City of Lost Souls

“And even if you did come here—unnecessarily—and tell her the deal was off,” Magnus went on in a deadly calm voice, “why are you here now? Social call? Just visiting? Explain it to me, Alexander, if there’s something I’m missing.”


Alec swallowed. Surely there must be a way to explain. That he had been coming down here, visiting Camille, because she was the only person he could talk to about Magnus. The only person who knew Magnus, as he did, not just as the High Warlock of Brooklyn but as someone who could love and be loved back, who had human frailties and peculiarities and odd, irregular currents of mood that Alec had no idea how to navigate without advice. “Magnus—” Alec took a step toward his boyfriend, and for the first time that he remembered, Magnus moved away from him. His posture was stiff and unfriendly. He was looking at Alec the way he’d look at a stranger, a stranger he didn’t like very much.

“I’m so sorry,” Alec said. His voice sounded scratchy and uneven to his own ears. “I never meant—”

“I was thinking about it, you know,” Magnus said. “That’s part of why I wanted the Book of the White. Immortality can be a burden. You think of the days that stretch out before you, when you have been everywhere, seen everything. The one thing I hadn’t experienced was growing old with someone—someone I loved. I thought perhaps it would be you. But that does not give you the right to make the length of my life your choice and not mine.”

“I know.” Alec’s heart raced. “I know, and I wasn’t going to do it—”

“I’ll be out all day,” Magnus said. “Come and get your things out of the apartment. Leave your key on the dining room table.” His eyes searched Alec’s face. “It’s over. I don’t want to see you again, Alec. Or any of your friends. I’m tired of being their pet warlock.”

Alec’s hands had begun to shake, hard enough that he dropped his witchlight. The light winked out, and he fell to his knees, scrabbling on the ground among the trash and the dirt. At last something lit up before his eyes, and he rose to see Magnus standing before him, the witchlight in his hand. It shone and flickered with a strangely colored light.

“It shouldn’t light up like that,” Alec said automatically. “For anyone but a Shadowhunter.”

Magnus held it out. The heart of the witchlight was glowing a dark red, like the coal of a fire.

“Is it because of your father?” Alec asked.

Magnus didn’t reply, only tipped the rune-stone into Alec’s palm. As their hands touched, Magnus’s face changed. “You’re freezing cold.”

“I am?”

“Alexander…” Magnus pulled him close, and the witchlight flickered between them, its color changing rapidly. Alec had never seen a witchlight rune-stone do that before. He put his head against Magnus’s shoulder and let Magnus hold him. Magnus’s heart didn’t beat like human hearts did. It was slower, but steady. Sometimes Alec thought it was the steadiest thing in his life.

“Kiss me,” Alec said.

Magnus put his hand to the side of Alec’s face and gently, almost absently, ran his thumb along Alec’s cheekbone. When he bent to kiss him, he smelled like sandalwood. Alec clutched the sleeve of Magnus’s jacket, and the witchlight, held between their bodies, flared up in colors of rose and blue and green.

It was a slow kiss, and a sad one. When Magnus drew away, Alec found that somehow he was holding the witchlight alone; Magnus’s hand was gone. The light was a soft white.

Softly, Magnus said, “Aku cinta kamu.”

“What does that mean?”

Magnus disentangled himself from Alec’s grip. “It means I love you. Not that that changes anything.”

“But if you love me—”

“Of course I do. More than I thought I would. But we’re still done,” Magnus said. “It doesn’t change what you did.”

“But it was just a mistake,” Alec whispered. “One mistake—”

Magnus laughed sharply. “One mistake? That’s like calling the maiden voyage of the Titanic a minor boating accident. Alec, you tried to shorten my life.”

“It was just—She offered, but I thought about it and I couldn’t go through with it—I couldn’t do that to you.”

“But you had to think about it. And you never mentioned it to me.” Magnus shook his head. “You didn’t trust me. You never have.”

“I do,” Alec said. “I will—I’ll try. Give me another chance—”

“No,” Magnus said. “And if I might give you a piece of advice: Avoid Camille. There is a war coming, Alexander, and you don’t want your loyalties to be in question. Do you?”

And with that he turned and walked away, his hands in his pockets—walking slowly, as if he were injured, and not just from the cut in his side. But he was walking away just the same. Alec watched him until he moved beyond the glow of the witchlight and out of sight.