“When you fight, you should fight with your whole heart,” said Jem softly. “I don’t have the heart for life among the Nephilim, for that particular fight, not any longer. Too much of my heart is in a grave.”

“I’m sorry,” Alec said awkwardly. “I do understand.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Jem told him.

He went back to his room, where Tessa was waiting, a book open in her lap. She looked up when he came in, and she smiled. There was no smile like hers in the world.

“Everything all right?” she asked.

He looked down at her and said, “Yes.”

Tessa shut her book and reached up to him. She was kneeling on the bed and he was standing beside it, and the world was filled with missed chances and heartbreak, but then there was Tessa.

Tessa kissed him, and he felt her grin against his mouth. “Brother Snackariah,” she murmured. “Come here.”

The room might be windowless, but there was a brown jar crowded with red flowers on the table, and two white single beds. Lily had tossed her leather jacket onto the bed closest to the wall.

Rafael was sitting on the other bed, turning over a metallic object thoughtfully in his hands. Alec suddenly understood why he had agreed to be carried.

“What’s that you have there, sweetie?” Lily asked as Alec came in.

“What he has is my phone,” said Alec. “Which he stole.”

In Rafael’s hands, Alec’s phone buzzed. Alec reached for it, but Rafael moved casually out of reach. He didn’t seem terribly concerned that Alec had grabbed for him. He was staring at the phone.

Alec reached for the phone again, then stopped, caught off guard. As Rafael studied the phone, the sullen line of his mouth twitched, then slowly curved into a smile. The smile, slow and warm and sweet, altered his whole face.

Alec’s hand dropped. Rafael turned a suddenly bright countenance up to him and chirped a question. Even his voice sounded different when he was happy.

“I don’t understand you,” Alec said helplessly.

Rafael waved the phone in Alec’s face to illustrate his point. Alec looked at the screen and kept looking. He’d had a sick unsteady feeling in his chest since he realized what the Shadowhunters might be doing here, but the world felt steady again now.

Magnus had sent a photo with the caption BLUEBIRD AND I HOME FROM A WILD AND DANGEROUS MISSION WITH A SWING SET.

Magnus was leaning against their front door. Max was laughing, all dimples, the way he did whenever Magnus did magic to amuse him. There were blue and golden lights streaming all around them, and huge iridescent bubbles that seemed made of light too. Magnus was smiling a small fond smile, the black spikes of his hair wreathed with radiant ribbons of magic.

Alec had asked Magnus to send him pictures whenever he was away, after their first mission when Max was a baby. To remind Alec what he was fighting for.