Everything was more intense.

Raphael had often told Simon about the way he experienced the world: The way every smell was more like a shout in the silence than a whisper, strong and overwhelming if you didn't have the strength of will to resist it. How there was even noise in what normal humans would consider silence. That he never experienced quiet for there was always something disrupting it, even if it was only the sound of a mouse shuffling underneath the floorboards or the electricity humming in the walls.

But the worst was the way he perceived humans: How their heartbeat was a hypnotising steady rhythm that you had to fight against every waking second lest it ensnared you into doing something you would regret later. The faint smell of blood that always poured off them like a never-ending fountain, that made his fangs itch and the more animalistic side of him rise in gleeful anticipation.

But it was nothing against the desperate yearning he felt when he felt their life, their essence, something Raphael had long lost. He hadn't been able to describe it properly, for how did you describe a sense to someone who lacked it, but vampires had this instinctive grasp on another living being's life essence. They desperately coveted it, and yet could never have it.

Back then Simon thought he had understood, at least a little bit, but now that he had been turned into a vampire himself, he realised what a fool he had been, thinking he understood when he indeed understood nothing.

It felt like he was bombarded with sensory input that overloaded his senses to such a degree that he felt like he would explode. By human standards Camille's safe house was quiet as a graveyard – pun intended – but every time he shifted his position, he could hear the fabric of the couch underneath him shift. He imagined he could hear every single fibre move. He could hear the lightbulb buzzing above his head. The single fly circling around it sounded like a bomber from World War Two flying above his head.

Every window was closed and yet Simon could still hear the city outside, the cars, the people, the distant howling of police sirens, cutting through his head like a hot knife through butter.

He could smell every single particle of dust in the air, could practically taste the remains of the blood that had been in the glass Camille had drunk from and just this faint trace was enough to make his fangs extend in anticipation. He could smell Camille herself, vanilla, dust and something else he couldn't quite put his fingers on.

And then there was his changed eyesight: He didn't need his glasses any longer. With his new vampiric sight, it was as if a grey veil had been lifted from his eyes and now he was suddenly seeing the world's real colours for the first time. The red so bright and intense, the blue so deep and calming, the yellow so strong,

It was too much. His head hurt from the input, feeling as if it was split in half, as if a whole army of miners was trying to take his brain apart. He tried to close his eyes, breathing through his mouth, but it was to practically no avail. The world around him wanted to be known, and nothing Simon did could block it out.

"It gets better," Camille stated as if she knew what he was going through. Well, she probably did. "It never gets away, but it gets better. You learn to ignore it."

Simon gritted his teeth, suppressing the urge to just scream at her. He was at a disadvantage, completely at her mercy. No need to antagonise her needlessly, even if it would make him feel better.

They were sitting opposite of each other: Camille completely relaxed, launching on her couch, mustering Simon with faint interest, the way you would look at a priced animal at a zoo. Between them nothing but an empty glass table and then Simon on the second couch, crouched together as if he wanted to offer Camille as little attack surface as possible.

They were both aware that she could kill him without even breaking into sweat.

"That's good I guess," Simon replied, trying to sound more confident than he actually felt. "I guess I should also thank you for saving me."

"I didn't do it for you," Camille clarified.

"I didn't even think for a split-second that you had anything but yourself in mind when you did it," Simon agreed with her. "Doesn't mean that it isn't nice to be alive."

"We're not really alive, though," Camille pointed out. Was he really having a philosophical debate with Camille Belacourt after she had turned him into a vampire? "As to what will happen now? I'm still waiting for your eventual mental break-down. You were killed and betrayed by one you held close to your heart, after all."

Suddenly it was as if all air had been sucked out of Simon's lungs, even though he didn't need to breath anymore. Camille's words brought him back to the empty back alley, brought back the searing pain in his chest, brought back the cold, undiluted horror and grief when he had locked up at his assailant and had found Jocelyn's face staring back at him, her eyes devoid of the warmth he usually associated with her, just filled with merciless detachment. As if Simon wasn't the best friend of her daughter, part of her small family; as if he was just another obstacle that had to be thrown out of the way.

Simon just couldn't understand what had happened. The raw facts where there, he had experienced it, but emotionally he was just a big mess, unable to comprehend what had occurred. What had driven Jocelyn to such lengths that she would kill him? Who was she even? Had all those years been nothing but a smokescreen, intended to mask the real Jocelyn, whoever that was? Did he even know anything?

"I just don't...understand," he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. Camille wouldn't care, for sure.

"It's not that difficult, isn't it?" she spoke. "Your dear Jocelyn has never renounced Valentine as truly as she made all of you believe. She has worked for him – or with him, they are still officially married after all – all the while you were running around to fight him."

"But she's been hiding from him for over eighteen years," Simon protested. "She let Clary believe that she was just a mundane girl. Why would she do that if she was secretly working with Valentine?"

"I don't know," Camile admitted. "That's something you have to ask her." There was still so much doubt, so much confusion, hurt and lingering questions, but Simon was well aware that out of all people in New York Camille was the last one who would offer him any support or comfort. A stone was more emotionally available than the leader of New York's vampire population.

"So, how is this supposed to go down?" Simon wanted to know, curiosity roused. "Why would you want to help destroy Valentine? I mean, you're a Downworlder, so you obviously have reasons to, but why get yourself involved if you could just watch from the side-lines as the fractions decimate each other? It would be much more your style."

"Valentine has something I'd do anything to get back," Camille replied. She was still poised as ever, but Simon believed that he could sense the wrath underneath that disguise as Camille spoke of it. "He coerced and threatened me. That is not something I can let stand uncontested."

Simon mulled over that, trying to come up with what Valentine had had Camille under his control for so long. "The Book of the White," he exclaimed. "It was you Valentine stole it from." He didn't say that Camille probably had stolen it from its previous owner, too.

"I know that it's no longer in his possession," Camille told him. "You and your ragtag team of scoundrels have liberated it. That's why I was observing the Institute. Why I found you."

"How did you know that?" Simon wanted to know.

Camille just smiled at him sharply. "How do you think? Raphael, of course." She relished in Simon's confusion. "Do you really think I just let him wander around with you? No, he was my informant in your little circle of friends. I always thought it would come in handy." She leaned back a little bit. "Of course, he held back all that he could, he's sentimental like that, but he also knew that he needed to keep me satisfied he wanted to keep his dalliance with you. And keeping the White Book from me...well, that would have left me very much unsatisfied." She looked at Simon, waiting for his reaction.

"Don't you think I already knew that?" he spit back. "Of course, I suspected that there was something that kept you off our backs, but he never told me what." He had never pried further, too afraid that Raphael in his self-tormenting ways would just completely shut himself off in an ill-conceived attempt to "save" Simon from Camille's influence. Because Simon trusted Raphael and trusted in the fact that when push came to shove, he would chose Simon.

"I guess you aren't as naïve as I thought you were," Camille hummed nonchalantly. "I shouldn't underestimate you."

"Guess you shouldn't," Simon replied. "But let's not start threatening each other. We had enough of that already." He leaned forward. "The question is how much of a collaborative effort this is gonna be. Do we work together or am I just your prisoner?" There was a challenging note in his last statement. If Camille decided that Simon was just a tool she was going to use as she saw fit, then he was going to fight her all the way, even if it would prove itself useless in the end. He had no clue as to what Camille would or could do or how her being his sire would provide her with supernatural leverage over him.

"I thought about it," Camille admitted. "Using the sire bond to influence you. It is possible, albeit difficult. And it only works on those whose minds are weak and suspectable. I doubt it would work on you for very long. I would have achieved nothing but earning your enmity. Why go through all hassle when I can have you work with me willingly?"

"Well, then I guess you won't mind telling me where my phone is?" Simon asked.

"Do you think it wise to announce your survival to anyone?" Camille questioned him as she stood up and walked towards one of her expensive looking wooden drawers. "It'd be better if they thought of you as dead."

"How about no?!" Simon snapped at her, more than a little irritated. "I know what it does to people when their loved ones die. I won't do that to anyone, not when I can help it."

"Don't lecture me about loss!" Camille snarled back and Simon shrunk back in fear. "I know more about grief and loss than you could ever comprehend."

"Then you also know why I have to tell them," Simon replied, evenly but also with a little bit of pity in his voice.

"The girl will betray you," Camille stated, throwing Simon's phone at him that she had fished out of the drawer. "She won't believe you over her mother. Not when she moved heaven and hell to find her. Raphael and Magnus – their lack of grief will alert Jocelyn about your continued survival. You're about to squander all your advantages out of sentimentality." And yet she made no move to force the issue.

"Jocelyn barely knows Magnus and has never met Raphael," Simon retorted. "She won't know if their grief is real or not." But she was right about Clary, even if Simon didn't want to admit it. Clary loved her mother too much to believe Simon, wouldn't want to keep quiet about his survival, no matter how dire the situation was. She would tell Jocelyn no matter what, because she was her mother and Clary loved her more than anything on this world.

"You didn't say anything about your Shadowhunter friend," Camille spoke triumphantly.

Simon just glared at her and unlocked his phone. For a split-second his fingers hovered over the number pad. Then he called.

It only took a few rings before his call was picked up.

"Hi. You won't believe what just happened to me..."

"Why would you think something happened to Simon?" Magnus wanted to know as he ushered Raphael into the room, closing the door behind him with a wave of his hand. He gave Alexander an apologetic gaze, but the Shadowhunter just shrugged, as if he understood that Magnus couldn't be blamed for the rather unfortunate turn of events. Raphael didn't even demand that the Shadowhunter left them alone, a testament to his distress.

"We were supposed to meet up tonight," Raphael began to speak. "He didn't turn up, so I started to look for him, first at his home, then at the Institute. That was when I found it: His blood. Lots of it. Too much for a simple accident." He looked up at Magnus and there was so much anguish in his gaze that Magnus could feel his own heart break just a little bit. "But I didn't find him. I couldn't trace him. Something – or someone happened to him." He didn't need to say out loud who he was referring to.

"I'll scry for him," Magnus offered immediately. He turned towards Alexander. "Would you be so kind and bring me the scrying bowl from the other room?" He pointed towards the room on the other side of the hallway.

"I don't know how a scrying bowl is supposed to look like," Alexander admitted.

Magnus sighed in fond exasperation. "You can't possibly miss it. It's got its own pedestal." While Alexander left the room to bring back the bowl, Magnus turned back towards Raphael.

"Don't worry," he comforted the vampire. "Whatever happened to Simon, we'll find him and get him back. We went through too much to let something as insignificant as Valentine or one of his henchmen get one over us." Even though Magnus had offered nothing of substance, Raphael seemed to calm down after hearing his words.

Meanwhile, Alexander had come back with the right bowl. Magnus had just known that there was more than just looks going for this particular Shadowhunter. The scrying bowl itself was nothing special: Made of stone its diameter was roughly thirty centimetres with about ten in depth. There were no runes or other fancy embellishment on the object for you were a warlock of Magnus' considerable power you didn't need to be flashy.

With another wave of his hand, Magnus summoned a pitcher from the other side of the room and gracefully poured the water into the empty bowl until it was full. Then he had to wait until the water had calmed down.

"Simon should be fairly easy to track," he meanwhile explained. "He's wearing the amulet I made for him many years ago specifically for this purpose. Besides, I know him very well, which is another advantage."

When the water had finally settled in the bowl, Magnus allowed his magic to sweep into the bowl, infusing it with his very essence. Strands of colour began to swirl through the water, intertwining and building complex patterns before falling apart again. He concentrated on Simon, giving everything he knew about the boy – the very essence of him as he was to Magnus – into the spell, remembering the amulet's magical aura so that the spell would have it even easier to find the boy.

It should have been easy and fast. Within seconds Magnus should have been able to proclaim to the others where Simon was, but somehow his magic couldn't find the boy. Whenever he thought that there was something tangible in his grasp, it slipped off, as he was grasping for smoke instead of something solid. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

"I can't find him," Magnus admitted as he continued to push his magic into the spell.

"What does this mean?" Alexander inquired as Raphael was too stricken to utter anything.

"Every living being can be scried for," Magnus explained. "You can protect yourself against it, of course, but the scryer would notice. It isn't a very subtle kind of magic." He sighed. "And yet I can't find Simon."

"Like you said, you can only scry for living beings," Raphael interjected, tone completely devoid of emotion. "That leaves only one conclusion."

"No, he isn't dead," Magnus protested vehemently. "If he was then my spell wouldn't even have worked at all!" Now Magnus started to do something he rarely did and even if never in the presence of others: He started to panic. "It would have dissolved the moment I cast it."

"You say he isn't dead because your spell worked and yet it couldn't find him," Alexander summarised, a thoughtful expression on his face. "So, maybe he's in a state between? Unconscious or in a coma maybe?"

"The spell would still consider him alive then," Magnus argued. He huffed in frustration. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Raphael was opening his mouth to say something but before he could do so, Magnus' phone started to ring. The warlock nearly let go of it when he saw Simon's caller-ID on the screen.

"Hi. You won't believe what just happened to me..."

"Where are you?" Magnus interrupted Simon's rambling sentence before the boy could even finish.

"I'm at one of Camille's safe houses," Simon replied and rushed out to say: "She kinda saved me, to be honest."

Next to him Magnus could feel Raphael tense up as he could hear everything thanks to his supernatural hearing. The warlock itself counted to three before he started to shout: "What happened?! I'm gonna cut some bitches if I don't get answers very soon."

"Listen, Magnus," Simon started, his voice suddenly dead serious. "A lot happened and all of it kinda horrible. To be honest, I'm surprised I didn't already break down or something. Is Raphael with you? We were supposed to meet. I obviously didn't show up."

"He is," Magnus replied. "As is Alexander."

Simon sighed. "Well, that can't be helped. I trust him to keep silent about my continued existence."

"What are you talking about?" Magnus demanded to know.

"Listen, can I come to you?" Why would Simon ask that? He could always come to Magnus, his door was always open. "And I need to bring Camille with me."

"No way!" Magnus instantly shouted. "That two-faced lying bitch won't set step in my apartment."

"Magnus, I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important," Simon pleaded. "I know how you hate her and I'm not fond of her either, but we need her. At least right now. Can we just agree to a temporary truce?"

Magnus took a deep breath. Every fibre of his being resisted allowing Camille entrance in his sanctuary. The few times she had, it had always left a bitter note in his mouth. She was the worst foe of his existence and he had fought many a monster, none of them as insidious as the century-old vampire. But he also knew that Simon would never ask such of him if it wasn't of uttermost importance. He knew Magnus well enough.

"As long as she doesn't start anything she can come and will be allowed to leave," he grinded out.

"Thanks, Magnus," Simon replied. "And once we arrive, please remember: She saved my life tonight."

Well, if that didn't sound ominous.

When Magnus opened the door, he instantly got why Simon had said that. He could recognise a newly-turned vampire with closed eyes, so if Simon hadn't told him that Camille had saved him, he would have smote her right on his doorstep.

Instead, he could feel something in him break as he took in Simon's pale skin, the lack of glasses, the gracefulness he had always lacked as human and the cold aura of someone caught between life and death. This was never how it was supposed to end.

"Oh, Simon..." he breathed.

"Magnus," Simon croaked and then he threw himself at the warlock. Magnus engulfed the teenager in a fierce hug and pressed him against his chest. And that simple gesture reminded him that despite his lack of body warmth and the faint smell of blood that now clung to him, Simon was still Simon, no matter the change of species.

Raphael meanwhile, wasn't so restrained. With a fierce roar he threw himself at Camille, fangs blazing and hate burning in his eyes. He was smooth and graceful, his every movement fuelled by his emotions, but that was also his weakness. Camille had no problem evading and playing with him as if he was just a small kitten that didn't even needed to be taken seriously.

"Raphael, stop!" Simon pleaded. "It isn't what you think! She saved my life! And I would be grateful if you allowed me to explain!" Raphael's head snapped back, his eyes blown wide, the black of his pupil filling all of it and his fangs extended, the very image of enraged vampire.

Magnus snapped with his finger and the vampire was thrown back on the couch.

"For the sake of our future cooperation, I won't hold this against you," Camille said, not even a little bit out of breath. Magnus would have very liked to immolate her with his magic, but he contented himself with a sharp smile that promised Camille a lot of unpleasant things if she continued to provoke him.

"Simon, what happened?" Raphael croaked, desperation and grief in his voice. Magnus' heart went out for the vampire, for he knew how Raphael viewed his vampirism. Seeing Simon like this must be the worst imaginable thing for him.

Simon bent forward and took Raphael's head between his hands. "It's alright," he soothed his boyfriend. "I'm still here, I'm still me, just...a little bit different. We'll get through this, like we always did."

"What happened?" Alexander asked, steering the meeting back into its tracks. As Simon turned his head towards the Shadowhunter, the relief and joy with which he had looked at Raphael vanished and were replaced with sorrow and hurt.

"It's a long story," Simon began. "And none of it any good..." And so he told them about what had happened: The mysterious figure he had followed out of the Institute, the chase through the streets, and then how he had been killed. How Camille had found and turned him in a bid to stack the deck in her favour – so typically Camille that Magnus had no trouble believing it. And then Simon told them the identity of his killer.

Magnus nearly staggered back from the sheer force of the revelation that Jocelyn – Clary's mother – had been the one to drive her blade in Simon's chest. But he had lived on this world long enough that the only indication of his shock was a slight widening of his eyes. Raphael wore an expression of uttermost fury while Alexander glowered darkly at a spot above Magnus' head. The leader of the New York Institute was probably going through everything that was now compromised thanks to Jocelyn being revealed as traitor.

"You're saying that she never left Valentine?" Alexander asked for clarification.

"It appears so," Simon replied. "Back at Valentine's headquarters there was a room with paintings that looked eerily like hers. I've been thinking about it and I think it was her pastime while she was 'imprisoned'. But what I can't make sense of is why would she go into hiding with Clary for so many years?"

"A strategic retreat," Camille offered. Magnus nodded in agreement.

"Shortly before Valentine's 'defeat', his cause was practically lost," he explained. "The Clave and the Downworld were allied, most of his followers had either deflected or were being caught and imprisoned. He couldn't have won conventionally."

"But Jocelyn had the cup the whole time," Alexander said. "Why didn't she and Valentine use it?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Camille laughed. "They were waiting for something – or rather someone. Valentine came back on the eve of that Clary girl's maturity. Whatever they are planning, they had to wait for her." It sounded too logical to be anything but true.

"We can try to find out what their plan was or is later," Raphael interrupted. "More important is what do we do with her now?"

"As much as I want to straight out corner and demand answers, we can't," Simon spoke, not loud or imposing, as if he was thinking out loud. "No one wants answers more than I do. She was like a second mother to me when my real one was too caught up in her grief. She was an important part of my life. I want to look at her face and ask her for the reason. I want to see her expression when she tries to justify herself, when she tries to explain. I want to know what was worth more than my life. What made her so callously cast aside the life of the boy she helped raise." He lifted his head and looked at each of them his expression full of pain and heartbreak.

"But I can't do any of that," he continued. "I can't, because then we'd lose our biggest advantage." He took a deep breath. "We'll use Jocelyn to get to Valentine. We'll use her to finally set an end to this whole goddamn war."