(Clary's POV)
In the end, we all went to my parent's apartment. At first, just Jace and I were going to go, but then I thought it would be a good idea to have Simon there—for moral support, and also because I thought it would be good for my parents to see a familiar face. Isabelle really wanted to meet my parents. Quite why was beyond me, but that was Isabelle for you. Alec ended up coming because he didn't want to be the only one not going.
And so now we were all trudging up my apartment's staircase, to ask my parents why she never told me the truth. Well, I suppose I would be the one doing the asking. The rest were just along for the entertainment.
With each step that took me towards my apartment door, I was feeling more and more apprehensive. What would I say? Would Jocelyn be angry at me? I didn't see why. If anything, I was the one who should be angry. How would she react to Isabelle? To Jace?
Then we reached my apartment. Facing the ensemble of people behind me, I said, "I think it's best if I talk to my parents first. Then I can introduce you guys, ok?"
There was a round of agreements and some nodding of heads. Nervously, I knocked on the peeling green door. Alec, Simon, Isabelle, and Jace scrambled back down the stairs so my mother wouldn't see them.
After some rattling of the door handle, the door swung open and I was looking at my mother. "Clary!" she said, enveloping me in a hug. "I was worried. Where were you?"
"Oh, you know," I said. "Just out getting groceries."
"You don't have any groceries," noticed Jocelyn.
"SmartMart is under construction," I said. "Some sort of rabid elephant or terrorists damaged the place. Hence, no groceries."
I thought I heard a cough echo from the stairway, but I must have imagined it.
"Well, anyways, it's so nice to see you again! I've missed you so much."
I stepped into the apartment, where I saw Luke struggling under two ginormous suitcases. "Clary!" he huffed.
"Luke!" I said, and ran forwards to give him a hug. "How was California?"
"Great! Jocelyn and I had an amazing time. Surfing down in Santa Cruz, and we actually traveled to Hollywood to go sight-seeing. The Monterey Bay Aquarium was so cool—I saw a jellyfish bigger than my head."
"That's great! I'm glad you had such a nice time."
At this point, my hands were twisting in my lap, uncertain how to spit out what I was trying to say.
"So… while you were gone… I…"
"What's wrong, honey?" asked Jocelyn with concern.
"Well, I met this group of people," I started, "at the grocery store."
Luke cut in, "You're not part of a gang, are you?"
"No! No, I'm not." I took a deep breath. I looked at my mother. "I met this man who knows that you are—or at least used to be—a Sh—"
I was interrupted by the door flying open. Isabelle ran in, giggling and holding something above her head.
"Isabelle! Give it back! That's not funny!" shouted Jace, running in after her.
"Admit it! Admit you're not a General!" she called over her shoulder.
"Never!" said Jace.
"Then you're not going to get your Seraph blades back!"
My head was in my hands, and I was trying very, very hard not to lose my temper. Jocelyn and Luke were staring open-mouthed at Jace and Isabelle, who were now dancing around the coffee table.
"If you don't give them back, Izzy, then I'll make you give them back!"
"Oh, really? I'd like to see you try." So saying, she pulled a long, golden whip from—well, she now had a golden whip.
"Who—who are these people?" asked Jocelyn faintly.
"These are the grocery store terrorists," I said through gritted teeth. "Who were supposed to be hiding in the stairwell."
Alec and Simon calmly strode through the open door, glancing at Isabelle and Jace with indifference. "I was going to wait in the stairwell until you told us to come out, but I didn't see much point anymore," said Alec. He reached Jocelyn and Luke. "Hi, I'm Alexander Lightwood. It's a pleasure to meet you." He stuck out his hand.
Mom shook his hand. "Lightwood, did you say?" She looked very pale.
"That's correct. And over there is my sister, Isabelle Lightwood, and my adopted brother, Jace Wayland."
Luke shook Alec's hand with a grim expression on his face.
Jocelyn looked over Alec's shoulder. "Simon!" she said.
"Yep, it's me," he said. "It's nice to see you again, Ms. Fray."
"Likewise," she said, but she looked a bit shell-shocked.
"Mom," I said. "These people—minus Simon—are all Shadowhunters. And I know that you were Shadowhunter once, and I know that I am a Shadowhunter, too."
"How did you find out?" she whispered.
"Well, first Jace and Alec kidnapped me and took me to the Institute to tell me what I really am. And then I met this warlock called Magnus Bane who knew what you are…"
"That mother ***** bastard," she said. Then she sighed. "I was going to tell you when you got older, but then it never seemed like the right time, and I didn't want to drag you into this world. It's dangerous."
"But this is a part of me!" I said. "I thought I had been going insane for weeks! I kept seeing faeries and demons, and I thought I was hallucinating. I deserve to know what I am, especially when I'm sixteen. Sixteen, mom!"
"I know, I know." Luke put an arm around her. "I suppose you want to know why I'm no longer a Shadowhunter, and why I kept this world a secret from you."
"That would be greatly appreciated," I said stiffly.
"Well, it started about twenty years ago…" Suddenly, she noticed that Jace, Isabelle, Alec, and Simon had settled down, and were all sitting down and listening intently to her story.
"What is this, circle time? This is a private story!" said Jocelyn.
Alec clapped his hands together. "You heard the woman. Let's go play in the hallway, kids."
"But I wanna hear the story!" said Isabelle.
"No, this is a private story, Isabelle. Come on."
Reluctantly, Jace, Alec, Isabelle, and Simon filed out into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.
"Where was I?" asked Jocelyn.
"'Twenty years ago…'" I quoted.
"Oh, right. Well, roughly twenty years ago—more like nineteen, or eighteen. In any case, around this time, my parents arranged a marriage for me. It's not unusual in Shadowhunter families, especially in the older and more prestigious families. I was engaged to a man who was five years older than me, and I was set to marry him in a year. However, in this year I met a man: Valentine Morgenstern. We fell madly in love, and planned to run away together. We did it, too. We ran away four days before the wedding."
"Where to?" I asked. I had no idea my mom was such a romantic.
"Paris, the love capitol of the world. A couple months later, I found out I was pregnant with you. Things couldn't be better. However…" She hesitated. Luke gave her arm a little squeeze, and she smiled gratefully at him. "However, six months pregnant with you, Valentine started coming home later and later. I didn't know why. I thought he might have been cheating on me or something, so one night I followed him. He went into this huge abandoned warehouse, and when I followed him inside, I saw that the inside was filled with Downworlders. Werewolves, vampires, faeries, and warlocks all chained to the wall and were being tortured. It was awful. Absolutely terrible…" She shuddered. "I didn't know what to do at first; I was confused. Once I saw what Valentine was doing, I ran home to calm down. Valentine came home and found me waiting for him on the balcony. I told him I knew what he was doing, and that I couldn't be with him if he was doing this. We started arguing, and it got a little heated. I didn't mean to, but I shoved him, hard, and… and he fell over the edge. We were six stories up. He didn't survive."
She was crying now, big fat tears sliding down her face. "I still feel guilty, to this day. Valentine turned out to be a monster—he deserved to die. But once you start loving someone, it's hard to stop. I would never have pushed him on purpose, even though he was a terrible person. I freed the Downworlders, and then two months after I gave birth to you, Luke found me. He had been my best friend growing up, and he still is my best friend. I told him that I needed to start over, and that I needed a new beginning. He agreed to run away to America with me, and… here we are now."
I took a couple minutes to soak in my mom's story. "I'm sorry that all this happened to you, and that your true love turned out to be a torturer, but that doesn't mean that you should lie to me my whole life!"
"Clary, I wanted to protect you! I couldn't deal with this world any more. I knew that this world could tear you apart the same way it tore me apart."
"Ah! There it is. 'I couldn't deal with this world anymore.' You were the one that didn't want anything to do with this world. It wasn't about me. You didn't want to dig up old memories. You didn't do it to protect me! You did it to escape your past!"
"Clary," cut in Luke. "Your mom only had your best interests at heart. Believe me."
"I'm not sure I can anymore," I said coldly. Then something struck me. "If you really wanted to escape this world, why did you keep in touch with Magnus Bane? He said that you had him do a couple jobs."
Jocelyn opened her mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. "I… uh… Well, I had him modify your Sight. Every year, I would bring you to him and he would change your Sight so that you weren't able to see demons or Downworlders."
"You had a warlock mess with my head? I don't believe this!" I shrieked. Tears were streaming down my face. I couldn't believe that my mom would do that to me, to 'protect' me from a world that I belonged to.
"Clary…" Luke said, and tried to give me a hug.
"No!" I said, stumbling backwards. "I've heard enough. I'm leaving."
I practically bolted out of the living room, slightly tipsy from the tears, and burst through the front door. Madly mopping up my face, I said to Jace, Isabelle, Alec, and Simon, in a trying-to-be-steady voice, "Let's go."
"Oh, Clary," said Isabelle softly.
"I don't want to talk about it," I said. I pushed past everybody and started half-jogging towards the cars. Distantly, I heard Isabelle telling everyone else to give me some space.
I jumped into the car and slammed the door shut. A couple minutes later, everyone else joined me. No one talked much the car ride back to the Institute. Somehow, I managed to keep it together the whole ride back.
The moment we got back, I ran up my room and sobbed into my pillow. Eventually, I realized that crying into my pillow wasn't achieving anything except for extra laundry, and I forced myself to get out of bed. I felt ashamed at myself for being so weak. Normally, I was the kind of girl who almost never cried. Ok, so I cried just a little when I was kidnapped by Jace and Alec, but that was because I thought I was going to die.
I washed my face in the sink and then climbed back into my bed. Sketching was my comfort zone, so I sketched for a while, thoughts and ideas flowing from my pen in the form of pictures. Every once and a while, I felt that ugly feeling rise up in my throat again like bile: betrayal. I felt betrayed by my mom, and a little bit by Luke, too. Betrayed that they didn't trust me to tell me about this new world, betrayed that they kept it a secret, betrayed by the fact that my mom payed someone to mess with my head.
After what I suppose was hours of sketching, someone knocked on my door. "Come in," I said.
Jace opened the door, standing slightly awkwardly on the threshold. He cleared his throat. "How are you feeling?"
"A lot better," I said, and smiled at him.
"Here, I brought this for you," he said. He handed me a cup of hot chocolate. "Don't worry, Isabelle didn't make it."
"Thanks," I said, and took a tentative sip. It wasn't the best hot chocolate I've ever had—it was slightly watery. But it was hot and full of sugar, and Jace had made it for me, so I thought it tasted delicious. I gulped it down, and then wiped my mouth on the back of my hand.
"If you're ready, we're having an impromptu meeting down in the library to discuss what we found today."
"That sounds good," I said. I got out of bed and gave Jace a hug. Between the hug and the hot chocolate, I was feeling substantially better. "Ok, let's go."
When we got to the library, Magnus, Alec, Simon, and Isabelle were seated around one of the tables in the library. "So, what's the deal?" asked Jace.
"So, far, I haven't got very much," said Magnus. "I've examined all of the bodies, and I don't know what to say. It's not a mundane disease, and it's not demonic in origin. They showed very faint traces of drugs, but the effects should have worn off by now. They're not knocked out by force—or at least, I can't find any marks. They're all completely healthy, as far as I can tell. It doesn't make any sense."
"Hmm," said Jace. "That's very odd. And you've never encountered this thing before?"
"Never," confirmed Magnus.
"What about the powder I found?"
"That's a conundrum, too. It's not a drug, or demon blood, or any kind of medicine, plant, or sediment. I've tested for everything."
Jace rubbed his face tiredly. "This is not good. What could it be? We're back to square one."
"What are we going to do tomorrow?" asked Isabelle.
"We'll probably search the surrounding area," said Jace. "Look for clues."
Magnus looked very thoughtful. "You know," he said slowly, "there was one thing I didn't test for."
"What?" asked Jace, but Magnus was already striding across the living room.
"I'll be right back," said Magnus.
We all talked about various things, mainly concerning the weather, Jace's status as General, and the mysterious unconscious bodies in the refrigerator. Everyone was very careful to avoid the subject of my parents.
All of a sudden, Magnus arrived in the library. "I was right. And this is very, very bad."
"What was it?"
"It was blood," said Magnus grimly, "but it wasn't demon blood. It was angel blood."
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A/N: And the plot thickens almost as fast as Isabelle's lasagna soup. Reviews are awesome! No, Jace's dad was not Valentine, and I am not going to make Clary and Jace brother and sister. Love, HoneydukesFan.
