Magnus had elbowed him and laughed. Alec remembered a time when Magnus never talked about the past, when Alec thought it meant he was doing something wrong or Magnus didn’t care. Now he understood it was only that Magnus had been hurt before and was afraid Alec would hurt him too.

“I thought I might bring Lily,” he told Magnus. “She can speak Spanish. And I thought it might cheer her up. She likes Jem.”

Nobody at any Market would question Lily’s presence. Everybody had heard of the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance by now, and it was well known that members of the Alliance helped each other out.

Magnus raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I know Lily likes Jem. I’ve heard the nicknames.”

Max looked back and forth at their expressions, his face bright.

“Bring back brother orra sister?” Max hoped.

They had talked with Max about the idea of another kid, as they had talked to each other. Neither of them had expected Max would take to the idea so much. Max asked about the brother or the sister every time one of them left the house: last Tuesday Magnus had forestalled the question by yelling, “Not getting a baby, going to Sephora. There are no babies at Sephora!” and bolting. One day at the park, Max had seized a pram with a mundane baby in it. Luckily, he’d been glamoured at the time, and the mundane mother thought it was a rogue gust of wind rather than Alec’s little rogue.

It would be nice for Max to have someone to grow up with. It would be nice to have another baby, with Magnus. Still, Alec remembered when he’d first held Max, how the world and Alec’s heart had gone quiet and certain. Alec was waiting to be sure again.

Alec’s pause left Max obviously thinking there was room for negotiation here.

“Bring back brother anna sister anna dinosaur?” asked Max. Alec blamed Max’s attitude on his aunt Isabelle, who kept telling him his bedtime was never.

They were saved by Jace’s signal, a faerie-leaf folded plane striking the glass of the window.

Alec gave Max a little kiss, in the midst of his curls but avoiding his horns. “No, I’m going on a mission.”

“I come with you,” Max proposed. “I be a Shadowhunter.”

Max said that a lot too, for which Alec blamed Max’s uncle Jace. Alec looked appealingly at Magnus over Max’s head.

“Come to Papa, bluebottle,” said Magnus, and Max went unsuspectingly to his open arms.

“Go get Lily,” said Magnus. “I’ll have a Portal set up for you.”

Max shrieked his outrage. “Down!”