Joaquín avoided Alec’s gaze, and as he did he caught sight of Rafael for the first time. Rafael was hanging back, clutching Alec’s phone.

“That’s little Rafael,” said Joaquín.

Rafael blinked up at him and corrected, in his small stern voice: “Rafe.”

“You know him?” asked Alec. “Then you knew there was a Shadowhunter child living in the Shadow Market. It’s the duty of Nephilim to care for war orphans.”

“I—” Joaquín faltered. “I tried. But he won’t let anyone near him. It was like he didn’t want to be helped.”

“Everyone wants to be helped,” said Alec.

Joaquín was already kneeling down, offering Rafael a brightly wrapped piece of candy. Rafe eyed him, then came cautiously forward, snatched the candy, and retreated behind Alec’s legs.

Alec understood being young and scared, but there came a time where you had to choose to be brave.

“Here’s an address,” he said, offering a scrap of paper. “If you want to find out what’s really happening at your Institute, meet me there tonight. Bring reinforcements—only the people you trust.”

Joaquín didn’t meet Alec’s eyes, but he accepted the piece of paper. Alec walked away, with Jem and Rafael on either side of him.

“Do you think he will come?” Jem asked.

“I hope so,” said Alec. “We have to trust people, right? Like you were saying. Not just people we love. We have to believe in people, and we have to defend them. As many people as possible, so we can be stronger.” He swallowed. “I have a confession to make. I’m—jealous of you.”

Jem’s face was genuinely startled. Then he smiled.

“I’m a little jealous of you, too.”

“Of me?” Alec asked, startled.

Jem nodded toward Rafael and the picture of Magnus and Max in Rafael’s hands. “I have Tessa, so I have the world. And I have loved going all through the world with her. But there are times I think about—a place that could be home. My parabatai. A child.”

All the things Alec had. Alec felt as he had last night, putting on Rafael’s boots over his battered feet: stricken, but knowing this was not his pain.

He hesitated. “Couldn’t you and Tessa have a child?”

“I could never ask her,” said Jem. “She had children once. They were beautiful, and they are gone. Children are meant to be our immortality, but what if you live forever and your child does not? I saw how she had to rip herself away from them. I saw what it cost her. I will not ask her to suffer like that again.”

Rafe held up his hands to be carried. Alec swung him up in his arms. Warlock hearts beat differently, and Alec was used to feeling the sound of Magnus’s and Max’s hearts, infinitely steady and reassuring. It was odd, holding a child with a mortal heartbeat, but Alec was getting used to the new rhythm.