Magnus sighed softly as he placed Ginny's small body beside her brother's and watched for a few moments as they slept peacefully. He wished he could feel the same sense of naïve comfort, but a dark feeling had been rising inside him since Alec had left and it had only grown fiercer as time had passed in the apartment without any word from his lover.
A soft chiming, designed to be quiet enough for the infants to sleep through, interrupted Magnus' undoubtedly dark thoughts, and he stood up and walked to a seemingly solid wall. It had been an ingenious creation, he was not afraid to admit, and it had taken no small amount of work to pull it off. The easy part had been getting an empty apartment next to his own – the extremely passionate couple that had been his neighbors for a year had finally moved out to terrify another building. The next step – forging paperwork for a young English couple named Theresa and James Carstairs, and procuring furniture for the rooms – had been slightly more difficult.
The first difficult part had been in creating the connection between the apartments, which was what Magnus was currently standing in front of, a doorway hidden within the wall, barely noticeable but for a small seem along the edges. It had been simple in the magic, a simple outline of a door followed by several well placed opening runes by Alec and Jem, but the length of time it took to cut through the framework and then to make it so it was undetectable had been arduous.
But the result had been worth it, Magnus thought as he ran a deft finger across the thin crack. An escape route, undetectable by those without the knowledge, only a moment's notice away. He wished deeply that it wasn't needed but he knew clearly, probably more than even Alec did, that they were on borrowed time. One soft cry at the wrong moment, a single toy left in sight of the wrong person, and it was over. And he knew how easily it was to slip up.
But now was not the time to dwell on these dark thoughts. Someone wanted through the doorway and he was the only one able to allow them through. So, he slid his finger across the crack completely before placing his palm fully on the center, the hidden rune glowing briefly before the section of wall disappeared completely and he caught a look of the other side. Tessa was standing there, her mousy hair pulled back loosely and an excited smile adorning her face. She clutched several papers in her pale hand and her body was tensed with unexpressed energy.
"Jem's not home." She started without preamble, barely waiting for Magnus to move aside before she was striding into his apartment, the hidden passageway sliding back into a solid wall behind her. "And I got something." She continued, turning and waving the papers excitedly in Magnus' face. Instantly, Magnus felt his mood lighten as all the worry for Alec was replaced by sheer excitement.
He had yet to tell Alec what he and Tessa were doing and part of Magnus felt guilt for not informing Alec of what was happening, but a larger part of him knew what would happen if he did. Alec would feel hopeful at first, even as weeks, maybe months passed, with no new information, but as the months turned to years Alec would grow despondent, depressed, and the Angel only knew what that would do to their relationship. It was best to keep quiet, to Alec and to Jem, as Tessa had decided, until they had enough to go on to actually do something.
It had been three months of dead ends before this. Magnus had known it would take time but as the twins had grown, so had his impatience. Magnus's hands shook slightly as he took the letter from Tessa. This could be the information that could give Magnus all he wanted. Or, it could be another dead end to add the growing pile of them. There was really only one way to find out.
He looked at the letter, pausing for a moment to try and identify the indiscernible letters before smiling ruefully. "I do not speak Welsh, Tessa. You will have to read what it says to me," he passed the letter back to Tessa, tactfully ignoring her reddened cheeks. He knew that Tessa had to learn to speak the language when her children were still very young but he himself had no need to learn anything beyond the basics.
"I'm sorry," she said ruefully, adjusting the papers in her hands fitfully. Magnus could see her impatience overcrowding her embarrassment from the slip and waved off her apology.
"No harm Tessa. Just give me the basics so that I can share in whatever is making you so obviously flustered. I haven't seen you this excited since your first child," Tessa beamed at him in response. Obviously not even the mention of her long-dead child could bring down the mood she was in.
"I tried a few of my contacts. I don't have as many as you do, but I have acquired some throughout the years. For the most part, they came back with the same information yours did. Either they gave me legends and myths, or they called me insane and said if I wanted to kill myself there were simpler methods." Magnus bit back the snort that threatened to escape as he thought of what the contact on the other end must have been thinking, to reply back so crudely.
"But then I thought we might have been going about it the wrong way. Warlocks are secretive, they aren't going to be straight up about such difficult and, to what many think, perverse magic. So I contacted Molly, and asked her if she had knowledge about any oddities like you and Alec, besides the first case."
Magnus arched an eyebrow. "But we are the only ones. Molly said so herself."
Tessa shook her head, smiling slightly, "Molly hasn't lived centuries for being terribly open. She's as sneaky as the rest of us. You and Alec are one of two male pairings. She said nothing of females. And as it turns out," Tessa gestured towards the paper again. "She has met a Warlock woman, like me, who has given birth to a Shadowhunter child."
"A Warlock woman like you? But that's not possible you are the only warlock from a Nephilim parent. We'd know if there were others."
Tessa shook her head, a bit of disgust crossing her face. "In England, we thought I was. But I began to think that my mother's couldn't have been the Shadowhunter family to anger the fey. Or that there were other children deemed too weak or frail to take the traditional role in the Nephilim world. Either way, this woman from the Philippines is just like me. Except your age." Magnus smiled ruefully. He knew Tessa had always hated feeling alone, trapped between two worlds. Still, he had no idea how this women had anything to do with their current predicament.
"Do you remember how surprised everyone was when I was pregnant? We'd all thought it was impossible." Magnus nodded, wondering vaguely where Tessa was going. "Well, according to Molly, I shouldn't have been able to. At the time, we attributed it to the fact, that like my Nephilim mother, I was unmarked by the Devil. But that isn't true. Even without the devil's mark, I was still able to do things like other Warlocks whilst my mother lived without any Shadowhunter ability, apart from seeing unexplainable things around her. You can make any Nephillim into a Shadowhunter with proper training, but you can't make someone a Warlock." Tessa paused there and took a steadying breath before continuing.
"Any child should have perished inside of me as they would any other Warlock woman. But they didn't. Just like with Alec's body, magic took a hold of something that wasn't there and created it to enable live children. I had Molly do some tests for me. Right now, if I were to sleep with a man there would be no way for me to get pregnant. It's physically impossible. And yet, my body allowed the change when I had my children with Will. The same thing happened to this woman and a similar thing to Alec. It doesn't matter the gender, somehow the magic unconsciously makes the change in either the warlock, in mine and this woman's cases, or the lover in your case."
"She lived centuries without having the ability, and then suddenly got pregnant?" Magnus asked, undoubtedly curious. This had nothing to do with their quest for mortality, but he had always desired the answers to how Alec got pregnant. Perhaps information from this woman could help discover what happened.
"Yes. But that's not the reason – the whole one at least – I wanted to show you this. The warlock involved, she was mentioned before, in our first lead. Maria Santos." Magnus stared for a moment, hard. He remembered their first lead, a story a Chinese warlock had heard of a young woman with that name giving up her immortality a few years back. But there had been no record of such a Warlock, although plenty of Mundanes bore the name. It had been their first great disappointment.
"The records of Warlocks dating to your birth year are a lot shadier, because the Clave did not keep track then, if they discovered them, they would simply kill them and move on. And if she had been born to an unmarked Nephilim woman, she might not have even known of her abilities until many years later. I didn't."
"So this woman existed. And not only that, she's still alive?" Magnus asked, the excitement ebbing into his voice. They were suddenly close again.
"As of seventeen years ago, yes. That was when Molly helped her give birth to her own son. Molly can't confirm if the mortality story is true but she did vouch in the letter that she was determined to do anything for her child, just like you and Alec." Magnus felt his own smile creep onto his face, to match Tessa's own. He found, in light of the discovery, that he wasn't even angry at Molly for not divulging the information to him earlier. He had known that Molly kept her cards close.
"Don't suppose she gave a mailing address?" Tessa shook her head. It would never be that easy. "No matter, the name is a step. So is the knowledge of the child. Although how these miracle children keep being born is beyond me –" Magnus was cut off by a flash of fire. Tessa gave a little shriek and jumped back slightly but Magnus made no noise, hand outstretched to reach the small note he knew would have accompanied it. He still did not know what had possessed him to share with Alec the rune that would give him the ability to send messages in such a manor, but he did not deny their usefulness as he read the hastily scribbled note.
His fingers clenched the note, his heart pounded wildly. "You need to take the twins." He told Tessa, barely turning towards her. He could read the confusion on her face, "There was a raid. A Shadow hunter raid on a demon-infested farmhouse," he spoke quickly, running his fingers across the various infant paraphernalia, making things around him disappear with the simple touch of his fingertips, heart thundering as his ears trained for the noises he knew would arrive shortly, "something went wrong. A girl's been poisoned. They are bringing her here to see if I can do anything to save her." Images rose unbridled in his mind – black poison lacing through the pale face of a small girl, red glistening against the white of her mouth.
It was sickening and Magnus continued to banish any evidence of the twins with a panicked motion. He couldn't believe that a moment ago he had felt excitement when all he could feel now was fear. Fear for the life of the girl they were bringing to his door and for his own children. The Angel only knew what would happen if they were discovered.
Tessa needed no further information and within moments she had gathered the two infants, still sleeping, and had left the apartment for her own, leaving Magnus to his own work. He barely had time to vanish the large cradle before the buzzing of the intercom started and the pleads for his help began. With a thundering heart, Magnus moved to allow the very people he least wanted into his home.
In his haste, he didn't feel his foot collide into the small stuffed lion he had been twirling in front of Ginny just hours ago. Or notice as the small thing landed underneath the couch, barely noticeable in the expanse of the suddenly bare living room.
Sorry for the late update! Everything's been very busy, and its still pretty hectic. I will try to update again soon, thank you for reading, I hoped you liked it, and once again, a big thanks to my beta A Really Gay Spider for being awesome. I'll try to update again soon.