Cassander Law was probably the best-known Warlock in the entire world. Alec had never met him, despite the fact that his parents were the Acting Heads of the New York Institute. Of course, living in one of the places where Nephilim and Downworlders alike came to train wasn't necessarily a guarantee that one would meet the Oracle, not least because he travelled to so many other Institutes across the globe on a regular basis.
Today, though, Alec would meet Cassander, and even if his parents were reluctant to allow Alec, Jace, and Izzy to consort – his parents' word, not his – with Downworlders, it had been tradition for over a hundred years that Nephilim and Downworlders gather at the Institutes so that the Oracle could induce the shared vision that would tell every Shadowhunter-to-be (or not to be, if they had no desire to join the ranks of what the Mundanes called the Seraphic Legionnaires) who their potential sylléktairos was.
Of course, sylléktairos – like parabatai – were not a guarantee. It wasn't uncommon for the potential pairs to go their separate ways after the four-year long training at the Institute, though there were several who managed to complete the bond when they were eighteen. The majority of people went their separate ways; so few sylléktairos bonds were formed each year, in fact, that at this point the process was more a way to foster understanding between the opposing races than to form bonds. The hope was that strong friendships would be created, even if nigh-unbreakable bonds weren't. At this point – especially after Valentine's uprising – the Clave and the Council were desperate for ways to keep the peace, and this seemed to be the most effective method.
When the program first started, back in eighteen seventy-eight, there was only one Institute – back then, no one had known if the Accords would work or not, and Nephilim and Downworlders alike were hesitant to take part in the experiment. The London Institute – headed by Charlotte and Henry Branwell – had been the pride and joy of both the Clave and the Council: they had managed to cultivate the first sylléktairos pair as well as the first polykéfalos triad.
Will Herondale – who had found his parabatai in Jem Carstairs – and Tessa Gray – who was an intriguing Warlock, given that she was half Nephilim – had been named potential sylléktairos by the Oracle. Against all odds, Will and Tessa had completed their bond, and, later on, had formed the polykéfalos bond with Jem.
Alec had always been fascinated with the dynamics of the polykéfalos bond, not least because it joined two Nephilim and one Downworlder together. There wasn't much information about either the sylléktairos or polykéfalos bonds in the New York Institute, but even Alec's parents couldn't keep him out of the libraries in Alicante – especially not when Jace and Izzy were by his side.
Alec and his siblings had been interested to learn, back when they were twelve and his and Jace's parabatai bond was brand new, that the sylléktairos and parabatai bonds were inherently different. Of course, there was the dissimilarity of bonding two Nephilim together as opposed to one Nephilim and a Downworlder; but there was also the fact that the parabatai bond had to be platonic, while the sylléktairos bond did not. Of course, Tessa and Will had proved that – they had gotten married, and had children together.
However, not every sylléktairos pair was romantic. In fact, the majority of them were not, but the fact remained that the participants of the sylléktairos bond were tied together differently than parabatai were.
Despite their research, though, Alec, Jace, and Izzy soon discovered that not even the libraries in Alicante had comprehensive texts regarding the various bonds of the Shadow World; all the books could really tell them were the names, the oaths and trials required, and what dynamics weren't allowed by certain bonds.
Even with the lack of information, though, Alec was still excited to learn who he would be working with for the next four years. He, Jace, and Izzy were finally old enough that even their parents could no longer keep them away.
The law required that all Nephilim be trained at an Institute from the ages fourteen to eighteen before deciding on their careers. Part of the reason it was required, too, was to further the peace between Nephilim and Downworlders, who also attended the Institute. They had stopped warring over a hundred years ago, and other than Valentine's uprising more than a decade earlier, nothing had threatened their alliance.
By dark, people had begun filing into the Institute. Except for the Warlocks, Alec couldn't really tell the difference between the Downworlders and Nephilim. Even the Vampires didn't stand out, though Alec supposed that was because it wasn't daylight any longer, and so they weren't turning to ash.
This year, the Shadow-World Council had decided to include Mundanes in the Institute program. Around the time the Nephilim and Downworlders had allied themselves, the Shadow World had also stepped out of the proverbial shadow; the Mundanes knew about them, but they had never been included in the goings-on of the Institute programs. During Valentine's uprising, though, they had found out about the Mortal Cup and its ability to turn people into Nephilim.
They had been rallying for representation in the Institute for over a decade now, and the Council had finally seen fit to acquiesce to their demands.
Mundanes who were interested in joining the Shadow World – and while they were all aware of it, only a few had any real interest in joining – were allowed to train at the Institute. They were to be afforded all the same privileges as all the other students, and at the end of their training, if they succeeded, they could drink from the Mortal Cup – a highly dangerous endeavor that could result in death – or they could join the Vampires or Werewolves. There was also an option for them to return to the Mundanes, of course, but the entire Shadow World knew that despite their initial resistance the Nephilim were not entirely selfless in their agreement, and were hoping that the Mundanes would join them, bringing new blood to their tiny society.
His parents weren't happy about the new additions to the Institute program, but Alec, Izzy, and Jace were all excited to be around people their own age for once, and they didn't much care if those people were Mundanes, Downworlders, or Nephilim.
Alec had half expected Cassander Law's Warlock mark to be a third eye or something equally obvious. Most Warlocks had obvious marks – there was a gorgeous boy with dark hair and brilliant cat eyes, for example – and while they were able to glamour them, just as Nephilim could use runes to glamour their wings, they didn't typically do so unless in the company of Mundanes. The days when Warlocks were hunted for their marks were long past, and the majority chose not to hide the evidence of their parentage. But despite the fact that none of the other Warlocks had bothered to glamour themselves, Cassander had no visible mark. Instead, he blended into the throngs of students milling about the Institute.
Cassander was young – Alec thought that he didn't look much older than sixteen – and clean-shaven, with a narrow jaw and a long, lanky build that put his dark, curly head several inches above almost everyone else's.
Alec's father was in Alicante for the week, and he'd taken Max with him. That left his mother to get everything together. Alec had done his best to curb Jace and Izzy's recklessness while Maryse prepared the Institute, but he could see now that it hadn't been enough: she looked stressed and tired, and her shoulders were stiffer than usual as she walked to the front of the room, promptly capturing everyone's attention.
"In just a moment," Maryse began, a pinched smile forcing itself across her face, "I will be passing a stele around. If it glows, please move to the right side of the room. If it does not, make your way to the left. After that, Mr Law will show you your visions; they will tell you who you will be working with for the next four years."
Alec wasn't sure why his mother was having them perform the stele ceremony; Nephilim and Downworlders were going to be paired up in a few moments anyways, so there was no point in separating them into groups first. Maybe it was more to separate Nephilim from the Mundanes. But even that made little sense, since they would be splitting their training about half and half with the Downworlders and Nephilim. It probably didn't matter that the stele ceremony was happening, even if it was falling out of practice – some of the younger members of the Shadow World Council had pointed out that the ceremony could foster prejudice, but Alec knew that his mother was much more traditional than most of the people on the Council, and that she would continue observing older traditions until they were filtered out completely.
Frowning curiously, he took the stele from his mother, and handed it to Jace before moving to the right side of the room. He was quickly joined by Jace and Izzy, a blonde girl who introduced herself as Lydia Branwell, Aline Penhallow, Mark and Helen Blackthorn – who, like Alec and Izzy, were twins – and a tiny red-headed girl named Clary Fray who looked surprised to be there.
They soon learned that she had grown up thinking that she was a Mundane, and that her mother – who had been oddly opposed to her joining the Institute program – had never mentioned anything about a Nephilim parent. She had apparently joined the program with her best friend Simon, who wanted to be a Shadowhunter one day; he was an actual Mundane, and was on the other side of the room waving enthusiastically at Clary when she pointed him out.
Soon enough, everyone had separated to the right and left sides of the room, and with the stele ceremony out of the way, Cassander Law stepped forward and raised his hands. Dark blue sparks flickered along his fingers before forming a translucent blue shield that spread across the room. "Remember," he said softly, and his voice carried throughout the room in a way Alec's mother's hadn't, "the worlds you are about to see are very different from our own, and that you will not be able to interfere in the goings on there. You will be experiencing the same vision as your partner, and you will know fairly quickly that you and they are meant to be together. It may feel as though you are soulmates, or as though you have known each other forever. It is different for everyone."
With that, the magic sank down slowly, blanketing everyone, and between one breath and the next the world began to dissolve around Alec so that it looked oddly pixelated, like the screens of the games Max liked to play when Robert and Maryse were in Alicante and Izzy, Alec, and Jace decided not to risk cooking and took him out for pizza instead.
The Institute crumbled around him, and after a disconcerting moment of darkness the world began to reform. When everything settled, Alec could tell that he was still in the Institute, but it was different than he was used to. It wasn't anything obvious, but Alec couldn't help feeling as though he was staring at a mirror version of the world he knew.