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

“I did do that,” Alec said. “I did give her keys. Forgive me, Magnus, I love you, I did not know she was going to be like this.”


Usually Robert looked slightly uneasy whenever Alec expressed affection to Magnus. This time, however, he was staring fixedly at the warlock baby and did not even seem to hear.

Magnus was starting to feel ever more disturbed by the turns this night was taking.

“Why are you being like this?” Magnus asked Isabelle. “Why?”

“Think about it,” said Isabelle. “We had to deal with the crevices. The baby could crawl around and get his hand or his foot stuck in a crevice! He could be hurt. You don’t want the baby to get hurt, do you?”

“No,” said Magnus. “Nor do I intend to tear my whole life into strips and rearrange it because of a baby.”

What he said sounded eminently reasonable to him. He was stunned when Robert and Maryse both laughed.

“Oh, I remember thinking that way,” Maryse said. “You’ll learn, Magnus.”

There was something strange in the way Maryse was speaking to him. She sounded fond. Usually she was carefully polite or businesslike. She had never been fond before.

“I expected this,” declared Isabelle. “Simon told me all about the baby on the phone. I knew you guys would be stunned and overwhelmed. So I got hold of Mom, and she contacted Jace, and Jace was with Clary, and we all came right away to pitch in.”

“It’s really good of you,” Alec said.

There was an air of surprise about him, which Magnus fully understood, but he seemed touched, which Magnus did not understand at all.

“Oh, it’s our pleasure,” Maryse told her son. She advanced on Alec, her hands out. She reminded Magnus of a bird of prey, talons outstretched, overcome by hunger. “What do you say,” she said in an alarmingly sweet voice, “you let me hold the baby? I’m the one in the room with the most experience with babies, after all.”

“That’s not true, Alec,” said Robert. “That is not true! I was very involved with all of you when you were young. I’m excellent with babies.”

Alec blinked at his father, who had appeared by Alec’s side with Shadowhunter speed.

“As I recall,” Maryse said, “you bounce them.”

“Babies love that,” Robert claimed. “Babies love bouncing.”

“Bouncing will make the baby spit up.”

“Bouncing will make the baby spit up with joy,” said Robert.

Magnus had, for several moments, believed that the only possible explanation was that the whole family was drunk. Now he was coming to a much worse conclusion.

Isabelle had come, in an organizing whirlwind, to childproof the whole suite. She had been able to persuade Jace and Clary to come and childproof too. And Maryse had spoken to her son’s partner with affection she had never shown before, and now she wanted to hold the baby.

Maryse was experiencing full-on grandma fever.

The Lightwoods thought he and Alec were keeping the baby.

“I need to sit down,” said Magnus in a hollow voice. He held on to the door frame so he did not fall down.

Alec glanced over at him, startled and concerned. His parents took their chance to pounce, hands outstretched for the baby, and Alec retreated a step. Jace sprang up from the floor, having his parabatai’s back, and Alec visibly came to a decision and put the baby into his parabatai’s arms so he had his hands free to ward his parents off.

“Mom and Dad, maybe don’t crowd him,” Magnus heard Alec suggesting.

Magnus found, for some reason, that his own focus had slipped to the baby. It was natural concern, he told himself. Anybody would be concerned. Jace, as far as Magnus knew, was not accustomed to children. It was not like the Shadowhunters were always babysitting for the kids down the block.