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Magnus’ fingers dug into her thigh and Maryse had a startling moment of thinking that she’d misunderstood what was going on here. In an instant, she was blindingly aware of the lack of space between them, of her stele which was discarded across the room and of her dress that was falling down her shoulder, exposing the delicate skin underneath.
Magnus was a warlock. He was never unarmed or without protection, even if his hands were empty and his stance was impassive. It was easy to be tricked into thinking they were on equal footing here, both weaponless, both vulnerable but in reality, Maryse knew that she was the only one who was truly defenseless. A single spark of magic and Magnus could kill her. He could stop her heart as easily as he’d started countless ones before.
This could all be a trick. It was more than likely that it was. He’d played a long game with her, brought down her defenses just to get her here to end it but just as Maryse started to think it, Magnus’ hand relaxed. His fingers eased off her until his touch was feather light on her thigh, trailing up the smooth space of her skin that would be darkened with bruises in the morning.
“You should go,” Magnus hushed. He was close enough that Maryse could feel his breath brushing against her cheek. She could just barely see him out of the corner of her eyes. He liked doing that, she realized. He liked trying to unnerve her and it worked. Every fiber of her being told her to look towards the threat, make sure she knew where he was so she would notice any minuscule twitch that might indicate an attack coming.
Maryse tilted her head to face him, her gaze flickering up his now disheveled jacket. Though, ‘disheveled’ was pushing it. No part of Magnus ever looked disheveled. It would be more accurate to say that his jacket had gone slightly askew, drifting from its place at his collar like he might be about to slip it off.
Maryse could move towards him. She could push it and watch that expensive fabric fall to the ground. She knew what would be underneath. The button up shirt he was wearing, the pierce of fabric that would lay under it, the necklaces and jewelry she could peel away. She’d explored it all before and she could again. She turned away to look out the window instead.
He was right. She should go. This was not one of the nights they’d fall into bed together, pretending for a while that everything was different. Tomorrow, there would be a meeting. Magnus would not be in attendance but he was aware of it and he was aware of exactly what it would entail. Maryse could play the entire event out in her head before it even started.
Valentine standing at some point a few moments in and speaking to the assembly of shadowhunters about strengthening their culture, about safety of their people, about regulations and security. Some would disagree with him but they’d be in the minority and few would feel comfortable saying it aloud if they did disagree. Others would be unsure but Valentine had a way of speaking that made you agree with him, even if you would disagree if you really thought about what he was saying. That’s how he always was.
That’s what Magnus didn’t understand. Even if she spoke, what difference would it make? Magnus would say her voice might be the one to get people to listen. She was so close to Valentine. Her opposition to him would certainly turn heads and maybe, after she’d spoken, others would stand with her and do the same.
Maryse had hummed as he said this. She’d eventually given up on disagreeing. He thought she could change things and Maryse understood why he wanted to think so. Thinking it was inevitable wasn’t an option for him, not when the consequences were so severe but Maryse was on the other side and she knew without a doubt that if she spoke, nothing would change, nothing but her life and nothing but the life of her son.
Alexander was only three. She couldn’t do that to him and Magnus would just have to live with that.
When he found out that was. She hadn’t told him and today at least, she did not plan on mentioning it. He was not going to kill her, she was not going to crush his image of her and tonight, it was easy for her to turn into him again, reach for his face and pull his lips down to her own.
She knew she should leave but that night, she didn’t. She had to savor every moment she had with him.
Alexander sat on her lap, babbling softly as he tugged on a strand of her hair and played with a button on her jacket. The meeting hadn’t started yet. As soon as it did, Alexander would settle, falling completely silent as he listened to the loud voices echoing in the hall. He was a good boy and already so young, he’d learned when to talk and when not to, when to run and play and when to stay tucked at her side.
Maryse wondered sometimes if things would be different if she never had him. Sometimes, she thought that if the only consequence would be on her, she would speak. She’d stand up today and she’d tell Valentine that she disagreed with him. She’d tell him that he wasn’t helping their people, only pushing them close and closer to a war with people who should be their allies. She’d be brave. She’d be better.
Yet, she knew that wasn’t true. Alexander was a good reason for her to stay silent. He was the perfect excuse. He was what Maryse would cite when Magnus asked why she’d done nothing, if he ever bothered to ask at all but Maryse knew that even without him, she’d have sat silent for the entire meeting, listening numbly as Valentine spoke and feeling a slow sense of dread as she felt the consensus in the room shift towards him.
She was always one to speak her mind but not here, not with Valentine, not about this and not for a downworlder she should have never started speaking to in the first place. She was not that kind of brave person Magnus wanted her to be and she would not damn herself for him.
The meeting started. Alexander fell silent. Valentine started speaking and Maryse said nothing at all.
They didn’t speak after that. Maryse wasn’t sure what Magnus knew about the meeting besides the outcome but he seemed to know that Maryse had done nothing, otherwise Maryse suspected they’d have spoken or he’d have shown up to meet her when she wasn’t expecting it but was alone. She wasn’t surprised Magnus knew somehow. He seemed to know everything, even if there was no discernible reason that he should.
So, Maryse was not surprised when the weeks that followed came with a noticeable absence of Magnus in her life. She’d known that after the meeting, whatever they had between them was over but she was surprised by how much that reality pained her. Magnus and her had stolen tiny moments away from everything else but when those tiny moments were all she’d been thinking about, a life without them suddenly seemed unbearable.
She woke up with her son in Idris and a husband who was away and she dreamed of nights in New York with Magnus at her side. Maryse had felt with Magnus like she never imagined she’d feel again. She’d felt happy and free. With him, nothing else in the world seemed to matter but when she finally left him, everything came back into clearer focus.
That’s why Maryse had been happy that downworlders were not allowed at the meeting. If Magnus had been there, Maryse would have said something stupid and she knew it but she hadn’t said anything stupid and now, she was alone again. She was herself again. She was Maryse Lightwood, a circle member, a wife, a mother. She was not whatever version of herself had existed in Magnus’ presence and she never would be again.
It was a relieving and heartbreaking thought at the same time.
It happened slowly. Downworlders weren’t allowed in the Institutes, unless they were summoned upon. That had more or less been a rule before - after all what downworlder would walk into an Institute for fun? - but seeing it on paper as an actual decree made something in Maryse's stomach twist.
She tried to brush it all away. This was nothing unexpected. After all, Magnus had expected far worse and if the only thing that happened was a tightening of security then Maryse considered that a win. That wasn't all that happened though. Far from it. After the first change came more and more.
They weren’t allowed to have direct contact with the Clave anymore. Even inquiries into a meeting would be turned down. If the downworld needed to say anything to the Clave, it would be in the form of writing and it would be mailed and dealt with in a timely manner. Even the High Warlocks couldn’t get around the process.
Then, it just got worse and worse. Valentine was officially elected as Consul, citing the changes he’d done to strengthen and protect their people as to why he should get the position. The people who’d protested him found themselves demoted or sent away. Suddenly there was no one left in Idris who would ever say a bad word against anything him and their cohorts, no matter what they proposed next.
It was easy to do. In Idris, they were so disconnected from the downworld. Most of the shadowhunters there had never met a downworlder outside of work. How could they, with their guarded walls? It was easy to be so against something you never had to face. It was easy to agree with something horrible when the consequences didn’t impact you.
Maryse tried not to worry. It would all work out, she told herself even long after she’d stopped believing it but with every passing day, Maryse missed New York more and more and with every day that she and Alexander weren’t allowed to leave, she began to worry.
They’d come to Idris for the meeting. They’d stayed for a few weeks after to settle things. Now, they were supposed to be home but Robert would say nothing about when they would be leaving and Maryse found herself more often excluded, sitting at home, wondering what was going on.
Still, Maryse suspected nothing. Everyone was busy, that was all. She had Alexander now. They were leaving her home to take care of him while they dealt with everything else. Eventually, things would calm down again and Valentine would send them back to New York.
Except, that never happened. Months and months went by and when Maryse finally snapped, demanding to know when they were going home, demanding to know why they hadn’t yet, Robert turned on her calmly. He gazed her up and down and then, he said without emotion, “Why were you meeting Magnus Bane?”
Maryse froze. She felt her blood turn cold. She couldn’t even consider how he knew, why he knew and who had seen her at some point. The only thing she could think was that she was fucked. She was so far from home and so far from anyone who would help her.
Maryse wanted to deny it. She wanted to ask Robert what he was talking about, like meeting Magnus was the most preposterous thing she’d ever heard of but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how he knew or why but he knew and there was nothing Maryse could say to make it seem less incriminating than it was. There was no reason for her to have been seen with Magnus, no reason at all.
Robert shook his head. He turned towards the door as if she wasn’t worth the effort of continuing the conversation.
“I didn’t believe him,” Robert said finally, just before he was about to vanish out onto the street. “When Valentine told me, I didn't believe him. I said you wouldn’t do that. He said we should stay just in case, until we knew for sure.”
He turned to her and stared for a moment before he shook his head again and vanished outside just like that, leaving Maryse standing inside alone.
Part of Maryse wondered why they didn’t come to arrest her or drag her to the guard. She wondered why she’d been allowed to stay here but… she knew why. There was nowhere for her to go. No one could get in and no one could get out. Even if she tried to flee, she’d meet guards at the edge of the city, ones who had been told she wasn’t to go.
But Maryse knew something they didn’t know. Maryse knew the man who put those wards up centuries ago and she knew that Magnus could get through them. He’d left it that way intentionally, in case he’d ever needed to use it.
Maryse just hoped he’d come to get her before it was too late.
Maryse sent a fire message and then, she waited for a few long moments and sent another one. She knew Magnus was getting them. They woke him up when he was asleep. There was no way he hadn’t gotten it and yet, nothing happened. Maryse waited minutes upon minutes and still nothing happened.
Her messages had been brief. She told him she needed help, that she needed him to portal her out. She explained it fully when she was there she thought, though Magnus could probably put the pieces together and know what happened. Now, Maryse regretted not being more clear. Maybe, he didn’t understand the severity of the situation. Maybe, she hadn’t explained it right.
Maryse paced back and forth, glancing from the clock to the slowly dimming sky outside. Robert would be home soon. Maryse wasn’t sure what would happen then but she knew it wouldn’t be good. She knew she couldn’t be here when he got back and yet, Magnus didn’t appear.
Maryse finally snatched up another piece of paper. She was going to ramble out another plea and hope he listened but at the last second, she scrawled what she hadn’t wanted to say before.
‘Please, Magnus. I need you. I’m sorry.’
It took a few moments before the portal finally opened before her. Magnus did not step through but he left it there, giving her passage to wherever she needed to go.
Maryse had been ready to step through it alone but as she stood there, she hesitated. She was going to leave Alexander behind. He was asleep in his bed. Robert would be home soon and he’d find him. She thought about it earlier, about the life her child would have on the run hiding from the Circle and she’d decided almost without considering it that she could not put him through that but now, Maryse wondered what kind of life he’d have here.
She thought about Valentine. She thought about Robert and every ounce of the man she’d loved once leaving him. She thought about her precious Alexander growing up to be just like them and then, she was turning and sprinting down the hallway to Alexander’s room, desperately hoping that the portal would still be open when she got back.
Alexander was sprawled in his bed, clutching the blanket he’d had since birth. Maryse pulled him into her arms, rubbing his back when he whined. She thought he’d wake up and ask where they were going in the middle of the night. She tried to think of an explanation she could give but he didn’t ask. He just curled into her neck. His tiny hand clung to her shirt and then, he was closing his eyes once more.
The portal was still there when Maryse got to it and she threw herself to the other side as quickly as she could. Magnus had opened the portal for her but she could have chosen anywhere to go. All she had to do was imagine a place and she would be there but there was only one place Maryse could think to go now.
She landed in Magnus’ loft. He stood in the archway of the living room with a robe around his shoulders, leaving his chest bare as he leaned against the wall, watching her. He tried not to act surprised when he saw her but Maryse saw his eyes widen a little, as if he’d thought she might come but had convinced himself she’d choose to go anywhere else.
The portal dissipated behind her. Maryse wanted to say a million things just then. She wanted to tell him that she was wrong. She wanted to tell him that she should have listened to him, that if she’d said something there might have been others who'd have listened, that they might have been able to stop all this. She wanted to tell him that she was sorry she could not be there for him when he needed her. She wanted to tell him that she was thankful he was there when she needed him but when she opened her mouth to speak, Magnus shook his head.
He turned away from her, trailing towards his bedroom. “In the morning,” he murmured. There was something sorrowful in his tone, as if the mere sight of her hurt him. He made a gesture to the left and when Maryse looked, she realized he was pointing towards the guest room, a place Maryse had never entered despite the amount of times she’d been here.
When Maryse turned back, he was already gone and his bedroom door was already closing behind him.
Maryse stood in the dark for a long moment before she turned towards the room she’d be staying in. Maryse was not one to cry but her throat felt exceptionally tight just then and if she let herself, she was sure she would feel the tears start to come. Maybe it was relief or shame or some poor mix of the two. Maryse wasn’t sure but she did know that she’d make it up to him. She didn’t know how. She wasn’t sure what she could possibly do but she would, somehow.
For now, she laid Alexander into bed and then she crawled in after him, knowing that they were both safe and knowing that she had done nothing to deserve it.