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They’re late. Again.
It’s what happens when your husband is Consul to the Clave, and if this were any ole shadowhunter or downworlder shindig, Magnus wouldn’t bat a cat-eye over sauntering in fashionably late. But it’s their god-daughter’s ballet recital. And they don’t have anywhere to sit.
There’s a single retractable seat in the back row, smack between two large families. A heated whispering match of, “you take it, no you,” ends in a draw with Rafe rolling his eyes and clomping over to the vacant chair, the flash of his light-up sneakers slicing through the dark, leaving Alec and Magnus standing awkwardly in the shadows. Luckily, Madzie doesn’t mind; she happily waves to them from the wings, and skips away to take her place backstage.
Years before Magnus had become a father, he had questioned her desire to join a mundane dance troupe. “She can do anything she wants,“ he’d expressed at the dining room table in Catarina’s Hell’s Kitchen apartment. “Why not combat training or studying lore? With her power, I envision her working at the Spiral Labyrinth one day.” He’d smiled, gesturing at his long-time friend with a gentle flourish of his hand. “But here she is, spending all her time with mundanes. Dare I say she’s already taking after her mother?”
Catarina had shrugged. “We’re all half human, an easily forgettable fact in the face of Madzie’s powers, and the whirlwind that’s been her short life so far. She loves it. Besides, she’s immortal; she can study when she’s a hundred. I say, let her be a child, the way we were never allowed to.”
Magnus grimaced into his goblet of Shiraz. “And what’s more mundane these days than after-school activities?”
Catarina’s answering smile was stained blood red. “Just wait, my friend. You’ll see.”
Alexander shifts their toddler higher onto his shoulder. The tinkling atonal score has lulled Max to sleep, thumb planted firmly between his lips and glamour holding strong, not a hint of blue skin or horn to be seen. They both keep swearing they’ll break Max of the infantile habit, but the peaceful expression on his sleeping face makes them quick to concede another day. “Need to switch off?” Magnus asks.
Alec smiles softly, eyes darting to Magnus and back to the stage. “I’m good. And so is she. Look.”
Madzie is center stage, arms reaching toward the sky, spine arching and head tilted back.
The oxygen rips from Magnus’ lungs. It has nothing to do with Madzie’s warlock powers, and everything to do with the poised, graceful young lady in the spotlight, movements clear, controlled and hypotonic, weaving a spell over the watching crowd.
He’d barely given the program a profuctionary glance—something about a swan. He hadn’t realized Madzie was the swan. It seems like just yesterday she was a little girl bounding across his loft, leaping into his arms, and now she sashays en pointe through a group of ballerinas decked out in white, her own black-feathered tutu and bodice gleaming with sequins.
Magnus has traveled the world over, lived in exotic places, loved exciting people, and now he’s lurking in the back of an overheated school auditorium that smells faintly of mold, with it’s faded, dusty curtains and dated decor, his overworked husband by his side. They drove here in a mini-van filled with Rafe’s smelly baseball equipment and french fries mashed into the upholstery.
There are warlocks who’d take one look at his life right now, at his future filled with more of the same, and petrify on the spot. As his god-daughter prances and twirls, an involuntary laugh hiccups out of his chest.
“Magnus are you…” Eyes wide as dinner plates, Alec shuffles Max to his other arm, reaches over with his now-free hand, swiping a thumb across Magnus’ cheek. It comes away wet. “What’s wrong?”
Rafe’s black hair is illuminated in red and orange where he’s slumped in his seat. Max cracks open one bleary blue eye, then drifts off again. Madzie pirouettes under the warm wash of light. Catarina is somewhere in the crowd, probably thinking I told you so.
Their life together, their family, isn't as synchronized and beautiful as the dancers on stage, but it’s art nonetheless.
Magnus rests his head on Alec’s shoulder, flattening his sculpted hair. “Nothing at all. I was just thinking everything is pretty perfect.”