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Magnus could feel it before he could see it. At first, he felt light-headed and dizzy, which he blamed on the fairy-drinks he had consumed, and from then on the headache that ensued throbbed painfully, making his eyes water. He had half a mind to call off the whole party, which would have been annoying seeing as it had already been going for several hours and he would have had to deal with a bunch of pissed-off vampires which, had he not been enduring the most awful migraine, he may have actually enjoyed.
When his door-bell rang, he swore loudly and reluctantly trudged through his apartment to answer the door, which evolved crossing the crowded dance-floor. The strobe-lights flashed in his eyes and the pulse of the music seemed to be beating in time with the blood pumping through his head, mocking him and inferably making his headache much worse. But even as he emerged from the other-side of the dance floor, away from the hot, churning bodies and the flashing lights, even then the pain in his head wouldn’t cease. In fact it just got stronger to the point where he wished he would just faint.
But then he opened the door, and before he had the chance to yell “fuck off” with all the energy he had left to the impostors, the pain in his head immediately ceased. It was as if he had been in a noisy crowd that had suddenly been silenced. The pain stopped, the throbbing stopped, and was then replaced by a feeling that could only be described as pleasant. He stared, dumbfounded, at the visitors standing outside his front door. And the visitors stared back.
The black-haired girl was the first to recover herself. “Magnus? Magnus Bane?” she asked, flashing a perfect, gleaming smile.
“That would be me…” Magnus said warily, regarding the group of shadowhunters with curiosity. The first thing he noticed was the fact that not all of them were shadowhunters. There was one mundane. The second thing he noticed was that Clarissa Fray was in their midst, so there was obviously something very wrong. And the third thing he noticed- no, not thing, but person- was the shadowhunter boy standing at the back of the group, looking down at his shoes, not up at Magnus like the rest of the group were. He seemed to capture Magnus’ attention the most, and Magnus didn’t know why.
“Children of the Nephilim,” he drawled after regaining most of his senses. “Well, well. I don’t recall inviting you.”
“I have an invitation,” the girl standing at the font said, waving the invite excitedly. “And these-” she said, gesturing to the rest of the group, “-are my friends.”
Magnus took the invitation and glared down at it and sighed. “I must have been drunk,” he finally said, opening the door wide. “Come in. And try not to murder any of my guests.”
The blonde one was the first to step forward. “Even if one of them spills a drink on my new shoes?” he said crudely as he stepped over the threshold.
Magnus was not in the mood to deal with snarky bastards. “Even then.” He allowed the rest of the group to enter, careful not to pay too much attention to Clarissa, as she shouldn’t actually know who he was, he reminded himself. He did, however, look at the last shadowhunter to enter- no, he stared at the last shadowhunter to enter- the one with black hair that flopped over his eyes- and the boy noticed. He looked up at Magnus, and for the first time since their initial encounter, their eyes met.
Suddenly, wave of something akin to déjà vu swept over Magnus. The feeling was neither good nor bad, but felt like something deep inside his mind had been resolved. It was oddly satisfying as if, somewhere, his stars had been aligned. The boy held his gaze for a moment, curiosity lurking in his blue irises, but then looked away as he realised that the rest of the group had already gone inside.
Magnus stared after him as he went inside, slightly awestruck. Never had he before seen a person that, with looks alone, made such a large impression on him. Maybe it’s because he looks like Will, Magnus considered, but then dismissed the thought because he knew many people that had black hair and blue eyes, and he was sure that none of them ever made such an impression as the shadowhunter who had just walked through his door.
Another thought then occurred to him. He frowned. “No,” he whispered under his breath as the boy disappeared out of sight. “It couldn’t be…” Quickly, just so he could be sure, he lifted up his shirt to see the mark that he’d forgotten about centuries ago. He was expecting to find that the faint angelic-rune above his left hip-bone hadn’t changed. He was expecting it to look the same way it had done for the past four-hundred years.
He gasped and dropped his shirt, glancing around frantically to see if anyone had been watching, but the rest of the world had continued revolving around him, despite the fact that his world seemed to have stopped.
His soulmark was glowing.
...
The boy didn’t look at Magnus again for the rest of the evening. He always seemed to find his shoes more interesting than his surroundings. Magnus, even though he was supposed to be doing “business” with the Nephilim gang, constantly cast his gaze back to the boy who lingered towards the back of the group, looking very uncomfortable in his environment and in his own skin. He was very quiet, compared to his shadowhunter friends who casually outshone him throughout the conversation which he contributed to only once or twice. Even flirting with him a little as the shadowhunters were about to leave didn’t seem to make him look at Magnus. The only thing that flirting achieved was making the boy more flustered and slightly baffled, before his friends dragged him away again.
Once the rest of his guests had left and his apartment suddenly felt vastly spacious again, Magnus sighed heavily, feeling both defeated and elated at the same time, his heart still pounding excitedly in his chest. He didn’t even know the boy’s name. Although, he had heard the blonde one refer to him as Alec. His surname remained a mystery, though Magnus was fairly sure he could guess correctly on that one. Herondale, perhaps? Magnus thought, regarding Alec’s similarities to Will. Or maybe he’s a Lightwood…
Magnus tried to push the thought of Alec to the back of his mind as his life seemed to go back to being (more) normal again. He busied himself with work until the only time the boy’s face came to mind was when Magnus was doing nothing besides thinking. The thought of his soulmark often came to mind as well, though because it didn’t glow anymore, Magnus managed to half-heartedly convince himself that it was just his imagination that had made him think that his soulmark was glowing, and not the fact that he had actually just met the one person in his life that was destined to belong to him. Magnus found it almost too good to be true.
As the weeks trudged by, Magnus managed to make a mental list of the reasons why Alec was not actually his soulmate:
1) He’s a shadowhunter. Magnus had literally never dated a shadowhunter before, and with good reason.
2) That night, Magnus had in fact drunk quite a bit of fairy-God-knows-what, so it is possible that he was just hallucinating.
3) Soulmates are supposed to feel the same things when they both meet for the first time and are supposed to have the same soul mark. Assuming the headache and the immediate infatuation with the boy were actual symptoms, how come Alec didn’t seem to react at all to his meeting Magnus, besides the reaction of curiosity that he usually got from shadowhunters? The signals that Magnus picked up from him were far different than the ones that he himself was emitting.
And 4), he’s a shadowhunter.
The shock of (the possibility of) finding someone that is supposed to be your one-and-only after giving up the search centuries ago resonated deep within Magnus, and for the first time in a long, long while, he finally felt like he was actually living, as if his frozen heart was finally showing signs of melting. He desperately wanted to see Alec again. He had to see him again, if not to introduce himself properly, then to at least confirm whether this shadowhunter was really his soulmate.
Magnus’ wish came true, but in the most cruel, and torturous way.
...
The moment he received the panicked call from Alec’s sister, Isabelle Lightwood (yes, Alec was in fact a Lightwood), Magnus portalled directly to the New York Institute without hesitation, his heart in his mouth and feeling sick to his stomach with worry and fear. Alec was in the infirmary, pale as a vampire and so nearly on the brink of death. Magnus dismissed his crying sister and set to work immediately, drawing out the demon-venom and afterwards fixing the broken bones. He managed to drain all of his energy (perhaps unnecessarily) as he franticly healed and removed Alec from harm’s way. There was no way that this boy wasn’t his soulmate, not when his feelings for him were already so strong, when the thought of him being so close to death scared Magnus beyond belief. But the boy’s soulmark was nowhere to be seen. It was supposed to be in the same place as Magnus’, but all there was above Alec’s hipbone was pale skin, clearly unmarked by a soulmark of any kind. Instead, there were battle scars. The same kind of battle-scars that covered the rest of Alec’s runed body.
Something inside Magnus deflated. Maybe I was wrong, he thought miserably. Maybe he isn’t my soulmate. But he quickly pushed the thought from his mind, no less intent on saving the boy’s life.
Sometime during the procedure of extracting the poison, Alec woke up, probably due to the agony ripping through his body that was enough to wake even a dead-man. Alec’s lids lifted wearily, revealing the deep blue that had haunted Magnus’ dreams relentlessly ever since their first meeting. He wrapped his fingers tightly round the warlock’s wrist as if he were holding onto him for dear-life. “Magnus?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and breathy.
“I’m here,” he reassured him. “You’re going to be fine.”
Alec closed his exhausted eyes and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards into the tiniest smile.
Magnus’ heart broke.
He stayed to make sure that Alec was okay, but left before Alec woke up because he then realised that he wouldn’t be able to handle seeing him again. Looking him in the eye would be far to painful for Magnus in his fragile state; not only had his heart been melted, it had be shattered.
...
The next few days Magnus spent trying to forget Alec Lightwood. He tried to settle back into his normal, albeit unpredictable, routine, but to no avail. Instead, he ended up thinking about the soulmate system, and how it must have made a mistake. Perhaps Magnus’ soulmate was Alec, but Alec’s soulmate was someone else entirely, and therefore, Magnus didn’t have a soulmate at all and the mark that he had been born with was just an accicent. He knew it was possible. There were a surprising number of people who didn’t have soulmarks and didn’t have a soulmate, but knowing that he wasn’t alone in these unfortunate circumstances didn’t comfort him as much as it made him feel even more depressed.
He didn’t expect to see Alec ever again, or, at least, he hoped. There was a chance that the shadowhunters would want to “hire” him again, but that wasn’t going to happen. The price for his efforts, Magnus decided to tell them if the situation ever arose, would be so high that Magnus actually laughed at the thought of telling them. Their reaction would undoubtedly be hostile, but that was what Magnus was hoping for.
However, if Alec was ever hurt and they asked for Magnus’ help again… Saying no would be much more difficult. Allowing Alec to suffer went against every intrinsic, human instinct Magnus had. But he and Alec weren’t actually soulmates, just some messed-up parody of it.
Magnus was mentally (perhaps not emotionally) prepared for an event in which he would have to turn the shadowhunters away, in order to retain his sanity and to rid himself of the cruel circumstances that fate had forced upon him. There was, however, one situation that he had not prepared himself for. In fact, the possibility that that one situation could occur hadn’t even speculated the meerest possibility of crossing Magnus’ mind. And so, when Alec Lightwood showed up on his doorstep, Magnus was not only surprised, but completely caught of-guard, and, quite frankly, horrified.
Magnus noticed that Alec was just as nervous as he was, only Magnus was able to conceal it far better. He had waited, leaning against the doorframe in the threshold as casually as he could as Alec’s footsteps came closer as he made his way up the stairs leading to Magnus’ apartment. Magnus considered being hostile towards Alec in order to make him go him away. Maybe if he was as blunt as possible, and told the boy that he didn’t want to see him anymore and that he hated shadowhunters, then Alec might stay away.
But when Alec came into view, all thoughts of making him go away vanished from Magnus’ mind. The boy’s hair was messy, but it suited him. It was like a halo of black thorns surrounding his head, covering as much of his face as the length would allow. The darkness of his hair contrasted starkly with his skin which, while pale, wasn’t as colourless and grey as the last time Magnus had seen him. It was his eyes that pierced Magnus the most. The nervous, flickering irises peered up at Magnus through his hair and long, black lashes.
“Alexander Lightwood,” Magnus began, saving Alec the trouble of an introduction. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He kept a straight face, despite the whirlwind of emotions and desire clouding his thoughts.
“Um, I was wondering if we could, er, talk?” Alec said, almost hopefully. “Do you have company?”
Magnus blinked. “No, I do not have company. Come in,” he said, turning on his heels and beckoning for Alec to follow. He inwardly cursed at how incapable he was of acting the way he wanted to in Alec’s presence. At least he was able to mask the rest of his emotions. Just about.
“So, what did you want to talk about?” Magnus asked as he sat down on the couch opposite Alec, who was slowly, tentatively lowering himself onto a fluffy, pink loveseat. If it had been any other day, Magnus probably would have laughed at the amusing contrast between the serious-looking shadowhunter and his bright, fluffy surroundings, and what was even funnier was that Alec actually seemed intimidated by said surroundings. Or maybe it was Magnus who intimidated him.
“Um, I just wanted to say thank you. Properly. For… you know, saving my life,” Alec managed to say, looking Magnus in the eye for no longer than a couple of seconds. “I don’t think I said it before. I don’t really remember much. But I’m saying thank you now, so…”
If possible, Alec surprised Magnus even more than he had already done in simply showing up at Magnus’ apartment. Magnus raised his eyebrows in disbelief, a puzzled expression on his face. “You came all the way here, just thank me?”
“No!” Alec exclaimed, his cheeks flushing an adorable shade of pink. “I mean, yes… maybe- What are you laughing at?”
Magnus was unable to contain the laughter bubbling inside him. Even considering his situation, he found himself laughing, not at the shadowhunter, but at how unbelievably naïve he was. No, naïve was the wrong word. Innocent. Yes, Alec appeared innocent. Magnus knew it wouldn’t last, though. Innocence never lasted in shadowhunters.
“What?!” Alec said, blushing even harder and crossing his arms over his chest as he became somewhat infuriated, obviously feeling patronised. “What’s so funny? Stop it!”
Magnus took a deep breath and finally stopped chuckling, grinning back at Alec who was scowling, his expression concerned. “Sorry,” Magnus said with a fond smile. “You’re just not what I expected.”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “From a shadowhunter? Or from a Lightwood?”
From someone who’s supposedly my soulmate. “Both.”
Alec gave him an incredulous look. “Why?”
With his previously bright smile fading into a rather sad one, Magnus shook his head silently and looked into Alec’s curious eyes, and for once, he was at a loss for words.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Magnus sighed. He then spoke, trying to sound casual, but unable to prevent a little insecurity from seeping into his voice. “It’s just… I don’t think I’ve ever been thanked by a shadowhunter before. At least, not in a very long time.”
Alec looked surprised. “Oh,” he said, looking down at the floor.
Then there was a moment which, while it was more awkward for Alec, was purely painful for Magnus. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to know. Things like whether Alec had a soulmate mark, or if he had met his soulmate yet, or if he had felt anything when he and Magnus first met. Of course, Magnus couldn’t voice any of these questions. While he didn’t have any answers, he did know that he wasn’t Alec’s soulmate, and that was enough.
“Um,” Alec began after a few moments of silence, “I’m gonna… I should go.”
Alec stood up from the couch and Magnus followed. Part of him was relieved that Alec was leaving, as he knew it would be less painful than if Alec stayed longer. But a different side of Magnus needed him to stay. It was also painful to supress that side. Magnus was about to show him to the door, but Alec stopped him.
“Wait,” Alec muttered quietly, his brow scrunched as his inner thoughts conflicted. “I… I had something else to ask you.”
He looked up at Magnus as if asking for permission to continue. “Yes?” Magnus said.
Alec took in a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “This might sound weird,” he forced out, his gaze avoiding Magnus’. “It’s quite a personal question…”
“Ask away,” Magnus encouraged, eager to hear what Alec wanted to ask. And no, that certainly was not hope springing into the forefront of his mind. No, definitely not hope. Definitely not…
Alec breathing became slightly erratic, as if he was beginning to have a panic attack. “By the Angel, I can’t,” he groaned, sinking down onto the couch and putting his head in his hands.
“Can’t do what?” Magnus asked softly as he too sat down opposite Alec.
“Ask you,” Alec mumbled.
Now Magnus’ interest was well and truly peaked. “Ask me what?”
“I wanted- No, no I can’t. It’s not impossible, but the odds are too great. There is no way…” Alec rambled to himself.
“Where is your soulmark?” Magnus suddenly said, no longer able to contain himself.
Alec looked up at him, his eyes wide with shock. “What?”
Their eyes met. Magnus’ heart pounded painfully in his chest. “Is that what you wanted to ask me?” Magnus said with the plainest voice possible. “You wanted to know where my soulmark was?”
Alec nervously wetted his bottom lip with his tongue. “Um, y-yeah, I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Magnus said, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, what I actually wanted to know was…” He breathed in, looked Magnus straight in the eye, and said, slowly and hesitantly, “Am I your soulmate?”
Magnus didn’t answer. He could only hear the blood rushing through his ears. “You don’t know?” he eventually said, not with a cold voice, but with an empty one.
Alec visibly gulped. “No, I-” He faltered mid-sentence and squeezed his eyes shut. “I guess I was just hoping…”
“That you were my soulmate?” Magnus finished, disbelief evident in his voice. “What, don’t you have one already?” he added sarcastically, almost angrily.
Alec then spoke with the tiniest voice, a barely audible whisper. “No, no I don’t…”
“You don’t have a soulmate?” Magnus asked, his voice rising in volume as he became more and more frustrated. Just what was it that Alec was thinking?
“I don’t have a soulmark,” Alec forced through gritted teeth, still not looking up at Magnus, his hands squeezed angrily into fists by his side. “It was removed.”
Magnus blinked. He stared at Alec. “What?”
“It’s gone,” he said bitterly. “The Clave fucking cut it out of me.”
“That’s impossible,” Magnus breathed, his eyes widening. “I thought-”
“The Clave found a way to remove them,” Alec said with a stale voice, glaring at his fists like the angry young man he was. “It doesn’t happen often, but when my parents found out that I had a warlock rune as my soulmark…” He snorted mirthlessly. “I’d managed to keep it hidden for almost three years. Three years… I was thirteen when it was removed. I had no idea what was happening.”
“Oh my God…" It’s him. It really is him.
“Yeah, it’s pretty unbelievable,” Alec said, nodding in agreement. “It’s one of the Clave’s best-kept secrets. And I just blabbed it to one of the most powerful warlocks alive. Oh well.”
What surprised Magnus even more about Alec was his attitude towards the Clave. It was that of no shadowhunter Magnus had ever met before. “You resent the Clave?” Magnus asked. “Well, I completely understand why you would. Not that I know what it’s like.”
Alec shook his head. “No, not the Clave. It was my parents who did this to me.” His voice cracked slightly. “Sorry, I don’t mean to dump my problems on you.” He was obviously holding back tears and trying not to break down as he said, “Well, I apologise for asking you that… I guess what I really wanted to know was if there was a way of undoing what the Clave did-”
“Alexander, stand up,” Magnus commanded gently. Alec stood. “Where was your soulmark, do you remember?”
Looking mournful and almost ashamed, Alec lifted his black sweater and touched the unmarked skin above his hip. Magnus’ heart pounded faster. It was in the exact same place where Magnus’ was.
Magnus took a step forwards and sank to his knees so that he was level with Alec’s hip. He touched the skin gently with his thumb. On closer inspection, Magnus saw that what he had previously assumed were battle scars were actually four, precise lines, thin and surgically applied, surrounding the area where the soulmark should have been. “So they really cut it out?”
“I don’t remember much,” Alec murmured. “But as far as I know, they cut it out… th-then they, um, burned my-” He swallowed. “And then… I can’t remember.”
Magnus was going to be sick; he was probably going to cry as well; and he was also going to murder the entire Clave- but not yet. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to keep his nerve. “And did the Silent Brothers do this?”
Shaking his head, Alec said, “I don’t remember who they were, but I do know they weren’t Silent Brothers.”
“And do you know if they did anything else, besides what you already told me?”
“No, I don’t remember.”
And then Magnus fell back into thought, still kneeling before Alec, staring at the four scars. He repeatedly ran his thumb over the lines. After a few minutes, Alec spoke, pulling Magnus out of his thoughts. “What are you thinking?” he asked nervously.
Finally, after standing up and sitting back down on the couch behind him, Magnus spoke his thoughts aloud. “What I was thinking was that if the Silent Brothers didn’t carry out the… procedure,” he said, unable to find a better word for it, “then there couldn’t have been anything too complicated going on. Unless if the soulmark was removed by warlocks, but I’m not getting any vibes that white, black, or even grey magic was used. There’s just nothing there…”
Magnus spoke to himself rather than to Alec, who dropped his shirt and sat back down.
“Truth is,” Magnus continued, “the removal of soulmarks, up until now, has never been done successfully. They always reappear. But I guess that’s probably because we’ve always thought that simply cutting and burning it away wouldn’t work on something so intrinsically ingrained into our biology. It’s a possibility that the Clave did little more than completely destroy the tissue and then heal it again with an iratze. But even then, the effect would only be temporary.” He looked up at Alec who was watching him intently, listening with an expression of high concentration. “Do you, by any chance, remember feeling anything strange before or during meeting someone for the first time?” Magnus asked. He wanted to tell Alec that they shared the same soulmark. He really did. But he wouldn’t say just yet. Magnus wanted to try and find Alec’s soulmark, for Alec’s sake, if not for his own.
“Well, that’s actually the reason why I came to see you,” Alec said somewhat shyly. “I thought, just for a moment when I saw you, that I felt something. It was so brief, like it was barely there. But it probably was nothing after all. I was feeling a bit ill before…”
“Headache?” Magnus asked before he could stop himself.
Alec frowned. “Yes. How did you know?”
Magnus shrugged. “Lucky guess,” he said, before quickly changing the subject. “Now. What I was thinking is that, perhaps, something really simple would bring it back. If the soulmark wasn’t completely destroyed- which I believe is impossible anyway- then maybe something as simple as drawing it back on with a stele might work.”
“I’ve already tried that,” Alec said, looking slightly disappointed.
Hope suddenly flared up within Magnus once again. “But did you try with only your own stele? Because the Clave could have modified it. Perhaps they hired a warlock to curse it or something like that.”
“Yeah, I only tried once, and it was with my own stele,” Alec said, excitement creeping into his voice. He pulled his stele from his back pocket and handed it to Magnus.
Magnus had been right. There was definitely something not right about Alec’s stele, but it was barely noticeable. Even Magnus wouldn’t have noticed the small defect if he hadn’t been looking for one. Even so, the removal of the jinx was easy.
He gave Alec a small half-grin and handed the stele back to him. “Try now.”
Alec quickly pulled his shirt back up and set the tip against his skin. His hand trembled with excitement as he carefully carved the mark back onto himself. Even after all these years, he clearly knew the rune well enough to draw it without any hesitation. Magnus held his breath as he watched Alec’s soulmark form. He wanted more than anything for it to work. And if not, he’d just have to find another way-
Suddenly, Alec’s stele dropped to the floor and he stumbled forwards, one hand pressed against the rune as if it were an open wound. Magnus caught him and held him up by his elbows as his knees seemed to be too weak to support him.
“By the Angel,” Alec breathed.
“Does it hurt?” Magnus asked, concerned.
“No, no it doesn’t hurt,” Alec said, seemingly out of breath. “It feels…strange, and-”
Alec looked up at Magnus, his eyes bright with fiery-blue flames and his pupils blown wide. He struggled to stand in Magnus’ embrace, but eventually succeeded. He stared at Magnus, his expression a combination of awe, shock and recognition as a powerful realisation swept over him- and over them both.
“It’s- It is you,” Alec whispered.
Magnus breathed a heavy sigh of relief and gave a little smile. “You had me worried for a moment,” he said.
And suddenly Alec’s arms were around him, squeezing him tight. Tears of exhaustion sprung into Magnus’ eyes as a storm of emotions swept through him, the primary one being relief. Relief that he had found his partner, relief that he wasn’t alone, relief that Alec hadn’t had part of his soul brutally removed from him and lost forever…
“Um, Alec, you’re hurting me-”
“Oh! S-sorry,” he said, then he quickly let go of Magnus and took a step back. “I was just so…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Magnus said reassuringly. “This is a shock for both of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec then said.
Magnus laughed lightly. “You have nothing to apologise for, Alexander.”
“But…”
“But… what?”
“I’m just sorry you’re now stuck with me.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well I…” Alec looked down at his shoes. “I’ve never done this kind of thing before.”
Magnus smiled. “So?”
Alec looked up at him shyly, through his dark hair. “I-I haven’t even kissed anyone before, let alone been wi-”
Magnus cut Alec off mid-sentence by placing his lips softly against his, the rest of Alec’s excuses now lost. At first, Alec seemed to be too stunned to move, but he gradually began to yield to the kiss. The kiss was careful and calm, contrasting completely with the events that had just unfolded. The moment was perfect, Magnus thought, and for once in his life he felt as if all the pain had been worth it. He pulled back and saw that Alec had flushed red across his cheekbones. The sight made Magnus’ pulse jump.
“And now you’ve been kissed,” he said, grinning through his words.
Unable to say anything, Alec stood there with his mouth slightly agape.
“Did you… enjoy that?” Magnus asked.
“Wha- yeah. I-I think so,” Alec said, looking slightly baffled.
“Oh. That’s a shame.”
That seemed to catch Alec’s attention. He cocked his head slightly. “Why would that be a shame?”
Magnus struggled to put on a serious face as he said, “Well, if you didn’t like the kiss, then you could have used it as payment.”
Alec looked confused, and slightly horrified. “Payment? But I thought-”
“My services don’t come cheap, you know,” Magnus said, winding Alec up just a little more.
“I don’t have any money,” Alec protested. Magnus almost rolled his eyes. Alec couldn’t seriously think that he’d actually have to pay for all this?
“Oh, don’t worry, darling,” Magnus said with a sly smile. He dropped a wink at Alec as he said, “I’m sure we can find another way for you to repay me.”