Magnus scrunched up his face, checking on Luke with his magic, "The magic's wearing off." He informed,
Luke yelled in pain, "It was our fault. It was our fault!" He shouted
"I'm running out of magic," Magnus yelled, restraining himself, "I can't leave him, but the potion stock still needs Komodo scale. Find it, add the rest when they get here. You'll have to feed it to Luke." He instructed them. Clary ran to the other room, quickly following Magnus' instructions. Sam looked at Magnus knitting her eyebrows together, worried about the warlock who was slowly losing his energy, "What about you?"
"I'll hold on as long as I can. Go!" He yelled. The blonde was reluctant to leave the warlock alone before running to the other room after her sister helping her to get the potion ready until Jace and Simon show up with the rest of the ingredients.
"Sam!" She heard Jace call out to her, so she ran to the door, looking at him frantically, "Do you have it?" He nodded, handing the ingredients to her before she hastened back to the kitchen, pouring the ingredients into the potion Clary was making.
Clary finished the potion giving it to Sam, who moved to Luke, pouring it in his mouth. It took a few seconds before he finally opened his eyes, "Hey, Sam." He attempted a smile as he looked at the blonde, who sighed in relief.
Alec, who helped Magnus was about to leave the room when Sam stopped him, "Alec, wait. If you hadn't gotten here in time, I don't know what would have happened. Thank you. I'm glad you and Jace are okay again."
"I didn't do this for Jace." He admitted.
"Then I'm glad you're finally doing something for yourself, " She stated with a small smile. Jace entered after Alec left, smiling at the blonde, "You have an interesting effect on people, Sam Fray."
"I like to think it's because of my insanely good looks," She said with a smirk making Jace grin shaking his head, "But really though. Thank you, Jace," Sam said, taking extra steps to the Shadowhunter who seemed as drawn to her as she was to him.
He shrugged, dismissing her gratitude. "For what? For running an errand?"
She shook her head, smiling faintly, "For being here for me, for having my back."
He took a few steps towards her now an inch was barely between them, "I'm always gonna have your back." He promised, stroking her cheek affectionately. The blonde relaxed at his touch, closing her eyes momentarily.
Sam and Clary leaned on the doorway side, watching Luke getting settled on the bed by Magnus. The warlock looked from Luke to the sisters nodding his head, "I'll leave you three alone."
Sam raised her eyebrows at the werewolf approaching his bed, "You need to know everything. It'll help you find the Mortal Cup." Luke started.
"How?" Clary wondered, standing beside her sister as they both watched Luke, who shook his head, staring dead serious at the two sisters, "You're just gonna have to trust me." He stated
"It goes both ways. No more secrets." Sam said, not taking her eyes off of Luke, who accepted her words with a nod.
"All right. Magnus told you about the Uprising? About Valentine, who murdered all those people?" Sam and Clary nodded, Luke sighed before continuing.
"The reason he became that man was our fault, mine and Jocelyn's." the werewolf admitted looking down in shame as Sam shook her head, "What did you two could've possibly done? Steal from his cookie jar?" Sam scoffed as she looked at the man she considered a father.
"We betrayed him, Sam. Your mother and I. We fell in love." Luke admitted making the blonde's and the redhead's eyes widen in shock.
"Did you... Wait... Are you our...?" Clary stammered, not knowing what to make of this revelation. Luke frowned, shaking his head vigorously, "No. No, we never..."
"Had sex?" Sam suggested with raised eyebrows staring at Luke meaningfully.
"Yeah. I mean, no! Your parents were married. Valentine was my Parabatai. We both loved him. But as his rhetoric got more violent and he became more combative with the Clave, we started to worry. We tried to help him, tried to temper him, but he just kept pulling away. That just drew us closer together. We knew it was wrong, but we couldn't deny it or hide it."
"Valentine became convinced we were having an affair. He was obsessed with winning Jocelyn's heart back. For love, he was willing to do anything, even compromise his own principles. 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. 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 before his crazy, distorted world view set in." Clary remarked with a sigh, "What was he like back then? Before he, you know....." Sam wondered, pursing her lips.
Sam wanted to think that her father was a good man before he became that mad man who was set on killing people who had different blood than him; perhaps he was a kind man, that's why Joceyln married him anyway.
"Oh, he was honorable. Idealistic. He was charismatic."
"Just Mom's type. Just like you." Clary said with a small smile, looking up at Luke, who shook his head, "Oh, no. No. I never came close. He was a leader. Devoted to protecting us from dying pointless deaths."
"The demons were winning. We couldn't train our people fast enough to keep up. Val wanted the Clave to use the Mortal Cup to create more Shadowhunters, but that just made them angry."
"But isn't more Shadowhunters a good thing?" Sam questioned with furrowed eyebrows.
"Not the way he was proposing. 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."
"Why would she hide that she's an artist, especially from me?" Clary asked with a deep frown. She had wondered why her mother would keep that a secret from her.
"Because after that night, she locked that part of herself away. She never wanted their lives to affect yours."
"What did our father do?" Sam inquired with disdain, narrowing her eyes at the werewolf. She was starting to understand what Valentine had become.
"Your mother is the only other person I ever told this to. I never wanted it to burden you." Luke revealed, looking at the two sisters. Sam sighed, reaching for Luke's hand, squeezing it in reassurance, "Luke, we need to know."
Luke looked down, he didn't want to remember, but he understood that he needed to tell the girls the truth, "Valentine asked me to back him up on a mission. Some farmers had gone missing. He said it was werewolves. He betrayed our Parabatai bond. And then he betrayed everything else he believed in. For a while, I thought he'd killed her. He wanted us both dead. He killed thousands. Turned Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"We have to get to the Cup before Valentine does," Luke said, getting up from the bed pacing the room nervously, "But we don't know where it is. Or even where to start looking." Clary said, getting distressed as she stood up, too.
Luke stopped in his tracks, whirling around at the two sisters, "It all starts and ends with you two," He said, "I know Jocelyn. You two are the only ones she would have trusted with the location of the Cup. Jocelyn said that I should tell you everything about our past. That it would unlock you."
"What does that even mean?" Clary asked while Sam frowned, standing up, "You said you had to tell us everything. Maybe there's something you forgot. Wait." She grabbed the JC box out of her bag, showing it to Luke, who looked horrified at the box.
"What is this? Mom said this belonged to our father, but Valentine is our father. Who is JC?" Sam wondered, looking at Luke like he had all the answers to her problems, and she wanted him to.
But the werewolf only shook his head, "I want you to remember your father could be a good man." Sam frowned, scoffing in response, "After what he did to you-" He cut her off, pointing at the box in her hand, "This is worse, Sam."
"Tell me I can take it. You know I can."
"JC stands for Jonathan Christopher," He said, "Your twin brother." Luke stated, looking at Sam, who gasped in shock, "What?"
"He died in a fire at Fairchild Manor. A fire that your father set. Jocelyn barely saved you," Luke continued as the blonde had her mouth gaped open in shock stared in shock at what Luke was saying, she had always felt like some part of her missing, but she came to think it was because of her erased memories.
Sam gulped, staring into the distance, her eyes glazing over her surroundings. Everything was black for a second until it materialized again. The blonde stood invisibly watching Jocelyn put the cup in one of the tarot cards before giving Dot cards.
"Sam?" Clary called out, looking in worry at her sister, who seemed out of it. Sam's eyes suddenly focused again, staring wide-eyed at Clary, "What happened?" The redhead asked, concerned as Sam shook her head, "I don't know. It was like a vision."
"What vision?" Luke wondered. Sam clenched her jaw, standing up, "I think I know where the cup is?"
"Come again?" Jace asked as all of them were now in Magnus' living room.
"The tarot cards. My mom must have painted them years ago, but the Mortal Cup has to be hidden inside the Ace of Cups. The card looks exactly like it." Sam explained, pacing, telling them everything she saw in the vision.
Jace and Magnus shared a look making the blonde stop in her tracks, turning to them in confusion, "Wait, why aren't you guys happy about this? All we have to do is find..." Clary trailed off with realization, "Dot."
"If Dot had the cards when she was taken, we don't have much time. If Valentine gets his hands on the Cup-"
"We know. If Valentine started creating Shadowhunters or gained control of demons, it'd be like Beyoncé riding on a dinosaur through Times Square. People would notice." Magnus remarked.
Sam rolled her eyes, plopping on the couch in exhaustion, "Still waiting on Valentine's thank-you card." Jace commented.
"Valentine doesn't have the cards. I do. They're at my desk back at the precinct. When Sam and Clary went missing, I went to the loft, and I cleared everything out, 'cause I didn't want the Circle to track them." Luke started, walking into the room.
Sam nodded, "Easy enough."
"Mmm, that's what General Custer said." Magnus remarked as Luke nodded in agreement, "Magnus is right. Valentine has spies everywhere, even in the NYPD. We have to be discreet."
"Discreet? You look like something out of The Mummy movie." Clary said, looking Luke up and down, making Magnus grin.
"We'll go in the morning. Werewolf healing, remember? This is nothing a couple of hours of beauty sleep can't fix." He promised.
The next day, Sam, Jace, and Luke stood in front of the NYPD, "All right, cards are on my desk. This shouldn't take long."
"All right." Jace said about to follow Luke, who stopped him, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. It'll be easier to avoid unnecessary attention if I do this alone."
Jace looked at Sam, who shrugged, "We'll wait here." Luke walked away as Jace huffed in annoyance, "It sounded boring anyway."
"That's very convincing." She teased him, crossing her arms in front of her chest, thinking about everything she learned about Valentine.
After a while of waiting, Sam huffed in agitation, spinning around to look at Jace, "He's taking too long."
"I know a way we could find out. Just go in and see for ourselves." He suggested.
"Or..... " She got her stele drawing the sight rune, "We could know everything from down here" She raised her eyebrows at Jace before looking at the window watching Luke getting arrested.
Jace smiled, shaking his head, "You know one day you're gonna has to tell me how did you manage to know all of this? I thought you lived a mundane life."
"Oh please, I was born with the talent," She said, ushering her head to the station, "Come on, Luke had his chance." She hit his shoulder, walking past him to the station.