Inside of Me ━ Isabelle Lightwood

XIII. REVELATIONS

Isaac had to admit that a part of him was scared of telling Clary the truth about the Circle. Through everything they had been through in the past couple of days, he had seen the anger that she held for the lies that the people she cared for told her. He could see the affects they had on her, and he hated it.

That was his sister. He had been lying to his sister – his biological sister – for years, without even knowing it. Maybe that was something they had in common. Both of them had been lied to for their whole lives about who they were, but they were so different as well. Isaac wasn't being lied to anymore, about anything, and still he continued to lie to his sister (his sister!) because he was selfish, even if he didn't want to believe it.

Magnus and Isaac walked into the room where Clary sat, looking into the other room that held an unconscious Luke with sadness and guilt, only peeking up when she saw the two arrive.

"Tell me what?" she finally asked them, "What's so important that Luke risked his life?"

"Everything Jocelyn hoped to hide from you," Magnus vaguely told her, taking a sip from his freshly poured glass as he shot a look to Isaac, who ignored him.

He snapped his fingers and a sketch pad appeared on the table in front of the redhead. "Why?" she asked.

Magnus sighed, "When you were younger, I'd watch you sketching. It was your bliss. You're gonna need some bliss now."

Isaac felt guilt creep inside him, taking a grip on his heart and warping around his soul as he took in every word that Magnus said. He didn't get to see Clary grow up, not really, he didn't get to see her when she was six or eleven, drawing up monsters on paper. It was just another thing he missed out on when he was stuck in Beacon Hills because Jocelyn (mom) wanted to protect him.

Clary stared at the pad, the pencil, everything about it. "Back then, there wasn't a day I didn't draw. It was like breathing. Now, I look at this blank page and I barely even know what to do."

She took a deep breath before continuing, "Sometimes I feel like my art, my memories...my life, it...it all vanished with that Memory Demon."

Isaac walked toward her, raising a hand onto her shoulder to comfort the girl, wishing he could know how it felt. He could smell the sadness radiating off her, but he truly couldn't know what she felt. Their lives were so different growing up. She had memories taken from her when he wished they would be taken from him.

"Your art, everything you are...they're all still here," Magnus told her with great emotion, "You're the woman your mother always knew you could be."

"But tried to keep me from being."

Magnus' eyes flickered away from the siblings for a split second, "That's why you need to know how you got here."

"Will it help me find my mother?" Clary asked. She only had one thing she wanted to find, not her memories, but her mother. The only person that had always been there for her from a young age, and Isaac could smell the desperation from her.

"That's the only reason I can think of why Luke would be so adamant," Magnus said.

"I'm ready," Clary sighed, looking straight into Magnus' cat-like eyes, "Bring it, warlock."

And then the story began.

"When I first heard about your father, around the time he and Jocelyn first got together, long before the Uprising and the Circle, Valentine elevated the Morgenstern name to be synonymous with virtue."