i'm pure at heart, it repels the dirt

There was nothing that could have prepared Isabelle for this. A few dreams had done nothing – she dreamt of Max enough as it was. He was damn near ever-present, because of his glaring absence. It was nothing new and had not been for what felt like a really long time now.

So early this morning, when there was a very polite little knock on her door? She thought nothing of it, except that it was curiously early for a Saturday morning. She pulled on a robe and traipsed to the door, and opened it. And there was nothing that could have prepared her for the shock that made her physically stagger back a step. "Izzy?" Max said. Her Max. Her poor, poor baby brother she'd failed so terribly.

She ended up on her knees. Tears were welling up and flowing down and she felt like she couldn't breathe. When he stepped forward, into the room (pushing the door mostly closed after himself because he was young but so smart, so so smart, and he knew a private moment when he saw one), she clutched at him, clung to him, crushed him to her chest.

It wasn't as if she could hurt him now any more than she already had.

[ooc: Cracked open door, open post.]

Isabelle liked excitement. Really, she did. The stress of tough situations made her feel alive. But that didn't mean she liked feeling like she was potentially stepping into a hurricane every time she returned home from Fandom. And while things had been calm enough when she'd returned on Saturday evening, the feeling that it wouldn't last hadn't been her favorite, especially when she didn't seem to have anything she could actually do.

So when she found last night that Alec had taken off without her to go on some mission to help Clary at Luke's (with Jace, no less, since no one respected his house arrest)... She hadn't been happy. And she was even less so this morning when he still wasn't back, but their dad was. Along with their mother and the Inquisitor.

When the latter decided she wanted a word with Lucian Graymark – because calling him Luke just wasn't okay, apparently – yeah, that didn't make Isabelle any happier, either.

( Blah blah blah words. )

[ooc: NFI, NFB, OOC-okay! Taken with minimal tweakage from City of Ashes. Post one of two for today.]

Predictably, Isabelle had fled Fandom as soon as she'd been able to, on Tuesday. She'd headed back to New York and she hadn't stopped moving before she'd been underneath the lake in Central Park where the fae of the Seelie Court lived. Specifically, Meliorn's quarters. He hadn't seemed thrilled with her just barging in but honestly, she hadn't cared. She'd made him appreciate her presence and help her get her mind off things, and that was that.

Then, yesterday, the same theme of repression and distraction had continued when she'd gone home and convinced Alec – together with Jace – that they needed to go out and hunt, which was how they'd ended up battling a Dragonidae demon in the sewers. They'd returned from their trip (the boys caked in mud while Isabelle was perfectly clean, because she was pure at heart and it repelled the dirt, clearly) just in time to run into Maryse and Max at home, finally returned from Idris. And that had been great! For all of five seconds before things turned to drama.

( And on to book two we dive. )

[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Summarized/taken with from Cassandra Clare's City of Ashes. Warning for minor character death and gore. And also tl;dr.]