Chapter Text
A/N: Thank you so much to my wonderful beta Talon! I wouldn't have finished without them. :)
Also thank you to lesbiandot, who made the art for this fic! It's absolutely amazing!
It was a fairly standard sized door set into the wall but that was about where the expected ended. Its purple color was a rather odd choice though not offensively bright. The curiously muted shade of lavender seemed to slide out of sight for most passersby and yet Simon felt it should be impossible to miss with how out of place it looked. There was no sign for the shop, only letters stenciled onto the brickwork above the door spelling out COFFEE. No windows to either side but curiosity is a hard thing to resist once it had sunk its claws in.
Simon looked down at the small business card in his hand and back up at the door. Shoppers pushed past him to reach the summer fashion boutique to the left and the smell of fish and french fries over to his right made his mouth water. But he wasn’t here for either of them and the card, made of what felt like old parchment, had told him to look for the purple door. So here he was.
The door opened onto a hallway stretching deep into the building, the walls lit with fairy lights. Woven charms hung on the walls in the shapes of magpies, stitched from shimmering black thread, and fish that were swimming across the exposed bricks. When he reached the counter off to the right, it was empty except for a black cat curled up next to a cactus in a flowerpot. Its tail flicked lazily as it opened one earth-green eye.
“Hey kitty, where’s your owner?” Simon reached out a hand toward the cat’s back and after it didn’t seem to react, he rested a finger against its fur to which it jerked into a crouch with a sharp hiss.
“Alec! Please don’t scare off our guest before he’s even ordered something,” a voice called from out of sight, the tone fond despite its exasperation. A man appeared after a few seconds, smiling at Simon as he ran a ringed hand along the cat’s back to calm its raised hackles. The cat arched under the man’s touch and skulked to the tip jar next to the register before hopping off the counter.
“He’s like that with everyone, don’t worry. What would you like?”
“Are you Magnus Bane?” Simon held up the piece of parchment in his hand, knowing the words printed on it by heart: Magnus Bane, fortune teller and provider of unorthodox solutions. Magnus looked just as impressive as his job title seemed to entail, his hair shot through with gold and the charm dangling from his ear spun slowly. The contrast between Simon’s t-shirt under a denim jacket and Magnus’ collared satin shirt was obvious.
“Yes, and you are?”
“Simon. I mean, Lewis. Simon Lewis.”
“Alright Simon Lewis, now I usually love getting right down to business but I’m afraid I have something that still needs finishing back here so if you would, go ahead and sit down and I’ll be right out. I recommend our cherry mocha while you wait.”
“Oh… ok, that sounds cool.” As Simon made to take out his wallet, Magnus waved it away and gestured for him to keep going down the hall.
“It’s on the house when you come for business.” With a conspiratorial smile, Magnus disappeared into the back of the shop once again.
The rest of the corridor wasn’t long before it opened up into an area dotted with tables and chairs and was surprisingly not empty of other patrons. A policeman sat in one corner, a large mug of coffee in front of him along with a whole spread of manilla folders and files that covered the dark wood of the table. A young girl and her mother were enjoying what looked to be large strawberry popsicles, the girl’s laughter breaking the silence in the room with ease.
“Cherry mocha.” Simon turned back around and took the cup from the dark-haired server. Even sitting down he could tell the man was tall, but it was the name-tag with Alec written on it that caught his attention.
“Alec, like that cat?” Simon grinned, wanting a moment of levity to alleviate his nervousness.
“Yeah, like the cat.” Paired with his black pants and apron over a deep-blue shirt, it wasn’t hard to see the comparison, not to mention the narrow glare Alec was giving him.
“Does that get confusing? Who came first, the person or the cat?” Simon tried again, cradling the warm mug in his hands as the sweet smell filled the air.
“Neither. Magnus will be out shortly.” With that terse reply, Alec left Simon to contemplate his troubles with his coffee. When Magnus finally emerged from the staff door, Simon had all but drained his cup.
“Let’s get started then, tell me why you’re here.” Magnus took a seat with more grace than Simon had seen in people dancing, the movement controlled and yet fluid.
“I… my best friend’s acting weird. She disappears, sometimes for days at a time but she doesn’t remember where she goes or what she does. I’ve tried helping her but it’s like… I don’t know, it’s hard to believe...” Simon trailed off, finding it hard to look Magnus in the eyes.
“There’s not a lot I won’t believe. Worry about how outlandish it sounds when you’re done.” A thump on the tabletop and the black cat from before padded over to sit beside Magnus’ crossed arms, settling with its paws perfectly straight and aligned with almost statuesque poise. Simon stared at it for a minute before shaking his thoughts back into order.
“She’s been waking up in weird places after going to sleep. She’s tried locking herself in and she still just somehow manages to get out even though there was no way she could’ve escaped through the grates or the window, they’re too small for her to fit through them. I just don’t know what to think, she came back but there’s just something… weird about it all.”
“Can she tell when she’s about to leave?” Magnus and the cat both stared at Simon as though they could read the truth from his mind but Simon was merely glad they appeared to believe him.
“Um… yeah, if she’s awake she says it feels like there’s a buzzing inside her and she feels almost sick and then she blacks out. Do you know what’s going on?”
“I have an idea, yes,” Magnus admitted, scratching the cat between its ears. It appeared to almost smile.
“Oh… okay, how much is that going to cost?” Simon ventured, already calculating how many gigs it was going to take to help Clary pay it off.
“I’ll decide on that once I’ve completed my services,” Magnus said, his smile wide and if Simon hadn’t already decided the guy was pretty cool, he’d have been a little unnerved. “Your friend sounds like she needs answers as soon as possible.”
“Yes! How about tomorrow? The park next to campus should be good, I’ll bring Clary and you can…” Simon waved his hands, his excitement making him forget the bizarreness of what they were discussing.
“I’ll do what I can. Don’t worry, you came to the right person,” Magnus assured him. The cat let out a sharp meow as though in warning. “Until tomorrow then, apparently there’s something that needs my attention.”
Simon looked at the cat quizzically as it stalked to the edge of the table and dropped to the floor with barely a sound. Magnus got up with a parting nod and followed the cat into the back.
Leaving the mug at the counter on his way out, Simon stepped onto the busy thoroughfare of the mall and could barely believe how different it was from the nook of a coffee shop he’d just exited. The quiet mystery of it clung to his clothes, making him feel like he could see more than before.
~*~
Simon stuck his hands in his pockets for the fifth time since they’d sat down at the picnic table in the park, before he promptly pulled them out again. Clary was more concerned with grilling Simon on how his conversation with Magnus Bane had gone.
“You mean he just agreed? And didn’t ask you to pay him? That’s fishy, Simon, even you have to see that.”
“Well, he seemed nice and his cherry mocha was pretty freaking great so he can’t be all bad.”
“You’d trust a guy because he makes good coffee?”
“Yeah, sleazy dudes can’t make coffee like that,” Simon assured her, grinning at her unimpressed expression. Catching sight of a familiar crest of hair passing by a hotdog stand, he nudged Clary in the ribs. “Speak of the devil. Not that I’m comparing him to the devil, he’s really cool I promise!”
As Magnus approached, Simon saw the black shadow following him close at his heels.
“And he brought Alec!” Simon pointed at Magnus’ feet. “Or, well… one of the Alecs. There’s two of them; this one’s adorable, but a little grouchy. Kind of reminds me of Bubbie Helen’s tomcat Snuggles. He doesn’t like being woken up when he’s taking a nap.”
Magnus slid onto the picnic bench across from them like he was taking a seat at an opera house, full of poise and expecting a good show.
“Hello, you must be the infamous Clary Fray I’ve heard so much about. Simon’s told me of your impossible escapes and how you’re shaping up to be the Harry Houdini of this century.”
“Yes, that’s me,” Clary agreed, smiling wryly at the all-too-accurate description. “Oh!” She jumped as Alec landed in front of her on the tabletop and eyed her coolly. Simon wondered if the cat had been as surly in the shop or if his memory had simply made the details hazy. But he was certainly starting to see the resemblance between the waiter and the feline, if nothing else.
“Don’t worry about him, he likes to give people a little scare. Says it keeps them on their toes,” Magnus said, scratching under Alec’s chin with a fond smile. Simon expected the cat to sit down beside Magnus but instead he came closer to Clary, until he was within petting distance. Reaching out cautiously, Clary held out her hand toward Alec and Simon opened his mouth to warn her of the cat’s claws but instead Alec butted his head against her knuckles and promptly turned back toward Magnus.
“Now that the introductions are over with, I think we can get to the heart of the matter.” Magnus spread his hands, rings glinting in the light of the afternoon sun and gestured to Clary. “You are what we like to call a familiar.”
“She’s a familiar?” Simon asked, confusion coloring his voice. “Like she has one of those faces that everyone seems to recognize as someone they know but she’s never even seen them let alone met them?”
“No, it’s not that,” Clary interjected, “I… I know what familiars are, my cousin’s told me about them before but they’re not… well, real. My problem is just because of stress or some kind of narcolepsy. It’s not magic.” Clary shook her head, red hair falling in her face from the force of her action.
“I still don’t get it,” Simon chimed in, looking between Magnus and Clary with escalating bewilderment.
“A familiar is an animal, sometimes –and there’s a lot more to say there but we’ll keep to the basics for now– that is partnered with a warlock. It’s not because of stress, it’s in your blood and it is, in fact, magic.” Magnus looked from Simon to Clary and back with a weighted gaze, as though keeping them in their seats by mere eye contact.
“You can’t be serious,” Clary said, frowning.
“I am. You are a familiar.”
“You said familiars were animals though. Clary isn’t an animal, I’ve known her since she was a kid and she hasn’t even grown a set of antlers or anything.” Simon fought to keep his tone light, his mind alternating between believing Magnus and thinking he’d been stupid to think some business card he’d happened to find would actually produce answers to Clary’s problem.
“I said sometimes, because they are also people,” Magnus said patiently. “Since this takes some adjusting to, I’ll show you instead. Because seeing is believing after all, right?”
“Sure,” Clary and Simon agreed in unison, hesitance present in both.
Magnus got up without a word and led them toward the more secluded section of the park’s shaded walkway. In the center, sunlight fell through several layers of vines growing on all sides and dappled the path with pockmarks of shadow. Simon looked around at the woven canopy above them, a little distracted despite the weird claims Magnus was making by the cool view around them. Remembering to focus, he tried to prepare himself mentally.
“So… you’re a familiar too?” he asked Magnus, watching him for any signs of bug-eyes or fur.
“Oh, no, I’m not.” Magnus laughed and gestured to his feet. “But he is.” Alec looked up at him, the cat’s unimpressed gaze clear even to Simon. “Please, Alec.”
Simon waited but the cat didn’t move an inch from his spot on the grass and after a minute of silence, he had to wonder how far Magnus was willing to go just to pull his leg. Naming a cat after a person was a pretty interesting move, but that wasn’t enough—
The cat turned into pure shadow, a black so deep Simon wasn’t sure he was looking at anything other than an amorphous hole in space. It expanded, growing upward and outward until it took on a more humanoid shape and where one second there was a complete absence of light now stood Alec, wearing his waiter’s apron and a distinct frown.
“Why are we showing the mundane? He has no place in any of this,” were his first words.
“You… You’re a person,” Clary said, staring down at where the cat had previously been and back up at Alec.
“And she’s not much better with her astute observations.” Alec looked pointedly at Magnus, who simply smiled.
“She needs someone to help her take control of what’s happening and who better than the best? Plus now they believe me. Right?”
“I mean, unless you somehow drugged us with some kind of gas or whatever, then yeah. Seeing that is making me believe it.” Simon dragged a hand through his hair, taking a step backwards as he tried to process what had happened right in front of his eyes. But already his mind and mouth had other ideas.
“Can you do that again? Do you get hairballs? Do you like being a cat or a person more? Are cat naps as great as they seem?” he asked, his hands emphasizing each question without him even realizing it until he stopped to breathe.
“No, no, not going to answer that one, and yes. Does that buy us a few minutes of silence?” Alec said flatly, before turning back to Magnus. “This is what I mean. You, Fray, how long have you been blacking out?”
“About a month.”
Alec frowned even deeper, close to glaring at Clary although Simon had a feeling he wasn’t exactly angry with her.
“Have the blackouts been getting more frequent?”
“Yeah… now that you say it like that, they have,” Clary admitted, picking at one of the pins stuck to her messenger bag. Simon recognized it as one of her own designs, a symbol from the comic she’d been working on for a project.
“How many this week?” Alec seemed to be getting more frustrated; he’d crossed his arms across his chest, as though in disapproval.
“Maybe three times? I’ve had a lot of all-nighters so it’s hard to keep track.”
Simon noticed the pointed look Alec shot Magnus and felt a spike of worry grow in his stomach.
“I know that side-eye. It’s the same one my mom uses when I ask if I should buy more than forty-four rolls of toilet paper. That means ‘too much’, right there.” Simon gestured between Alec and Magnus, wondering what that spelled for Clary. “Is it too late for her? Is she going to have to be put into stasis like Khan?”
“Simon,” Clary interjected, pulling his attention away with a hand on his arm. “Tell your mom I love her kugel if I don’t see her again.”
Shaking his head in what seemed a combination of wry amusement and resignation, Magnus said, “There’s no need to go that far. It’s… not the best sign but you still have time before it gets worse. What will help is having some understanding of what’s happening to you and learning how to control it.” He motioned towards Alec with a wide smile. “And fortunately, you happen to have someone who can do just that.”
“Magnus, I’m not— “
“No need to be modest, Alec. You’re one of the best. I should know,” Magnus patted Alec on the chest fondly, “you’ve done me wonders since I met you. And young Clary here needs a helping hand.”
Alec’s scowl seemed to thaw under Magnus’ expectant gaze and he nodded minutely before pointing a warning finger at Clary.
“This is going to be hard. Don’t get distracted.”
“Can I see what animal you turn into?” Simon asked Clary, possibilities building up in his mind within seconds.
“That is exactly what I mean by getting distracted. We’ll start tomorrow. Pick a place.”
Clary glared at him for a moment but finally answered.
“I have a studio booked tomorrow afternoon.”
“Does the room lock?”
“Yes.”
Alec nodded again and started toward the entrance to the park without another word.
“Until then, take it slow, biscuit. There’s no use wearing yourself out in worry.” Magnus’ parting advice felt chilling to Simon as he watched the two of them leave, but he couldn’t deny the meeting had blown his mind a little. Turning back to Clary, he tried for a reassuring smile.
“Want to make some brownies and hot chocolate? I know a few classic reruns going on TV right now.”
“That sounds good, Simon. Anything to take my mind off of all this.” She nodded after a second, shaking out her hands like she could flick the worry away from herself that way.
“Are you feeling up for a full Harry Potter marathon? We haven’t done one in a while. And you’re practically an animagus!” Simon thought over his weekend, the practice he’d meant to put in for an exam on tuesday and the load of laundry lurking patiently in his hamper, but spending a dozen hours watching movies with Clary was worth it any day.
~*~
Clary fiddled with her easel. The angle of it was keeping her from starting on the draft of her still life and it was due in a few days. She’d been adjusting it for what felt like ten minutes when she finally had to give up and take a seat on one of the stools.
The room was one of her favorites, tucked into the top corner of the six story art building and lined with windows on one wall. The view of the campus spread out below was worth the hike up the stairs— while also cursing the freshman who thought loading an entire marble sculpture into the elevator had been a good idea and subsequently breaking said elevator.
She’d spent days on end here, working for hours on projects, and pulling all-nighters when they got particularly time-consuming. The evidence of her trials and errors were spread throughout the room like a calendar of her experiments. The scuff marks on the floor underneath her favorite easel, the red paint stain shaped like a pregnant Australia on the floor in the center of the room, the notch on the windowsill where she’d banged her straightedge in the middle of one long night. All of the small things that showed all the progress she’d made in this room, all the artistic endeavors and mistakes, and now she’d have to learn something else new here.
Then why was the thought of it making her hands feel like rubber and her stomach twist? Maybe it was just the fact that Alec was going to be the one teaching her; however, she suspected it was that she’d had a blackout that morning. It had only lasted for half an hour but the memory of Magnus’ concerned look had made it seem even more dire. If she didn’t learn how to control it fast enough or if they couldn’t find a solution, she didn’t want to know what would happen.
“This place is a mess.” Alec’s flat voice came from the hall as he closed the door with a sharp click. “Does it not bother you?”
“It’s a part of the process. Artists like a little chaos,” Clary said with a shrug, getting up from her stool. Alec took in the rest of the room with the same intrusive gaze before turning to look out the window. That seemed to appeal to him much more, if the way he nodded approvingly meant anything.
“Let’s get started.”
“Okay. Do I need to think of an animal first? Robin seems like a good choice. I’d love to fly...”
“No, first you need to understand what a familiar is. And does. It’s not just wishing yourself into a bird or raccoon.” Alec stood next to of the window with his arms crossed, a position Clary was starting to see as a signature of his by how often he’d done it so far.
“Oh. Alright, tell me.”
“A familiar is bonded to a warlock, like Magnus.” The way his voice softened on the name was unmistakable. “And helps with creating and casting spells. They act as a sort of battery, storing magic and providing it when it’s needed.”
“So do you have magic?”
“At the moment, some.”
“Are all warlocks and familiars… in a relationship?”
“No. Most are not.”
“Why turn into an animal? Are we some kind of werewolf?”
Alec seemed to smile at that, though Clary was entirely serious in her line of questioning.
“We’re not werewolves. We can transform at will, for one. Which is what we need to work on for you. Until you’re bonded to a warlock, your chances are better if you can control it.”
“What happens if I don’t bond to someone?”
“You risk not turning back to your human self. A familiar’s magic is in their transition, but it’s wild. Your blackouts happen because it takes over; for you to have full control you need the counterbalance a warlock provides.”
“Is it painful?”
“Not exactly painful, it’s a natural part of who you are. But it can be overwhelming.” Alec shrugged a shoulder before he strode to the center of the room. The paint stain was positioned between his boots, black bracketing the red.
“Let’s get started.”
“Already?” Clary got off her stool, almost knocking her easel over in her haste.
“You know what’s at stake. How serious this is. And I need to get back to the shop. So, we need to start.”
Clary stood across from him, trying to focus on the task at hand instead of her annoyance at Alec’s rush.
“Now do I decide on an animal?”
“What gave you the idea you get to choose? You don’t get to pick.”
“I guess that explains why you’re a tiny black cat with a big attitude, as Simon tells me.”
Alec scowled but didn’t refute her assessment, which Clary took as a small victory.
“Start by focusing. You don’t know what you are yet, so don’t get any ideas. Try and recreate how it feels before you start to black out.”
Clary closed her eyes, it would be easier to think without having to see Alec’s frown, and thought back to the beginning. It was usually a numbness that came first, it set in at her fingers and toes until her arms and legs became hard to move. Once she locked up entirely and her skin was buzzing with the need to move and simply do something other than be so still, she couldn’t remember anymore.
The tips of her fingers grew cold and she lost the feeling in her feet; it spread upward from her ankles until her knees were engulfed. With nothing keeping her legs from buckling, she fell to the ground in a painful heap as her vision went dark.
It was an odd sort of dark. It wasn’t concealing anything as the pitch-black of a room might; she was just looking at darkness with nothing around. The feeling of vastness rippled around her—
“... Fray… Hey, Fray…” Alec’s curt voice echoed in her head as she forced her eyes open, the ceiling behind Alec undulating overhead. A brief look of relief passed over his face before his stern glare was back.
“What were you doing? I said focus, not knock yourself out.”
“So that wasn’t a blackout?”
“Not even close. You fell and hit your head on the floor, you looked senseless for a while there. What were you doing?”
“I was doing what you said! ‘Recreate the feeling’, it gets cold and numb and then I can’t move, that’s how it starts.”
Alec sat back to let her sit up on her own and rubbed a hand across his face as though to clear away a headache.
“Don’t do it that way, try it again without the fainting. Simon mentioned you feel a ‘buzzing’ before it happens?”
“Yeah, it’s like I have stuff crawling around on me. Like bugs or ants or something.” She shuddered, brushing off her pants as she stood up. It reminded her of the time she and Simon had gone ‘gardening’ as five-year-olds, which really just translated to crawling around in his mother’s hyacinths and rose bushes. She’d been engrossed in picking the wilted flower petals out of a pot, up until she felt an itch building in her shoulder. She scratched it, bringing the ants swarming over her sleeves up to eye-level. In a mad rush to get out of her sweater, she’d started rolling around in the backyard with Simon yelling for his mom and finally dousing her with the hose.
“That’s what you need to aim for.”
“Great.” She planted her feet, making sure to keep out of falling range of any tables or drying racks. The last thing she needed was getting stuck in the hospital with a penchant for unwittingly turning into an animal.
Closing her eyes, she reluctantly called to mind the squirming and crawling of dozens of ants across her skin. The beginnings of fear followed as she felt the buzzing start up at the small of her back. It spread, down her legs and arms and over her face, she held her breath as it consumed her entirety.
The blackness came again. This time it was brief, fleeting and barely a flash of the deep dark before she was lying on the floor again with Alec’s boots inches from her chin.
“That was better,” Alec said, his tone almost making her doubt his words. “You shifted, partially.”
“What was I?” The thought of knowing her familiar form was enough to briefly chase away the memory of the buzzing. Her knees hurt and she pushed herself to her hands and knees slowly.
“All you had was a bushy tail and some ears. Maybe a squirrel or something, you came back pretty fast.” Alec shrugged.
“A squirrel?” Clary could think of some animals worse than that, a toad for instance, but it certainly wasn’t as impressive as a bird would have been.
“Try again.” Standing up in one motion, Alec moved back to his position above the paint stain.
Clary got to her feet with a groan, trying to ease the tension out of her shoulders if only for a few moments. She had a better idea now what she needed to do but the thought of attempting it again was already sending goosebumps up her arms.
“It gets easier.” Alec’s words were pitched low enough that she would have normally missed them. But the room was quiet, birdsong didn’t penetrate the thick windows and the classes were thankfully on the lower floors.
“When did you first transform?” Clary asked, partially to have another minute to steel herself for the next attempt and also just out of plain curiosity.
Alec stayed silent for a few seconds. Clary was beginning to think he wouldn’t bother to answer and insist they keep going instead, when he rocked back on his feet in thought.
“Middle of a grocery store the day after my birthday. My sister tells me it was one of the funniest scenes in her life, watching me try to climb the shelves and escape this kid that was chasing me. I have no memory of it, so it could also just be something she made up.” Running a hand through his hair, he sighed. “My family was prepared though.”
“You have a sister?” Clary held back her snort at the image of Alec as a cat dodging some toddler’s sticky fingers in a Walmart cereal aisle. It was better to just move on to the next topic. “Is she a familiar too?”
“Everyone in our family is. My parents’ marriage was meant for it.” He looked out the window, watching the crane for the new dining hall’s construction inch its way across the horizon with an expression of careful nonchalance. “Someone in your family was too, it follows bloodlines.”
Clary couldn’t remember any particular grandparent who had a habit of disappearing for days but that wasn’t so much because it was a well-kept secret than that she’d never met any of her family that wasn’t from her mom’s side. If her dad had been a familiar, it would be one of the only things she’d know about him.
“Wait, does she have a warlock?”
“Yes, they work at the hospital.” Alec shifted on his feet and Clary could tell he was about to steer the conversation into a ditch so that they could get back to the lesson. She blurted out another question before he could.
“Aren’t there any free warlocks? Someone who doesn’t have a familiar? I could just bond to them and be done, right?”
“Warlocks are few and far between, most covens stay with a single family of familiars so that no one is at risk of getting stuck. You’re a wild card, we’re looking for a warlock now but it’ll take some persuading,” Alec explained, picking up a small paintbrush from a shelf and twisting it between his fingers.
Clary stood in silence, trying to reign in her crushing thoughts. What if they didn’t find a warlock who’d take her? How long did she even have? And what was the use of practicing if there was little hope of finding someone to bond to her?
As if he’d heard her mental questioning, Alec continued.
“Magnus is working on it. What you need to work on is gaining some control, leave the warlock hunting to the best there is.” Alec smiled before he pointed at her in what could have passed for a threatening gesture if it hadn’t been with the tip of a paintbrush. “Try again.”
Clary took the brush from him and laid it on its drying dish, composing herself with the thought of the mundane concern over proper paintbrush care.
Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. The buzzing built up along her spine, tumbling over her shoulders and coating her in seconds. It still made her ill at ease from the memory but she knew what came afterward now. The darkness descended, engulfing her in an abyss for a brief second before she was back. Her eyes were open and staring at the floor again, Alec’s boots blocking her view of the rest of the room.
“Fray? Can you hear me?”
Clary opened her mouth to respond, stretching her jaw from an unfamiliar stiffness near her neck and tried to speak. What came out was an oddly high-pitched yelp. Another attempt, another shrill squeak and Clary’s gnashed her teeth in frustration. As she started to get up, the rest of her body came into sharp focus.
Golden-red fur all along her arms— no, they were paws now. Paws with claws sharp enough to scratch a groove into the hardwood floor when she lost her balance on her first step. A tail flicked at the edge of her vision, puffed up and streaked with the palest burnt orange. Her movements turned more sure after a few seconds, it did feel natural. Like she’d been waiting to work the cramps out of her muscles and put her new form through its paces.
Alec loomed over her even more now and his expression was openly concerned in a way she never thought she’d see it.
“Fray? Oh fuck,” he muttered, reaching to fish his cellphone out. Clary let out a short bark and knocked Alec’s hand away from his pocket with a growl. Once he’d focused on her again, she sat down neatly and tucked her tail beside her legs.
“That doesn’t look normal, so I’ll take that as a yes.” Alec smirked, crouching down beside her to get a closer look. “Magnus would make a joke about being foxy but I’m sure Lewis has the pun department well in hand.”
So she was a fox… Clary had had a good guess upon seeing how she looked but to have it confirmed was something else. She yawned wide, flashing her pointed teeth with relish. It was a good feeling, the power to run and climb and pounce. She wanted to hunt something. Chase something. Kill something. She snarled, feeling her consciousness slip out from under her.
Her mind felt fuzzy, stuffed with cotton to the ears, and she fought to remember where she was and whose hand was in view right in front of her. The hand reached out, coming too close to her head and she snapped. Teeth sank into flesh, blood coating her tongue, she wanted to stop. She could hear a voice calling two familiar syllables and she couldn’t remember. It was right there, the control she wanted was tantalizingly close but even as she tried to regain the wholeness, the completeness she’d felt before, it was already gone.
She fell into darkness again, but it was almost a relief after the muddle of sights and sounds and thoughts and the effort it took to think. There was nothing to worry about anymore, it was over now.
This time when she woke up, she was faced with the red paint stain. It didn’t look as much like a pregnant Australia anymore, it looked bigger and had stretched into an Asia. The red at the edges was a little darker and while she was considering its new shape, a few more drops of crimson were added to it. They fell from in front of her eyes, accompanied by an awakening of pain from her nose.
The blood was warm on her chin and her legs ached where she lay next to the door. Her vision blurred the first few times she blinked until finally it settled onto a crisp view of the carnage in the room.
Easels lay overturned beside an entire set of drying racks that spilled sketches and paintings across the floor. A stack of notebooks was in a ring of torn pages, the spines chewed through. Alec sat on the floor nearby, leaning against the wall with his legs splayed out in front of him and slowly wrapping a strip of gauze around his hand. The first aid kit lay open next to him, the antiseptic bottle uncapped at his knee.
Meeting her gaze, he tied off his bandage and started rummaging through the medical supplies.
“Alec, your hand…” She could still taste his blood in the back of her throat and she would have thrown up from the thought if she didn’t feel so drained. “I’m sorry.”
“Shit happens. It’s not as bad as the bite Isabelle gave me when she first turned. Might have been less blood but it meant a trip to the hospital for some antivenom.” He seemed to have found what he was looking for because he gingerly got to his feet, Clary noticed the rip in his pants leg near his ankle, and offered her an alcohol wipe.
“You’ve got some blood on you. I was going to get some water, wait here.” He didn’t stay to hear her reply, as soon as she started cleaning her face and hands, he left.
Clary pushed herself up and was disconcerted by the fact that aside from a bone-deep fatigue that left her wanting to sleep for a week, she was mostly unharmed. A few small scratches on her cheek, but even those looked more painful than they felt. She’d utterly wrecked the room however, and the thought of trying to explain the ruined projects and art pieces was more daunting than actually cleaning up. She just hoped her reserving access wouldn’t get revoked, though she supposed it was what she deserved.
Alec returned with a water bottle that he set down beside her before wordlessly starting to right the easels and tidy up the sketchbooks. Hesitant to break the awkward silence, Clary drank to keep from having to say anything.
“That was a start,” Alec said after he’d swept the stray papers into one stack. The comment seemed so woefully inadequate for the situation that Clary snorted a bit.
“I bit your hand like a freaking rabid dog. And probably ruined about a semester’s worth of work in here,” Clary muttered, shifting over to a mess of pencils and microns that littered the floor under a table.
“But you did have control for a few moments. That’s what’s important. You owe me for the hand though, Fray. That’s going to cost you.”
“Cost me what? A bowl of milk? Some catnip?” She saw him scowl at the other side of the room, but it didn’t have the usual dourness to it.
“Whatever, Fray, just keep sweeping.”
~*~
Simon stood in front of the now familiar COFFEE sign and wrung his hands. As he stepped into the hallway leading to the main area, he was hit by the deja-vu of just last week. The same hallway left with just enough shadows at the edges to feel ethereal, the decorations still swimming across the walls and the same furry ball of black sleeping on the counter.
“Alec.” Simon tapped his fingers on the wood, to which the cat opened one hazel eye with a lazy yawn. He stretched, claws poking out as he arched his back in a luxurious movement before jumping down from his spot.
The black fur had already blended in with the rather dim lighting but the pure pitch darkness that engulfed Alec seemed to repel what little light was left as it morphed and grew until it was taller than Simon and stretching towards the ceiling. If Simon hadn’t been comparing the sight to the smoky apparating in the Harry Potter movies, he might have felt worse about being in an enclosed space with something that resembled a black hole.
“Lewis, Magnus is busy.” Alec’s no-nonsense tone was the only greeting Simon got as Alec appeared before him, dressed in his waiter’s apron and black shirt again.
“You know I get why Magnus chose you as a familiar, that was pretty dramatic,” Simon started, before his thoughts were yanked back to the reason he was there. “Clary’s gone.”
“How long ago now?” Alec’s concern wasn’t betrayed by his face, he vaulted the counter in one motion as he listened to Simon.
“I saw her yesterday afternoon and then today she didn’t meet up with me for breakfast.” Simon’s reply was punctuated by frantic waving of his hands, he couldn’t seem to keep still for more than a few seconds. It might just be the five cups of coffee talking but he found himself rambling on even as Alec left.
“I looked in her favorite store downtown, it’s got these little statues in the windows that make funny faces and she likes people watching on the bench outside but they said they hadn’t seen her and the bread lady wanted to give me some cookies when I asked her, but Clary doesn’t like banana crisp ones anyway. And you guys were helping her, right? Wasn’t she getting better— ”
Alec returned with Magnus in tow, a phone held in one hand with the cord stretching back into the depths of the shop.
“Is that a landline?” Simon interrupted himself, leaning over the counter to try and see the end of it.
“Yes, but what’s this about Clary disappearing?” Magnus frowned, a tinny voice still coming from the receiver in his hand.
“She’s been gone for half a day, can you magic up a familiar GPS or something?” Simon was sure that was well within the limits of a warlock’s power, he’d believe anything at this point.
“That won’t work, she’s likely still in her familiar form at this point and there’s no way for me to find her with her magic working against her like that.” Magnus drummed his fingers on the countertop in a quick trill and seemed to decide on something. Nodding towards Alec, he held the phone up to his ear.
“Dear, I think it’s going to have to be sooner rather than later.” The line went quiet, replaced by the dial tone a few seconds later.
“You mean you can’t find her? What are we going to do?” Simon buried his hands into his hair, scratching at his scalp as he tried to think of what was left when magic failed to help.
“You do it the old-fashioned way instead,” Alec said, tugging the knot in his apron loose and pulling it off with a sigh. “Let’s go.” He set off down the hallway towards the front door and Simon walked after with a last backward glance at Magnus.
“I’ll catch up with you. I just need to close the shop,” Magnus promised, gesturing towards the tables in the back. His reassuring smile was the last thing Simon saw before they were back in the brightness of the shopping mall.
It was odd to see Alec wading through the saturday afternoon crowds, his faintly disapproving expression warning away anyone who wanted to pass in front of him. Simon was just glad it left him a wake to follow in. When they reached the parking lot out front and arrived beside a rather beat-up old Ford truck. Its blue had faded to a faint periwinkle that would have been more at home beside a field of sunflowers and a prairie farm than sandwiched between a minivan and a convertible.
“Stop staring and get in,” Alec ordered from the driver’s side, motioning impatiently. Once Simon had buckled himself in, Alec peeled out of the parking spot like he was at the Nascar starting line. After only a few minutes, Simon was bracing himself against the pockmarked dashboard as they turned corners faster than he’d have thought possible without overturning the car.
“Where are we going?” he finally asked, letting his elbows unlock as they stopped at a stoplight. “And who taught you how to drive?” He wondered if Alec even had a license because the state of his driving there was no way a DMV would’ve let him pass the test.
“To Luke’s.”
“What’s he going to do that Magnus can’t?”
“You’ll see.” Alec left it at that and pulled onto a long straight road leading out of town. To pass the time, Simon fiddled with the threads poking out of the seat and braided them together into a little tail. He’d managed to make it almost six inches long before they arrived outside of a Chinese Restaurant.
“Alec, you know I don’t think a fortune cookie is really going to be of much use here. Unless that’s the magic thing that’s going to help us find Clary?”
“No, we’re not here to eat.” Glaring at Simon as though he was personally responsible for every fortune a cookie ever contained, Alec instead nodded to the man who’d exited the shop. He wore a dark button-up shirt and a warm smile as he strode forward to shake Alec’s hand. Simon’s jaw dropped.
“I thought I heard that ridiculous gas-guzzler of yours pulling up.” Luke clapped Alec on the back and turned to Simon with a teasing glint in his eye. “I never would have thought one of my most memorable students would also be paying a visit. How’s your long-division, Simon?”
“Better, Mr. Garroway,” Simon managed to squeak out once he’d shut his mouth. “I was going to go into accounting as a major but… you know. Math.” He was entirely unprepared for this situation, meeting Mr. Garroway eight years after he accidentally set a tarantula loose in the classroom wasn’t what he’d thought of doing when he woke up that morning. Then again, neither was starting a search party for Clary but here he was. He just wanted to find her, make sure she was safe.
“You always did have a better ear for music, Simon. Don’t worry, I’m not mad you didn’t pick crunching numbers over notes. And you don’t have to call me Mr. Garroway anymore, Luke is just fine.” Luke’s deep bass chuckle was enough to immediately set Simon’s mind at ease despite his worry. “Although, where’s Clary? You two were a pair of peas in a pod, something change?”
“No, she’s gone. Alec said you could find her.”
“Did she run away?”
“Kind of. She’s a familiar.” Simon waited for some shock to set in on his teacher’s face but Luke remained perfectly composed.
“What animal is she?” he asked after a second’s thought, looking at Alec.
“She’s a fox. Is Mother here?” Alec spoke quietly and glanced behind Luke towards the restaurant’s closed blinds. It wasn’t a question Simon would have expected but he was getting to being surprised today.
“Yeah, and so is Maia. I’m sure she’ll be happy to hear you dropped by.” The amusement was as clear on Luke’s face as the resignation that was on Alec’s. “I’ll go get everyone so we can get started.”
Once Luke had left to go back inside, Simon sidled a little closer to Alec so he could ask his burning question.
“What’s he going to do? I mean, he was a pretty great math teacher but I don’t think algebra is going to be very useful for finding Clary.”
“I think you’ll see for yourself.” Alec’s smirk could have cut a stone in half with how sharp it was and Simon had a faint sense of foreboding. The sound of the bell from the shop’s door swinging open interrupted any attempts at trying to annoy more information out of Alec. The severe looking woman who followed Luke out was without a doubt Alec’s mother. Simon could see the family resemblance even without being told, her shrewd gaze pinned him against the chassis of the car as effectively as a fly against a notice board.
The other woman seemed more in line with Luke’s friendliness, her face framed by a halo of brown curls held back by a green scarf while her leather jacket was pushed up to her elbows. As soon as she got within arm’s reach of Alec, she punched him in the shoulder.
“Hey, did I tell you about the old lady who wanted two shots of tequila yet?”
“No, you haven’t.” Alec smiled, rocking to the side to absorb the blow.
“Alright, I’ll regale with my heroics after we find this foxy lady.” Meeting Simon’s excited gaze, she waved lightly. “I’m Maia. Luke said he was your sixth grade math teacher?”
That wasn’t the fact that Simon would have liked to be introduced by, but he couldn’t exactly salvage his reputation now so he nodded.
“Yup, that’s me. Spidermon… I mean, I’m Simon.” He cringed and stuck his hands in his pockets before they started making any wild gestures. “So, um, you guys are going to find Clary how, exactly?”
“Animal instincts,” Maia said cryptically and laughed. “Do you have anything of hers on you?”
“Yeah… Does a friendship bracelet count?” He plucked at the bright orange and green colored braid tied around his wrist, remembering when Clary had presented it to him in senior year of high school. It was rather tattered, they’d been trading off on wearing it for almost a year now, and its edges were starting to fray. Fray… Simon snorted, making a note to tell Clary that joke when he saw her again.
“That’ll work.” Maia came close and bent down to inspect the bracelet before glancing over at Luke. “Let’s go, Boss.”
“What do you need it for?” Simon asked when Maia started to change. It wasn’t like Alec’s transformations, where he melted into inky shadow in between. Maia’s form changed viscerally, fur sprouting along her arms and legs and back while her bones seemed to twist about beneath her skin. Her mouth contorted and she fell to all fours from the rapid shift in her joints and skeleton rearranging, Simon couldn’t look away as if in a trance. Even as she shook her coat out like a dog coming from the rain, he was still trying to form words. Pushing her wet nose up against his wrist and the bracelet, she sniffed at it a few times and bounded off. She disappeared into the gathering gloom, her dark grey fur blending in to the dusk.
“Looks like we’re off. We’ll let you know when we find her.” Luke patted Simon on the back and headed off toward the back of the restaurant with Maryse in tow. Simon hadn’t heard what, if anything, Alec and his mother had said but he was almost surprised to see Alec smile as he watched the two head off.
A pop song interrupted the cool beginnings of the night, its upbeat tune shattering the stunned silence Simon had been stuck in since watching Maia transform. Alec pulled a phone out of his pocket and answered the call.
“Magnus, is she there?”
Whatever was said, Alec didn’t relay to Simon, instead he motioned for him to get back to the truck. Opening the door while still reliving the moments of watching someone physically change into a wolf, and slowly digesting the fact that he had seen a real, live werewolf, Simon sat in the passenger’s seat as he tried to process.
Once Alec finished his conversation and climbed back in, Simon couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Who’s there? Is it Clary? Did Magnus find her?”
“No, it’s not Clary. It’s someone who will help her.”
“What’s Luke going to do?” It felt weird to be calling his teacher by that name, but it was a whole new set of circumstances now.
“He and Maia will try and pick up Clary’s trail and track her down. If anyone has a chance at finding her, it’s them.”
“Why didn’t I know my own teacher was a werewolf?” Simon asked, mostly of himself. He hadn’t noticed any suspicious absences during a full moon or weird scratches and fishy potions, like had happened in Harry Potter.
“You probably weren’t paying enough attention, probably explains your difficulties with math.” Alec steered them back onto the road towards the mall, weaving between lanes of traffic at a frightening speed.
“I was perfectly good at math! I just got distracted a lot,” retorted Simon, hands back to gripping the door handle and his seat in case he was tossed out the window when they finally stopped.
“Some things don’t change, it seems.”
~*~
They’d arrived back at the coffee-shop faster than Simon had ever driven anywhere and he clambered out of the truck as quickly as possible. There was no way he was getting in a car with Alec ever again.
The back room was void of any customers, the only occupied table was the one in the center. Opposite Magnus, resplendent as usual in a waistcoat and shawl, was a woman with her brown hair pinned back in a simple braid and dressed in a pale pink dress. They both had glasses of whiskey in front of them, the bottle having just been started. The rest of the table was laden with what looked like papers covered in sticky notes.
“Dot, meet Simon.” Magnus waved toward him with a hand as he continued to study the sheet in front of him.
“It’s a pleasure, I’m here on account of a wayward familiar.” Dot’s voice was smooth as a stream in the mountainside, Simon was immediately tempted to relax.
“So you’re a warlock?”
“Bona fide.” She tapped on the table twice, an extra chair appearing each time between her and Magnus. “Come and have a seat.”
Simon sat down, realizing that was the first piece of warlock magic he’d actually seen since coming to the coffeeshop that day.
“You’ll be Clary’s warlock?”
“Hopefully. I’ve always hoped to have a familiar to help in my line of work, but it’s never come together.” Dot leaned back in her seat until she was balancing on two of its legs as she took another sip of her whiskey.
“What do you think of Star Wars?” It was an important question, he couldn’t in good faith break it to Clary that her potential warlock had a bias against Star Trek. While Simon interviewed Dot, Alec scooted his chair closer to Magnus, kissed him in greeting and started looking over the papers in hushed whispers.
If Dot was caught off guard by the question, she didn’t show it, she seemed to weigh her answer out before replying.
“It has a good story, I quite liked the lightsabers. Jedi could always just be warlocks in space,” Dot said with a laugh in her eyes. Simon nodded, pondering the idea and finding he liked the concept.
“Where do you work?” What if Clary had to leave to live nearer to Dot? She liked the college here and Simon wasn’t sure what he’d do in her absence. After knowing Clary for the majority of his life, having her gone would be lonely.
“I work as a consultant in a way, searching for magical relics people sometimes lose track of. It’s never a pretty scene when a mundane gets their hands on a wishing lamp.”
“Those are a thing?” Simon wasn’t sure how many more impossible things he’d get to find were actually real but he was starting to feel like the advice in Alice in Wonderland was especially applicable.
“Oh yes, you wouldn’t believe how many there are. It’s a bit of a recurring problem.” Dot drank her whiskey with studied nonchalance.
“Does that mean… you’ll be leaving once Clary’s okay?”
“I think there’s some business for me in town, Magnus has some ideas about that.”
“Speaking of me, we should get started,” Magnus interrupted, gathering the papers and shuffling them into a neater stack. Some of the ones on top looked like complicated diagrams that Simon would have only thought of seeing in trigonometry class. The symbols marked around the edges were drawn in a precise spidery handwriting and filled every spare inch of space.
“Are you going to transmute something? Cause I saw in an anime that that’s not a good idea to do with a person…”
“This is for the bonding, Clary may not have much time when they find her.” Magnus handed the pile off to Alec and stood up, motioning for them all to do the same. A snap of his fingers and the glasses, tables, armchairs, everything in the room except for the pictures on the wall, disappeared. The bare room felt much bigger now without the homey furniture.
Magnus conjured a piece of chalk to his hand and began drawing on the wood floor. Shooing Dot back a step where she was still nursing her whiskey glass, he turned around and drew a circle almost two meters wide. The fact that he drew a perfect circle right off the bat had to be magic, Simon decided.
As he started to fill in the writing on the outer edge of the circle’s circumference, Simon watched from the sidelines. This was the kind of thing you only ever saw in movies, the spellwork and sigils that powered the magic.
A bundle of candles appeared before him, held by Alec from where he’d snuck over to stand beside him.
“Light those and set them in the corners and along the edges,” he ordered, passing him a lighter to go along too.
“Are they for channeling some demonic energy or something?” He couldn’t wait for the part with the blue fire and the sulfur smoke, although on second thought that wasn’t the best tone for a ceremony meant to save Clary.
“No, we just need to light since the lamps would burst. Plus, according to Magnus they smell nice.” Alec shrugged, pulling out a candle to light and sticking it in a wall sconce.
Simon lifted the bunch in his hands and sniffed. They smelled like sage, he’d read somewhere back when he and Clary played at being Ghostbusters that it was used for purifying houses, and also apple pie. It wasn’t a bad smell but it didn’t exactly add to the mystical atmosphere of the scene.
Magnus had finished his chalk drawing without a single smudge either in his work or on his clothes. The room was now lit by the candles from all sides, the slight undulating shadows it produced flickered over the symbols in a way that made them look like they were moving.
All that was left was to wait for Clary to arrive.