Alec didn’t rest well. His mind was churning with thoughts of Lily’s story, the Buenos Aires Institute’s corruption, lost Herondales and werewolves, and Jem and Tessa’s quest.
He was used to waking up in dark silk sheets and strong arms. He missed home.
Rafael slept in, not stirring until afternoon. Alec suspected that the orphans of the Shadow Market had all developed nocturnal tendencies. When Rafael woke, Alec took him out to the courtyard, where he sat on the stone bench moodily eating an energy bar. Alec thought he was sulking because Alec had taken back his phone.
“Has anyone ever given you a nickname?” he asked Rafael. “Do people ever call you Rafe?”
Rafael gave him a blank look. Alec worried he hadn’t conveyed his meaning.
“Rafa,” Rafael said finally.
He finished one energy bar and held his hand out for another. Alec gave it to him.
“Rafa?” Alec tried. “Do you want me to call you that? Are you getting any of this? I’m sorry I can’t speak Spanish.”
Rafael made a face, as if to say what he thought of being called Rafa.
“Okay,” said Alec. “I won’t call you that. Just Rafael, then?”
The boy gave Alec a massively unimpressed look. Here this fool goes again, his air suggested, talking to me when I cannot understand him.
Jem and Tessa joined them in the courtyard, ready for Rafael to lead them to the house he’d seen.
“I’ll stay and guard Lily,” said Tessa, reading Alec’s mind. “Don’t worry about her. I have wards up, and even if somebody came, I’ve got it covered.”
She made a tiny gesture. Gray glowing magic, like the shine of light on river water or the sheen of pearls in shadow, twined about her fingers. Alec smiled his gratitude at Tessa. Until he was sure about what was happening with this warlock and these Shadowhunters, he didn’t want anybody undefended.
“Don’t you worry about me either,” Tessa told Jem, settling her magic-bright fingers into his black-and-silver hair, drawing him down for a goodbye kiss.
“I won’t,” Jem told her. “I know my wife can take care of herself.”
My wife, Jem said, his voice sounding casual and delighted in that mutual possession: the bargain made between them in the sight of everyone they loved.
Alec had heard a poem read at weddings: My true love has my heart, and I have his. Never was a fairer bargain made. Love that was permanent in the eyes of all the world, demanding respect, blazoning the certain knowledge Alec had when he woke every morning. Nobody else for me, until the day I die: having everyone else know that. Jem and Tessa had that, as Helen and Aline had it. But a Shadowhunter couldn’t marry a Downworlder in gold. A Shadowhunter was forbidden to wear the wedding rune for a Downworlder, and he wouldn’t insult Magnus with a ceremony the Nephilim saw as lesser. He and Magnus had agreed to wait, until the Law was changed.
Alec couldn’t help the tiny sting of jealousy.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and Rafael perked up. Magnus had sent Alec a picture of Max sleeping, using Chairman Meow as his pillow. Rafael glared, obviously disappointed Magnus was not in the picture.
Alec was slightly disappointed about that himself.
The afternoon was hot, the streets mostly deserted. The house where the warlock lived was down several winding streets, some cobbled and some dirt. Most of the houses on the curving roads were small, painted bright yellow or brick red or and snowy white, but the warlock’s house that Rafael pointed out was a huge gray building on the end of a street. A figure was approaching the door—a Shadowhunter. Alec and Jem exchanged a grim look. Alec recognized him as one of Breakspear’s men from the Institute. He pulled Jem and Rafael into an alleyway.
“Stay with Jem a minute,” he told Rafael, and tossed a grappling hook to the roof of a neighboring house.
Alec climbed up and made his way across the sloping terracotta tile until he was across from the gray building. There were bars on the windows, and the enchantments Magnus had put on his ring allowed him to sense wards with enormous accuracy. The place was heavily warded. Alec crouched down behind a chimney and swiftly drew runes for Clarity and Awareness on his arms.
With increased ability, he could hear noises from behind those walls. There were a lot of people in that house. Shuffling feet, muffled conversation. Alec was able to pick out a few distinct words.
“. . . next delivery from Breakspear will be at midnight tonight . . .”
He heard another noise, much closer up, and twisted to see Rafael and Jem coming toward him across the roof.
Jem offered a small rueful smile. “He slipped away from me and climbed a drainpipe.”
Jem was hovering at Rafael’s back, obviously nervous about touching him. Alec saw how Rafael had managed to slip away.
“Can you sense those wards?” Alec asked, and Jem nodded: Alec knew Tessa had taught him ways to use and discern magic, even though Jem no longer had all the power of a Silent Brother or a Shadowhunter. “Can Tessa handle them?”
“Tessa can handle anything,” Jem said proudly.
“I said to stay down there with Jem,” Alec told Rafael.
Rafael gave him a look that was at once both uncomprehending and insulting, and then his big boots slipped on the ridged terracotta tiles. Jem caught him before he hit the tile, and set him upright. If Rafael kept walking like this, he was going to skin his knees.
“You have to walk differently on roofs,” Alec told him. He took Rafael’s hands in his, showing him how. “Like this, because they slope. Do it like me.”
It was oddly nice, to teach a child these things. He’d had all sorts of plans to teach his little brother, when he got older, but his baby brother hadn’t lived to be older.
“When will you give your parents a real grandchild?” he’d heard Irina Cartwright ask Isabelle after a Clave meeting.
“By the Angel,” said Isabelle. “Is Max imaginary?”
Irina paused, then laughed. “A Shadowhunter child, to teach our ways. Nobody would give those people a Shadowhunter child. Imagine a warlock around one of our little ones! And that kind of behavior. Children are so impressionable. It wouldn’t be right.”
Isabelle went for her whip. Alec dragged his sister back.
“You Lightwood kids are out of control and out of your minds,” muttered Irina.
Jace had appeared beside Alec and Isabelle, and given Irina a radiant smile. “Yes, we are.”
Alec had told himself that it was all right. It was a comfort, sometimes, when he was most worried about his friends, to consider that both Magnus and Max were warlocks. They didn’t have to fight demons.
Rafael mimicked how Alec was walking with careful precision. He was going to be good one day, Alec thought. Whoever got to raise him would be proud.
“Well done, Rafe,” he said. He hadn’t meant the nickname to come out: it just had, but Rafael glanced at him and smiled. They fell silent, crouching down as the Shadowhunter departed the warlock’s house. Jem raised his eyebrows at Alec, who shook his head.
Once the man was gone, they helped Rafe down from the roof.
“I wonder how far the corruption goes in this Institute,” Jem said soberly.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Alec said. “I heard that mercenary say ‘the next delivery from Breakspear will be at midnight tonight.’ If he’s delivering women, we need to save them, and stop the Shadowhunters as well as the warlock. We need to catch them all at once, and there are a lot of people inside. We don’t know how many might be prisoners and how many are guards. We need reinforcements, and there’s someone I want to talk to about that before we go back to Tessa and Lily. I have to believe not all the Shadowhunters in this city are traitors.”
Jem nodded. As they left the alley, Alec described the faerie woman he and Lily had seen, her withered-apple face and dandelion hair. “Lily said she might have information about the family you’re searching for.”
Jem’s expression darkened. “I’ve encountered her before. I’ll know who she is, when I see her at the Market. And I will make sure she talks.” His face was cold and grim for a moment. Then he glanced toward Alec. “How is Lily?”
“Um.” Alec tried to work out if he’d let something slip that he shouldn’t.
“You’re worried for your friend,” Jem said. “Perhaps you are more worried for her, because how she feels makes you think of how Magnus will feel, one day.” Jem’s eyes were as dark as the Silent City, and as sad. “I know.”
Alec wouldn’t have been able to put any of that into words himself. There was only the nameless shadow on Magnus’s face sometimes, the echo of old loneliness, and Alec’s yearning to protect him always, and knowledge he could not.
“You were nearly immortal. Is there any way to make it—easier?”
“I lived a long time,” said Jem, “but I lived in a cage of bones and silence, feeling my heart turn to ashes. I can’t explain what it was like.”
Alec thought of growing up in the Institute, crushed under the weight of his father’s expectations as if they were stones, trying to teach himself not to look, not to speak, not to dare try and be happy.
“Maybe I know,” he said. “Not—entirely. Not for a hundred years, obviously. But—maybe a little.”
He worried he was presuming, but Jem smiled as if he understood.
“It’s different, for my Tessa and your Magnus. They were born what they are, and we love them for it. They live forever in a changing world, and still have the courage to find it beautiful. We all want to shield our best beloved from whatever danger or sorrow comes,” he said. “But we have to trust them too. We have to believe that they will have the strength to live on and laugh again. We fear for them, but we should believe in them past fear.”
Alec bowed his head and said: “I do.”
A block from the Buenos Aires Institute, Alec’s phone buzzed again. Clary had sent him a message.
A few months ago, they’d left Max with Maryse and gone out on the town. Simon’s old band was playing at Pandemonium and Simon had agreed to sub in for their missing bass player, as he occasionally did. Alec, Magnus, Jace, Clary, and Isabelle had all gone to listen. Simon’s friend Eric had written a song called “My Heart Is an Overripe Melon Bursting for You,” and that song was the worst.
Alec didn’t like to dance, unless it was with Magnus. Even then, he preferred the music not be terrible. Magnus, Jace, and Isabelle went to dance, the brightest points in the crowd. Alec enjoyed watching Magnus for a while, his chin propped on his hands. Then he grew tired of the assault on his ears. He caught Clary’s eye. She was sitting bolt upright in her chair, only wincing occasionally.
“This is fine,” Clary told him, nodding bravely.
“This is terrible,” said Alec. “Let’s go for tacos.”
Simon was only just offstage by the time they got back, drinking from a bottle of water and asking everybody what they’d thought of the set.
“You were very sexy up there,” Isabelle was saying, sparkling up at Simon, as Alec and Clary arrived.
Simon smiled a crooked smile. “Really?”
Jace said: “No.”
“You were so great!” Clary exclaimed, dashing up to Simon. “Wow, I don’t know what other word there could be. You were great. The band was great.”
Clary was a true and noble parabatai, but Simon was a sharp guy and had known her a long time. His eyes traveled from Clary’s guilty face to Alec’s.
“You went for tacos again?” Simon lamented.
Alec grinned. “They were great.”
He went over to Magnus, sliding an arm around his waist. Since they were going to a club, Magnus had swept silver glitter under his golden eyes, and he looked like starshine and moonlight.
“I know you were dancing,” Alec said in his ear. “But that band was terrible, right?”
“I can dance to anything,” Magnus murmured back, “but I have personally heard Mozart play. Also the Sex Pistols in their best days. I can confirm Simon’s band is beyond terrible.”
Alec’s friends were gathered all around him, and his family, and it was one of those moments when he remembered the desperate loneliness of when he was younger, hopelessly torn between fearing for what he might never have, and what he might lose. Alec secured his hold on Magnus’s waist and felt a small incredulous starburst of happiness in his chest: that he could have all this.
“Tacos again next time?” Alec had whispered as they left, and Clary nodded behind Simon’s back.
That was how Alec had come to love her, after resenting her so much at first: in the greatest or smallest of ways, Clary never failed.
She hadn’t failed him now. She’d sent a picture saying We have been imprisoned by the Dread Pirate Max! Alec suspected this was a joke he didn’t understand.
Clary was at an odd angle taking the selfie, but he could see Magnus and Max well enough. Magnus had dashed brilliant blue color through the front of his hair. Max was holding on to Magnus’s spiky blue locks and Clary’s red curls with one hand each, and looking supremely self-satisfied. Magnus was laughing.
“Oh, look,” said Alec softly, and showed Rafael the picture.
Rafael snatched the phone, then skipped away to contemplate the photo further.
Alec let him keep it for now. He and Jem stopped at the door of the Buenos Aires Institute. As Alec had hoped, Joaquín was guarding the door again. He greeted Alec happily, then gave the faint scars on Jem’s face a startled glance.
“Are you the Silent Brother whom the Heavenly Fire changed?” he asked eagerly. “The one who—”
“Ran off and married a warlock, yes,” said Jem. Somewhere in his quiet voice and his smile, there was an edge of shining defiance.
“I’m sure she’s very nice,” said Joaquín hastily.
“She is,” Alec confirmed.
“I don’t know many Downworlders,” Joaquín said apologetically. “Though I met Alec’s friend yesterday! She also seemed . . . nice. There are a lot of nice Downworlders, I’m sure! Just not in our city. They say the Queen of the Shadow Market is a terrifying tyrant.”
Alec thought of Juliette with her kids gathered around her.
“I didn’t think so.”
Joaquín looked at him with wide eyes. “I bet you’re not afraid of anything, though.”
“Some things,” said Alec. “Failing. You know there’s something wrong with your Institute, don’t you? I want to believe you’re not part of it, but you have to know something is very wrong.”
Joaquín avoided Alec’s gaze, and as he did he caught sight of Rafael for the first time. Rafael was hanging back, clutching Alec’s phone.
“That’s little Rafael,” said Joaquín.
Rafael blinked up at him and corrected, in his small stern voice: “Rafe.”
“You know him?” asked Alec. “Then you knew there was a Shadowhunter child living in the Shadow Market. It’s the duty of Nephilim to care for war orphans.”
“I—” Joaquín faltered. “I tried. But he won’t let anyone near him. It was like he didn’t want to be helped.”
“Everyone wants to be helped,” said Alec.
Joaquín was already kneeling down, offering Rafael a brightly wrapped piece of candy. Rafe eyed him, then came cautiously forward, snatched the candy, and retreated behind Alec’s legs.
Alec understood being young and scared, but there came a time where you had to choose to be brave.
“Here’s an address,” he said, offering a scrap of paper. “If you want to find out what’s really happening at your Institute, meet me there tonight. Bring reinforcements—only the people you trust.”
Joaquín didn’t meet Alec’s eyes, but he accepted the piece of paper. Alec walked away, with Jem and Rafael on either side of him.
“Do you think he will come?” Jem asked.
“I hope so,” said Alec. “We have to trust people, right? Like you were saying. Not just people we love. We have to believe in people, and we have to defend them. As many people as possible, so we can be stronger.” He swallowed. “I have a confession to make. I’m—jealous of you.”
Jem’s face was genuinely startled. Then he smiled.
“I’m a little jealous of you too.”
“Of me?” Alec asked, startled.
Jem nodded toward Rafael, and the picture of Magnus and Max in Rafael’s hands. “I have Tessa, so I have the world. And I have loved going all through the world with her. But there are times I think about—a place that could be home. My parabatai. A child.”
All the things Alec had. Alec felt as he had last night, putting on Rafael’s boots over his battered feet: stricken, but knowing this was not his pain.
He hesitated. “Couldn’t you and Tessa have a child?”
“I could never ask her,” said Jem. “She had children once. They were beautiful, and they are gone. Children are meant to be our immortality, but what if you live forever and your child does not? I saw how she had to rip herself away from them. I saw what it cost her. I will not ask her to suffer like that again.”
Rafe held up his hands to be carried. Alec swung him up in his arms. Warlock hearts beat differently, and Alec was used to hearing the sound of Magnus’s and Max’s hearts, infinitely steady and reassuring. It was odd, holding a child with a mortal heartbeat, but Alec was getting used to the new rhythm.
The evening sun was scorching on whitewashed walls of the street they were heading down. Their shadows were long behind them, but the town was still bright, and Alec saw for the first time that it could be lovely.
Occasionally Alec despaired: that the world couldn’t be changed, or even that it wouldn’t change fast enough. He was not immortal, and didn’t want to be, but there were times he was afraid he wouldn’t live long enough, that he’d never have the chance to take Magnus’s hands in front of everyone they loved and make a sacred promise.
At those times, there was an image Alec held against exhaustion or surrender, a reminder to always keep fighting.
When he was gone, when he was dust and ashes, Magnus would still be walking through this world. If the world was changed for the better, then that unknowable future would be better for Magnus. Alec could imagine that on some scorching hot day like this, on a strange street in a strange land, Magnus might see something good that reminded him of Alec, some way that the world was changed because Alec had lived. Alec couldn’t imagine what the world would be like then.
But he could imagine, in some faraway future, the face he loved best.