Smoke and Mirrors ▹ Alec Lightwood [1]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

"He wasn't breathing," Isabelle said, voice thick with tears she was trying desperately to hold back. Adrian knew she hated crying—she thought it made her weak—so he tightened his arm around her. "I thought..."

"We all thought it," Adrian whispered. None of them could actually say dead without feeling sick. "The Silent Brothers are with him now. He's in good hands, Izzy. He'll be okay." He wasn't sure if he believed those words, but they were comforting to say. He rested his cheek on top of Isabelle's head and added, "Max is a Lightwood. He's strong. He'll survive this." Isabelle didn't respond, which was just as well. At that moment, the door finally creaked open. Isabelle was on her feet and storming toward it in seconds, while Adrian gently shook Alec awake.

"Baby, wake up," he murmured, still shaking him. His mind didn't even process the term of endearment until Jace shot him a look as he passed, his lips curling up into a smile despite the dire and solemn atmosphere. He blinked at him, then blushed red. Luckily, Alec was still half-asleep, so he didn't seem to notice the slip. Adrian got to his feet and helped Alec climb to his. They approached the group surrounding the door together. Maryse and Robert seemed to be speaking to the Silent Brother, but Adrian couldn't hear his words, so he waited with bated breath. Maryse and Robert shared a glance, then they both nodded and the Silent Brother disappeared into the room again. They turned toward their children with hardened faces.

Adrian couldn't see grief there, though, so he took that as a good sign. Max was still alive, which meant they had managed to get him stable. Still, there was something else, and a fresh wave of anxiety crashed through him.

"Brother Zachariah said that there was swelling around Max's brain," Maryse said slowly, pausing to swallow thickly. She blinked a few times, but no tears escaped. Her face remained hard. "They managed to stabilize him, and he's breathing on his own again, but the swelling isn't going down. He hasn't woken up yet. The Silent Brothers asked for our permission to put healing runes on him. We said yes." There was a beat of astonished silence. Max was only ten. Shadowhunters didn't even get their first runes until they were twelve. Any earlier than that could cause problems. A lot of children weren't strong enough to withstand runes before twelve years old, and even then, there was always a fifty-fifty chance that something could go wrong anyway.

"But—" Isabelle started, stumbling over her words. "But he hasn't built up a tolerance to runes. It could—we could lose him." Her voice cracked. Alec wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"If they don't do it, then he's lost already," Maryse said bluntly. She didn't seem to realize how blunt her words were until Isabelle, Alec, Adrian, and Jace all flinched at them. Her face softened as she looked over them all, and she let out a soft sigh. "There's nothing we can do now but wait."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

They waited three days, and in those three days, Max only woke up a handful of times. The fact that he survived the runes was a good sign, but he couldn't stay awake for long, so he stayed in the medical wing in the Accords Hall while life continued as normal. Ever since the night Max was nearly killed, there had been no more demon attacks. It wasn't until the second day, as they all attended yet another funeral, that they realized why. While they had been waiting on updates for Max, Valentine had visited the Accords Hall in the form of a astral projection and had offered them an ultimatum. Adrian still didn't know what the ultimatum was, but he knew it wasn't good.

The Lightwoods had moved out of the Penhallows home. No one had blamed them. Now they were staying in an abandoned manor, the family having packed up and left Idris as soon as the demons disappeared and the sun came up in the sky. They were trudging into the manor now, kicking off their boots and slinging off the white coats they were wearing. Mass funeral pyres had been set up nonstop since the demon attack, and Adrian was starting to feel the exhaustion of going to them, even though it had been done out of respect. They had been wearing white for three days straight, and it was starting to dampen their already-solemn moods. They crashed in the parlor while Maryse and Robert disappeared to their bedrooms. Adrian rested his head against Alec's shoulder, while Isabelle stormed up to her own room upstairs.