Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In a world torn by ever-widening Rifts that bleed pureblood demons into reality, warlocks—wielders of ancient magic—are humanity’s only defense. But sealing a Rift demands immense magical focus, leaving warlocks vulnerable during the ritual. That’s where the Shadowhunters come in.

Once angel-blessed warriors and protectors of balance, Shadowhunters have been reduced to lower-class bred Guardians—separated from their families at the age of two, engineered, marked, and conditioned from childhood to shield warlocks with their bodies. Obedience is law. Attachment is forbidden. Survival is optional.

The strongest become Guardians, bonded to warlocks for Rift-sealing missions. The rest are sent to the front lines—foot soldiers to die in droves. Either way, their value lies in sacrifice.

No names. No attachments. Rotational assignments. Clean.

Efficient.

They are expected to die without hesitation. The Clave, now a bureaucratic government that serves the magical elite, sees them as necessary tools and nothing more.

In a world like this, love was a liability. Memory, even worse.

It started the way all disappointments did—with a knock on his loft door.

Magnus didn’t bother looking up from the cocktail glass he was levitating mid-air. The wards had already informed him of the visitor’s species, intention, heart rate. Angel-blooded. Calm. Predictable.

Another soldier, then.

“Come in,” he called, voice flat.

The wards peeled back with a shimmer, obedient to his will.

Boots clicked on the floor with military precision. He hated that sound. It always meant a Shadowhunter had arrived—one more perfectly sculpted, rune-burned marionette sent by the Clave to replace the last one. Magnus didn’t bother committing their names to memory anymore.

They never stayed long. The good ones died. The forgettable ones were reassigned. The insufferable ones tried to pretend they were equals until they realized Downworlders didn’t owe them the time of day.

He finally turned.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in black gear like every other obedient toy from the Nephilim kennels. Pale skin. Raven hair. Hazel eyes like an old bruise. There was something about the stillness in his face that rankled—a poise that wasn’t fear, but wasn’t quite arrogance either. A deflect rune, stark and unforgiving, on the side of his neck,  curved beneath his jaw—black as spilled ink against his skin. Not decorative. Not ceremonial. Functional. Brutal.

“I see the Clave’s back to sending statues,” Magnus said, swirling the drink with a flick of his finger. “Let me guess—you don’t speak unless spoken to. You’ll throw yourself in front of any threat. You won’t blink when asked to die. And you’ll be gone in a week.”

The man didn’t respond.

Of course he didn’t.

Magnus let out a quiet sigh, leaning back against the velvet cushions. “At least they sent a pretty one this time,” he muttered, gaze flicking over the Shadowhunter with a vague note of disdainful amusement.

There—a twitch. Barely a breath of movement. But the Shadowhunter flinched. Magnus almost missed it.

Interesting.

Magnus rolled his eyes and sipped his drink. “Honestly, you’d think they’d send someone interesting for once.”

Still, no reaction. Just that silent, upright posture. No fidgeting. No tell.

Annoying.

“Do you even have a name?” Magnus asked dryly, already bracing himself for silence.

As expected, the man said nothing—just extended a sealed scroll. Clave orders, no doubt. Magnus snatched it out of his hand with a flick of magic, breaking the seal mid-air.

“Temporary assignment. Blah blah. Elevated threat. Protect the High Warlock. Risk of pureblood resurgence.” He dropped the scroll to the floor without reading further. “Touching, really. Like handing an umbrella to a tsunami.”

The man’s mouth twitched, just slightly. Not a smile. Not quite.

Magnus narrowed his eyes. “You think this is funny?”

“No, sir,” came the calm reply.

“Of course not. You’re trained not to think.” He stepped forward, closing the distance between them. “Let me make something clear. You may be here under Clave contract, but this is my home, and my city. You don’t breathe without my permission. You’re not my equal. You’re not my colleague. You are a shield. You are a tool. If you get broken, the Clave will just send another.”

Still—silence. But Magnus noticed the faintest flicker in the man’s expression. Not offense. Not fear.

Pain.

Fleeting. Controlled. Almost invisible.

Which was irritating, because Magnus didn’t care. He couldn’t care. Not for a Shadowhunter. Not for someone born and bred to stand between him and a blade without asking why.

“Do we understand each other?” he said.

“Yes, High Warlock.”

“Good.” Magnus turned away, lifting his glass again. “Guest room’s to the left. Don’t touch anything. If I catch you snooping, I’ll hex you so hard your ancestors feel it.”

The man bowed his head slightly. “Understood.”

He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t ask questions. Just turned and left the room with smooth, practiced steps—like he’d memorized the floor plan before arrival. Like he’d already learned where Magnus liked to keep his silence.

Magnus waited until the door clicked shut before he let his magic crackle, sharp and bitter in his fingers.

Another body to guard him.

Another shadow to stand in front of death.

And when he died—because they always did—Magnus would forget him just as easily as all the others.

He always did.

Chapter Text

The Rift opened just outside the old subway line in Chinatown.

It wasn’t large—barely the size of a doorframe—but it bled a dark shimmer into the air, like light bending around a scream. Magnus could feel the distortion of reality pulsing through his wards before he even arrived, clawing at the edge of his power.

He stepped out of the portal with practiced ease, boots crunching on broken tile, coat flaring behind him. The Guardian landed beside him a beat later, blade already drawn.

Efficient.

Silent.

Exactly as expected.

Magnus didn’t spare him a glance. He raised a hand, feeling for the fault line in the air.

There. The Rift shimmered, invisible to mundanes but very real to the bones of the world. Magic roiled against it like pressure behind a dam.

“I need ninety seconds,” Magnus said. “Do not let anything touch me.”

The Guardian nodded once and stepped forward without hesitation—placing himself between Magnus and the Rift. Between Magnus and whatever might crawl out.

The way they always did.

Magnus knelt and began to draw the sigils into the earth with glowing fingertips. He let the magic hum beneath his skin, stretch to the edges of the breach, begin stitching the wound closed.

He didn’t notice the first demon until the Guardian's blade caught fire.

A shadow lunged from the dark—tall, sinewy, barbed in all the wrong places—and Magnus looked up just in time to see the Guardian intercept the blow mid-air, blade burying itself into the demon’s chest with brutal precision.

No sound. No wasted motion.

It died before it screamed.

Magnus blinked, startled.

There was a fluidity to the way this Guardian moved—a grace not taught in training halls. The others had been good. This one was…

Better.

And something about that made his skin crawl.

He kept sealing. Sigils burned brighter, the Rift protesting like a beast in chains.

More demons poured through—twisted forms made of bone and rot—but each one fell before it could reach him. Magnus should’ve been impressed. Should’ve felt pleased.

But all he could feel was… unease.

There was no fear in the Guardian’s movements. No hesitation. He fought like he knew Magnus. Not just a warlock—this warlock. Every step was protective. Every motion precise. Not instinct. Not training.

Familiarity.

Magnus’s pulse ticked higher.

"Almost done," he muttered aloud, more to himself.

The Guardian didn’t reply.

Of course not.

They weren’t supposed to.

Magnus pushed harder, drawing the final sigil in a sharp, blazing stroke—and the Rift shrieked.

Reality shivered. A ripple of darkness exploded outward—and then snapped shut.

Silence.

The air fell still.

Magnus stood slowly, breathing hard.

With a flick of his wrist, he summoned a burst of flame—sending a fire message skyward.

Rift sealed. Guardian status: intact.

By the time the flames vanished, his Guardian was already wiping demon blood from his blade.

"You're fast," Magnus said, voice edged with something unreadable.

No reply. Just a subtle incline of the head.

Magnus narrowed his eyes, suddenly irritated. “Most of you hesitate at least once. You didn’t.”

Still, the Guardian said nothing.

Magnus turned away before the feeling in his chest could grow legs. He hated this part. The moments after. When the Rift was gone and there was nothing left to fight but the questions.

And this one—this Guardian—raised too many.

“I don’t need you tomorrow,” Magnus said as he opened a portal with a flick of his hand. “Try not to die before your replacement shows up.”

He didn’t look back to see the Guardian follow.

But he knew he would.

He didn’t need to follow.

And yet, hours later—hooded by glamour, his magic cloaked low and silent—Magnus stood at the edge of the old Guardian cemetery. No one came here anymore. Most didn’t even know it existed.

The Guardian moved like he always did—quiet, exact, a living extension of discipline.

Magnus meant to turn away.

He didn’t.

The man knelt in the dry, crumbling grass—dust coating his knees, grave markers tilting like forgotten names trying to rise. There were no flowers here. Only scorched stones and sun-bleached bone markers, carved with runes too faded to read.

Most Guardians didn’t get graves—just names etched in stone if they were lucky. If there was something left to bury. More often, they were burned. Ashes scattered. Forgotten.

And still, the Guardian bowed his head.

No blade drawn. No fidgeting. Just stillness. Reverence.

Magnus inched closer, barely breathing beneath the illusion that made him invisible.

Then he heard it.

Not a command. Not rote memorization. But a prayer. Soft, rhythmic, not quite like any religion Magnus knew—but laced with the shape of faith all the same. Not to the Angel. Not to Heaven. To something older. Or maybe… simply to hope.

“To the forgotten, may you be named.

To the burned, may you be mourned.

To those broken before the sky,

Let your names be carved in light.

And to those still bound to serve—

Let us live long enough to choose.”

Magnus froze.

His heartbeat stuttered.

He’d seen Guardians kneel to orders. He’d seen them die with silence in their mouths. But this? This was something else. Something raw. Beautiful, in the way grief could be when no one else was looking.

Magnus didn’t understand it.

Didn’t want to.

He turned to leave, heart clenched around something shapeless, brittle.

But just before he vanished through the shadow of his portal, he made the mistake of glancing back.

The Guardian was still kneeling.

Still still.

Too still.

But—

His head lifted, slightly. Not enough to give away expression. But just enough.

As if he'd known.

As if he’d let Magnus watch.

Magnus’s throat went dry.

He vanished before he could ask himself what that meant—or why it made him feel like he was the one who’d been seen.

The rift opened wider this time.

Not just a scar in reality—but a wound. A bleeding, groaning rupture in the center of the city, where ley lines ran too hot and history ran too deep.

Magnus stood in the middle of shattered concrete, arms outstretched, palms glowing like twin suns. The magic in his veins trembled with the strain.

This Rift fought him.

Roared.

Every line he drew into the circle sparked with backlash.

He gritted his teeth, forcing the incantation through. There was no time to dwell. No room for distractions. And yet—

That image from yesterday still clung to the edges of his thoughts like ash that wouldn’t shake free:

The Guardian, alone in the ruins, kneeling before crumbled stones. Hands clasped. Head bowed. A prayer spoken not for himself, but for the dead. For others like him.

Magnus hadn’t meant to see it. Hadn’t meant to stay.

But he had.

And he hated the way it unsettled him. Guardians weren’t supposed to feel. They were trained not to. Bred not to.

He’d told himself it didn’t matter. Told himself he didn’t care.

Today, the Rift mattered. That was all.

And behind him, the war raged.

Across the city, smaller Rifts had erupted—each one with its own assigned warlock and Guardian. But this one—the largest, the most unstable—was his. It was always his.

Demons—more than a dozen—sprinted through the half-formed seal, fangs bared, clawed limbs dragging curses into the earth. The line of Shadowhunters on the ground faltered, regrouped. There weren’t enough of them.

Another shriek cracked the air.

One demon broke through the defense wall, rushing straight toward Magnus.

And then it wasn’t.

Steel flashed.

Black ichor sprayed.

The Guardian was there—always there—intercepting without hesitation, blade piercing through bone. His face was slick with blood, but he didn’t stop moving. Not even when a Pureblood launched itself toward him, teeth jagged like broken glass.

Something was off.

Too many demons. Too fast. Magnus’s magic surged, but the air itself recoiled, bent wrong—as if something was missing, like a tether pulled taut had just snapped loose.

He didn’t have time to name it.

Because the Pureblood lunged again, faster this time—straight for the Guardian’s exposed side.

“Alec!” Magnus shouted before he could stop himself.

The name snapped like a whip through the air.

The man—his Guardian—froze.

Just for a breath.

But it was enough.

Without turning—he pivoted and drove his blade backward, deep into the Pureblood’s throat. It shrieked and dissolved mid-lunge, collapsing in smoke and bone.

Silence crashed in the wake of it.

The Guardian turned then. Blood-smeared, panting, eyes widened—locked on Magnus like he’d never seen him before.

And Magnus knew.

The name had been on the scroll. But Magnus hadn’t bothered to read past the assignment code.

Hadn’t cared.

And yet… he’d said it.

Instinctively.

As if he’d always known.

And the Guardian’s face—Alec’s face—confirmed it.

He didn’t say anything.

Didn’t have to.

In that instant, another demon barreled from the side—fast, spined, reeking of rot—and Magnus was too slow to counter.

But Alec wasn’t. His runes burned.

He lunged—into the path of the strike.

The claws hit him full force, tearing through his ribs.

Magnus watched it land. Felt it like fire in his own gut.

Alec staggered, twisted his blade around in one final arc—and decapitated the demon on impact.

He fell to his knees.

Magnus was already at his side.

“Don’t move—don’t—” His voice cracked as he caught him, pressing glowing hands over the wound. Alec shoved at his chest with trembling fingers, jaw clenched.

Magnus searched his face, heart pounding. “Alec… that's your name?”

No answer. Just the faintest flinch—like the sound of it hurt.

Then Alec pushed him again, harder.

“The Rift,” he rasped.

“It can wait—”

“No.” Alec’s eyes were clouding over. His breath came ragged. “You’re depleted. You need more. Take it.”

Magnus hesitated.

He shouldn’t. Guardians were made for this. Tools. Fuel.

But this time—he did hesitate.

Alec’s voice was rough, breath hitching. “Just do it. Or people will die and I wouldn't be able to protect you.”

Magnus didn’t move.

Not yet.

The seal was half-formed. The magic bleeding at the edges of the summoning circle screamed for completion. But he hesitated—staring at Alec crumpled at his feet, blood soaking his shirt, gasping like every breath was a battlefield.

He was a Guardian. He knew what he was for.

And yet—Magnus couldn’t do it. Not after that prayer he heard from Alec's lips. Not after he said his name. Not when something in his chest was screaming not to use him.

He couldn’t reach out.

But Alec did.

With a trembling hand, he grabbed Magnus’s hand—fingers tight despite how close he was to collapse. "Please– I'm sorry— " 

And that was when it happened.

The surge.

It hit Magnus like a lightning strike to the spine. A flood of raw, unguarded power—unlocked, unshielded, offered. No resistance. No barrier. No draining spell needed.

It just flowed.

And it wasn’t like any other Guardian sync he’d ever felt. There was no subjugation in it. No subtext of obedience. Just pure, blistering energy laced with something dangerous—something deeply willing and familiar.

Magnus gasped, knees buckling slightly from the force of it.

He didn’t have to pull.

The power met him halfway.

And it was his.

The circle flared bright.

The Rift screamed.

And the world split open in light as Magnus sealed it—completely, flawlessly.

The moment it was done, the energy severed.

Magnus collapsed to his knees beside Alec, breath torn from his lungs.

Alec had let go.

His hand had fallen limp.

His chest didn’t rise.

“No—” Magnus caught him, panic rising hard and fast. “Alec—”

And then it hit him.

A sound. A voice. His own, tearing through memory like lightning through fog.

Stay with me. Please, stay with me.

A rush of déjà vu crashed into him, fierce and unrelenting.

There had been a Rift—

Vast. Wrong.

The air had trembled with it, humming with something ancient and cruel. Its color burned behind his eyes, impossible to name.

Alec's eyes—glassy, unfocused, not seeing Magnus anymore.

The blood.

The silence.

His name on Magnus’s lips, broken by grief.

Had this happened before?

Was this why it hurt so much?

The words clawed through his chest now as if they’d never left.

“Stay with me—” Magnus choked again, pressing harder. “Please.”

Magnus leaned over him, mouth close to the gash, to the heartbeat that wasn’t there, magic roaring now—wild, desperate, breaking all rules of measured healing—as he poured every flicker of power he had left into him.

One last pulse of magic, raw and unraveled, rushing from his palms to the body beneath them.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Come on—”

He shut his eyes, teeth clenched, magic crackling under his skin.

Then—

A sharp gasp tore through the silence.

Alec arched beneath him, lungs pulling air like drowning, like coming back from somewhere dark and too far gone.

Magnus froze.

Watched as Alec coughed violently, eyes fluttering open in a haze of pain, blood in his teeth.

Alive.

Just barely—but alive.

His body trembled. Shallow, uneven breaths fought through damaged ribs, and he didn’t speak. Didn’t seem fully aware.

Magnus sat back on his heels, chest still tight, magic flickering unsteadily between his fingertips.

He should leave him here.

That was the protocol. He already broke it by reviving his Guardian– no Alec.

A fallen guardian—even one who had saved his life—was to be reported immediately. The Clave would send a retrieval unit. Collect the body. Assess for enthrallment, possession, degradation. If he was still alive, they’d heal him just enough to serve again—under someone else.

If not, they’d issue a replacement by nightfall.

And Magnus had never questioned it.

Until now.

He hovered, caught in a strange in-between. Magic still clung to his skin—unused now, uncertain.

Alec.

It had fallen from his mouth like instinct.

But it wasn’t instinct.

It was his name.

Magnus hadn’t read the full assignment scroll when this one arrived. He never did. Didn’t care for their names, their files, their ranks. Just another guardian. Another blade with a pulse. A barrier in a pretty package.

But now...

Now something pulled tight and sharp behind his ribs.

A heaviness. A memory that wasn’t a memory. A gravity he couldn’t explain.

He should call it in.

Let the Clave take him and pretend none of this ever mattered.

But he couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

In one breathless, fluid motion, Magnus knelt beside him, slid his arms beneath Alec’s weight, and lifted him gently from the ground.

Alec didn’t stir.

His head tipped against Magnus’s shoulder, skin ice-cold.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” Magnus muttered, voice hoarse. “I don’t even know you.”

But still—

His portal ignited without hesitation.

And he took Alec home.

Chapter Text

Back at the loft, Magnus laid Alec gently on the nearest couch—one of the few untouched pieces of furniture, spared from spellwork and time.

He knelt beside him and began the healing spell.

Venom. Broken ribs. Energy depletion. But that wasn’t all.

There were other injuries—older ones. Faint stress fractures, bruising beneath the skin, torn muscle fibers never fully mended. As if healing had been started, then halted. Or worse, ignored.

Magnus’s breath caught. He should’ve noticed. He should’ve cared. But of course. That’s what a Guardian’s body was made for, wasn’t it? To absorb damage. To endure. To be used until it couldn’t stand anymore.

His jaw clenched. Magic surged from his palms in steady pulses. He worked through each layer like muscle memory, stripping poison from Alec’s blood, knitting bone, easing the weight of depletion. Alec’s body flinched under every pain-clearing enchantment—but he didn’t wake.

Sweat beaded Magnus’s brow.

He pressed on.

But when he reached Alec’s shoulder—just beneath the collarbone—he froze. There, burned into the skin like a brand, was a faint scar. Circular. Angular. Etched by a stele and time.

A rune.

Not just any rune.

Silence.

Magnus drew in a breath.

No magic touched it. No healing mended it. His spells slid over the mark like water over stone.

His fingers hovered above it, trembling. This wasn’t just a wound.

It was a sentence.

A curse carved in silence.

Magnus knew the type—runes that only fade after the damage has run its course. After the burning stops. After the flesh decides it’s endured enough.

And only the angels—or gods—knew how long Alec had been enduring.

Only when the bleeding had stopped and Alec’s breath evened into something shallow—but no longer fading—did Magnus sit back, chest heaving, hands stained red and pulsing with spent magic.

He stared.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d drained this much magic for a Guardian.

Or if he’d ever called it wasted before now.

And for the first time since the seal, he let himself feel the question fully:

Why did I say his name?

He didn’t remember being told it.

Didn’t remember reading it—he hadn’t even looked at the assignment scroll properly.

Hadn’t cared enough to ask.

But still, it had come out of him—effortless, unthinking. Not a guess. Instinct.

Alec.

He whispered it again under his breath, as if testing how it sounded on his tongue.

As if it had always been there.

Alec. As in… Alexander?

The name echoed differently now. Longer. Sharper. Like a thread pulling at something buried under too many layers.

Something about it clicked—not as memory, not yet—but like a key turning slightly in a lock.

He frowned, the edges of his mind prickling.

The scroll.

He remembered cracking the seal the day the guardian arrived, but he hadn’t read it. Just skimmed the compatibility rating and tossed it aside right to his face. Another assignment. Another nameless soldier in elegant armor.

But…

Had he glimpsed the name after all? Somewhere in the blur, had he seen it? Is that why it slipped out of him now, dressed in something more familiar?

He stood, crossed the room with sudden urgency.

The scroll still lay on the side table where he’d discarded it days ago—creased, barely disturbed.

Magnus picked it up with careful hands, slower this time.

The wax broke clean under his fingers.

He unfolded it and scanned the parchment.

Guardian Assignment Log

Designation:
A-197

Compatibility Index:
High

Status:
Firstborn Class – Prime-Grade Reservoir

Age:
20

Rank:
Senior Guardian (Tier II)

Total Rift Deployments:
34 classified incursions | 1 Black-4 catastrophic breach (Sector Nine)

Institution of Origin:

New York Institute – Firstborn Combat Division

Initial Placement:

Assigned as field fighter; reassigned to Guardian class following accelerated ability surge and sync capability—promotion issued within two weeks.

Previous Assignment Records:

• Tier-high sync stability across multiple High Warlocks.
• Frequently deployed under emergency protocols due to reservoir durability and rapid recharge cycles.
• Reassigned under Clave’s rotational guardian directive

Profile Notes:

• High survival index despite repeated Rift destabilization exposure.
• Exhibits advanced shielding reflexes and extreme threshold tolerance.
• Reconditioning log incomplete.

Assigned Warlock (Current Rotation):
Magnus Bane, High Warlock, Sector Nine

Name:
Alexander

 

Magnus froze.

The scroll slipped slightly in his grip.

Magnus stared at the name, breath caught somewhere in his throat.

Not just A-197. Not just “Guardian.” But a name.

Alexander.

Not common among Guardians. They rarely had full names—most only carried a designation or a single syllable. Magnus had read enough reports to know: names gave shape. Names gave identity. Attachment. Danger.

He whispered it aloud, the syllables rolling off his tongue with unearned familiarity.

And something in him pulled.

Not just at the sound of it—but at how right it felt. Like a puzzle piece snapping into place. Like a word he’d known his entire life and somehow forgotten.

And the fact that he had said it before seeing this scroll made his hands tremble.

Made his chest ache.

Because this wasn’t a random Guardian.

This wasn’t just another tool in the cycle.

Some part of Magnus—something buried, deep—already knew.

Behind him, on the couch, Alec stirred—but didn’t wake.

Magnus’s hand curled tighter around the parchment.

He had questions.

And this time, he wasn’t going to ignore them.

He called Catarina the moment his hands stopped glowing.

The line buzzed once before her voice came through, clipped and cautious.

“Tell me you didn’t bring him back to your loft.”

Magnus exhaled slowly, eyes flicking to the unconscious guardian on his couch.

“I didn’t mean to,” he muttered. “It just… happened.”

“That's not how it works, Magnus.”

“I know,” he said. Then added, quieter, “But something’s not right.”

“You mean other than breaking Clave protocol by shielding a downed guardian from retrieval?”

Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I said his name.”

Silence.

“I knew his name. I never read the assignment scroll, but I—Catarina, I said it before he told me. Before anyone did.”

More silence.

Too long.

“Cat,” he said softly, “do you know something?"

“I know that you’ve never asked a guardian’s name before this.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“And you know I don’t lie. But sometimes,” she said, voice dipping low, “I’m told not to tell the truth.”

The line cut before he could say another word.

A groan broke through the quiet.

Magnus turned.

Alec stirred on the couch, muscles tensing beneath the half-healed wound. His eyes opened quickly—too quickly—and his hand flew to the knife still strapped under his ruined belt. Instinct. Fear. Training.

Then his eyes widened. “What happened—”

“You’re safe,” Magnus said quickly, moving toward him. “Easy.”

Alec tried to sit up too fast, gritting his teeth as pain lanced through his ribs.

“Why didn’t they take me to the infirmary?” he demanded, breath tight.

“I didn’t report you,” Magnus admitted. “I brought you here.”

“You what—?”

Magnus held up both hands. “I didn’t know why. I just— You were dead, and I—” He broke off, searching Alec’s face. “I said your name.”

That stopped him cold.

Alec’s breath caught.

Magnus watched him closely. “Alexander. That’s your name, isn’t it?”

Alec didn’t speak.

So Magnus pressed, voice softer now. “Why– how did I know that?”

A beat.

Then Alec forced a weak shrug. “Maybe… maybe you’ve heard my name before. With another warlock. Some other assignment. We’re rotated around all the time.”

It was a practiced answer.

Too practiced.

Magnus narrowed his eyes. “That’s not it.”

Alec looked at him then, really looked, and Magnus saw something crack behind his eyes. Guilt. Grief. Something that hadn’t been allowed to surface.

But before he could speak, the wards chimed—soft, urgent.

Magnus’s stomach dropped.

Shit.

He’d forgotten to lock them.

Forgotten to block Clave entry like he usually did—because he always did. He never had anything to hide.

Not until now.

The portal flared open with a rush of static light.

Three Clave retrieval agents stepped through, uniforms as crisp and impersonal as ever.

The lead agent scanned the room, then landed on Alec. “Tracker confirmed Rift 496 was sealed. Report was never submitted.”

His gaze cut to Magnus.

“You were the warlock on scene. Why wasn’t the guardian reported or transferred to the Institute for evaluation?”

Magnus stood slowly. “Because he was dead.” The room went still.

Alec, barely upright, shifted like he might speak—but the officer’s jaw had already tightened. “Dead?”

Magnus nodded once, clipped. “Clinically. Heart stopped. You want the scan readouts? He was barely breathing when I brought him through the portal.”

A strange beat followed. One of the agents glanced at the others, then to Alec. Magnus caught the flicker of it. That brief, pointed look. Like something had been confirmed.

And Alec… Alec dropped his gaze. Not defiant. Not surprised. Just—quiet. Familiar with it.

Magnus stared, something in him coiling tighter. But the officer only cleared his throat sharply.

“Regardless of incident severity, retrieval protocol was breached. You aware that you don’t have jurisdiction over guardian rotation. Your duty is to seal the Rift. Not to keep its shield.”

“You’d have me throw a barely conscious body into your portal? I’m not finished stabilizing him.”

“That’s not your role,” the second agent cut in. “You were not assigned to assess or recover. You were assigned to seal.”

Alec shifted on the couch, breath catching as he tried to straighten.

The second agent stepped forward. “Guardian A-197, you’re in violation of procedure. You were expected to signal your survival post-seal.”

“I…” Alec faltered, face pale.

“And you did not initiate the fallback procedure. Why?”

“He just woke up,” Magnus cut in sharply.

The first agent’s tone hardened. “Unacceptable. Guardians are compromised all the time. Your duty is to the Rift. Not the warlock.”

Alec flinched.

“Which part of ‘he just woke up’ did you not understand?” Magnus snapped, magic sparking at his fingertips. “He could barely lift a finger!”

“Our screening will confirm his condition,” the agent said coolly.

Magnus took a step forward. “Oh, will it? Like the last time? When you marked him fit for deployment with incomplete reconditioning logs and threw him into thirty-four Rift incursions anyway?”

The agent's gaze didn’t flinch. “You speak as though you weren’t part of the same system.”

That stopped Magnus cold.

The agent tilted his head. “You treated Guardians like walking batteries— fuels and blade shields. What changed, High Warlock? Because one of them has a name?”

The words hit like a slap.

Magnus opened his mouth to answer—he wanted to answer—but a soft voice cut through the tension first.

“Enough.”

Alec, still pale and half-drained, had barely managed to sit upright on the couch. But his spine was straight now, jaw clenched in that too-familiar expression—submission. Readiness. Resignation.

Magnus stepped between them, hand still glowing faintly from the spell. “He’s not going with you.”

A beat.

The lead agent didn’t move. But behind Magnus, Alec shifted—uncomfortably.

Not from pain.

But from something else. The weight of being defended. The way eyes lingered on him now. The way Magnus stood between him and the world.

Then, soft behind him—unthinking, unguarded:

“Magnus…”

He turned. Not sharply. Not fast. But he turned.

Their eyes met.

And in that split second, Alec stilled—realizing the slip. The name. His voice.

Magnus felt it echo somewhere deep, like it belonged there. Like it always had. It didn’t feel like the first time Alec had said his name. And it didn’t feel wrong.

But he couldn’t let it linger. Not now. Not like this.

“You’re not stable,” Magnus said, voice tight. “You need rest—actual rest. They’ll toss you into another Rift before your ribs finish mending.”

Alec's jaw clenched. “It’s not your choice.”

“Then I’m making it mine.”

Alec looked at him—truly looked. And something passed behind his eyes. Grief in its quietest form.

He stood. Not all the way steady. But with a kind of practiced grace Magnus recognized: the kind carved out of necessity.

“I need to go,” Alec said.

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

Magnus took a step forward. “Why are you doing this? You were dying in my arms two hours ago.”

“Because this is how it works. And you should leave me there.”

Alec’s voice cracked on that last word, but he didn’t let it stop him.

Magnus shook his head. “You don’t know if they’ll even let you back out. They’ll test you for—”

“Let them,” Alec interrupted, not unkindly. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Magnus was quiet for a moment.

Then, softly—like something sacred and broken—he repeated the words Alec had offered to empty air and unmarked graves:

“And to those still bound to serve—
Let us live long enough to choose.”

Alec’s breath hitched. His eyes shut, not in peace—but like he was bracing for impact. As if the words remembered him.

When he opened them again, the shift was instant. Composed. Masked. Too clean to be real.

With a trembling hand, he reached for the sheathed dagger at his belt and held it out.

Magnus hesitated, then took it.

The hilt was carved with his name. Alec.

A gift. A token. A thank you.

But as his fingers closed around the familiar weight, Magnus felt something deeper echo through the gesture—like Alec had meant to say something more. Something he couldn’t.

The blade trembled faintly between them.

“High Warlock,” Alec said—too formal, too rehearsed. “Thank you for saving me. It’s an honor to serve.”

Something tore in Magnus’s chest.

Not because of the words.

But because they didn’t sound right.

Not anymore.

Magnus stared at him.

And slowly, it sank in.

This was it.

There were no returns. No reunions. The system never paired a warlock with the same fallen guardian twice. He’d seen a hundred faces. Lost fifty more. But this one—this one whose name had bled through whatever spellbound wall the Clave had buried in his mind—this was the one he would lose without ever knowing why he couldn’t let go.

“I’m not supposed to care about you,” Magnus murmured, almost to himself.

Alec froze for half a breath.

But he didn’t look back.

He just stepped forward—bloody and half-healed and still too pale—and let them wrap the recall band around his wrist.

And stepped into the portal.

Magnus stood alone.

The dagger in his hand.

Scroll still on the table.

And a name—Alexander—echoing in his mind like a memory not yet reborn.

Chapter Text

He couldn’t sleep.

Not since the guardian left.

No—since Alexander left.

Magnus hadn’t said the name aloud again. Not even to himself. But it clung to him anyway. Like an aftertaste. Like ash in his throat. Like a song he used to hum and no longer knew why.

Something had been taken from him.

He was certain of that now.

The dagger Alec had given him still sat by his bedside, its weight impossibly heavy for something so small. Magnus had turned it over again and again, fingers brushing the carved name on the hilt—Alec.

It felt like a message.

And at the same time, a goodbye.

Silent. Final.

And he remembered the déjà vu.

The moment Alec had stopped breathing, the words had risen unbidden in his mind— his own voices: Stay with me. Please, stay with me.

They didn’t feel new. They felt remembered. Too easy. Too familiar.

The flashes. The Rift.

Now he recognized it. That Rift—the one he’d failed to seal—nearly a year ago.

A Rift breach classified as a Tier Black-4: High casualty zone, pureblood demons emerged in uncontrollable clusters.

Total Rift Deployments:
34 classified incursions | 1 Black-4 catastrophic breach (Sector Nine)

 

Alexander had been there, just as the scroll confirmed. Likely assigned to another warlock or positioned as a frontline fighter.

He hadn’t questioned it then. They said his injuries were severe. That the trauma had left gaps in his memory. That there had been nothing left to recover. Catarina was there when he woke up. He remember the Rift but not the Guardian assigned to him. He never asked for the name. He never read the full report.

And why would he?

Because they’d died. That the Guardian fell shielding Magnus from a pureblood's strike. That the warlock went unconscious moments later. That by the time the emergency seal was installed—by foreign warlocks and guardian portaled in from distant sectors— hundreds were dead and the region left permanently scarred.

At least, that’s what they told him.

In the weeks after, Magnus barely remembered how he functioned. The Clave had kept him working—always another Rift to seal, another deployment, another drain on the Guardians who replaced the one he’d lost.

He’d become what they needed: efficient, obedient, unstoppable.

And a mess.

Warlocks still whispered. Some stared. Some didn’t bother to hide the death glares. Magnus didn’t flinch. Let them blame him. He was, after all, the Clave’s perfect weapon.

So he kept going.

He’d drained the Guardians assigned to him more than necessary—just enough to keep his magic from fracturing under the weight of depletion. None of them had lasted long. None of them could hold it.

And none of them ever made him feel what he felt with Alexander earlier today—when the Rift split the sky like it remembered him.

When Alec’s energy reached for him.

Not offered. Not taken.

Found.

Freely. Fully.

And Magnus remembered how it felt—not just the pull, not just the weight of it surging through his veins—but the taste of it.

Unsettling. Familiar. Intimate in a way nothing should have been.

Now, he stood in front of the Rift records in the sealed archives. Only a few warlocks had access to the full vault—those powerful enough to override sector clearance codes and navigate the protected timelines.

Magnus had never bothered before. But something inside him had begun to fracture. And the more it cracked, the more he needed to know.

He tapped the console and opened the incident log.

Incident ID: Rift-419, Sector Nine

Cycle Date: Phase 88 | Moonfall 8 | Day 09

Clave Timecode: 16:47:22 | Meridian Zone-0

Sealing Failure: Confirmed

Primary Warlock: Magnus Bane

Status Post-Incident: Incapacitated

Guardian Assigned: A-class designation only. 

Designation: Redacted

Name: Redacted

Status: Deceased

Cause of Death: Torn open during shielding maneuver. No body recovered.

Magnus stared.

Something wasn’t right.

Redacted guardian names weren’t unusual, but this was different. There were normally backup scan logs—bios, resonance reports, even a magical sync history—but here, everything was scrubbed.

Everything but one line:

Guardian’s magic interface reached 91% synchronization. Warning issued. Manual override initiated.

He blinked.

91%?

That level of resonance between warlock and guardian was almost unheard of. Guardians weren’t supposed to sync that deeply. It blurred control. Confused power source. Opened the door to emotional transfer.

And it made the Rift harder to seal.

Unless—

Unless they were more than just warlock and weapon.

His breath caught.

His hands clenched.

Magnus stepped back from the screen like it had slapped him.

There was someone. Someone the Clave didn’t want him to remember. Someone he’d been forced to forget.

Someone who died, or—

No.

His hands trembled.

Alexander.

He didn’t bother knocking.

The wards around Catarina’s flat flared when he crossed the threshold—recognizing him, reluctantly allowing him through. They always let him through.

She looked up from her desk, surprised. But not surprised enough.

“You read the Rift file.”

He didn’t answer.

She sighed and turned away. “So. What do you want to ask first?”

“You were there when I woke up,” Magnus said. “The Guardian they assigned to me during Rift-419. It was him, wasn’t it? Alec.”

Catarina didn’t flinch. But she shut her eyes for a moment—just a moment—and something subtle shifted in the air around her. A faint ripple of magic rolled across her skin, too quiet for anyone else to notice.

“They told me he died,” Magnus went on. “They told me I failed. That I blacked out before the Rift was sealed. That someone else had to step in. That the Guardian died.”

“He did die,” she said softly. “In their version of the story.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Catarina stood, crossed to him, and stopped a breath away. “It means you didn’t just lose a Guardian, Magnus. You lost yourself. You lost everything that made you, you.”

He stared at her. “Explain.”

Catarina hesitated.

“You didn’t try to seal the Rift,” Catarina said quietly. “You abandoned it.”

Magnus stiffened, eyes wide.

“You burned through nearly all your magic trying to bring him back. You were both unconscious when the retrieval team found you. And when they pieced together what happened—Alec's injuries—how many lives were lost because you chose him instead of finishing the seal—”

Magnus staggered a step, shaking his head. “No… I wouldn’t— That doesn’t make sense.”

“You did.” Catarina’s voice held no malice—only exhausted truth. “They had to import three warlocks and three guardians to close the breach. It took all six of them to do what you could’ve done alone. With just one guardian.”

He stared at her, throat tight, heart hammering. “Then why don’t I remember?”

Catarina looked at him—really looked, as if she herself wasn’t ready for what his reaction might be. Her eyes, usually sharp with clarity, softened with guilt. “Because you made sure you wouldn’t.”

Magnus froze.

“You wiped your own memory, Magnus.”

The words hit like a punch to the chest. He nearly stumbled back, breath catching. The room seemed too small, too loud with silence.

She didn’t stop.

“The Rift stayed open for almost an hour,” she continued. “Dozens of purebloods crossed. Entire outposts were overrun. Mundanes. Fighters. Other guardians… it became the Clave’s largest mass casualty event in over a decade.”

Magnus felt cold all over.

“They dragged you both before the High Court. You, for abandoning your duty. Alec… for being the reason you faltered. For compromising the mission. The Clave called it dereliction. Treason, even.”

He stared at her. “They blamed him?”

Catarina nodded. “He was the Guardian. A fuel. A shield. Replaceable. You were not. They called him defective. Said his bond with you compromised protocol. Made you weak.”

His voice dropped. “The sentence?”

“Death,” she said. “For Alec.”

Magnus’s breath caught. 

“But… I'm the one who failed to seal the rift.”

“Yes,” Catarina said. “But because you were too valuable. They couldn’t afford to lose you. Your power. His synchronization rate. You were necessary. But only one of you was expendable.”

A silence fell.

Magnus’s voice was hoarse. Disbelieving. “So my sentence— The Clave made me wipe my memory?”

Catarina looked at him, something aching behind her eyes. “No. You offered. To save Alec’s life.”

He blinked. “What?”

“You made them an offer,” she said softly. “You stood in that chamber and gave them exactly what they wanted. You said if they spared him… you’d wipe your memory. Completely. No loopholes. No recall. A clean slate. No risk of compromise ever again.”

His knees nearly gave out.

He staggered back a step, fury and grief and betrayal curling in his gut like smoke. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he choked. “Why would you keep this from me?”

Catarina looked away for a moment. Her voice cracked when she said, “Because you asked me to, to keep Alec's alive.”

Magnus froze.

“You asked me to be the one to do it,” she said. “You said you didn’t trust anyone else with the memory alteration. You handed me the charm, you carved the sigils, and you made me swear.”

Her hand lifted to her chest, fingers brushing the faint scar over her heart.

“A blood oath, Magnus,” she whispered. “I couldn’t speak of it. Not until—” Her voice faltered for just a second. “Not until you said his name.”

Magnus’s voice barely rose above a whisper.

“Then why did they assign him to me again?”

Catarina didn’t answer right away.

Magnus looked up, more sharply now. “I’ve never seen the same fallen guardian twice. Alive or dead. Ever. That’s how they keep it clean. So why him?”

She hesitated.

Longer this time.

Because the answer wasn’t simple. And it wasn’t clean.

“You weren’t just another warlock. And he wasn’t just another guardian.”

Magnus stilled.

“You two were the last Prime Pair ever sanctioned,” Catarina said quietly. “He was your Prime, Magnus. But you and Alec were the first to fall in love.”

The words knocked the breath from his lungs.

“You wiped your memory of him—and this is where I altered it. Not just the bond. The entire history. You weren’t meant to remember why he felt different. Only that he was.”

Magnus blinked at her, haunted. “But… rotational pairings were already protocol.”

“They were instituted after you two,” she said. “Because of you. You proved the system could break.”

He closed his eyes.

“They didn’t want you to forget for duty’s sake. They wanted to erase the evidence that the bond could be something more.”

Silence stretched like a wound between them.

“Your resonance with most guardians capped around fifty. Sixty at most. But with him…” Her voice caught. “You hit—”

"Ninety one." Magnus cut her off, realisation dawning.

“You know that kind of sync—it’s not just rare. It’s not supposed to be possible. That’s why the Clave changed everything. No permanent pairings. No attachments. No names. No risk.”

He didn’t speak.

“They didn’t believe your memory would return. Not after you wiped it yourself. They thought one year was long enough to break whatever was left of the bond.”

“Then why they risk it again?”

Catarina hesitated.

“Because they thought you’d treat him like the others. Use him. Forget him again. Or… he’d die before it ever mattered.”

Something twisted in Magnus’s gut. Alec had died yesterday. If he hadn’t held on—if Magnus had let go—he might never have known the truth. Whatever part of him still remembered Alec… it had saved him.

He reached into his pocket and drew out the dagger Alec had given him. He held it carefully, as if it weighed more now—like memory, like regret. His thumb brushed over the carved name on the hilt.

A message in steel and silence.

Realization hit like a blow. He stepped back. Alexander had wanted him to remember.

“I want to remember,” he said at last, barely audible. “Help me.”

Catarina’s expression tightened. “It’s not that simple.”

“I don’t care.” His voice sharpened. “You said you altered my memory. Just undo it.”

“I can’t,” she said. “You didn’t just lock it away, Magnus—you wiped it. You didn’t send it to oblivion, but you burned the trail behind you. You know I can’t alter your memories—not before you wipe them. It was the only way to make sure you were still you… before Alec,” she added, almost in a whisper.

Magnus shook his head. “But I said his name. I didn’t even know it, and I said it. That has to mean something.”

Her gaze flicked away. “It does. But your mind doesn’t have the memory of him anymore, Magnus. But your soul—your bond with him—it still remembers.”

“Then it’s still there,” he pushed. “I remembered something when I thought he was dying. Something familiar. Like déjà vu. I saw the Rift that day— and Alec– was dying,”

Catarina closed her eyes.

“Don’t tell me that wasn’t real.”

“It was real,” she said quietly. “But it wasn’t your memory that triggered it.”

Magnus frowned.

She looked at him—really looked at him.

“Yesterday,” she said softly. “Did Alec die?”

He froze.

“Why– yes. Technically.”

Catarina’s voice broke around the edges. “Then that moment—when his heart stopped, even for a breath—that’s when it happened.”

Magnus stared at her, throat tightening.

“You didn’t remember him, Magnus,” she whispered. “Not until he died.”

Silence stretched between them, terrible and heavy.

“Why?” he managed.

“Because when the soul you’re bound to breaks,” she said, “sometimes the pieces bleed into you. Alec didn’t just fight to live. He gave something back.”

Magnus felt the blood drain from his face.

“If the bond holds,” Catarina said, “you’ll remember. But only after the part of you that loved him is forced to grieve.”

“No,” he breathed. “That’s not fair.”

“I know.”

His hands trembled. “That’s not love. That’s punishment.”

Catarina didn’t flinch. “Then what do you think Alec’s been enduring this whole year?”

Magnus froze.

She held his gaze, steady and unyielding. “He didn’t lose his memory, Magnus. He remembered everything. Every single day. Every test. Every time you looked at him like a stranger. Every time you saw him as a tool—a shield.”

Magnus staggered back a step, as if struck. The breath left him in a sharp exhale, chest rising with something between horror and guilt.

He remembered the way Alec had stood before him that first day—silent, disciplined, waiting for orders—and how he'd dismissed him without a glance, like just another nameless soldier. His throat bobbed, but no sound came out.

Catarina watched him, quietly. “He kept it together for you. Even when you couldn’t see him.”

Magnus turned away, pacing a step, then another, like he could outrun the ache clawing its way up his throat. “So that’s it? He has to die—for me to remember I ever loved him?”

She hesitated. “It wasn’t meant to be this way.”

Magnus shook his head again, torn between rage and something deeper—something unfamiliar and raw. “But I want to understand. Even if I don’t—” He faltered. “Even if I don’t know what love feels like anymore.”

He looked at her, eyes bright and unsteady.

“I want to try.”

Catarina’s expression softened. But she didn’t speak.

“I want to find him,” Magnus said. “Not because it’s protocol. Not because the Clave says so. But because… because something in me knew his name. Something remembered.”

“And whatever happens after?” Catarina asked quietly.

Magnus swallowed hard. “Is it worth it?” he asked, voice quiet. Frayed.

Catarina looked at him for a long moment, something soft and unbearably sad behind her eyes.

“You trusted me more than anyone,” she said gently. “And I’ve known you through centuries of chaos, Magnus. But I’ve never seen you love anyone the way you loved him.”

Magnus stilled.

“And you knew?” he whispered.

She gave a small nod. “Of course I knew.”

That—somehow—was enough.

A silence stretched between them, heavy with everything lost and everything still burning.

Magnus let out a breath. Shaky. Steadying.

“Then I have to find him,” he said. “Even if I don’t remember why yet. Even if I’m too late.”

And for the first time since the Rift closed, Magnus stepped forward—not as a warlock bound by duty, but as a man chasing the shadow of a name that refused to leave him.

Alexander.

The word felt like gravity. Like home. Like the thing he'd been missing all this time without knowing what it was. His Prime.

And he wanted it back.

Chapter Text

The New York Institute doors didn’t open for him.

They shattered.

Magic slammed through the outer wards in a spiral of heat and gold, scattering sigils and alarms in its wake. The Clave agents barely had time to turn before Magnus Bane strode into the corridor, face unreadable, coat trailing behind him like a shadow soaked in stormlight.

“Where is he,” Magnus said.

A Senior Enchanter stepped forward. “High Warlock Bane—this is a secure area. Unauthorized entry—”

“Where. Is. He.”

No one answered.

So he followed the magic.

He felt it—the pulse of something too weak to hide. Too familiar to deny.

He found Alec on the cold metal of the testing slab.

Barefoot. Shirtless.

A bandage around his ribs already soaked through with blood—the same wound Magnus had treated just yesterday.

Runes cracked from too many scans. Magic inhibitors dug into his wrists like chains. His body trembled with every pulse of the spell cycling through him.

A medic hovered nearby, fingers tracing a healing rune over Alec’s sternum—but it flickered and vanished before the lines could hold.

Not healing.

Not resisting.

Just… fading.

“Get away from him!” Magnus’s roar cracked the room in half.

The medics scattered. One stumbled back, another dropped their stele.

Alec flinched at the sound.

Barely conscious.

His eyes fluttered open—just barely—and tried to focus. They didn’t quite land.

“Mag—High Warlock…” he rasped, voice a ghost of itself. “You— not supposed to be here.”

Magnus’s heart twisted, cracked wide and raw.

His steps faltered. Then he was at Alec’s side, reaching out—only for the spellwork etched around the slab to lash at his magic, scorching his hands. The pain didn’t even register.

“Why isn’t he healing? He was fine yesterday—before you took him!”

“Delayed enthrallment screening,” one medic replied flatly. “Just returned from field assignment. We had to push him through backlog.”

Magnus turned on them like a storm. “He’s not enthralled—he’s dying!”

The system didn’t flinch.

The scanners kept pulsing. Magic continued to reject healing like oil on blood. Alec was slipping through his fingers.

Magnus’s breath hitched.

Then he saw it. The color draining faster. The way Alec’s chest stuttered instead of rose. The way his fingers didn’t move at all.

No. No- no.

The realization hit him like a blade between the ribs. Magnus’s hands hovered over him, useless, furious, shaking.

“Alexander,” he breathed—then softer, “My Prime…”

Alec’s eyes widened—just barely.

A pause. Then Magnus leaned closer, voice thick with tears.

“Hey… I— I'm your Magnus. I remember. I remember everything,” he lied.

Alec blinked, lips parted in something between disbelief… and relief.

He gave the smallest shake of his head.

And then—he smiled. Fragile. Knowing.

“It’s okay,” Alec whispered. “You– you still came back for me…”

“Yes—yes, I’m here. I’ve got you, Alexander. I've got you,” Magnus sobbed.

Alec’s lips moved again, weaker this time. “Sorry… I– I broke our promise. I lov—”

The words faltered.

Magnus froze.

The heart monitor gave a shrill, continuous note.

Alec’s chest stilled.

His lips remained parted. His eyes half-open, glassy. Unmoving.

Magnus gasped.

Something inside him fractured.

And in that crack— memories pour in.

Flash.

Graveyard fog curling around runes. Moonlight casting long shadows.

Alec slammed him back against a tree, dagger at his throat, eyes wild. “You weren’t at your post. Who the hell are you?!”

Magnus raised a brow. “You’re not just a pretty face, are you?”

A flicker—confusion, heat. Then Alec blinked, recognition dawning. The dagger slipped from his hand with a clatter.

“I—I’m sorry,” he said, staggering back. “I thought you were someone else.”

Magnus bent to retrieve the blade, fingers brushing over a name carved into the hilt. Alec.

He offered it back, voice low. “As in… Alexander?”

Alec flushed. “Yeah. You can call me that.”

Magnus nearly asked about the prayer he’d heard earlier—but didn’t.

He didn’t want to break the moment.

Somewhere deep inside, a truth stirred—he had found his Prime.

Flash.

They ran through the rain—laughing, breathless, soaked to the bone. The Rift was sealed. The world, for once, was quiet.

Alec reached the loft first, turning back with a cocky smile, rain dripping from his jaw.

“You’re slow,” he called. “And I already gave you half my energy.”

Magnus caught up, eyes burning brighter than the storm. “Maybe I need more.”

A pause.

Then softer—rougher:

“Maybe I need all of you.”

Alec’s grin faltered, something darker flickering in his eyes.

“Then I’m yours.”

Magnus closed the distance between them until their noses brushed. Alec’s breath hitched—and Magnus kissed him. Desperate. Consuming. Alec let him.

He nipped gently at Alec's lower lip, and when they broke apart, Alec’s voice came low and uncertain.

“Are we even allowed to have this?”

Magnus rested their foreheads together. “The Clave doesn’t get to decide what we are. You’ve been my anchor in every Rift.”

Then, breath hot against Alec’s ear:

“You’re mine.”

Alec inhaled sharply. “I’ve never…”

Magnus froze for a beat, then gently lifted Alec’s chin and kissed him again—slower this time. Worshipful. Dangerous.

His voice dropped to a whisper, a promise wrapped in a plea. “Then let me show you what it means to be my Prime.”

Alec didn’t answer with words. Just a nod. A breath. A kiss like surrender.

And when Magnus carried him inside, Alec breathed against his neck—raw and wrecked:

“I already know.”

Flash.

“Alec!”

Magnus’s scream cut through the chaos as Alec collapsed—bloodied, still.

The Rift howled behind him—unstable. The seal was breaking.

He could seal it. He had the power. But without a Guardian, it would drain his core. There was no certainty he’d come back.

And still—he ran to Alec.

He dropped to his knees, magic crackling raw beneath his skin.

Alec's eyes— not seeing Magnus anymore.

Magnus pressed his hands over the wound, over Alec’s heart, over everything he couldn’t lose.

“Stay with me,” he breathed. “Please, stay with me, stay with me…”

Magic burst from his chest—wild, unrestrained.

He didn’t aim it. He only held Alec tighter.

Behind him, the Rift screamed.

But Magnus didn’t look back.

He’d already chosen.

Flash.

The Silence rune burned across his shoulder.

Alec knelt in chains, still not fully healed. Shoulders squared. Eyes downcast.

Magnus stood across from him—magic bound at his wrists, shoulders squared.

“For dereliction of duty,” the Voice of Accord intoned, “And for compromising High Warlock Bane’s effectiveness— causing irreparable loss and death of hundreds, Guardian-197 is sentenced to death. His life, a fitting penance for the warlock’s failure.”

Magnus stepped forward. Voice steady.

“I’ll erase my memories,” he said. “All of them. Spare him, and you’ll have your perfect weapon back.”

A beat.

Then a sneer. “We don’t bargain with emotion.”

“Then I die with him,” he said, softer. "He was my Prime. I chose to save his life. That choice stands.”

Alec looked up—eyes pleading. The silence rune flared. But Magnus didn’t flinch. Didn’t look back.

Silence stretched.

They couldn’t afford to lose him. Not Magnus Bane.

“Accepted,” came the final ruling.

The Prime Arbiter took their place.

“Effective immediately, the Prime Pairing Initiative is dissolved. Guardians will enter rotational service. Emotional dependencies are a threat to protocol and will no longer be tolerated.”

And Alec, silent beneath the rune’s sting, bowed his head—

knowing this, too, was love.

And his penance.

Flash.

"Two minutes, High Warlock," the Guard warned.

The chamber was silent, too quiet for goodbye.

Alec sat on the floor where they'd left him—his wrists still raw from chains, his tunic hanging loose over half-healed skin. His breathing was labored. His lips were bloodied from biting back sound.

Magnus dropped to his knees in front of him, barely holding himself together, the magic-dampening cuffs still clamped around his wrists like a cruel reminder of his powerlessness.

“Please don’t try to speak,” he whispered, reaching up with trembling hands. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

But Alec shook his head.

The moment he did, his body spasmed. The rune etched into his shoulder, just below the collarbone, lit up like a brand. A searing, soundless pain spread beneath the skin. His back arched slightly, jaw clenched tight, muscles shaking with restraint.

Magnus’s heart shattered.

He cupped Alec’s jaw with both hands, pulling their foreheads together. Magic trembled at his fingertips, but none of it could soothe the burn. None of it could make this right.

“I don’t regret choosing you, not for a second,” Magnus said, voice cracking. “We could leave but not like this—not when I couldn't protect you. If we had more time… gods, I would’ve given you everything.”

His thumbs brushed Alec’s cheekbones. “I’m sorry this is the price we had to pay.”

Alec’s eyes shimmered. He leaned in further, as if he could press Magnus into memory.

“Promise me you’ll stay alive,” Magnus begged. “For me. Even I don’t know if I’ll remember,” Magnus whispered. “I’ve never done this before—I don’t know what will be left of me. But I swear, if even a piece of you stays… I’ll find you. And we’ll leave. I promise you that.”

Alec didn’t nod. Didn’t dare. But he blinked once. Steady. Clear.

Agreement.

They looked at each other.

A silence bloomed between them—soft, reverent, aching with everything they didn’t have time to say.

Alec reached up, tentative, and brushed away the tear trailing down Magnus’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. Gentle. Certain.

Magnus caught his wrist.

Held it.

Pressed a kiss to Alec’s palm like a vow.

“I love you, Alexander,” Magnus said finally, barely more than breath—for the very first time.

Alec stilled. Then, the Silence rune flared—brighter, crueler. It burned hot across his shoulder, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away.

Tears slid down his cheeks—not from the burn.

Magnus whimpered.

And then he kissed him—desperate, aching, memorizing.

A final promise pressed to lips that couldn’t answer.

The silence lingered—

And then Magnus inhaled.

Not in the memory. Here. Now.

He came back to himself with a jolt—knees hitting cold metal, breath catching.

Alec lay motionless on the magical testing slab in front of him, skin too pale, limbs too still. His chest didn’t rise. His eyes remained half-open.

A broken sound tore free from Magnus—part plea, part grief, part soul-deep knowing.

The room shattered.

Glass exploded. Wards buckled. Magic surged outward in a ring of devastation, flinging chairs and equipment like paper, knocking Clave personnel off their feet.

But Magnus didn’t see any of it.

He saw only Alexander, his Prime—still, too still.

He remembered now.

All of it.

Their bond. Their stolen moments. The taste of the rain on Alexander's lips. The way Alec had breathed his name in the dark. The quiet vow beneath the stars. The weight of Alec’s hand gripping his as he chose love over duty again and again.

And the way he’d let him go that day.

His magic faltered as he reached forward, hand trembling. His fingers brushed Alec’s temple—light, helpless—then fell away.

“I remember,” he whispered. “I remember everything.”

His voice cracked as he leaned in, forehead resting against the scar where the Silence rune had once been—the truest echo of love unspoken.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus breathed, broken. “I didn’t lie this time. Please… come back to me.”

Alec didn't answer.

Because his Alexander was gone.

And Magnus had forgotten.

Alexander was his heart.

And Magnus had forgotten.

He forgot the way Alec looked at him—like he was worth saving.

He forgot the promise they made.

He forgot his Prime.

And Magnus—

He could only kneel in the ruin of memory, and remember too late.

For one long, shattering moment, the silence pressed in.

Then the Institute alarms wailed.

A cold, unnatural howl echoed through the city.

A technician, bloodied and wide-eyed, staggered upright. “A massive Rift just opened in the capital. Level Seven breach. Purebloods are pouring through.”

Someone else called in over the comms: “Guardian en route. They’re requesting the assigned warlock to seal it. The rotation system is in place. The Rift awaits.”

They were talking logistics.

Like Alec wasn’t lying dead on the slab behind them.

Like he was just a broken tool.

Magnus’s eyes gleamed gold with rage, darker than fire, colder than death.

“You want me to go seal another Rift,” he said, voice low, sharp, barely human, “while the one person who gave everything to protect you lies dead at your feet?”

Silence.

No one moved.

The Head Enchanter stepped forward, cautious. “High Warlock… we understand your grief, but the priority is containing the Rift—”

“No.”

The word cracked like thunder.

Magnus turned fully now, standing straight, power rippling like a storm held just beneath his skin. The veins in his arms lit with energy ancient and terrible.

“There will be no more Rifts.”

He raised a hand.

The entire room flinched.

“You will not send another Guardian to die. You will not sacrifice another life and pretend it's duty. You will not use us and discard us and dare call it order.”

Behind him, Alec’s body lay still.

“I made him a promise,” Magnus whispered, cradling Alec like something sacred. “That if I remembered… I’d find him. And we’d leave.”

His thumb brushed beneath Alec’s eye, wiping away nothing.

He closed his eyes.

And began to chant.

Not in any warlock dialect. This was older. Forbidden.

A language not of summoning, but of sacrifice.

“Magnus Bane.”

“Son of Edom, of ancient blood and a land  accursed”

“He who contendeth with endings, bearer of the Great Undoing.”

“This rightful heir seeketh not a throne—but only the heart of Alexander, whom he loveth beyond all reckoning.”

Then, rising—magic answering his words like thunder behind glass:

“By ash and ember, bone and flame—

Let the veil twixt worlds know my name.
I call the gates of Edom wide—

For angel’s blood and love that died.
Soul for soul, the price I give—

Immortal breath, that he may live."

The room dimmed—as if the light itself bowed in reverence... or fear.

There was no turning back.

A heavy, oppressive stillness sank into the space, pressing down like a weight on the chest. Those who had remained—agents, medics, warlocks alike—found they could not move. Could not speak. Could not look away. Magnus’s spell had bound them in place, their souls caught like moths in a dark web, forced to bear witness to a ritual they could never unsee.

They trembled, but did not flee.

They couldn’t.

Then Magnus moved.

He reached for the dagger Alec had given him and with a swift, practiced motion, he drew the blade and sliced across his palm. Blood welled, dark and steady.

He pressed that bleeding hand to Alec’s chest.

Fingers glowing—not gold this time, but deep crimson. Something ancient stirred beneath his skin.

Magnus whispered the final phrase again—“Immortal breath, that he may live”—and his hand phased through flesh like mist.

Straight into Alec’s chest.

No blood. No sound.

But Magnus’s breath hitched, and his shoulders shook.

Tears slipped down his face—silent, unstoppable—as magic pulsed beneath his skin. "I'm sorry— I'm so sorry sayang," he choked out. His fingers curled around Alec’s still heart—cradled it in the center of his palm like something fragile, sacred, unbearably precious.

It didn’t beat.

Not yet.

But the spell wrapped around them like a shroud.

A pulse of magic—dark, raw—trembled at the edge of the world.

The lights flickered. The air thickened.

A wind surged, cold and unnatural. The walls groaned like something beneath reality had stirred awake.

Then the portal opened—not shimmering, but cracking wide with a sound like the world breaking.

A scar in the sky.

And beyond it… Edom.

The sky bled crimson. Ash fell like snow.

The wind there howled—emptiness with teeth. The magic felt older than grief.

Magnus pulled his hand back—flickering, slick with their blood. It shimmered once, then sank into his skin like a memory refusing to be let go.

He rose slowly. Carefully.

Alec in his arms. Still.

He turned, gold eyes hollowed and burning, carrying every ounce of love too late.

He stepped into the tear between worlds, silence trailing behind him.

And just before he crossed the threshold, he whispers—

“No more.”

And then they vanished into Edom.

The portal sealed with a sound like finality.

And the last Rift on Earth died with it. 

Chapter Text

For three days, the world held its breath.

Since the moment Magnus and Alec vanished.

The largest Rift—one that had split an entire district open—sealed with a thunderous crack. The pureblood demons pouring through dissolved into ash midair, as if their tether to the world had been severed in an instant.

On the battlefield, Shadowhunters froze. Some dropped to their knees, weapons slipping from their hands. Others cried out in disbelief, and then in joy. Cheers rippled from sector to sector as the message spread: The Rift was gone. The threat had vanished.

Celebration erupted—wild, disbelieving, almost feral in its relief. Laughter broke through tears. Warriors who had only known battle clutched one another, shouting, sobbing, and screaming their victory to the skies.

But the joy didn’t last. Retrieval agents and Clave enforcers swept across the field, ordering Shadowhunters back to their posts, demanding reports and readiness in case another Rift opened.

And then the world went still.

No Rifts opened. No alarms wailed. No children were dragged from dormitories to serve. Training was extended, but no field assignments came. Medics finally had time to rest, to let the injured heal, to remember what quiet felt like.

The skies remained quiet—not with peace, but with the kind of silence that comes before an answer you’re afraid to hear.

The Clave had no official statement. In truth, they didn’t know what had happened. But rumors always ran faster than orders.

At the New York infirmary, those who had witnessed the ritual—technicians, medics, even Clave agents—were found in a state of stunned, hollow-eyed shock. Security feeds had gone dark at the critical moment, leaving no visual record of what truly transpired.

Only the logs remained: Guardian‑197, marked as “Failed Magical Screening – Healing Blocked,” with a time of death recorded mere minutes before the Rift collapsed. His body was gone.

No one could confirm if he survived the crossing. To the world, it looked as though Magnus Bane had left them grieving, vanishing into legend even as the sky went still.

Tracker data told the rest of the story: Magnus Bane entered the facility alone, the portal flared, and in the same breath the largest Rift the world had ever seen sealed shut. The Spiral Labyrinth reported a deep, shuddering pulse through the ley lines—an unmistakable summoning of Edom.

The Clave scrambled to contain the story, but they were already too late. Warlocks whispered it to Shadowhunters; survivors carried it across continents. The story spread like fire through dry grass:

It was Magnus. Magnus had done it.

The Clave tried to mask the stillness, to twist it into strategy, coincidence, mercy.

But the world wasn’t fooled.

The Guardians rebelled first.

From the New York Firstborn Division, a Guardian known only as J.C.—once convinced he was born to serve and die—stood at the gates. Beside him, a redhead whose sigil no longer marked obedience, but defiance.

Together, they broke the locks on the training center, freeing children who had never seen sunlight without permission.

They urged the medics to release Guardians still chained for magical screening and attend to their injuries immediately.

And for the first time in years, the Guardians and soldiers were given space to breathe. To sleep. To let their wounds close without being forced open again. Their bruises faded in the quiet. Their nightmares slowed.

But what they uncovered beneath the Institute walls was something else entirely.

In a sealed basement—hidden behind layers of wards—they found what the Clave never meant to surface.

Rows of women—some barely eighteen, freshly failed from their soldier and enforcer trials—their lives diverted before they ever truly began.

Discarded after they could no longer serve the Clave’s purpose.

Not dismissed. Not sent home.

Reassigned.

Used.

They were breeders. Kept alive to produce more bodies for the system. Some were still enthralled—silent, eyes blank, wombs bound by runes no warlock dared imagine.

Dr. Iris Rouse, once the Clave’s enforcer, was exposed as an accomplice. A warlock tore the truth from her mind and forced her to speak. With the help of Downworlders, the broadcast went live—reaching every institute, every training center, every home.

J.C. and the redhead stood in the transmission chamber as the images reached every corner of the world—every institute, every training center, every home.

The fury was immediate.

Because what they found in New York… was not the only one.

Every Institute hid the same horrors: underground chambers, women enthralled and used as breeders, children raised for war, Guardians chained and silenced.

The New York Institute was the first to fall—claimed not by war, but by will. Guardians and soldiers stormed the Head’s office, tearing down banners and toppling their own chains. Medics abandoned the Clave’s orders to tend to the injured and free the shackled.

And once New York rose, the others followed. Institute after institute rebelled. Shadowhunters took down their Heads, and with the aid of warlocks and freed Guardians, they marched on Alicante. Rank after rank fell. The city that once ruled them all was stripped of its power in a week.

The old system crumbled.

And then they started remembering.

Not just pain.

But names.

Shadowhunters—Guardians, field soldiers, trainees, children—began to find one another. Siblings separated at birth. Families thought lost.

Families rebuilt themselves in the ruins of the Clave’s command.

Warlocks joined them. Werewolves. Vampires. Mundanes who had loved and lost. Together, they tore down the old system stone by stone and began to build something better—something chosen.

And though no one ever saw Magnus and Alec again, their names lived in every whispered story, every reclaimed family, every heartbeat of the new world.

The records showed only a Prime lost—Guardian‑197, marked deceased—and a warlock who vanished in grief. To the world, it was Magnus Bane mourning his fallen Prime, stepping into exile with nothing but loss and love in his hands.

Because everyone knew the truth now. Magnus Bane had given up the Earth he once called home to hold the seal in Edom, his power anchoring the rift from reopening. Warlocks explained in hushed voices what it meant:

If Magnus ever returned, the Rifts would open again, and the purebloods would pour through.

He stayed in Edom, holding the seal with his life and his magic, while the world he saved learned to breathe without chains.

Because love was the sacrifice, and hope was what it left behind.

Their names were etched into the first stone of the new city:

Not as weapons.

Not as saviors.

But as two souls who refused to be turned into anything but their own.

Catarina Loss completed the work she and Magnus had once begun for orphaned warlock children: a genetic resonance matrix, designed to trace bloodlines through magical signatures.

She turned it toward Shadowhunters–and they called it Reclamation.

And one by one, the results began to flood in. Children who never knew their mothers. Siblings raised as strangers. Families torn apart by the Clave’s system… found each other again.

Not all matches were made.

But enough.

Enough to rebuild.

Enough to start over.

A woman submitted her blood.

She didn’t want to know, not really. She only wanted to prove that the nightmares weren’t real. Still, she sent it.

When the result came, Catarina’s knees almost buckled. She called the woman a few hours later, voice trembling.

“You… you have a match,” she whispered.

“Guardian—197.”

* * *

Three months passed on Earth.

In Edom, it's only three days.

The first thing Alec felt was warmth.

Not the blistering kind that scorched the flesh in Edom, but something quieter—something that hummed in his chest like a heartbeat remembered. Like home, if he’d ever had one.

His first inhale was sharp.

Alive.

His second was slower. Grounded. And for the first time, free.

He opened his eyes.

The sky above wasn’t a sky—just a swirling sheet of dark glass, threaded with red lightning. Edom pulsed around him, alive and strange and still. At the horizon, where the last Rift once yawned wide, the air shimmered with gold.

It was sealed.

Permanently. 

And he was still breathing.

He sat up slowly.

There was no pain. No restraints. No cracked runes or burning cuffs. No mark of the Clave. His body had changed, subtly—no longer just run through with angel blood but reforged, rebuilt with something older. Wilder. Familiar.

Magic.

A soft voice reached him, quiet but already part of the space:

“Careful.”

Alec turned.

Magnus stood nearby, arms crossed lightly, golden eyes watchful. The edges of his purple silk robe were scorched and his magic still buzzed in the air like the echo of a storm—but his gaze was soft.

“You weren’t supposed to wake up yet,” Magnus murmured. “I was going to find you something like tea. Or whatever Edom pretends is tea.”

Alec blinked at him.

"Edom?" he asked.

"Yes," 

“I died,” he said.

Magnus nodded. “You did.”

“You remember.”

“I do.”

“And you…”

“I brought you back.”

A beat passed. Then Magnus added softly, “You’re immortal now. I’m sorry. I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t have to,” Alec said. “I love you. I love you so much.”

He said it too quickly, too breathlessly—like he was afraid something might steal the words away again.

Magnus’s expression broke.

He crossed the distance between them in a heartbeat, wrapping Alec in his arms like he still couldn’t quite believe he was real. Alec melted into it without hesitation.

Their foreheads touched.

“You can say it every day now,” Magnus whispered, “until forever.”

Alec laughed—a sound more breath than voice.

“I should’ve chosen you sooner,” Magnus said. “I should’ve let the world burn the first time.”

“You didn’t have to,” Alec replied softly. “You saved me anyway.”

“I’m sorry– I'm so sorry darling,” Magnus whispered against his hair. “I’m sorry I treated you like a tool. Like a weapon. I let them turn you into that for me.”

“Magnus…” Alec leaned back just enough to meet his eyes. “Don’t do this to yourself. You didn’t remember.”

“But you did,” Magnus said, voice cracking. “The whole year—you lived with it. How… how did you survive that? Knowing I’d forgotten you?”

Alec swallowed hard. “It wasn’t easy. But it doesn’t matter now. You remember.”

Magnus closed his eyes, guilt and love warring in his face. “I’m sorry it’s too late. I remembered too late.”

“Then we’re even,” Alec said softly, brushing his thumb over Magnus’s cheek. “I broke our promise, remember? I didn’t wait for you. So now… we forgive each other.”

Magnus huffed a quiet, uneven laugh. “Not fair. I should carry the weight, not you.”

“Then carry me,” Alec murmured, and Magnus kissed him softly—slow and lingering, as if sealing a promise between them.

Their foreheads touched, breaths mingling.

Magnus drew back just enough to meet Alec’s eyes, gold catching the dim light, and took his hand, pressing it gently over his chest.

“There will be no more Rifts,” he said softly. “I’m holding it now—Edom’s magic, and you anchoring me. The Shadowhunters and the Guardians… they’re free, Alexander. They get to choose.”

Alec's breath caught. Then, he leaned in and kissed him—a searing, grateful kiss that trembled with all they had lost and all they had reclaimed.

When they broke apart, Alec whispered, “You answered my prayer.” He hesitated, then added, softer still, “And maybe theirs, too.”

Magnus’s eyes burned gold and wet. “You were always mine to answer.”

Alec smiled through the shimmer of tears—tired, real, and full of something that looked like hope.

“Then I guess the world prays to you now.”

Magnus let out a breath of half-laugh, half-sorrow, and pressed a kiss to Alec’s temple like a vow.

Then his fingers brushed over the Silence rune just below Alec’s collarbone—now pitch black, standing out stark against skin where most of his other runes had already faded to silver scars.

“I’m sorry I didn’t remove this,” Magnus murmured. “But it reminds me how much you love me.”

Alec glanced down at his marked body—at what remained, and what didn’t.

“It’s okay. I love it,” he said, almost shy. “It reminds me of you.”

Magnus leaned in, about to kiss him—when the air around them pulsed, soft and sudden, like a heartbeat.

He sighed.

Alec blinked. “What is it?”

“An incoming message,” Magnus murmured, glancing at the air as if it might materialize. “Catarina, most likely. Checking in. Probably sent weeks ago.”

Alec frowned. “Weeks? Wait– how long have we been here?”

Magnus smiled faintly. “Three days.”

Alec stared, baffled.

“Time moves differently in Edom,” Magnus explained, amusement curling in his voice.

“So… you’re not going to check it?” Alec asked, a small smirk threatening to form.

“Later,” Magnus said, turning back to him, eyes soft. “Everything else can wait. I want this moment—with you.”

Alec gave him the sweetest smile.

They sat together in the ashes of Edom, and though the sky was still dark, no new Rift tore open.

No screams echoed through the Void.

Because Magnus Bane, anchored by his Prime, was holding the seal—magic woven through time and blood and memory.

Because love had been the cost.

And love, still, was the answer.