Chapter Twenty Five
Life continued on relatively ease-fully for Luke. Rita did not call on him that evening. He had no problems controlling his transformations. Work on the police headquarters and the restaurant was going well. The pack seemed happy with him, and he was happy with the pack. He did not hear any word from Valentine, but he had not been expecting to.
"So Magnus, I heard a very interesting rumor from Maia." said Amatis, a grin on her face."
"Oh, Gods. Does no good deed go unpunished?" asked Magnus, throwing his hands up in the air in a theatric display of frustration.
"Has it been causing you problems with Alexander?" said Amatis, trying and failing to suppress her laughter.
"What's wrong, Magnus?" asked Jocelyn.
Magnus, Jocelyn, and Amatis were all sitting in Magnus' apartment. Clary and Simon were out at the moment. The three women had made a joint visit to New York, just arriving that afternoon. Luke would join them later this evening.
"Imagine my surprise. My baby brother did not even feel the need to tell me he was seeing someone."
"You are incorrigible, Amatis. My dear Jocelyn, what ails me is that my – purely platonic – socializing with Luke has been misinterpreted by members of his pack as something more."
"The pack thinks you and Luke are dating?" asked Jocelyn, confused.
"Yes, the pack, along with the rest of the New York Downworld. This rumor has taken hold and will not let go."
"Really, Magnus, how did this even start?" asked Amatis.
"As I said, Luke and I have been socializing. I told you I have changed my ways, particularly my sleeping habits, to accommodate Alexander's unholy preference of waking early? Well, when he is not in town, and I am awake, I often visit Luke at his house before his shop opens."
"I was still there when Maia and Malarie arrived for work one morning. They were concerned, they thought something was wrong, that that would be the only reason I would be there at that hour. Everyone is used to me being asleep at that time, you see.
"After Luke and myself assured them there was no danger, they still looked puzzled. Then, I saw the metaphoric light bulb appear over Malarie's head. She turned to Maia, excitement on her face, then she started indicating with her head between Luke and myself, all the while smiling. Maia received the message, and one of the smuggest looks I've ever seen appeared on her face.
"They simultaneously congratulated and threatened me to not hurt 'The Boss.' Maia is shockingly menacing for such a petite woman, even warning me not to make her 'take the claws out.'
"I asked them why did they think I was there - I was getting their drift at this point, but I wanted to hear them say it aloud – and Maia said that she could see why I was playing dumb, that it was awkward with me seeing Alexander Lightwood, or had I already broken up with him?
"Luke then asked the girls why they thought I was there, to which Malarie, quite happily replied 'We think you're boyfriends, Sir!' They are deferential to Luke. Maia added, "Didn't know you swung that way, Sir." Luke asked them if there was anyway he could convince them not to tell anyone this, but unfortunately the girls only saw it as further proof.
"Luke is my friend, so I've continued visiting with him, and the rumor has persisted. I've told Alexander there is no truth to this. Luke even offered to talk with him but fortunately, Alexander believed me. At this point, all we can really do is laugh about it. I sent Luke a bouquet of yellow roses on Valentine's Day."
"That's thoughtful of you, Magnus. Yellow for friendship. Though I doubt werewolves are well versed in the meanings of flowers." replied Amatis.
Jocelyn was deep in thought. Something about this conversation set off alarm bells for her. It was funny on the surface, but she thought the girls must have picked up on something – for this rumor to persist so long – but maybe it wasn't what they thought it was. That Luke and Magnus were seeing a lot of each other, but was it purely for social reasons? Was Magnus still worried about Luke?
She flashed to what Luke had said to her, or tried to say to her about Valentine, and that there could be another reason for Magnus sending Luke yellow roses on Valentine's Day.
"Luke is seeing Valentine, isn't he?" said Jocelyn, abruptly. When Magnus looked like he was going to misinterpret her comment, she continued. "Non-platonically, I mean."
Magnus' jaw dropped, and Amatis looked stunned.
"Why do you-" Magnus started, but Jocelyn cut him off, the pieces coming together for her.
"They are, and you've known about it. It goes all the way back to their summer meetings. Luke tried to tell me, but I stopped him."
"Magnus?" asked Amatis, distress on her face.
"I'm going to take your silence as a yes. How did you find out? Luke would never have told you willingly… Were you observing him? Or a spell? To find out the truth about Valentine's intentions, but I know you well enough. You felt guilty about it. You've kept the secret this whole time, even when Luke was stuck as a werewolf."
"That's why Valentine reacted like that?" said Amatis, indignantly.
"To what?" asked Jocelyn.
"When I talked to him, wanting to know what happened between him and Lucian, I said to him of course he wasn't going to tell me, they were always so private with each other. I actually said I always felt like I was walking in on them. Valentine reacted odd, like he was shocked I said that, but Jocelyn, what was your tip off?"
"The night Luke was bit. They were so intimate with each other, like you wouldn't believe. I tried to explain it away as them being parabatai, but I had the thought that one day they would cross that line. I guess it's good they aren't parabatai anymore." Jocelyn turned to Magnus, who was stunned into silence. "It's okay, Magnus. You don't have to say anything. I'm not angry with you for hiding it. I'll talk to Luke myself."
"Let me talk to him first, Jocelyn. You'll give him a heart attack. I'll do it tomorrow morning. He's got tomorrow off. Let's just go about dinner as planned."
Luke, Clary, and Simon joined them later that evening for dinner. Clary and Simon were talkative, and everyone enjoyed hearing about their adventures. After they finished eating, before dessert, Clary went over to Luke.
"Umm, can I talk to you… uh, privately?"
Luke nodded, and they walked off into Magnus's study.
"What is it, Clary?"
"Well… I wanted to talk to you about, um, Valentine. I've been giving Mom a hard time about marrying him. 'How could you fall for such a charming guy? Haven't you seen the movies? Everyone knows they're trouble.' Though I just realized, no, Mom was not watching American movies in Idris. But, one afternoon I was visiting her and Amatis, and Amatis said that Jace and Valentine are similar.
"I told her they were nothing like each other, and she said, 'Really? Charming, popular, gifted, blond.' She said Jace is actually more arrogant than Valentine was. She also said, 'How would you even know?' Amatis is kind of blunt sometimes.
"Anyway, it got me thinking, I don't really know him. And, you know the saying, 'Daughters marry their fathers'? I was upset about it, then I thought, I want to know for myself. Jonathan has been telling me about him, and asked if I wanted to see him, the two of us.
"It was… interesting. He gave me a gift. Some jewelry. I'm wearing the earrings now. That he was given this set as payment for clearing out a demon nest. He said he would have 'presented' me with a Morgenstern family piece, but he, and I quote, 'Did not want to draw any undue suspicion towards yourself.'
"I asked him what he would have named me. He said 'Tempest.' I have to admit, I like it. I liked him, more than I thought I would. It's confusing. It was easier when I could just think of him as a jerk. And I was, mad, thinking he didn't care about me, but then I was mad because he was so awful, why did I want him to care about me. He said he wants to see me again. That I'm important to him."
Clary started to tear up. "Stupid eyes,' said Clary, angrily scrubbing at them. Luke pulled her into a hug. Clary held on to him for a long time.
"I was wondering, would you sit down with us, me and him? It's too awkward between him and Mom, and… I'd just really like you to be there next time I see him. I want Simon to be there too, and you know Simon's kind of freaked out by him. Sometimes I'm freaked out by him. He's so formal."
"His relationship with his parents was very formal."
"So, he probably wouldn't like it if I referred to him as, 'That guy?'"
Luke chuckled. "Probably not, Tempest."
The next morning Amatis was sitting with her brother at his house, eating breakfast at the kitchen table. "You know, I think I kept up the place better!" said Amatis, teasingly.
"I won't argue with you there." replied Lucian.
Amatis was anxious to get this over with. Her brother was so private. She had never discussed a dating or romance issue of his with him ."Lucian, there is something I need to talk with you about."
"What is it?"
"It's okay, but I know about you and Valentine."
Lucian froze, wouldn't look up. Not a great reaction, but not terrible. "What do you know about me and Valentine?"
"That it's turned romantic. Jocelyn figured it out. Had some intuition about it when Magnus told us he got you roses on Valentine's Day. Magnus didn't say anything, but his face gave it away when Jocelyn asked him point blank."
He didn't speak, but he laid his head down on the table. Oh dear. Lucian would often shut down when he was upset, but he didn't usually collapse. Amatis quickly got up from her chair and hugged him around the shoulders.
"Come up, let's go to the couch."
She took a chance – not sure if he would cooperate with her – and pulled him up. He did, and they walked over to the couch and sat, Lucian landing heavily.
He wasn't visibly upset. His expression was blank. Like a turtle gone into its shell, she used to tell him when he was little. He'd usually smile after she said that, but she didn't think that would be particularly helpful to say right now. Instead, she waited for him to speak. After what felt like hours, but was actually only minutes, he did.
"I wasn't planning on it. It just, felt right."
He sounded weary, but she was relieved to hear his voice.
"Oh, darling." she said softly, "That's how it always happens."
He was not willing to share much more than that. She had told Jocelyn she would call her, after she told him. She told him that, and he gave her the go ahead.
"She's on her way. I'll go out." said Amatis, putting her coat on. "Call me when you're done." She kissed him on the cheek, then left the house, sending up a silent prayer that this went well, or as well as it could.
Jocelyn arrived shortly after, knocking at the side door. They stood there in the kitchen for a moment as she looked at her oldest friend. He looked numb. He sounded numb too. "I have no explanation, Jocelyn. Say whatever you need to say."
She stepped into him quickly, so quickly that he took a half step back and flinched, as though he expected her to hit him. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his waist, and put her head on his chest.
"Just be quiet and let me hold you."
This was not the first time she had said this to him. She had said it when she first ventured to see him as the Brocelind Forest pack leader. That had been a leap of faith. Going to talk to a wolf pack by herself, with only the assurance of a warlock she had not previously met that her friend was the pack leader, so she would not be harmed. The friend her husband had told her killed himself.
The pack was rambunctious at her arrival, but she did as Ragnor Fell said; She asked to speak to the pack leader. Many crude comments were made. "We didn't know the Master had a bitch back in Alicante!" "Stay with us awhile!" She tried to dissuade them by telling them she was married, but that only egged them on further.
None of that dimmed her reaction to seeing Luke step forward. Not even the strangeness of seeing the whole pack kneel in his direction. He looked numb, much as he did today, but he was blessedly whole.
She found herself running to him without a second thought. He didn't brace himself, and she knocked him over. The pack was jeering, but she tuned it out in favor of listening to his heartbeat. Alive.
They got to their feet and went inside a tent to talk, which was met with more jeering. Luke ignored them, and she did too. She told him of how she had come to him that day. What had been happening since he left. Told him of Valentine's plans.
He told her what she later realized was a highly edited version of what had happened to him. When he tried to tell her he was alright, she surprised herself with her sudden burst of anger.
"You always say you're alright! Just be quiet and let me hold you!"
They laid down on his pallet, him on his back, she with her head on his chest again, reassuring herself he was really here, that she had not lost him as she had once feared, that he was still within her grasp.
She held him in his kitchen now. He did hug her back, but he was hesitant. She pulled away. "Let's talk. I have much I want to say to you." She walked into his living room, and sat down on the armchair, leaving him the couch. He followed her over.
"I know this is what you were trying to tell me before. I want to tell you how I came to realize it. It had greatly to do with my memory of what happened the night you were bit by the werewolf.
"I don't know how much you remember about it. Valentine sent a raven ahead, saying to get warm water and bandages ready, that you had been injured. To clear the house – He was bringing you to the manor. Maybe you had been walking earlier, but by the time you two got there, Valentine was carrying you over his shoulders.
"I had prepared a bedroom for you. He placed you down on the bed, and got your shirts off you. I told him to clean himself up, and tend to his own injuries. That I would tend to your wounds while he did so. You had lost a lot of blood. You were pale, sluggish. You did respond when I spoke to you, but you weren't making much sense.
"Valentine returned quickly, carrying extra clothes for you. I had cleaned and bandaged your wound to the best of my ability. The poison in werewolf bites is difficult to treat, as you know. The usual healing runes did not have much effect, and I am not particularly skilled in the healing arts. I did what I could for you.
"Valentine told me he had already used parabatai healing runes. He wanted to try again, but he was exhausted, and I advised him not to. He needed to rest, but I could tell he did not want to leave you. I told him to stay there with you, that I would go look after Jonathan.
"I checked in on you later. The scene I saw was so was so intimate, yet I couldn't look away. Valentine at some point had gotten in the bed with you. You two were talking, but you didn't notice me. I couldn't hear what you were saying, and I did not want to interrupt you. You were facing each other. Valentine's back was to me, and he had his arm around you.
'I left the doorway as quietly as I could, though again, I doubt either of you noticed me. I had the thought, though it was more than a thought – it was like when I get an idea to draw something, it doesn't come from me – that you two would one day want to be lovers.
"I tried to dismiss it. Parabatai are always close, you'd just gone through a great shock. I'd shared a bed with my girlfriends and there was nothing romantic about it. Even you and I, after we fled to Paris, spent hours just laying in bed together. There was only one bed in our room, but that's beside the point. You held me as I had seen Valentine hold you. When we walked, I held you around the waist and you held me around the shoulders, and I didn't have romantic feelings for you. I know you did for me, but I think we both agree there was nothing sexual in those embraces, even before I told you I was pregnant.
"I've wondered if that time was why Clary took such an instant liking to you. That maybe she recognized you. You were the first person after myself to know she was in my womb, and I felt deeply peaceful when we were lying together. You even talked to her, put your arm around my stomach.
"After you were turned, and the Uprising, I forgot about the thought I had, about you and Valentine. With his reappearance, and Clary's questions, I started to wonder: Was I ever deeply in love with Valentine? And, had I ever felt that he was deeply in love with me?
"It felt serious to me when Valentine and I were courting, and I believe it felt serious to him as well, but we didn't have anything to compare it to. I know it's not the same, but when I learned I was pregnant with Clary, when I saw her the first time, my love for her was overpowering. I didn't feel that with Jonathan, I was too terrified.
"Yesterday, when Magnus was talking about the rumor about you two, I don't know how, but that memory came back, and it clicked for me, about you and Valentine. I'm going to say to you what I said to you the last time. Do what you need to do. I will be here."