The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses #1)(20)

Alec pulled his hoodie a little lower and followed at a distance.

Magnus then turned into an apothecary and began to shop for herbs. After that, he stopped and talked to a violet-haired faerie asking for gold to feed his pet basilisk. Next he went to the opposite stall and spent what felt like an hour haggling for what looked suspiciously like human hair.

Alec trusted that Magnus knew what he was doing. Magnus exuded confidence with such little effort. He seemed always in control of every situation, even when he wasn’t. It was one of the things Alec admired most about him.

Alec crept down the adjacent street when Magnus went on the move again. He was far enough back not to arouse suspicion, but only five bounding steps away. He watched not only his boyfriend but everyone around him, from the group of dryads trying to lure Magnus to their tent to the scrawny young pickpocket with a crown of thorns on her head, not-so-innocently trailing Magnus.

When the girl made her move, Alec did as well, catching her sticky fingers just before they slid into Magnus’s pocket. Alec swooped in and yanked her in between two stalls so quickly no one noticed.

The faerie girl twisted away from him so violently that one of his gloves slipped off, and she saw his runes. The pale green flush drained out of her skin, leaving her gray.

“Je suis désolée,” she whispered, and on Alec’s look of incomprehension: “I’m sorry. Please don’t hurt me. I promise I won’t do it again.”

The girl was so thin Alec could encircle her wrist with his thumb and forefinger. Faeries were seldom the age they appeared, but she looked as young as his brother, Max, who had been killed in the war. Shadowhunters are warriors, his father said. We lose, and we fight on.

Max had been too young to fight. He would never learn now. Alec always worried about his sister and his parabatai, who were both reckless and fearless. He had always been so desperate to protect them. It had never occurred to him that he had to be on guard to shield Max. He had failed his little brother.

Max had been almost as skinny. He used to stare up at him, just as this girl was doing, his eyes big behind his glasses.

Alec struggled to breathe for an instant and looked away. The girl did not try to seize this opportunity to slip from his slackened grasp. When he glanced back at her, she was still staring at him.

“Um, Shadowhunter?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

Alec shook himself out of the daze. Shadowhunters fight on, his father’s voice said in his head.

“I’m fine,” he told the girl, his own voice a little hoarse. “What’s your name?”

“Rose,” she said.

“Are you hungry, Rose?”

The girl’s lip trembled. She tried to run away, but he grabbed her shirt. She slapped his arm and seemed to be about to bite him when she saw the fistful of euros in his hand.

Alec handed them to her. “Go buy some food.” No sooner had he opened his palm than the euros disappeared. She did not thank him, only nodded and scampered away. “And stop stealing,” he called after her.

Now he was out of the money he’d brought with him. As he’d left the New York Institute, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, to begin this trip, his mother had chased him out and pressed money into his hands, even though he’d tried to refuse it.

“Go be happy,” she had said.

Alec wondered whether he’d been scammed by the faerie girl. She might be hundreds of years old, and faeries were well-known for their love of scamming mortals. But he decided to believe that she was what she seemed—a scared, hungry kid—and it made him feel happy to have helped. So the money was well spent.

His father had not liked it when Alec announced he was leaving the Institute to go on a trip with Magnus.

“What has he told you about us?” Robert Lightwood had asked, pacing Alec’s room like a distressed cat.

His parents had once been followers of Valentine, the evil Shadowhunter who had started the recent war. Alec imagined Magnus could tell him some stories about them if he wanted.

“Nothing,” Alec had replied angrily. “He’s not like that.”

“And what has he told you about himself?” Robert asked. When Alec was silent, Robert added, “Nothing as well, I imagine.”

Alec did not know what expression he wore in that moment, how afraid he might have looked, but his father’s face softened.

“Look, son, you can’t think there’s any future in this,” he said. “Not with a Downworlder, or a man. I—I understand you feel like you have to be true to yourself, but sometimes it’s best to be wise and take a different path even if you feel—feel tempted. I don’t want your life to be more difficult than it has to be. You’re so young, and you don’t know what the world is really like. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

Alec stared at him.

“What about lying is supposed to make me so happy? I wasn’t happy before. I’m happy now.”

“How can you be?”

“Telling the truth makes me happy,” Alec said. “Magnus makes me happy. I don’t care if it’s difficult.”

There had been so much sorrow and worry on his father’s face. Alec had been scared his whole life of putting that expression on his face. He’d tried so hard to avoid it.

“Alec,” his father had whispered. “I don’t want you to go.”