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Jace asked, once, how the sky could have so many different colors. They were on their way back to the Institute, after an evening patrol had turned into a hunt for Ravener demons. Above them, orange, pink, and gold, meshed together on a baby blue canvas. Like an impressionist painting.
Izzy explained that it had to do with molecules from the sun, scattering blue and red light across the sky. Then she went off on a scientific tangent about color wavelengths and the color receptors of the human eye that went over both of their heads.
This sky looks like it belongs in Edom, Alec thinks. Red and ominous. The docks are quiet. The river is a black vortex. There isn’t even the sound of seagulls.
He looks at the run-down brick building before them. Most of the windows are cracked or missing entirely, whatever glass remains layered with grime. It used to be a seafood marketplace before it shut down in the seventies. The place still reeks of fish.
Fish, and sickness. Soon, blood will join the mix.
“Sir?”
He turns.
Underhill’s face is lined in a determination that does nothing to hide the sorrow in his eyes. It’s the same expression Alec sees on all of their faces—that, and relief of not being the one who has to make the call.
He looks back at the building as a moan trickles out from the inside—the last echoes of a dying breath. It only hardens his resolve.
“Alec,” Underhill says, but he is already walking.
“Everyone, stay put.” He’s the one to pass sentence. He’ll be the one to follow it through.
The hinges groan when he pulls the door open. The saltiness of the sea washes over him, followed by the pungent smell of sickness.
He steps into the hall. A hunter on the prowl. Executioner more than man.
Rows of beady eyes greet him.
By the time he heaves himself over the railing and onto the loft’s balcony, his arms are shaking.
He slumps against the wall, gulping down air. There is a quiver in his chest—a hummingbird with broken wings trapped in his ribcage, trying to get out. Sunlight pours through the streets in a breathless wave of color, cleansing the city of the night’s shadows and poking its residents awake. Twelve people fewer than yesterday.
He clenches his hands into fists, savoring the burn.
He doesn’t turn around when the balcony doors slide open sometime later.
“Alexander…”
Four syllables, offering sympathy and absolution that Alec doesn’t deserve. Not when he can still smell the reek of salt and sick and iron.
A bejeweled hand covers his bruised one.
“The virus would have gotten them before long,” Magnus murmurs. He squeezes Alec’s trembling fingers. “You saved them from a slow, agonizing death, Alec. It was an act of kindness.”
Some of them had been children.
Alec closes his eyes.
Down below, the streets fill with sound and life.