[BL] Shadowhunters; Where the silence sings

I. Prague (1944)

Anyone coming through the Vyšehradská street could see that there was still a light in the second floor's east side room of the House of Faust. However, there was no one to see the slim figure of Bartholomäus Fux pacing behind the window tonight. In fact, there was no one the day before, the day before that and even the one before. Ever since a man with funny mustache eagerly laid his greedy fingers on Czechoslovakia, no one dared to set a foot out of their houses at this hour.  The shadowhunter did not blaming them. The foreign visitors wore stern expressions and balloon trousers of sage color while carrying deafening guns and stone hearts. Hearts as impenetrable as a wall, slowly and irreversibly turning to dusty sand. Sometimes, when he was working late he was able to see a bored soldier peaking at him behind the fence wall bordering the Faust House. If the war drags on like this, he thought, they might need to start using the glamour like other institutes. Prague, with its streets crying for help, has become darker than he remembered. It was as if the sun was slowly forsaking the city, abandoning it on the island of despair. Lists of people shot for treason against the new government renewed nearly daily, decorating the streets for all eyes to see, sowing fear to every anxious soul passing by.

The downworlders were scared as well. The bombs delivering destruction and fire took lives without difference. He hardly saw any Fair folk these days. They returned to their own land, to the safety of tricks and magic and never-ending whirls of dancing and love. The rest was slowly moving across the west borders on their way to Britain or United States. Mundanes, Nephilim, Werewolves, children of Lilith, no one survived the death that tanks, bombs and guns dragged into their small lives. Iratze or not, magic or not, those weapons were powerful and misused tools. Mundanes surely outdid themselves this time, the shadowhunter smiled bitterly.

New head of the Prague Institute, Bartholomäus Fux, gulped a honey-colored liquid and felt a warm sensation spreading inside him. He was working late again. Stacks of papers on the table kept him awake, whispering words he did not care about, begging to be signed by one of his polished fountain pens. Once every few pages there was an illustration of a woman lying on her back, human. The picture displayed the removed tongue and eyes, creating gut wrenching sight of pain etched into the stiff deceased face. Germans have never killed anyone this way. Several days has passed and yet, the clues were escaping the heavily understaffed Institute. His notes around the room were mixing together with those of the former Head, piling in towers around the room and creating mayhem in his mind. After a while, Bartholomäus Fux seated himself back behind the wide desk sinking into the cushions his chair offered. A wave of unfinished correspondence letters was spreading on the desk before him. He felt faint. The fatigue had sent the weak elder mind to a sleep in his chair two times today.

He looked away and for a second pretended long gaze out of the big, squared glass. His eyes unconsciously found the building of the small church positioned across the garden and pridefully hovering above the ground. Of course, there were bigger churches in Prague, monumental, royal, clothed in beautiful ornaments and decorated with vibrant colors, but none of them was such a long-life companion of his. The office the previous Head of the Institute had decided to reside in was staring with glassy eyes right at the old and sad walls of the church. By this fateful night, he has already known every frowning scratch, every deep scar and wound on its body as if it had been his own.  This was his little universe, the one he had chosen to protect and love unconditionally.  Bartholomäus Fux focused his whole vision on that. Oh yes, he had seen it thousands of times before and another thousand times after this picture buried itself in his brain. The sight was memory he cherished above all, right next to the one of the Parabatai ceremony, the moment he bound his heart to equal soul and equal mind, a kindred spirit. As he felt the unwanted burden of the past weighting him down again, he laughed.

There was probably no point in trying to describe the infinite hate he felt toward Fridays. Such a horrible and useless day that brought him nothing but shame and annoyance every time it came. It was Friday. That much was obvious, and he would have known even without a calendar. With that day eventually came a horrible headache, given him by unpleasant events so characteristic for this part of the week. What is more, one of the unpleasantries of the fifth day was waiting by the entrance to the office. As was the older shadowhunter seated in a comfortable and massive leather chair, the night eventually took over the day, the hazy light of the lamps happily dancing over the windowpanes that reflected blurry shadow of warlock entering the office. His parabatai loved lights. In fact, he has never even thought to sleep without them. If there is no light, how do I know the way back from sleep? He used to tell Bartholomäus. I would call for you eventually, he would reply. The visitor provided him with so much needed time to distract himself from the memories of old days.