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There’s nothing more important than the truth. Truth prevents deception. It enables connection. That’s what Alec believes. That’s why he’s dedicated his life to exposing it.
As he stands before the theater, stock still in a stream of people flooding through the gilded doors, he stares up at the flashing sign. Magnus Bane: The Truly Magical.
Alec’s lip curls in disgust. Nothing is truly magical, it’s all just illusions. It’s false. Fortunately, Alec’s never met a magician whose truth he couldn’t expose.
And he truly can’t wait to expose Magnus Bane.
He takes his seat in the theater, notebook open on his lap. He’s been doing this for years. It shouldn’t take long to figure out Magnus’s tricks.
The lights go down, the curtain swings open. A familiar hush runs over the crowd. Alec grips his pen, prepares to tear this magician apart.
And the most beautiful man he’s ever seen steps out onto the stage.
Everything about him should be ridiculous, not beautiful, even by magicians’ standards. His glittering maroon coat is too dramatic, his spiky hair and red eye makeup too ostentatious. But his movement is fluid and self-assured, and he unapologetically owns the spotlight. For a second, all of Alec’s derision melts away and he’s caught in the beam of Magnus’s presence. Something startles in his heart.
Then Magnus opens his mouth.
“What a crowd tonight!” His voice booms unnaturally loud. “I hope you’re all ready. Please remember: everything you see tonight is completely real.”
Alec narrows his eyes. However attractive Magnus may be, Alec’s still going to hold him accountable. Especially if he’s going around claiming his magic is real.
He watches as Magnus runs through several typical illusions. Pulling rabbits out of hats. Sawing a long-suffering assistant in half. Making coins and flowers and ribbons appear from thin air. Alec has to admit, he does it with skill and a lot of flourish, even if it’s still just as fake as all the others, easily debunked.
As the performance concludes, Magnus steps back to center stage. There’s something charged prickling along his edges now. It makes Alec sit up in his seat.
“I thank you all for your interest.” Magnus bows dramatically. “But now, I’ll have to leave you to your evening vices. After one last trick.” And then Magnus looks straight at Alec, and winks, and snaps his fingers.
And disappears.
Alec barely stops himself from lurching to his feet. He’s seen that trick before. He’s seen trap doors and paid doubles and mirrors and painted screens. None of that is at play here, he’s picked those tricks apart, he can tell. Magnus just— just vanished.
Oh, Alec’s definitely going to expose him now.
Once he figures out how he did it.
He leaves the theater through a side entrance to avoid the crowds, stopping when he spots a familiar silhouette leaning against the wall of the dark alleyway. He’s smoking a cigarette, and the ember at the tip flares in the night each time he takes a breath.
“You’re that journalist, aren’t you?” Magnus says, not looking at him. “Alec Lightwood. I recognized you in the front row.”
Alec steps closer so he can see him better in the shadows. To his dismay, Magnus is even more attractive up close, all broad shoulders and fluid lines. He’s slightly shorter than Alec, though he makes up for it in sheer presence. Alec almost gets caught up in him, but he shakes himself. He won’t let a pretty boy knock him off his game.
“How did you do it?” he asks. “The disappearing act.”
Magnus finally looks at him. His eye makeup is stark in the dark alley, and his smile looks bloody and dangerous. “You really think I’d tell you? You, the skeptic, the exposer? You don’t deserve to know magic.”
“Magic isn’t real,” Alec says.
“Magic is all around you,” Magnus counters. He waves a hand, and a trail of glitter follows his fingers. “You’re just too closeminded to appreciate it.”
“I’m going to figure out how you did it,” Alec vows.
Magnus blows out a curl of smoke, its dry tang wrapping around them. Then he smiles, and his eyes are brilliantly dark. “Oh, darling. I can’t wait to see you try.”
It becomes a game, of sorts, between them. Magnus performs more and more impossible tricks. He flies, he materializes animals, he makes pieces of his jewelry appear in the audience. Alec tries to break his illusions apart, spends hours after each show hunched over his notebook, writing, thinking, making diagrams, tearing out his hair.
He never does manage to figure any of them out. Magnus is just too good. Not that Alec ever tells him that.
He keeps publishing exposés on other, lesser magicians, and he keeps chasing Magnus. And he wonders why Magnus doesn’t just kick him out of his shows, or even tell him to stop. Maybe there’s something more than magic at play for him.
It’s not until Alec finds himself once again in the front row of one of Magnus’s performances, but this time leaning forward on his knees, notebook shut, enraptured despite himself, that he starts to realize there might be more to this than truth for him, too.
That night, as Magnus vanishes from the stage, he blows a kiss in Alec’s direction, and a rose appears on Alec’s lapel. He doesn’t know if Magnus is teasing him or proving a point, and he still doesn’t know how Magnus does it. But he’s starting to think he might be okay with not finding out.
He uses his press badge to get backstage after the show and finds Magnus just as he’s about to leave. “Magnus!”
Magnus turns and, of all things, smiles at him. “Ah, Alexander. My relentless pursuer. I hope tonight’s act sufficiently stymied you.”
“You always stymie me,” Alec admits. Strangely, it’s not hard to admit failure to Magnus. Magnus is so talented that even being allowed to chase him feels like a privilege. “Can I buy you a drink? Call it… concessionary. You win, I’m not going to try to expose you anymore.”
Magnus frowns, seeming disappointed. But he says, “Of course, darling. Let’s get a drink.”
It’s strange to be with Magnus outside the theater. They’ve spoken a few times between their first meeting and now, mostly threats and jibes that have gradually felt less taunting and more flirtatious. But this feels different. Magnus looks softer under the lights of the bar, his tan skin shining golden, and Alec feels softer, less driven, more content to see where the moment takes him.
“To honorable defeat,” Magnus toasts, holding up his drink. “And a formidable opponent.”
Alec clinks their glasses together. “Please. I’ve never come close to beating you. You’re too good.”
Magnus’s lips quirk up. “Flatterer. But really, I found the challenge… invigorating. No one’s pushed me like that before. I think you made me a better magician.”
From anyone else, that would have felt like an insult to Alec’s life’s work. But Magnus’s words make fragile warmth bloom in his chest.
“I’ll miss seeing you in the audience,” Magnus continues, which startles Alec out of his thoughts.
“What? No, Magnus, I’m not going anywhere.” Leave now, just when it’s becoming about more than the chase? Alec can’t bear the thought.
“Oh.” Magnus brightens. “Well, good. I need someone to impress.” He taps Alec on the chin and winks, and Alec feels another flower appear behind his ear. And he still doesn’t know how Magnus does it, but he doesn’t think he really wants to.
When Alec arrives for Magnus’s next show, looking forward to the performance for once, no ulterior motives, he stops dead outside the theater doors.
And stares up at the huge cancelled sign plastered across Magnus’s name.
Alec has never seen Magnus cancel a show. Magnus lives for his magic, for the performance and the crowd’s applause. Worry flutters in Alec’s chest, and he pushes his way through the doors and runs down the center aisle of the empty theater. He climbs onto the stage, coming to a slow stop where Magnus performs his disappearing act.
Gone is the impulse to scour the area for Magnus’s secret. Instead, Alec looks out on the rows of seats as Magnus sees them, imagines all the eyes, enraptured and critical. Eyes trying to pick him apart, and Magnus never folding.
Alec swallows hard and heads backstage.
He knows where to find Magnus. He rushes through dusty halls, past discarded magical props, and pushes through the side door. There, in the alley outside the theater where they’d first challenged each other, is Magnus. He’s sitting against the wall, head buried in his arms.
Alec pushes aside crumpled newspapers to sit beside him. “Magnus. Are you okay? Why did you cancel?”
“Why do you care?” Magnus says, voice dark. “You always wished for my demise anyway.”
“Hey, that’s not true. Not anymore.” Alec lays a hand on his knee. “What happened?”
“No one cares about magic anymore. Everyone’s such a skeptic.” When Magnus looks up at him, his eyes are bleary, makeup smudged. “Some other journalist is writing an exposé about me. He thinks he’s figured out my tricks. He’s wrong, of course. But everyone will believe him. People love to tear things apart.”
Something hard lodges in Alec’s throat. “I’m sorry.”
Magnus nods sadly. “At least I turned you to the side of the good.” He offers Alec a shaky smile. “A mighty achievement, that.”
“You’re incredible, Magnus,” Alec tells him. “You’ll be great again. You’ll come up with a trick they can’t debunk.”
Magnus leans against Alec and whispers, “Can I tell you a secret?”
And Alec feels trusted. It’s a sacred feeling. “A secret from a magician? That’s high praise. You think I’m worthy of it?”
Magnus’s smile grows stronger, warmer. “You’re the only one who’s worthy of it.”
Alec waits for a solemn revelation, but none comes. Instead, a sly look appears in Magnus’s eyes. Alec recognizes that look. It’s the same one he wears in the moment before he disappears on stage.
But Magnus doesn’t disappear. He raises a hand, fingers closed, and when he opens them, a tiny blue flame is dancing in his palm. In the darkness of the alley, it illuminates the space between them, casting planes of azure light on Magnus’s face. He looks ethereal, untouchable—yet Alec’s touching him.
“I’m not an illusionist,” Magnus says. “My magic is real.”
When Alec watched Magnus perform, when he’d put down his notebook and really watched, it had reminded him what it was like to be a child. To stare up at the stage and really believe, down to his bones, that the magic before him was real. To let it lift him.
He feels that same way now, a hundred times magnified. Magnus is revealing the greatest trick in the world, only it’s not a trick. It’s real.
“And before you say anything, remember, I always told everyone the truth,” Magnus continues nervously. “They just never believed—”
Alec leans in and kisses him.
Magnus tastes just slightly of bourbon, like he’d been drowning his sorrows before this, and he kisses him back, his lips soft and giving, before breaking their contact. “I believe you,” Alec says, before he can speak. “Magnus, I believe you.”
Magnus smiles and leans his head on Alec’s shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone,” he murmurs. “You’re the only one who gets to know.”
“I won’t,” Alec promises.
“Not even for the sake of the truth?” Magnus asks. “You always said in your articles, there’s nothing more important than the truth.”
“The truth’s right here between us.” Alec squeezes his hand. “It’s not going anywhere.”
The most heartbreaking look of gratitude blooms on Magnus’s face. Alec wants to kiss him until he takes it for granted.
“I’m grateful,” Alec says, “that you let me see it.”