Born to Endless Night (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #9)

There was a silence. Maia had put an entire cookie into her mouth as they waited. Lily kept her arms crossed and looked sulky.

“Don’t waste my time, Lily,” Alec said. “What do you want?”

“I want you to sit down and help me, I suppose,” Lily grumbled.

Alec had sat down.

Magnus had not expected the meetings to happen more than a few times, let alone to see a rapport spring up between Alec and Lily. Alec had not been entirely comfortable with vampires, once. But Alec always responded to being relied on, being turned to. Whenever Lily came to him with a problem, at first haughtily and with an air of reluctance and later with demanding confidence, Alec did not rest until he had solved it.

One Thursday evening Magnus had heard the doorbell and walked in from the bedroom to find Alec laying out glasses, and realized that the occasional emergency gatherings had become regular meetings. That Maia and Lily and Alec would unroll a map of New York to pinpoint problem areas and have heated debates in which Lily made very nasty werewolf jokes, and each of them would call the other when they had a problem they did not know how to solve. That Downworlders and Shadowhunters alike would come to New York knowing there was a group with Downworlders and Shadowhunters who had power and would cooperate to solve problems. They would come to consult and find out if the group could help them, too.

Magnus realized that this was his life now, and he would not have it different.

“I like Alec so much,” Lily told Magnus at a party months later, slightly drunk and with glitter in her hair. “Especially when he gets snippy with me. He reminds me of Raphael.”

“How dare you,” Magnus had replied. “You are speaking of the man I love.”

He was bartending. His tuxedo had a glow-in-the-dark waistcoat, which made bartending in the artful gloom of the party somewhat easier. He’d spoken without thinking, casually, and then stopped, glass in his hand winking turquoise in the party lights. He’d been talking about Raphael easily, casually insulting, as if Raphael were still alive.

Lily had been Raphael’s ally and backup for decades. She had been utterly loyal to him.

“Well, I loved Raphael,” said Lily. “And Raphael never loved anyone, I know that much. But he was my leader. If I compare anybody to Raphael, it’s a compliment. I like Alec. And I like Maia.” She regarded Magnus with wide eyes, pupils dilated until they were almost black. “I’ve never been terribly fond of you. Except Raphael always said you were an idiot, but you could be trusted.”

Raphael had loved many people, Magnus knew. He had loved his mortal family. Maybe Lily didn’t know about them: Raphael had been so careful about them. Magnus thought Raphael might have loved Lily, though not in the way she had wanted.

He knew Raphael had trusted her. And Raphael had trusted Magnus. They stood together, these two Raphael had trusted, in one of those quietly terrible moments remembering the dead and knowing you would never see them again.

“Do you want another drink?” Magnus asked. “I can be trusted to make you another drink.”

“Bring on the party O neg, I’m feeling frisky,” Lily told him. She stared off into the distance as Magnus made her drink, her eyes fixed on showers of glitter that fell from the ceiling at intervals, but not seeing them. “I never thought I’d have to lead the clan. I thought Raphael would always be there. If I didn’t have the sessions with Alec and Maia, I wouldn’t know what to do half the time. A werewolf and a Shadowhunter. Do you think Raphael would be ashamed?”

Magnus slid Lily’s drink across the bar to her. “I don’t,” he told her.

Lily had smiled, a flash of fang beneath her plum-colored lipstick, and, clutching her drink, wandered over to Alec.

Now Lily stood next to Alec, having followed him to Idris, and looked at the baby in his arms.