Only two things of note: Oxford does not offer a Political Science major. We are now pretending they do. One of my friends went to Northeastern University and she graduated from there with a Political Science degree, so I'm basing Alec's classes, notes, homework/projects/research etc. off the ones she took while in college. As Oxford does not have this major, the "college" within the University that he belongs to is Merton College. It's the same college JRR Tolkien is an alumni of, so that kind of sold it for me. The other reason he belongs there is because it's one of the colleges that accepts History & Politics related majors in addition to students pursuing medicine, so realistically speaking, Alec and Helen could have ended up in Merton.

Secondly – we all know Magnus' father is Asmodeus. I don't think that in the real world, someone would name their kid after a demon, so I kind of figured it could be a publicly given nickname, and his "actual"/legal name in this story could be Amand. It's French for "worthy of love" and I loved the irony of him having that name while being an absolutely awful human being.

In an age and an instant, Alec and Helen are settled in at Oxford. The two weeks have passed in a blur; they each have a single room to themselves in co-ed Merton College. On the same floor, but not next to each other. Probably for the best, Alec supposes. If they're going to explore their too-early quarter-life crisis, probably better to do it where he doesn't have to see the women Helen is bringing back and hope that the walls are sound-proof. Really, the less they know about each other's sex lives, the better.

August is different in England. Cooler than the humidity he might have contended with in New York, the street markets and food vendors, outdoor concerts he might have snuck to with Jace or the rec center he would sometimes pick Aline up from. Alec finds it disorienting and charming. They have made plans to visit their ancestral homes over the first school break, walk cobbled roads and drink raspberry iced tea while they explore the new city around them.

Helen has decided to join the Dramatic Society, the irony of which Alec has already derived endless amusement from. They had walked the campus, peering at different organizations and societies they could become involved in. There had been a Doctor Who Society that made Alec think involuntarily of Simon, who was a creature hell-bent on irritating him personally. When the fresh-faced secretary attempted to pitch the society to him, Helen held back giggles at the expression on Alec's face. The giggles are let loose as he said he would rather eat a pair of corduroy pants then join the group. Helen tells him they won't leave until he picks one to join, and he is helplessly drawn into signing up for the Filmmaking Foundation Society.

Alec and Helen had seen the religious societies. They'd looked at each other, and again at the booths, and despite the pervading sense of guilt for not joining, they silently agreed to not join. What their parents didn't know wouldn't hurt.

The bigger thing that Alec has learned is something that happens near the beginning of his nine a.m. PO 141 class, Introduction to Public Policy, taught by Catarina Loss. She had been an influential political advisor who made a career change some ten years ago. Alec vaguely remembers the shockwaves of that scandal, the way his parents quietly remarked about it and the arguments about the ramifications of her choosing to become a university professor. Alec might have been more attentive had the first thing he learned been related to the class, instead of a name. Magnus Bane, wealthy and well-known and a dear friend of Catarina's, who'd come to chatter with her while the class spilled into the room, bleary-eyed but fresh-faced and excited to learn. Catarina told her students to sit on one of his lectures if they had the time.

Magnus is older and attractive, with green-yellow eyes and hardened, delicate features. If Alec's intense physical attraction to a virtual stranger wasn't enough to send him into a tizzy, it would have been that Magnus is the estranged son of Melati, a half-Dutch and half-Indonesian woman who was best known for her charity work, her early death, and her marriage to Amand, a famous televangelist later arrested on allegations of contributing to Melati's demise. All of it is something that Alec thinks about again, and again, and again. Magnus is a fashion designer. He's an attractive fashion designer. He's an attractive, influential fashion designer with a tortured past.

And at that point, Alec's mind is kind of combusted, so he starts small again, and adds on fact after fact, then that particular adjective about Magnus, until he's pretty sure his face is going to become engulfed in flames.

It's almost surprising to Alec that someone so young could go through so much and still build an empire. At least, Alec is almost sure Magnus is in his mid-twenties. It's hard to tell, looking at the man. Sometimes Magnus seems over a hundred years, as if years of public pain and scrutiny are aging him right into the grave before he turns forty, and then his more playful nature seems to distract or subtract from his pensive looks. Helen thinks Magnus is thirty-five.

("You don't get the kind of self-confidence Magnus has after turning twenty, Alec," Helen said, later on during the same night Alec saw him for the first time. "He must be old. Especially if he's built his brand from the ground up and turned it into something as big as it is."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Does it really matter how old he is?"

Helen looked at him, pensive and careful and cautious. "I don't know. You tell me, Lightwood."

He hadn't bothered to answer, because for the first time in his life that he could remember, he'd felt either too inarticulate or too flustered to talk about it. And, anyway, technically it didn't matter. Nothing about Magnus technically mattered, because their lives weren't really going to come into contact in any meaningful way.

Alec's heart hoped for the opposite, the absolute traitor.)

To: Jace Wayland, Izzy Lightwood

From: Alec Lightwood

Subject: Oxford

Jace,

There isn't much to tell you about school here. Or the people. Everybody is very posh. Helen thinks joining a fencing team will be fun… we'll see. Branched out and joined a filmmaking society – apparently that's what they call a club here in London. I think I'll stick to making stop-motions. Remember the one we used to watch on YouTube and would never admit we liked?

Classes are fine – I have a full schedule. Did you know they don't have a central campus here? Oxford is made up of over 30 colleges and halls.

-Alec

To: Alec Lightwood, Izzy Lightwood

From: Jace Wayland

Subject: Re: Oxford

Alec,

Please don't make a stop-motion fanfiction sequel to "The Most Popular Girls in School". You are not funny enough to pull that off Clary says hi. So does everybody else. You've missed a lot for only being gone less than a month. Dianna is the new tutor your parents hired – I guess she taught some of the Blackthorns back in Cali. They must have paid her something massive to relocate here.

Izzy got caught kissing Simon in a stairwell and received a week of detention. She snuck him inside the Academy and skipped second period. I guess he skipped his morning classes. Clary was excited to hang out with him for all of five minutes before he got kicked out of Academy.

Send us pictures soon!

-Jace

To: Alec Lightwood, Jace Wayland

From: Izzy Lightwood

Subject: Re:, re: Oxford

Alec,

Ignore Jace. He's being a LITTLE SHIT because you're not here to reign him in. Also, it was one kiss. It's not my fault Simon is a horny teenage boy. I got back together with Meliorn because someone bailed him out of jail last weekend. Mom and dad freaked out appropriately, but that was before they found out Jace and Clary almost had sex in Sheep Meadow.

-Izzy

To: Izzy Lightwood, Jace Wayland

From: Alec Lightwood

Subject: Re:, re:, re: Oxford

Izzy,

STOP DATING HIM. PLEASE. He's such an asshole. Why can't you date someone nicer? And Jace – really? I didn't think you were that much of an exhibitionist.

-Alec

When his morning classes are over, Alec has to force himself not to look up Magnus online. He will not, he tells himself. Magnus Bane came to Oxford as a guest speaker about Indonesian culture, about the moral and philosophical government decisions that had impacted some of his country on a present and past basis. And Magnus Bane would be leaving by the end of this week, if not the end of today.

Magnus Bane means nothing to him because they're strangers to each other.

(If Alec is obsessing over him in any way, it's something he's struggling to ignore.)

Instead, Alec meets Helen at one of the dining halls, and they pick at their salads. Alec's gaze is cast around the hall, full of students with smiles, women with plaited hair or men in blazers. He can't quite deny he likes the polished, preppy look, but it's too – clean, simultaneously. "How were your classes?" Alec asks.

Helen smiles, sunny and happy. "I can't believe we're really here." She looks like she wants to kick her feet and giggle. "I met a few girls on the way in here – Marisol Garza and Beatriz Mendoza. They're part of the fencing team here. I think you'd like them."

Alec raises an eyebrow. "The team, or your friends?" He knows what Helen wants, and is amused by her vagueness, as if she thinks it a successful lure.

"We're going out to try for the team on Friday," Helen says firmly. "They have another friend named Julie I want to meet. And you'd probably get along with Jon Cartwright."

The fact that she doesn't mention anyone else tells Alec plenty – that her mind is elsewhere, namely on Aline. That there aren't men she thinks would be a good fit for Alec, platonically or romantically. Alec almost wants to sigh; he can barely come to terms with his sexuality. He doesn't want to be forced into the role of a Gay Best Friend for some shallow, heterosexual girl.

"Alright. But I have plans to take advantage of your terrible fencing skills when they accept us." He steals some of her chips.

Alec decides to Skype his family on Friday. It's almost the end of the month, and emails between them have been sparse. He has an hour before his Introduction to International Governmental Policies class.

"We're going to Pandemonium soon," Isabelle says to Alec when the call is accepted by way of greeting. "So I can't talk for very long." Exactly why she's decided to finish getting ready in the kitchen is beyond him.

Alec asks carefully, "Are you going for fun, or because you're twisting the requirements of an assignment Hodge gave you?" His thoughts feel all jumbled from seeing Magnus.

Isabelle smiled wide, the way she always did when she wanted to look beautiful and dangerous. "For fun, actually. I know you don't know what that means, Alec, because if someone looked up the words 'unsocial', 'reserved', and 'studious', they would see your name." She smiles, as if she knows he could swat at her shoulder if they weren't separated by an ocean. "Seriously, though. Just me, Jace, Clary, and Sebastian. I think Max is sleeping now. Aline was going to go, but she drew the short stick for who was staying to babysit the kids."

"What, and you think I'm cool with you going to Pandemonium for fun?" Alec delivers that question just so, holding his serious expression until she looks like she's actually second-guessing him. "Kidding," he grins at her. "Shocking, I know - I actually made a shitty attempt at a joke." Suddenly Alec is glad he chose Oxford, that he doesn't have to spend another night sneaking into a club with his family, that the tipsy in love feelings he has for Jace can be just that, and not marred with jealousy over Clary having the misfortunate to merely exist.

"So are you really going to go out and have fun this semester or not?" Isabelle takes a bite of an apple. The juice runs down her lips, down her chin, before she clumsily wipes it off. "Because, you know. It's not like you had any fun at the end of summer send-off. You should make up for it. There's so much to do in London. I bet you could catch a flight to Spain for under a hundred dollars." Isabelle cradles her laptop in her arm as she opens the fridge expansively, hopefully. Which probably means she's going to cook, which means that everybody left at the Angel Academy are all better off ordering takeout now, while Isabelle's distracted.

Alec considers Isabelle's question while he takes a too long sip of his iced coffee. He knows that this is his sister's way of trying to smooth things over. Over the summer, the only person he spent any quality time with was Helen. Even when he was with Jace and Izzy, he had his mask on. It's not like him to pull away from his family, but the constrictions of high society were everywhere, with their hands on his history and his body. How can he commit to his family, the Clave, the rest of Shadow World when he can't even commit to himself? They'll see through his act in a second. "Maybe," he tells her. "Maybe. I'll think about it."

"Christ," Isabelle groans. "I can't believe you get to spend four years away from the Shadow World and you're going to the exact same thing you've spent eighteen years doing in New York. You're a mini version of Mom."

Alec doesn't remember when they came up with the nickname. It harkened to their childhood days, when they felt brief flashes of jealousy to the peers they'd see passing the Academy. The Lightwoods were an old money family, influential in everything from politics to the entertainment industry. Just like the Fairchilds, the Penhallows, the Carstairs, the Blackthorns. Like some of the other families that resided in New York. Alec knew how privileged he was to have the family he did. How he sometimes felt cursed by it, bound by all the restraints old money came with, and washed with guilt for hating the restraints. All of the old families ran together, kept each other in their back pockets to advance wealth or influence. Alec and Isabelle nicknamed their world the Shadow World as children; if one didn't belong to it, they didn't realize the true depth of influence and wealth there, the social politics that kept families in line and tore them apart. It was a world unto its own. And a world that needed changing.

"I'm not a mini version of her. I just happen to be the golden sibling when it comes to academics," Alec says smugly. While he's definitely not child prodigy smart, his academic grades have always been soaring high. Not that he brags about it. He never does. Unlike Jace, Alec doesn't really like being in the spotlight or parading his accomplishments. The exception is when he wants to rub something in Izzy's face - petty, yes, but oh so worth it.

"Or maybe you've just got nothing better to do," Isabelle grumps, fishing around for more ingredients in the refrigerator. "I don't understand why you don't do anything fun, ever. All you do is study and train." She whips her braided hair back so that it flows down her back, a mass of organized inky darkness.

"Yeah, and how many times have I saved yours and Jace's ass in a fight because you two actively look for trouble most nights?" Alec's strategic ability is almost supernatural now, with the situations he's walked into with Jace fighting, Isabelle only joining out of automatic duty and loyalty to not see Jace get pummeled because he made the wrong person mad (again). Alec blows out a breath, irritated. He felt half wild and confused, lonely and euphoric. It shouldn't be allowed for a person to be overstuffed with emotions.

Isabelle's movements slow; she was too caught up in her evening plans to notice his pensive mood. "I changed my mind. I think I want to eat something quick."

More of the other students who boarded at the Academy were starting to trail in for a late-night snack. Julian and Emma tumble in, looking frazzled, followed by an almost petulant looking Mark. Clary and Jace soon follow, Jace shooting her heated looks when he thinks nobody is watching.

It makes Alec's stomach clench to see, heart twisting painfully. How terrible, to be so close and so far from Jace now.

"What are you talking about?" Jace asks, leaning against one of the white marble counters. "If it's about Izzy making more cold bean soup for lunch tomorrow, I really hope you're talking her out of it, Alec. Our lives may rest in your hands soon."

"My cooking is not atrocious." Isabelle smacks Jace's shoulder. "And I wanted to know if anybody wanted to pre-game before we leave. Or do . . . anything else." She waggles her eyebrows.

Jace wrinkles his nose, tugs one of her long braids in retaliation, and ignores her last statement. "You weren't the one vomiting after drinking your supposed 'latte' concoction had milk in it. I'm not accepting any drink you make now." He leans against one of the counters as he mockingly leers at her.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should always tell who's cooking that you can't have dairy because of your stomach ulcers," Izzy replies dryly. She starts assembling shot glasses and mixers to make some strong cocktail that someone would have to inevitably choke down. "I'm going to try a drink recipe I found online."

"That's not the only reason why people don't want you to cook," Jace mutters. He moves away from the counter, like he doesn't want his adopted sister to hear him. Instead he goes to sit next to Clary at one of the tables. "In all seriousness, though, what were you two talking about?"

Emma and Julian dart out of the kitchen then, a few snacks in hand. "We're going to Central Park to see the ducks! Tell Diana we'll be back in an hour, probably," Emma yells over her shoulder. "And we have our phones so no worries!" They're obviously going to do more than see the ducks, but it's not like they're helpless pre-teens. Emma's street smart, and Julian tends to her like a shadow.

Clary looks after them fondly. "I like Emma. She's sweet."

Izzy just snorts. "She reminds me of what I was like when I was younger."

Alec looks at Mark, though it's really only a bit of him that's in-frame. "You should probably check in with them in an hour," he says to Mark's chin, before looking at Jace. "Isabelle was asking about my evening availability. Apparently you two and a couple others are going to Pandemonium for fun."

"Why don't you go out with Helen tonight?" Jace's eyes are glittering. "You can tell us about London nightlife, in case we ever want to come see you and do something non-tourist-y."

"I – yes. I'll go out tonight. Or something. I'm taking pity on you since you aren't as cultured as me," Alec informs Jace, amusement twinkling in his eyes. "It'll be good for you to live vicariously through me."

This is ridiculous, he thinks to himself. He can say no to anybody except Jace. It had always astounded him the power Jace wielded over him the power nobody else knew about except for Helen. If Alec could write at all, Jace would be the kind of poem he'd want to write. Maybe something about how they belonged in their own pocket of the universe and had an untouchable claim on each other's soul - except he wasn't a poet, he was just Alec. So instead of writing, he had to settle for knowing, deep down, that one of the things that destroys him also fills him simultaneously with a kind of tender enthusiasm. Jace is Alec's chosen brother. Which means that three years ago, Jace Wayland knew he wasn't invincible. He needed someone else by his side, and he picked Alec. Jace could have picked anybody else, but he didn't.

Alec hangs up soon after. His body feels hollow. Helen is in a three-hour lecture; there is no one to walk to class with, much less at least walk out of Bristol Hall with. There isn't much he needs, for his one afternoon class; Alec puts a few things in there anyway so he can study in the library after. In an age and an instant he's stalking across the lush, sprawling campus. Alec tries not to brood and fails. Everything is about Jace, even here. Alec hates himself for that, for the fact that all roads lead back to Jace Wayland.

A hand falls onto his shoulder, warm and calloused, and Alec whirls around in shock, gracefully taking the other's wrist and using it to twist his arm around his back. "I - Magnus." His own eyes widen. "I'm sorry. You startled me," Alec says, close to stuttering, dropping the warlock's hand. He has to force himself to breathe, and he knows it doesn't look obvious, but - still. He's tongue-tied, terrified, elated. Can Magnus read minds? Does he know what's going on in Alec's?

"Consider yourself forgiven." Magnus smiles lazily and falls into step next to him. "I think it's a crime for someone with those features to look sour." Magnus smells of cinnamon or cardamum or saffron.

Alec could fall into it, can barely remember what he was hung up on seconds ago.

"I . . . yeah? You think so?" Alec swallows as he straightens his back a bit, knowing full well his homosexuality is probably intensifying right now, if that's even possible. "You, uh - are you here until the end of the week? Catarina told us – I'm in one of her classes – you're guest speaking?"

Magnus laughs, and it sends a curl of delighted tendrils through Alec's body. "I rather got the impression Catarina wasn't listening when I told her why I was here. Yes, just guest speaking this week. She's distracted on occasion."

"She's something like that, I guess," Alec says. His body feels like it's on fire. If Magnus touched him again, would he internally combust? Nobody is looking at them twice, as if it's normal for a student and professor to walk together. "I heard from other students and recent graduates you're throwing a party at the Pandemonium club here. And that you invited them."

"It went something like that." Magnus eyes Alec, and Alec tries to not notice how they're staring intensely at each other. "I have a cat named Chairman Meow. It's his birthday tonight, so what better way to celebrate it then with a party?"

Alec feels his eyebrows scrunch together. "You know most people don't throw extravagant birthday parties for their pets, right? And especially in a club." He moves to stand a bit closer, slowing his pace as if he can delay the fact that he has class in twenty minutes.

"Do I look like most people?" Magnus asks, the corner of his lips twitching up. The sun feels unusually bright as Magnus smiles.

"I guess . . . not," Alec agrees. He wonders if that question holds more dare then he realizes it does. He wonders if it means . . . but no. Too early to start wondering anything about someone he doesn't know. "I didn't know Pandemonium was that popular." There was a location in New York, here in London, and one in Los Angeles. They were a popular string of clubs, though Alec doesn't quite understand the appeal. He hesitates, strangely reticent to discuss his family, but plods forward a moment later. "My brother and sister are going out tonight. They're – um. Clubs aren't really my thing; it's a thing in New York. I only really go because Jace has a tendency to stir up trouble." Magnus starts in what seems like surprise, Alec notes distantly, in some back corner of his brain.

There's a long pause when they just look at each other – Alec is having a hard time looking away as they stand under the shade of an apple tree, and Magus looks like his mind is a million miles away, even as he looks back at Alec. Truth be told, Alec's not even really sure when they ended up under the shade at all, leaning against a bench. "Why don't you think about coming to Chairman Meow's birthday tonight?" Magnus finally says decisively, and seems to turn his full attention back to the conversation at hand. "It's a small get-together at the club. Just a few old friends and I. We could use a new face there."

Alec runs his tongue over his lips. Feels breathless. "You know, you're the third person to tell me I need to go out tonight. Make it worth my while, and I will." Christ. He isn't Jace; he isn't used to flirting. What is happening to him?

Magnus raises an eyebrow. "What if I told you that there are underground societies at Oxford? A well-known one nicknamed the Seelie Court has been oddly silent. Sometimes they enjoy playing wicked games at Pandemonium. They haven't in a long while, and that bothers me."

"I'd say that maybe it's worth investigating," Alec replies after a pause. It's intriguing, yes, but this Oxford. He's here to become a politician, not scamper after underground secret British societies who are more likely than not modeled off of American Greek life. And yet, and yet . . . Alec is intrigued regardless. He wants to know why they're called the Seelie Court, what they do. What they're planning. Why they've been quiet.

The problem, Alec supposed, was that there had to be a lot of restless young students who would want to create a secret society just for the sense of importance. Magnus was making it sound like a mystery straight of a novel tailored to Alec, and what happened when he got inevitably disappointed it was just a group of students drinking and taking bets on illegal dog fighting or something of the like?

Alec doesn't mind being back-up; he'd had to, growing up with his siblings. Jace had once decided to terrorize a group of bikers at Hunters Moon last year – for what reason exactly, he's still not sure. Jace had claimed Hodge sent him on a school assignment, but Alec always felt certain Jace just liked picking fights for the hell of it. It was his job, inevitably, to make sure their parents never found out about escapades gone wrong, that Izzy or Jace didn't wind up spending a night in jail. When Simon first started tagging along with the group, they'd gone to Hotel Dumort, because it was one of the only hotels with a lavish bar that didn't check ID's. Raphael was one of the bartenders and he'd made it seem like he'd had a hand in Simon disappearing (though it turned out he really hadn't, and Raphael had just taken the idiotic high schooler to "see mermen" at night, with Simon's - begrudging - consent over the summer. Raphael called it 'contributing to Simon's education', but Simon had been crossfaded to hell and back, and Alec suspected that Raphael just wanted an excuse to fuck around with Simon.).

Despite Raphael's generally solemn, irritated demeanor, and his own penchant for causing mischief here and there, it had never put Alec and his friends from going to Dumort. Of course, Alec never sought out trouble the way his siblings or friends did. He didn't want to try to make his life into a coming-of-age movie. All he'd ever wanted was to get away from New York for a little while and just breath. "Maybe. I'll think about it," Alec finally said.

"Why the maybe?" Magnus asks.

"Because," Alec says, and then pauses again. "Because so what if they're silent? Secret societies are supposed to be silent; they've always been a people unto their own. Nothing bad is happening. Nothing that would indicate something bad is looming over us all. As long as they're not murdering anybody, I don't really see why you're . . ." And then he understands. "What happened?" Because secret organizations might be an island unto themselves, but they would never withdraw from society and become secretive unless they were planning something big.

Magnus shrugs. "It's nothing. Or the beginning of something. Let's talk tomorrow… if you don't come to Pandemonium. I'll find you."

It's only after Magnus leaves that Alec realizes he never asked why a fashion designer would be interested in the inner workings of university students, much less know about a group called the Seelie Court. Maybe there really is something going on.

Maybe he just wants to talk to me again, and he's making this a lot bigger than it actually is, Alec tries not to think, but does. He does not pay attention in class, does not pay attention to the homework he fails to finish in the scenic library after.

And his face must betray him at dinner, because Helen raises an eyebrow, but he just shrugs. Not much of a point in talking, other than confirming with Helen they'll explore the city over the weekend.

Later – much later – Alec stumbles back to his room, so late it's early morning and he can see the stars clustering together. And he feels fluttery the whole way up, for the first time in ages. Everybody else is tucked into their rooms, save for two people in a common area talking about their classes, while he gets ready for bed, buzzed from four beers and a shot. For the first time, Alec grins into his pillow thinking he won't fall asleep until he does, thinking the whole time about warm, calloused hands on his shoulders, the way Magnus relates things in his native language. The way it felt to be in a private room with Magnus, bodies pillowed on lush carpets and warmed by a fire, drinking and talking and murmuring secrets to each other.

He cannot remember feeling like a full person until his invitation to Pandemonium.

The real trouble was set to come over the next months, to wash away the solid certainty of everything he'd ever held as true or took for granted.