1Clary sat at her desk, and yawned, looking somewhat despondently at the pile of page proofs lying in front of her. As she was trying to decide whether to carry on attempting to work, or whether to give up and take a nap, her computer pinged, quietly; Izzy, asking if she wanted to join her for coffee. Cheering up, she messaged back, and pushed the proofs into an untidy pile.
Ten minutes later, she got to the Mundane coffee shop where they generally met up. It was convenient for the Institute, and for Clary's apartment, and besides, as Izzy often pointed out, it was no fun going out for coffee and running into one of the children, much less having to deal with knowing which unsuitable Downworlder they were dating this week.
Clary ordered coffee, and sank gratefully into one of the comfortable sofas in a quiet corner. A few minutes later, Izzy showed up. Although it was spring, the weather was still cool enough to need warm clothes, so their Marks were safely covered up. As always, Izzy was wearing her whip; to any Mundane looking at her she appeared to be wearing a heavy gold bracelet in the form of a snake.
'How's things?" Izzy was cheerful as ever, but continued "Mom's driving me crazy, I needed to get out of there before she explained just once more how we should organize the monthly Council meetings, otherwise I was going to murder her"
Maryse and Robert were in their late 60s now, and had finally been persuaded by the Clave that they needed to retire as heads of the New York institute. Izzy and Simon had - to Clary's great relief – agreed to take over. She had been worried that the Clave wouldn't be happy with Simon in the job, as he hadn't been born a Shadowhunter, and that they would want Jace & her to apply. Though to be fair, as the daughter of a dangerous rebel and a runaway, who had been brought up a Mundane, she wasn't much better herself.
The plan was that the elder Lightwoods would hand over the running of the Institute, and then retire to Alicante. To be honest, Simon had been so involved in running the Institute for so long that he could have taken over on a day's notice and no-one would have seen a moment's disruption. However, Maryse didn't quite see things the same way; to her he would always be the serious, slightly geeky teenager he had been when Isabelle first brought him home. Certainly a more desirable son-in-law than Izzy's previous boyfriends, but not a 45 year old man with a native talent for diplomacy and an un-matched grasp of Shadowhunter law and workings. As a result, Izzy was finding the hand-over process distinctly painful.
"Anyway" said Izzy, "How about you. You're looking tired"
"I am" said Clary, slightly shortly "I've been out with Jace late three nights this week, chasing up a nest of Iblis demons, Theo keeps hassling me to get the corrected proofs back to him, and frankly, I'm too tired to do a decent job on them. God knows what I'm going to tell him this afternoon when he calls"
"You could tell him the truth" said Izzy, with a grin. "And see what he says . . ."
Clary giggled, despite herself. "He is the most mundane Mundane I've ever met, it must be said. It would be quite funny to try."
"Tell you what," said Izzy "Why don't we go back when we've finished our coffees, and see if we can work through them together. I realise it isn't fair of me to dump them all on you, especially given that there's far more likely to be problems in the text than with the illustrations"
"God, that would be fantastic" Clary replied. "I didn't want to ask, I know things are mad now with the transfer – but maybe we could just tear through them & get them done & back off to Theo".
"Why were you out hunting demons, anyway?" Izzy queried, "Surely there are enough younger Shadowhunters these days with all the Ascendants trained up that someone else could have gone"
Clary shrugged "You know Jace . . . he was around when they were reported, so he had to go, and if I hadn't gone with him, he wouldn't have waited for anyone else. Then he wanted us to finish up the job, because we'd started it, which took us another two nights. He still thinks he's 25 and bloody invincible, but his back isn't properly better after last month's bit of excitement. He just needs to give it a chance to heal properly – which trying to kill a nest of demons all on his own really isn't going to help."
"I wanted to talk to you this morning, though, anyway" she continued. "Apart from the page proofs, Theo's been chasing me about appearances again. He wants us both" – she emphasized the 'both' - "to be part of the author section at Book Expo America later in the year".
"I thought you'd persuaded him I was too shy and retiring ever to meet anyone" Izzy sounded unimpressed.
Clary laughed at the thought of Izzy in her spike heels and fabulous dresses, even more impossibly glamorous in her 40s than she had been in her 20s, ever being described as 'shy and retiring'. "I hadn't really ever explained to him – I guess until we actually started to sell, he wasn't particularly bothered either way, so long as someone would traipse around bookshops for him."
"I couldn't, though" Izzy, for once, sounded uncertain. "It's fine passing as a Mundane sitting here having coffee, or going shopping, but not actually meeting lots of people and talking to them. I know you do it, Clary, and I'm endlessly grateful, but you were brought up to it, you know how to behave."
"It really wouldn't be a big deal, Izzy." Clary said "It's not like we'll have to have proper conversations, it's literally just a matter of smiling a lot, signing books, looking the part, which you'll do much better than me, by the way. You could bring Simon along, he'd enjoy the day out & he can help cover if we need it. And you like the extra money it brings in as much as I do"
"I could, at that" mused Izzy "You're right, he'd have a great time, especially if there are other authors he likes there. He started all this, anyway"
It was true – when it came down to it, Simon had, quite unintentionally, started off their joint, rather improbable and most un-Shadowhunter-like extra career. Ten years previously, when all of their children had been small, he had taken one look at what the Nephilim considered suitable reading material, winced inwardly, and sent off a very large Amazon order.
The children had been thrilled by the change in literature, and insisted on several chapters per night. Izzy, however, had been less impressed. Clary could still remember her, one evening when she'd left Jace at home with the kids and dropped round for an evening visit. Izzy had appeared after lights out, clutching a book in utter disgust.
"What is this shit? 'Katie the Kitten Fairy' Has this Daisy Meadows woman ever met a fairy? In my experience, the only thing they're likely to do with kittens is pull their claws out for entertainment on a quiet evening. By the Angel, Simon, am I going to have to read this stuff every night for the next ten years. "
Simon, cautiously, said "They're not really meant to be taken that seriously, I don't think. Maddy and Max like them a lot . . . and besides I was kind of hoping that they might learn to read to themselves rather sooner than ten years."
Izzy muttered something that Clary couldn't quite hear, but suspected was extremely rude, and tossed the book across the room.
Clary hadn't thought any more of it (beyond resolving to keep the Kitten Fairy book away from Jace, as she suspected his reaction might be rather similar), until a couple of months later, Izzy turned up with children in tow, and a neat manuscript book tucked under her arm.
She shooed Maddy and Max off to play, and opened it up to show her own, much more accurate, and far more entertaining tales of fairies, Shadowhunters and werewolves. All it needed was illustrations; obviously, this was to be Clary's part in the process.
Izzy dismissed all of her protests of lack of time (very much the case back then with two under fives and a desperate shortage of experienced Shadowhunters to keep demons in check and help train the Ascendants), and in the end Clary was forced to admit that she would, in fact, enjoy illustrating Izzy's stories.
The little books were a massive hit with the New York Shadowhunter children, and very quickly got magically copied and recopied, and passed on to Idris and beyond. Which should have been the end of that; entertaining, pleasing for the two of them, but no more. Until Jocelyn picked up the stories and read through them one evening when she was babysitting for Clary & Jace on a rare evening off.
When they got in, they found her with the whole pile of the books "These are fabulous, Clary. You should send these to a Mundane agent, they'd love them."
Clary was baffled "Mom, what are you talking about – of course we can't give them to Mundanes – they're all about Shadowhunters, Downworlders; all the things they're not meant to know about"
Jocelyn shrugged "They'll think they're fiction, Clary, stories, make-believe. A few changes and tweaks to the text, that's all they'd need, and you wouldn't need to change the pictures at all."
Clary had expected that Izzy would dismiss the idea out of hand. But as it happened, she and Simon had been despondently considering the relative level of Shadowhunter stipends when compared to larger New York apartments with more space for a family of four. Clary caught them at a moment when they were trying to figure out the relative disadvantages of moving back into the Institute, with Maryse & Robert constantly at hand, or staying put in their current cramped home.
At that point, any possibility of increasing their income, no matter how remote, seemed like an excellent idea to Izzy. "Why not," she shrugged. "Plenty of other stories have got out – where do you think all of the stuff in those ridiculous Dungeons and Dragons games that Simon used to play came from."
"Can I point out" Simon said mildly "that those 'ridiculous' games got us out of a fair bit of trouble at certain times I can remember" He had continued to play D&D with Eric and the crew for several years after Ascending to join the Shadowhunters, refusing to be laughed out of it by Izzy, and had only given up when work and children meant that long evenings drinking beer and rolling multi-sided dice became too difficult to arrange.
"That" said Izzy "is beside the point." She went on: "We'd have to ask the Clave, of course, but you never know, they might say yes, I can't see why we shouldn't try."
Clary shrugged. "If you don't mind asking them . . ." Again, she expected that they'd be dismissed out of hand; again, the timing just happened to be in their favour. Izzy and Simon were not the only ones who were finding their stipends going less and less far with every year. The Clave had been receiving complaints about income from Paris, London and Shanghai. If the New York Shadowhunters were thinking of taking some independent action, that didn't involve the Clave trying to make already stretched budgets reach even further, good luck to them.
Armed with permission from the Clave, and a list of contacts from Jocelyn, Clary put together a suitably un-magical looking draft of the first book, and sent it out to a selection of agents. Theo had responded, had found them a – quite reasonable - publishing deal, and the first edition of that book had finally reached the shelves eight years ago.
Six more of the ten books that Izzy had written had been re-edited for Mundanes, and followed, one per year, with the seventh due out next month. Unsurprisingly, they hadn't made their fortunes, but the advances were enough to be useful, and in the last three years they had actually started to sell enough copies to earn a noticeable amount of money over and above the advance.
This increase in sales had made Theo far more excited about promotion, and the occasional requests for signings had become more frequent, leading to his new plan to take them both to BEA.
Izzy sighed, bringing Clary's mind back to the present. "You're right, it probably is time that I did my bit. Simon's mother will be delighted, anyway, especially if we get in the paper. She loves the books, it gives her something she can actually talk about with her friends, 'my daughter in law the children's author', you know, that sort of thing. Mind you," she mused "she's doing pretty well these days with Simon taking so many trips to Idris on Clave business. 'My son, very successful . . . major government post . . . he can't tell me much, of course . . . trips abroad' I swear she has half the neighbors convinced that he works for the CIA."
Izzy lived up to her promise, and three months later, she, Clary and Simon met outside the conference centre where the BEA was taking place. Theo was waiting for them, and led them through into the author signing area. Simon left the three of them arranging piles of books ready for autograph, and went off to investigate the other authors and events.
An hour or so later, he returned, bringing coffees. They had a respectable queue of people lined up, each bearing a copy of the new book ready to be signed. Izzy had obviously overcome her reluctance, and was enjoying making up appropriate inscriptions for the customers; 'May the Angel be with you' was a particular favourite with parents.
After the signing session was finished, Theo brought more coffee into a side room. "That was great" he said, with enthusiasm. "We've shifted over 300 copies in total with all the books, and they loved you, you hit exactly the right note. You were on the agenda in the Youth Librarians' session as well; get on their list, and you'll find sales going up and up."
He picked up a coffee, and took a big drink. "Now, I have a proposal that I think you will love. The World Fantasy Convention is in New York this fall, and I am pretty sure that I can get you a table for signings there."
"No." Izzy was definite. "Once is fine, but we have real jobs that we have to get done. If you're imagining the two of us sat around all day, writing books, that is not how it goes"
'I know, I know" Theo was all sympathy "Believe me, it's always the way. But not, necessarily, for much longer, Ms Lightwood. I really believe we are on the edge of something massive here, sales that will mean the 'day job'"; Clary couldn't quite believe it, but he really did make quote marks with his fingers as he spoke "will not be a problem for either of you"
Izzy sighed, loudly, in her best 'this man is stupid' manner
"No, no, no" Theo misunderstood entirely "I have a lot of experience in this field. This is exactly why I want to get you to the WFC. I don't think you understand quite how big the adult fantasy market really is in the States, an awful lot of those fans have young children, and they want serious, well written fantasy that they can enjoy with their families. Which is exactly what you two produce, fantasy that doesn't talk down to those fans, that takes them seriously."
"You have to see this" he went on, "I've had a chat with some of the organizers, we've come up with some ideas for costumes that I think absolutely reflect the feel of the books, that will help you totally engage with the fans." He produced a large bag from under the table, and took out a selection of flowing faux medieval dresses, breeches and jerkins.
Izzy looked at them with a mixture of horror and disgust. "You think that those will make them take us seriously?" but, Clary realised, the long sleeping 16 year old fantasy geek in Simon was fully awake now.
"Hey" he said, optimistically "I could dress up too, you know"
"Absolutely", said Theo "The more the better, in fact it would make a great publicity shot, Isabelle Lightwood and husband dressed fully in character. Do you think your husband, Ms Fray . . .?"
"No", said Clary, "I don't." She tried to imagine Jace in one of the outfits on display, and failed.
"I am not ", and Izzy spoke now with great finality "wearing one of those costumes." She sighed, again "If you really want," and she looked at Simon, not Theo, Clary wasn't surprised to see "I will dress up, but I will wear my own outfit."