A million different emotions ran through Magnus when he finally found Alexander - and his hellish companion. Camille started laughing when she heard Magnus approach, magic crackling around his fingers and hands. At the sight of his lover's limp body on the ground, surrounded by what looked like a black puddle in the harsh light of the tunnel, Magnus' ears suddenly roared with the rush of emotions and magic power that pulsed through his body.
"Camille. What have you done?" he murmured lowly, his voice surprisingly calm. It did not reflect his inner turmoil like the blue streaks moving erratically in the air around his hands. She only cackled louder until Magnus pinky finger twitched and she had to grab her throat, suddenly craving for a breath she had not taken for centuries.
"I knew I was doomed when the Clave told my former clan about what I had done," she gasped, clawing at her neck. Invisible hands lifted her by her throat until only the very tips of her toes reached the ground. "So I decided to leave a small parting gift for you, my darling lover."
Magnus hissed, a sound that many vampires would be envious of. Camille screamed suddenly and the already healing wounds at her wrists reopened, a trickle of the bright red vampire blood running down her arms and smearing across her dress as she fought the magical bonds. When Magnus finally dared take a closer look at his lover, the same red colour shone at his lips. She had fed him her blood to make him into a vampire.
"I know how -" gasps broke her voice, but she fought on, "- you are so concerned about mortality. You needn't worry now." She gasped again, this time obviously in manic laughter. Magnus fell to his knees beside his unconscious Alexander. His Alexander, his love, life and everything. His ears buzzed again and he heard Camille fall to her knees as she was suddenly released and her laughter grew loud again. Magnus' hands fluttered over Alexander's broken body, but he knew it was too late. Bright red blood once again dripped onto Alexander's lips, trickling in between his slightly parted lips. Magnus snapped his head up to look at Camille's smirking face, her wrist outstretched above Alexander. She didn't even have time to react as Magnus screamed, his magic exploding with his fury. barely a second later, all that remained of Camille was a wisp of blackened dust in the air.
Magnus sobbed into Alexander's blood-wet chest, his hands desperately clutching the ripped shirt and jacket that somehow were still on the Shadowhunter. Blue smoke surrounded his fingers, seeping into the slashed chest of his love in a futile attempt to keep him alive. The faint and uneven thumps of Alexander's heart felt like swords stabbed though Magnus' own heart. He pushed pulse after pulse of magic into the dying man beneath him.
"M-mags."
The weak gasp had his attention immediately. Alexander's electric blue eyes were open, but muddled, the left almost entirely red. Magnus grabbed Alexander's face gently, lowering his own face so that their noses brushed against each other. "Alexander. My darling, please, stay." Magnus voice were almost as weak as Alexander's.
"N-no. Love… don't," Alexander breathed softly between tiny pained gasps, "Don't want… this. Stake."
Magnus jerked and succeeded in smearing the bright red trail from the corner of Alexander's lips across his cheek. They had already discussed this… solution to their problem, and had agreed it was not the way to solve it. Magnus knew Alexander didn't want it, but it still hurt that he still wouldn't choose the immortal life of a vampire beside Magnus, when it was that or final death. Magnus brushed his thumb over his cheekbone, smearing more of the blood around on Alexander's pale face, but he didn't even see it.
"I love you more than anything," he rasped out, touching his forehead to the dying man's. A twitching smile graced the lips Magnus had kissed with reverence and passion unlike any other in his long life.
"Love… you," Alexander fought to find air enough in his broken lungs to speak. Magnus shushed him lovingly and caressed his face again, looking into the blue eyes beneath him. "Cat's… beautiful." Magnus knew he meant his true eyes, his warlock mark. He noticed his glamour were gone without a trace and smiled wobbly at the hunter.
"I know you love them."
"Be… happy," Alexander whispered, barely loud enough for Magnus to hear, despite their proximity. Suddenly, his eyes turned serious and strangely intense, his voice gaining some power again. "I'll find my way back to you."
The words spent the last air Alexander would ever breathe. Magnus stared at the unfocused blue eyes staring blankly into his face, no heartbeat in Alexander's chest. The slow seeping of blood from the slashes in his chest slowed even further and stopped entirely.
Jace knew as soon as he felt the powerful stab of pain, then nothingness, from the rune on his shoulder, making him stumble and retch. When a trickle of blood down his back alerted him that it was in every way too late, he heard a sickeningly sorrowful keen from the tunnel he had been seconds from reaching before the horrible feeling in his rune and soul had made him stumble. When he reached the mouth of the tunnel, Magnus had pulled Alexander's limp and lifeless body against his chest, rocking slowly back and forth with his head thrown back. The horrid noise from Magnus' lips would forever be echoing in Jace's mind.
—
The burial were a horrible affair. First, the Clave had refused to let Magnus participate, but after surprising support and a few well-placed words about angering an immensely powerful warlock half-maddened with grief from none other than Maryse Lightwood, Magnus were permitted into the City of Bones, where Alexander Lightwood would rest beside his younger brother. Though Magnus did not care to contemplate it, everyone else could see how the death of two of her sons had affected Maryse. Her remaining children, Isabelle and Jace, were as stricken as their mother, though neither of the Shadowhunters could rival Magnus' grief.
As tradition proclaimed, the hunters were clad in white - black were the normal everyday colour for them - so when Magnus showed up in a velvet suit so black that it seemed to absorb all light, he stood out against the crowd. Many of the hunters were discontent with the warlock, but the expression on his face, the emptiness in his cat's eyes convinced everyone that even though not all felt like he should be there, he did care for the dead hunter more than anything. He stood behind the remaining Lightwood siblings during the ceremony. When it was over, he stayed longer than anyone but Isabelle Lightwood. When he finally left, he hugged the woman tightly for a second and then disappeared into thin air. Little did Isabelle know, but it would be the last time she would ever see her brother's lover until she laid at her deathbed.
—
"Yes dad, I'll take care of what I can. I've already sorted through the appointments and the more difficult ones have been moved to when you get back. I'll be fine. It's easy work, I've done this for almost a century."
Maxwell Bane were used to this entire show. For a week every year, his father disappeared on a private holiday. Always the same week in September, he travelled to somewhere - Max had no idea where. He did not meddle, as he knew why. It was around this time his dad's old love had died almost two centuries earlier. He had heard a lot about Alexander Lightwood, though it had taken almost fifty-six years for Max to get the entire story - the story that also gave him his own name. He found it strange, yet it had such a deep meaning to his father, and now himself, that he didn't care much about it now. He had come to be a bit proud of his name.
"Max, I know you can handle it. You know your old man just likes to worry," the smooth, yet crisp voice sounded over the telephone. Max smiled.
"Good. You know I'll call if anything happens," Max said, already flipping through the pages of an address book, showing the appointments he had for the day. Nothing out of the ordinary. Though Max's warlock mark were quite a lot more noticeable than his father's - Max's skin were sapphire blue all over, as well as his hair - he was nowhere near as powerful as Magnus Lightwood Bane and would never be, so some of their more difficult appointments would have to wait the week.
The first few days went - unsurprisingly - without a hitch. When Magnus had let him take the easier appointments a few decades ago, it had become a very good arrangement for them both. They were prosperous, more so than Magnus had been on his own, and that was saying something. Max learnt much from the old warlock, both in terms of magic and life lessons. He knew that his father loved him dearly and it didn't matter that Magnus had taken him in partly as a distraction from the loneliness and grief - it had turned out well in the end. Max liked to say that he had a hand in his father living as long as he had, as he knew Magnus had felt like he had little to live for when Alexander died. The new son gave him a new purpose. As Max grew up, Magnus realised that he would honor his Alexander much better by living a good life, even though it was without his love. He never did stop wearing mourning clothes though - his style hadn't changed a lot in the last two centuries, much to the wonder of his surroundings, but everything stayed black. He'd even begun using his old glittery makeup again at the time of his revelation, but he magicked everything black (and magicked a whole lot of new into his bathroom, as a lot of it were almost a century old at the time). His hair no longer bore any coloured streaks like the ones Alexander had liked so much - it was all his natural black colour. He had experimented with his hairstyle, but he always returned to the one Alexander had liked - the one with shaved sides and long hair at the top, gelled to add a good four inches to his already tall figure. Max looked at him with such soft brown eyes whenever he saw Magnus style it into his signature style, sometimes dusting a bit of black shimmering powder into it. The only colour breaking the blackness were Magnus' own golden-green eyes, a large, blue sapphire in his left earlobe and the silver signet ring on the fourth finger of his left hand. The Lightwood family ring, slipped into his hand by Alexander's sister at her deathbed - she claimed he would have been gifted it by Alexander himself as a wedding ring. The curved L surrounded by flaming trees (Shadowhunters. Always so literal) on the face of the ring gave him the right to bear the Lightwood name as well - the old Clave which Isabelle Lightwood had torn down and reformed from the inside could say nothing about it.
Some of their immortal friends - other warlocks, Seelies, vampires and the like - had found Magnus' ever-lasting mourning silly and a bit stupid. Some of them had refused to do business with them until he had helped the New York vampires with a particular difficult project. Word spread quickly that he was sort of himself again, if one could ignore the drab blackness and endure the young and very curious warlock he had taken in. He rose quickly to the levels of his old power and fame, in the end persuaded to leave his old position of High Warlock of Brooklyn to take the place of the maddened warlock that had been the High Warlock of North America. His base remained in Brooklyn though, the new High Warlock of Brooklyn thoroughly frightened by his presence, but years of collaborations on clients had made her less wary. She was younger than Magnus by a century, her mark a fox's red hair and a white-tipped tail, but she was good, more soft-hearted than most.
Magnus never left the loft. He kept the building sound with magic, ensuring that it would not be torn down, but also kept the kind of run-down look to keep the humans away. There were too many memories tied to the loft to leave it. Though the interior had changed over the years, Magnus stayed to keep a small part of Alec in his life. Max liked the loft anyway.
On the fourth day of Magnus' small holiday, he helped a mundane mother with the Sight ward her small, run-down apartment from an old, abusive boyfriend. Numerous calls to the mundane police and a restraining order had not helped, and she worried about her two kids. The woman had stared at his blue skin and chocolate eyes for a long minute before he could get to work - he knew she saw through the glamour that made his skin look like it had the normal colour of a tanned human. When she shook his hand in thanks, she looked at the way her deep chocolate skin contrasted his blue hue and smiled. Max made her promise to come to him again of something - anything - happened to her or her children, and went back to the office Magnus had rented a few blocks from their home. They spent a good amount of time at their office, and it had been decorated by memorabilia over the time - the most noticeable being a long, black bow and a similarly black quiver hanging on the wall in Max's office (which technically functioned as a waiting room and secretary's workplace as well, Max being said secretary for Magnus). The bow hung straight across from the door into Magnus' own office - Alexander's bow and quiver which he had taken as payment for being the advocate for Isabelle Lightwood once, spelled to resist the centuries of time that had passed. Max eyed it every time he sat down at his desk, as he did now with a sigh. The woman with the Sight had been the last of the appointments for the day, and he noted it as successful in their extensive records. Max was looking forward to go home and curl up to listen to a good book - one of the old ones Magnus had. They were always interesting.
A heavy knock on the door interrupted him, making him cross a t with a line that turned way too long at the jerk he gave in surprise. No one knocked on the door. It was magicked to be locked and divert people's attention away from it. Max furrowed his blue forehead. Another rapid set of knocks sounded through his office.
"Hello?" a man called out in the hallway, "Hello! I need your help! Someone's messed with my memories, and I need it fixed!"
Max rolled his eyes. "Call and make an appointment. We're closed for today!" he yelled, walking around his desk to file his documents in a cabinet under the bow. It was silent for a second.
"But… it's important! Really important and I don't know why! Please just open," The man insisted. His voice were strangely frantic and intense, and Max shut the drawer of the cabinet with a deep sigh. Bright orange sparks crackled at his fingertips as he wove a simple spell to examine the man on the other side of the door. His signature felt weird, nothing quite like Max had experience before, though he was almost certain he felt some kind of glamour.
"Oh. I felt that," the man said, "Not used to hiding you magic. Please, I've heard there are powerful warlocks here and I need the -"
The man at the door was interrupted at Max made the door fly open as he made his way back behind the desk. "Do you really want the entire mundane world to know about magic and warlocks?" Max hissed as he sat down, hiding his face in his hands as the man stepped inside and closed the door again. "I was done for the day. This better have a really good rea-".
Max felt the words die in his throat when he looked up to face the stranger. Electric blue eyes met his own and his chest constricted as he took in the man's appearance. He was tall, almost as tall as Magnus (Max never even reached his chin), his tousled black hair falling into his eyes. Those eyes Max never really had seen, but could recognise everywhere from the pictures in the loft and the single one on Magnus' desk in the office just behind the door to his left. The way the eyebrows arched, the jawline, even the way the man stood as if he wanted to make himself smaller reminded Max of one person.
"Alexander?" he breathed without meaning to. The man jerked in surprise, but shook his head.
"No, my name is Adrian. I think," he explained. Max raised himself out of his chair suddenly, his legs bouncy with nervous energy. He circled the desk and stopped at the front of it, resting against the top of the table.
"You think? Most people know their name," he remarked smartly without thinking. He saw Alexa- the man cringe slightly, a movement that made the air by his shoulder shimmer slightly. Max remembered the glamour he had felt.
"Well, I thought it was until about a decade ago. Then I started to have these kinds of flashbacks, started remembering things I couldn't have… shouldn't have been able to remember," he clarified, crossing his arms over his chest. Max felt slightly like laughing because of how much the posture looked like the one Alexander had often used when photographed. He also felt slightly lightheaded.
"Let me have a look," Max offered, pushing himself off of the desk and held out his hands as if to grab the stranger's head by the temples. The man hesitated for a second, then stepped forward. Max had to reach up and clasped his hands on each side of his head just above his ears. His blue skin shone against the black hair of the stranger and the orange sparks of his magic contrasted it brightly. "What is you name?"
"Adrian Lest," the man answered, but sounded unsure. The magic crackled.
"How old are you?" Max asked. He could feel no trace of magic in the head of the strange man, but there was something about it that poked at his magical senses.
"Um, sixty-seven."
A jolt went through Max's hands, not from surprise, but from the discrepancies of the man's mind. So, a warlock. Or something else immortal, he categorised in his mind as the man looked to be in his early twenties, younger than Max himself, who had stopped ageing around his thirty-fifth birthday. Yet something in the mind of the stranger were both younger and older.
"Warlock?" Max asked shortly, his eyes closed, brow furrowed as he focused on the magic.
"Yes." Again a jolt, as if something were wrong.
"Mark?" Max tried to prod at the strangeness, but he felt the man recoil. Max were not skilled enough to examine the man's mind properly without causing him pain. Max felt Adrian - Alexander - drop the glamour and opened his eyes to find the mark. He expected it to be somewhat like his own, as the drop of the glamour should be enough without explanation, but nothing could really prepare him for the sight of his warlock's mark. Max stiffened for a second, then laughed in confused shock and at the sheer absurdity of it.
Soft and pure black feathered wings were visible over the shoulders of the man. They rose to peak just above the man's equally black hair on his head and the tips ended mere inches above the floor. A true angel's wings.
"My goodness," Max murmured, stepping back a few steps to take in the whole picture - a man so much like the Shadowhunter Alexander Lightwood, half angel, half human, now seemingly returned as a warlock with the wings of an angel. He could definitely feel something strange about the man's mind, nothing magical, but he needed Magnus' superior skills to figure it out completely. Max barked out another half-hysterical laugh.
"What is it?" the winged man asked nervously, his wings flexing minutely as he shifted his body. Max narrowed his eyes at him then got an idea. Maybe he could coax the memories that seemed to be hidden out of him. He pointed at the bow and quiver on the wall.
"What is that?" Max asked. Alec followed his finger with his eyes and found the bow. His brow furrowed.
"A bow and quiver. It's…" he said hesitantly, "it's mine?" A blank expression. "No. I've never seen it before."
Max felt his fingers shake ever so slightly. He really needed to call Magnus.
"I need to call my father. He's a far more powerful warlock than me, and he can definitely help you. I don't feel any foreign magic on your mind though," he explained and went to his desk to grab the phone, his legs slightly shaky. He could barely imagine what it would mean to Magnus to… whatever happened. "Magnus will know what to do."
The man jumped and the feathers of his wings seemed to puff up for a second before settling back down with a soft whisper. "M-magnus?"
Max paused, noticing the powerful reaction immediately. He set down the phone again and took a deep breath.
"I think I might have a theory about these memories," he said softly, resting yet again against his desk, facing the other warlock. The winged man leaned forward and almost reflexively did a small movement with his right hand, a few tiny green sparkles flying. The wings disappeared under a glamour again and Max was once against hit with how similar this man was to the man in the pictures Magnus had kept for the last two centuries.
"What is it?" he asked nervously, unfolding his crossed arms to begin massaging the palm of his left hand with the right.
"Well," Max cleared his throat, "I think you might be a reborn mind, soul, whatever you want to call it. The memories are snippets of the old life. And I happen to know who you, um, were."
"That's why you called me Alexander?" he asked, stumbling slightly over the name, "Because it does spark some kind of response in me. Like that other name you said. Who was he?"
Max hesitated. He didn't want to press certain expectations down over the strange man's head. Having memories that were at once someone else's and his own must be confusing enough.
"Hopefully someone who can help. Wait here."
Max went into Magnus' office in a daze and closed the door behind him for a bit of privacy. What kind of cruel joke had someone played on his father this time? Or was it really like Alexander had promised all those years ago? Either way, he had to call Magnus home. He answered on the second ring.
"Everything fine?" Magnus said immediately, not bothering with pleasantries. It was to be expected, as Max normally would only call in case of emergencies. This too was an emergency, but not quite like any other.
"Dad," Max breathed, suddenly very nervous, "I have a new client who came knocking on the door just now."
"So? You're probably more than equipped to deal with it," Magnus said, not unkindly. Max could hear that his voice were slightly less smooth than usual.
"He claims someone has been messing with his memories, but I can find no foreign magic on him. I think it's memories from an earlier life," Max explained. When Magnus stayed silent, he continued in a wavering voice. "Dad, I think it's him. He recognised the bow."
The line stayed silent for a beat, then the crash of a glass could be heard through the phone. "What?" Magnus' voice were suddenly urgent and breathless, the sound of a man that dared not hope, yet had every reason to.
"It looks so much like him too. He reacted strongly to both his own name and yours," Max explained, "I'm so sorry to interrupt, but…"
"It's okay," Magnus interrupted, "I'll be back as soon as I can. Keep him there and out of my office. If… If it's…" his voice broke.
"I know, dad," Max whispered, "but he might not be the same person, you know."
A deep sigh. "I know. I have to try. I have to see."
The line was cut. Max's hands were shaking as he walked back to his own office where Alexander were waiting. Max were surprised to find him with the black bow in hand. His black-haired head snapped up when Max closed the door to Magnus' office softly.
"I-I'm sorry," he stammered, moving to hang up the bow again but paused at Max's gesture, "I just wanted to… well, I don't really know."
"It's fine. My dad is on his way. He'll help," Max explained with a smile he felt would look weird. Alexander (or Adrian) looked down at the bow in his hands again, the way it fit perfectly in his grip.
"You said you knew the… old me?" he inquired softly. Max shrugged.
"I didn't know you, per se. I know who you must have been," he explained and snapped his fingers, orange sparks flying as a picture frame from the loft appeared in his hands, "You… Well, you died before I was born."
The movement of Max extending the picture caught his attention and he looked at the picture with a strange expression.
"That's me," he said with a strong voice that seemed to surprise himself, then continued in a much more uncertain voice, "And… Izzy. Isabelle?"
Max gaped as he heard the low whisper that left the man's lips. "Yes. She was your sister."
"This is all very weird," Alexander suddenly exclaimed, clutching the bow harder in his hand, "To recognise people I've never seen, to know their names, to feel me react without really knowing why."
"I'm saving the best for last," Max murmured. He could feel the portal forming in the doorway to his father's office seconds before blue sparks sprung from its centre and the tell-tale purple shimmer of a portal widened to fill out the doorway. Max was suddenly very scared for his father and his feelings. Alexander - or whoever he was - turned to face the portal as well, bow still in hand but his arms almost reflexively dropping to relax at his sides even though his grip on the bow looked completely natural.
Max had never seen fire in the eyes of his father like the one that burned in them when he stepped through the portal. He looked ready to face the craziest party (still clad in all black), tight jeans, silken shirt with numerous embroideries at the neckline and shimmering necklaces visible in the deep v. His normally glamoured eyes were all natural, shining with the slit pupils of a cat. They widened suddenly at the sight of the man in the office.
"Alexander," Magnus breathed, stepping forward to brush the tips of his fingers over the cheekbones of the other man. Max had never heard so much emotion in one exclamation before, so much love, longing, sorrow and hope. Alexander looked completely stricken, the glamour of his wings flickering away with a green spark, making Magnus gape at the sight of the giant wings. Max's own heart seemed to flutter at the look in the eyes of the stranger at he parted his lips.
"Mags?"