Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

Magnus felt about Jace the way he had felt about many Shadowhunters over the years, Fairchilds and Herondales and Carstairs and others: fondness and faint exasperation. But in moments like this, when Jace’s love for Alec shone true and untrammeled, he felt only gratitude and affection.

Alec took Jace’s hand and they began to walk the pathway of light. Magnus made to follow them, warlocks having no tradition of suggenes—a companion to the altar—but Catarina stepped forward, smiling, and took his arm. “I fought our mutual green frenemy for the privilege of escorting you,” she said, indicating a fulminating Ragnor with a tilt of her head. “Come on, now—you don’t think I’d let you approach the altar alone? What if you got cold feet and ran off?”

Magnus chuckled as they passed by familiar faces: Maia and Bat, Lily wearing a tipsy crown of flowers, Helen and Aline whistling and clapping. Helen had a blue band around her wrist as well as gold runes on her clothes; so did Mark. “My feet have never been warmer,” Magnus said. “They’re positively toasty.”

She smiled at him. “No doubts?”

They had reached the end of the lighted path. Alec stood waiting, Jace beside him on the platform. Behind them was the ocean, stretching out silvery-blue as Magnus’s magic, all the way to the horizon. Their closest friends ringed the platform—Clary with her arms full of blue and yellow flowers, Isabelle carrying Max and sniffling back tears, Simon alight and smiling, Maryse with Rafe by her side: he looked solemn, as if aware of the significance of the occasion. Jia Penhallow stood where a priest would stand in a mundane ceremony, the Codex in her hand. They had all donned shawls or light jackets of silk, runed in gold; silk banners hung suspended in the sky, printed with runes of love and faith, commitment and family.

Magnus glanced down at Catarina. “No doubts,” he said.

She squeezed his hand and went to stand beside Jia. There was a second ring around the platform: The Blackthorns and their friends were all there, clustered in close. Julian smiled his slow quiet smile at Magnus; Emma glowed with happiness as Magnus crossed the wooden platform and took his place opposite Alec.

Alec held his hands out, and Magnus took them. He looked into Alec’s blue eyes, the precise color of his own magic, and felt a great calm descend over him, a peace beyond all other peace he had ever known.

No doubts. Magnus didn’t need to search his soul. He’d searched it a thousand times, ten thousand, in the years he’d known Alec. Not because he doubted, but because it shocked him so much that he didn’t. In all his life, he had never known such surety. He had lived happily and had no regrets, he had made poetry out of wondering and wandering, had lived untethered and gloried in freedom.

Then Magnus had met Alec. He had felt drawn to him in a way he couldn’t have explained or anticipated: He had wanted to see Alec smile, to see him be happy. He had watched Alec turn from a shy boy with secrets to a proud man who faced the world openly and unafraid. Alec had given him the gift of faith, a faith that Magnus was strong enough to make not just Alec happy, but a whole family happy. And in their happiness, Magnus had felt himself not just free, but surrounded by an unimaginable glory.

Some might have called it the presence of God.

Magnus just thought of it as Alexander Gideon Lightwood.

*

“Let us begin,” Jia said.

Emma had risen to her tiptoes in excitement. They had all known that there was going to be a surprise wedding on the beach—a surprise to Magnus, at any rate. If Alec had been nervous, he’d done a good job of mostly hiding it. No one else had thought Magnus might say no, but Emma remembered the slight tremble of Alec’s hands earlier, and her heart bubbled with happiness that it had all worked out.

Jace stepped forward to help Alec into a dark blue gear jacket printed with golden runes, while Catarina draped a cobalt-and-gilt silk jacket around Magnus’s shoulders.

They both moved back, and a hush fell over the crowd as Jia spoke.

“Through the centuries,” she said, “there have been few unions between Shadowhunters and Downworlders that have been recognized as such. But a new age has dawned, and with a new age come new traditions. Tonight, as Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood blend their lives and hearts, we stand ready to recognize this union. To witness a true bond between two souls who have cleaved to each other.” She cleared her throat. She looked a bit drawn, as she had in the Council Hall, but much less tired. There was delight and pride in her face as she gazed around the gathered group. “Alexander Gideon Lightwood. Hast thou found the one thy soul loves?”

It was a question asked at every wedding: part of the Shadowhunter ceremony for a thousand years. The crowd hushed, the hush of holiness, of sacred ritual observed and shared. Emma couldn’t help but reach out to hold Julian’s hand; he drew her against his side. There was something about the way Magnus and Alec looked at each other. Emma had thought they would be smiling, but they were both serious: They looked at each other as if the other person were as brilliant as a full moon that could blot out every star.

“I have found him,” Alec said. “And I will not let him go.”

“Magnus Bane,” said Jia, and Emma could not help but wonder if this was only the second time in history that this question had been asked of a warlock. “Hast thou gone among the watchmen, and in the cities of the world? Hast thou found the one thy soul loves?”

“I have found him,” Magnus said, gazing at Alec. “And I will not let him go.”

Jia inclined her head. “Now it is time for the exchanging of runes.”

This was the moment when, in a traditional ceremony, Shadowhunters would Mark each other with wedding runes and speak the words of the vows. But Magnus could not bear runes. They would burn his skin. Puzzled, Emma watched as Jia pressed something that flashed gold into Alec’s hand.

Alec moved closer to Magnus and Emma saw that it was a golden brooch in the shape of the Wedded Union rune. As Alec moved toward Magnus, he spoke the words of the Nephilim vows: “Love flashes out like fire, the brightest kind of flame Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it.” He pinned the brooch over Magnus’s heart, his blue eyes never leaving Magnus’s face. “Now place me as a seal over thine heart, as a seal over thine arm: For love is strong as death. And so we are bound: stronger than flame, stronger than water, stronger than death itself.”

Magnus, his gaze fixed on Alec’s, laid his hand over the brooch. It was his turn now: Alec drew aside his jacket and rolled up his sleeve, baring his upper arm. He placed a stele in Magnus’s hand and clasped Magnus’s fingers within his own. With their hands entwined, Alec traced the shape of the Wedded Union rune onto his own arm. Emma assumed the second rune, the one over his heart, would be added later, in private, as it usually was.

When they were done, the rune stood out stark and black on Alec’s skin. It would never fade. It would never leave him, a sign of his love for Magnus for all time. Emma felt an ache deep down in her soul, where unspoken hopes and dreams lived. To have what Magnus and Alec had—anyone would be lucky.

Slowly Magnus lowered his hand, still clasped in Alec’s. He gazed at the rune on Alec’s arm in a sort of daze, and Alec looked back at him, as if neither of them could look away.

“The rings now,” said Jia, and Alec seemed to start out of a dream. Jace stepped forward and put one ring into Alec’s hand, and another into Magnus’s, and said something quietly to both of them that made them laugh. Simon was rubbing Isabelle’s back as she sniffled even more loudly, and Clary was smiling into her flowers.

Emma was glad of her Night Vision rune. With it, she could see that the rings were Lightwood family rings, etched with the traditional design of flames on the outside, and with words inscribed on the inside.