“When will you give your parents a real grandchild?” he’d heard Irina Cartwright ask Isabelle after a Clave meeting.

“By the Angel,” said Isabelle. “Is Max imaginary?”

Irina paused, then laughed. “A Shadowhunter child, to teach our ways. Nobody would give those people a Shadowhunter child. Imagine a warlock around one of our little ones! And that kind of behavior. Children are so impressionable. It wouldn’t be right.”

Isabelle went for her whip. Alec dragged his sister back.

“You Lightwood kids are out of control and out of your minds,” muttered Irina.

Jace had appeared beside Alec and Isabelle, and given Irina a radiant smile. “Yes, we are.”

Alec had told himself that it was all right. It was a comfort, sometimes, when he was most worried about his friends, to consider that both Magnus and Max were warlocks. They didn’t have to fight demons.

Rafael mimicked how Alec was walking with careful precision. He was going to be good one day, Alec thought. Whoever got to raise him would be proud.

“Well done, Rafe,” he said. He hadn’t meant the nickname to come out: it just had, but Rafael glanced at him and smiled. They fell silent, crouching down as the Shadowhunter departed the warlock’s house. Jem raised his eyebrows at Alec, who shook his head.

Once the man was gone, they helped Rafe down from the roof.

“I wonder how far the corruption goes in this Institute,” Jem said soberly.

“We’ll know soon enough,” Alec said. “I heard that mercenary say ‘the next delivery from Breakspear will be at midnight tonight.’ If he’s delivering women, we need to save them and stop the Shadowhunters as well as the warlock. We need to catch them all at once, and there are a lot of people inside. We don’t know how many might be prisoners and how many are guards. We need reinforcements, and there’s someone I want to talk to about that before we go back to Tessa and Lily. I have to believe not all the Shadowhunters in this city are traitors.”

Jem nodded. As they left the alley, Alec described the faerie woman he and Lily had seen, her withered-apple face and dandelion hair. “Lily said she might have information about the family you’re searching for.”

Jem’s expression darkened. “I’ve encountered her before. I’ll know who she is when I see her at the Market. And I will make sure she talks.” His face was cold and grim for a moment. Then he glanced toward Alec. “How is Lily?”

“Um.” Alec tried to work out if he’d let something slip.

“You’re worried for your friend,” Jem said. “Perhaps you are more worried for her, because how she feels makes you think of how Magnus will feel, one day.” Jem’s eyes were as dark as the Silent City, and as sad. “I know.”

Alec wouldn’t have been able to put any of that into words himself. There was only the nameless shadow on Magnus’s face sometimes, the echo of old loneliness, and Alec’s yearning to protect him always and knowledge he could not.