Jem filled Tessa in on what they had seen, and who they were searching for in the Shadow Market.
Lily caught Jem’s glance at her as he explained. “What are you looking at, you delicious peanut-butter-and-Jem sandwich?”
Tessa snorted behind Jem.
“I’ve got more names,” Lily told her, encouraged. “They just come to me. Want to hear them?”
“Not really,” said Jem.
“Definitely not!” snapped Alec.
“Yes,” said Tessa. “Yes, I really do.”
Lily regaled her with many names on their way to the Shadow Market. Tessa’s laughter was like a song to Jem, but he was glad when they reached the Shadow Market, though the place was a barbed-wire fortress and the door had been barred against them last time.
The door was not barred against them tonight.
Jem was accustomed to Shadow Markets by now, after years searching through them for answers about demons and Herondales. He was also used to being somewhat conspicuous among the people of the Market.
Tonight, though, everyone was looking at Alec and Lily. The Queen of the Shadow Market, a rather lovely and dignified young woman, came out among the stalls to greet them personally. Alec drew her aside to tell her of their plans for the evening, and to ask for her help. The Queen smiled and agreed.
“They’re from the Alliance,” he heard one teenage werewolf whisper to another, in awed tones.
Alec bowed his head and fussed over Rafe. Alec seemed slightly abashed by the attention.
Jem met Tessa’s eyes, and smiled. They had seen other generations pass, shining bright and hopeful, but Alec’s was something new.
Alec paused to talk to a faerie girl in her teens. “Rose, have you seen a fey woman with dandelion hair at the Market tonight?”
“You must mean Mother Hawthorn,” said Rose. “She’s always here. She tells stories to the children. Loves children. Hates everybody else. If you’re looking for her, stick around the kids. She’s sure to come.”
So they headed toward a campfire where most of the children were congregated. A faerie was playing the bandoneon at this fire. Jem smiled to hear the music.
Rafe clung to Alec’s shirt and glared jealously around. The other kids seemed intimidated by his scowl.
A teenage warlock girl was doing magic tricks, creating shadow puppets in the smoke of the fire. Even Rafe laughed, all the sullenness gone from his face. He was only a child, leaning into Alec’s side, learning to be happy.
“He says she is very good,” Lily translated for Alec. “He likes magic, but most of the powerful warlocks left ages ago. He wants to know if the cool man can do that.”
Alec took out his phone to show Rafael a video of Magnus and a witchlight.
“Look, it turns red,” Alec said, and Rafe instantly seized the phone. “No, we don’t grab! We stop stealing. I have to text Magnus back sometime, and I can’t if you keep stealing my phone.”
Alec glanced through the leaping iridescent flames at Jem.
“I was actually wondering if you could give me some advice,” he said. “I mean, you were saying all that stuff earlier. Like—romantic stuff. You always know what to say.”
“Me?” Jem asked, startled. “No, I’ve never thought of myself as very good with words. I like music. It’s easier to express what you feel, with music.”
“Alec is right,” said Tessa.
Jem blinked. “He is?”
“At some of the worst and darkest times in my life, you have always known what to say to comfort me,” said Tessa. “I had one of my darkest moments when we were young, and we had only known each other a little while. You came to me and said words that I carried with me like a light. That was one of the moments that made me fall in love with you.”
She lifted her hand to his face, her fingers tracing the scars there. Jem dropped a kiss on her wrist.
“If my words comforted you, we are even,” he said. “Your voice is the music I love best in all the world.”
“You see,” Alec muttered darkly to Lily.
“We do love an eloquent babe,” said Lily.
Tessa leaned close to Jem and whispered, in the language she’d learned for him: “Wŏ ài nĭ.”
And at that moment, looking into her eyes, Jem caught a flash of movement and then stillness in the dark. The faerie woman with the dandelion hair had been coming toward the children, pushing her little cart full of poisons. She stopped at the sight of Jem. She recognized him, as he did her.
“Mother Hawthorn,” said the warlock girl Tessa had talked to. “Have you come to tell us a story?”
“Yes,” said Jem. He rose to his feet and advanced on her. “We want to hear a story. We want to hear why you hate the Herondales.”
Mother Hawthorn’s eyes widened. Her eyes were colorless and pupil-less, as if her eyesockets were filled with water. For a moment Jem thought she would run, and he tensed to spring after her. Tessa and Alec were ready to come for her, as well. Jem had waited too long to wait another moment.
Then Mother Hawthorn looked around at the children and shrugged her thin shoulders.
“Ah well,” she said. “I have waited more than a century to boast of a trick. I suppose it doesn’t matter now. Let me tell you the story of the First Heir.”
They found a solitary campfire, with no children to hear a dark tale save Rafael, solemn faced and silent in the protective curve of Alec’s arm. Jem sat down with his friends and his best beloved to listen. Light and shadows danced a long dance together, and by the strange fireside of the Shadow Market, an old woman wove a tale of Faerie.
“The Seelie Court and the Unseelie have always been at war, but there are times in war that wear the mask of peace. There was even a time that the King of the Unseelie Court and the Queen of the Seelie Court made a secret truce and had a union to seal it. They conceived a child together and agreed that one day that child would inherit both the Seelie and Unseelie thrones, and unite all Faerie. The King wished all his sons to be raised as pitiless warriors, and he believed this First Heir would be the greatest of them all. Since the child would have no mother in the Unseelie Court, he engaged my services, and I thought myself honored. I have always been fond of children. Once they called me the great faerie midwife.
“The King of the Unseelie Court had not expected a daughter, but when the child was born, a daughter she was. She was given into my hands in the Unseelie Court on the day she came into the world, and from that day to this day, the light of her eyes was the only light I wished for.
“The Unseelie King was displeased with his daughter, and the Seelie Queen was enraged that he would not, being displeased, give her back. There came a prophecy from our soothsayers that the day the First Heir reached for their full power, all of Faerie would fall under shadow. The King was murderously angry, and the Queen was terrified, and all the shades and shadows and rushing waters in my land seemed to threaten the head that I loved. The war between Seelie and Unseelie raged all the more fiercely for the brief peace, and the faerie folk whispered that the First Heir was cursed. And so she fled, fearing for her life.
“I did not call her the First Heir. Her name was Auraline, and she was the loveliest thing that ever walked.
“She took refuge in the mortal world, and she found it beautiful. She was always searching for the beauty in life, and it always made her sad to find ugliness instead. She liked to go to the Shadow Market and mingle with the Downworlders and mundanes who did not know of her birth and would not call her cursed.
“After visiting the Shadow Market for many decades, she met a magician there who made her laugh.
“He called himself Roland the Astonishing, Roland the Extraordinary, Roland the Incredible, as if he were something special, when she was the unique one. I hated that insolent boy from the moment I laid eyes on him.
“When he was not calling himself one of his foolish magician’s names, he called himself Roland Loss, but that was another lie.”
“No,” Tessa said, very softly. “It wasn’t.”
Nobody heard her but Jem.
“There was a warlock woman he said he loved as a mother, but Roland was no warlock, nor a mundane with the Sight. He was something far more deadly than that. I learned this warlock’s secret. She took a Shadowhunter child across the seas to America and raised him, pretending he was not Nephilim. Roland was descended from that child: Roland was drawn to our world because his blood called him to it. That boy’s true name was Roland Herondale.
“Roland suspected enough of his heritage, and he paid to learn more at the Market. He told Auraline all his secrets. He said he couldn’t go to the Nephilim and be one of them, lest it endanger the warlock woman he loved like a second mother. He said instead he would become the greatest magician in the world.
“Auraline lost all caution. She told him of the prophecy, and the danger attached to it.
“Roland said they were both lost children, and they could be lost together. He said he didn’t mind being lost, if he could be lost with her. She swore the same. He lured her away from my side. He told her to come live with him in the mortal world. He doomed her, and called it love.
“They ran away together, and the King’s fury was a fire that would have consumed a forest. He wanted the prophecy kept secret, which meant he needed Auraline back under his thumb or killed. He sent his trusted messengers to every corner of the world hunting her, even the bloodthirsty Riders of Mannan. He had all the worst eyes of Faerie looking for her. I kept watch for her myself, and love made my eyes the sharpest. I found her a dozen times, though I never told the King where she was. I will never forgive him for turning against her. I went to every Shadow Market and watched them together, my shining First Heir and that awful boy. Oh, how she loved him, and oh, I hated him.
“I was at a Shadow Market not long after Roland and Auraline went away together, and there I saw another angel boy, proud as God. He told me of his high position among the Nephilim, and I knew that his parabatai was another Herondale. I played a cruel trick on him. I hope he paid for his arrogance in blood.”
“Matthew,” whispered Tessa, the name sounding unfamiliar in her mouth, spoken for the first time in years.
Matthew Fairchild had been parabatai to Tessa’s son, James Herondale. Jem had known that this faerie had tricked Matthew to do a terrible deed, but he had thought it was only spite, not revenge.
Even this faerie woman’s voice sounded tired. Jem remembered feeling that way, near the end of his days as a Silent Brother. He remembered being that hollow.
“But what does that matter now?” asked the woman, as if speaking to herself. “What did it matter then? Long years passed. Auraline spent decade after decade with her magician in the filth of the mundane world, my girl born to a golden throne. They were together all the days of his life. Auraline shared what she could of her faerie power with Roland, and he stayed young longer, and lived longer, than most of their filthy kind could. She wasted her magic, like someone prolonging the life of a flower: they can only make the flower last for a little more time, before it withers. At last Roland grew old, and older, in the way of mortals, until he reached an end, and Auraline met the end with him. A faerie can choose the season of their own death. I knew how it would be, when I first beheld them together. I saw her death in his laughing eyes.
“My Auraline. When Roland Herondale died, she laid down her golden head on the pillow next to her mortal love and never rose again. Their child wept for them both and threw flowers on their grave. Auraline could have lived for century after century, but she was hunted to the point of desperation, and she threw her life away for a foolish mortal love.
“Their child wept, but I never wept. My eyes stayed dry as the dust and dead flowers on their grave. I hated Roland from the day he took her from me. I hate all Nephilim for her sake, and the Herondales most of their kind. Whatever the Shadowhunters touch is brought to destruction. Auraline’s child had a child. There is still a First Heir in the world. When the First Heir rises, in all the awful glory bought by the blood of Seelie and Unseelie and Nephilim, I hope destruction comes to the Shadowhunters as well as Faerie. I hope the whole world is lost.”
Jem thought of Roland and Auraline’s descendant Rosemary, and the man she’d loved. They might have a child by now. The curse the faeries had talked about had already claimed lives. This danger was far greater than he had ever suspected. Jem had to protect Rosemary from the Unseelie King and the Riders who brought death. If there was a child, Jem had to save that child. Jem had already failed to save so many.
Jem rose and left Mother Hawthorn. He went to the barbed-wire edge of the Market, moving desperately fast, as if he could race back into the past and save those he had lost there.
When he stopped, Tessa caught him. She held him in her arms, and when he stopped trembling she drew his head down to hers.
“Jem, my Jem. It’s all right. I thought it was a very beautiful story,” she said.
“What?”
“Not her story,” said Tessa. “Not the story of her warped sight and terrible choices. I can see the story behind hers. The story of Auraline and Roland.”
“But all the people who were hurt,” Jem murmured. “The children we loved.”
“My James knew the power of a love story, as well as I do,” said Tessa. “No matter how dark and hopeless the world seemed, Lucie could always find beauty in a story. I know what they would have thought.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jem instantly.
He would not speak to her about children. He had loved Tessa’s children, but they had not been his. Tessa had lost so much already. He could not ask her to lose more. She was enough for him: she always would be.
“Auraline grew up in horror. She felt cursed. And he was lost and wandering. They seemed destined for misery. Only they found each other, Jem. They were together and happy, all the days of their lives. Her story is just like mine, because I found you.”
Tessa’s smile lit the night. She always brought hope when he was in despair, as she had brought words when everything within him was silence. Jem put his arms around her and held on tightly.
“I hope you learned what you needed to learn tonight,” Alec told Jem and Tessa when they reached their rooms.
Jem had looked upset when he bolted from the fireside, but he and Tessa had seemed different when they returned.
“I hope they’re all right,” Alec said quietly to Lily when Jem and Tessa went off to prepare for their midnight visit to the warlock’s house.
“Of course Tessa’s fine,” said Lily. “You do realize she gets to go to the Jem-nasium anytime she wants?”
“I’m never talking to you again if those names don’t stop,” Alec told her, gathering his arrows and tucking daggers and seraph blades into his weapons belt. He found himself thinking of the heartbroken way Jem said parabatai. It made him remember the shadow that hung over his father, the wound where a parabatai should be. It made him think of Jace. Ever since he could remember, Alec had loved and felt responsible for his family. There had never been any choice, but with Jace it was different. Jace, his parabatai, the first person who’d ever chosen him. The first time Alec had decided to choose someone back, to take on another responsibility. The first choice, opening the door to all the others.
Alec took a deep breath and tapped out Miss u into his phone.
He immediately received back Miss u too and let himself take a breath, the ache in his chest easier now. Jace was there, waiting for him in New York with the rest of his family. Talking about feelings wasn’t so bad.
Then he received another text.
R U OK?
In rapid succession, Alec received several more texts.
R U IN SOME KIND OF TROUBLE?
DID U GET HIT IN UR HEAD!
Then he got a text from Clary.
Why did Jace get a text from you and look very pleased but then suddenly very worried? Is something going on?
Talking about feelings was the worst. Once you did it, everybody immediately wanted you to do it more.
Alec typed out a grouchy I’m fine and then called out cautiously, “Rafe?”
Rafael popped immediately up from his bed.
“Would you like the phone back?” asked Alec. “Here it is. Take it. Don’t worry if any more texts arrive. Just show me if there are any more pictures.”
He didn’t know how much Rafael understood of what he said. He suspected not much, but Rafe certainly understood the gesture of Alec offering his phone. He held out his hands eagerly.
“You’re a good kid, Rafe,” said Alec. “Take that phone away.”
“Are we going to smuggle our way into the house in laundry carts?” Lily asked Alec excitedly.
Alec blinked at her. “No, we’re not. What laundry carts? I’m a straightforward person. I’m going to knock on the door.”
He stood, with Lily, on the cobbled street before that great gray house. Jem and Tessa were waiting on the roof. Alec had literally used rope to tie Rafe to Jem’s wrist.
“I know Rafe stole your phone,” said Lily, “but who stole your sense of adventure?”
Alec waited, and the door opened. A warlock blinked up at him. He looked as if he was in his early thirties, a businessman with close-cropped blond hair and no visible warlock mark until he opened his mouth and Alec saw his forked tongue.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “Are you another of Clive Breakspear’s men?”
Alec said: “I’m Alec Lightwood.”
The warlock’s face cleared. “I see! I’ve heard of you.” He winked. “Fond of warlocks, aren’t you?”
“Some of them,” said Alec.
“Want your cut, I expect?”
“That’s right.”
“No problem,” the warlock told him. “You and your vampire friend should come in, and I’ll explain what I’ll want in return. I think the vampire will be very amused. They don’t like werewolves, do they?”
“I don’t like most people,” Lily said helpfully. “But I do love murder!”
The warlock waved his hand to let them through the wards, and led them through a hexagonal hall with a ceiling carved in a shape like a plaster jelly mold. The green quartz of the floor shone like jade. There were no signs of ruin or decay here. The warlock obviously had money.
There were several doors, all painted white, set in the many walls. The warlock chose one and led Alec and Lily down rough-hewn stone steps into the dark. The smell hit Alec before the sight did.
There was a long stone passage, with flaming torches on the walls and with grooves on either side for filth and blood. Along the passageway were rows of cages. Eyes shone from behind the bars, catching the firelight in the same way Juliette’s eyes had shone from her throne in the Shadow Market. Some cages were empty. In others were huddled shapes that were not moving.
“So you’ve been taking werewolf women, and the Shadowhunters have been helping you,” said Alec.
The warlock nodded, with a cheery smile.
“Why werewolves?” Alec asked grimly.
“Well, warlocks and vampires can’t bear children, and faeries find it difficult,” said the warlock in a practical tone. “But the werewolves whelp more easily, and there’s a great deal of animal strength. Everybody says that Downworlders can’t bear warlock children, that their bodies always reject them, but I thought of putting a little magic in the mix. People whisper about a warlock born from a Shadowhunter woman, and that’s probably a myth, but it got me thinking. Imagine the power a warlock might have, with a werewolf mother and a demon father.” He shrugged. “Seems worth trying. Of course, you do use up the werewolf women at a terrible rate.”
“How many have died?” Lily asked casually. Her expression was unreadable.
“Oh, a few,” the warlock admitted genially. “I’m always in need of fresh supply, so I’m happy to pay you to snatch more. But these experiments haven’t been going as well as I’d like. Nothing has worked yet. You’re, uh, close to Magnus Bane, aren’t you? I’m probably the most powerful warlock you’ll ever meet, but I hear he’s pretty good too. If you can get him to come on in an assisting capacity, you’ll be very well rewarded. So will he. I think you’ll both be very happy.”
Alec said: “Yeah, I hope so.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed Magnus was for sale. It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed that because Alec was connected to Magnus, Alec was sullied.
That used to make Alec angry. It still did, but he’d learned to use it.
The warlock turned his back to Alec, surveying the cages as if selecting a product from a market stall. “So, what do you say?” he asked idly. “Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Alec. “You don’t know my price.”
The warlock laughed. “What is it?”
Alec scythed the warlock’s feet out from under him, so he fell to his knees. He drew his seraph blade and held it to the man’s throat.
“All the women go free,” he said. “And you are under arrest.”
Alec realized why the warlock were burning torches, and not witchlight or electricity, when a torch tumbled out of the wall and onto the straw. He had to leap to stamp out the fire.
The warlock was good, Alec thought, as the world went orange with not just fire but magic, criss-crossing from the bars, blinding Alec with its light.
Then another light sliced through the orange wires of magic, pearly gray, cutting through all darkness. Tessa Gray, daughter of a Prince of Hell, stood at the foot of the stairs with her hands glowing.
Tessa’s magic was all around him. Alec had learned how to sense magic, over the years, learned to move with it and fight with it as another weapon on his side. This wasn’t the singing power he was used to, well-known and well-beloved as his bow, but it felt friendly. He let Tessa’s magic wrap around him, cooling and protecting, as he ducked through the fiery spars of power back to the warlock.
“The most powerful warlock I’ve ever seen?” Alec snarled. “She cut through your wards like tissue paper. And my man would eat you for breakfast.”
He made a mistake, because he was overconfident. He didn’t hear Tessa’s stifled sound, and he didn’t see the shadow moving as he swept his blade toward the warlock.
Clive Breakspear’s seraph blade met his. Alec met Breakspear’s furious eyes. He looked to Tessa, struggling with three Shadowhunters with Jem coming to help her, Lily with another Shadowhunter prowling toward her, and he glanced toward the warlock, who was making every torch fall. Alec was used to being able to see the whole battle, fighting at a distance.
Too late, he saw the blade in Clive Breakspear’s free hand, aimed for his heart.
Rafael barreled out of the shadows and sank his teeth deep into Breakspear’s wrist. The blade dropped to the stone.
The man roared, and with all the Nephilim strength that should be used to shield the defenseless, he hurled Rafael’s body into the cage bars. There was a sickening crack.
Alec shouted: “No!”
He backhanded Clive Breakspear in the face. The warlock dashed a torch at his feet, and Alec stepped over the flames and seized him by the throat, then lifted him like a doll and smashed the warlock’s skull against Breakspear’s forehead. The warlock’s eyes rolled back, but Breakspear screamed in outrage and charged at Alec. There was still a seraph blade shining in his hand, so Alec broke that hand, then used his hold on it to force the corrupt Shadowhunter to his knees. Alec stood over them, panting so hard his chest felt as if it would split apart. He wanted to kill them both.
Only Rafael was here. Magnus and Max were at home, waiting for him. Tessa, Jem, and Lily had made short work of the Shadowhunters attacking them. Alec turned to Tessa now.
“Will you enchant ropes to hold them?” he asked. “They have to stand trial.”
Tessa moved forward. So did Lily. Alec knew the situation was desperate because Lily didn’t make a joke about murdering them. Alec was too close to the edge. He was afraid he would have taken her up on it.
He went to the place where Rafael lay, his body a small wretched shape thrown into the dirt. Alec pulled Rafe into his arms, feeling his throat close up. He understood now what he had found here in Buenos Aires. He understood now that it might be too late.
Rafael’s grubby face was still. He was barely breathing. Jem came to kneel beside them.
“I’m so sorry. He slipped the rope, and I came in for him, but—but—”
“It isn’t your fault,” Alec said numbly.
Jem said: “Give him to me.”
Alec stared at Jem, then bundled Rafe into his arms.
“Take care of him,” he said. “Please.”
Jem took Rafe and ran toward Tessa, and together they rushed up the stone steps. There was still orange magic in the air, and the flames had caught in earnest. Smoke was rising fast, in a thick choking cloud.
One of the werewolf women reached out a thin hand and clutched the bars.
“Help us!”
Alec took an axe with an electrum head from his belt and struck open the lock on her cage. “That’s what I’m here to do.” He paused. “Um, Lily, are there keys on that warlock?”
“Yep,” said Lily. “Just grabbed them. I’ll open the doors with the keys, and you can keep doing your cool dramatic axe thing.”
“Fine,” said Alec.
The werewolf woman who had spoken to him bolted out the door as soon as she was free. The woman in the next cage couldn’t walk. Alec walked into the cage and knelt beside her, and that was when he heard the sounds of a fight breaking out at the top of the stairs.
He picked the woman up and ran for the stairs.
Tessa and Jem were in the hall, almost at the doors. The burning house was crawling with Shadowhunters. Jem couldn’t fight, because he was holding Rafael. Tessa was doing her best to clear a way for them, but Rafael needed Tessa’s help too.
One man shouted: “Where’s our leader?”
“You call that a leader?” Alec shouted back. He looked at the woman in his arms, then held her out so the Shadowhunters of the Buenos Aires Institute could see. “He helped a warlock do this. He crushed a child’s body against a wall. Is that what you want to lead you? Is that what you want to be?”
Several Shadowhunters turned to him in total puzzlement. Lily quickly shouted out a translation.
Joaquín stepped forward.
Lily said quietly: “He told them to stand down.”
The man who’d shouted for his leader hit Joaquín across the mouth. Another Shadowhunter shouted in startled fury and produced a whip, defending Joaquín.
Alec ran his eyes over the crowd. Some of the Shadowhunters looked uncertain, but Shadowhunters were soldiers. Too many of them were intent on following whatever orders they had been given, fighting Joaquín and Alec and whoever else stood in their way, to get to an unworthy leader. They were blocking Jem and Tessa’s way. They were keeping Rafe from help.
The doors of the burning house burst open. The Queen of the Shadow Market stood outlined against the smoke.
“Get to Alec!” Juliette shouted, and a dozen werewolves and vampires sprang.
Juliette cleared a path. Jem and Tessa slipped out the door. Rafe was out of this place of filth and smoke. Alec fought toward Juliette.
“Mon Dieu,” she breathed when she saw the woman in Alec’s arms.
She made a gesture, and a warlock jumped to take the unconscious werewolf out into the night.
“There are more women down there,” Alec said. “I’ll get them. Some of the Shadowhunters are on our side.”
Juliette nodded. “Which ones?”
Alec turned to see Joaquín, fighting two Shadowhunters at once. The man with the whip who’d come to help him was down.
“That one,” said Alec. “And whoever else he tells you.”
Juliette set her jaw and strode across the green-quartz floor to Joaquín’s side. She tapped one of the men fighting him on the shoulder. When he turned, she ripped out his throat with one clawed hand.
“Maybe take them alive!” said Alec. “Not that guy, obviously.”
Joaquín was staring at Juliette with eyes gone enormous. Alec remembered that Joaquín had heard tales of horror about the Queen of the Shadow Market. Juliette, with blood on her hands and firelight in her snarled hair, might not be doing a lot to dispel that image.
“Don’t hurt her!” Alec cried. “She’s with us.”
“Oh good,” said Joaquín.
Juliette squinted at him suspiciously through the smoke. “You’re not evil?”
“Trying not to be,” said Joaquín.
“Bien,” said Juliette. “Show me who to kill. I mean . . . take alive if possible.”
Alec left them to it. He spun around and raced back down the stairs, Lily at his heels. The smoke was thick in the passage below by now. Alec saw there were Shadowhunters there already, getting Clive Breakspear and his warlock confederate out. Alec’s lip curled. “If your loyalty is to the Clave, put a watch on them. They’re going to stand trial.”
He and Lily opened the remaining doors. The women who could move on their own did. Too many could not. Alec picked up one woman after another and carried them out. Lily helped women who needed support to walk. Alec gave the women to the Downworlders of the Shadow Market whenever he could, so he was able to get back to the basement faster. Alec reached the top of the stairs with another woman and saw the hall was deserted, taken over by smoke and falling masonry. Everyone had fled the death trap this building had become.
Alec bundled the woman into Lily’s arms. Lily was small enough that it was difficult, but she was strong enough to bear her weight.
“Take her. I have to get the others.”
“I don’t want to go!” Lily shouted over the crackling fire. “I don’t ever want to abandon anybody again!”
“You won’t. Lily, go.”
Lily stumbled for the door under her heavy burden, sobbing. Alec turned back. The smoke had turned the whole world into a gray hell. He couldn’t see, or breathe.
A hand caught his shoulder. Joaquín stood behind him.
“You can’t go down there!” he panted. “I’m so sorry about those women, but they’re—”
Alec said, icily: “Downworlders?”
“It’s too dangerous. And you—you have a lot to go back to.”
Magnus, and Max. If Alec closed his eyes, he could see them with absolute clarity. But he knew he had to be worthy of going back to them.
Joaquín was still holding on to him. Alec shrugged him off, and not gently.
“I will not leave one woman down there, abused and forgotten,” he said. “Not one. No real Shadowhunter would.”
He looked over his shoulder at Joaquín, as he was going down the steps into hell.
“You can leave,” said Alec. “If you do, you can still call yourself a Shadowhunter. But will you be one?”
Rafael lay on the cobbled street as Jem and Tessa hovered over him. Jem used every silent enchantment he had learned among the Silent Brothers. Tessa whispered every healing spell she had learned in the Spiral Labyrinth. Jem could tell, from long, bitter experience, that there was too much broken and bruised within that small body.
There was a fire burning and a battle raging. Jem could not pay attention to any of it, could not bring himself to care about anything but the child under his hands.
“Dittany, Jem,” Tessa whispered desperately. “I need dittany.”
Jem climbed to his feet, searching the crowd. There were so many from the Shadow Market here, there was surely one who could help. His gaze fell on Mother Hawthorn, with starlight on her dandelion hair.
She met his eyes and made to run. Jem was fast as a Shadowhunter still, when he had to be. He was at her side in a moment, catching her wrist.
“Do you have dittany?”
“If I do,” snarled Mother Hawthorn, “why should I give it to you?”
“I know what you did, more than a century ago,” he said. “I know better than you do. The trick you played, causing one Shadowhunter to poison another? It poisoned an unborn child. Does that amuse you?”
The faerie’s mouth went slack.
“That child died, because of you,” said Jem. “Now there is another child who needs help. I could take the herb from you. I will, if I have to. But I’m giving you the chance to make another choice.”
“It’s too late!” said Mother Hawthorn, and Jem knew she was thinking of Auraline.
“Yes,” said Jem, merciless. “It’s too late to save the ones we lost. But this child is not lost yet. This choice is not lost yet. Choose.”
Mother Hawthorn turned her face away, her mouth set in bitter lines. But she reached inside the worn pouch at her belt and put the herb into his hand.
Jem took it and raced back to Tessa. Rafael’s body was arching under her hands. The dittany flared to life at her touch, and Jem joined his hands with Tessa’s, joined his voice with hers as they spoke in all the languages they had ever taught each other. Their words were a song, their linked hands magic, and they poured everything they knew, together, into the child.
Rafael’s eyes opened. There was a flash of Tessa’s pearlescent magic in his dark irises, then it was lost. The child sat up, looking perfectly all right, well and whole and somewhat annoyed. He gazed into their distraught faces and asked, in clipped Spanish: “Where is he?”
“He’s in there,” Lily answered.
The narrow cobbled street was full of members of the Shadow Market seeing to the werewolf victims or herding Shadowhunters, with some different, deeply nervous-looking Shadowhunters tentatively assisting, or trying to put out the flames. Lily was not doing any of that. She stared at the house with her arms crossed, and her eyes dark with tears.
As they watched, part of the roof collapsed. Rafe started forward. Tessa lunged and seized him, holding him as he strained against her grip. Jem stood.
“No, Jem,” said Tessa. “Take the child. Let me go in.”
Jem tried to take Rafe, but he was fighting them both. Then Rafe went still. Jem twisted around to see what the child was looking at.
What everybody was looking at. There was a ripple in the crowd, then a hush. Jem did not think any of the Shadow Market or the Institute would forget what had happened here tonight.
From the swirling smoke, out of the collapsing building, came two Shadowhunters with werewolves in their arms. They walked tall, their faces grim, and people parted to let them pass.
The women had been saved, and the child. Jem felt new resolution rise in him. Tessa was right. If Rosemary could be saved, he would save her. If there was a child, he and Tessa would stand between that child and the Riders and the King.
Alec carried the werewolf he bore to Tessa, who immediately began enchanting the smoke from her lungs. Then he dropped to his knees in front of Rafe.
“Hey, my baby,” said Alec. “Are you all right?”
Rafael might not entirely understand the language, but anyone could have understood the message of Alec on his knees in the rubble, the love and concern on his face. Rafael nodded, dust drifting from his curly hair, and walked into Alec’s open arms. Alec folded the little boy against his chest.
“Thank you both,” Alec said to Tessa and Jem. “You’re heroes.”
“You’re welcome,” said Jem.
“You’re a moron,” said Lily, and put her face in her hands.
Alec rose and patted her awkwardly on the back, Rafe held in the circle of his other arm. He turned to Juliette, who had called one of her warlocks over to see to the werewolf in Joaquín’s arms.
“You got them all out.” Juliette smiled at them both, her expression wondering, as if she was young as Rafe and seeing magic for the first time. “You did it.”
“The werewolf woman who was looking after Rafe,” said Alec. “Is she—here?”
Juliette looked at the ashes drifting on the cobbled streets. The fire was dying, now that Tessa could spare magic to cool the flames, but the house was a ruin.
“No,” said Juliette. “My girls tell me she was one of the first to die.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec told her, then his voice changed, as he addressed Rafe. “Rafe, I have to ask you something,” he said. “Solomillo—”
“Steak?” Lily smirked.
“Dammit,” said Alec. “Sorry, Rafe. But will you come back with me to New York? You can—I have to talk to—if you don’t like it there, you don’t have to—”
Rafe watched him stumble over his words.
“I can’t understand you, fool,” he said sweetly in Spanish, and tucked his head down under Alec’s chin, his arms going around Alec’s neck.
“OK,” said Alec. “Good. I think.”
Tessa walked away from the burned-out building. There were several warlocks in the crowd watching her with awe, Jem noted proudly. She strode over to the bound warlock and the Head of the Buenos Aires Institute.
“Shall we ask Magnus to open a Portal for them?” she asked.
“Not just yet,” said Alec.
There was a change in his demeanor, his shoulders going back, his face stern. If it weren’t for the child in his arms, he might have been fearsome.
Alec Lightwood, leader of the Alliance, said: “First, I want a word.”
Alec looked around at the assembled faces. His breathing felt as if it were tearing his throat and his eyes were still stinging, but he was holding Rafe, so everything was perfectly all right.
Except for the fact he had no idea what to say. He couldn’t know how many of the Shadowhunters had cooperated with the capture and torture of these women. He suspected most of them had gone along with their leader’s orders, but he didn’t know how responsible that made them. If he arrested everybody, then the Institute would be left an empty ruin. The people here were owed protection.
“Clive Breakspear, the Head of the Buenos Aires Institute, broke the Accords and will pay for it,” he said at last, and paused. “Lily, can you translate for me?”
“Absolutely, yes,” Lily said promptly, and began to do so.
Alec listened to her talk, watched the faces of the people listening, and saw a few smirks. Alec listened more intently, and picked up a word.
“Boludo,” Alec said to Jem. “What does that mean?”
Jem coughed. “It’s not—a polite word.”
“I knew it,” Alec said. “Lily, stop translating! Sorry, Jem, could you translate instead?”
Jem nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“The Head of your Institute has brought shame on us all,” Alec told the Shadowhunters. “I could bring everybody here to Alicante. I could have every one of you put to the trial of the Sword. I know you were left after the war, to rebuild as best you could, and instead of leading you, this man brought more ruin. But the Law says that I should make each of you pay.”
Alec thought of Helen and Mark Blackthorn, cut off from their family by the Cold Peace. He thought of the way Magnus had sunk his face into his hands, despairing, when the Cold Peace was passed. Alec never wanted to see that despair again. Every day since that day, he’d tried to work out ways that they could all live united.
“What happened in that house should sicken any Shadowhunter,” said Alec. “We have to earn back the trust of everyone we have wronged. Joaquín, you will know the names of every man who was in Breakspear’s inner circle. They will go with their leader to stand trial. For the rest, it is time for a new leader, and a new chance to live as Nephilim should.”
He glanced at Joaquín, who was wiping tears from his eyes. Alec frowned at him and mouthed: “What?”
“Oh, it’s j-just the way Jem is translating,” Joaquín explained. “I mean, your speech is good too, very stern, it makes me want to do everything you say. And Jem is basically repeating it, but it’s the way he puts things, you know? It’s beautiful.”
“Uh-huh,” Alec said.
Joaquín grabbed his free hand. “You be the new head of the Institute.”
“No, I will not,” Alec snapped.
People were always trying to make him head of Institutes, and it made Alec tired. He couldn’t change enough, if he took that kind of position. He had more important things to do.
“No,” repeated Alec, less grouchily but no less firmly. “I’m not Clive Breakspear. I’m here to help you, not to take over. When you saw what was happening, you told your men to stand down. You should act as the head of your own Institute until the Consul can consider your case”
Joaquín stood amazed. Alec nodded at him.
“You can work with the Shadow Market to rebuild,” he said. “I can provide you with resources.”
“So can I,” said Juliette.
Joaquín stared at her, then swung his head back to Alec.
“The Queen of the Shadow Market,” said Alec. “Do you think you will be able to cooperate with her?”
Juliette gave Joaquín a hostile look. There was still a suggestion of wolfish teeth in her mouth. Joaquín reached out, as if to point to the blood on Juliette’s hands, and Alec wondered for a nasty moment if the hatred between the Nephilim and the Downworlders in this place ran too deep.
Joaquín lifted Juliette’s hand to his lips, and kissed it.
“I did not know,” he breathed, “that the Queen of the Shadow Market was so beautiful.”
Alec realized abruptly that he’d got everything wrong. Juliette mouthed several shocked demands for explanation, and several more French expletives, at Alec over Joaquín’s bowed head.
“Shadowhunters go so hard,” Lily cackled.
“OK, fine, glad we’re entering into the spirit of cooperation,” said Alec, and turned back to the crowd. “This Nephilim child is now under the protection of the New York Institute,” he said. “Let’s say this was a very standard and normal adoption. Let’s say that though the head of your Institute was corrupt, you survived under a bad leader and kept your honor. You hold Breakspear here until he can be tried. I will, of course, be returning here often to finalize details of the adoption, and I’ll see what is happening. I want to believe in my fellow Shadowhunters. Don’t let me down.”
He had no doubt Jem would make that sound better in Spanish. He turned back to Juliette, who had succeeded with difficulty in freeing her hand and was retreating several steps under Joaquín’s rapt gaze.
“I should be getting back to my kids!” she said, gesturing to the three kids. Rosey gave Alec a little wave.
“Oh,” said Joaquín, a world of devastation in the syllable, then he seemed to notice the lack of anyone else with the kids. “Has it been very difficult, ruling the Shadow Market as a single mother?” he asked, with sudden transparent hope.
“Well, none of this has exactly been easy!” said Juliette.
Joaquín beamed at her. “That’s wonderful.”
“What?” said Juliette.
Joaquín was already heading toward the kids, on an obvious mission to endear himself to them. Alec hoped he had a lot of candies.
Juliette demanded: “Did he inhale a lot of smoke in there?”
“Probably,” said Alec.
“Shadowhunters get very set on things,” said Lily. “Very set. Do you enjoy intensely serious romantic commitment?”
“I don’t know his name,” Juliette pointed out. She sneaked a self-conscious look over at Joaquín, whose endearing of himself seemed to be going very well. He had Juliette’s warlock boy up on his shoulders.
“His name’s Joaquín,” Alec said helpfully.
Juliette smiled. “I suppose I do like some Shadowhunters. It’s always a pleasure, Alec Lightwood. Thanks for everything.”
“It was nothing,” said Alec.
Juliette strolled over to her kids, calling out to them to stop bothering the head of the Institute.
Alec looked around at the smoke drifting up to the stars, and the people in the streets all talking to each other without barriers. His eyes fell on Tessa and Jem.
“Is it time to go home?” Tessa asked.
Alec bit his lip, then nodded. “I’ll text Magnus and ask him to open a Portal.”
There was an official protocol for adopting Shadowhunter children. He knew that he and Rafael would have to go back and forth from Buenos Aires several times, but this trip home would be worth it, even if it did not last long. Alec wanted to take Rafael home as soon as he could.
He was tired, and he wanted to sleep in his own bed.
“I don’t suppose you have any ideas for how I can explain all this to Magnus?” he asked Jem.
“I think you’ll find all the words you need, Alec,” said Jem.
“Thanks, that’s very helpful.”
Jem smiled. “You even found a way to make the boy who doesn’t like anybody like you. Thanks for all your help, Alec.”
Alec wished he could help more, but he knew that at least for now he had done his part. They all had to trust each other, and he did trust his friends. If there was a Herondale in danger, they could not ask for better protection than Jem and Tessa.
“I didn’t do much, but it was good to see you both. Good luck with the Herondale.”
Jem nodded. “Thank you. I think we might need it.”
The Portal was open, and shimmering.
“Bye, Jem,” said Lily.
“Oh, no nickname?” Jem sounded pleased. “Bye, Lily.”
Alec studied Rafe’s face. “Do you like me?” he asked.
Rafe beamed and shook his head, then secured his arms more tightly around Alec’s neck.
“Oh, fine, that you understand,” Alec grumbled. “Come on. Let’s go home.”
They stepped out of the Portal into the electric starriness of a New York night. Alec could see his apartment down the street, the shimmer of a witchlight behind pale blue curtains. He checked his watch: it was past Max’s bedtime. Max fought bedtime like it was a demon, so Magnus was probably reading him a fifth story or singing him a third song.
Every brown and white façade, every tree surrounded by wire on the cracked sidewalk, was dear to him. Alec used to think, when he was younger and felt as if he might die amid the crushing expectations and stone walls of the Institute, that he might feel better if he could live among the glass towers of Alicante. He hadn’t known home was across the city, waiting for him.
He set Rafe on the steps of their apartment building, and hopped him up one step, then swung him up another, for sheer joy. He opened the door to home.
“Alec,” boomed a voice behind him.
Alec jumped. Lily swiftly thrust Rafael behind the protection of Alec’s front door and spun, lip curling from her needle-sharp teeth.
Alec turned as well, very slowly. He wasn’t scared. He knew that voice.
“Alec,” said Robert Lightwood. “We need to talk.”
“OK, Dad,” said Alec. “Lily, I need to explain everything to Magnus, so could you watch Rafe for a second?”
Lily nodded, still giving Robert the evil eye. There was a pause.
“Hello, Lily,” Robert added gruffly.
“Who the hell are you?” asked Lily.
“My dad,” said Alec. “The Inquisitor. The second most important person in the Clave. Someone you have met at least twenty-six times.”
“I don’t recall,” said Lily.
Alec’s incredulous look was mirrored on his father’s face.
“Lily,” said Robert. “I know you know me.”
“Never gonna, don’t wanna.” Lily shut the door of Alec’s apartment building in his father’s face.
There was an awkward silence.
“Sorry about that,” said Alec finally.
“All your other vampires like me,” muttered Robert.
Alec blinked. “My other vampires?”
“Your friend Elliott reaches out whenever Lily leaves him in charge,” explained Robert. “He says he feels in need of Lightwood guidance. I visited the Hotel Dumort while you were away, and the vampires had a little dinner laid on just for me, and they all talked to me about you. Elliott gave me his phone number, I presume so I can call him in case of emergencies. Elliott’s always charming to me.”
Alec didn’t know how to break it to his dad that Elliott was shamelessly hitting on him.
“Huh,” said Alec.
“How is Magnus? Doing well? Dressing, uh, uniquely?”
“Still gorgeous,” said Alec defiantly. “Yeah.”
His father looked abashed. Alec wasn’t comfortable talking about how he felt, but he wasn’t ashamed, and nobody was going to make him be ashamed, ever again. He didn’t know why his father never stopped poking at him, with the obsessive curiosity of a child poking at a scab.
When he was younger, his dad used to joke insistently about Alec and girls. It was too painful to respond to those comments. Alec talked less and less.
He remembered the day he’d walked out of the Institute to find Magnus. He’d met Magnus twice, and couldn’t forget him. The Institute lay behind him, its stark outlines cutting the sky. He’d been breathless and terrified, with one thought very clear in his mind.
Is this how you want to live your whole life?
Then he’d gone to Magnus’s place and asked him out.
Alec couldn’t bear the idea of one of his kids ever feeling trapped in their own home. He knew his dad hadn’t meant to do that. But he had.
“How’s my little M&M?” asked Robert.
Max’s middle name was Michael, after Robert’s long-dead parabatai.
Usually that was Alec’s cue to take out his phone and show his dad all the new pictures of Max he possessed, but he was in a hurry today.
“He’s the best,” Alec said. “Is there something you need, Dad?”
“I heard some rumors about the Buenos Aires Institute,” said Robert. “I heard you were there.”
“Right,” said Alec. “Clive Breakspear, the head of the Institute, had his Shadowhunters acting as mercenaries. They’ll need to stand trial. But I encouraged a change in leadership. The Buenos Aires Institute is going to be all right.”
“This is why I needed to talk to you, Alec,” said Robert.
Alec studied the cracks in the sidewalk and tried to think of a way to explain everything that would implicate nobody else.
“Do you know, the positions of Consul and Inquisitor often stay within the same families? I’ve been thinking about what happens, when the time comes for me to retire.”
Alec stared at a weed growing through the cracks in the sidewalk. “I don’t think Jace wants to be Inquisitor, Dad.”
“Alec,” said Robert. “I’m not talking to Jace. I’m talking to you.”
Alec jolted. “What?”
He looked up from the sidewalk. His father was smiling at him, as if he meant it.
Alec remembered his own words. The Inquisitor. The second most important person in the Clave.
Alec allowed himself a moment to dream. Being Inquisitor, and having a hand in the making of the Law itself. Being able to get Aline and Helen back. Being able to put some sort of dent in the Cold Peace. Being able, Alec thought with slow-dawning hope, to get married.
Having his dad believe that Alec could do it. Alec knew his dad loved him, but that wasn’t the same as his dad believing in him. He hadn’t known that before.
“I’m not saying it would be easy,” said Robert. “But several members of the Clave have mentioned it as a possibility. You know how popular you are with Downworlders.”
“Not really,” mumbled Alec.
“A few more people in the Clave are coming around,” said Robert. “I have that tapestry up of you, and I take care to mention your name often.”
“Here I thought it was up because you love me.”
Robert blinked at him, as if he was wounded by the joke. “Alec. It—it is. But I want this for you too. That’s what I came here to ask. Do you want it for yourself?”
Alec thought of the power to change the Law from a sword that hurt people into a shield to defend them.
“Yeah,” said Alec. “But you have to be sure you want me to have it, Dad. People won’t be happy with me taking it, and once I have it, I’m going to split the Clave apart.”
“You are?” Robert asked, his voice faint.
“Because I have to,” said Alec. “Because everything has to change. For everybody’s sake. And for Magnus, and our kids.”
Robert blinked. “Your what?”
“Oh, by the Angel,” said Alec. “Please don’t ask me any questions! I have to go! I have to talk to Magnus right away.”
Robert said, “I am very confused.”
“I really have to go,” said Alec. “Thanks, Dad. I mean it. Come for dinner again soon, all right? We’ll talk more about the Inquisitor thing then.”
“All right,” said Robert. “I’d like that. When I had dinner with you three, a few weeks ago? I don’t remember the last time I had such a happy day.”
Alec remembered how difficult it had been during Robert’s visit to keep the conversation going, how only Max prattling at his grandpa’s knee had broken the frequent silences. It broke Alec’s heart to think Robert had thought of that strained awkward dinner as happiness.
“Come over anytime,” said Alec. “Max loves seeing his grandpa. And—thank you, Dad. Thanks for believing in me. Sorry if I caused you a lot of paperwork tonight.”
“You saved lives tonight, Alec,” said Robert.
He took an awkward step toward Alec, and his hand lifted, as if he was going to pat Alec on the shoulder. Then his hand dropped. He looked into Alec’s face, and his eyes were so sad.
“You’re a good man, Alec,” he said at last. “You’re a better man than I am.”
Alec loved his father, and would never be cruel to him. So he didn’t say: I had to be. Instead he reached out and pulled his father into an awkward hug, patting him on the shoulder before he stepped back.
“We’ll talk later.”
“Whenever you like,” said Robert. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”
Alec waved to his dad, then ran up the steps of his building. He opened the door and bounded up his stairs to find Lily alone. The door of his loft was open a crack, light filtering through, but Lily was standing in the shadows and appeared to be filing her nails.
“Lily,” Alec said dangerously, “where is Rafael?”
“Oh, him.” Lily shrugged. “He heard Magnus singing some Indonesian lullaby, and he bolted inside. Nothing I could do. Shadowhunters. They’re speedy.”
Neither of them mentioned Magnus’s wards, which couldn’t be forced by any magic or any strength Alec knew of. Magnus didn’t have wards up for anyone defenseless, anyone who might need his help. Of course a child could go through.
Alec fixed her with a reproachful glare, but was distracted by the deep, lovely murmur of Magnus’s voice through the open door. His tone was warm and, as it often was, amused. Alec thought of Jem telling Tessa Your voice is the music I love best in all the world.
“Ah, there’s that smile,” said Lily. “It’s been two days, and I missed it.”
Alec stopped smiling and made a face at her, but when he looked at her properly, she was fiddling with the zip of her leather jacket. There was something about the set of her mouth, as if she’d set it determinedly so it wouldn’t tremble.
“Thanks for coming with me,” Alec said. “Also, you’re the worst.”
That made her smile. Lily wiggled her fingers in farewell. “Don’t you forget it.”
She slipped away like a shadow, and Alec opened the door and stepped inside his apartment at last. His coffee machine was on the counter, his cat was sleeping on the sofa.
There was a door standing open to a room he’d never seen before, which happened sometimes at his place. The room inside had golden-brown floorboards and whitewashed walls. Magnus was standing in the room, with Rafe beside him. Magnus was wearing a red and gold silk robe, and Rafe’s face was tipped up to watch Magnus as he produced a low soothing stream of Spanish. It was a beautiful room.
Alec realized Magnus knew he was there because Magnus started translating what he was saying into rapid English, switching between languages with fluid ease so everybody knew what was going on.
“Let’s put away the cross for now, and talk about organized religion later,” said Magnus, snapping his fingers at the crucifix on the wall. “And let’s have a window, and let the light in. Do you like this one?”
He gestured easily to the wall, and a circular window opened up onto their street, showing a tree catching the moon. Then he gestured again and the window was red and gold stained glass.
“Or this one?” Magnus waved a third time and the window was arched and tall as a church window. “Or this one?”
Rafe was nodding and nodding, his face wreathed in eager smiles.
Magnus smiled down at him. “Want me to just keep doing magic?”
Rafe nodded again, even more vehemently. Magnus laughed and set a hand on Rafe’s curly head: Alec was about to warn that Rafael was shy at first and would duck away, but Rafe didn’t. He let Magnus stroke his hair, the rings on Magnus’s hand catching the light through their new window. Magnus’s smile went from gleaming to glowing. He met Alec’s eyes over Rafe’s head.
“I’ve been getting to know Rafe,” said Magnus. “He told me that was what he liked to be called. We’ve been doing up a bedroom for him. See?”
“I do,” said Alec.
“Rafe,” said Magnus. “Rafael. Do you have a last name?”
Rafe shook his head.
“That’s all right. We have two. How would you feel about a middle name? Would you like one?”
Rafe broke into a stream of Spanish. From all the nodding, Alec was fairly sure he was agreeing.
“Um,” Alec said. “We probably need to talk.”
Magnus laughed. “Oh, do you think so? Excuse us for a minute, Rafe.” He moved toward Alec, then stopped short. Rafe’s hands were clenched hard on the edge of Magnus’s robe. Magnus looked startled.
Rafe burst out crying. Magnus cast Alec a wild glance, then ran his hands distractedly through his own hair. Between torrential sobs, Rafael began to eke out words.
Alec couldn’t speak Rafael’s language, but he understood nonetheless. Don’t let me see you, and then have to go away into the loneliness that is the world without you. Please, please keep me. I’ll be good, if you would just keep me.
Alec started forward, but before he was even in the room, Magnus dropped to his knees and touched the child’s face with tender hands. All trace of tears disappeared with a shimmer of magic.
“Hush,” said Magnus. “Don’t cry. Yes, of course we will, my darling.”
Rafe put his face down onto Magnus’s shoulder and sobbed his heart out. Magnus patted his shaking back until he was quiet.
“I’m sorry,” Magnus said at last, and rocked Rafe in the curve of one red-silk arm. “I really do need to talk to Alec. I’ll be right back. I promise you.”
He stood and tried to move forward, then cast a rueful glance downward. Rafe was still holding onto his robe.
“He’s very determined,” Alec explained.
“So, completely unlike any other Shadowhunters of my acquaintance, then,” said Magnus, and swept off his robe.
Underneath he was wearing a tunic shirt shimmering with gold thread, and loose ratty gray sweatpants.
“Are those sweatpants mine?”
“Yes,” said Magnus. “I missed you.”
“Oh,” said Alec.
Magnus settled the robe around Rafe’s shoulders, wrapping him up so he was a red silk cocoon with a startled face on top. Then Magnus knelt down by Rafe again and lifted Rafael’s hands in his, holding them together. Inside Rafe’s cupped palms, a tiny fountain of glitter leaped in a shining loop. Rafe gave a hiccuping laugh, full of surprised delight.
“There, you like magic, don’t you? Keep your hands together and it will keep going,” Magnus murmured, then made his escape while Rafe was watching the fountain.
Alec took Magnus’s hand, pulling him out of the new room into the main loft and through into their bedroom. He shut the door and said: “I can explain.”
“I think I might understand already, Alexander,” said Magnus. “You were away a day and half and you adopted us another kid. What happens if you go away for a week?”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Alec. “I wasn’t going to do anything without asking you. Only he was there, and he’s a Shadowhunter, and nobody was looking after him, so I thought I could take him to the Institute here. Or to Alicante.”
Magnus had been smiling, but now he stopped. Alec felt even more alarmed.
“We’re not adopting him?” Magnus asked. “But—can’t we?”
Alec blinked.
“I thought we were,” Magnus said. “Alec, I promised him. Do you not want to?”
Alec stared at him for another instant. Magnus’s face was tense, intent but confused at the same time, as if Magnus was baffled by his own vehemence. Suddenly Alec was laughing. He’d thought he was waiting to be sure, yet this was better, as all the best things in his life were better than any dream that had come before. Not Alec knowing right away, but seeing Magnus know right away. It was so sweet, and so obvious that this was exactly the way things should be: seeing Magnus experience the instant instinctive love as Alec had with Max, as Alec learned with Rafael the slow, sweet, and conscious way of love that Magnus had learned with Max. Opening a new door in their familiar beloved home, as if it had always been there.
“Yes,” Alec said, breathless with laughter and love. “Yes, I want to.”
Magnus’s smile returned. Alec pulled him into his arms, then turned so Magnus had his back to the wall. Alec cupped Magnus’s face in both hands.
“Give me a minute,” Alec said. “Let me look at you. God, I missed home.”
Magnus’s fascinating eyes were narrowed slightly, watching Alec back, and his smiling mouth was a little startled as it often was, though what surprised him Alec didn’t know. Alec couldn’t just look at him. He kissed him, and that mouth was against his own, the kiss making every tired muscle in Alec’s body turn to liquid sweetness. To Alec, love always meant this: his shining city of eternal light. The land of lost dreams reclaimed, his first kiss and his last.
Magnus’s arms went around him.
“My Alec,” Magnus murmured. “Welcome home.”
Now when Alec asked himself Is this how you want to live your whole life? Alec could answer yes, and yes, and yes. Every kiss was the answer yes, and the question he would get to ask Magnus someday. They kissed up against the bedroom wall for long bright moments, then both stepped away from the other with a wrench.
“The—” Alec began.
“—kids,” Magnus finished. “Later.”
“Wait, the kids plural?” asked Alec, and became aware of what Magnus had heard: the stealthy sound of tiny feet exiting Max’s room.
“That hellborn brat,” Magnus muttered. “I read him eight stories.”
“Magnus!”
“What, I can call him that, it’s you who can’t call him that, because it’s infernally insensitive.” Magnus grinned, then squinted at his own stained hand. “Alec, I know you don’t really care about your clothes, but you don’t usually come home covered in soot.”
“Better see to the kids,” said Alec, ducking out of the bedroom and the conversation.
In the main room was Max, in his triceratops footie pajamas and dragging his fuzzy blankie, regarding Rafe with wide eyes. Rafe stood on the woven rug before the fireplace, wrapped in Magnus’s red silk robe. His eyes narrowed into the death stare that had frightened the other kids at the Shadow Market.
Max, who had never felt threatened by anything in his life, smiled guilelessly up at him. Rafe’s scowl faltered.
Max turned at the opening of the door. He padded swiftly over to Alec, and Alec knelt down to embrace him.
“Daddy, Daddy!” Max caroled. “This the brother orra sister?”
Rafael’s eyebrows went up. He said something quickly in Spanish.
“Not a sister,” Magnus translated from the door. “Max, this is Rafe. Say hi.”
Max clearly took this as confirmation. He patted Alec’s shoulder as if to say: great job, Dad, finally you deliver the goods. Then he turned back to Rafe.
“What are you? Werewolf?” Max guessed.
Rafe glanced at Magnus, who translated. “He says he’s a Shadowhunter.”
Max beamed. “Daddy’s a Shadowhunter. I’m a Shadowhunter too!”
Rafe regarded Max’s horns with an air suggesting: Can you believe this guy? He shook his head firmly, and attempted to explain the situation.
“He says you’re a warlock,” Magnus translated faithfully. “And that this is a very good thing to be, because it means you can do magic, and magic is cool and pretty.” Magnus paused. “Which is so true.”
Max’s face screwed up in rage. “I’m a Shadowhunter!”
Rafe waved a hand, his attitude one of deep impatience.
“All right, my blue-ringed octopus,” Magnus interposed hastily. “Let’s continue this debate tomorrow, shall we? Everybody needs sleep. Rafe has had a long day, and it is incredibly past your bedtime.”
“I’ll read you a story,” Alec promised.
Max dropped his fury as swiftly as he’d assumed it. His blue brows knit. He seemed to be thinking deeply. “No bed!” he argued. “Stay up. Be with Rafe.” He sidled up to a stunned-looking Rafael and gave him a big hug. “I’m love him.”
Rafe hesitated, then hugged Max shyly back. The sight of them made Alec’s chest hurt.
He cast a glance back at Magnus, who had an equally smitten expression.
“It’s a special occasion,” Alec pointed out.
“I was never very good at discipline anyway,” said Magnus, and threw himself down beside the kids on the rug. Rafe edged closer, and Magnus looped an arm around him. Rafe cuddled up. “How about you tell us all a bedtime story about what happened in Buenos Aires?”
“It wasn’t that exciting,” Alec said. “Other than: I found Rafe. I missed you. I came home. That’s it. We’ll have to go back and forth to Buenos Aires a few times to finalize the adoption, before we can make it official and tell everyone. Maybe we can all go together sometime.”
Rafe said several swift sentences in Spanish.
“Is that so?” asked Magnus. “How extremely interesting.”
“What are you saying?” Alec asked Rafe anxiously.
“You aren’t getting away with this one, Alec Lightwood.” Magnus pointed at him. “Not this time. I have a spy!”
Alec went over to the rug, knelt down, and made earnest eye contact with Rafe.
“Rafe,” he said. “Please don’t be a spy.”
Rafe gave Alec a look of firm incomprehension and burst into a torrent of Spanish for Magnus. Alec was certain at least some of it was Rafe promising to be a spy anytime Magnus wanted.
“Sounds like you did some pretty impressive things in Buenos Aires,” said Magnus at last. “A lot of people would have given up. What were you thinking?”
Alec picked Max up, tipped him upside down, then sideways, then returned him to the rug, grinning when Max crowed with laughter.
“All I did was think about being worthy of coming home to you,” said Alec. “It was nothing much.”
There was a silence. Alec turned, a little concerned, to find Magnus staring at him. That surprised look was on his face again, and there was a softness along with it that was rare for Magnus.
“What?” said Alec.
“Nothing, you stealth romance attacker,” Magnus said. “How do you always know what to say?”
He leaned forward easily, keeping Rafe held comfortably against him, to give Alec a kiss on the jaw. Alec smiled.
Rafe was studying Max, who seemed gratified Rafe was taking an interest.
“If you want to be a Shadowhunter,” said Rafael, in careful English, “you have to train.”
“No, Rafe,” said Alec. “Max doesn’t need to train.”
“I train!” said Max.
Alec shook his head. His baby was a warlock. He would train Rafe, but Max didn’t need to learn any of that. He looked to Magnus for back-up, but Magnus was hesitating, his lip caught between his teeth.
“Magnus!”
“Max wants to be just like you,” Magnus said. “I can understand that. Are we going to tell him he can’t be whatever he wants to be?”
“He’s not—” Alec began, and stopped.
“There’s nothing to say a warlock couldn’t physically fight,” said Magnus. “Using magic to substitute for Shadowhunter attributes. It might keep him safe, because people don’t expect a warlock to be trained that way. It wouldn’t hurt to try. Besides . . . we found Max on the steps of Shadowhunter Academy. Someone might have wanted him to have Shadowhunter training.”
Alec hated the idea. But he’d thought, hadn’t he, that he wished he could train a kid? He’d promised himself that he would never be the kind of father who made the walls of home feel like a trap.
If you loved somebody, you trusted them.
“All right,” said Alec. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to show them a few ways to stand and fall. Might get them tired enough for bedtime.”
Magnus grinned and snapped his fingers. Practice mats suddenly covered the floor. Max scrambled to his feet. Rafe, head pillowed against Magnus’s chest, seemed uninterested until Magnus nudged him gently, but then he got up willingly enough.
“Maybe I can teach Rafe a few magic tricks as well,” Magnus mused. “He can’t be a warlock any more than Max can be a Shadowhunter, but there are magicians around. He might be a very good one.”
Alec recalled a story about a magician with Shadowhunter blood, known as Roland the Astonishing, who had lived a long, happy life with his best beloved. He thought of the Market and the Institute mingling in the streets of Buenos Aires, of Jem and Tessa, of love and trust in a changing world, and showing his sons they could be anything they wanted, including happy. He rose and walked to the center of the room.
“Boys? Follow the moves I make,” said Alec. “Stand with me, now. All together.”