Élodie Verlac is the head of the Paris Institute and the aunt of Sebastian Verlac. She took her nephew in after his parents died and has raised him ever since. In September 2007, after Sebastian Morgenstern, in the guise of her nephew, killed Max Lightwood in the midst of the Mortal War, she sent the Penhallows pictures of Sebastian to show the Lightwoods that whoever killed Max must not have been Sebastian.