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Merry Christmas, @actuallyredorchid!

Thank you for your great prompts, I tried to combine as many as possible into one fic (and it evidently ran away with me …)

malec | rated: t | extended oneshot | canonverse time travel, first meetings, developing relationship, established relationship, 5+1 things

fic summary:

Magnus Bane meets a man from his future, interwoven throughout moments in his past.

Read on AO3

*****

Your Name for a Capital

“In my dreams I am kissing your mouth and you’re whispering ‘where have you been?’ I say, ‘I’ve been lost but I’m here now. You’re the only person who has ever been able to find me.’”

— Sue Zhao

ONE | MADRID, SPAIN, 1619

Magnus Bane saves people. Somewhere along the line, this became fact. Somewhere along the line, he lost someone he couldn’t get back, and he decided no more. That’s enough . He suspects it was his mother.

Catarina says that other people’s happiness takes priority over his. You need people to need you, Magnus.

Magnus laughed at her the first time she suggested it: you’ve only just met me , he had said. How can you know that?

You rescued me from that stake , she replied matter-of-factly. You didn’t have to, but you did. That’s how I know .

I just wanted to make an impression , Magnus had said. He didn’t want to tell her that she was right.

And Catarina being right is the reason why Magnus is still awake and hasn’t been home since the morning before, wandering the deserted streets of a slowly stirring city as the last of his adrenaline fades: last night, the High Warlock of Madrid had refused a newly-turned Vampire in need of a potion to quell his hunger, and Magnus has never been one to stand idly by. He knows how the High Warlock looks at him and sneers, an ugly wrinkle to his nose as he calls Magnus young and inexperienced and insolent , but Magnus doesn’t like playing by the rules.

He saves the people he’s not meant to save. There’s an opiate thrill in it, swooping in at the last minute and saving the day, and he chases the rush, the way adoration and gratitude burn through him leaving him breathless and ignited. The taste of power in his fingertips, willful and impassioned and destined to do good - he needs it. He needs to know that it’s still possible for him after he left everything in the East Indies behind.

Madrid is sleepy shortly after sunrise; the sky is a brilliant blue but the streets are steeped in shadow that remains icy cold to the touch. There are alleyways and dark corners aplenty for demons to hide, but Magnus lingers in the intermittent shards of early sunlight that slip through the spaces between the townhouses. The city rarely feels this still, but the cobble beneath his feet and the granite on either side muffle all sound in the narrow, valley-like streets. Magnus feels like he’s walking along the bottom of a steep canyon and his every step might echo.

The clack of wooden shutters against the side of a house echoes too. The opening of balcony doors. The yowl of a stray cat. All the sounds of a home that has been made a home; the city begins its wakening, and Magnus finally feels his sleepless night weighing on his shoulders. His bed calls out to him. He might as well get a few hours of shut-eye before the High Warlock comes looking and chews him out.

And then, Magnus hears the echo of something else. He’s not sure what catches his attention: a shout, a clatter – but it’s his magic that stirs first. He feels it in his fingertips, a twitch, as it scuttles up the back of his neck forcing him to turn his head, like the restless spasm of a nerve.

He strains his ear to listen, but the silence suffocates all noise, and the world holds its breath, deathly still.

Clang !

A resounding clamour behind him; a body shoved against a wall, a low grunt.

Magnus stops in the middle of the street and turns a full circle, listening for another sound. The wind, the rattle of wagon wheels on the cobblestone, the city’s murmur - another muffled shout. The twang of a bowstring. The recognisable hiss of a demon evaporating in a shard of sunlight.

He reaches out with his magic, probing for disturbances in the air; in return, he feels the bitter, swirling energy of Shax demons, a lot of them, biting and snapping at his magic as he reels it back in.

Strange , he thinks. But not unheard of . Shax demons rarely attack in the daylight, but they’re drawn to concentrated power, unusual magic wetting their appetite, and in a city like Madrid, there is plenty of that to go around. The leylines that spread out across the country gather in the Plaza del Arrabel, and it’s not inconceivable to find a spider waiting at the centre of the web.

Or a Shax. Regardless, they both have too many legs for Magnus’ liking.

Cautiously, Magnus extends the shield of his magic again: the demonic energy is familiar in the way it always is, reeking of Edom and the planes below, red and brimstone-coloured in Magnus’ mind like Hellfire. But there’s another layer, another current clashing with it and forming a riptide: it’s faintly white and silver, cutting through the stench of Hell. It tastes Angelic - pure and metallic like Adamas - and Magnus’ magic recoils at the touch, but it doesn’t burn as it usually does.

It’s not a Shadowhunter. Well, it is, because the Nephilim are loud and brash and unmistakable in everything they do, but it’s not Angelic power as Magnus knows it.

It’s different, obscured. Distorted somehow.

Another loud crash rings out through the empty streets.

Magnus gathers his magic into his palm, wisps of blue and purple that coil like a serpent in his waiting hand. He slips down a sidestreet, his magic wavering like a compass needle as it guides him towards the epicentre.

Trust the Nephilim to get in over their heads , he thinks. And expect a Warlock to come save the day.

He can hear Catarina scolding him: I told you I was right.

The old parts of the city are like a maze: twisting, turning, easy to get lost in for anyone but Magnus - but he’s drawn towards the sound of a fight, his magic crackling in his fingertips, eager and impatient.

The stench of the Shax demons gets stronger as he draws closer and he wrinkles his nose. He can sense five, maybe six, not enough to be a problem, but too many for Magnus to waltz into the middle of a battle and not risk being hurt.

And one Nephilim.

The Angelic power crackles in the air, scattering across Magnus’ skin and raising the hairs on his arms. It pulses and spasms, unstable in a way Magnus has never felt before, as if suddenly cut free from age-old ties and left to convulse as feeling and freedom rushes back into its metaphysical body all at once.

Shadowhunters are usually so cold and controlled. Their power is regimented and stern, never wandering and never wavering, and yet this - this is rogue.

And there’s something more. Magnus doesn’t notice it at first, but as he plasters his back against a wall to catch his breath and his bearings, he listens to the hum of his answering magic, and he feels it. A presence, heavy and unfamiliar, intangible in a way Magnus’ magic cannot grasp. It has no smell, no taste, no colour at all, a blend of magic existing in a dimension he cannot fully grasp, but he feels its effects so strongly it overwhelms him.

The air seems to shimmer like a mirage. Magnus can feel the leylines thrumming beneath his feet and it makes him uneasy, but it makes his heart pound too.

You’re reckless with yourself , Catarina would say. You’re going to end up hurt.

But Catarina isn’t here.

Magnus straightens out his doublet and smooths his hands down his breeches, flexing his fingers as he moulds the magic from blue to red and the intent becomes him.

Then, he steps out from behind the wall - and it’s exactly as he expected.

Six snarling Shax demons circling a lone Shadowhunter, froth dripping from their open jaws and their shrill cries piercing the air like the dying herald of a wounded animal. The Shadowhunter is pinned against the wall; he has a bow in his hand and an arrow poised, but he holds himself still, waiting for one of the demons to pounce before he looses it.

He doesn’t look hurt. In fact, he looks remarkably unbothered, and the only thing askew about him is his dark hair, ruffled by the wind, and the scuff of dust on his knees. He breathes deeply, and even at a distance, the deep rise and fall of his shoulders is apparent, but his eyes are focused, moving from demon to demon, anticipating their every move with the expertise of a man who has spent years training to hunt monsters.

The Shadowhunter’s gaze flicks to Magnus, over and above the wall of prowling Shax demons. His eyes briefly widen, his eyebrows jumping in a way that highlights the thin scar that runs through his left brow, but his stare is vibrant, honeyed-brown in the early morning, and alive . Magnus’ magic jolts in response.

And maybe he imagines it, but the corner of the Shadowhunter’s mouth tips up into the crooked inkling of a smile. He nods at Magnus.

And then he leaps into action.

The Shadowhunterdraws back his bowstring and releases, his flying arrow piercing straight through the hide of the closest Shax demon. The demon shrieks, clawing at its own chest, but the arrow glows bright white, and in a sudden burst of ether, the demon dissolves into a cloud of black dust.

But before the Shadowhunter can blink, a second demon lunges for him from the side. The Shadowhunter ducks beneath the outstretched claw, spinning onto his knees and stabbing the sharp end of his bow into the demon’s belly. The demon throws its head back with a scream and strikes at the Shadowhunter again - but Magnus thrusts his palm out and blasts it with a torrent of magic, carving its body in two and turning it to dust.

The Shadowhunter glances over his shoulder and Magnus grin, the blue tendrils of magic twisting in between his fingers, but the Shadowhunter doesn’t stop; he’s on his feet again and moving, notching another arrow like he’s done this a hundred times before and trusts Magnus to watch his back. He draws the bowstring back to his lips and the arrow soars, so fast and hard that it pierces through the third demon and out of the other side, as if its flesh has been turned to butter. The bow in the Shadowhunter’s hand quivers.

Magnus has never seen a bow like it, sleek silver and glowing with faint runes embossed on the metal. The Adamas sings and Magnus can feel its residual power meshing with his own magic; it invigorates him like a gasping breath, like a punch of energy he’s never felt before, white-hot and celestial and setting his own magic alight as if drawn, instantly, to the point at which Magnus is most flammable.

An arrow whizzes past Magnus’ ear and the breath of it slice into his cheek as it disappears over his shoulder. His fingers shoot up to his face to feel for the thin line of a cut, but his hand comes away bloodless. Magnus’ mouth falls open on instinct, but the Shadowhunter is grinning at him like he’s God damn pleased with himself, and he fires another arrow over Magnus’ head. Magnus twists around as the Shax demon behind him falters - the shafts of two arrows protruding from its chest - and evaporates, its remnants splattering across the cobblestones.

One demon left. Magnus turns to face it as the Shadowhunter does, reaching back for his quiver.

The Shadowhunter sucks in a breath, grabbing his last arrow and notching it in his bow. The Angelic power shudders, and so does the presence that belies it; it radiates out along the shaft of the arrow, gathering in the point.

His fingers twitch, the arrow flies, but Magnus waves his hand in a sudden arc, launching the last demon into the wall where it explodes in a shower of black dust. The Shadowhunter’s arrow misses, embedding itself in the wall with a silent puff of plaster.

The sound of a clock tower bell striking upon the hour rings out in the immediate silence. Each clanging ring pulsates like a drumbeat, disturbing the dust and demon viscera settled on the road.

Magnus smirks to himself, dusting his palms on his doublet and sweeping his windswept hair back against his head. He can feel his heartbeat racing, his breath panting. Exhilaration makes him grin. His eyes flick towards the Shadowhunter who stoops to collect his spent arrows and slots them back into his quiver.

Magnus’ head is buzzing.

“That was impressive,” he says, eyes raking over the Shadowhunter’s broad back. His clothes are like nothing Magnus has ever seen before, tight-fitting and embossed with metal; and instead of buckles and clasps, his shiny leather jacket fastens with a line of silver teeth. He wears no armour. No waistcoat, no stockings, no simple cravat.

But he’s tall and handsome and well-built, with the gait of a soldier and a dark, inky Deflect rune snaked around his pale throat. Definitely Nephilim .

So why doesn’t he feel like a Nephilim?

Magnus raises his eyebrows, running his teeth over his lower lip as he appraises the long line of the Shadowhunter’s legs as he bends over to yank his last arrow out of the ground. “You dispensed those Shax demons rather proficiently, I must say.”

The Shadowhunter pauses and glances back over his shoulder, looking Magnus up and down, and laughs. Laughs. Not at Magnus, per say, but he laughs as if he’s genuinely delighted by the fact Magnus just saved his life, and yet is completely bemused by it.

His laughter lights up his face, attractive creases forming at the corners of his dark eyes as he straightens and turns to face Magnus. “You’re supposed to say well done ,” he says.

Magnus raises his eyebrows, unamused. “Well done?”

“Yeah,” the Shadowhunter grins. He slings his bow over his shoulder and walks up to Magnus like they’re old friends who often spend the morning dispatching demons in a back alley - but Magnus refuses to budge. “You say well done , and then I say: more like medium rare .”

Magnus frowns. “If that’s a jest, I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“It’s our thing,” says the Shadowhunter, but then he glances around, his gaze sweeping up the walls of the overlooking townhouses. He seems to realise where he is for the first time and his cheer wavers for a moment. “Or it will be, I guess. Where, uh - where am I?”

“Did you take a bump to the head back there?” Magnus scoffs, but the Shadowhunter’s earnestness makes him pause; the Shadowhunter grips the limb of his bow where it’s looped over his shoulder, thumbing at the metal. He genuinely doesn’t know. “We’re in La Latina.”

The Shadowhunter scowls. “Spain?”

“What do you mean, ‘ Spain ’? Of course we’re in Spain,” Magnus laughs sharply, “We’re in Madrid. I’ve met my fair share of Shadowhunters in my time, but never one quite so directionally challenged. Where did you think you were?”

The Shadowhunter shrugs, his cheeks tinged pink.

“Dunno,” he says, and Magnus struggles to make sense of the curious twang of his accent, but he can’t place it. His English is good, fluent even, and yet Magnus has travelled the world over and never met anyone who sounds like this. “I figured Europe, but I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know where I’d end up, but - shoulda known it’d be here. With you.”

He smiles at Magnus again, as if that’s enough to answer the myriad of questions Magnus now has. He seems delighted to see Magnus, to see him here despite not knowing where here was, and as his eyes roam over Magnus’ face, pinning every detail to memory, Magnus doesn’t have the faintest idea why.

The Shadowhunter must be concussed. Perhaps that explains why the power leaking from his runes is going haywire. Magnus should really do him a favour and take him back to the Institute, leave him out on the front steps. Not only will the Head of the Institute then owe him a favour, but the High Warlock will also hate the fact Magnus has been out helping amnesiac Shadowhunters in his spare time.

Two birds with one stone, really.

Magnus narrows his eyes. “Evidently, you know who I am and expected me to be here,” he says carefully, but the Shadowhunter doesn’t show any signs of annoyance at being found out. He even has the nerve to take a step closer. “But I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of your company before. And I am not one to forget a face.”

The Shadowhunter rolls his eyes. “It’s fine,” he says, but the fond exasperation in his voice throws Magnus. What on Earth is wrong with this man - “You don’t know me.”

“But clearly, you know me,” Magnus presses. “If the Institute has some business with me that I don’t know about, they can come knocking on my door and pay for my services like everyone else. They don’t need to accost me in the street.”

“I’m not here on any business,” says the Shadowhunter, looking down at himself and drawing Magnus’ eye back to his clothes. He’s too pale to be local, his skin untanned by the Spanish sun, and his gear is shiny and elegant, his leather boots well-polished. His trousers are practically painted onto his long legs, and his collarless shirt clings to the faint outline of muscle on his chest.

It makes Magnus feels uncharacteristically underdressed. Or overdressed. He’s not quite sure. Self-consciously, he straightens out the sleeves of his doublet and adjusts the frill of his cuffs. If he’d known he’d be meeting mysterious Shadowhunters in the depths of the old city this morning, he would’ve worn his best hat, the one with the feather, God damnit.

The Shadowhunter is still watching him. Openly, gently; it’s all wrong. A Shadowhunter has never looked at Magnus like this before: like he wouldn’t rather see Magnus locked up in some dungeon or put to use warding the Institute, as has always been his only value in the eyes of the Nephilim.

Maybe he’s playing you , Magnus thinks. He’s acting friendly to get what he wants, whatever that is. He’s not what he seems.

Or maybe he’s exactly what he seems and you’ve just forgotten how to trust people.

Magnus frowns, and looks down at his ringed hand before he extends it to the Shadowhunter, letting the wisps of his magic curl and then fade around his fingers. The Shadowhunter is unfazed.

“Alec,” says the Shadowhunter, his smile turning playful. He reaches out and grasps Magnus’ hand with a sure grip, and it makes Magnus’ magic stutter again.

“Alec. Short for Alexander?” Magnus guesses, “Alexander whom? I thought you Shadowhunters were excessively proud of your lineages. Do you not have a family name?”

Alec bites his lip and shakes his head, holding in a laugh. He withdraws his hand too soon. “Yeah, I do. But, well - I guess that’s spoilers.”

“Spoilers?” Magnus repeats, rolling the unfamiliar word around in his mouth. “Hm.” He considers cutting his losses - he’d rather not get involved with a troublesome Shadowhunter who speaks in riddles and won’t even tell Magnus his name - but his curiosity has been piqued. Curiosity killed the cat, Magnus , Catarina would tell him. She’s probably right. This might be the weirdest thing that’s happened to him all decade - and that includes a very unfortunate incident involving Ragnor, a bottle of tequila, and the fact he is now barred from purchasing a copy of Don Quixote de la Mancha anywhere in the city.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Alec?” Magnus probes, circling Alec slowly. “And if you truly aren’t here on Institute business, how did you end up in my neighbourhood encroached upon by a swarm of Shax demons, might I ask? They don’t rarely attack people in the daylight.”

Magnus’ magic flexes in his fingertips, reacting to the unknown undercurrent that still lingers in the air. It’s not Angelic. He can discern that now, but it’s not Demonic either. He doesn’t know what it is: a shiver of someone else’s magic, but it doesn’t belong to this Shadowhunter. Too powerful for that.

It feels like temporal magic. Vast and unwieldy and unable to be bent and shaped like other forms of energy. Magnus doesn’t know it well, but he’s been working on his portal theorem for a while now, and he’s read every musty old text the Silent Brothers have to offer on the subject of how magic threads itself through time and space. He just hasn’t been able to grasp it yet.

The unfamiliar magic flutters in a realm he can’t comprehend; it’s like reaching for a handful of water, only for it to flood between his fingers. Magnus frowns, but when he glances up at Alec, he finds Alec watching him expectantly, like he’s waiting for Magnus to come to a realisation that must be inevitable.

Oh , Magnus thinks. He knows what it is. He knows exactly what it is and must know that I can feel it.

“Wrong place, wrong time,” Alec says cryptically. His voice is low. Magnus feels it ripple down the back of his neck.

“Do you believe in chance?” Magnus asks.

Alec’s mouth quirks again. “Not really.”

The demonic energy has faded and no more Shadowhunters have come running. Whatever or whoever Alec the Shadowhunter is, Magnus doesn’t want to let him go now. He’s too interested.

This is going to come back and bite him.

“So, what now?” He doesn’t realise he’s said it until it’s said, and it hangs, suspended, in the space between him and Alec that has contracted without Magnus really noticing. Did I take a step forward, or did he - “Where are you headed?”

Alec says nothing, meeting Magnus’ eyes and holding his gaze. The temporal magic quietens, but doesn’t vanish. Instead, the buzzing in Magnus’ temples simply fades until it becomes a hum of background noise.

Alec looks at him. Alec looks through him, as if all Magnus’ smoke and mirrors are nothing but fantasy and he can see straight into Magnus’ chest, to a part of Magnus that Magnus doesn’t even know exists, let alone how to control, but he’s sure he’s exposing all his secrets.

Magnus clenches his jaw and shifts in his boots, refusing to be unwound. His magic pulls taut, straining at his skin, reaching out for the other magic he just can’t seem to grasp; it dips and dives through his metaphorical fingers, slippery and unwilling to be caught. The silence stretches on a beat too long.

And then Alec shrugs again, breaking the spell, his eyes flicking away like it was nothing. His smile turns gentle. Illuminated. Almost dazed. The slow rising of the sun over the rooftops glances off his cheeks and forehead, highlighting the threads of deep brown in his hair and drawing Magnus’ attention back to the honey colour of his eyes.

“Anywhere,” he says simply.

Magnus blinks. “Anywhere? What does that mean?”

“It means I’ll go anywhere,” Alec clarifies, “I have nowhere to be. Not for a while. Where are you going?”

Magnus’ mouth falls open. Oh .

What is happening here? Who are you?

Why are you looking at me like that?

His magic reaches out for Alec on its own accord. Alec can’t see it and likely can’t sense it either, but Magnus feels his power reaching, eager to grab fistfuls of Alec’s jacket and pull him closer.

A thought: you can trust this Shadowhunter. He isn’t like the rest. He isn’t like anyone you’ve ever met .

Magnus clears his throat pointedly. “I was on my way to Plaza del Arrabel,” he lies. His bed can wait. He’s going to do something stupid first. “Perhaps you’d like to see it. I could show you the way.”

“I’d like that,” Alec smiles.

&&&

Magnus leads the way through the old city: he loves the narrow Gothic streets, their sun-baked cobblestones, the earthy colours and heavy stone, the ornate windows and doors with heavy cast-iron knobs and a thousand stories to tell. He knows the name of nearly everyone who lives here: the merchant on the corner, the painter in the attic room, the greying musketeer who frequents the tavern in the basement, spinning tales about his days in the regiment that get more and more grandiose with each successive glass of wine.

The street smells like people wilting in the heat, and the pot-holed stone shimmers. A church casts a shadow that blends with the dappled shade of a single olive tree bursting out of the earth. Magnus can hear the strum of a sitar seeping from a high-up window and it coaxes his blood to sing.

He walks beside Alec, but doesn’t noticed the distance between them disappearing until Alec’s shoulder brushes against his. Magnus glances sideways at Alec, but Alec doesn’t notice, enraptured by the sight of a shoe-shiner polishing the boots of a man in armour; of a young woman setting up her stall of apples and cantaloupe melons to sell; of two horses tied to a hitching post and huffing in the slowly rising heat.

Magnus summons two apples from the grocer’s stall and holds one out to Alec: it’s ruby red and glossy in the sunlight, but Alec still squints at him, glancing back at the woman at the stall. Magnus rolls his eyes and snaps two gold coins into her pocket for her trouble, and that makes Alec smile triumphantly as he takes the apple from Magnus’ hand, his fingertips brushing against Magnus’ rings.

The apple crunches as Alec bites into it, the flesh crisp and sweet, and the juice rolls down his chin. Magnus watches, transfixed, until Alec meets his eye and raises his eyebrow as if to say what? Magnus laughs quietly to himself, but it sticks in his throat.

Deliberately, he lets their shoulders brush again. His pinkie strokes against the side of Alec’s and the magic sparks like flint.

Alec doesn’t react, taking another bite of his apple as he looks upwards, his attention now caught by a woman leaning out of her window three floors above their heads, reeling in her washing line; everything is a marvel to him, save Magnus. He’s not surprised by the touch. Not repulsed by it either. It’s almost as if he’s used to the familiarity, as if he’s expecting it, and that -

That makes Magnus nervous.

Madrid lives and breathes in its people. It’s a city adored by the sun and swathed in music at all hours of the day and into the night. Dozens of intersecting lives, and yet Alec doesn’t fit in at all. It’s like he’s stepped out of a different time.

And yet why do you feel so endlessly familiar? I would remember if I’d met you before.

“You know, I’ve never been to Madrid before,” Alec remarks then, taking the tip of his thumb into his mouth as he licks off the apple juice. “Which is weird when there’s been an Institute here for so long, but I never really travelled before I met - uh. Yeah. I should make the most of it while I’m here, huh?”

Magnus snorts. “You keep saying these cryptic things that make me more and more confused as to how it was that you accidentally ended up in Madrid,” he says. “Which Institute are you from?”

“New York,” Alec says automatically, before he pauses, the apple pressed against his lips. He turns to look at Magnus. “I mean, uh - shit. New York probably doesn’t exist yet, does it?”

Magnus narrows his eyes, and with his free hand, he lets his magic curl. Quietly, probingly, curiously - a question posed ( who are you ?).

And much to his surprise, he feels a ripple of an answer in return, spoken in a language he doesn’t know how to translate. The magic coaxes him back to Alec with a magnetic pull. A shift in the fabric of the universe, unnoticeable and untraceable, but not unlike a faint shimmer in the air above hot cobblestones or the glimpse of a shadow from the corner of the eye. Something that’s not quite right, but which disappears when looked at for too long.

Temporal magic. Of course. It makes sense now.

Alec didn’t know he was in Madrid not because he wasn’t expecting to come to Madrid, but because it doesn’t look like the Madrid he knows.

He’s a long way from home, indeed.

“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of New York,” Magnus says slowly, “York in England is a delightful place, of course - I’ve been many times, but - something tells me you’re not from around here.”

Alec shrugs meekly, taking another bite of his apple. “Like, I said -”

“I know what you said,” Magnus insists, “I’m asking how did you get here ? How did you end up in this particular year ?”

“Ah,” says Alec.

“I’m still trying to master cross-time magic, but I know it when I sense it, and you are drenched in it,” Magnus continues. “If someone has beaten me to the creation of the portal -”

“Not a portal,” Alec admits, “Spell. We were trying to bind a demon, I got hit with some residual magic. This is a side effect.”

Magnus’ eyes widen. “So, you are from the future.”

Alec shrugs again, but he’s biting back another smile. He seems infuriatingly unconcerned by this revelation. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Oh, I am a warlock of my word,” Magnus says, marking an X across his heart with his index finger, but he can feel his magic vibrating, and it’s a miracle his hands aren’t shaking too. “What are the Nephilim doing with temporal magic?”

“Not us. We called in an expert. A Warlock.”

“Oh, a Warlock. And what is their name? I might know them.”

“Spoilers, sorry.”

“But the spell was strong enough to send you back in time,” Magnus remarks, “Which suggests the caster was someone particularly powerful, and I can only think of a few who might be able to wield that sort of magic -” He taps his index finger against his mouth in thought. The High Warlock of Rome has long been interested in manipulating time with magic - but only because he’s incredibly vain and fears getting any older. And then there’s Ragnor, who has been helping Magnus collect old tomes for his portal research, and so help him God, if the old bastard’s gone and stolen Magnus’ work in the future - “If I guess correctly, would you tell me?”

Exasperated, Alec rolls his eyes. “Spoilers,” he says again.

Magnus clicks his tongue. “Very well. Keep your secrets, but permit me one last q uestion ... when is it in the future that you come from?”

Alec licks his lips but shakes his head. His smile is coy. “I’m not going to tell you that either,” he says, “Sorry.”

“Good God,” Magnus laments, throwing his hands up in the air, “Ruin my fun, why don’t you. Can you not give me a clue? A hundred years? More?” He gestures at Alec’s clothes. “I want to know when it is that I might look forward to this strange fashion.”

“I’m from ... a while in the future,” says Alec, glancing up at the yellow-stone buildings that tower above them. His brow furrows. “I think.”

“You think?”

Alec nods. He glances around, and while a few people are eyeing Alec strangely, no-one stands within ear shot. Still, Alec drops his voice low. “Yeah. It’s, uh - it’s temporal hopping. Jumping through time. I’ll bounce around a bit until the residual magic wears off, and then - yeah. It’s not permanent. I’ll probably just disappear without warning.”

“I see.”

“You’re … you’re not freaked out by that?”

“If by ‘freaked out’, you mean to ask if I’m alarmed, then of course I -” Magnus stops himself. He’s not alarmed, but he should be. Men don’t just step out of a rip in time and claim to know him; it’s the stuff of fairytales and the theatre and the tall tales that find people accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake.

And yet he finds no space inside him to feel fear or shock or anything but the small flicker of deja vu and the unparalleled sense that he knows - this . The marvel in Alec’s eye as he takes in the city; the way he holds himself completely still and statuesque when Magnus speaks to him; and the soft laughter that underlies his words

Did I call out to you across time? Is that why you’re here?

“Magnus?”

Magnus looks up. It’s the first time Alec has called him by his name.

But Magnus never told him what it was.

It all comes together in a rush: he knows Magnus in the future.

Oh, God, what have you gotten yourself into, Bane?

“I’m not alarmed,” Magnus says, “Perhaps I should be, but I’m not. You live as long as I have, and you see enough that the world stops surprising you. Well -” He looks Alec up and down. “Almost. Here and there, there are a few bright spots.”

Alec beams at him, and it lights up his entire face. And the rest of the world - it fades away. Magnus wonders if he will miss it at all.

&&&

They come upon a large archway and Magnus guides Alec into the deep shadow and out the other side where the street opens up into an enormous plaza, three hundred feet across in each direction. The leylines gather here, and Magnus can feel the humming of energy beneath his feet like a network of blood vessels, pumping magic into the city’s heart: Warlock magic and Angelic power and Seelie spellcraft, and as Alec steps out into the sunlight, something else entirely. Magnus feels the change ripple through the leylines, spreading out and away from them and radiating across the square: not an earthquake, but still a seismic shift, a change in the fabric of the planet for those that might be looking.

But no-one is looking. That’s the beauty of Madrid, a place where Magnus needs not have a name if he doesn’t wish to have one.

In the centre of the plaza, there is a market, a patchwork of coloured tents and twisting pathways, hemmed in by tall red townhouses with slate grey roofs and elegant spires tipped by flags fluttering in the breeze.

The air is lively with chatter and smells of cattle, the merchants driving hard bargains and flashing brilliant smiles, herding the morning crowd towards their stalls lined with trinkets, gold and silver and impressive jewels alongside the vibrant colour of fresh fruit and smoked meat. A wagon rolls by, pulled by an ox that haws and huffs in the heat; in the back, crates of plump, red tomatoes that make Magnus’ mouth water.

But Alec’s focus is elsewhere. The sky is an endless canopy of blue, and he turns his face to the sun, his eyes fluttering closed. His eyelashes cast thin, delicate shadows upon his cheeks, and as the sun warms him, the corner of his mouth tilts up serenely.

Magnus is transfixed. He’s young, reckless, a hedonist; he considers himself a purveyor of beautiful people as much as he has a taste for danger, some soul-felt thrill to be found in complimenting the strength in a handsome man’s jaw or trading coy smiles with a woman in a lively crowd. He knows how to enjoy the sight of a man completely at peace.

But this - he doesn’t know this. Alec is both timeless and other-worldly; and as the rest of the world rotates around him, he doesn’t move.

For someone stepped out of time, he seems so permanent, like a man who has found his fixed point in the universe after a lifetime of searching. He exists differently to the passage of the sun in the sky and the bustle of movement through the market; he exists where Magnus exists.

His immortality is not the same as Magnus’ - he’s Nephilim and Magnus can see the signs of age beginning to mark the corners of his eyes - but, like Magnus, he views the world from a distance, through the perspective of someone who has seen different far-off times and places.

Looking at him makes Magnus feel younger than he has felt in centuries.

They meander through the labyrinth of market stalls, and it doesn’t take long for Magnus to notice what catches Alec’s eye.

His fingers trail across the spines of old leather books, and he admires a pair of earrings curled in the shape of two silver snakes while Magnus watches from afar. An artisan’s stall stacked with bright coloured jars of painter’s pigment leaves him looking wistful. A blacksmith displaying an array of ornately carved knives has Alec’s hand drifting to his side, his palm splayed over a rune Magnus cannot see.

None of these things match Alec - and Magnus doesn’t know how he knows that - but Magnus sees the love reflected in Alec’s eyes, a homely and unfettered sort of love, and he wonders who he thinks of.

But it’s the jewelry that draws Alec like a moth to a flame, the barest glint of gold and silver pulling him this way and that as Magnus dips through the crowds behind him. Rings and necklaces, small trinkets for the pocket, even a chain for the ankle adorned with fine jewel-coloured charms - Alec has to look at them all, has to weigh them in his hands and brush his thumb over the metal with a small but fierce scowl.

Magnus wants to ask him what he’s looking for, but perhaps that would disturb the trance - if Alec knows he’s been caught, he might stop, and Magnus is fascinated by his scrutiny. He studies each ring with the diligence Magnus might afford any Shadowhunter - but in the training room or on the battlefield, and not here, in a sunlit market of Madrid at noon.

Magnus allows his eyes to wander over Alec’s body: his long legs, his strong chest, his large alabaster-white hands as he cups the pendant of a necklace and inspects it in the sunlight. He wears no jewelry of his own, no necklaces, no cufflinks on his jacket, no rings save one.

A plain silver band winks at Magnus from Alec’s fourth finger.

“You’re married.”

Magnus doesn’t mean to say it - it’s nothing more than a passing observation, but -

It feels important. A detail meant to be noticed. And now that he’s seen it, it’s like the temporal energy swarms there, gathering on the ring in a cluster of dense magic.

Alec sets down the necklace in his hands and grins at Magnus, but this time, it’s accompanied by the most exquisite pink flush to his cheeks.

Yes, Magnus thinks, yes, I can see how someone would marry that.

“Yep,” Alec admits. The look in his eyes is tender and adoring as he looks down at his wedding ring, rubbing it with his thumb, and then back up at Magnus. “About a month ago.”

“Well, congratulations. What’s her name?”

“ His name.”

Alec holds Magnus’ gaze with diamond-like focus. He says nothing, but Magnus is unable to look away.

Magnus wets his lip and measures his words; it seems as if they might matter.

“How peculiar,” he says slowly, watching Alec’s face - he doesn’t give anything away, but his shoulders fall with the quiet release of a breath that Magnus might call relief. “Although, not as peculiar as a Shadowhunter wearing a ring. I was of the opinion that it was a rune on the hand and a rune on the heart.”

“It is.”

“Oh? So he’s not a Shadowhunter? Now I’m especially intrigued.”

Alec grins, his mouth parenthesised by dimples. He turns back to the stall and picks out another necklace, the fine silver chain and pendant glinting in the light.

Magnus frowns, stepping up to Alec’s side to peer over Alec’s shoulder..

The necklace is pretty. Magnus might wear it himself. He can imagine how it might feel draped against his chest, beneath his collar, the cold kiss of metal.

“What do you think?” Alec asks, and he’s close enough that he need only whisper. Magus feels the puff of his breath against his jaw. “I like this one.”

Magnus hums, reaching out to take Alec’s hand and rub his thumb over the pendant cradled in Alec’s palm.

“Yes,” he says, “This one’s nice, indeed.”

&&&

The sun sets slowly, staining the sky in shades of orange and pale blue. Lanterns flicker to life, suspended from the awnings of the market stalls and dancing in the open windows that overlook the square. Shadows stretch long and thin and dark, and Magnus finds himself sat on the steps of the bronze statue in the middle of the plaza, still sun-warmed against his back.

He’s sat here a hundred times before, content to watch the day pass him by as people come and go. He has the time to spare; immortality lends itself for lounging and for lingering.

Now, though, Alec’s tall shadow looms over him, illuminated in gold around the edges by the dying of the sun.

Magnus looks up at him. Alec holds out a bag of mazapanes.

“Want one?” he asks.

Magnus takes a handful and pops one into his mouth: the taste of marzipan and almonds melts on his tongue and fills him with quiet fondness for this city he calls home.

Alec folds himself up on the steps beside Magnus, his legs stretched out in front of him and his shoulder pressed up against Magnus’. He’s warm to the touch, and Magnus feels his magic laving at Alec’s skin, wherever it can find space to shimmy beneath his clothes.

From the corner of his eye, he watches Alec lean back against the statue and exhale, his whole body relaxing. He tosses a few candied almonds into his mouth and then licks his fingers absently, all the while staring at the sky. The orange glow catches in his eyes and highlights the different shades of brown.

“Thank you for today,” he says, without looking at Magnus. “I had a good time.”

“I should be the one thanking you,” Magnus says, “This will make for an excellent dinner time anecdote that I’m sure no-one will believe. Heavens, I might not even believe it by this time tomorrow.”

Alec laughs softly. “I mean, thanks for not running away. I know this must -” He gestures with his hands. “- kinda weird.”

“Why would I run away?”

I feel like I know you. How impossible is that?

“I dunno. I just figured -” Alec stops mid-sentence, a frown furrowing his brow.

“What?” Magnus asks, “What’s the matter?”

Alec sets the bag of mazapanes on the steps and inspects his hand, curling and uncurling his fingers into his palm. “The magic’s fading,” he says, “I think.”

“Oh,” Magnus replies, “Are you sure?”

Alec holds out his palm to Magnus and Magnus reaches out with the invisible touch of his own magic, probing at the energy that licks across Alec’s skin: sharp, staticy, but there’s a restlessness to it now that wasn’t there before. The threads of the universe begin to fray and Magnus can feel them tickling, like fingertips skittering up his arm or like an intimate breath ghosting across the back of his neck.

The rest of the world seems to slow. Alec’s presence here distorts space-time just enough for Magnus to notice. The people passing by walk slower. Distant bird calls become longer. The sunset is paused, suspended in a forever yellow.

Alec’s going to disappear.

Magnus doesn’t have much time.

“The magic,” he starts, but he doesn’t know how to continue. He has so many questions still to ask and he’s not going to get answers to all of them. “The magic I feel on you, it’s volatile. It’s moving.”

Alec nods, still staring at his fingertips. “Yeah. I can feel it. It’s what happened just before I jumped the first time. It’ll stabilise for a bit, and then flip out again. Guess I’m about to go somewhere else.”

Magnus swallows thickly, and then, tentatively, he reaches out and touches his fingertips to the centre of Alec’s palm. The magic ripples as if Magnus is a stone in the water. He sinks too fast for his own liking. “The magic’s strong. I don’t think I can influence it, but I might be able to calm it,” he murmurs, gently pushing his own magic into Alec’s skin - his Angelic power hums, but Alec doesn’t resist. Magnus’ magic slips into his blood like sunlight. “It feels familiar, in a way. I don’t know why.”

Alec glances up at him, his mouth opening into a soft round oh . “Familiar?”

“Does that surprise you?” asks Magnus.

Alec shakes his head. He holds up his hand to the sunset, and it’s then that Magnus sees his skin has turned translucent and now, it appears near gold, like a shard of sunlight in which dust particulates dance. Slowly, Alec begins to fade away.

“No,” Alec says, turning his hand this way and that, and the pricks of dusk-coloured gold glint like jewels.

And Magnus - Magnus longs to touch him again, but fears his hand might pass right through, like wisps of fog and smoke that might disperse with even the tiniest shift. He cannot move; he doesn’t want Alec to go. There’s a feeling in his chest too big to comprehend; he hasn’t yet learned the way to grasp it, to hold it within himself. He wishes he knew what it was.

Alec’s shadow disappears, fading sunlight trickling through him. His legs, his arms, his body, now dust. All that remains is a whisper, before he is whisked away through the recesses of time that Magnus has yet to experience.

“No, Magnus,” he says, his voice lingering, “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Magnus doesn’t move for a while after. He watches the sunset pale into the faintest of yellows, and then lilacs, and finally deep, deep blues as the sky becomes pitted with stars. Madrid dances on. Laughter and music takes over the night, drunken cheers and singing, people spinning in the plaza around and around and around, but Magnus is unwilling to join them. Not yet. Maybe later. Maybe in a moment.

He looks down at the steps. The bag of mazapanes is still there, solid to the touch, and yet an afterimage lingers upon it, invisible fingerprints that only his magic can sense.

He feels changed somehow. A part of him has shifted out of plane and now exists a step ahead or a step behind everything else.

Oh , Magnus thinks. I should’ve asked when I’d see you again.

TWO | LIMA, PERU, 1791

Nights in Peru smell like the sea: salt and seaweed and high winds that bring the Pacific inland as waves, washing over the taste of roasting bananas and coffee beans drifting up from the streets. The sky is navy blue and the moon, a thin white monolith, is suspended in a field of stars and constellations that Magnus has spent centuries learning.

He sits on the balcony of a townhouse, overlooking a small courtyard and nursing a cup of rich, red wine that reminds him of the dusty hills and towering mountains that surround the city. He doesn’t know how many cups he’s had, but it’s enough to warm his blood and linger like a hum in the back of his throat.

And it’s enough to forget a broken heart. Not enough to be rid of loneliness, but not even Catarina and Ragnor dragging him halfway across the world could do that, despite their best intentions. He can outrun a string of failed affairs, but he cannot escape the fact he’s four hundred years old and wants a little more than some smeared night he can’t remember with someone he’ll never see again.

Magnus sips quietly at his wine. Downstairs, there’s a party in full swing, drunken and exciting and billowing with oaky cigar smoke. Ragnor will be sitting in an armchair in the corner, and Catarina will be making elaborate excuses for Magnus’ absence, he’s quite sure.

But it’s the noise - the constant noise - he needed to escape. I need some air , he’d said to Cat. Just for a moment. I’ll be back . That was almost an hour ago, but she hasn’t come looking for him, not to introduce him to some doe-eyed stranger, nor to check that he hasn’t drunk himself into a self-deprecating stupor in the bathroom once again.

High above, the shadow of a large bird briefly crosses the moon; it soars on updraughts that Magnus cannot reach, borne away with ease, not minding where it ends up. It might be a condor. He envies it. They probably mate for life. How dreadful.

Magnus tilts back in his chair, taking another sip of his wine, and sighs. The chair creaks and he closes his eyes, letting his breathing slow and the tension drip out of his body. He can hear a flute playing from a downstairs window and the thin, delicate notes drift upwards, longing and melancholy and dreaming of a wide expanse of wilderness, of freedom, of the loss of a great love. Magnus doesn’t really know which, but the song is beautiful and it lulls him into a doze.

There are worse places to be alone. The night is balmy and he’s always loved the enduring magic of this place, the way the city is steeped in layers and layers of history, where the ancient world meets the new, and travellers from across the continent pass through in search for gold. So many men have spent their lives chasing paradise, but truly, Magnus might have found a slice of it right here.

He could fall asleep and never wake up again, and he doesn’t even think he’d mind. Catarina might find him faded away with the dawn and a soft smile on his face, a spilled cup of wine at his feet.

And yet why does your heart still ache? Why is it that you close your eyes and still dream of all the someones who have left you behind?

This is too much longing for one person. Too much time spent alone with the world; he knows all its corners far too intimately. There’s nowhere else left to see.

Behind him, the curtains rustle as someone steps out onto the balcony: a man, judging by his soft huff of breath as moves towards the balustrade. If he’s handsome, Magnus might take him back inside to bed. A whirlwind love-affair. He could stay in Peru a few decades. He wouldn’t mind that. His sheets have been cold for a while now, and he longs for cooling sweat and breathlessness and the feeling of being wanted. He longs for a flutter to stir his heart.

Magnus meets the man’s eyes and the thought fragments with a quiet, rippling chime, indistinguishable from the soft music in the distance or the sound of Magnus’ nail tapping against his wine glass.

Oh . A dream. A dream of a dream. A summer’s day in Madrid, years and years ago is borne back to him on the breeze.

It’s you.

I thought I dreamt you.

The curve of his back a beautiful parabola as he leans over the railings and gazes out across the rooftops, his profile highlighted by the flickering yellow glow of lantern light and the deep blue of the settled sky. His hair is the same inky black as it was all those years ago; the rune on his neck, just as stark. His clothes are different now, soft worn fabric clinging to his broad shoulders, while his pants hang loose about his hips. He goes barefoot.

And he hasn’t aged a day since Magnus saw him last. Perhaps it’s only been days for him. Not like the centuries for you.

Magnus barks out a laugh, swinging back in his chair and hoisting his feet up onto the balustrade. He swirls his drink around and presses the glass to his lip, but doesn’t take a sip. He must be drunk if he’s conjuring up memories from his past when he’s so desperate for companionship.

“God,” he laughs, shaking his head. He wonders if his longing can be heard through time. “Catarina and Ragnor always insisted that I made you up, but I told them you were real. Either they will kick themselves when I tell them later, or they’ll have me institutionalised. One can’t be sure.”

Alec, his impossible Alec, turns to look at him, his body still bent over the railings. His smile is fond and sleepy, like he’s been stolen out of a moment just before bed. It makes Magnus’ heart skip a beat.

“How long has it been?” Alec asks.

“One-hundred and seventy two years. Give or take a few, I’m sure. I might have lost a decade around the turn of the century through no fault but my own.”

Alec whistles a low note and looks back out across the city. The nighttime toys with the shadows that stretch and pool upon the mismatched rooftops: wells of deep purple and blue and odds with this glow of orange that seems infinite and ephemeral in the same moment, fading into the sky like a halo. Upon Alec’s skin, the colour is exquisite. It makes his eyes simmer with a gentle opal-dark fire.

“That’s a long time,” Alec says quietly, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? You have nothing to be sorry for. You can’t control it, the magic is volatile. You said so yourself.”

“A hundred and seventy years is a long time to go without seeing someone.”

Magnus hums, hiding the quirk of his mouth behind his glass again. He tips it back just enough to taste the wine on his lower lip, his tongue. It draws Alec’s eyes.

“It is,” he murmurs, “But worth the wait, I dare say.”

“You knew I was coming back?”

Magnus rolls his shoulders and slips out of his chair, joining Alec against the balcony. He molds himself into the space beside him, resting his glass on the railing and curving his body towards Alec, an open question. Alec shifts to face him, a timeless answer.

“Temporal hopping,” Magnus explains, “I’ve been reading up on it in the hope that you might come back to me. The magic may not be stable, but it still requires an anchor. Something that stays the same in all the places you’re drawn to. Usually it’s a location, the place where the original spell was cast, but given I’ve found you in both Spain and Peru now, I’m inclined to say that your anchor might, in fact, be a person.”

Alec’s mouth twists up into a smile. “Yeah?”

Magnus scoffs, buffing Alec on the arm with the back of his hand. It’s an excuse to touch him, to know that he’s real, to feel that forgotten ripple again. “Oh, come now, don’t play coy with me. I’ve had almost two centuries to think about it.” He pauses for dramatic effect. “You and I know each other in the future, don’t we?”

“You could say that.”

Magnus raises his glass at Alec. “You knew my name that day we met. I never told it to you, but you knew it all the same.”

“I did.”

“And in the future, we’re well-acquainted?”

Alec blushes, colour rounding at his cheeks. “Yeah. Yeah, definitely.”

“And I work with the Shadowhunters? Are we in business together?”

“Sometimes.”

Magnus scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You’re still just as cryptic and infuriatingly tight-lipped as before, I see.” His attention drifts down to Alec’s hand, curled over the balustrade. His wedding ring looks molten tonight.

“Your husband,” Magnus says, glancing up at Alec, “What did you say his name was again?”

“I didn’t.”

Magnus’ heart skips a beat. He wets his lower lip and is glad he’s got one hand on the railing and the other on his glass, so that Alec can’t see his fingers shake. “Ah,” he says, his voice a murmur, “You called that spoilers , if I remember correctly.”

“You do.”

Magnus hums, swirling the wine around in his glass. He considers the way the purple splashes up against the sides and leaves behind a fading red residue.

“I have a hypothesis,” he says boldly, “About why you wouldn’t tell me your name, last time. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

Alec chuckles to himself, looking to the sky. The constellations are reflected, dizzyingly, in his eyes. “You said you’d figure it out straight away. I shouldn’t have second-guessed you. You’ll say ‘I told you so’.”

“Future me sounds terribly astute.”

“Future you is a pain in my ass,” Alec teases, but the look in his eyes is endless. It speaks of a man deeply in love, the sort of love that has transcended a thousand hardships and never wavered, the sort of love both effortless and consuming - all the things that Magnus wants for. His chest aches again, some parts longing, and other parts jealousy. It makes that passing thought of taking a stranger to bed feel lukewarm.

And what’s the point of any of it being lukewarm -

Magnus’ smile becomes wry. He doesn’t want to dwell on that. Instead, he offers, like a baited line, “So, Alexander Bane, is it?”

“Lightwood-Bane,” Alec corrects. He thumbs at his wedding ring again, twisting it around his finger. It must be a habit. “Magnus, uh - my Magnus, he told me I shouldn’t tell you very much.”

“What a spoilsport he is,” says Magnus, but he leans in closer to Alec, drawn to the bob of Alec’s throat as he swallows, the gentle tremor of his nerves attuned to Magnus’ magic. What does he have to be nervous about? He knows Magnus. Incredibly well, it seems. “So, it was my future self who cast this spell that backfired on you? How inconsiderate of me.”

Alec nods. “The demon was stronger than the binding spell you prepared. You managed to seal it, but - well, yeah. This happened. You said it would wear off pretty soon, but there might be, uh - bad side effects.”

“Side effects,” Magnus muses, “If me getting the pleasure of your company is a bad side effect, then -”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Alec interrupts quietly. “I mean - I won’t stay for long and I can’t control it. I don’t know where I’m going to end up. Or when.” His hand has shifted near to Magnus’ upon the railing, and now, Alec’s staring at them both, wondering where to draw the line before he oversteps. Magnus wants him to overstep.

This is his husband . It doesn’t seem real. Right now, in fact, it feels impossible, and it makes that too-large feeling build inside his chest again, constraining at his ribs and longing to be free; in the almost two hundred years since that day in Madrid, he still hasn’t learned how to contain it.

He has never imagined himself married. He’s never imagined finding a person who’d want to marry him . It makes no sense, and yet he doesn’t question it. It fits , he thinks. It fits with me. I feel whole. Too whole.

Perhaps it is a ruse. A drunken delusion, a joke. A cruelly crafted one for sure, but Magnus cannot bring himself to care. Not when Alec is gazing at him so softly, and the starlight is tangled in his messy, bed-ruffled hair.

He wants this man. He doesn’t understand it, but it hardly matters, because his head is wine-addled and he feels not himself, caught in Alec’s inexplicable pull and dragged, stumbling, off course.

It scares him. It does. There’s some part of him he has no control over and he’s not used to trusting himself to someone else’s hands.

“So what did my future self have to say about me?” he asks, and he wonders if Alec can hear the tremble in his voice. “Did he warn you of how devilishly handsome I am?”

He reaches out and trails his fingers down Alec’s shirt; the fabric is gossamer-soft to the touch, and Alec’s chest is warm and hard beneath it, but what surprises Magnus most is way his magic pulses in his fingers like it’s mimicking a heartbeat. A beat and an answer. An echo that doesn’t seem to fade away.

His hand falters. Alec notices this time.

“He didn’t tell me anything. That’s not how it works,” he says softly, “All time is concurrent. The past and the future - they happen at the same time, so this - us. Us meeting here. This hasn’t happened before.”

“Did I tell you that?”

Alec smiles sheepishly. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

“Oh,” Magnus murmurs, brushing his near-shaking fingertips over the slip of Alec’s clavicle visible beneath the neckline of his shirt. He marvels at the way Alec’s throat moves as he swallows; as he holds in a breath. He drops his voice to a whisper; any louder, and his magic, and the way it leaps at the touch, might bleed through. “So, your undoubtedly charming husband has no memory of what happens here tonight?”

Alec shakes his head. “Us meeting here - it makes a different future. My future is - it’s not going to be the same as your future. But they both exist. It’s, uh - kinda complicated.”

“Infinite futures. Hm. How extraordinary.” Magnus’ fingers drift along Alec’s collarbone, smearing through the invisible current that trips across Alec’s skin. His magic verberates, resonates, reflects. It’s like he’s ghosting his fingertips along the frayed edges of a nerve that stems from his own body - the frayed edges of a tiny rip in time and space - and every slight quiver threatens to make his breath hitch. He touches Alec and he feels it in himself. A part of him, a part of Alec, inexplicably tied. “I wonder if we meet in every one.”

Alec exhales slowly, steadying himself. He briefly glances away, out into the city, his eyes dancing from rooftop to rooftop. Magnus follows the working of his jaw. “If you did know. If you in the future did remember this, I don’t think you would’ve told me. Not when we first met, at least.”

Magnus’ hand stills against Alec’s sternum. The closer he gets to Alec’s heart, the stronger the pulse, the more he can feel the familiar undercurrent that lingers beneath the temporal energy that surrounds him. He looks up. “Why not?”

Alec screws up his mouth and hunches his shoulders, but it seems far less easy than before. “When we first met, I was scared. If you’d told me that we met before, I would’ve - I would’ve probably run, if I’m honest. I was kinda dealing with a lot back then.”

“But now?” Magnus asks.

“But now I’m happy,” says Alec.

Magnus doesn’t know what to say to that. He hears the sincerity in Alec’s words; it speaks of a terrible vulnerableness, a terrible loneliness left behind but not completely forgotten, one that Magnus knows too well, but it also -

Alec’s eyes meet his, and he smiles his lopsided smile, his eyes creasing up again, and it’s inutterable: this warmth, this tenderness, this growth from a shell of man that Magnus doesn’t even know and has never met, but he feels the entire story resonate as the magic does. The love radiates from Alec like he was fashioned from it, like the Angel gifted him devotion instead of skin and bones.

And to think it’s just a fraction of the love he must feel for his husband , Magnus thinks. That he feels for me, but not me.

Never me.

Magnus lays his palm flush against Alec’s collarbone. The familiar magic answers him, a surge more profound than before: that threads of torn time and space intertwine with something else, another magic so endlessly recognisable that it makes Magnus gasp.

Beneath the quivering Angelic power, and beneath the remnants of the backfired spell, Magnus finds a reflection of himself, every will and wish and want he’s ever known, because that’s what Alec is drenched in. His magic. Magnus’ magic - and how did he not notice it before, because it breathes and moves the same, answering the quirk of his fingers in a way he knows innately.

Magnus’ magic . Evolved to be softer and kinder, stronger and more encompassing, woven through with Angelic power, caressing at Alec’s skin and absorbed into his very being. And the pulse that Magnus feels within it is Alec’s blood, Alec’s heartbeat, Alec’s soul, bared to Magnus as he pushes and prods at this impossible man who stands before him.

Magnus rubs his fingertips against the slip of Alec’s bare skin. The strong tendon of his neck. The base of his Deflect rune, and it summons a trail of goosebumps down Alec’s throat and across his shoulder.

He watches Magnus’ intensely. Magnus can’t meet his eyes; he summons blue smoke into his fingers and marvels at the way it clings to Alec’s skin as it does to his own hand. Like it cannot tell the difference between him and Magnus.

How is that possible?

It feels so intimate. Magnus feels so known.

“I can feel -” he starts, before he realises he’s talking at all. “I can feel myself. I’m all over you.”

“Yeah,” Alec whispers. He reaches up and covers Magnus’ hand with his own, holding Magnus’ hand against his heartbeat. His wedding ring catches the midnight glow of the city and turns gold. “Yeah, I should hope so.”

“It’s my magic, but - it’s so strange. It’s like seeing your reflection in a mirror and noticing something is not quite right, but you can’t put a finger on the difference,” Magnus murmurs. “It knows you. It’s like it’s changed because of you.”

How can I feel so connected to someone I don’t even know?

“It can do that?” Alec asks.

“It appears so,” Magnus says, before frowning. He pulls his hand away from Alec. “It makes sense. If what you say is true, and all time occurs concurrently, then it appeals to reason that the pool from which I draw my magic transcends space-time too. I just haven’t yet learned to wield it the same as I do in the future. With you.”

Magnus snaps his fingers, summoning a blue flame into his palm. The light of it dances across Alec’s face as Magnus holds it between them, watching as it sways and shifts, despite the stillness of the night.

“My magic knows you,” Magnus repeats, “It knew you before we even met. How impossible does that sound?”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Alec whispers, “Not for us.”

Magnus’ chest clenches. Us , Alec says, as if that’s something Magnus understands at all. Us , he says, as if Magnus’ last string of relationships haven’t all ended in heartache.

Us , he says, because when he fades away at the end of this night or in the early morning or whenever, he goes back to that, to them, and Magnus is left - here. Alone.

“Magnus?” Alec asks, stepping closer. His hand brushes Magnus’ sleeve and leaves ripples in its wake.

“Tell me about him,” Magnus whispers, half-breathless and half-hoping. The loneliness solidifies within his chest, filling the chasm of space he’s nursed with endless glasses of wine; now, the longing has mass, has weight. It won’t be ignored or shoved to the side. “About the Magnus Bane you know. Tell me about him. About the both of you.”

Tell me I get to have what you have. Tell me I get there.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did we meet? What was our courtship like? Was it you who asked me to marry you, or was it -”

Was it me?

Alec glances down at the wine glass in Magnus’ hand, and then at the near-empty bottle that sits abandoned next to his empty chair. “If I tell you all that, will it help?”

“What?”

“You’re lonely,” Alec says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and so easy to say. “I know you are, but I - I don’t - if I tell you all those things, it won’t make it easier.”

Magnus frowns. “How could I be lonely when you’re here?”

Alec sighs softly and turns back to the city, leaning his wait once more upon the balcony. He folds his arms upon the railing. The swell of his spine can be seen through his shirt, his back a long, curving arc.

“There’s a man who plays the charango,” he says then, and the soft glow of the city almost swallows his words up. “You’re probably going to meet him soon. Here. He’s good for you. You still think about him often.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Magnus says, sliding his palm across the back of Alec’s neck, thumbing at the skin below his ear - but Alec turns his head away, his jaw working. “Alexander - you feel this, don’t you? It’s inexplicable. The connection. My magic. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

Magnus rubs his fingers against Alec’s neck and feels Alec lean into the touch.

Do I touch you this way often? Are you used to this?

“There’s a party downstairs,” he finds himself murmuring, “Catarina and Ragnor are there. We can go down there together.”

Alec shakes his head softly. “And if I disappear in front of everyone?”

“That’s the beauty of magic,” Magnus says, “It explains the unexplainable. A party of inebriated Warlocks won’t question a thing.”

“Magnus -”

Magnus sweeps him thumb across Alec’s pulsepoint. He takes another step closer, crowding Alec against the balustrade, ducking his head to intercept Alec’s line of sight.

“I have rooms inside. A bed. We could share another bottle. See where the night might take us.”

“Magnus,” Alec says again. His eyes meet Magnus’, and then flick towards his hand, which he holds out over the balcony edge. “Look.”

He’s already fading.

“So soon,” Magnus whispers. “You stayed a whole day last time.”

“I know,” Alec murmurs, twisting his wrist and sifting his fingers through the moonlight. “I’m sorry.”

THREE | BLACKFRIARS, LONDON, UK, 1872

As rain lashes against the concrete, the wind over Blackfriars Bridge wails like an abandoned child at the side of the road. Below, the Thames churns, infinitely black and grotesque in the dark, eager to swallow people up and never spit them out again. Its stink is sewage and its rush of water is a hiss that presses against Magnus’ back, whispering in his ears.

You sure you still don’t want to jump?

It’ll be cold. You’ll feel something. You’ll feel nothing. Both will be good.

The rain soaks Magnus to the bone. His frock coat clings to him like a second skin and his hair hangs limp across his forehead, rainwater streaming down his nose. His hands grip tight to the railing of the bridge, his fingers stark and cold. He doesn’t remember taking his gloves off. Hell, he doesn’t remember putting them on.

He only remembers standing on the edge and looking down.

You’re not actually going to jump , Camille had said. You’re not a coward.

Maybe I am , Magnus had replied, Maybe I always have been. I’ve spent my entire life running.

His skin still stings with the indentations of her nails on his arm, yanking him back from the edge. He can still hear her hiss, her sharp words, her fury. The rare fear in her eyes as she screamed at him to climb down from the railings.

This is ridiculous! she had snapped. Come and find me when you’ve sorted your head out, Magnus. I refuse to deal with this for you.

Magnus leans forward over the railings, staring down at the bubbling river. A stagecoach splashes water up the back of his legs, the horses snorting and the coachman tilting his tri-corner hat down to keep the storm out of his eyes.

Camille left. She always leaves. Unwilling to stand out in the rain and ruin her hair, unwilling to give any part of herself up for others.

She knows Magnus won’t jump now, so her work is done. He’ll live and he’ll drag himself back to her when he’s ready and she’ll say I told you so, Magnus. Why don’t you ever listen to me ?

Magnus feels cold - the sort of unforgiving cold that seeps into the bones and into the blood and drags thoughts to a shuddering halt. The wind is bracing, carrying with it sharp shards of slush-turned-sleet that cut into Magnus’ cheeks. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out here; he doesn’t know how long ago Camille left. Sunrise might be on the horizon, but he’ll never know, not with the smog that rises from London in the distance, thick pillars of soot black that blend into the clouds of rain and smother the stars.

He stares at the spot on the railings where he stood grasping at the lampost, his toes curled over the edge - an hour ago? Or was it two? Three? Time has slipped away from him, as it always does. What is time to someone who’s going to live forever, bound endlessly to watch humankind search for meaning in their fleeting lives -

Search for love -

Numbness tingles in Magnus’ fingertips, and he wishes for it to go away, he wishes for time to stop, he wishes for a feeling other than tenderness bruising in the hollow parts of himself, but -

The rain stops.

His magic flinches.

And Magnus looks up, blinking back the raindrops that cling to his eyelashes and pushing back the hair that lies limp over his forehead. A hand extended over his shoulder, and a large black umbrella hiding him from the clouds above.

It’s like a breath, a breath stolen after being underwater for so long - not enough to quell the painful ache in his chest, but enough to fill his lungs. He’d almost forgotten what it feels like.

He’s lived an entire lifetime since then.

“It’s going to get better,” comes the familiar voice that Magnus has missed eighty-one years now, a rumble he feels deep in his water-logged chest. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but - I promise.”

Magnus looks up at him. At Alec , rain-flecked and stepped out of the storm, holding an umbrella aloft above them like it’s the only thing he was put on Earth to do. He steps between Magnus and another passing carriage, shielding him from the splash of the wheels in the puddle. Alec grimaces, his nose scrunching.

Magnus laughs wetly. “You can’t say that. You have hindsight. That’s cheating.”

A raindrop trickles down Alec’s temple and Magnus follows it, across his cheek, drawn to the pull of his lips, dripping from his jaw and onto his shirt. His mouth is twisted with worry; his eyes flick between Magnus’, searching for some strength Magnus doesn’t know how to give. Not anymore.

Magnus sniffs, scrubbing his palms across his face, but it won’t make a damned bit of difference. He looks disgusting. He looks like a man who was about to jump off a bridge. He knows he does.

Why couldn’t you have shown up when I was on that ledge? Why couldn’t you have been here a day ago, a year ago, a lifetime ago, before it all went wrong?

“It’s not cheating,” Alec murmurs, “Not when it’s the truth and you need to hear it.”

He steps closer, crowding Magnus with his body, protecting him from the wind. He brings the handle of the umbrella down between them, and invites Magnus to hold it too, as if they’re sharing a flickering candle.

Alec’s hands are warm where Magnus’ are ice cold. He almost feels real. Oh, God, I’ve missed you.

“You’re soaked,” Alec says, his eyes wide and his brow furrowing. He rubs his hands over Magnus’ knuckles and huffs on them loudly; Magnus sucks in a splintering, wet breath. “Jesus, Magnus, you’re gonna get a fever -”

“Warlocks don’t get fevers.”

Alec scowls at him. “We both know that’s not true. I know what you’re like when you’re sick, and it’s the worst.”

“Me, insufferable?” Magnus laughs weakly, “I couldn’t imagine such a thing.”

Alec rolls his eyes, looping his arm around Magnus’ shoulders and clutching the umbrella between them.

“C’mon,” he says sternly, “Let’s get outta the rain.”

Alec grips his shoulder, his fingers pressing into Magnus’ skin through his overcoat - but unlike the prick of Camille’s nails, Alec’s hand is firm. He rubs his palm up and down Magnus’ arm.

Magnus feels like crying. Shock, relief - he doesn’t know what it is that clogs his throat and forces him to suck in sharp and shallow breaths. Perhaps it’s the realisation that he was a single step away from a plummet into the cold current of the Thames. Makes sense .

At the end of the bridge, Blackfriars station glints in the dark, its white tin rooftops spit-shiny. Alec pulls Magnus across the road, dodging carriages and offering his hand to Magnus to step across a puddle, and then he ducks into the station awning, and the braying of the wind is suddenly silenced.

Alec steps away from him, battling with the umbrella, and Magnus scrubs his hands down his face and pushes his limp hair back against his head. He flicks his hands and rainwater spits across the floor, accompanied by a pathetic spurt of magic that dies blue at his feet, extinguished like a damp flame.

Beside him, Alec flops back against the brick wall, tilting his head back and cricking his neck. Tonight, he’s in a suit, so deeply blue it might be black in any other light but the flickering of an underground station. It sticks to him, his shirt slick against the curve of his chest and abdomen, the silver buckle of his belt shining with rain. He picks at the cuffs of his jacket, but it’s sodden. He frowns, rolling up his sleeves and revealing his forearms covered in runes.

He’s without a tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Magnus wonders if that’s the fashion, or, perhaps, someone has already removed it for him.

Briefly, Magnus wonders if the cold of the rain masks colour in Alec’s cheeks or the redness of kiss-bitten lips. He wonders where Alec was and what he was doing before he was summoned to the banks of the Thames in a rainstorm.

None of the things he imagines makes him feel any better.

“We should probably wait it out. Your place is kinda far,” Alec remarks, peering out into the rain with a frown. “Every time you’ve taken me to England, it’s been like this.”

“Every time?” Magnus asks.

Alec looks back at him and smiles - not his crooked, heart-racing grin of a smile, but something small and quiet and precious that Magnus hasn’t seen before.

“We stayed in your apartment in Soho when we were on our honeymoon. For a bit,” he says, and not even the streaks of rain on his face can hide the delicate blush now. “It rained for three days without stopping.”

“It always rains,” Magnus murmurs, “That’s why I love that apartment. You can always -”

“You can always hear the rain on the roof,” Alec says, “You say it helps you sleep.”

Magnus swallows thickly, but the lump in his throat makes it difficult to breathe. He shakes his head, but the tightness doesn’t go away; he only succeeds in splattering Alec with more rainwater.

Of course he knows that. He knows everything , and that’s unfathomable, because if he knows everything, he must know this: this wretched, inhospitable, ugly feeling that festers and bubbles inside Magnus’ chest that won’t go away no matter how much alcohol and reckless hedonism Magnus doses it with.

He knows everything.

“Alec -”

“Yeah?”

Deep breath, Magnus. No matter how much it hurts.

“Did you know I’d be on that bridge?”

Alec doesn’t blink; he doesn’t hesitate. He sets the umbrella against the wall and steps in close to Magnus, and Magnus can feel the warmth of him, ever-glowing and always-tended, even now. The longing to place his hands on Alec’s chest, to sink his fingers into Alec’s skin and step inside him and inhabit him - if only to know himself as Alec does - it possess Magnus, an urge.

“Yeah,” says Alec, meeting Magnus’ eyes deliberately, “I did. That’s why I went and found Camille and sent her to you.” He laughs softly. “She didn’t react well to a Shadowhunter telling her what to do, but I guess she listened anyway.”

Magnus’ heart lurches. “You sent Camille?”

“Yeah. But she would’ve come on her own.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You should. She did,” Alec says, before adding, “Her one good deed.”

“Why -” Magnus says, but he feels the slap of Camille’s words again, the sting against his face, and he winces. He knows Alec notices the twitch. “If you were here, why couldn’t you - why didn’t you -”

“Why didn’t I talk you off the ledge myself?”

“Yes,” Magnus whispers, and he squeezes his eyes closed, and this time, water beads along his lashes and falls freely down his face. “Yes, Alexander. Precisely that.”

Alec glances down, fiddling with his wedding ring, twisting it around and around his knuckle. He chews on the inside of his cheek. Whatever he has to say, it hurts him. He doesn’t want to say it.

“It has to be her.”

“I don’t believe you.”

A man ducks into the station from out of the rain, shaking his umbrella and tipping his top hat at Alec and Magnus as he hurries towards the ticket office. The cold follows him like a draught and Magnus wraps his arms around his middle, digging his fingers into his sides. The wet fabric of his frock coat squelches.

He listens to the man’s footsteps as they disappear, and then he glances at Alec again, but Alec’s mouth has settled into a tight, straight line.

“Different futures,” Magnus says, “You said it yourself, nearly a hundred years ago. My life in this timeline might not end up the way it does in yours.”

“It will. I know it will.”

“You can’t know that,” Magnus presses, “You appearing here has changed that, Alexander. You’re a ripple in time. You must know how ripples work.”

“That’s why I had to make sure it was Camille who found you,” says Alec, “I can’t - I can’t change the past that made you who you are, Magnus. I had to make it right. Because if it was me -”

“If it was you, perhaps I wouldn’t have been there to begin with,” Magnus says bitterly, “And if it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t her - if I was alone up there, perhaps I would’ve jumped. You can’t know.”

“I know you ,” Alec says. “You wouldn’t have done it. People need you.”

Magnus shakes his head. It always comes back to that: people need you. You need them to need you.

“And you?” he says, his voice rendered hoarse. “Do you need me?”

Alec closes the space between them, shrugging out of his suit jacket. He shakes it out and drapes it over Magnus’ broader shoulders, and while the sleeves might be wet, the silk lining is warm and smells of Alec.

Then, he pries Magnus’ hands from his arms and covers Magnus’ fingers between his own two palms, gently rubbing at Magnus’ knuckles.

“I need you,” he says simply, “Now, in the future, in a hundred different timelines. Always. I need you to be alive to meet me, the past me, because he’s the one that needs you the most. And I think you need me too, even though I know that’s difficult for you sometimes, because you like to pretend that you can do everything by yourself and you don’t like showing people when you’re hurting, but - trust me. You can trust me. Let me take care of you. Let me return the favour.”

He brings their clenched hands up to his lips and presses his mouth to Magnus’ fingertips. The cold, the numbness in Magnus’ hands, it abates. In its place comes the rush of temporal magic, and a flutter not unlike a cautious heartbeat.

“It gets better than this,” Alec whispers. “I swear.”

&&&

The downpour doesn’t let off, and they find themselves on a bench on the empty platform at Blackfriars station, the smell of wet cobblestones replaced by creosote and stale air. This far below ground, they can’t hear the rain, but each train that rolls into the station is battered by a storm that rages a hundred feet above them.

It would take ten minutes to hop on the tube and ride to the stop closest to Magnus’ apartment in Soho, and another five minutes to run to the front door - but Magnus doesn’t mention it. He doesn’t want to move from here, he doesn’t want to lose the warm, solid press of Alec leant against his shoulder, his eyelids slowly drooping.

He doesn’t want to risk standing and disturbing the magic that keeps Alec tethered here. A little longer , he pleads with the universe. Just give me a little while longer with him.

Alec’s head drops onto Magnus’ shoulder and he lets out a snuffle that makes Magnus’ heart clench, and then a grumble as he cracks open one eye.

“What were you doing?” Magnus asks gently, toying with Alec’s long fingers, still tangled with his. “Before you came here?”

“Dinner,” Alec mumbles, words half-slurred. He gestures vaguely at his ruined suit. “The Clave has you running in circles at the moment, and they sent me to consult at the Institute in L.A. It was my first night back in Alicante.”

“We live in Alicante? In Idris?”

“Mhm,” Alec murmurs, “‘S nice. Not as bad as it sounds.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. What were we having for dinner?”

“I didn’t finish making it yet,” Alec hums, “You were home early. We got distracted.”

Magnus rubs his thumb against Alec’s wedding ring; the metal warms quickly beneath his touch, but he feels the magic shiver, as if rain-cold. He hears Alec yawn, but the weight of him against Magnus’ shoulder is slowly lessening, bit by heartbreaking bit. Magnus lets his eyes fall closed.

This way, he won’t have to see him disappear.

“How very kind of you to make time for me,” Magnus whispers.

“I’ll always make time for you, Magnus.”

Magnus hums. “Hm. ‘ It’s rotten work ’, I believe dear Orestes said.”

“Not to me, it isn’t.”

It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. His devotion, his dedication, how he slips through time and touches Magnus and changes him so quietly and yet so fundamentally, only to disappear again and leave behind only memory to while away the years.

Alec’s will alone makes waves in the magic that surrounds them, the magic that binds them together in all this impossible possibility. Perhaps his love for Magnus is enough to bend time and space. Certainly, it has been enough to draw him here, to Magnus’ side, over and over again.

You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? Magnus thinks. How to love someone fully and truthfully and with everything that you are. I’m jealous of that. I want it. I want you.

When Magnus opens his eyes, he is alone again.

FOUR | MONTMARTE, PARIS, FRANCE, 1929

Magnus is drunk. And not happily drunk, not the sort of drunk that’s dizzy and forgetful and where all the world seems like a miracle - he’s way past that. His stomach wrings itself in knots and he tastes acidic bile up the back of his throat and his skin feels hot and sweaty to the touch. He slumps over on a bar stool, his shoulders hunched and a glass of cognac between his hands, half-drunk. The ice has melted, the liquor lukewarm. His nails tap relentlessly against the crystal of the glass, but it’s like there’s cotton stuffed in his ears because he can barely hear the chime.

The bartender tries to pour him another, but Magnus waves him away. Whatever words he says are slurred. Magnus can’t remember them anyway.

How many days have you been sat here? he wonders, squinting down at his glass. The colour of the brandy swishes between brown and amber-gold. How much time has passed? How long has it been since you ended it? When was the last time you saw the sun?

The cognac has pooled in the hollow of his stomach; it sloshes around and Magnus has to grip the edge of the bar to stop him doing something stupid, like falling off his stool or upchucking all over his waistcoat. He glances down at himself and finds the buttons misaligned and his pocket watch missing and the untucked tails of his shirt stained with sticky splashes of his drink. He waves his fingers, banishing some of the mess away, but the blue magic swirling in his palm makes his head spin.

Around and around, it goes. Around and around, Magnus goes, repeating the same mistakes time and time again.

This always happens , he tells himself. You get too attached and they break your heart and you drink the pain away and do it all again. You deserve it. You never learn.

On a stage in the corner of the bar, a jazz ensemble is packing up their instruments: one man with a saxophone, another with a double bass. The singer, a woman with sharp painted nails and a sharper smile, is smoking a cigarette and already turning down drinks from her admirers.

In the low light, she looks like Camille.

Magnus’ head throbs, and he grimaces, pressing his hand to his temple as he slouches lower over the bar.

Why are you still mooning over her? Ragnor had asked him earlier this morning when he had stumbled upon Magnus on his front porch. She never cared for you, Magnus. She only cared for herself. I don’t know how you stayed with her for so long.

I’m too afraid of being alone , Magnus had thought, but did not voice. Ragnor could see it in his eyes, and the slow turning-down of Ragnor’s mouth had been too much, and Magnus had to leave.

He spent the day wandering the streets of Montmatre. It feels appropriate: Paris, the city of lovers, and therefore, the city of scorned lovers. Montmatre has always felt especially unforgiving: a woman who eats you up and spits you out, lost and disoriented in her winding streets, while, in the distance, the Eiffel Tower and the postcard picture of France play pretend.

Magnus doesn’t know how he came across this bar. It doesn’t seem to matter. Ten drinks in, all brandy tastes the same. Perhaps it’s time to switch to whiskey; it’s his heartache drink after all.

Magnus leans forward and lets his forehead rest on the bar, but the room still spins. His skin, sticky, flushed; he wants to be rid of it. Strip it off and start again, someone fresh and new and unknown. He won’t stay here, but London holds more memories he wants to outrun. He could head south where the sun is warm and the afternoons are lazy, or across the sea, and spent the night in a daze in the gardens at Santo Domingo -

Ripples follow him everywhere. He needs to go somewhere new, somewhere far away where the past can’t find him. Magnus tips his head to the side, resting his cheek on the bar. He curls his fingers and summons forth the thought of a portal, shimmering orange-red around his rings, but he doesn’t give it form. The magic weaves in and out and around his fingers, endlessly curious, tiny appendages tracing the lines in his palms from end to end. He could push out his hand and make a doorway to another world. It would only take a second and he could stumble through, and wake up tomorrow in a gutter where at least the sun might be shining.

Look at you , he thinks, curling the portal magic into his palm and extinguishing it. Planning to run away again. You’ll regret this in the morning. You’ll regret this when you’re sober.

Magnus closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, but his stomach churns again and he tastes cognac on the way back up, no longer sweet and purely bitter.

Across the bar, the bartender frowns at him and pushes him a glass of water on a napkin.

Magnus murmurs a reluctant merci , but nudges the glass away again with his fingertip. He doesn’t want to drink it; he doesn’t want kindness. He wants to wallow and remember why he’s alone again.

His temple pulses. Pressure builds in his forehead and behind his eyes and in the bridge of his nose, pinching and pulling at his skin as if vying for his attention.

And then a warm palm presses between his shoulder blades and Magnus’ entire spine lurches; he’s not sure what’s going to come out: all the brandy he’s drunk in the last half hour, or some biting remark about leaving him the Hell alone, he’s not interested . Both are going to cut up the inside of his throat and taste like vomit.

He sits up too quickly and twists in his seat, but comes face to face with a shirt and the smell of expensive cologne - sandalwood . Soft and earthy and delicate against the sweet stench of spilt beer and cigarette smoke.

The hand on his back arches, fingers pressing into the knobs of his spine.

“Hey.”

His voice, Alec’s voice, whiskey-warm. For a moment - and then it’s sour again.

Oh, of course. You’re so drunk that you’re imagining Alexander now? It’s been decades. Alec is not here. You just want so desperately to feel loved.

Magnus looks down at his half-finished cognac. He laughs in disbelief.

“You were right about Camille,” he murmurs, swilling the brandy, wondering if he might find himself in the bottom of the glass. He’s drained far too many bottles in his time, searching for exactly that without much luck. Instead, he finds heartache and hallucinations of men he hasn’t seen in forever.

“‘That night was her one good deed’, that’s what you said. Would’ve been nice if you’d given me a forewarning about her. But instead, here I am, drowning my sorrows -” He gestures suddenly with his hand and knocks his glass; the drink sloshes onto the bar. Magnus pouts.

The room spins, but now the edges are blurred. It could be magic, it might be magic, picking at the threads of time and space and slowly unravelling them, or maybe he’s past the point where he’s going to remember tonight and everything else he does now is moot. He has free reign to be stupid.

Alec’s hand sweeps up Magnus’ spine, a trail of white-hot heat that sticks to Magnus’ skin beneath his sweat-soaked shirt and waistcoat; Alec curls his fingers over Magnus’ shoulder and pushes Magnus back onto his bar stool.

Pretty strong for a figment of your drunken imagination, Magnus thinks. He didn’t even realise he left his seat.

“Magnus -” Alec starts, slipping onto the bar stool next to him, and now, Magnus gets a good look at this apparition: the fierce set of his mouth, the handsome three days of stubble along his jaw, the bruised, worried look in his eyes that Magnus in no way deserves to receive. He’s no older than that night at Blackfriars. Never older. He’s like Magnus, in that way.

And oh, Magnus hates him. Hates the part of his brain that summoned him.

Don’t talk to me , he thinks. Don’t you dare to talk to me. I can’t hear your voice, not tonight. Not when you’re just like the rest of them, but somehow worse than all. Never staying, always leaving.

Magnus grabs his drink and throws the last dredges of it down the throat. He slams the glass on the bar and turns to Alec - and it really is Alec, and not a stranger with Alec’s face. Magnus stares at him, searching, but his vision blurs, smeared by invisible fingers. The magic swarms around him, around Alec, drawn towards him like he has a magnet at the centre of his chest that thumps with the same beat as a heart.

“You’re not even here,” Magnus mumbles, but he reaches out to jab Alec in the chest, and Alec is as solid and warm and unmoving as ever. “I’m just pretending that you’re here so that I can shout at you. So that I’m not alone for yet another night -”

Alec wraps his fingers around Magnus’ wrist, stilling the prod of his finger into Alec’s sternum.

“Magnus,” he says quietly, “I’m here, I’m real. Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?”

Alec’s frown deepens. He stares at Magnus openly, the colour in his dark eyes swirling, but he holds Magnus’ hand fast against his chest, even as Magnus tries to pull away. “No, you don’t. What’s happened?”

Magnus laughs sharply. Drunkenly. “Everyone keeps leaving me. That’s what.”

He grabs his empty glass and leans across the bar, flagging down the bartender (“ un whisky, s'il vous plaît ”), but Alec takes it from his hand and sets it aside, out of reach. He hands Magnus the water instead.

“Magnus, you know that’s not true.”

“Oh? I do, do I?” Magnus retorts. “The man with the charango? Do you remember him? Five years that lasted, and then it was over. I watched him get on a boat in Callao and never come back. Or how about Camille? Or you .”

Alec glances around the bar, dragging his stool closer, but Magnus could not give a damn if anyone is staring. The cognac lights a fire in him; he feels it scorch, he feels it sear. It turns his insides black in sudden, irrational anger.

“Magnus, c’mon -”

“Is it easy? To come and go and not have to say goodbye over and over again and not know when will be the next time I might see you? If you’re coming back at all?”

“Magnus -”

“It’s been fifty-seven years, Alec!” Magnus snaps, surging to his feet. The stool topples over, and Magnus grips the edge of the bar to save himself from the same fate. Blood rushes to his head and black spots pitter across his eyes as he sways. He clenches his teeth and screws tight his eyes until the ache fragments through his jaw and up into his temple. “Fifty-seven years since that night on the bridge, do you know that? I’ve been counting. And every night since, I’ve looked for you, I’ve waited for you, I’ve - I’ve - every single man I’ve walked past, I’ve had to stop and check and see if it’s you. I’ve hoped for you .”

Alec stands too, reaching for Magnus’ shoulder. “Magnus, you’re drunk. Let me take you home.”

Magnus snorts, clumsily batting Alec’s hand away. “‘Let me take you home?’” he parrots, “Did that work on me the first time, hm? Is that the line you used? Is that the line I used?”

Alec suffers every blow, his mouth twitching, but the look in his eyes only grows more determined.

How much does it take to push you away? Magnus wants to beg. What do I have to say to make you leave and not come back?

“No,” Alec says quietly, and he touches Magnus again, his hand on Magnus’ shoulder, his thumb brushing against Magnus’ neck, slipping beneath his cravat to find his pulsepoint. “No. I said, ‘relationships take effort’. And then you said, ‘I’m all for effort’, and you meant it.”

Magnus scoffs, but his heart aches painfully, like Alec has wormed his way past Magnus’ outer walls and taken his heart in a vice and squeezed. It sounds like him. It sounds like the sort of thing he’d say when faced with a beautiful Shadowhunter with infinite patience and a mouth worth kissing.

Magnus’ head swims again, and he staggers off balance. Alec is quick to catch him, looping his arm around Magnus’ back.

He buries his nose in Magnus’ hair, just behind Magnus’ ear. Alec breathes in deeply, and it steadies him. He breathes in deeply, and for a moment, Magnus wonders what it must be like for Alec to see the person he loves most in the world try agonizingly to pull himself apart, while Alec knows he won’t be around long enough to see it through.

“Let me take you home,” Alec whispers, “Please.”

&&&

Montematre is moonlit as they stagger from the bar. Alec is strong, strong enough to support Magnus’ weight, probably strong enough to carry him, but Magnus’ coordination is shot to pieces.

It’s not the only thing that’s shattered. His resolve lies in fragments at his feet.

Red lights gleam in the dark as women hang from windows and call out to the late-night drunks in the street, beckoning them upstairs for the price of a few gold coins. A parade of towncars hurtle past, a young woman hanging out the window and screeching with laughter, waving her hat in Alec’s direction as the roar of the engine rumbles. They fade into the distance. And as far as the eye can see, there are rooftops, and there are men on the rooftops, singing love songs to a city that longs to be serenaded, who will stay up until the sky turns from blue to blush with the twilight.

Magnus dares not look up. He stares at his feet, willing his double-vision to go away so he can walk a straight line long enough to reach his apartment on the banks of the Seine - or at least summon a portal there.

He leans into Alec’s side, unbalanced, pressing his nose against the collar of Alec’s shirt; there’s that sandalwood again and leather and the sweet sugar of magic, comforting, familiar, too much. Far too much.

Magnus needs more. Instead of whiskey, let him drown in this.

He pulls himself close, until every point on his body is flush with Alec, and he feels the surprised gasp leave Alec’s mouth and it almost feels good . Alec’s arm tightens around Magnus’ back, his fingers gripping Magnus’ waistcoat to stop them from toppling over, but there’s a part of Magnus that wants to tumble to the ground. He wants to fall through the puddles that fill the gaps in the pavement, into the upside-down world, the other future where Alec is from, where they’re in love, where this Alec loves all of him as he is now, and not just a figment.

Magnus buries his head in Alec’s shoulder. Words escape him, humid and nauseous against Alec’s throat.

“I can’t wait another hundred years to see you again, Alexander.”

He hates it, he does. He hates the way Alec looks at him with a history they haven’t yet shared.

Alec’s fingers dig into his ribs. A moment of hesitation. “You won’t have to wait that long,” he murmurs, quiet enough to be a secret. “I promise.”

Magnus scoffs bitterly. “You don’t know that.”

Alec stops, forcing Magnus to stop too. Magnus squints at him, seeing double, but Alec shakes his head. “Magnus, I do.”

“How?”

“Because,” says Alec, and once again, Magnus feels the tug of magic kneading at his skin, a string of fate that wraps around his bottom rib and leads beyond his chest and enters Alec’s in exactly the same place. “You and me, we always find our way back to each other. Whatever happens.”

He’s said those words before, Magnus knows he has. Not to him, not yet, but - one day.

How far away is one day, Alec?

It doesn’t matter. Alec believes it with every fibre of his being anyway. Magnus knows that too.

&&&

Sunrise hesitates just below the horizon by the time Magnus’ apartment comes into view, his feet aching terribly, blisters on his blisters. He’d tried to call a portal, but his magic had spat out hisses and sparks, and now, he doesn’t want to know how far they’ve walked across the city in a strange stupored silence.

The sky is pinkening in the distance, spilt with shades of orange as Magnus stumbles into the lobby of his building and Alec nods at the doorman. In the elevator, Magnus mashes the button for the penthouse and then leans back against the handrail, tilting his head against the mirrored wall. He pushes his shirt sleeves up about his elbows and undoes the buttons of his waistcoat, letting it hang loose, and then he catches his own reflection in the mirror on the other side: his cravat is crooked and his hair unkempt; his red-shot eyes; his makeup smudged and day-old.

Alec slides in next to him, his hands folded behind his back, and Magnus watch him in the mirror too. His eyes roam the long length of Alec’s body, his heavy boots and his fitted trousers, up to the holster lashed around his thigh and the buttons of his shirt. Magnus lingers on the lines of his neck disappearing into the open collar of his shirt, and then on his mouth as Alec worries on his lower lip, deep in thought.

Everything blurs in and out of existence. Magnus’ heart beats sluggishly, pulling itself through the cognac settled in his stomach.

The elevator shudders upwards and their eyes meet in the reflection in the mirror.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alec asks.

Magnus shakes his head. “No. Not really,” he murmurs. His temple now aches with the early onset of sobriety. “It’s a terribly sad story that doesn’t bear repeating. I’ll be fine once I’ve slept it off.”

Alec’s frown deepens, and he looks down, fiddling with his wedding ring again. The silence is only disturbed by the ding of the elevator as it rises floor by slowing floor.

“Can I tell you something?” Alec asks, after a moment. He turns to Magnus; the magic confined to the small space of the elevator ripples but has nowhere to go. It bounces back against the mirror, colliding with itself, and Magnus has to pull his eyes away from the mid-distance, from the patterns no-one can see but him, to look at Alec.

“Always.”

The corner of Alec’s mouth twitches upwards, almost a smile, but it fades. “When we meet, I - I never thought I’d get this. I never thought I’d meet someone like you and I’d decided that was okay. Well, not okay, but liveable. I had my job, my family, my parabatai - other things. I thought I could get by without-” He gestures between them. “- this.”

“And then I swept into your life and changed all that?”

Alec’s smile blooms again, distant, sad, somewhat wry. Faint colour creeps up his neck. “No. No, you came along and it - it made it worse. It was like, I could see what I could have and then it was even further out of my reach, y’know? Everything else in my life, it was like black and white, but you - you were colour. And that terrified me. I got one tiny look at it - at us - and it made me realise that that’s all I’d ever get because I wasn’t allowed to want it. You don’t just get to be a Shadowhunter and - well. This.”

“This,” Magnus repeats. “Married?”

“Not just that. It was everything. And I ran away from it - or I tried. I was going to do something really stupid, but you … Magnus, you never gave up on me, even then.”

A breath catches in Magnus’ throat; the hand of magic encircles its warm fingers around his windpipe and applies just enough pressure for his next words to come out as a whisper or maybe as a croak. “What are you trying to say?”

“I thought I was gonna be alone for my entire life. I’d accepted it, just like you,” Alec says honestly, “I was wrong.”

The golden hand above the elevator doors tips over, and the doors open onto the penthouse. Magnus cannot move. His hands grip the bar behind him, and he stares at Alec, unwilling to blink, unable to take a breath.

He feels both cut adrift and rooted to this moment, held only to the ground by the steadfast look in Alec’s eyes. The universe moves around him, his determined heart at its very centre.

No, not the universe. Just yours.

Magnus sees that now.

“Magnus …” Alec whispers, stepping forward and reaching out. His fingers brush against Magnus’ bare forearm leaving goosebumps in their wake.

Magnus jerks away. He feels the sickness of the alcohol, but not the dizziness.

You talked about being scared. I know that too. I’m scared of this hurting my heart more than everything else that’s happened before.

“Let’s go inside,” he murmurs, “I need to lie down.”

&&&

The haze before the dawn echoes with the rattling sound of tires on Parisian cobblestones, the moonlight barking of neighbourhood dogs, and the ever-present rumble of Paris’ heart slowly stirring into wakefulness, but Magnus’ room is still and silent. His bed is unmade where he left it yesterday morning, sheets rumpled and half-draped across the mattress, pillows strewn against the headboard. Clothes litter the floor, unpaired shoes and untied cravats, a dress of Camille’s or two. On the bedside table, there’s an uncorked and half-emptied bottle of whiskey.

Halfway between dreams and sleep, Magnus is vaguely aware of the throbbing in his forehead, but he’s too delirious to feel real pain, not with Alec floating at his back like a ghost, close enough to feel, not quite close enough to touch.

Good , Magnus thinks distantly, his eyelids heavy as he drops down on his mattress and kicks off his shoes, his whole body suddenly sore. It’s more a hollow, tender feeling, as if his skin has coloured with poppy bruises, and clumsy, invisible hands poke and prod at these tender spots, as if seeking out old wounds. But the feeling doesn’t ebb or flow or fade like it should - it just lingers, a present thought in his foggy head.

The dream is strange: emptiness and longing, the vastness of a lonely city, the sickening of alcohol, the want for pliant skin just for the sake of touch. The overwhelming presence of Alec in his space, standing before him with his hands clasped behind his back, both a dutiful soldier and a perfect husband, drenched in Magnus’ own magic and the nauseating spin of time and space that’s not meant to be.

Magnus feels like he might vomit. God, what is wrong with me .

“Alexander,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. I need you. I need you in a way that I don’t think you can give. Not yet.

Alec kneels down in front of him and lays his left hand on Magnus’ knee, his ring attracting the faint wisps of light that slip through the blinds.

“You’re allowed to want things,” he says, “You taught me that.”

“Even things I have no right wanting?”

“Even those,” Alec murmurs. “I wish I could give them to you.”

Magnus stirs, reaching out blindly for Alec’s jacket - the need to pull him close is overwhelming - but it’s Alec’s hand he finds, Alec’s hand that squeezes Magnus’ fingers tightly. His wedding ring feels cold now. Magnus’ focuses on that against the pounding in his head.

With his other hand, Alec loosens the cravat around Magnus throat and pulls it free of his collar, folding it carefully upon the nightstand. Then, he smooths Magnus’ hair away from his forehead, his fingers lingering against Magnus’ temple, as if drawn to the point where the blood pulses the loudest, knowing his touch will quiet it.

He knows everything about Magnus. All the tiny little things that no-one has ever paid attention to, Alec knows them intimately.

“Magnus,” Alec murmurs, his finger ghosting around the socket of Magnus’ eyes. “You need to sleep. Sober up.”

“I won’t until you’re gone.”

“It could be hours yet. C’mon. I’ll stay here with you.”

Magnus rolls onto his side, his cheek hitting the pillow - and the room swirls in dark colour - and he looks Alec in the eye. Alec’s expression is grave, his mouth drawn in a severe line. A crease appears between his eyebrows, and Magnus wishes it gone; it makes him look far older than he is. It makes him look as old as Magnus feels, like he has lived all these lifetimes between their visits too.

“Stop that,” Magnus whispers. He untangles his hand from Alec’s and presses his thumb between Alec’s eyebrows, smoothing out his frown lines.

“Stop what?”

Magnus shakes his head, and drags his thumb down the length of Alec’s nose, across his cupid’s bow, and onto his lips, pushing down until blood gathers at the touch and Alec’s lower lip blooms in a dark, perfect red.

Alec exhales carefully, cool against Magnus’ skin. His eyes are wide when Magnus finds them again.

“Will I see you again?” Magnus asks. He has to know. Sooner or later, Alec is going to vanish with the morning and not come back. The residual temporal energy will only last so long.

“The magic’s not gone yet,” Alec replies, but the sorrow lingers. “Maybe - maybe I’ve got one jump left. I don’t know.”

“Am I getting close?”

“Close?”

“Close to you, in your present. My future. Wherever it is that you are and I am not.”

Alec doesn’t speak for a moment, but Magnus can see him thinking. His thumb rubs at the bare knuckle of Magnus’ fourth finger.

“It’s soon,” he settles on, but he still won’t tell Magnus exactly when. “But I can’t-”

Just give me a year , Magnus thinks. Give me a decade. Something to hold onto.

“But you can’t just wish away your life waiting to catch up, Magnus,” Alec continues, “There’s so much - there’s so much you’re gonna miss, and you’ll regret it if you do. There’s so much ahead of you that makes you who you are -” He takes Magnus’ hand by the wrist and draws his fingers close; he presses a soft, worshipful kiss to the pad of Magnus’ thumb. “It makes you the man I fell in love with.”

Magnus’ heart lurches. “Are you always so frank?”

Alec smiles softly. “You love it.”

I do , Magnus realises. God above, I do.

FIVE | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, USA, 1989

“That’s the last of them,” says Catarina, as the portal closes behind her, the swirling orange magic dissipating into sparks that extinguish on the rug. “I never thought we’d get the High Warlock of Madrid taking refugees from the Circle - what did you offer him? Diamonds? Jewels? Oh, Magnus, it better not be your apartment in London, I know how long he’s been coveting that.”

“I am most certainly not giving him the apartment,” Magnus says, “The old coot just owed me a favour from a very long time ago and I decided to cash it in. The High Warlock may be a stick in the mud, but very few people hate Shadowhunters as much as him. He won’t let Valentine Morgenstern come within a spell’s throw of the Warlock community in Spain.”

Magnus swans towards his drinks stand and picks up two glasses: one, tall and thin-stemmed with a trio of olives propped against the rim, and the other dark and purple and glittery. He holds it out to Cat, but she raises her palm and shakes her head.

Magnus raises his eyebrows, a silent ‘ suit yourself ’ as he takes a sip of his drink. “Besides,” he continues, licking the taste of the martini from his lips, “There’s nothing he could give me in exchange for that apartment. Where else would I stay when visiting Ragnor, if not there?”

Catarina rolls her eyes. “You haven’t visited Ragnor in fifty years. You and I both know that’s not the reason you want to keep that apartment. I seem to remember you insisting that you needed it for a very special occasion, last time the High Warlock tried to buy it off you.”

Magnus waves his hand noncommittally. “I was drunk. Whatever I said can’t be held against me.”

“So you’re denying it then?” Cat says, but her eyebrow is raised and her mouth curves into a wry, crooked grin. She folds her hands across her chest and cocks her hip. “You don’t remember saying you were going to spend your honeymoon in London and you’ve already planned it all out, despite the fact you and I both know you’ve never been married, not once in eight hundred years, even though I’m pretty sure a number of people have asked you -”

“I said no such thing, and even if I did, I maintain that I was incredibly drunk. You’re putting words in my mouth, Catarina.”

Magnus flicks his fingers and the balcony doors swing open, daylight streaming into the loft from across the East River in shafts of yellow. He squints, raising one hand to shield his eyes. The shapes of skyscrapers coalesce; the Brooklyn Bridge catches the reflection of the water and the brown stone ripples.

Magnus wanders out onto the balcony, setting his glass down on the edge and spreading his hands wide. He surveys the city: the bustle of Brooklyn, the cacophony of car horns and the sound of construction, Manhattan looming in the distance.

The city that never sleeps. Except when Shadowhutners are killing and torturing Downworlders and then, then it’s time to turn a blind eye -

Catarina hesitates in the doorway, watching him from afar. He doesn’t turn back to look at her, but he can feel her eyes on his back.

“Are you worried?” she asks. It’s a loaded question and only has one answer.

“I’m worried about a lot of things,” Magnus replies, “I’m worried that Valentine Morgenstern and his lackeys are going to wipe out the Downworld population of New York. I’m worried that we can’t trust the Shadowhunters to look out for our best interests any more, not if it means going against other Nephilim. We’re on our own.”

“The Shadowhunters have always been that way,” Cat frowns, “Trusting them is stupid, you’ve said so yourself. Nephilim are all the same.”

Not all of them , Magnus thinks, not one. I still have hope that things can change.

But we can’t afford to wait for that. Too many Downworld lives are on the line.

Magnus sighs heavily, turning to face her. He leans back against the edge of the balcony. “No, you’re right,” he says, “I’ll summon the other Downworld leaders and we’ll discuss how best to deal with the New York Institute. I’ll send you a fire message so you can be there.”

“I’ll do my best,” says Cat, “I’m moving a lot of people out of the city this week. I’ve got a clan of Vampires going to Tokyo tonight, and another six Warlocks to send to Madrid. It’s hard enough summoning so many portals, but harder still when we have to hide the magical trace from the Nephilim so that they don’t know what we’re doing. My magic is shot and I’m exhausted.”

Magnus smiles tightly. “You worked for the Underground Railroad in the fifties, Cat. There’s no-one else I would trust with this.”

“Yeah, the eighteen fifties. That was a long time ago, Magnus. I thought we’d seen the last of this. Genocidal maniacs hunting and killing our people.”

So did I , Magnus thinks. So did I .

&&&

He lingers on the balcony a while after she’s gone, long after his drink is empty. He runs his fingers up the stem of the glass and listens to it sing, a sound shrill and sharp against the rumble of the city at large.

He has so much to do - potions to make and clients to call, and there are a stack of fire messages on his desk waiting to be read, all from young Warlocks desperate for his help to get out of the city before the Circle find them - but he finds he cannot move, not for a quiet moment that seems slotted in between the passage of time. His eyes follow a lone seagull coasting on the updraughts, hanging motionless in the bright blue sky. It bobs in the wind, its caws carrying across Brooklyn, and it lulls Magnus into a stupor where the rest of the world is drowned out.

His magic envelops him, a shield between him and New York, between him and the world he has stopped running from and finally turned to face. He taps his fingernail upon the stone edge of the balcony and listens to his magic reverberate - tip, tip, tip - and then he feels a swell, a gentle pushing on his wards at his front door.

Magnus frowns, peering back into the loft. The protective magic shifts again, but rather than someone trying to break in, scratching and plucking at the spell, desperate to unravel it, it feels as if its a curtain parted and someone slips through quietly. Very few people can get past Magnus’ wards - he can count them on one hand. Catarina, Raphael, Ragnor - if the old bat ever left his cottage in England to say hello to a friend who misses him -

Frozen, he watches as the front door opens, and then, slipping into the loft like he’s lived there all his life - Alec.

His Alexander. Of course the wards already know him. He was woven into their magic before Magnus even cast the spell.

Magnus’ heart beats loudly, a rhythm he hasn’t felt in a long time, a reverberation in his chest that he knows intimately, locked away in his memories.

He watches Alec’s eyes dart around the loft, lingering on the drinks bar and frowning at the large sofa Magnus has been planning to switch out for something more modern. He sets his bow and quiver down by the door, and then his fingertips trail across the back of an armchair, and he steps around the rugs on the floor without even looking, as if he already knows where they lie.

A smile curves Alec’s beautiful mouth: it’s soft, loose, completely at peace. His gaze flicks up and he sees Magnus standing on the balcony, and that same smile blooms with the sunlight as it passes across his face.

And in that moment, Magnus realises: this is his home .

This loft in Brooklyn is Alec’s home. It’s their home. They live here together, they’ve made a life here together; this space is Alec’s space.

“Hello, stranger,” Magnus says, leaning back against the balcony, basking in the roam of Alec’s eyes up the length of his body as he, too, steps out into the view of Brooklyn. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

“What year is it?” Alec asks. He’s wearing his usual jeans and jacket, but his shirt shines with subtle silver thread, and Magnus knows that same shirt sits in his closet right now, still in its garment bag. Magnus bought it only last week.

.

“1989,” Magnus says, curving his body towards Alec as Alec rests his hip against the stone railing. “George Bush is President, the High Warlock of Bangkok skipped my birthday party, and Madonna released an excellent fourth album. It’s hard to guess what might go down in history.”

“Sixty years since Paris,” Alec remarks.

“The blink of an eye,” Magnus says, offering a smile. “You don’t have a single grey hair.”

Alec ducks his head on a blush. The corners of his eyes crinkle. “Got a couple wrinkles though. Perils of the job, I guess.”

Magnus hums. He could say that the faint lines around Alec’s eyes make him handsome, or he could remark on how he wouldn’t mind feeling the bite of Alec’s stubble against his skin - and it all would deepen the colour in Alec’s cheeks - but he’s content enough just to look.

So, he looks. He looks, he marvels, and while the ache in his chest is still there, it’s quietened. It’s softened. It doesn’t bruise him anymore because he’s made peace with it, with the tenderness of his skin and his carefully-concealed heart whenever Alec is nearby.

The magic trickles across his skin, the barest touch. A long time ago on the streets of Madrid, it was a flood, a wave punching against his chest, but now, the same temporal magic fades, hissing across the metaphorical sand as it retreats back into the sea.

The spell is weakening, the tear in space and time slowly stitching itself back together, and soon enough, Alec will no longer be able to step through. But Alec - oh, his eyes have softened and he gazes at Magnus with such an overflowing amount of love, and Magnus wants to know how he ever missed it.

How he ran into that Shadowhunter all those centuries ago and didn’t know what this was at first glance.

I should’ve known you then as I do now. I should’ve known you then as you’ve known me always.

“What?” Alec asks, his smile slanted.

Magnus shakes his head. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

Disantly, Magnus hears a hiss, the whistle of a fire message cutting through his wards. He snatches it out of mid-air, embers cooling on his fingertips, the edges of the parchment scorched.

“Is it urgent?” Alec asks.

“No,” Magnus replies, but he scrunches up his mouth and frowns anyway. “It’s Catarina. She’s been moving Downworlders out of the city and needs my help with masking the energy signature of a portal.”

“Moving Downworlders - oh . The Circle. Valentine.”

“The fact that you’ve heard of him doesn’t fill me with much hope,” says Magnus, snapping his fingers and turning the fire message to ash. He nods at Alec to follow him inside.

“I don’t know him, I’ve met him,” Alec corrects, “Wish I hadn’t.” His voice drops and he fiddles with his ring. “Wish you hadn’t.”

“There are a great many things I wish I hadn’t done,” says Magnus, leading the way into the loft and towards his study. “But as someone very wise once told me, you can’t just wish away the things that made you who you are.”

Even with his Shadowhunter reflexes, there’s something endearing in the way Alec almost walks into a bookcase, unaccustomed to it being next to the door. Alec glares at it, and Magnus huffs with laughter, sliding behind his desk. He picks up the stack of unburnt fire messages next to his quill and leafs through them.

“The Circle is torturing Downworlders,” he says as Alec hovers on the other side of the desk. “Catarina and I are ferrying as many as we can out of New York to sanctuary cities. The New York Warlock council is not happy with me, of course, because they think we should stay and fight, but - as High Warlock of Brooklyn, my responsibility is to the safety of my people first, and not to the war that Valentine Morgenstern is so eager to fight. It’s kept me very busy.”

“I’m glad,” says Alec, “I mean - I’m not glad that this is happening, just that you’re - that you’ve found purpose. Back in Paris, I thought - I was - you save people , Magnus. That’s what you do.”

“You flatter me.”

“It’s the truth.”

Magnus hesitates, but Alec doesn’t look away. The way he stares, sometimes, wide-eyed and earnest and unblinking, makes Magnus feel so see-through. And it’s in those moments that Magnus finds he knows himself, the truest version of who he is and what he can do: he sees himself as Alec sees him.

Whole.

Magnus clears his throat pointedly and summons his caldron and pestle and mortar to his desk.

“I need to make a magical restoration potion for Catarina,” he explains, “Can you pass me the cypress? It’s in the jar on the -”

Alec reaches out and grabs a small glass jar from the shelf behind him, handing it to Magnus. He doesn’t read the label, but as Magnus uncorks the jar and turns it upside down, a few green branchlets shake out into his palm. Magnus inhales the sweetness of pine and the dry peppery smell of juniper.

“You knew where that was without even looking,” he murmurs, staring at his hand, “I know what that means.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means I’m getting close.”

Magnus crushes the cypress leaves in his fist and tosses them into his cauldron, and then he steps around the desk, crowding Alec against the pantry. The glass jars clink as Alec’s shoulders knock against the shelf.

“It’s a different me,” Alec murmurs, “I told you, when we first meet, I’m -”

“You’re still you,” Magnus says. “That’s all that matters.”

Magnus cups Alec’s neck, kneading his thumbs into the soft, pliant skin beneath Alec’s jaw. It makes Alec’s lips part on instinct. His heartbeat is traitorously loud.

“I think this is the last time I’m going to see you,” Alec whispers. “The magic left over from that spell is wearing off, so I probably won’t - “ His sentence breaks and he swallows thickly, and Magnus follows the slow, pronounced bob of his throat. Magnus strokes his fingers over the tendons in Alec’s neck, feeling them jump and shift with his touch. “I probably won’t get to …”

“You have your own future,” Magnus replies, “And I have mine. You’ve known from the start that this meeting was an accident.”

Alec chews on his lower lip, his head jerking. His eyes have grown dark, his irises eclipsed by his pupils. One hand comes up to cover Magnus’ against the side of his throat. His wedding ring glints and feels cold against Magnus’ fingers.

“It happens soon,” Alec confesses, and the words tumble out as if he might regret them if he says them any slower. “Less than thirty years. In Manhattan -”

“Spoilers, surely?”

“- and I take one look at you and it terrifies me, because I want it so much and I’d never wanted anyone like that before.”

Magnus sucks in a sharp breath, and then he surges up onto the balls of his feet, threading his fingers through Alec’s hair, and he kisses Alec hard.

Alec stumbles back into the shelves and the jars and pots and trinkets clink and jangle, but none of them break, and Alec grips Magnus by the lapels of his jacket and pulls him close.

Magnus’ magic stutters - and then it leaps. He feels it surge into Alec at every point they touch, and Alec returns it in like: Magnus’ own magic, but more, outpouring with this timeless and irrevocable love that makes no sense, and yet, here Magnus is, cradling it between two palms and feeling the way is disturbs the universe - palpable, tangible thing.

Alec kisses him deeply, his tongue flicking against the seam of Magnus’ mouth, his teeth nipping at Magnus’ lower lip. He kisses Magnus like he’s been kissing him for years - and God, he has, he has - and he knows each and every way to make Magnus’ heart beat faster.

Then, Magnus can feel his smile: tiny, guilty, perfect, and the kiss softens. Alec presses his lips to the corner of Magnus’ mouth, to his jaw, to the soft skin of his cupid’s bow as Magnus, each one more gentle than the last as Magnus threads his fingers through the dark hair above Alec’s ears.

And Alec trembles, the magic they share trembles, shivering through Magnus’ fingers and up his arms and into his chest where it bounces across each rib. It breathes, and Magnus takes each of Alec’s shaky inhales and exhales as his own.

The kiss fades, until it’s just the brush of Alec’s lips across his, and then Alec tilts his forehead against Magnus’, his breathing deep. His fingers are still knotted in the lapels of Magnus’ jacket.

“I never -” Alec whispers, and Magnus feels every word against his mouth. “I never thought that I’d - that felt like our first kiss again. I never thought I’d feel it a second time.”

Magnus brushes his nose against Alec’s. “And which of us did it better?” he asks, “Him or me?”

“You. Always you,” Alec murmurs, “He is you.”

The buzzing in the magic has yet to dissipate, and Magnus can feel the invisible threads of the fading spell wrap their tendrils around Alec’s arms and legs and begin to tug. They don’t have long.

Magnus closes his eyes, holding Alec near to him. “I stand no chance, Alexander,” he confesses, “The moment I meet you, I’m already going to feel so -”

“I’m going to feel the same thing. I promise.”

Magnus shakes his head. Alec doesn’t understand it; he can’t. The feeling has always been too big for Magnus, to unwieldy for him to grasp, and yet Alec lives and breathes it: this thing called love.

“It makes no sense, but I know you,” Magnus says. “I know who you are in the same way I know my magic. It’s intimate. Inherent to who I am, and yet it’s a life I haven’t yet lived.”

“It’ll make sense,” Alec replies, and his lifts his hand to cup Magnus’ jaw, but the touch of his fingertips is incorporeal. His eyes find Magnus’, endlessly. “It makes sense to me.”

“I look forward to meeting you,” Magnus whispers, as Alec’s skin turns translucent and becomes the same dust particulates always suspended in a beam of silent sunlight.

PLUS ONE | MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, USA, 2016

The lights of Pandemonium pulse with electrochromic intensity: blue, purple, green, white, strobe passing across the crowd like a searchlight, plunging young thrill seekers in and out of shadow. The floor is sticky with spilled beer, the air is sweet and sickly with Seelie magic, but it’s the music that laves across Magnus’ skin and always fills him with that heady rush.

That, and the power flickering in his fingertips as he summons a portal, the thrill of holding a Shadowhunter by the throat with just the lick of his magic, the power pulsing from the red jewel in his hand, returned to him by Clary Fairchild and that insufferable blonde Shadowhunter, and engraved on the back with the single word, amor -

True love can never die .

“Look out!”

The arrow comes out of nowhere, piercing a hidden Circle member through the heart. The man falls with a thud, but electricity skitters up the back of Magnus’ neck.

He turns. The archer comes striding down the stairs and pushes his way through the crowd, brushing Magnus’ shoulder on his way to retrieve the arrow. He’s young - painfully young - and skittish and beautiful and, at last, unfamiliar.

There’s not a single wisp of temporal magic to be felt. The universe, for once, is whole and faultless.

It’s taken almost four hundred years.

“Who are you?” Magnus asks, already breathless. He knows the answer. What was it he’s supposed to say? More like medium rare?

He watches the Shadowhunter toss his Seraph blade in the air and catch it. The roaming yellow-gold lights of the club pass across his bare forearms, the empty space on his left ring finger.

Heat unfurls beneath Magnus’ skin.

The magic sings.

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