Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They really shouldn't have been doing this. It was stupid, stupid idea. 

...But when did that ever stop them.

Of course, they would never have gotten into this mess were it not for that book that had (totally by accident, definitely not because Jace stole Alec's phone the other day to stop him from constantly texting his boyfriend voice messages containing things that Jace did absolutely not need to hear, leading Alec to chase him around the whole institute and then having a pillow fight on the couch in the library, accidentally knocking down a whole bookcase and breaking one of it's legs, and in an attempt to cover the damage, propping the large cabinet up on a small wooden cherub statue, making it super easy for the contents of the bookshelves to fall out) suddenly dropped down, almost knocking Clary's small frame off her feet when she attempted to get one of the volumes from the shelf.

It opened on a page that had a tiny little totally harmless spell.

They shouldn't have even looked at it really, it was against the accords for a Shadowhunter to even have access to this kind of knowledge.

But that was the New York Institute for you — chaos, poor decision-making, and one broken coffee machine away from disaster.

Fortunately for them (or maybe unfortunately) it was exactly what they were looking for.

-

It had all started with a fairy acorn.

Not a metaphorical one. A literal, enchanted acorn had rolled across Clary’s bedroom floor one rainy morning, casually having fallen in through the window, as faerie threats often do.

In their experience, even being contacted by the faeries never meant anything good. 

Definitely nothing that didn't come with a price.

And, as they have had their fair share of history with fairies that would probably haunt them forever, they also knew that this was nothing to ignore.

The message held a classic 'All shadowhunters are in danger and only our powers can save you' type of threat.

*“The past bleeds forward. The veil weakens. The demon returns. The cycle spins again. We offer warning, but not without price....”*

Which was exactly the sort of ominous nonsense no one wanted to hear before breakfast.

Not wanting to repeat past mistakes they started their research. 

First, find some solid evidence, then act.

It was right about time for them to actually start thinking about what they were doing anyways.

-

As they went through every stack of papers in the institute, they were realizing that this might be a real threat.

The incident that took place roughly a hundred years ago was one that even Jace remembered Hodge telling them during their classes when they were still young.

It was a demon attack. A terrific one. 

The demon was of a specific kind, not at all ordinary. Fast, strong, and nearly indestructible by anything other than pure adamas, which meant almost only seraph blades, that were powerful and easy to maneuver, but for a demon this quick and large... It wasn't all that easy.

Hundreds of these nasty creatures flooded the city of London, destroying everything in sight.

The interesting thing about this particular incident was that it occured periodically in almost every century.

It was London in the year 1906.

Before that, Vienna in 1803.

The list went on.

And now in 2009... It did raise alarm bells.

The clave didn't really take an interest in this (not very surprising) since the last attack ended with the Shadowhunters succeeding in killing the mother demon, therefore closing the portal to the dimensions these beasts came from. Allegedly.

The fairies told another story thought.

That killing the demons wasn't a long term victory. That closing the portal didn't guarantee it would stay closed forever.

That the attacks were not random.

That they were part of a cycle.

And that it would happen again.

And that, according to them, it was created — or controlled — by a warlock.

“He’s got a name like a rejected villain from a children’s play,” Jace had muttered after reading it out loud.

“Morvius the Timebender.”

Clary: “That can’t be real.”

Jace: “He sounds like he wears a velvet cape and screams ‘you’ll regret this' at random pedestrians.”

Unfortunately, it was real. And worse — the fairies insisted he wasn’t dead.

And the spell they found in that dusty warlock volume? It wasn’t a window into the past.

It was a door.

-

They obviously couldn't go to the clave.

Not only would they totally ignore the warnings (cause why wouldn't they) and call them silly theories, and they would probably have small issues with Clary and Jace having contacts with fairies despite the Cold Peace, not to mention reading from a book containing old warlock spells.

Not that they needed the clave anyways.

They have been looking through all the books and documents they could find for days now, hoping to find something that would help them find something more.

Anything would be helpful, really.

Anything about the spell that had to be casted in order to open a portal of this size.

Or about that Warlock, for a change.

His motive.

Anything.

So the first thing that (naturally) came to their mind, was to go to the one any only (really only) warlock, (what a surprise) Magnus Bane.

Except that that was out of the question.

Magnus was ignoring all their calls.

 (Which was also totally not Jace's fault)

So Clary decided to try and contact their second best choice.

Which meant Catarina.

Catarina, who was very kind but said she was not present during that time in London and when Clary asked if she knew anything from Magnus she said Magnus never told her anything.

(which translated to 'Magnus told me but he also told me not to talk to you because of that one thing Jace whatever-his-name-is Herondale did, so I'm doing you a huge favour just picking up this call').

....and before they knew it, they were chanting a spell from the old volume of magic that had fallen off the shelf.

It should've been a small harmful spell. 

It promised showing them the past.

That's what they have expected.

A quick look. Perhaps a window, showing them what happened that year in London.

Yeah... That didn't exactly happen.

The candles blew out.

The lights flickered.

The ground trembled like it was trying not to panic.

Somewhere upstairs, Alec yelled, “What did you do?” (They ignored that.)

Five seconds later, the entire power grid of Manhattan shorted out.

Then silence.

Then — pounding on the front door.

Jace and Clary froze. Hands to weapons. A slow glance. And then a sprint down the stairs.

Jace went first, holding his breath as he prepared for the worst, only to open the door to see two men, roughly the same age as him and Clary, dressed in old fashioned suits, one with neatly brushed golden hair, holding an umbrella in his hand, the other wearing a black top hat on his head covering his dark messy curls.

The first thing Clary noticed as she looked at the strangers over Jace's shoulder was the striking eyes of the black haired man.

They were golden.

Just like Jace's own.

They both looked confused and ready to fight if needed, their expression no doubt matching Jace's and Clary's.

The blond one broke the silence with a soft awkward cough. 

“Well,” he said, brushing invisible dust off his sleeve. “This is rather unpleasant. Could someone kindly tell us what in the name of the Angel just happened, and where exactly we are?”

Jace just stared at them both.

The first thing that came out of his mouth (also naturally) was:

 “...Why do you both look like you’re one tragic piano note away from a Victorian death scene?”

Chapter Text

“Victorian?” The blond repeated, sounding both scandalized and mildly offended. “I’ll have you know this coat is from 1905, and it is the latest London fashion. Thank you very much.”

Clary raised an eyebrow. “You say that like it’s not over a hundred years ago.” she said slowly, trying to understand what has happened in the last ten minutes.

The boy in the top hat narrowed his eyes. “It is not,” he said, enunciating every word with the type of calm that sounded very, very close to violence. “It is September, the year of our Lord 1906.”

...Well, shit

Jace and Clary exchanged a look. 

A long one. 

The kind that involved a thousand silent words, most of them curse words, and all of them meaning: 

we just screwed up really, really badly.

The one in the hat stepped forward then, scanning the Institute's front hall with the careful suspicion of someone raised in a world where ducks might attack you.

 “This is not the London Institute,” he said sharply. “Nor is this any place in London I recognize. And unless we’ve been very badly hexed, this is either a warlock’s trick—”

“—or a time spell,” the blond interrupted grimly.

Clary coughed, a very nervous smile on her lips. “Yeah. Funny story about that.”

She glanced at Jace again, then turned back to them and swallowed the lump in her throat.

Top Hat Guy turned sharply. “Pardon?”

She gave him a sheepish little wave. “So, um… welcome to the New York Institute. In the year… 2009.”

Silence.

Absolutely no one moved.

Even the dust motes in the air seemed to stop in place for dramatic effect.

“…Excuse me?” the blond asked, very quietly, those really too familiar green eyes searching her own to see if this was all just a joke.

It wasn't.

“Yup,” Jace said, popping the p. “Two-thousand-and-nine. As in, we have cell phones now. And Google. And also Wi-Fi.”

Top Hat Guy looked like he was having a religious experience. A very unpleasant one.

“Wi-Fi?” he echoed, faintly, looking at them as if they had two heads.

From his point of view, Clary thought, they might as well have.

Clary took pity on them. “Okay, maybe you should both sit down—”

“No,” said the blond, his voice a bit strangled. “No, I think I’ll stand. I—this is absurd. This can’t possibly be—”

“It is,” Jace said, walking slowly around them, eyes narrowed. “You look like Shadowhunters. And you don’t smell like glamours. And your runes are real.”

He stopped in front of Top Hat, studying his face more closely. “And you’ve got those eyes,” he muttered.

Top Hat's eyes narrowed, as if he was insulted. “What are you insinuating?”

Jace pointed at him. “You look like my great-great-grandfather if he got trapped in a Dickens novel.”

“And you,” Top Hat snapped, “look like someone who was raised in a weapons storage closet and has never once in his life spoken to a woman without threatening her.”

Jace blinked. “That’s actually not... entirely inaccurate.”

Blond Coat raised a hand. “All right, let’s all take a deep breath and not stab anyone. Yet.”

Clary, who was still holding onto the doorframe like it might offer emotional support, finally stepped forward. “Okay. Okay. You—” she pointed at Top Hat, “—are clearly on the verge of murdering someone out of sheer confusion, and you—” she gestured to Blond Coat, “—are trying to de-escalate like it’s a tea party gone wrong. Which is fine. But maybe we should all just… go inside?”

“Why?” said Top Hat.

“Because the neighbors are going to start asking questions if they see us arguing in front of a Gothic murder castle with swords strapped to our thighs."

Blond Coat gave her a smile that had far too much practice behind it. “Excellent point, Miss…”

“Clary,” she said. “Clary Fray. And this—” she thumbed toward Jace, “—is Jace. Herondale.”

There was a moment.

A long, delicate, frozen moment.

Blond Coat’s face twitched. Just slightly.

Top Hat’s hand moved. Almost imperceptibly. Toward his weapon.

“Herondale,” Blond Coat repeated, his voice suddenly lacking in all the previous charm. “Did you say… Herondale?”

“Yeah...,” Jace said, still watching them warily. “And if that means anything to you, I swear I haven’t done anything that requires a family duel. Let’s all keep our weapons where they are.”

Top Hat narrowed his eyes, his voice dropping into the kind of quiet reserved for war declarations and particularly nasty letters to the Queen. “What year did you say this was?”

Clary exhaled slowly. “Two thousand and nine.”

Top Hat made a strangled noise that might have been a laugh, or a mental breakdown.

Blond Coat, meanwhile, turned a shade paler. “Then that makes you—”

“—my what, exactly?” Jace asked, arms crossed.

“Impossible,” Blond Coat muttered. “Completely impossible. Unless…”

There was another silence. This one was not comfortable.

It was the kind of silence where everyone became very aware of their blood pressure.

Then Blond Coat turned, slowly, dramatically, toward Top Hat and said, “James, I’m afraid we may be in some considerable trouble.”

Top Hat—James—let out a breath like he’d been punched. “You don’t say, Matthew.”

Jace coughed, once. Loudly. “Sorry, James and Matthew?”

Both newcomers stiffened.

Clary just blinked at them, her thoughts slowly piecing together a puzzle she very much did not want to solve.

“Wait—James?” she said. “As in James Herondale?”

James blinked. “How—?”

“And Matthew Fairchild?” she added, her voice rising just slightly. “Like—really? Fairchild?”

Jace and Clary both stared at them.

Then stared at each other.

Then back at them.

“Oh no,” Clary whispered. “No, no, no. Absolutely not.”

Jace made a face like he was trying to do math and was realizing, horrifically, that he might be related to one of them. “So you’re saying—”

“I’m not saying anything,” James snapped. “We don’t know who any of you are. You could be warlocks. Or demons. Or figments of our very vivid collective psychosis.”

Matthew looked over at Jace with a faint smirk. “Though, if I had to hallucinate someone, I suppose he’d do.”

Jace blinked. “What.”

“Don’t encourage him,” James muttered.

“I’m not hallucinating,” Matthew insisted cheerfully. “Unless this is Hell. Is it? It feels like Hell. The décor is certainly oppressive enough. And the air smells like lost dreams and disappointment.”

“That’s just Manhattan,” Clary said.

Matthew’s eyes widened. “We’re in America?”

James looked at him. “We’ve always been in America, Math. Apparently. In the future.”

Matthew blinked. “I think I need a drink.”

“No. Still not a valid reason to relapse." James said, though his mind was already working out all sorts of explanations.

None of them fit right.

Jace ran a hand through his hair, pacing a little. “Okay, setting aside the fact that we apparently summoned two of our great-grand-relatives out of thin air like they were cursed Pokémon cards—”

“I don’t know what that means,” James muttered.

“—we need to figure out how to put them back. Like now. Before Alec finds out and starts giving one of his PowerPoint lectures about magical ethics and ruining the timeline.”

“Ruining the—” James turned on him. “We didn’t ruin anything. We were having a very normal day until we were ripped out of our own reality!”

“Well now you’re here,” Jace snapped. “So maybe stop yelling before I throw a clock at you.”

Matthew leaned casually against the banister. “Are clocks throwable now? Fascinating.”

Clary sighed. “Look, we need to take this somewhere less public. Somewhere that’s not the front of the Institute where literally anyone could walk in and see that we’ve broken time.”

James gave her a look. “And where do you suggest? Your drawing room?”

“…Sure,” Clary said. “the drawing room. Wow. Your old.”

---

They led them into one of the Institute’s larger sitting rooms—once a training space, now converted into what could charitably be called a ‘casual strategy room’ but was really just where Jace and Alec played Halo when they were supposed to be writing reports.

Matthew, naturally, made a beeline for the armchair and sat like he’d just been invited to host a ball.

James stood stiffly, arms crossed, clearly still trying to pretend this was a prank that would soon end.

“I need answers,” he said, turning toward Clary. “Who are you? And how do you know our names?”

Clary looked at Jace.

Jace looked at the ceiling like it might hold divine guidance.

Then, finally, he sighed.

“Okay. This is going to sound insane, but… you’re both kind of... famous. In our time.”

James scowled. “Famous?”

“You’re legends,” Clary said. “You’re in our records. Our family trees.”

Matthew looked vaguely pleased. “Oh good. I do hope they mentioned my hair.”

“They did not,” Jace muttered.

“And we’re... family?” James asked, his voice quieter now.

Jace nodded slowly. “You’re a Herondale. I’m a Herondale. And last time I checked there weren't any lost Herondales so...”

James went silent. He looked like he might be ill.

“Then who is she?” he asked, pointing at Clary.

“I—” she hesitated. “Well. I’m a Fairchild.”

Matthew stood up so fast he nearly tipped the chair. “Excuse me?!”

“Yeah,” Jace muttered. “We’re still working through the emotional fallout of that one too.”

Matthew blinked at Clary, mouth slightly open. “You’re… ”

“Clarrisa Fairchild, yes.”

“Oh, Angel,” he breathed. “so... We're like... Related. Somehow."

He turned to James and muttered something that sounded like god, children, Charles, then saying no about twenty three times, and swearing about twice as much after that.

“um... Do you want to know...,” Clary said, with the tight smile of someone about to ruin someone else’s entire worldview. “...the stories or...?”

“No,” Matthew muttered. “Absolutely not. I do not want to hear anything about my future. I’ve read Shakespeare. I know how this goes. The moment someone hears a prophecy, someone ends up stabbed, crowned, or worse. And I think we've had enough of all those options, haven't we, Jamie." He glanced at James.

“okay... No telling the future. That... That's easy, right.” Clary assured him, glancing sideways at Jace. “Right?”

Jace was still staring at James with the eerie intensity of someone looking into a mirror that also happened to be a time bomb. “...He’s wearing my face,” he whispered.

Matthew gave him a long, patient look. “Well, technically, you're wearing his.”

“Okay!” Clary clapped her hands. “That’s enough of that. You two—Victorian throwbacks—lets think about this together. We need to figure out how to get you back. Preferably before Alec finds out. Or Isabelle. Or, God help us, Magnus.”

Matthew seemed to pick up a name or something and opened his mouth to ask but Jace was already talking and listing through the numerous spell books they researched from earlier.

James suddenly turned to Matthew, looking pale.

“If my father finds out about this,” he murmured.

Matthew gave a grim nod. “We’ll be grounded until the 1950s.”

Jace raised an eyebrow. “You think your dad’s going to ground you for accidentally time traveling a century into the future?”

James gave him a very solemn look. “Have you met Will Herondale?”

Jace opened his mouth.

Then shut it.

Then nodded. "Right." He muttered under his breath "The Will Herondale. Your dad."

Chapter Text

Hello, my dear readers.
I want to address this again, because it's something that should be addressed and I should've totally said before the moment I posted that last chapter of this work, BEFORE I EVEN CHECKED WHAT WAS USED TO WRITE IT. This was originally supposed to be a project I worked on with this person in not gonna name, and he was supposed to help me transform my thoughts and ideas into the story, in a way that made sense. It was my friend who, completely without my permission, instead of rewriting the very roughly written sentences of my work used an AI generator tool to feed my project to, and he sent it to me and I, completely foolishly, without even checking it properly, posted it.
It was my laziness and lack of even simply checking what I am posting even though it is something as personal as a project that I have truly put my heart into and cared about, that had created this error. I am truly sorry and I apologize again and promise to never let anything like this pollute my works again. I will from now on write all my works alone, no matter how bad the gramatics will be because it doesn't matter in the end of it's still written by a HUMAN. And if I will end up seeking out some help I will check everything and make real effort in making sure it's all done with care and thought.
again, thank you so much for all the comments that addressed this and called me out for this total bullshit.
I love you all so much, take care and please do not make the same mistakes as me.
Writing something as silly as these little fics has brought me so much joy and stuff to do, it's amazing.
No matter how hard it might be to write even simple sentenses cause of a language barrier or lack of creativity, it is still ABSOLUTELY NOT OKAY to use this trash to wreck something so deeply human and full of emotion as writing.
Even though the next chapters might take long I promise you to give it all I have and only that. I love this project and there are so many things I yet want to do.
Also, I want to truly thank all the nice comments, you have trully made my day.

Please skip past any gramatic mistakes, again my English is on a level of a toddler but I hope the point is clear here.
If you have any ideas on how I could maybe try and improve this terrible situation I am completely open for anything.

Comment discuss and talk shit. Thank you so much again for everything.

Take care!!!