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The heavy sound of rain crashing against glass and stone was an oddly soothing sound. One that had been a part of Isabelle Lightwood’s life for as long as she could remember. It was a sound that had soothed her to sleep plenty of times inside this very bedroom when she was a little girl, and still as she got older.
She had so many memories of laying in her bed listening to the rain come down. Curled up underneath the covers and quilts on her bed, the familiar and comforting weight of a soft quilt that Alec had stolen from a mundane store for her when he was twelve. She could remember the night he snuck it into her room when she was sick. How he’d laid it over her and tucked her in underneath it that first time. He’d stayed with her the entire night afterward, monitoring her fever, and singing softly to her when she couldn’t sleep.
Isabelle drew that quilt a little tighter around her shoulders. She was sitting in her favorite chair by the window; the glass propped open just enough that she could get the scent of fresh rain, the coolness of the breeze.
Memories of a different bedroom kept trying to slip forward. A larger room, still made of stone like this one, yet far less welcoming. A room that had been half home and half prison for so very long. Where she’d never quite felt like she fit in. Not even in the privacy of her own chambers had she been able to feel free, to feel unafraid. Back then, there’d been no one to comfort her. No big brother to come in and wrap her up in a quilt and sing soft songs to her. To hold her through her terror after her nightmares and reassure her she was okay.
Sighing, Isabelle let her eyes slide closed and, for just a moment, stopped trying to fight the memories and the headache that were pulsing away inside her head.
Whatever Alec – Merlin, fucking Merlin – had done had unlocked the part of herself that, until now, had only seeped through in dreams. Dreams and nightmares.
“That was one of your first powers back then, too. Seeing things in dreams,” Alec had told her, gentle and yet oh-so-guarded like she’d only ever seen him be with others and never, ever with her – like she’d seen him do with her right up until the very end, when he’d given up lying to anyone and he’d shoved a blade straight through her…
No.
Isabelle’s breath felt like it was trying to tear its way from her chest. Her eyes snapped open again, and in the faint reflection in the glass in front of her she caught a hint of a brief flash of gold.
Learning the truth about who she’d once been was something that would’ve thrown Isabelle for a loop no matter what. Though there was a part of her that couldn’t help but think that it was right. Like this was just a truth she’d always known. Yet at the same time, they seemed so very strange. She didn’t – she knew who she was, who she’d been. Morgana Pendragon. A High Priestess of the Old Religion, a potential heir to the throne of Camelot, and Arthur’s sister. But none of that stopped her from feeling like Isabelle Lightwood, a damn good shadowhunter, and little sister to Alec.
The memories Alec had unlocked in her weren’t easy to look at. To feel. They weren’t all consuming, erasing everything else she’d ever lived and felt, but nor were they easy to push down. They came with the same clarity that she could remember her early teen years with. There, and real, only with the cushion of years gone by to soften them a little. Though it didn’t take away the sharper sting of some of them.
Isabelle let out a heavy sigh. She brought one hand up to rub against her face as if that might somehow help clear her head.
Figuring out what to do with these new memories and all this new knowledge was going to be interesting. But, almost more than anything else, what Isabelle found herself stuck on, what her mind kept trying to find some sort of way to make sense of, was Alec.
Merlin.
Isabelle tightened her grip on the quilt. There was a huge chunk of her that looked at him and felt anger. So much anger. But that other part of her, the part that still saw him as Alec, couldn’t handle even the idea of being that angry at him. The Merlin that Morgana had known had left her alone, lied to her, poisoned her, fought against her, and killed her. But the Alec that Isabelle knew? He would drink a thousand vials of poison himself, put a blade to his own skin, before ever letting her get hurt. He would never let her feel like she was alone and broken.
The memory of his face when he’d left her was something Isabelle couldn’t forget. In that look, she saw glimpses of both men, and a wealth of pain that stole her breath away.
There’d been knowledge sitting there in his eyes. The kind that came from age, and from pain. She’d seen in that moment that he had no illusions about who he was or who he’d been, or what she was likely to feel about it all. He’d been so ready for her to hate him. The way he’d held himself, how tense he’d been, had made it clearer than words that he was bracing for a blow he was so sure was going to come.
The worst part was, she could understand why. Were she just the part of herself that was Morgana, she would’ve tried to kill him on the spot.
A low groan tore its way through Isabelle’s throat. It felt like it lodged somewhere in her throat like a stone.
All of her thoughts cut off with a rapid rap against her door.
She turned her head to look, only for the door to open before she’d even had a chance to think about answering. A second later, she saw why when a familiar blond head poked in. Jace grinned when he saw her, and then came the rest of the way into her room. He let the door click shut behind him as he did. “Oh, good. You’re here.”
Jace was the only person in the Institute, aside from her mother, who would barge into her room without a care. Even Max knocked and waited for her to answer. But they all joked that Jace knocked as a warning. You usually had seconds to cover up if needed before he came strolling in like the room was his own.
Which, honestly, was a step up for him. It’d taken months when he’d first lived with them to understand that he should even knock. (Alec had told her once it had something to do with how he’d been raised, and a lack of privacy or autonomy that had meant nothing to the young girl she’d been back then, but that made her shudder now to think about)
Isabelle found a smile tugging at her lips despite everything. It was nice to see that some things were still the same, even if everything else felt like someone had turned it on its head.
Not that that meant she was all that excited to see him there. She’d left the others so that she could have time alone to think about things and figure it all out. Not sit there trying to think about it while staring at someone she had two sets of memories about. She’d thought they would respect that and give her space.
Almost against her will, Isabelle found herself souring a little. Her smile faded into something a little less welcoming. “How’d you draw the short straw?”
Jace wasn’t the least bit put off by her sharp tone. He never was. He always said that if he could handle Alec at his bitchiest, he could handle her. “I figured I’d be the best person to talk to,” Jace said, grinning a little. He came over and flopped down in a chair near her and settled into a sprawl that sort of made her want to punch him and roll her eyes both. Then he opened his mouth again and cheekily added on, “Y’know, seeing as how the last time I saw your past self, you were torturing and murdering me.”
That stole the wind right out of her sails. Isabelle’s jaw snapped shut.
The smirk Jace wore softened the slightest bit. “I also came because you’re my sister, and I love you.” The words that had once been so hard for him to say came out so much easier than they once had. But Jace said them now like they were just a matter-of-fact statement. “And I figure it’d probably be easier for you to talk to me than Alec right now.”
“I love my brother,” Isabelle blurted out. They weren’t the words she’d intended to say – honestly, she hadn’t even figured out if she wanted to say anything yet, let alone what it was she wanted to say. But those were the words that came out.
Jace nodded at her like it was the most normal thing in the world. “I know you do. You also hate Merlin.”
As much as Isabelle wanted to deny that, even went so far as to open her mouth to do so, the words wouldn’t come. She did hate Merlin. A huge part of her did. Maybe that would fade with time; maybe when these memories were less fresh, less painful. But oh, right now there was a part of her that loathed him, and that hurt more than anything else.
“I don’t want to hate him.” This time Isabelle’s voice was softer. A bit fragile in a way that was so unlike her.
Again, Jace nodded. He kicked one leg out a little more so that he could knock it against her chair. “He won’t blame you.”
It took everything Isabelle had not to snort. Still, she gave Jace her driest look, and he snorted for her. They both knew that Alec wouldn’t blame her for anything. He’d take her anger and her hate like it was his due without a cross word about it. Alec took far too much onto his shoulders for her to ever want to add more to it for him.
“Really, though, Iz, he gets it,” Jace tried to reassure her. He twisted himself a little more toward her, his foot staying hooked on her chair leg. The rest of him was turned in toward her the same way they used to do when they were younger and sharing gossip after the lights went out and everyone else was supposed to be in bed. “He told you about the lake and how he remembered. Up until then, he had no idea about his past. He had to remember just like we did. Only, he had to remember a whole hell of a lot more.”
A furrow built between Isabelle’s eyes. Her brows drew down as she fixed him with a sharp stare. Huh? “What do you mean?”
“You and I, we just had one life to remember, and if you’re anything like me, it’s not like the memories you got back are the strongest or anything like that. They’re just sort of… there.” He waited for Isabelle to nod before he went on. “For Alec, it’s… he had a whole lot more.”
“How much more?” And what did he mean by that? He’d just told Isabelle he’d remembered a past life as Merlin. Not whatever this more was that Jace was talking about.
Only, instead of explaining things like she wanted, Jace waved her off with a casual “That’s not important.” He didn’t give her time to say the protest he no doubt saw forming on her lips. Jace just pushed on past that, keeping her brother’s secrets just like he always did. “What’s important here is you, Iz. I was just saying that Alec and I, we get it, okay? Working through those memories isn’t easy. It’s crazy, and your brain is gonna get messed up for a little while when you look at people. Especially since you’ve got magic just like Alec does. But it’ll get better.”
No matter how much Isabelle wanted to push to find out what the hell Jace was talking about, what he meant about Alec and this whole lot more, she knew better than to try. While Jace might share all sorts of gossip about anyone and everyone, he never shared anything important about Alec. Not without Alec’s permission.
And honestly… honestly, for the moment, she was surprised to find that she was okay with that. Her head was full of so much else she wasn’t sure she had the space to worry about her brother right now. She was going to have to trust that Jace had his back. For just a moment, just right now, she was going to be a little bit selfish and focus on herself.
“How?” she asked, slumping down a little in her chair. She let one leg fall down so that her ankle was resting against Jace’s leg in a tiny point of contact that helped settle something under her skin. Helped remind her that, memories or no, this man was also her brother. Someone she could trust. Looking at him, at the face of Jace and not the one of Gwaine that kept trying to crop up, helped even more. “How does this get better? I feel like, like…”
“Like two brains stuffed into one body?”
She nodded her head and gestured with a blanket covered hand at him. “Yes! My head feels full and I can’t seem to separate everything. The other memories, they’re… they’re a bit foggier. No, they’re more distant. But they’re still there.”
“They’ll get even foggier. Sometimes you’ll find them cropping up when something triggers it, kind of like when you remember something you did as a kid. It’ll become like – not like it was someone else, but like something you did when you were young and stupid, you know what I mean?” He paused and flashed a grin at her. “Like that time that we stole that bottle of seelie wine from the cupboard because we were convinced we could handle it.”
That startled a laugh from Isabelle. She remembered that as clear as anyone could with a haze of alcohol over her brain. The way her and Jace had hidden themselves away to drink and bitch about the adults in their lives (and Alec had definitely been included in that whole adult thing) who wouldn’t treat them like the grownups they clearly were.
Most of the night was a haze. But Isabelle had vague memories of strong arms holding her and somehow juggling Jace at the same time, steering them to their beds. She woke up with her quilt tucked around her and the worst hangover in existence. One that she used an iratze to get rid of.
“By the angel, I’d almost forgotten about that,” Isabelle said, laughing as she did. Her grin stretched wide, and she shook her head. “Raziel, I almost would’ve rather the hangover than the lecture from Alec.”
He’d always been sort of scarily good at lectures when it counted. Hearing the ‘if you want to be treated like adults, act like it’ lecture had been bad, but nowhere near as bad as the knowledge that her big brother had been severely disappointed in the both of them.
Thinking back on that now was funny, yet at the same time, part of Isabelle wanted to cringe a little at it.
“Oh me too,” Jace agreed easily. “But, see? That’s what I mean. You remember that clearly enough, but you can also look back at it and see your mistakes. See where you were stupid. They’re just something you learn from. These memories will end up like that, too. You’ll have them, but you’ll learn from them and you’ll grow up a little more.”
That actually made sense. It eased some of the tension in Isabelle’s shoulders. However, it didn’t take it all away. “What if I end up still hating him? Merlin and Morgana, they didn’t… they hated each other a lot at the end. He killed her.” He killed me.
“And Morgana killed countless people. For sport, for war, and sometimes just for fun.” Jace’s words were blunt, and Isabelle flinched from them. He didn’t give her time to recover, though. Just kept on, his eyes so serious as they locked on her and held her there, unable to look away. “I remember standing in the castle and fighting for my dinner against you and your mercenaries just so I could get a little food for an old man who was starving in your dungeon.”
His words brought the memories to the forefront for mind. Isabelle sucked in a breath and tried to fight it back, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop it from playing out in her mind in sick, sharp detail.
“So you’ve had a chance to sing for your supper. I thought I might make it a little harder this time.”
“Seems fair.”
“Oh, but you can’t fight with your bare hands” She laid a toy sword made of sticks in his hands, and grinned. “Never mind. You’re a Knight of Camelot. You’ll be fine.”
Just thinking of that hurt. To think that she’d been that kind of person. That she’d so willingly hurt people, sat back and laughed at their pain. That went against everything that she was now. Sure, she enjoyed it when her enemies hurt, but her enemies were demons. There was no shame in hurting demons.
Something hot and hard burned the backs of Isabelle’s eyes.
She didn’t even realize that a few tears slipped free. Not until she heard Jace’s quiet “Izzy” just seconds before the foot against her chair must’ve hooked tight – in a split second her chair was being dragged forward until their legs were tangled and pressed hard against the edge of both their seats. Then Jace’s arms were there and Isabelle found herself pulled into her brother’s hug. Jace drew her in tight, let her tuck her head down so that she could hide against him, and he made low, soothing sounds of comfort as she cried out the tears for a life she hadn’t realized was her own, and wasn’t sure she wanted.
She cried for the woman she’d once been, who’d trusted and who’d broken in so many different ways. And she cried for the life she had here that was never going to be the same again. Even if she found a way to live with this, to find peace with her past life and with her present, everything was different now. Everything was going to change.
Tomorrow, Isabelle would find that core of strength that made her who she was. The one that had gotten her through years and years in an Institute where she was looked down on for her looks, her fashion sense, her love of Downworlders, her choice in weapon, her family name – just, everything about her. She would find that strength and use it to draw herself back up and figure out a way to deal with all this.
But tonight? Tonight, she let herself sink into the arms of her brother and grieve.