Unlocking Riley

Riley stood in the doorway, arms folded over her chest. Luke looked over at her, then looked away.

"You know you can't avoid the question, right?" Riley scoffed. "I know Mom probably swore you to secrecy, but you've stood up to her before." she sat on the end of the bed. "Why did you let Mom go to Magnus that day? You could've stopped her."

"She wanted you and Clary to have normal lives." Luke defended.

"Look how well that turned out." Riley pointed out, leaning against the bed frame. She walked around and stood at the end, leaning into the railing. "Look, the last few days, I have not had all of the information."

"And you still don't." Luke cut in. "But you need to know everything. It'll help you find the Mortal Cup."

"How?" Riley asked.

"You're just gonna have to trust me." Luke answered.

Riley sighed. "I do, more than anything." she confirmed. "Nothing you say is ever gonna change that. Okay, but you have to trust me, too."

"All right." Luke cleared his throat. "Magnus told you about the Uprising? About the Valentine who murdered all those people?"

Riley nodded. "Yes." she answered.

"The reason he became that man was our fault; mine and Jocelyn's." Luke admitted.

Riley shook her head. "I don't believe you." she rebuked, pacing in front of the door.

"We betrayed him, Riley." Luke continued. "Your mother and I. We fell in love."

Riley raised an eyebrow, "Did you..." she stammered. "Wait. Are you my?"

"No." Luke cut off. "No, we never-"

"Slept together?" Riley finished, eyes wide.

"Yeah. I mean, no!" Luke exclaimed. "Your parents were married." he went on. "Valentine was my parabatai. We both loved him." he met her eyes. "But as his rhetoric got more violent and he became more combative with the Clave, we started to worry." he sighed. "We tried to help him, tried to temper him, but he just kept pulling away. That just drew us closer together." he looked up at Riley, who was again leaning against the bed frame.. "We knew it was wrong, but we couldn't deny it, or hide it."

"So what did Valentine think about all that?" Riley asked.

Luke sighed. "Valentine became convinced we were having an affair. He was obsessed with winning Jocelyn's heart back." he answered. "For love, he was willing to do anything, even compromise his own principles." he went on. "He became fixated on becoming a better soldier. That led him to do the unthinkable, experiment with Downworlder blood. Once he crossed that line, we never got him back again." he looked down at his hands. "In the end, our love did more damage to Valentine than anything anybody else could have done. We broke his heart."

"At least now I know he had one." Riley scoffed. "Before his crazy, distorted world view set in." she looked at Luke, twisting the end of her ponytail around her finger. "What was he like back then?" she asked. "Before he, you know-"

"In the early days of the Circle?" Luke questioned. "He was honorable, idealistic. He was charismatic."

Riley smiled. "Just Mom's type, huh?" she chuckled. "Just like you."

"Oh, no. No." Luke rebuked. "I never came close. He was a leader. Devoted to protecting us from dying pointless deaths."

"And you believed in him." Riley finished.

Luke chuckled. "If your best friend told you he had the cure for cancer, you'd want to believe him, too." he pointed out.

"Well, I'd probably give him the benefit of the doubt at least." Riley shrugged, sitting on the bedside.

"Which is what I did. What we all did." Luke agreed. "The demons were winning. We couldn't train our people fast enough to keep up." he continued. "Val wanted the Clave to use the Mortal Cup to create more Shadowhunters, but that just made them angry."

"Isn't more Shadowhunters a good thing?" Riley questioned.

"Not the way he was proposing." Luke answered. "Ever since the Angel Raziel created the first Shadowhunters with the Cup, it's been forbidden to use the Cup again to rebuild their forces." he informed. "Jocelyn and I, we tried pulling him back, but he just misconstrued that as..."

"The affair." Riley finished. She looked at Luke, placing her hand over his. "It's not your fault, Luke." she assured. "There's no way you two could have pushed him over the edge. He did that to himself, with the blood injections."

Luke squeezed Riley's hand. "And the more injections he took, the deeper it seemed he descended into madness." he added. "He once caught Jocelyn sketching and once he saw the image, he swore he would make everyone see the truth."

"Magnus never told me that part." Riley told him.

"He didn't know." Luke admitted. "There are some things Jocelyn and I never talked about."

"Why would she hide that she's an artist?" Riley asked. "Especially from Clary and I?"

"Because after that night, she locked that part of herself away." Luke answered. "She never wanted our lives to affect you and your sister."

Riley licked her lips, setting the large sketchbook off to the side. "What did my-our-father do?" she asked.

"Your mother is the only other person I ever told this to." Luke sighed. "Valentine asked me to back him up on a mission. Some farmers had gone missing. He said it was werewolves." he continued. "He betrayed our parabatai bond. And then he betrayed everything else he believed in." Luke looked away. "For a while, I thought he'd killed her. He wanted us both dead. He killed thousands. Turned Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter." he met Riley's eyes. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Riley nodded. "God only knows what he'd do if he got the Cup." she replied.

"We have to get the Cup before Valentine does." Luke declared.

"But I don't know where it is." Riley informed. "Or even where to start looking."

"It all starts and ends with you." Luke told her.

Riley scoffed. "How do you know that?" she asked.

"Because I know Jocelyn." Luke defended. "You're one of the few people she would have trusted with the location of the Cup. You and Clary."

"If she trusted us so much, why didn't she tell me any of this?" Riley questioned.

"She didn't think this was gonna happen." Luke answered, sitting up. "She made provisions just in case it did. The potion she drank, the portal shard she gave you." he sighed. "Jocelyn said that I should tell you everything about our past. That it would unlock you."

"What does that even mean?" Riley asked, frustrated.

"I don't know!" Luke exclaimed. "But you do."

Riley scoffed, standing up and running her fingers through her ponytail. "I'm just barely piecing my memory together with Clary's memories I took from Valak."

Luke sighed. "There are clues, hidden inside the mundane world." he clarified. "Think Riley."

"I don't remember anything." Riley defended. "I've just barely begun piecing the memories together. If Mom hid the clues, I don't know what they are." she paced a couple more times. "You said you had to tell me everything. Maybe there's something you forgot." she looked around the room, then remembered the box. Riley opened her satchel and pulled it out, sliding back on the bed. "What is this? Mom told Clary that this originally belonged to our father, but Valentine is our father." she showed the box to Luke. "Who is "JC"?"

"I want you to remember your father could be a good man." Luke told her

"After what he did to you-" Riley rebuffed.

"This is worse, Riley." Luke cut off.

"I don't care!" Riley exclaimed. "Luke, I want to know. I need to know." she defended. "You said so yourself. You have to tell me everything."

Luke sighed heavily. "'JC' stands for Jonathan Christopher." he answered. "Your brother."

Riley gasped and her eyes widened, leaning back. "I have a brother?" she repeated, still in shock.

"You did." Luke corrected. "He died in a fire at Fairchild Manor. A fire that your father set."

Riley gripped the top of the box. She bit her lip and thrust it down, and with a low hum of power, it merged with her page. Riley gasped, "That's it." she declared. "That's the ending of the story that my mother needed me to hear, but, is that what she meant to unlock?" she asked, as Luke took the paper. "How did I do that?"

"There are Shadowhunters that have unusual Angelic Powers, but I've never seen anyone do what you just did." Luke informed.

Riley blinked as a similar instance flashed across her memory; Clary setting a piscotti on an open page of sketchbook one second, then the next it merged with the paper. She took the page from Luke, running her finger over the perfect sketch. "Can these powers be inherited?" she asked, looking up at Luke.

"I think so." Luke answered.

Riley chuckled softly and met Luke's eyes. "I know where my mother hid the Cup." she told him, smiling.