Don't You Cry
The shard of ice glowed and like an old film on the silver screen an image began to flicker in and out above his head.
Scenes began to play in black and white.
Robert ignored Alec as he shot 10 perfect bullseyes in a row but praised Isabelle as she presented her skills on the whip. Alec slowly slipping away and no one noticing.
Robert scolding Alec for playing with Isabelle instead of learning runes.
Maryse pulling Alec aside, whispering into his ear. Alec kept his eyes glued to the ground and nodded dejectedly.
In every scene a dark shadow followed Alec around.
Magnus turned to Maryse.
“Who did you hired to do your wards before me?”
Maryse looked away, “...Iris Rouse.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Magnus exclaimed.
“You’re constantly talking shit about me to Alec about my reputation but what, you never bothered to look into hers? Or you just didn’t care?”
Maryse squared her shoulders before answering, “She owed us a favor… She did it for free.”
“Oh so money was more important than your people, your family?”
“No! That’s not, that’s not true!” Maryse screeched at Magnus. “I love my family! Everything I have ever done has been for my family!”
“You love them so much you let a woman known for messing with the dark arts set up the wards around your institute and then ignored your son complaining about shadows following him around?”
“He claimed he saw them in Indris too! How were we to know that he wasn’t just looking for attention.”
“In Indris, when the last of the circle members were being rounded up, perhaps?” Magnus sneered.
Maryse and Robert’s bodies sagged against each other as they took comfort from the only other person in the room who could stand to look at them.
Magnus turned away and watched little Alec stare into the shard of ice.
“Hey there, Sweetheart,” Alec looked up at Magnus with a guarded look. “Is this what you wanted us to see? The shadow?”
“I don’t know” Alec lower lip wobbled and tears began to overflow over his cheeks. “Idon’t know.”
Magnus gathered him into his arms.
“It’s okay, Darling. It’s okay. You don’t need to know.”
“Doesn’t he, though?” Jocelyn interjected, “In order for us move on.”
Five pairs of eyes turned to glared at her.
“I’m Sooooorrrrry”, Alec wailed.
“No, no dear. Shhh, you have nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart.” Magnus rocked Alec back and forth in his arms.
Alec buried his face in Magnus’s shoulder and mumbled something.
“What was that dear?”
“Are you still gonna love us, after this? Are you still gonna love me?”
“Of course I am. Nothing could make me stop loving you. Nothing.”
Alec looked back at the fragment of ice in his hands.
“How can you know that? You haven’t seen everything.”
“I don’t need to, to know you are worth loving through thick and thin.”
Alec began to shake, his hand moving so fast it practically vibrated and stood up on the bed. He threw his arm back and flung the shard of frost at the bare wall in front of him which shattered against it, raining down like a fistful of diamonds thrown in the air. The fragments spreading across the wall making an intricate screen upon the bright white surface.
Suddenly, young Alec appeared on the screen. He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old, but held himself up with the same strength that embodies a grown warrior marching into battle.
He held an elaborately adorned book under one arm, a curious shadow following him as he snuck out of his room and into the library.
Alec placed the book in front of him and sat with his legs crossed. He opened the book to the precise page he wanted without looking at it as he pulled a vial out of his pocket. He poured out the herb like contents around himself and the book.
He read the passage on the right side of the left page outloud and the shadow took form of a man instead of the blob it had been before. A ring of light surrounded it and it made a hissing noise at the young boy before him.
“Usually a warlock is needed for this ritual but due to the fact that a warlock bonded you to me I can actually do this myself. I think… I guess we’ll find out.” Alec shrugged and the shadow hissed in response.
“Uh. Mr. Demon? Who has bounded to you to me?”
The hissing got louder.
“Who has bounded you to me?” Alec’s may have shaken, a little, out of the demon’s sight but his voice did not.
“Iris Rouse.” The demon spoke sibilantly.
“Why?”
The demon somehow managed to respond with an amused yet monotone sounding reply.
“Why, to break you of course.”
Alec glared, fire burning strong in his gaze.
“What’s the larger goal? What’s your purpose?”
“She wants a shadowhunter under her control. Lucky you, she chose you.”
Alec took a deep breath, “Why?”
The demon’s chuckle bounced off the walls, echoing around them.
“What do I care, as long as she keeps paying.”
The demon’s head turned towards the ground, and though there were no eyes to give away where he was looking Alec knew.
“I bet I’ll get a bonus, by bringing her that book. Too bad it didn’t tell you that that potion runs out pretty quick, the barriers almost gone, little one.”
Alec shrugged, glancing at the narrowing circle.
“The book doesn’t say it but Annemette did, when she gave it to me. She also gave me these.”
He pulled out two more vials, one he threw at the book and other at the demon just as the circle around him faded away completely. Both the book and the demon disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
The demon’s last word lingered in the room and on him long after Alec returned to bed.
“This isn’t over, little one. I’ll be back.”
Magnus, Jace, Izzy, Max, Clary, and Simon had all found a way to wrap themselves around little Alec who shivered in their arms.
“He did come back and hurt him.”
“Who, darling?”
“The other me.”
Jace ran his hand through Alec’s hair and Izzy kissed his forehead. Max held his hand while Alec yawned and leaned into Magnus, Clary and Simon acting as a shield, hiding him from sight. Lydia stood by the bed, daring anyone to get close.
“He’ll break a part of us. How can you love someone so broken?”
“You’re not unlovable because you’re broken dear. ” Magnus said, “You are loved for who you are and though I wish you had never gone through any of this I will always love you and be proud of you for surviving all you went through, coming out stronger than before.”
As the others voiced their agreement, the frost covered screen shattered again, each piece becoming a door.
Alec sighed, exhaustion clear in his voice, weariness clinging to his body like a wet blanket.
“I’m tiiired, I want you should go now.”
The group disentangled themselves from him and his bed as he looked through Robert.
“Pick someone.”
“Jocelyn.” He said without looking at her.
Jocelyn, ignored the others and chose a door.
She glanced down at the knob, “Alliance. Hmm.”
“What?” Lydia asked.
“Nothing”, She responded and walked through her chosen door.
Maryse and Robert paused, Maryse reaching out a hand to her eldest son.
“I’m tired mommy, daddy. Please go away.”
And so they did, their heads down, shoulder slumped, and minds heavy with regret.
The others all left quietly, first Luke and Raphael and then the others after giving Alec a kiss goodnight and goodbye.
All except for Magnus, whose hand Alec held.
“After that I did my research about Iris Rouse and then asked my mom in front of others why we were employing someone who practiced dark arts. She wasn’t hired again and I didn’t see the demon for a while.”
“My Alec, always so smart and resourceful.”
Alec beamed at him and dropped his hand, his piece said and done, but Magnus had one more question.
“Is Annemette the one who told you about the Empathy Mirrors?”
Alec nodded. “She believed me, when I said something was wrong and lent me the book, asked her warlock friend for those potions.”
Alec shifted from his three year old self to his eight year old self in a blink of an eye.
“You can’t let them know, okay?”
“Let who know what, sweetheart?”
“Them, you can’t let them know her secret. I promised. We can’t let them know or she’ll be in danger.”
Alec shifted back to his younger self. He did this a few more times before saying, “Promise you won’t let the other me tell them. Promse.”
While not knowing what exactly, or why he was promising, Magnus knew that the fact that it was so important to Alec was enough for him to promise, pinkies locked together.
“Thank you...” The tension bleed out of him and he finally settled as his younger self.
Magnus kissed his forehead, as the others had done before walking out the open door, hand held tightly around his mouth as to not let his rising sobs disturb the now peacefully sleeping boy he was forced to leave behind alone in his own personal nightmare.