“Alec, I raised you, Jace, Max, and Isabelle and you were plenty of trouble. I will be fine. Also, most of the time Kadir will be here.”
As though he’d been waiting for his cue, Kadir Safar swept into the room. He was a tall, dark-skinned man with elegant features and a sharply defined goatee. Alec was not exactly clear on Kadir’s official title at the Institute, but in recent months he had evidently become Maryse’s second-in-command. He had helped train Alec, Isabelle, and Jace growing up, and was a man of few words and fewer expressions. Alec had always felt they understood each other. “Did you need me?” Kadir said to Maryse, hands behind his back. His eyes scanned the desk and its new pile of colorful objects. “Your grandchild’s belongings, I assume. What do you have there, Magnus?”
Magnus held a stack of picture books in his hands that he’d just withdrawn from the bag. He waved them at Kadir. “I hope you’re prepared for all the reading this kid will demand.” He began placing books on the desk one at a time. “Goodnight Moon. The Poky Little Puppy. Where the Wild Things Are. Huge right now in our house. Main character is also named Max.”
“I am familiar,” said Kadir, drawing himself up with dignity, “with Where the Wild Things Are.”
“There’s this one, which I guess is called Truck? It has a different kind of truck on each page with its name,” Magnus went on. “Max is very enthusiastic about it, but I warn you, it has no narrative propulsion.”
“Truck,” confirmed Max. Warlocks tended to talk early, and Max was no exception. He’d said his first word, “newt,” when he was only nine months old, causing Magnus to hide his spell components.
“And of course,” said Magnus, “there is The Very Small Mouse Who Went a Very Long Way. By Courtney Gray Wiese.”
Alec let out a long groan.
“Not a favorite?” said Maryse. “I don’t know that one, but it doesn’t sound bad.”
“Lily brought it to us,” Alec said. “I have no idea where she found it. It must have been in the Hotel Dumort.”
“For decades,” agreed Magnus. “The very small mouse does indeed go a very long way, but she does so in order to learn very outdated moral lessons about personal hygiene.”
“Hmm,” said Maryse and Kadir.
“It is his favorite,” Magnus said, shaking his head. “Unfortunately.”
Alec took a dramatic breath and proclaimed, “ ‘Now wash your feet, O little mouse / Or you will never find a spouse.’ ”
“Mouse?” Max said, perking up.
Kadir held up his hand. “I look forward to discovering it for myself. Now, if there’s nothing else, Maryse—”
“Stay a moment,” Maryse insisted. “I wanted to tell Alec the news. Alec, I’ve asked Jace if he would take over soon as the head of the Institute. I hope you don’t mind.”
Alec tried to hide the surprise on his face. Not that his mother would ask Jace to run things, but that she would stop running the Institute herself at all. She’d given no hint of it. He wanted to ask why but held himself back, uncertain.
Magnus had no such qualms. “But why would you step down?”
Maryse shook her head. “Running an Institute is a young person’s job. It needs someone with the energy to be a full-time Shadowhunter and also keep up relationships with the Downworlders, manage the members of the Conclave, stay in touch with the Council… it’s a lot.”
“But it’s gotten easier,” said Alec. “Not that you don’t deserve a rest. The Alliance has really changed how closely in communication Downworld and the Conclave are.” He felt himself flush a little. He always felt like he was bragging when he mentioned the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance that he had put together with Maia Roberts, who led New York’s largest werewolf pack, and Lily Chen, who was the head of New York’s vampires. But he was proud of the work they’d done.
“It has,” said Maryse, “and Alec, I appreciate all the effort you put in there—that’s why I didn’t ask you to run the Institute. You’ve got plenty going on already. Not to mention the little bluebell here.”
Max looked up, sensing that someone wished to admire him. He grinned winningly at Alec, and his head burst into blue flames.
“Oh dear,” said Maryse, blinking and jerking back. Kadir’s expression did not change at all as he took a glass of water from Maryse’s desk and poured it over Max, putting out the flames. Max blinked in surprise, then began to cry.
Kadir raised an eyebrow at Alec. “Sorry about that.” Maryse scooped up Max, who quickly forgot that his head was wet in favor of grabbing for Maryse’s earrings.
“It’s as good a solution as any,” Magnus said. “Better a crying kid than a house on fire.”
“An apt aphorism,” said Kadir. For Kadir, this was close to a declaration of undying love.
“What did Jace say?” said Alec. “Is he going to do it?”
“He said he needed time to think,” said Maryse. She looked uncertain. “I’m sure he’ll accept,” she said. “I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned it to you, actually. I half thought you’d already know my news.”
“He hasn’t brought it up at all,” said Alec. He was troubled. Why hadn’t Jace mentioned it? Even if he had doubts, who else would be better to talk about them with than his parabatai? And what would Jace have to worry about, anyway? Alec knew he would kill it as head of the Institute.
“I can’t imagine he wants to be the guy who has to uphold the Cold Peace,” said Magnus mildly.
“Has he talked to you about it?” said Alec. Magnus had a good point, though. The Cold Peace was the name for the terrible relationship between faeries and Shadowhunters at the moment. After a good number of the fey had sided with the enemies of the Nephilim a few years back, the Shadowhunters had sanctioned them harshly and strong-armed them into signing a treaty that left them unprotected and badly weakened. Things had been somewhat more than tense ever since. Many Shadowhunters—and especially the Shadowhunters of the New York Institute—hated the Cold Peace and would have happily seen the restoration of normal relations. But it was the job of the Institute to uphold the Law, which was hard, but it was the Law, and so on.
“He hasn’t said a word to me,” said Magnus. “It’s just a guess.”
Maryse shrugged. “I’ve been juggling the Clave’s expectations about the Cold Peace and the realities of New York’s Downworld for three years. It can be done. Jace can be good at politics if he decides to be. And I won’t be dead. I’ll still be living here and have plenty of advice on the subject of the Cold Peace.” She sighed. “I admit I’d hoped that you would have some insight into Jace’s thinking.”
“I don’t, yet,” said Alec, though he wasn’t sure when in their big group outing he would be able to get a few minutes with Jace to ask him in private.
“Much of my advice,” put in Kadir, “about working around the Cold Peace would involve going through you and your Alliance.”
“Uh, speaking of which, should you tell them you’re going to China today?” said Magnus.
Alec hadn’t thought of that. “I really should,” he said. He dug out his phone, and one text later, he got a quick response from Maia: I’M IN THE SANCTUARY.
Alec got up. “Maia says she’s… in the Sanctuary? Did any of you know she was here? Or even that she was coming?” He exchanged a glance with Magnus that he’d developed over the past months: the wordless question, Is it okay to leave Max with you while I do a thing? And the wordless nod back. It was strange to have created a new language between himself and Magnus, one that was just for their family.
“Maybe she’s here to tell you she can see the future,” said Magnus. “Ask her how Shanghai’s going to go.”
Alec excused himself and headed out into the hall, then down the stairs to the Sanctuary. There he found Maia waiting, looking very proud of herself.
“Alec!” she said. “Good to see you.” She stuck out her hand for him to shake. Alec took her hand in some confusion; they were not big hand-shakers, the two of them.
He realized what was going on as his hand passed through Maia’s and she yelled a delighted “Ha!”
Alec recovered his balance and gave her a disapproving look. “You’re a Projection.”
“I’m a Projection!” said Maia, throwing her hands over her head. “So exciting.”
“So that means—”
“We finally have Projections working in the Den.”
“The ‘Den’?” said Alec, raising an eyebrow.
“New name for headquarters,” said Maia. The werewolves of Manhattan were based in an abandoned police station in Chinatown. “I’m trying it out.”
Alec nodded thoughtfully. “I’m cautiously in favor of it.”
“Good to know. So, apparently, there’s a faerie ring directly under the station, and that’s why things weren’t working. I guess it’s been there since, like, the founding of New York.”
“A faerie ring? Uh—” Alec wasn’t sure how to ask the next question, which was: How do we deal with that problem, given that the Alliance isn’t technically supposed to be in communication with faeries?
“Look, I never talked to a faerie about the situation,” Maia said. “I talked to a warlock, she talked to someone at the Shadow Market, then one day Projections work and someone leaves a wicker basket of acorns on the front stoop.”
“That’s very autumnal,” said Alec.
“One thing about faeries, they are committed to the aesthetic,” Maia agreed. “Anyway. What’s this about Shanghai?”
“Missing magic book, Magnus feels responsible, we’ve both got to go. It shouldn’t be more than a few days. And it might be a dead end and we’ll be back in an hour,” Alec added, although he didn’t think that was likely.