Alec wasn't entirely concerned about the fact that he had lost Jace, Isabelle, Simon, and Clary on their mission. He figured that Jace and Isabelle could handle enough of whatever might come their way to keep Clary and Simon safe, and he knew that he could take care of himself. Alec was much more concerned about Magnus at the moment. He hadn't wanted to leave Magnus; over the past couple of days, Magnus had seemed more depressed than Alec had ever seen him. Alec had insisted on staying with him instead of going on the mission, but Magnus had protested so much that Alec had feared an argument would occur if he'd pushed any harder.

For the past two days, Alec had done everything possible to take care of Magnus without actually showing that he was taking care of him. It was a fine line that Alec thought he was walking pretty well, but the more Magnus stayed quiet and reserved, the more worried he made Alec. Everything that was going on was completely foreign to Alec, and the only thing that Alec could hope for was to at least show Magnus that he was there for him.

Before Alec could think any more about what he might be able to do to help Magnus, he stopped short at a noise that came from directly behind him. Had he not been a Shadowhunter, he most likely would never have noticed that anything at all was wrong. He slowly turned around to see his worst nightmare coming true.

Camille was standing behind him, her icy smile as present as ever. The part that terrified Alec wasn't Camille, it was the fact that Asmodeus was standing beside of her. Alec could immediately feel his heartrate increase, but he couldn't find any words at all. "Go ahead, Camille," Asmodeus said, his voice so full of eagerness that it made Alec nauseous. "Watching you take him out will be much more amusing."

Alec immediately began fighting for his life, working on autopilot and attempting to not think about what they could have possibly done to Magnus. The only problem was that Camille was far too old and powerful for him to beat on his own, and he slowly felt himself losing ground. When Camille took his bow and snapped it, however, he suddenly found a new surge of strength that came with the anger. But even that wasn't enough to keep her from winning out.

When Alec woke up, he was startled to see a pair of brown eyes looking down on him. He felt a hand on his forehead, and he immediately became concerned when he thought that the black hair he saw might have been Camille's. Before he could do anything, however, the person hovering over him spoke. "Please stay still, I'm trying to help you," a small voice said. "I know you're Alec," she said after a short pause.

That's when Alec actually realized who he was talking to, and the shock was almost enough to silence him. Almost. "You're Lena, aren't you?" he asked, hearing the physical pain in his voice. He moved to sit up, and this time, Lena didn't protest. Looking around, Alec could see that they were in a room without any windows, a room with only one door, and Alec wasn't naïve enough to think that the door was unlocked.

Lena simply nodded, looking up at Alec with huge eyes, and he could easily see just how scared she was. "Asmodeus brought me back," she said, her voice full of much more contempt than Alec could have thought possible. "He says he wants something from my Papa and we are going to help him get it." It was then that Alec noticed that Lena was shaking with fear, so he tried his hardest to pretend as though everything was going to be fine.

"He hasn't done anything to you, has he, Lena? Other than bringing you here, I mean." Alec almost verbally sighed in relief when Lena shook her head to tell him no, but he refrained from doing so. He wanted to pick her up and hug her, but he refrained from doing that as well. Considering the fact that Alec was scared out of his mind, he knew Lena had to be absolutely terrified.

"He and Camille just brought you in here and told me that they had a plan," she said, her voice only growing tighter with every word she spoke. "I'm just really scared, Alec. I want to go back to my Papa." At that, Alec couldn't seem to take it any longer, so he gave in to everything he was wanting to do.

Alec motioned for Lena to come over to him. "It's alright to be scared, Lena, but I'm going to take care of you. Come here and sit with me, and we'll just talk until we figure out what we should do." To his surprise, Lena immediately came to sit in his lap, obviously so scared that the only thing she wanted at the moment was for anyone she even remotely trusted to comfort her.

For several moments, Lena remained silent, looking around the room as though she expected anything to happen to them at any time. Before Alec could come up with anything to say, Lena looked back up at him. "Will you tell me about your family, Alec?" she asked. Alec must have looked as confused as he felt because she continued. "Asmodeus brought me back a few days ago and I used my magic to listen to his conversations, so I know a lot about you. But not enough."

When she had finished, Alec realized that she was curious about everything that was going on, but he also could see that she wanted a distraction. Instead of protesting, he simply talked to her about his siblings, about Simon and Clary as well, and he quickly found her smiling and asking him questions. After talking about his family for a few minutes, Alec finally got the courage to ask her a question of his own. "Since you know about my family, tell me about what you and your Papa used to do."

The way that Lena's smile lit up everything inside of Alec almost terrified him. "Papa used to try to play dress up with me," she said, her smile widening at the memories that were obviously going through her mind. "But he wasn't very good at being a princess."

Alec chuckled at the thought, surprising himself seeing as the situation called for everything other than laughter. "Well, you know how I told you about my sister, Isabelle, and our friend, Clary? I know for a fact that when we get back they will love to play with you, and they make wonderful princesses." Lena looked up at him with a sparkle in her eye that reminded Alec far too much of Magnus.

"Do you really think we're going to get back to them, Alec?" she asked. It sounded like she was trying to keep from showing how scared she was, so Alec didn't take the time to acknowledge it. He simply tried to make sure he sounded convincing when he responded to her.

"Of course we are, Lena. I am going to make sure of it. I'm going to get you back to your Papa. He needs his princess back," Alec said, trying to keep from thinking of the alternative. He knew that there could never be any alternative. As soon as he thought that there was a possibility of them not getting back to Magnus, that made it that much easier for Asmodeus to do what he wanted with them.

Before Lena could say anything else, the door burst open, and Alec tightened his arms around her when she jumped. "Before we can get to that," Asmodeus immediately began. "I think we may need to give Papa some incentive." Alec didn't like the way he could hear Asmodeus's smile in his voice. He quickly sat Lena on the ground and got to his feet, not entirely sure of what he was actually going to do. "I've got something pretty special in store for our little princess," Asmodeus finished.

At that, Alec knew exactly what he was doing. "No. You don't," he said, his voice much harder than he thought it would have been. "You do whatever you want to me, but do not touch her." The last thing Alec heard was Asmodeus's laugh before he was consumed by a pain that pushed him toward the floor.

"You found what?" Magnus could tell that his voice was a few octaves higher than normal, but he didn't particularly care. "You're telling me that you found Alec's bow broken in half and instead of immediately calling me, you decided that you would continue to just idly look for him?"

For several moments, Jace simply looked back at Magnus as though he was insane. "He's untrackable right now, Magnus. That was the first thing we tried, and that was exactly what you would have done. He's my parabatai, of course I want to find him, of course I tried everything I could to find him before coming here."

Magnus sat down on the couch, trying to keep from satisfying himself by strangling Jace. "We'll find him, Magnus," Isabelle said, her voice much softer than Jace's had been. "I'm sure he's fine." Magnus would have listened to what Isabelle was saying if Jace hadn't fallen to the ground as soon as she had said it.

It was easy to see that the pain Jace was feeling wasn't his own, that it was coming from his parabatai bond. "It's Alec," Jace said, even though it was terribly unnecessary for him to do so. "Find him," was the last thing Jace said before he passed out from the pain.

Let me know your thoughts! I'm having a lot of fun writing this, and it's probably going to end up being a rather long story line!