XXXXX ALL CHARACTERS BELONG TO CASSANDRA CLARE XXXXX

"Alexander."

"Magnus told me where I could find you." Alec hovered at the threshold of Tessa's apartment, blushing slightly, wet from the drizzle outside.

"Please come in." Tessa stepped aside. "May I take your coat?"

He shed the leather jacket he was wearing and handed it to her. "I didn't want to just pop in."

"It's fine. I was just lazying around anyway." Tessa hung up his coat on the rack and dried her hands on her skirt. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, i—I'm not sure why I'm here," Alec admitted.

The smile she bent on him was patronizing. "Of course you know why you are here. It's called curiosity. It gets to the best of us."

Alec was not amused. His jaw locked in place. "Were you and Magnus together?"

Tessa hadn't been expecting that direct of a question. She sat down, slightly shocked. "No. No. Not us."

"So you were—"

"Magnus was my teacher, Alec. He thought me how to be…me." She felt exhausted after uttering those words. Despite all the decorum she'd learned through her life, she sagged into her chair. "It was a long lesson."

Perhaps it was seeing Tessa, who for all intents and purposes looked strangely like a titan at her prime, tired, Alec took the seat across from her. "You know him well."

"As well as Magnus Bane likes to be known," Tessa pointed out. "There are others, I'm sure, you can claim greater understanding of such mind."

"Like Camille?"

Tessa sighed. It always came back to Camille. "Yes, like she."

Alec's small smile was genuine and pleased. "You don't like her."

"Am I that obvious?"

"I don't like her." He shrugged. "Isabelle hates her."

Tessa nodded. "Church said so."

Alec's head jerked. "Church?"

"During our little conversation following your departure. I hadn't known Camille was in New York and the church cat was good enough to enlighten me." She sat straight. "You've come to ask me for something, Alec."

He blushed. "If Church…"

"Clarissa's friend—Simon…is he someone Isabelle loves?"

"Yes."

They were silent. Tessa looked like she was far away.

"To fall in love with an immortal is a terrible thing," she whispered softly. "So very terrible."

Alec could feel his heart sinking and his blood turning to ice. He could hear already all the things she was going to say, all the same things Magnus had once heard from Camille.

"Do not worry, Alec. It's different for you and Magnus. He told me so," Tessa whispered as if she could read his mind.

"How you know?"

"Magnus loves you far more than he was ever loved anyone. He is willing to do for you wonderful things. You will walk hand in hand through life and until the end of your days," she guaranteed him. "Immortality will seize to exist for you."

Her voice faded, her eyes glazed with tears.

He realized then, as he looked at her profile and her quivering lower lip, that she was speaking from experience. The pieces of the puzzle shifted in, making a blurry picture Alec was certain Magnus wanted to unveil.

"Did you lose the one…you loved?" He asked quietly and regretted it. "I'm sorry, it's none of my business."

Tessa looked at him. "Oh, don't mind the self-pity. I have lost many I loved, Alexander, yet the world keeps moving. That is nature."

That is nature.

He could see how fragile that nature was. He'd discussed with Magnus the repercussions of living forever and of aging and yet he'd never thought about it from the perspective of the immortal. To see everything you adore wither and die…

"You said you knew our predecesors…"

Tessa nodded. "Yes."

"Were you curious about us?"

She grinned slightly. "Aren't you curious about them?"

"No necessarily."

"To know your past, Shadowhunter, is to understand your present and be ready for your future."

Wiser words had never been spoken.

Alec glanced at his hands, at the dark markings on his flawless white skin. The same markings as Gabriel Lightwood bore. What did he know about them? About the people who made his family what is was today?

"Would you tell us? Would you tell us all you know about them?"

She looked at him for a while. If he'd been straight and single, she would have been the type of girl that would attract him. "All the things that matter."

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I'm very sorry for the delay. I've been reading City of Fallen Angels and trying to figure out how my plot will work out of it. It's not an easy task. This was a short chapter, but I've got more coming in the next few days. Enjoy.