Chapter Text
Max’s room in the Institute is silent, a single prayer candle burning and sputtering on the small altar near the door.
Jace had ignited the wick with a quick rune after he and Izzy laid Max on the bed, the small boy not having so much as stirred during their covert return from the safe house near the docks. He’s lit what feels like hundreds of prayer candles over the last few days, and when they announce Max’s “miraculous” cure in the morning all those who notice it burning in the corner will see it as simply another plea to Raphael.
Jace knows Izzy believes he lit it for the sake of their desperate gambit, a final measure to ensure the ruse is complete and that none will have cause to raise scandal about Alec’s death, but a prayer for healing is as far from the candle’s intention as it is possible to be.
Jace’s candle is his supplication to Zadkiel, to the Angel of Mercy in his truest and most ancient of purposes.
There is no doubt in Jace’s mind that he has seen his parabatai for the last time before they greet each other in the Angel’s embrace and his prayer is for nothing so hopeful as an intercession from the Great Healer. All Jace begs for as he kneels in supplication before the altar, one hand resting lightly on the rune over his hip, is that Zadkiel grants his brother a clean death.
The price of Obeisance is brutal, always, and Jace’s breath shudders in his chest as he pictures Alec in the place of the tortured souls he’s seen in the aftermath. The shadows of nephilim splayed bonelessly against the tiled floors of Wayland manor, wings bent and broken and blood pooling in a halo around them, are burned into the memory of his retinas.
The lucky ones had been dead by the time Jace found them, creeping downstairs from his room once the screams had tapered down.
Jace lingers on the images instead of pushing them back to the recesses of his mind. A decade ago he had sworn to his brother, in blood and word, that where he died, Jace would die; that where he was buried so too would Jace be buried. They had each invoked Raziel as they promised that ought but death would separate them from each other’s side.
Today that vow is broken.
Today Alec will die alone, his body desecrated, unlikely to be returned.
Jace expects no grace, no favor from the Angel and so he remains on his knees and pictures his brother in place of those broken nephilim on his father’s floors and waits for the piercing agony of Alec being torn from his soul.
He stares into the wavering flame of the altar candle as he prays. Alec had always been the most religious of their little sibling quartet, but now there is nothing else at all that Jace can do.
Zadkiel, sublime and glorious, Angel of Mercy and purifying fire, I beseech thee. Grant my brother the mercy of a clean death; do not turn your gaze from him. Grant him a quick path to your comforting embrace.
The flame flickers and Jace feels a pulse of something, some tangled emotion he can’t quite parse, through his rune. Alec had fully closed their bond the moment he’d left their safe house and Jace can only imagine what it means that the barrier has finally cracked. He’d begged Alec to keep their connection open, begged him to let Jace be with him in death in the only way he can, but Alec had refused.
A sob catches in Jace’s chest, a strangled breath he forces down as he pours every ounce of love-safety-blessing-comfort he can manage through their bond, soul stretching and reaching futilely, but the bond closes again the moment Alec realizes its open.
Jace’s eyes burn, but no tears fall. He doesn’t deserve them.
Zadkiel, he simply prays again, sublime and glorious, Angel of Mercy and purifying fire, I beseech thee.
___________________________
The portal winks out behind him and Alec lets out an unsteady breath, a small shiver serving to shake out his aching wing feathers. The unnatural stillness he’d held them in the past several hours had been painful, but even the slightest shift had served to unnerve nearly every Downworlder in visual distance.
Except, of course, for Magnus Bane.
But then, the Consular High Warlock seems to delight in being a living exception to as many expectations as he can manage.
The concrete is cold enough Alec can feel the chill seeping through the soles of his boots, but he doesn’t move, thankful for the glamour shielding him from mundane view as he stares at the familiar edifice of the New York Institute.
The sun is still an hour or so beneath the horizon, the glow of an Institute on the last dregs of its busiest shift shining through dozens of stained glass windows. It’s a fortress, gothic and imposing, but it’s his home and Alec had walked out of it the previous evening knowing he would never return again.
Dodging a few early morning joggers, Alec steels his shoulders and approaches the main entrance of his domain. The two Shadowhunters standing guard in front of the massive bronze doors centering the Institute’s portico straighten to attention the moment Alec is noticed.
Neither Jonas nor Eva can hide the concern in their eyes as they clock his patrol leathers. They know perfectly well - the whole Institute knows - that Max is even now fighting for his life, and many a Shadowhunter has been lost to a reckless mistake on a patrol meant to distract from a grief too sharp to bear.
Nevertheless, the poles of their halberds thump in unison as he passes and Alec returns their informal salute with a brief nod. The towering, ancient doors that anchor the front monolith of the Institute are only used during the High Ceremonies, but the smaller entrances on either side are open, ready for the return of the last groups coming in from patrol.
Alec had been careful when he’d left last night, walking a fine line between remaining visible on camera and choosing the deserted back halls that would lower the risk of encountering any concerned nephilim that might attempt to stop him.
His siblings couldn’t be seen leaving, but Alec had to be. When his body was eventually discovered, it needed to be clear that he had left alone. It needed to be clear that none of his siblings had been involved in his desperate gamble with the High Warlock and that Alec had left willingly, no hint of coercion.
He’d never even considered planning for his return.
Alec’s footfalls are silent against the smooth marble of the entrance hall and he has to blink back a hint of warmth from his eyes as he approaches the clockwork chaos of his Operations floor.
It’s approaching Alec’s favorite time to make his rounds, the short in-between hour that hits in the earliest blush of morning, true dark just past and the dawning tendrils of a gloomy sun a bare hint across the eastern horizon.
The heavily-staffed overnight shift is still washing away ichor and dust, racking their blades and jostling with each other in the antechambers off the main armory. The clang of adamas and steel and the bursts of muffled laughter offer Alec a familiar and nostalgic greeting.
The dawn shift has already left for the light patrol the Institute maintains in daytime hours, but the Ops staff are still alert and ready, even with yawns being hidden in elbow crooks and the soft, dripping sound of coffee percolating in several scattered pots.
Alec has to pause briefly to regain his composure before stepping into the Ops hall proper, hiding his gesture in a minor genuflection to the altar enclave on the left of the entrance arch. A vigil candle runed with Raphael’s symbol is still weakly flickering within, and Alec recognizes the mark of his parabatai’s stele in the crisp perfection of the angles.
Dipping his head briefly, the Latin comes easily to his tongue. “Ad Raphaelem Archangelum, o medicus gloriose, protege nos mundanos protege, ne pereamus reparationis praelii.”
The prayer rolls from his mouth almost by rote, and one by one he hears his people on the floor notice him, sees them mark the patrol leathers he still wears and pause before bowing their heads and joining him in the supplication to Raphael.
His Head of Security, ever attendant, is at Alec’s side the moment he rises from his abbreviated bow.
“Sir,” Andrew says mildly, gaze haunted when he realizes Alec is unarmed. “You weren’t on the patrol roster last night.”
It’s the closest he’ll come to scolding his Head in public, and Alec knows how terrified he is at what he undoubtedly believes to be something close to a suicide attempt. Shadowhunters love deeply and grieve worse.
Alec keeps his eyes on the altar. “I couldn’t stay here.”
It isn’t an explanation, not really, but it will have to suffice. His thoughts turn to the next few hours, plans changing to keep his family safe in the one eventuality that they had never dared to hope would be the outcome.
“I’ve never seen the streets so empty as last night,” he murmurs softly. “Perhaps the Angel was sending a sign that not all hope is lost.”
Andrew blinks, eyes newly liquid-damp in unknowing confirmation that neither Jace nor Izzy have emerged from Max’s room yet to begin the final phase of their ruse.
Good. Alec can work with this.
“Of course, sir.” Andrew affirms. “There is always hope in Raziel.”
The sentiment is typically trite, but Alec knows it’s meant as the only hope Andrew can offer in full sincerity.
“And perhaps in Raphael,” Alec counters, equally soft.
A final genuflection to the altar and Alec turns towards the pathway leading to the Head’s hall. He doesn’t see the signal Andrew gives, but he notes the several Shadowhunters that suddenly shadow his steps.
They can’t follow into the private wing where his and his family’s living quarters are located, but he knows they’ll remain on the outer door until he emerges again. No one in the Institute has the authority to stop Alec from going on patrol, but Andrew can certainly make sure there are a large number of highly armed Shadowhunters suspiciously close by if he decides to go out weaponless and grieving again.
If Max were truly to die, his people would do their best to protect him even from himself.
It’s a short walk past his office and then only a little further to the Head’s hall. Alec dismisses his guards at the heavy entrance door with a whispered word of thanks and then slips into the dark quiet where he can hurry to his family’s side.
Alec runs the moment the door closes behind him, footsteps falling heavily on time-worn stone. The halls are winding, twisting and turning before the bedrooms can be accessed, a final line of defense against wandering assassins.
He could follow the metaphysical tug from his tie with Jace, but he knows in his bones that his siblings will be gathered in Max’s room, waiting. Waiting for Max to wake after his healing, waiting for dawn when their plans to hide what has happened this night begin, waiting to see if Alec’s body will be found - a trophy and warning alike from the Downworld - or if their brother’s pyre will be consecrated with spirit alone and not flesh.
Max’s room is the most protected in their wing, tucked well behind his elder siblings’ spaces, and every step is too far until Alec goes crashing through the heavy door, suddenly utterly breathless with the need to see his family with his own eyes.
Every rule of etiquette for knocking and announcing oneself, embedded deep in the bones of a society where no one is unarmed, is forgotten in Alec’s fervent dash, and Jace and Izzy have weapons in their hands even before the flung open door ricochets off the Institute’s wall.
Izzy is sitting on the bed next to Max while Jace is kneeling in front of the altar, and Alec has never seen the expression carved into Jace’s face before, but he barely has a moment to take in his family- all of them somehow miraculously alive and whole and hale- before he is in his sibling’s arms.
He doesn’t know who reaches him first, but Alec can’t even see outside the sudden blanket of wings as he rocks back on his heels from the force of Jace and Izzy colliding into him. Izzy is on the left, automatically tucking her head under Alec’s chin as tears begin to soak the collar of his shirt, while Jace is to his right. His strong arms leave bruises as he clutches Alec to him, wings flared in helpless threat. The broad expanse of his parabatai’s feathers arch over both of them, the razor sharp primaries outstretched and quivering, searching for an enemy to fight.
“Alec,” Izzy sobs against his chest, and Jace is still wordless even as he’s pressing up against the link between them with a fervent desperation that Alec can’t possibly deny. The force with which Jace explodes through the suddenly open bond is a tsunami-flood of anguish and pain and grief, disbelief that Alec is here and alive edging his parabatai’s emotions with a fractal mirage of irreality.
Alec could stay in this tangled embrace forever, but he needs to see Max too and so he starts stumbling their little knot of arms and legs and wings over to the bed, to where his little brother, the son of his heart, is still sleeping, peacefully and deep, no flush of an unrelenting fever or grimace of pain on his face.
Magnus’ court will beckon Alec to attendance three days hence and he has so much to arrange to hide the cost he’s agreed to pay. The binding that has sealed both the Downworld and Alec to silence sits heavy in his chest, but Alec feels not an ounce of regret as the last candle on Max’s altar burns down to the wick.
The smoke rises like incense and Alec sends a mingled prayer and praise and plea to Raphael, to Raziel, to Magnus.
He will pay the cost that has been asked with gladness.