Piano Days and Other Malec One-Shots

Everything You Had

AU requested by kaz2302! Thank you for the idea!

"Untempered adamas will cost you everything you have, plus a little of that Angel blood," the ghost in front of St. Peter's estimated. Alec crossed his arms, frowning, as he looked through the ghost, his mind calculating. 

The front of the church behind her flickering figure seemed to be melting. Pillars had once supported the front of the cathedral, but a few had fallen away, and the roof had fallen with them. Moss and vines grew up the slope, and graffiti recolored all of the bricks accessible from the ground, and even some that weren't.

"And is there any way I could find a stele?"

"You know as well as I do, Alexander Lightwood. All functional Shadowhunter weaponry sits in Idris."

"Someone must be smuggling it out," Alec argued. 

"You have too much faith in the bravery of others," the ghost said. She drifted back for a moment, and then jumped onto a gravestone, balancing on one foot atop it. 

Alec looked back at the church. Maybe he did.

"The adamas, Tatiana?" 

"The last magical store in London is going to be in there." She pointed across the graveyard. Across the torn-up street was a row of shops, their entrances obscured by meandering somber bodies. There was a lit sign, advertising a night club. "If they ask, I didn't send you."

"Who am I looking for?" Alec looked back at Tatiana, but she was gone, replaced by the leaves of an apple tree, floating to the ground. "Tatiana?"

The leaves stirred on the ground in response.

If Tatiana wasn't a Lightwood, Alec wouldn't have trusted her. He didn't trust anyone anymore. He kept his runes covered with gloves, long shirts, and turtlenecks, even in the summer. He moved with the seasons, and he had just arrived in an autumn London, with a stele broken on his fight to get to the Portal he had paid dearly to get. Now he was staying in the basement of St. Peter's, on a bedroll in the driest corner. He supposed mundanes saw the cathedral as nothing but rubble now, but he still saw it's true form, as bittersweet as that form was. It had once been quite the arsenal, since the actual former Institute was far across town, but it had been picked clean by the time Alec found his way to the floorboards below the altar. 

Whoever lead the Endarkened now had done an excellent job of finding all the hidden Nephilim storage spaces around the world and robbing them of everything, so any "rogue" Shadowhunters would be defenseless eventually. What remained in the world was either in Sebastian's hands or on the Downworld black market at an costly price. Alec would give his blood when he could, but that drew so much attention. Family heirlooms linked his face to the Lightwood name, so as much as they would do good, they could do serious harm. Isabelle had taught him that.

When they'd returned to the surface following Edom, the fighting was still going on. The Endarkened hadn't quit like they'd thought. Simon was gone, and the girls were distraught, and no one was at their best. They rushed towards the Accords Hall, Clary intent on checking on the children who probably needed more defense. Alec was hardly in a place to argue, and so they battled through the streets until they met a full faerie platoon, who mercilessly pushed them onto different streets so they were separated.

Alec had ended up on the street by Amatis' house with Isabelle. The faerie knights were ruthless and Alec could only picture Isabelle lying in the streets, her blood mixing with that of the thousands of fallen. And he made a decision. They barricaded themselves inside Amatis', where Isabelle drew one of Clary's new Portal runes on the pantry door, while Alec fired arrows into the street from the second floor.