Born to Endless Night (4 page)

“What?” Lily asked, looking up at Alec and sounding shy suddenly. “I always liked children, when I was alive. People said I was good with them.” She laughed, a little self-consciously. “It’s been a while.”

“That’s great,” said Alec. “You’ll be willing to babysit occasionally, then.”

“Ha-ha, I’m the head of the New York vampire clan and I’m much too important,” Lily told him. “But I’ll see him when I drop by your place.”

Magnus wondered how long Alec was envisioning it would be until they found the baby a home. Alec must think that it would take a while, and Magnus feared Alec was right.

He watched Alec, his head bowed over the baby in his arms, leaning toward Lily as they murmured to the baby together. Alec did not seem too upset, he thought. It was Lily who, after a space of baby-whispering, began to look a little uneasy.

“It occurs to me that I might be intruding,” Lily said.

“Oh really?” asked Isabelle, her arms crossed. “Do you think?”

“Sorry, Alec,” said Lily, pointedly not apologizing to anyone else. “See you in New York. Come back quick or some fool will burn the place down. Good-bye, Magnus, random other Lightwoods. Bye, baby. Good-bye, little baby.”

She stood on her tiptoes in high-heeled boots, kissed Alec on the cheek, and sashayed out.

“I do not like that vampire’s attitude,” said Robert in the silence following Lily’s departure.

“Lily’s all right,” said Alec mildly.

Robert did not say another word against Lily. He was careful with his son, Magnus had observed, painfully careful, but Robert was the one who had made the pain necessary. Robert had been thoughtless with his son in the past. It would be a long time of pain and care until things were right between them.

Both Robert and Alec were trying. That was why Alec had stayed to have breakfast with his father this morning.

Though Magnus was not at all sure what Robert Lightwood was doing here at the Shadowhunter Academy in the dark of night.

Let alone Maryse, who should be running the New York Institute. Let alone Isabelle and Jace.

Magnus was always pleased to see Clary.

“Hello, biscuit,” he said.

Clary sidled over to the doorway and grinned up at him, a thousand gallons of trouble in a pint-size body. “Hi.”

“What’s—”

Magnus intended to discreetly ask what the hell was going on, but he was interrupted by Jace lying down full length on the floor again. Magnus looked down, somewhat distracted.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m stuffing crevices with bits of material,” said Jace. “It was Isabelle’s idea.”

“I ripped up one of your shirts to do it,” Isabelle told him. “Not one of your nice shirts, obviously. One of the shirts that don’t suit you and which you shouldn’t wear again.”

The world blurred briefly in front of Magnus’s eyes. “You did what?”

Isabelle stared down at him from the stool where she was standing, her hands on her hips.

“We’re child-proofing the whole suite. If you could call this a suite. This whole Academy is a baby death trap. After we get finished here, we’re going to childproof your loft.”

“You’re not allowed in our apartment,” Magnus told her.

“Alec gave me a set of keys that says different,” Isabelle told him.

“I did do that,” Alec said. “I did give her keys. Forgive me, Magnus, I love you, I did not know she was going to be like this.”

Usually Robert looked slightly uneasy whenever Alec expressed affection to Magnus. This time, however, he was staring fixedly at the warlock baby and did not even seem to hear.

Magnus was starting to feel ever more disturbed by the turns this night was taking.

“Why are you being like this?” Magnus asked Isabelle.
“Why?”

“Think about it,” said Isabelle. “We had to deal with the crevices. The baby could crawl around and get his hand or his foot stuck in a crevice! He could be hurt. You don’t want the baby to get hurt, do you?”

“No,” said Magnus. “Nor do I intend to tear my whole life into strips and rearrange it because of a baby.”

What he said sounded eminently reasonable to him. He was stunned when Robert and Maryse both laughed.

“Oh, I remember thinking that way,” Maryse said. “You’ll learn, Magnus.”

There was something strange in the way Maryse was speaking to him. She sounded fond. Usually she was carefully polite or businesslike. She had never been fond before.

“I expected this,” declared Isabelle. “Simon told me all about the baby on the phone. I knew you guys would be stunned and overwhelmed. So I got hold of Mom, and she contacted Jace, and Jace was with Clary, and we all came right away to pitch in.”

“It’s really good of you,” Alec said.

There was an air of surprise about him, which Magnus fully understood, but he seemed touched, which Magnus did not understand at all.

“Oh, it’s our pleasure,” Maryse told her son. She advanced on Alec, her hands out. She reminded Magnus of a bird of prey, talons outstretched, overcome by hunger. “What do you say,” she said in an alarmingly sweet voice, “you let me hold the baby? I’m the one in the room with the most experience with babies, after all.”

“That’s not true, Alec,” said Robert. “That is not true! I was very involved with all of you when you were young. I’m excellent with babies.”

Alec blinked at his father, who had appeared by Alec’s side with Shadowhunter speed.

“As I recall,” Maryse said, “you
bounce
them.”

“Babies love that,” Robert claimed. “Babies love bouncing.”

“Bouncing will make the baby spit up.”

“Bouncing will make the baby spit up
with joy
,” said Robert.

Magnus had, for several moments, believed that the only possible explanation was that the whole family was drunk. Now he was coming to a much worse conclusion.

Isabelle had come, in an organizing whirlwind, to childproof the whole suite. She had been able to persuade Jace and Clary to come and childproof too. And Maryse had spoken to her son’s partner with affection she had never shown before, and now she wanted to hold the baby.

Maryse was experiencing full-on grandma fever.

The Lightwoods thought he and Alec were keeping the baby.

“I need to sit down,” said Magnus in a hollow voice. He held on to the door frame so he did not fall down.

Alec glanced over at him, startled and concerned. His parents took their chance to pounce, hands outstretched for the baby, and Alec retreated a step. Jace sprang up from the floor, having his
parabatai
’s back, and Alec visibly came to a decision and put the baby into his
parabatai
’s arms so he had his hands free to ward his parents off.

“Mom and Dad, maybe don’t crowd him,” Magnus heard Alec suggesting.

Magnus found, for some reason, that his own focus had slipped to the baby. It was natural concern, he told himself. Anybody would be concerned. Jace, as far as Magnus knew, was not accustomed to children. It was not like the Shadowhunters were always babysitting for the kids down the block.

Jace was holding the baby somewhat awkwardly. His golden head, his hair full of fluff and dirt from lying down on the floor dealing with crevices, was bowed over the baby, staring down into the baby’s solemn little face.

The baby was dressed, Magnus saw. He was wearing an orange onesie, and the feet of the onesie were shaped to look like little fox paws. Jace rubbed one of the fox paws with a brown hand, fingers scarred like a warrior’s and slim as a musician’s, and the baby gave a sudden, vigorous wriggle.

Magnus rushed forward, realizing he had moved only when he was halfway across the room. He also realized that everyone else had lunged forward to catch the baby too.

Except Jace had kept hold of the baby despite the wriggle.

Jace looked flat-out terrified for a minute, then relaxed and looked around at everyone with his usual air of mild superiority.

“He’s fine,” Jace told them. “He’s tough.”

He looked toward Robert, clearly remembering Robert’s early words, and bounced the baby gingerly. The baby flailed, one small fist bouncing off Jace’s cheek.

“That’s good,” Jace encouraged. “That’s right. Maybe a little harder next time. We’ll have you punching demons in the face in no time. Do you want to punch demons in the face with me and Alec? Do you? Yes, you do.”

“Jace, honey,” Maryse cooed. “Give me the baby.”

“Want to hold the baby, Clary?” asked Jace in the tone of one offering an enormous treat to his lady love.

“I’m good,” said Clary.

The Lightwoods, including Jace, all stared at her with a kind of sad wonder, as if she had just proven herself tragically insane.

Isabelle had leaped down from the stool at the same time they had all rushed forward, ready to catch him. She looked at Magnus now.

“Are you going to kneecap your parents so you can hold the baby?” Magnus asked.

Isabelle laughed lightly. “No, of course not. Soon his formula will be ready. Then . . .” Isabelle’s face changed, set with terrifying determination. “
I
am going to feed the baby. Until then, I can wait, and help you guys come up with the perfect name for him.”

“We were talking about that a little as we came in from Alicante,” said Maryse, her voice eager.

Robert made another of his lightning-swift, cat-footed, and unsettling moves, this time to Magnus’s side. He put a heavy hand on Magnus’s shoulder. Magnus eyed Robert’s hand and felt deep unease.

“Of course, it’s up to you and Alec,” Robert assured him.

“Of course,” said Maryse, who never agreed with Robert on anything. “And we don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I would never want the little darling to have a name associated with—sadness rather than joy, or for either of you to feel like you have to do this. But we thought since . . . well, warlocks pick their own surnames a little later, so ‘Bane’ is not part of a family tradition . . . We thought you might consider, in memory but not as a burden . . .”

Isabelle said, her voice clear: “Max Lightwood.”

Magnus found himself blinking, partly in perplexity, but partly because of another feeling he found much less easy to define. His vision had blurred again and something in his chest had twisted.

The mistake the Lightwoods had made was ridiculous, and yet Magnus could not help but be stunned by their offer, and how genuine and sincere it had been.

This was a warlock child, and they were all Shadowhunters. Lightwood was an old, proud Shadowhunter name. Max Lightwood had been the Lightwoods’ youngest son. It was a name for one of their own.

“Or if you don’t like that . . . Michael. Michael’s a nice name,” Robert offered into the long silence. He cleared his throat after he spoke, and looked out of the attic windows, into the woods surrounding the Academy.

“Or you could hyphenate,” Isabelle said, her voice a little too bright. “Lightwood-Bane or Bane-Lightwood?”

Alec moved, reaching out not to take the baby but to touch him. The baby flung a hand up, tiny fingers curling around Alec’s finger, as if reaching back. Alec’s face, stricken since the mention of his brother’s name, was warmed by a sudden faint smile.

“Magnus and I haven’t talked about it yet, and we need to,” he said quietly. His voice had authority, even when it was quiet. Magnus saw Robert and Maryse nodding along to it, almost unconsciously. “But I was thinking maybe Max as well.”

That was when Magnus realized the magnitude of the situation. It was not just a wild conclusion Isabelle had leaped to and improbably convinced everyone else of. It was not just the Lightwoods.

Alec thought that he and Magnus were keeping the baby as well.

Magnus did go and sit down then, on one of the rickety chairs with a cushion from home placed on it. He could not feel his fingers. He thought he might be in shock.

Robert Lightwood followed him.

“I couldn’t help but notice that the baby is blue,” Robert said. “Alec’s eyes are blue. And when you do the”—he made a strange and disturbing gesture, and then made the sound
whoosh, whoosh
—“magic, sometimes there’s a blue light.”

Magnus stared at him. “I’m failing to see your point.”

“If you made the baby for yourself and Alec, you can tell me,” said Robert. “I’m a very broad-minded man. Or—I’m trying to be. I’d like to be. I would understand.”

“If I made . . . the . . . baby . . . ?” Magnus repeated.

He was not certain where to start. He had imagined Robert Lightwood knew how babies were made.

“Magically,” Robert whispered.

“I am going to pretend you never said that to me,” said Magnus. “I am going to pretend we never had this conversation.”

Robert winked, as if they understood each other. Magnus was speechless.

The Lightwoods continued on their quest to childproof the suite, feed the baby, and all hold the baby at once. Witchlight on every side, filling the whole small space of the attic, blazed and burned in Magnus’s vision.

Alec thought they were keeping the baby. He wanted to name him Max.

*    *    *

“I saw Magnus Bane and a sexy vampire lady in the hall,” Marisol announced as she passed Simon’s table.

Jon Cartwright was carrying her tray, and he almost dropped it. “A vampire,” he repeated. “In the
Academy
?”

Marisol looked up into his scandalized face and nodded. “A sexy one.”

“They’re the worst kind,” Jon breathed.

“So you weren’t too bad, then, Simon,” Julie remarked as Marisol walked on, spinning her tale of an alluring vampiress.

“You know,” Simon said, “sometimes I think Marisol goes too far. I know she likes jerking Jon’s chain, but nobody is dumb enough to believe in a warlock baby and a vampire on the same day. It’s too much. It makes no sense. Jon is going to catch on.”

He poked a mysterious lump in his stew. Dinner was very late tonight, and very congealed. Marisol fibbing about vampires must have put the idea in his head: Simon looked back on drinking blood and thought that it could not have been as bad as this.

“You would think she’d had enough excitement for one day,” George agreed. “I wonder how the poor little baby is doing. I was thinking, do you think he might change colors like a chameleon? How cool would that be?”