Alec woke up to a gentle touch on his cheek and jerked away. His eyelids fluttered open at the soft drag of fabric against his skin as crystal clear curtains swung with the slowly retreating night breeze. Woven threads of silk let dim starlight shoot past the window and fall on the bed as the sun pierced through the night, morning burning in its wake.
The shadowhunter groaned and patted his tattered pants in search of his phone and stele. It took some squirming to grab them from his front pocket as he was lying on his stomach and almost dropped them from the bed as he brought the phone up to his face and read the messages that had piled up during the night.
[11:37pm] Jace: Look. I don't like that you're hiding things from me.[11:43pm] Izzy: I'm sorry for earlier.
[1:15am] Jace: Damn it Alec, what are you doing?
[1:28am] Izzy: Jace is getting anxious, where are you?
[2:01am] Jace: Robert will take care of the mundanes tomorrow, are you alright?
The phone lit up with more inquisitive messages from Isabelle and Jace speculating on his whereabouts. Alec struggled to understand some of them, as his siblings were obviously talking to each other in between messages. He pressed his forehead into the dusty pink pillow, breathing in deeply. Alec's siblings were worried for him and he could barely reassure them without lying again.
[6:58am] Izzy: Mom left for Idris this morning. Jace said the parabatai bond acted up during the night...[7:06am] Jace: Alec I know you're okay now but can you tell us anyway? What happened?
Alec sighed in embarrassment. He usually woke up to bid his mother farewell. He quickly typed that he was okay and would be coming back soon, refusing to get into a more elaborate lie. Then he slid the phone underneath his pillow before either of his siblings could interrogate him further.
He rolled to the side with a hiss, grateful for Magnus' efforts to heal him the night before. He tried not to think of the state he would have been in otherwise, stretching carefully in hope of relieving some of the aches in his body.
The warlock was asleep next to Alec, a cat curled up against his hair, dusky pink sheets kissing Magnus' golden skin and the feline's tawny coat. The curtain of the four poster bed shivered behind Magnus and the warlock's crop top had rode up in his sleep again, exposing his smooth stomach. Alec's eyes ran along his tall and slender figure. Magnus was handsome, nobody could deny that, but looking at him, the shadowhunter knew compliments on his general appearance would never live up to what Alec had seen of Magnus.
For all his chiseled cheekbones and never-ending legs, Magnus was also magic come alive, lighting up in his veins and buzzing around him. His make up had barely smudged and the vibrancy of the colored streaks in his hair did not relent in the dark. Alec glanced at Magnus' stomach again, noticing the lack of a belly button, and wondered when the warlock had found the confidence to expose his true nature without a hint of a doubt.
Alec held onto the practicality of his wings rather than their aesthetic. His wings had always been part of him, a sliver of skin along his arms and sides. He did not think much of it, because wondering if they looked good suggested a whole other set of questions he was not ready to consider. Looking good for what? For who?
Alec inhaled through his nose and tightened his grip on his stele as he pressed it against his side. His hand shook with the first burn, and he flashed back to the pouring flames with a hiss, losing his grasp on the stele. Warm fingers wrapped around his hand to steady his wrist and Alec's eyes flew open. He did not remember closing them and he sucked on his lower lip at the sight of Magnus. Cat eyes stared at him, pools of honey shimmering in the morning. The cat hissed and pounced off the bed, disappearing in the living room.
"Shadowhunters have an interesting relationship with pain," Magnus smiled deviously, all teeth and lewd ideas.
"I'm not getting into this conversation with you," Alec groaned.
He traced the outline of an iratze with the warlock's help and the black rune lit up as it took effect, healing any leftover cuts. Alec let go of his stele, disappointed when he realized his wings felt rumpled and his back was sore still.
"So, you just needed a moment to recover huh? You slept for a few hours," he pointed out, to forget about his own pain.
"So did you, in my bed might I add."
"Thank you."
Magnus waved Alec's gratitude away and rolled onto his back, stretching. Alec averted his eyes, taking in the walk-in closet behind the bed. Shoes had been piled up on top of each other in what he suspected had been Magnus' attempt at an outfit that came close to battle gear.
Colorful fabric organized by shade dangled from hangers along the walls, when the clothes were not neatly folded on dust free shelves.
It was a far cry from Isabelle's bedroom, Alec thought with a smile. He had stopped stepping more than one foot inside since a bomb had seemingly exploded in her closet when she was a teenager and she had never taken the time to put everything back in its rightful place. Not that he was one to talk, though the mess in his own bedroom was less appalling as everything he owned was black racerback hoodies and worn out jeans. Dirty laundry in one corner, everything else stacked away in a closet with the door ever hanging open.
"So you can't actually fly, what's the use for wings then?" Magnus mused aloud.
"Gliding was more than enough to get rid of that dragonidae."
"True," the warlock admitted with a breathy laugh, "but you don't even have that many feathers. Shouldn't nephilim look like angels or something?"
"I still manage to get them ruffled in a fight and it's very uncomfortable."
Magnus shifted to look at him, golden eyes trailing along the silver scars on his wrists and following the barely-there wings underneath his arms. The warlock gnawed on his lips before reaching out, brushing his fingers along the v-shaped runes, drawing the bolts crisscrossing on the shadowhunter's skin to form abstract looking wings. Alec shivered as Magnus' fingers skimmed along his forearm and biceps, poking at the patagium. He spread his wing out slowly and the thin ink-black membrane rested between them, his feathers resting at an odd angle along the edge.
"The rune stiffens the patagium. See, now the cartilage in the middle of the membrane is flexible, I can tuck my wings in," Alec folded his wings and stretched them out again. "But with the rune the patagium grows stronger so that I can fly, or something akin to it."
The warlock hesitated then, looked Alec over for nicks and cuts before he pressed his palm against soft, taut skin. Alec jerked, startling Magnus and they laughed as his wing retracted reflexively into his armpit, folding in and unto itself. He spread it out again, wincing at the sight of his ruffled feathers. It was uncomfortable, but the iratze had numbed most of the pain lingering in his flesh and bones. Magnus followed his gaze and sat up, scooting closer to study the edge of his wing and very carefully untangling the black feathers.
"Better?" Magnus' hands went limp as he met Alec's eyes.
The shadowhunter nodded and lifted his wing to let it rest on the other man's legs, allowing better access for the warlock to keep going. Magnus bit his lip, holding back a smile as his nimble fingers got back to work on the edge of Alec's wing. Alec rubbed his cheek against the pillow, relaxing into what felt like grooming. Magnus hummed, running his fingers along glistening feathers, nail polish changing to ink black to match.
"I thought you weren't my guardian angel?"
"I don't recall agreeing with or denying that statement," Alec mumbled into the pillow.
"You sure act like you are."
"Shadowhunters are bound to protect mundanes and keep downworlders safe."
Pastel spread in the sky like watercolor, morning stretching slowly and purposefully into the beginning of a new day. Alec blinked, focusing on Magnus until outside the sky exploded in colors and the sun rose on the warlock's skin, a dull fire Magnus bathed in but did not glance at. Magnus untangled one feather from another, frowning before he said what was on his mind.
"Not every shadowhunter thinks so. It's a miracle Valentine hasn't killed more downworlders already."
"Mother made sure we would not be like him —my siblings and I. She said our generation ought to change things since hers failed. I guess it helped that her own son had wings."
Alec looked away, tempted to confide in the warlock. Maryse had always been upfront about the angel blood she had drunk during her pregnancy. One mistake out of many when she was part of the Circle. Only recently had she elaborated on her reasons to do so, since the werewolf pack had gone after him instead of Valentine.
Magnus brushed the feathers on Alec's side with gentle fingers, metal rings feeling a little rough against his wing. The warlock gestured for them to switch places in order to get started on the other wing and Alec stretched out on a patch of golden light.
"Do you know why? Why you have wings, I mean."
Their eyes met briefly and Alec swallowed before he admitted what had been plaguing him: Magnus would have fought the Circle. He had every reason to resent Alec's family and the shadowhunter feared that once Magnus learned the truth, he would regret helping Alec.
"I'm a Lightwood," he breathed out.
Magnus smoothed a feather over before a deep sigh rumbled through his chest. The warlock's cat eyes flickered to Alec's again and Magnus tilted his head for the shadowhunter to go on, keeping his thoughts to himself.
"They thought that I would be closer to the Angel, to what shadowhunters should be, so they accepted to take part in one of Valentine's experiments. He fed angel blood to my mother for nine months and when she gave birth to me, I had these."
Alec flicked his wings and Magnus swatted the one he was holding to keep him still, working on the ruffled feathers. Alec's wings had always been a burden, no matter their practicality. They set him apart from Isabelle and Jace, and even more when Alec had struggled to bear his first rune. Secrets were a heavy weight to carry with him at all times and Alec had many of those.
"Part angel indeed," Magnus commented distractedly. "Was the Clave happy about this?"
"With the Uprising and my parent's exile to New York, Valentine's experiment was cut short and I was kept a secret from the Clave. My parents were in enough trouble as it was," Alec shrugged, "and who knows what the Clave would do with me. They used to add warlock marks to their collections, right there alongside the Circle..."
The shadowhunter trailed off. Magnus was no stranger to this practice and Alec shuddered at the thought that the warlock might have lost some friends to the barbaric practice. Magnus' own cat eyes would have been quite the prize as well.
"They never really punished the Circle," Magnus agreed easily.
The warlock was tense though and Alec struggled to meet his eyes. While Alec himself had nothing to do with it, he could not help but be ashamed of what his ancestors had done. Maryse and Robert had been gifted an Institute for their involvement in the Circle, it was a far cry from a punishment. But taking blood from an angel was a crime and the Clave would not let this go unpunished.
So Alec lied to his siblings. He knew, deep down, that they would not mind his wings. It was lying, the real issue. Alec had hidden part of himself his entire life. While he was not aware of it for the first few years, it had soon grown to mean something bigger than Alec himself.
"It wasn't until my first rune ceremony that we realized what it meant. Most children receive the voyance rune," he went on.
Alec held his hand out to show the eye-shaped mark, the meaning clear. This allowed shadowhunters children to have the Sight, See what they were meant to fight.
"But I could barely bear it. Father was particularly distressed and I kept dreaming of this rune nobody had ever heard of..."
He breathed in deeply, reminiscing of the night his parents had come to get him and the Silent Brother had been waiting for them on the front steps, a carriage throwing a heavy shade on the walls of the Institute. He remembered the sleek black roof, wheels taller than him at the time and the soft neigh of a snow white horse in the jungle of concrete.
"My parents took me to the City of Bones in secret and had the Silent Brothers draw it for me. I spread my wings for the first time that night. And once I had received the flight rune I could draw all the others properly too, it's not an issue anymore."
Magnus' fingers trailed along the silver scars on his wrists again and Alec shivered, ruffling his feathers. That earned him a click of the other man's tongue before the warlock threaded his fingers through the ink black feathers again, preening and grooming him with more care than Alec had ever done for himself.
"Do you think the pack knows about this?" Magnus whispered, as though lowering his voice would lower the risks too.
"Mother said the new Alpha of the pack was Valentine's parabatai."
Alec knew she had gone to Idris with that in mind. The Clave did not take Valentine's return seriously, had never feared the man. They had only ever wanted Valentine to fall in line instead of starting a war. The murders, as long as it was downworlders, were the least of their worries. Maryse would not get the Clave to see reason, because bringing forth evidence of Valentine's return meant exposing Alec's wings in the process. This, was not a risk Maryse was willing to take.
Magnus' hands stilled and Alec sat up, rolling his shoulders. The shadowhunter inspected his wings, appreciative of the warlock's work before retracting them with a moan of relief. Magnus looked away, fiddling with his rings as he considered the possibility.
"It would be safer if I patrolled with you."
Light poured through the window, blinding Alec and he squinted to watch Magnus' shadowed outline. Eventually, Alec nodded.
"In the meantime, I suggest you get dressed," Magnus waved a hand and spare clothes materialized at the bottom of the bed, "not that I don't enjoy the view but I have clients and your phone is driving me crazy."
A notification reverberated through the pillow and Alec groaned, sitting up as a blush spread on his face and chest. To his relief, Magnus did not seem to have noticed, as he did not mention it. The warlock disappeared into his walk-in wardrobe to get changed as well. Alec slipped into too-tight jeans and glanced at the hoodie Magnus had provided. There was another of the warlock's overused pick up lines written on the black fabric.
"Excuse me but I think you have something in your eye?" Alec read aloud.
"Nope, it's just a sparkle!" Magnus completed, laughter echoing from the other other side of the room.
Alec left the High Warlock to said sparkles and walked out of the bedroom, not waiting around for the other man to get ready. The shadowhunter was careful not to let Magnus' cat out when he closed the door behind him, but the tiny cat was nowhere to be seen.
Alec walked down the rickety staircase of the brownstone house in Brooklyn and jogged down the steps of the nearest station. He rolled his shoulders a few times on the subway, his wings feeling trapped where they were tucked in Magnus' hoodie.
He finally reached his destination and pressed the palm of his hand against the heavy wooden doors of the Institute to unlock them. Jace and Isabelle ambushed him as he walked up the rows of pews in the nave, falling in step next to him.
"Does 'patrolling' have a name?" Isabelle asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
Alec rolled his eyes, ignoring Jace's pointed look at the clothes he was wearing, and stepping into the elevator, his siblings on his heels. Isabelle studied their reflection carefully, pretending to mess with her hair. Jace leaned against the gilded, birdcage-like grate of the elevator, arms crossed. He patted his parabatai rune through his shirt, humming to himself.
"What happened though? I woke up and my back was burning. It's the first time the bond gets so intense, I could only feel pain."
There was fire in Jace's amber gaze when Alec looked at him. Alec averted his eyes, knowing there was no avoiding the aborted fight of the night before.
"That's what happens when you go off running," Alec snapped and immediately closed up, "I fought a demon."
"Did you kill your first demon? And none of us was here to see it?" Isabelle shrieked, offended.
Her trained eye checked Alec for injuries. He shrugged and he did not correct his sister's assumption regarding the number of demons he had already killed. Alec forced himself to utter a semblance of explanation and shift Isabelle's attention away from him.
"It was just a demon. You'd have seen it if we had stuck together like we're supposed to," Alec replied.
"I'm sorry Alec. We should have been here to watch your back. Are you okay? Do you need an iratze?" Isabelle glanced at his back as she spoke.
"I'm fine, Izzy." Alec said, turning to Jace next, "Did you catch up with the mundanes at least?"
"Yeah, they live in Park Slope. Robert went there just after Maryse left."
Alec bristled. Jace was sulking and they both knew it. Since Alec was not willing to answer their questions, Jace would not ask for any more clarifications regarding Alec's whereabouts and what had happened the previous night.
The elevator doors opened then and Jace pushed past Alec without another word as they moved into the corridor.
They headed towards the kitchen in silence. Alec kept a safe distance away from Jace and almost tripped on his little brother lingering by the fridge. Max looked up as Alec caught his wrist before he could grab a snack. The boy frowned and recoiled, wary of the authority figure that the eldest sibling had always been.
"I know Mom made sure you had breakfast before she left."
Max stuck his tongue at Alec, who ignored the boy and sent him to the other side of the room. He took the egg and bacon roll Max had been going for, hurrying towards the coffee machine before Isabelle could roast the beans some more. She pouted and took three cups out instead, smiling down at Max as she fixed him a glass of milk.
Jace jumped on the counter, kicking his legs but Alec's apparent health seemed to have assuaged his worries and he went on about the mundanes from the day before. Alec shifted uncomfortably, trying to adjust his glamoured wings, stuck inside Magnus' hoodie.
"I think they both have the Sight because the girl turned around before they walked in their house and she looked like she could sense my presence."
"The boy was very brave," Isabelle sighed and Max made a gagging noise.
Alec stuffed the egg and bacon roll in his mouth before handing them their coffees and sitting at the table, turning a blind eye on the drop of coffee Jace added to their younger brother's glass of milk.
"Do you have class with Hodge this afternoon?"
"Yeah, but we skipped training this morning," Max replied and Alec nodded.
"I can practice with you if you want," Jace said.
"I'll tag along," Isabelle added.
Max immediately told them what he had been working on and what he really wanted to get started with. Alec choked on his coffee and burned his tongue as the boy insisted that he wanted to pick up archery, surprised that Max had given it any thought.
Alec and his little brother did not spend much time together, unlike Jace who would rather train with Max than help around the Institute. Alec often had other things to worry about. He always had, as Max had been born around the time Alec received his first runes.
Isabelle had taken to the boy the way Alec had taken to her, playing the older sibling she had not gotten to be for Jace when he joined their family. Alec had been struggling with his wings and Jace had been so perfect already.
Maybe Alec had been distancing himself from his siblings for a decade and only started to notice now. Was it that surprising? Alec had lied to them during his entire life. Sometimes, Alec wished he could tell them about his wings. He hoped for his siblings to see him as someone other than the boy who had struggled to bear his first mark. At least as the one who could fly. Shadowhunters were not supposed to have wings but Alec held onto their practicality. They were not completely useless.
Alec had named the rune he dreamed of If I Could Fly, but compared to Jace and even Isabelle, he could barely run, let alone catch up with them. He did not know about Jace's first mark but Isabelle had worn the voyance rune like a second skin and Max probably would too.
Their father had taken Alec aside at the time and told him that while struggling to bear the first rune was unusual, it did happen. Robert himself had been ostracized as a child because of his body's reaction to receiving his first mark, so Alec's struggle might very well be inherited. It helped, when Alec's insecurities threatened to take over. For all Alec knew, Max would go through the same hurdle when the time came for him to receive his first rune. Only time would tell.
His siblings stacked their cups in the sink and Isabelle leveled him with one last lingering look as they headed to the attic, leaving him to deal with dirty dishes. He rolled his eyes at the empty kitchen, getting on with it. Since his mother was in Idris, Alec had paperwork to get to next.
The portal flickered to life in front of the abandoned Chinese restaurant and magic sent colors along the store front, lighting up the sign at the entrance as Magnus walked in. He smiled at the young woman he had previously met at Renwick's and her lips curled up, not unlike that night, as the High Warlock of Brooklyn strutted through the pack's headquarters.
Magnus offered his hand to the young woman, holding her amber gaze through curly, brown-gold strands of hair. The scar on her neck was barely noticeable on her light brown skin and he made sure not to stare even as she pressed the palm of her other hand against her neck.
"I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Magnus."
"Maia. Nice to meet you. This shirt is amazing."
"You have nothing to be envious of darling," he replied, winking.
And she did not, in the military jacket she had thrown over her slim gray denim dress.
Magnus fiddled with the hem of his sleeveless denim jacket, finding comfort in their somehow matching outfits. The bright yellow, pineapple crop top. His jeans were slightly darker than his jacket and had felt casual enough to fit in with the werewolves. Maybe the informal, almost friendly visit would allow him to get some insight as to what they were after while he could. It was suspicious, that Valentine's parabatai had reappeared at the same time as the madman himself.
"What can I do for you Magnus?"
"I was wondering if I could talk to your Alpha? I wasn't informed there was a new one."
Maia winced and Magnus only noticed because he had been looking at her closely, expecting her reaction. He nodded slowly, paying his respect to the late Alpha and Maia straightened with pride. She tried to hide it and did it well but Magnus was certain of one thing, the new Alpha was still asserting his dominance over the other wolves.
She gestured for him to follow and they walked past dust covered tables and rickety chairs as she led him to the back of the restaurant.
"Bat was always overconfident, he was taken by surprise when Luke fought back with his bare hands instead of turning."
There was a frown on her face but she concealed it as soon as they walked into the storage room converted into a cozy living room. Men and women alike lounged on worn out couches and stared until Maia disappeared into the kitchen, Magnus hot on her heels. He was not well acquainted with the pack, unlike the New York vampire clan, and although the warlock was confident in his abilities, this was their territory and he knew not to forget it.
Valentine's parabatai looked up from the stainless steel counter he used as a desk, a beard covering part of his face. He was ragged-looking, a far cry from the proper shadowhunter he had been before the Accords.
"Luke Graymark," he breathed out at the sight of the other man.
Magnus wondered what it felt like, to have your soul reaped away from you by the very person you had trusted them with it. No wonder he was after one of Valentine's experiments now, trying to right the wrongs he had been blind to until it was too late.
"Magnus Bane," Luke replied evenly. "I go by Garroway now."
"I knew downworlders had taken to hunting demons when the New York Institute proved understaffed but I hadn't gotten the memo about chasing nephilim. Nor that you had taken control of the pack."
"We're not chasing nephilim, we're fighting Valentine."
"Are you? I thought we had gone over that part," Magnus inspected his nails. "Alexander is nothing like Valentine."
"That boy is a monster. He's tainted by Valentine's experiments, who knows when he'll come up with his own Circle."
Sparks erupted from Magnus' hands and his head snapped up. His eyes flashed, slit pupils and golden irises glowing in the dim light of the kitchen. Magnus' warlock mark was a testament of his power and he had no qualms about using his cat eyes when the situation called for it. Luke tensed when their eyes met, standing up. Maia stepped aside, glancing between them.
"This boy is no different than me, or you. None of us chose this fate and you should know better. You were once a shadowhunter and betrayed by one."
"Can you hear yourself? Shadowhunters were made to destroy. Just wait till he stabs you in the back," Luke prophesied.
"He had plenty of opportunities already," Magnus said and barked out a laugh.
"Do you want to end up like that child?" Luke shot back.
"Don't," the warlock warned.
He hated the dark edge in his voice at that moment, born from guilt and resentment.
"Don't," Magnus repeated. "You did nothing to save him."
"I tried to save us all, when Jocelyn and I realized what Valentine was doing. Look where it got me," the Alpha bared his teeth. "She lived her whole life in fear. It has to stop. We have to stop Valentine."
Magnus could not disagree with that, but Luke's words rang false in his ears. Magnus could not even remember the warlock child's face because he never got to see the kid properly. Angry tears burned away at the corner of his cat eyes and he glanced away to contain the bile rising up his throat.
Maia listened intently, staying a good distance away from her Alpha. The warlock wondered if she believed everything Luke said. It did not look like it, from what he had seen of the young woman so far. Magnus resisted the urge to arch his eyebrows at her as Luke spoke up again.
"Don't say I didn't warn you. The shadowhunter will betray you when the time comes."
Luke frowned when the warlock barely acknowledged him. Magnus waved his hand angrily and Maia ducked her head to hide her clenched teeth. There was no point in arguing with the pack leader if he had made up his mind already. The High Warlock knew what to expect from now on and, with a nod for Maia, saw himself out.
The sun was high and bright in the sky still. Magnus would have to wait before going to the Hotel Dumort to visit Raphael.
Hodge exited the elevator as Alec left the kitchen and Alec stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the mundanes from the night before. They carried backpacks with them, looking exhausted as they inspected their surroundings carefully.
"Alec, it's a good thing you're here. Clary and Jonathan's mother disappeared during the night and they have nowhere to go. Robert just brought them here. Do you think you could show them around while I contact the Silent Brothers? They might be able to help, these two are no ordinary mundanes," he lowered his voice, "your father said their flat was in shambles with ichor everywhere. Something must have exploded and killed the demon. Let's hope their mother is still alive because I'm not sure how they survived."
The shadowhunter nodded against his better judgment and the boy, Jonathan, stared at him. Alec gestured for the siblings to follow him, leading the way to the library. Clary caught up with him in a few strides and struggled to keep up with his significantly longer legs, puffing her cheeks.
"What exactly is this place? Hodge and your father said you guys hunt demons like the one we saw last night..."
"This is the Institute, there is one in each major city. Some people have what we call the Sight, allowing them to See past glamours hiding supernatural creatures in plain sight."
He pushed open the doors of the library, revealing the circular room and moved to the desk at the center as Jonathan and Clary looked around. Bookshelves ran up the wall and onto the second floor gallery. They climbed a few steps and skirted the spiral staircase leading to the greenhouse above them. Alec pointed at the glass cases in between each book shelf and Jonathan took a look at the things on display as he listened to Alec.
"All the legends are true. Thus, shadowhunters are tasked with protecting mundanes from demons and making sure the existence of supernatural creatures remains secret."
"Do you hunt vampires and werewolves too?" Jonathan asked, examining faerie rings.
"No, but we take them down if they break the law."
Clary gasped and Alec rolled his eyes, biting his lip to refrain from explaining the Laws and Rights of the Shadow World as written in the Covenant. He gestured for the young woman and her brother to go back downstairs and caught sight of Church lying on top of the paperwork covering the desk. Alec rolled his eyes at the gray cat, who flicked his tail dismissively. The shadowhunter ignored the feline but hesitated before leading the siblings to the attic, before deciding to get it over with.
"Shadowhunters live and train with their families at an Institute. You've met my father and Hodge, who is a family friend. My mother is away at the moment, but you saw my siblings yesterday, Isabelle and Jace," he said before entering the training room, "and then there is Max."
The youngest Lightwood slipped out of Jace's reach and kept him at bay with a blunt sword as Alec spoke. Isabelle studied their brother's form from the other side of the room, her hair pulled up into a tight ponytail. She glanced at Alec and frowned, recognizing Clary and Jonathan from the night before.
Max kicked Jace's legs but the blond barely noticed, pushing his hair back as he caught sight of the mundanes. Clary blushed when their eyes met and looked away as Isabelle came closer, frowning.
"Isn't that..."
"Their mother is missing so Dad brought them here," Alec cut in.
"Mundanes aren't allowed within the Institute," Max interjected, glaring at them.
"They have the Sight," Alec replied evenly.
Jace forgot about giving Alec the cold shoulder and shot him a winning smile as Alec confirmed his theory about the mundanes being able to See them. Isabelle smiled warmly, offering her hand for Jonathan to shake. The young man swallowed and glanced away, cradling her hand in his as though it was made of glass.
"I'm Jonathan, and this is my sister Clary," Jonathan said.
Clary sneered, glaring at Isabelle. Alec took a protective step forward as his sister's expression morphed into one of confusion, meanwhile Max tugged on Jace's sleeve to resume practice. Clary's disapproval moved from Isabelle to the boy.
"What's this, toy soldiers?"
"How do you expect him to survive if he doesn't train?" Alec snapped.
"Well, my brother and I killed a demon-"
"Your brother and you are adults and your apartment exploded in the process. We take demons three on one for a reason."
Max jerked to attention, brown eyes widening in surprise. For once, Alec felt like his little brother was looking up to him rather than Jace, as was often the case. It fueled Alec on as he rounded on Clary and towered over her, staring her down.
"We saved your brother's ass yesterday and welcome both of you here today. Show us some respect. This is our home and you better remember that, because right now we're the only ones you can turn to."
She gaped and Jonathan gripped her arm, stepping in front of her. He spoke up before she could come up with a scathing reply.
"You're right. We're grateful for your help, it's just that all this is very new, and with our mother missing..."
Jonathan looked down, strawberry blond strands of hair falling onto his dark eyes and Alec softened, nodding tersely. Clary raised her chin defiantly but kept silent. Jace offered her a comforting smile as Max led him away, asking about the demon they had killed the day before. Isabelle stepped closer to Alec and squeezed Jonathan's shoulder.
"Come on, let's get you settled."
Clary pushed past her and Alec gritted his teeth. His wings brushing uncomfortably against the material of Magnus' hoodie as he resisted the temptation to ruffle his feathers in annoyance.