Alec was as white as a sheet as he listened to Magnus' words. His pallor was well past his normal porcelain pale complexion. He had no color in his cheeks and his eyes were out of focus. He looked as if he would fall from his seat had Izzy not been holding him up. A shocked silence filled the room.
Magnus moved to Alec, kneeling in front of him. Holding Alec's hands gently in his own he brought them to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to each one.
"Alexander, darling." Magnus said softly. "I think you could use a bit of a lie down. You don't look well. Would you like me to help you back to bed?" Magnus asked gently.
Alec blinked, once, twice, his crystal blue eyes coming back into focus. He sat straighter in his chair, looking at Magnus.
"Tell me about the children. Surely some of them survived." Alec said. "You said the omega fathers and children were killed and their mates were either murdered or sent into exile. What happened to the children that escaped? They're had to have been some. There just had to." Alec said, pleading.
"Most of them were killed, sweetheart. But there were a few that managed to get away." Magnus said. "Alexander, honey, I think we should stop for now. I think you've heard enough for today."
"No." Alec said. "Keep going. I need to know the rest."
"I really don't think that's wise. I can see the distress in your eyes and the paleness in your beautiful cheeks." Magnus said, gently stroking Alec's pale cheek.
"Please. Finish it. I have to know." Alec said.
"Are you sure, love? I don't want you to push yourself too far." Magnus said, pressing a soft kiss to Alec's forehead.
"I'm sure." Alec said.
"Alright. But you have you tell me when to stop." Magnus said, moving into a sitting position on the floor in front of Alec.
"After the Clave wiped out the male omega families, they decided that it wasn't enough. What happened next is what the downworlders refer to as The Great Purge." Magnus began. "Shortly after the male omegas were 'dealt with', the Clave started killing off the female omegas and their families as well. The Clave didn't want to chance the female omegas producing more male omegas than what were already presenting. They thought that if they eradicated all of the omega families and their children the omega race would invariably die out."
"How could the Clave do that?" Izzy asked, outraged. "These were Shadowhunters. How could they do that to their own people, and nobody not know?"
"In the beginning, they didn't know. Male omegas were so rare, it was easy to cover it up. It was made to look like accidents. Tragedies. Omega houses were burned to the ground, presumably with the family still inside. But later, during The Great Purge, they did know, Isabelle. Or at least suspected. While the Clave sanctioned the missions, the Shadowhunters that weren't involved, began to put the pieces together. It didn't matter that the murders were being covered up. There weren't a lot of omega families. But they knew something wasn't right when all of the omega families suddenly started dying in some sort of tragedy or accident." Magnus said.
"And the children who escaped?" Clary asked.
"They were taken in by downworlder families, mostly omega families and kept hidden. Believe it or not, most downworlders aren't your enemy." Magnus said.
"How did they hide them from the Clave? Omega pheromones can be scented from miles away when in heat." Jace said.
"Omegas present in all the Shadow World races, not just the nephilim." Magnus said. "But, as an extra precaution, wards were set up by warlocks. I can't tell you how many wards I myself have put have up over the years, blocking omega pheromones from detection. Just as I did the moment that I carried Alexander through my portal. I've blocked both his omega pheromones as well as your location. As to the children that escaped, most of them did the same thing. As they came of age, the ones that found mates took their mates family name, and just weren't listed on the families family tree. Neither were their children. Wards were placed around the family's home to keep them all safe. If the Clave was to discover that a Shadowhunter family was harboring an omega, it would have meant death for not just the omega, but the entire family. And for the Shadowhunters that had omega mates, as their mates were hidden, it just appeared to the Shadowhunter world that they had just never found a mate." Magnus said. "As for the omegas that never found a mate, they generally stayed with the downworlder family that took them in. Most were taken in by warlocks, as we could best protect them. I took a few in myself, that's when I created my heat suppression potion. So the unmated omegas wouldn't suffer through their heats."
"You took them in? The unmated omegas?" Alec asked, unshed tears in his eyes.
"Yes, darling. I did. Three. In a way they were like my own children." Magnus said, wiping the tears from Alec's cheeks.
"That's why you know so much about omegas. Because you cared for them?" Alec asked.
"Yes." Magnus said.
"Can we go back for a minute?" Simon asked. "You said that the Clave has records of all of these murders. All Shadowhunters and their children. Hidden in secret records deep within the Clave. Records that 'don't exist' in the Shadowhunter world. And that the surviving omegas either found their mates and were kept secret, or where kept by the downworlder families that took them in. All kept hidden from the Shadowhunter world and the Clave. Since all of these omegas were either mated or taken in by downworlders, is there any kind of record of them anywhere?"
"That's a very good question, Simon. And the answer to that is yes. The Clave has public records of all the non-omega Shadowhunters families and their children, the records you can easily access. They also have the records that 'don't exist', records that only the highest-ranking Clave officials can access, dating back to before the first Purge and what happened after. They don't have records of the surviving omega children or what happened to them because they don't know. And to be honest, I'm not sure that today's Clave officials even know about The Great Purge or about the records the Clave did keep about the murdered omega families. That knowledge may have very well died out with the Clave members that have passed since that time. But there is a book in the Spiral Labyrinth that has it all. It contains everything, the names of the omega families that were killed and their children. What happened to the surviving children, mated and unmated. The names of the downworlder families that took them in. It lists the names of the mated omegas as well as their Shadowhunter mates and families, their children and their mates, as well as their descendants. It lists the unmated omegas, as well as the fates of the omega Shadowhunters that were presenting during the time of The Great Purge, and more."
"What do you mean their fates? The fates of the Shadowhunters that were presenting during the time of The Great Purge." Jace asked.
"It was all pretty much the same thing, just different circumstances." Magnus said. "While the omega families were being killed, more omegas were presenting. The Clave made quick work of 'dealing' with them. They couldn't out right go after a newly presented omega. So they would just bide their time and wait. Someone on the inside was always involved, but the results were the same. The omega died, male or female. Either by an 'accident' or 'mishap' while in the field or while on patrol. Sometimes it would be a 'horrible training exercise' gone wrong. None of them were 'obviously' murdered, but one by one as they presented, within a few months, they were dead." Magnus said.
"You said that you've put up more wards over the years than you can count. What did you mean?" Clary asked.
"Established or recently presented omegas were dying one by one, either by various Shadowhunter activities, made to appear as accidents, demon attacks, that sort of thing. If my understanding is correct, a Shadowhunter doesn't take on a demon without backup. It was noticed quickly by the downworld. We had, since The Great Purge, started keeping records of all new Shadowhunter births and their presentation status. And the Shadowhunters were noticing it as well. After a couple of families lost their children, presumably because of their omega status, after everything they had come to know about Clave and their views on omegas, which the Clave could no longer hide, they started keeping their children home on their presentation date. Several of the Shadowhunter families had friends or extended family that had an omega in their household and knew about the downworlders involvement. If their child presented as an omega, they would reach out to whoever it was they knew for help. Pretty much all Shadowhunter families knew what would happen if their child presented as an omega and kept the secret, for their child's sake. Once a child presented as an omega, a fire message would be sent to me or whoever was the High Warlock in their area was. Using a glamour in case it was a trap we would meet with the new omega and their family and once it was confirmed that they were in fact an omega, we would take the young omega and would get them to safety. Then the family would create some story as to what happened to their child to report to the Clave. They would tell them that they had presented as an alpha or a beta and that their child had somehow died. It didn't take long for the Clave to start questioning the stories they were receiving. After so many Shadowhunter deaths with no bodies, they knew something was up. But we got lucky. Around that time, omegas stopped presenting. At least in Shadowhunter families. Obviously, the hidden mated omegas continued to produce omega, or even alpha and beta children, that the Clave didn't know about. Regardless of the status of an omega families children, they were never registered with the Clave at birth, so they were never trained to be Shadowhunters. The Clave was clueless." Magnus said. "There were a lot of hidden nephilim that the Clave knew nothing about. The only record of them is in the 'The Omega' chronicle, also in the Spiral Labyrinth."
"There's more." Alec said. "There's more, isn't there?" He asked.
Magnus hesitated before he spoke. "Yes, love. There is more."
"I want to hear it. I want to hear it all." Alec said, staring Magnus in the eye.
"I really don't think that' a good idea." Magnus protested.
"I don't care." Alec shouted, throwing his teacup against the wall, shattering it. "I NEED to know the rest. I need to know what else the Clave has kept from us. I need to hear it all! What happened to Gideon Lightwood?" Alec demanded.
Magnus sighed. He didn't want to fight with is mate, but he could tell that he had already said too much, considering Alec's condition. He had pushed him too far.
"I think Magnus is right." Clary said, climbing from her seat and approaching Alec. She took his cheeks in her hands, emerald eyes staring into crystal blue. "I want to know the rest of it too. I want to know what's been kept from us and I want to know about who we've really been fighting for our entire lives. I want to know about Gideon Lightwood. But you're not doing well, Alec. And don't even try and deny it. I can feel it. It's twisting you up inside. I can feel you and right now you are an emotional wreck. I think it would be best to wait to hear the rest. At least for right now." She said gently, kissing him softly on the forehead.
"You don't understand, Clary. You don't know what it's like. For all I know the Clave is planning my 'accidental' death as we speak." Alec said.
"That's not going to happen, Alexander. I won't let anyone hurt you. I swear." Magnus said, squeezing Alec's hands tightly in his own. "We're fated to be together. Together we will do great things."
"I know I'm only getting a fraction of what your feeling." Clary said gently. "I don't think I could handle the full force of what your going through. But your strong. You have always been strong. Not just for us. Not just for the Shadowhunters you've trained and led into battle countless times, but for yourself. You have always been the strongest, most fearless person I have ever known. But right now, my parabati, you need to understand and accept that you don't have to be strong all the time. You don't always have to push yourself to the max. It's okay to let someone take care of you for once. You don't have to carry all the worry and weight and burden this time. You need to take some time for yourself. You need to let go. Even if it's just for tonight." She said, brushing a stray lock of hair from his eyes.
"She's right." Magnus said. "You've been through so much in a very short amount of time. A little too much, I think. And part of that is my fault. I shouldn't have gotten into this with you yet. That was wrong of me. For that I am so, so sorry. More than you will ever know, but I promise that I will tell you everything. But I just can't right now, love." He said, raising Alec's hands to his lips again.
"I don't know how to let go, Magnus. It's been expected of me my entire life, to take it all on, to do the hard stuff, to make the sacrifices for the sake of everyone else. I've always been pushed to push myself to the max, every day, to be the best at everything. I don't know how to take time for me, because I never have before. I've never been able to. Even when I was sick or injured, I was expected to be up and back at it way before the doctors at the Institute said I was ready. And I don't know how to let someone else take care of me. It's never happened before, no one's ever taken care of me but me." Alec said, tears pouring down his cheeks.
Alec's words broke Magnus' heart. He had known that his mate was the best Shadowhunter in the Shadow World. That he was a hero. That he was the best of the best, having trained both himself and his team to be the best. But he had no idea as to how that came to be. And the weight of his loves words just shattered him inside. The pain in his voice, the fear of letting go, the sound of his helplessness. His wonderful, precious mate was most defiantly in a very delicate state and would need to be tended carefully. And quickly.
"I know that this is really hard for you, but I need you to trust me, sweetheart. Like Clary said, you don't have to be strong all the time. It's okay for you to let someone else take care of you for a while. And right now you really need that. So what do you say, can you trust me? Can you trust me to take care of you? I'm your alpha, remember? It's my job to make sure that you have everything you need. Can you let me do that? Magnus asked.
With a deep, exhausted sigh Alec said "Okay. I trust you."
"Thank you, love." Magnus said. He snapped his fingers and three small vials appeared in his hand.
"Here. Drink these. They'll help." Magnus said, uncorking the first bottle. He held it to Alec's lips, helping him swallow it. Uncorking the second he did the same. Then the third.
"There now. You'll start feeling better before you know it. Let's get you to bed, okay?" Magnus asked.
Alec nodded, moving forward in his chair. As he tried to stand, Magnus caught him gracefully before he could fall, scooping him up into his arms. Alec's head immediately fell to rest at Magnus' neck, against his scent glands. Alec took a deep breath of Magnus' alpha scent and instantly fell asleep in his arms.
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