Shadowhunters - 'Rise Up' and 'The World Inverted'

"Seriously? Neither of you owns a shirt with sleeves?"

In the wake of the Forsaken attack the Institute goes on lockdown, and the presence of Seelie blood in the attackers leads Lydia to arrest Meliorn with the intention of sending him to the Silent Brothers for brain scranliting, because Lydia Branwell is apparently the poster child for supernatural extraordinary rendition. Alec tells Magnus he's getting married (cue Magnus Bane's kicked puppy face,) Alec and Jace argue about whether Clary is the best thing since sliced bread or a liability and Alec and Izzy argue about what the fuck is he doing getting married to some blonde he's never met when he's gay?

"Well, this isn't awkward at all."

With the Clave after the Cup, Jace has Magnus 'borrow' Alec's stylae to open the safe. Clary, Jace and Isabelle leave the Institute and hole up at the Hotel du Mort for a while, where Simon is locked in a cage with Clary to come to terms with his nature and realise that he is not an uncontrollable monster. Clary's rogue faction then negotiates an alliance with the New York Pack and the vampires to rescue Meliorn from terminal quizzing in the City of Bones. During the rescue, Alec and Jace come to blows, and Jace goads Alec to kill him, telling him he would rather die than be on opposite sides; a touching sentiment only slightly undermined by Jace's repeated choosing of Clary over Alec.

With the Clave getting testy and Isabelle under arrest for aiding Meliorn's escape, Clary and Jace take a gamble. Meliorn leads them into Seelie country, where they can open a portal to another world. From there, Clary's pendant can open a specific portal that will take her to where Valentine is, but she has to be quick because she will inhabit the body of the other world's Clary and quickly become lost.

What is not clear is why Simon is basically just Simon. Or
how Clary met the Lightwoods and came to be living in New
York without the backstory of the primary world.

'The World Inverted' is a lot of fun, with Clary encountering the alternate versions of her friends from a world without demons or Shadowhunters. Her mother is happily married to Valentine, Isabelle is a nerd and in a relationship with cooler nerd Simon, Luke has quit the police to become an antiquarian bookseller, Alec is totally at home with his sexuality and Magnus Bane is semi-retired and giving tarot readings for a living (but still the most fun and awesome thing in the series.)

While the portal is open, Jace and Meliorn have to fight off demons trying to get through to all-you-can-eat-world, which unfortunately goes tits up when the betrayal of Alec's attempt to use their parabatai bond to track Jace causes him excruciating pain. Oops.

Cheesy-awesome in any world.

Clary tries to find the portal with the aid of Magnus, while not losing her mind or letting nice-boyfriend-Jace get a) too jealous, or b) eaten by a demon. Ultimately, Jace follows her through, they kill the demon and find the portal, which takes them to Chernobyl. Here they find, not Clary's mum, but Jace's dad, who is also less dead than advertised.