That used to make Alec angry. It still did, but he’d learned to use it.

The warlock turned his back to Alec, surveying the cages as if selecting a product from a market stall. “So, what do you say?” he asked idly. “Do we have a deal?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Alec. “You don’t know my price.”

The warlock laughed. “What is it?”

Alec scythed the warlock’s feet out from under him, so he fell to his knees. He drew his seraph blade and held it to the man’s throat.

“All the women go free,” he said. “And you are under arrest.”

Alec realized why the warlock was burning torches, and not using witchlight or electricity, when a torch tumbled out of the wall and onto the straw. Lily, who was kneeling to speak to someone behind the bars, rolled hastily away from the flames. She came up to her feet with fangs out. Alec had to leap to stamp out the fire.

The warlock was good, Alec thought, as the world went orange with not just fire but magic, crisscrossing from the bars, blinding Alec with its light.

Then another light sliced through the orange wires of magic, pearly gray, cutting through all darkness. Tessa Gray, daughter of a Prince of Hell, stood at the foot of the stairs with her hands glowing.

Tessa’s magic was all around him. Alec had learned how to sense magic over the years, learned to move with it and fight with it as another weapon on his side. This wasn’t the singing power he was used to, well-known and well-beloved as his bow, but it felt friendly. He let Tessa’s magic wrap around him, cooling and protecting, as he ducked through the fiery sparks of power back to the warlock.

“The most powerful warlock I’ve ever seen?” Alec snarled. “She cut through your wards like tissue paper. And my man would eat you for breakfast.”

He made a mistake, because he was overconfident. He didn’t hear Tessa’s stifled sound, and he didn’t see the shadow moving as he swept his blade toward the warlock.

Clive Breakspear’s seraph blade met his. Alec met Breakspear’s furious eyes. He looked to Tessa, struggling with three Shadowhunters with Jem coming to help her, Lily with another Shadowhunter prowling toward her, and he glanced toward the warlock, who was making every torch fall. Alec was used to being able to see the whole battle, fighting at a distance.

Too late, he saw the blade in Clive Breakspear’s free hand, aimed for his heart.

Rafael barreled out of the shadows and sank his teeth deep into Breakspear’s wrist. The blade dropped to the stone.

The man roared, and with all the Nephilim strength that should be used to shield the defenseless, he hurled Rafael’s body into the cage bars. There was a sickening crack.

Alec shouted: “No!”