“It’s a baby,” Beatriz breathed. “It’s a warlock baby.”
There was a note pinned to the baby’s yellow blanket. Simon saw it at the precise moment that the wind caught it, snatching it off the blanket and whirling it away. Simon grabbed the paper out of the cold grip of the wind and looked at the writing, a hasty scribble on a torn scrap of paper.
The note read: Who could ever love it?
“Oh no, the baby’s blue,” said George. “What are we going to do?”
He frowned as if he had not meant that to rhyme. Then he knelt down, because George was the not-so-secret sweetheart of the group, and awkwardly took the yellow-wrapped bundle in his arms. He stood up, his face ashen, holding the baby.
“What are we going to do?” Beatriz warbled, echoing George. “What are we going to do?”
Julie was plastered up against the door. Simon had personally seen her cut off a very large demon’s head with a very small knife, but she appeared as if she would expire with terror if someone asked her to hold the baby.
“I know what to do,” said Simon.
He would go find Magnus, he thought. He knew Magnus and Alec had arrived and were awake. He needed to talk to Alec anyway. Magnus had fixed Simon’s demon amnesia. Magnus had been around for centuries. He was the most adult adult that Simon knew. A warlock baby abandoned in this fortress of Shadowhunters was a problem Simon had no idea how to fix, and he felt he needed an adult. Simon was already turning to go.
“Should I give the baby mouth to mouth?” George asked.
Simon froze. “No, don’t do that. The baby is breathing. The baby’s breathing, right?”
They all stood and stared at the little bundle. The baby waved his fist again. If the baby was moving, Simon thought, the baby must be breathing. He was not even going to think about zombie babies at this time.
“Should I get the baby a hot water bottle?” George said.
Simon took a deep breath. “George, don’t lose your head,” he said. “This baby is not blue because he is cold or because he cannot breathe. Mundane babies are not blue in this way. This baby is blue because he is a warlock, just like Catarina.”
“Not just like Ms. Loss,” Beatriz said in a high voice. “Ms. Loss is more of a sky blue, whereas this baby is more of a navy blue.”
“You seem very knowledgeable,” George decided. “You should hold the baby.”
“No!” Beatriz squawked.
She and Julie both threw up their hands in surrender. As far as they were concerned, it was clear, George was holding a loaded baby and should not do anything rash.
“Everybody stay where you are,” said Simon, trying to keep his voice calm.
Julie perked up. “Oooh, Simon,” she said. “Good idea.”
Simon fled across the hall and up the stairs, moving at a pace that would have amazed his evil Shadowhunter gym teacher. Scarsbury had never provided him with motivation like this.
He knew that Magnus and Alec had been put in a fancy suite up in the attics. Apparently there was even a separate kitchen. Simon just kept heading up, knowing he would hit the attics at some point.
He reached the attics, heard murmuring and movement behind the door, and flung the door wide open.
Then he stood, arrested on his second threshold of the day.
There was a sheet over Alec and Magnus, but Simon could see enough. He could see Alec’s white, rune-scarred shoulders and Magnus’s wild black hair spread on the pillow. He could see Alec freeze, then turn his head and give Simon a look of absolute horror.
Magnus’s golden cat eyes gleamed from over Alec’s pale shoulder. He sounded almost amused as he asked: “Can we help you?”
“Oh my God,” Simon said. “Oh wow. Oh wow, I am really sorry.”
“Please leave,” said Alec in a tight, controlled voice.
“Right!” said Simon. “Of course!” He paused. “I can’t leave.”
“Believe me,” said Alec. “You can.”
“There is an abandoned baby on the front steps of the Academy and I think it’s a warlock!” Simon blurted out.
“Why do you think the baby is a warlock?” Magnus asked. He was the only one in the room who was composed.
“Um, because the baby is navy blue.”
“That is fairly compelling evidence,” Magnus admitted. “Could you give us a moment to get dressed?”
“Yes! Of course!” said Simon. “Again, I’m very sorry.”
“Go now,” Alec suggested.
Simon went.
After a short while Magnus emerged from the attic suite dressed in skintight black clothes and a shimmering gold robe. His hair was still wrecked, going every which way as if Magnus had been caught in a small personal tempest, but Simon was not going to quibble about the hair of his potential savior.
“Really sorry again,” said Simon.
Magnus made a lazy gesture. “Seeing your face was not the best moment of my day, Simon, but these things happen. Admittedly, they have never happened to Alec before, and he needs a few more minutes. Show me where the child is.”
“Follow me,” said Simon.
He ran down the stairs as fast as he had run up them, taking two at a time. He found the tableau at the threshold just as he had left it, Beatriz and Julie the horrified audience to George’s terrified and inexpert baby-holding. The bundle was now making a low, plaintive sound.
“What took you so long?” Beatriz hissed.
Julie still looked very shaken, but she managed to say: “Hello, Magnus.”
“Hello again, Julie,” said Magnus, once again the only calm person in a room. “Let me hold the baby.”
“Oh, thank you,” George breathed. “Not that I don’t like the baby. But I have no idea what to do with it.”
George appeared to have bonded in the time it took Simon to run up and down a flight of stairs. He looked mushily down at the baby, clutching the bundle for a moment, and then as he handed the baby over to Magnus, he fumbled and almost dropped the baby on the stone floor.
“By the Angel!” Julie exclaimed, hand pressed to her breast.
Magnus arrested the fumble and caught the child, holding the blanket-wrapped bundle close against his gold-embroidered chest. He held the baby with more expertise than George did, which meant that he supported the baby’s head and it appeared as if he might have held a baby once or twice in his life. George had not looked like he was going to win any baby-holding championships.
With a hand glimmering with rings, Magnus drew the blanket back a little, and Simon held his breath. Magnus’s eyes traveled over the baby, his impossibly small hands and feet, the wide eyes in his small face, the curls on his head so dark a blue they were almost black. The baby’s low constant sound of complaint rose a little, complaining harder, and Magnus smoothed the blanket back into place.
“He’s a boy,” said Magnus.
“Aw, a boy,” said George.
“He’s about eight months old, I would say,” Magnus continued. “Someone raised him until they could not bear it anymore, and I suppose through the recruitment of mundanes to the Academy, someone thought they knew the place to bring a child they did not want.”