Simon came through the portal, leaning against the table for a moment in an effort to keep the contents of his stomach down where they belonged.

"By the way, portal travels tend to make you a bit nauseous," Shu said, mixing something up in a bowl without looking up.

"Yeah, thanks for that," Simon muttered. "Might've been a little more useful beforehand."

"Knowing it's gonna be unsettling beforehand doesn't make it any less unsettling."

Magnus snapped the portal closed. "You'll get used to it."

"Hopefully sooner than later."

"So what's the emergency?"

"I need help tracking down your friend Camille. You're the only one I know who knows her as well as Raphael."

"I know her better, in fact," Magnus said, though he wasn't exactly proud of it. "Which also means I know how stupid it is to go looking for her."

"I know she could be holding a grudge about the whole blackmail thing-"

"Could be?" Shu interjected, grabbing a couple of items from one of the shelves and returning them to the table for Magnus. "Camille's absolute favorite thing is holding grudges. I forgot her 607th birthday, which isn't even-"

"I could forget about my 19th birthday if we don't find her. So please. Can you…take a break from your day job and help a vamp out?"

Magnus rolled his eyes. "Lucky for you, this potion will take a few hours to stew. But it'll cost you."

Simon shrugged. "Okay."

Magnus then snatched up one of his hairs and placed it in a jar marked 'Vampire Hairs.' "I've been running low," He explained.

Simon gave a sarcastic smile in response.

The three of them hopped through a portal, Simon holding still once more to keep his lunch down.

"Portaling is not my thing. Is there, like, a YouTube tutorial I can watch?"

"Practice makes perfect," Magnus advised.

Simon looked around, finding that they'd teleported to a building in an old-fashioned city. "Wait. Are we in India?"

"Welcome to Agra," Shu said, spreading her arms, before she and Magnus walked over to the roof door, Simon rushing to catch up.

"Wait, Camille lives in India?" Simon asked.

"Camille lives wherever she wants. Homes all over the globe. She's always liked to spend the winters in Agra."

"She loves the smell of lotus blossoms," Magnus added.

"Who doesn't?" Simon asked.

They walked through a wall of beads, which Simon had a surprisingly hard time getting past as he swatted the beads away like they'd offended him.

"Oh, I recognize that," Shu muttered, walking over to a vase. "Ming dynasty."

Magnus walked up to the vase and picked it up. "Of course you recognize it. It's mine."

"Well unless she's in that vase, she's not here," Simon said. "So come on. You said there are, like, 62 other rooms we have to search…"

He slowed and picked up a sword from a display of them.

"You go on," Magnus said. "I have a few things Camille never returned after one of our…many breakups. I wanna find them."

"So you're not gonna help me find her?"

"I portaled you to India. The rest of your sire squabble is all on you. Now go. And find us when you're ready to leave. Preferably after you've dealt with Camille."

"Right, why would you need a pair of powerful Warlocks when you've got a scrappy nerd from Brooklyn?"

"What are you so afraid of?" Shu asked.

"Where do I start? Elevators. Snakes. Clowns. Raphael trying to burn my junk off."

"You're a vampire, Simon. You're tougher than you think. Honestly, it's time to man up."

She put her hands on his shoulders with a sigh. "Look, you're already getting a handle on your speed, right? If you've ever played videogames, you know how to punch. The only way to learn is to try. All right?"

He took a deep breath and gave a small nod.

"Good. Now, I have some things Camille took from me as well, and I wasn't dating her. Honestly, just because she's older than Mags she thinks she's older than me. I'll show that vamp one day. As for you, good luck."

"Wow, you left a lot of things," Shu muttered.

"More like she just didn't give them back."

"We should've gotten to doing this ages ago. Hey, there's my necklace! That bitch! I thought I'd lost it!"

Magnus looked to a painting of him and Camille. "Oh, why do they always seem to get my bad side?"

He turned away, only to find a dagger with a wavy blade and a bent grip standing on displace in the wall. Magnus picked it up in disbelief, staring at the object in his hands.

"Hey, Magnus, Shu," Simon called as they popped into the room through a portal.

"There you are!" He exclaimed.

"And there it is!" Shu exclaimed, kneeling down to a snake that was slithering through the room. "My baby!"

"Your baby?" Simon asked.

"I created it for Camille ages ago," Magnus explained. "Best gift I ever gave."

"But you totally liked me more, huh?" Shu asked, petting the serpent.

"Great, well then, maybe don't include me on your Christmas list," Simon muttered.

"He didn't scare you, did he?" Magnus asked.

"No, of course not. I encantoed him. No big."

Magnus gave him a slightly proud look.

Magnus out all of his things that he'd collected onto the table at his apartment, being extra careful with the dagger he'd found.

"Listen, Antiques Roadshow, you got all your stuff back but Raphael still wants to kill me and Camille is nowhere to be found."

"We might not have her, but…" Shu grabbed a box that Simon had found in a snake statue. "At least we have this."

Simon took the small box. "This? From inside the serpent statue? This…helps me how?"

"If Camille had that snake guarding it, it must be precious to her," Magnus explained. "Maybe you can use what's inside it to…lure her back. If you can get it open."

Simon looked to the small box in his hands. "How?"

"I wish I knew. Whatever it is, it has wards keeping Warlocks like me out."

Magnus began moving some of the things he'd recovered and putting them around his apartment.

Simon looked to the things where Magnus had all of the stuff they'd taken and grabbed the dagger. "Maybe I can, uh, you know, pry it open."

"No! Not…with this!" Shu snapped, snatching the blade. "It's too important."

"You know what else is important? The parts Raphael wants to burn off me if we don't find Camille."

"We'll figure it out, Simon," She said, placing the weapon in a box.

"We?"

Shu sighed and swirled her finger on the design on the box.

"When I was a boy, discovering my powers, I had no one," Magnus admitted. "I had to figure out the Downworld all on my own. It was awful."

"What about Shu?"

"She wasn't always with me. We met when I was young, but not that young. So, I vowed to myself that if I ever found someone in a…similar situation…I'd try to make sure they didn't have to go at it alone."

"So you're going to be, like, my Downworld sponsor? Cool."

"Let's not get carried away."

"No," Simon agreed quickly.

"I said I'll try. Even though I've lived more centuries than I'd like to admit, it doesn't mean I'm patient."

"Noted."

"Magnus, I swear, if you stay in there one more minute I'm going to come in there and murder you, I don't give a damn about the soul bond!"

He came out with an eye roll, drying his hair with his magic. "If you're that desperate to see me-"

She punched him in the gut and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and pulling all of the cord she could under the door so Magnus was stuck sitting at the door waiting for her.

She removed her clothes, her shirt and jacket sliding through the red shimmering cord as though it wasn't there, and then hopped into the already-warm shower.

Three weeks they'd been stuck with each other, disagreeing on where to go and what to do. They'd been ambushed a countless number of times, and Magnus's current home was compromised, so they had been forced to go on the run.

The fact that Shu was forced to keep a Warlock safe just to stay alive was bad enough, but the fact that they couldn't move farther than ten feet apart was the worst punishment someone had inflicted on her in a long time, and she'd been alive for millennia. Hygiene was a serious issue, considering the two of them were different genders, as well as the fact that Shu was faster and stronger than Magnus, so having limited mobility thanks to him made nothing easy.

Their cord seemed to be able to phase through anything that wasn't them, meaning clothes as well as other people, so it wasn't an inconvenience to other mundanes that they came across. No one unaffiliated with the Shadow World could even see it. Those that were, however, could grab the chain any time they wanted, making it even more of a problem than initially presumed.

When Shu came out of the shower, brushing her hair and sweeping her magic across it so that it was dried, she found Magnus sitting against the wall beside the bathroom door picking at the cord that bound his wrist.

"How much longer are we going to be stuck like this?" He demanded. "We're on the run, great, but do we have some kind of goal, or am I gonna be trapped with you for the rest of my life? As an immortal, that doesn't sound like a fun future."

"There has to be a way to change the length of the cord, possibly shorten or lengthen it. The way the usual soul chain works is we have to fall in love. Aphrodite was never a nice one when she made these things, but they were effective."

"I am not falling in love with you. Besides, you said so yourself that this isn't like the ones you've seen before."

"Well one way or another, the conditions are going to be something impossible for me. Falling in love with someone is easy when you're stuck with them and forced to get along, so my enemies would never think of doing that to me. For all we know, there's no way to fix this."

"There has to be something. Magic is not foolproof, not unconditional."

"It's either fall in love, or at least get to know each other."

"It's not love."

"Then we're in agreement. They paired me with you for a reason, so maybe we're destined to hate each other or something, and only by getting along can we fix this."

"By giving us no choice but to have to cooperate? Like you said, too simple. Maybe they just wanted me dead too. You're not the only one with a bit of notoriety. At the very least, this sounds like some stupid test of my father."

"Father?"

"Asmodeus," He spat.

Shu cursed under her breath. "Son of a bitch…That's why we were put together, most likely."

"What do you mean?"

"Asmodeus…he's supposedly my father too."

"Supposedly?"

"That's what he tells me. I don't have a father, or really, a mother, but since he was apparently the one who 'created' me, I can't say much against his claim except that he is the worst papa in existence."

Magnus walked over and sat on the bed they had in their rented room. The bathroom was something they'd magicked up for the sake of convenience, but the rest of the room was still horridly old-fashioned by their standards, as their magic allowed them to know luxuries no mundanes of the times could possibly imagine. Like showers. Showers were heaven.

"Then I suppose that counts as something we have in common. I'd rather not believe what I've been told, that he's supposed to be my father, but the proof is undeniable. I don't even know why he even bothers to have children. He's taken a good deal of his kids' lives for his own purpose. We're nothing more than pets to him."

Shu sighed and plopped down beside him on the bed. "Seduced your mother?"

"Pretended to be her husband."

"Woke up one day to a Warlock mark?"

"Called a devil child."

"Treated like trash for something incomprehensible to a child so young."

"She killed herself."

"She got killed by me."

"My stepfather blamed me."

"My uncle tried to change me."

"I burned him."

"I burned him."

"I didn't mean to," They said together.

Each suddenly flinched, as if being brought out of a trance. They looked to each other's faces, unable to say anything, but they were quickly distracted by the tingling and glowing beside them.

The chain connecting them had suddenly halved in size, leaving only five feet between them. Now, the red and blue parts of the chains had completely disappeared, the glowing bonds now completely purple.

"What just-?"

"We're doing it. At this rate, we might actually be able to destroy this thing."

"By what? Admitting our pasts?"

"No. By admitting things that we haven't told anyone else. Things that we hold closest to our hearts and souls. It's a soul bond, all right, but not one of love. It's built to bridge the gap between the two of us, make our souls not only connected, but one."

"If we're right about this, why would…why would 'father' try and connect us like that? What could he accomplish?"

"He might just be doing this to create a bond strong enough to use as a ransom against one or the other, most likely me. Might be trying to teach us a lesson. If he kills one of us when this bond is complete, we'll be left with a hole in our hearts so big that we'll be vulnerable to manipulation and given some of the most powerful energy in existence. A force-shattering of a completed soul bond results in some deadly consequences. We need to decide whether we're willing to make that sacrifice, open up to each other in ways that we promised never to again, and then we need to decide whether bonding is going to put us into more or less danger. If the chain remains, we can't be separated by any means, being held hostage or otherwise, and so we can constantly keep each other safe, but we'd be stuck like this forever. If we try and complete this bond, we'll be able to go anywhere we want on the planet, and we'd have a connection like no other can replicate, however we'll be more reliant upon each other than ever before, and once made, the bond can't be broken."

"And Asmodeus wants us to do so, creating a bond powerful enough to do…what, when broken?"

"Probably give infinite power, considering who we are. A bond with mundanes, still strong, but weak compared to others. A bond between Shadowhunters, better than nothing. A bond between two of the same Downworlder species, decent. A bond between Warlocks, a little better than decent. A bond between you and I? Not only are you a child of Asmodeus by blood, but I'm-"

She cut herself off.

"You're what?" Magnus asked.

"Really…really deadly. If both you and I are put into something like that, made to create such a deadly force, we could probably make some infinitely chaotic and powerful magic, and it would all be controllable by-"

"By him. Unlike us."

"Free will makes us dangerous, to us, to him. Those people coming after us have been demons and Shadowhunters alike. The Shadowhunters probably mean they've figured out our danger, or they're trying to take advantage of our inconvenience for their own reasons. After all, you and I aren't very well liked by them."

"And the demons?"

"They're either just being sent to test us, or they're trying to take the power first. Whatever the case, we're not gonna be safe, ever."

Just as she said that, the entire place around them shook and the sound of roaring could be heard close by.

"Discuss this later."

"Agreed. Let's go."

And for the first time since they'd met, the two of them worked in perfect sync, the bond between them already growing, and the power between them becoming ever more deadly.

Magnus and Shu concentrated and sent their energy into healing Alec.

"Jace, I…" He muttered.

"It's not working," Izzy declared.

The two of them grunted and their magic snapped away. "I'm sorry, Isabelle," Magnus said.

They each took a deep breath and sent their magic out once more. "Parabatai bonds are like a tether that binds two souls," Shu recapped. "Jace and Alec share emotions, instincts, strength. It's an angelic bond. Warlock magic can only do so much."

"So Jace is like this too?" She asked.

Magnus sighed and let his magic die again. "Not necessarily. It appears that when Alec called out to him, part of his soul never returned. Now he's stuck. Lost somewhere between himself and his parabatai."

"But if Jace brought back that missing piece of his soul…"

"We may, very well, have the cure," Shu agreed. "Whatever we do, we need to do it quickly."

"Stay with Alec. I'll go find Jace."

She stood and walked off, while the two of them resumed their work.

"Can't you do anything about this?" Magnus asked.

"It doesn't matter what I am or what I do," Shu protested. "This isn't just the bond that's getting in the way, it's a piece of Alec's very soul that's missing. I'm just as worried about him as you, but right now, we need to keep this part of Alec alive while we get Jace back."

"Can't we attract the two parts together? Like a magnet? This is his soul, it has to be accessible."

"We can't try anything without risking Alec losing the rest of his soul, and if his entire soul gets trapped between the parabatai bond, he might as well be stuck in limbo."

Magnus stood and stomped in frustration. "Dammit!"

"I know, Magnus, but right now, we need to keep our heads on straight, all right? This is not easy, it never will be, to see the people you love close to death, but panicking and letting your emotions get out of hand will only make it worse. Understand?"

He sighed and took a few deep breaths. "I know, I know."

"Good. We'll feed more energy into him and sustain him until Jace gets back. We can't have the rest of his soul slipping away while that one part of him is gone. With that piece missing, it's like punching a hole in a bucket of water. We have to make sure the rest of him doesn't flow away."

"Isabelle! Clary's back!" Joselyn called from the hall.

Magnus stomped up to the door and opened it while Shu handled Alec.

"Oh, great, Clary's safe," He said with a grain of salt. "We can all go home now."

He moved to close the door, but Joselyn stepped in. "Whoa, wait. Magnus! How's Alec? Is he gonna be okay?"

"Do you remember the first thing I said to you when you brought a frightened six-year-old to my door?"

"You didn't want to get involved in Shadowhunter business," She sighed.

"And I should've stuck to my guns. I should've listened to Shu. But no. I let you convince me. How many years of memory wipes was it?"

Joselyn hesitated. "Twelve. Look, I owe you. Let me help with Alec."

He held his hand out. "I think you've done enough."

"I was only trying to find-"

"You were only trying to do what you always do. Manipulate people into helping fix problems that you created. And now Alec is paying the price for it."

"That's not true."

"Then prove me wrong."

With that, Magnus turned and waved his hand, the door slamming shut behind him.