Her feet were killing her by the time Clary arrived at the institute. She had been moving non-stop since she left that warehouse over an hour ago and since she had lost both her phone and wallet during the kidnapping, she couldn't call either Jace or Simon asking whether they would come to pick her up or at least come to where she was. She slammed opened the institute's door, slamming straight into someone. Her legs felt like jelly as she lost her balance and had the person she ran into not caught her then Clary would have been a floppy mess on the floor.

"Woah, careful," the person said, and Clary recognised the voice, she looked up to see Jace staring back at her looking just as shocked and confused as Clary felt since well the shadowworld had been revealed and her mother was taken by Valentine, "Clary! But… Simon said you and your brother were kidnapped".

"We were… it's a long story. We need to contact Magnus" She said urgently, Magnus was the only person who might know what was happening to Alec.

"Magnus… he's here. He is… well was helping look for you and Alec" Jace said and Clary pushed herself to her feet ignoring the pain in her legs as she took shaky steps towards the Ops Centre.

"Magnus! Magnus" Clary shouted, spinning her head in every direction, looking for the flamboyant warlock. He was next to Simon and Izzy on the other side of the Ops Centre.

"Clary! Oh my god! Are you alright?" Simon said, running over to his best friend wrapping her up in his arms. Clary felt herself melting, the stress and pain of the last day slowly dissipating from her body. If it weren't for the fact, she needed Magnus to save her brother then Clary would have fallen asleep right there right then. Clary honestly felt dead on her feet after everything that has happened in the last day, that she felt like she could sleep for eternity given half the chance.

"I'm fine, Simon. Valentine napped us but we were able to escape and even better, we found our mom. She fine just unconscious at the moment," Clary explained.

"Biscuit, I'm glad you've escaped and found your mother, but I can't help noticing that Alexander isn't with you? Has something happened to him?" Magnus said, clearly worried for her brother.

"In a way. We're not sure why, but Alec's lost control of his magic. He says that he's felt anything like it and that he has somehow gotten more magic than ever" Clary explained, and a concerned look shot through Magnus' eyes but it vanished just as fast, "After we escape Valentine, Alec portal us to an abandoned warehouse complex on 109th street. Magnus, Alec said… he said he felt like he was going to explode. What does that mean?".

"Biscuit don't worry. I'll save Alexander I promise but if it is what I think it is, then we need to go now" Magnus said and Clary reluctantly nodded, she wanted answers, but her brother was more important so, they darted outside to open a portal to the warehouse.

Magnus' heart dropped as he stepped through the portal to find Alexander curled up in a ball on the floor with two beautiful white wings wrapped around him. He looked vulnerable and in immense pain. He could feel it wafting off Alec in wave mixed in with this sudden increase of Alec's magic.

"Oh, Alexander," Magnus said, running over to Alec whilst the others stayed back, they weren't sure what they could really do to help. And it was probably for the best to keep a distance from Alexander because if this were what he thought this was then Magnus only had one shot at saving Alec or else he would die but he didn't want to tell Clary that, that poor girl had already been through plenty ever since she discovered the shadowworld, to then turn around to tell her that potentially her brother may die… Magnus couldn't do that to her. She didn't deserve to lose her brother just after rescuing her mother… no, Magnus would not let Alec die.

"Magnus… it hurts" Alec whimpered, and Magnus' heart shattered into a million pieces hearing how painful Alec sounded.

"I know Alexander, I'm going to carefully scan you with my magic, I have a suspicion on what's happening to you, but I just want to check," Magnus said as he summoned his magic and slowly scanned Alec, looking for a particular marker which would explain everything although he feared finding it.

"Shit!" Magnus muttered as his magic brushed against the marker. It made sense, though. Alec never spoke about his warlock mark which was normal most warlocks kept their warlock mark hidden so, Magnus had kept his mouth shut until Alec came to him about being born with an animal feature and whether that was normal for a warlock but that had never happened, "Alexander, I am so sorry. Dot put a block on your magic. And when it's realised incorrectly… it can burn the user from inside out. Alexander, I'm going to stay and help stabilise your magic but it's going to be painful… I'm sorry".

Alec screamed the feeling that his insides were about to explode had now changed to the feeling of them being stabbed as he felt the foreign yet familiar feeling of Magnus' magic fight against the raging uncontrollable magic that belongs to him. Then the magic slowly regressed, the pain began to lift and Alec for the first time in the last couple of hours felt like he had some control in his life. He opened his eyes, not realising he had kept them closed since Magnus and Clary arrived. His dark orange eyes burnt into Magnus' brown ones, silently thanking him before looking over at Clary.

"I'm okay Clary, I'm okay," Alec said, and that seemed to give Clary just as much motivation to throw herself at her brother, her arms wrapping around Alec's neck and she apologised repeatedly.

"What happened? I don't want to seem rude, but no one has ever escaped Valentine before," Izzy asked, drawing the sibling's attention from each other.

"He wanted to Mortal Cup, he believed that if he hurt me enough, then Clary would hand it over, although he didn't expect this magical block-breaking inside me and I honestly don't really remember what happened next, one moment I was chained up the next I was beside Clary and our mom. This fire started, and I created a portal and brought us here," Alec explained.

"You're still hiding something" Jace snapped. He didn't trust Alec. If Valentine wanted Clary, then he would have just taken her and either Alec would have been left behind or the members of the circle would have killed him whilst he was unconscious, "Valentine had Clary, he didn't need you as well and I doubt it was just to make Clary complaisant".

"I don't see how that's your business," Alec said, glaring back at Jace.

"For all, we know Valentine's controlling you," Jace said, crossing his arms across his chest as he tried to ignore the horrified look Clary was giving him.

"Sure, between electrocuting and stabbing me, I'm sure Valentine thought maybe, just maybe I'll put some mind-controlling thing on him, make him loyal. I'm sure when he was calling me an abomination and telling me he was going to take his time killing me, he secretly made plans to control the nearest warlock he knew and put me under some spell. Of course, your right Valentine wanted to control me when he hated me because that bastard experimented on me before I was born. Because that bastard hated my existence because he took my potential normal shadowhunter life away from me and turned me into some hybrid with both angelic and demonic blood…" Alec trailed off, he hadn't meant to say that much but that cat was out the bag.

"Alexander… I don't understand" Magnus said, but Alec looked at the ground, scared to see Magnus's facial expression. He didn't want to see the horror and disgust on Magnus' face.

"Our mother always told us that Alec's biological parents couldn't look after him because of his magic and asked her to care for him. Alec discovered a couple of days ago from his biological mother that he had been born a shadowhunter however, his bio parents were in the circle and let Valentine experiment on him. It led to him to become half warlock," this time Clary spoke up, she knew enough about Alec's situation to explain in on his behalf.

"You honestly expect us to believe that," Jace scoffed.

"Alexander wouldn't be the first shadowhunter with warlock magic. A good friend of mine, Tessa. She has both," Magnus said, turning to face Alec, reaching out and taking his hand in his, "I now understand why you didn't want to talk earlier, Alexander. Being a Shadowhunter/ Warlock hybrid doesn't define you, and I would never hate you for something you never controlled,".

"Thank you, Magnus," Alec whispered, and Magnus squeezed his hand in reassurance.

"Wait, who's your shadowhunter parents?" Izzy asked her eyes widened as if she just figured something out.

Alec took in a deep breath and said, "The Lightwoods, I'm your brother Izzy".