Hey, it's the longest one yet! But you'll have to wait a little bit longer for the next update. One, I have tons of crap to do, and two; I'm still debating between two different plot twists. O.o It shouldn't be more than a few days though.
I'm proud of you guys, a lot of you figured out he'd be going to the faerie queen. As for why…you'll have to wait and see.
I love everyone who has reviewed, you're the best.
Disclaimer: I own nothing from the Mortal Instruments.
Turtle Pond shone like a mirror, perfectly reflecting the night sky, unmarred by ripples or weeds. The moon hung huge and swollen against the black velvet backdrop, it's twin hovering among the watery stars. Far away, birds twittered and crickets cried, their tinny laments echoing through the park. It was strangely peaceful, despite the distant sounds of the city. The shouts of drunken revelers, the scream of angry cabbies, the hiss and rush of cars. Beneath Magnus' feet, the ground thrummed gently with the subway's movements.
Magnus paused at the pond's edge, letting the water's icy fingers claw at his shoes and the hems of his pants. "Well this is it," he said to no one, his voice sounding disturbingly hollow in the following quiet. "Down the rabbit hole I go." He stepped forward and shivered.
As a rule, Magnus did not like water. It sapped his strength, his power, made him feel like he was dying. His magic was a thing of fire and electricity. The water fought against it with tooth and nail. In his already weak state, it nearly made him black out. Dark spots danced before his eyes, blotting out stars both original and reflected. Only by sheer exertion of will and a quick conjuring of Alec's face did he keep himself awake.
Another step. Water rushing up to fill the space between his clothes and his skin, numbing his legs and making him stumble. Ripples ran from him like a werewolf from silver. His coat billowed out around his knees, dragged him down.
Another step. The moon's twin wasn't far now, just a few feet away. But it seemed like miles. The silvery orb shimmered with the waves caused by his clumsy feet.
Another step. A crow screeched and swooped low over his head, ruffling his hair and marking out two scratches across his pale gold forehead. Cursing, he summoned the dregs of his magic and healed himself with a hesitant explosion of blue sparks, leaving just a faint scar behind. Magnus swore. He didn't usually leave anything behind.
Another step…and he was falling. Water flew by on every side of him in a torrent of half-frozen darkness. Bubbles rushed from his lips, spiraling desperately towards the faint white light glimmering overhead.
It's not supposed to take this long, he thought as his lungs burned for air. I'm going to die. Nine hundred years dodging death and I die drowning in a pond. How pathetic.
I'm sorry Alec. I tried. I really did. I love you. I'm sorry.
A painfully beautiful face swam in front of him, milk white skin and huge completely black eyes that somehow glowed. The faerie's hair fluttered out in a pale blond nimbus, and wrapped around him like weeds, slimy and smooth against his arms.
A hand wrapped around Magnus' arm, and he screamed. Water rushed into fill his mouth, making him choke. The faerie's touch was so cold that it burned, leaving long red welts against his skin. Blue sparks sputtered out to repair the damage, making the pair of them glow an eerie color. For just a second his magic warmed him, and then all of a sudden it was gone, snuffed out as easily as a candle flame. He felt empty, as if someone had chopped off his arm. It would be ages until he could stop so much as a bloody nose.
The faerie pulled, and he sank deeper. For a second unconsciousness claimed him, and then he struck hard packed earth. All the air was squeezed from his aching lungs; his eyes popped open, taking in the circle of faeries that surrounded him, arrows pointing down his nose.
For a long moment, no one spoke. The faeries glared down at him with almost identical masks of fury and distant disdain. Every single one of them was unbelievably gorgeous, but every feature held a hint of otherworldly wrongness. One faery had long gold-red hair and a narrow face. Curling from beneath her knee-length dress, was a trio of fox tails. Another wore the body of a young girl clothed all in green, but her ears rose to sharp points and delicate green wings spread from between her shoulder blades, as thin as gauze. Each had a faint shimmering light dancing around their hands and the wood of their bows.
Glamour then. But the arrows would still pierce his skull as easily as any other.
Finally, Magnus opened his mouth, water dribbling down his chin, and brushed back his clinging dark hair. "That is the last time I go down a rabbit hole. They are thoroughly unpleasant experiences."
"Do not deign to speak, warlock." A tall woman shoved her way through the circle, standing over him with hands on her hips. Her long white gown hugged her slim frame, her blond hair hanging past her waist and streaming with water. Tapping her foot, she frowned. Her face was cruelly lovely, her eyes completely black. "You have trespassed on our lands and therefore shall be executed."
"I wish to request an audience with your Queen. I have done favors for her in the past, she will see me." He cast his gaze over the fairies, grinning inanely. "Is this how you treat a fellow Downworlder then?"
"You have no right to request an audience with the Queen. The likes of you have no rights in this realm. And besides, she would not see you." She waved a disapproving hand in his direction. Her fingers were webbed.
Magnus' fingers dug into the earth, the tendons in his arms straining against his skin. "Bring me to her then," he challenged, leering towards her. The point of an arrow pressed against his cheek, a rivulet of blood—diluted by water—trailed down his face. "Prove your claim. If she does not wish to see me, she will turn me away, and you can do with me what you will."
The blond faerie frowned, her thin eyebrows pulling together to carve a line down her forehead. Finally, she snarled and the muscles in her bare arms bulged. "Let the warlock stand," she hissed, stepping back. The circle widened, giving Magnus enough space to stumble to his feet. Water flowed off his clothes and gathered in a little puddle around his feet.
Blondie pressed her lips together and motioned to the fox faerie, who let go of her bow, allowing the glamour to flicker away into nothingness. "Bind his hands." The fox faerie moved behind Magnus, her fingers pressing against the wet skin at his wrists. For a moment, he burned, and then the pain faded, incandescent yellow loops tying his hands together. "I want no tricks when we bring him through the revels." Blondie scowled at Magnus, her dark eyes shining with malice. "I know too well the havoc warlocks can wreak."
Magnus gave a little quirk of his lips. "A wise decision overall, but as you can see by the state of my arm,"—he gestured with a shake of his head—"I have no magic at my disposal, I am drained. I am no threat."
Blondie's booming laugh echoed through the cavern. The luminescent moss lining the walls glowed brighter as if in reaction to her hysteria. "Do you honestly think I lived this long by believing the words spoken by silver tongues?" She pointed at the other faeries. "Leave us, I can handle him." The faeries vanished as if they had never been, leaving only the faint twinkle of ghostly lights.
Beckoning with a quick curl of two fingers, blondie turned and swept off, her gown trailing on the floor behind her. Magnus followed, feeling too much like a dog on a leash.
The silence stretched for a long minute. "They weren't going to let me in," Magnus said finally, as the corridor bubbled out into a huge cavern, circled with carved white pillars and draped with pale fabrics. Faeries of all shapes and sizes, some beautiful, some grotesque—but all terrible—danced, lithe bodies swaying hypnotically and hopping up and down.
Oh dear god, Magnus thought. It's a supernatural Mosh pit. The music came from nowhere, sweet and temperamental, the mood morphing at the drop of a hat. The sound was mesmerizing, and even immune to glamour as Magnus was, he felt the urge to join the throng and dance away eternity.
No, his reasonable side chided, got to think of Alec.
His hippie side—the sixties had been a very good time for him, plenty of bright colors and bell-bottom pants—laughed. What Alec, it said, urging towards the faeries. Go and dance. Mellow out.
Alec Lightwood, the stupid, sweet, foolhardy Shadowhunter that I love to death. The one with the blue eyes. Hippie Magnus faded at that, but it was still a minute before modern Magnus regained control.
Magnus shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Taking to himself, even internally, was never a good sign. "They were going to let me drown."
Blondie looked over her shoulder, clearly amused by the indecision on his face. "Do you ask confirmation for you insinuations?" she asked, venom in her words. "I assure you, they are completely accurate."
"So why did you save me?" Magnus pressed, ignoring a small boy covered in reddish fur and sporting a bushy tail as he moved closer to him, beckoning with his hands. The boy's eyes glowed, his face full of innocence.
Magnus swallowed and looked away. He was in control. The sixties were over, just a box of dusty clothes in the corner of his never-ending closet.
"Pardon?" Blonde snorted. "I do not save warlocks."
"I don't forget a face," he said, all too glad when they moved from the cavern to another corridor. This one was walled with slick brown material, soft as driftwood but hard as steel. "I saw you, in the water. You dragged me out. Why?"
Blondie sighed, and the little he could see of her expression looked sad and longing. "When you entered the water," she said, her eyes far away. "Your presence became known. When you crossed the moon's reflection, your thoughts rang throughout the realm of Faerie. Most were not listening, but I am attuned to the roll and sway of the water, it is a part of me, I am of it." She paused, one hand lingering on the smooth wall. "I loved once too. And, like you, I gave everything I had to give. But it wasn't enough. I know the pain firsthand. It is something no one should have to bear."
And then they were walking faster than ever, Magnus struggling to keep up, the bindings biting into his hands. "What is your name?" he asked, breathless.
She didn't even look at him. "Names are powerful things in Faerie. They are not given lightly, if at all."
He rolled his eyes, careful not to let her see him do it. "Something I can call you then."
Nearly giving him a heart attack, a pair of faerie knights appeared before them, long pale fingers resting on the hilts of their gleaming silver swords. They were beautiful, one with hair the color of new leaves, and one with hair that actually was new leaves. Faces as sharp as knives and white as the full moon stared at him with badly masked contempt. Their armor was purple-black, the color of a bruise, and shining like the carapace of a beetle.
"Who attempts to gain access to the Queen's chambers?" the leafy-haired one asked. His voice was sweet and needle-tipped, maple syrup poured over broken glass.
"Magnus Bane," Magnus said, noticing that blondie lowered her gaze in the presence of the knights, her hair falling around her face in a gold waterfall. "High Warlock of Brooklyn."
The other knight disappeared, moving so fast that Magnus barely saw him move. In the blink of an eye, he was back. "Follow me," he said. The knights spun, turning every step into a graceful dance. Blondie and Magnus followed them to a wall made completely of intertwined vines, glittering with amber dewdrops.
Shoulders hunched, blondie swept aside the curtain, her voice quiet and fleeting as a breath as Magnus moved past her.
"Nerissa. I am Nerissa."
He tried to give her a smile, but the vines had already been swept back into place.
"Hello Bane," said the Queen of the Seelie court, lying resplendent on a low couch, surrounded by her faerie courtiers. They looked plain in the shadow of her brilliance.
Magnus ducked his head in a motion of respect.
The Queen rose, her long hair draped around her like a scarlet cloak. She smiled, and when she did she was do devastatingly lovely that Magnus had to fight the urge to look away. "If anyone else had broken into my Court uninvited, they would have been dead before their feet touched the ground. However, I am willing to extend my forgiveness, call it repayment for the services you have done our people in the past."
"Very kind of you, my lady," he murmured.
"Now tell me," she said. Her voice was soft and sugary, but radiating power. "What possessed you to risk my wrath? It is not a pretty thing to see, as you know well."
His lips twitched. "I most certainly do. I come to ask for your aid."
As slow as the flow of molasses, as dangerous as the gleam of a knife, her smile broadened, showing of perfect white teeth. "Then ask for it."
And Magnus, High Warlock of Brooklyn, who bowed to no one, to whom the word please was like poison, sank to his knees. His voice was beseeching and wretched when he spoke.
"Help me."
See that big green button? Push it, I dare you. Seriously, the more you review, the faster I'll update. Tell me what to change, help me improve, tell me what you did and didn't like. And I'd like to remind everyone that murder is a crime.
*Pulls out rubber chicken and high fives Murtaghluver*