Zürich

Alexander Lightwood stepped through the portal and emerged on the rooftop of the Barcelona Institute. Inquisitor Dearborn along with five Shadowhunters in full combat gear and Calder Berg –the warlock who had opened the portal –followed a few steps behind. Dearborn ordered two of the Shadowhunters to escort Berg to the cells bellow the building, where the warlock had been kept under guard since he showed up at the Institute door two days after the attacks offering his help in exchange for protection.

Alec rushed towards the edge of the rooftop and began to pace back and forth, his heart beating at such a speed that he felt that, at any moment, it would jump out of his chest. His breathing was shallow, his chest tight, and a sheen of sweat covered his forehead. He felt as if he had run a marathon, and adrenaline was still coursing through his body, making it impossible for him to stand still.

He stopped for a moment and looked down at the bow still in his left hand, his fingers wrapped so tightly around its grip that his knuckles looked as white as bone under the lights that illuminated the rooftop. He resisted the impulse to grab the bow with both hands, break it in two, and throw the pieces over the edge and onto the cobblestones of the street below.

A jumble of thoughts run through Alec's mind at a vertiginous speed.

"You killed him!"

"No, no, I couldn't have."

"What happened?"

"It was my duty; I am a Shadowhunter."

He replayed in his mind the scene from a few minutes ago: the bow in his hand; the tension between his shoulder blades as he pulled the string with all his strength and lifted the bow; his eyes focused on a spot in the center of a chest, a white shirt reflecting the street lights making it an easy target. Then, the feel of the string and arrow between his fingers just before he released it with the certainty that he would not miss. But the certainty lasted only an instant; for as soon as he freed the arrow, an all too familiar figure stepped in front of the target when it was already too late to recall it, when the arrow was already in motion, its fate and the fate of its unexpected target irremediably linked. "What did I do?" Alec thought as he continued pacing, unable to contain his agitation.

"What happened?" he asked pushing the question and the memory from his mind and turning towards Dearborn. "How did they escape? I thought you said the plan was airtight. We knew their target, we arrived with enough time to set the ambush. What happened?" Alec' voice was almost a scream, a reflection of the confusing mixture of fury and despair that clouded his thoughts.

"Calm down Mr. Lightwood," replied Dearborn, his hands extended in front of his body in a conciliatory gesture. "We couldn't have predicted everything."

"Now more people are dead and the longer these attacks continue the harder it will be to keep deceiving the mundanes. Sooner or later, they are bound to figure out that these are not simple accidents or common crimes. We must deal with this threat once and for all so I can go back to my real job."

"And we will; I am sure of it. In the meantime, I think you did very well; very well indeed. You stopped tonight's attack and with no real loss of life," Dearborn said, rubbing his hands together, the gesture and the nasal tone on the Inquisitor's voice annoying Alec even more. "You have come a long way. I am very pleased with the results; very pleased indeed."

Alec took a deep breath, and resisted the impulse to grab Inquisitor Dearborn by the lapels of his Shadowhunter jacket and shake him until his mouse-like eyes began to rattle like ping pong balls inside his skull, and that condescending smile disappeared forever from his lips.

'Lives were lost, you moron,' thought Alec. Three, very possibly four, warlocks were dead, but those lives didn't count because they were warlocks, less than human, demon spawn that, according to The Clave, didn't deserve to live.

Dearborn smiled again and, after patting Alec on the shoulder, turned and headed into the building, followed by the remaining of the Shadowhunters who were part of the team selected for tonight's mission.

Alec began to pace again, hoping to burn off the remaining of the adrenaline still running through his veins, and to gather his thoughts. After a few steps, he looked up at the dark moonless sky and then down at the city lights, and tried to recall once again the events of the last few minutes. Did he really hit Magnus? He asked himself. Maybe the direction of the arrow somehow curbed at the last moment; perhaps it didn't have enough momentum to hit its target; perhaps he missed after all. But what if he didn't miss? What if the arrow hit the target?

A confusing entanglement of images and memories run through Alec's mind, images of hateful expressions and evil cat eyes superimposed over memories of a smiling Magnus, his face youthful and loving. Alec run his hand through his hair as if with the gesture her could organize the confusion of thoughts and memories. He didn't know what was real and what was imagined anymore, what memories were true and which were the invention of his confused mind. He couldn't tell which voice in his head was his own and which one was Inquisitor Dearborn's. The only thing he knew for sure was that a few minutes ago, he had lifted his bow and released an arrow intended to hit one of the warlocks who had tried to burn the Zürich Institute, and instead he had likely pierced the heart of Magnus Bane.

He rubbed the back of his neck with the same hand that he had just run through his hair, trying to release the tension building there. The last of the adrenaline was finally burning away, leaving him exhausted, miserable and suddenly very sad.

He rested his hand on the guard rail that surrounded the rooftop, and looked down towards the plaza in front of the Institute. Yellow tape still cordoned off the area where the explosion had taken place almost three weeks ago. Mundane repair crews were already working on getting the plaza, the church and the surrounding buildings back to their original state unaware that, just a few meters away and behind the newly reinforced wards, Shadowhunter crews were trying to do the same with the Institute.

Shortly after the attacks, the Silent Brothers had used concealment runes to glamor the Institutes in Barcelona and Paris once again. With the assistance of the leaders of the London vampire packs –who helped encanto authorities and news reporters –The Clave had managed to plant credible cover stories that explained the explosions. Thankfully, mundanes always searched for rational explanations for unexplainable phenomena. So, Barcelona residents were now convinced that a leak had caused gas to build up in the old tunnels that run under the city, and that the resulting explosion had been powerful enough to blow a hole on the side of the old church behind which the Institute was hidden, damage buildings throughout the city, and release fumes that killed and injured people in a ten-block radius. The Paris explosion was attributed to a bus that lost control and blew up after crashing against an old building.

The mundanes that had been affected by the demonic energy released in the explosions had either died soon after, or had been taken to hospital where they had eventually recovered from their state of confusion and apathy. The only issue that persisted was the vampires, who were still suffering the effects of demonic poisoning. But those were being quickly dealt with. The explanations and the cover-up were so far working, but if the attacks continued, it would get harder to find new rational explanations. They had to stop whomever was bringing so much destruction on the Nephilim, thought Alec, his mood getting gloomier and gloomier by the minute.

Unware of the ongoing crisis and after days of mourning, Barcelona was slowly coming back to normal, and Alec could hear the faint sound of music from the bars on the Rambla, signaling that night life was just about to begin. Unconsciously, he traced with his eyes the unseen route of the Rambla all the way to where the hotel he and Magnus had stayed in was located. The memory of Magnus' hand in his and Magnus' expression of surprise when Alec kissed him in public suddenly came back, and a confusing surge of despair, nausea and disgust replaced the dreariness. So much confusion, so many conflicting feelings and memories, so much anger and so much disgust. He didn't have time for wallowing in self-pity, he thought. So, he pushed the dark thoughts away, stood straight and smoothed the hair that his fingers had just messed up. He was a soldier and had a mission to fulfill, that was his purpose, that was his reason in life, everything else was meaningless.

Mundanes might be able to go to sleep tonight convinced that they were not in any danger. The story for Shadowhunters was different, however, because they couldn't hide from the threat. Looking now at the spot where a pile of rubble marked the place where one of the Institute spires used to reach up towards the sky, Alec thought that it would take a long time for Shadowhunters to get over the loss and the trauma.

For the better part of the last ten days, Alec and the Barcelona Shadowhunters had been in a relentless pursuit of the terrorists. With Berg's unwilling assistance, and on intelligence gathered by the Clave, they had been portaling from city to city in search of the terrorists, always arriving too late, always a step behind. Since Berlin, two other Institutes in Europe had been attacked: Lisbon and Madrid, bringing the number of attacks to six. But, thanks to increased security, the loss of life had been minimal.

Tonight, it had been Zürich. They had acted on intelligence Jace had somehow gathered, and Alec had been convinced that this time they would finally capture the attackers, that they would finally put an end to this whole nightmare. And, they had almost succeeded. The team had arrived in time to set a trap and when the first portal opened and two warlocks emerged, they were waiting and ready to put an end to the threat. The two warlocks were quickly killed and the attack was averted, but they had failed to capture the leaders. Or, perhaps it had been him who had failed; perhaps he had hesitated and hadn't done his job. Perhaps the sight of Magnus appearing through the portal had thrown him off and he had lost his concentration, perhaps he was not cured after all.

"Are you coming in? It is cold out here," the soft voice of Jessica Hawkblue interrupted Alec's thoughts.

Alec heard the door close and the sound of Jessica's footsteps approaching, but he ignored her. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on a dark point in the distance trying to regain his composure. He didn't know how to feel about this girl that seemed to always be there every time Alec turned; that insisted in bringing him water or food; that seemed to follow him when he walked along the corridors; that stared at him with a strange expression when he was training; that used every opportunity to take his hand, or touch his arm. Her overly feminine demeanor that reminded Alec of characters in Victorian novels; the way she anxiously smoothed her dress or her hair every time he looked in her direction; and her soft voice annoyed him. The gestures were so unlike the strong and fierce Shadowhunter women he had grown up with and with whom he lived, trained and went on missions. But, for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to push Jessica away, for she was the only one who had shown him any compassion since he arrived in this place.

"Alec?" Jessica asked again and this time she placed her small hand atop his, the gesture predictable, but still upsetting.

Alec resisted the impulse to push the girl's hand away and took another deep breath trying to quiet his thoughts and rein in his wayward emotions. He then plastered an impassive expression on his face and turned towards Jessica's expectant eyes.

"Yes, I am coming. I must speak to Jace," Alec replied and, removing his hand from underneath hers, walked towards the door and into the Institute. As he did, he pushed all thoughts and feelings about what had just happened in Zürich from his mind, including the memory of Magnus' eyes coming into his frame of vision a fraction of a second after Alec released the arrow. By the time that he reached the stairs leading down to the communications room, Alec's breathing was even, his back straight, his step certain. He had a job to do and no much time to do it. Nothing else mattered, just the job, everything else was inconsequential.

"Your hunch paid off," Alec told Jace a few minutes later, the image of his parabatai oddly clear on the screen despite the distance that separated Barcelona from New York. "We were able to stop the attack with minimal casualties, but we couldn't capture any of the terrorists alive, and now we have no clue where they will go next."

"Is it true that Magnus was hit?" asked Jace, unable to conceal his concern.

"Yes, the two warlocks who were supposedly in charge of the explosion were killed as soon as they stepped out of the portal. The rest of their party arrived a couple of minutes later and we were waiting for them. Two of the warlocks were hit as they were escaping through another portal, one of them was Magnus Bane."

Jace searched for any hint of concern or despair in Alec's expression, but found none. His brother was as cold as he had been since the day he was released from the infirmary and he informed Jace that he would stay in Europe working on the investigation. He could see in the screen that Alec had his hand interlaced behind his back in the posture of a Shadowhunter soldier and he wondered whether the posture was his brother's way of keeping his nerves and emotions under control. But he wasn't sure anymore. Since the attacks, nothing about Alec was what it used to be, and Jace had a hard time reconciling this Alec, with his harsh demeanor and hard exterior, with the loyal, caring and sensitive man with whom he had grown up.

"Is he dead?" Jace asked, hesitation and fear evident in his voice. He wanted to believe that whatever was happening to Alec would soon pass and, if that was the case, his brother would never forgive himself if Magnus died.

"I don't know, and that is not important now," Alec replied, his voice as sharp as a knife. "We have to figure out our next move. Did you find anything else in the archives about this Annaliese Fen, anything else that can help us?"

Jace looked down at his boots, trying to conceal his apprehension. Not only was Alec's lack of concern for Magnus unnerving, but he was also about to lie to Alec, Alec who until their parabatai bond was weakened, could always tell when Jace was lying. This new Alec, the one who didn't care if Magnus died; the one who gave orders that the old Alec would have never followed; the one who was not sensitive or happily in love, seemed to have lost the capacity to tell when Jace was lying. Or if he hadn't, he didn't care enough to try to find out the truth, as long as the lies got him the intel he wanted. Only one thing concerned this new Alec: capturing the warlocks responsible for the attacks, no matter what.

No one, not even Izzy wanted to speak with this new Alec, especially after Alec gave the order to hunt and eliminate all the vampires affected by demonic poisoning. Jace couldn't remember Alec and Izzy ever having a more violent argument. The siblings, who until them had loved one another with unwavering loyalty, had argued loudly. Or rather, Izzy had been loud, screaming at Alec with increasing frustration while Alec simply stood his ground and remained impassive and unbending in his orders. Since then, Izzy had refused to speak to Alec, or even be in the same room when Jace spoke to their brother. Instead, Izzy was spending more and more of her time with Luke and the werewolves guarding the Hotel Du Mort, prepared, Jace thought, not only to fulfill her promise to Raphael, but also to defend the vampires if, and when The Clave ordered their destruction.

Jace looked up and into Alec's eyes, and part of himself hoped that Alec would notice that he was lying. That would at least suggest that his loving brother was not completely gone. His eyes then drifted momentarily towards a spot behind the screen where Clary, Catarina and the warlock called Kat stood nervously looking at Jace. Pineshade stood behind the three women, a hand resting casually on Kat's shoulder as if to support her.

"Pineshade and Clary are still searching, but progress is slow," Jace told Alec, the words coming out quickly as if he was trying to get the lie out as fast as possible.

"Well, hurry up. Joshua Pineshade's records are the only thing we have to go on for now," Alec replied.

After a brisk good bye, Alec ended the communication and left Jace staring forlornly at the screen as the image of his brother faded and was replaced by The Clave's insignia. After a moment, Jace sighted loudly and looked at Clary, and her eyes rewarded him with a familiar expression of love, trust and reassurance.

"Well, that was helpful," said Catarina surly, her voice full of the irony that Jace had learned to expect from Magnus' best friend.

If he hadn't been so upset, Jace would have responded with a smart comment of his own. In the last few days, he had learned that Caterina's ironic streak was a perfect match to his own, and that for the warlock, like it was for Jace, irony was a way to conceal her concern for her loved ones. At first sight, Catarina was not what people would call warm and fuzzy and she had little patience for non-sense, especially when it came from Shadowhunters who believed themselves a superior species. She was quick to take anyone down a few notches as some of the Shadowhunters in the Institute had already found out, but Jace had learned that she cared deeply for Magnus and for humanity in general.

"Can you tell whether Magnus is alive?" Jace asked her.

"Not for sure," Catarina replied, her hand wrapped around the old silver charm in her hand, with which she had been trying to track Magnus. "Wherever they are, they are heavily warded."

Catarina had brought the charm with her the day she came to the institute and finally agreed to help Jace with the investigation. That was ten days ago. Catarina had been accompanied by a quiet and petite woman with olive skin, high cheek bones, intelligent black eyes, and long black hair trapped in a tight braid that fell almost to her waist. Caterina introduced her as Kat, the warlock who had arrived from South America that morning carrying information that could be critical in figuring out the reasons behind the attacks.

Catarina told Jace that the silver charm had been portaled into her apartment a few hours before the first attacks, along with some of Magnus' personal belonging. The charm likely arrived at the same time than Raphael received a similar delivery at the Hotel Du Mort. Since then, they had confirmed that the charm was made of a metal that had magic powers. It protected warlocks near it –and apparently also vampires – from some of the effects of the demonic powers the attackers were using. As Catarina explained, since the attacks, warlocks had begun to disappear. Many had walked through portals, going about their business as usual, and had gotten lost somewhere along the way; others had simply banished into thin air from their homes as their friends and family watched. So far, the charm seemed to protect Catarina and Kat from a similar fate. That was why, Catarina had asked Kat to fly instead of using a portal to get to New York.

Catarina's arrival at the institute had coincided with Alec's order to arrest her along with any warlocks currently living in New York, an order that Jace had and continued to ignore. The Clave had issued similar orders to the heads of the Institutes all over the world, and there were rumors that a detention camp was being set up along the Idris border to house the captured warlocks. It was a huge mistake, Jace thought, because it sent all warlocks, even those who had worked with Shadowhunters all along, into hiding and reignited old hatred, prejudices and animosities. The problem, thought Jace, was not all warlocks, but just some of them. The Clave needed the help of their allies if they were going to deal with this crisis once and for all. So, he had not only ignored his brother and The Clave's order, but he had also lied about Catarina and Kat's role in the investigation. He was sure he would be de-runed if The Clave ever found out.

Kat had proven to be an invaluable asset in the investigation and had arrived just at the right time. Clary, Pineshade and Scarcherry had spent days digging through the archives searching for any clues as to the identity of the warlock responsible for the attacks and her relationship to Magnus. The search had been, until then, futile, and Jace was growing increasingly frustrated because he couldn't believe that, in the last two thousand years, no one Nephilim had ever come across a warlock with ruby red eyes and with a grudge against Shadowhunters.

Jeremy Pineshade found the first meaningful clue in a dairy his grandfather kept when he was the Head of the Berlin Institute during the Second World War. Jace and Clary were meeting with Catarina and Kat for the first time when Pineshade timidly knocked on the door and quietly entered the meeting room. Jace had only had a handful of chances to work with him before, but he thought the tall young Shadowhunter, with the mahogany hair and chestnut eyes, was the quiet but highly intelligent type. He had proven Jace right when he produced his grandfather's old diary, its pages yellowed and brittle, containing the first mention of the ruby red-eyed warlock.

The entries were rather cryptic and seemed to refer to an unsanctioned mission Joshua Pineshade had been part of during the last few weeks of the Second World War in Germany. As it was common in those old dairies, most entries contained initials and acronyms instead of names –DW for Downworld, SH for Shadowhunter, MD for mundane –but one name was clearly identified: Annaliese Fen. Furthermore, as if predicting that the information would come handy years later, Pineshade had taken the time to describe her in some detail including her ruby red eyes.

Jeremy had found only one of the dairies at that point. But one of its entries convinced Jace that the records were critical to the investigation. "I just spent the last two nights playing chess with MB while bombs continue to rain down on the city," wrote the old Head of the Berlin Institute. "I have rarely seen a man suffer from more guilt that my dear MB. That is why I hesitate to tell him of my apprehension. I don't think Annaliese Fen is dead, and if she is not, she and her companion remain a threat; it is just a matter of time."

"I know who Annaliese Fen is," Kat had said, her voice quiet and serene, a characteristic that, since then, Jace had learned to recognize as Kat's most enduring and endearing quality. "I met her hundreds of years ago when she came to my city with one of the first Spanish expeditions that made contact with the Inca. I was a young warlock then, but I remember her clearly. She wanted to learn about the methods my people used to trace the stars in the heavens and about how we developed our star charts. She spent a few years living with us in the old city of Machu Picchu. She is a dangerous warlock and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. By the time that she finally left, many warlocks, mundanes and downworlders were dead."

Since the day of that discovery, Kat and Jeremy had spent countless hours searching through Joshua Pineshade's diaries and papers, as well as studying star charts and historical archives searching for records of Annaliese Fen's history as well as clues as to her next move. Not only was Kat an old friend of Magnus' and a stern believer in his innocence, but she was also brilliant. She held doctorates in astronomy, history and physics and currently worked in an observatory in the Atacama Desert. Her credentials and her skills had proven invaluable. In fact, it had been Kat who a couple of nights ago had woken Jace up to tell him that she was certain that Annaliese's next target would be Zürich. She even predicted the date and time of the attacks.

Jace had to confess that he didn't understand all of it, but for what he gathered, the sites of the attacks were being determined by the configuration of a constellation of stars that Kat had been studying in the star charts. As she explained, every few decades and over a period of a few weeks, a group of stars began to align in a specific configuration and frequency in the night sky. So far, that configuration and frequency corresponded with the location of the cities in which the attacks had taken place. Jace had been, at first, dubious, but Jeremy Pineshade had convincingly argued that their research was sound, and he and Kat had produced sufficient proof that Barcelona, Paris and the rest of the European targets fell within the same pattern. The only outlier was New York, and Jace now suspected that Alec and Magnus were the reason for that exception.

Listening to Jeremy and Kat argue their case, Jace had wondered whether their relationship had developed beyond a simple working arrangement. Now seeing Jeremy's hand resting on Kat's shoulder in an attitude of evident affection, he suspected that he was right, and that by the end of this whole mess there would be one more Shadowhunter in love with a warlock. Love conquers everything, Jace thought. But then he remembered Alec's sharp answer when he asked if Magnus had been killed, and he wondered whether love would be able to overcome that impasse; whether love, his or Magnus', would ever be able to reach pass the barriers behind which Alec was hiding. Jace suspected that if Magnus died, there would be no one and nothing capable of reaching Alec, that his brother would be lost forever, and he didn't want to think about what that would be like.

Jace looked towards the ceiling, exhaled loudly once again, and run both hands through his hair in a gesture of distress, frustration and exhaustion. He then looked back to the expectant faces of the people who in the last ten days had spent countless hours working on the investigation. For what was likely the thousandth time, he thought that he wasn't a leader, that he didn't know what to say to these people that counted on him for guidance. He needed Alec to be here, to take on his role as their leader, to go back to being the brother, the parabatai, Jace knew and loved. Jace didn't think he could continue dividing his attention between the investigation and whatever was going on with Alec.

"What now?" asked Catarina.

"We continue searching the records and trying to figure out the next target," replied Clary, looking towards Jace with understanding and compassion in her eyes.

Clary was such as special person, thought Jace, and he couldn't help smiling at her. The fact that she was not raised as a Shadowhunter meant that she had kept much of the warmth, innocence and optimism that many Shadowhunters lost early in life. Yet, she also had the determination, bravery and stubbornness that were a common characteristic among the Nephilim. He loved her precisely because of this unusual combination, and because she was unconditionally his, as he was hers.

"If I can predict in which order and frequency the stars will align next and with which cities, I can likely tell you the next target," Kat stated.

"We will go back to the archives and the star charts then," said Jeremy and reaching for Kat's hand, guided her out of the situation room and towards the library.

Caterina started in the same direction but Jace stopped her with a gesture indicating that she and Clary should remain.

"We are going to bring Alec back," he told them, having made up his mind less than a minute ago. "As soon as we know the location of the next target, we are going to portal there and we are not coming back without my parabatai. For that, I am going to need your help, Catarina."

"Are you sure?" asked Clary apprehensively.

"Yes. Something is not right with him and I cannot keep worrying about the attacks and Alec at the same time. We are going to need Izzy's help; can you speak to her?" Jace asked Clary.

Clary simply nodded and placing a hand on Jace's arm, gave him a sympathetic smile. She knew him better than anyone, perhaps even better than Alec, and understood both his pain and his determination to get his brother back. In truth, she agreed that something troublesome was going on with Alec; his behavior was just too strange.

"Well, if I help, The Clave is going to know that you disobeyed their orders," Catarina stated. "You and I and this whole investigation will be in jeopardy. So, you better be sure. And, I am not doing it unless you promise me that you will do all in your power to also bring Magnus back."

"I promise," said Jace, his voice full of conviction and gratefulness towards this no non-sense warlock that was willing to put herself at risk to help those who considered her an enemy.

At that precise moment, thousands of kilometers and an ocean away, Magnus was lying on a cold stone floor, an arrow lodged in his chest, blood pouring out of him in a steady stream, a pain so intense that no magic powers, specially his weaken ones, could soothe. He couldn't breathe, he felt lightheaded, and tears run down his face. "Alexander, I am so sorry," he whispered with the last of the air left in his lungs. "I love you, please forgive me," he wanted to add, but there was no voice left in him. So, instead he brought his hand towards that spot on his chest where he kept all his love for the Shadowhunter that had just shot the arrow that was now slowly but surely taking his life.