Alec went to the New York Shadow Market on Canal Street with Magnus and Max often, but the first time at a new Shadow Market as a Shadowhunter could be tricky.
The Buenos Aires Shadow Market looked more than tricky. Barbed wire was hung on every plank. The smooth sun-bleached wood and snarled loops of barbed wire were an impenetrable stretch of silver. There was a large metal door in front of them, more suited to a prison than a market, and a werewolf’s eyes shone behind a metal grille. He snapped something at them.
“He said ‘No Shadowhunters,’” Lily interpreted cheerfully.
There was a line of Downworlders behind them, staring and murmuring. Alec felt a shadow of the old discomfort at being the focus of attention, and a sudden doubt about the information Jem had provided.
“I’m Alec Lightwood,” he said. “I hear that I’m allowed in.”
There was a stir behind his back, a brief silence, and then a rush of different-sounding whispers, like listening to a tide turn.
“You could just be another lying Nephilim,” the werewolf snarled, switching to English. “Can you prove you’re Alec Lightwood?”
Alec said: “I can.”
He took his hands out of his pockets and held up the right one to the grille so the werewolf could see it plainly: scarred skin, calluses from his bow, the dark lines of his Voyance rune, and moonlight striking and holding on the bright band of his family ring with its etched pattern of flames.
Another set of eyes appeared at the grille, this pair a faerie’s, pupil-less and green as woodland lakes fathoms deep. She said something soft in Spanish.
“She says the magic in your ring is very strong,” Lily reported at his shoulder. “Too strong. She says that kind of power comes from the very heart of hell.”
Alec knew that was true. There was not only one charm in this ring, but spell after spell: magic for protection and deflection, magic to guide his arrows and blades, all the power at Magnus’s command poured into the metal. There was everything Magnus had been able to think of, to act as Alec’s armor, and ensure Alec would return home safe to him. Most important, there was the look on Magnus’s face when he gave the enchanted ring to Alec and said he believed they would be married one day.
“I know where this kind of power comes from.” Alec raised his voice so that the whole murmuring crowd could hear. “I’m Alec Lightwood. Magnus Bane made this ring for me.”
The werewolf guard held open the door to the Shadow Market.
Alec and Lily walked into a barbed-wire tunnel. Alec could hear the sounds and glimpse the lights of a Market, but the tunnel split off in two directions. The guard took them to the left, away from light and sound, into a shed lined with wards and metal. Broken weapons were fixed on the walls, and there was a roughly hewn circular platform in the center of the room, and on that platform a huge chair. There were crossed axes on the back of that chair, and a row of glittering spikes ran along the top. A slender faerie girl, with wispy hair and a wistful face, was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the throne.
Upon the throne was a young woman who looked about Alec’s age. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, her legs swung carelessly over the throne’s arm, the row of spikes glinting above her light hair. This must be the woman Jem had written about, the werewolf Queen of the Market.
She saw Alec and her face went blank. Then she started to smile, and said in English, but with a distinct French accent: “Alec! It’s really you. I can’t believe it!”
This was very awkward.
“Sorry,” said Alec. “Have we met?”
The werewolf swung her legs to the floor, leaning forward. “I’m Juliette.”
“I’m not Romeo,” said Lily. “But you are cute, so tell us more about yourself in your sexy accent.”
“Um, who are you?” asked Juliette.
“Lily Chen,” said Lily.
“Head of the New York vampire clan,” added Alec.
“Oh, of course,” said Juliette. “From the Alliance! Thank you for coming with Alec to help us. It’s a real privilege to meet you.”
Lily beamed. “I know, right?”
Juliette’s eyes went back to Alec. The way she was looking at him, wide-eyed and startled, did ring a faint bell.
“And this is my daughter Rose,” said Juliette the werewolf, her hands firm on the young faerie’s shoulders.
Alec didn’t recognize the woman, but he recognized that tone of voice. He knew how it was to lay claim to what you loved, all the more insistently because people doubted the love that belonged to you. Alec wasn’t sure what to say, so he did one of his favorite things. He produced his phone and found a really good picture, walked up to the dais, and showed it to them both.
“This is my son, Max.”
Juliette and Rose leaned forward. Alec saw the werewolf’s eyes flicker, saw the moment where it registered with Juliette that Max was a warlock.
“Oh.” Juliette’s voice was soft. “He’s beautiful.”
“I think so,” said Alec shyly, and showed them a few more pictures. Alec found it difficult to select the best pictures. So many of them were great. It was hard to take a bad picture of Max.
Juliette gave the adolescent faerie a push between the shoulder blades.
“Go get your brother and sister,” she urged. “Quick.”
Rose sprang to her feet, faerie light, cast a last shy sidelong glance at Alec, and ran out.
“You know me,” said Alec. “How?”
“You saved my life,” Juliette said. “Five years ago, when demons attacked the Orient Express.”
“Oh,” said Alec.
His and Magnus’s first vacation. He tried not to think of the less pleasant aspects of that trip, but he remembered the train, the warm falling water and the shine of demon’s eyes, the screaming wind and the abyss below. He’d been terrified for Magnus that night.
“You fought demons on the Orient Express?” Lily asked with interest.
“I fight demons in lots of places,” said Alec. “It was all very normal.”
“I’d never seen anything like it in my life,” Juliette told Lily enthusiastically. “There were so many demons! They broke the windows. I thought I was about to be killed. Then Alec took out every demon he saw. He was soaking wet, and he wasn’t wearing a shirt.“
Alec didn’t see how that was relevant.
“Very normal,” Alec repeated. “Except normally I wear a shirt.”
Lily’s eyes were dancing with glee. “What a wild time you seem to have on holiday, Alec.”
“I had a totally standard and boring time,” Alec told her.
“Sounds like it.”
“And I was at that party in Venice,” Juliette continued. “When the mansion collapsed.”
“I was there too!” said Lily. “Raphael was super sad to be at a party; it was hilarious. I made out with so many people, it was a personal record. I think one of them was a hot blonde! Was it you?”
Juliette blinked. “Er, no. I don’t really . . . make out with girls.”
Lily shrugged. “Sorry you’re wasting your life.”
“I don’t either,” Alec commented mildly.
Juliette nodded. “I remember Magnus at that party too. He was trying to help.”
Alec heard his own voice go low and tender, entirely out of his control. “He always does.”
There was a clatter of feet behind them. Rose the faerie girl had returned. There were two more kids hand in hand with her now, another faerie girl with the sturdy build of a goblin, and a dark-skinned warlock boy with a fox tail. They ran up to the chair and clustered about Juliette. The girl looked about ten, and the boy no more than six.
“Kids,” said Juliette, “this is Alec Lightwood, whom I’ve told you about. Alec, these are my kids.”
“Hi,” said Alec.
The kids stared.
“When you saved me on the Orient Express,” said Juliette, “I asked how I could repay you, and you said you’d seen a faerie child alone in the Paris Shadow Market. You asked me if I could look out for her. I’d never spoken to a Shadowhunter before. I didn’t think they were like you. I was—surprised you asked me that. So when I got back to Paris, I went looking for her. My Rosey and I have been together ever since.”
She ruffled Rose’s wispy hair around Rose’s crown of horns. Rose flushed green.
“Maman. Do not embarrass me in front of Alec Lightwood!”
The Paris Shadow Market Alec and Magnus had visited on their first vacation together had been Alec’s first Market ever. The Downworlders hadn’t been used to him then, and he hadn’t been used to them. He did recall the faerie child he’d seen there: how skinny she’d been, and how sorry he’d been for her.
She’d been the same age as his baby brother, whom Max was named for. Unlike his brother, she had lived to be older.
“Rose,” Alec said. “How grown up you are now.”
Rose beamed.
“We were happy together in Paris, you and I, weren’t we, ma petite?” Juliette asked Rose, sounding wistful. “I thought the end of the war with Valentine would be an end to all wars. But then there was another war, and so many Shadowhunters died, and so many faeries too. And the Cold Peace began.”
She fixed her eyes on Alec. The light above the throne caught her eyes, like headlights catching the eyes of a wolf.
“I heard about you and Magnus, and the Shadowhunter and Downworlder Alliance you’d set up. You were both helping people. I wanted to do that too. I heard about people hunting faeries in Belgium, and I got my youngest girl out.”
Rose’s hands closed on the goblin girl’s shoulders. Alec recognized that gesture too: the constant worry of the oldest in the family, the knowledge that you were responsible for the younger ones.
“Then I heard about Buenos Aires,” said Juliette. “The Institute here was crushed in the Dark War. Downworlders who fled to Europe told dark stories of what had risen from the wreckage. I came to see if there was anything I could do.”
The little boy lifted his arms to her, and Juliette picked him up, cuddling him on her knee. The boy watched Alec, sucking thoughtfully on the tip of his fox tail.
“There were a lot of children orphaned in the war,” said Juliette. “The Shadow Market here became a refuge for unwanted children. A haphazard kind of orphanage, among the stalls and lights and magic. The Market became a community, because we needed one, a Market that never ceased. People live inside these walls. My baby was left here, because he manifested his warlock mark so young.”
“So did Max,” said Alec.
“There are so many kids.” Juliette closed her eyes.
“What’s wrong with this Institute?” Alec asked. “Why hasn’t someone reached out to the Clave?”
“We did,” Juliette returned. “It was useless. Breakspear has powerful friends. He made sure the message went right to a man called Horace Dearborn. Do you know him?”
Alec’s eyes narrowed. “I know him.”
The aftereffects of too many wars and the constant pressure of the Cold Peace provided opportunities for a certain kind of person. Horace Dearborn was one of the type who flourished on unrest and fear.
“After the Institute was destroyed by the Endarkened,” said Juliette, “Clive Breakspear arrived here with that man Dearborn’s name behind him, like a vulture glutting himself on the remains. The word is, his Shadowhunters take missions for money. Like—if someone wanted a rival dead, Breakspear’s Shadowhunters would see it done. They don’t hunt demons. They don’t hunt Downworlders who break the Law. They hunt us all.”
Alec’s stomach turned. “They’re mercenaries.”
“The decent Shadowhunters left, when they couldn’t make any difference to the way things were done,” said Juliette. “I don’t think they talked. I think they were ashamed. This Market, with all the kids in it—the Market wasn’t safe. It seemed like the leaders were being picked off, so people would be more vulnerable. They didn’t try for me. I’ve got friends in Paris and in Brussels who would raise a howl if I disappeared. So I ordered wards and fences put up. I let people call me a queen. I tried to seem as strong as I could, so they wouldn’t come at us. But things are getting worse, not better. Female werewolves are disappearing.”
“Killed?” asked Alec.
“I don’t know,” said Juliette. “We thought they were running at first, but there are too many. Mothers who wouldn’t have left their families. Girls as young as my Rosey. Some people say they’ve seen a strange warlock about. I have no idea what’s happening to those women, but I knew I couldn’t trust anyone at the Institute to find out. I won’t risk trusting any Shadowhunter. Except you. I put out the word I wanted you. I wasn’t sure you would come, but here you are.”
She lifted her face imploringly to Alec’s. The Queen of the Shadow Market looked, in that moment, as young as the kids clustered around her.
“Will you help me? One more time?”
“As many times as you need me,” said Alec. “I’ll find those women. I’ll find out who’s doing this. I’ll stop them. You have my word.”
He hesitated, remembering Jem and Tessa’s mission.
“I have friends here, besides Lily. A warlock woman, and a man who used to be a Silent Brother, with a silver streak in his hair. Can they enter the Market? I swear to you they can be trusted.”
“I think I know who you mean,” Juliette said. “They were asking for admittance a few nights back, weren’t they? I heard the man was handsome.”
“Boy, did you hear right,” said Lily.
Juliette’s smile spread. “There really are some very handsome Nephilim around.”
“Uh, I guess,” said Alec. “I don’t really think about Jem that way.”
“How can you be good at archery, when you’re so blind?” Lily demanded.
Alec rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Juliette. I’ll let you know, as soon as I find something out.”
Juliette said, softly: “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I won’t leave until I’ve helped you,” said Alec, then glanced at the kids, who were still staring. “Um. Bye, kids. It was very nice to meet you.”
He nodded to them awkwardly, then made his way back toward the lights and music of the Market.
“OK,” he told Lily as they walked. “Let’s take a quick look around the Market, ask some questions before we meet Jem and Tessa.”
“Let’s drop by the faerie fruit gin stall!” Lily suggested.
Alec said: “No.”
“We can’t be all business all the time,” said Lily, who was seldom all business for five minutes. “So, who do you think is hot?” When Alec stared at her, she said: “We’re on a bro road trip! We’re meant to share secrets. You said not Jem. So who?”
Alec shook his head at a faerie trying to sell them charmed bracelets, though she insisted they were real charms and really charming. When Alec asked about the disappearances, the faerie’s eyes widened, but she didn’t know any more than Juliette.
“Magnus is hot,” Alec said finally, as they went on their way.
Lily rolled her eyes. “Wow, you and Monogamous Bane make me tired. He’s even dumber than you are.”
“He’s not dumb.”
“An immortal who sets his soft heart on one person?” Lily bit her lip, fangs pressing down too hard. “That’s dumb.”
“Lily,” said Alec, but Lily was shaking her head and proceeding, her voice firmly light.
“Leaving aside your destined honey lamb and all, I know there was Jace. Is it just guys with golden eyes?” asked Lily. “That is a very particular taste you have there, friend. It really narrows the playing field. So no other crushes besides Jace? Even a teeny tiny one when you were young?”
“Why are you leering like you know something I don’t?” Alec asked warily.
Lily giggled.
There was a lot of noise happening behind one of the stalls. Alec turned his head toward it automatically, but also because he didn’t know how to explain that specific crushes hadn’t been the problem. It had been a relief, in a way, to pretend even to himself that a crush on Jace was the thing that was making him miserable.
Even when he was a kid, he’d found his attention caught by posters of mundane men in the streets of New York, or found himself drawn to guys visiting the Institute, listening from behind his vase to their stories of demon-hunting and thinking they were cool. He’d had unfocused childish daydreams, created hazy bright dreamlands featuring boys, and then he’d lost the dream with his childhood. He’d been too young to understand himself, and then he hadn’t been. He heard the way Shadowhunter visitors sneered, how his dad hinted at the subject as if it was too awful even to be said outright, when saying things outright was the only way Alec knew how to say them. Alec felt guilty every time he had to pull his eyes off another boy, even just a curious look, and then there had been Magnus, and he hadn’t been able to look away from him at all.
The noise from behind the stalls was growing closer.
A lot of noise, very close to the ground.
The orphans of the Buenos Aires Shadow Market exploded from behind a stall where a werewolf was selling stew. There were kids everywhere, Downworlders of every kind, and all of them seemed to be trying to get his attention, shouting out names, requests, jokes. The main language was Spanish, but Alec heard a few others, and was immediately confused about which words belonged to which language. Multi-colored lights swung on dozens of faces. He turned his head, overwhelmed, not able to make out any face or voice in the chaos.
“Hey,” he said, stooping over the kids and pulling food out of his duffel bag. “Hey, is anybody hungry? Take these.”
“Gross, are those energy bars?” Lily demanded. “Way to pile misery on orphans!”
Alec took out his wallet and began to give the kids money. Magnus was always magically making cash appear there, in case of emergencies. Alec wouldn’t spend it on himself.
Lily was laughing. She liked kids, though sometimes she pretended she didn’t. Then she froze. For a moment her bright black eyes went flat and dead. Alec stood up straight.
“You, kid.” Lily’s voice was trembling. “What did you say your name was?”
She shook her head and repeated the question in Spanish. Alec followed her line of sight to one particular child in the crowd.
The other children were jostling each other, pressed up against each other and the stalls, but there was a small circle of space around this boy. Now he had their attention, he wasn’t shouting. His curly head was tipped back so he could study them, and he was doing so with narrowed, very dark eyes. His extremely critical air had to be Alec’s imagination. The kid looked about six years old.
The boy answered Lily, his voice calm: “Rafael.”
“Rafael,” Lily whispered. “Right.”
Rafael’s face was one of the youngest in that crowd of heartbreakingly young faces, but there was a chilling air of self-possession about him. He advanced, and Alec wasn’t surprised to see the other kids move out of his path. He carried distance with him.
Alec’s own eyes narrowed. He couldn’t tell what kind of Downworlder this kid was, but there was something about the way he moved.
Rafael said something else in Spanish. From the imperious tilt at the end of the sentence, it was a question or a demand. Alec looked helplessly at Lily. She nodded, visibly gathering her composure.
“The kid said . . .” She cleared her throat. “He says: ‘Are you a Shadowhunter? Not like the ones at the Institute. Are you a real Shadowhunter?’”
Alec blinked. Rafael’s eyes were fixed on his face.
Alec knelt on the ground amid the bright riot of the Shadow Market, so he could look into those dark intent eyes.
“Yes,” said Alec. “I’m a Shadowhunter. Tell me how I can help you.”
Lily translated. Rafael shook his curly head, expression even cooler, as if Alec had failed some sort of test. He snapped out several more lines of Spanish.
“He says he doesn’t want help,” said Lily. “He says he overheard you asking around the Market about the women who vanished.”
“So the kid can understand some English?” asked Alec, hopeful.
Rafael rolled his eyes and said something else in Spanish.
Lily grinned. “He says no, not at all. He has information, but he doesn’t want to talk here.”
Alec frowned. “Boludo,” he repeated. “He said that. What does that word mean?”
Lily grinned. “It means he thinks you’re a nice man!”
It hadn’t sounded nice. Alec squinted at Rafael. Rafael gave him a blank stare back.
“All right,” Alec said slowly. “Who’s taking care of you? Let’s go to them, and we can talk together.”
The night was dark, especially under the awning of a stall, but Alec was pretty sure Rafael rolled his eyes. He transferred his attention from Alec, whom he clearly found to be hopeless, and looked to Lily.
“He says that he takes care of himself,” said Lily.
“But he’s six!” said Alec.
“He says he’s five,” Lily said, her brows knit as she listened and translated slowly. “His parents died in the Dark War, when the Institute fell, and then there was a werewolf woman who looked after a bunch of kids. But she’s gone now. He says nobody else wants him.”
She must be one of the women who had disappeared, Alec thought grimly. That thought was lost in the rush of horror when he realized what Lily was saying.
“His parents died when the Institute fell?” Alec repeated. Every cell in his body sparked with shock. “Is this boy a Shadowhunter?”
“Would it be worse to find a Shadowhunter child like this?” Lily asked, her voice cold.
“Yes,” Alec snarled back. “Not because Downworlder kids deserve this. My kid’s a Downworlder. No kid deserves this. But you heard Juliette. Everybody’s doing the best they can. Shadowhunters fall in battle every day, and homes are found for orphans. There is a system in place for Shadowhunter children. The Shadowhunters should be doing better than this. The Law is meant to protect the most helpless among us. What is wrong with this Institute?”
“As you’re using your stern voice, I guess we’re going to find out,” Lily remarked, sounding chipper again.
Alec was still looking at Rafael with dismay so profound it felt almost like despair. He saw now that Rafael looked dirtier, and less cared for, than any other child in the crowd. Alec had learned the Law at his mother’s knee, at his father’s, from his tutor and every book in the library at the Institute back home. It had made sense to him when he was young, when very little made sense to him. The Shadowhunters’ sacred duty, for all time: to stand unseen against the darkness, to defend at any cost.
Now he was older, and he knew how complicated the world could be. It still hurt like an unexpected blow when he saw that shining ideal tarnished. If he were in charge of it all—
But they didn’t live in that world.
“Come with me for now,” Alec told the Nephilim child. “I’ll take care of you.”
If Rafael really was alone, Alec could take Rafael to the New York Institute, or to Alicante. He wasn’t going to leave him here where he looked so friendless and neglected. He reached out, arms open, to pick Rafael up and carry him away.
Rafael bolted backward with the speed of a wild animal. He gave Alec a filthy look, as if he might bite if Alec tried that again.
Alec drew his arms back and lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right,” he said. “Sorry. But will you come with us? We want to hear your information. We want to help.”
Lily translated. Rafael, still watching Alec warily, nodded. Alec rose and offered Rafael his hand. Rafael eyed the hand with disbelief, shaking his head and muttering something. Alec was almost sure it was that word again. He looked Rafael over. The kid’s clothes were stained and torn, he was much too thin, and he was barefoot. There were dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. Alec didn’t even know where they were going to sleep.
“OK,” he said at last. “We have to buy him some shoes.”
He walked out of the throng of kids, with Lily at his side and Rafael orbiting them like a wary moon.
“Maybe I can help you, Shadowhunter,” called out a faerie woman with dandelion hair from a stall.
Alec started forward, then stopped. Lily had caught his arm in a grip like iron.
“Don’t go near that woman,” she whispered. “I’ll explain later.”
Alec nodded, and went on, despite the call of the faerie woman to come buy. Juliette had been right: this Market was a community, with huts and wagons surrounding the stalls. It was the biggest Market Alec had ever seen.
Alec found a faerie cobbler who seemed nice enough, though even the smallest pair of boots he had were too big. Alec took them anyway. He asked the cobbler, who spoke English, if anyone was taking care of Rafael. Surely, no matter what the kid said, someone must care.
After a moment, the cobbler shook his head. “When the werewolf woman who looked after the orphans vanished, the other kids were given homes by my people. But, no offense meant, faeries won’t take in a Shadowhunter.”
Not with the Cold Peace breeding hatred between Shadowhunters and faeries. The laws were all wrong, and children were paying the price.
“Also that child hates everybody,” said the faerie cobbler. “Watch out. He bites.”
They were almost at the wire tunnel leading to the exit of the Shadow Market now. This far out from the center of the Market there were fallen walls, more signs of a place crushed by war and then left to decay.
“Hey,” Alec told Rafael. “Come here a second. Mach dir keine—”
“You’re telling him not to worry in German,” Lily reported gleefully.
Alec sighed and knelt in the gray dust, among the rubble, gesturing Rafael to sit on a piece of the fallen wall. The child eyed Alec and the boots in his hand with an air of extreme mistrust. Then he plunked himself down and let Alec slip his feet into the too-large boots.
The kid’s feet were small, his soles black with filth. Alec swallowed, and drew the laces on Rafael’s boots as tight as he could, so they would stay on and Rafael could walk properly.
Rafael stood as soon as Alec was done tying his laces. Alec stood as well.
“Come on,” he said.
Rafael’s dark, measuring gaze was on Alec again. He stood perfectly still, for a long moment.
Then he lifted both his arms in a commanding gesture. Alec was so used to that gesture from Max that he moved without even thinking and scooped Rafael up in his arms.
It was nothing like carrying Max, small and plump, always laughing and cuddling. Rafael was tall for his age, and much too thin. Alec could feel the knobbly bones of his back. Rafael held himself very stiffly, as though he was undergoing an unpleasant ordeal. It was like holding a small statue, if you felt desperately sorry for the statue and unsure what to do.
“Carrying you means the boots are pointless,” murmured Alec. “But that’s all right. I’m glad you’re coming with us. You’re safe now. I have you.”
“No te entiendo,” said Rafael’s small clear voice in his ear, then after a thoughtful pause: “Boludo.”
Alec was sure of two things: that word was not a nice word, and this kid didn’t like Alec at all.