Chapter Text
When Izzy found The High Priestess Arcana card in her wallet with only an address and a date on the back as well as the words “Want to knock Robert Lightwood down a peg or two?”
She knew it was stupid and that she shouldn’t have shown up, but she couldn’t pass up a possible opportunity to get back at her father for all he had done.
Finally arriving at the address listed, she noticed she wasn’t the only one there. An asian man was already waiting and examining the place. He turned at the sound of her arriving, “I take it i’m not the only one who got one of these?” he asked, raising the Strength Arcana card to show her.
“Nope,” she replied raising her own to show him. “I’m Isabelle,” she introduced herself, making sure to avoid using her last name, lest he have the same grudge against her father as she had.
“Magnus Bane,” he replied holding out his hand for her to shake, which she accepted after a moment.
Right then, two more people entered, a redheaded girl and a brunette guy with glasses. Neither of them struck her as the type for revenge but who was she to judge.
“Hey..,” the red headed girl said, “You guys here for..?” she asked trailing off.
“Yeah. You too?” Isabelle asked, holding up her card.
The two replied by showing her their own cards, The Star for the girl who introduced herself as Clary, and The Fool for the guy whose name turned out to be Simon.
Just as the time on the cards was approaching and they were ready to enter, one more person appeared, Jace.
“Is this the-“ he stopped when he saw Izzy, “Iz?”
“Hey Jace, you got one of these too?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said digging around in his pockets for his own card, and taking it out to show them, The Chariot.
“You two know each other?” asked Simon.
“He’s my brother,” Izzy replied after a moment, deciding that this information couldn’t hurt to share.
“Were we supposed to bring a plus one? No one announced me,” said Magnus sarcastically, “Is this all of us?”
“I mean it’s four o’clock, the time on the card, so I guess so.” Clary said, stepping closer to the door of the apartment and trying the doorknob. “Locked.”
“Great, so we came here for nothing,” Simon said, seeming ready to give up and go back home.
“Nothing’s ever locked,” said Izzy, stepping closer to the door and taking a pin out of her hair. She squatted next to the door and put the pin in lock, moving it around with practiced ease until she heard a click. “Gotcha.” She pushed the door open, going in first. She heard the sound of the others following close behind.
The apartment seemed new, almost eerily so.
“This place gives me the creeps,” Simon mumbled, looking around with an expression between curiosity and apprehension.
“Agreed,” Clary said.
In the center of the living room stood a table with a few things on it, the only thing in the room.
Magnus went closer to it and took something off the table to show them: the Emperor Arcana.
“This guy sure thinks he’s important huh?” muttered Jace, “proclaiming himself the emperor.”
“Well, he got us all to come here didn’t he?” said Magnus while examining the rest of the items on the table.
“Fair enough,” Jace agreed, although he didn’t seem too happy about it.
Magnus took the tablet, the only other thing on the table aside from what looked like a case file, and pressed the on button. A video came to life, showing her father’s face.
Afterwards, words appeared on the screen.
“To those who are reading this,
You’ve been chosen because your skills are unmatched. I’ve been watching you, and I firmly believe that you are the perfect team for the opportunity I’m about to offer you.
What lies ahead is the kind of job you won’t see twice in a lifetime. High risk, but higher reward. Each of you plays a crucial part. Pieces of a puzzle, if you will. Without one, it all falls apart.
Instructions are in the file. Should you agree, I think that you’ll find the reward very inspiring.”
At the end, the tablet shut off, never to be opened again.
Izzy went to pick up the file, and open it, only to be met with a picture of her families brooch.
Small text was in the corner of the picture: “Worth: 100 million dollars.”
Clary, who had been looking over her shoulder, let out a surprised sound as her eyes fell on the writing, “A hundred million dollars? For a brooch? Talk about crazy rich.”
“Yes,” Magnus agreed, “Robert Lightwood is a billionaire. Speaking of which,” he said, turning to Izzy and Jace and crossing his arms, “why exactly are his children here?”
All the heads in the room turned to Isabelle and Jace, who looked at each other in a panic.
“Children?” questioned Simon, voice rising by about an octave, “this isn’t some kind of sting operation is it? Am I about to go to jail?”
“No one is going to jail dude, calm down.” said Jace, “Let’s just say we aren’t on the best terms with our father. When an opportunity to get back at him presented itself, we weren’t going to pass it up.”
“Exactly,” agreed Izzy, “But how did you know who we were?”
“I didn’t initially, but I remembered an old article I saw. Your pictures were included,” Magnus explained, “Should we be expecting your older brother to walk through that door too?”
“No way,” Izzy said, “Alec isn’t the type to get recruited for this kind of stuff. Too.. rule following. If he ever received this kind of letter he’d just ignore it.”
“Or go straight to the cops,” said Jace, “He’s fun like that.”
“How are we supposed to trust you?” asked Clary while looking at them warily, “You could be going back to your father and reporting on all that happened for all we know.”
“Why would we go through all the trouble of organizing all of this just to arrest you? It would be easier to just corner you somewhere. Besides,” Izzy explained, “why would both of us come here if it was just a ploy to get you in jail?”
“I don’t know,” said Simon while fidgeting with his jacket, “strength in numbers.”
“This is ridiculous,” Jace said angrily, “The guy who brought us all here clearly thinks we could work as a team, and is offering us millions to do it. You gonna pass it up because of who our father is? We have more reasons to want revenge on him than you do.”
“Revenge?” asked Clary, “We’re here because we were promised money.”
Isabelle realized that Jace’s card must have had the same writing as hers while the others had had other things on them. Clearly this Emperor guy knew all of them on a personal level and knew what buttons to push to get them to cooperate.
“I’m gonna make a wild guess and say that we all had different things written on our cards,” said Magnus as if he had read her mind.
“I’m gonna have to agree with you there,” Izzy replied. “Listen, I know you guys might not trust us, but we were all called here for a reason, whatever that may be and I think we’d be dumb not to take this opportunity.”
Simon still didn’t look very convinced, but after Clary pulled him aside to talk he finally agreed.
“Great,” Magnus said after they all agreed to continue, “let’s see the rest of this file.”