Reading Time: 145 Minutes

Title: Fallen
Series: Morning Star
Series Order: 2
Author: Lalaith Quetzalli
Fandom: Shadowhunters
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Drama, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship
Relationship(s): Pre-Alec Lightwood/Magnus Bane
Content Rating: R
Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Somewhat Graphic Violence, Low Gore, Minor Character Death , Discussion of Suicide, Discussion of Child Neglect/Abuse, Explicit Language, Religious themes, Implied Homophobia (slurs are never outright said, but they’re made obvious).
Author Note: There are references to the “Infernal Devices” trilogy, though readers do not need to have read the books to understand the fic.
Word Count: 35,992
Summary: It’s curious how it is always said that some angels ‘fell’ from Heaven, yet no one ever stops to wonder at what that means. They weren’t thrown out, weren’t sent away, they Fell… Alec is in prime position to understand the difference. There are times when he cannot help but feel that he’s still falling; and he has no idea who he’ll be when he lands.
Artist: Izzy Hound

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Priori

A lot of people forget the fact that Alec was old enough at the time of the Uprising to have memories of those days. He might not have understood what it all meant when he was a child. But once he grew up… Alec was always an inquisitive child. His parents taught him to be responsible, a hard-worker, to have initiative; he applied all those teachings in all things he did, even some his parents would have probably preferred he didn’t.

Alec’s always known his parents were part of the Circle, even if he hasn’t always known what it meant. When he was little the Circle was just something his parents were a part of, like some sort of grown-ups’ club. Alec would hear them talking about how they’d make everything better, at least at first. Later on it was about how dangerous downworlders were, how someone needed to keep them in their place, for everyone’s safety. Alec, like most nephilim children, lived in Idris, their special country, shielded by the Angel, that mundanes didn’t even know existed; they lived in Alicante, a city where Downworlders couldn’t enter. They were safe.

Whenever Alec thought about Downworlders, he thought of them the same as demons. Only perhaps a bit less scary, less deadly, but just as dangerous. It was what he was always taught. Then things changed abruptly. Fairchild Manor burned, several of his parents’ friends died, others were missing while a few more… they didn’t even know. And then they left Idris. Alec was never told why, exactly, just that they had to. It wasn’t something he ever focused too much on, not when there were other, far better things for him to think about, like the fact that his mom was pregnant, he was getting a sibling! A little sister! He was going to be there for her, and play with her and protect her and be the very best big brother he could!

Aside from his early childhood, Alec spent most of his formative years in NY; it’s where two of his younger siblings have been their whole lives there; apart from most shadowhunter youth, who reside in Idris (Max is the exception, but he’s so much younger than the rest of them, born when Alec was already eleven, and Isabelle seven). For he and his siblings such a life was normal, it meant things like family, space, private training, freedom… others called it exile. Alec knew better than to let what other people said define him, his life; or at least, the people who didn’t matter. He cared what his parents said, and his siblings, and the Clave (how could he not?), but everyone else? Not at all. So he never cared much about those who defined the Lightwoods’ permanent post in New York as exile. And yet… there were some things he couldn’t help but notice: Like the fact that none of his parents’ friends were around anymore, except for Hodge and he was… off, in some ways Alec couldn’t truly put his finger on. They never mentioned their club, or anyone who’d been a part of it. The one time Alec asked about it, he could still remember some of his friends, wanted to maybe see them again. His mom went absolutely livid. It was the only time she actually raised a hand against him. She seemed to regret it afterwards, though she still told him he shouldn’t ask such questions, that their club didn’t exist anymore. Also, his friends were dead. That made Alec very sad, but he knew better than to ask if they were sure, or if he could visit their graves, or anything else. The best he could do was pray to the Angel and hope that’d be enough. He couldn’t help but wonder though, what had happened to them, if there was anything he could have done…

Growing up Alec never realized how far from normal his upbringing was (and his siblings’). Not just for children, but even for shadowhunters. He could have never imagined what it’d mean for him, and them all, in the long run.

xXx

Alec meets his first Downworlder when he’s thirteen. He’s a vampire, the second in command of the New York Clan, and his name is Raphael Santiago. He looks like he might be in his early twenties (though Alec knows that’s only indicative of how old he might have been when turned, and not how old he is now), with tanned skin, black hair and brown eyes, he’s dressed in a sharp-looking all black suit that looks of far better make than he’s ever seen his father wear. Alec cannot help but think Santiago’s nothing at all like the Downworlders he’s been taught about and warned to stay away from.

At thirteen, Alec’s already gotten his first rune, he’s technically a full-fledged shadowhunter. Though he still only goes on patrol rarely, always with a new team. Alec knows this is because of the reports most of his tutors keep giving his mom. They say he has great theoretical knowledge, a gifted tactical mind, and good at the basics of the more common fighting styles. And that last one is apparently a problem, that he’s good, just good, not remarkable, not a prodigy. He’s already had to listen to his mom’s speeches about where she might have gone wrong, and what happened with the little genius he was when he was little, and how disappointing it all is (how disappointing He is…). It hurts, especially because no matter how much and how hard he tries to explain his side of things. It never works. His mom has no patience for what she insists will only ever be excuses, and the one time he tried to explain things anyway he couldn’t find the right words for it (which, according to her, only served as confirmation that whatever he wanted to say, it didn’t matter).

Reality is so much more complicated. Alec’s been on enough patrols by now, with enough different teams to realize that calling them ‘teams’ is a mistake. They aren’t teams. They’re merely a number of shadowhunters (three or four, more if the mission is particularly arduous or dangerous) put together in order to fulfill an objective. Each of them entirely focused on their own goals, on doing as much as they can, on excelling. None of them spare the slightest amount of effort into defending each other, into helping one another. They just don’t care. The way Alec sees it, it’s one thing for him to have to deal with such a thing, but the mere thought of his little sister doing it, of her being assigned to a team that will never look after her, that won’t care… it terrifies him. So he’s made a plan, if normal teams cannot be bothered to watch out for others, there’s only one thing he can do, ensure he will be placed in the same team as Isabelle. As for how he can ensure that… he has no idea, not yet. Though one thing’s for sure, since she’s far from finishing her training and getting her first rune, Alec will have to delay his assignment to one of the official teams. And so, no matter how much his mother’s comments, her disappointment, might hurt, he’ll endure it, he’ll do it, for Izzy, and for himself, for his own peace of mind.

In any case, it’s the fact that he’s not yet assigned to any particular team, that makes it so he’s around the Institute when Santiago shows up. Despite being fairly tall for his age (and lanky, a bit awkward with his own body at times; a couple of his trainers seem to believe that once he’s fully grown, he’ll have better control of his body, which will let him improve) Alec seems to have a certain ‘gift’, for going unnoticed. Which he takes full advantage of as he makes an effort to follow Santiago around when he’s inside the Institute, wanting to know what’s going on.

Contraband. Of something called yin fen. Alec remembers reading about it, it’s a drug, in small quantities it is said that it can help with pain, especially the kind of pain caused by bad wounds. The downsides are many though, too many to make its use in any way a good idea, the main two being: 1, that because of its demonic origins, too much of it can end up poisoning a nephilim, specially dangerous as the pain-relieving qualities of it would keep the nephilim from realizing the issue; and 2, it being highly addictive. It was said that it was nearly impossible to quit, only the strongest could do it and survive; and it could only be done early in the addiction, before the body became entirely dependent on it.

In fact, if Alec remembers his studies right, yin fen is supposed to have been outlawed. Not just by the Clave, but by the Downworld as well. He supposes that’s why it’s contraband.

He listens in on Santiago reporting what they know of the group smuggling the yin fen. How there’s supposed to be a lot of it coming by ship. They need to intercept it before whoever’s waiting for it in NY can get it. Otherwise they risk not being able to get to it before it can be distributed. Which would prove to be much too dangerous for everyone in the city.

In the end only one person seems to notice Alec eavesdropping: Raphael Santiago. Surprisingly enough, he chooses not to give him away, instead waiting until everyone else has left the room, focused on their own tasks, leaving only two guards outside the meeting room. The vampire stands from the uncomfortable chair he’s been sitting on, going to stand beside a column, which half-conceals a service entrance (there’s no door, just an archway behind a column that only seems to be in direct contact to the wall).

“What are you doing, little shadowhunter?” Santiago asks quietly, sounding honestly curious.

“Learning.” Alec answers after just a moment’s hesitation.

“Hmm…” It’s clear the response has taken the vampire by surprise, as he takes several seconds to formulate an answer. “And what have you learned?”

“Well, you say the cargo is coming through ship, and they’re all getting ready to intercept it when it docks.” Alec summarizes.

“Yes,” Raphael agrees, wondering what the point was.

“Why?” Alec questions next.

“Why…?” Raphael doesn’t fully understand the question.

“Why wait?” The boy clarifies. “Why let it dock at all? Can’t you all just… I don’t know, use magic, or weapons, or something, and make it so the ship doesn’t make it to the city?”

“And what about the people on the ship?” Raphael asks him next, curious.

It’s not that he doesn’t agree with the principle of the thing, but he cannot help but be curious about the young one’s rationale. He hasn’t been able to see the boy, though judging by his voice, and that he’s likely the same kid he saw hanging around the edges upon his arrival to the shadowhunters’ headquarters Raphael knows he’s young, early teens at most. He wonders how much he truly understands of the world, and of war. He’s heard that shadowhunters get trained young to be warriors; creating child-soldiers, his own Papa called it at least once. Still, Raphael’s curiosity remains.

“Are there any?” Yet again Alec manages to surprise Raphael. “I mean… if there are vampires involved… bad vampires I mean, they probably killed the mundanes, if there ever were any on that ship. And I don’t know if there would be any other Downworlders involved. Though if they are, and if they know about the cargo, then they’re not innocent, so… If they don’t know though… could they be rescued before the ship and its cargo is destroyed?”

Raphael almost snorts at the clarification of ‘bad vampires’. Wondering if that’s how the boy always thinks, or if he’s just trying not to offend Raphael. Whichever the reason, he has to admit the kid’s already far more polite than any of the shadowhunters he’s been forced to deal with since his arrival. The way they all treat him… as if he were the enemy and not the one pointing out a potential danger!

“And if they can’t?” He asks, even more curious what the boy will decide.

There’s silence, and it lasts for long enough that Raphael begins to wonder if he’ll be getting a response at all. Until he does; once again, not one he’d have expected.

“Yin fen is really, really bad, isn’t it?” Alec asks quietly. “I mean, not just for nephilim, but also for mundanes and… and downworlders, right?”

“It’s really bad for everyone.” Raphael agrees.

He supposes that vampires would be the least affected, but that doesn’t mean that the mere existence of it doesn’t bring its own kind of dangers to them, direct and indirect.

“Then they definitely should destroy it, not let the ship dock.” Alec decides, there’s a hint of nervousness, though at the same time an undercurrent of steel in his voice.

“Even if people die?” Raphael wants to be sure. “Innocents?”

“I… yes.” Alec hesitates just for a moment. “Yes because, even if some people die on the ship. A lot more would end up hurt and even die in the city if the shipment gets through.”

“You don’t think it can be stopped in the docks?” Raphael asks, not expecting that.

“No mission is ever assured success.” Alec recites formally. “If there’s the slightest chance that it could fail… better not risk it.”

“Hmmm…” Raphael murmurs, thoughtfully. “You’re a very curious little shadowhunter…”

“Alec.” The boy blurts out suddenly. “My name is Alec Lightwood.”

Raphael’s eyes widen at that. The son of the Institute Heads? That only makes the whole thing even more interesting!

“Raphael Santiago,” He has no doubt the kid must know already who he is, but still, it’s only polite to introduce yourself.

Their conversation comes to an end as Maryse Lightwood returns to the room, flanked by two other shadowhunters. She states that plans are being made before, in a very condescending manner, informing Raphael that he’s ‘dismissed’ and they’ll be handling things from then on. He says nothing, knowing how pointless it’d be to try and insist differently. He also very pointedly does not so much as glance in the direction of the boy… Alec’s hiding spot. Already making plans about what exactly he’s going to do next.

Alec never does find out how things go that night. He’s kept busy throughout the night, making it impossible for Alec to eavesdrop on any meetings and/or reports. He does learn two things though: his mom isn’t happy, at all, for some reason; and the yin fen isn’t a risk, at least not for the time being. Whatever those two things mean exactly… well, Alec has his suspicions but he cannot know for sure, not without asking someone, and he knows better than to believe they’ll tell him. He also knows they won’t like finding out he even knows as much as he does. So in the end, much as he might hate it, he chooses to let the matter go.

xXx

Jace’s arrival, and his joining the Lightwood family is a catalyst for change, in many different ways: Robert gets a way to quiet his conscience regarding the loss of his once parabatai, Maryse gets a son she can actually be proud of and whom she believes she can use to push Alec to do better (believing that fostering some competition between the two will force Alec to improve; only, to her annoyance, that doesn’t exactly work out), Isabelle gets a partner in crime, Max an older brother he can actually have as a role model and seek to emulate, and Alec… he gets another younger brother to love and protect.

Jace is… a strange dichotomy. So incredibly strong, yet terribly fragile at the same time. It’s clear to Alec, from the first time he lays eyes on the blonde, that he’s been horribly hurt, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. In fact, as he gets the chance to know Jace, Alec gets the feeling that any possible physical injuries and scars don’t really bother him; even the mental ones, he’s probably learned to deal with those already, to compartmentalize, his emotional wounds though… So Alec does what he can, tries so very hard to help him. He can tell from the get go that Jace won’t accept help directly, will see it as a sign of weakness, so he goes about it in more roundabout ways. He lets the blonde notice when Alec helps Isabelle or Max, when they go to him for little problems they might have, for comfort, after nightmares. And when Jace finally goes to him for the first time, Alec does his best not to call attention to it, to ensure the blonde sees it as perfectly normal, no big deal at all. He knows it’s the right tactic when Jace does it again, and again. Not often, and only when it’s beyond obvious that nothing else is working. But at least Alec gets the chance to help some.

Jace is the one to suggest they become parabatai. Alec doesn’t really know where the idea even comes from, if it’s because their fathers were parabatai (that’s the whole reason they took in Jace after his father died) or if it’s a matter of Jace trying to secure his place with him, with the family (families may split if needed, for matters of duty, but the Clave would never think about splitting up a parabatai pair)… He knows that despite how welcoming (in their own way) his parents have always been of Jace, he’s never felt entirely like he’s one of them. It’s not a matter of the family name. He was offered the Lightwood name and declined, wanting to honor his father by keeping the Wayland name. Though Alec supposes it’s not that strange either, their parents are so busy being shadowhunters, they hardly ever have time to actually be parents. There’s a reason why all his siblings always go to him. (Max, when he was still very young and just learning to talk, he called Alec ‘daddy’ a few times; he saw so much of Alec and so little of Robert, the boy couldn’t help but be confused. It wasn’t easy for Alec, setting him to rights).

“Are you sure about this Jace?” He asks the blonde after the suggestion is first made.

“Yes,” Jace answers without hesitation. “I know it’s not gonna be easy Alec. That your parents might have doubts, because of how different we are. But I know we can make this work and I… I believe we’d be awesome as parabatai.”

“Okay,” And really, what else can Alec say?

His parents really do not approve. And while Robert refuses to explain his hesitation, Maryse feels no compunction about pointing out exactly how unfit Alec is to be the parabatai of someone who even at his young age is already considered as one of the best of their generation. However, by that point others have already heard of their desire to become parabatai, the Clave has even sent a Silent Brother to do a preliminary evaluation. So there’s nothing she, or anyone else can do to block it. It’s not something immediate. The path to becoming parabatai is a long one. Involves the two shadowhunters training together a lot, learning each other in order to fit well-together, to learn to anticipate each other. The parabatai bond gives such pairs a great many advantages (and even some disadvantages) but it has to be built off of something, not just anyone can be part of such a bond. It usually takes years of training and tests before the Silent Brothers authorize the creation of a new parabatai bond.

For Alec… it’s all pretty huge. Before Jace, no one other than his siblings has ever chosen him, for anything. And while he doesn’t want to lessen Izzy’s and Max’s actions any, sometimes Alec cannot help but feel that it’s not like they have many options anyway. Jace choosing him as his parabatai, pushing forth despite Robert and Maryse’s objections… it’s a huge thing, and Alec cannot begin to explain how honored he feels. He can only hope to be worthy of the trust the blonde is putting on him.

Alec is 16, Jace 13, when they pass their final test and go through the ceremony to become parabatai. The brunette actually comes very close (painfully close) to not going through with it, to giving up on the chance of becoming Jace’s parabatai (and he knows, if he had, he’d have never gotten another chance, not because of Jace, but because the Silent Brothers wouldn’t have allowed it, would have seen his hesitation as a sign that they weren’t meant to be after all). He’s just so in love with the blonde… In the end, it’s Isabelle who makes him see reason:

“I get it.” She tries to tell him.

“No, you don’t.” He cuts her off, because, really? What does she know about being gay? About being in love with someone you’re supposed to share your very soul with?

“Okay, maybe I don’t.” Isabelle admits. “I know you’re obnoxious and stubborn…”

“I hope you’re going somewhere with this.” Alec mutters.

“But you’re also loyal and honest and a big old softie when you stop worrying about what people are thinking about you.” His sister continues. “One day, somebody is gonna love you, heart and soul. If you walk away from Jace, you might never find another parabatai. Is that really a risk you’re willing to take?”

No, it’s not, so he goes through with it, and Jace becomes his parabatai.

xXx

Alec doesn’t know when exactly he realized he’s gay. It was before his infatuation with Jace began (that was an issue, for so many reasons, not the least the whole ‘parabatai’ thing, but Jace wasn’t his ‘gay awakening’ or anything like that). Being gay isn’t really an issue in the Shadow World, not really. Shadowhunters… in the ‘common families’ no one really cares what they get up to, as long as they do their jobs. The Old Families are a bit different, but as long as heirs are guaranteed the Clave doesn’t really intervene. That doesn’t mean everything’s perfect, not at all. Alec’s heard the stories, about the gay (or lesbian) shadowhunters who’ve died tragically while on a mission where backup didn’t get to them in time. On that front, he supposes it’s a matter of surrounding yourself with people you know will support you. Or… it’s quite common for those who prefer their own sex in the Old Families (or even no sex at all) to make pacts. Usually in the form of two married couples choosing to build one household; for the world they’re two ‘normal’ families that choose to live together, people choosing to ignore what might be happening behind closed doors, like who might be sleeping with whom in truth…

At one point in his mid-teens (after he and Jace begin their training and tests for becoming parabatai, but before the ceremony), Maryse seems to be growing tired of Alec not progressing as she wishes, as she believes he should. She’s also somewhat angry that she couldn’t stop the whole ‘parabatai thing’ in its tracks; convinced as she is that Alec isn’t and will never be good enough to be paired up with someone like Jace. She sends him to spend the summer at the Beijing Institute, which is run by Jia Penhallow and her husband Patrick. It’s the first time Alec’s been around any member of his parents’ old club, though he knows better than to bring it up. He’s glad to see Aline again, and the two spend a lot of time together that summer. She’s the first (and for a very long time the only) person he tells he’s gay, mostly in response to her own confession.

“We should make a pact.” Aline tells him, a few days before he’s set to return to NY.

“About what?” He asks, confused.

“Marriage, silly.” Aline smiles at him.

“Aline… you do remember I told I… I’m g-gay, right?” He looks around briefly, making sure they’re completely alone before even daring to say the word.

“I know, just like I’m a lesbian.” Aline reminds him. “I don’t want to be forced to marry a man any more than you want to marry a woman.”

“Then wh…?” He begins, still not understanding.

“Well, first of all, if we make our own arrangements, our parents won’t be able to force either of us.” She points out calmly. “Just think about it. In the future, when you’ve found a boy you love and I’ve found a girl, I can marry your boyfriend, you can marry my girlfriend, and we’ll build a single household.”

“And what if our respective l-lovers aren’t the kind our parents would approve?” Meaning, what if they aren’t from important-enough families?

“Well, then you and I get married legally and we convince them to follow us to NY.” She decides, as if it were truly as simple as that. “With you eventually taking over as Head of the New York Institute no one will really think twice about my ‘best friend’ wanting to join the same Institute as me. It’s not like it’d be the first time such a thing happens anyway.”

Alec nods slowly. He knows she’s right and also… he likes the idea. The potential of it. Not necessarily being married to a woman but… if it’s Aline, or her girlfriend… They would never expect any more from him than he can be, and he’d treat them right. Would keep them safe. Would be able to protect Aline the way he couldn’t protect his other friends from back when they were all so little still…

“So, what do you think?” She asks him when silence extends a bit too long.

“I… okay.” He takes a deep breath and nods. “Yes, let’s do it.”

And so a plan is formed.

In the years that follow, as Alec and Jace become parabatai, and the brunette has to mostly accept the blonde will never be more than that. There’s a part of Alec that does wonder sometimes, if what he feels for Jace truly is love, romantic love, or if it’s just that he’s conveniently there; it’s not like Alec has a lot of opportunity to meet other men, especially not men who might be interested… and perhaps that’s also why he never actually goes looking elsewhere. Jace is already there. He’s… convenient, in a way. Safer to believe himself in love with someone he knows he can never have than to try and be disappointed with someone else.

Aline does try to help him out, she tries to introduce him to her French cousin, Sebastian. After the boy stands Alec up, twice, he refuses to try a third time. Other attempts fall through, mostly as the two of them live so far apart, and while Jia Penhallow might be somewhat accepting (or at least tolerant) of Aline’s preferences, they both know if Maryse got so much as an inkling of Alec’s things would be catastrophic.

So, while Alec wouldn’t say he’s given up on finding someone, as time passes he cannot help but believe it increasingly unlikely. It’s almost funny because the pragmatic side of him has always known that, being who he is: the eldest Lightwood son, who also happens to be one of the last of the Trueblood line; and the son of Institute Heads (though the way they got such positions is something Alec will never truly find pride in), has always known his parents, his mother especially, will expect him to make ‘an appropriate match’. And yet, there’s a small part of him (so small, yet it still manages to exist somehow) that wishes he could have a love match. The kind he would call his ‘Promised One’, rather than merely fiancee, or betrothed; someone who, on the day of their wedding, he might want to inscribe a rune on his heart, rather than his hand, and who might do the same for him. It’s heartbreaking for him to know, to be forced to accept those are things that will never happen. Even with his standing pact with Aline, he knows the chances of him getting his ‘happy ending’ aren’t exactly high.

And sometimes, sometimes that knowledge, that forced acceptance, seems to be enough to take him down, and keep him there. Sometimes the world seems so bleak he cannot help but wonder what the point is of it all. And then he remembers: his family. Not his parents, Maryse and Robert are more their superiors than their parents, and have been for years now, but his siblings: Isabelle, Max, and even Jace. Who will protect them if he doesn’t? Who will have their backs both in battle and outside of it if he’s not there? Who will be there for them if not him? And, while he might not be willing to accept it, even to himself, there’s a tiny (so very tiny) part of him that cannot help but just… hope…

xXx

Shortly after becoming parabatai Alec and Jace are teamed up with Isabelle, officially. After several attempts to work with other shadowhunters, she’s the only one capable of working with the two of them consistently. Familiar enough with both of their styles, and their skills, to fit seamlessly with their dynamic. And so Alec gets what he always wanted, to be in a team with his younger siblings, to know he’ll be there with them, to watch their backs. He knows how others, especially their parents and others from their generation, look at them, at him. Alec’s five years older than Isabelle and three older than Jace. While it’s not exactly a huge age difference, and in grown-up teams it wouldn’t even be noticeable, they’re at an age where people cannot help but notice; especially with how tall Alec’s becoming (he’s half convinced the reason, or at least one of the reasons, Izzy got so fixated on wearing killer heels was so she wouldn’t look so obviously shorter than him, and eventually Jace). Alec doesn’t care, he only cares about his siblings. The whole reason why, despite learning how to use a wide variety of weapons, he chose to specialize on the bow and arrow was so he’d be able to better protect his siblings. He felt he could better protect them when he could act, no matter how close or how far from them he might be. Also, using a long-range weapon allowed him to round up the team quite well, considering that his sister’s own choice of weapon: the whip was a mid-range weapon, which she could change into a staff for close range if needed; while Jace was a close-combat specialist (both hand to hand and with blades).

“Three go in, three come out.” Is the phrase Izzy coins, making a habit of saying it whenever they’re about to go into the active part of their missions.

Alec’s several weeks away from his eighteenth birthday when Robert and Maryse leave for Idris for the first time. Leaving Alec to handle the running of the Institute, along with his other responsibilities. They claim it’s a good thing. That the Clave is allowing the Lightwoods to recover some of their old standing, giving them a chance to regain some honor… all Alec can truly see is how little they actually care for the Institute. Even if they’re supposedly leaving Alec in charge in their absence, it’s not an official appointment, it cannot be when he’s still underage. So there’s a lot he cannot do. Which leaves the Institute to suffer with their absence. And the Clave’s letting it happen! They’re all so focused in doing politics, and not enough in doing their duty, in the teenager’s opinion.

Also, they’ve taken Max. The little boy’s always been more a son to Alec than a little brother, and it hurts him for the boy not to be around anymore. It doesn’t matter if Max likes Jace more than him nowadays, Alec will always love him dearly. The worst part of all though, is that he knows that while Maryse and Robert might have taken him in order to be able to keep their image of a loving and united family, truth is they don’t really care about Max, he’s just a pawn in the game they’re playing, a prop, a tool for them to get what they want.

Izzy and Jace seem to be the least affected by Maryse and Robert’s extended absences. In fact, they find it convenient, quickly making a habit of sneaking out of the Institute every so often. First in the afternoons, just to take a walk, perhaps buy something in a mundane store; Izzy develops a liking for ice-cream in all sorts of flavors, while Jace favors chips and nuts, especially the spicy kind. Alec himself has a pretty strong sweet-tooth, though he rarely indulges. Of course, the more their parents’ absences extend, the bolder Alec’s siblings get, until they start sneaking out at night as well, making a habit of visiting bars and nightclubs, particularly places that tend to cater to Downworlders.

Alec doesn’t like it. It’s not… he doesn’t have anything against Downworlders, really. Ever since that one conversation with Raphael Santiago, Alec’s come to realize that the way the Clave sees them, and what they teach about werewolves, vampires, warlocks, seelie and unseelie, it’s wrong. Still, that the downworlders aren’t monsters doesn’t mean that they’re all entirely safe, especially with his siblings being shadowhunters. Alec knows that a lot of downworlders are distrustful at best, hostile at worst; and it’s not like they don’t have plenty of reasons, but that doesn’t stop Alec from worrying about them. Not just what might happen to them, but that they might end up causing trouble if they come across someone particularly combative and they feel the need to defend themselves. It would not go well, not for them, not for the Institute, and certainly not for the local Downworld.

That doesn’t stop Alec from doing all he can to ensure his siblings won’t get in trouble. He tries to reason with them, to convince them not to sneak out anymore, when that fails… he tries to make sure they at least won’t get in trouble. Going as far as to ensure that whoever’s in charge of registering the comings and goings from the various entrances into the Institute will deliver the reports directly to him. So he can ‘fix them’ as needed. There’s a part of him that knows that it isn’t right, not only because he’s letting Izzy and Jace get away with breaking the rules without consequence but he’s setting a bad precedent, with him and with the Institute in general and yet… he cannot help it.

Alec loves his siblings (his parabatai included). Loves them so much, he wants to be able to give them anything and everything they could ever want. And really, some freedoms, the chance to be teenagers sometimes… it cannot be that much to ask for, surely? There’s so much Alec’s never had, and he’s made his peace with that; but he still wants his siblings to have all they can, as much as he can possibly give them. Seeing Izzy smile, feeling Jace’s joy through their parabatai bond… those are the things that make Alec truly happy. Wanting more of that, for them and for himself, it cannot be so bad, can it?

One particular night, patrol goes pretty well, and both Izzy and Jace decide that, since they’re already out, why not have some fun before going back to the Institute? They even manage to convince Alec to join them at a rather low-key bar, more bohemian than they usually go for. Though when they eventually grow bored and decide to move onto a club, Alec refuses to follow. He does know that it’s a bad idea for him to return on his own. The three of them arriving later than expected can be easily explained by them dealing with demon remains (doesn’t happen often, as most demons tend to dissolve into ichor, if not vaporize entirely; and there’s usually a specialized team called in to deal with the ichor when it doesn’t disappear on its own in a relatively short amount of time), or deciding to do some rounds to ensure there won’t be any more trouble. However, explaining why one member of the team makes it back and the other two don’t… that’d be far more problematic. So Alec decides to just walk around for a while.

The last thing he expects is to come across what looks like a failed summoning on the rooftop of an old somewhat rundown building in Lower Manhattan. At least he thinks it’s a failed summoning, when seeing the remains of a very badly done summoning circle and other materials; and until his sharply attuned instincts scream at him. Alec reacts instinctively, running to the edge of that particular rooftop and jumping off it, straight to that of the closest building (a hospital, though he does not know it yet). He senses the threat following him as he goes on a roll to a side, barely managing to clear the area where the winged… thing, lands, talons extended.

It’s a demon, Alec doesn’t need to be a genius to know that. Its looks though… he remembers he and his siblings talking about demons at some point, about the most and least common ones, the ones that haven’t been seen in decades, some are even believed to have become extinct… at least outside of whatever hell dimensions they might belong to. He can clearly remember his parabatai claiming dragonidae to be in that last list… something about them being mostly extinct…

“Well, Mostly Extinct is clearly Not Extinct Enough!” Alec snaps to himself.

He waits until the dragonidae turns its back on him to jump onto his feet, not even bothering to pull out his stele as he brushes over as many of his battle runes as he can with the tips of his fingers, activating them as he goes. That’s a particular skill he doesn’t use very often, and hasn’t shared with anyone. It’s not something just anyone can do, not even Isabelle. And while Maryse used to know he could do it, saw him do it the first few times, back when he was just discovering he could; he thinks even she might have forgotten, amid all her anger and disappointment over him not being the kind of son she wanted him to be. The last rune he touches is one that, while very much permanent, he keeps invisible, on the inside of his left wrist. The moment he touches it his bow is on his left hand, quiver of arrows strapped to his back and he’s already reaching for the first arrow. He’s far lower than he’d usually prefer, especially against a demon the size of that dragon-thing, but he knows better than to focus on what his preferences might be.

He manages to tear one of the dragonidae’s wings practically from the get-go. Which is a considerable advantage, as the demon cannot fly anymore, cannot come at Alec from above, or go cause trouble elsewhere. That doesn’t stop the rest of the creature being incredibly dangerous still though. More than once Alec wishes his siblings were with him, even wonders briefly why they aren’t exactly. He doesn’t have time to wonder for long though, as the fight requires his full attention, just in order to not get himself killed because, a single shadowhunter, against a dragonidae that size (the lizard-looking thing is at least twice Alec’s height, as well as wide, and long)… it’s quite insane. He also has a moment to wonder how exactly it is that no one else has noticed there’s a freaking dragon right there! He knows mundanes are blind and all, but shouldn’t Jace have felt something through the parabatai bond by now? And what about the sensors at the Institute?! Why the hell is he still fighting on his own?!

In the end Alec’s not entirely certain how he does it, exactly. At some point mundane voices reach his ears and he realizes there must be people leaving the building at street-level. The dragonidae makes a wild-attempt to go after them. Clearly realizing it won’t be able to eat Alec or something else equally awful. That’s when Alec has to accept his time has run out and extreme measures will need to be taken. Alec traces the runes on the inside of his wrists in quick succession. The one on the left allows him to put away his bow and quiver of arrows for the time being (long ago he learned how bad an idea it is to fight with a quiver on his back, especially when he’s not even making use of his bow and arrows at the moment), the one on the right calls on his second weapon of choice: a feather-staff. It’s… unlike the more traditional feather-staff this one has hidden blades on both sides. On one side it has three flat double-edged almost delicate-looking blades, two short ones with a longer one in the middle, shaped like feathers; that end can be used as a single blade, or as three (almost like a somewhat flat trident). The other end is the more curious one: a spike, with rounded sides and a very pointy tip made of pure adamas (and, according to legend, tempered in the blood of the angels), it can be as long as to almost double the size of the staff, or as short as to barely be visible at all.

Weapon in hand, and after taking just a moment to make sure all the runes he might need are active (he’s overusing several of them by now, and he knows he’s gonna crash so hard when it’s all said and done) Alec throws himself after the demon. Not even a handful of seconds have passed since the sound of the mundane voices broke the night, the dragonidae hasn’t yet made it to the edge of the rooftop. Alec jumps onto its tail, running up it and all the way to the back of its head, where he jumps, as high as he can, letting gravity and the weight of his own body aid him as he aims his staff, spike end down, straight at the base of the demon’s cranium where, the opening that allows the spine to connect might allow him to bypass its strong armor-like skull. He manages to put enough strength behind the move for the spike to penetrate the demon’s thick hide, go right in through the back of its neck and into its head. The spike turns a golden-white color, almost as if it were wreathed in heavenly-fire, or in the same kind of power that’s part of seraph blades. The dragonidae lets out a terrible, blood-chilling sound that breaks off abruptly as its life comes to an end.

Alec is about ready to drop, when the creature under him shifts. He has one awful, terrifying moment to wonder if the thing’s somehow alive still, when he realizes it isn’t that, but rather that it died so close to the edge of the rooftop that its own weight is pulling it over and down. He barely manages to pull his staff out of the demon’s skull and jump off it and onto the hospital’s rooftop proper before the creature pulls him right down with it.

“Fuck…” Alec mutters as he tries his best to regulate his breathing.

“Hey, Shadowhunter!” A voice calls him from behind. “You alright there?”

The part of his brain that never stops working, never stops analyzing, processes the fact that the voice calling to him is female, an adult; not a mundane as they wouldn’t be able to see him, and probably not a shadowhunter judging by her choice of address, which only leaves a downworlder. He very purposefully keeps the tip of his staff down, making sure the woman won’t have any reason to believe him hostile. The last thing he needs is another fight, particularly one caused by a misunderstanding.

“Alright,” He answers, voice quieter than planned, as he turns around.

“I’m not your enemy,” She hurries to point out. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to drop dead or something.”

“I don’t think you’re an enemy.” He assures her. “If you’ll excuse me, I do need to clean my weapon. I promise I’ve no plans to use it against you.”

Alec waits until she nods to spin his staff around, then tears off the edge of his already damaged over-shirt and uses it to clean the spike end of it before letting it return inside the staff itself, and then vanishing it entirely. The woman, a dark-skinned brunette, with coffee-brown eyes in blue-green scrubs and white sneakers tilts her head to the side, clearly intrigued by either something in Alec’s actions, or simply Alec himself. Looking down at the ruined piece of cloth, something else occurs to the shadowhunter and he twists to look down in the back-alley. What he finds there confirms his suspicion: the dragonidae’s still there. Dead, but it hasn’t dissolved into ichor, like most lesser demons do (though he supposes dragons don’t actually qualify as ‘lesser’ anything so… there’s that).

“Fuck,” He mutters, not for the first time.

“What worries you shadowhunter?” She asks him with honest curiosity.

“Alec, my name is Alec, not shadowhunter.” He points out, turning back to her.

If anything, that seems to intrigue her even more. She truly has never met one such as him.

“Catarina Loss.” She introduces herself. “I work as a nurse at the hospital. Have to say thank you, for not letting the thing get away.”

“Just doing my job.” He says with a slight self-deprecating shrug. “This wasn’t the kind of battle I’m used to at all. Usually I’m more of a long-distance fighter. Also, this is the first time I’ve actually killed a demon myself.”

“The first… what?!” Catarina actually sputters at that.

“What?” Alec asks, defensively. “I told you, I’m usually a long-distance fighter. More back-up than anything else. I mean, I’m not that great…”

“Kid, it wasn’t meant as an insult, mostly a surprise.” Catarina clarifies. “Also, don’t sell yourself short. Someone, not-that-great would have never managed to survive a fight against a fully-grown dragonidae, much less killed it, and on your own too. You’re strong, own it.”

Alec cannot help himself, he snorts, just a little.

“Not mocking you,” He hurries to reassure when she narrows her eyes at him. “Just… well, you reminded me of my siblings just now.”

He’s about to say something else when a sudden bout of dizziness makes him sway on his spot.

“Hey!” Catarina rushes to him, pulling him towards her and away from the edge of the roof. “Come on, the last thing we need is for you to fall and get yourself killed now.”

“I… I…” Alec cannot even bring himself to say anything, barely able to stay on his feet.

“You’re crashing kid.” She informs him. “And… you’re hurt!”

It’s only when she presses her hand against his flank, making him flinch reflexively and groan in pain that Alec even notices the demon got him at some point. The injury’s not exactly life-threatening, but still, it hurts and he’s bleeding. That at least gets solved pretty quickly as Catarina uses her magic (and only then Alec realizes that even though he was fully aware, from the start, that she was a downworlder, he never stopped to ponder whether she might be a wolf, a seelie, a vampire or a warlock) to heal him. While the healing doesn’t change any the fact that he’s coming down from his adrenaline high (and there’s also the exhaustion caused by overusing his battle runes), it at least allows him to hold on a little longer.

“You didn’t have to do that.” He cannot help but say.

“You’re truly one of a kind, aren’t you kid?” She asks, a small smile on her face.

Alec just blinks at her, as if not understanding what she means.

“So, what made you decide to endanger your life by standing so close to the edge of the roof?” She asks him, intrigued.

“Ah…” Alec groans again, though this time less in pain and more in annoyance. “I’ve no idea what the hell I’m gonna do with that thing down there.”

“I thought you shadowhunters had teams that handled demonic remains.” Catarina points out.

“We do.” Alec nods. “The thing is, calling one of those teams now will make this fight go on record. And I shouldn’t have been in this area, much less fighting demons, particularly not when I’m on my own. This is gonna be more of a hassle than it’s worth I swear!”

Catarina just blinks, wondering just who exactly Alec is, when he’s nothing at all like any shadowhunter Catarina has ever met.

“I can take care of it, if you’d like?” She offers unexpectedly.

“I… I don’t have anything on me to pay you with.” Alec admits sheepishly.

“Nonsense,” she waves a dismissive hand at him. “Consider it payment for the favor you did us all by dealing with that thing. Especially since, as you said, you weren’t even supposed to be in the area at this time.”

“I… thank you.” Alec shifts awkwardly a bit, unable to help himself.

She waves a hand, magic gathering at her fingers and going straight for the demonic corpse, which seems to disappear just a few seconds later. Alec exhales in relief. She doesn’t tell him that the demon isn’t entirely gone, not yet. She has plans. But that’ll come later.

“I… I should go.” Alec says quietly after a minute or so. “I… thank you, again.”

He’s so awkward, Catarina cannot help but find it adorable in a way. And who’d have ever thought the day would come when she’d consider a shadowhunter adorable and not… well any other sort of not-so-nice adjectives she usually uses when describing the angel-blooded warriors.

“Thank you, Alec.” She tells him with a small smile. “Good luck.”

In the end Alec manages to make it to the Institute at more or less the same time as Isabelle and Jace. Since he enters behind them they don’t actually see him, and thus don’t feel the need to ask where he’s been (or why his shirt is ripped, part of it even bloody still). He fills the report for their patrol (totally uninteresting as it was when it was still the three of them), then gives a quick perusal to the reports of the other teams set to patrol that night, and to the logs of any activity caught on the sensor. There’s no sign of the dragonidae, or of anything at all having happened on, or near the St. Ambrose Hospital. Alec’s feelings are mixed on the matter. On the one hand, he’s relieved not to have to find some way to try and explain that mess; on the other… there was a demon, a big, dragon-like demon in NY and the sensors didn’t pick up on it?! He wonders if perhaps the seemingly faulty summoning had something to do with it. He can only hope that whatever caused it, won’t be happening again. If demons can suddenly make it to the mortal plane and not be noticed… it’ll be an absolute disaster!

xXx

That’s the first time he meets Catarina, but not the last.

He doesn’t meet her often, and it’s never planned. It’s not that he doesn’t like her, because he does, or at least he likes what little he knows about her. Alec would even go as far as considering her a friendly acquaintance. Which is more than he can say about pretty much everyone bar his siblings. Except maybe Raphael Santiago, he’s another Alec considers a friendly acquaintance of sorts. They’ve come across each other a few times since Alec was forced to step up with his parents’ ever increasing (in both frequency and length) absences.

Catarina for her part is more than a little intrigued by the young man. He really is nothing like any of the shadowhunters she’s met before… except for Tessa’s shadowhunters she supposes, but those are another matter entirely. Still, it takes her completely by surprise when, late one evening, shortly before her shift is bound to end, she hears his voice calling to her.

“Catarina!” He’s calling, in the middle of St. Ambrose. “I’m looking for Catarina Loss. Nurse Loss, please!”

A surprise that only grows when she realizes he’s not glamoured at all, and standing in the middle of a mundane hospital. Catarina catalogs everything she can even as she approaches him: he’s not wearing his usual leathers, and no visible weapon, which means he wasn’t patrolling (she’s quite certain he’s not entirely weaponless, she could see the way the feather staff he used to kill the dragonidae disappeared, that wasn’t any mere glamour). Also, as she realizes a moment later, his arms are completely bare, nothing more than a black muscle shirt covering his upper half (which explains the ogling a number of patients, nurses and even doctors are doing). She wonders what happened to him exactly, for him to be dressed down in such a way, and looking for her at her place of work… until she finally reaches him and most of her questions get answers really fast.

Alec’s standing beside a gurney; and there in the middle of it is Alec’s missing article of clothing. His black sweater wrapped around… is that baby?!

“Alec…?” She lets her confusion color her voice.

“I… I didn’t know where else to go, who might be able to help.” Alec starts babbling. “It’s not like I know a lot of people outside of the… of work.” He glances around, at the bunch of very nosy people standing all around and corrects himself as best he can. “And there’s definitely no one there who’d have been able to help. And you’re a nurse! And… you’re you! So I thought you’d be the best person…”

“Alec, breathe.” She cuts him off. “Come on, look at me, focus on me.” She waits for him to do that. “Now take a deep breath… hold it… exhale… now in again… hold it… exhale…” She waits until he’s breathing regularly again. “Now tell me how and where you found a baby exactly, and why you decided to bring her here and not… anywhere else.”

Alec looks around once again, uneasy, prompting Catarina to call on some magic. It’s nothing huge, a bit like a notice-me-not. It makes it so suddenly the people around them stop finding them all that interesting, turning their attention to other things. They haven’t forgotten they exist, or stopped seeing them, or anything at all, they’ve just stopped caring.

“Thank you,” Alec murmurs quietly, having clearly been very uncomfortable with all that attention. “I just… just look.”

As he says that, he waits for Catarina to turn her eyes to the bundle on the bed, pushing the sweater down, and the baby’s head just slightly to the side, just enough for Catarina to notice the strange scars on the side of her neck. Or no, not scars, gills… the baby’s a warlock!

“How, in Lilith’s name, did you come across this little one?” Catarina breathes out.

“I… I’m not sure?” It sounds more like a question than an answer, but Alec pushes through as he elaborates. “I… things aren’t so good at the Institute right now.” Maryse is back and the way she keeps going on and on about all the ways Alec failed, all the things he did wrong in her place… “I needed some air, so I went for a walk. I… I don’t even know where I was, exactly. Wasn’t paying attention. But one moment I’m walking down an alley, this huge, brownstone building towering above me, and then I see this girl. And she was just a girl, couldn’t have been any older than I am, really. With dark skin and hair… she looked a mess and she… she was absolutely terrified. She was running and stumbling, not even looking where she was going. Crashed against me, so hard she almost went down, I barely reacted in time to take hold of her, keep her on her feet. I… I think I smelled the blood before I saw it. It was awful, worse than the time an achaieral demon took a swipe out of me and there was an actual fucking hole in my leg until Jace and I drew enough iratzes to get the injury to close.”

There’s just… so much wrong with that story, Catarina cannot even begin to list it. She thinks Alec must have been incredibly lucky if the venom or ichor of the demon didn’t keep him from healing until it was much too late, and that he didn’t manage to bleed out in the meantime. Truly, Alec’s much too young to have come so close to death, at least twice that she knows of.

“She… she started babbling practically from the moment she laid eyes on me.” Alec continues. “Put the baby in my arms and I… I took her. The girl, she could barely stand as it was, and I didn’t want her to end up dropping her, so I caught the baby. She was… she’s small, and… I checked her, she doesn’t seem to be hurt. The only blood on her seems to be her mom’s.”

“Where’s the mom?” Catarina asks quietly, though she already suspects the answer.

“Dead.” Alec answers grimly. “I… I called the mundane police, anonymously. Glamoured myself and waited until they arrived before taking off. I… there was nothing I could do for her, and I needed to… She asked me to look after the baby. Her daughter. Madzie, she told me her name is Madzie. Asked me to keep her baby safe, safe from… from Her…”

“Her?” Catarina asks, curious.

“I don’t know, she didn’t elaborate. “Said… said that a monster hurt her, and that She locked her in with it. Some woman? I don’t know, she never explained. She said that she took her baby and ran the moment she could. She… the girl… she was dying, and she knew she was dying. Asked me to take Madzie. To keep her safe. Make sure Sh… this other woman wouldn’t be able to find her. Wouldn’t let the monster hurt her too…”

“Alec, that sounds…” Catarina wasn’t even sure what to say.

“I know!” Alec cuts her off. “I know it sounds insane. I mean… I know how… how warlocks are born. But… it’s not like someone would actually lock a mundane girl in some room with a demon, right? That’s not something that happens. Because… because it’s insane. Who could ever be insane enough for something like that? And anyway, it’s not Madzie’s fault. I just want her to be safe. And I didn’t know where else to bring her. I couldn’t take her to the Institute. She would have never been safe there! No way. Not with Maryse…”

“Easy Alec, easy, I’m not saying you should have taken her anywhere else. You did good bringing her to me, kid. You did good. But I need to know, what do you expect me to do, exactly? This… it’s not like killing demons, this is a baby…”

“You think I don’t know that?!” He runs a hand through his hair, pulling on it a little. “I… can you find someone, a good family to take her in… or…”

He doesn’t want to admit it, but even as he mentions another family he recoils away from the idea. Because how does he know any family will be good enough? He won’t know them, what if they’re no good? That sweet little baby girl, she just lost her mom, she’s been through so much already, at such a young age, she deserves the world! Alec wants nothing more than to make sure she gets it, but what can he even do? It’s not like he has any rights here. She’s not his. And she’s a warlock. The Downworld would probably start an uprising at the mere idea of a shadowhunter being so close to one of their children.

“You… Can you take her in?” He suggests next.

He wants to believe that Catarina at least would allow him to visit. And he knows Catarina is good, she’d be good for Madzie. Raise her right.

Catarina observes Alec carefully in silence for what seems like forever. A sudden, rather insane plan slowly taking shape in her head. If her friends could see her they’d think her absolutely nuts and yet… and yet…

They talk long and hard, for hours, after getting Madzie a check-up (Catarina handling it, to ensure no one will notice the gills). The first issue they talk about is regarding time. Cat’s willing to cut back on her hospital hours, at least for a year or two, but she will still need to do some things, and might not always be able to find a babysitter (also, some time for herself every now and then wouldn’t go amiss). Alec of course is more than willing to help, though he admits he doesn’t know how much free time he might have. Cat’s willing to work with whatever he can give. He cannot help the feeling that she’s just saying all that to give him an opportunity to still spend time with the little one.

The next issue is the money. Alec’s more than willing to help with that, especially knowing that Cat will have to work less, and thus earn less. She’s not exactly poor, but unlike most warlocks she doesn’t sell her services to the highest bidder, preferring to work in mundane hospitals instead, so she’s not rich either. That’s where she makes a confession to him: the dragonidae’s corpse? She had it rendered, all the pieces sold separately. She made it clear to the buyers that she was but the middle-woman, never explaining who she was ‘working for’ or how the dragonidae even died (she used magic to erase the traces of angelic power from the fatal wound). In any case, it was a very, very profitable venture, and all she needs is to finish some paperwork and he’ll have a considerable amount of money available to him. She refuses to take it for herself, claiming she didn’t earn it.

That’s how Cat finally learns Alec’s surname. The fact that he’s a Lightwood. Though he insists on using a different name in his account, he doesn’t want the Institute to ever be able to connect Catarina and Madzie to him, it’d be too dangerous for them. Cat’s somewhat surprised, especially when she realizes that Alec’s all too aware not just of who his parents are, but also who they were, who they still are to the Downworld…

“So you’ve always known?” She asks him, curious.

“Yes and no.” Alec answers. “When I was a kid the Circle was just this grown-ups’ club my parents were a part of. Then things happened, people died, we had to leave Idris, and they never talked about it again. I… didn’t understand why. It was until after I began taking over their duties at the Institute, got their access to certain files and reports and histories, that I found out the truth, realized what it all meant. I’ve never told them. That I know the truth. Tried telling my siblings a few times but… it didn’t go well.”

It really hadn’t. In some ways Alec understands Jace and Izzy not caring about what their parents got up to when they were young, not wanting to care; they see it as some sort of fair trade to Maryse and Robert seemingly not caring for any of them, unless it is to berate them about whatever they’ve been doing lately. Yet at the same time, he wishes he didn’t have to carry the burden of the knowledge on his own.

“In the end, I don’t think that much has changed.” Alec admits. “I mean, they still hate Downworlders. They might not be all homicidal against them, but that might just be about them not caring to go out on the streets, do missions, than them not wanting to do violence anymore.”

It’s a grim way of looking at things, Alec knows, yet he doesn’t think he’s all that wrong. One just needs to consider the things Maryse and Robert taught (or tried to) them all. About the ‘demon blooded’ (as they always call the downworlders) being bad, always; unreliable, immature children at best, vicious, violent monsters at worst.

“What I don’t understand is how, well, how are you, you then?” Cat asks.

Alec snorts a bit at her way of putting things, though he does understand.

“It… I think there was a part of me that never fully believed what they told me.” Alec admits. “It’s… if Downworlders were really so bad, how come the mundanes hadn’t discovered them yet? How hadn’t they managed to fight and destroy each other to extinction? It made no sense, from a logical standpoint. Also, the idea that just because they… because you all have demon blood, you’re evil… it’d be like saying that all blondes should only have blonde children, and all straight people should have straight children… and I know for a fact that’s not true!” He scoffs, then flushes at what he’s just admitted. “Anyway, there’s also the fact that you aren’t demons, only half, you’re also half-human… as are we for that matter so… Yeah.”

Cat can only smile, if only all shadowhunters saw the world like this one did…

“I remember… I met Raphael Santiago when I was thirteen.” Alec reminisces. “Well, ‘met’ is probably a strong word. He was there to report a group attempting to smuggle yin fen into NY in a mundane ship. I was hiding in one of the hidden nooks in the Institute, listening in. I could tell that he honestly wanted to help. It wasn’t just about the Accords stating that he should report such things. He knew that yin fen was dangerous and wanted to stop it from getting into NY and… and so many shadowhunters were more interested in posturing and… and doing and saying stupid things, than in doing their duty.”

“Wait you, that was you?!” Cat almost eeps.

“What was me?” Alec asks, confused.

“Do you know what happened with the operation?” Cat asks in turn.

“I know the mission was a success, at least in the sense that the yin fen was destroyed.” Alec answers. “I don’t know the details. The official reports were a little scarce on those, to tell you the truth. Not sure how Maryse allowed that but…”

“She probably didn’t want the truth to be reported.” Cat points out.

“And what’s the truth?” Alec asks, intrigued.

He’s honestly curious by now, truth is he’s always wondered at what happened, exactly. What was it that made so many shadowhunters uneasy back then, and his mother so angry… At one point he thought maybe the mission failed, and even that they might have lied in the reports. But if it wasn’t that…

“The truth is that, while it is true the mission was a success, in the sense that the yin fen was destroyed; in the end, the shadowhunters had very little to do with it.” Cat informs him. “Raphael recruited two groups of mixed downworlders. One threw bottles with accelerants at the ship when it went near a bridge. The other, once the first group was done, they threw molotov cocktails, and even shot a few flares at the ship…”

“… setting it on fire.” Alec finishes for her in an exhale.

Alec can still remember his conversation with Raphael Santiago back then. His opinion that the ship shouldn’t be allowed to reach the docks at all. He still believes as he did back then. Even more so now, actually.

“Raphael told us once, when Magnus asked him about it, that he got the idea from a ‘little tactical genius’.” Cat points out. “But he never mentioned a name, or that he was talking about a shadowhunter child.”

Alec shrugs, because what can he really say to that?

“That meeting cinched it for me.” Alec says quietly. “Confirmed what I already suspected. That downworlders were nothing like my parents claimed. Since then I’ve been trying to do better, be better. There’s not much I can do to change things, truly change them, just yet. But I hope the day will come when I’ll be able to.”

Cat can only hope he will. If someone like Alec were to lead the New York Institute, how different would things be?

In the end, she offers him her name because, why not? It makes things easier all around. So the needed arrangements are made and Alexander Loss comes into existence. Alec insists on doing even more paperwork that will allow Catarina access to the account, so she can use that to pay for anything Madzie might need. He also insists that, as middle-woman, she should get a percentage of the earnings, like a commission, and even though Cat only agrees to a pretty small percentage (5%) the amount of money that ends up being is enough that Alec refuses to even look at the total amount in his new account when he signs the papers for it.

And thus Alec ends up a rich man in the mundane world, and at least partially responsible for a warlock baby-girl.

xXx

At 21 Alec’s officially named Acting Head of the New York Institute. Not like he wasn’t doing the job already, and has been for years, but with the official naming he doesn’t depend on his parents as much anymore. He can make changes himself, and while he knows there’s a good chance that any kind of change he does that follows his own philosophy and desire for equality in the Shadow World will be undone by his parents the first chance they get… he cannot help but want to try.

His now official position also cuts into his free time, which he doesn’t like as much. As it means less time he can spend at Cat’s place. Still, it’s a price he knows he must pay if he has any hope of one day becoming the actual Head of the Institute… And when that day comes, he’ll institute real changes, changes that will last, that no one will be able to erase. He’ll fight for equality, for the chance to go to the park, or for ice-cream with his dearest friends, his family by choice, and not have to fear that shadowhunters will see them and hurt them, or worse.

Izzy and Jace insist on taking him to dinner to celebrate his official appointment and he’s happy enough to go. After that they try to convince him to go with them to Pandemonium but Alec refuses, nightclubs aren’t his scene, which they know already. Instead he takes a different turn and makes the trek to Cat’s apartment.

It feels so strange, living life the way he does, like he has two separate lives. In one he’s Alec Lightwood, the brand new Acting Head of the New York Institute, heir of the Lightwood name, older brother, parabatai, and so many other things; in the other he’s Alec Loss, part of a patch-work family where none of them are connected by blood, but that only makes things all the more special. Only once he’s tried to make his two lives intersect. It took some effort but he managed to convince Cat to meet with Izzy and Jace; he wanted his sister and his parabatai to meet his dear friend (and hopefully, eventually, his favorite little sorceress as well). The meeting never took place, though it wasn’t because of Cat. She agreed, in the end, though did insist that the first meeting take place without Madzie, in case Izzy and Jace reacted badly to the revelation, so she’d be safe. Alec didn’t want to believe that they’d ever hurt a little girl, warlock or not, but did understand the desire to protect her anyway (he felt the same), so he agreed. It was Izzy and Jace who refused to go. To this day Alec doesn’t know what he did wrong, if maybe he should have presented things to them differently, explained more, instead of keeping things close to his chest. But it was like, if it wasn’t about having fun, or doing something ‘wild’ his siblings didn’t care about it. He tried to explain that it was important to him, but they just kept laughing, using words like ‘bore’ and ‘stuck up’ and how he should have fun once in a while… Eventually Alec grew tired of trying to convince them and just left.

And so he keeps living two lives, and hoping his efforts to keep the two separate will not drive him crazy one of these days…

“Daddy!!!” A bright little voice calls.

That word, in that voice, is enough to erase everything else. As he drops on one knee, right on time to catch the little torpedo heading for him, he cannot help but think that as long as he has his little Madzie, he can handle anything.

“How’s my favorite little sorceress?” He asks with a smile.

“Fine.” She answers with a huge smile. “Nana taught me how to make sparks, wanna see?”

“Of course sweetheart, you know I love to see your magic.” He answers immediately.

She raises her hand in front of him, staring straight at him, brow furrowed and lip pursed in concentration. It takes several seconds but finally there’s a light purple glow at her fingers, a moment before a small shower of sparks of the same color burst from them, like tiny fireworks.

“Bravo sweetheart!” He cheers for her. “That was beautiful.”

She smiles brightly at him.

“Congratulations Alec.” Cat greets him with a smile of her own.

“Thanks mama,” He returns the smile, a bit bashful still about the form of address (it hasn’t been that long since he started using it, entirely by accident), rising to his feet swiftly, Madzie settled on his hip as he follows Cat to the living room.

Truth is, he never intended for the two warlock females to become family. His greatest hope when Madzie came into their lives was for her to see him as a friend, perhaps even like something of an uncle. The last thing he could have ever imagined was her coming to see him as her dad. Especially because of how little time they got to spend together. And still she did, and the little girl seemed to take great delight in calling him exactly that at every opportunity.

Cat’s situation was a different matter entirely. The first signs of it came about eighteen months or so after Madzie’s ‘adoption’. He was sick, a cold from hell (in his personal opinion). It wasn’t often that shadowhunters got sick, but it wasn’t entirely unheard of either. Yet, as Cat would say later, Alec was definitely the worst kind of patient. The kind that would ignore any and all signs of sickness and keep pushing himself until his body gave up on him entirely. That day he learned a few things: like the fact that warlock children could instinctively use their magic to create bonds to those they considered family. Madzie, even as a toddler, had enough magic to have formed a bond to him, she knew the moment he collapsed. Cat, realizing what was wrong, tracked him down, retrieved him and got him to her place, where she set about healing him as best she could (while magic couldn’t actually heal a cold, there were potions that could help, so that’s what she did). She poured a couple down his throat, then gave him two more when he next woke up, along with some broth and tea. By the morning he was, while not fully back to health, certainly much improved. Enough to decide to return to the Institute, before someone declared him AWOL or something. Only, nothing happened. No one seemed to notice his absence at all. Not even Jace. Less than four months after his failed attempt at arranging a meeting between the two groups… it hurt.

He tries to tell himself that sickness isn’t the kind of thing that’d be felt through a parabatai bond, there’s no reason for Jace to have felt it. And he and Izzy are so used to hiding at what time they return (or at least, believing that they can hide), that it’s not surprising they wouldn’t realize Alec wasn’t back himself yet. But then he remembers the dragonidae, his injured flank… that was a battle wound, definitely the kind of thing Jace should have sensed, yet didn’t. Which means… well, either Jace did feel it and just didn’t care, was so into whatever (or whoever) he was doing that he didn’t really notice or… or their bond isn’t as strong as they both believe it to be which… wouldn’t actually surprise him. Between Alec’s attempts at hiding his feelings for the blonde, and Jace’s enduring belief that love is a weakness; they were probably just kidding themselves when they were so sure their bond was stronger than most pairs of parabatai. And, Alec supposes it doesn’t change that they are, in fact, parabatai. Even if their connection might not be on the level of some shown in legends, that doesn’t make it less just… normal, for a change. There’s nothing wrong with being normal.

At the time Alec didn’t remember having called to Cat while his fever was at its highest, didn’t remember calling her ‘mama’… The next time it happened though… He wasn’t injured, or sick.

He’d had a bad day, Maryse had finally left NY again, though before that could happen he was forced to endure yet another lecture from her, about all the ways in which Alec was a failure, a disappointment, and simply Not Good Enough! He was tired, drained, wanted to be somewhere he could be safe and… and that wasn’t the Institute. Which is how he ended at Cat’s apartment. Madzie was delighted to see him, and somehow spending an hour playing tea-party and then reading her three whole bedtime stories relaxed him, enough for him to end up falling asleep right there beside her. He didn’t know how long he’d slept exactly (thought probably not long) when Cat went to wake him.

“Come on kid, up you go.” She nudged him, very careful not to disturb the sleeping Madzie.

Alec muttered something under his breath that neither of them could really parse out. It’s just… he wasn’t exactly comfortable, Madzie’s bed wasn’t made with an adult in mind, but he just… he was safe, and warm, and home… he wasn’t ready to leave yet…

“I’m not asking you to go back to the Institute, kid.” Cat pointed out (apparently he’d been talking out loud… shit!). “Just to get in a bed that actually fits you, come on, there’s a bed with your name on it just next door.”

Still half-asleep. He felt so warm, and so safe… he rarely felt like that, and it was something he wasn’t ready to give up just yet. And Cat was safe, so he knew he didn’t have to. He could just follow her, confident that she wouldn’t take him anywhere, or do anything that might cause him any sort of hurt.

Soon enough he was in another bed, this one more his size. She left his clothes as they were, but took off his boots, before helping him get under the covers, going as far as tucking him in. It… it was so strange, that such a small thing, such a simple gesture could mean so much to him, yet it did. Not the least because he could still remember the last time one of his parents (Robert) tucked him in: he was four years old and Isabelle had just been born. Robert was so happy with her, kept wanting to hold her, and when Alec asked to do the same Robert watched over him the whole time. The last thing he did that night was tell Alec that he was a big brother now, and it would be his responsibility to look after his little sister…

Such a simple, yet powerful thing, being tucked in by someone he’d begun to see as more than just a friend, as family…

“Now you go back to sleep,” She told him quietly.

“Good night mama,” the words crossed his lips before he could even think twice about them.

And the best of all? It was her response. Her total lack of shock or surprise or denials…

“Good night kid,” She said simply, kissing his brow tenderly.

It was a good night indeed.

Cat’s been his mama since that night, and never once has Alec regretted naming her as such. She’s his mom, more than Maryse Lightwood has been in… well, more years than Alec’s truly interested in counting. She’s his family as much as Madzie is. Sometimes it even feels like the two of them are more his family than any of his siblings… That’s perhaps the only part that truly hurts him. Because he loves Izzy and Jace, loves them dearly, yet it’s like they just keep growing apart. Like the more time that passes the thinner their bonds become, and Alec’s so afraid, almost terrified that the day will come when those bonds will just… break.

xXx

When it’s all said and done Alec cannot help but wonder if Clary is truly to blame for all the bad things that happen, so fast and mostly unexpectedly… or if it was all going to happen one way or another and she just… happened to be there. After thinking things over long and harder (and with a lot more self-awareness and honesty than he usually allows himself) he concludes that the redhead might have been a catalyst, but she wasn’t the one who started things. No, that was… well, he supposes it depends on what one considers the ‘start of things’ exactly. Jace growing obsessed with her? That’s on Jace… probably. Valentine finding the Frays, kidnapping Jocelyn and everything else that followed? That’s on Valentine, and to a lesser degree on Jocelyn, for not having been prepared for the worst. Really, she was all for hiding yet it never occurred to her that her daughter probably should be aware of who she truly was, the danger she was in, be trained to defend herself? Nevermind everything else! As for the mess Alec himself ended up in? Well, that was on all of them. Isabelle and Jace for their constant rule-breaking, and Alec himself for giving in to them so much they came to believe rules didn’t apply to them!

When Circle members make their third appearance in a week (that time in Pandemonium), the moment he’s finished with all the paperwork Alec heads straight to his room, opening his bottom drawer, where he moves some clothes slightly to a side before tracing an invisible rune with the tip of a finger, causing a small cellphone to appear. It’s nothing like the Institute-issue mobile phones they tend to use, but rather a small prepaid phone he bought in a mundane store. It has no numbers saved, as he always dialed by memory (he also always erases the phone’s memory after he’s made a call).

“Hey hun,” The voice on the other side answers. “Everything alright? I mean, I’ve no problem with you calling, but you usually just drop by.”

He does. They’ve gotten to the point where, even if she happens to be out, on a shift at the hospital or something, the wards at the apartment recognize him and allow him inside. He knows that surprised Tessa (Cat’s warlock friend, and Madzie’s most common babysitter), a surprise that only grew with Madzie’s cry of ‘daddy’… at least Tessa can be trusted, really Cat wouldn’t leave their little girl alone with her otherwise).

“Are you free to talk, Cat?” He asks quietly.

He knows his use of her name, instead of his usual ‘mama’, will be enough to let her know that things are serious.

“Just got out of my shift.” She answers. “Haven’t gotten home yet.”

“I…” For a moment Alec’s at a loss for words, has no idea how to explain what’s going on, how badly things are going, so fast, and how much worse he expects them to get.

“Alec, are you alright?” She asks him in her most no-nonsense tone.

“Yeah…” He exhales. “No, I’m not alright. Though it’s nothing you, or I can really help right now.” He swallows. “The Circle is back.”

She doesn’t ask him if he’s sure, she knows him better than that. Her sharp inhale also tells him that she understands how bad that is, and could be.

“I… you need to be very careful Cat.” He tells her quietly. “If you so much as suspect they might be onto you, take Madzie and run. Run and don’t look back.”

“Alec…”

“I’m serious. Please, mama…”

“Okay.” Cat agrees after what seems like forever. “Okay. If necessary Madzie and I will go into hiding. But you better catch up Alec. I know… I know you’re a shadowhunter, and more than that, you’re a warrior, and honorable. I won’t ask you to surrender, or to walk away from a fight. But you have to promise me that you’ll do your very best to survive, and that when it’s all said and done you will be joining us.”

“Cat… I…”

“Promise me… son…”

“I promise.” He blurts out.

He knows it’s insane, making promises he’s not entirely sure he can keep, and yet… he wants so much to be able to keep it. He has no idea what’s coming exactly, only that it’ll be big and it’ll be bad. He can only hope he’ll be strong enough to survive it…

xXx

Plans. Plans have always kind of been Alec’s thing. Where Isabelle is good at following orders, and then improvising when the original plans are no longer enough; and Jace has always been more the kind to fly by the seat of his pants (and somehow survive even after pulling the most insane stunts…), Alec has always been the tactician of their group. Even if it might be true that, like mundanes always say ‘No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy’… having a plan means having at least an idea of what they’re trying to do exactly. Even if some things might need to be changed, to be adapted as the enemy responds, it’s always better having at least a semblance of a plan, than none at all.

Which is why, from the moment the whole situation (or most of it at least) is made clear, Alec starts making plans. Even before they actually get their hands on the Mortal Cup, he’s already made plans on how to handle it. What to do with it, how to keep it safe. They know they have spies, for the Clave and for the Circle, so he plans for those as well. He also plans for things going wrong in many ways. For sleeper agents, and traitors, and even accidents. He retrieves a replica of the Mortal Cup from storage, pours just enough angelic power into it that it’ll have an aura like a real artifact, and then requests that Clary make a replica of the tarot card, putting the fake cup in it, so they can use it as a decoy. Explaining to her, and his siblings about the difference between the more obvious safe in the Head’s Office, and the top-secret one that can only be opened by his stele, and how they can use the decoy to draw in any possible traitors.

What he doesn’t tell any of them is that, in the end, both safes are a ruse. He takes the decoy tarot card to a warlock in Long Island, whom he pays an exorbitant amount of money to duplicate it. He wears a specialized glamour and goes with a story about an inheritance and wanting to keep what’s his… he’s sure the warlock doesn’t care at all, but still, if he ever makes a comment to someone else about the red-haired man who paid way too much money for a duplicate-spell, there will be nothing in his story that can connect to Alec, or the Institute, or the Cup.

Meliorn’s arrest isn’t in his plans, neither is his siblings deciding to once again do whatever the hell they want and ‘rescue’ him. Or ending up arrested and accused of High Treason in the aftermath of that mess. He wonders if even Meliorn realizes how badly things could go. It was one thing for him to be seen as a ‘person of interest’, by the Clave, but after his escape… the Clave could get into their heads that he was truly hiding something (which, to be fair, he probably is!), and then they’ll want to capture him and truly get him to the Gard this time. Really, Clary and his siblings haven’t made anything better, only worse. Their only hope is that the Clave decides Meliorn isn’t worth it and turn their attention elsewhere. Which, once again, to be fair, isn’t entirely unlikely. It’s actually one of the reasons why he mentions the Mortal Cup at all, to give the Clave something else to focus on. The other one is… well, there wouldn’t be much point to his plans if he didn’t set them into motion, would there?

So much happens, so much just goes wrong…

“Alexander Gideon Lightwood, you are found guilty of High Treason against the Clave.” The Inquisitor announced, stoically. “As such, you are unworthy of bearing the title of Shadowhunter, or the marks of the Angel on your skin. So you shall be stripped of those markings, and exiled from shadowhunter society. Never again shall you enjoy our gifts and protection…”

And yet. He survives. He endures a deruning, and a beating and being thrown out of the New York Institute like so much trash. Getting to wake up in the one place that has been home, truly home, the last couple of years, in his own bed, under the care of his mama, and his favorite little sorceress. What more could he ask for?

“Hey mama, I’m home.” He quips at her, the barest hint of a smile on the corner of his lips.

“Impudent boy,” She scoffs, but he can see the glimmer of tears on the edges of her eyes, the tension bleeding away from the corners of her mouth, she was worried about him.

The tense moment is broken in the best way possible…

“Daddy!” Madzie cries out as she runs right past Cat and straight to Alec. “You’re home.”

“I’m home baby,” He agrees with her.

He has no idea what he’s going to do just yet. Which of his multitude of plans might still be viable with the latest developments, but there will be time for that. For now… for now he just wants to enjoy being safe, home, with his family…

Interlude

Things… aren’t good. Isabelle would say it’s just been a bad day, except she doesn’t think they’ve had anything but bad days since the loss of Alec. Before that even. There’s no day that passes where she doesn’t reconstruct the series of events as best she can, thinking of all the ways things could have been different, all the ways she could have changed things, if only she’d been there. She knows she isn’t the only one torturing herself with such thoughts, she even realizes that it’s probably even worse for Jace and yet… she cannot really bring herself to care. Jace betrayed Alec, betrayed his parabatai, Izzy’s big brother! That’s a fact, a fact as absolute and undeniable as the reddened scar of the parabatai rune on his hip. It isn’t the faded silvery color such a rune might take at the loss of power, no, instead it’s red, and raised, almost as if still inflamed, like a burn-scar, the sign of his betrayal.

And yet, the hardest part of all is that Isabelle cannot stop thinking of all the ways she betrayed Alec as well. She might not carry a literal sign of it on her body, but in her mind and heart she knows it’s the truth. How many times did she go against Alec? How many times did she refuse to do something he asked? How many times did she defy his orders, defy him, and still expected things to go just fine, because she was so sure that he’d always fix things for her… She’s such an ungrateful bitch! The very mess that’s landed her, landed them all where they are, that saw Alec deruned, exiled and possibly… no, she refuses to believe her brother is dead. Alec’s so strong, there’s no way he’d die just like that. Then again, that’s the point of the punishment isn’t it? The shadowhunter is deruned and exiled, made vulnerable and denied any protection from their society; this is done knowingly, for what else can one in such a position find other than death? And yet for her Alec has always been this extraordinary individual, tall and strong and almost larger than life… she cannot believe he’d just… die. It’s almost funny (in a way that nobody laughs) that she, even now, sees her brother the way she does; and yet she’s always complained to him about precisely that.

“I don’t need you to be my father Alec, I already have one of those, you know? You’re supposed to be my brother!”

She told him those words, or variations thereof, not once, or even twice, but many times. And it’s only now that she truly can see how wrong she was, in all accounts. She might not have wanted Alec to act like a parent, but she most definitely needed it, they all did. She remembers how Max actually called him dad a few times, years ago. Alec might have gotten him to stop, but it didn’t change the truth, deep down, that Alec has been more of a parent to Max, to her, and even to Jace, than their own parents. Maryse has ever chosen to be their commander rather than anything else. And Izzy doesn’t care what excuses she gives, or how dramatic she tries to be about it, it was still a choice she made, to stop being a mother the moment she could. Truth is, as many memories as she has of Alec reading her stories, playing with her, singing her to sleep, even letting her into his bed whenever she had a nightmare and couldn’t sleep; she couldn’t remember Maryse ever doing any of that, none of it. And Robert… What can she say about Robert? The bastard not only wasn’t there for Alec, but while she and Jace were dealing with being questioned by the Clave, while they were fighting to get their brother back, he was busy trying to arrange a marriage for her! Because apparently someone needs to take on the responsibility now that Alec is gone. As if that was all that mattered! Alec is gone and cannot marry for convenience’s sake, so now she has to do it instead!

Her whole life she believed that her father loved her. It was what allowed her to keep her head high despite Maryse’s continuous belittling and dismissive comments. She had the love of her father and that was enough… and well, she supposes that if she’s to see Alec truly as more of a parent, more her dad than just a big brother, she truly did have a father that loved her. And she squandered that love for a bastard who just sees her as cattle.

As insane as it might seem, that’s not all that’s happened in the last few days. When hearing that Alec tried to use the Mortal Cup to negotiate a pardon, or something like that, Clary only hesitated briefly before revealing she had it and asking if such a deal couldn’t still be made. Izzy doesn’t actually know if it would have worked, doesn’t think anyone does, with Alec already deruned, exiled and probably… no. Still, they tried to keep things on the down-low, at least until they had some sort of plan, which would have worked just fine if Hodge hadn’t turned out to be a traitor. How did these things keep happening to them?! She’s started to wonder if maybe Alec was entirely justified in his paranoia…

“It’s not paranoia when the danger’s real. And in this case, it’s very, very real, and most definitely out to get us.”

She can almost hear her brother’s voice in her head, it makes tears form in the corners of her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. Not now, not here. She has an image to portray, a role to fulfill. She might have failed Alec in every possible way, but even if it might be too late for it to make any difference, she’ll do better. She swears on her brother’s name and love…

xXx

When Jace approaches her he’s at first not entirely certain if she’s even going to want to talk to him. And he doesn’t blame her, he understands why she’s like that, that she’s angry at herself as much as she’s at him. That doesn’t make it any easier though. Izzy at least doesn’t have a stark red reminder on her very flesh of her sins, not like him. And really, the things she’s done, most of it can easily be excused as a result of immaturity. While, as shadowhunters, they might not be expected to act like mundane teenagers… well, she’s still very much a teenager, and they’re both part human (as Alec would remind them every so often). And really, what did she do? Not much at all. While she did manipulate Alec somewhat, same as he, it was never in any big way, not like him, expecting Alec to turn his back not just on the law, on the Clave, but on his own values and beliefs to follow him… what the hell was he thinking? What’s more, she didn’t turn her back on Alec, left him defeated, lost, on the cement floor of that warehouse! Is it any surprise that their parabatai bond snapped?

He can still remember the day he asked Alec to be his parabatai. He didn’t do it in the ceremonial manner (though they did go through with that part, later, and with witnesses). Instead he just… popped the question. In the middle of the night, one of the many nights he and Alec spent in the same bed, pretending that it was all about helping the brunette’s nightmares, even though they both knew it was the blonde who was having those. Jace was having trouble going to sleep again, and he could tell that Alec wasn’t even trying. Made him wonder if it was the other boy’s continued wakefulness that kept him up or if perhaps that was normal; thinking it over, he couldn’t remember, of the many nights they spent on the same bed, ever waking up before Alec, he’d always chalked it up to the brunette being too obsessed with rising early and rules, and so many other things but what if… what if Alec never went back to sleep those nights?

“I’ll guard your sleep, you’ll guard mine, and neither of us will have nightmares anymore.”

That was what he said, only, did Jace ever truly get to guard the older boy’s sleep? Somehow he doubts it. And how come it never occurred to him to question such things before? He was always content to just… let things be. Let Maryse praise him and treat him like a golden boy, while at the same time treating all her blood children like they were no more than dirt under her shoe. Let Robert be so proud of him, so accommodating, so accepting, all while knowing Alec was treated very differently. Let Alec take the blame for things not of his doing, even while knowing that the punishment for him would have never been as bad. At first it’d been the voice of his father, whispering that if Alec wanted to be weak, shouldering burdens that weren’t his to carry, that was his problem, and if Jace got to benefit from it, why shouldn’t he? And afterwards… he supposes it was easier. Easier… the thought makes him almost sick with shame now.

He sits down a few inches from her, in a shadowed corner of Angel Square

“They say a portal to NY will be arranged for us in a couple of hours.” Jace murmurs, for something to say.

“I know,” Izzy replies evenly.

Well, she didn’t know the exact time, but when her interview finally ended she was told they could go back to the New York Institute as soon as they were all finished. The interview was… harrowing probably wouldn’t do it justice. They questioned her (questioned them both) about everything, and not just the events of the past couple of weeks, since the appearance of Clarissa Morgenstern. No matter how much she might insist that her name was Fray, the Clave cared very little for mundane names, if she was a shadowhunter, she was a Morgenstern, and if she wasn’t… Izzy would need to find Clary and give her a crash-course on the Clave and why it was a very bad idea for her to try her bravado act on them. That thought, like so many others, pulled her back to Alec, made her think of all the things she, they, had done wrong. Perhaps if they hadn’t pushed so hard, hadn’t been so keen on breaking any and all rules. They knew it was wrong, that laws matter, that the Clave doesn’t like rule-breakers. Only they were so sure they’d never get caught, would never have to actually pay for their actions, because Alec wouldn’t let it happen, he’d protect them, like he always did… And yeah, he did, again. She knows that throughout his trial he never so much as suggested that anyone was to blame for the unsanctioned missions but he; didn’t so much as suggest that they’d gone rogue on him. That, even the mere whisper of it, would have ruined her career, and Jace’s, would have seen the both of them deruned and exiled, instead of him, or even probably alongside him. And still he protected them.

Much as she hates it, Isabelle knows that the only reason she and Jace are free right now is because of their parents, because they moved influences, called in favors and made sure that they couldn’t be formally charged with anything. Arguing that those crimes had already been judged, and the guilty punished, the Clave couldn’t reopen it (not unless they were willing to admit they might have made a mistake the first time around, and brought Alec back, neither of which they were willing… or even able, to do). Izzy hates so much even the thought of being in any way grateful to her parents. They might have helped them, but she knows they didn’t do it for them, it was about the family name, the reputation, the ‘family honor’… But really, Robert talks big, about the honor being in the deed, yet where’s the honor in their current deeds? Where was the honor in abandoning Alec, his eldest son, to be judged and sentenced on crimes he didn’t commit? And while Maryse might be right, that there was nothing they could have done, they could have at least been there for Alec, shown him he wasn’t alone (She could have been there too, and she wasn’t, because she was too busy covering her own ass!).

The part that sickens her the most though is that She Chose Meliorn! And she was so proud about it! She chose her lover, the seelie knight, over the Clave, over the law, over her own brother! And she thought it was such a great thing! That she was showing how brave she was, how determined to do what was right! Truth is she betrayed her brother as much as Jace did, she just doesn’t have a scar on her body to show for it (just one in her heart…).

“You know what actually confuses me?” Jace asks unexpectedly.

Izzy doesn’t really say anything, just a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. She’s not sure she wants to talk about whatever it is Jace wants to talk about, but at the same time, it might be better than to have her mind going in circles, each thought darker than the last. It’s not like torturing herself will change anything in the end.

“I don’t feel any stronger.” The blonde murmurs. “I actually tried to test myself, you know? During training, just before we got the message ordering us to come to Idris. No additional strength, or speed, or energy. Nothing.”

She finally turns to him, blinking in confusion. Why was that important? What happened exactly that he expected to suddenly be stronger? Not that she can actually imagine him being any… more than he already is. He’s already considered the best of their generation! She and Alec can barely keep up with him most of the time…

“The parabatai bond?” He explains, though it almost sounds more like a question than an answer. “Because I was giving power to Alec all the time? With us not being parabatai anymore I thought that would change something in me. That I’d be able to use that power I used to give Alec but… there’s nothing there. Nothing more than I usually have anyway.”

“Maybe it got lost when the bond broke?” Izzy suggests with a shrug because, what else can she be expected to say, really? “And why were you looking to have any more power? Is this really… We just lost Alec! Is this really all you care…?!”

“Of course I care about Alec!” Jace cuts her off. “He was my parabatai! The loss of him is like a wound that will never heal. But what else do you want me to do? I cannot spend the rest of my life destroying myself about it!”

“Excuse me,” A new voice calls.

The growing argument fizzles out abruptly as the two turn their attention to the newcomers. Two men, they look to be somewhere in their twenties… mostly. The taller of the two has tanned skin, blue eyes, somewhat long, wavy, dark hair, as well as a hint of facial-hair that’s hard to tell if it’s purposefully left there, or he forgot to shave in the morning; the other man, a few inches shorter than the first, is also somewhat tanned, though his features are less European and more Asian instead, with chocolate eyes and short hair of a dark brown, except for some white strands here and there (as if he’d been going prematurely white for a while there). They’re both wearing casual clothes: dark jeans, dark shirts, the only difference being in their jackets: the first man’s is the dark leather, the second’s is white suede. There’s what looks like a hint of black on their skin, (the black of permanent runes) on the edges of the skin covered by clothes.

“Pardon the interruption, and I know this is probably none of our business. But we still felt the need to tell you we’re sorry for your loss.” The man in the dark jacket offers politely.

“Loss…?” Jace parrots, as if not quite understanding.

“Alec’s not dead!” Izzy almost shrieks.

That makes the two men turn to look at each other, seemingly confused, then back at them.

“We’re sorry we thought you…” The one in dark-leather is clearly at a loss for words.

“You mentioned the loss of your parabatai, we know how painful such a loss can be, how… heart-wrenching.” The one in the white-jacket says quietly, heart-felt.

“The kind of loss we wouldn’t wish on anyone, particularly not one so young.” The one in black interjects. “The mere thought of it…”

“Easy, love,” The one in white turns completely to him, a hand cupping the taller man’s cheek tenderly. “I’m here. I’m here and come heaven or hell I always will be.”

“Wait!” Izzy calls loudly, staring at one and then at the other attentively, as if trying to discern something. “Are you… are you parabatai?!”

“No way!” Jace snaps before either man can give an answer.

“Hey!” Izzy snaps at him.

“No way Izzy, it’s impossible.” Jace shakes his head vehemently. “Wanna know how I know that? Because when Alec and I presented our case to the Clave we were told there was no pair of parabatai alive who could be called in to advise us, to oversee our tests.”

“Yeah well, the Clave doesn’t really like us much so…” White-jacket states with a small shrug.

“We don’t like them either, bunch of racist, sanctimonious, bastards the lot of them.” Black-jacket hisses with what seems like a bit too much feeling.

“So, the dislike’s mutual, really.” White-jacket concludes, pretty calm.

“Then again, the last time they called on us, we told them what a huge mistake it was for either of the two parabatai pairs they presented to us, to be allowed to go through with the ceremony, and did they listen to us? Of course not!” Black-jacket scoffs, contemptuously. “And of course, we were right. Not that they will ever admit it, bunch of idiotic…”

“Enough, husband.” White-jacket cuts him off, gently but strongly.

“If you hate the Clave so much, why are you even here?” Jace asks, distrustful.

“Cannot be helped.” White-jacket shrugs dismissively. “Contracts signed, oaths sworn… you know how it goes.”

Izzy’s and Jace’s blank expressions show that no, they have no idea ‘how it goes’.

“Why does the Clave hate you?” Izzy asks next.

While they never did outright say that they’re parabatai, their comments about judging other hopeful parabatai pairs (and finding them wanting) points to them definitely being that. Also, she cannot help but be curious. Those two definitely hate the Clave, yet there they are, in Idris, and the mention of contracts and oaths… Also, while she does believe they must be parabatai, the word the one in black used earlier to refer to the other man: cariad… she’s sure she’s heard that word before. It’s a term of endearment, but that… that isn’t possible, is it? Parabatai cannot be lovers. It’s forbidden! The curse!!!

“Well! Where should I begin?” Black-jacket snorts, before turning to his companion. “Which do you think they find most terrible about us? The magic or the wife?”

The two stare at each other for several very long seconds, as if having an entire conversation without having to say a single word, before answering in unison:

“Tessa/Shadowmages.” They stare at each other, chuckling a bit before turning to Izzy and Jace and adding in sync. “Probably both.”

Yet again, Izzy and Jace are left just staring at the two men, completely at a loss.

“Well, well, we’ve been remiss in introducing ourselves, haven’t we?” Black-jacket laments, perhaps more dramatically than entirely necessary.

“Charlotte would be most cross with us.” White-jacket agrees genially.

They talk so fluidly, almost like a single individual, a single soul, in two bodies.

“My name is William Owen Herondale, but please, just Will is enough, and this gorgeous gentleman by my side is my dearest husband and…”

“… and his parabatai, James Carstairs, and Jem’s just fine for me, pleasure to meet you.”

It’s official. The world’s absolutely insane. Truly. Because there’s no other possible explanation, no other way the two men can possibly be telling the truth…

“That’s impossible.” Jace blurts out. “The parabatai curse…”

“Is a lie.” Jem cuts him off.

“And a most stupid one too.” Will interjects.

“Shush you,” Jem orders him before turning back to the Lightwoods. “It’s… I suppose you’ve heard that parabatai are forbidden from being with each other, from loving, being in love with one another?” He waits for the nod before continuing. “And yet what do you think the parabatai bond is made of, in the first place? Being willing to fight and live and potentially die for each other… it takes more than mere loyalty, even more than trust. Only love can give someone the willingness to put their own life in the hands of someone else, as well as the strength to hold another person’s life in their own hands, and not break either of them in the process.”

“But then why…?” Izzy doesn’t understand.

Alec’s spent years, so many years, torturing himself for being in love with his parabatai, because it was forbidden… and it was all a lie?!

“Because the Clave are a bunch of idiots afraid of anyone ever being more powerful than them!” Will scoffs contemptuously.

“Will!” Jem snaps.

“What?!” Will stares at him. “You know I’m right, Jem. It’s the reason why they hate us. They need us, all of us, to survive. And still that doesn’t stop them from hating us.”

“People tend to hate what they do not understand.” Jem says, with infinite patience, and the tone of a well-practiced argument.

“They don’t want to.” Will persists. “There’s a difference.”

“But if there’s no curse, then why?” Izzy insists.

She needs to know, she needs to understand… So much is changing, her whole life seemingly unraveling around her and she needs something to hold onto… When Jace entwines his hand with hers she holds onto him tightly. It… she might not be very happy with him, but he’s also all she has in that moment, her sole port in the storm.

“It was never about the love.” Jem explains quietly. “It’s the… the connection. You must know, the stronger the connection between a pair of parabatai, the more they can achieve. Things like being aware of each other in the battle-field, of strengthening each other’s runes; those things are well and good. Yet that’s actually the bare minimum of what a parabatai pair can achieve.” He chuckles lightly at the shocked expressions of the two young ones before him. “It’s true. A true bonded pair of parabatai can do more, so much more. And it’s all grounded in their connection, in their trust in one another. Love… well, you’re unlikely to trust someone more than the person you love. And I’m talking about true love here, not just a ‘crush’.”

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, the strength to do anything, to fight against any enemy, surpass any obstacle, survive regardless of the odds against you…” Will murmurs softly. “While loving someone deeply… it gives you courage, the courage to keep on going, even when the world seems to be against you, even when the odds might appear impossible, you look straight in the eyes of your greatest fear and keep going because you know that love, your love is waiting at the end of it, and it’s all worth it…”

Jem stares at him for a long moment, like he cannot believe those words just came out of the mouth of the older man, and then he’s pressing himself against his parabatai, his husband, and kissing him, a fast but intense kiss, which deepens when the taller man responds to it with the same intensity. The two of them spend more than a minute kissing, until Izzy and Jace seem to finally become uncomfortable enough to clear their throats.

“Right!” Will scratches at the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.”

Jem says nothing, though there’s a hint of a blush on his cheeks.

“What were we talking about?” The blonde blurts out.

At that Izzy just has to laugh.

“Parabatai, and the curse that apparently doesn’t exist and never did.” Jace points out.

“Right.” Will nods. “Well, it doesn’t exist.”

“But then why, why lie about it?” Jace wants to know.

“Why else? To control you.” Will states, in a tone that makes it clear the answer should have been more than obvious.

“It’s true.” Jem agrees, though more calmly than his husband. “The Clave has never liked anyone being stronger than them. Parabatai, true parabatai, who are totally dedicated to each other? Well, I suppose you can see the issue with that, can’t you?”

“If they’re totally dedicated to each other they’re less dedicated to the Clave.” Izzy guesses.

“Yes,” Jem nods seriously. “And a parabatai pair with the full scope of their power… they’re next to impossible to defeat. It’s not… it goes beyond an awareness of battle, they know each other, can sense one another. It’s being able to know where your other half is with every step you take, with every breath. It’s knowing that you can move your sword, without looking, and if they happen to be close, they will move in time to not be hurt. They won’t even need to think about it. It’ll just happen. It’s…”

“Instinct.” Will takes over the explanation. “It’s an awareness and understanding of each other that is almost, almost but not quite telepathy. Less words and more… ideas. It’s having iratzes that can heal you from anything short of death itself. A power to our runes, all of them, that passes the known shadowhunter limits and touches the edges of what angels, true angels, were said to be capable of.”

“And of course, even suggesting a comparison to the angels is seen as blasphemy.” Jem points out. “So how can the Clave possibly allow such a thing?”

It makes sense, really. In a terrible, awful way. Izzy doesn’t know what’s stronger right now, her desire to scream or her wish to cry. So much could have been different, maybe, if Alec hadn’t been forced to spend so many years pining for Jace, hating himself, believing that there was something so utterly wrong with him… She doesn’t know that that would have changed much (or even anything) in the grand scheme of things but just… so much has happened, and keeps happening. And it’s like the world, her whole life, isn’t what she thought it was just a month ago and she has no idea how to keep going!

“What…?” Jace’s abruptly defensive tone of voice pulls her out of her thoughts. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly that.” Jem states evenly. “If our opinion had been asked we wouldn’t have approved of your parabatai bonding.”

“You know, I thought I was supposed to be the blunt one.” Will points out, before turning to Jace. “Not that I disagree but, still.”

“Why not?!” Jace demands.

“The way you talk about your parabatai.” Will explains, distaste even more evident in his voice than in Jem’s. “You were talking about how you didn’t feel any stronger… after the loss of your parabatai. That’s… not how it works.”

Izzy inhales sharply as she understands what the two men are thinking.

“That wasn’t… I didn’t mean it like that!” Jace snaps, defensive. “I mean because I was sharing my strength and my skill with him.”

“Okay,” Jem tilts his head, pondering. “And if you expected to gain that, what did you expect to lose then?”

“What…?” Again Jace is at a complete loss. “Why would I lose anything?”

“And that, that right there, is why we’d have never approved your parabatai bonding.” Jem points out with a shake of his head.

“Parabatai… you cannot just give, or just take, that’s not how it works.” Will explains. “It’s give and take, equivalent exchange.”

“If he could have given me strength I wouldn’t have had to give it.” Jace snaps.

“Equivalent doesn’t necessarily mean equal.” Will says with a sigh. “It’s about balance.”

“If one gives strength of the body, the other might give strength of the mind, the ability to remain cool under pressure, to think on their feet, something like that.” Jem elaborates. “And trust us, we know what we are talking about. When Will first suggested that we become parabatai… a few people were against it.”

“We were questioned, more than once, if it was truly what we wanted.” Will scoffs.

“You were questioned.” Jem corrects. “You were the one they believed would be losing the most.” He turns to the two shadowhunters. “See, I was very sick. Almost too sick to be an active shadowhunter, though still I kept pushing. Will offering me his strength… I’m quite sure I’d have never become the shadowhunter I came to be without that, without him.”

“Right back at you parabatai.” Will replied. “Without the strength of your mind, your ability to see… everything, to keep your head even in the worst situations…” He exhales, then turns again to the two youngsters. “So you see. We know exactly what’s possible in a parabatai bond. And it’s not as one-sided as you’re trying to make it seem. If you’d truly been giving your strength to your parabatai, it’s true, you’d have regained it after the loss of him, but you’d also have lost whatever you gained from him.”

“Then how did he become so strong all of a sudden after our parabatai ceremony?” Jace asks.

“Alec… he wasn’t a very good fighter back then.” Izzy tries her best to explain. “I mean, he wasn’t bad, not really. But he wasn’t remarkable either. “Five years older than us, and still he hadn’t been assigned to any permanent patrol team, because our instructors kept insisting that he wasn’t strong enough to go out regularly. It didn’t matter how much he trained, how much our… how much everyone pushed him. It was like he just couldn’t get better. And then… and then he and Jace became parabatai, and all of a sudden he was one of the best, he was keeping up with Jace and he took down H… our main instructor a few times. It’s why he was finally assigned to a team, with the two of us, shortly after that.”

It’s until she finishes saying all that, until she’s put the whole thing into words, summarized it as much as possible, that Izzy realizes how ludicrous it all sounds.

“And no one thought to ask how such a change was even possible?” Jem asks, disbelieving.

“They probably were just glad the kid was no longer ‘ordinary’.” Will scoffs, making the last word sound almost dirty.

“They knew it was thanks to me!” Jace snaps. “Thanks to the parabatai bond!”

“Tell me kid, did your ability lessen any after your ceremony?” Will asks, eyes narrowed.

“Alec started keeping up with me…” Jace begins.

“No, I’m not asking about Alec, I’m asking about you.” Will stresses. “Did your own skill, your own strength, lessen any?”

“No…” Jace eventually admits.

Will grunts and Jem just sighs.

“What… what does that mean?” Izzy asks, worried.

“Exactly what we’ve been saying, that he never gave any strength to his parabatai.” Will states. “Trust me, you’d have noticed a difference. I certainly did after our ceremony. And again when Jem was finally cured of his sickness.”

“Then how…” Izzy begins.

“Can you not think of any reason this boy, Alec, would improve all of a sudden, after being so ordinary for years?” Jem asks, brow arched almost in challenge. “And at precisely that moment. Right when the two of you were to be assigned on teams?”

It’s suddenly so obvious, painfully so. Not for the first time Izzy’s left floundering, left adrift as she tries to grasp all the truths she’d never known, all the ways things aren’t what she always believed them to be…

When eventually Jace confesses that his parabatai wasn’t lost to death, but due to a betrayal, Jace’s betrayal, Will and Jem take that as confirmation that the pair should have never been parabatai. Also, that they most definitely weren’t sharing any skills, strengths or powers.

“If your bond had been deep and strong enough to allow for something like that, betrayal would have never severed it.” Will states. “Or rather, you’d have never been capable of a betrayal, and thus it wouldn’t have broken.”

They talk some more, and with some cajoling from Izzy the pair tell some of their story. About how they met as children, becoming parabatai, how strong their bond was, almost from the start. How close. And then when they met a girl and both fell in love with her. How hard it was, how much they both fought against their feelings, if for different reasons. Izzy’s absolutely enthralled by the story. Especially when they get to the part where Tessa was kidnapped and how the parabatai decided to go after her; despite how risky that was, with Jem’s sickness progressing and the medication no longer working right or for as long. And then when their enemy made it so they couldn’t even get any more of it. How they barely managed to make it to Tessa, to rescue her, when he could go on no more, and then the confession. Not just of the both of them being in love with her, and she with them, but also the two with each other. How they were so convinced Jem was about to die they decided to stop caring about the so-called parabatai curse and made love. And how that changed everything.

As if that whole story weren’t shocking enough, finding out exactly how old the two men are… well that’s the cherry on the cake!

“You’re over a century and a half!” Izzy gasps in shock.

“We told you, we’re shadowmages.” Will points out.

“Shadowmages?” Jace repeats. “What does that even mean?”

That takes both men by surprise.

“It means we use magic, angelic magic.” Jem explains. “It’s one of the reasons the Clave doesn’t like us. With their insistence that nephilim using magic is wrong…”

“The other is our wife.” Will adds in a fake conspiratorial tone.

“What about me?” A female voice calls as someone new approaches.

“Tess!” The two turn to the newcomer with identical smiles.

The woman looks to be somewhere between late teens and early twenties, with light skin, pale gray eyes and brunette hair pulled together in a loose knot at the nape of her neck; she’s wearing a navy blue somewhat old-fashioned calf-length dress, with white around the collar, the edges of the short-sleeves and as a thick belt, and black mary-janes.

The two men then turn to the Lightwoods, going into a very elaborate introduction that sounds, while not practiced, still more theatrical than most would expect.

“Allow us the honor to introduce…”

“The most beautiful woman to ever walk the mortal realm…”

“… or any realm at all…”

“Who also happens to be our dearest wife…”

“Don’t know what the hell she was thinking when she said yes…”

“You know? I don’t know either!”

“We’re a pair of lucky idiots.”

“Idiots indeed.” She intervenes, though there’s a smile pulling at the edges of her mouth.

“Tessa Carstairs-Herondale!” The two men finish in unison.

“Pleasure to meet you, please, call me Tessa.” The young-looking woman smiles at the two shadowhunters, looking at them attentively. “Might I know your names, young ones? You look incredibly familiar…”

“I am Izzy, Isabelle Lightwood.” Izzy shoots to her feet, introducing herself first. “And this is my brother, Jace…”

“Adopted brother,” The blonde cuts in swiftly. Jace Way… Morgenstern.”

Tessa starts at that, and even Will and Jem look a bit taken aback.

“I’m sorry I… I should go.” Jace hurries to his feet, intent on leaving.

Only Izzy takes hold of his arm and refuses to let go, and deep down he doesn’t want her to. It feels almost like she’s all that’s holding him together…

“No!” Tessa cries out, worried. “I didn’t mean to… it’s nothing against you. I…” She takes a deep breath, then another, before speaking again. “I’ve met Valentine Morgenstern, and you look nothing like him.”

That… Jace can only gape.

“True…” Will starts looking more carefully at him. “Hadn’t thought of that. But Tessa is right. You look nothing like Valentine, or his wife. We’d know. We were called in to advise on both him and Lucian Graymark when they decided to become parabatai; and on Robert Lightwood and Michael Wayland. We told them those pairs were a bad idea all around, but did anyone listen…?”

“Will!” Jem snaps. “That’s not the point.”

“True.” Will admits, going back to staring at the blonde. “I mean, you might be blonde, but like I said, you look nothing at all like him…”

“You know who he reminds me of?” Tessa murmurs very, very quietly. “Stephen…”

The two men freeze, entirely; they don’t move a muscle, seem to not even be breathing for a second or two.

“Who’s Stephen?” Izzy dares ask after a few seconds.

“Stephen Herondale, he’s… was, our great-great-grandson.” Will says quietly. “He joined that psycho, Valentine, got himself killed and then…”

“We tried to get to his wife before she found out.” Jem says quietly. “Céline… she wasn’t in the best place. The pregnancy… she was fragile, in some ways, it’s hard to explain. By the time we found her… it was too late. Some say she couldn’t handle the news of Stephen’s death and committed suicide, her body being found by wolves afterwards; other said that it was the werewolves that killed her.” He shakes his head. “The baby… he was never found.”

“They told us he didn’t survive!” Tessa yells, voice a mix of anger and so, so much sadness. “They told us he died before ever being born!!!”

“They lied.” Will states, a darkness to his voice, it sends shivers down everyone’s spines.

“Wait, how are you suddenly so sure I’m this… that I’m… I…” Jace cannot even bring himself to say it, to say anything.

For all answer Tessa gives a step forward, raising a hand, pearly-white sparks at her fingertips. She just stares straight at Jace, waiting for a sign. He nods. He doesn’t even know what he’s agreeing to but just… he wants to know. He needs to. She extends her hand, almost but not quite touching him, the spark, it seems to jump straight off her finger and onto his skin, where it skitters over the back of his hand, up his arm and then into him…

“Jace!” Izzy cries out, confused.

The blonde shivers, and there’s a flash in his eyes, which glow gold, then off-white, and then gold once again, before settling back into the mismatched blue-brown that’s usual of him.

Tessa for her part says nothing, she just drops to her knees, crying.

“He’s…” Will cuts off, not daring to even finish the sentence, too terrified at the answer.

“He’s ours.” Jem doesn’t need her to confirm it, he knows.

Tessa confirms it anyway: “He is.”

xXx

In the end they decide not to tell the Clave, not even Inquisitor Imogen Herondale about their discovery regarding Jace’s true parentage. Tessa is the one to feel most strongly about it, stating she refuses to lose another child to the Clave and its close-mindedness. Will holds her tight, while Jem somehow is the one who finds in himself the strength to explain things to the two siblings. About their children, two by Will, and one by Jem. The first two lived their whole lives as shadowhunters, one unable and the other uninterested in becoming shadowmages. They lived and fought and died like any other shadowhunter would. Their third though, Jem’s child, was the first pain they experienced, they all thought the boy was on his way to becoming a shadowmage, just like them, only… only instead he became a Silent Brother. They haven’t seen him since, not in over a century, they didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye!

And that was just the first of their tragedies. As the years passed the Clave made it increasingly harder for them to keep in touch with their descendants, to the point where they lost track of all of them except for the Herondale male line, and even then, they never got to meet Jace’s dad: Stephen, in person. Imogen wouldn’t let them. The most they could do was look in on him from a distance, whenever they happened to be in Idris for business. The Clave wouldn’t allow any more than that, claiming they weren’t the ‘right sort’ for the heir of one of the Original Twelve, to interact with; nevermind that Will was a Herondale himself, and while Carstairs might not be part of the Original Twelve, they were no slouches either.

Another important point they talked about were the shadowmages themselves.

“You said the Clave hates you, but they need you.” Izzy recalls.

“Indeed.” Will agrees, a grim expression on his face.

“Shadowmages are those of us nephilim who embrace the magic in our blood, the angelic magic.” Jem explains.

“That’s impossible, shadowhunters don’t have magic.” Jace snaps.

“Shadowhunters are forbidden from using magic.” Jem corrects. “It’s not the same thing. The magic is there, it’s in our blood, our angel-blood, what do you think powers runes? Consider them the shadowhunter versions of spells.”

“But… but the kind of magic warlocks can do with their spells, they’re… well, more.” Izzy cannot think of a better way to say it.

“True, but then again, their spells are more than a single word.” Jem points out.

That… makes a lot of sense, actually.

“So the Clave’s lying, again.” Jace mutters.

“Are you surprised? Really?” Izzy asks, brow arched.

And really, after everything they’ve recently found out the Clave’s been lying about: the Circle, Valentine, the Lightwood family, the mess with Alec, the parabatai curse, the Herondales… is one more lie really that big a difference? The answer is no.

“How do you become a shadowmage?” Izzy cannot help but be intrigued.

She’s always been intrigued by magic, both the kind the seelies do, and the warlocks. She didn’t know there was such a thing as angelic magic, but having learned… she wants, no, needs, to know more. As much as she possibly can.

“That’s not the question you should be asking, not first.” Will tells her seriously. “What you should be focused on, first of all, is what it means to be a shadowmage. It’s not just about the magic. Tell me, Isabelle Lightwood, what do all the factions who you know possess magic, have in common?”

Izzy opens her mouth to answer almost automatically, then closes it again with an exhale as it hits her: immortality. Warlocks and seelies (and unseelies) possess magic, and they’re all immortal. Then she remembers something else, Will and Jem talking about their ages, about being more than 150 years old…

“For us it was… I won’t say easy.” Jem murmurs quietly, once he sees she’s got it. “Not with all the people we’ve lost throughout the years. But at least we still have each other. Angels willing, we will always have each other. We might not have truly known what we were doing when he first became shadowmages, when we embraced the magic in our blood, but finding out we’d become immortal wasn’t something we could regret. Not when we still had each other, and Tessa. As long as we’re together, we can endure.”

“But not everyone thinks like that.” Tessa offers softly. “Lucie, our daughter, didn’t. Of all our children she was the most… gifted, the one with the greatest potential, for becoming a shadowmage like her fathers. But she chose not to. We… don’t really know why. If it was that she didn’t want the burden of the magic, or the immortality, if perhaps it was because of Jesse, her husband. But it doesn’t matter. She made her choice, and we respected it. It’s not easy, being a shadowmage. The power, the responsibility, the immortality, not just anyone can do it, most wouldn’t want to, even if they could.”

“Wait, you said, you said ‘shadowmage like her fathers’.” Jace says suddenly. “Aren’t you one?”

“Yes and no.” Tessa answers, confusing them even more. “I am a warlock, first and foremost. However, the fact that my mother was a nephilim, an unruned one, but still the blood of the angels ran through her veins, along with some… things that happened, mean that I have access to both demonic and angelic magics.”

It made her special, unique. In all the history of the Shadow World only once had a being been known to possess both magics at the same time. Not even among the seelies and unseelies did such a thing happen; while their origins were in fact rooted in such a mix, the original seelies and unseelies had long since become lost, either to death or some other plane of existence. The current generation, while still retaining some markers of both angel and demon bloods, were a separate race entirely. No, in all of history only one being had been known to both possess, and be able to wield, both demonic and angelic magic at the same time: the Morning Star… though no one in the Shadow World knew if they even exist still.

Tessa wasn’t exactly like that, not really. She possessed both magics, but they were limited, each in their own ways. And most importantly: she could only wield one kind of magic at a time.

“So, if those are the matters of the power, and the immortality, what’s the matter of the responsibility?” Jace wants to know. “I imagine here’s where the whole: the Clave hates you but needs you, comes into play.”

He wasn’t wrong. As it turns out, it’s all about the wards. The wards that protect Idris in general and Alicante in particular are completely different from the wards on any of the Institutes. Created originally by the Angel Raziel, and intricately connected to the demon towers, they can only be maintained through angelic magic (warlock magic, because of its demonic roots, doesn’t work, the demon towers fight against it). In the old times, with an entire coven of shadowmages working together, they’d only need to be refreshed once a decade or so; nowadays Will, Jem, and to a point Tessa, are the only ones left. The last hopeful they had: Max, failed the last test to become a shadowmage badly enough that in the end it was either death or becoming a mundane for him, and he chose the latter.

Becoming a shadowmage isn’t easy, and not many manage it. And precisely because of the risk many choose not to even try, even if they have the potential for it. The Circle only made things worse, as they viewed shadowmages as abominations (there’s a reason why, despite them being meant to be immortal, there’s only them left).

“How do you know if someone has the potential?” Izzy asks, eyes flashing with determination.

“Iz… are you sure?” Jace asks her softly.

She’s sure, absolutely. Hasn’t been so sure of anything ever before… actually she’s sure of two things. But the other… she’ll handle the other when she’s back in New York.

“Ok, let’s do this then.”

It’s hard to tell who says it first, though they’re all in agreement. And so begins a very special alliance, one that will rock the Shadow World.

xXx

Walking down the halls of the NYI, Izzy cannot help but feel odd. Like so much has changed, and nothing at all has, all at the same time. Or maybe it’s more that the changes are so huge, it’s a wonder no one has noticed them. They will though, she’ll ensure that, starting with the one she’s gone there to secure… She reaches the right door right then, knocking on it, waiting for the person inside to call her in, before doing exactly that.

“Oh Isabelle, you’re back,” Lydia greets her with a nod. “I trust all went well.”

“As well as it could have, with the Clave hellbent on blaming everyone but themselves over the loss of the Mortal Cup.” Izzy deadpans.

“Yeah, you should probably know, your father is here.” Lydia points out.

“Robert’s here!” Izzy didn’t expect that, she just might have less time than she expected, which means less finesse and more to the point.

“He arrived an hour or so before you, and he didn’t come alone.” Lydia admits.

It’s… Izzy never intended to come to like Lydia. In fact, during the short (not even a week!) time she was engaged to her brother, the brunette had every intention of hating her, believing the blonde was in the way of her big brother having the kind of life he deserved. So little the younger girl understood… Yet a lot has changed since then, since the loss of Alec, and later on the Mortal Cup. Izzy was forced to re-evaluate so much, to look at herself, at her life, with a critical eye and realize how much she didn’t see before, how much she never cared to see. She came to understand Alec, and everything he’d been trying to do, everything he kept doing in his attempts to keep her and Jace, and everyone else, safe.

In the end, Izzy doesn’t know if getting to really know Lydia has led to her liking the blonde, or if it’s just a trick of her own mind, something she’s trying to convince herself of because it’s convenient, because it’ll make her own plans, her own objectives easier. She supposes it doesn’t really matter. Izzy knows Lydia’s a pragmatist above everything else and Isabelle… she’s promised herself to do better, to be the kind of person Alec would have been proud of.

The situation with Robert, and Aldertree, really is as bad as Izzy thought, worse in some ways even. Because Robert intends to take the Institute away from Lydia, citing her inability to keep the Mortal Cup safe (despite the fact that Lydia’s the least to blame in that mess). The reason he has Aldertree with him, is because he intends for him to be the new Head of the Institute. Robert isn’t stupid, he knows it won’t be him, he knows that with his past in the Circle coming to light, and Alec’s trial, there’s no way a Lightwood will be appointed as Head of the New York Institute again, not directly… and that, right there, is his point. Because if Isabelle were to marry him, well then she’d technically be Co-Head of the Institute, which would in turn allow him to have some degree of influence over things… or so he believes. Isabelle cannot help but wonder if Robert is truly that naive (that stupid) that he doesn’t see the thirst for power (and recognition, and a wish to cause pain and grief) in the man’s eyes, Izzy certainly does.

Which is why she’s there, why she’s decided to seek out Lydia. Robert might have his plan of how things ought to go, but so does she. And Izzy’s quite sure she holds the winning hand this time. Or she will, once Lydia agrees.

“Things didn’t go well during last night’s patrol.” Lydia admits grimly.

The patrol Izzy and Jace missed when they were summoned to Alicante to ‘testify’ regarding recent events in New York.

“How bad?” Izzy asks, fearing the worst.

“We lost two three-men teams, and there’s a third that had a single survivor: Raj.” Lydia answers, using stoicism to try and hide the pain.

“What…?” Izzy’s clearly shocked by that. “What happened?!”

“The first team sent a report shortly before midnight, claiming they found what looked like a failed summoning near a pier in Lower Manhattan.” Lydia informs her. “Ten minutes later a new message came in, informing of more similar circles; they were also requesting back-up, and the authorization to investigate the area more closely.”

Of course, because with the Clave’s eyes already on the NYI they had to make sure they followed the rules to the letter. Which included not going beyond what the patrols established unless a mission was formally given.

“By the time the back-up arrived the first team was nowhere to be found.” Lydia goes on. “The last communication we got from any of them was that there were definitely demons in the area, several cerberuses.”

“Cerberuses?!” Izzy’s voice actually goes up an octave in her shock.

“Yeah I… no one really knows what happened after that point.” Lydia admits grimly. “Part of a pier and the entirety of another as well as a park were destroyed. It’s so bad we couldn’t fully hide it from the mundanes. Though their official version of events seems to be some kind of drug-deal or smuggling operation gone wrong, since the worst damage was to one of the piers.”

“What about Raj?” Izzy asks next.

“He was badly hurt, like, really bad.” Lydia admits. “I took his verbal report before the medics put him in a healing sleep. He confirmed the cerberuses from the last text we got, but insists that there was at least one other demon. A greater demon, really big, and something about wings…”

“Wings?!” Izzy’s eyebrows go up to her hairline, that’s not exactly common. “You think that… is it possible… a dragonidae?”

“Weren’t they extinct?”

“Well, I remember Jace saying something about them being ‘mostly extinct’. And if… if Alec were here he’d say that Mostly Extinct…”

“Isn’t completely extinct, certainly not enough. Yeah. Suppose that’s as good a theory as any.” She exhales. “Not that it’ll help us much. Robert is probably going to use what happened last night, the fact that we don’t even know what became of the demons, against me. Gonna claim that I cannot do this job. Cannot keep NY safe.”

“It’s not like he could have done any better.” Izzy scoffs. “I actually wonder if he still remembers how to hold a blade at all.”

It’s the truth. She hasn’t seen her father, fight, or even train, in many years.

“Doesn’t change what’s already happened.” Lydia reminds her. “What happened last night was an absolute disaster.”

“What about the sensors?” Izzy asks next.

“That’s just it.” Lydia murmurs. “There’s nothing on the sensors. There never was. It’s… it’s like last night never happened. If it weren’t for the shadowhunter still in our infirmary and the seven in our morgue…” She swallows. “I’m gonna lose control of this Institute Isabelle. Whether it be today, or tomorrow, or in a week. It’s gonna happen.”

Izzy’s abruptly furious. This is not gonna happen, it cannot! She won’t let it. She won’t let it all end, not now, not like this!

“We can still stop Robert and Aldertree.” She tells Lydia. “They haven’t won yet.”

“How?” The blonde asks with a sigh of defeat. “You know I’m just an Envoy, an Interim Head, nothing else. We Branwells… we might not be commoners, but neither are we hugely important. We’ve never been Heads of Institute, not on our own. Even my most famous ancestor Henry Branwell, he was Co-Head of the London Institute only, not the one truly in charge.”

“You were going to be Head of the Lisbon Institute, weren’t you?” Izzy asks.

“Yes, but that was…” Lydia exhales. “John was the actual heir, but he wasn’t interested in the position. So it was… understood that he’d have the title but I’d do most of the work. I didn’t really mind. We worked well together.”

And then he died. He died and his brother got the position of heir, and Lydia was left with nothing more than a broken heart and equally broken dreams.

“I know you and Alec had a plan.” Izzy pushes through. “To get married and lead the Institute together. What if you could still do that?”

“Alec is gone…”

“No, I know but, but you did accept a marriage proposal from a Lightwood, didn’t you? I mean, you do still have the ring, right?”

“I do, but what does that have to do with…? I hope you’re not trying to suggest that I marry your little brother Isabelle! He’s only, what? Ten?”

“Twelve, and no, I’m not talking about him.”

Lydia opens her mouth to ask what she means then, but before a single word can form, Isabelle’s standing right before her, so close… so, so close.

“I mean me. I… I’m not even sure how to do this, but here goes:” Isabelle takes a deep breath and goes down on one knee. “Lydia Branwell, marry me?”

“Lydia Branwell, will you marry me, Alec Lightwood?”

For the longest time Lydia just stares at the girl before her, the second Lightwood to kneel before her and make her an offer of marriage. She can barely believe this is even happening. It’s absolutely insane! What even makes Isabelle believe this will work?! Granted, it’s legal, there are provisions for same-sex marriages, to secure heirs but… that doesn’t mean their shadowhunters will allow it. Are those in the New York Institute loyal enough to them? Will they stand by Lydia and Izzy? Or will they choose Robert? And Aldertree… Can they take such a risk, knowing if they’re wrong it’ll mean their lives? … Can they not? What will become of the Institute, what will become of them, if they don’t at least try…?

In the end, when the answer comes it doesn’t make her quite as afraid as she thought it would. Her voice comes out even, sure, far more than she imagined possible. It’s an absolutely insane plan, definitely, and yet… and yet.

“Yes.”

Posteriori

He’s standing in the middle of his rooftop, no witnesses but the stars and… ghosts. The fragments of memories spinning all around him. It’s… shocking in some ways, having them all, playing, almost like home movies, in the air around him. Yet truth is he doesn’t really have to focus on any of them to remember what happened in each and everyone with perfect clarity…

“Well done.”

“More like medium rare.”

“Okay. Pretty boy, get your team ready.”

“I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to… you.”

“Playing hard to get. I love a challenge.”

“Help me. I need your strength.”

“Take what you need.”

“To us.”

“For almost a century… I’ve closed myself off to feeling anything for anyone. Man or woman. You’ve unlocked something in me.”

“Stay for just one more drink? And then decide.”

“Oh, you don’t have to get dressed up for me. Fine. But I liked what I saw.”

“I’ve done everything for my parents, for the Clave and… I’ve done everything they’ve asked.”

“Maybe you should start living for yourself. Do what’s in your heart.”

“I meant to thank you for your advice. The whole ‘follow your heart’ thing.”

“I’m getting married.”

“That’s why I proposed to Lydia. It makes sense. It’s a solid partnership. For both of us.”

He wants to forget, wants it so much… Nothing more than that last memory, the words that… well, he wouldn’t say that they broke his heart, because that’s just not possible, is it? Alexander is such a pretty boy, gorgeous really, but there’s just no way he’s in love with him… right? He’s known him for… not even a full week!

Less than a week, that was all the time he had to know the handsome nephilim, so pretty and so sad and… that was it. That’s all the time they’ll ever have, because now he’s gone. Deruned, exiled, and probably dead Isabelle insists it’s not possible, that her brother wouldn’t die like that, but Magnus knows how dangerous it is for a nephilim to be without their runes, understands the dangers inherent in such a thing much better than Isabelle does… there’s a reason why derunement is such a popular punishment for the Clave! They may claim it’s some form of mercy, but truth is everyone knows that deruned shadowhunters never live long. Because demons can smell the angelic essence in their blood and without their runes… they’re defenseless. Vulnerable to anything and anyone that comes for them. And that’s just the demons. How many Downworlders would have loved to get their hands on a shadowhunter? Someone they could take their hate out on? Who could serve as an outlet for all their hatred and fear, whom they knew wouldn’t be able to fight back, who had no one coming after them. It’s not… Magnus knows his people very well, and it’s not like the Clave doesn’t deserve such hatred, but not Alexander…

The worst of all is that he cannot help but feel he had a part to play in all of it…

“… You need Alec’s stele to open the safe, and you want me to steal it from him?”

“We prefer the word ‘borrow’.”

“Without his knowledge.”

“No. No can do. Not happening.”

“Magnus, ever since Alec found out our parents were in the Circle, he’s been messed up. He can’t see the big picture.”

“If the Clave is willing to subject Meliorn to the Silent Brothers, if they’re willing to go this far, what do you think will happen if they get the Cup? This affects everyone.”

“Help us get into that safe. Help us stop this.”

“You’re both going to owe me. I’m talking 14th century. Gold, rubies… definitely diamonds. And Alec can never know.”

“That’s a given.”

“If we’re going to do this, there’s no turning back.”

How right he was…

He knew it was a bad idea, he knew and yet…

He knows he’s just torturing himself, and yet that doesn’t stop him from pulling the right memory front and center:

Alec was changing the bandages on his Forsaken wound. Magnus stood on the other side of the wall. He used his magic to take a look inside. Located the shadowhunter’s stele quickly and used his magic to displace it, sending it to the level where Jace was standing, by the safe, waiting. He waited, impatiently, nervously, until he got a text from the blonde letting him know they were done, barely managing to magic the stele back to Alec’s jacket seconds before the brunette walked out of the room, to find Magnus standing right before the wall.

“All done for today.” Magnus hurried to do his best to excuse his presence there. “Place is secure. Not bad for a day’s work. I thought I’d see how you were doing.”

“I meant to thank you for your advice. The whole ‘follow your heart’ thing…”

He dismisses the rest of the memory almost violently, not wanting, or needing to hear the rest of it again. It’s fresh enough in his memory as it is.

The point remains, that Magnus remembers, and while he doesn’t want to admit it, he cannot help the fear that he might be to blame, at least to a point, for what’s happened to Alexander. It’s… it’d be easy to say it was the blonde’s plan, and Isabelle’s, but Magnus agreed to it. Despite his doubts, he still agreed, did as asked. He betrayed Alexander, and for what?

“What are you doing?” A voice, low but strong, asks from behind him.

Magnus doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. Even if the voice weren’t enough to give him away, he would know his best-friend’s aura anytime, anywhere.

“Pondering on the best way to get rid of some unwanted memories.” He answers honestly.

“That’s what I thought…” Ragnor begins, before both his stance and voice shift abruptly, turning sharp and cold. “Are you out of your freaking mind?!”

That does make Magnus turn, spinning sharply on one heel.

“Don’t you come and judge me!” He snaps at his friend. “You don’t understand…”

“Magnus…”

“You don’t know what it’s like!” Magnus roars. “I barely knew him a week and he’s here, buried inside my head, inside my… inside! I cannot get him out!!!”

Unsurprisingly enough, Ragnor isn’t at all offended by Magnus’s outburst, he also doesn’t seem, well, surprised much by it.

“Remember what I told you all those years ago?” His green-skinned friend questions him softly. “That someday someone would come along who would tear down those walls you’ve built around your heart. And when that love came back to you, you should do everything in your power…”

“To fight for it.” Magnus finishes. “I know. But what fight is there for me to give? He’s gone Ragnor! He’s gone and it might as well have been my fault!”

“Oh my friend…” And really, what else can Ragnor say to that?

Eventually Ragnor manages to convince Magnus that he’ll come to regret it if he erases his memories (Alec deserves better anyway). He suggests that Magnus might want to distract himself some. Magnus doesn’t seem too interested in doing much of anything, even after agreeing to keep his memories, and vanishing the ghostly representation of them. He’s clearly angry, going into a rant about idiotic shadowhunters who cannot stay out of trouble for even a few days…

Turns out there was an attack on the Institute, from a forsaken who could penetrate the wards (the same wards that Magnus just reinforced!). It was an absolute mess, several shadowhunters were hurt, and in the midst of it all, the Mortal Cup was stolen. Because apparently the very man who was allowed to train young shadowhunters in the New York Institute was a not-so-former Circle member who, when the opportunity presented itself, stole the Mortal Instrument and delivered it to Valentine Morgenstern himself!

Magnus isn’t entirely sure who was more stupid in that scenario. The fact remains that the shadowhunters managed to lose the Mortal Cup not once but twice in a span of three days! And now Valentine has it. Which means things are bound to get much, much worse. Oh, and it was until he was called to the Institute for Robert and Maryse Lightwood to complain about his ‘defective wards’(!!!) that he found out what happened with Alexander!

He… he’s not quite certain what happened after that actually. He was so angry. Angry about what happened to Alexander. That no one thought to tell him… though what for, he doesn’t know, it’s not like he could have done anything to change things, right? Right?! He needs to believe there’s nothing he could have done, otherwise… that way lies insanity…

That’s it, Magnus needs to get drunk. Blind drunk, roaring drunk, extremely drunk, whichever. He needs to be so drunk he can finally stop thinking about Alexander for a freaking minute!

“Think we should call Catarina?” He asks his friend, almost as an afterthought.

It’s not that their friend likes drinking, not like they do (Ragnor might claim the opposite, but he does like to drink, even if his tastes run a little differently from Magnus’s). But he doesn’t want her to hear later that the two of them went drinking and didn’t even consider inviting her. That’s not what friends do!

“I’m not sure if our dear Cat will be free right now…” Ragnor murmurs, sounding a bit… off, even more him, almost like he’s hiding something.

“Does she have a shift at the hospital right now?” Magnus asks, because he honestly doesn’t know, he’s never understood how mundane work-shifts well… work.

“I don’t think so, no.” Ragnor answers vaguely, it takes him less than a handful of seconds to break in the face of Magnus’s penetrating expression. “From what I know, she quit a few days ago. But she might be a bit busy organizing the move.”

“Move? Move what? Where?!”

So… apparently Cat’s moving, to Mexico. And Magnus didn’t know. What’s worse, it’s not just her that’s moving, going with her are her son and granddaughter. Because she has those now. A son and a granddaughter whom Magnus has never met, whom he didn’t even know existed until Ragnor mentioned it…

“Am I bad a friend?” Magnus asks bluntly.

The question takes the green-skinned, horned warlock completely by surprise.

“Why would you even think that?” Ragnor is beyond baffled.

“One of my best-friends, who once told me she’d never take in another child, that she couldn’t bear to lose another one, changed her mind.” Magnus states, voice hollow. “Not only that, but she has a son who’s now old enough for her to also have a granddaughter. What kind of friend am I that I did not know either of them even existed until today? And even now, I only know because you told me, you, not her.”

“Oh Magnus…”

“So tell me, my dearest cabbage, am I that bad a friend?”

“You’re assuming this has been going on for a long time.”

“Long enough for there to be a granddaughter in the picture! Children don’t grow on trees, you know? It takes time for them to even come to exist!”

“True. But you know that warlock families aren’t exactly… traditional. Who knows? Maybe it’s all pretty recent? Maybe the two of them were even a package deal!”

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you.”

“And don’t try to avoid the question. Am I a bad friend?”

“No Magnus, you’re not a bad friend…”

“Then why wouldn’t she tell me?! I’d have been happy for her!”

“Would you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Magnus, until not very long ago at all you were… those walls you built around your heart, they didn’t just keep you from a potential lover, they also kept you from friends.”

“I never distanced myself from you!”

“Didn’t you? Magnus, when was the last time we did… well, anything other than get drunk every other year or so? You ignored all my suggestions that you take a vacation, missed at least half a dozen of Cat’s dinners. You even missed the trio’s anniversary!”

So yes, he’s a bad friend. He apparently focused so much on ‘living in the present’ and ‘not thinking about the past’ (not regretting the past, because what kind of life could he possibly live if all he ever thought about was his seemingly endless list of regrets? Which seems to keep getting longer…), that he pushed everything and everyone away. Including his closest, dearest friends. He’s horrified at himself!

“What do I do Ragnor?!” He asks, on the edge of despair.

He doesn’t even know why he’s suddenly so desperate. Even if Cat moves to a different city… there are portals (he invented the damn things!) he can visit whenever! And yet… he’s been pushing his friend away for… a while now. He doesn’t want her to leave New York believing that he doesn’t think about her, that he doesn’t care. She’s still one of his dearest friends…

“What do you want to do?” Ragnor asks in turn.

“Maybe we could go invite Catarina… and her family, for dinner or something, before they leave?” Magnus suggests.

Ragnor agrees that it’s not a bad plan, and so they go on their way.

xXx

Things are… somewhat odd, when they make it to Catarina’s apartment. First there’s the fact that neither of them can portal inside the apartment itself. Which… okay, they probably should have expected it, there’s a kid living there now, of course Cat would want to protect her granddaughter. But then there’s the way that, when Cat opens the door she doesn’t immediately wave them inside. She just stands there, at her own door, looking at them with very wide eyes.

“Magnus!” She cries out in obvious surprise.

“Catarina my dear, you look as beautiful as ever.” He tells her in his most charming tone. “Ragnor decided to drop by and I thought, hey we should celebrate our dear cabbage’s decision to leave his seclusion for once and go for dinner!”

Cat says nothing, she just looks so nervous… is something wrong?

“Nana, nana!” A dark skinned, bright eyed girl rushes into the living room from the back of the apartment. “Daddy says he’s almost done. Does that mean we’re going to dinner now?”

There’s a bit of a whine to her tone, but it sounds more humorous than anything else. And then she notices Magnus and Ragnor standing there and freezes completely.

“Nana…?” She asks quietly, hesitantly.

“Sweetheart, these are my friends, Magnus, and Ragnor.” Catarina introduces them.

“Hi!” Is all she says, still looking somewhat nervous.

And Cat still hasn’t moved to let her two friends into the apartment.

“Cat, is there something wrong?” Magnus finally asks.

“No, of course not.” She answers immediately. “I just… this might not be the best…”

“It’s okay mama,” A new voice calls. “You don’t have to send them away. I’d never ask you to do something like that.”

Cat exhales, finally stepping back and waving them in. Ragnor steps past Magnus in order to go inside, but the other warlock doesn’t really notice, he hardly notices anything at all, except for the figure who just walked into the living room:

“Alexander…” Magnus breathes out, beyond shocked.

The two warlocks are more than a little shocked when they hear what’s been going on, at least the parts of the story Magnus wasn’t already aware of, or didn’t have the whole information about. More than once it looks like Magnus might want to say something, but each time he stops himself from doing anything, closes his mouth again before a single word can come out. He… cannot help but notice that Alec’s not looking at him, but whether that’s entirely intentional or just… just something that’s happening, Magnus doesn’t know, and while a part of him really wants to know, wants to go ahead and ask just so he can know, there’s another part that really doesn’t. Because what if his fears prove true? What if Alec’s avoiding looking at him? What if Alexander hates him? And why does the mere idea affect him so much Magnus feels like he just might scream?!

Thank Heaven and Hell for Madzie, the little girl either misses the tension entirely, or just ignores it, as she keeps the conversation going. Asking all sorts of questions to the two new warlocks; clearly while she’s met other warlocks before, not many, and certainly none like Magnus and Ragnor. And there it is again, Magnus’s terrible, dark thoughts, because just how long has the little girl been around. And Alexander?! How long has Catarina known one of them, or the two of them? Ragnor spoke of Catarina having a child, and a granddaughter, and Madzie keeps calling Alec ‘daddy’, but how’s that even possible?!

“I cannot believe the Seelie Queen could be so short-sighted.” Ragnor comments when Alec finishes explaining everything that’s happened.

“Is she, though?” Alec questions.

“What do you mean?” Ragnor asks, alert.

“The whole reason Meliorn was arrested, why he was being taken to the Silent City for interrogation, was because some of the seelies’ recent actions are seen in… well, not the best light by the Clave.” Alec raises a hand before Ragnor can interrupt. “And I know that that doesn’t mean much for the Downworld. But here are the facts: Faerie scouts were sent, at the request of the Clave, to spy on the Circle, they were killed. After which the Seelie Queen ceased all communication with the Clave. Any and all attempts to get some answers were rejected. What’s more, at exactly the same time a report reached Idris that a seelie, someone high in the Court, was seen entering one of the known Circle hideaways. Around the same time we heard rumors that the Seelie Queen might be entertaining the idea of switching sides, if she hadn’t done it already.”

“It’s well known that seelies prefer to be on the winning side, no matter what that is.” Cat reminds everyone present.

“Indeed.” Alec nods. “Meliorn was questioned on the matter by Lydia Branwell, Clave Envoy and the current Acting Head of the New York Institute. While he didn’t say anything incriminatory, he also didn’t say anything that truly cleared him of suspicions. In the end, the preliminary interview was enough to make it obvious not just to those present that day, but to any and all who read the transcripts, that he was hiding something. Which is why the Clave insisted that he be formally arrested and sent to them for further interrogation.”

“You mean torture.” Ragnor hisses.

“You said, to them…” Magnus murmurs, quietly.

A picture is beginning to form in his head, and he doesn’t like it, because if it’s like he’s starting to think… then that means he made a huge mistake…

“Yes,” Alec nods, barely glancing at Magnus before focusing on Ragnor again. “They wanted Meliorn to be sent to the Gard. Lydia managed a compromise. I know no one in the Downworld likes the Silent Brothers, exactly, but they’re neutral, far more than the Clave. It was Lydia’s belief, and I agreed, that an interrogation in the Silent City, possibly even with the backup of the Soul Sword… would have sufficed. He wouldn’t have even needed to touch the sword, just having it in its vicinity would have been enough. Also, the Silent Brothers had a better chance of knowing what questions to ask, which would have been beneficial for everyone.”

“And the Clave agreed to that?” Ragnor asks, disbelieving.

“I think they knew Meliorn wasn’t the one they wanted in the end, not really.” Alec answers bluntly. “And torture will get you answers, but not necessarily the ones you want, or need.”

It’s the truth, awful as it might be. Alec can tell that Ragnor doesn’t like it, but at the same time he cannot really disagree with Alec’s rationale.

“How bad is it?” He asks next. “Him getting away?”

“Honestly?” Alec doesn’t actually wait for an answer. “It could have been really bad. But truth is the Clave doesn’t really have the means to start yet another war, not when we… they are already at risk of losing this one.”

“Is it that bad?” Even Cat’s surprised by that.

“Worse.” Alec admits grimly. “In the last handful of generations or so, more shadowhunters have died than there have been born. Of the Original Twelve Families, three have been completely lost, two are down to single members with no heirs and no possibility for any, one was absorbed by another family a generation ago, while two more have only a member left. As for the rest… aside from the Blackthorns none of the families stand great chances of enduring for more than a couple of generations at most given their current rate.”

“That bad?” Magnus gasps.

“Worse,” Alec goes on. “Because since the Uprising there have been no Ascendants, which means that the shadowhunters there are now, that’s all there are, and there can be. There’s a reason the Clave is so obsessed with reproducing. Why they even allow same-sex marriage, because by making it a condition that they reproduce, they can guarantee one more generation. Something that sometimes they won’t get even from arranged marriages. But even with all that. It’s not enough. We’re a slowly, but surely dwindling race.”

“And the Circle isn’t helping.” Cat concludes.

“No, it’s not.” Alec agrees. “It’s…”

He hesitates, unsure whether to mention what’s going through his head in that moment.

“Alec…?” Cat murmurs quietly.

“I’ve long since suspected that the Circle has someone, or probably more than one someone high up in the Clave.” Alec reveals. “How else would Valentine know about the faerie scouts? Suppose there’s always the chance that the seelies started that… but well, the way I understand it, the Seelie Queen prefers being pursued, not the other way around. She wouldn’t seek out Valentine, but instead wait for him to seek her out, much like the Clave.”

“True.” Ragnor agrees. “And if she’s truly allied herself with Valentine… she’s always been one to pick the side she believes will win. All seelies are.”

“And what greater sign can there be of which side will win, than their own infiltrated to the top echelons of the very government that’s supposed to be going after them?” Alec scoffs.

It’s the truth, and they all know it. The situation is grimmer, far more than even Alec assumed at one point, and the worst part is that there’s nothing he can do about it, not anymore.

In the end they don’t go out to dinner, instead ordering in. The dinner is… no less tense than the earlier reception, but at least they do finish all the food. Ragnor changes the topic, by talking about what’s brought him to New York exactly. Apparently he was the one to give Jocelyn Fairchild the potion which put her in the enchanted sleep she’s currently in. He’s also the only one who can free her.

“Does anyone else know?” Alec asks him, abruptly serious.

“Well… not right now, but they’ll probably know soon.” Ragnor shrugs. “I collected the Book of the White earlier today. Now I just need to check on Jocelyn, make sure there’s no other magic on her, and then I’ll get to work on the antidote.”

“Can… do you have to do it?” Alec bites his tongue almost as soon as he finishes asking. “I don’t mean you shouldn’t wake her up!”

“Then what do you mean?” Ragnor’s expression, which was just starting to darken, turns to puzzlement at the clarification.

“Well, you’re clearly important to mama, and to…” Alec shakes his head. “We don’t know if the Circle has anyone in the Institute, though it wouldn’t surprise me. The moment Fray finds out you can wake up her mom everyone there will know. They will also know you’re the only one who can do it. That will paint a huge target on your back. I… it’s not fair to you.”

Ragnor blinks, just staring at Alec like he’s trying, and failing, at understanding him.

“You’re truly the strangest shadowhunter I’ve ever met.” He declares eventually.

“I’ll be going with you.” Magnus announces then.

And no matter how much Ragnor might try to refuse, Magnus won’t listen to him. He knows Alec is right, about the risk. They’ve lost enough of their own already. He won’t let Ragnor become another one.

“Well, if that’s been decided…” Cat murmurs as she clears the remains of the take-out with a wave of her hand and some easy magic.

“Daddy, can we have some desert?” Madzie pipes up, eyes very wide as she looks straight at Alec with her most innocent face. “Pleeeeeeease…?”

Those eyes of hers… Magnus wonders vaguely how Alec ever manages to tell her no, if he actually ever has, does he even bother to try?

“What would you like, little fish?” He asks with a tender smile.

“Hmmm… chocolate cake!” She announces, then revises. “No! Ice-cream!”

Even as she says her second option she already looks like she regrets it. Or rather, like she has trouble making up her mind

“How about a bit of both?” Magnus blurts out. “I know this great little pastry shop, just a few blocks down from here, they sell the best chocolate-brownies on this side of New York! With melted chocolate in the middle,” He grins at Madzie’s eager smile. “They even have some truly delicious ice-cream to go with it. Not the same as cake I know but…” He trails off as he realizes that he might just have overstepped. “That is, if it’s alright with you Alexander…”

“That’s alright.” Alec agrees, then he seems to decide something as he adds. “How about we go get it, personally.”

“Ah… why not just summon it?” Magnus asks, honestly baffled.

“I’d like to walk off the amazing dinner we just had, before we get to dessert.” He says simply. “So, shall we?”

Magnus knows there has to be more than that and yet in the end he can do nothing but agree. So off they go.

They haven’t even walked a block when Alexander’s speaking up:

“We’re alone now.” He points out.

“What…?” Magnus doesn’t fully understand for a moment.

“I know you’ve been wanting to say something all night.” Alec points out bluntly. “I don’t know what was stopping you, but it’s just us now so. Say whatever you’ve been wanting to say.”

That… Magnus cannot make his mind if it surprises him or not. He knew Alec had to be planning something when he insisted that they go get dessert themselves; he’s still a bit surprised to realize that the shad… former shadowhunter was paying close enough attention to him to notice Magnus was holding back from saying something.

“I… that is… yes… I just…” Magnus cuts himself off, why does he suddenly sound like a stupid teenager? He’s a centuries-old warlock! He forces himself to take a deep breath, focus and:

“I hope you’re not too angry with ma… Cat…” Alec speaks up before Magnus gets the chance, wincing a bit and stumbling at the shift in his form of address. “If you need to blame anyone, blame me. I asked her not to tell anyone about me. Not… not just for my safety, but for hers, and Madzie’s… I just…”

“Alexander…” Magnus finally gets the chance to speak when Alec trails off a bit. “I’m not angry at Cat, I promise you. Nor at you. It’s… There was a part of me that wondered, when I first heard about Cat having adopted a child, and even a grandchild… I wondered… well… I wondered if I might have done something to make her feel that she couldn’t tell me.”

Magnus hates admitting to that, admitting to any sort of vulnerability, but he hates even more that Alexander’s blaming himself for something that’s not on him. And truly, Magnus knows he’s being too intense about it all, he and Alec have only known each other for a week! And yet… he can still remember, with crystal clarity, the moment he first touched the gorgeous nephilim, the moment Alexander placed his hand in Magnus’s there was a… a spark. It was like time stood still, like the whole world held its breath the moment the two of them met. Like it was something special, something… monumental. Magnus must be going insane…

“It was nothing against you, I…” Alec swallows. “I was afraid. Not for myself but… Madzie’s so young, so… what if someone hurt her? I know… I know how most of the Downworld sees us shadowhunters, especially the Lightwoods. It’s one of the reasons I never use that name when I’m around here, but even with that. I knew that if the Downworld found out that there was a shadowhunter spending time with warlocks, that a little girl called him daddy… If the risk had only been towards me that’d be one thing, but Madzie, and Cat… I couldn’t have them be at risk as well.”

Of course, always worrying about others above himself.

“And that’s without considering what some shadowhunters might do if they were to find out.” That terrifies him even more. “I know… or I suppose I hope at least, that some of my people… of those at the NYI I mean, they’d respect me enough but… well, after what just happened…”

Hard to trust people who turned their backs on him, and so easily…

And that brings them back to what Magnus hasn’t been able to get out of his head…

“I’m so, so sorry Alexander…” He finally blurts out, not wanting something else to derail him.

“Huh… What… Why?” Alec babbles.

He sounds so awkward and confused, and there’s a part of Magnus that cannot help but think the whole thing makes him sound and look so absolutely adorable… the rest of him though squashes that thought. He needs to focus!

“Wha… what do you mean why?” Magnus asks, aghast. “I betrayed you!”

There. There it is. Said out loud.

“I know.” Alec nods evenly.

He knows… he knows?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!

“Magnus… are you… are you blaming yourself for what happened to me?” Alec stops walking entirely, reorienting his body to face the warlock.

“It’s my fault!” Magnus cries out, unable to keep holding back. “I betrayed you! I… I helped steal the Mortal Cup! And if I hadn’t done that…”

“You helped my siblings,” Alec corrects. “And if you hadn’t, they’d have gotten someone else to help them. Or done something else even more stupid to get it.” He exhales. “Magnus, Jace and Izzy were always going to do whatever they thought they ought to, whatever they believed to be ‘the right thing’. It didn’t matter if they had your help or not. They grew so used to getting away with things, to feeling like the rules didn’t apply to them. Your help or lack thereof would have changed nothing in the long run.” He can see that, despite his words, Magnus is still looking aghast. “I don’t blame you. Not for any of it. Though if it helps any. I forgive you.”

Just like that?

“Just like that?” Magnus blurts out, unable to help himself.

“Yes Magnus, just like that.” Alec says with a small, gentle smile.

“You’re such a wonder Alexander…” The warlock murmurs quietly.

Alec promptly blushes, which makes Magnus find him adorable all over again. He wonders if maybe, now that Alec’s no longer a shadowhunter, he might finally be willing to go on a date with Magnus. A thought that he tries his best to push down, because really, is this the best time to be thinking about such things? Alexander’s whole life has just been upended, he’s probably still trying to get used to everything that’s changed. He’ll think Magnus is nuts if the warlock tries to ask him out on a date now! Then again, he’s leaving NY, along with Catarina and little Madzie, so when if not now will Magnus get the chance to actually have a drink with him? To find out if the potential he’s been so sure is there, actually exists? Though if he’s leaving, what would the point be of finding out now…?

Before his thoughts can keep spiraling, something happens. Magnus doesn’t know what it is, but he notices when Alec’s attention turns from him to… something or somewhere behind him. They’re at the mouth of an alley, just a couple of blocks from the East River, if Magnus’s memory serves.

“You sense that?” Alec asks, so very quietly.

Magnus tilts his head as he contemplates the hazel-eyed ex-shadowhunter because, truthfully, he has no idea what the younger man is talking about. At the lack of answer Alec walks right past him, into the alley. He’s almost at the other end, almost in view of one of the piers when… when suddenly Magnus does feel it. Like there’s suddenly a weight somewhere in the vicinity of his chest. Like the air itself is heavy. It’s… confusing and horrifying, and terrifying all at once.

Alec’s running in the direction of the river, and of that awful feeling, before Magnus can say a thing, can even try and stop him. At least, the lack of runes proves that something has definitely changed as he manages to catch up with the nephilim in just a few seconds. Though it’s only after he’s stopped that Magnus realizes why, there’s… It’s the smell that first registers in his brain, so intense that for a moment Magnus isn’t sure if he wants to gag, or just turn and portal away as fast as he can. In the end he does neither. His shock only grows though as he notices that Alec seems to be entirely unaffected by the blood and gore that cannot just be smelled but seen, and then he takes a step forward.

“What are you doing?” Magnus hisses, an arm shooting out to stop Alec.

“Do you see that?” Alec asks quietly, pointing at the ground.

If he can see that? He can see, and smell… and he’d really rather…

“Not the… not the blood and… everything else.” Alec clarifies. “There, on the pavement. What does that look like to you?”

Magnus forces himself to focus, to focus his attention on the direction Alec is pointing at. It takes him a few seconds to pull his attention entirely away from the remains (too much for them to be just one person… and he really, really didn’t need to know that). The moment his eyes finally find it he knows exactly what Alec’s referring to.

“That looks like a badly, and I mean, really badly done summoning circle.” Magnus blurts out.

Once he’s noticed that, it’s somewhat easier (to a point) to ignore the mess all around and focus on what looks very clearly like someone’s lousy attempt at summoning a demon…

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” Alec asks, though Magnus cannot help but think that he sounds much too tense for something that’s clearly a failure, right?

“Alexander…?” Magnus calls, in a tone that’s clearly asking: what is it you know that I don’t?

“The last time I saw something like this… a full-grown dragonidae came with it.” Alec points out grimly, fully on alert as he tries to find what might be around.

“A full-grown…” Magnus repeats, only catching up with what that means a second later. “Wait, that was you?! You killed that demon?”

“Yes…?” Alec turns to him briefly in confusion.

“I bought some of the parts for potions.” Magnus clarifies. “All warlocks were in a tizzy. It’s been so long since some of those ingredients were available. And no one even knew when and how a dragonidae had even appeared…”

“It was mama’s idea, not mine. I didn’t even know about the business until after… after.”

Magnus is about to say something else when he senses it. It’s… he’s not sure when exactly the heaviness in the air vanished (or perhaps it’s just that he grew used to it?) but from one moment to the next it’s back. And even worse than before.

The low growl is the only warning they get. It’s right then, right as all his muscles tense as Alec goes to move that he questions himself for the first time: Has he gone completely insane?! He’s not a shadowhunter anymore! He sensed danger, a threat, went looking for it, but what the hell is he supposed to do about it? He doesn’t have his runes anymore! He’s not a warrior. He’s little more than a mundane! He’s… he’s useless…

In the end, there’s thankfully no time for Alec to spiral. Not with demons, several cerberuses, closing in on them. He manages to jump to the side to avoid the first, which gets fried by some blue fire from Magnus a moment later. It looks like the warlock’s about to say something to Alec, when the ex-shadowhunter notices the danger.

“Magnus! Behind you!” He yells.

It’s instinctive. Closing his left hand in a certain way, touching his wrist with the tips of the fingers of his opposite hand… Alec doesn’t even realize what exactly he’s doing, until the next Cerberus collapses less than a yard away from the warlock, dead from a red fletched arrow through its neck.

“Alexander…?” Magnus asks, as shocked as the younger man.

Alec decides there’s no point in stopping to wonder at what’s going on and instead draws another arrow and shoots at the next Cerberus. Soon he and Magnus are standing back to back, doing their best to cover each other as they fight. They each cannot help but notice how well they’re doing, fighting together almost seamlessly.

At one point one of the demons gets so close Alec’s forced to use his bow like a blunt weapon and an arrow as if it were a knife to kill the closest cerberus before notching that same arrow and shooting it at the one about to jump Magnus. It’s then that Alec realizes what’s going on. The runes he uses to keep his weapons on him at all times… they’re not exactly traditional ones. Those are runes that cannot be found on the Gray Book, or anywhere (except, perhaps, some very old books in an old mansion in Wales…); for they’re a Trueblood secret. They cannot even be used for just any weapon, only those that have been made exclusively for a Trueblood, and been blood-bound to him or her. He knows he and Maryse are the only ones to keep their weapons on them like that. Izzy never saw the need, as her own weapon of choice could be kept around her wrist easily enough; while Jace isn’t a Trueblood. Max is too young to have been taught yet (a part of Alec wonders if he’ll even be taught; after all, it’s not like Maryse actually taught him… he only found out because he likes to read, and he found several Trueblood journals, glamoured to only be read by someone of the bloodline).

So, with the Trueblood runes being unknown, as well as invisible, there’s no way the Clave could have taken them from him. And while they might have taken all his other runes, they couldn’t take his blood. He might not be a shadowhunter, but he’s still nephilim, and his weapons are already runed. Which means he can fight… though he’ll still have to be careful, the number of his arrows isn’t infinite, after all…

After a while, there seems to be a lull in the fight, there’s over half a dozen cerberuses dead all around them, and while no more seem to be coming just yet, Alec’s trained senses tell him the danger hasn’t fully passed just yet. He has no doubt Magnus must realize the same, so neither of them are lowering their guard as they stand, back to back, panting a little and doing their best to recover as much as they can.

“Hey,” He calls to Magnus as something occurs to him. “Just so we’re clear. Cerberuses are, sort-of, watchdogs, right?”

“Yes…” Magnus drawls. “What are you thinking Alexander?”

“Well, watchdogs follow orders from someone, right?” Alec explains his line of thought. “Who are these guys following then?”

Later on he’ll probably regret ever asking that question. He knows it wouldn’t have made any difference, but still, he cannot help but feel like he jinxed them by asking.

Abbadon. A Greater Demon. One of the freaking Ancients, the Demon of the Abyss, is in New York! Alec supposes that at least explains the heaviness in the air, what with the demon able to control wind… There’s a part of him that cannot help but wonder where the hell the NYI is and why they aren’t doing something… another reminds him of all the blood and body parts that he and Magnus found when first making it to the area and… well, he supposes the Institute did send people, it just didn’t do any good. There’s a corner of his mind that wants to wonder about his siblings, but the greater part of him refuses to even consider it; he knows if he even starts to wonder it might drive him crazy. So he blocks the thought from his head, focusing instead on the fight. The fight they have to win. Because if they don’t… they’ll die. And so will many more.

The bow breaks.

It’s… Alec fights, with everything he has. Stumbling more than once when his body doesn’t respond exactly like he’s used to; wincing when the pain becomes a bit too much to ignore and he’s reminded that he doesn’t have the access to an iratze anymore. He knows it’s a miracle that he’s managed to last as long as he has. Has managed to keep up… for the most part. The cerberuses are all gone, killed either by his arrows, Magnus’s magic, or a combination of both. Abbadon though, is another matter entirely. Even with all his runes, and an entire team (his team) of shadowhunters behind him Alec would seriously doubt their chances. As things are… it’s only the knowledge that they’re all that stands between the Greater Demon and the people of New York (nephilim and downworlders and mundanes), that keeps him going, despite the terrible odds against them.

The bow breaks.

Alec takes a moment, a half-insane second to just, contemplate the pieces of his weapon, his favorite weapon, as they lay at his feet. His hands stinging where the broken pieces of it pierced the skin, making him bleed. Several thoughts cross his mind in rapid succession: how it was his favorite bow, that it was a gift from Isabelle, commissioned from the Iron Sisters for his twenty-first birthday, in a design created by Izzy herself. It wasn’t his only bow, though certainly his favorite one, and the only blood-bound to him.

The bow breaks and for an infinite moment Alec remains immobile, he’s not even breathing. His mind going blank as he tries and fails to comprehend what he’s supposed to do now. In that moment he doesn’t even remember that he has another weapon at his disposal. And really, Abbadon is such a huge creature, getting close enough to use his feather staff… Alec would probably die having never stood a chance. It hits him then… he never stood a chance, did he? Against lower demons, probably; and he doubts he’d have been able to handle that without Magnus’s help. But a Greater Demon? He’s nothing more than an exiled deruned former-shadowhunter… what can he possibly do?

The blow comes. Too fast for him to try and dodge it, too fast for him to even get the chance and… do what? He doesn’t even know. There’s a part of him that even has a hard time processing when the blow even happened, was it after the bow broke? Or at the same time? It’s… something about him is off, he knows it, even if he cannot fully grasp it. Like time has ceased to have meaning somehow. And then he’s falling…

“ALEXANDER!!!”

He thinks he hears Magnus calling his name, thinks, but he isn’t sure, he feels oddly disconnected from his body, from his own senses. He knows there’s something very wrong about that, but what can he possibly do about it? What can he do about anything…?

It’s… it feels like he’s falling. It’s not the first time he’s felt like that, not in his life, not in the last month, not even in the last week.

“Please, Alec, come with me.”

“No.”

That’s what he felt when Jace, his brother, his parabatai, walked away from him, leaving Alec on the floor of a dark warehouse, all alone…

It’s how felt when morning came and he realized neither he nor Izzy were there.

When he was arrested and put on trial for things that were never truly his fault, for actions he only ever took in an attempt to protect those he loved most.

When his mother (his parents, really) didn’t even bother to show up for his trial.

When his worst thoughts, his greatest suspicions, even his deepest fears were proven right over and over again…

“Alexander Gideon Lightwood, you are found guilty of High Treason against the Clave.”

When he was declared guilty, without ever being truly given the chance to defend himself.

When he was treated like scum, when he realized once and for all that no matter how hard he tried he was never going to be good enough, not for anyone.

When his runes were taken one by one. All but his parabatai one. Because that one… that one was already gone.

When he was beaten, for no reason at all, by people he never did anything to. People he barely even knew, and why? Because they could?

When he was thrown out of the only home he’d ever known.

When he was left with nothing, bruised and bleeding, to die on a dark street.

When he realized he was, and had always been, deep down, all alone…

He feels like he’s falling. And it’s not the first time. He’s been feeling like that for so long, that in that moment he cannot help but wonder what else is there in life but falling… He wonders for a single, crystalline (insane) moment, will he keep going like that? Keep falling on and on, forever? And if he doesn’t… what will happen when he lands? Who will he even be when he lands?

Time is a funny thing. Almost… fickle, in a way. Some moments feeling like they end much too quickly, while others seem to extend into eternity. When it’s all said and done Alec couldn’t possibly say if he falls for an instant, or an eternity. Maybe it’s both, and neither at the same time. He supposes in the end it doesn’t really matter.

When the change comes it happens gradually, and then all at once. Almost like it’s not something that is happening right then, but in fact had already happened, was already there, he just didn’t take notice until then. He wonders if maybe that’s it. Maybe he’s long since stopped falling, long since hit the ground… he just wasn’t ready to accept the truth. Embrace who he’s become…

“What do you want?” The question comes from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, in a language that he’s never heard before, yet cannot help but know, intimately…

And in the end, Alec’s only ever wanted one thing…

Magnus doesn’t know what to do. Fighting all those cerberuses (he doesn’t even know how many, at some point he just stopped counting) was hard enough, but Abbadon? What are a single warlock and a deruned nephilim supposed to be able to do against an Ancient? Against the Demon of the Abyss?! Things were looking bleak enough before, but now… And Alexander… Magnus wants so much to save Alexander but he has no idea how to.

When Abbadon turns its attention to Magnus, the warlock just knows that his chances of surviving aren’t very high. It’s not that he’s giving up, not at all. But he’s just not ready… Even if he were fresh, with his magic levels at full and at the top of his game it’d have been tricky, but after all the power and energy he’s already expended this night… He braces himself, because what else can he do? Except the attack never comes.

There’s… something, like lightning… or a falling star… or perhaps an arrow made entirely of light. It pierces Abbadon right in the middle of its two void-dark eyes, the strange silvery-like of the bolt seemingly burrowing into the Greater Demon and then… it’s like its whole body just… splinters, ghostly light showing through the cracks, at first slow, then faster and faster, the light going brighter, until it’s so bright it’s impossible to look at it directly. There’s a sound, like a howling wind, only a hundred, a thousand times more terrible, terrifying. If it weren’t so impossible Magnus would say it sounds like Abbadon is dying. Except it is impossible… isn’t it? The light gets all the brighter, just for a moment, a fraction of an instant and then… it’s gone. Nothing left. Not of the light, or of the demon.

Magnus just… stands there. Contemplating it all, his mind trying and failing to grasp what just happened. A demon just died, truly died. Nothing’s left of Abbadon, no ichor, no gore, not even a trace that it was ever there at all.

The first thing he notices is the wind. So different from Abaddon’s ‘howling darkness’. It’s a breeze, soft and fresh and… he can smell something herbal, and sweet and, and something else that reminds him of the air during a thunderstorm, just after lightning hits. Magnus feels the aura next and it’s… it’s a strange mix of light and dark, a shadow that feels entirely dangerous and yet doesn’t scare him at all; it doesn’t, it feels protective too, and he basks in that. And then there’s the light, shining over him, so different from that of the sun, or the moon, Magnus would say it’s the light of a star, except no star can possibly be so close for him to not only see, but almost feel its light, its warmth.

When Magnus finally turns… it’s like a part of him already knows what he’s going to find even before he looks. And no matter how shocking, how absolutely strange it should have been, there’s a part of him that isn’t really surprised, for some reason. Like what just happened, this newest development, that’s exactly how things should be, like they were meant to be all along…

“Alexander…” He breathes out.

It truly is him, right there, still in torn and bloodied clothing, except all his injuries are gone. The scars left behind by his deruning… they’re almost sparkling, softly, gently, like there’s glitter on them, or stardust… His eyes, his beautiful hazel eyes are shining, brighter than ever. Though perhaps the most fascinating, attention-grabbing detail of all, is that in that moment Alexander isn’t laying or standing anywhere; but instead suspended in mid-air, just past the edge of the pier, softly floating a few feet above the East River. And it’s all thanks to the huge, gorgeous pair of dark wings on his back.

xXx

A few days later, a fully recovered Alec follows his beloved daughter through a portal and straight into Magnus’s loft. Opening a portal to another country is no small thing, and in Catarina’s own words, not just anyone is willing, or able, to waste energy opening portals to other countries (at times even other continents) at will. It’s not that she’s weak, not at all (though she’s quite honest in admitting that Magnus’s power levels are higher than hers; then again, she has a level of fine control that he finds very hard to achieve, and usually would rather not bother with), just different power and specialties; Magnus would be the first to say he’s no healer, he can do emergency patch-up jobs, the equivalent of field-medicine, but that’s about it. Alec was willing enough to travel the mundane way to Mexico, though both Ragnor and Magnus seemed horrified at the mere idea, insisting that one of them would make a portal for them. So there they are. Each of them carries a single suitcase (spells making the inside much greater). All the furniture and a lot of stuff is staying at the apartment, the keys of which Cat will be leaving with her friends, so they can use the place as a safe-house if necessary. Valentine’s still a danger, one can never have too many safe-houses.

Alec’s ambivalent, about the idea of leaving. It’s… so much has changed, since the other night, since the battle against Abbadon and… everything else. Things aren’t quite so simple anymore. When they first decided to leave NY it was simple enough to say that he wasn’t a shadowhunter anymore, and what difference could he have made in the war as a mundane? Even with his training, even with his weapons (which at the time he didn’t actually remember he still had), his body was that of a mundane, there was nothing he could have done against demons, much less Valentine and his Circle. Or the Clave. He has to admit that was another consideration. The Clave probably expected him to die soon after he was thrown (literally) out of the Institute. Chances are they all believe him to be dead already. What will they do if… when, they find out he’s still alive? What will they think and do, when they find out that while he might not be a shadowhunter anymore, neither is he mundane? He doesn’t even know what he is now!

“Magnus…?”

Cat’s confused tone of voice pulls Alec out of his spiraling thoughts. He’s just opening his mouth to ask what’s wrong, when he notices what’s caused confusion in his mama: Magnus’s loft, it looks very different from the last time Alec was there (such a short time ago, yet it feels like an eternity ago at the same time). It’s… the hazel-eyed wouldn’t be able to list specifics, but he can tell that things are missing everywhere. Mostly small things, knickknacks (the kind of things that make a house, a home), anything personal is missing as well.

The sound of someone clearing their throat pulls all eyes in the direction of the hallway. Magnus is standing there, he looks… somewhat subdued, from his normal colorful, flamboyant self; serious, almost somber in a way. He still looks incredibly attractive (Alec cannot help but blush) yet… there’s something just not right about the way the warlock stands, almost hesitant, at the entrance of his own living room. And then Alec notices the suitcase at his feet. His eyes go wide as his mind starts going a mile a minute at the possible implications, and no matter how much the more pragmatic side of him might insist that it might be entirely unrelated, there’s another part of him (the part that’s always been there, yet he always tries so hard not to listen to, because it’s dangerous to listen to that part of him, to believe, to hope…) that cannot help but want…

“I… was hoping… you might, well… that you wouldn’t mind…” Magnus hesitates.

“Magnus!” Cat snaps for a moment, before her expression softens. “Just say it…”

“Take me with you?” He asks.

For a moment there it sounds like he’s begging, and Alec hates that. There’s something so, so wrong about Magnus begging, the nephilim cannot stand it.

“Hey sweetie, why don’t we go say hello to Ragnor?” Cat suggests unexpectedly.

“Uncle Ragnor!” Madzie cries out brightly.

For a brief moment Alec wants to pull them back, to hiss they’re traitors, for leaving him there, alone, with Magnus. It’s not fair…

Alec lost consciousness following the battle against Abbadon and didn’t awaken until more than 24 hours had passed; right before dawn of the following day, in fact. Truth be told, he doesn’t really remember the end of that battle. He remembers the attack, the sense that he was just wounded, even if he couldn’t really feel any pain, the knowledge that he was falling… followed by the realization that he’d been falling, both in literal and not-so-literal ways, for a long time. The realization that everything would be different, once he landed, in ways he couldn’t fully comprehend (and still can’t). He thinks he can remember, can almost still hear a voice asking a single question:

“What do you want?”

His whole life Alec’s wanted… well, he’s probably wanted a lot of things. Or maybe it’s more than he wanted to want a lot of things, yet most of them he never dared. Things like being strong, being powerful, being admired, being loved (especially by his parents), they’re all things a part of him might have wanted, to a point, but the greater part of him couldn’t help but think at what it might mean. Because for shadowhunters being strong, being powerful, were things that were only achieved by proving one was better than someone else; and Alec never wanted to make others feel the way he felt so painfully often: like he just wasn’t good enough… Being admired, by who? The same society that stomped on him, that strangled everything he was, kept him from being himself, that turned their backs on him at the first opportunity? Being loved… that one was harder. He knows his siblings loved him, but not enough to understand him, to accept him entirely. He knows they didn’t see anything wrong with their ‘lighthearted complaints’, with all the times and ways they wanted him to change, all the ways they showed him he wasn’t enough (again); as for his parents… Alec realized early on that he’d never be the kind of child his parents wanted, he wasn’t a child of the Circle, but himself. And at least on that he held true to himself (or as much as he could).

What does he want? Deep down Alec has only ever wanted one thing: to protect. Everyone he can, from everything he can. He’s a protector, through and through, and he always will be.

He doesn’t actually know where Magnus fits into that picture. He knows one thing though: he wants to find out.

“Are you sure?” He asks Magnus softly.

“You would truly ask me that?” The warlock asks in return. “Alexander…”

“It seems… unfair.” Alec cannot think of a better word to use. “You have so much here. Your home, your friends, your club, your position as High Warlock… It doesn’t seem… right, for you to give it all up just for, for something that might end up being nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, not to me. It’s a chance. Or have you changed your mind Alexander?” That makes him hesitate, again. “I… I wouldn’t blame you if you had…”

“No!” Alec hurries to reassure him, of course not. “Magnus, I…” For the first time ever he decides to throw caution to the wind and just admit the truth: “I want you! I…”

He cannot find the words to express himself and so, he gives up on words entirely. Instead he grabs at the lapels of Magnus’s jacket and pulls him until their bodies are pressed together, and then Alec’s mouth is devouring Magnus’s. It’s… it’s probably not the best kiss ever. But Alec has been wanting to kiss Magnus for so long and… How is it that he’s gone from never wanting anything to suddenly wanting so much?! Or perhaps… perhaps it’s just that some things he’s always wanted, deep down, he just never dared do anything about it before.

As for what Magnus is referring to… when he woke up, not long before dawn, two nights and a day after the battle against Abbadon, the first thing Alec saw was Magnus himself. The warlock was keeping vigil over him, as he’d apparently insisted on doing ever since arriving with Alec unconscious the night prior. He was so worried, the guilt eating at him. Alec did his best to put him at ease though he knows, from painful personal experience, that it’s not that easy. Someone telling you there’s no reason for you to feel guilty, or anything else, won’t make you stop feeling like that, it takes more than that, a lot more.

“So you’re leaving soon.” Magnus commented at one point.

“Yeah… it’s for the best, I think.” Alec murmured. “For Madzie’s safety, and mama’s. And… even if I’m not exactly useless anymore. I don’t exactly know how… how any of this works. Much as I hate running away, I fear I’d only end up putting more people in danger if I stayed.”

Because, he knows, Cat and Madzie won’t leave if he doesn’t. And if he stays… if he stays Alec would want to be part of the war, and that’d end up pulling the two of them right into it as well. And he cannot stand the thought of endangering them in any way. All Alec’s ever wanted to do is protect, everyone he can, but especially those he loves most.

“You’re not useless Alexander,” Magnus practically snarled. “Don’t say that. You never could be useless. Even… even if those nifty new powers of you didn’t exist, you still wouldn’t be useless. You do remember just how many cerberuses you killed two nights ago, don’t you? With no runes, no special abilities, just a bow, arrows and your own wit.”

“I didn’t do it alone, I could have never done any of it alone.”

“Maybe not, but the fact remains you’re far from useless.”

Alec said nothing else, and while Magnus knew he still didn’t fully believe it, at least he wasn’t insisting anymore on the matter.

“I think there’s only one thing I’ll regret.” Alec admitted eventually.

“Only one? Really?” Magnus wagged his eyebrows in a ridiculous manner. “And what might Alexander Loss’s most terrible regret be?”

Something Magnus learned pretty quickly was that Alec didn’t consider himself a Lightwood anymore. Hadn’t since the moment he was thrown out of the Institute, probably since the trial began, even. He was also quite proud of the name Loss, just like his two favorite girls.

“That we never got the chance to have that drink.” Alec whispered, after so long a time Magnus had begun to think he wouldn’t be getting an answer.

“Oh… who says we cannot have it now?” Magnus blurted out, conjuring a couple of drinks even as he tried to recover after being taken completely by surprise by that particular revelation.

“Magnus!” Alec cried out, somewhat scandalized. “It’s not even seven in the morning!”

“It’s five in the afternoon somewhere,” Magnus said in a drawl.

After Alec’s penetrating stare he finally waved his hand, vanishing the cocktails and summoning them some coffee instead.

“Thanks…” Alec murmured, somewhat shyly, as he took the first sip of his drink.

It was nothing like the coffee he usually drank (black and so bitter he at times couldn’t help but wince), but instead, while still somewhat dark, he could taste more than just coffee in it, like chocolate, and what seemed to be a lot of whipped cream. It tasted delicious.

Neither of them said anything for several minutes, just watching the last of the night, a single star twinkling on the darkest, distant corner.

Yet again, Magnus was taken completely by surprise when Alec spoke up:

“I think I would have liked it,” He said, so very quietly Magnus wasn’t entirely sure if he was even supposed to hear him at all. “Having a drink with you. Just… just going out with you, anywhere. I think I’d have liked it…”

So long he’d stopped himself from… well, being himself. And for what? All the things he fought for, that he sacrificed everything, himself included for, were pointless now. His parabatai, his birth-family, his job, his career, his people… they were all gone. And it wasn’t. He wasn’t alone, not really (thank the… well thank Heaven and Hell, for Catarina and Madzie). But he was honest that he couldn’t help but regret not accepting Magnus’s invitation when he had the chance.

“Who says we cannot do it?” Magnus made a split-second decision. “I mean, you’re moving to Mexico not… to another planet, or something. It’s not even a different continent.”

“Magnus…”

“I’ll take you out for that drink yet Alexander, you have my word on that.”

And there he was. There they were. It was certainly more… more than Alec ever expected. Drinks were one thing, but being willing to upend your entire life, just for a chance…

“Come with me…” The hazel-eyed man whispered, forehead pressed against the other man’s own, so close they were sharing breath.

Magnus kissed him again. It was answer enough.

 

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