“Yes,” Alec said, breathless with laughter and love. “Yes, I want to.”

Magnus’s smile returned. Alec pulled him into his arms, then turned so Magnus had his back to the wall. Alec cupped Magnus’s face in both hands.

“Give me a minute,” Alec said. “Let me look at you. God, I missed home.”

Magnus’s fascinating eyes were narrowed slightly, watching Alec back, and his smiling mouth was a little startled, as it often was, though what surprised him Alec didn’t know. Alec couldn’t just look at him. He kissed him, and that mouth was against his own, the kiss making every tired muscle in Alec’s body turn to liquid sweetness. To Alec, love always meant this: his shining city of eternal light. The land of lost dreams reclaimed, his first kiss and his last.

Magnus’s arms went around him.

“My Alec,” Magnus murmured. “Welcome home.”

Now when Alec asked himself Is this how you want to live your whole life? he could answer yes, and yes, and yes. Every kiss was the answer yes, and the question he would get to ask Magnus someday. They kissed up against the bedroom wall for long bright moments, then both stepped away from the other with a wrench.

“The—” Alec began.

“—kids,” Magnus finished. “Later.”

“Wait, the kids plural?” asked Alec, and became aware of what Magnus had heard: the stealthy sound of tiny feet exiting Max’s room.

“That hellborn brat,” Magnus muttered. “I read him eight stories.”

“Magnus!”

“What, I can call him that. It’s you who can’t call him that, because it’s infernally insensitive.” Magnus grinned, then squinted at his own stained hand. “Alec, I know you don’t really care about your clothes, but you don’t usually come home covered in soot.”

“Better see to the kids,” said Alec, ducking out of the bedroom and the conversation.

In the main room was Max, in his triceratops footie pajamas and dragging his fuzzy blankie, regarding Rafe with wide eyes. Rafe stood on the woven rug before the fireplace, wrapped in Magnus’s red silk robe. His eyes narrowed into the death stare that had frightened the other kids at the Shadow Market.

Max, who had never felt threatened by anything in his life, smiled guilelessly up at him. Rafe’s scowl faltered.

Max turned at the opening of the door. He padded swiftly over to Alec, and Alec knelt down to embrace him.

“Daddy, Daddy!” Max caroled. “This the brother orra sister?”

Rafael’s eyebrows went up. He said something quickly in Spanish.

“Not a sister,” Magnus translated from the door. “Max, this is Rafe. Say hi.”

Max clearly took this as confirmation. He patted Alec’s shoulder as if to say: great job, Dad, finally you deliver the goods. Then he turned back to Rafe.

“What are you? Werewolf?” Max guessed.

Rafe glanced at Magnus, who translated. “He says he’s a Shadowhunter.”

Max beamed. “Daddy’s a Shadowhunter. I’m a Shadowhunter too!”

Rafe regarded Max’s horns with an air suggesting: Can you believe this guy? He shook his head firmly and attempted to explain the situation.