It had been easy enough to adopt his usual, careless façade as he lounged next to Clary for the remainder of the train's long journey, but while Jace's right hand was clasped in Clary's, his left rested casually over the dagger sheathed at his side, and he kept one eye on the rattling compartment door. It wasn't that he suspected anything of the teenage wizard, but… Magnus's words had unnerved him. His Glamour had always been impenetrable. The last time someone had seen through it… he sighed and drifted his fingers over Clary's knuckles.
"You alright?" She murmured, quietly enough so that the others couldn't hear her. Alec and Magnus sat on the seats across from them in the four-person compartment, Magnus perusing a book that looked to be a thousand years old, while Alec dozed, his head on the Warlock's shoulder. Isabelle had volunteered to sit with the others, and Jace had no doubt she was accosting them with a barrage of inappropriate questions paired with a viper's smile.
"I'm alright," he replied, and forced himself to believe it, too. He tried to brush away the wizard-boy's piercing green stare.
"What do you think it's going to be like, this Hogwarts?"
"If the name is anything to go by, I'm not looking forward eagerly to our accommodation."
She laughed and leaned into him, and his heart began to beat a little faster in his chest.
"Magnus said it was a castle."
"It is indeed," the Warlock said, glancing up at the sound of his name. "A rather spectacular castle, I must say."
Clary's eyes widened. "You've been there before?"
"Of course I have. They've got an entire wing dedicated to me – The Magnus Bane Atriu-"
"Oh, shut up, they do not," Alec grumbled from beside his boyfriend, his eyes still shut.
"Well, they should! I suggested it during my last visit, but some of the professors never took to the idea. Perhaps I'll make another pitch."
Jace grinned. He was glad to have the Warlock on the trip, though he would never admit it. Glad for Alec, too. It had been hard for him these past months, sneaking around behind his mother and father's backs. It would be good for the two of them to have some freedom for a while.
"How long till we get there, Magnus?" Jace asked, and glanced out of the window. All the countryside looked the same to him – green tumbling out for miles around them, dotted with trees and cut through with streams. So different from New York. It would be a while before he saw another sky-scraper, he imagined.
Magnus cast his gaze to the window, too. "A few hours yet. It will be dark by the time we get there."
"And when we do get there? What will happen?" Clary asked. She was worried, but she was trying to hide it. She had never been very good at hiding how she felt, especially around him. He would bring it up with her later, do his best to calm her nerves. To calm his own.
Magnus gave a leisurely shrug. "You know as well as I do. Like I said, I've been there before, but never with a troupe of Shadowhunters. Never at a time of such crisis."
They lapsed into silence, Magnus's words hanging over them all. Isabelle returned an hour or so later and squeezed into the seat beside Alec to give them her official impressions of their three companions in the other compartment. Apparently Danny was insufferable, Gabrielle was boring and her brother, Owen, was significantly less hilarious than he thought he was.
They listened to her and laughed until even Isabelle fell silent, and then they watched through the window as the night bore down upon them. Jace said nothing about the boy with the green eyes, but his fears chased him through the Scottish countryside. They would be fools to think they were safe in this castle. Fools to think that the demons were the only foes they would meet.
Hours passed, and then Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry came into view.