#jilly writes

2.

The next week Magnus shows up even earlier, wandering up to a literal viewing gallery he’d never been in before, one long hallway with portraits and busts of previous Heads along one side, and an ornate stone balustrade overseeing the training rooms on the other.

Training room, singular.

It's broken up by walls and screens and weapon racks and hanging mats and assorted cabinets, but he’s realizing from up here that’s it’s really all a singular gigantic hall, the length of the entire building. He’s struck still by the mental image of the entirety of it full of Shadowhunters, training or marching or fighting or planning tactics to use against him and his kind, an entire fucking battalion prepared to mow them all down.

He closes his eyes and swallows.

He opens them again to find Alexander looking up at him, a raised eyebrow the only sign he suspects something of Magnus’ distress.

Magnus waves him back to work, and reminds himself that the only way things will continue to get better is if they don’t all give up in despair, and now is not the time to borrow nightmares. The art gallery behind him does not help the disquieting feeling of being under siege though, stern glares and condescension from blank eyes of stone and paint.

Well, then. He refuses to be intimidated by sub-par nephilim artwork; that would be embarrassing. He lifts his chin and turns and faces them all. He walks the whole room, looking at the assorted plaques and labels, barely recognizing the Maryse Lightwood on the wall in comparison to the Maryse Trueblood he’d had coffee with a few days ago. He tries to find where Alec’s eventual portrait will join the parade of grim faces, and wonders who the Clave gets to make these. Shadowhunters assuredly don’t support their own as anything except soldiers, but neither do they allow anyone else to represent them. 

They’re not any of them particularly appealing, martial and formal and dark, but they’re also, he’s forced to admit, not poorly made. There’s an ornate F in the corner of one portrait, and Magnus remembers Jocelyn, a Fairchild before she’d been a Morgenstern, a woman who’d clearly been trained in art before he’d met her. She had to have learned when she’d still been an active-duty Shadowhunter, and he wonders how many of these might have been made by Fairchilds, if their line was permitted their art as long as it served the Clave first.

Permitted or perhaps expected, required, to hone an aptitude the Clave found useful?

Magnus wonders if Clary knows.

He wonders if she wants to know. He wonders if he wants to know, if this is something he could ask, should ask, if it means anything at all besides he was right that most nephilim don’t care how anyone else might see them, might try to show them to the rest of the Down World. If he was right in the fact that the Clave gives none of them any choices about what they do in service to their cause.

He files it away.

Perhaps he’ll let it go. Perhaps he’ll add it to his list of random Alec questions that, despite regularly getting answers, never seems to get any shorter because there’s always always more. He smiles, backtracks along the railing following the sound of Jace’s heckling voice until he’s overlooking his husband.

Alec’s sparring partner clearly isn’t the same Shadowhunter he caught a glimpse of last week, but she still isn’t someone Magnus recognizes. Magnus wonders idly if he should start doing a better job of learning their names, but gets distracted soon enough by how nice a view it is, Alec and sweat and skill and strength and flexibility. The almost musical click clack of two pairs of fighting sticks making contact as they circle and come together and break apart over and over again are a counterpoint to the low warm tones of Alec’s voice just audible beneath them, though it’s not clear enough for Magnus to understand any of the words; it’s soothing and oddly peaceful for something so inherently about violence.

It’s a pleasant enough way to spend his time.

Especially as he knows he’ll have Alec all to himself soon enough.

3.

The next week Alec is in an actual firing range. Shooting range? Magnus is using terminology based on cops and guns in tv shows, who knows what the Shadowhunters call it.

Magnus doesn’t see Jace observing; it’s just Alec and yet another unknown Shadowhunter. A thought intrudes, an echo of last week’s, that maybe Magnus is more distant from his husband’s Institute than is ideal. Institutes are usually run by a pair of married Shadowhunters —as even Magnus knows— and while obviously he couldn’t (and wouldn’t want to) be recognized by the Clave or Council in any official manner, it’s possible there are ways he could help, could be here for Alec regardless?

He’s not sure if he’s capable of letting himself be accessible to Shadowhunters as a group rather than specific individuals. They’ve been on the other side of that line they drew between themselves and the Down World for so long…

Jace shows up in the gallery and leans against the railing while Magnus is still considering if the rank and file would want a warlock even knowing their names, much less being involved in their day-to-day, even if he is their Head’s spouse; especially again that he is their Head’s husband rather than wife.

Jace doesn’t say anything, looking down at Alec and mostly ignoring Magnus, but he did wind up here not that long after Magnus did. It might be just a coincidence, but perhaps he was observing after all, and Magnus missed him?

“I know I am biased,” Magnus begins a few minutes later, pausing while Jace scoffs at him in not unjustified derision. “But he’s very good at this, isn’t he?”

“Which this?” Jace glances at him sideways, just enough of a smile on his face to warn Magnus that he’s going to be difficult. “Getting sweaty so you can ogle him? He does seem to have prioritized that.”

Magnus considers sticking out his tongue. Or possibly casting a very small lightning bolt at Jace’s feet.

Jace’s smile widens at whatever Magnus’ expression does. “Archery then? You know he is. That’s why you wanted his bow and arrow for payment for Izzy’s trial, wasn’t it?”

Magnus gives him the look that that deserves, and considers upgrading to a medium sized lightning bolt.

“What?” Jace returns his glare with an overtly fake innocent look. “Whatever else could you be asking?”

Before Magnus can think of a properly scathing but not actually injurious reply, they’re interrupted by Alec himself, calling up to the gallery. “If you’re free to annoy my husband, you clearly have enough time to give Fuller some attention, don’t you?”

Jace laughs, his eyes glow gold, and he leaps over the balcony to the room below like the adolescent menace that he probably always will be.

The Shadowhunter—Fuller, Magnus reminds himself—coughs to cover his own laugh. “Does Herondale even know how to use a bow?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” Alec claps Fuller on the shoulder, “let me know what you decide.”

He turns, shoulder-checks Jace just hard enough to interrupt him before he can say whatever nonsense he’d been thinking, and starts out of the room.

“Meet you out front?” Magnus calls down.

Alec grins up at him in agreement. “Give me five.”

4.

Magnus snoops through Alec’s calendar properly so he can show up at the beginning of Alec’s sparring session the next week. Jace might be a certifiable asshole, but he is also not wrong about how much Magnus enjoys the view.

Plus, that way he’s got a better chance of catching that week’s name, of adding it to the new list in his mind, the things I’m learning about the Institute list. He wants more on it before he brings up his question to Alec, because he thinks he needs to know more before he can really figure out what his question is, what it is he thinks might help, or that Alec might need, or even that he might need to know, to help them continue to learn to communicate better, to prevent them backsliding into any of the terrible assumptions they used to make about and for each other.

Alec’s in yet another room this time. Back to one designed for hand-to-hand or close combat sparring, unlike the archery range from last week, but there are actual mats on the floor, and practice blades on the walls, unlike the live blades Alec always uses when he’s sparring with Jace.

It makes Magnus think his sparring partner is younger this week, even though she has the same ageless beauty of most nephilim that makes it hard to tell anything beyond child to adult to old.

Jace is also there, answering the question Magnus never asked, that he’d probably seen Magnus arrive and wandered up to visit on purpose the previous week. He’s more focused on Alec this time, and Magnus wonders if it’s because it’s hand-to-hand, much more of a Jace specialty than last week’s archery, or if it’s because this Shadowhunter really is younger and less experienced and could use the extra attention.

Or is being taught a different sort of lesson? Magnus wonders as she takes an especially hard fall.

But no.

Alec helps her up, his voice soft enough Magnus can’t tell what he says, though that very softness implies enough. Not punishment, clearly training.

Alec adjusts her stance, and then does the same thing he did before, at about half his previous speed, so she can see how it worked, where and why she was vulnerable. He moves her through it a second time, and when she shakes her head at him, a third.

And then Alec shifts his stance to mimic hers from earlier, has her try to knock him down, over and over until she manages it.

Even then, they're still moving faster than any mundane sparring Magnus has ever seen; he can barely follow what they're doing and he is very practiced at tracking how Alec moves.

And then they go back to full speed, a vicious dance around each other, Jace occasionally calling out comments or suggestions. Magnus has no idea how Jace can tell what they’re doing, what she’s apparently doing wrong, what Alec is doing in turn to get her even incomprehensibly better.

Nephilim are fucking terrifying, which is not a reminder Magnus needed, or can enjoy, even if he knows they have to be, to survive hunting demons the way they do. Even if he can’t regret that it makes his Alexander very difficult to permanently harm or kill, despite Alec’s tendency to fling himself into danger after maybe half a second of deliberation, well before anyone else has even noticed they’re in trouble.

He frowns down at the three of them until they’re done, still trying to figure out what it is he knows, what he doesn’t, and if he’s approaching his husband’s life and work and duty in the right way. Is there a right way? Is he at least not approaching it in a wrong way? He’s not sure.

“Are you all right?” Alec asks once they’re leaving together.

“Yes,” Magnus assures him immediately. “I’m worrying a thought around, and I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what it is.”

Alec nods, and takes Magnus’ hand, and tells Magnus about Izzy’s latest research project. She’s trying to re-balance throwing daggers so they need less adamas, (a useful goal for something that gets literally thrown away and can’t always be retrieved), but are still effective. He’s apparently hoping he’ll be able to use her results for new arrows, something with even more punch than he usually has.

Magnus sets everything else aside and enjoys asking every ridiculous question he can come up with, whether it’s likely to be helpful or not. Neither of them will let his worries sit forever; they’ve learned better than to just ignore things when they come up, but they can give each other some grace, first.

5.

Jace is up in the gallery when Magnus arrives next week, arms crossed over his chest as he looks down at the stone tiling beneath his boots.

“Am I in trouble?” Magnus asks, mostly joking.

Jace blinks as he lifts his head, and his smile is quick enough that Magnus believes him when he shakes his head.

But Jace doesn’t relax his posture, or lower his arms.

“Are you?” Magnus tries next.

Jace wrinkles his nose. “No.”

That one was less convincing.

“But?” Magnus tries again, damn he must really like Alexander, this should be so much more annoying than it actually is.

“Alec won’t say it, but I’m not helping, either. Or not enough.”

Magnus hums, and it’s his turn to lean over the railing to look down at Alec as he greets this week’s Shadowhunter, glancing at Jace sidelong so he doesn’t have to make eye contact while he’s thinking. “I’ve been wondering about that myself, if I’m helping enough.”

Jace hums back and joins Magnus on the railing.

They watch as Alec greets his latest… Magnus still doesn’t know what to call them. They’re not victims. Trainees makes it sound like they're not all adult Shadowhunters.

He’s tempted to start calling them chicks; there is something protective in the way Alec assesses them, and his husband is assuredly inclined towards being a mother hen.

Torres, a surprisingly mundane name in Magnus’ opinion, to go along with Fuller from the archery range, accepts the staff Alec hands him, and Magnus finds himself leaning a little further forward to watch.

And not just because they’re pretty.

“He’s good at this, isn’t he?” Magnus asks again.

Jace’s gaze shifts, his eyelids lowering a little as he assesses the view below them. “If you mean the training and evaluating, yes. He is.” Magnus waits. Jace’s voice and chin had both lifted as he spoke, as if he was thinking, as if he wasn’t quite done.

“Can you believe he learned how to do that from Hodge?”

Magnus shudders delicately. Starkweather would always be a Circle villain to him, both for what he'd done with Valentine and how ruthlessly he'd trained the young Lightwoods when they were children; Magnus is aware it’s more complicated for Alec and Isabelle and Jace.

“Well, part of it, anyway.” Jace tactfully doesn’t mention the shudder.

Which is a weird thought for Magnus to have, Jace and tact, but it’s not inaccurate. “Which part?” Magnus asks.

“The assessing their combat skills.” Jace nods down at the pair as Alec steps back and adjusts his partner’s grip, and then they’re going again. “And the being better than everyone else in the building.”

“Except you,” Magnus offers, both to try and help with whatever it is that’s bothering Jace, but also because it seems to be generally accepted by everyone that Jace is the best fighter they’ve got.

Jace shakes his head. “I’m bullshit next to him.” Magnus turns and lifts his eyebrows. “You beat him when you spar all the time, according to Alec.” “It’s not about being better at sparring.” Magnus tilts his head toward the training going on beneath them again, to Alec very clearly keeping control of the situation, of every move Torres makes, of the pace of their spar so Torres doesn’t over-reach or misstep or fail to practice the forms that Alec is working him through. Alec is so clearly managing the training, even if Torres is, Magnus admits to himself, doing better than Magnus did after he lost his magic. Not that Magnus was at his best. Not that he hadn’t suspected, even then, that Alec let him win because he could tell Magnus was freaking out about everything. Not that they weren’t the both of them that easy to distract with very stupid flirtations.

Not that either of them minded that last part. “It’s not just about being better.” Jace is frowning again, bringing Magnus out of memories both pleasant and terrible, bittersweet and lingering. He suspects that this is what Jace was worrying over when he arrived. “I can win a fight, but that doesn’t mean I know the best way to stay ahead of them so they don’t get too discouraged.” Magnus’ chest aches, and he has to swallow. “I’ve had that problem with magic and a few warlocks I’ve known.” More than a few, in fact. If they're older than ten or so when they’re found, he’s learned to refer any new warlocks to someone else for training. Jace meets his eyes for the first time, and something in his shoulders eases, as if he can tell Magnus means it, that he really does understand how much it hurts to try and help someone, to try and show them what they could do, what you can do with them, or for them, and have them think you’re boasting and trying to show them their place instead. Magnus boasts melodramatically and loudly and on purpose now, and he sometimes almost forgets that it had started in self-defense.

Alec never boasts, even when he should.

Magnus doesn’t think that’s what Jace means, or not entirely.

“He doesn’t need my help assessing their combat skills, and I can’t do the rest of it.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“Everything else?” Jace shrugs.

Magnus raises his eyebrows at him.

“I’m not being difficult on purpose,” Jace offers with a wry twist to his mouth.

“For once?”

Jace’s expression flashes through a smile that falls off his face almost as quickly as it had shown up. “Alec spars with them and he gets them, in some way I don’t. He knows their departments, their regular duties, but he also knows what they’re good at besides fighting, what they want to work on versus what they need to work on, what they don’t want to work on and how much of that he can get them to do despite that. He knows exactly how hard he can push, especially if he needs something unusual, or wants to change how things have always been done.”

The ache in Magnus’ chest has risen into his throat; he swallows it back down without saying anything.

“I don’t get any of that.” Jace’s voice is low and his shoulders are tight again. “I can plan a patrol schedule so their skills match up, but if I don’t have Izzy double check it, periodically they hate each other and start requesting transfers in a few months, and I know part of it is that I’m a Herondale and their Head’s parabatai so they’re not sure if they’re allowed to disagree with me, or ask me to change something, but part of it is just that I didn’t get them right.”

He trails off, shrugs again.

“I don’t know how he does it either,” Magnus offers. “I am excellent at portraying a High Warlock to everyone around me, even people who’ve known me for literal centuries, and he sees right through it.”

“You’re not that tough.” There’s a slight wobble in Jace’s voice, gratitude and bravado both.

“Only because you see me through Alec’s perspective.”

Jace doesn’t disagree. They're both aware they could say the same thing about Magnus’ opinion of Jace.

“You said you run your schedules by Isabelle?” Magnus isn’t sure why he asks, isn’t sure what he’s trying to figure out, but it’s all of a part, somewhere. Somehow. He thinks he’s almost there.

“She doesn’t get what Alec does either, the what they can do versus what they could do, where to push. She doesn’t have the patience for it.”

Magnus allows a grin. She’s endlessly patient with her experiments, but Isabelle does not put up with anything or anyone who can’t keep up with her, or is worrying about something she doesn’t care about.

Jace grins back, this one steadier than his last attempt. “She’s just better at the gossip, so she knows if I stuck two people who broke up badly together, or something.”

Magnus leans back on his heels, only half-hearing the clack of staffs still continuing beneath them. “There is no way Alec is paying attention to the interpersonal gossip.”

“Ha.” Jace shakes his head. “You’re not wrong, and yet he bypasses most of the issues somehow.”

“Magic,” Magnus waves a hand dramatically through the air. “Of a singular Alexander kind, apparently.”

Jace snorts. “I did try to ask him how he did it, once, and he didn’t even understand the question.”

Magnus sighs. That sounds about right. Alec is remarkable in his ability to see what’s actually around him, and yet completely unable to see himself in at all the same way. “My beautiful husband, so smart and so dumb simultaneously.”

“Sneaky even though he can’t lie to save his life?” Jace says. “That’s another weird one.”

“What has he managed to be sneaky about lately?” Magnus asks, willing to follow any tangent that’s about his husband.

“Well.” Jace nodded back down at the training. “He rotates the schedule enough that I’m not sure anyone else has figured out that he’s set to go through the entire conclave twice this year.” There’s a weight to Jace’s words, some implication that Magnus doesn’t get. “Is that unusual?” “Most Institute Heads aim for once per year, and a lot of them aren’t too worried if it takes closer to two years to finish.” “So double the work with half the manpower?” Magnus frowns. Jace shakes his head, cutting Magnus off before he can follow that thought to comment on Alec’s tendency to be overly responsible. “Different priorities.” It’s Magnus’ turn to give Jace a side-eye. “He has delegated most of the day-to-day supervising, the inventory management and assorted scheduling to their separate departments, and then most of the analysis of those numbers to his aide, so he just keeps up on all the final tallies without having to do the counting himself.” “That’s remarkably sensible of him.” Jace barks out a short, sharp laugh. “Weird, huh?” “Exceedingly.” Magnus feels his shoulders ease as the last of his frown relaxes away. “Though he does seem to be doing less paperwork now than when he was Aldertree’s lacky, or Acting Head?”

“Yeah,” Jace agrees. “I didn’t notice then, because I was an idiot–”

Was? Magnus mouths, but refrains from saying aloud.

Jace still notices, and kicks at Magnus’ ankle. Surprisingly gently, for a Shadowhunter.

“But,” Jace continues, “he doesn’t have to get approval for everything before he does it now that he’s properly Head, so it’s actually less back-and-forth with the Clave than before.”

“So more time for this,” Magnus leans forward again, looks down to see that Alec and Torres are just talking now. “Whatever it is that he’s doing.”

“More time for you, too.”

Alec looks up, and waves at the both of them, and Magnus can’t help but smile and wave back.

“Happy to take all the time I can get.”

Jace snorts, and they neither of them have figured out the answers to their worries, or possibly even what their questions are, but it’s nice, knowing they’re all in it together.

Whatever it is.

6.

The woman going through training next week is named Lindsay; Magnus is startled to realize he already knows this when he sees her, rather than having to try and catch it when Alec or Jace talk to her. She’s also not primarily a field agent from what he’s seen. She usually wears actual glasses and always has a tablet and maybe a headset, but very seldom much of the standard-issue ubiquitous black leather.

She’s still a Shadowhunter obviously, twisting and turning and blocking and striking with her practice blade with standard ruthless efficiency. Only… after about two minutes of watching he finally picks up on something that ought to have been blindingly obvious.

She’s clearly not as accomplished as some of the other Shadowhunters he’s watched. (Still terrifying, but not quite as much of that impossible too-fast grace that is, now that he’s not having it aimed against him, endlessly beautiful as well as frightening). And despite having seen Alec control his training with better fighters, with staffs and bows and fighting sticks and blades, (with Magnus the few times they’ve tried this), Alec still seems to be just the barest bit faster and stronger.

Alec could assuredly knock her on her ass immediately, and while he obviously wouldn’t do that for training or assessment or whatever odd flavor of nephilim bonding this is, it’s not at all apparent in his pacing or stance or breathing how much he must be holding back, that he is, as always, in complete control of how fast and hard she has to work to keep up with him.

Magnus spends about half a minute trying to figure out how to do the magical equivalent, and gives up when he realizes he doesn’t have a fucking clue where to even start. You’d have to mask your magical signature, but not entirely, and you’d have to choose less potent versions of spells without them looking any different, and you’d have to cast as quickly as any instinctively trained block or shield without it ever actually just being a reflex, because you’d have to adjust it to the level of skill of the person you were working with, which means you’d have to know exactly what they could do in the amount of time it took you to inhale and shift your grip on your magic or weapon, and then be sure enough of what they would do that you exhaled and struck out in the right direction.

He understands Jace’s frown from last week even better now. Alec is in fact doing something even more remarkable than Magnus had realized, and he seems to have figured it out, and had to continue doing it, entirely on his own.

Magnus is a little embarrassed at how long it took him to notice. Not the fact that Alec keeps such tight control of how he interacts with his people; that had always been obvious. Alec has always been about self-control, about quick assessments and knowing exactly what to say, what not to say to his people, or during Cabinet meetings, and when dealing with the Clave and Council, even if Magnus doesn’t generally witness that last one directly. It’s more a question of the degree of… manipulation? That sounds more negative than what Alec’s doing, though he supposes it’s not inaccurate.

Sneaky but painfully honest, both at once.

To be fair to himself, his husband is currently engaging in physical activity that he is very good at, and also teaching people, which gives him laser focus and makes his usually discreet compassion the slightest bit more obvious, all of which do in fact make him inexplicably even more attractive (and distracting) than usual, so it’s not as if there wasn’t already plenty for Magnus to keep an eye on.

But still.

Magnus should be doing better.

He’s just not sure how.

He should probably just ask Alec at this point, but he’s been worrying at it long enough he wants some sort of conclusion before he makes an idiot of himself.

One more week.

Maybe two.

7.

Maybe three? Magnus pushes his decision out yet again, because he’s not there the next week. He’s in the Labyrinth with a new warlock who has to have someone else go step-by-step through grounding his magic in the Spiral with him, because he’d had a deeply shitty first year in the Down World and is too magically scorched and emotionally exhausted to pull it off safely on his own.

Magnus knows the feeling. Plus he’s powerful enough, and their magic resonates together well enough, that he’s clearly better fitted to the task than anyone else.

Alexander had understood completely, which was somehow both gratifying and annoying. His husband absolutely respects Magnus’ skill and duties, which is wonderful. But Magnus wanted to pout that he was missing date night, and Alexander had taken it with enough grace that’d he’d feel like an idiot if he didn’t do the same. He is the one who’s not there.

And now he’s done with their latest grounding session and they have to take a break and he’s too restless to focus on research and he misses his husband and now he’s thinking about date night and now he’s thinking about what he might be missing during their pre-date night… ritual? Observation? He doesn’t even know what he’s doing every week in that gallery, not really.

Maybe he should figure that out.

These trainings clearly aren’t just a way to pass the time, not blocked off in the schedule like they are, not with Jace there and reasonably helpful each week, not with Jace worried about how they’re going.

They’re important, and Alec’s never talked about them with Magnus, not directly.

Magnus doesn’t think Alec was hinting at them indirectly with their weekly date schedule, either, for all that that’s what brought them to Magnus’ attention. Alec is usually quite good at just saying something, if he wants Magnus’ opinion. Unless he thinks he shouldn’t, but he hasn’t been upset at catching Magnus observing the last few weeks either.

Does Alec not want to talk about it, or has it not occurred to him that there’s anything to say to someone outside the Institute, even if the someone is his husband?

Or is he waiting for Magnus to ask? Which Magnus has not done, still trying to figure out what it is he needs to know, what’s appropriate for him to know as someone who will never, can never, truly understand what it is to be nephilim or Shadowhunter.

Is Alec also considering that, waiting for some intangible clue they’ve neither of them figured out yet? Some sign that Magnus wants to know more, wants to engage more with this side of his husband’s life? Has Magnus not made it clear that he’s here for everything and anything Alec could ever share?

Is he really there for everything though? Magnus remembers that shiver down his spine at the size of the training hall, the ache from the fake eyes surrounding him that first week in the gallery, the questions he’s added to the bottom of his mental list and never gotten around to asking.

Has he somehow been trying to ignore everything Shadowhunter about his husband, like he can be two different people, one for the nephilim and a different one for Magnus?

Oh, that would make Magnus a right asshole, wouldn’t it.

Is he doing the same thing the other way, too, keeping everything Warlock out of their home as much as possible? It’s easier, isn’t it, to just avoid the nitty gritty of Down World interpersonal complications, of Labyrinth politics, of deciding what’s not for Shadowhunters vs what is part of the life he shares with his husband?

Oh shit, is he a coward and an asshole?

No. Magnus told Alec what he was doing this week, why he had to leave, all about poor Nathaniel who he was helping, about Injala, the member of the Warlock Council who had requested Magnus’ aid. And Magnus does ask about the Institute, but he's only now realizing that Alec usually puts his work away and asks about Magnus’ day instead of answering, and hmmm.

Has Alec decided these things have to be separate? Should it be? Did he decide that on his own, or does he think he’s following Magnus’ lead? Because Magnus only talks about magical theory or downworlder assistance or warlock duties when he has to change their plans, or if Alec explicitly asks about something specific he’s seen Magnus do.

Is this a more pressing issue than Magnus had realized, or do they just need to address this particular balance a bit more purposefully?

Does Magnus have the slightest idea how they’re supposed to do that?

8.

Magnus recognizes the Shadowhunter in Alec’s sights again when he gets back, if only because he’d been here when the man had arrived as part of a small group of young adults on some sort of apparently standard training tour. Sagewood, Magnus thinks, though that might have been the short pale blond next to him. Ember something?

Shit. He’d even been trying to pay more attention to these things. They all kind of look and sound the same though, all too young and pretty and self-righteous to bother trying to tell them apart once he gets past the small circle of Lightwoods and their direct connections.

Which is probably one of the thoughts that had led to how close he’d been to calcifying before Alexander, so maybe not one to linger in.

There’s a crack from below him that interrupts his wandering thoughts, something that sounds suspiciously like a broken bone, but he glances down to witness none of them stopping. They don’t even really slow down, the young man just shifting his weight and his grip as he keeps going, and going, for what feels like an eternity to Magnus but is probably less than five minutes, until Alec knocks him down and he slaps the mat in surrender, even as Jace is already stepping over to help activate his iratze. “Good job, ” Alec says, “you lasted longer this time.” Magnus is hit with the incredibly disturbing realization that they’d broken something of his on purpose. He adds ‘grievous bodily harm as normal Shadowhunter training method?’ to his list of Alec questions. He will not enjoy any possible answers, and Alec probably won’t understand why it’s even a question at all, which is something Magnus does not at all want to deal with; that makes him think it’s probably important that he does.

Maybe not in public though.

He heads out to the front entrance to wait. He wonders as he goes why it had never occurred to him that that many people were never born so ruthless. He’d never believed that being a downworlder meant his people were any less varied and complicated than mundane humanity, but he’d seldom applied that same logic to half-human nephililm, beyond noticing the occasional less-bigoted outliers.

By the time he’d ever seen a young nephilim scout, even at 12 or 14, they were always already Shadowhunters, and he’d never thought more than glancingly about how that wasn’t a race but a job, a job not a one of them could opt out of. Angelic blood didn’t mean they were all naturally graceful, inherently vicious, rather everything he’d ever blamed the Clave for was something they’d done to themselves, not something that they had to be.

Perhaps Valentine’s terrible parenting had only been a question of degree, not fundamentally different from Shadowhunter business as usual, just like his politics.

Which is an obvious conclusion once he’s made it, but the Shadowhunters are so good at hiding their children, keeping them well behind Institute walls when they’re not in Idris, that it’s easy to forget that they weren’t all just born fully-fledged violent assholes. Clary should have made that obvious, but she’d slid so well into the violence that it was easy to forget how extraordinary her circumstances had been, how much had been thrown at her so quickly.

She had also been raised by Jocelyn, who’d been a stab first, ask questions never sort of person.

And now Magnus is forced to wonder if she had naturally been like that, if she’d been raised into it, or if Valentine had pushed her over that edge. Had she ever had a chance to be anyone else?

Had any of them?

(Does anyone?)

How in all the hells had Alec kept a hold of that endless well of devotion in his heart surrounded by all of the Clave’s everything?

Magnus makes it all the way outside, leans against a railing, stares up at the grey-tinged false-dawn beginning to lighten the sky, and waits.

“You done worrying that thought around?” Alec had stood silently for awhile, just looking at Magnus, before he’d stretched his ridiculous legs enough to skip half the stairs on his way to Magnus’ side, before he’d said anything.

“Not at all,” Magnus sighed, “but I got it stuck so it’s not spinning anymore, so I’m going to have to figure out what it is regardless.”

Alec tilts his head, a hint of a frown between his eyebrows, his mouth lifting up on one side in a smile that Magnus can’t interpret, rueful, amused, confused, something else entirely? “Tell me about it?”

“Walk with me?” Magnus counters.

“Of course.”

It takes a block or so before Magnus manages to start. “Do they mind that I’m watching their evaluations?”

“Not if they want to stay Shadowhunters.” Alec sounds almost amused, and Magnus stops walking to stare at him. Alec just raises an eyebrow. “Spouses are always the same rank, you know that?” Alec’s voice trails off as Magnus’ expression makes it very clear he did not know that.

“Fuck.” Alec lifts his head and stares up at the sky for a moment. “How the fuck am I so bad at this, Jace knows and this conversation was just as much of a surprise to him, too.”

“What.” Magnus manages.

“Parabatai and spouses are always due the respect of the highest ranking partner. They’re not always literally recognized in the chain of command, but the rank is there?”

Magnus blinks at him.

“It’s how Jace could make me Head?” Alec clearly doesn’t mean to be making every sentence a question, but he also can’t seem to manage anything else. Magnus sympathizes. “I was potentially Co-Head regardless of anything he or Inquisitor Herondale did, he just made himself not Head so I could take over?”

That kind of makes as much sense as anything else Magnus has ever figured out about nephilim, but... “I’m a warlock. A husband warlock, even.”

Alec pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs, drops his hand again so he can meet Magnus’ eyes. “It’s the same loophole as the trial, really, it never occurred to anyone to put a limit on spousal privilege, because obviously anyone of rank would only ever marry someone suitable, I thought you knew that, I’m sorry, I.” He stutters to a stop and Magnus can’t read his expression at all and what the fuck I’m Co-Head of the New York Institute?

“But I’ve never done anything to help, you’re doing the whole job yourself!” Magnus can’t tell if he’s angry or sad or still just confused, but he’s pretty sure he’s been a shitty husband somewhere in there.

“Magnus.” Alexander cups his jaw, stopping him before he can stomp around or fling a hand out or spiral or anything else. “You’re the only reason I can be Head, what are you talking about?”

Magnus blinks again, but he’s never been able to resist Alec’s touch, so he lifts his arms, and settles his palms against the back of Alec’s hands. “I am very confused right now."

“Head is a two person job mainly because most Shadowhunters are too power-hungry to let anyone else do anything useful in their Institute.”

Magnus manages an almost smile, trying to be amused but not quite making it.

“But I like coming home to my husband and having time to spar and patrol with my parabatai and visiting Izzy in the armory even when she looks like she’s about to kill everyone with whatever new toy she’s sharpening, so I let my people actually be in charge of most of their own shit so I don’t have to be.”

Magnus snorts at that, the amusement winning.

Alec flashes a smile at him, and his grip loosens, his hands relaxing, dropping, though he makes sure to hold Magnus’ on the way down so they don’t lose contact. “You are the reason I realized I didn’t want to do everything myself just because that’s how I was trained, how I realized I didn’t have to.”

Magnus almost blushes, but then Alec shrugs, and oh no, there’s something sly in his expression, Magnus isn’t sure he’s ready for—

“Or actually, Catarina yelling at you for overworking yourself and not delegating things made me realize I agreed with her, and if I wanted you to take a break I maybe needed to figure out how to slow down myself.”

Magnus’ jaw drops, but he can’t muster up any real annoyance because he’s right, they have had so much more time together lately and it’s not just because the world stopped attempting apocalypses at them. Magnus has been passing along more clients and non-emergency Down World problems than he used to because he so often does have plans with Alec or Catarina or Madzie or Maryse or Maia or Raphael or Isabelle or… “How didn’t I notice that.”

“I’m very distracting?” Alec grins at him, and oh, Magnus kind of wants revenge for that, but he mostly wants to kiss him.

Because he always wants to kiss him more than anything else.

So he does.

And Alec falls into it the way he always does, and there are no words for how much Magnus loves him.

And then he drops Alec’s hands, does a very dramatic spin, hooks his arm through Alec’s, and starts walking again.

Alec almost stumbles, which is deeply satisfying on an incredibly petty level, that they’re now both off balance for this conversation, but Magnus has never claimed to not be petty.

“Explain the broken bone in there, it was very disturbing.”

“Uh.”

Magnus isn’t sure if Alec’s still in kiss mode or really doesn’t understand why that sort of thing made Magnus shudder, so he gives him a moment.

“There’s no real way to know how you’ll respond to an unexpected injury in the field until it happens, and if you take too long to recover the first time because you don’t know how your body is going to react, you’re likely to get injured again, or someone else will when they’re trying to cover your back.”

“Or worse than injured,” Magnus manages, heat in the back of his throat, his eyes.

“Or worse,” Alec agrees, barely louder than a whisper.

Magnus doesn’t like to think about or worse, and it takes him a moment to get past it.

“That’s why you need to train with all of them, too, isn’t it? So you know how they react, so you can figure out where to send them, who to send them with?”

“Partly.” Alec turns, aiming for one of those tiny neighborhood parks they both like, one with slightly overgrown flowers that are usually open and full of bees first thing in the morning. “They’re also less likely to overthink my orders in the field even when they don’t like my politics if they’re familiar with how I fight.”

“And when they know you can kick their ass?”

Magnus can hear a smirk in Alec’s voice. “That too.”

There’s something…

“Is that why you scheduled date night and these trainings together? So they get reminded of the ass-kicking right before you remind them of the politics?”

“Yeah,” Alec agrees, as if that’s a completely normal train of thought. “Isn’t that why you started coming early?”

“No,” Magnus can’t help laughing at that. “Darling, no one’s brain besides yours works like that, I came early for the gratuitous sweating and competence and seeing you with your shirt plastered to your chest, which I thought was incredibly obvious of me.” Alec almost stumbles again, but Magnus keeps going. “Jace knew that’s what I was doing, and absolutely gave me shit about it when you were shooting your arrows with that Mr. Fuller a few weeks back.”

Alec makes a slightly pained noise in the back of his throat, and Magnus can’t help but actually giggle. “You’re very pretty, and very good at what you do, and I have made it clear I enjoy both those things tremendously, you should not be surprised.”

Alec is blushing now, but Magnus can be magnanimous and refrains from commenting. For now. “Speaking of. Have you had this part of the conversation with Jace as well? Because he also thinks he’s not helping enough.”

“What.”

“I’ll take that as a no.” He glances sideways long enough to see Alec mouth what again, and feels his amusement soften. “We’re both incredibly impressed and unnerved by how good you are at hmm.” Magnus hums, trying to think how to describe a thing that he’s starting to suspect Alec might not even realize he’s doing. “Controlling the narrative when you’re training?”

“What?” The third time seems even more bewildered than the last two.

They’ve made it to the park, which is in fact very sweet smelling and audibly buzzing, and Magnus pulls Alec down to sit on the bench with him.

“Even when training, when you’re not trying to win, most people cannot temper their own skills the way I’ve seen you do, cannot balance what they’re capable of to match the person they’re training. Not without being obvious about how much they’re holding back, anyway.”

Alec stares at him. “I’ve seen you work with other warlocks, you don’t overpower them, you’re helping them, I don’t?” Alec’s voice breaks, confusion heavy in his expression, and Magnus grips his hands tightly in his own.

“I work with settled warlocks, those who have come well into their power. I do not train new warlocks much older than Madzie, because I am so much more powerful than them it makes them think I’m trying to overshadow them.”

“You would never,” Alec’s frown is deeply offended on Magnus’ behalf, and he smiles, leans over to kiss Alec’s cheek.

“I know that, but most people who are just starting to learn can tell they’re overpowered, and over-react trying to protect themselves from that, even, perhaps especially, when they know they can’t.”

Alec frowns. “Is that why trainees and new transfers always actually seem to be trying to fight with Jace, instead of learn?”

"Probably.”

Alec’s frown somehow gets even frownier, which is adorable. “That’s stupid.”

Magnus’ heart aches too much to laugh, but he does smile. “It’s human nature though, being scared of something you can’t understand, can’t yourself do.”

“But how else do they think they’ll learn how to do it?”

“It’s not logic, darling, seldom even conscious.” Magnus tilts his head. “Much like the way you sidestep the issue entirely, apparently?”

“I just.” Alec swallows, his gaze dropping down to their hands, tracing their fingers, following the way they’re holding on to each other. “I just don’t want to hurt them.”

Magnus’ grip tightens.

“I have to, sometimes, but I make sure they know when that’s what we have to do, Sagewood knew that’s what were practicing today, I wouldn’t ever just…”

Magnus has to close his eyes. Alec clearly knows the difference between what Jace does when he’s sparring, that he’s stronger but wants you to be stronger too, versus the person who’s better and uses that against you, then thinks you ought to thank him for it.

Alec’s survived that difference.

“I may be too angry to have coffee with your mother next week.”

Alec squeezes, and Magnus opens his eyes again. “It was Hodge, actually.”

Magnus doesn’t try to hide the surprise on his face. “But Isabelle and Jace?” Don’t recognize that like you do and he trained them too?

“Anything Hodge did was so much less than his so-called father that Jace never even noticed.”

Magnus winces. That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. Fucking Valentine being Valentine.

“And Hodge could see how Maryse dismissed Izzy, how Robert coddled her, so he passed over her almost entirely.”

Magnus curls his lip, disdain burning in his throat. “Jace thinks you learned how to evaluate and train so well from Hodge.”

Alec sighs. “I learned what I didn’t want to do.”

“They both still think well of him, or the him from before Valentine came back at least.” And they both love you too much to do that, if they understood. Magnus doesn’t have to say that part, they both hear it.

Alec’s lips tighten, then relax, and he sighs again. “He was trying to show us what unscrupulous really looked like, so we could survive it. I can’t respect how he did it, but I can’t forget why, either. Or that I’ll never know if that’s part of why we did.”

Magnus opens his mouth, then closes it again. He can see the evidence for that conclusion, and also that Alec’s right, there’s no way to prove it either way. “Agree to disagree on how forgivable that is?”

Alec huffs out a breath, almost smiles. “Agreed.”

Magnus pulls him into a hug, and eventually they both relax, Magnus’ head resting on Alec’s shoulder as they smell the flowers, and listen to the bees, and watch the sky get brighter, even if it doesn’t quite manage blue past all the city haze.

It’s not until almost afternoon, (late enough they should both be asleep but aren’t, though they have made it to the bedroom at least, light blocking curtains drawn and only two dim bedside lamps still lit), when Magnus brings the actual original question up again.

“So the fact that you always dodge questions about the Institute is more you’re trying not to work too much than weird Shadowhunter secrecy?” He lays his first necklace in his jewelry box, using the vanity mirror to watch Alec behind him.

Alec grunts in the back of his throat, eyes closed where he’s sprawled across the top of their comforter, waiting for Magnus to join him. “Have I been dodging questions?”

“Yes.” Magnus shrugs, continues putting his jewelry away. “But I have too, because when we actually get to spend time together, I am also avoiding work, so.”

Alec’s hum is somehow amused, though Magnus is not entirely sure how a monotone noise pulls that off.

“We should perhaps actually talk about work occasionally, so I know when I’m doing something Shadowhunters might get hung up on, and vice versa.”

“I know it’s uncomfortable, though.” Alec’s eyes open, but he doesn’t look away from the ceiling, doesn’t make eye contact, not even just through the mirror. “Watching people practice skills that have usually been used against you and yours.”

“Ours now.” Alec glances over at that, not quite surprise, not quite relief, but not as confused as Magnus was feeling that morning either. “Isn’t that the whole point of getting married in the Institute and shoving ourselves into all these loopholes?”

“Yeah.” Alec breathes.

“Well then.” Magnus pauses, admires the view. “I guess we need to add a work-date to the schedule somewhere too, so we don’t keep distracting each other because there are nicer ways to spend a day than work.”

Alec snorts, but doesn’t disagree.

Magnus turns to look at him directly, moves closer, leans over until he can kiss Alexander, warm and soft and sweet.

Magnus stays there, one arm keeping him braced against the bed, eyes closed, lingering, slowly sighing out a breath. “I love you,” he whispers.

Magnus said he wanted some space. Tonight (just tonight implied but not stated by the softness of his voice, the brush of his fingers against the seam of Alec’s sleeve) Magnus wanted some quiet.

So Alec left Magnus alone, and now he’s standing in his institute bathroom staring into the institute mirror gripping the white porcelain edges of an institute sink, trying to decide if that was right.

He doesn’t think it was, but he’s not sure if it’s the space that’s wrong, or the just for tonight.

He knows which he wants it to be, but that’s irrelevant.

Magnus likes to retreat when he’s hurt, but that doesn’t mean that’s good for him; Alec might not have known Magnus for long, but he recognizes a protective flinch when he sees it. And if that’s the case, then Alec should in fact head right back out and refuse to let Magnus hide and hold him tight until Magnus feels like he's himself again.

But Alec didn’t believe what Magnus said too many times already, he can’t…

He can’t go against Magnus’ request, not now that he finally made one. Always letting Alec set the pace, waiting for Alec to reach out, for Alec to act, to ask, and when he finally lets himself say what he wants?

It’s less of Alec, rather than more.

Smart of him, of course. Alec would never blame him for it, especially not after Azazel and Valentine and Alec failing him in every way it was possible to fail. There has always been a disparity between what Magnus deserves and what Alec is capable of offering; perhaps it is too large of one to ever be overcome.

Only he knows he wants to keep trying.

He also knows that staring at his mirror and overthinking things is his own protective flinch.

Magnus said he doesn’t know what he needs. Alec is mostly sure that’s true, that if Magnus knew that Alec caused more harm than could possibly be worth it he would say so — but only mostly. Magnus has been abandoned too many times to be the person leaving unless he’s sure.

Not even then, perhaps.

Alec has some idea of how many times Magnus forgave Camille, and she was cruel on purpose, unlike Alec who keeps twisting the knife entirely by accident.

If Magnus won’t do it, Alec will have to. He refuses to walk Magnus down a road to hell paved by his own so-called “good intentions”. He’ll stay away forever if that’s better for Magnus, regardless of how Alec feels about it, will feel about it, will always feel about Magnus. It’s only right, not letting Magnus suffer the consequences of trying to be involved with–

Alec stops himself there.

Anything he thinks to call himself, any self-assessment he can manage right now, will be more severe than anything Magnus would think, or say, or even accept if Alec tried to say it, so it won’t help him decide what to do.

He has to figure out how to help in a way that Magnus will accept, and if he leads with a list of all his failures, Magnus will be happy to try and make Alec feel better and aggressively avoid letting Alec try to help him.

Alec doesn’t need to feel better. Aldertree’s gone, Isabelle’s back, (Imogen’s difficult but familiar), and Jace is, while still fucked up, at least not trying to smother the parabatai bond so tightly that Alec feels like he’s being strangled in his sleep every night.

So.

Alec sighs, lets go of the sink, forces his shoulders to relax.

This is the first time that Magnus has said he needs space, but considering the politics of their lives, even now that Valentine’s in custody (especially now, considering everything Herondale did to Magnus in Valentine’s name), it probably won’t be the last.

Alec can’t override that, not just because he’s sad and guilty and young and stupid.

He just has to learn better.

He’s always had to be better than he is, he’s not sure why he thought things with Magnus might be different.

That’s not Magnus’ fault though, and he can’t let himself start to think about it in terms of hopes dashed or desires failed because then he will be upset at the only person who has never ever let him down, despite all Alec’s failures and stumbles.

He doesn’t deserve Magnus, of course he doesn’t, but that’s all right. It’s Magnus’ turn to make a choice, and he can have all the time and space he needs to do so.

Alec will wait.

He’ll wait forever, if he has to.

Alec can hear him, something humming under the man's skin almost like a seraph blade dreaming in its hilt but off-key, a discordant whine that makes Alec want to cover his ears but he knows that wouldn't help; the noise isn’t really a noise, he can feel it in his blood, between his bones, not in his ears at all.

He doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know what he should say, or to who, but he can’t let it go, it pushes in the back of his throat and it has to be let out.

He thinks if he tries to speak and it doesn’t work, the pushing will get worse, will hurt, will perhaps not let him stop, not ever again.

If that’s true, (it is true, he doesn’t know why or how, but it is, he knows, knowledge deeper even than the laws and runes he’s memorized from the Grey Book, the ones that make the power under his skin flicker and flare, waiting for the first Mark to settle it), he can’t do what his father would prefer, and tell his parents in private. He can't risk them choosing not to listen.

If he can’t be discreet, he has to go far enough the other way that he’s inevitable.

Luckily, the hum from the man is just enough that his seraph blade doesn’t like it either, hissing to itself in the hilt when it ought to be asleep, and Alec knows he can tell them about that. He’s worked with the Weapons Master, with his father, his favorite chore is tending to the adamas in the Institute's care.

So he waits outside the armory, plants himself in the middle of the hall when the man and his parents approach, makes sure the door to the armory is cracked so Master Amira will hear him too, might even come out and back Alec up, if he’s lucky.

He waits, and he doesn’t step back against the wall, and his mother is lifting a brow and his father’s mouth is too tight, neither of them impressed that he’s just there in the way like a mundane too stupid to move.

Before either of them can do anything, Alec falls forward, prostrating himself before the man, arms spread and forehead pressed to the tile, because there’s no way to say what he’s going to say without it being an insult, and this is the only way he’ll get the whole thing out before he’s in too much trouble to be allowed to continue.

The man’s footsteps don’t slow, and Alec realizes he’s going to just walk right past him, and he’s offended enough his chest burns, and he almost can’t feel the pressure in his throat anymore.

How dare he ignore a sign of supplication like that? He’s got worse manners than Izzy and no excuse for them at all.

“Consul.” He hears his mother’s voice, low but steady, and the footsteps stop.

She’s as offended as he is, Alec can tell, he can taste it in her voice, but no one else can ever taste her moods like he can, so he’s sure no one else knows. Yet.

But he does, and it’s enough. If she knew what he knew, she’d speak, and they’d listen, they’d have to.

So he’ll have to do as well as she would.

“Begging your forgiveness, sir.” Alec projects his voice as well as he can, for all he’s talking to the floor. He can’t raise his head, not even an inch.

The Consul doesn’t say anything, but neither does he move.

“Why do you not care for your blade, sir?”

There’s a shocked silence, and Alec can hear the weapons in the armory startle awake as his father reaches, and he can feel Master Amira’s axe-blades as she joins them in the hallway.

“What seems to be the trouble, sirs?” Master Amira’s voice is smooth and clean and Alec reminds himself to breathe.

“The Lightwoods are about to lose their heir,” the Consul answers, his voice tight and the hum beneath his skin twisting down a half a pitch, sharp and unpleasant, “unless they explain his behavior very quickly, and very well.”

“I do not think so.” His mother’s voice rises, as pure a tone as any Alec has ever heard from adamas and he realizes he has lifted his head to look at her, that everyone is looking at her, the pair of clerks who follow the Consul everywhere, someone in every doorway down the hall, a silhouette behind Master Amira he can’t quite identify; even in the glimpse he can get of the corner of Ops behind his parents, everyone has turned toward the sound of her voice. “You should answer him, Consul.”

The Consul’s eyes widen, and his shoulders go back, and that feeling of danger rises, rises, and then it’s cut off, a sharp clean silence as Alec’s father takes one, single, step, letting the heel of his boot hit the tile just so. “My son is a Lightwood.”

“Recognized and sworn before an Iron Sister, sir.” Amira adds, and Alec blinks, aware now of what the odd visit last year had meant, the woman in white who had laughed as if she wasn’t dressed for mourning, who had shown him her throwing daggers and grinned when he’d hit the target with them, and given him two pure slivers of adamas to keep, one for each boot.

The Consul has gone still, and his expression is unimpressed, but the hum changes pitch again, and his clerks look nervous, eyes moving too quickly for all they’ve kept their bodies still.

“Sir.” Robert speaks into the silence, and his voice is like nothing Alec has heard from him before. He’s still quiet, still deferential and polite in tone, but it’s sharp somehow, the glint of a knife as it is slowly pulled from a sheath, the light of a seraph blade the instant before it materializes. He’s not really asking a question. “Your answer.”

“My blade has been cared for by four generations of the Dieudonné line, his question is an insult to my bloodline that has earned no answer beyond contempt.”

“Then why is it crying?” Alec doesn’t lower his head this time, for all his neck aches from the angle required to look up at the adults surrounding him. “It is awake, sir, and in pain, and you are not soothing it.”

Master Amira makes an odd choked-off noise he’s never heard before, but the rest of the hall is silent, and the silence grows, deeper and thicker, until Alec realizes he’s looking at his mother again, that they’re all looking at his mother again.

“His words are True.” Maryse’s voice is a hiss, barely louder than the blade, yet it carries. Her voice fills the hallway, perhaps through to Ops as well, perhaps beyond; it feels to Alec like the whole Institute can hear it, this one soft note of revelation whispering between them all. Her voice still rings like a bell against something inside him, something he has no name for but recognizes as the weight behind that pressure in his throat, the balance in his blood that hears better than his ears. “You will answer, or you will be foresworn.”

“You cannot-” one of the clerks attempts to speak, but Master Amira snorts and they give up.

“My parents were very traditional.” His mother’s voice sounds normal now, calm and conversational. But it still tastes like copper to Alec, like blood, and the tension in the hallway doesn’t ease. He eases himself back and up until he’s kneeling. Until he’s ready. “When my brother was forsaken, they dedicated me to the Mortal Sword as the new Trueblood heir.” Maryse smiles, and Alec can feel everyone except his father move back, trying to get away from it. “I absolutely can.”

The Consul looks contrite, bows his head in apology, enough that Alec can feel the other adults relax, just a little.

But the hum beneath Dieudonné’s skin has turned into a scream, his seraph blade wails in grief and fury, and Alec is moving before he realizes it, one hand in each boot, a flick of each wrist, and two slivers of adamas go through the Consul’s throat before he can speak.

Shock holds them all still, the scream rises into a shriek, twists and throbs and fades, at last, though Alec can’t hold in the shudder while it lingers. The Consul’s eyes are still open, but darker than they were, than they should be, and blood is dripping from them as well as his throat, and his ears, and his nose.

He stays standing for too long, still and stiff, and then a drop of blood hits the floor, one, then another, and finally he sways, and falls. His mouth opens as he hits the ground, and a dark cloud rises from it, smelling of sulfur and steel and something green that Alec will recognize five years later the first time he handles angelbane.

The former Consul jerks, his joints moving wrong in his death-throws, something too sharp to each convulsion, something other.

“Fuck,” someone Alec doesn’t know breaks the silence two long heartbeats after the body stops moving. It’s only then that he sees the rune that has now appeared, a Circle just like Hodge’s, broken by twin spears of adamas piercing through it, one on each side.

No one moves for yet another heartbeat, and Alec can’t look away from the man on the ground, the man who clearly wasn’t just a nephilim, not anymore, not like the rest of them. The man he’d killed. He’d killed the Consul of the Clave, in front of witnesses, in the middle of the Institute, before his parents…

He can feel a shared look over his head more than he can see it, and then his mother’s hand is on his shoulder and his father is calling out orders and she’s leading him away and his footsteps are running to Ops and an alert alarm is sounding, one Alec can’t hear properly through the blood rushing through his ears, and he’s relieved when his mother takes them both to his room, and tucks him into bed, and shields his door with her personal rune as well as every warding rune he’s ever seen. He smiles at her in thanks, and lets himself go.

She’s there again when he wakes, and at first he can’t remember anything. He starts to move, and feels the tug of an IV, the rattle of the stand next to his bed shifting with his movement. He blinks, and his mother sighs. It sounds like relief, and he blinks again even as she moves close, reaches out and brushes his hair off his forehead.

“It’s been a long time since an heir manifested two blood gifts at once, especially before receiving his first Mark.”

Alec had opened his mouth to… he wasn’t sure, probably apologize for being lazy after committing murder and then not even cleaning the ensuing mess up himself, but that stops him. He shuts his mouth, swallows, blinks for a third time, trying to get his thoughts to line up into something more coherent than what?

“Is that what I did?”

His mother smiles, and it’s as far as possible from her expression in the hallway, warm and soothing and grateful. “That’s what you did.”

“Oh.”

He lets that sink in, lets the implications and conclusions and possibilities trickle their way through his thoughts. “Does that mean I’m not gonna be buried at a crossroads for killing the Consul?”

His mother winces, leans forward until her forehead rests against his, and he feels dizzy and lightheaded with something almost like joy as he recognizes what she’s doing as comforting, for both of them. “Oh baby, no.”

He closes his eyes and lets himself feel the weight of his mother being his mother before anything and everything else, and doesn’t even fight it when he feels his eyes getting wet and his skin flushing with relief and confusion and love and who knows what else.

“You will never be in trouble for what you did to Malachi.” That chime was back in his mother’s voice as she whispered against his skin, and it soothed him in a way nothing else could, resonating against his worries until they faded. “You saved the entire Clave from whatever he would have done in the Circle’s name, whatever he could have done to our Institute with the Curse Valentine had put in him when he was discovered. The Inquisitor is going through the entire Council, soul by soul, to make sure she finds them all, and it’s only because of you that she has the power to do it.”

Oh.

Eventually she lifts her head, and her eyes are damp too, he can see it when she blinks. “But you will have to go to the City of Bones and meet a Silent Brother and the Soul-Sword.” Her smile quirks, and he realizes there’s pride there in her expression, on top of a complex mix of emotions that don’t make any more sense than his own. “Though that might be less scary for you than it was for me at your age, if you can hear the Soul-Sword as well as you hear seraph blades.”

“I can hear all the weapons in the armory.” Alec corrects before he can think about it. “You can’t?”

His mother laughs, short and damp and beautiful. “Even your father can’t, and he’s the only Lightwood left who can call his weapons to him. You’ve got a stronger Blood-Gift than he does.”

“I do?”

His mother nods. “Your father asked me to tell you he’s sorry he didn’t tell you so earlier. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, either.”

What.

This entire conversation is so far outside of anything he’s ever felt before, and his bones feel too light-weight under his skin and he doesn’t understand. “Why?”

“Did you consider telling me or your father about what you heard from Malachi’s blade?”

Alec frowns, and his mother lifts a hand, palm facing him, stopping him before he can protest the change of topic. “I promise I’m answering your question, please.”

His parents apologized, and his mother said please to him, like she meant it.

He shook his head from side-to-side. “I knew you’d want me to, but.” He stops. He doesn’t know how to explain that feeling, that pressure that he still suspected would have broken him if he’d tried to speak the truth and been told to keep quiet. His mother’s fingers brush against the line of his throat, and his eyes widen as he stares up at her, as he sees a tear overflow and slowly slide down her cheek as she nods, just a little, and he realizes she knows exactly what he’s not saying.

“We taught you we couldn’t be trusted, so you had to act alone.” There’s that chime again, and another tear falling. “But that’s all going to change now.”

It’s a promise, he knows, he can feel it. “What is that?”

“That is the Trueblood gift. My father could make any vow magically binding just by witnessing it, and his father could tell when someone stated something untrue, even if they believed it themselves.” Her mouth quirked. “He called it tasting lies.”

“Can you do that?”

“No.” She closes her eyes, too slowly to be just a blink, and this time when she sighs he can feel the weight behind it. “I can hear Truth sometimes, ride it, verify it, make sure everyone else believes it.”

She opens her eyes, and there’s guilt now, and grief, dark and deep and endless. “Valentine recruited your father and I personally, and I believed everything he told me about what he was doing, and why, and because I believed him, because there was a Trueblood supporting him, a lot of people who wouldn’t otherwise have let him be… let him get away with, well. Everything.”

Alec goes still. He can tell she’s telling the Truth still, and he doesn’t want to know that, doesn’t want to feel it, but he can, he does, and he’s never ever going to be able to forget what this feels like, this truth that turned his whole life into a lie that he’d never known he was telling.

He swallows down the nausea, the outrage, and waits.

“But when your father told me what he learned about what Valentine was really like, I couldn’t believe the lies any more. We turned ourselves into the Clave, and they only let us back because I rode the Truth when I vowed that we would be loyal to the Council, when I vowed on my bloodline, back to my parents and.” Her voice drops, lower and softer. “And down to my son, who is a Trueblood too.”

“And then you lied to me about it.”

“The Council forbid anyone from talking about the Circle.”

He gives her the look that line deserves.

She’s almost trembling, her hands held too tightly by her sides. “We didn’t want you to have to bear the weight of our mistakes.”

“But I do.” He looks at her, really looks at her, in the same way he looks at the weapons in the armory, and the hilts strapped to the side of visiting nephilim, and the way he’d listened to Malachi and heard Valentine’s Curse in his blood.

Alec can almost see the pattern of the fragile scaffolding of his mother’s emotions, suppressed down under her skin, forced to only exist between the fine lines of her plans, of her will and desire and ambition and pain, all constraining her gift into something so much smaller than it could have been. The foundation of that scaffolding seems shaken, it feels fragile. But it hasn’t moved, hasn’t fallen. She regrets how he feels, sincerely means to change, but she hasn’t, not yet. It’s all still there.

“Every single one of them has been put on my shoulders, and because you hid them from me I thought all that weight was mine, was me, that I deserved every harsh word and mistrustful look, and every single one of them was about you.”

Maryse rears back, but they both hear the Truth in his voice, the sound that resonates between his bones, that builds and forces its way out, that refuses to be silenced. That he is never ever going to try and silence. “You can go.”

She opens her mouth. He lifts his chin, and she concedes. “Amira will take my place with you until the next medic visit.”

He almost frowns, wondering what she means. “You burned through almost all your angelic energy.” She tilts her chin and he glances sideways at the IV bag, half full of something that isn’t just saline, judging by the color of the label. “And you’ve been asleep for almost three days.”

Three? he mouths, more to himself than her, but she sees it, understands it, nods.

There are circles under her eyes, and he can hear the exhaustion she'd been trying to hide when she speaks again. “Let us try and take care of you this time.”

He nods, accepting her peace offering for what it is, and she leaves.

He settles, waits until the door opens again to let Master Amira in.

Only then does he close his eyes, knowing he’s safe, knowing she’s there for him. He knows he’ll forgive his parents when they come back, knows that if they try at all he’ll let them be his parents again. But he’s not sure if they’ll ever earn back his trust.

But he can trust Master Amira, and he’ll make sure to tell Izzy the truth, make sure she knows exactly which consequences are hers, and which are not. He’ll do the same for Max once he’s old enough to talk, and they’ll never have to bear the weight of their parents’ mistakes the way he did, never be expected to fix everything the Clave and Circle broke just because they were offered the mercy of living.

But she also refuses to just wait until it's not, because everyone falls eventually, and she will not be like her mother and embrace hope to the point of ignorance, will not start a family and then leave them when she fails. She can feel the magic inside her, that deep deep sea of the pain that comes after rage fades, but her mother's rage will never fade, so Esther's doesn't either, not yet, and she doesn't fall in.

Esther dives instead into the deep end of the Unsleeping City, lets herself fall into other types of magic. Magic can be dormant, can be awakened, can be innate and felt, can be gifted and uplifted, can be observed and analyzed, can be learned.

So she learns.

Magic is versatile and dangerous and beautiful. She can't risk the power within her; she builds new power outside of it, around it, fencing and framing it in until it's as far from her thoughts as possible. Until her thoughts stay as far from her heart as she can make them. But she's still human, can't break that connection completely. She's still Cursed, and that Curse is in her blood and her heart and her desires, and however tightly she covers them up they're still there, and she knows it.

There isn't much else she knows, despite all her research and training. Every curse has a counter-curse, but sometimes the counter is just as bad, and even if this one isn't, the Furies are old, older than written history, and nothing she can find has any information on the Curse itself, no known way to take it apart and look at its pieces, only scant observations of the effects, the aftermath.

Most curses have very specific goals, and once those goals are met they're gone. One big push of magic and intention, too strong to easily break or dispel, but sometimes they can be mitigated, or dodged, or simply endured, and one can come out the other side of them changed but free.

Or dead.

That is the most common way to end a curse.

That won't work for her.

Not that Esther wants to die, but she'd be tempted if she knew that this would end, that she would be the last one.

This is not that sort of curse.

It endures, more than any other hex or curse or spell she can find and she doesn't know why.

She is forced to guess, to hypothesize, to wonder rather than to know. She wonders what some distant fore-mother did to incite such an endless vicious consequence, a Curse that follows their bloodline and cannot be banished or cured or even killed. Because it had to have been a woman, they're all women, only women, mother to daughter as far back as anyone can trace. Usually only one, but sometimes more, just often enough that if the eldest daughter dies before she falls, the Curse doesn't fail, doesn't end. It moves, and claims, and destroys someone else.

Their bloodline never dies, despite centuries of women who married less, had fewer children, who tried to hide and dodge and change and still endured, still had daughters, still survived even when they weren't really living. Esther wonders if the Curse is tied somehow to the Fates, some light touch of precognition, just enough to make sure their family keeps going, despite logic or desire, despite the odds suggesting that they should have been devoured by the Furies ages past.

If Esther dies, she's sure the Curse will find someone else, some distant relative far enough away to be ignorant, but not far enough to be safe. (There's no such thing as safe, not really. Safer, maybe, but even that is only for other people. Not her. Never her.)

She wonders how much worse a Fury could get, one who didn't even know what she was, had no idea how magic worked, had no chance at all of tempering the Fury's power as it rose, of retreating to the refuge (the cage) her family had made of Tompkins Park.

The Curse lives on, so she will too.

It would be such a relief to know why, even if it didn't mean she could stop it, maybe it would ache less, somehow. Just a little.

But instead it's always there, cold and bitter and deep, salt and tears and eternal sorrow. She wonders if that pool inside her feels the way it does because this Curse is somehow tied to the sea, eternally shifting tides that will never ever end.

She stops wondering about that, because she can feel her balance waver. She needs a little hope, no matter how pragmatic she has to be to get through most days. She learns to avoid some thoughts, but she never outright lies to herself if she can help it. She will never let her guard down, never pretend she is safe when she knows she isn't. She's still angry at her mother for that, for falling when Esther was still so young, when she needed a mother, when she needed to be able to cry.

She has to be angry. She grips it tight, because it's the only shield she has; anger works, but only for so long. Eventually she'll burn out, and she'll drown, and she'll take everyone and everything with her.

She wonders what her mother held onto when she couldn't risk anger, wonders if perhaps her mother cried, was as different from the woman Esther has made herself as it is possible to be. She wonders if her mother's rage feels like a storm, a tsunami, if it's salt and depth just like her hidden sorrow, if her grandmother's grief is the quiet but endless rain that still floods, and drowns, and carries everything, eventually, down to the sea.

She wonders, but she doesn't believe. That seems too kind.

She would bet that the Furies can't even have that, can't share the taste of the Curse as it overwhelms them. She remembers faint lost stories of her grandmother, whispers of soft warmth turned remote and grey, remembers the bright explosion of magic and pain when her mother fell. She thinks that her mother burns, fire and sparks in her bones and her blood, believes that her grandmother is the stretch of a tundra far from any town, empty and solitary and rock hard beneath each step. She can feel it, somehow, in the depths of the tides within her, that when she falls they'll still only give each other pain, opposite and opposing sides of the same terrible magic.

She wonders if the Curse manifests in different elements, if her Great-Grandmother had been an air Fury, cold and fierce as arctic wind, or as heavy and cloying as the tropics. Imagines, for a moment, the soft warmth of a spring breeze instead. She wonders if there's a clue to the counter-curse there, balancing element and temperament with four instead of three.

She realizes she's half recreated the theory of humors, and wonders how she got herself caught up in such nonsense. There's no known way to make another Fury, and even if there were she wouldn't risk it somehow making the Curse more powerful. There has never been a fourth Fury. There are three of them, vicious and deadly and inhuman. The have always only been three Furies, though sometimes it takes a generation or two for the next woman to fall.

Always.

The more she learns, the harder it is to hold onto that one small drop of hope. She's not the first to try and break this Curse, it's sheer hubris to think she'll somehow be the last.

Hubris is probably what got her into this, judging by most mythology. Might as well use it to try and get out, right? She won't give up, she'll never give up, but maybe there's a way around it instead of through, an evasion rather than a breaking.

She learns.

She experiments.

She talks to people, learns to smile without baring her fangs so that they're willing to talk back.

She doesn't make friends, not really, but she learns to be friendly enough. Alejandro and Kingston, Misty and Mike and Willy, Rovias and Orlando and Frank, Ana and Amelia and occasionally even Jackson, though the Monastery's always been a little sideways to the practice of magic, and she's certainly not ready to accept that her life is what it is.

She's careful with her questions, so only Alejandro has managed to put any of the pieces together. (No one else knows her well enough to bother, which is entirely on purpose, but doesn't make her feel better. Not that she needs to feel better. She just can't risk feeling worse.) None of them give her any leads, however, and Esther knows she's running out of time.

If she can't break the Curse, she'll just have to get in its way by cursing herself with something else before it takes hold.

She does not explain this plan to Alejandro, because she knows exactly what he'd say, and also that then he'd keep much too close an eye on her, and that might make her think about how much he means to her, and that is something that has to be avoided.

Esther can't pull off anything as nasty as the thing she's already dealing with, so a new curse seems a reasonable enough risk to her, and her opinion is, in the end, the only thing she's got. She just has to find the right school, the right structure to use.

Necromancy was out; death moved the Curse.

Both healing and destructive Evocation spells had been attempted by every sort of spellcaster she'd heard of (and a few she still hadn't translated into anything she recognized) whenever the Furies showed up throughout history; she hasn't been able to come up with anything new to try there.

Transmutation would carry a bloodline curse with the transformation, so she can't turn herself into a swan or something. Animals still have emotions, and while a Swan Fury is an odd enough mental image to make her snort out a laugh when she first thinks of it, it's also terrifying, so that's not worth the risk. (The cure for most transformation curses involve someone who loves you doing something to help, quests, vows of silence and nettle shirts, or even just a kiss, and she has gone out of her way to try and prevent herself from loving anyone, from letting anyone else love her, and she's learned too much not to know that, and she values her knowledge too much not to think about it, and that way lies almost as much sorrow as the loss she's trying to avoid might cause.)

Divination doesn't really do curses, except of blinding someone to obvious consequences, and that's the opposite of helpful here. If she cobbles one together it might prevent the Curse from continuing whatever weird shit it does that means her family doesn't die out, but it would take a few generations to know if it had worked or not, and well. She'd be gone and unable to do the follow-up by then, and she doesn't know where more of her family might be, so she can't ask someone else to keep an eye on them after she's gone. (And that still doesn't help save her or anyone around her right now.)

Conjuration would just be adding something else to the Curse, and since she can't figure out what was in it to begin with, there's no telling what that would do. She can't use abjuration to shield herself from it without shielding herself from her own blood, which would again be fatal, and if she banishes herself it would, just like in transmutation, come with her. She could throw herself into a pocket realm, so at least she wouldn't hurt anyone, but then she'd just be stuck as a Fury for a subjective eternity until she died and the Curse could do its thing again to someone else. Without even that much time passing here, probably, considering how small pocket realms were in comparison to everywhere and everywhen else.

Illusion or Enchantment magic wouldn't change the Curse itself, just the way she could see it or interact with it, so that wouldn't help. It might even make it easier to trigger, rather than limiting it to sorrow.

She'd considered a sleep spell, of course, as the one exception. She had even gone so far as to doodle a vine covered tower in the margins of one of her notebooks, thorns poking around her sentences, but what if she had bad dreams and woke up a Fury, with no idea of where or when she was, or how she'd drowned in sorrow?

Even so, she couldn't seem to come up with anything better.

She'd have to make an anchor, something small enough that she could keep it on her at all times, sturdy enough that it wouldn't easily break down after she triggered it. Something to keep the spell steady so she'd be deep enough to avoid dreaming, to sleep through the shifting of magic or noise around her, but not so deep she'd die, freeing the Curse to find its next victim.

Her test run on a curse anchor was a spindle, because she did allow herself a sense of humor, but that would be a bit hard to explain as a keepsake in her pocket.

Her next run was a set of rings that would trigger if she put them both on the the same finger. She wore enough magical jewelry that even if someone went looking, they wouldn't be able to tell exactly what they were for.

And she could keep them on all the time, easy to access if she started to lose control before she found a cure.

The way he has never once made Magnus wait for his next bid, ready with the faintest tip of his chin (up with an echoing lift of his eyelids for yes, down and to the left as his eyes almost close for no) as soon as Magnus is looking at him.

Well. That's not quite true. Magnus always has half an eye on Alec. But Alec always bids as soon as it's his turn, always keeps track of who else is bidding, whether it's online or someone else on the floor, never gets behind, never loses his place. Not even when the auction is training a new clerk, and the display is periodically a step or two behind.

(Magnus suspects that Alec is, in fact, completely focused on Magnus, that he enjoys seeing Magnus as much as Magnus enjoys seeing him, but Magnus refuses to attempt to quantify it to prove himself right. He's certainly never going to ask.

Because then he might prove himself wrong, and that would be... unfortunate.)

He refuses to admit to anyone here, or himself, refuses to admit even to Cat or Ragnor on the rare occasions they pretend to care about cars, (only because they care about him, as they're much more likely to appreciate his stories about estate sales or art auctions, but those are specialty events, and he quite likes the steady loop of car auctions every week, NYC to Jersey to Delaware and back), that every time he sees Alec in his lane there's a greedy little voice in the back of his head saying 'mine'.

Which is stupid, he knows it's stupid, he knows Alec buys other cars from other sellers, not just the ones Magnus works for, that he is only in Magnus' lane every week because it's his job, but Magnus can't seem to stop the voice.

And the other buyer from Lightwood is never in his lanes.

Lydia is always impeccably put together, cool and pale and blonde and beautiful, wearing sleek slacks or a pencil skirt most weeks regardless of the weather, an engagement ring glinting on one finger and a single gold chain around her neck. She doesn't quite reach Alec's shoulder, even in her sensible pumps, and the sight of them standing side-by-side comparing notes would be slightly amusing on those grounds. Except they can both judge someone with a single lifted eyebrow at 10 paces, and there are few people with the nerve to survive that.

Magnus only works with Lydia if he's giving a break or covering for an auctioneer on leave. And even then he sometimes thinks he sees Alec in the lane across the way, glancing back as if he's thinking 'mine' too, as if he'd rather be there than let his co-worker bid with Magnus.

Magnus is ridiculous, is what he is, but that's alright. Alec doesn't seem to mind. He's still got that almost dimple every week when Magnus introduces himself at the start of the sale.

_

Until Alec's not there.

One week happens, now and then, and Magnus sighs sadly to himself and does his (less pretty than usual) job.

But Alec's not there the next week either, or the one after that, and Lydia is, Lydia is bidding in his lane. She doesn't stay there like Alec mostly did; he was tall enough he could cover two lanes only by switching which way he leaned, and only occasionally bothered to walk somewhere else.

Lydia is hopping lanes, walking back and forth, looking for whatever vehicles she's saved on her list. She occasionally even looks flustered, which is a rare occurence for her, she's generally terrifyingly competent, but she is trying to cover all eight lanes by herself, and that is, for most of the larger dealerships, a two or three person job. (Big Mike's usually has four buyers, but that's because Mike Jr. is a terrible micromanager and takes up half their time second-guessing them.)

Magnus is afraid to ask her about Alec, isn't sure how to approach her or what he'd say even if he did: 'Hi, we've never technically met, but where's tall, dark, and handsome, I miss him?'

Obviously he could just ask why she's covering by herself, but he's afraid he'd fail entirely at sounding casual, and then he'd be right back at 'please share personal information about your co-worker with a sort-of stranger?'

He looks up the Lightwood Motors website on his break but there's nothing out of order there, and Alexander's head shot is on the about page; he's a Lightwood too, fancy title and general manager of something or other, and Magnus clicks it closed, too flustered to read it properly.

Not just some random buyer, not just Magnus' favorite, it probably all had been in Magnus' head, and it ought to be a relief that he'd never said anything to anyone, never approached Lightwood directly, never embarrassed himself by acting like they knew each other when it was just sales banter, only professional camaraderie while surrounded by car exhaust.

Too much car exhaust over the years had damaged his judgement?

He didn't quite believe himself, but he tried. What else was there to do?

-

Magnus got a call from the Florida office of his management agency; Lorenzo was out for some sort of family emergency, could he cover an auction down there for a few weeks?

It was the day after his Delaware auction, which was the shortest one already, and Florida was an easier flight than California, which he'd done when Malcolm retired until they could find someone more local, so he said yes.

His first week he got moved off the lane he'd prepared for, and ended up selling for Lightwood Motors. The agent on the floor was from the auction, so no luck there, and the seller from the dealer was online.

Just his luck. Jumped south six states and he was still getting teased by the lack of his favorite pretty boy. “And who do we have with us from Lightwood?” Magnus asked before their first car. “I don't suppose it's Alexander?”

The online agent literally keysmashed in the chat box, and Magnus tilted his head. The clerk at the computer even let loose a giggle; she'd apparently never seen that before either.

[Sorry, this is Jace.] The second chat message was more normal. [Alec doesn't do sales, just buys. But it's nice to meet you, Magnus.]

“You too,” Magnus managed without sounding at all disappointed, and once again he did his job.

It was only later that he realized he hadn't introduced himself after Lightwood Motors had gotten online; they'd been the third seller in his lane. Had that 'Jace' just been listening to the lane before he signed in, or had that keysmash meant more than Magnus realized, did he recognize an auctioneer who knew Alexander rather than Alec?

Was Magnus being even more ridiculous this time? Or was it maybe not just in his head?

Only now he had to wait three whole days until he'd be back at the NYC auction and could make himself ask Lydia directly.

-

Only when he got to work on Monday, he didn't have to look for Lydia. There was Alexander, leaning against the wall beside the employee entrance, all long legs and ducked head and hands rubbing together.

Magnus almost tripped over his new boots and stopped with a mortifyingly audible stutter of heels against concrete.

Alexander looked up, and his expression softened, but it wasn't a smile, not quite, Magnus didn't know what it was, or what was happening, or why Alexander was specifically here where the dealers generally weren't and, "what?"

Alexander shrugged, making Magnus realized he must have said something out loud, even if he couldn't now remember what.

"Could we?" Alexander's head tilted, just as eloquent with his eyebrows as he'd always been when bidding, and Magnus followed him over to what had once been a smoker's nook, an old empty ashtray around the corner with an ugly green awning to protect it from the worst of the wind or rain.

"Mr Lightwood," Magnus began, which wasn't at all what he'd wanted to say, but he wasn't sure how to start anything else. He stopped as soon as Alexander winced.

"I suppose I deserved that."

Magnus opened his mouth, and shut it again. "I am very confused, Alexander."

That time he got a smile, and he couldn't help but smile back.

"Is it weird to say I've missed you?" Alexander glanced sideways at him, his hands still pressing against each other in what seemed to be a nervous tic. "I mean, we've never even introduced ourselves, but..."

Magnus reached out, and let one hand slide between Alexander's long fingers. His smile widened as he felt Alec's thumb start to rub against one of his rings rather than digging into Alec's other hand again.

"You're throwing away our long and meaningful history! I introduce myself to you every week, and you're just ignoring that? I'm offended."

Alexander snorted, and Magnus grinned in delight, ignoring how his hand felt almost chilly as Alec's fingers slipped free now that he'd stopped fidgeting. "There you are, I thought you had a sense of humor."

"You're probably the only one."

"I don't know, Lydia smiles when you roll your eyes at the other dealers, that seems promising."

Alec's head tilted, and this time Magnus couldn't tell what his eyebrows were saying. "You noticed that?"

I always notice what you're doing. Magnus wasn't sure he should say that. He just hummed instead.

"So I was, uh." Alec stopped. He was, perhaps, flushing very slightly pink. "I kept wanting to send you pictures while I was gone, but I don't, we don't. I only even know your last name because you're registered on the website, I mean--"

"Alexander!" Magnus cut him off, not sure he'd be able to survive any more of the delight that was rising up through his chest as if to drown him. "Did you look me up online?"

Alec's eyes widened, and his mouth opened but nothing came out. He was definitely starting to blush, but he looked almost horrified rather than anything more enjoyable for either of them, so Magnus kept going before Alec thought that was a problem. "I did that too, how did you think I knew you were an actual Lightwood rather than just a Lightwood dealer?"

Alec's mouth closed, and there, there was that almost smile again, the edge of his mouth tucking in tight and giving a hint of a dimple. "We're maybe a pair of idiots."

Magnus laughed. "I guess we are. Give me your number, pretty boy, and tell me more about those pictures, and all mutual idiocy will be forgotten?"

Alec handed over his phone, already open to an add contact screen, and shook his head ruefully. "I don't even know how you managed to say 'pictures' like that."

"It's a gift," Magnus said. He finished putting in his number, sending a heart-emoji as a message to himself before he gave the phone back so he'd have Alec's number too.

Alec glanced down, his smile widening for a moment before he put his phone back in his pocket. "I hate to disappoint you but I was driving cross-country with my little brother for one last 'adventure' before moving him into his dorms, so the pictures are entirely child-friendly."

"Aww," Magnus let out before he could stop himself. "That's so sweet. Did you take pictures of giant balls of twine and slightly out of focus mountains and diners surrounded by fields of corn?"

Alec blinked. "That's pretty accurate, actually."

"And you wanted to send them to me?" Magnus' voice was softer than he'd intended, not really teasing at all. "Really?"

"Every one." Alec reached a hand out and Magnus held it, both of them clearly doing it on purpose this time. “Join me for an early dinner after the sale, and I'll show them to you?”

It was probably some horrifying form letter designed to intimidate him into something that was not remotely his problem, but he was going to have to clean up regardless. Shadowhunters didn't request things, they ordered, and brow-beat, and the only reason they got away with it was because they treated everyone equally terribly, including themselves, and to be quite fair to their militaristic grand-standing, the world was continuing to not be overrun by demons, so it seemed to be working for them.

Even Valentine hadn’t made much of a dent in their self-righteous arrogance. The Lightwoods hadn’t lost possession of the Institute they’d killed to get, buying clemency with their children, from what he’d heard, which was even worse than typical nephilim parenting. Despicable, ev–

He blinked. That wasn't the New York Institute's watermark, it was the Inquisitor's.

He tilted it to let the light from the windows spill across it, but that was very clearly the silhouette of a Demon Tower behind two crossed blades, not the broken stone the Clave had required the New York Institute to use after the Uprising to signify its failure to uphold their so-called sacred duties.

He huffed out a breath in not quite a sigh, and felt a frown starting to form between his brows. It was easier to deal with Inquisitor Herondale and her people than the Lightwoods. (She at least hated Valentine as much as the downworld.) But that didn't mean a formal letter was likely to be a good thing. Whatever had happened in the aftermath of Valentine's attempted coup had been kept very quiet behind Alicante's borders, and everything the downworld got to see had returned to business-as-usual.

He rolled his eyes, because nephilim, but ignoring one of their summons made them even more petty and obnoxious, so he turned it over to unfold.

And stopped again upon seeing how it was addressed.

High Warlock of Brooklyn Senior Scholar of the Spiral Labyrinth Ambassador of the Accords The Right Hon. Magnus Bane

They'd used a fountain pen and written in proper uncial calligraphy and if he hadn't known that the magic for fire messages didn't work on animal skin, he might have thought they'd used actual parchment rather than what must instead be a very high quality paper stock.

"Huh." He peered down at the letters, trying to think if he'd ever seen a nephilim address a notice to a downworlder in the same formal terms they used amongst themselves. And then almost dropped the whole damn thing when he realized that the initials scribbled across the fold in lieu of the wax seal that would have prevented the fire message from activating properly were IWH. And in the exact same calligraphy as the address.

"What the fuck." He spoke aloud, louder than he'd expected or intended, almost loud enough to startle himself even as he flung the whole thing out and away.

He watched as it fell to the floor, and he stared at it.

It still just looked like paper.

It had to just be paper, the rune to send it wouldn't have worked otherwise, but High Inquisitor Imogen Whitelaw Herondale had written on that with her own hand and sent it to Magnus as if he was an equal and what in all seven hells was that about?

He stepped sideways, unable to convince himself to look away from those initials even as his fingers scrabbled across his desk in search of normal paper and pen to send a message of his own.

Ragnor, could you please indulge me with your thoughts for a moment?

He'd half expected he wouldn't get an answer, not even another fire message or a call on the phone in the other room; Ragnor had been even more of a hermit than usual since the Uprising. (Not that Magnus could fault him for that. If he wasn't a High Warlock he probably would have disappeared into the countryside somewhere as well.) But instead he felt the familiar press of Ragnor's magic against his wards as a portal opened almost immediately in the foyer.

"Apothecary!" Magnus called out, still staring at the paper on his floor.

He heard footsteps, felt Ragnor's magic approach, could even see the shadow stretching towards him when Ragnor paused in the doorway. "Ah, you got it too?"

That finally made Magnus blink, the hold of the strange message broken. He turned his head and lifted his eyebrows.

Ragnor shook his head. "I think you need to experience it for yourself."

Magnus snorted, but stepped forward, picked up the paper, and this time he unfolded it and began to read.

And then read it again.

And again, even as Ragnor came to stand beside him.

"What the fuck," he repeated.

Ragnor grunted, apparently not having any more idea than he did.

"Do you think it's real?" Magnus asked, and he could hear the almost plaintive whisper of something he couldn't pretend wasn't hope in his own voice.

"Only one way to find out." Ragnor's voice was dry, but gentle. There was hope hiding in his voice, too. "Shall we?"

*

It seemed real the next evening.

They arrived in front of the New York Institute to find Theo and Gretel from the closest Werewolf pack already there. A pair of fae nobles Magnus didn't recognize, both in full Court regalia, one Seelie and the other Unseelie, arrived a few minutes later, just after the last lingering blush of daylight faded, escorting Raphael and Lily who were here for their Clan.

Magnus almost asked if any of them knew what the fuck was really going on, but did in fact retain his composure and instead just lifted his chin to wait. (He had to admit, even if just to himself, that he was glad Camille was off somewhere being Camille rather than here in New York to represent the vampires and make this whole situation even more uncomfortable.)

They didn't wait long.

The double doors to the Cathedral swung wide open, rather than the main entrance that led to the central hub of the Institute and the Heads' Office. The High Inquisitor herself stepped out, and fucking bowed to them, and Magnus made a small noise of disbelief that he would deny to his dying day if anyone ever asked. (He didn't think anyone would, however, as he had not been the only one. In fact he was pretty sure the only one who hadn't betrayed their surprise was Ragnor, though the fae had managed no more than a slight shift in posture or positioning.)

"We have set up precautions so all may enter." Herondale paused, and tilted her chin towards Ragnor and Magnus. "I understand if you wish to verify before anyone tests my word?"

Magnus stared at her. She'd just admitted that they had no reason to believe her. She'd admitted it out loud and didn't even sound upset about it.

Ragnor bumped his elbow, and Magnus tucked it all back behind his High Warlock mask. He nodded back as formally as he could manage before lifting his arms and letting his magical senses expand.

There was something inside that was still warded enough to prevent him from being able to tell what it was, but its power was passive rather than active, so it wouldn't be able to be turned against them without warning.

There was also an echo of banked power that felt suspiciously like Silent Brother -and- Iron Sister -and- Soul Sword which was a thing the letter had mentioned but he hadn't been sure he'd believed; (especially that it was only there for Herondale to swear on rather than to be used against the rest of them, somehow). Beyond either of those, it was also very clear the resonance from the Angelic Core had been banked, somehow, the blessing to make the ground hallowed had been covered and muted, and it was entirely safe for any downworlder to enter, regardless of age or power level or wards.

He couldn't quite resist a glance at Ragnor, whose expression indicated he was right there with Magnus and his inexplicable conclusion. Ragnor managed to imply a shrug with the shift of his eyes, and Magnus turned to their fellow downworlders. "She's correct, the building is completely safe for us to enter."

He refrained from suggesting that the nephilim in the building were trustworthy, as they'd all already decided to take that risk when they'd shown up in response to Herondale's summons.

He supposed the fae might not have decided so much as been ordered, but regardless. They were already here. And it was time to see if the rest of it was true.

The rows of pews were nearly full of nephilim in mourning white, more than Magnus suspected usually served in New York, all of them eerily silent, heads politely bowed just enough to lessen the weight of their attention on the entering downworlders.

Behind the chancel, in the raised choir stands, there were additionally about a half-a-dozen black-clad guards, an Iron Sister in gleaming white, a Silent Brother in his bone-dull robe, and the Soul Sword itself, the ruby glinting in its hilt.

To the left of the altar were half-a-dozen nephilim children roughly equivalent to elementary school aged Mundanes, only one of whom had the steady glow to Magnus' senses of a runed Shadowhunter rather than the flickering eldritch taste of angelic potential that the young ones carried before they received their first Mark.

Except for one small red-head just under ten who was familiarly blank, and he realized that the Inquisitor must have found the Fairchilds because that was young Clarissa, still under the power of the wards her mother had paid him to build for her.

He hoped Dorothea was safe, wherever she was. He hadn't felt her magic break, so at least he was reasonably sure she was still alive.

He swallowed, let his gaze skip over the draped stand centered on the aisle in front of him, and focused instead on the dozen adults opposite the children, each with a visibly red Circle on their neck, their shoulders all stiff in the distinctive posture of prisoners whose hands were chained behind their backs. Some of them he didn't know at all, a few were only vaguely familiar, but then there was Jocelyn herself, and Starkweather, and both Lightwoods, and someone who looked eerily similar to the Consul himself.

There was one man beside the rest with his hands cuffed in front of him instead of behind, his Circle rune dark and quiescent rather than inflamed, a Chinese Shadowhunter standing next to him, close enough the white of her sleeves brushed against his arm, with neither a Circle rune nor any restraints on her at all.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice." Herondale spoke up after giving them all a moment to look around, and without another word she turned her back to eight potentially hostile downworlders and knelt before the Sword.

The Silent Brother lifted his hands, the pressure of his attention clear even when he didn't say anything. The Iron Sister lifted the sword, balancing it gracefully in such a way that it tilted gently down from her grip until the tip almost rested on Herondale's forehead. The ruby glowed, and the flare of angelic power was strong enough to sizzle against Magnus' skin. Carried along with the magic was the Silent Brother's intent, and the Inquisitor's voice filled the Cathedral, both inside and outside his head, resonating in his bones and his blood.

"The traitor Valentine Morgenstern has been killed, and the only surviving nephilim members of his Circle are here to face their final sentencing, as witnessed by the Downworld Leaders of New York City, in this the soul of the New York Institute, a place most wounded by his actions. This truth I swear, upon the Angel Raziel and His Mortal and Immortal Instruments, as High Inquisitor of Alicante and Idris, Commander of the Gard, Elder of the Clave and Council, Head of the Herondale Family, Blooded Shadowhunter and Mother of Soldiers, Lady Imogen Whitelaw Herondale."

Magnus swallowed, ignoring the burn in his eyes and the faint taste of copper down his throat.

The Soul Sword compelled the truth from the nephilim, but all it required when they swore upon it was that they believed in whatever truth they spoke.

This ritual was something else entirely. The balance of the magic he'd just witnessed, a trio of complementary powers braided together, Brother and Sister and relic, knowledge and skill and power, secrets and vows and faith, with each separate piece enhancing the other two, meant that Herondale couldn't have sworn on something that was untrue at any level, even if she'd personally believed it all the way down to her bones.

"Well, fuck me."

Magnus snorted, barely stopping himself from giggling (possibly slightly hysterically) at Ragnor's sotto voce reaction. Not that he'd been thinking anything any more eloquent.

It was real.

*

The rest of the meeting was less dramatic. Even whipping the cover off the stand in the middle to reveal Valentine’s head encased in silver-edged glass had been less shocking. (Well, to the warlocks and fae, at least. Vampires and werewolves weren’t quite as able to feel the way the ritual had invoked truth magic against the nephilim, so being able to examine (and presumably scent) proof that Valentine was dead was a bigger deal for them.)

The former Circle members were all going to be deruned, exiled, and imprisoned, each alone at a different Institute so they couldn’t work together and their status could be verified by downworlders whenever they wished, unlike traditional prisoners kept in Alicante at the Gard.

There were two exceptions. One: Lucian Graymark, now Luke Garroway, was a werewolf, and the nephilim abdicated their authority and explicitly left his punishment up to the downworld itself. Second: the man who’d been standing slightly separate from the other prisoners, Patrick Penhallow, who had avoided participating in any of the Circle’s true atrocities and was the one who had discovered Valentine was alive and hiding with the presumed dead Herondale heir and promptly informed Imogen personally. He was still to be exiled from the Clave and Council for punishment, but would be allowed to continue as a Shadowhunter and would, in fact, be staying in New York City where he would be an official liaison to the downworld.

But only if the downworld representatives summoned agreed.

Magnus wasn’t complete sure which part of that was supposed to be mercy and which part was punishment, but he was surprised enough at the validation offered to himself and the other representatives that he did, in fact, agree to it along with everyone else.

That wasn’t even the last surprise though.

No, it got better.

Worse?

Magnus wasn’t sure anymore. He was going to tell Catarina about this and she wasn’t going to believe a single damn word he said.

Instead of re-opening their Academy in Alicante, the nephilim were going to train their children at the Institutes, and would include exposure to and lessons from former mundanes and current downworlders. The children there in the chapel for this meeting were the orphans of the Circle, whose parents were all formally being removed from their bloodlines, and this new generation would be raised in New York City.

Imogen Herondale herself was going to be acting as Head of the New York Institute with Jia Penhallow (Patrick’s wife, who had not ever been part of the Circle) as her Co-Head until such time as as the downworld agreed that the next generation of nephilim seemed sufficiently un-Circle-like and one of them could be appointed.

(That wasn’t, of course, how she’d said it, but it was clear enough.)

Magnus was mostly in shock and just nodding along at that point.

When she’d confirmed that the downworld was reasonably accepting of all of that, and had even told them how to contact Patrick directly with any questions or concerns, she slipped into something that looked like parade rest, and without a bit of warning that Magnus could recognize, the entire chapel-full of nephilim all stood at the same time, chanted “ante faciem Angelus” all together, and then they bowed, too. All of them, each with a hand over their heart, respect and responsibility and something that felt like an apology ringing through the air. From nephilim. To downworlders.

“Fiat justicia!” Herondale called out in response, and the nephilim filed back into their institute, and the black-clad guards very politely escorted the downworlders the other direction and shut the big fancy doors behind them, and Magnus was blinking at Ragnor in the street outside the Institute again.

“What the actual fuck.” Gretel broke the silence first.

Magnus started laughing, and nodded in agreement. That absolutely covered it.