institute it crossed my mind that I hadn't spoken to my brother for a few weeks now, and it was surely almost time for another horrendous trip 'home' to Chicago. Even as a child, I'd never really fit in with my family. Sure, I fit in perfectly with the Nephilim breed, as I was everything the Clave wanted in a warrior to add to their ranks. But the Cartwright family? I'd never really found my footing within the confines of that family dynamic. My little brother, Jon, was always the centre of attention because how on earth could that chubby little angel ever do any wrong when his older sister made enough trouble to last a lifetime for our mother, Laura.

At thirteen, I apparently took the last straw and yanked it as hard as I could from my mother's hand. I pushed Jon against the wall and told him not to move or I'd punch him so hard he'd wake up next week, placed an apple on top of his head and used him as target practice with my brand new crossbow. So that was it, good-bye to the Institute in Chicago, and I was shipped off to New York to go live with Maryse Lightwood, my mother's childhood best friend, and her family. It's been four and a half years now, and I'm almost eighteen. I'll probably choose to stay here, rather than go anywhere else, it's not like the New York Institute is bursting at the seams with inhabitants so it's not like they can tell me there's no room left here for me as a legal adult.

"Hey A," Jace. I looked up from the book I was pretending to be reading and flashed him a smile, now although I'm not quite parabatai level of friendship with Jace - Alec got claim to that title - we're not far off. Whilst Alec always tries to pull Jace away from danger, tutting and running after him to make sure he doesn't get killed again, I'm the one running about two steps ahead of Jace, shouting back at him to hurry his ass up.

"You're not fooling anyone, since when did you enjoy the," Jace pulled the book from my hands and closed it to look at the spine, "… history of Ravener demons." He kinked an eyebrow at me and laughed, and at that I snatched the book back out of his hands with a scowl set across my features.
"Since they tried to kill that stupid little mundane of yours." I bit back at him, setting the book back on the pile I had collected from the surrounding bookcases. I pulled my legs up so that my feet rest on the edge of the chair and circled my arms around my knees, I never am comfortable sitting on a chair like a normal person, preferring to curl myself up however I can.

Jace sat down opposite me and sighed, neither of his best friends have taken much of a shining to his current infatuation, and the frustration of that was starting to show on his face. He may not care what most people think of him, but I know he cares about what the Lightwood family and I think.

"What?" His silence was starting to creep me out, I could almost feel some heartfelt lecture coming on and I wanted to nip it in the bud before he even considers starting. "She's assured dead weight if you plan on making her part of the 'gang'. Sure, she's Nephilim in blood but she's been raised a mundane J." He was frowning at me, the anger radiating from him was almost palpable but he knew I was right. With training, Clary could be something extraordinary like the rest of us are, but eighteen years with no training? All she would do going to do is get one of us, or herself, hurt. Alec, Jace, Izzy and I have been fighting as a team ever since I arrived here four and a half years ago - we're an established dynamic, we work like a well oiled machine, effective, deadly. Distractions cause chaos.

"I suppose you're going to suggest that she didn't hold that demon off herself either, like Alec is so adamant?" He asked me bitterly, and I rolled my eyes instantly at the petty tone in his voice.

I shrugged at him, "Raveners are hardly a difficult kill, but you didn't find anyone else there so it must've been her that managed to hold it off until you got there." As irritating as it was to admit, there was only a minuscule chance that it wasn't Clary who killed that demon, and I wasn't about to wind him up further about it.

He sighed, and let it go. "Fancy trying your hand at beating me in a fight, surely the amount of training you've been doing must've made you unbeatable?" He asked with a smirk. "Oh wait, no, it's me who's reigning champion."

"I'll kick your ass, Jonathan Christopher Wayland."

A knock came at my door a few hours later, and it swung open a second later revealing the ever radiant Isabelle. "Shall we go see if the redhead's awake? See how she's doing?" She asked, leaning up against the doorframe with a small smile.

I considered it for a moment, trying to be comforting towards Clary. She was bringing a whole lot of trouble with her and she'd only been in our lives for a matter of days. It stung a little, that she was taking my title of trouble maker. I finally rolled my eyes and sighed as I got up from my bed and followed Izzy down to the infirmary where Clary had been left to recover from the demon venom.

Izzy sat down on the edge of her bed, whilst Clary appeared to be having some sort of bad dream, her head tossing from side to side whilst her expression seemed pained, or scared - I couldn't work out which it was. All of a sudden she gasped and sat up, her green eyes flying open just as her forehead connected with Izzy's.

"Ow." Izzy fluttered her eyes momentarily, eradicating the pain from the collision.

Clary blinked, and sat back a little, "wait, I don't know you guys."
It was hard not to roll my eyes at how terrified this girl seemed of everything. But maybe it was my love of being thrown into the middle of chaos that made me so impatient towards her probably pretty regular mundane reaction to the events of the past few days.

"I'm Isabelle. This is Anya," She motioned her head towards me where I stood a little behind her, arms folded over myself. I've never been the overly friendly type, and I wasn't about to start now. "I've never seen Jace so curious about a mundane," Izzy offered her a dazzling smile, "Or distracted, and like you saw earlier - distractions are dangerous in our line of work." You couldn't tell unless you knew Izzy the way I did, because she was pulling off friendly like it was genuine - but there was a hint of a threat in what she said. Danger is a given, as a shadowhunter, but we don't exactly welcome added danger if we can avoid it.

Clary shook her head a little, and blinked back at Izzy. "I've no idea what you're talking about, who's Jace?"

I sighed loudly and took a step forward, "You really don't know much, do you?" This not-so-mundane mundane may have been ages with us all roughly, but by the Angel was she so far behind.

The look that Clary then cast towards me made me somewhat more interested as she narrowed her eyes a little, "All I know is some psychos took my mother, and now you people have taken me."

"And by taken, I assume you mean saved your life." Izzy interjected, tilting her head a little to the side as she tried to gain Clary's trust.

The footfalls of Alec interrupted us as he traipsed into the infirmary with a face like thunder, something he'd been wearing since Jace first laid eyes on the redhead.

"Mundanes shouldn't even be here." He simply said, copying my stance with his arms folded over himself.

"Where is here, exactly?" Clary asked, looking around the infirmary with confusion all over her expression.

"She's not a mundane, Alec." Jace. I'd hardly ever seen something cause this much tension between Alec and Jace. Even with all of Jace's previous conquests of lust, Alec had barely ever batted an eyelid at them - but there was something different about this.

"And how do you know that?" Alec raised a thick dark eyebrow at Jace questioningly.

"Because the seraph blade lit up when she touched it," Jace moved from one foot to the other and sighed in exasperation, "Look, Isabelle, can you…" He gestured down at where she was sat, asking her to move without actually saying it. Izzy shook her head a little, perhaps at the way Jace and Alec were acting with each other or being asked to move in such a belittling manner, but either way she stood up and moved herself over to an armchair.
Jace sat down where Izzy had been on the edge of Clary's bed, "I'm Jace Wayland." He said in a soft voice, a voice that he had never offered a virtual stranger like Clary before.

"I'm… uh," Clary began, before she was interrupted.

"Clary, Fray." I was growing tired of the fact that she couldn't figure out we weren't the ones in the dark here, we knew exactly who she was - we'd done our research.
"Yeah, we know who you are." Jace added, flashing me a look of annoyance at the tone I'd given her name.

"Am I the only one who finds this unusual?" Alec asked loudly, unfolding his arms and raising one hand palm up to make his point, his expression growing more irritated with every passing second.

"You find everything unusual, Alec." He snipped back at his parabatai.

"I have to report this to the Clave." Alec then stated, crossing his arms back over his chest. Typical Alec - follower of every single rule in place.
"You know what, dial it down a notch." Jace rolled his eyes as Izzy almost burst out laughing.

"My brother doesn't have a dial. I love you Alec, but you have a switch that's always on." She reminded us with a smile.

"I love you too but this is just-"

"Hey, you know what, gimme a minute," Jace was asking us to leave. Taking on the role of leader of our little pack as always, it was a gimmick that was starting to grow old. Being the 'greatest shadowhunter of our age' was certainly going to his head - and I say that as someone who loves him endlessly.

Alec opened his mouth to object but before he could, Jace looked at him with pleading eyes, "Here's a word you never hear me say, please." I paced over to Alec's side, getting ready to drag him out of the room if I had to, before things got too heated and the pair of them ended up rolling around on the floor trying to strangle each other.

"What is with him," Alec began as Izzy stood from her chair, "really no, what is with him?" He asked again as Izzy rolled her dark eyes at him.
"Walk with me brother, let Anya and I explain it to you." She took his arm as the three of us left the infirmary, leaving Jace to try and get any information he could from Clary.

"We don't know this girl, there's no such thing as new shadowhunters."

"There is now, Alec." I said with a shrug, what was there to say? Clary quite clearly had shadowhunter blood, she'd survived the iratze rune and the seraph blade had responded to her.

"You don't find that strange?" Alec asked Izzy and I, turning to look at us.

"What I find strange is that you're so upset. Maybe you're upset by the way Jace is looking at her." Izzy looked up at her older brother with an expression that only radiated her love for her big brother, despite his terrible temper. "You know, you should be happy that Jace is interested in someone other than himself."
"This is very true, it might actually tear him away from the mirror once in a while." I added, somewhat sarcastically.

"Maybe I'm pissed that she ruined the mission, we never find out who was buying the blood and that was our one job."

I was beginning to feel as though if I rolled my eyes one more time they'd roll right out of my head. Would the day ever come when Alec could just let go of his obsession with doing everything the way the Clave wanted us to. I kinked one eyebrow at him and sighed, "Well I guess we have a new mission now Alec, finding out who is after this untrained nephilim. She's hardly much of a threat to anyone, but she's clearly interesting to someone."

A/N: Hello lovelies! My first attempt at a TMI/Shadowhunters fic and I'm surprised it's taken me this long to even start one to be honest as TMI is life. But yeah, I'll probably use parts of the books as well as the TV show and movie as I love all three. But I hope you like Anya! As usual, I'd love your reviews and head over to my tumblr wild-stdreams for any edits etc xo