Laudanum - lawsofchaos - Shadowhunters (TV) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

Chapter 1: Laudanum

Chapter Text

“Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as sensibilities decline.”

-Harriet Beecher Stowe

—————————————————————————————————————————

The Office of the High Inquisitor

Alicante, Idris

Alec’s bones feel brittle and shivery with the distinctly electric hum of exhaustion a shade too deep to be fully covered by the stamina rune under his shirt. He remains frozen in position nonetheless, his back straight in a brutally sharp parade rest and gaze distantly focused just above the shoulders of a deeply irritated Imogen Herondale.

The Inquisitor had been displeased when Alec had arrived through the Institute’s permanent portal to Idris earlier that evening. Yesterday evening actually, Alec mentally corrects given the moon’s position in the stained glass window behind her desk. The Inquisitor had been even more displeased when she realized that Alec had arrived to argue against the interrogation she had ordered for the Seelie knight currently being held at the New York Institute prior to transfer to the Silent City.

Six brutal hours later though, six hours after the eighteenth hour of Alec’s ten-hour shift, the Inquisitor is silent, eyes burning into Alec as she fails to muster up an adequate negation to his final argument. Her hands fold together deceptively gently on the surface of her desk, but Alec can see the hints of pressure from carefully hidden fury in the fading white marks under her nails. This meeting has burned through any last shred of political favor Alec may still have held after the flagrant disregard for Clave propriety his not-wedding had been.

“You are certain this is the course you wish to take, Mr. Lightwood?”

Imogen’s question may overtly refer to Alec’s determination to rule out the torture of Meliorn when he has done nothing to justify it, but he knows that’s not what she truly means. Does he wish to defy the will of the Clave even if his solution is within their law?

“I’m certain, Madame Inquisitor.”

She smiles at him, but it isn’t pleasant.

“Very well. You’re dismissed, Mr. Lightwood.”

Imogen turns her gaze to the papers on her desk and doesn’t look up as Alec leaves.

—————————————————————————————————————————

The New York Institute

New York, NY

The cells of the New York Institute are dank and unpleasant at the best of times, but the steadily recurrent drizzle of the east coast’s early fall has certainly not improved their condition over the past few weeks.

When Alec strides into the detention level, his second stamina rune of the day fizzing electrically beneath his shirt, the two guards he’d posted earlier at Meliorn’s cell briefly brace to attention in acknowledgement. Alec nods at Erin and Jon in greeting, grimly satisfied with the deal he’s just laid out in Idris. Erin must recognize whatever is showing on his face because she smiles at him, showing more teeth than is usually considered polite, even in Shadowhunter society.

“You won, sir?” Erin had known Alec wasn’t pleased at his orders from the Inquisitor, and he isn’t surprised the observant woman had guessed why he’d left for Alicante several hours ago.

“On the important parts, yes,” Alec agrees.

The slight inquisitive tilt of Erin’s head invites further explanation, but she doesn’t go so far as to directly question her commanding officer.

Alec considers for a moment. He’ll hopefully be transferring Meliorn to the Silent City fairly quickly after this conversation, and prisoner transfers, even when just for questioning, require at least a four person squad. He’s been wanting to give Erin some command experience, and a mission like this, low-stakes if Meliorn agrees with the plan and with Alec necessarily being present as well, would be a good opportunity.

“Have Jace or Izzy dropped by recently?” He checks first.

“No, sir.” Jon’s tone when he jumps into the conversation is distinctly cool and Alec frowns, concerned.

“Lundquist?”

Jon pauses before responding and Alec’s bad feeling grows. “They haven’t been seen anywhere in the Institute for several hours, sir. Isabelle is off-duty tonight, but Raj covered Jace’s scheduled patrol of the East Side.”

Alec’s frown grows deeper. “Did Jace request that?”

“He hasn’t been in contact, sir,” Erin chimes in flatly, sounding distinctly unimpressed. Frankly, Alec can’t blame her.

Alec closes his eyes for a moment, focusing on his bond with his parabatai and unconsciously moving his hand to cover the rune that binds them together. Jace is angry, as it seems he always is lately, but he feels otherwise fine. Reopening his eyes, he sees Erin and Jon politely averting their gaze and clears his throat to regain their attention.

“I’ll speak with him tomorrow,” he promises, knowing his lack of explanation for Jace’s absence will be noted. “For now, remain here while I inform Meliorn of the deal I’ve worked out with the Inquisitor. Afterwards, Erin, choose three others and form a transport squad to serve as an escort to the Silent City. I’ll be directly accompanying the prisoner, but you’ll be in command of the squad.”

Erin breathes in softly, surprised and pleased, and straightens up to attention. “Yes, sir!”

She relaxes back to her earlier parade rest, still on guard, and Alec turns his attention to the inhabitant of the cell in front of him.

Meliorn is lounging against his cell’s back corner, eyes closed and both legs folded elegantly to one side, seemingly unconcerned with the current situation. Alec is perfectly aware, however, that the knight has been listening to every word that’s been said since he arrived. The Shadowhunter clears his throat, folding his arms across his chest for lack of anything better to do with them, and waits for Meliorn to finally deign to react to his arrival.

A long moment later, Meliorn breaks the silence. “So you’ve come to take me to the Silent City now?” He questions Alec cooly without opening his eyes, “Take me to be tortured for the information you think I may hold because of nothing more than my race?”

“Yes and no.”

And Alec waits again. His patience will last far longer than Meliorn’s, and Alec refuses to have this conversation without at least a modicum of acknowledgement. Not after how hard he fought the last few hours for the few concessions he’s managed to wring from Idris. When the silence continues to stretch Meliorn reluctantly sits up in guarded interest, drawing his legs in to sit tailor style and raising his eyes to meet Alec’s gaze.

“Yes and no doesn’t exactly answer my question, Mr. Lightwood,” he prompts. The title is more mocking than respectful, but given the circ*mstances of the past days Alec doesn’t take offense.

“I’ve been meeting with the Inquisitor for the last several hours, Meliorn, working to find a solution that may be more amenable to everyone.”

The Seelie raises an elegant brow, but doesn’t respond.

Alec pauses, debating with himself momentarily. What he wants to say next could be read as a direct criticism of Clave policy. However, Alec can’t act as a simple Clave soldier any longer if he wants his Downworld Cabinet to work. Not to mention, his actions over the past few hours have made that role impossible for him to play even if he wanted to.

Steeling himself, Alec draws in a deep breath. “I’ve been working to find a solution,” he continues, “that doesn’t involve torturing you because the Accords don’t provide the same level of protection for the Downworld races as Clave law does for the nephilim.”

Meliorn stares at him, motionless, and Alec can hear the rustle of cloth and leather behind him as Erin and Jon shift in surprise. Heads of Institutes don’t, as a rule, criticize the Clave, directly or indirectly, and they especially don’t do so in front of non-nephilim.

“I’m listening.”

“We do still need to question you, and it will still need to take place in the Silent City. However, you will not be passed to the custody of the Silent Brothers for interrogation.”

“Torture,” Meliorn interjects. Alec doesn’t correct him.

“Instead, you will remain in the custody of the New York Institute, in my custody specifically, and the Silent Brothers, as representatives of the Clave, will be observing only. You have my word that the questioning will be solely verbal, that you will not be harmed in any way, and you will not be chained once we’ve arrived. Afterwards, your weapons will be returned and you’ll be released from custody.”

Meliorn remains silent, his gaze sharp and focused on Alec. For all the Seelie’s age and rank, it’s rare that any of that unfathomable presence bleeds through into his typically serene demeanor. However, the sudden, precise stillness and diamond-edged contemplation reminds Alec that the Seelie Queen has held absolute control of an entire realm and all its inhabitants for millennia and this being in front of him is one of her knights. Alec doesn’t allow his expression to reflect the sudden chill shivering down his spine.

“That sounds like an unusually lenient offer for a Downworld prisoner,” Meliorn gestures at the bars between them, “and a very sharp departure from the usual will of the Clave.”

It isn’t precisely a question, but it still demands an answer.

“The trade-off won’t fall to you,” Alec assures and hopes Meliorn will leave it at that.

“And to whom will it fall?”

Meliorn’s eyes are narrowed as though he suspects that in agreeing to this, he will be condemning another of the Downworld in his place. Alec wishes he could be surprised, but it isn’t an unfair suspicion given the Clave’s actions over the past decades. The Shadowhunter doesn’t allow himself to sigh.

Alec had hoped this particular part of the bargain wouldn’t need to be detailed aloud anywhere other than between himself and the High Inquisitor. He bites the inside of his cheek, considering, but decides to continue, feeling the carefully attentive non-attention of Jon and Erin as a laser focus on his back.

“You’re aware of course that the Clave punishes Shadowhunters who report back incorrect or incomplete information from an interrogation?”

And Alec knows very well that the Downworld, in fact, does not know this, but hopes phrasing it in such a way will alert Meliorn that Alec very much doesn’t want this portion of the conversation focused on - doesn’t want it to reach the Clave that he’s said this, that he’s revealed this.

Jon and Erin are marble statues at their posts.

Meliorn takes a moment before responding and Alec deeply hopes he understood. “While I have not had it explicitly confirmed before,” he starts noncommittally, and Alec tenses, “I’m not surprised to hear it.”

Alec relaxes. He took the hint.

“In return for my being allowed to handle your interrogation without resorting to enhanced methods, if the information I receive is incomplete or incorrect, whatever punishment is meted out to me will be increased three-fold.”

He leaves the nature of the punishment unsaid, but he can hear a sharp inhalation from his people behind him. They know precisely what he’s risking. A quick flicker of Meliorn’s gaze and Alec knows that Meliorn has noticed his people’s reactions too.

“And you would risk whatever punishment that may be on the honesty of a Seelie?” Meliorn questions almost idly. After Erin and Jon’s unfortunately audible reactions, Alec is aware that while Meliorn may not know what exactly Alec is risking, the knight can guess that it isn’t a slap on the wrist.

“If you would risk transfer to the Silent City and what lies there on my word, why should I not risk similar on yours?” Alec returns.

Meliorn keeps his gaze focused on Alec, a flash of surprise dying quickly from his eyes at the Shadowhunter’s response, and he draws himself to his feet.

Fully upright, the knight doesn’t come to attention, but his stance loses the casual insouciance of his earlier sprawl and gains a formality usually unseen outside the presence of his queen. “Then, under these spoken terms, I will accept questioning under your custody to take place in the Silent City.”

Alec nods, satisfied. “We’ll leave in one hour then.”

The notice isn’t just for Meliorn though and Alec turns to make sure Erin knows to have her squad ready. She and Jon are both focused intently on him, and he’s well aware of the reason. He can’t let this pass without them knowing why he’s doing this.

“The Law may not demand the same protections for those unsworn to the Clave as it does for the nephilim, but that doesn’t excuse taking advantage of that gap in the law to take actions against a Downworlder that we would never justify against a fellow Shadowhunter.” He quietly drives home his point, a point he’s just openly acknowledged he’s willing to risk his blood to protect, and Meliorn watches silently.

There’s a moment of pause, of consideration, and then both of his people snap to attention, far more formally then the usual battlefield bracing of shoulders that’s typically seen outside of Idris proper. Alec swallows against the sudden hint of roughness in his throat at the unexpected gesture and gives them a deep nod in confirmation.

Erin and Jon remain at formal attention until Alec leaves their sight, and, for the first time in weeks, Alec feels a spark of hope kindle in his chest.

—————————————————————————————————————————

Office of the Head

The New York Institute

One Hour Later

Alec doesn’t slam the phone down in frustration, but the force with which he does put it down is sufficient to rustle the ever-growing stack of paperwork that has made its home on Alec’s desk these past weeks.

An hour should have been more than enough time for Alec to reach the other representatives of the Cabinet. He’d wrangled permission from the Inquisitor to provide an invitation for them to witness Meliorn’s questioning if they wished, proof that the Institute wasn’t torturing Downworlders without reason. (This time at least.)

He also desperately needed to figure out what in Raziel’s name was going on with his siblings. He’d thought Isabelle would be pacing the Institute’s dungeons in frustration by now, and the fact that Jace had blown off a patrol he was supposed to be in command of was deeply disconcerting. Not to mention, his own personal, red-headed bundle of chaos was nowhere to be found either.

And not one person would pick up their Edom-cursed cell phones. Not Jace, not Izzy, not Raphael, not Luke, not even his own boyfriend was answering his calls. He’d left voicemail after voicemail, tried texting and fire messages alike, and not one person would respond to him.

Alec glances up at the clock in the corner of his office and bites off a curse. Erin would likely already have her transport squad mustered in the weapons room by now.

He pushes back from the heavy wooden desk and quickly buckles on the sheath for his secondary seraph blade, fingers nimbly adjusting the straps with the ease of long practice as he moves.

The ancient wooden door to the Head’s office thunks firmly in its frame behind him, and Alec strides down the hall to the nearby weapons room. Erin and her squad momentarily brace themselves to attention at his arrival, but they quickly go back to the bustle of last minute checks and rune activations that happen before any of his Shadowhunters leave the Institute on mission.

It’s second nature for Alec to take his primary bow from the waiting rack and perform a perfunctory, although still thorough, check of the freshly oiled bowstring, testing the tension and then removing the arrows from his quiver to double-check the fletchings and ensure his runes haven’t degraded since the last time he refreshed them.

The rote actions calm down his irritation at his absent parabatai and sister and his bizarrely unreachable Council.

“Sir?”

Alec pops his head up from contemplating his arrows and sees Erin standing in front of him, silently offering to run through his gear checks with him. Alec smiles at her and hands over his quiver, watching as she tentatively takes it from him to confirm his readiness. Her movements get progressively smoother and more confident as she proceeds with her inspection and Alec doesn’t make any move to correct her.

When Alec had first taken over the Headship of the Institute, he’d made it mandatory for squad leaders to perform secondary gear and rune inspections on everyone who went out under their command. There’d been some grumbling at first, but the resulting decrease in serious casualties had stopped the few dissenters in short order. While Alec may be Erin’s superior and not acting as a squad member tonight, he is pleased with her refusal to exempt even him from this rule.

Erin lingers a moment over one of the runes on Alec’s quiver, and Alec makes a note to quietly offer an explanation to her after Meliorn is released. As one of the few archers at the Institute, some of the runes he uses aren’t commonly known and this particular one would be useful for a squad leader. He uses it to give him an awareness of where his arrows are once they leave his quiver, but for certain missions it can be modified to give a mission leader an awareness of their team member’s locations.

Handing back his quiver, Erin runs a practiced but clinical gaze up and down Alec’s body, noting the presence and positioning of his seraph blades, both of which are slightly off from standard given the placement of his primary weapon.

“Night-vision rune and iratze?” She questions shortly.

Alec flashes the clearly activated night-vision rune on the back of his forearm at her and points to a spot just under his left collarbone to indicate where he’s placed his permanent healing rune.

Erin acknowledges the active rune with a quick nod and indicates her right middle torso in return for her own iratze’s placement. She then turns to the squad, calling for their attention. Jon Lundquist, her guard partner from earlier, is one of her chosen teammates along with Vivian Sureblade and Thomas Redfang.

All the Shadowhunters present are solid choices in Alec’s opinion, and they’re a good mix of weapons and tracking specialties for a transport team, even for one with such a cooperative transportee. At Erin’s silent signal, the three quickly indicate the positions of their own itatze runes as Alec’s eyes fall to each in turn. Having had all of them under his command in patrols before, Alec is familiar with locations, but a refresher is never harmful. If an injury is ever serious enough that a Shadowhunter isn’t capable of self-activating their runes, wasting precious seconds fumbling around to find their iratze could mean the difference between life and death. (Adding this to the mandatory checks was another decision of Alec’s that had been met with derision only until the first time it had been needed.)

At the completion of this last check, Erin turns back to Alec. “My team is ready for the mission, sir.”

Alec nods at her as he swings his quiver over his shoulder. “Good work, Ashborne, and a solid team you’ve assembled tonight.”

Erin, Jon, and Thomas remain stoic at his praise, but Vivian grins at him, the maroon streaks in her dark hair shining vividly under the bright lights of the weapons room. She’s the youngest team member tonight, 16 and having only qualified for combat patrols six months ago, but Alec’s always secretly enjoyed her slightly rebellious attitude.

Vivian follows Institute protocols relating to patrols and safety and even paperwork to the letter, but she’s been teaching women’s self-defense at a mundane YMCA every Thursday for the last two years and dyes her hair a different shade every month, much to the vocal (and ineffective) displeasure of Maryse Lightwood.

(Alec isn’t supposed to know that Vivian and Magnus have a group chat called ‘Fringe Benefits’ composed almost entirely of hair puns, inspiration photos, and emojis that are vaguely inappropriate for anyone to be sending to their boss’s partner. Alec doesn’t care. The delighted fist bump Vivian gave Magnus at their matching streaks when they’d used the same inspiration photo was the first purely positive reaction to Magnus’ presence at the Institute from anyone under Alec’s command that he wasn’t related to, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that.)

Erin draws herself up when Alec remains silent at her side, realizing that he isn’t planning on laying out the parameters for the mission. Alec had been serious when he told her that while he would be accompanying Meliorn, she would be in charge of the transport team.

“We’ll proceed from here directly to the detention level to pick up our prisoner, the Seelie Knight Meliorn.” Erin starts, her voice clear and calm. “He is a cooperating witness and will be under the direct supervision of our Head. Although he is required to be restrained at the hands during transport, he is not expected to be hostile.”

Alec is pleased she’s emphasizing this and makes sure the squad can tell from his body language that he agrees with her assessment. Jon had been present along with Erin for his conversation with Meliorn earlier, but he’s unsure how much they shared with Vivian and Thomas.

“Once we leave the Institute, we’ll fall into a standard diamond formation with the prisoner at the center. Redfang,” she nods at Thomas, “you’ll take the right. Sureblade and Lundquist, you’ll be the left and rear guards.” She points at Vivian and Jon to indicate each position as she speaks.

“Questions?”

No one speaks and Erin bounces ever so slightly on the toes of her combat boots before turning to Alec.

“Sir, the transport team is ready whenever you are.”

Alec nods, sparing one last thought to his missing Downworld Cabinet, and leads them down to the detention level.

Chapter 2: The Woman Across the Way

Chapter Text

The old woman across the way

is whipping the boy again

and shouting to the neighborhood

her goodness and his wrongs.

-Robert Hayden

—————————————————————

Alec stares blankly forward as the sun creeps slowly over the horizon, the bricks at his back leeching the last degree of warmth from his skin. His chest hurts, a cracked rib at the least, Alec considers numbly.

His arm hurts too, worse than his chest. Livid purple is already surfacing where an electrum whip wrapped around his wrist and took him to the ground, yanking him away from the prisoner in his grasp.

Worse than his chest and his arm though is the deep ache pulsing from his left side. His right arm is braced tightly around his waist, pressing into the searing, throbbing mark above his hip. His parabatai has raised arms against him and Alec raised his weapon in turn.

The rune is blazing in furious recompense. He closes his eyes.

“Sir?”

Alec breathes in, breath shallow in keeping with the pain in his chest. He wonders if he can pretend that he isn’t dazed and off-kilter; if he can pretend the ground isn’t reeling under him. Wonders if he can pretend hard enough to make himself forget his world has just burned to cinders beneath his feet.

“-Alec?” A note of worry inflects the voice upwards.

When Alec opens his eyes the sun is glaring and fully above the horizon. His sense of time tilts wildly for a single, discordant moment.

Alec blinks until the smear of color in his line of sight resolves into Erin’s crouching form. Her face is shadowed, backlit as she is by the sun, and the bandage wrapped around her arm is a shock of white against black.

He looks a few yards past her without speaking. Thomas and Vivian are murmuring quietly as they kneel at Jon’s side, distracting him as a freshly activated iratze heals what Alec suspects is a broken femur. Alec knows he should be able to make out what they’re saying, but there’s a low rush of blood pulsing in his ears and everything sounds like he’s under three feet of water.

A crimson streak of blood painted across Vivian’s forehead is a jarring mismatch to the streaks of maroon in her hair. Something sharp and far too close to grief crawls up Alec’s throat.

He knows he has to move. He has to function; take care of his people. Even- he pauses, the thought almost too inconceivable to finish.

Even if it is also his people that have just attacked them. Alec has to swallow past a surge of nausea before he can speak.

“Erin.” He can’t meet her gaze and stares blankly past her shoulder.

The acknowledgement is brief, but Erin’s relief is clear as she gives Alec a hesitant update. “Sir, Lundquist’s leg will be healed enough to move in a few minutes. All other injuries are stable for now, but we haven’t-“

“Vivian’s been checked for a concussion?” Alec interrupts. The blood on her face is dry, but he has a too-vivid memory of her being flung like a rag doll into the side of a metal construction dumpster.

He doesn’t know what his voice sounds like to her, but Erin goes with the change in topic too easily to be normal.

“She’s been checked,” Ashborne confirms. “A mild concussion is suspected, and Thomas will be keeping an eye on her until she gets formally evaluated at the Institute.”

She pauses, continuing tentatively. “Are you alright, sir?”

Alec blinks at her. His sister has just challenged him in open battle and his parabatai has betrayed an oath that has been inviolate between them since it was sworn. Each member of the council he fought to establish with every shred of political capital he possessed is now, inarguably, complicit in an attack on a sanctioned Shadowhunter mission.

For all their skills, neither Isabelle nor Jace have ever been accused of subtlety. And, apparently, not even the addition of Downworlders who have been in the field longer than either of his siblings have been alive can change that.

The strength of wolves throwing his people hard enough to dent metal on impact, the speed of vampires to whisk a prisoner away from their formation with only a blur of color as witness, the shimmer of a portal evacuating the alley in mere seconds, snapping away to leave Alec’s team strewn like broken dolls on the pavement.

An adamas whip, coldly luminous under the pale moonlight, striking forward from the shadows and coiling like a serpent around Alec’s limbs. A seraph blade blazing into being, cutting through chains impervious to steel.

No, Alec’s siblings have never been considered discrete.

The concrete scrapes against Alec’s palms where he braces himself for leverage and his lips whiten from pressure as he unconsciously presses them together to suppress a pained exhalation.

Erin keeps silent while Alec forces himself to his feet, although she looks like she wants nothing more than to offer a hand. He activates his iratze almost without thought.

He immediately regrets it.

Alec isn’t able to keep the strangled exclamation behind his teeth this time and hunches over in instinctive reaction, panting harshly as the searing brand of his parabatai rune ignites into an inferno of agony. Drawing runes always hurts, even years of practice at burning their skin only teaching one what to expect, not actually dulling the pain. Activating extant runes though, that does get easier.

Alec hasn’t felt this however, even during the inscription of his first rune by the Silent Brothers, universally considered the hardest rune to bear without the angelic power rune already thrumming golden energy through your veins. Each stroke of the parabatai rune is freshly cauterized, the skin around it hot and tight as though it should be bubbling and blistering in sympathetic reaction.

When Alec swore that oath to Jace, he meant every vow. That Jace could act against him in this way? Alec doesn’t want to consider what it means that Jace was very clearly not favoring his left side during the fight.

Erin is still in front of him though, hovering openly at his obvious pain.

Vivian and Jon evidently heard him too, much to his displeasure, as they’re looking over at him in concern and dismay.

They all know what it means that his iratze won’t work.

Wounds caused in desecration of the parabatai oath are anathema to nephilim energy. Alec’s bones won’t be healed by runes. Not this time.

Alec takes the deepest breath he can manage without straining his ribs and straightens, squaring his shoulders and shoving the broken pieces of his trust as far down as he can manage.

He has work to do.

____________________________

Alec’s fire message, sent high priority to the Inquisitor, fizzles out of existence in a shower of gilded sparks. His most urgent task accomplished, Alec leans back in his chair, resting his arms on his lap and tilting his head back. He gives himself five minutes to do nothing but breathe.

He falls into the mental quiescence he uses when posting up in a vantage point before a mission to wait, for hours if he must, in complete stillness. Alec hasn’t slept in two nights now, and he’s fast approaching the edge of a cliff no amount of runic stamina will save him from. The enforced calmness steadies him in the meantime.

(Alec tries hard to convince himself he’s calm and not numb. It mostly works.)

A sharp rap on his door breaks the silence. Alec glances at the clock. Four minutes.

Alec’s head feels heavy on his shoulders when he sits back up.

“Come in,” he calls.

Underhill slips inside and shuts the door behind him. In an unusually open display of concern from his taciturn Head of Security, Alec watches as Andrew eyes him, gaze catching on his bruised wrist and his ribs. He’s evidently already been appraised of last night’s mission.

“The Inquisitor’s office just sent word, sir. We can expect her arrival at noon.”

Alec nods. Imogen must have been waiting for his report. It’s not like she wouldn’t have realized something had gone awry when he and Meliorn had failed to arrive at the Silent City last night.

“Thank you, Andrew,” he acknowledges when the blonde Shadowhunter doesn’t move. “Was that all the message said?”

“Yes, sir.”

By the slight pause Andrew takes before responding, it seems evident that Andrew knows precisely what Alec is expecting to happen in, Alec checks the clock again, just over an hour.

“-Sir,” Andrew looks conflicted. “Isabelle and Jace haven’t been seen since yesterday afternoon.”

Alec clings to his determined calmness and he knows his tone stays steady even as he chooses his words carefully. There are layers to navigate here, ways to say what he must without touching on what he can’t.

Alec deliberately holds Andrew’s gaze. “Jace and Isabelle have been taken off the schedule and, as has been made abundantly clear to me these past few days, what my siblings choose to do in their free time is welcome to neither my involvement nor my knowledge.”

Andrew remains silent. The crackle of embers in Alec’s fireplace is the only sound for a long moment.

Alec is motionless under his Head of Security’s scrutiny, waiting for Andrew’s reaction. Alec’s words were a clear declaration. He’s done making excuses for his siblings, covering for them without exception.

Yet, for all that has happened, Jace and Isabelle are still his. He’s raised them in far more meaningful ways than Maryse and Robert, and he won’t let his siblings take the full anger, the full punishment, of the Clave for what they’ve just done.

His siblings have committed treason- treason against the Clave, treason against the Institute, and treason against Alec himself. The punishment for that is harsh. Harsh and permanent.

The Clave will brook no possibility of uprising. Not again.

From the moment Isabelle’s whip had encircled Alec’s wrist in full view of the transport team, there was no possibility of keeping this quiet. Gossip is the lifeblood of nephilim society and, frankly, Alec will be shocked if the entirety of the New York Institute doesn’t already know what’s been done.

Even beyond that, Alec’s siblings have always pushed the line - always stayed out all night partying, been late for group trainings or meetings, flippant with paperwork, but they’ve never missed patrols or let their skills slip where they could endanger their teams. While dawn runs may be blown off occasionally, it was a certainty on those days that Jace and Isabelle could be found in the training room long into the night to make up for those truant hours. Mission logs may be weeks overdue, but supply requests or personnel recommendations were never tardy.

They’ve never put the lives under Alec’s keeping at risk. Never attacked a fellow Shadowhunter. (Never attacked Alec.)

Alec can’t forget the white bandage on Erin’s arm, a gash from a seraph blade underneath. He can’t forget Vivian’s concussion or Thomas’ broken leg.

Isabelle and Jace have crossed a line and it’s acid blistering his stomach. He’ll protect them from the Clave even now, yes, but he won’t cover for them. Not for this. Not when they’ve put the people he’s charged to protect in harm’s way.

The Institute and every Shadowhunter within it is his, first and before all else. Their lives are his to command and Alec has been their Head in truth, if not in name, since he was fourteen and Maryse and Robert moved their home to Idris. They’ve been his since his parents decided that clawing their way up Idris’ political circles would raise them higher in society than the backbreaking grind of running the third largest Institute in the world.

That work they were content to leave to Alec.

It’s Alec who has quietly led the hundreds of Shadowhunters under his command for the better part of the last decade, leaning heavily on his seconds during that first, terrible year. Those first few months he was desperate and floundering, petrified to fail in taking up the duty his parents had abandoned without a thought.

As Acting Head, he was the only one able to sign off and make the decisions that needed to be made, and any wrong decision could cost lives. Alec had fallen asleep at his desk more often than in his bed in those frenetic months, feverishly working to absorb everything his people could teach him in staggering, overwhelming cascades of information.

Neither Jace nor Isabelle were in the field then, but those old enough that they were on active duty remember a teenage Alec burning through stamina runes, often teetering just shy of rune exhaustion for weeks at a time to keep up with the endless slog of training and patrol schedules, gear requests and intelligence reports, budget meetings and Idris politics that kept his people alive.

They remember Alec trying desperately to keep up with the ceaseless carousel of paperwork from the Clave to make sure their supply of weapons and technology stayed flowing and their coffers could afford hiring warlocks to heal and to ward. With only the title of Acting Head and without Robert and Maryse’s full support, too busy in Alicante to help the men and women that they were supposed to lead, Alec had to work twice as hard to get half as much funding from the Clave.

Those old enough remember the first funeral after Robert and Maryse left for Alicante- the first time a Shadowhunter died under Alec’s orders. They remember his grief and his sheer resolve that never again would this happen under his watch.

Those serving then remember a fifteen year old Alec at the second funeral he presided over learning that never again was never really a possibility.

For all that Maryse and Robert didn’t formally relinquish command until well after Alec’s coming of age, it is Alec who has led them and protected them and fought both with them and for them long before he was named Head.

Andrew has only been at the Institute for five years, Alec’s first transfer once he had the power to request one without approval, but Underhill’s solemn nature belies his intelligence and his preternatural ability to know the undercurrents of everything happening within the Institute he claims as his auspice.

Andrew is Alec’s second-in-command and he wants the both of them to be in concert on this, although he won’t force it if Andrew refuses. Alec has other plans to ensure his sibling’s protection if Andrew’s integrity demands actions contrary to Alec’s planned representation of the facts. His report to Imogen was truthful, if not complete.

Underhill braces himself almost perceptibly, his decision clearly made.

“You’re prepared for however the Inquisitor will react?” He double-checks, ever the conscientious second.

Alec nods silently. The Inquisitor’s actions are the only variable in this mess he has no qualms at guessing. Her intransigence is nothing if not predictable.

Andrew grimaces. “I’ll make sure the whispers about last night are contained within the Institute.”

“Thank you,” Alec acknowledges. He wonders if Jace and Izzy realize how badly the Institute is going to take their actions, especially with the deal he’d made with Meliorn being common knowledge.

In the hour between its confirmation and his leaving with Meliorn and the transport team, Erin and Jon had not kept quiet, pleased with their Head’s refusal to buckle to acquiescence in the torture of one who had done nothing to deserve it.

Alec’s Shadowhunters won’t gainsay his testimony in front of the Inquisitor, they’d never oppose him in that way, but amongst themselves? Jace and Izzy have always been protected by Alec’s tacit approval, perhaps too much so in hindsight, but with their attack on other Shadowhunters and his clear disavowal of their actions to Andrew, that level of protection is gone.

Andrew turns and leaves without further discussion.

____________________________

Alec leaves his office shortly after Andrew’s exit to wait on the Ops floor for Imogen’s arrival. The Inquisitor’s loathing of being made to wait is well known and, given everything, Alec doesn’t deem it wise to make her displeasure with him even more severe.

The back halls of the Institute are strangely deserted for midday. Alec is nearly certain the entirety of his staff is clustered in groups on the Ops floor whispering about last night.

Not yet wanting to face his people- his parabatai and his sister have raised arms against him and he doesn’t know what that says about him as a leader, as a brother- Alec drops by the alcoved niche near the training room he frequents, drawing out his stele to unlock the warded safe in the floor.

The safe opens and Alec’s heart stops.

His heart physically stops for a single, terrible moment of mindless horror, and his breath quickens to stave off the numbing panic making his chest pang. The Cup is gone.

The Cup is gone.

It takes only seconds for the pieces to come together in grim certainty of what has transpired. The Cup was still in the Tarot card, useless to anyone without Clary to transform it, but the utterly foolish plan that red-headed menace had suggested would rely on having it in hand, whether in the card or not.

Alec presses his lips together, staving off the heat building behind his eyes because this, indisputably, isworse than the attack last night. This isn’t just treason against authority, this could enable the genocide of an entire race. To risk that merely on the word of a girl Jace is infatuated with?

Alec takes in a harsh, shaking breath, wiping his eyes roughly with a calloused palm. His siblings don’t have access to this safe. Not even Andrew has access to this safe; it’s locked to the Head’s stele alone and there is only one person with the access and the skills to have taken his stele without Alec’s knowledge.

A bitter acceptance wells up in his chest. They may not have put words to what they’ve been doing these past many weeks, but Alec has come to trust Magnus in a way he’s never trusted another. He’s come to trust that Magnus will put Alec first. That Magnus will put Alec before Jace, before Izzy, before politics, before the well-being of the Institute.

Alec has never been first to anyone before, and he’d reveled in the effervescent bubbles of joy that rose in the quiet recesses of his heart whenever he dared to think of it.

Alec stares blankly forward and he sends the safe back into the floor, something in his chest collapsing inwards a little more with every beat of his pulse, a support he hadn’t realized was so integral to his being suddenly removed.

Forcing himself upright is a struggle against gravity. Alec has been exhausted for a long time now, but this final betrayal has shattered him- the one comfort he’d held in the back of his mind for when this entire ordeal was finished, the inimitable solace of one person behind him and none other- gone.

Alec forces his shuddering breaths to steady calmness.

He hasn’t been first for anyone his entire life, not even his parents or his siblings. He doesn’t know how he ever dared believe Magnus would be different.

____________________________

The back halls may well be deserted, but the Ops floor is ringed with what looks to be at least half the Shadowhunters in the Institute not currently on patrol.

New York’s Institute is the third largest in the world, the product of a unique configuration of ley lines only surpassed by the configurations in London and Beijing in terms of demonic activity. Her full complement is 500 active-duty Shadowhunters and all their associated support staff, although she can hold up to 1,200 when operating at a war footing.

The Ops room is thronged with various small clusters, but most of those present are gathered either in the spaces between the main Ops floor and the ancillary halls or on the overlooking balcony that encircles three-quarters of the large space. Even now they won’t impede the personnel at their stations feeding intelligence to those in the field.

When Alec steps out of the hall leading to the Head’s office, the space is oddly silent for how many of his people are present. For now, Alec ignores the uneasy energy in the air and continues out onto the floor as though one of his most intrinsic beliefs, a fundamental aspect of his sense of self, hasn’t just been proven so completely false.

Paying no mind to the eyes that are a physical weight on his back, Alec proceeds with his usual mid-shift rounds of the Ops stations, keeping abreast of any new developments, doling out advice and recommendations as needed. He’s not surprised to see Erin filling in on the surveillance post covering the Upper West Side. He’d released her and the rest of the transport team to rest several hours ago, but she, more than any other person present last night, knows how Imogen is likely to react.

There’s no question whether they know about the mission. At each station, his people swing between joining him in pretending nothing is wrong and fluttering oddly about him trying to offer their quiet support for what they know is soon to come.

The continuing absence of Jace and Isabelle is conspicuous.

Nearly half an hour later Alec hears their voices before he sees them, the commotion by the Ops entrance closest to the main doors capturing his attention.

He leans around the young Shadowhunter in front of him, only her second month on Ops duty, pointing to a minute color variation on the thaumotographic overlay she’s just toggled onto the grid diagram of lower Manhattan.

“You’ll want to keep an eye on this variance, Lindhall. Rapid fluctuations in thaumatic regions can indicate potential for a minor rift formation.”

Lindhall nods, making a note on the screen and doing her best not to turn her attention to the quickly approaching clamor. A final affirmation that she’s doing well and Alec removes himself from her station, walking over to an unoccupied table outside the general work area.

Jace and Isabelle have already honed in on his location on the floor and are hastening over to his side with a single-minded focus. Expressions pained, they corner Alec with his back to the table just as he turns around to face them.

Jace doesn’t so much as wait for Alec to power down the tablet he’s holding before he questions him roughly. “Why didn’t you tell us about the deal you made for Meliorn?”

Alec just stares at his parabatai for a long moment, face entirely, carefully blank. He just stares at his parabatai, his parabatai whose bruises still adorn his skin and whose blows have cracked his bones.

When neither Jace nor Izzy make any move to do anything other than glare at him in mingled anxiety and disbelief, Alec sighs and turns to put his tablet down on the table behind him.

Instead of turning back around to face his siblings, Alec rests his hands on the edge of the table and bows his head deeply, eyes falling shut. He’d hoped they would wait one more hour before returning. Just one more hour.

“Why didn’t I tell you about the deal I made for Meliorn?” He repeats finally, dangerously restrained.

Alec thinks of the dozens of unanswered calls and bites back his initial response. He pauses for the barest moment before continuing.

“Would it have mattered?” He questions softly, intentionally bland as he evens his tone. “My sister and my parabatai believed I would willingly and knowingly force someone who had done nothing wrong, an innocent regardless of the blood they carry, to their torture and possible death. If you would believe that, then why would you possibly believe anything else I said about taking him to the Silent City?”

There’s a single beat of silence before Jace and Izzy protest in unison. Their words and excuses mingle together and overlap as they object, but Alec is unsurprised when no apologies are forthcoming.

“Enough, both of you,” Alec cuts them off sharply, straightening back up to his full height. “Inquisitor Herondale will be arriving shortly and I’d like a moment to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?” Isabelle asks, suddenly uneasy as she looks around the Ops floor for the first time since barging through the doors. There are far too many people around and the other Shadowhunters aren’t just ignoring the squabbles of the Lightwood siblings as usual- they’re glaring at them instead. Isabelle takes a second glance. No, they’re glaring at her and Jace alone.

Before Alec can respond, two parties enter the Ops gallery from opposite sides. Raj comes in from the main entrance hall, escorting Magnus and Raphael. With the two members of Alec’s Downworld Cabinet are Maia, Luke’s second, and Kirna, Meliorn’s second. From the hall leading to the standing portal to Alicante comes Inquisitor Herondale and several of her guard.

Alec closes his eyes for a single moment of bitter resignation.

A satisfied smile grows on Imogen’s face when she sees the number of people present, especially the collection of Cabinet members walking deeper into the Institute.

The two groups approach where Alec and his siblings stand and Alec squares his shoulders in silent resolve.

“Inquisitor Herondale,” Magnus greets once they’re close enough to speak, raising a brow in exaggerated surprise given her refusal to come to New York and question Meliorn in the first place. “We weren’t aware of your coming.” Magnus inclines his head in mock regard, as though asking for permission, when he continues. “We had hoped to request a moment of Alec’s time to deal with a matter pertaining to the Downworld Cabinet.”

Alec breathes in deeply, knowing without any question what the Inquisitor’s response to that statement will be. Imogen has been against the Cabinet from the moment it was suggested and any chance to damage how smoothly it’s been working up till now will delight her.

No Downworlders have ever been allowed to witness Discipline. No Shadowhunter would choose to let themselves be made so low, let themselves be humiliated in such a manner, before those they deemed as lesser. Alec knows that unlike what the Inquisitor perhaps thinks, none of those present will take pleasure in his pain, but he had not wanted them to witness it nonetheless.

“Of course, High Warlock Bane.” Imogen’s smile shows far too many teeth to be entirely friendly. “Mr. Lightwood unfortunately has a prior engagement, but he will be available shortly if the four of you are amenable to waiting that long?”

It isn’t a question.

Alec can see the moment it becomes abundantly clear to Magnus that something is amiss at that far too polite answer. That something is amiss when the Inquisitor requests four Downworlders remain in an Institute a moment longer than absolutely necessary.

Magnus treads carefully with his next words, but Alec knows it won’t be enough, not when it’s so very certain that none of his Cabinet have any idea of what’s about to happen.

“Of course, Inquisitor Herondale. Shall we wait for you here?”

“Oh no, Bane.” She drops both the title and any facade of pleasantry. “Mr. Lightwood’s hearing will take place here and shall be public. In fact,” she pauses for emphasis, “I believe it would be appropriate for you four to witness it as representatives of your respective species.” The special emphasis she puts on that last word makes it clear she barely deems them worthy of the term. “Especially given that my business with him is directly in response to the attack your people made last night on Mr. Lightwood and the rest of the team escorting the Seelie Knight Meliorn to the Silent City.”

And now, finally, Izzy and Jace realize why the Inquisitor might be here with her guard. Jace snaps to attention beside Alec and he has to swallow down an acrid taste in his throat. Now he cares?

But Imogen Herondale doesn’t allow for a response, merely strides away from them and towards the immense statue of Raziel on the Eastern side of the Ops floor. The marble monolith is sized for the Institute’s vaulted cathedral ceilings, sitting on a granite pedestal to raise it even higher. It takes her several long moments to reach it, guards trailing behind, and Alec ignores the questioning gaze of Magnus and the alarmed verbal prods of his siblings alike.

When Imogen stands before Raziel, head barely at his knees, she is centered before the largest clear space on the Ops floor. Turning to face the assembled mass of Shadowhunters, she lifts her arms in a dramatized call for attention. Silence falls almost immediately in the cavernous room.

Magnus and the other Downworlders glance around, unsettled in the sudden quiet, realization dawning that between the crowded space around them and the overflowing gallery above, far too many Shadowhunters are present.

Magnus shifts and the unease in his stance is well-hidden. He, along with everyone else, turns his attention to the Inquisitor.

“Shadowhunters of the New York Institute,” she calls, pitching her voice to be heard throughout the room. “I greet you in the name of the Consul and as a member of the body of the Clave.”

Every eye is locked on Imogen’s imposing figure, bracketed by the two Idris guards behind her. The Inquisitor looks to be reveling in it.

“May the mercy of Raziel be with you all,” she intones.

The four Downworlders suck in startled breaths as every Shadowhunter present responds in unison.

“And also with you.”

Imogen turns her gaze towards their group at the far corner of the room.

“Alexander Gideon Lightwood.” Imogen’s voice carries easily, echoing off the stone walls, and she pauses for a long moment, savoring the spectacle. “You are called forward to face Discipline.”

Izzy gasps sharply and tension cords Jace’s muscles as he takes an aborted step forward. Magnus glances between Alec and the discomforting reactions of those around him, twisting his fingers in a nervous gesture Alec knows emulates the movements calling forward his battle magic.

The eyes of all the Shadowhunters under his command turn from Imogen to Alec, the combined weight of their gaze a physical presence.

It’s not often that Institute Heads are called for Discipline, and it is even less often that any Discipline for one so ranked is delivered publicly.

The Inquisitor knows without doubt, even if she will never be able to prove it without his cooperation, that Alec is shielding his siblings from her. She’d also have to be far less shrewd than her position requires to not suspect that he’s protecting at least two members of the Downworld Cabinet.

His face a study in stillness, Alec steps forward without a moment’s hesitation. His people part respectfully before him to clear his path as he goes and Alec comes to a halt a few paces in front of the Clave representative and the guardsmen she’d brought from Alicante. A coiled leather whip hangs from the belt of the man at her left shoulder.

Although he can’t see them, Alec can guess as to the apprehension of the Cabinet members present. He and Magnus haven’t spoken too deeply about the internal workings of the Clave, and, even with his centuries of experience, Alec isn’t certain whether Magnus or any of those standing with him know how the Clave delivers Discipline.

Shoulders drawn back and hands clasped behind his waist, Alec meets Imogen Herondale’s steel gaze. The words are ritual and although Alec has said them many times before, never before has he meant them less.

“That it may please the Angel to bring back into the way of righteousness all such as have erred, I place myself before you for Discipline.”

Imogen Herondale smiles.

Chapter 3: Vulgar Anger

Chapter Text

“I do not believe in the government of the lash, if any one of you ever expects to whip your children again,

I want you to have a photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with vulgar anger…”

-Robert Ingersoll

__________________________________________________________

Magnus’ gaze is locked on the back of Alec’s squared shoulders.

The two of them haven’t truly put a single name to it yet, but his something- his boyfriend, his partner, his lover- is standing placidly in front of a triumphant Imogen Herondale and Magnus suddenly can’t breathe.

The hundreds of Shadowhunters surrounding them are hushed, the normal rustle of stiff leather and clanking of sheathed blades entirely absent from the cavernous hall. Magnus can’t make himself look away from Alec long enough to take full measure of those around them, but he doesn’t need to. He doesn’t need to because he’s led his people for more years than anyone else in this room has been alive.

Magnus has led his people through centuries of discord and war; he’s sat at negotiating tables when the people across from him have openly debated his sentience. Magnus can read this room without having to look away.

There’s a grim bleakness in the air, an almost tactile presence telling Magnus that for all no-one is interfering, Alec’s people are incensed with Imogen’s pronouncement. Shadowhunters are too well-trained to keep visible tells, but there’s an edge in the postures of the few black-clad hunters between Magnus and Alec, an unmoving tension in corded muscles belying actions regretfully leashed.

In Magnus’ peripheral vision Maia looks around restlessly, her hands clenching and unclenching in a light display of nerves. Raphael and Kirna, for the moment, are motionless.

The marble statue of Raziel is coldly imperious behind Imogen’s severe figure as she surveys the gathered assemblage and her expression is grimly satisfied.

When Magnus moves his gaze from Alec’s broad shoulders to Imogen’s cool visage, her painted lips, precisely the appropriate shade for a nephilim woman of her age, twist up for the barest moment in thinly veiled pleasure.

A steel band wraps around Magnus’ chest.

When the Inquisitor speaks her voice is pitched to carry, a voice as equally suited to battle-field orders as to impassioned proselytizing from the pulpit. Imogen’s intonation rises and falls in precise patterns, the archaic phrases falling from her lips in well-memorized and oft-repeated fragments.

“In the name of Raziel, the Courageous, the Just, and the Merciful,” she begins, enunciating each of the Angel’s attributes in separate intonations, “we gather together to bring our brother in the Angel, Alexander Lightwood, back into the full Communion and unity of our holy purpose.”

An “Amen” rolls through the room, one word spoken in a hundred voices.

A pit opens in the bottom of Magnus’ stomach.

Magnus lived in Europe through the most horrific ages of the Church. He lived through times when a religion based on love and compassion and the dignity of all people was so corrupted by the scheming and slick ploys for power and wealth of the men who led it that it was no longer recognizable as the same religion of those who lived and breathed and died by the command to love God and neighbor before all else.

Magnus has seen the worst of how men can bend and twist sacred words to justify their evils, and Imogen stands before Raziel right now as Magnus once watched priests stand in village squares before blood-soaked stakes with torches in their hands.

Magnus’ breathing is suddenly uneven.

When Imogen speaks again, she pauses expectantly after her last word, waiting for the response of those gathered. “That it may please thee to bring into the way of truth all such as have erred, and are deceived,” she calls.

“We beseech thee to hear us, merciful Raziel.”

Magnus imagines the giant stained glass windows rattling in their frames from the force of that rejoinder and he sees Raphael tense next to him, clearly recognizing the wording. Magnus does too, his breath tremulous between his ribs. The Catholic Church ruled an enormous portion of the globe for centuries, their grip on culture so extreme and so pervasive that it was impossible to live through that era, even as a non-believer, and not recognize the Great Litany of Lent.

The pit in Magnus’ stomach deepens and the band around his chest tightens. Magnus remembers well the overt, theatrical displays of penance and piety in the weeks before Christianity’s Holiest day; he remembers the ashes and the sackcloth and the self-flagellation, literal and metaphorical alike.

The Great Litany began the journey to bring back to the Church those deemed to have sinned so severely it separated them from the body of the faithful. The atonement was only given, however, after the penitent proved their contrition and atonement to the satisfaction of the Church.

Magnus’s breath shudders to contemplate what the Clave considers true contrition, what the Clave considers as Discipline, in their soldiers.

Imogen doesn’t pause in her recitation.

“That it may please thee to inspire us, in our one true and just calling,” Maia bares her teeth in aversion even as Imogen’s gaze sweeps across the room, lingering on the quartet of Downworlders as if to emphasize her calling is to fight them, “to do the work which thou givest us to do with singleness of heart as thy servants, and for the common good.”

“We beseech thee to hear us, merciful Raziel.” The thunderous echo in reply rattles Magnus’ chest.

“That it may please thee to give us true repentance; to forgive us all our sins, negligences, and ignorances; and to endue us with the unity of thy commands to amend our lives according to thy holy mission.”

Magnus braces himself for the reverberant response, but this time it is Alec alone who replies. His voice rings out, clear and strong.

“I beseech thee to hear me, merciful Raziel.”

It’s apparent Alec won’t cower in the face of the Inquisitor or her Discipline.

Imogen’s smile twists into something ugly for the barest fraction of a second before it returns to the flat serenity expected of an impartial celebrant.

She turns her gaze away from scrutinizing the whole of the room to look at Alec alone and there’s a sudden shift in mood. Magnus waits, barely breathing.

Imogen’s lips quirk smugly. “In the matter of a presumed Mundane being subjected to an iratze rune and brought into the New York Institute.”

Magnus’ breath catches in his throat.

“I stand in error.” Alec’s voice is flat.

Jace takes a sharp, angry breath from next to him as though about to protest and Izzy shoots out a hand to stop him. Her face is drawn and pale as she shakes her head, the narrowed eyes of Magnus and the other assembled Downworlders turning to her. Kirna alone stares forward, unblinking.

Izzy’s voice is tense, low enough she won’t be heard outside of this small group, her own eyes wide and horrified. “This- this isn’t a trial,” she hisses, a reminder clearly directed at Jace. Her grip on his arm is tight enough to show white underneath the tips of her fingers. “Interfering in Discipline once it’s begun only makes things infinitely worse. You know that.”

Magnus doesn’t have to ask to know that particular emphasis is coming from personal and painful experience. His fingers twitch unhappily.

Imogen speaks again. “In the matter of interfering in Downworld affairs with respect to the invasion of the Hotel Dumort and the turning of a mundane by Camille Belcourt.”

“I stand in error.”

Raphael glances sharply at Isabelle. His countenance is drawn, undeniably wanting her to protest. Raphael is too astute not to realize that a Downworlder speaking up now would only harm Alec’s case, but the dark-haired woman is biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, clearly fighting to remain silent.

Magnus knows Isabelle, Jace, and Clary made the decision to attack the Dumort alone. He knows Alec tried to stop it and only came to protect his siblings once it became clear the attack was already in progress.

Raphael’s gaze is fixed on her, mouth pressed in an unhappy line. She says nothing.

Imogen speaks again, accusing. “In the matter of interfering in Downworld affairs with respect to the healing of Pack Alpha Luke Garroway.”

“I stand in error.”

Maia and Magnus both open their mouths to speak, furious, stopping only at Isabelle’s sharp gesture.

“You can’t,” she hisses, a shimmer of tears welling at the bottom of her eyes.

There’s barely a moment’s pause before the next charge is leveled. “In the matter of the escape of the Seelie Knight Meliorn with respect to your charge of delivering him safely to the Silent City.”

“I stand in error.”

Imogen’s smile is broad in self-contented assurance. She has Alec precisely where she wants him. “As it pertains to any or all of these transgressions, do you stand alone in your error?”

Isabelle swallows roughly and Jace clenches his fist against his sides, fingers going white from lack of blood flow. Jace is pleading under his breath, “Alec, please,” but every person in their little cluster knows there is absolutely no possibility of Alec allowing his siblings or any of his Downworld allies to share in the Inquisitor’s anger.

There’s no hesitation.

“I stand alone in my error. These transgressions are mine alone to bear.”

“Very well then.” Imogen’s face is exultant in victory and there’s a rustling among Alec’s assembled Shadowhunters. The anger on their faces when they glance at Alec’s siblings verges on fury and Magnus’s throat tightens.

He knows the part Jace and Isabelle, not to mention Clary, have played in so many of the transgressions Alexander is shouldering before them, but the sheer rage on many of the Shadowhunters’ faces when their eyes fall on Alec’s siblings is alarming. This isn’t anger towards unplanned missions and interference in Downworld affairs, this is anger towards those who have done deliberate harm.

Magnus doesn’t allow his expression to shift, but something uneasy swells as he discreetly studies the reactions of the two Shadowhunters before him.

The look in their eyes isn’t regret, isn’t sorrow that Alec is shifting the blame for their actions to himself. The look in their eyes is shame. His uneasiness grows stronger.

A drip of a thought seeps into Magnus’ mind, a disconcerting glimmer of a revelation. The spark wavers when it first occurs, but as Magnus hesitantly considers the thought, almost loathe to give credence to such an appalling notion, the spark fuels itself into a conflagration.

He’s been in the Labyrinth, sequestered with his people’s mages, for the last day and a half in a futile attempt to scry for Valentine’s location. He’d been unable to inform Alec; the awakening of the Labyrinth’s highest wards had been unplanned and Magnus was already inside when they were raised. Unable to portal or firecall or even text, he’d known Alec would be concerned at his lack of communication. If Alec had truly thought Magnus was in peril, however, he knew to contact Cat. Well familiar with the oddities and vagaries of the Labyrinth’s mages, she would have guessed what had happened.

Magnus had portalled to his loft this morning, eager to catch up with Alec, bare seconds before Maia had knocked, panicked, on his door.

Luke was out of contact, Maia trusted to lead in his stead, but she was far too new to the Shadow World to read the political currents of inter-faction politics. The pack she could handle; the Clave she could not, and two of her wolves had been injured last night. Pressed to explain, the pair were snarling and bitter and refusing to answer questions, but wounds from Seraph blades are hard to disguise.

Maia knows her pack far too well to ever believe those two would be attacked and say nothing; they would be howling injustice and screaming for blood if the Shadowhunters had trespassed against them. If they attacked the nephilim though?

Maia would not risk the security of her pack on the words and actions of two rogue fighters, not with a breach of the Accords on the line. Magnus had been escorting her to Alec’s office, hoping to settle this quietly without forcing the Institute to act in their official capacity as arbiter of the inter-faction treaty.

Kirna and Raphael had met them in the Institute vestibule, alarmingly unsurprised to see them, their faces drawn in worry. There had not been a single moment to talk before an impatient Shadowhunter had led them to the Ops floor. All Magnus could guess from their presence was that some fledgling vampires and unsworn fae had also been involved with whatever trouble Maia’s rogues had been up to last night.

(A growing worry gnawed on him at that idea. With rogue wolves, fledgling vampires, and unsworn fae potentially involved, Magnus was apprehensive that his people may not be blameless in this undoubted fiasco either.)

Magnus had received notice of Meliorn’s arrest just before he’d left for the Labyrinth. The Seelie knight was far too cunning for Magnus to truly worry about him, especially given Alec was listed as Head of the holding Institute. As inflexible as the Clave is and as inequitable as the Accords are, Alec likely had no choice but to do as he’d been forced. Magnus is confident, however, in the bright golden line of right and wrong Alec has delineated for himself as one of the most powerful actors in the New York Shadow world. Meliorn would be safe, even if unhappy.

However, Jace and Isabelle have always been dismissive of Alec’s steadfast determination in keeping to that line. They are absolutely intransigent in their one-dimensional understanding of the tangled strands of politics and duty and morality that Alec has to carefully weave, balancing as he does between member of the Clave and ally of the Downworld. They infuriate Magnus with their subtle slights and ignorant comments.

Magnus knows that Isabelle adores Meliorn, but she is far too young to truly understand the layers of a Seelie courtship, far too young to understand that her entanglement with Meliorn neither requests nor allows for her to act on his behalf. If she’d prompted Jace, dismissive once again of both Alec’s political power and his morality; if she’d convinced him, and Magnus doesn’t think it would have taken much, that the two of them needed to act - if she’d convinced him to help her undermine Alec?

Magnus has watched the toll his sibling’s actions have taken on Alec in recent days, but if they’ve crossed the line into treason, dragging his people into their idiocy nonetheless, Magnus will be hard-pressed to keep his reaction tempered.

Magnus pulls his attention back to Imogen. She had paused after her last proclamation, setting apart the determination of guilt from whatever would happen next. Magnus has an awful suspicion that they are arriving at the portion of this farce that merits giving it the name Discipline.

“Alexander Lightwood,” Imogen’s voice increases in volume from before, “in the matter of a believed Mundane being exposed to the Shadow World and subjected to the inscription of a rune, you are sentenced to five lashes.”

Alec shows no reaction, but Magnus feels his chest constrict in startled shock. Quick glances to either side show he hasn’t misheard that the Clave is planning on whipping Alexander in punishment. Punishment, no less, for situations that Alec had so very little hand in creating.

Maia is whispering sharply to Isabelle on Magnus’ right, but the dark-haired Shadowhunter is shaking her head, eyes still locked on her brother. “We can’t interfere.”

Isabelle is trembling ever so slightly. Magnus doesn’t know her well enough yet to know if it’s in rage or in helplessness, but if she truly did what Magnus is beginning to suspect, he imagines it’s both.

“In the matter of interference in Downworld affairs, with respect to the New York Werewolf Pack and with respect to the New York Vampire Clan, you are sentenced to ten lashes for each count.”

Maia is livid at Isabelle’s side. “Those matters have been settled,” she hisses furiously, a few nearby Shadowhunters glancing at her. Raphael isn’t much better, his fangs dropping in anger though he says nothing. The Clave had certainly not cared about the attack against his clan before they needed to make an example of one of their own.

Magnus knows Raphael is doubly livid at watching the religion he cherishes being made a mockery of in this twisted ceremony.

It’s a marker of Alec’s influence on his people that neither a werewolf with eyes amber in rage nor a vampire with fangs down in their midst has made a single nephilim reach for a blade. Most of the assembled Shadowhunters look just as desperately angry with the proceedings as them, eyes glancing in approval at Maia and Raphael’s anger.

The Inquisitor speaks again. “In the matter of your failure to deliver a prisoner of the Clave to the Silent City for questioning after your oath to the contrary, you are sentenced to ten lashes.” Imogen pays no heed to the increasing disquiet in the gallery as she continues. “In taking oath-bound responsibility for the verity of the Seelie Knight Meliorn’s testimony, you vowed to accept three-fold any punishments resulting. As such, you are sentenced to a further twenty lashes. Do you assent to these punishments as given?”

Alec’s hands are still laced behind his back as he stands at loose attention before the Inquisitor, voice calm. “I assent to these punishments as laid out by the Clave.”

Magnus exhales shakily, anguished and unsurprised at Alec’s lack of hesitation.

Imogen opens her mouth to proceed, but she stops when Alec speaks again instead of remaining silent.

“Furthermore, I request the Rite of Substitution for any punishment to be given to the Seelie Knight Meliorn. He was in my custody when he was taken. The responsibility and fault is mine alone to bear.”

Alec’s choice of words is deliberate. Taken. Not escaped.

Imogen is utterly impassive, considering, for a long moment of silence. Shadowhunters do not accept punishments on behalf of Downworlders.

Magnus knows without question, however, that the writers of the laws for the Rite of Substitution would never have thought to preclude this situation. Since the time of the Angels, what Shadowhunter would be willing to take punishment on behalf of any but another Shadowhunter?

Imogen’s face clears, sliding back into a charade of calm serenity. It’s evident that she’s found a way to use Alec’s request to her advantage.

“Very well,” she accedes.

Meliorn’s second stares unblinking at the tableau in front of her and Magnus can’t help but wonder how she will report this back to her knight and her Queen.

“The punishment of the Seelie Knight Meliorn for his escape from the custody of the Clave would be fifteen lashes with an adamas-tipped whip. Do you assent to bear this punishment as your own in his stead?”

Magnus, outwardly impassive until now, can’t hold in a shocked inhalation and there’s an abrupt change in the mood of the crowd, a shocked rustle of leather and metal. Alec’s Shadowhunters are just as startled at the harshness of the Inquisitor’s decree.

Izzy’s grip on Jace’s arm is tight enough to draw blood.

Maia looks between the horror on Magnus’ face and the shock of the nephilim around them, not understanding. Magnus knows her confusion is apparent, but he can’t make himself speak, struck dumb by the barbarous punishment that’s just been handed down.

Raphael finally turns to her, his voice a short murmur, “Nephilim can’t heal wounds caused by adamas with runes.”

Maia pales. The werewolf glances at Kirna to her left. Magnus can’t see her face, but her stillness is too complete to be natural, even for a Seelie mentored by Meliorn.

Alec, disregarding the alarmed tension behind him, keeps his gaze on Imogen. “I assent to this punishment.”

Imogen nods, folding her hands in front of her, face flushed with barely concealed pleasure at Alec’s acceptance.

“Alexander Lightwood,” her voice raises in volume, addressing the crowd more so than the man in front of her. “You are hereby sentenced to seventy lashes, fifteen of which are to be delivered with an adamas-tipped whip, as penance for your transgressions.”

The Inquisitor raises her hands and spreads them in imperious invitation. “Come forward and kneel before Raziel that through Discipline he may grant you mercy.”

Alec simply nods in acceptance, turning neatly in place to face his assembled Institute. Jace moves forward when Alec’s gaze lands on him, taking a single, aborted step before halting, stunned, when Alec keeps turning until he locks eyes with a slim female Shadowhunter at the station to their right.

Magnus vaguely remembers being introduced to her as Lieutenant Erin Ashborne a few days ago, and he sees her momentary surprise turn to an almost anguished pride as Alec beckons her forward in clear request with a silent dip of his chin.

Jace’s breathing next to Magnus is sharp and unsteady.

Erin steps forward, expression carefully level in the same echoed pride and dignity her Head has displayed throughout this entire charade of a ceremony. Magnus’ throat tightens as the Shadowhunters between her and Alec part in a single motion, lining themselves to form a perfect aisle for her to approach the small group waiting at the feet of Raziel.

The respect in the gesture, incomprehensibly unified for all that it was unpracticed, is evident. Respect for Alec, their Head, and respect for Erin, the squad leader of the mission that precipitated this farce, alike. The nephilim may not snap to attention as she passes, but their regard is unmistakable as they brace and then pivot, sharp and practiced ninety degree turns, to again face their Head, the aisle giving way behind Erin as she walks.

Erin stops a bare step in front of Alec. “Sir,” she salutes crisply.

Alec acknowledges her with a smile that may be proud, but isn’t at all happy. Magnus can’t help but notice the way Alec’s gaze flickers ever so briefly to the bandage contrasting starkly with Erin’s dark leathers.

It’s the work of moments for Alec to strip himself of weapons, first the primary seraph blade from his thigh holster, then the hold-out dagger from his ankle sheath. Erin takes both of them and attaches their hilts to her own holsters without word. Finally, Alec slips his stele from its place and hands it over with a slight nod.

Erin swallows before accepting it almost reverently. She tucks it safely into her own holder and brings her gaze back up to meet Alec’s.

Jace swallows roughly, his breathing harsh enough that Magnus can hear it, and Isabelle brushes against the blonde’s arm in mute support. Magnus can make a guess that as Alec’s parabatai, Jace believed it was his place by right to bear Alec’s arms and stand at his back.

If Jace was truly party to treason last night though, Magnus cannot imagine the presumption it would take to believe that place was still his.

Alec made his choice clear in calling Erin forward. It’s a choice, a separation, that places him publicly apart from his siblings in a step that Magnus never truly believed Alec would make.

It’s increasingly apparent that all present know the Clave’s punishment is for decisions made by Jace and Isabelle alone, those missions and mistakes theirs. Magnus is suddenly absolutely certain that whatever role Jace and Izzy had played in the debacle with Meliorn, their actions had gone far beyond their usual disrespect for Alec and loose regard for the rules.

Magnus has no doubt Alec is taking these lashes in their stead because he refused to throw his siblings to the mercy of the Clave, and it is equally obvious the rest of the Institute knows that too.

Alec is still silent and unarmed at the feet of Raziel, saying nothing as he swiftly unbuttons his shirt, Erin waiting placidly in front of him. Alec’s motions are smooth as he unceremoniously shrugs the shirt from his shoulders and reaches out to drape it over Erin’s outstretched forearm.

She murmurs something softly to her commander, low enough Magnus knows not even Imogen will have been able to hear. Alec twitches his lips briefly at her in sharp amusem*nt, acknowledging without responding. Another gesture and Erin takes three measured steps back, rejoining the mass of watching nephilim without ever turning her back to Alec.

Magnus has long preferred his own people’s customs, their candor and grand gestures easily understood and familiar. For all the understatement though, Magnus is beginning to see the quiet ways nephilim militaristic convention can be used to make a point. Alec’s people can’t speak up, but their actions are demonstrating their respect and support as loudly as though they were shouting.

Alec steps forward to return to his original position facing the Inquisitor, his visage expressionless. The single step takes him far enough away from the gathered mass that Alec is fully visible again to all assembled, not partially hidden in the crowd. Jace and Isabelle both gasp beside Magnus and Magnus’ breath catches painfully in his throat.

Purple-black bruises radiate out from clustered points on Alec’s ribs, his skin swollen and tinged. A tattoo-black mark encircles his left wrist in a painful shackle, a vivid red welt stamping the center-line. Alec’s parabatai rune isn’t its usual matte black, but rather raised and irritated as though the rune is so freshly drawn it has yet to settle.

Alec has never been talkative about his connection with his brother, but Magnus has also never asked. The parabatai are the nephilim’s highest weapon and, long before Alec was born, Magnus scoured the Labyrinth’s library for every scrap of information his people had gleaned over the centuries. He knows precisely what it means that Alec’s rune looks as it does.

Rage, acid-hot and burning, crawls up Magnus’ throat in a scorching trail from his stomach. It takes an immense effort for his feet to remain planted where they are, Jace’s presence so close to his side is an indignity he can only bear because moving could draw Imogen’s gaze- could make things worse for Alec.

Jace’s hand goes to his side in echoed realization and Isabelle gasps at the mark she’s left, hand coming up to cover her mouth. Magnus bites his tongue, half afraid he’ll draw blood with the force it takes not to shout and scream at Alec’s siblings, near insensate with fury at the treason, at the betrayal, it would take to cross the line and break that oath.

Magnus has rarely regretted a decision the way he does choosing to remain at the Labyrinth once the wards were raised last night.

The glances from the other Shadowhunters are unsubtle, the wounds and the rune a declaration impossible to misinterpret. Imogen’s gaze travels down, and she raises an eyebrow. She’d known coming into this just whom Alec was protecting, but the hue of his bruises tell a story far more horrific than what the Inquisitor had likely anticipated.

Alec remains silent, raising his own brow in return as he waits for her to move. They each have a role here and Magnus realizes that Alec is refusing to play his part until Imogen plays hers.

The Inquisitor’s gaze rises to meet Alec’s and she remains still for a long moment, Raziel’s marble wings bracketing her in an apocryphal illusion of the power she revels in holding. There is a hushed stillness as the crowd waits for the moment to break.

Imogen steps to the side after a pregnant pause, leaving Alec standing alone before Raziel. Efficient as always, Alec doesn’t hesitate, stepping forward and slipping to both knees just in front of the polished granite base Raziel stands upon.

Magnus bites back a bitter smirk, suddenly understanding the politics at play. Alec wouldn’t kneel before Raziel until there was no risk of it appearing as though he knelt to Imogen.

Kneeling with his back proudly straight, Alec crosses his wrists in front of him on his lap before raising them to lay his crossed wrists, bruised arm on top, just before Raziel’s outstretched foot.

Alec gently bows his upper body forward until his bent head is just even with the top of the statue’s rectangular base, his wrists a bare half a handspan above the crown of his head.

One of the guardsmen that accompanied Imogen from Alicante steps forward to stand behind Alec, a flexible wooden cane appearing in his hands. Magnus forces himself not to react, seeing Imogen’s eyes turning his direction, waiting for him to protest, waiting for him to act.

Magnus has seen the damage these canes can do to bare flesh, has seen them though the centuries used to beat men bloody, to flog them into submission, and he knows exactly the devastation this will cause to Alec’s back when it whistles through the air and strikes him with the full force of a Clave guardsman behind it.

He also knows the damage it will do to Alec if Magnus speaks up now.

If Magnus undermines Alec in this moment, the damage done would be the sort that can’t be healed, that Magnus won’t be able to pour his magic into when this is over to close bleeding stripes or heal stinging welts.

For all his power, Magnus can’t act and salt-iron wells in his mouth where he’s finally bitten through his lip in mingled anger and futility. Alec is unbound and Magnus knows he wouldn’t have accepted a binding even if it were offered. His runed back is bare, unguarded, and Magnus’ breathing is carefully controlled even as he tries to force images of lacerated kidneys and broken ribs, of myriad scars and welts, from his mind.

Alec is nephilim, Magnus has to remind himself, and for all they may look alike, the nephilim are not mundane. They are angel-blooded, made by Raziel to fight demons and protect humanity, stronger and faster, more durable by far. Magnus has seen Alec take blows without pause that would kill a mundane.

Seventy lashes, his skin bare and organs unguarded, would be lethal outside of the Shadow world, but Alec can survive it. It will hurt, but he will survive it.

Magnus doesn’t move.

Imogen’s gaze is still fixed on Magnus when she calls out from Alec’s side. “From our enemies defend us, O Lord Raziel.”

Magnus is prepared for the echoing reply from hundreds of Shadowhunters, but it’s Alec’s voice alone ringing out in response.

“Graciously behold my affliction.”

Raphael flinches next to Magnus at this perversion of the prayer Magnus has heard him repeat every Lent, at this suggestion of the Divine taking pleasure in pain.

Imogen finally turns her stare away from the Downworlders, from Magnus, satisfied with Raphael’s break in composure, and sweeps her attention over the room. “With pity behold the sorrow of your servant, Alexander Lightwood.”

“Mercifully forgive my sins.” Alec’s head is still bowed as he speaks.

“Favorably with mercy hear this cry of repentance.”

Alec’s voice is carefully level, resonant and even. “O Just and Righteous Raziel, have mercy upon me.”

“Both now and ever vouchsafe to hear your people, O Lord Raziel.”

“Graciously hear me, O Lord; graciously hear me, O Lord Raziel,” Alec repeats.

There’s not even a moment’s pause after that distorted prayer before the guardsman raises his lash, swinging down so quickly the cane is whistling through the air almost before Alec is finished speaking.

The cane strikes with a ringing thunk and Alec doesn’t so much as flinch, doesn’t make a single sound. A welt raises on his back even as the guardsman raises the cane yet again, the single welt already a crimson juxtaposition over Alec’s bruised ribs.

The cane doesn’t pause, merciless in the face of the merciful angel the Clave professes this pretense to honor. Alec doesn’t react, doesn’t so much as flinch as the cane comes down again and again, and Magnus doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or curse that no one is counting the strokes aloud. (As though the number of times Alec is beaten is of no consequence, as though every strike doesn’t come with a number that pulsates and screams in his mind.)

Magnus’ magic is surging within him, bloody crimson in echoed pain, but it stays under his skin with the utterly ruthless control that allowed Magnus to escape Asmodeus and Edom as a child and has kept him sitting on the Labyrinth’s council for the past two centuries.

He knows he could incinerate the cane, he could incinerate everyone and everything in this room and leave Alec wholly and completely untouched, his magic whispers to him in mingled desire and temptation, but he reigns in his magic and his horror and makes himself watch.

The strikes are quick, professional, and Magnus doesn’t let himself wonder how many times Alec has done this before, how many times his boyfriend, his partner, has knelt before a Clave-sanctioned idol, how many times Alexander has come home to him after and never said a word.

The guardsman pauses and Magnus realizes it’s over, Alec’s skin marked in a neat hatch-work of parallel lines, flesh unbroken even as blood wells up in beads where the marks overlay pulpy bruises. Magnus wants to run forward, sweep his magic through heated skin in cooling waves, but Alec doesn’t move and the Shadowhunters stay silent.

The second guardsmen strides forward even as the first steps back.

This one holds a whip.

The lash is coiled in a deceptively small spiral in the man’s hand, the black leather supple and gleaming in sharp dichotomy with the dulled sliver of adamas embedded in the tip.

Alec changes position for the first time since this nightmare began, a minuscule but horrifying adjustment. Fingers curled loosely into his palms, Alec’s crossed wrists have been resting just in front of Raziel’s carved boot, the angel perpetually caught mid-stride, his wings outspread in conquest. Alec shifts his grip to clasp his fingers around the edges of the marble foot, a minor action with horrendous implications.

The guard offers Alec a strip of boiled leather to bite on and Magnus’ blood runs cold, his magic surging from his core in blistering anger, fighting his control in an attempt to escape the boundaries of his skin. Alec waves away the bite guard as Magnus manages to tamp down his battle magic with a monumental surge of effort.

Alec is entirely silent, his breathing steady, almost meditative, as the crowd waits in infuriated silence. It’s as though hundreds hold their breath in unison as the whip screams downward, the shrill whistle and the resulting fleshy snap the only sound within the Institute, even the steady beep of computers and monitors entirely absent.

The first bloody stripe on Alec’s back stretches from shoulder to hip, the skin broken all the way down. The guard conserves the motion of the whip’s swing, transitioning the downward movement into a looping upstroke that comes down again even harder than the first. It crosses the first stroke in a savage ‘X’ that breaks open the pattern of welts already stamped down his back, blood dripping down the sides of his ribs to drop down on the gleaming floor.

Magnus tastes blood, tongue nearly bit through in the strain of keeping his magic tamed, and Raphael steps forward to Magnus’ side, the movement jarring against the otherwise total stillness.

“Let me guard you, papa.” The whisper barely contains breath, so low is the murmur in Magnus’ ear. “Everyone around you belongs to Lightwood- there is only one person here who is not your friend.”

Raphael doesn’t wait for Magnus to reply, his darling son taking two more steps to stand as shield between Magnus and Imogen. Her gaze blocked, her judging stare on Raphael and not on him, Magnus can let vermillion magic wreathe his hands in acid-bright torrents of scorching rage.

The whip comes up again and a speck of blood is flung from the adamas sliver at the apex of the swing to spatter, crimson against white, on the very tip of Raziel’s luminous wing. Raphael is blocking Magnus’ view of Alexander’s kneeling form, his shoulders braced solidly, and Magnus knows he won’t move even if he asked him.

Magnus stares instead at the single drop of crimson marring Raziel’s out-swept wing, the bloody droplet leaving a streaking, wine-rich trail. The blood rolls down channels painstakingly carved in flight feathers to hang, defying gravity, a perfect tear drop dancing on winged edge.

Magnus breathes, fire weaving through his fingers.

Wielding battle magic has been disallowed in Institutes since long before the Accords, but Alec’s people only eye him approvingly, tiny adjustments in posture, barely noticeable shifts, hiding him entirely from their Inquisitor. Not a word is spoken.

The whip comes down again, snapping harshly, and Alec takes in a sharp, off-tempo inhale.

Magnus stares at Raziel’s bloody wing. He keeps breathing.

Hours, minutes, eternities later, the whip stops whistling in Magnus’ hearing. The ruby droplet finally falls and Magnus traces its path through the air until it leaves his vision, blocked by black-garbed forms.

He closes his eyes, his glamor long since snapped. He breathes again and the flames coil around his fingers more cooly, almost syrupy-slow with the whip gone silent and no enemy to fight.

He keeps his eyes closed, knowing through hearing alone that Alec has yet to move. He waits for whatever happens next, waits impatiently for the moment he can run forward and wrap Alec in his magic, safe and whole.

He listens as Alec takes in a steadying breath and his voice rings clear. “I humbly beseech thee, O Lord Raziel, to mercifully look upon my infirmities.”

Magnus flinches, a streak of carmine leaching deeper into the magic around his hands before he clenches his fists, inching it back towards blue.

“For the glory of your mission,” Alec continues, “turn from me all evils that are most justly deserved and grant that in all troubles I may put whole trust and confidence in thy mercy.”

Magnus will never again call Alec’s angel merciful.

“That I may evermore serve thee in pureness of living,” Magnus forces his magic calm, “to bring thee honor and glory, most Just and Righteous Raziel.”

The sudden thunder of a thousand voices is almost startling after the silence. “Amen,” the Shadowhunters reply.

Alec’s people don’t sound particularly reverent.

Imogen steps forward as Raphael moves back, allowing Magnus to see Alec once more. He’s still kneeling in profile before his people, unmoved and stoic, his breathing carefully even. The only sign of pain is the tension in his fingers where his grip is clenched around marble, tendons straining.

Imogen stands facing the crowd, Alec kneeling at her back. She raises her arms, a priest spreading her chasuble wide, voice parade-ground loud in the vaulted chamber.

“Ite in pace,” she calls in Latin, the nephilim’s mother tongue, “glorificando laborem vestra Raziel.” Go in peace, glorying Raziel through your labors, Magnus translates automatically.

“Pulvis et umbra sumas,” the Shadowhunters echo. We are but dust and shadows.

It’s a signal, a clear dismissal, and the room is suddenly full of movement, people turning and walking to clear the floor for those on shift. Magnus pushes through the crowd, hands sparking helplessly until he reaches the base of the statue even as Imogen and the two guardsmen disappear down the hall leading to the Institute’s permanent portal.

Alec is already pulling his black shirt on over his bleeding back and buttoning it closed, hands disarmingly steady. If it weren’t for the blood on the floor in wine-dark puddles, Magnus would never guess that Alec’s back has just been flayed open.

Erin is hovering at Alec’s side as he works, waiting to hand him his weapons and stele, but Magnus pushes between them, desperate to help, to flood healing magic into Alexander’s system, but Alec stops him, eyes dark and unreadable as he catches Magnus’s hands in his own.

“Magnus, no,” his boyfriend stops him.

Magnus blinks his unglamoured eyes in incomprehension, Alec’s words only barely registering. “What?”

Alec shakes his head again. “No, Magnus.”

All Magnus can see is the bit of bloody skin peeking up from Alec’s collar and he tugs his hands in Alec’s loose grip. “Let me heal you?” He asks plaintively, thinking Alec must not understand.

Alec meets his boyfriend’s gaze though, not responding for a moment as he strokes his thumb softly over the pale strip of skin inside Magnus’ wrist. “The Cup was in a safe two nights ago,” Alec eventually murmurs, “that only a rune from my stele could open.”

Alec is quiet for a terrible moment, Magnus’ heart rising into his throat in dawning, horrified, realization.

No.

No,please no.

Magnus thinks of the favor Jace had asked him just before he was called to the Labyrinth; the favor he’d thought was simple and harmless.

Alec is still staring at him and Magnus can’t think of words to fix this. The only explanation he can give will put the final nail in the treason he now knows Alec’s siblings have wrought against him, the treason Alec's siblings have forced Magnus into unknowingly participating in.

Magnus is silent, struck dumb, and Alec finally asks him quietly enough that none of his own people can hear. “Was it you who took my stele?”

Magnus can’t freeze anymore than he already has, his mind racing in a consuming distress, panic numbing him as full comprehension sets in.

Alec smiles softly and nods, gently releasing his hold on Magnus’ hands. He very obviously isn’t surprised.

Alec steps away from Magnus, moving to take his blades from Erin, and Magnus turns to find Jace’s blond form in the crowded hall.

Jace is looking right at him, but he won’t meet Magnus’ eyes.

Chapter 4: Martyr

Chapter Text

“The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

____________________________

No.

The dawning horror is a living and breathing thing welling up in Magnus’ chest, a sudden, damning realization that locks tight around Magnus’ ribs, a frigid steel band that traps the breath in his lungs.

Magnus can’t breathe, the implications of what Alec has just asked him tumbling his thoughts into a numbing swirl. The Clave keeps a tight hold on the bits and pieces of nephilim culture and custom they allow the Downworld to know. Their steles- how they work, how they’re made, everything about them- are one of their most closely guarded secrets.

If Magnus understands what Alec has just implied, however, then Magnus himself was party to the travesty he just witnessed. Magnus’ hands and magic helped bring that whip down on Alexander’s back.

Magnus’ breath burns through his closed throat as he forces himself to exhale, but he keeps himself where he stands, carefully and perfectly still as he stares to where Jace refuses to meet his gaze.

Alec’s golden-haired brother eventually turns his back on Magnus’ horrified stare and slips through a side door off the side of the Ops floor, Isabelle following, a silent shadow behind him.

Magnus’ thoughts are anything but charitable.

“Erin,” he chokes, the words scratching themselves painfully out from his too-tight throat. The young woman pauses, stopping herself from following her commander back to his office as she so clearly wants.

She looks at him in a wordless question.

“I- I’m not certain if you can answer this for me,” Magnus begins, and something in his voice must give away his growing shock and dismay, his nascent grief, because Erin’s glance suddenly sharpens and she turns her full, piercing attention to him. “But-" Magnus stops, gathering himself. He starts again. “But when Alec handed you his stele, it looked like, like it was-" and Magnus can’t remember the last time he had to struggle to find words, but his eloquence is gone, spilled out from him onto the Institute’s slate tiles, drop by drop with Alec’s blood.

“Like it was ceremonial?” Erin finishes for him, taking pity when he doesn’t continue.

Magnus nods mutely.

Erin waits for him to elaborate, but Magnus is still frozen. He can’t speak, can’t move his mind from where his brain has been stuck in an agonizing loop of trying to determine if his own hands and magic helped bring that whip down on Alec’s back.

Erin nods slowly, her eyes searching, clearly confused at Magnus’ question. “It was, especially since it was his stele.”

Magnus can’t breathe. “Steles are bonded to their bearer,” she explains, “and Head’s steles are embedded with permissions for secured areas around each Institute. Handing another nephilim your stele is considered the same as putting your life in their hands.”

“And- and if one is, is entrusted, with someone’s spare? To keep it until it is needed?”

Erin’s eyes widen. “That would be one of the highest expressions of trust one can give.”

Magnus is silent, his lungs paralyzed in realization.

no no no no no no no no no no

___________________________

Underhill is standing guard in front of Alec’s office.

Frankly, Magnus thinks Alec’s Head of Security looks like he would sooner gut the entire line of people trying to see Alec before allowing a single one to step through that door and bother his Head.

Magnus lingers in the hall, watching them get sent away one by one, each dismissal increasingly scathing.

Magnus focuses on breathing. One breath after another. In and out.

In and out.

It doesn’t help.

An under-nurse bearing a paltry handful of bandages is sent scurrying back to the infirmary and Magnus steps forward, alone in the Head’s Hall with Andrew.

“Magnus,” the younger man greets tiredly, shoulders loosening slightly.

Alec must not have told him yet because Andrew is still looking the same way at Magnus as he always does. Magnus’ heart beats wrongly in his chest because he doesn’t deserve it anymore. In one unknowing act Magnus has betrayed both his heart and his people.

“Andrew,” he acknowledges simply. For all that his brain is screaming, Magnus’ voice is miraculously level.

“I can tell Alec you stopped by if you like?” Andrew offers, running a hand through his disheveled hair, shoulders slumping.

Watching the travesty that just occurred would have been hard for him too, Magnus knows.Andrew is one of Alec’s longest-serving officers and the first one Alec had picked personally when he’d taken over as Head so many years ago. “He’s asked to be alone until the Cabinet meeting.”

Andrew glances up. “It’ll be in the usual room in half an hour if the messenger hasn’t found you yet.”

Magnus swallows. “I need to speak to him, Andrew.”

The Shadowhunter in front of him tenses, caught off guard and clearly not liking having to say no to his boss’ partner. “He requested no interruptions before the meeting.”

Left unsaid, even if it is certainly loudly heard, is that after what’s just happened, Alec’s word is law.

This isn’t Magnus wanting to sneak into Alec’s office to steal a kiss before patrol though.

“Andrew,” Magnus repeats, not a trace of levity in his voice. “As the High Warlock of New York, I require an immediate audience with the Head of the New York Institute. Waiting for the Cabinet meeting will not be sufficient.”

Andrew draws in a harsh breath, blinking in surprise.

High Warlocks carry an enormous amount of responsibility under the Accords, their people just as tightly bound to them as the Seelies to their Queen. Magic and immortality have always been harshly treated by the Clave, and warlocks are in natural possession of both without the fortune of a realm of their own to hide within.

For all the dubious honors the Clave allows the High Warlocks in keeping and policing their people, the punishments levied against them for misuse are ruthless. There’s no possibility of Magnus misusing the power he holds in the post his people have entrusted him with. If Magnus says he requires an immediate meeting, Andrew will have no doubt that he does.

Andrew’s lips thin, clearly displeased even as he recognizes how serious the situation must be to have Magnus demanding a meeting under the Accords provisions.

His single knock on the ancient wooden door of Alec’s office echoes in the Institute’s bare stone hallway, and Magnus’ heart pangs at having to interrupt the one thing, the few small moments of solitude, that Alec had asked for after- after that.

Worse, Magnus has no doubt that his boyfriend is unsurprised at the interruption, at not being given the courtesy of a mere half an hour to pull himself back together before he’s called back to duty.

“Enter,” Alec calls, voice raised to be heard, and there’s not a single trace of pain, not a single hint that this is anything other than a normal day.

Andrew opens the door for him and Magnus steps from the stones of the Institute proper to the plush carpets of Alec’s office.

For the first time in Magnus’ memory, Alec doesn’t stand up to greet him, looking at him steadily from his seat behind the desk.

Alec is still wearing his black button-down and Magnus can’t even imagine how Alec is bearing the starched fabric brushing against his bleeding back. His magic reaches out helplessly, desperate to heal and to soothe, to close the open gashes and brush away the bruises. Magnus cuts it off sharply, wincing as the power snaps back into himself in a jarring sting.

Magnus doesn’t have permission now, his magic unwelcome by Alec for the first time.

He’s not here as Alec’s partner though. As much as he longs to throw himself into Alec’s arms and beg forgiveness, that will come later.

His people’s lives have to come first.

“Magnus,” Alec greets him, voice even.

“Alec.” Magnus doesn’t know how he manages to match his tone to Alec’s.

“Last I checked, Andrew was doing a fairly good impression of a guard dog outside my door.” It’s a thinly veiled question for all that it’s not asked as such.

“I informed him that I needed to speak to the Head of the Institute.” Magnus pauses. “As High Warlock.”

Alec straightens immediately, suppressing a wince as he does. (Magnus once again harshly pulls back the instinctive flare of his magic.)

No matter what has happened between them in the last few moments, Alec knows Magnus wields his authority lightly. He wouldn’t use his title to force a meeting unless the matter was gravely urgent.

“Magnus?” He asks, obviously concerned.

Magnus’ throat tightens.

He knows. He really, truly knows that Alec believes in Downworld equality, believes that the Accords are a monstrously unbalanced law, believes in peace and proportionate response, not escalating violence.

In listening to Jace, however, Magnus has just risked the lives of every warlock under his protection.

The Accords are as brutal as they are ruthless, sparing no sentiment to anything so mundane as a paltry nod to humanity. A High Warlock protects his people by taking ownership of them in the eyes of the Clave. Their crimes, unpunished, are his, and so, in turn, his crimes are theirs.

Heart pounding, Magnus does the one thing he swore five centuries ago, drained of magic and bound at the feet of an incensed nephilim patrol, that he would never do again. There’s no Ragnor to save him this time though. Magnus’ hands have done the crime, however unknowingly.

He’s committed treason against the Head of New York, and the Clave has only one punishment for that.

Death.

Keeping Alec’s gaze, Magnus drops one knee to the ground. Then the other. He kneels in front of not his partner, but the Shadowhunter responsible for reporting to the Clave. The law is archaic, but that makes no matter to the nephilim. For all that it’s ancient, the law is still extant.

Magnus is the High Warlock of New York. If Alec reports to the Clave what Magnus has done, it doesn’t matter how much Alec believes in equality- every warlock sworn to Magnus will be guilty of his crime and deserving, in the eyes of the Clave, of the same punishment.

The moment Magnus’ knees hit the carpeted floor, Alec jolts to his feet, startled beyond anything but base reaction, his mouth opening in surprise.

Magnus cuts him off before he can speak though, each word an acid-bright burn from his throat. “Alec Lightwood, Head of the New York Institute, I have wronged you and committed an act of treason against the Clave. I -"

“Magnus,” Alec tries to interrupt, but Magnus carries forward without pause.

“I am the High Warlock of New York and my actions reflect on my people as theirs do on me.”

Alec’s face goes abruptly white and Magnus knows then that until those words Alec hadn’t quite connected the pieces. He hadn’t made the connection between the ramifications of Magnus taking his stele and what that would mean for Magnus, the High Warlock, not just Magnus, Alec’s partner.

“I wholly surrender myself to your justice, begging that any punishment to be borne for this crime falls on myself alone and not my people.”

Alec is deathly silent, entirely without motion as he stares at Magnus in intermingled distress and shock. Magnus can see the puzzle pieces shifting and locking into place behind Alec’s horrified eyes, the bloody repercussions if the Clave finds out any more than they already know.

Magnus remains on his knees, waiting. He barely breathes for several long, terrible moments as Alec simply remains standing, frozen in place.

Alec jolts back to awareness when the logs on his fire give a sudden crackle, startling him, and he drops down into his chair, falling more than sitting.

Alec's stare is still locked on Magnus.

“f*ck.” That single word, said with feeling, is the only thing to come out of Alec’s mouth when he finally speaks.

“Who else knows?”

Magnus doesn’t hesitate. “Jace. Jace and anyone he told.”

There’s absolutely no surprise in Alec’s eyes at that confirmation of just how thoroughly his brother and his parabatai has betrayed him. Magnus’ heart pangs for him.

Alec passes a single hand over one of the runes burned into the surface of his desk, and his secretary’s voice comes through.

“Sir?”

“Send a detail to find Jace and Isabelle. Have them escorted to my antechamber.”

Anna’s voice is viciously satisfied as Magnus hears her passing Alec’s instructions to one of the various security personnel attached to the Head’s office.

“Should they be kept under guard when they arrive, sir?”

Magnus can see the pain in Alec’s expression at the necessity of that question, but for all the pretty half-truths passed to the Clave, the New York Institute itself is fully aware of what Alec’s siblings have done these past days.

Alec pauses for the barest moment before responding. “No, but they are not to communicate with anyone and they are not to leave until I call for them.”

“Understood, sir.”

Alec deactivates the rune and turns his attention back to Magnus, still kneeling on the plush carpets in front of Alec’s desk.

Tension is corded through every muscle of Alec’s frame and Magnus cannot imagine how badly sitting as he is must be pulling at the open wounds on his back.

Alec stares at him silently, something dark and unreadable, something anguished, in his eyes when Magnus remains where he is.

“Why are you doing this, Magnus?” Alec finally asks quietly, voice barely a whisper. Magnus wouldn’t have heard him if there was any other sound in the room.

“You know I won’t punish you for what happened- won’t tell anyone how that whole part of this mess was even possible. You- you have to know that,” and something indefinable collapses in Alec’s chest, his shoulders drawing forward and down, making him appear small for the first time today. He looks down at his desk, eyes closing in pain that Magnus knows isn’t physical.

“You have to know I would never allow your people to be massacred. Never- and certainly not because of one person’s actions.” Alec’s voice is thick, pleading with Magnus to tell him he doesn’t truly believe that, and Magnus hates, with a fervor that honestly scares him, that he’s been put in a position to make that sound appear in Alec’s voice.

“It was - it was your choice, Magnus.” Alec runs a single hand over his face, exhausted and clearly pushing back pain. “Even if it was public,” Alec murmurs, still not looking at him, and Magnus has never heard him sound so defeated before, voice empty and flat, “you had access to my stele because you’re my partner, not because you’re the High Warlock. I would never allow the Clave to punish your people for what you chose to do. It was-" Alec exhales harshly, bowing his head even deeper. “Like I said, it was your choice to make.”

Magnus swallows, heart pounding as he kneels. Alec has no reason to believe him. He did it, after all, he betrayed his partner in a way that he isn’t sure can ever be moved past, but Alec is - Alec is Magnus’ one.

The Shadow World may say that it’s nephilim that love once and love fiercely, but Alec is Magnus’ one. So Magnus swallows to wet his mouth enough to speak, praying for mercy he’s unsure if he deserves.

His voice is strangled. “Betraying you wasn’t my choice, Alexander.”

Alec’s head snaps up.

___________________________

Alec’s breath catches in his throat at Magnus’ simple statement, his head whipping up so quickly to stare at Magnus that he has to push down the sharp flare of liquid pain rolling down his spine, his back furiously protesting the jerking movement.

“What?” Alec breathes, the question an almost involuntary reaction, so startled is he at Magnus’ words.

For all the glitter and flash that Magnus surrounds himself with, his make-up and dress far more a shield sometimes than the tiger stripes of warning he likes to use as description, Magnus is painfully honest.

He’s not straightforward, to be sure- Magnus can obfuscate with the best of them, softly reminiscing to Alec one day about a soldier he’d met in the Hundred Year’s War at the Battle of Agincourt and cheerfully convincing a rival the next that of course he wasn’t around during the Black Plague.

For all that the Warlocks and the Seelie loathe being compared to the other, they are startlingly alike in some ways, viewing each piece of knowledge confirmed about them - their name, their age, their power- as a weapon that could one day be turned in the wielder’s hand and used against them.

Even with all his subtle omissions and misdirections and carefully suggested assumptions, however, Magnus doesn’t truly lie. Not directly, not about anything real, and, without doubt, not to Alec.

Alec has made - not peace, certainly, but he’s made himself resigned to the consequences of what Magnus’ actions revealed about their relationship.

Alec knows better now than to think that he comes first for Magnus in the same way that Magnus comes first for him. (Alec forces back the whispers in his mind that ask how on Earth he ever thought he might be worth that consideration from anyone, let alone someone like Magnus.)

It doesn’t change how much he loves Magnus though. Doesn’t change that he adores the warlock in front of him with an unmatched tenderness and a singular devotion.

Alec may have misunderstood before, may have basked in the thought that Magnus, beautiful, captivating Magnus, found Alec worthy of returning that measure of love in full, but finding out that he was wrong changes nothing for Alec.

Nephilim love once and they love fiercely.

Alec will take whatever small portion of Magnus’ heart the warlock allows him and be glad for it. He’s resigned himself to it, but-

“What?” Alec repeats, mind blank. He can’t- he doesn’t dare let himself believe that Magnus can mean what the surface of that statement seems to imply. He can’t dare let himself sink into the comforting thought, the comforting lie that Magnus didn’t choose to put Jace and Izzy and Clary and their stubbornly myopic and stupidly senseless plan to save Clary’s mother over Alec.

Magnus is still kneeling in front of Alec’s desk and Alec hates it, he loathes seeing his proud partner, his brilliant and clever and unflinching High Warlock on his knees. It’s anathema to everything Magnus is, and the look on Magnus’ face, hesitant and regretting, is one that Alec never wants to see again.

“It- it wasn’t my choice to betray you, Alexander,” Magnus responds, voice halting as he picks his words.

Magnus’ throat quavers as he swallows harshly. “When you began keeping your spare stele at the loft, I- I thought nothing of it. I know you told me before putting it in your space in my workroom, and I didn’t say anything, but I- I didn’t really know why you were telling me.” Magnus’ chest jerks in a shallow breath. “I would no sooner tell you that I’d taken a spare pen to your office, after all.”

Alec blinks, a prickling thought dawning in his mind that he doesn’t dare explore. He can’t give himself that hope. Not yet.

“Three days ago, when your siblings and you were at the loft with Clary, using my library to research the magic on Jocelyn, do you remember how you were called away by Andrew to deal with an issue on patrol?”

Alec nods mutely.

“You left to deal with it, but Isabelle, Jace, and Clary stayed behind for another hour before their patrol started. Your sister and Clary left first, but Jace hung back for a moment.”

Alec’s lungs are ice in his chest.

Magnus falters.

~

Jace doubled back at Magnus’ front door, clearly an afterthought as a thought suddenly struck him. He waved the two girls ahead, telling them he’d meet them on the street in a second.

“You forget something, blondie?” Magnus asked, trying not to be irritated even though he’d been attempting to get the oblivious trio out almost since Alexander had left. Without his darling as a buffer, Jace and Isabelle were far too apt to slip back into bad habits, habits Clary was quickly picking up to Magnus’ anger, of assuming that Magnus was present solely for their benefit.

Magnus was, in fact, dangerously close to being late to an emergency meeting at the Labyrinth that had nothing to do with them.

“Alec must have forgotten before he left, but I broke my stele on the way over. He said I could use his spare for patrol tonight.”

Jace looked away a bit, clearly uncomfortable as he scrubbed a hand through his gelled hair.

Magnus attempted to keep his eye roll internal, flicking a quick finger to summon Alec’s stele from his drawer in Magnus’ apothecary. “Did you drop it doing tricks or something?” Magnus asked incredulously, even as he handed the instrument over to Alec’s parabatai.

“Something like that,” Jace said, not quite laughing, but Magnus assumed he was embarrassed and let it go.

He made a dramatic flourish, gesturing the Shadowhunter to the door and closing it behind him gladly.

Wards sliding back into place, Magnus glanced at the clock. If he portalled now, he could make it.

~

Magnus’ voice is soft, all but trembling. “He said you’d forgot to grab your stele for him before you left- that he’d dropped his, broken it, on the way over and you were letting him borrow yours for that night’s patrol.”

A liquid heat wells behind Alec’s eyes.

“I- I thought nothing of it,” Magnus whispers, voice wet and breaking. “I’m so sorry, Alexander. I - I didn’t know.”

A dam breaks in Alec’s mind and he can’t sit where he is any longer, listening to Magnus simultaneously break and reshape his heart.

He’s out of his chair before he even makes the decision to move, scrambling to kneel next to Magnus, reaching down blindly to grip his hands with his own, too tight, too desperate, but Alec can’t moderate his intensity- blindsided at this potential for hope.

“Swear it to me,” Alec whispers, tears blurring his vision even as Magnus grips his hands back equally tight. “Swear to me that you wouldn’t have done it if you’d known, please,” and-

“I’ll take any truth potion you want, darling,” Magnus chokes, the first tear trailing down his cheek, and Alec interrupts him because that isn’t what he means.

“I don’t need you to prove it with magic, Magnus, I just- I just need you to promise me, plainly, that-“

“I swear it. I swear it on everything I hold dear, on the lives of Ragnor and Cat, on my very magic, that I would never have chosen to willingly betray you- I swear it. I love you more than I have words to describe, you are my choice- you are always my choice.”

Alec can’t hold himself up anymore, the tension and the pain and the sheer determination not to break that have kept him upright and composed this entire Angel-be-damned day utterly gone. He falls into Magnus right there on the rug in front of his desk, his arms wrapping around the warlock too tight, certain he’s going to leave bruises, but Magnus’ arms are wrapping around him just as tightly.

Alec’s head burrows into Magnus’ shoulder, tears flowing silently down his cheeks to wet the warlock’s shirt at this confirmation of hope, of love, that he hadn’t dared think to receive. Magnus suddenly attempts to loosen his hold on Alec, clearly just remembering the open lashes on his back, but Alec makes a wounded noise involuntarily at the lessening of pressure, needing the physical reminder that Magnus is there and present and isn’t leaving, and Magnus returns to his earlier hold.

Alec loses track of time, savoring the feel of Magnus above and around him, slowly coming back to himself to Magnus brushing his lips against the top of Alec’s head, murmuring mingled apologies and sweet nothings into his hair, still sweat-damp from the earlier lashing.

His magic sweeps over Alec, not healing, not yet, not sure of his welcome, and Alec just clings to him even closer as the sparks chase through his veins.

“Please,” Magnus whispers, his magic begging to soothe the pains that it can, and Alec nods wordlessly against his shoulder.

The magic seeps into his skin too quickly for it to even be a conscious decision, and his entire back is suddenly awash in an indescribable sensation that Alec has come to associate with Magnus, with home.

The lash marks from the cane are layered from the base of his neck to his waist in a hatch mark of bruises and welts, torn open by the strikes from the adamas whip in long gashes that have flayed through muscle and skin alike.

Neither Magnus’ magic nor Alec’s runes will touch the wounds caused by adamas, but the spine-tingling comfort of Magnus’ blue fire washes down his back in waves, erasing bit by bit every hurt that it can. It’s seconds before the only wounds left anywhere on Alec’s body are the stripes left by the whip, Magnus’ magic reaching out to heal not just Alec's back, but his ribs and his wrist and even the small cuts where Alec had bit his cheek to keep silent.

“I’m sorry, darling,” Magnus whispers, and this time Alec knows it’s not for Magnus’ actions that he’s apologizing, but Alec just shushes him gently, not ready to face the implications of what Magnus has told him.

Not ready to face yet another way his parabatai has betrayed him.

___________________________

Alec has one more task to complete before he meets with the Cabinet.

Magnus has gone to wait with the other faction heads, and Alec can’t put this off any longer no matter how much he dreads it. He runs his hand over the rune on his desk.

“Have Andrew bring Jace and Isabelle in, please,” he tells Anna.

Alec rises as his siblings are escorted into his office, the two of them coming to a halt standing shoulder to shoulder before Alec’s desk.

Alec nods a wordless dismissal at Underhill and the man salutes crisply before leaving. All of Alec’s Shadowhunters, the two in front of him withstanding, are on high formality at the moment, as though if they can stand straight enough, nod sharply enough, they can somehow erase what just happened. He appreciates Underhill’s quiet support for all that he’s dreading the conversation with his siblings to come.

The three of them stand in silence for a long moment, the only noise coming from the pops and crackles of the wood in the fireplace to Alec’s side.

It had been unlit before Imogen’s untimely arrival and Alec knows Anna must have very literally run to get it lit before he made it back to his office after the Discipline.

There are papers on his desk, signed only moments ago for all that he’s had them prepared since this morning. He’d known they would be necessary from the moment Izzy’s whip had wrapped around his wrist the night before.

Alec doesn’t know where to start, so he begins in the only place he can.

“I love you,” Alec says frankly, looking down at where his hands are resting on the cluttered surface of his desk. He takes in a breath before he continues. “I raised you. I’ve protected you for years, too much so in hindsight, from the consequences of the actions you both undertake without any semblance of thought.”

Alec pauses but, for once, neither Jace nor Izzy dare to interrupt him. The first evidence of rationality from either of them in the past few days, he thinks bitterly.

His sister and his parabatai’s names stare up at Alec from the orders he’s just signed, his spirit bruised at the decisions they’ve forced him to make.

“You know the Clave,” he continues, “and you know damn well how often you haven’t skirted the law, but have outright broken it.” For the first time since they stepped into his office, Alec looks up at them, his gaze hooded in a soul-deep sadness. “Do you truly think this is the first time I’ve been called to Discipline to ensure that you won’t be?”

Izzy breathes in sharply and Jace is frozen in his place, eyes wide.

“This is just the first time you’ve been witness.”

Alec’s hands are far too steady as he turns his attention back to his desk to parse through the shuffled papers and find what he’s looking for.

“Effective immediately, I’ve pulled your clearances to perform field work on behalf of this Institute.”

Jace inhales and Alec doesn’t know what he’ll do if Jace dares to speak against him right now, but he motions sharply with a single hand, the gesture cutting Jace off before a word can pass through his lips.

“You may neither serve on Institute-sanctioned patrols, nor take any supporting roles in intelligence or operational support. As such, I’ve pulled your relevant security clearances and, per procedure, you are barred from the Ops floor. Security personnel are currently being alerted to this change.”

Alec looks up from his paperwork at his white-faced siblings, turning his gaze to his sister first.

“Isabelle Lightwood, you are hereby stripped of your position as Weapons Master of the New York Institute.”

Isabelle gasps softly, but Alec turns to Jace without further pause. “Jace Wayland, you are hereby stripped of your position as Head of Field Operations.”

“Alec-" Jace tries to interrupt, but Alec doesn’t let him.

“You are each forbidden from holding any positions of leadership within this Institute for the next five years. This is to include both the unsupervised training of any junior Shadowhunters and the leadership of any patrols after your regaining of field clearance.”

“Alec!” Izzy protests, eyes wide as if she’s surprised, and Alec’s carefully cool demeanor shatters at her disbelief.

His hand slams down on the desk, jolting both of his siblings in shock. Alec is infamous for his even temper and implacability, and Alec doesn’t think he’s ever actually lost his temper in front of them before.

“You broke a prisoner out of the custody of the Clave, Isabelle!” Alec’s voice raises just shy of a shout, his rage crystallizing suddenly in an incandescent flood. “You knowingly and willingly colluded with the Downworld and attacked a Shadowhunter patrol, attacked the Head of your Institute, no less. You committed treason, and if I had reported what you actually did to the Clave, it wouldn’t be a removal of rank we’d be discussing tonight- you would be on your way to a pyre at the Gard! The punishment for treason,” Alec snarls, “if you remember nothing else you’ve been taught, is death.”

Jace looks as though he’s going to defend Izzy and Alec whirls on him, fury peaking.

“And you!” And Alec has to take a single second to breathe before he can continue, wrath flowing lava-bright down his spine. “Do you have any idea what your absolute single-minded idiocy and your sheer, Angel-be-damned ignorance almost caused?”

The image of Magnus kneeling in front of him, all but begging for his people’s lives, haunts Alec’s memory. He thinks it always will.

“Forget about your treason, your betrayal of our vow, your raising of arms against me,” and Alec carefully doesn’t think about what it says that his parabatai has yet to even mention, let alone apologize, for striking Alec in anger hard enough to break bone, “because that is nothing, nothing, compared to what you did to Magnus!”

Jace is frozen before him and Alec pauses for the barest moment, ensuring he won’t regret the words about to come from his lips- words he will never be able to take back. Jace is looking at him though, disbelieving, as though he can’t truly comprehend why Alec is as livid as he is, and Alec is suddenly, viscerally aware that his brother doesn’t even know what he did.

Alec falls more than sinks backs into his chair, taking slow, measured breaths to force himself into an artificial calmness, locking his gaze with his parabatai. When Alec speaks again his voice is soft and lilting, barely louder than the crackles coming from the fire at his side as he quotes from one of the oldest paragraphs of the Accords.

“And so it shall be considered as a cornerstone of the law that any crime of magick that goeth unpunished by the enclave of warlocks known as the Spiral Labyrinth, or by those who act in their name, shall fall, in full, upon the singular warlock who claims charge of the territory within which the accused lives, who shall be sworn and known as the High Warlock. And so it is, in turn, that any crime against the Clave committed by one so entrusted shall be considered as committed by all sworn to his name, and so too shall fall the punishment.”

Alec takes a single breath. Then another. Jace’s eyes are still locked on his and Alec can see the horrified comprehension dawning in their depths.

“Congratulations, brother," Alec murmurs, heart breaking with every word he says. “Valentine would be so proud.”

He takes no joy in the full body flinch his parabatai gives in response.

Jace says nothing, his tall form frozen in place as Alec turns once more to his sister.

“You’ll be remanded to the Iron Citadel for a period of no less than six months. The High Sister has already been made aware of your arrival and the restrictions that will be imposed on your movements and communication while there. Pack only your personal essentials as a uniform will be made available to you. Lieutenant Ashborne is waiting outside my office. She’ll escort you to your room to pick up your belongings before taking you to the Citadel.”

“Alec,” Izzy implores, eyes wide, and Alec’s soul hurts to not acknowledge the pain in his little sister’s voice. Isabelle has flown too close to the sun this time though, and Alec can only shield her so far. Alec will see his sister upset and aggrieved a thousand times over before he sees her burning under Idris’ sun.

He turns to his brother, his parabatai’s eyes glassy with hurt and pain. For all that Jace has done, Alec knows he wouldn’t have risked the massacre of every warlock in New York. Not even for Clary.

“You’ve been reassigned as an aide to the law clerk for the Accords office in Alicante. You will bear no arms while there and you will not partake in any of the specialized martial trainings offered to Shadowhunters on rotation in Idris. You will have the same movement and communications restrictions as Isabelle for a period of no less than six months and, additionally, you will be personally responsible for responding in-person to every Downworld complaint submitted to the office while you’re there.”

Alec knows Jace hears what he isn’t saying. You’ll meet face-to-face with every Downworlder you would have killed if anyone but me had been Head.

“Corporal Redfang will escort you to your room to gather your belongings before accompanying you to Idris.”

His siblings are silent in front of him and Alec’s lungs are leaden as he tries to breathe through his pain and his anger.

“I love you both,” Alec whispers, “more sometimes than I think you know.” He swallows harshly. “But there is no world in which I would not choose to have you furious with me, to- to hate me even, before I would choose to have you tried for treason or to be responsible for the bloodiest massacre in this millennia.”

Alec can hear the catch in Jace’s breathing, can see the liquid warmth in Isabelle’s eyes.

“You’re dismissed,” he says softly, turning back to the paperwork that still needs to be handled before he can deal with his cabinet and then finally, finally go home.

“Alec,” Jace’s whisper is a strangled breath more than words, but Alec is scraped out and empty and bruised and he has absolutely nothing left to give.

“You’re dismissed.”

Chapter 5: Pyrrhic

Chapter Text

"But it is entirely possible to win against the enemy, it is possible even to kill the enemy, and still to be defeated by the battle."

- The Book of The Dun Cow

Never before has Alec been the last to arrive for a Cabinet meeting.

He enters the room with a momentary twist of dissonance to find four of the five places at the table already filled, the room utterly silent. The air hadn’t been so syrup-thick with tension even at their first meeting, three-quarters of the delegation believing Alec to be a prejudiced Shadowhunter paying lip service to equality in a bid to stave off revolution.

Alec looks to Magnus. No matter that the crushing weight of his involvement with Alec’s stele has been almost entirely lifted from his shoulders, he is stiff and uncomfortable in his chair, eyes focused and grim. It’s clear he’s since learned that there were warlocks present at the attack last night.

Alec’s lips press together in a tight line as he draws himself back into the dual role of Head and diplomat for his people. This is most certainly going to be an unpleasant meeting.

In yet another departure from practice, Anna and Underhill follow him into the room, taking seats in two chairs that had been hurriedly placed against the wall behind Alec’s place at the table just before they arrived.

Alec takes his own seat without fanfare, suppressing any reaction from reaching his face as the back of the chair presses harshly into the deep lash marks that Magnus’ magic hadn’t been able to heal. The only consolation is that even with Alec’s nephilim blood, the adamas sliver embedded in the whip had partially cauterized the wounds and lessened the bleeding.

He isn’t able to stop his hands from tightening momentarily on the arms of his chair, however, fingers whitening with pressure as he struggles to keep his face blank at the sudden rise in pain. Alec doesn’t have to look to know every member of his Cabinet noticed. He feels a coil of Magnus’ magic wrap helplessly around his arm in comfort, the adamas traces left in the gashes stubbornly repelling it from coming any closer to his back.

Alec doesn’t hesitate to begin once he’s seated. As Head, he desperately needs to know just how badly his Cabinet was entangled in the debacle of last night, but Alec is also teetering dangerously close to the edge of his limits and knows he needs to finish this quickly.

Yesterday’s stamina rune, his second in two days, burned out sometime before Imogen’s arrival and he daren’t risk another, not with adamas potentially leaching into his bloodstream for every moment his remaining wounds go untreated. More than his physical hurts and his nearly overwhelming exhaustion, however, Alec’s soul is bruised and bleeding.

He wants nothing more than to go home. He just wants to curl up in his and Magnus’ bed and wrap himself completely in the strength and comfort and solace of Magnus until the outside world doesn’t exist, until all he can see or smell or feel is Magnus.

What Alec wants, however, is immaterial in the face of what his Institute and his people need.

Alec straightens the paperwork that he’s brought before laying it on the table before him, looking up to meet the gazes of the assembled Cabinet. Kirna and Maia are sitting in Meliorn and Luke’s usual spots.

“In light of the events of last night,” he starts, “I’ve requested that Andrew Underhill, the NYI’s Head of Security and my second-in-command, sit in as witness. Anna Lightsbridge, my personal secretary, will also be present.”

Most of the Cabinet is familiar with Anna as she’d occasionally attended to take minutes in the past.

Typically, Alec takes the necessary notes himself, ensuring that the documents the Clave receives are carefully presented, the Cabinet’s conversations summarized truthfully if not, perhaps, completely. There are certain details the Clave has no need to know.

However, for meetings when the scheduled topics are heavy enough, important enough, that Alec can’t afford to be distracted, it’s Anna who sits silent and unobtrusive in the corner with a notepad in hand. Anna has been with Alec since he ascended to the duties of Headship at fourteen, privy to every document and every decision to flow from Alec’s desk. Her discretion and her loyalty are inarguable.

Anna had developed a coded shorthand specifically for those Cabinet meetings, the key existing only in her mind and Alec’s. Meticulously edited to perfect blandness before transcription to English, Anna’s un-redacted files are either locked in Alec’s safe or burned each night before they leave.

Alec has no doubt that today’s notes will be consigned to the flames.

Maia is nearly vibrating in her chair, anger and frustration clear in her eyes. Alec steels himself for her inevitable eruption. It doesn’t take long.

“What the f*ck was that?” She demands, voice heated. “What the f*ck?” She repeats incredulously after a short pause, the question clearly having been held in for far too long.

Alec sighs internally. He hadn’t held out much hope that nobody would mention the Discipline that they had witnessed, but he well and truly doesn’t want to discuss it. It’s done and finished, and nothing more needs to be said.

“I believe it’s fairly self-explanatory,” Alec comments dryly. “Certain deviations from the law which occurred in the NYI territory were reported to the Clave. They punished the responsible party per nephilim customs.” He uses a single finger to tap the documents in front of him. “And now I’d like to discuss the particulars of one of those deviations from the law.”

Maia’s mouth drops open momentarily. “Are you f*cking kidding me? You were just publicly whipped, and you want us to just, what, not mention it?”

Magnus snorts involuntarily at Alec’s side, not a trace of humor present in his reaction.

Alec glances at him briefly, but Magnus returns his glare unrepentantly because he knows all too well that, yes, Alec would indeed prefer to pretend it never happened.

“I fail to see what good discussing it will do,” he addresses Maia, voice firm. “It’s done and over with.”

Maia is no less incensed by his deflection. “You’re our ally, and you don’t think we deserve to know when the Clave decides to whip you in punishment for situations the Downworld was involved in?” Her eyes flash amber in anger. “How many times have you sat there in front of us with your back flayed open beneath your shirt, Lightwood?”

Magnus freezes at Alec’s side, the thought obviously not having occurred to him before Maia’s irate words. Alec carefully doesn’t look back to where Andrew and Anna are seated. By necessity, the two are aware of every time Alec has faced Discipline in the last ten years. Andrew, by dint of needing to ensure the Institute had leadership in place when Alec was unavailable; Anna by way of her attention to Alec’s every move as Head.

Alec’s back is rigid, his breathing carefully shallow both to control his anger and to avoid agitating the lash marks on his back. “I fail to understand how that’s relevant,” he grits out.

“Alexander,” Magnus breathes out softly, eyes wide in horror. Magnus, more than any other present, would know precisely how much Alec could hide with a well-placed iratze and a stoic demeanor.

“This was the first time adamas was used.” Anna’s voice is firm from behind Alec.

Alec’s back protests violently as he whirls around in stunned displeasure, not having even remotely expected that betrayal from Anna’s corner. Anna meets his furious gaze unrepentantly. She’s been fervently, passionately advocating for telling Magnus since the wedding debacle so many months ago.

(Since she’d scrubbed Alec’s blood from the floor of his office after the Discipline in its wake.)

“Anna!” He reprimands. Next to her, Andrew also looks decidedly pleased at her words, and Alec turns his outraged gaze to him in turn.

“That’s enough,” Alec cuts off any possibility of their elaboration as he turns back to table, hands nearly shaking with how much he does not want to discuss this any further.

It must be evident that Alec has reached the end of his rope with this topic because Kirna stands across from him, bowing her head ever so slightly as she addresses him.

“Commander Lightwood.”

And Alec’s attention snaps to Meliorn’s second, every other gaze in the room moving with his in unison. Alec knows neither Magnus nor Maia was intending to drop the previous discussion, but Magnus’ shock is just as complete as Alec’s.

‘Commander’ may be Alec’s technical title, but the Seelie, as a rule, never use it. For the past decade, Alec has been ‘Mr. Lightwood’ when his name alone will not suffice. The Seelie reject the calling of any Institute Head by their military title, though they have no such prohibition for the other martial ranks of the Clave.

The Head of the Queen’s Guard is granted the title of Commander by the Seelie Queen, and the Seelie refuse to confer the same level of honor on a Shadowhunter as that which they give to their highest and most sacred post.

“Knight Kirna,” Alec acknowledges after the barest moment of pause.

“I bear a letter for you written in my Queen’s own hand.”

Alec doesn’t show any surprise on his face, but it’s a close thing. Neither Maia nor Raphael remain quite so circ*mspect.

Whatever magic governs the Seelie’s inability to tell lies, it applies equally to their written words as to their spoken. The Queen herself is infamous for avoiding the potential entanglements of putting her thoughts to text.

Alec takes the creamy parchment from Kirna’s hand with great care. This is only the second time he’s received a written communication from the Queen, the other a rote (and very non-congratulatory) congratulations on his formal ascendence as Head after his majority.

He’d already been doing the job in truth, if not in name, for several years by then. The Downworld had certainly noticed the sudden change when Robert and Maryse had abandoned their job and left everything to Alec. The Institute had transformed nearly overnight from pursuing Downworlders with unbridled enthusiasm, their crimes unspecified (and usually nonexistent), to focusing on demonic patrols, only going after members of the Downworld when there was real evidence pointing to a violation of the Accords.

Alec may not have been able to do much to address inter-species equality back then when he was struggling just to keep his people alive those first few, horrible years, but his lack of unjust persecution was evident enough to suggest his priorities. He’d made enough progress in convincing the various Downworld clan heads he wasn’t another Circle believer that he’d received four letters of acknowledgement the day after the formal announcement had been made. It was the first time an NYI Head had been so acknowledged in well over a century, though the notes were still somewhat damning in the faintness of their praise.

(Alec hopes Magnus never finds out that he’d pulled the congratulatory note from the High Warlock of Brooklyn out of the Institute archives the day after he’d met Magnus for the first time. He absolutely did not moon over the purple-tinted vellum or the metallic golden ink Magnus had signed his name in, the swirling loops a perfect match to the flamboyant and glittering warlock he couldn’t get out of his head. He did not. )

Alec breaks the wax seal with the edge of his thumb, easily verifying the signet of the Queen as he does.

Commander Lightwood, it begins.

Alec carefully schools his expression into neutrality, the Queen’s use of his martial title even more shocking than that of Kirna.

The letter is short, but Alec can read between the lines easily enough. For a letter from the Queen, it’s astonishingly free from the word games and ambiguity for which she’s infamous. It’s evident that the Queen wants absolutely no part in the treason that Jace and Izzy have wrought in their attack to free Meliorn from the Institute’s control.

To anyone reading the letter that doesn’t know the full story, her words are vague, are carefully non-incriminating. To anyone that does, however?

Alec’s lips press tighter and tighter together as he continues reading, pressure whitening them into a light slash across his face. Jace and Izzy had attacked without any advance notice to the Seelie court. However, because it was Alec’s sister and his parabatai, both highly ranked officers of the Institute in their own standing moreover, Meliorn had gone with them without fight, thinking something had changed with Alec’s deal in the intervening hours between their agreement and the transport. Meliorn had believed the attack was a cover, believed the attack had been arranged by Alec.

It was only once the portals had dropped them into the Seelie realm that Meliorn had discovered Alec had no knowledge of his sibling’s actions, that the deal had still been in force.

Left even more vague is the assurance that all Downworlders involved were questioned under the Queen’s and Meliorn’s supervision. Rogues. All of them.

Alec believed what Magnus swore to him in his office, truly believed that his partner had no role, no knowledge of the betrayal his siblings had wrought, no knowledge of his own people’s place in the attack, but having it in the Queen’s hand is another layer of weight lifted off his shoulders.

Alec believes Magnus because… because how can he not? Magnus is his partner and his lover and has somehow become an integral part of his being in the months that they’ve been together - a piece of his heart and his soul that Alec doesn’t know how he lived without before they were together.

Unfortunately, that’s not an assurance that he can pass to his officers, to the ones that will be responsible for helping Alec clean up the mayhem that Jace and Izzy have potentially made of the Institute’s relationship to its allies.

This is.

This is exactly that assurance. More-so, addressed as it is, as clear and unequivocal in its denial of sanctioned Downworld involvement as it is, written in the Queen’s hand as it is, this is the highest level of proof he could receive that his Cabinet did not conspire against him.

Wordlessly, Alec passes the letter to Anna and Andrew. Neither his Head of Security nor the assistant that has been party to every decision Alec has made for the last decade will have trouble reading the same message from the Queen’s letter that Alec did.

Andrew’s shoulders are already loosening. The implications for the Institute had been unimaginably poor if there had truly been sanctioned Downworld actors in the party led by Jace and Isabelle last night. Anna’s reaction is slightly more subtle, but Alec can tell that she is no less pleased than he at the news.

Alec looks up at Kirna.

“Please convey my thanks to your Queen. It’s a relief to have confirmation of Meliorn’s well being after he was taken.”

They have to walk a careful dance in their official communications.

“Your care for our commander will be well-noted by my people.” And Alec knows that Kirna isn’t referring to Alec’s words in her statement. “I will be certain to inform my Queen that you have corrected the Clave’s erroneous belief that Knight Meliorn acted of his own volition to escape.”

“I know the Seelie hold their words and oaths as sacred,” Alec responds, “and I would never wish for that to be misunderstood by my people.”

Kirna smiles thinly.

There’s a momentary pause and Raphael turns to Magnus.

“¿Podemos hablar delante de los demas?”

Alec looks to his left and raises a single brow at the vampire.

“I trust those ‘others’ with my life and the lives of all those in this room or they wouldn’t be here, Raphael.” Alec tilts his head. “I also speak Spanish,” he continues dryly.

“As do I,” Andrew chimes in.

“También lo hablo.” Anna’s voice is even.

Magnus snorts involuntarily.

Raphael rolls his eyes. “I’ll put it plainly then,” he says. “Your sister and your parabatai’s actions nearly caused war. They would have caused war if you hadn’t taken the penance for their own stupidity and cleared Meliorn of wrong-doing.”

Alec doesn’t know if Magnus has made the rest of the cabinet aware of his own, unknowing role in today’s events, but he can only guess they know the shape of it at the heaviness in their eyes.

Alec remains silent. He can’t exactly contradict that statement, especially given that Alec taking responsibility for Meliorn’s punishment from Jace and Izzy’s actions is nothing compared to Alec’s careful concealment of what Jace had forced Magnus to become complicit with.

Magnus takes up Raphael’s words, voice soft. It’s clear he doesn’t want to say this, but his duty to his people comes far ahead of sparing Alec discomfort. “Jace, through what I dearly hope was his own ignorance and not willful malice, laid the groundwork for the legal massacre, the legal genocide, of my people, Alexander.”

“Ignorance,” Alec interjects softly, knowing that didn’t make it any better than the alternative. That his parabatai hadn’t meant to condemn thousands of warlocks to their deaths would have made no difference to the warlocks sentenced to the Clave’s pyres if Alec hadn’t ensured the Clave would never learn of Magnus’ actions.

“We cannot let this stand without ensuring that actions such as were taken last night can never happen again.”

Alec nods in agreement with Magnus, heart hurting.

“Tonight, I will be informing my people that Isabelle Lightwood and Jace Wayland are no longer to be considered duly authorized representatives of this Institute.” Magnus breathes in before continuing, and Alec knows before he continues that it’s going to be bad. “Furthermore, I will be informing them that Jace Wayland and Isabelle Lightwood are to be considered oath-breakers. Jace for the two vows he has broken, both his oath to you and that to put the protection of the Downworld over his own self-interest, and Isabelle Lightwood for her violation of the latter.” Magnus takes another slow breath. “Finally, I will be informing my people that Jace Wayland has committed an act of sedition against myself and the warlocks sworn to me. He is no longer welcome among the Downworld.”

Alec swallows, pale, but he says nothing. The silence lingers and Alec’s eyes heat with sheer disappointment and helpless anger at his siblings. They can only move forward though and he’s already set their punishments.

“I will be informing my own people of the same,” Raphael says softly.

“I will be making that recommendation to my Queen upon my return.”

Maia snorts. “I’m not Alpha, but if you don’t think I’m going to make damn sure the pack knows not to trust a word out of their mouths, you’re insane.”

Alec’s chest hurts, but he knows this is the way that it has to be after what came so close to happening. If anyone but Alec had been acting as Head these past few days- it, it didn’t bare thinking about.

“I understand,” Alec acknowledges sadly. “Isabelle is currently in residence at the Iron Citadel and will not have contact with any members of the Downworld for the foreseeable future. I will alert her about the change in her status among your people - unless you wish me to send a formal missive through on your behalf?” Alec glances to Magnus, but he shakes his head.

“I trust you to relay the message.”

Alec swallows harshly and continues. “I’ve already transferred Jace to the Accords office in Idris. My intention was for him to meet, in-person, with each member of the Downworld who submitted a complaint for the duration of his assignment. Given the forthcoming change in his status, I’ll revoke that assignment immediately and find one that does not allow for contact with the Downworld.”

Alec turns to Anna to ensure she alerts Redfang, Jace’s escort, before they portal to Alicante. He pauses at Magnus’ upraised hand though.

Magnus looks contemplative and Alec knows he understands why Alec had made the assignment as he did. Jace would meet the people, the men, the women, and the countless children, whose lives he had treated so callously, whose lives he had almost ended. Jace would hear of their complaints, the way they have been so horrifically treated by the Shadowhunters, discriminated against and abused, and he would put faces and names and stories to a people he’d never truly bothered to get to know. He would learn the names of those casually dismissed as insignificant and lesser by so many of his brethren, and he would never be able to forget that in his own casual dismissal and ignorance, he’d almost condemned them all to burn.

“Can you require him to be supervised whenever he has sanctioned contact with my people?” Magnus asks after a short pause.

Alec blinks and agrees. “I can, yes.”

Magnus nods decisively, knowing his decision is unkind. He doesn’t care. Jace will punish himself far more effectively this way than with any other assignment Alec could give. “Then do so and feel no need to change his transfer,” Magnus snarls. “Let him stare into the eyes of my people and know that they remain unhunted only through his parabatai’s mercy.”

Alec’s heart breaks for his brother, but he doesn’t challenge Magnus’ words. He agrees for all that it hurts his soul to intentionally use this knowledge of his parabatai against him.

“I’ll inform his superior officer of that additional limitation,” Alec promises. “Atri Blackthorn is in charge of the Accords office and will ensure that Jace is accompanied by another Shadowhunter, an appropriate Shadowhunter, for any situation in which his official role requires him to speak with a Downworlder.”

Atri is Helen Blackthorn’s beloved cousin and he’s seen far too much of the prejudice thrown against his favorite family member because of her Seelie blood to countenance anyone in his office inclined to automatically favor blood over truth.

Alec may not be able to risk telling Atri the full accounting of what Jace has done to deserve the assignment so easily recognizable as a punishment, but Atri is far too sharp not to see the shape of Jace’s actions under the loose cover of Alec’s official statements.

Jace will not have an easy time in Idris, and his actions will be carefully scrutinized by all those under Atri’s command.

A low murmur of agreement comes from around the table. Atri’s reputation for justice is both well known and well deserved.

Alec closes his eyes, tired to his bones.

“Is there any more business to be taken care of this evening?”

The silence around the table is too long and too heavy. Alec knows from the sharp gazes focused on his form that while he may have placed a halt to the earlier line of questioning about the Discipline, the subject has only been dropped temporarily.

Alec is too grateful for the reprieve to say anything though and nods lightly, closing the folder in front of him firmly.

“We’ll reconvene for our scheduled meeting in two days then,” Alec dismisses the group, levering himself out of his chair to walk them to the Institute’s main door.

He doesn’t think he manages to hide the effort it takes not to sway as he stands, a tinny tone ringing in his ears.

Anna clears her throat and Alec turns his attention to her. She has a single hand raised to the subtle radio bud in her ear and his hope for being able to go home drops precipitously at the expression on her face.

“Sir,” Anna can’t quite hide the anger and enmity on her face as she continues, “Clarissa Fairchild is demanding to see you immediately.”

“Is she now,” Alec asks, not even questioning her ability to somehow make this day even more terrible than it’s already been. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Of course she is,” he sighs, resigned, answering his own question.

Alec takes a deep breath, bracing himself to keep going. His day apparently isn’t over.

“Andrew,” he looks to his second. “Please escort the Cabinet members from the Institute.”

“Sir,” Andrew protests, and Alec knows he’d be happy to throw Clary bodily from his office if it meant Alec could go and rest, but Andrew isn’t Head. Clary might not respect Alec himself, as has been made clear over the past few days, but Andrew doesn’t have the authority to say what needs to be said and Jace is no longer here to shield her from her own stupidity and pride.

Alec needs this to be done, entirely done, before he lets himself collapse in Magnus’ arms. He knows from an abundance of experience in pushing his limits to the absolute edge of his endurance that he’s gone too far. He won’t be getting up for a very long time once he can finally set down his role as Head and stop.

“I’ll deal with her, Andrew.” Alec cuts him off before he can be too tempted by the offer.

Clary is a nephilim residing within his Institute. For all that she disdains every word from Alec’s mouth, she’s still his responsibility.

“Darling,” Magnus’ words are soft, entreating. He won’t contradict Alec, not in Alec’s role as Head and especially not now, but it’s clear he knows just how close Alec is to dropping.

“Wait for me in my room?” Alec ends up asking quietly, brushing the edge of a hand against Magnus’ own, the only comfort he can allow himself, longing as he is for more.

It’s a minor acquiescence, an acknowledgement that Alec wants, needs, Magnus close by. He certainly won’t make it back to the loft without his partner’s help and there is nowhere else Alec can even begin to imagine being as vulnerable as he will be once he can no longer force himself up and through by dint of pure determination and sheer, utter will.

Magnus nods unhappily, but says nothing further.

Underhill quietly walks out with the other Cabinet members, leading them to the doors, and Anna escorts Magnus to Alec’s rooms. Magnus knows the way certainly, but Alec’s rooms are on the other side of the Ops floor, next to the Head’s Hall in case of emergencies when Alec is off-shift, and no one unsworn to the Clave, not even Magnus himself, is allowed unescorted in the operational heart of the Institute.

Alec gives himself one more moment to breathe in the suddenly emptied room before leaving through a concealed door at the back, taking a hidden hallway to his office accessible only through his own stele and Anna’s. Clary will be waiting in his antechamber and Alec refuses to parade past her when he may not be able to hide his weakness.

Slipping through a concealed panel in the back of his office a few long minutes later, the lashes on his back throbbing in time with his heartbeat, Alec is frankly shocked to enter the room and find someone already present. He pauses at the threshold of the door.

“Sir!” Erin snaps to attention so quickly even she looks a little startled.

“At ease, Erin,” Alec acknowledges, moving forward to slowly lever himself down into the chair at his desk. Erin is the only one present and so Alec lets himself hiss softly as fabric pulls open torn skin at the movement, not bothering to squander the energy it would take to conceal his pain.

Alec settles down into the chair, knowing with certainty that he won’t be getting up on his own power this time.

Erin waits for him to look back to her once Alec is finished seating himself, but she explains her presence without further prompting.

“Isabelle and Jace have both been escorted to their current assignments, sir, but Jace passed this to me before he left.” Erin pauses to gesture at a small parcel on Alec’s desk. “He was insistent that he deliver it to you personally, but he eventually gave it to me when he was informed that that would absolutely not be possible.”

With Jace’s demotion, he no longer had the rank to demand the Head’s time.

“He wouldn’t give it to me until I swore to guard it with my life until it was in your possession.”

Alec looks down, knowing at those words exactly what Jace had passed into Erin’s hands. The Immortal Cup rests on his desk in unassuming wrapping of brown paper and twine.

“Even,” and Erin pauses, unsure, “even with his .. recent actions,” Erin eventually decides upon, words cautious, “I didn’t think he would exaggerate something like that, so I entered your office without permission. It’s the safest place I could think of within the Institute. I apologize for the intrusion, sir.”

“You did the right thing,” Alec assures her immediately. “This is exactly why field leaders have emergency codes to enter my office when I’m unavailable.” Single-use codes unique to each individual entrusted with one, they immediately deactivate and alert Ops on their use. This is the first time such a code has been used in the decade Alec has been Head. He has no doubt Andrew is already being informed of Erin’s presence in his office by the on-duty security personnel.

The truly sensitive materials are always locked up when Alec isn’t in residence of course, but the Head’s office is one of the most heavily warded and secured rooms in the Institute. They’ve long been used as emergency shelters in case of invasion or attack and, as such, certain individuals have always had codes to enter if the Head is elsewhere and unable to open the office quickly enough.

“Andrew will reset your codes for you this evening,” Alec dismisses her with a nod of thanks.

She salutes again and turns to leave through the doors to Alec’s antechamber. Alec hasn’t offered her an explanation of the parcel and she won’t ask for one.

Erin closes the door behind her and Alec takes a moment to lock the Cup away in the safe in his desk.

He breathes shallowly, deeper breaths beyond him now with his adrenaline gone and agony spiking down his back. Alec ensures his expression is utterly impassive before swiping a finger across the communication rune on his desk.

“Sir?”

Anna’s voice comes through immediately. It wouldn’t have taken her long to reach her desk after escorting Magnus to Alec’s room, and he can only imagine the gimlet glare she must have been giving Clary ever since.

“Escort Ms. Fairchild into my office, please.”

Anna doesn’t cut off the rune (purposefully, as Anna does absolutely nothing by accident) and it picks up Clary’s aggravated reaction. “Finally,” the girl’s voice comes through clearly in Alec’s office.

Alec grits his teeth.

When his door is flung open and Clary comes striding through in a magnificent display of petulant temper, Alec knows that not one bit of his internal reaction is visible.

Clary is still dressed in patrol leathers, borrowed from Isabelle, and armed with a seraph blade, borrowed from Jace. (Certainly none of Alec’s people would have allowed her to sign out gear from the armory on her own recognizance.)

Alec can see the traces of ichor staining the hilt and knows immediately that the ignorant young woman had put the blade away without bothering to give it even a rudimentary cleaning. He’ll ensure Anna knows to send it to the armory, but it will be a miracle if the Iron Sisters themselves manage to salvage the blade for anything other than scrap after ichor has been discoporated along with the adamas.

Clary has barely stopped in front of Alec’s desk before she opens her mouth to berate him.

“How dare you?” She exclaims, voice raised in anger. She stands with her legs planted, her hands fisted at her sides, and Alec wouldn’t rise to acknowledge this level of tempestuous accusation even if he were capable of standing.

He doesn’t so much as raise an eyebrow, staring at Clary flatly. (He notes with some amusem*nt that Anna has yet to deactivate the communication rune between their desks. He has no doubt the Institute will be well-informed as to Clary’s tantrum within the hour.)

“You can’t just send them away because you’re mad we went on missions without getting your permission first,” she spits out.

Alec crosses his arms in front of himself, elbows on his desk. That’s why Clary truly believes he took the extraordinary step of demoting and reassigning his sister and his parabatai? He listens silently as she continues to rant.

“My mother is gone- she’s missing and might be dead, and you don’t seem to even care! Jace and Izzy were the only ones helping me find information about her disappearance - the only ones helping me on missions,” she fumes, seething. “Those missions are the only thing that might help me get her back, and without them I’m going to be on them alone!”

Alec’s brow finally raises in bemused disbelief, which only seems to incense her further.

“You can’t just send them away,” she repeats herself furiously and Alec half expects her to stamp her foot in anger. “My mother could die because your ego is hurt that they didn’t grovel before you and your ridiculous need to be in charge! You need to bring them back,” she demands.

“That is enough, Clarissa,” Alec cuts her off, done with listening to her ridiculous tirade.

Alec actually has three investigatory squadrons solely focused on the kidnapping of Jocelyn Fairchild. He has another seven working around the clock on locating Valentine’s stronghold. Given that those in charge of the Fairchild case have reported to Alec they are almost certain Joceleyn is being held at said stronghold, Alec has over fifty Shadowhunters assigned to finding Clary’s mother.

Not that Clary has bothered to ask him.

Alec would have told her, but he hadn’t actually realized that after being in the Shadow World for as many months as she has, Clary would truly believe that the largest Institute in the country, the third largest in the world, wouldn’t have a means for gathering intelligence. Valentine is the biggest threat to peace in the Downworld for the last three centuries, and Alec’s Institute was the one from which he rose before the Uprising two decades ago.

Alec’s Intelligence Division is unrivaled even by that of Idris itself. He’d painstakingly built it up from the morass of uncaring Circle-sympathizers it had been under Maryse and Robert’s tenure to a frighteningly competent band of hyper-focused and determined individuals. Alec hadn’t known who to trust when the Institute had first been dumped in his lap and he had recruited heavily from those who had lost family to the Circle. He’d only been fourteen, not even technically old enough to have the Acting Headship conferred, and with no means to request access to the Soul Sword or truth potions for loyalty oaths, he’d thought they’d be the least likely to be sympathetic to Valentine or his mission.

He’d underestimated their hatred of the man and everything he stood for though, and the division had grown beyond his wildest expectations. Ingrid Vanyard had lost both parents and all three of her younger sisters to Valentine during his first rise, and she was bitter and determined when Alec had placed her in charge of the nascent department.

Alec has given Ingrid near absolute autonomy and she’s grinned and taken a mile for every inch he’s given her. (Alec doesn’t regret his decision for a single second.)

You had to be a certain brand of crazy to succeed under Ingrid and Alec adores every single member of his Intelligence Division. There’s currently a seven month long waiting list for Institutes to rotate squads through the NYI-ID for training, bolstering their ranks even further.

At Alec’s request, Ingrid has sent weekly summary reports to Clary of the work being done to find her mother. (Censored, of course. Neither Ingrid nor Alec would trust Clary within ten feet of the names of their sources or any other classified material.)

Alec doesn’t know why he’s surprised that Clary evidently hasn’t bothered to read a single one. He doesn’t even know why he’s surprised that she clearly hasn’t glanced long enough at the paperwork piling up in her inbox to realize what it is.

Clary doesn’t look like she plans to remain silent for long, but Alec speaks before she can open her mouth.

“It has become overwhelmingly evident to me that in the months you’ve resided in my Institute, you have failed to familiarize yourself with even the most basic tenets of Shadowhunter society,” Alec begins, voice soft and hard, the tone his Shadowhunters know to fear.

“I am the named Head, the military commander, of this Institute,” he continues, “which means that I am the superior officer of every Shadowhunter who calls New York home, including Jace and Isabelle. So, yes, I do in fact have the authority to assign them positions elsewhere if I feel it is in the best interests of this Institute. I won’t even bother to debate the idiocy of why you think I sent them away.”

Clary opens her mouth to protest, but Alec cuts her off with a single gesture of his hand. “Second,” and Alec’s voice is dangerously flat, “why in the Angel’s name would you believe I would even consider allowing you to undertake missions on behalf of this Institute? You aren’t a Shadowhunter.”

This declaration is an indignity too high for Clary to ignore apparently, and she almost bodily rears back from Alec’s desk, her brows furrowed in anger. “What? Yes, I am!”

“No, you aren’t,” Alec denies cooly, not bothering to react in the face of Clary’s emotional outburst. “You may have nephilim blood, but you are not a Shadowhunter.”

Clary’s mouth drops open in shock and Alec can’t even bother to muster anger at yet another thing the young woman before him has managed to ignore. He knows personally of at least three of his people who have tried to explain this to her, most recently his quartermaster when he refused to issue her any gear marked with the symbol of the Clave.

“Nephilim is our race,” Alec informs her. “Shadowhunter is our nationality, our vocation. We are born nephilim, but we become Shadowhunters.”

He flattens his hands on his desk, carefully releasing the tension in his aching fingers. The muscles in his back are taught in anger and he breathes slowly to try to control the lances of pain that radiate out from each cut in his flesh.

“Were you raised here and not in the mundane world,” Alec begins, “you would have begun training at four, both scholastic and martial. You would have moved from free-hand to edged weapons at age seven and began instruction in runic theory. At ten, you would have received your first rune and been considered advanced enough to take your pick of the basic training rotations offered at various Institutes around the world.”

Clary’s eyes are wide and Alec cannot begin to imagine the willful ignorance it takes to ignore such basics of their way of life. Clary has met Max, talked with him for hours even, not to mention that New York is currently host to a half-dozen rotating training squads. Thirty-odd eleven year olds running around with blades are impossibly hard to miss.

“At fourteen,” Alec continues, “you would have been considered old enough to decide the rest of your life. You would either have sworn yourself to the Clave and picked a home Institute, accepting the command of its Head, or you would have decided to live as mundane and be deruned in lieu of making the oath of loyalty.”

“That’s barbaric,” Clary gasps.

Alec doesn’t necessarily disagree. Their lives are brutal and hard, yes, but one can’t expect to enjoy the power and privilege of angelic abilities without the responsibilities and constraints that come with it. He doesn’t pause in his recitation.

“After swearing to the Clave, you would have taken a non-combat post in your home Institute and continued weapons training for the next two years. At sixteen, you would have been marked as a full Shadowhunter, with all the rank and responsibilities thereof, and would have no further restrictions to your postings.”

Clary’s eyes are wide. Alec doesn’t even get into the mess that had been his own younger years. His parents had not cared for the duties they’d been given and Alec had been pushed far past his age as early as he can remember. Forget swearing to his Head at fourteen, the duties of Headship had been dumped in his lap instead.

“You have none of that training, nor have you made even the barest of efforts to obtain it,” Alec lays out. “I have thirty eleven years olds in my training halls right now that could, and I do mean this quite literally,“ he clarifies, “take you to the ground with one hand tied behind their backs.”

Clary’s hands move to brush against the hilt of her borrowed blade and Alec’s eyes narrow.

“You are a danger to yourself and everyone around you,” he states flatly. “That blade in your holster? You discorporated it with ichor on it- I can see it from here. The next time you attempted to use it against another blade or a demon with a corporeal body, it would have shattered on contact.”

Her hand yanks back from where it had hovered near the blade.

“You say you want to take missions, be a Shadowhunter? Fine. I will be more than happy to sponsor your training in Idris,” Alec allows. He means it even- perhaps the Academy would be able to beat some sense of collective responsibility into her head. “On a condensed schedule, I imagine you would be considered ready to take your oaths in about five years.”

Clary gapes at him, wordless, and Alec’s anger cools abruptly. He would slump as his energy drained if his wounded back would have allowed it. Her continued ignorance may be her fault, but Alec should have done more when he realized that merely providing the information to her was insufficient. He should have forced her to sit and learn at least the basic tenets of their world, but Jace and Izzy had shielded her and he’d allowed them.

That was done.

“You’ll have a week to consider if you’d like the NYI to sponsor you for an accelerated training program in Idris,” Alec finishes, incomprehensibly tired. “I’ve already signed the papers if that is your choice.” He knows Anna, still listening, will have those papers ready for Clary when she leaves. “If you choose not to avail yourself of this option, the NYI will continue to house you under protective custody arrangements until Valentine is no longer considered to be a direct threat to your safety and you can be safely returned to the mundane world.”

Alec has never seen Clary speechless before.

“Get out of my office,” he orders her softly, looking back down to focus on the papers on his desk. They blur in front of his eyes. “And check your inbox for the reports on our efforts to find your mother. We’ve been sending you summaries weekly.”

Clary doesn’t move, but Raziel bless Anna because she’s already sweeping through the door and Alec thinks he must lose time after the sudden spike of pain down his back when he shifts in his chair because Clary is gone the next time he looks up and Anna is standing next to his side, looking down at him in concern. Her mouth is moving but Alec can’t make out the words over the ringing in his ears.

Alec licks dry lips and meets her increasingly alarmed gaze. “ ... Magnus?” He requests faintly.

Alec doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, but Anna is running (and Anna never runs) and he thinks he might lose even more time because Andrew is suddenly in his office too and Magnus is directly in front of him, blue fire glimmering around his hands, eyes wide, and Alec doesn’t know what he’s saying, sounds smearing in wordless streaks across his senses, so Alec just tunes out everything and tilts his head down to bury it in Magnus’ stomach where he can feel the vibrations of Magnus' voice on his skin instead. He thinks Magnus might have wanted a response because his voice gets louder above him the longer Alec stays silent, but Magnus’ hands on his shoulders are still soft and gentle and familiar and he presses himself deeper into the silk of Magnus’ shirt and the comforting warmth underneath and ignores the sudden wetness he can feel on his back.

Magnus grips him tighter and Alec doesn’t know why Magnus is trying to pull him away but he doesn't like it, refusing to move, content where he is even though every resisted tug makes the warm wetness on his back increase and then new hands join in and unhappy noises escape from Alec's throat almost involuntarily until they finally stop trying to take Magnus away. Alec hums happily. Magnus smells like sandalwood and Alec closes his eyes.