Isabelle knows she has been a Shadowhunter all her life. She knows how to fight, to keep going, to not fall or fail. It is who she is. She also knows that she's Isabelle Lightwood. She's beautiful, untouchable, invulnerable and above all, a fighter.

She fights to be as good as the boys at slaying demons. She fights to pretend that the world doesn't hurt her. Sometimes she fights so those dumb boys she loves so much will eat the damn food she cooked for them, preferably without complaint. Cooking isn't really her greatest skill. She'd like to see one of them try for once.

Like any Shadowhunter, family is important to her. If that makes her proud, so be it. If it means she thinks herself superior to mundanes... that's probably true as well. More than anything, she loves her brothers and wants to protect them. Alec from other people, Jace from himself and Max... well, she knows she's too late to protect Max from anything and that she will never forget. She won't forgive herself either, no matter what the others say because she was his big sister and all he had was that stupid toy.

Isabelle knows she finds herself in love a little too easily. Not love-love like Jace and Clary or Alec and Magnus but a less complicated, less consuming version that is, in the end rather easy to throw aside.

She thinks maybe she got her ideas of love from watching Jace and Alec struggle and hurt for years but now they're finally happy and Isabelle wonders if she might be missing out. Sometimes she looks at Simon and wonders but then, she's Isabelle Lightwood and she doesn't know how to fall. She remembers how she felt when she found out about what was truly between her parents. Isabelle had discovered what love could do and she didn't want any part of it. She still doesn't.

She'll never admit it to anyone but she's scared. She's scared because all she knows is sometimes she hates Maia, and even Clary because what if he still loves Clary? And maybe she does want to go against her instincts, and her years of training and just let herself fall. Simon makes her feel unsure but so-so happy and maybe it is love-love because it's a little like the way she feels when she's soaring through the air about to decapitate a demon with her golden whip. Is it love? Isabelle doesn't know. She does know that would probably sound like a strange comparison to a mundane (and yes she knows that expression makes her sound conceited) but that is when she feels the most like Isabelle.