Where we finally get Magnus back… and yet, it doesn't help much. I have no excuse for my darkness, it's who I am and sometimes I need it out. Blessings!

As always, comments are highly welcome and make me smile. Spread good fortune, make me smile, gents. 3

Magnus stepped with a flourish and a cheeky smile across the invisible border that separated the mundane world of New York and the separate dimension of the Seelies. He had appeared in the middle of Central Park, just beyond the bushes framing the paved section around the gothically charming Bethesda statue.

The beauty of the angel Bethesda did nothing for the people crossing the park that evening. An uncomfortable, but insistent rainy drizzle made the park and the city an uninviting place to be out.

It took Magnus a moment to realise that his phone was vibrating in his pocket. An insistent stream of messages moved the object in its own dance of modern magic.

"What the…" he muttered as he pulled out his phone where the display had assembled a whole set of insistent messages and voicemail notices from Alec. The last one visible on his screen simply said '911'. The smile that seconds before had been fun and cheeky, faded into a concerned frown.

Behind him Lorenzo Rey stepped through the same portal, a mocking expression on his face. "What…? Is your boyfriend jealous? I honestly thought Alec Lightwood would be beyond such pettiness. Goes to show what a bad influence you are, Bane."

Magnus had been summoned by the Seelie Queen to introduce his successor as High Warlock of Brooklyn to her personally. She had been playful, and not without charm, as was her habit. He quietly wondered if her prolonged banter had been intentional. She did know everything that transpired in the human world after all. And she loved to meddle and manipulate, he added grimly in his head. She hadn't hidden her displeasure at his chosen successor, providing enough sport for Magnus Bane to consider his evening a pleasant moment and so, the Seelie queen found amusement in edging the already important animosity between the two powerful warlocks further along its natural path.

Back in Central Park, Bane let the remark go, and resisted the temptation to flip a clear and distinct finger into Rey's general direction, and opted to summon a portal instead, leaving the new High Warlock of Brooklyn, mouth wide, in the middle of the Park, the Angel Bethesda looming over him, alone and without as much as an explanation.

Meanwhile, one of the chief medics of the New York Institute stepped into the open door frame of a door that seemed never really closed, neither for privacy nor discretion. It was a detail that revealed to any outsider the kind of leader who was at work here.

Jace immediately sprung up from the chair he had dropped himself into, taking even the smallest moment of rest where he could get them.

With suddenly both Alec and Jace's attention turned on the medic, he hesitated before crossing into the room, a small bag in his hands.

"Sir… I…" - clearly, whatever he had come to say or inform the two brothers of, was uncomfortable to him. And yet, neither of the two offered to make it any easier for him.

"We've done all that we can-" he stated eventually, his eyes darting from Jace to Alec and back. "- Isabelle, your sister, she is beyond rune magic… the damage is substantial. She has lost a lot of blood. We tried what we could. I have put in an urgent request with the Silent Brothers to come and assist…" Jace's reaction was a sound somewhere between a growl and a pained cry, as he turned his back on the man in a very uncharacteristic move to hide his face and his emotions.

"… Her passing." Alec was still combing through his mind to find the name of the unknown medic, but thoughts clearly failed him today. The words and the evidence behind them eluded him. No, he flat out refused to acknowledge them at all. His mind was trapped in a loop where only one word keep repeating itself over and over again. Magnus… Magnus… Magnus… and an unworded sureness that somehow he would save her.

He stared at the man, blinking a couple of times, as if it would help him process, until finally he asked: "How long…?" Only a deeply furrowed brow betrayed a hint of an emotion.

Jace whirled around to look at Alec in disbelief at his words, but any reflection he had to offer was silenced before he could voice it by a sharp and decisive hand meant to silence him.

"Hours." And after a beat. "Sir, I've brought supplies, in case any of you needed some tending to."

Hilland. Gabriel Hilland. That's his name.

Finally Alec's mind had found the solution to the unvoiced question of the medic's name in front of him. He blinked yet again, nodding.

"Don't look at me, I'm not injured." Jace was brisk and unaccommodating, and his reaction sent a tumultuous set of emotions through their bond. The effect on Alec was immediate as he snapped out of his distracted state and waved the medic over. He sat down on his desk, pulled his off his shirt, revealing a deep gash that stretched across the entirety of his upper back, right up to his right shoulder. Deep enough to be painful, but not enough to damage any bone, … but marred with tell-tale signs of demon poison.

Jace huffed, again sending a pang of annoyance and reproach through their bond which he hoped would sting enough to finally get Alec to react. Yes, they had been trained from tender age to control their emotions, to disconnect from their passionate side, but this… this was Izzy. She was dying. She was beyond help and Alec hadn't as much as flinched at the news or at the medic who was now draining his wound. The flesh around the gash was red and clearly infected, and the tendrils of darkness were reaching well above his neck and down towards his lower back. Rune magic wasn't going to be enough for this kind of infection either. It explained why even with the combined force of his parabatai activating his healing rune, the throbbing in Alec's chest hadn't abated. His body was weakening and as it did, so were the powers of his runes.

Hilland had finished tending to the wound, and waved Jace over to help him wrap at least part of it in a bandage. Alec let himself be administered like this and still wasn't showing any kind of reaction. He had completely disconnected himself from the current situation, following the flow on words and sollicitations, but for all intents and purposes, Alec Lightwood was not present. He barely even registered when Jace activated his Iratze rune once more after instruction of the medic, while flooding his parabatai bond with healing energy.

Healing energy that Jace didn't even try to leave clear of his frustration. The only person that had ever been able to reach Alec when he was this absent was Magnus. And then it finally clicked in Jace's mind as he wondered for the first time this evening, where Magnus was and why he hadn't been called in immediately, seeing as how warlock magic had depths and modalities that Shadowhunters could not access.

What could possibly have kept him from coming to the Institute and help after such a catastrophic event…?

Cursing the Seelies to all kinds of hell and then some, Magnus stepped into the main entry hall of the New York Institue, only to find it eerily calm. Too calm for his linking. Again his heart made an unpleasant lurch somewhere in his chest, trying to jump into his throat. He jumped into the next elevator which would take him to the upper floors and Alec's room beyond that. But when the door opened, Clary suddenly stood before him and before he could ask, state or demand to see Alec, he was pulled into a deep embrace of golden-red hair and emotion.

She started to talk like a fountain almost immediately. Magnus only managed to disentangle himself from her after pulling her off of him. "Hold on, darling… what are you saying…? Where's Alec…?"

But Clary shook her head: "No, not Alec, Magnus. Izzy. She's dying."

The infirmary was as silent as the rest of the Institute. Clary opened the door to one of the particular rooms where the lighting had been dimmed down and where only a single bed was occupied.

Isabelle Lightwood, beautiful by any standard, seemed like a sleeping beauty from a fairy tale of old. Her white skin looked almost translucent and Magnus made a mental note of the inherent beauty of both Lightwood children with their dark hair and fair skin. Not half way through the door, Magnus Bane, not so much High Warlock of Brooklyn anymore, but still so much more powerful than any warlock around, was already reaching out with cooling tendrils of magic, assessing, evaluating and calming where he could.

He knew before he ever reached Isabelle's bedside where only a single monitor flashed at a slow, but steady interval and where unknown runes and symbols informed whoever was able to read them of her status. But Magnus Bane was in no need of such technical and flawed human inventions. His magic knew no bounds and no limits, and now it was telling him that there was no hope for Isabelle Lightwood. The emotional pain of this realisation was painted across his face that could barely hide a deep emotion on a better day, let alone on a day that had ended in tragedy with him unable to come in aid when he had been needed and when Alec had called him.

Alec.

His lover's presence flashed across his mind, while he looked for muscle, bone and tissue to heal, and reached beyond for Isabelle's soul. She was so far away. As if the soul had left a body that was no longer able to sustain it, house it and nurture it. The tether that bound soul and body together was but a sliver, a small drizzle where usually a deep and profound river would flow and link the two and sustained life.

Magnus could do a lot of things. But he could not call back a soul that was decided on leaving. Things as complex as this were even beyond his powers as he had well learnt when almost losing Alec's soul to the fractured parabatai bond only months before.

All he could do for Isabelle now, was calm the pain of the body in hopes of easing the pains of the soul while she passed into the realm of eternal forgetting and the heavens beyond.