Another chapter! :) Great to hear from you all. In fact, you're all making me a little nervous, because I'm afraid the new chapters won't hold up. *squeaks in fear*. Enjoy, my darlings.


The Shadowhunter slumps forward, his head on a direct path to the blood soaked asphalt, and though he could stop the descent with a flick of his wrist, Magnus is too shocked to do anything but lunge after him. He's heavy – solid, Magnus knows, and probably capable of ripping him in half with his bare hands. Without magic, Magnus would be helpless to this trained killer. It's a thought that would probably be arousing, if there weren't demon ichor staining his once-beautiful boots and blood spilling onto his uncovered hands. It's a thought that he'll probably revisit at a later time.

He snaps a finger, casting an invisibility glamour over the pair of them. Alec has lost a lot of blood, but that's not particularly concerning; if Shadowhunters were that easy to kill, he wouldn't be biding his time in this Mundie hovel, waiting for other High Warlocks to get off their asses and get something accomplished.

Still, Alec is interesting, and every minute that he spends unconscious is another minute that Magnus can't discover anything new. So haste is really in his own best interest.

Opening a portal would be idiotic, especially at a site so saturated in demonic energy, so he just hovers Alec along behind him straight into the club's unoccupied bathroom. It takes almost no effort to make sure that the room remains unoccupied, and it's as safe a place as any to get work done.

He puts his hands over the wound on Alec's back, balking as the boy coughs up some blood. Evidently he's a little sicker than expected; the infinite patience of an immortal has its downfalls, not least of which is people dying unexpectedly, and Magnus mutters his spell hastily, trying to seek out whatever venom has infected the Shadowhunter's blood.

It takes mere seconds to pinpoint the origin: Sviraci demon. Nasty stuff, too: liver damage, inability to form clots, basically bleeding from everywhere. As if to impress upon him the importance of working quickly, Alec's wounds begin to gush. Blood trickles from the corner of his eye, and Magnus's chest lurches uncomfortably.

Alec's runes are starting to fade.

Panicked – and stunned at how much he's panicking – Magnus fires off a rapid sequence of near-useless spells. He drains a good quarter of his reserve power with nonsense magic-work, unable to think clearly with this beautiful, confusing enemy bleeding out in front of him. Blood puddles by his feet, pouring now, from even the smallest scratches.

He scrambles, waving his arms in a series of intricate movements, trying to summon the requisite energy, but Alec's body is saturated with the stuff. Magnus has no idea how he let it get this far; how did he not have time to even scribble a simple Iratze?

"Fight it, Alec," he orders, pressing his hands directly to the worst wounds. His hair falls into his eyes, but he doesn't dare move a muscle. "Fight harder."

Shadowhunters are strong, but he knows from experience not even the heavenly blessed can exsanguinate without major repercussions. He's also aware that they barely know each other – that they're supposed to want to kill each other – but the thought of this beautiful, tortured boy expiring here, on this filthy fucking floor, surrounded by some of the worst that humanity has to offer, is reprehensible. He's Magnus Goddamn Bane, and he will not let Alec Lightwood die.

By some miracle – angelic intervention, perhaps, considering the lineage of his makeshift patient – he manages to stop the bleeding. The bathroom looks like the scene of a low-budget slasher film, Alec's face is the color of bleached parchment, and Magnus's hands are trembling – from the effort, he tries to convince himself, but the hard work is done. From here, it's an easy fix to counteract the venom, pump a little oomph into the Shadowhunter's bone marrow to make up for the lost blood, and patch up the tissue damage.

He accomplishes all this with enough energy to conjure up a couple drinks from the bar: a vodka martini for him, because he fucking deserves it, and a shot of whiskey for Alec, because he's pretty damn sure that he's going to need it.


The first mistake Alec makes upon waking is trying to stand up; the ground rushes at him precipitously and the whole world tilts before his eyes. He reaches out wildly to try to catch himself and makes his second mistake: falling into Magnus Bane.

"I know I'm irresistible," the warlock purrs, grinning down at Alec. "But you might want to take it easy for a few minutes."

"You brought me here." Once the room stops spinning, Alec can finally recognize where "here" is. The sink he'd ripped off the wall has been moved, but there's still a gaping hole in the plaster; not all the evidence of their encounter can be so easily washed away.

"Here." Magnus says, holding out a shot and ignoring Alec's mastery of the obvious. The tumbler is full of whisky – Alec's usual kind – and as soon as the liquid touches his throat he feels better. More grounded.

"You know my drink."

There are so many more pertinent things to say – thank you, not being the least among them – but Alec's head is still thick and clouded. Instead of embarrassing himself by trying to stand again he creeps over to lean back against the wall, and is surprised when Magnus plops down beside him. He snaps a blanket into existence to counteract the chill of the ancient laminate floor, and Alec is too tired to accuse him of showing off.

"I know a lot more than you give me credit for, Alexander."

Magnus smiles again, wickedly this time, with a quirk of his brow, and Alec doesn't know him well enough to assess if the gesture is meant to be flirtatious or threatening. Probably both, he decides. It's irrelevant, because if Magnus wanted him dead he would have let the demon-venom do its trick.

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me what that little show was about?"

Magnus looks curious – and has that same pinched, concerned look that he had in the alley. It's a look he shouldn't have, and one that doesn't need encouraging.

"No," Alec says, and then pulls a little farther away. "I'm not."

He picks up his stele and starts reapplying ruins, breathing a little more deeply as his head clears. Magnus's magic was effective, but Alec hates feeling indebted to anyone – especially the warlock. There's too much about him that Alec doesn't understand. Too much that he doesn't want to understand.

Even thinking of Magnus is dangerous. If anyone from the Clave ever found out about this compulsion of his, they'd be able to wring out Magnus's identity – and whereabouts. Alec may not be much of a threat on his own, but he knows that Magnus would feel quite a bit differently with the full power of the Circle breathing down his neck. Valentine has unique ways of neutralizing downworlders' powers – and then making them suffer.

But despite all the reasons he shouldn't, the urge to turn toward Magnus is nearly impossible to fight; he has strengths, he's sure he must, but this obviously isn't one of them. This – this thrumming in his blood, that makes it impossible to think, impossible to breathe. This isn't something that he's ever been taught to overcome. He was born incapable, and he knows he needs to leave before he has another disappointing failure to add to an already-long list. Figuring that the runes have been on long enough to accomplish something of substance, he pushes his hands back against the wall and shoots forward, slipping his stele into his back pocket as he stands.

"So that's it?" Magnus rises as gracefully as he walks, but instead of reaching out for Alec, he just leans against the wall, perfectly at ease. His hip juts out at a sharp angle, and Alec has an overwhelming urge to drop to his knees and just lick, right along the sharply demarcated line. Instead, he balls up his fists and imagines that everyone he's ever cared about can see him, bloodstained and alone, fantasizing about Magnus Bane in a dirty bathroom.

As if he can sense Alec's trepidation, Magnus steps forward, closing the gap between them. The glitter beneath his eyes catches the light, and it's all just too much: the blood loss, the fear, the wanting. Alec knows he needs to leave, and quickly.

"And not even so much as a thank-you?"

Alec gapes, then reaches for his blade as he realizes what Magnus must mean, what he must want. "If you think that I – "

"Relax," Magnus says lazily. "If you think I need to extort sex out of anyone, little Nephilim, then you simply haven't been paying attention."

He runs a finger lightly up Alec's forearm, as if he knows exactly what kind of effect it'll have. "Plus, if memory serves, you are perfectly capable of letting me know what you want, and when you want it."

He grins, and Alec twists away from his touch.

"I'm not like you," he says. His words are harsh and low, and they echo loudly in the empty bathroom. "I don't like it."

Magnus's grin widens; he looks more like a manic pixie than a powerful warlock, but there's still an undercurrent of power – and danger – that pulses through Alec like blood made fire.

"Maybe you don't," Magnus concedes. The light in the bathroom flickers and then, after a sharp pop, goes out. "But you could."

His eyes glow in the near-darkness, and Alec doesn't realize that he's backed into the wall until Magnus's hands settle on either side of him, just brushing the sensitive skin of his hips. "Believe me when I say you could love it."

That's not true, Alec thinks. He knows, after hundreds of these encounters, and hundreds of horrible aftermaths, that there is no way he could ever like this. He doesn't want to like. Slinking around like a demon in the night and giving into base urges that were outlawed long before Valentine ever came into power were no way to live a life. That's just not the way a Shadowhunter is supposed to act.

"You're wrong," he finally says, willing it to be the truth, and hating that he sounds so uncertain. Magnus's face is still hovering inches from his, and he wonders, just for half a second, how it would feel to brush their lips together.

He wonders if it would feel like anything more than a betrayal of everything he's supposed to stand for.

One thing is certain: he needs to get away from Magnus. He needs to go back to when this was something physical – something to be endured and then forgotten – because there's no way he can survive otherwise. Marceline's already suspicious, his mother's already broken, and his sister's fate depends on his good behavior. He's always been the weak one, and the way Magnus looks at him – hell, the way Magnus does anything – is enough to overpower far stronger men.

"I need to go," Alec says. To his surprise, Magnus backs off, and fans his arms toward the door.

"I'll be here," he says, as he snaps the light back into existence. "For the next time you're feeling a little more self-reflective."

"I won't be back." The words even taste like a lie, slippery and foul as they roll off his tongue. Still, he straightens his back and walks past Magnus, not daring to breathe until his hand's on the door. "You should forget you ever met me."

"Not likely," Magnus mutters, just loud enough for Alec to hear. He walks over to the dirty mirror to fix the strands of hair that had been flattened during the resuscitation. He turns again just before Alec slips away, whispering at the Shadowhunter's back, "Be careful, Alexander."


Alec thinks about Magnus's last words all the way home. It takes him much longer than usual to get back to the Institute, so he has ample time to ruminate on how Magnus knows his full name (or whether he even truly knows it and is not just guessing), why he saved his life again, and why he keeps wanting to see him. He spends so much time thinking about him, in fact, that he doesn't realize until it's too late that he has a welcoming party for the second night in a row.

Marceline pounces on him as soon as he enters the Institute. Unfortunately, this time he doesn't have the strength – mentally or physically – to ward her off. He stumbles as she pulls him into a side door, hissing when her hand brushes against one of his bruises.

"Alec, I need to…"

She stops as she catches his face in the light.

Alec's not sure what she sees; his face is tender, but with the way Magnus was looking at him earlier, he hadn't thought there was anything out of place.

"By the Angel," she murmurs, pulling back her hand. "What happened?"

"Ambush," Alec says, and it's not really a lie. It's still an ambush, even if you went looking for it.

She raises an eyebrow, but Alec holds fast. She's lucky, really, that he gave her that much: it has to be the blood loss.

"Listen, wherever you're going, whatever you're doing –"

"I'm not doing –" Alec starts to argue, but Marceline just holds up a hand to silence him.

"This is not the time to argue about your extra-curriculars," she snaps. "I want to give you space and time to sort out how much you want to trust me, but I need you to listen right now. I – I haven't been completely honest with you."

She looks genuinely upset, and Alec is half tempted to tell her what kinds of things he has been doing, if only to prove that whatever she's done can't be that bad by comparison. He'd seen that same look a lot of times on Isabelle, and it was second-nature to want to make it go away.

"Fuck!" The Mundie curse sound strange coming from her mouth, but it slips out with practiced ease. "Valentine is coming."

Alec slumps against the wall, thinking of all the things that could have happened. "Isabelle?" he whispers.

"She's fine," Marceline answers. "I mean, I'm assuming she's fine; we'll get to that in a second. But that's not why he's coming."

No, he's coming for me.

Alec knows, somehow that this is true.

"The radar here picked up a spike of magic – warlock magic. I'm talking huge proportions. There are only a handful of warlocks left who are this powerful. I, I tried to hide it, but – "

"You tried to what?" Alec is sure he's hallucinating – what Marceline had just admitted was no less than treason.

She juts her chin out, suddenly looking every bit her scant seventeen years. She's a child – a stubborn, self-righteous child – just like he had been. Like Izzy, Clary – and Jace.

He pushes away the pang of sorrow that always accompanies thoughts of his former parabatai and refocuses on the issue at hand.

Marceline stares him down, giving him time to speak. When he doesn't, she continues on. "In case you were wondering," she says, "this is me, trusting you. Now I want you to do the same."

She glances toward the door and then moves to carve a quick Silencing rune into the ancient grooves.

"Valentine wasn't supposed to come this soon," she says. "But I knew he would end up here eventually, and that's why I came. It's why I volunteered. They wanted someone for a mission, and since my parents lap up every word he says like its Divine Scripture, I was an easy pick. A safe pick."

"Your mission," Alec says, finally starting to understand. "It was me, wasn't it?"

He doesn't need to see Marceline nod to know that he's right; in a way, he's known that this moment has been coming since he stood off against Valentine two years ago. Since Valentine banished him here, to stand as an example and to await his eventual punishment. He's known that his runes were as good as gone since the first time he stepped into that mundie bar. And now his time is coming.

"Alec, ALEC!" Marceline snaps a finger in front of his face. "You have to pay attention, because what I'm going to tell you is really fucking important. It's about your sister. It's about Isabelle."


BAM! What's going on with my Queen, Isabelle Lightwood? SOMETHING, that's for sure. Thanks for sticking with me, Malec pals, and hopefully you'll get another chapter soon! (Pray that my nights on call are not all like last night - guhhhh -). *kiss*