Chapter Text
When Magnus first sees the mark start to appear on his chest, he’s so surprised that he nearly jabs himself in the eye with his mascara. He drops the brush and cranes forward, squinting into the mirror, trying to see if it’s really happening or if it’s just a trick of the light. There’s a set of thin lines on his chest just over his heart, barely visible so far but darkening as he watches. Within a few hours, he knows, it’s going to spell out a name. The name of his soulmate, the person he’s meant to be with, the person he has waited literal centuries to meet.
Not even bothering to get dressed, he grabs his cell phone and snaps a picture. Then he sends it to Catarina. A few moments later, his phone rings and he answers it. “It’s happening!” Catarina bursts out, clearly just as excited as he is. “Magnus, it’s finally happening!”
She has good reason to be excited, just as Magnus is. Every warlock has a soulmate. The mark appears whenever the events are first set in motion that will lead to them meeting. Someone, somewhere, had just made a decision or carried out an action that was going to result in Magnus meeting his soulmate. It could be hours; it could be years. The average, from what Magnus knows, is several months, but it’s not uncommon for it to take longer.
He doesn’t want to wait. He’s already waited so long.
Most warlocks meet their soulmate sometime in their twenties or thirties. It’s rare for one to make it to their hundredth birthday without having received the mark. Magnus has just celebrated his four hundredth birthday not long previous. He had tried to keep up hope, had known that sometimes it can take that long, but the waiting had worn on him. Catarina and Ragnor had always assured him that it meant that his soulmate was going to be extra special, that the universe had to wait for someone who could really be his match, and that wouldn’t just be anybody. He had to be patient, everybody said.
Patience had never really been Magnus’ strong suit.
“I can’t read it yet,” he complains to Catarina.
She clearly has to stifle a laugh. “No, you won’t be able to for a few hours. Go find some way to distract yourself or you’ll just stare into the mirror the entire time.”
“Ah, you know me so well,” Magnus says, as he was planning to do just that.
“Go keep yourself busy,” Catarina says. “Ragnor and I will come over for lunch. Go to France and get some wine, and then go to Italy and get some food.”
“I suppose if you insist,” Magnus says, and she laughs again. He hangs up and finishes doing his makeup, then gets dressed. He has to resist the urge to peel aside his shirt and recheck the mark every thirty seconds, but manages to distract himself. He loves entertaining, always has, so selecting wine and getting food is a process that requires his full attention.
When everything is set up, he texts Catarina to ask when she expects to arrive. She says it will be about fifteen minutes and then adds, ‘Don’t look at the mark until we get there!’
‘Of course not,’ Magnus lies, before setting down the phone and heading back into his bedroom. He shrugs out of his jacket, unbuttons his shirt, and draws it aside. The markings aren’t completely solid yet, but they’re legible. Neat, compact script, reading ‘Alexander Lightwood’.
Alexander Lightwood.
Magnus drops into his chair, staring at himself in the mirror. Four hundred years. He’s waited four hundred years . . . for a Shadowhunter.
He’s still sitting there, watching the mark darken and solidify, when Ragnor and Catarina arrive. “Where are you?” Catarina calls out from the front hall, and pokes her head in his bedroom a moment later. “Ah, you looked at it!” she complains, laughing, not seeing the look on his face yet. When she does, she stops and says, “What is it, what’s wrong?”
Magnus can’t bring himself to explain, so he just swivels so he’s facing her, and Ragnor as he looms over her shoulder. Catarina’s eyes go a little wide, and Ragnor takes one look at the mark and goes, “Oh, hell.”
“It has to be a mistake,” Magnus says, despite knowing full well that it’s not. “I can’t – I will not – have a Shadowhunter for a soulmate.”
Ragnor heads over and sits down on the edge of Magnus’ bed. “Well, you don’t know that it’s a Shadowhunter,” he says, reasonably enough. “It could be a vampire or a werewolf. The fact that the last name is Lightwood could be coincidence.”
Magnus gives him a withering look. Ragnor’s not entirely wrong, but still, the odds are infinitesimal. Ninety-eight percent of warlocks have a soulmate who is another warlock. The remaining two percent are typically fae of some sort, and although vampires and werewolves aren’t unheard of, they’re vanishingly rare. Of course, so are Nephilim soulmates, but even so. “Yes, I’m sure that the fact that my soulmate’s last name is not only a Shadowhunter last name but the last name of the Shadowhunter family in charge of oppressing the very city where I live is a complete coincidence.”
Ragnor winces a little, and Catarina steps over and puts a hand on Magnus’ shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Magnus, I understand that you must have doubts, but . . . whoever Alexander Lightwood is, he’s your soulmate. That means, by definition, that he’s perfect for you. Not perfect in general, but perfect for you. Yes, maybe he is a Shadowhunter. But if he’s your soulmate, he’s not like the others. That’s just . . . fact.”
After a moment, Magnus looks up at her, sees her patient smile, and feels a little of the dread knotting his stomach ease. “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“Well, I hope it does make you feel better,” Catarina says, “but it’s not the reason why I’m saying it. This could be the beginning of something amazing, Magnus. So don’t write him off just because he’s a Shadowhunter. He’s going to be your Shadowhunter. I already can’t wait to meet him.”
“All right,” Magnus says, taking a deep breath as he feels some equilibrium return to him. He buttons his shirt back up. “But if it’s a complete, unmitigated disaster, drinks are on you.”
“That’s fair,” Catarina says.
~ ~ ~ ~
Unlike Magnus, Alec doesn’t react in shock when he sees the markings on his chest. More than anything, he’s confused. And a little itchy. He rubs at them, little spots and curved lines that look like he slept with the sheets bunched up and they left impressions on his chest. Then he pulls a shirt on and goes about his business. He’s fourteen years old; breakfast is more important to him at eight AM than anything else.
He doesn’t even see them that night, because he doesn’t undress until after he’s left the bathroom, and there are no mirrors in his bedroom. It’s not until the next morning, when the mark has completely solidified and elegant script reading ‘Magnus Bane’ stares out from his chest as if he had it tattooed there, does he see it and choke on his toothpaste.
There are only a few documented instances of Nephilim being the soulmate for a warlock. He can think of one that he’s heard of, where upon discovery the Shadowhunter was de-runed and exiled immediately. He pictures his parents’ reaction when this mark is seen, and cringes away from it.
His first, admittedly childish thought is that he has to find a way to remove it. He’s not going to be banished; he is not the soulmate to a – he gives an internal shudder – Downworlder. They’re not even human. They’re less than human. How could one of them ever be someone he should associate with, let alone be a soulmate for?
He rubs at the mark experimentally, as if it might smear. It doesn’t. His mind pictures alternative solutions – cutting the skin off, burning it off – and he winces involuntarily. Still, what other options does he have? He’s Alexander Lightwood, the oldest son of Robert and Maryse Lightwood, their heir, the presumptive next head of the New York City Institute. Whoever ‘Magnus Bane’ is, he’s the son of a demon. Alec wants nothing to do with him.
After a few moments, he realizes his delay in the bathroom is going to raise eyebrows. He hastily gets dressed and heads downstairs for breakfast. But he can’t keep his mind off of it. During his rune classes, his training exercises, his mind keeps going back to the mark. He tells his parents he’s not feeling well after dinner and retreats to his room.
Looking into the mirror, he takes out his stele and takes a deep breath. Rune application always hurts, but he’s gotten used to it over the years. He considers and decides on the awareness rune. That’s got a thick horizontal line that will easily cover the name, and it’s generic enough that nobody would think it’s odd if he has one.
But as soon as his stele touches the soulmate mark, the glow of the rune fades and what he’s drawn so far disappears. He scowls at it and tries again, but it has the same result.
“Damn it,” he mutters underneath his breath. If that won’t work, he’s going to be in for a much more painful solution.
A regular scar won’t work. It might warp and distort the name, but there will be no mistaking what it is. He’ll have to find a way to remove it entirely, and to be honest, his mind quails before the thought of cutting off a chunk of his skin only to confront the very real possibility that it might come right back.
“Hasn’t anyone studied this?” he mutters to himself.
After a restless night of sleep, he heads to the library after classes and checks out several books which might shed some light on the subject. He finds a chapter about one of the Shadowhunters who was banished after their mark was discovered, and her testimony to the Clave.
“Please believe me, there is no part of me that wanted this,” she said during her pleas for clemency. “I am loyal to the Clave. I tried everything to remove the mark and free myself from this curse, but nothing worked.”
Her pleas fell on deaf ears. She was banished, and two hundred years later, Alec Lightwood reads her words and curses under his breath.
He paces back and forth all night, racking his mind for a solution, but none presents itself. The next day, his instructor reprimands him for his lack of focus. That, of course, makes its way back to his parents. Maryse draws him into the study for a private tongue-lashing, but notices quickly that he’s barely listening. “What is the matter with you this week?”
“Mother, I – ” Alec nearly chokes on the words. He doesn’t know what to say, but he knows he has to tell her. What else can he do? She’s his mother. Surely she’ll know what to do. “I’m sorry, I – I have to tell you something, and you’re going to be angry, but please don’t be angry, it isn’t – ”
“Spit it out, Alec!” Maryse says, exasperated.
Hands trembling so hard that he can barely work the buttons, Alec undoes his shirt and draws it aside to reveal the mark. His gaze darts up to her uncertainly, and he sees her eyes widen. She grabs his shirt, hastily buttoning it closed. She doesn’t say anything for a long moment, pulling away from him and then going to shut the curtains. When she turns back to face him, she’s regained her composure. “Does anybody else know about this?”
“No,” Alec says, shaking his head for emphasis. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“How long has it been there?”
“Three days.” Alec rubs a hand over the back of his head as he sees his mother’s mouth tighten. “God, Mom, I’m so sorry – I knew I should tell you but I – I don’t know what to do and I was – ” He cuts himself off before the word ‘scared’ can escape his lips.
“It’s fine, Alec.” Maryse reaches out and squeezes his upper arm. But she doesn’t look like it’s fine. “We just have to – figure out how to handle this. First things first. You can never tell anyone about this. Not your sister, not your father, not anybody. Nobody can ever know. Do you understand?”
Alec nods. “I understand.”
“Secondly, I need you to promise me that you won’t go looking for this . . . person.” Her jaw twitches a little as she forces the word out.
“No, of course not,” Alec says. “I don’t – I don’t want this, I don’t want anything to do with this, I would never – ”
“Promise me, Alec,” Maryse says.
“I promise,” Alec says.
“Okay.” Maryse lets him go and paces around her room for a few moments. “Okay, Alec. So we just need to think about your . . . trajectory, that’s all. We’ll need to make some changes.”
“Nothing needs to change,” Alec says, despite knowing that she’ll never agree. “Mom, I love what I do, and I’m good at it. I can still be every bit the Shadowhunter that I was yesterday. I don’t want this to change anything.”
“All that’s well and good, Alec, but you are our firstborn, our heir,” Maryse says. “Things will be expected of you, like marriage, children – things that are simply impossible now.” She sees the look on his face and says, “How could you possibly produce an heir with a woman who could never be allowed to see your bare chest?”
“We could do that, that sort of thing in the dark,” Alec says, hearing how lame it is as he says it. Truth be told, he’d prefer that anyway. The idea of having sex with a woman is borderline repulsive to him; the possibility that he might get out of it is the only good thing this mark will result in.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alec,” Maryse says, rolling her eyes. “No, it won’t do. We’ll have to find some sort of excuse for why you can’t marry. I don’t suppose the Silent Brothers would take you,” she adds, and Alec shudders. “You’re too old to join their ranks. Still, we have time to come up with an excuse. In the meantime, you can just focus on your career. Although it would be better to keep you as far away from any warlocks as possible. Perhaps we could fake an accident – some sort of debilitating injury – ”
“Mom, no,” Alec says. “Please, I can still do this. Maybe not the part where I get married and have kids, but please – please don’t take my future away from me over this.”
Maryse’s mouth purses and she says, “Hopefully it won’t be necessary, but we have to have contingency plans in place.”
Alec nods and resolves that none of those plans will ever be used. A few weeks go by, and they don’t talk about it. He doesn’t dare bring it up, and his mother doesn’t either. Then she takes him aside and mentions that she thinks he should take more academics next year in school, in case he winds up needing to take a noncombatant position. He agrees, but adds them to his schedule rather than using them to replace other things. It’s a lot of work, but he’s determined not to let her see him struggling. If he can make it through this year, maybe she’ll believe he can make it through anything.
That’s what he’s thinking until his parents surprise them at dinner one night by telling them that Maryse is pregnant. “Such a surprise!” Robert says, laughing. “The Angel must have willed it!”
Izzy is excited about the idea of a younger sibling, but Alec looks at his mother and catches her eyes. She stares him down. He breaks first, looking at his plate, thinking about how she’s replacing him, how she’s already given up on him.
Max is born later that year, and he’s adorable and Alec loves him with all his heart and soul. But his mother stops talking about ‘contingency plans’, stops asking him how he’s doing in his classes, stops taking an interest in how his training is going. When he mentions the possibility of taking a parabatai, she pulls him aside and tells him quietly that she forbids it. He doesn’t bring it up again.
Instead, he throws himself into training full force. He focuses on his archery. That’s something no one else in his family has. As long as he’s doing well, his mother seems to try to forget he exists.
She has other things to focus on. As Izzy gets older, she’s becoming more and more rebellious. She asks too many questions and kicks up a fuss at the way things are done. Shortly before her fourteenth birthday, Maryse and Robert arrange for her to be taken in by the Iron Sisters. They insist that it’s an honor to be chosen, and nobody outside the family realizes that they’re sending her away before she can embarrass them.
Alec is sixteen and the only person he’s ever been able to talk to is gone. He says his farewells stoically. It’s brief, because Maryse doesn’t want to give Izzy a chance to argue and arranges everything on very short notice. But once she’s gone, Alec curls up in bed and cries harder than he’s ever cried before.
Beyond just losing his sister, it’s a clear message: behave, or his parents will do the same to him, or worse. Maryse might not want anyone to know that Alec has a warlock soulmate, but if she thinks revealing it herself and framing Alec as a traitor will help her, he suspects that she would do it.
At seventeen, he enters his field training. It’s hard work, but he’s grateful for it. He works himself to the bone every day, and that helps him sleep once night falls. He graduates with honors and moves into the barracks at the New York Institute. Before long, he has a reputation as a humorless killjoy, someone who refuses to joke around with the others or interact socially. That’s fine by him. He’s not here to make friends, and he doesn’t want people asking questions about why he refuses to change clothes in front of the others, or when he’s going to find a girlfriend.
His first mission involves a pair of Eidolon demons who have been killing people in downtown Manhattan. He’s paired up with an older Shadowhunter named Starkweather, who seems to be a relatively decent guy. He kills his first demon that night, and feels a well of pride he hadn’t expected. He can do this. He’s good at this. He can still make his family proud even with a warlock’s name tattooed on his chest.
“Hey, check it out,” Starkweather says, gesturing to a pair of warlocks heading into the alley they just left, easily distinguishable by the green skin on one and pair of horns on the other. “Let’s take ‘em in.”
Alec blinks at him. “What? Why?”
Starkweather glances at him. “This is your first rodeo, huh? Okay. So there are some unofficial rules for field agents you need to know about, and this is one of them. You see a Downworlder, you bring them in.”
“What for?” Alec asks, more puzzled than anything else.
“In case they know anything about demonic activity in the area,” Starkweather says with a shrug. “You know, we bring them in to ask them some questions. Sometimes we can use the warlocks as bait for their demonic fathers.”
Alec thinks about this, thinks about the question he’s fairly sure he doesn’t want the answer to but feels he has to ask. “What happens to them afterwards?”
“We let them go, of course,” Starkweather says. The pulse of relief that goes through Alec is dashed a moment later when Starkweather chuckles and adds, “Whatever’s left of them after they get questioned, anyway.”
Alec opens his mouth, then closes it. He thinks very carefully about all his options. This is his first mission. It’s possibly Starkweather is just making this up – but given the general attitude about Downworlders, he doubts it. He settles for asking, “Does this ever gain us actionable intelligence?”
“Sure,” Starkweather says, his tone far too casual for Alec’s liking. “It must, right? Otherwise, why would the higher-ups have us do it? Come on, they’re getting too far away. Let’s move.”
There’s clearly nothing more Alec can say, so he goes along with it. One of the warlocks gets away, but they bring the other in. Starkweather instructs him on the protocol. Any prisoners are signed in at a certain desk. All warlocks brought in are strip-searched, because they have a tendency to have hidden weapons. There are restraining bracelets that keep them from using their magic. Once they’ve taken care of that, they’re left in a cell to wait for the interrogation.
“Come on,” Starkweather says. “Let’s hit the commissary.”
Alec doesn’t really want to, because it’s late and he’s got a million thoughts whirling around in his head, but Starkweather doesn’t take no for an answer. He’s surprised when he gets there and finds a bunch of others waiting for him. They break out into cheers when he enters, and someone presses a beer into his hands. “First kill, right?” a man named Blackwell asks. “Everyone gets a drink for that.”
“Oh, yeah,” Alec says. He’d been so wrapped up in what had happened afterwards that he had forgotten about this tradition. He had killed his first demon; there’s a celebration. He quaffs the beer in two swallows, and there’s more cheering. People slap him on the back and congratulate him, and for the first time in years, he feels like he’s a part of something.
Alec can’t sleep that night, tossing and turning in his bed. He feels like the name on his chest is burning into his skin.
A few days later, he gets his next mission. It’s been long enough that he feels like asking won’t be suspicious, so he says to Starkweather, “So whatever happened to that warlock? Did he know anything?”
Starkweather just shrugs and says, “Not my department.”
He lets it go at that. What can he say? He’s not the one who makes these decisions. Starkweather is right; if they’ve been told to bring in warlocks, there must be a reason. Someone higher up in the ranks has done the math and determined that whatever intelligence they gain must outweigh the dishonor in targeting an entire group of people, some of whom might be innocent. And even if that’s not true, what good would speaking out do? He’d be ridiculed, thrown out of the ranks. Then he wouldn’t be able to help anybody.
And there’s always, always that little voice in his head wondering about the soulmate magic. Wondering what kind of person Magnus Bane is, why fate would choose him to be mated to a warlock. Wondering if warlocks are different from how he’s always pictured them. How could he possibly be one’s soulmate if they’re really as awful as all the Shadowhunters say? And if they’re not all awful, why do the Shadowhunters target them as if they are?
It had been one thing to ignore that little voice at the Academy, and even during field training. After all, warlocks aren’t their priority. They’re demon hunters. Sure, they’ll occasionally go after a warlock. Downworlders, they’re told, will always eventually give in to their darker impulses. When that happens, the Shadowhunters have to make them answer for it.
But once he stops and thinks about it, the math doesn’t add up. There are thousands, tens of thousands, of warlocks. The Shadowhunters don’t have the manpower to police them. If they really always gave in to their demonic nature, then they would run roughshod over the entire world.
Unless, he reasons, they single out a few, every now and then, and make examples of them. Rule through intimidation, through oppression. But that layers more moral questions on top of everything, and it still doesn’t explain how he could possibly be a soulmate for one of them.
He doesn’t want to meet Magnus Bane, because he knows that it’s going to ruin his life, but at the same time, he’s desperately curious about him. Is he different from other warlocks? Is there some reason his soulmate would be a Nephilim? Or is it the other way around? If Magnus Bane is everything Alec has been taught a warlock is, what does that mean about Alec? What sort of person is he really, deep down? He had always thought he was someone who would fight injustice and protect innocents. Yet here he is, looking the other way while warlocks are targeted for no reason. Maybe he and his soulmate are equally horrible people. Maybe he deserves this.
It’s times like this that he wishes Izzy was still around, that he could talk to her. Even if she didn’t have the answers, she would be able to say something that would help. But she isn’t. She’s gone, and if he doesn’t toe the line, he’ll meet a fate just as bad or worse.
Then his brain supplies the idea that maybe he needs to be exiled before he can even meet Magnus, and he groans and pulls the blankets over his face. What if he’s just fighting the inevitable?
“It’s not fair,” he says to his ceiling, and he can practically hear his mother snap in return, ‘Life isn’t fair, Alec.’ He sighs and tries to banish the thoughts.
It’s been five years since the mark appeared on his chest, and he wakes up every day with a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, the fear that this will be the day. He simultaneously wants to get it over with and hopes that it never happens. How long can it take?
It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. He wants nothing to do with Magnus Bane. Whether he meets him tomorrow or in ten years, he’ll just pretend he doesn’t exist. Meeting him won’t change anything.
~ ~ ~ ~