Once upon a time Isabelle had believed that nothing could ever hurt her family. Neither she, nor Alec, nor Jace – nor Max, when his time came – would ever earn more than bruises on their hunts. Bruises, and the burn of the Angel's Marks, and perhaps, occasionally, a sprained ankle or two, earned performing some daring acrobatic feat. But nothing worse than that.
Once upon a time Isabelle had been unable to imagine real pain, and thus couldn't imagine how it could ever touch her or the people she loved.
But then there had been broken arms and sulphur burns and sharp, tearing teeth in the dark, and although she had never faltered – not ever, not once – she had thought that she had grown out of her child-self's naiveté, put it away with her dolls and Mr Snuffles. She had believed that she had accepted it: the fact that someday she would not come back, that she was unlikely to ever see her fiftieth – maybe even her fortieth – birthday. It had never stopped her but she had held the knowledge in the back of her mind like a knife in her boot, sheathed but still deadly sharp.
Well, and so what? Better to go out young and leave a beautiful corpse.
But whenever she had contemplated this scene it had been with a very different script. It had been her on the bed, always too headstrong and for once too slow. Or Jace, fierce and battle-drunk, the day he finally went too far and overstepped the generous bounds Lady Luck had seen fit to grant him. Isabelle had carried it around for years, the small seed of grief just waiting to sprout, waiting to be watered in the blood of whichever of them – her, or Jace – fell first.
She had never, not once, considered that it might be Alec instead.
But it was, and now the Infirmary's familiar space had become a nightmare and she was scrambling for her lines, forced into a role she had never dreamed she would have to play. The room was thick with the stink of Abbadon's venom, with the sweat of a hurt and hurting body and it was Alec. Her mind kept stuttering, catching on it like a hangnail. Alec. Her big brother. The careful one, the sensible one, the big brother who watched her back and had never killed anything but was never seriously hurt, either. Because he was careful.
He had saved her life more times than she could count, and now his breaths came short and hard and his eyes, on the rare occasions that they opened, were glazed over with pain. Whatever miracle Simon had wrought to claw Alec back from death was failing, and Isabelle didn't need a parabatai bond to feel her brother slipping away. It was happening right in front of her.
"Get me some more water," she ordered Clary, fighting to keep her voice from shaking. She refused to let her hands tremble as she pulled bottles and powders out of the shoebox-sized medical kit, but the labels were all in her tutor's crabbed, spidery handwriting and she had never been the one to administer the potions before.
Which ones would help Alec? And why hadn't Hodge come back yet?
Helplessly, Isabelle stared at the little glass bottles, her chest clenched tight around her racing heart. Beyond her, Alec groaned, shifting his head weakly on his pillow, and the soft sound stabbed her like Abbadon's claws.
By the Angel, why couldn't she have been the one next to Simon? She was faster than Alec – she could have pulled the idiot mundane out of the way, and Abbadon would never have touched her!
She dropped the bottles back into the box, pressing her palm to her mouth. God damn Simon for not moving faster! And damn Jace for bringing him – they could have left Simon here while they collected the Cup; if Dorothea had really run they could have chased her down an alley or wherever the Hell she went and taken it. She was barely even a witch! What could she have done? But no, they'd taken the stupid, stupid mundane with no training along instead, and now Alec was paying the price for it.
I'll kill both of them myself if Alec – if he –
Her vision blurred. She couldn't even think the words.
"Isabelle?" Clary asked softly.
Hurriedly Izzy wiped her eyes. "Yes?"
Clary held up the bowl of water wordlessly.
Isabelle took a deep breath to steady herself. "Thank you." She took it and dampened another cloth for Alec's forehead, switching it for the old one. She nearly started crying again as she smoothed it over his brow.
His eyelids flickered, but didn't open. "Izzy..."
"Ssh." She bit her lip, struggling around the lump in her throat. She brushed his hair out of his face, her fingers shaking. "Just rest, Alec. The Silent Brothers will be here soon." She couldn't quite bring herself to say you're going to be fine.
He sighed but didn't speak again, for which she was grateful. Every word he managed was broken glass being shoved down her ears, tearing her insides to ribbons. But he grew more restless, frowning, little unhappy flickers winging across his face. They hadn't put a blanket over him because it would only irritate his wounds, but he shifted and twisted feverishly on the bed, his chest rising and falling too quickly, and Isabelle didn't know what to do!
Beside her, Clary chewed her lip – then, determinedly, took another cloth, wet it, and began cleaning the dried and drying blood on Alec's chest. Hodge hadn't bothered with it before, too intent first on cutting Alec's shirt off of him and then on drawing runes that had done nothing – but it was true, he was a mess, and Isabelle instantly felt ashamed that she hadn't thought to clean him up before. It was such an obvious thing to do.
She was so useless at this!
She bent over to help, carefully smoothing a damp cloth over her brother's skin, stroking away the blood bit by bit. Something sharp and prickly caught in her throat, all heat and razors, ready to snap at Clary if she was too rough with Alec – but she wasn't. Clary was as gentle as if Alec were a priceless piece of art, and the hard, hot knot in Isabelle's chest loosened a little at her care.
But only a little. The horrible wounds were still open – the bleeding had stopped, at least, but Izzy could see down into her brother's insides and it made her want to be sick, want to cry. This wasn't right! It wasn't supposed to be Alec, it was never supposed to be Alec – !
"Should we bandage him?" Clary asked tentatively, and Isabelle swallowed hard.
"I don't know," she admitted, hating it but not daring to lie. "I don't know anything about healing. M – my mother wouldn't let Hodge teach me."
"Really?" Clary sounded shocked. "Why the hell not?"
Alec made a low whimpering noise in his throat as Isabelle strayed too close to one of the holes Abbadon had punched into him; she froze, petrified. But he continued to breathe.
"Because before her generation, that's all women were: healers. And cooks. Housewives. They used to stay at home and bandage the wounded." Without meaning to, her voice had become scathing, and she caught herself. If she'd been taught how to heal, she could have helped Alec. It hit her then: she would have traded all of her skill with weapons for the ability to heal her brother. She would have done it in a heartbeat.
"I guess she was afraid that if I learned, that's all I would ever end up doing," she continued softly, her throat tight.
Clary opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked as though she were biting her tongue, and Izzy wondered what it was she wanted to say.
Alec gasped without warning, his eyes flying open, and Isabelle flinched back, certain she'd pressed too hard, broken one of Alec's still-fragile bones, oh Raphael –
"Jace!" Alec shouted. He tried to get up, struggling, fighting to push himself upright. His eyes were bright and wild, as if with fever. "Jace – no, stop it!" he snarled, because Clary had recovered from her shock faster than Isabelle had and grabbed Alec's arm, trying to force him back down. "He needs me!"
"You'll tear yourself open!" she snarled back at him, but she was only a mundane, and Alec was winning. "Help me, for God's sake!" she snapped at Isabelle.
Isabelle sprang to help her, shaking her head free of cobwebs. Between them they pushed Alec back onto the bed, while he cursed them and railed, calling Jace's name, calling for Hodge. His voice grew weaker quickly, and by the time he was flat on his back his eyelids were falling, and Isabelle's hands were covered in his blood.
Clary had been right: he had started his wounds bleeding again.
"Jace," Alec whispered, his head lolling weakly as Isabelle stared in incomprehension at her red palms. "Izzy... He..."
"We have to stop him bleeding," Clary said, with controlled calm. "We have to put pressure on the wounds." She glanced at Isabelle. "Where is Jace?"
"I don't know," Isabelle said, dragging her mind back to the present. Red. Alec's blood was so red. The same blood that ran through her own veins. "With Hodge, probably."
Clary nodded. "You should go find them," she told Izzy – gently, as though afraid that Isabelle might break. "We need Hodge back."
"No." It snapped out of her like a shuriken, startling them both. Isabelle's heart pounded. "No. I'm not leaving Alec." What if she left him and he wasn't alive when she came back?
"Okay," Clary said patiently. "Then I'll go."
That was a much better idea. Isabelle nodded gratefully. "I'll – we'll be all right," she said firmly. Alec could hold on until Hodge came back with the Silent Brothers. She would make him hold on. She took a deep breath. "We'll be all right," she repeated.
Clary nodded solemnly, and was gone.
)0(
But she didn't come back. Of course she didn't come back: she was probably lost. How was she supposed to find her way around the Institute? How was she supposed to find Hodge? It was an obvious problem, the kind of mistake that Isabelle would never have made on a hunt – but this wasn't a hunt. There was nothing here to kill, no weapon in her hand. It was the kind of battle she didn't know how to fight.
Nobody came. Not Clary. Not Hodge. Not Simon. Not even Jace, and he should have been here, he should have been impossible to pry away from Alec's side. He should have been kneeling beside the bed, feeding Alec strength through their parabatai bond, playing life support the way he had in the van.
Why wasn't he here? Why weren't any of them here?
Alec didn't wake again. His eyes fell closed and his head fell to the side, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he was dead – but his chest rose again, and fell again, rose and fell and the relief was so shattering that she cried, hiding her face in her arms to muffle her sobs so as not to wake her brother.
She didn't know what to do, but she did what she could. She put pressure on the wounds, because Clary had said to as if she knew what she was talking about. She was terrified of putting too much pressure, or too little – what if she couldn't stop the bleeding; what if she broke something fragile and precious in her brother's body? But she had to try. She folded dry cloths into squares and pressed them over the deep, gouging holes in Alec's torso, biting back tears when bone ground under her touch, wiping up the spilled blood with another cloth in her free hand. She washed the sweat from Alec's face and counted the beats of his heart and wove her will into an electrum rope, binding him into his body with gold and silver wire.
"Raziel, intercede with your brother Raphael on behalf of your son," she said softly, pushing Alec's hair out of his face. The words of the old prayer she could just barely remember her mother saying tasted like chalk in her mouth. "Keep his strong heart beating. Let him burn against the dark another day." She closed her eyes. "Hold him in your wings, Raziel," she whispered. "Let his light not go out today."
But what she meant was: Don't die.
Don't die. Don't die. Don't die.
And still no one came. Not when Alec went boneless against the sheets, slipping from sleep into real unconsciousness, heavier than lead and as solid as steel. Not when his breath grew rougher – sandpaper against stone – and shorter; quick, dry pants, shallow and laboured.
It was agony, two wild horses lashed to her and pulling in opposite directions. Stay, or go? What if she couldn't find Hodge quickly enough? What if Alec slipped away while she was gone? The thought of him dying was enough to break her; the thought of him dying alone made her want to scream. But what if Hodge could save him, if he only came soon enough?
What if, what if, what if?
It was a heavy stone lodged just at the base of her throat, her uncertainty; she kept moving towards the door and then running back, unable to leave him, unable to go. If only it were a battle! If only she could gather up his injuries and turn them into a demon she could slay to make him well again! And she cursed Simon again, cursed him and cursed Jace, cursed Hodge and cursed that idiot Clary for not knowing the way and probably getting lost. Most of all she cursed herself, for being useless, helpless, worthless when her brother was dying in front of her.
He's dying. He's dying, and I can't stop it.
The iratzes Simon had drawn were fading before her eyes. One by one as she watched, inky black dissolved into silvery scar-tissue, each one another handful of breaths Alec had lost. The runes made a black-and-white countdown, checking off the remaining minutes of Alec's life, and realisation coalesced like ice in her mind: no one is coming.
No one is coming, and if I don't do something he will die.
Hodge was gone. The Silent Brothers weren't here and would never answer the summons of a child. Jace could have kept Alec alive a little longer, but he wasn't here and he couldn't have healed Alec even if he was. Simon wasn't here, and the runes he'd worked into Alec's skin were dying just like her brother.
Small black flames, going out one by one.
Her parents weren't here.
Think, Izzy, think! Someone who can heal. Who can heal? A healer like Hodge. No. A Silent Brother. No. Vampire blood heals, but it would turn him. She put that one aside as a matter of last resort, because she didn't want to turn Alec without asking him but she would rather have him as a Downworlder than lose him. A warlock could. The right kind of faerie –
Warlock!
Bane! The one who had given Alec his number; the one who had braved the Institute to come and visit her brother! Yes!
Her stomach clenched tight with desperate hope and excitement, Isabelle tore through the shreds of Alec's shirt; and then, when that brought up nothing, went through his jeans pockets more carefully. Neither held his phone.
Her hope faltered then, but she hardened herself and pressed a quick kiss to Alec's forehead. "I'll be quick," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Don't you dare die, Alec, or you'll be the one explaining it to Max."
This time she managed to leave the room, running as fast as her feet could take her. It was different now that she had a target, an aim, somewhere to go; instead of searching the entire Institute for Hodge she flew to her brother's room, heedless of the distance except in how far it took her from Alec. Alec's phone was on his desk; she searched through his contacts but there were only a handful (her, Max, their parents, Jace, Hodge) and none of them were Bane.
She threw the phone down so hard she thought she heard the screen crack. Frenziedly, she tore like a whirlwind through the room, ripping through Alec's wastepaper basket (in case he'd thrown it out), his bookshelf (flipping through pages, maybe he'd tucked the slip of paper between them), tearing his blankets and sheets off the bed (pure desperation). She flung his wardrobe open and frantically searched through his pockets, trying to remember what he'd worn to the warlock's party because maybe he'd left the number in the pocket of what he'd been wearing – but no, it wasn't in any of them, not shirts or jeans. She ripped everything off the hangers and tossed them on the floor in a fury, a scream building in her throat, sour and sharp; then knelt down and searched through his shoes on the floor of the closet, not expecting to find anything but driven to look, just in case, just in case.
Nothing.
With a snarl of frustrated terror, she slammed her fist into the floor of the wardrobe, cursing Alec for being ten kinds of idiot –
The floor shifted.
While her mind was still blinking with surprise her body leapt forward, her manicured nails clawing at the closet's false bottom until it came away in her hands. At any other time she would have spent a gleeful hour or two going through the books he had hidden in the little cubbyhole, but the pounding panic in her chest crowded out her curiosity. She lunged for the copper box resting on the books instead; it was the size of a small jewellery box, but instead of gems and gold there were little keepsakes inside – a little tooth that was probably one of Max's, a scratched dollar coin, a lock of Jace's hair (oh, Alec...), a dark green scale she instantly recognised as belonging to the jikininki demon that was her first kill (her eyes burned), and –
Yes! –
A neat little business card, white text on a black ground. When she held it up to the light the black glittered and shone, like sunlight on an oil spill, scattering rainbows. Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn.
It had a phone number.
She almost tripped over the pile of clothes on her way to get to Alec's phone.
)0(
"Just a little longer, Alec," Isabelle said desperately, her heart in her throat as she knelt next to his bed, holding his hand between hers. "Help's coming, so just – just keep breathing, all right? Just a little longer."
Her brother didn't respond. His hand was heavy, his arm completely limp, and Isabelle split her attention between Alec's face and Simon's runes. Were they fading faster? Was that her fear talking, or were they really burning out at a faster rate as Alec drifted closer and closer to – ?
She squeezed her eyes shut. Please, if there's anyone listening – Raziel, Raphael, anybody.
Please don't let him die! Please!
"Just a little longer," she whispered, knowing he couldn't hear her but unable to bear the choking silence. Alec was definitely breathing more shallowly than he had been. She was sure she wasn't imagining it.
Please, please, please!
"You are not going to die," she said fiercely, her eyes stinging. Angrily, she dashed her hand over them, wiping the tears away before they had a chance to fall. "Do you hear me? You are not!"
"Isabelle?"
She whirled up and around, drawing her whip and seraph blade in the same smooth motion. "Hofniel!" The blade snapped out in a flash of light across her body, a kris of gleaming starlight as her whip wound around her wrist and curved to the floor, a serpent of silver and gold more than ready to bite deep.
Magnus Bane stood in the doorway, a small Gucci shoulder bag in one hand; he held himself very still, careful not to startle her again. "The front door was open."
Embarrassed, Isabelle lowered her weapons. "I'm sorry," she said, and didn't think about the strangeness of apologising to a Downworlder until later. With a flick of her wrist, her whip slithered back up her arm like a spiralling bracelet, and she pushed Hofniel back into its sheath.
Magnus dipped his head in acknowledgement. "Under the circumstances, perfectly understandable." Briskly, he crossed the room to the bed. His eyes – the gold in them a different shade to and nothing like Jace's – swept over Alec's body as he lowered his bag onto the bedside table. "You said on the phone that it was a Greater Demon that attacked him. You didn't happen to catch its name, did you?"
"Abbadon." Isabelle watched anxiously as Magnus snapped open his suitcase. "Does it make a difference?"
"Some." The warlock's expression was calm, but drawn tight; the professional detachment seemed to be painted on. And, Isabelle noticed, Magnus' face was almost completely bare, with only a quick brush of dark eyeshadow on his eyelids and no glitter at all. "The more specific I can make the healing spell, the stronger the effects will be." In fact, he didn't look like himself at all: at his party the warlock had been wearing blue lipstick and had sparkled with bejewelled rings and shining buckles, but now he only had a plain steel ring on his little finger and the spikes in his black hair sagged – not stylishly mussed but genuinely messy, as if he'd forgotten to look in a mirror. His white t-shirt bore the declaration I tried to be good but I got bored, which suited what she knew of him, but – well, it was plain, and wrinkled as if it had been snatched up off the floor on the way out the door.
It was all very reassuring, actually. If Magnus had rushed to get here, then he must care. He must be planning on doing his best.
Magnus glanced at her. "If you could please remove all these," he instructed, his sweeping gesture encompassing all the clothes and bandages she had used to cover the wounds, "while I prepare."
At some other time, she would have bristled at the peremptory tone: now she just hurried to obey, carefully wetting each piece of fabric and peeling it gently away so that it didn't break open the fragile scabs she hoped had formed under them. But those hopes were dashed: as the bandages came free the bleeding started up again, sluggish but still horribly worrying. Alec had bled and bled, and he was so pale – she wasn't sure he could stand to lose much more.
She glanced worriedly at Bane. He was rubbing a bay leaf over both his hands as if it were a piece of soap while a variety of objects began levitating out of his bag: candles, a number of coloured chalks, a white-handled knife she recognised as a boline, a wooden bowl, bound bunches of dried herbs, a matched pestle and mortar of white stone... It was a very small bag, Izzy reflected, gingerly stepping out of the way as the chalk traced circles and symbols on the floor around Alec's bed – and the walls and ceiling above it. There was no way all of that could fit without some kind of pocket-dimension spell on the bag.
She jumped as the bay leaf caught fire and dissolved almost instantly into ash. Magnus didn't look at her, merely holding his hands out in front of him and spreading his fingers regally. Nine more steel rings flew out of the bag and slid smoothly onto his fingers: some flashed with gems (amethyst, tiger's-eye, amber) and others were engraved with symbols that made her brain skip and flicker dizzyingly when she tried to look at them.
Magnus closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Immediately the candles and the jewels in his rings came alight – and the room grew dark, dimming down to shadows until Isabelle couldn't see beyond the chalk circle at all.
But Alec murmured something wordless, and Izzy's head snapped down to look at him, her fear dissolving like salt in water, swept aside for the huge, spiralling surge of relief and joy. It's already working...!
When she looked up again, Bane was staring at her. His yellow eyes were phosphorescent, shimmers of green and copper moving through the yellow fire like dragons swimming through magma, but Isabelle didn't flinch. She refused to, even though his snake-slit pupils suddenly seemed very wide and deep...
"We are between worlds now," he said, and his voice echoed in the dark. Isabelle's body tried to shiver, but she wouldn't let it. "Close to the Abyss, which will help draw the poison out and send it back to where it came from originally. But it will also make it stronger, so we don't have long." Isabelle's relief popped like a bubble. "There are things worse than Abbadon here, and they will come looking for the humans stupid enough to enter their realm. Keeping them out of the circle will be your job, I'm afraid. I'll help when I can, but I need to focus on your brother."
Between worlds. Isabelle swallowed hard, and drew Hofniel again, feeling her whip begin to stretch out from her wrist like another limb. "I can do that," she said grimly. Hadn't she asked for a demon to fight to make Alec well? It looked like Raziel was granting her wish.
She glanced down at Alec. This time it's my turn to keep you safe, she thought. "Hofniel," she called, and the knife flicked out. I won't let you get hurt again.
I won't let you die.
Magnus nodded, unsurprised, and turned back to Alec. His inhuman eyes softened, just for a moment, and when he brushed back Alec's hair the gemstones in his rings glowed like tiny stained-glass lanterns, trailing ribbons of coloured light.
Alec sighed and turned his face into the touch. Just a tiny, kitten-like nudge, but it gave Isabelle hope.
Magnus straightened up and pulled a necklace Isabelle hadn't noticed out from under his shirt: a lamen, a pendant that signified a warlock's powers and abilities. Hodge had taught them about lamens; if you could read them you had a much better idea of how to kill the wearer. But as the silver medallion hung down over Magnus' heart, as it settled into place, it began to shimmer like sunlight on water, so bright as to render the symbols on it unreadable, bright enough that she almost missed the warlock taking one last piece of jewellery from the pocket of his jeans.
When she saw it she inhaled sharply. At first glance the necklace could be mistaken for a rosary – a looping strand of beads with a charm hanging from it. But instead of the 59 beads of a Catholic rosary, it had 40, and the charm was not a crucifix but a golden oak leaf, so exquisitely made that it could only be faerie work. The charm could have taken nearly any form, of course, but the power in the necklace was so strong that Isabelle could feel it from several feet away, marking it out as only one possible thing: a witch's ladder.
Every one of those 40 jade beads – green jade, so deep and rich they were almost emerald – was a cornerstone of a deep, powerful spell, one layered in and upon itself until the ladder became a kind of instantaneous casting. Rather than spending hours preparing a Great Spell, a person could simply place the ladder around their neck and have all those hours – maybe even days or weeks or months – of work and power at their fingertips at once.
And Magnus slipped it over Alec's head as if it were nothing. He cradled Alec's skull in one ring-wreathed hand like Alec was something precious, but the priceless necklace he handled as if it were string and pigeon feathers.
Isabelle was still staring at the golden leaf now resting on Alec's chest as Magnus spread his hands and began to chant. Light, golden and green like the warlock's eyes, began emmanating from within Alec's wounds, streaming and bleeding from them. It began to grow stronger, brighter, and Izzy felt a heaviness in the small space, like the air before a storm. Belatedly she remembered what she was supposed to be doing, and spun around to scour the darkness for demons.
It didn't matter that she had her own injuries from fighting Abbadon. It didn't matter that she was tired, hungry, hurting; that she was worried for her brother and terrified of this anti-human place she found herself in was irrelevant. Alec needed her, and if Lucifer himself came crawling up to the edge of Magnus' circle she would shred him into confetti with her perfectly manicured fingernails because Alec needed her, and that was the only thing, the only thing that mattered.
So she watched the thicker patches of darkness, the things moving out there like sharks in dark water, waiting for the first one to try its luck.
Then behind her Alec screamed, and it all went to Hell.
NOTES
Raphael, the angel Izzy calls on in her prayer, is the angel of healing and an archangel.
A jikininki is a Japanese demon that eats corpses.
Hofniel is the leader of the bene elohim, and his name means 'fighter of God'.
Bay leaves are often used in healing magic.
A boline is a ritual blade used in Wicca and some other branches of paganism. It's different from an athame in that athames are not (usually) used for anything but directing energy, like a wand; bolines are used for cutting wood/engraving candles, and other typical knife-type things.
The jewels in Magnus' rings are all associated with different aspects of healing and banishing evil.
A witch's ladder is a real thing, also known as a witch's or druid's rosary (and for the record, rosaries are originally Hindu and not Christian at all). Originally, and often today, they are made using some kind of string (or cord or ribbon) and knots and/or bones, feathers, flowers instead of beads. But these days you can buy or make ones that look more like the Catholic rosaries, which is, obviously, the form Magnus' takes.
On the symbolism of Magnus' witch's ladder: oaks are symbols of immortality, strength, and (via the acorn), small things growing up into big and powerful ones. Catching an oak leaf before it hits the ground brings health for a whole year. Lots of different parts of an oak tree are used for healing, and the tradition of 'knocking on wood' is believed to come from a Native American tradition that began with oak trees, because the oak brought good luck and protected against evil. I'm not even going to BEGIN going into all the magical uses.
Jade helps with releasing suppressed emotions and boosting confidence, and is known as 'the stone of fidelity'. It has protective properties, transforms negative energy into positive and, in ancient Mexican traditions, was believed to be able to resuscitate the dying and ressurect the dead. In pre-18th century China, bridegrooms gave their brides jade butterflies as a symbol of their love, and both parties drank from a jade cup to confirm their vows. Green jade (like the beads) are also used to express affection. Last but not least, jade is useful for communication, clearing up dysfunctional relationships (just don't ask me how) and enhancing perception. SO. Make of that what you will.
A lamen is also a real thing, although it has been changed slightly for CoS. In reality it's a piece of the regalia used by ceremonial magicians, especially when summoning and/or communing with spirits, and (in some interpretations) acts as the magical coat of arms for the wearer, identifying their powers and the spirits under their command. In Runed they're worn by warlocks to identify their bloodlines and powers to each other and to the demons they might choose to work with.