City of Lost Souls

Alec swung his legs over the side of the bed. “What time is it?”


Magnus took the mug gently out of his hand before the coffee spilled and set it on the bedside table. “You’re fine. You’ve got an hour.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips against Alec’s; Alec remembered the first time they had ever kissed, here in this apartment, and he wanted to wrap his arms around his boyfriend and pull him close. But something held him back.

He stood up, disentangling himself, and went over to the bureau. He had a drawer where his clothes were. A place for his toothbrush in the bathroom. A key to the front door. A decent amount of real estate to take up in anyone’s life, and yet he couldn’t shake the cold fear in his stomach.

Magnus had rolled onto his back on the bed and was watching Alec, one arm crooked behind his head. “Wear that scarf,” he said, pointing to a blue cashmere scarf hanging on a peg. “It matches your eyes.”

Alec looked at it. Suddenly he was filled with hate—for the scarf, for Magnus, and most of all for himself. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “The scarf’s a hundred years old, and it was given to you by Queen Victoria right before she died, for special services to the Crown or something.”

Magnus sat up. “What’s gotten into you?”

Alec stared at him. “Am I the newest thing in this apartment?”

“I think that honor goes to Chairman Meow. He’s only two.”

“I said newest, not youngest,” Alec snapped. “Who’s W.S.? Is it Will?”

Magnus shook his head like there was water in his ears. “What the hell? You mean the snuffbox? W.S. is Woolsey Scott. He—”

“Founded the Praetor Lupus. I know.” Alec pulled on his jeans and zipped them up. “You mentioned him before, and besides, he’s a historical figure. And his snuffbox is in your junk drawer. What else is in there? Jonathan Shadowhunter’s toenail clippers?”

Magnus’s cat eyes were cold. “Where is all this coming from, Alexander? I don’t lie to you. If there’s anything about me you want to know, you can ask.”

“Bull,” Alec said bluntly, buttoning his shirt. “You’re kind and funny and all those great things, but what you’re not is forthcoming, sweet pea. You can talk all day about other people’s problems, but you won’t talk about yourself or your history, and when I do ask, you wriggle like a worm on a hook.”

“Maybe because you can’t ask me about my past without picking a fight about how I’m going to live forever and you’re not,” Magnus snapped. “Maybe because immortality is rapidly becoming the third person in our relationship, Alec.”

“Our relationship isn’t supposed to have a third person.”

“Exactly.”

Alec’s throat tightened. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, but he had never been good with words like Jace and Magnus were. Instead he grabbed the blue scarf off its peg and wrapped it defiantly around his neck.

“Don’t wait up,” he said. “I might patrol tonight.”

As he slammed out of the apartment, he heard Magnus yell after him, “And that scarf, I’ll have you know, is from the Gap! I got it last year!”

Alec rolled his eyes and jogged down the stairs to the lobby. The single bulb that usually lit the place was out, and the space was so dim that for a moment he didn’t see the hooded figure slipping toward him from the shadows. When he did, he was so startled that he dropped his key chain with a rattling clang.

The figure glided toward him. He could tell nothing about it—not age or gender or even species. The voice that came from beneath the hood was crackling and low. “I have a message for you, Alec Lightwood,” it said. “From Camille Belcourt.”



“Do you want to patrol together tonight?” Jordan asked, somewhat abruptly.

Maia turned to look at him in surprise. He was leaning back against the kitchen counter, his elbows on the surface behind him. There was an unconcern about his posture that was too studied to be sincere. That was the problem with knowing someone so well, she thought. It was very hard to pretend around them, or to ignore it when they were pretending, even when it would be easier.

“Patrol together?” she echoed. Simon was in his room, changing clothes; she’d told him she’d walk to the subway with him, and now she wished she hadn’t. She knew she should have contacted Jordan since the last time she’d seen him, when, rather unwisely, she’d kissed him. But then Jace had vanished and the whole world seemed to have blown into pieces and it had given her just the excuse she’d needed to avoid the whole issue.

Of course, not thinking about the ex-boyfriend who had broken your heart and turned you into a werewolf was a lot easier when he wasn’t standing right in front of you, wearing a green shirt that hugged his leanly muscled body in all the right places and brought out the hazel color of his eyes.