quick as lightning

25. Walk down memory lane

"Piper don't touch the painting it hasn't dried." Magnus howled and Piper spun around to face the warlock. It was like watching a movie but she was in it. This had to be a memory, however she couldn't ever remember it.

They were in the upstairs to pandemonium. The apartment well furnished. The five year old girl with red locks of wet hair threaded with gold. She was wearing a nightgown as the warlock scooped her up. "I'm sorry Magnus." She showed him her small fingers covered in paint.

"It's fine, that was actually a fake painting." He rinsed her small hands in the skin walking her over to a easel with the same painting on it.

"How can you tell the difference?" Young Piper asked and he lifted her up so she could see it properly.

"In the original, if you look in the window you can see a demon lurking. The mundanes don't see it because when it was replicated they believed it was the original." He explained as he carried her to bed.

"Magnus, when will mommy and daddy come and get me?" The young girl asked the warlock who sighed, smiling sadly.

"A few more days." He stroked her hair before walking out into the doorway and closing it with a snap.

Piper was snapped from the vision and she had her fingers on he painting. Sure enough, when she looked in the window of the church a black figure lurked in the window. "It was a memory." Piper realized, before wandering down the trail.

The glittering gold of artifacts and chilled clay sculptures of angels which sort of freaked her out, after all, if you look a weeping angel in the eye you could die. After all, that episode had given her nightmares for weeks.

She ran her finger along a blade before it cut her and she winced lifting her finger up to her lips.

"Diana, you have to be more careful! Didn't I tell you not to play with your brothers sword?" A woman's voice called in her ear.

Piper jumped and saw nobody beside her. As the junk began to dwindle as she slowly made her way down the path she heard whisperings of words she couldn't hear. At the end of the path stood two silver doors.

"That looks ominous." I whispered looking to the vine beside me, after all, they did act like petty pixies. The vine just stood there curled on the post. "Oh fine be that way." I scowled before looking to the silver doors.

They were dusty, looking as if they hadn't been touched in many years. Piper wiped the dust from the door and there were words indented into the steel. However it was too dark to see them, Piper pulled her ruby stele from her boot and held it up casting a faint red glow. Before she could read the words the doors freaked open revealing a brightly lit room.

Piper blinked rapidly, pupils adjusting to the light before she stuck the wand back into her boot and saw a large portrait. As she neared it she could make out a man and a woman with bright flaming hair. The man had hair closer to the orange spectrum and his hand rested on the boy around her ages shoulder. The boy had freckles, and his mothers amber eyes while his orange curls matched his fathers. They both had crowns atop their heads.

The woman with golden red hair held a baby, around 2, the baby's red color came from her mother while curls from her father. However the little girl had bright eyes, gasping Piper saw they were multicolored. At the bottom the gold frame was written upon. King Xavier and Queen Elara Michealson with prince Maxon and princess Diana Michealson.

"The lost princess." I quoted Max's story. Before looking on the walls. Other portraits of the royal line filled the room while a glittering of gold and red caught her eye. Walking towards it Piper saw that the crown sat on a stand.

"Only upon the head of the Angels bloodline does the crown glow for the true queen of the shadow world." Said the gold plate underneath it. Piper felt magnetized by it, the gold and Rubies untwined. She knew that it was a terrible idea for her to try on a priceless artifact. Piper shook her head and started walking from the room.

This 'trip down memory lane' was a bust. She started walking faster before she heard movement, turning she saw nothing and decided upon taking a breather at the table and resting her head. Going over the facts she had in her head for the time being. Every word he had spoken repeated in her head. Like clockwork coming together she pieces all of her life together.

Clary and Piper had talked to Magnus many times. He always avoided the word twin, sister, or even related. Clary spoke of times before age five but never could remember doing anything with her twin. Piper on the other hand had no memories before the age of seven. The new memory of herself she had been staying with Magnus, waiting for her mother and father. Piper and Clary never had a father. She had heard the name Diana, Clary had mentioned in the other dimension her name was Diana Penelope... Piper jumped up and sprinted back into the silver room standing so close that her nose almost touched the painting. The child's eyes were a multitude of colors. She needed three more pieces of information before she could be 100% sure on anything.

Running down the pathways she exited the east wing and with almost the equivalent of vampire speed made it to the hub. "Alec!" She yelled and plowed into he boy, decking him hard to the ground.

He groaned, looking up and the girl on top of him. "Alec I need to know if the lost princess had a birthmark." I almost shouted.

"What?" He asked. "Piper, I have to be at the trial for Izzy in five minutes."

Piper put a knee to his chest. "I need to know, every detail about the lost princess."

He rolled his eyes. "Uh, yeah, I think that she had a birthmark." Alec squinted his eyes. "Um-I'm like a-"

"Alec, was it a tiara." I gulped and he nodded.

"Yeah, I don't see how this proteins to Izzy-Piper!" He shouted after me But I had already sprinted into the archives. The whole time it was like my locked away memories were on audio and I could remember my mother and father and brother. I could remember my father telling my brother to take me to Magnus and getting killed by a demon. I could remember Magnus taking away the memories of my true family and making me believe I was Penelope-Piper Fray. When I finally stopped, I reached out and took the crown from the stand and teleported into the center of the trial.

"I order you to stop this trial and release Isabelle Lightwood as not guilty." I spoke confidently to the woman known as the inquisitor.

"And Who are you to speak so boldly." She asked and I took down my hair letting my red locks fall before I placed the heavy crown on my head feeling a pulse of energy ripple away from me.

"Princess Diana Penelope Michealson."