HollywoodLife chatted EXCLUSIVELY with Katherine McNamara about how Clary and Jace will be dealing with what happened and how they’re going to handle the unexpected effects of Jace being resurrected. The actress revealed Clary’s perspective on the world has changed forever, and there’s “definitely a maturity” we haven’t seen before. Oh, and Lilith? Katherine said we should all be very worried. “She’s out to make us pay,” Katherine teased. Check out our full Q&A below:

In the premiere, we start to see the effects of Clary bringing Jace back from the dead. Is she going to learn what’s going on with him early on? Or will he keep what he’s experiencing from her?
Katherine McNamara: It’s sort of a slow burn, if you will. Jace ultimately wants to protect Clary from what’s going on because he sees the guilt that she feels after what happened. Ultimately, in trying to bring him back, she was trying to save his life and to undo this tragedy that happened, but not realizing in doing so there would be so many aftereffects and Jace would struggle so much. She sees Jace as this wonderful, amazing, angelic warrior, and to see him broken in a sense is really heartbreaking. To know that it’s because of something she did, it’s a really deadly blow for her emotionally. Jace knows this, and as much as he can, he’s going to try and protect her from it. Jace is a very self-sufficient character as well and doesn’t like to ask for help, so that’s also part of it. He’s going to try and fight it as much as he can and keep from her, but ultimately, they’re going to have to rely on each other because they’re in this together and they don’t have anyone else. They both know that nothing stays secret in the Shadow World for long, so someone’s going to find out and they’re going to suffer those consequences together. So if they don’t stand by each other, they have no one. As much as they want to tell Alec and as much as Clary wants to turn to someone, she knows that she can’t because that would make them culpable. She can’t stand to hurt anyone else that she loves.

Jace started to have these horrific hallucinations in the premiere. Are we going to see more aftereffects?
Katherine McNamara: Yes, so this season delves into those aftereffects, what they really mean, what’s the cause of them, how much they really effect Jace and his relationship with Clary, and what they have to do to deal with them in the long run. It becomes a huge obstacle, not only for them as characters, but also for their relationship. Because if you think about it, this is the first time that the two of them have had a chance to give their relationship the life they always wanted to give it, and they have this chance to finally be together and to love each other the way they’ve always wanted, and yet there’s something else that gets in the way. But occasionally you do have moments to see them as a couple and sort of behave in that way when the world isn’t ending. We do see those flashes of romance, which is beautiful, but most of the time they’re just trying to sort this out. It’s interesting what it does for Clary because she can’t turn to anyone. It gives her an opportunity to really take some initiative,trust her instincts, trust everything that she’s learned about the Shadow World, take action of her own accord, and try to figure this out for herself and really atone for everything that she’s caused in this world.

This is a lot for anyone to handle. Could this pressure eventually send Clary down a dark path or will see a stronger, more determined version of her?
Katherine McNamara: There’s definitely a maturity to her this season. That was sort of my goal with Clary moving forward into season 3 because she has been through so much. If you think about the timeline of the show, it’s only been a few months since found out about the Shadow World. But to be thrown into this new world, to have her best friend go through his own transformation, to losing her mother, to having to kill her father, and then lose the love of her life and bring him back, it’s a lot of very weighty things that have happened to her. She’s sort of gone from this little girl who sees this world with wide-eyed wonder to now seeing it as this cold-blooded world that is very deadly and has no forgiveness. She knows the value of the people that she loves, and she knows the nature of the consequences that are possible. She moves foward with that perspective, and it’s definitely changes the way she thinks about things and the thought she puts into things before she takes action.

In the episode, Alec is suspicious about what happened with Clary and Jacy. What can you say about Clary and Alec’s relationship in season 3?
Katherine McNamara: This is sort of the unfortunate thing about Clary and Alec’s relationship. It started off as tempestuous, and right when they started to work as a team and finally got on the same page and Alec accepted her as one of the Shadowhutners and started giving her responsibilities as a team member, this whole thing happens. He’s beginning to doubt whether he can trust Clary and it puts a block in their friendship. It’s really unfortunate because I feel like the two of them want the same thing. They both love Jace so much, but ultimately she can’t lie to him very well because he knows Jace better than Jace knows himself. They’re parabatai. They feel everything the same. So of course he’s going to be able to tell that someone’s wrong with Jace. He knows that Clary was the only other person at that lake, so he knows Clary’s hiding something. As much as Clary wants to tell him, she knows that if she does he’s also culpable. There’s absolutely no way she could live with hurting Alec and Jace. She won’t let anyone else be brought into this because she knows when it goes down, it’s going to come down hard.

Clary surprised Lilith in the premiere with her power. Does Clary have a target on her back now?
Katherine McNamara: I think Clary has had a target on her back with Lilith from the beginning. Jace in particular, but Clary as well. The two of them were responsible for hurting the closest thing that Lilith has to a child, which is Clary’s brother. Moving forward in that, she’s out for blood and out for vengeance. She’s out to make us pay. If there’s a villain to be afraid of in the Shadow World, it’s Lilith. She’s literally the mother of all demons. She’s the queen of hell. She’s got power beyond what anyone can imagine. Forgiveness and mercy are not high on her priority list.

Should fans be worried about Lilith?
Katherine McNamara: Fans should be very worried about her. Everyone should be worried about her. I’m worried about her.

What about Simon and Clary throughout the rest of season 3? Will their storyline stay separate or will something inevitably bring them together?
Katherine McNamara: This is kind of the challenge for both of their characters this season. Clary is so engrossed in trying to help Jace and dealing with all of that, and Simon is so engrossed in dealing with aftereffects of the deal he made with the Seelie Queen, they’re sort of stranded and separated from each other for a good bit. Until they can find a way back to each other, neither one really has anyone to turn to or anyone to lean on.

SOURCE:Hollywoodlife