The sun shone dim on her face, the light coming from the windows casting its ever so green glow over her cheeks. She had seen buildings way more beautiful than this one, she had Paris to thank for, yet it still amazed her how human kind had made these buildings, strong enough to hold an army, yet gentle from the interior, soft and vivid colours filling her vision.

She noticed how Alec was waiting for her against the wall, leaning in ways boys always did in the cheesiest romantic movies, one foot on the bricks, crystal orbs staring right at her, making her forget the horrid things she had seen the humans do.

"Have you been waiting for me?" she chuckled, his suddenly shocked expression making her smile. He realised how weird it must be that he had been standing there for a short while, because he didn't want her to be alone, not if he could be by her side.

He didn't know what it was, perhaps it was a spell casted on him when she saved his life, or it might be the most simple and truest reason of them all, a fact he didn't dare to even look at, afraid if he did, it would burn on his glaze and turn him blind.

"N-no," he stuttered, cheeks flashing red.

He stared at her, maybe in a bad way, but he didn't care. Her green glance was ever so hypnotising that he found himself not wanting to break from her spell, he wanted to float between awake and asleep forever, if that meant being able to see her emerald eyes.

"You can almost feel you staring at me, Alec," she smiled, with which she was rewarded with the most childish, cute, and innocent look of all times, the smile of an infant, ever so clean and pure, on the face of a man who had been through hell only to find no heaven there. It was a paradox, a beautiful paradox of how a hybrid could be the best of humankind, even if it was not.

"Sorry," he chuckled nervously "we should better get going, find something useful for the mission." Muttering his words at such a rate she could almost not understand him, he headed off to the sacred grounds, the tiles on which any demon would die once they touched it, or any mundane too.

She looked at them, not in fear, but disgust of the fact that someone would do such thing to mundanes and demonic beings. Humans weren't as bad as the Nephilim held them for. Sometimes they just forgot that their half, sometimes even their better half, came from the very race they disgusted and discriminated.

He seemed to feel that she wasn't following, the frown which held a thousand stories and told the tales of battles and wars fought with words, appeared on his face, once he turned around and found her not being by his side, empty, senseless air hugging him tight.

"What's wrong?" he asked her. He didn't understand why she feared the black, lifeless tiles of the Institute. Many different Downworlders had walked upon it, and even destroyed them when they had started another one of their ridiculous wars, to prove that they were worth the shadowhunters attention.

She gave him that look, with eyes filled to the brink with stories no human had ever heard, or wanted to hear that is, tales that had grown so unbelievable they wandered the earth as myths and legends, for no one wanted them to have ever happened, the hatred, the blood spilled, turned into faeries and dragons.

"It's only lethal for demon's and mundanes," he assured himself more than he was assuring Dèlia. Afraid she would vanish into smoke once she stepped on those bricks, or perhaps because she was so old she had more demon-blood than he expected, she would die just by looking at them for too long.

It wasn't fear that took him, but concern. He had seen people die because of the Clave and their stupid rules, and he had promised never to let anyone be the victim of them, never again, no more.

She wanted to utter words, something, anything but the truth. She wanted him to think she was afraid of the tiles because of some stupid story or the people she had seen breathe their last breath upon that horrid ground, but it was the fact that she had seen them be made, and she knew exactly what they would do once she came to close.

Without her having to explain herself, Alec walked towards her, his warm, somewhat calming breath hitting her skin briefly once his face was only inches away from hers, vivid eyes even more crystal than she could remember them, a skin as pale as that of a vampire.

"Hold on," he whispered, surprising her as he lifted her feet of the ground, holding her bridal-style. He didn't care if what he was doing could be told to be unsettling for her or perhaps shocking, he wasn't going to let her believe the shadowhunters hated her so much that she could never see the wonders of the institute.

She felt the air hug her tight, his strong arm around her body, her dress slightly coming upwards, which she tugged down gently. With seconds, all eyes were on her and the boy which turned his back on religion and the way he was raised just to take her with him.

He was the perfect example that she could always be surprised, and she loved it. She wanted there to be something, someone she hadn't seen yet, hadn't been able to tear apart and know exactly what and who. And so, her wish had been answered, and she was left with the very Alec Lightwood.

His hands held her in a gentle, yet strong way, making her realize that he wouldn't let he go in a million years, if he had the chance, the scarred fingers of runes and wars holding her softly as though to protect her from his own civilisation, while they watched them like monsters.

The shadowhunters standing inside the hallway, talking, minding their own business, turned around, their eyes fixed on the young leader and the ancient lady he knew was so much older than he thought she was, but that didn't mean he had to treat her differently.

That was what they thought. If you have demon blood, even one drop in your system, you're ought to be a disgrace, a punishment from someone, not even a god, but just a villain wanting a role in their history once more. They had been afraid, with their backs against the walls, for years, under attack by vampires, werewolves, Seelies and warlocks, so they thought it was appropriate that they discriminated them.

Not by calling them names or kicking them on the streets on a lonely winter night, leaving them to bleed the crimson red curse, but to look at them in disgust, reminding them every moment of every day, they that weren't them, and never would be.

She had lived a long time and had been given those horrible glares for quite some decades, and she had forgotten to care about it. She wouldn't let those horrible hunters come in between herself and her goal, however odd it might be. Their bid to bring her down would be useless, for she would never fall again, not anymore.