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This isn’t happening.
Alec watches, dumbstruck, as the peacekeepers pull Max from the crowd. The little boy is too frozen in shock to move. It’s his first reaping, the odds were in his favor, he’s not the one who was supposed to be picked.
This. Isn’t. Happening.
“No!” Alec yells, catching the attention of people around him, of the remaining peacekeepers and the adults gathered on the outskirts of the plaza. He’s sure his parents are watching him but he can’t spare a second to look for their faces in the crowd. He leaves his designated row and steps out of the line of other eighteen-year-olds - this is his last year before he is safe. “Max!”
His little brother looks back at him while he’s being pulled towards the podium and his face is an image of terror that Alec will never be able to forget. He doesn’t even comprehend that he’s running after them until a pair of peacekeepers crash into him, stopping him from going any further.
“Alec!” Max calls out, his voice high and scared and Alec acts on instinct. He acts on the need to shelter and protect, on the love he feels for his youngest sibling.
“I volunteer!” He shouts, a little desperately, stopping the others from dragging Max away from him. The peacekeepers holding him back release their hold and Alec stumbles a little when they do. The plaza is silent, every single person focused on him. Alec can’t think about them now, not when the relief of saving Max’s life washes over him. “I volunteer as tribute.”
He’s given a little bit of time to say his goodbyes before he has to leave for the train.
Izzy is the first one who runs into the waiting room, throwing herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck. He clings to her, feeling himself tremble, afraid that he’s going to fall apart if he lets go. She’s sobbing into his neck, and that sound is worse than being repeatedly stabbed in the heart. She’s already mourning him, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.
Max runs to him next, after Izzy moves away and Alec falls to his knees to hug his little brother with all the strength he has left in him. Max is crying too, taking turns between thanking him and apologizing.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Max hiccups into his chest where he’d hid his face, his small hands gripping the back of Alec’s shirt and Alec feels his heart break. He didn’t regret volunteering if it saved Max’s life.
“It’s not your fault, bug.” The nickname falls from his lips with fondness as he closes his eyes and shifts to place a kiss on the crown of Max’s head, the boy’s face still hidden from view. Alec can feel the wet patch of tears against his skin. “I love you, Max. Don’t ever forget that.”
He steers Max towards Izzy, who lets him cling to her in return, and Alec turns towards his parents.
He had always tried to do everything he could to make them proud. His father is the mayor of district seven and Alec never stepped out of the line, never did anything that could be used against the Lightwood family.
Maryse is too emotional to say much, but she hugs him tightly, kissing his cheek and whispering ‘I love you’ into his ear. She doesn’t thank him, not outright, but he can see the gratitude in her eyes. Alec knows that she loves him, but Max is her youngest child, her precious baby. Alec doesn’t feel any resentment towards her - Max is the center of his universe as well. He would gladly give up his life for him again and again, if he had too.
His father cups his jaw with both hands, his palms big and warm and comforting.
“If anyone from this district can win the Games, it’s you,” Robert says, looking him in the eyes. His gaze is confident and quite possibly a little proud with the lack of hesitation he showed in saving Max from the reaping. For being the first person in their district in nearly a decade to trade his safety for the life of someone he cared about. Alec nods and Robert releases him after a moment.
He takes hold of Alec’s hand and places something in his open palm, something small and touch-warm. It’s the Lightwood family ring, the one his father usually wears on his right hand. Robert closes his fingers over it.
“As your token,” he says and Alec can only nod, throat tight with emotion.
Jace is the last one to say his goodbyes after his parents and siblings left. His adoptive brother, his best friend. Jace hugs him as well and Alec can feel himself shaking apart. He can’t take any more goodbyes. He feels raw and vulnerable - like a wound slashed open - and he sags against Jace’s hold, trusting the other boy to support his weight for a bit.
“Take care of them, Jace,” he whispers against the blond’s neck, breathing in and trying to commit to memory the smell of his skin. “Promise me you’re going to take care of Izzy and Max.”
“Stop talking like you think you will die,” Jace scolds him, his tone angry. Alec is trembling and Jace only hugs him harder.
After a long moment, they separate and Alec can see the peacekeepers gesturing at him from the other side of the room. It’s time to leave for the train.
“Wait,” Jace calls out as he starts to turn away, grabbing his wrists and stopping him, “you have to make me a promise in return.”
“What?”
“You need to promise me,” Jace repeats, his harsh hold on Alec’s wrist gentling a little, “promise me you’re going to do everything it takes to come back to us.” He looks into Alec’s eyes now. “Everything.”
Alec doesn’t know if he can do that. He can’t imagine killing other people, much less some poor kids the same age as Max. He can’t even fathom taking the life of another human being, even if it was the difference between coming home or not.
At that moment, with Jace looking at him with such intensity in his eyes, such determination and anger and belief - belief in him - all Alec wants to do is to lean in and kiss him. He wants to let him know how he feels about him before he’s gone.
He doesn’t do it. He can’t add to the pain that Jace is already feeling, can’t burden him with knowledge that Alec died loving him, without being loved in return.
“I promise.”
The train ride is a quiet and somber affair. Hodge, their mentor, is talking quietly with Lydia Branwell, the female tribute from their district. Alec doesn’t know her very well, their interactions limited to early years in school and they talked only a couple of times. She’s not a friend, per se, but she can be an ally.
Alec looks through the window at the lush forests of his district as they gradually get smaller and smaller. When they are gone in the distance, Alec truly feels that he’s never going to see them again.
The team that prepares him for the meeting with his stylist are merciless. They make sure that every inch of him is scrubbed clean until his skin is pink and feels raw. They wax his chest and arms - which hurts way more than he could have expected - and after what feels like hours of torture, they leave him alone, sitting on what looks like an exam table, wearing only boxers and a flimsy white robe.
Alec’s shivering with cold before long, the robe doing little to hide his modesty or keep him warm. He’s considering calling out, to get them to bring him something else to wear, when the door to the room opens.
The man that sashays in - as that could be the only word to describe the movement - doesn’t look like anyone he had ever met, even after a couple of hours in the Capital, where everyone resembles an exotic bird. He’s dark skinned and has dark hair as well, with highlights of blonde and purple. The clothes he’s wearing are colorful, but not obnoxiously bright; tastefully selected to dazzle but not overwhelm. He’s wearing necklaces, and rings, and platform shoes that make him almost as tall as Alec. He also has glitter lining his eyes, which makes them seem bigger and brighter.
The man introduces himself as Magnus Bane and then promptly orders Alec to drop the robe. Alec does, remembering Hodge’s instructions to do whatever the stylist asks without questioning it, but he still blushes deep red at the state of his nudity.
“Now, now, you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about,” Magnus says, not unkindly, while he looks Alec up and down, brow furrowed with thought, “I can definitely work with this.” He pats Alec’s chest, almost like Alec is a prize horse that passed an inspection. “You can get dressed now.”
There is a pile of new clothes left for him and Alec quickly pulls them on, his face still burning with shame.
“So...” Alec starts, wanting to break the uncomfortable silence and to stop the way Magnus is looking at him, like Alec holds the answers to the secrets of the universe. “Trees or lumberjacks?”
That seems to pull the stylist away from his thoughts and he startles, surprised.
“Excuse me?”
“Trees or lumberjacks?” Alec repeats the question, shrugging with one shoulder. “It’s what our district tributes have been dressed up as in the past.”
Magnus stares at him for a moment and then breaks into a grin.
“That’s because they didn’t have me as their stylist,” he says. “You’re too pretty to cover you with plaid and denim, darling.”
‘Plaid and denim would be preferable to this,’ Alec thinks, looking into the mirror.
“Does it really have to uncover that much?” Alec asks, feeling uncomfortable at the amount of skin that he’s showing.
“Alexander,” Magnus scolds gently, standing behind Alec and fidgeting with his costume. He’s looking at Alec through the reflection in the mirror. “Surely it’s not the first time you’ve been bare-chested.”
It’s not, obviously. Working in the forest, especially in the summer months, the men often discarded top layers of their clothing when the temperatures got unbearably high. Alec is not ashamed of his body, he knows he has a good physique - strong arms and wide chest - but there’s still a huge difference in showing skin when among family, friends, and co-workers versus being on display for the whole of Panem to see. Parading like puppets before President Valentine.
“You’re built like an ancient god, honey.” Magnus pats down a part of the costume sticking out at the wrong angle. “Making sure you get remembered on the Tribute Parade is going to help you in the future with sponsors.”
Alec knows that Magnus is right. Still, he doesn’t really know what to think about his costume. It’s beautiful, all right. That much is clear, even to him and he wouldn’t recognize fashion even if it bit him in the ass. Magnus rejected the idea of dressing them up as trees immediately. Instead, he chose to focus on the paper-making industry his district is also known for.
Alec’s costume is a bit minimalistic compared to what he had seen in previous years. He’s wearing black pants made out of fabric that shimmers with colors as light hits it from different angles. There is a harness crossing over his chest and back, supporting the main focal point - a pair of black wings. They are made from paper. Each of the hundreds of feathers cut and folded in specific shapes, each delicate like the real thing and soft to the touch. Magnus had incorporated a mechanism into them that will make them stretch out with a press of a button, elongate them to impressive size as they ride in the chariot.
“Why wings, though?” Alec asks as he makes a face in the mirror, tempted to reach and smudge the kohl away from his eyes but Magnus gently slaps his hand away before he can make a move. The stylist hops up to sit on the table just to the side of the mirror.
“You are the first tribute since I started working as a stylist to volunteer for someone else. Apart from the Careers, of course,” Magnus says, his tone serious all of the sudden, “and when I saw the reaping in district seven I fought to be assigned to you. Took some convincing, but I did it.”
“Why?” Alec asks, surprise clear on his face.
“I’m originally from the first district,” Magnus continues, “I saw Careers volunteering all the time, but all of them did that for their own benefit, for the glory of becoming the victor. Some of them won, some of them didn’t. I was raised up in an environment that taught us killing others is a valid way of elevating yourself up above your peers.” Magnus gave him a sad smile. “When I became a stylist, I promised myself I would never work with the Career districts. I didn’t want to be a part of their success, even if that meant that I had to watch the kids I worked with die, year after year.”
Alec is silent, not knowing what to say to that confession.
“I was hoping to play up the avenging angel theme,” Magnus sighs, looking at the wings, “to remind the Capital what they are really doing; sending children to their deaths. I don’t think many of them will get the message.”
Alec looks at Magnus, really looks at him. He looks sad, a little tired, but his eyes are gentle and full of compassion. He doesn’t look like other Capital residents, who are giddy at the prospect of the entertainment that the Games give them. He doesn’t even look like he wants to be there, really.
“Have you...” Alec starts, not sure how to ask. “Did any of your tributes win the Games?”
“No,” Magnus replies and then smiles at Alec, his expression shifting into confidence and reassurance, “you will be my first.”
Alec does quite well in training.
His father was right - out of the all non-Career sectors, district seven has a definite advantage. They start their job training in childhood, which means most of them build up strength and stamina early on. They are all perfectly familiar with axes, as proven by Lydia who is an expert with her throwing axe. They can climb trees like monkeys and they know most common plants and medicinal herbs that can be found in the woods.
Alec can also use a bow. Weapons weren’t encouraged in the district but they weren’t forbidden either. The peacekeepers didn’t allow for guns, but knives and bows weren’t that uncommon. There were always two or three district-appointed guards with every shift that left into the forestry area, especially in the deeper parts of the woods. It didn’t happen often, but sometimes wildlife would get riled up and attack the workers, so they were allowed some measures of self-defense. Wolves, wild dogs, boars - Alec had seen and taken down all. There was even one time when the group he was with was attacked by an enraged bear - a huge, terrifying, and angry thing. It had almost taken out a friend of his father before Alec managed to put an arrow into its eye, killing it with one shot.
Alec observes other tributes as well. The Careers are vicious and will stick together, like they do every year, so Alec doesn’t even waste a thought about forming an alliance with them.
The ones that catches his eye are a red-haired girl from the textile district who’s exceptionally good at camouflage - Clary, he thinks is her name - and the boy she seems to stick close to, the one from the technology district. He has curly hair and wears glasses and for the life of him, Alec can’t remember what his name is.
He shows off his skills for the gamemakers, as instructed, and ends up with a score of nine which surprises no one but him. Lydia ends up with eight, which puts them both in good spots for possible sponsors.
On the night they watch the scores being transmitted, Magnus catches him off-guard when they are alone. The stylist - who had grown more into a friend in the span of a couple of days - hugs him and tells him that he’s proud of him. Alec hugs him back, feeling a tendril of warmth and hope anchor itself in his chest.
The interviews go better than Alec expected. He has never been confident when put in the spotlight, but he manages to get through with minimal stammering and without making a total fool of himself. Caesar Flickerman is a huge help, coaxing the right answers out of him and making him more likable and easy-going than he actually is. Alec feels a surge of gratitude to the host, who seems to understand how nervous he is.
Alec and Lydia steal the entire show by pretending to be engaged. It’s a strategy that he, Lydia, and Hodge agreed on, to earn sympathy from the viewers - fiancés forced into the arena together. They are both wearing pure white clothes, to contrast the black of their parade costumes and to provide the illusion of purity and innocence.
The lie makes him sick, pretending he’s in love with Lydia. He wants to tell the truth. He wants to tell the whole world that he left behind the one person he has feelings for and it’s not the girl who’s on stage with him, holding his hand.
He doesn’t say it. Like he promised Jace, Alec is going to do anything it takes.
It’s the night before they go into the arena and Alec is terrified.
He has isolated himself from the others on the roof, unwilling to let Lydia or Hodge see him go through a panic attack. He’s curled up in a tight ball, sitting on a corner ledge of the building, trusting the force field to not let him fall as it was designed to do. The wind is whipping through his hair, leaving him chilled. He is shaking, terror gripping him from the inside. He doesn’t even notice someone is there on the roof with him until a pair of arms circle his shoulders and he’s being pulled into a hug, his face hidden in someone’s chest. Alec breathes in, overcoming his lungs that stubbornly have refused to let him inhale, and he can smell sandalwood and expensive cologne.
Magnus.
He has no idea how long they stay like that, but eventually Alec’s breathing evens out and he stops feeling like he’s going to fall apart into a million pieces.
“I don’t want to die,” he whispers when they are sitting side by side, Alec’s head leaning against Magnus’ shoulder, the fingers of Magnus’ left hand tightly interwoven with his right. There is a vague thought in Alec’s mind that Magnus shouldn’t be sitting on the ground - his undoubtedly expensive pants will get dirty.
“You’re not going to die.” Magnus squeezes his hand in a show of support.
“I can’t,” Alec says again, as if he didn’t hear him. “Who is going to take care of Max when he can’t sleep? Who is going to threaten Izzy’s boyfriends with an axe when they start dating?” Alec thinks he’s going to start hyperventilating again, but Magnus’ touch keeps him grounded.
“There’s so many things I haven’t done yet,” he continues, squeezing his eyes shut when he feels tears gathering in them. He feels like crying. He feels like mourning all those things that could be, all the things that will never happen. “I... I haven’t even kissed anyone yet.”
“Not even your fiancée?” Magnus asks, humor coloring his voice as he is well aware that the whole engagement thing is just sponsor-bait.
“Not anyone,” Alec murmurs, his eyes still closed. In the dark, it’s a little easier to tell the truth. “And definitely no girl.”
“Ah,” Magnus says, and that’s it, that’s the extent of his reaction. Alec is glad that Magnus doesn’t ignore his confession but doesn’t make a big deal out of it either.
There is long stretch of comfortable silence and Alec is content with just sitting there, soaking up Magnus’ warmth and listening to the stylist hum some tune under his breath. It’s peaceful, almost hypnotic and he feels himself relaxing, the horrifying grip of panic completely gone now. He thinks he should get back inside, try to get some sleep, though he doubts he will be able to rest at all.
“I should go,” Alec whispers, raising his head from Magnus’ shoulder, feeling the crick in his neck from staying in the same position for too long. Before he can move, Magnus reaches up with his free hand, grabbing his chin and turning Alec’s head towards himself.
Magnus gives him ample time to move back as he nuzzles in closer and Alec should, he really should, but he doesn’t want to. His eyes drift shut as Magnus closes the last inch of distance between them.
Magnus’ lips are soft and the kiss is electrifying. Slow and gentle, like Magnus is afraid that anything else will spook him. Alec sighs, leaning more into the touch and Magnus pries his lips open with his, really tasting him. It’s a little weird, the feeling of Magnus’ tongue stroking against his, but it’s a nice kind of weird. It leaves him hot and trembling for a different reason than fear, even as Magnus is pulling away, nipping gently at his lower lip.
“Now you’ve been kissed,” the stylist says, his eyes tender and affectionate. Alec shivers.
Eventually, they have to leave and are nearly to the roof exit when Magnus grabs his hand again.
“Alec.” Magnus looks conflicted about speaking further for a long moment but then he looks at Alec, standing so very still, and he makes up his mind. “You don’t need to become the victor of the games. You just need to survive... up until a certain point.”
“What do you mean?” Alec is confused, not sure what the stylist is talking about. “Doesn’t surviving mean winning?”
“Not this time.”
It takes a moment to register the words and even then, Alec still doesn’t fully understand their meaning, but he knows something is going on. There are things that Magnus can’t tell him - not while they are under surveillance and not the day before the Games - but for the first time in a week, Alec feels a tiny flutter of hope in his heart.
The cornucopia is a bloodbath.
Alec and Lydia had tactics. Depending on their environment, they would run away from the first supply drop and hide away from the rest of the tributes. Their arena is a forest, which is a blessing - Alec feels a little reassurance at the familiar setting. He sees Lydia nodding at him and he fully intends to stick to the plan, until he sees a bow and a quiver of arrows sitting on the ground just a little to the left of the cornucopia, along with a small backpack.
He makes a dash for them as soon as the timer is up, signaling the start of the games. He manages to grab the items before anyone else stops him. He turns, looking for Lydia, and his heart stops when he sees her on the ground holding her side. One of the Careers are above her with a raised knife, ready to deal the fatal blow.
Alec reacts before he can even think. His fingers loading the arrow, acting on muscle memory. He shoots the Career in the arm, piercing through it and making him drop the knife with a yell of pain. Lydia grabs the knife before he can recover and slashes his throat with it. Alec runs to her, pulls her up and together they disappear into the forest, him supporting her.
It takes Lydia two days to die.
The stomach wound she received at the cornucopia is deep. Even though he managed to bind it and stop it from bleeding, she still gets an infection. Alec suspects that the blade was covered with poison and he hopes for a gift from a sponsor, medicine that could save her life, but nothing comes.
Alec holds her as she dies. He doesn’t have to fake affection for her - he grew to like her well enough during their training - and his heart breaks for her as she suffers through the crippling pain of the poison eating through her body. She asks him to tell her parents that she loves them. She tells him to win and to be happy without her. Until her last breath she’s playing the part assigned to her, a dying fiancée that leaves behind her grieving lover. She does it for him, all for him, earning him more sympathy from the viewers; whatever good that’s worth.
The canon that announces her death is like a physical blow. Alec cradles her body close until the hovercraft comes to take her away.
Alec stays out of sight.
As a part of the tactic he agreed on with Hodge, Alec tries to avoid other tributes as much as he can. He stays up in the trees most of the time, only stepping down when he hunts for food. There is a large body of water near the area he sticks to and Alec spends half a day observing it, making sure it’s safe. There are deer and rabbits in the forest that he sees drinking from the lake, so he knows it’s not poisoned. He ran out of water a day ago and he can’t put it off any longer.
It turns out to be a horrible idea. As soon as he fills his water bottle, he hears a commotion on his right side. Before he can hide, two tributes crash through the bushes and fall into the lake. It’s Clary and her friend from the training center, and right on their heels there’s... something. Alec isn’t sure what it is. It looks like a crossbreed between a dog and a lizard, except it’s nearly six feet tall and has too many teeth.
He puts three arrows into it before it dies and he doesn’t even know why he’s helping them, wasting his arrows on keeping alive the two people who don’t seem to be cut out for the arena. The monster collapses before Clary’s feet and they scramble backwards through the water, afraid that it might not be really dead after all. When it doesn’t move again, they look for the shooter, but Alec is already gone.
Alec watches the sky every night, waiting for the images of the dead to light up. It takes a couple of days, but there are six tributes left - him, Clary, her friend, two Careers from district one, and a boy from district two.
Something has to give soon and it’s the eighth day of the Games when it happens.
Alec is removing an arrow from the rabbit he had just killed - he only has three arrows left and needs to be careful about retrieving them. He barely has a second to register the sound of a snapping twig coming up from behind him before he has to duck away, the throwing knife aimed at his head embedding itself in a nearby tree.
It’s the Career from district two, the one who’s taller (which doesn’t happen very often) and is two times wider in the shoulders than him. Alec can’t get a good shot, not when he’s so close, and the most he can do with his bow is use it to deflect the swipes from a knife when the other boy lunges at him. It works at first, but then his bow gets yanked away from him and the punch aimed at his jaw connects. The blow knocks him to the ground. He’s dazed, his ears are ringing, and the kick to his stomach that comes next takes him by surprise. The Career is on him; sitting on his chest, his weight cutting off Alec’s air. The knife is above him, ready to kill him, and he scrambles. His hands reaches out for something, anything, and his fingers close over the arrow he pulled out of the rabbit, still slick with its blood.
Before the knife can descend, Alec plunges the tip of the arrow into the boy’s neck. It goes in surprisingly easy. Alec pushes whatever strength he has left into his arms, throwing the Career off of him. The boy’s knife lays forgotten. His hands are around the arrow protruding from his neck, like he can’t believe Alec actually retaliated. Alec doesn’t think, he just yanks the arrow out again, pushes the Career onto his back so that their positions are reversed now, and stabs him with it again and again and again.
When he wakes up from the haze of adrenaline it’s to the sound of the canon going off, signaling death. He’s left panting and shaking, his hands covered in blood up to his elbows. The Career’s body is looking up at him with empty eyes, his throat a ruin of skin and muscle. Alec looks at him, then down at himself, then scrambles off the body to the side where he vomits whatever little food and water he has in his belly.
He cleans up in the shallow stream not far from where he killed the Career and his hands are shaking. Alec tries not to think about how he just took someone’s life, even if the other wouldn’t have felt the same remorse toward him. He wonders if his family saw what he had done but knows they probably did - all kills are broadcasted, especially later on in the Games. Alec doesn’t think he will be able to look any of them in the eye again.
‘Do whatever it takes.’ Jace’s words resonate in his mind but they bring no comfort. Alec tries to think about something else; Max’s laughter (everything he does now he does for Max) or Izzy crawling into his bed when she’s had a bad dream (he used to hold her at night before the reaping every year since she started qualifying). He thinks about his parents. With hands that are now clean, he pulls on the leather cord around his neck where the family ring is connected - he’s been wearing it like a pendent since it is too big for him to wear on his fingers.
He thinks about Magnus, about his bright eyes and gentle touches, about the warmth of his voice, about the softness of their kiss shared in the dark.
‘I just need to survive,’ Alec thinks, drying his hands on his pants and feeling a little bit calmer.
When he moves to stand, there’s a sting in his side. Alec peels away the edge of his shirt to reveal a long, sluggishly bleeding cut he didn’t notice before with all the adrenaline pumping through his body.
Oh shit.
‘Of course it’s poisoned. Of course it fucking is.’
It takes a couple of hours until he feels the effect and he can’t stop thinking about Lydia. Her symptoms got worse with time but looked almost exactly like his. He tries different herbs and medicinal plants he can find, but nothing helps.
In a day, he’s too weak to move. He’s half-hidden behind a rock outcropping near the lake. He knows he’s too much in the open - that he’s an easy target - but he can’t force his body to move. The pain coursing through him in waves is crippling and he has to bite his tongue to keep himself from crying out.
He knows there are cameras on him, waiting to record his death. He wants to say something. He wants to tell his family to not look, to keep Max from seeing him die.
Alec’s too tired and delirious to see what’s going on around him and the only sound he hears before slipping into unconsciousness is two sets of footsteps coming from the direction of the forest.
‘The Careers,’ he thinks, closing his eyes and falling into darkness.
He wakes up to the sound of crackling fire.
Alec jerks awake, flailing a little in confusion and reaching for something, anything that he could use as a weapon.
“If we wanted to kill you now then saving your life earlier would be kind of counterproductive, don’t you think?”
It’s the curly-haired boy from district three. He’s sitting next to the fire, his hands outstretched towards the flames in attempt to warm them. Clary is next to Alec, frozen as she’d been reaching out to him, a bottle of water in her hands. He relaxes, just slightly - some of the tension leaving his posture and she moves again - tilting the bottle to his lips. The water is cool and refreshing and Alec thanks her when he’s done.
“I’m Clary,” she says after she sits down near the fire. She tilts her head toward her friend, “and this is Simon.”
“Alec,” he answers before peeking under his semi-ruined shirt to look at the cut. It’s bandaged and when he looks underneath the gauze, he sees that the wound is almost closed. “How long have I been out?”
“Just a day or so,” Simon replies, tossing another stick into the flames, “we found you yesterday in late afternoon and it’s about midnight now. We think.”
Alec is silent for a minute.
“Why did you help me?” He asks eventually, looking at Clary.
“Why did you kill that thing that was after us before?” She repays a question with a question.
‘Because it was the right thing to do,’ Alec thinks. ‘Because you remind me of my siblings.’
He doesn’t say anything.
“By the way,” Clary shakes her head when it becomes clear he’s not going to answer, “this is for you. We found it right next to where we found you - I think you were too out of it to notice its arrival. It actually had the antidote for the poison.”
She hands him a small metal capsule with a parachute attached to it. It’s a gift from a sponsor, that much Alec knows. The vial that contained the antidote is empty, obviously, but there is also a note in there.
‘Survive’ it says in Magnus’ handwriting and Alec can feel the corner of his lips tugging up into a smile.
The Careers from district one die on the eleventh day. Alec doesn’t know how, but the canons go off one after another, so they died at the same time. Maybe it was the environment, maybe some of the mutated animals. He doesn’t particularly care.
His alliance with Clary and Simon is tentative, but it holds. Neither of them want to kill each other, so they agree to wait it out, to let the gamemakers dictate the way they might die.
Alec can’t stop thinking about Magnus’ words. He had to survive, but he didn’t have to win. Whatever cryptic message was hiding in those words, Alec prays for something to happen soon. He doesn’t know how long they can hold out, not after they woke up in the middle of the previous night with the forest burning around them and they only managed to get out by pure luck. Simon has second degree burns on his left leg from where the fire caught him as he pushed Clary out of harm’s way. Alec grounds up a paste from one of the plants that helps soothe the pain but it still slows them down.
On the fifteenth day, Alec’s resolve is wavering. He is bone tired, hungry, and thirsty - the animals from the forest are gone, replaced by the aggressive mutants. The area around the lake is covered with a layer of acid fog, preventing them from getting fresh water. Alec is keeping watch at night while the other two sleep.
Maybe Magnus was just humoring him, telling him what he needed to hear to keep him going. Maybe there was no hidden message after all.
He promised his family he would come back, no matter what he had to do. They might be repulsed with him after seeing him kill like a savage, but he could deal with that. He could earn their respect back, little by little. He looks at the quiver next to him.
He still has two arrows left.
Just as he is reaching for his bow, a sound breaks through the silence of the night. A faint beeping growing louder with every second. He looks around in alarm and Clary and Simon are up too, disturbed by the sound.
It is another sponsor capsule. It lands a couple of feet away from them and Alec scrambles up to get it. It has his name etched on the lid and he pops it open eagerly.
Inside is only a piece of paper with a single word written on it.
‘Cornucopia’.
Making their way back to cornucopia is harder than it sounds. They are all on the verge of physical exhaustion and the gamemakers keep throwing more obstacles at them.
At one point, Simon collapses when the combination of dehydration, starvation, and pain becomes too much of a strain on his body.
“Leave me,” he says when Alec tries to heave him up. “Take Clary. Protect her.”
“Shut up,” Alec grunts, struggling out of his backpack and tossing it, along with his bow and quiver, towards Clary who catches it without fumbling.
“I mean it,” Simon protests, too weak to do anything but whisper, “whatever you have planned, make sure she’s safe.”
“And I meant it when I told you to shut up,” Alec growls, picking Simon up in a fireman’s carry, “we’re almost there.”
They aren’t, but Simon doesn’t need to hear that.
Carrying him takes more energy than Alec has to spare and by the time they make it to the cornucopia he is close to passing out. All three of them crash, lying next to each other on the grass.
‘This is it,’ Alec thinks. If the gamemakers decide to kill them now, none of them have any energy left to fight.
He keeps looking at the sky, at the wide expanse of blue spotted with occasional white clouds. It’s a beautiful day, calm and warm, and Alec thinks that he can imagine worse days to die. Even if the sky is only another illusion created by the gamemakers. He is ready to slip into the oblivion - he doesn’t want to be awake when he dies by whatever means the gamemakers deem appropriate. He reaches out to clasp his hands around Clary’s and Simon’s, a silent thank you for staying alive until that point, for being with him until the end.
Only the end doesn’t come. What comes instead is a terrible noise of something blowing up, so loud it feels like his teeth are rattling. The force field ceiling above the cornucopia explodes, enormous pieces of metal and wire nets falling down with ground-shaking crashes.
Alec can see a hovercraft gliding through the opening. He can feel the wind whipping around them as it lowers down. When it becomes too much for his senses to handle, he sees nothing at all.
Alec really, really hates waking up after passing out.
It’s always disorienting, not knowing where he is. The room he’s in now is sterile white and metallic gray. The air feels stale and a little artificial and Alec remembers the hovercraft that transported him to the arena smelling exactly the same.
He is laying on a bed in what looks like an infirmary. It’s soft and comfortable and for a second, Alec considers falling back to sleep, but he knows he can’t yet. He looks to his right, his head still fuzzy and heavy and feeling like it was stuffed with cotton. Clary and Simon are both on the beds next to his and Alec breathes out a sigh of relief.
“You didn’t think we would just leave them there, did you?”
Alec turns his head to the other side. Magnus is sitting by his bed in all his glittery and colorful glory. When Alec weakly reaches out to him, the stylist grabs his hand and squeezes it.
“I didn’t know what to think,” Alec whispers, his voice scratchy and Magnus helps him drink from a glass the had been sitting on the bedside table, “you didn’t exactly leave me a set of instructions.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Magnus smiles at him. He moves closer, after giving Alec the water, to sit at the edge of Alec’s bed. Their hands are still clasped together. “But that’s going to change. I have so much to tell you.”
Alec nods. There isn’t anything else he can do, really. Magnus is like a force of nature, pulling others along with him and he can’t resist him either.
“You will be happy to know your relatives are safe,” Magnus says when Alec looks on the verge of falling asleep again, “we evacuated them out a couple hours ago.”
“Where are we going?” Alec asks after a moment. There are hundreds of other questions running through his mind, but for now the knowledge that his family is out of the harm’s way is enough.
“On our way to district thirteen,” Magnus says, running his thumb gently over Alec’s scraped knuckles. “Like I said, I have much to tell you.”
Whatever he has to say, Alec knows it can wait until he’s awake. He can feel the lure of sleep pulling at him, the way his eyelids grow heavy.
“I didn’t get to be your first victor after all,” he mumbles as he closes his eyes, unable to keep them open anymore. He hears Magnus chuckle and then he feels a soft brush of lips against his.
"You're my first of so many things, Alec Lightwood.”