Chapter Eighteen

Adrian blinked, shaking away the memory in time to see Jace appear in the misty body of Valak. He felt Alec's grip tighten and assumed that it must be his memory.

"No, it's not true! The demon deceived me!" Alec suddenly shouted. Adrian broke his gaze away from the demon, turning it to Alec. The other Shadowhunters face twisted in a combination of pain, denial and embarrassment.

Adrian slowly blinked in realisation. Alec Lightwood was in love with Jace in much more than a Parabatai way.

He could only imagine how painful that would be.

Not only was Jace currently fawning over Clary but even if Jace magically woke up as straight as a circle, nothing could ever happen. Relationships between Parabatai were banned amongst Shadowhunters. If the Clave even suspected anything then both Shadowhunters would be stripped of their runes. Also, Shadowhunters in general aren't exactly the biggest gay relationship supporters.

Shadowhunters stand by duty and believe that it's their duty to keep mundanes safe which involves having children so that there are future generations of Shadowhunters and well, anyone whose ever taken biology will probably know that two guys (or two women) can't produce children together.

Adrian saw the whole thing as a load of nonsense.

He snapped out of his thoughts as Magnus shouted for them to not break the bond closely followed by someone shouting that it was okay to Alec. Adrian couldn't help but think that everything was going to hell very quickly. Although he'd have been more surprised if things had actually ran smoothly.

"No!" Alec shouted. Adrian could hear the slight crack in his voice as he did.

Then, in a sudden motion, Alec pulled himself out of the circle backing towards the wall behind. There was a shout from the other side of the circle.

In a moment of panic the rest of the circle disbanded, not that it mattered, the circle was useless now. Adrian didn't let go of Magnus' hand; instead he felt a tugging feeling in his gut as the warlock drew from his strength in an attempt to hold Valak back.

"I cannot contain the demon much longer!" Magnus' strained voice rang out.

The warlocks right hand glowed blue as it was pointed at the demon. Adrian struggled to focus on much else as he fought for his own consciousness from his energy being drawn from him.

Mundanes had things so easy.

Hearing a yelp followed by an almost ground shaking growl from Valak, Adrian lifted his head to see Jace in the grasp of the demon with Alec and Izzy trying to pull him back. In his hazy state he couldn't help but think it looked like they were all playing tug of war with Jace.

"The demon is growing stronger!" Magnus shouted as he fought to keep the demon contained in the circle.

"He's slipping." Alec called.

"Clary, help us."

From the other side of the swirling grey mass that was Valak, Adrian could hardly see what was going on. He could hear more shouting and more chaos followed by a brief flash of her sisters red hair accompanied by the glow of what he could only assume was a seraph blade.

The next thing Adrian heard was a wailing inhuman screech as the greater demon died.

He struggled to follow what happened next. Everything was a blur as he fought to stay awake.

"Jace..." His sister started as Jace fell out of the grip of the demon only to promptly collapse. "Oh my god, Jace. Jace, get up."

Clary, Izzy and Alec were stood around Jace who appeared to be unnaturally still. Magnus stepped a little closer to the fallen shadowhunter. Adrian hesitated before stumbling forwards slightly.

"Is he going to be alright?"

"I don't know." Magnus spoke his tone casual, almost dismissive. He must also be feeling the effects of using so much magic at once to try and contain the greater demon. "Does he normally just lay like that without moving?"

Clary shot the warlock and unamused glare before turning her attention back to Jace.

"Get up. Jace."

Surprisingly Jace did get up. His body jerked awake coughing as he did. The blonde shadowhunter gasped for air as he lay on the ground.

"I'm alright." He spoke, his voice sounding a lot weaker than he probably intended. "I'm alright."

"That's good." Adrian spoke up causing everyone to look over at him. Even Jace who was still sprawled out across the floor. "Because I'm not."

After that he had no idea what happened. Adrian felt himself fall unconscious, physically and mentally drained from first having his memories extracted and then having his energy used to hold back a greater demon.

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Adrian woke up to his brain pounding inside his head followed by what seemed like every bone in his body aching. Wincing to himself, he used his elbows to push himself up into a sitting position on his bed.

He froze.

Alec Lightwood was sat on the window-seat at the other end of the room with his knees tucked up to his chest and back leant against the wall as he stared out of the window.

If anyone, Adrian wouldn't have expected his sister or Magnus to be here but alas; life still managed to surprise him. It always seemed to be surprising him lately.

Shifting his position he reached down to grab his stele, pulling it out of his pocket. Bringing the tip of the stele to his skin Adrian easily drew an iratze on his lower arm and watched as the mark glowed gold before fading into his skin. As it faded the headache and overall ache he felt faded away until no trace of it remained.

Adrian placed his stele down on the side, the slight noise breaking the eldest Lightwood siblings attention away from the view outside the window.

"You're awake." Alec commented sounding vaguely surprised. He nodded.

"How long have I been out?"

"About eight hours." The shadowhunter paused. "Give or take about an hour. I lost track of time."

"I was out all night?" Adrian asked a little disbelieving. He'd never been unconscious for that long before. "Where's everyone else?"

"They went back to the Institute. Clary was going to stay but then she decided to go with Jace." Alec explained his voice marginally strained when he spoke the name of his Parabatai.

"So you stayed?"

"I didn't want to talk to them."

Adrian just nodded. He wasn't completely sure as to why but it was probably either down to Jace being shown as his memory or down to breaking the bond and almost releasing a greater demon on Brooklyn. Or both. Probably both.

"Where's Magnus?" He asked changing the topic. It was obvious that Alec didn't want to talk about any of that and Adrian wasn't going to press the matter. When you try to people just shut down.

"He went out a few hours ago but he didn't say where."

"Probably to see Tessa." Adrian spoke, mostly to himself. Alec just looked confused. "Tessa's another warlock and coincidentally the only warlock I know without knowing where they live."

"Why is that a coincidence?"

"It's complicated." He sighed. "The person everyone saw in my memory was Sam, my dead friend. After he died I had a lot of nightmares and they weren't just when I was asleep.

During that time I ended up spending most of my time here. I couldn't really go home without having to explain why I kept shouting in my sleep every night to Clary and my mom which was something I wasn't allowed to do. The Clave wanted to keep their deaths secret."

Anyway, after a few weeks Magnus offered to put a block in my mind to basically keep all of my memories of Sam, including what happened, at bay. For many reasons I refused. I didn't want any more of my memories to be tampered with and there are a lot of risks of forgetting altogether with those sorts of spells.

Only when Valak pulled the memory from my mind... Well, the best way to describe it would be like a dam. I was still receiving some of the memories through the mind block but Valak managed to break it meaning that all of the previously held back memories have all come surging through.

So now Magnus has gone to Tessa's because I can't kill him if he's at Tessa's." Adrian explained, rambling a little as he did so.

"That sounds... confusing."

Adrian laughed. "Just a little."

The alarm clock on his bedside table started beeping diverting his attention away from the Lightwood sat on the window seat. The bright red numbers flashed in the shape of 7:00 letting him know that he should be getting up to go to school.

Internally groaning he shut up the alarm before forcing himself to stand up. He hesitated as he felt his head rush from the sudden movement.

"Maybe you shouldn't be standing up so soon." Alec's voice spoke as Adrian heard the other boy stand up.

"Probably not." He agreed. "But I have something I want to show you."