"So why did you keep me and completely abandon Jace?"
"Honey, I want you to know I'm a victim here, too. We all are." I rolled my eyes and shook my head in disbelief. My mother sighed. "To understand, you need to know everything, from the very start." She gestured for me to sit and I did so, rather begrudgingly.
"When I was pregnant with you and your brother, Valentine drugged me. As you know, he injected you and Jonathan with demon blood. He thought demon blood would make our unborn children strong. And for one of you, it did." I furrowed my eyebrows, suddenly lost, though kept my mouth shut. "But it also made him evil."
She took a deep, albeit shaky, breath before continuing. "Sammy, you have no idea how much I loved your brother. He was my baby boy. And I didn't want to believe it until I saw what he was capable of. Everything he touched turned dark, everywhere he went, chaos followed. He was a monster. A tiny, baby monster with soulless, black eyes and demonic fingertips. So I went to one of Idris' most powerful warlocks, Ragnor Fell. He warned me that, in the future, your brother would only leave death and destruction in his wake."
"What about me? Jace and I had the same blood, was I like that? Am I a monster?" As much as I needed to know, on many levels I feared the answer.
"Oddly enough, no. For some reason, that not even Ragnor could explain, you never displayed any of the same symptoms as Jonathan. Valentine saw it too and thought that you were just a failure, so when he faked his and Jonathan's deaths, he left you for me to deal with. I kept you because you were normal. So when I was raising you and Clary, it was easier for you to believe that the reason neither of you remembered, or had any photos with your father was that he died before you were born and for that to work, I needed you to believe you were twins."
"You say symptoms as though Jace was sick. This wasn't just some illness Mom! Even if it was, how could you leave him? And how could you lie to me for so many years? Having a brother is one thing, but having a twin is a connection on a whole other level." I was so angry. The Jace I had come to know and love was no demon.
"You don't understand," Jocelyn pleaded, "He was a monster."
"Yes but Mom, when is a monster not a monster?" She looked at me confused, so I answered, "When you love it. You have no idea the man that Jace has grown up to be, he is a kind, and loyal, and dedicated warrior, and nothing that you say to me is going to justify you trying to murder him."
Her head snapped up at my words.
"Yeah, Clary told me about that too," I spat, shaking my head. I was positively seething. "If I find out that you've harmed a single hair on that boy's head, I will never, ever forgive you."
I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down. "Now, I'm glad that we got you back, and that you're okay, because after all, you are family," I gave her a pointed look, and I could see that she understood my passive aggressive dig at her abandoning Jace, "and I love you, but you should probably leave for Idris. Like, tonight."
She sighed, "I guess I should go and start packing then."
I nodded, turning on my heel and leaving in search of Isabelle. I needed to make sure the rest of my new family was safe. I made my way through to the main level and spotted the younger Lightwood. Plastering a smile on, I not-so-subtly caught her attention.
"Hey, Izzy! You all right?" I shouted across the op center. Isabelle was on the other side and looked up at my voice - as did many others. She grinned and held up a thumb.
"You?" She shouted back. I mimicked her and stuck my hand in the air, giving her a thumbs up.
I laughed to myself at the mix of amused and irritated faces scattered around at our loud exchange. Feeling instantly better, and still chuckling, I wandered through the corridors, swinging my seraph blade around, looking for any sign of a struggle.
