Much Abides
ON THEIR FIRST NIGHT IN Paris, Alec hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d risen from bed and paced the floor. He kept looking at Magnus asleep in their bed—the bed they slept in together. Nothing else had happened in that bed yet, and Alec was torn between hope and fear when he thought about what might happen there soon. Magnus’s silky black hair was spread on the white pillow, his skin was rich brown against the sheets. Magnus’s strong, lean arm was flung out into the space where Alec had been, a slender gold bracelet glittering on his wrist. Alec couldn’t entirely believe this was happening to him. He didn’t want to mess it up.
A week later, he felt exactly the same. He didn’t care if they were fighting a cult or in a hot-air balloon, or, for that matter, fighting a cult from the platform of a hot-air balloon, which was starting to feel like a plausible future development in his life. He was just happy to be with Magnus. He’d never imagined that a romantic vacation, with someone he really wanted to be with, was something he could actually have, or even something it was okay to want.
That said, he didn’t particularly want his father to hear about his new boyfriend’s possible status as founder of a demon-worshipping cult, and he went cold all over at the idea of the Clave hearing these whispers about Magnus. Eventually they would probably hear about it through other channels, no matter how closely Alec and Magnus guarded the information.
The Law is hard, but it is the Law, his people said, and Alec knew how hard it could be. He had seen how the Clave treated Shadowhunters under suspicion of wrongdoing. It would be far worse for a Downworlder. Alec had seen Clary’s Downworlder friend Simon thrown in prison, when Simon had done nothing at all. The thought of Magnus, such a bright presence, being put away in the dark made Alec physically flinch.
Last night, they had both gone to bed shortly after Tessa had left, but Magnus had tossed and turned restlessly. At one point Alec had awoken briefly and discovered Magnus, sitting bolt upright in bed, staring into the darkness. When Alec had left this morning, Magnus had been asleep, but splayed awkwardly on the bed, as though his body had given up in exhaustion, mid-thrash. His mouth hung open. He was not the picture of grace he normally presented.
Alec was used to feeling a combination of affection and annoyance toward the people he loved. Typically, he’d start the relationship with a feeling of total annoyance and minimal affection, and then as time passed, the annoyance diminished and the affection grew. This described the arc of his relationship with Jace, his parabatai and closest friend, and more recently described how he’d felt about Clary Fairchild when she’d come into their lives. Clary had had her own lost memories, and the return of those memories had helped win a war. In that case, Magnus had done the memory charms himself. And now it seemed someone had messed around with Magnus’s memories, years and years before.
Alec had never found Magnus annoying at all. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. Chaos swirled and orbited around Magnus like a cloud of glitter, and Alec’s own tolerance of that chaos never ceased to astonish him.
Now he made his way back to Magnus’s apartment, returning from his morning workout. It was a cool morning, and a layer of dew blanketed much of Paris. The sun was beginning to peek over the tops of the buildings on the horizon.
Magnus’s apartment was intimidatingly nice, but there were no training rooms and nobody to train with, so Alec had to improvise. He had discovered a swimming pool next to the river. For some reason the people of Paris had built a place to swim next to a place they could swim. Mundanes were strange.
Alec had ended up swimming laps in the pool. His hair and clothes were still damp. A woman in very large sunglasses she could not possibly need whistled at him and called out “Beau gosse!” as she went by.
Now Alec high-stepped up the front stairs of Magnus’s building and bounded up the four flights to the apartment, taking three steps at a time. He opened the front door of the apartment, calling, “Magnus?” He paused. “What the hell!”
Magnus was in the middle of the living room, floating knee-height off the ground, orbited by dozens of books and photographs. Three large walnut bookcases summoned from his Brooklyn loft, with most of their contents spilled on the floor, took up the right half of the room. One of the shelves was tilted on one corner and looked as if it was about to tip over and smash into the window. Plates of half-eaten pastries littered the table and chairs.
The entire room seemed to be immersed in black-and-white static, which blanketed it with an eerie, ghostly sheen. An occasional white flash would wash out the room. It seemed, Alec thought, hugely, obviously demonic in nature.
“Magnus, what’s going on?”
The warlock’s head swiveled around until his eyes settled on Alec. They were glassy. He blinked and then brightened. “Alexander, you’re back. How was your cardio?”
“It was fine,” said Alec slowly. “Is everything all right?”
“Just doing some research. I was trying to figure out how and where and when I could possibly have a missing memory, especially one that covers the amount of time it would take to establish a demon-worshipping cult, so I decided to go through all the events in my life chronologically.”
“That sounds like it might take a while,” said Alec.
Magnus was talking rapidly, reveling in his investigation. Or maybe he had drunk too much coffee. Alec noticed three French presses and half a dozen coffee mugs floating among the debris.
Magnus had told him not to worry, but it appeared that Magnus himself was worrying a lot.
“You see,” continued Magnus, “memories rarely stand alone. They are interconnected, created from other memories that give meaning to them. Each specific memory will help in producing even more, giving those new ones their meanings. It’s like a giant spiderweb. If you make one specific memory disappear, you leave the other strands dangling.”
Alec thought this over. “So all you have to do is find a piece of memory that leads to nothing.”
“Exactly.”
“But what if you just forgot something? You can’t possibly remember every moment that’s happened in your life.”
“That’s why I got help.” He gestured at the objects in the air surrounding him. “I summoned my photo albums from Brooklyn. I’ve been going through any moments that could lead to the creation of the Crimson Hand, and then I’ve been magically imprinting the memories onto paper so I can properly catalog them.”
Alec furrowed his brow. “So you’re scrapbooking?”
Magnus made a face. “To the lay observer, what I’m doing might look similar, yes.”
Alec looked at the photos as they floated by. One appeared to be of Magnus on a flying carpet over a desert. The next was of Magnus at a ball in Victorian clothes, waltzing with a coldly beautiful blond woman. Another showed Magnus with his arms around a handsome older man’s shoulders. Alec leaned forward, squinting at it. He thought he could make out tears on Magnus’s face.
Before his fingers could grasp the photo, it flittered away as if it were a leaf, somersaulting in the air.
“That one is sort of a private memory,” Magnus said hastily.
Alec didn’t press the issue. This wasn’t the first time in their fledgling relationship that he’d bumped up against Magnus’s past and his boyfriend had closed the door on him. Alec hated it, but he was trying to be understanding. They didn’t know each other all that well yet, but they would. Everyone had secrets. Alec had kept secrets from those closest to him before. There were a lot of reasons Magnus might be holding back.
Alec wanted Magnus to be able to tell him everything. At the same time, he didn’t know if he could handle what “everything” might be. He remembered the sick, scared feeling in his stomach when he’d asked whether Magnus and the beautiful brown-haired woman he was looking at so fondly used to be a couple. He’d been so relieved when Magnus and Tessa said they were just friends.
Maybe Alec would never have to meet any of Magnus’s exes. Maybe he would ne
ver have to think about them. Ever. There might not be any in New York. They might all be dead, Alec told himself encouragingly, and then felt bad about that.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked, doing his best to smooth over the momentary awkwardness.
“Not yet,” said Magnus. “I’m just getting started.”
Alec opened his mouth to volunteer to help, and then shut it again before he spoke. It was one thing to want Magnus to open up to him, but another to try to enter the swirl and ferment of centuries of memories, covering however many hundreds of people, dozens of homes, thousands of events.
“This will be a long, messy process,” said Magnus gently. “Seize this opportunity to see a few of the Parisian sights, Alexander. Some of the minor churches. Or one of the smaller art museums.”
“Okay,” said Alec. “I’ll be back in a little while to check in.”
“Great!” said Magnus, and gave Alec a slight, sideways smile, as if to thank him for understanding.
So Alec spent most of the day taking in some of the more famous sights of the city. He knew Paris was known for its churches, so he decided to make a survey of some of the most famous. He started amid the throngs at Notre Dame and went on to the stunning stained glass of Sainte-Chapelle, the famously massive pipe organ at Saint-Eustache, the peaceful, shadowed hush of Saint-Sulpice. In the Église de la Madeleine, he gazed at its statue of Joan of Arc for much longer than he expected to. Joan stood prepared for battle, both hands on her sword, which she brandished upright, prepared to strike. Her face was tilted up at a sharp angle, as though whatever she faced down was much taller than her. It was a very Shadowhunter pose, though as far as he knew she hadn’t been one. The determination and grit in her expression as she beheld some unseen monster, towering over her, was inspiring nonetheless. For all the beauty of rose windows and Corinthian columns he’d beheld that day, it was the expression on Joan’s face that stayed with him for hours after.
In each church, he couldn’t help but wonder where the stash of Nephilim weapons was hidden. In almost every church in the world, a Shadowhunter rune pointed the way to a cache of arms, available for their use in case of emergency. He could have asked any of the Shadowhunters of the Paris Enclave, of course, but he was keeping his and Magnus’s presence in the city quiet. In Notre Dame he spent a few minutes examining the stone floors, looking for a rune he recognized, but he was beginning to attract looks—most visitors to Notre Dame spent their time there looking up, not down at the floor. He gave up; the place was massive, and the weapons cache could be anywhere.
Mostly he attracted no attention, but he had a terrible moment when among a crowd crossing the Pont des Arts he spotted two figures with familiar marks on their bare arms. He turned abruptly and walked the other way, taking the first turn into a narrow alley that he could. When he emerged after a few minutes, the unknown Shadowhunters were gone.
He stood on the crowded street for a moment, then, feeling very alone. He wasn’t used to hiding from other Shadowhunters; they were his colleagues and allies, after all. It was an unusual, uncomfortable sensation. But with this cult business to sort out, he didn’t want to cross paths with them. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Magnus—he didn’t believe for a second that Magnus was involved with the Crimson Hand right now. But might Magnus have been involved with them as a joke, a couple hundred years ago on a drunken night? That was closer to the realm of possibility. He wanted to call Magnus, but he didn’t want to bother him in the middle of his research.
Walking on, he took out his phone and called home. A few seconds later he heard his sister’s familiar voice. “Hey! How’s Paris?”
A grin curved Alec’s mouth. “Hi, Isabelle.”
In the background, he heard a terrible crash and another voice.
“Is that Alec? Give the phone to me!”
“What was that noise?” Alec asked, mildly alarmed.
“Oh, it’s just Jace,” Isabelle said dismissively. “Hands off, Jace! He called me.”
“No, the sound like a thousand trash-can lids falling out of the sky.”
“Oh, Jace was swinging a big ax on a chain when you called,” Isabelle said. “Jace! Your ax is stuck in the wall. It’s not important, Alec. Tell me about your trip! How is Magnus? And I don’t mean his well-being.”
Alec coughed.
“I mean, how are his skills, and I’m not talking about the magical ones,” Isabelle clarified.
“Yes, I picked up on your meaning,” said Alec dryly.
He did not exactly have an answer for Isabelle on that topic. When he and Magnus had been dating in New York, there had been several times when Alec really wanted to take things further, but he was scared off by the immensity of his feelings. They had kissed, they had fooled around a little. That was it, so far, and Magnus had never pushed. Then the war came, and after the war, Magnus asked him to go on vacation to Europe, and he said yes. Alec had presumed they both understood that meant he was ready to go anywhere and do anything with Magnus. He was over eighteen; he was an adult. He could make his own decisions.
Only Magnus had not made a move. Magnus was always so careful with Alec. Alec wished he was a little less careful, because Alec was not very good at conversations, especially awkward conversations about feelings—that is, all conversations about feelings—and he could not work out how to bring up the topic of going further. Alec had never even kissed anyone before Magnus. He knew Magnus must have a lot of experience. That made Alec even more nervous, but at the same time, kissing Magnus was the most fantastic feeling in the world. When they kissed, Alec’s body moved naturally toward Magnus, getting as close as he could, in the instinctive way his body only otherwise moved when he was fighting. He hadn’t known that it was possible for anything to feel so right or mean so much, and now they were in Paris together, alone, and anything could happen. It was exhilarating as well as terrifying.
Surely Magnus wanted to go further too. Didn’t he?
Alec had thought something might happen on the night of the hot-air balloon, but Magnus had become understandably distracted by the demonic cult.
“Alec!” Isabelle shouted into the phone. “Are you still there?”
“Oh—right, sorry. Yes.”
Her voice softened. “Is it awkward? I know the first vacation is the make-or-break time for a couple.”
“What do you mean ‘make-or-break time’? You’ve never gone on vacation with anyone!”
“I know, but Clary loaned me some mundane magazines,” Isabelle said, her voice brightening. Clary and Isabelle’s friendship had been hard-won, but Isabelle seemed to value it all the more for that. “The magazines say that the first trip is a crucial test for a couple’s compatibility. It’s when you truly get to know each other, and how you work together, and decide whether the relationship will work long-term.”
Alec felt something drop in his stomach and quickly changed the subject. “How is Simon?”
It was a sign of Alec’s desperation that he brought up Simon, since he did not much like the idea of his sister dating a vampire. Though for a vampire, he seemed like a good enough guy. Alec didn’t know him that well. Simon talked a lot, mostly about things from the mundane world Alec had never heard of.
Isabelle laughed, a little too loudly. “Fine. I mean, I don’t know. I see him occasionally, and he seems fine, but I don’t care. You know how I am with boys; he’s like a little toy. A little fanged toy.”
Isabelle had dated plenty of people, but she never got defensive like this. Maybe that was what made Alec feel uneasy about Simon.
“Just so long as you don’t become his chew toy,” said Alec. “Listen, I need a favor.”
Isabelle’s tone went sharp. “Why are you using the voice?”
“What voice?”
“The ‘I’m a Shadowhunter on official business’ voice. Alec, you’re on vacation. You’re supposed to be having fun.”
“I am having fun.”
“I don’t b
elieve you.”
“Are you going to help me or not?”
Isabelle laughed. “Of course I am. What are you and Magnus getting into?”
Alec had promised Magnus he wouldn’t tell anyone, but surely Isabelle didn’t count.
He turned away from the crowd and covered the phone with his free hand. “I need you to keep this quiet. Mom and Dad don’t need to find out. I don’t want Jace to know either.”
There was a rustling on the phone. “Alec, are you in trouble? I can be in Alicante in half an hour and Paris in three.”
“No, no, it’s not like that.”
Alec abruptly realized he had neglected to glamour himself undetectable, so that mundanes wouldn’t overhear his conversation, but just as in New York, the crowds of Paris streamed by without paying the slightest attention to him. Cell phone conversations, no matter how public, were to be ignored; apparently this was a universal law. “Can you search through the Institute archives for a cult called the Crimson Hand?”
“Of course. Can you tell me why?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She didn’t press him further. Isabelle never had pushed, not about any of Alec’s secrets. That was one of the many reasons Alec trusted his sister.
On the other end of the line came the sounds of a scuffle. “Shove off, Jace!” Isabelle hissed.
“Actually,” Alec said, “could I talk to Jace for a second?”
There was something he wanted to ask, and he did not feel comfortable talking about this stuff with his sister.
“Oh, fine,” said Isabelle. “Here he is.”
There was another rustle, and then Jace cleared his throat and said casually, as if he had not been fighting Isabelle for the phone a minute ago, “Hey.”
Alec smiled. “Hey.”
He could visualize Jace, who had asked Alec to be his parabatai and then always pretended as if he did not need one. Alec was not fooled.
Jace had lived in the New York Institute with them since Alec was eleven. Alec had always loved Jace, found him so familiar and so dear that for a while he’d been confused about what kind of love it was. Thinking of Jace now, he realized whom the warlock woman Tessa had reminded him of.
The Red Scrolls of Magic Page 4