London, April 2008

Magnus knew the way to Tessa's Kensington flat well – after all, he had been there when she'd chosen it, nearly a hundred years before. It was he who had taught her how to will a property to herself in the manner that immortals did, and it was he who had suggested the flat's vibrant colour scheme when she had desired to change it back in the 1960s.

'It's modern,' he'd declared, on that sunny morning in 1968. 'Colour is modern.'

Tessa had pursed her lips. 'I don't know,' she said in response.

They'd been sitting at a café a few blocks from Carnaby Street. Tessa was wearing what Magnus considered passably fashionable clothes: a knitted yellow sweater and plain miniskirt. Very mod. Very acceptable. Magnus himself, however, was fashion, and also particularly proud of today's look: a bright yellow turtleneck and sky-blue blazer to go with it. It was catching the eye of many of London's swingers, both male and female.

'Come on,' Magnus wheedled. 'Look around you! Look at the colours around you. You haven't repainted the flat since before the war, and there's a lot more to celebrate now.'

Tessa raised an eyebrow. 'It just seems a little crass.'

'Crass is good,' Magnus declared. 'Crass is bold. Crass is 1968.' When Tessa continued to look sceptical, he added, 'Look, there's a solution. Let's go back, we can cast a simple glamour, and you can pick what colours you want for the flat. Let it never be said that warlocks don't use their magic for frivolous ends.'

Tessa smiled then, amusement glimmering in her grey eyes. 'You've got a deal.'

Yes, 1968 had been a good time, Magnus reflected. It certainly made for a better topic to think about than that which he was currently trying to suppress. Emerging now from the Underground station, he walked past the Natural History Museum and turned onto the neat terraced houses of Queen's Gate. He'd always had a soft spot for London: he hadn't lived here in 130 years, but, like Tessa, he kept a flat here. It lay about a fifteen-minute walk from Savile Row, whose tailors still, much to Magnus' chagrin, refused to take his fashion suggestions.

Magnus stepped up to the front door of the white townhouse, and with a discreet flick of his fingers and a flash of blue magic, the front door swung open. He climbed the steps to the second floor and knocked.

Nobody came to the door.

Magnus was weighing his options – he could either knock again or attempt to undo the protective wards which Tessa doubtless would have placed on her flat – when the door finally swung open.

In front of him stood a young man, wearing only pyjama bottoms, bare to the waist. Magnus felt his right eyebrow lift in appreciation and the corner of his mouth curl into a smirk. This young man, looking only to be in his early twenties, was lightly muscled, his shoulders considerably broader than they had been when he was a boy, and tapered out from a slim waist. His hair was dark with a single silver streak, and from the embarrassed expression he wore, he could definitely tell Magnus was checking him out.

'Magnus Bane,' said the restored Jem Carstairs. In his voice, Magnus heard a bygone age. He saw London, not as bright and sunny as it was now, but wreathed in fog and gaslight, the sound of horse-drawn carriages on the cobblestones echoing through the mist.

'Mr. Carstairs.' Magnus dipped his head in greeting, reverting almost unconsciously to the decorum of that long-gone time. 'It has been a long time.'

Jem smiled warmly. 'You are most welcome here, sir.' He stood back and let Magnus in.

The flat wasn't nearly as tidy as Magnus had thought it would be. There was a faint whiff of perspiration in the air, too, and Magnus could guess its origin.

'I appear to have interrupted relations,' he remarked. Jem blushed furiously as he shut the door.

'That's quite all right, Magnus,' came a different voice. Tessa swept in from the bedroom, her grey eyes twinkling with mischief and humour. 'The past few months have been a nonstop train of relations. Jem has gone to great lengths to prove to me just how much he's missed me.'

Jem made a noise of protest, and Magnus laughed heartily. 'I'd forgotten, Jem, you missed out on the sexual revolution,' he said, taking a seat at Tessa's dining table. 'Now that was one of the highlights of the twentieth century, I have to say.'

'I don't know, Magnus, you did rather seem to enjoy the nineties. I still remember the delighted incredulity on your face when I gave you that two-way pager for your birthday.' Tessa was brewing a cup of tea for Magnus: the kind of tea that Magnus had grown up drinking in seventeenth-century Batavia. She must have expended considerable energy on procuring this for him, so Magnus made sure to squeeze her hand in thanks as she handed it to him.

'What can we do for you? We were rather busy, you know,' Tessa said as she seated herself opposite him. Jem hesitantly sat by her side, still, Magnus was pleased to see, bare-chested.

'I've come to discuss a matter of a somewhat delicate nature with you,' Magnus said.

'I'm delighted to help.'

Magnus hesitated, and glanced at Jem. Tessa took the hint, and turned to Jem. 'Jemmy,' she said, putting on her most beguiling smile, 'perhaps you would prefer to return to your music? You were playing something most beautiful before I started to – well.'

Jem understood, and got to his feet. With a warm smile for Magnus and a tender one for Tessa, he retreated from the living room, and Magnus heard a door shut. Moments later, the beautiful muffled sounds of a violin being played most exquisitely reached the warlocks' ears.

'I almost didn't believe you when you told me and Catarina,' Magnus confessed. 'That he'd been restored.'

'Yes.' Tessa's eyes were shining. 'He is restored to me, my Jem. But that is not what you came here to discuss.'

'No, it isn't,' Magnus agreed. 'And one reason why I wanted Jem to leave was because this concerns him too.'

Tessa sat forward, listening.

'I-I need your advice.'

'Advice?'

Magnus thought about saying something witty, but could think of nothing to say, and so let his last defences fall.

'I don't know how to love a mortal,' he whispered. 'How to love a mortal, knowing that he will not be mine forever. I don't know how to give myself to a mortal knowing that I will lose him one day, and that I will be walking through this world long after he has turned to dust.' He took another deep breath, and continued. 'Sometimes I think it would be easier, just to protect myself and hide my heart away, than to go through what you did.'

His words hung, heavy, in the air between them, along with one word that hadn't been spoken: Will.

Magnus had not loved Will as Tessa and Jem had, but he had seen their love for himself when Will was alive. When he had died, Jem had been a Silent Brother, protected by the runes that had sealed his eyes, his mouth and his heart, in the darkness of the Bone City. It had been Tessa who had felt the raw agony of Will's passing, for years and years. Magnus remembered holding her in his arms one long-ago night in Paris, over seventy years before.

Seventy years. Everything Magnus had been thinking about today, from Tessa's flat being repainted to Will's death, had happened decades ago. London had changed and morphed, from a choking grey monster into the vibrant electric capital of today: Magnus alone had stayed the same. In seventy years, would he still be holding Alec's hand? He felt tears prick his eyes and, appalled, turned his face from Tessa.

He needn't have bothered – she'd seen already, and her hands clasped his between them, before her arms encircled him. He had another flash of déjà vu – it was as though they were back in Paris as the storm clouds of war gathered above their heads, only this time it was he who needed the comfort.

Magnus was not one to let himself come apart, but he allowed himself to cry now. Tessa held him as the tears coursed down his cheeks.

When he had managed to compose himself somewhat, Tessa held his gaze in the direct way she always had. 'Magnus,' she said, 'Jem is mortal now. He will age and he will die, and I will lose him as I lost Will.' Her voice barely trembled as she pronounced the name of her late husband. 'But the only true burden I cannot continue to bear is to live without love. I lived without Will and, for the most part, without Jem for seventy years, and during that time I was never so happy as I am right now, with my mortal love.' She turned his face toward hers. 'You love Alec as much as I loved Will, and as much as I love Jem,' she whispered. 'You cannot allow yourself to live without his love. Because it is a long life we lead, Magnus, and you will come to regret it. It is a decision you will carry within yourself for all of eternity.'

She smiled. 'It is hard, but you have made difficult choices before,' she said. 'You have spoken to me of my strength, when you are just as strong. I remember a night fifteen years ago, when Jocelyn Fairchild brought her baby swathed in blankets to your front door while a video of Pride and Prejudice played in the background.'

'You never liked that movie,' Magnus mumbled.

'The book was better,' Tessa agreed. 'You had a choice then, with the bride of the monster before you. You chose the harder path, that of forgiveness, and of love. You are strong, Magnus, strong enough to do this.' Her fingers touched his cheek. 'Choose it,' she whispered. 'Or you will carry this into the ages to come. I think you will find that the choice that seems hard at first becomes easier and easier through the years.'

Magnus' fingers closed around Tessa's and squeezed. 'You do not paint it lightly.'

'It is not to be taken lightly,' Tessa chided. 'Jocelyn and Luke Garroway are to be married next month at his farm, no? Upstate New York?'

Magnus nodded. 'I was invited,' he said. 'And I know I'm going to see him there. That's why I've come to you.' He looked at Tessa. 'It's been such a hard few months, Tess.'

He left so much unsaid – the guilt over his own father stripping Simon of his memories, his own unhappiness and loneliness without Alec, the pain of turning over in the morning to find the other side of the bed cold.

Magnus was tired of hurting, he realised now. It was time to do something to make himself not just feel better, as he had done for decades, but to make himself happy. And for Magnus, happiness had Marks, black hair and the bluest eyes he'd ever seen. It was almost easy, when put that way.

He smiled gratefully at Tessa. 'Thank you,' he whispered.

The sounds of the violin had turned to sounds of the qinqin, and Tessa squeezed Magnus' hands one last time before she rose to her feet. 'Won't you stay for dinner?' she asked, in a slightly louder tone. 'Jem has promised to make me xiaolongbao. We may have to visit Chinatown or at least a Sainsbury's for the right ingredients…'

Magnus smiled at her. 'Nothing would make me happier.'

Perhaps it was, after all, better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.