THE RETURN OF AN ANGEL

The New York Institute was, miraculously, peaceful.

No rogue demons lunging out of dimensional tears. No rogue Shadowhunters misfiring enchanted daggers in the training room. No spontaneous glitter storms from Max’s experiment-gone-wrong in the basement. Just an ordinary morning—well, as ordinary as mornings could be when half your family was half-immortal and the other half refused to act mortal at all.

Max walked lazily through the stone corridors, brushing shoulders with Derek, who looked grumpy as usual but was clearly in a soft-grump mood today. His hand hovered near Max’s, and they occasionally bumped fingers but didn’t make a big deal about it. Max had learned to read Derek’s many moods. The “Max just kissed me and now I’m panicking internally” scowl was now his personal favorite.

Derek cleared his throat. “You still smell like potions.”

“It's called ‘sorcerer chic.’ Look it up,” Max replied with a smirk.

Across the courtyard, Leo was dramatically re-enacting some tragic Clave mission involving a possessed warlock and three extremely uncooperative ducks. Raphael Lightwood-Bane, elder son of Alec and Magnus and current Head of the Clave in Alicante, sat beside him, visibly unimpressed but clearly amused. He sipped his tea with all the patience of someone who regularly led interdimensional peace talks and still came home to find Leo had turned their bathroom mirror into a karaoke portal.

Once upon a time, Leo had been Alec’s best friend, and, for political reasons, his fake fiancé.

Now? He was very seriously dating Alec’s actual son.

Even for this family, that was a lot.

Meanwhile, back in the loft, Magnus was spread across a long velvet chaise like a bored cat in a robe worth more than some country’s GDP. His hair shimmered faintly gold from the spell he was practicing earlier (or possibly just from drama), and he was flipping through a grimoire upside down while drinking something that glowed suspiciously blue.

Alec, ever the contrast, sat in a high-back armchair with two mugs—one black coffee, one a swirling magical concoction that occasionally sparked.

“Remind me again,” Magnus said, without looking up, “how we ended up living in a live-action fae sitcom.”

Alec raised an eyebrow. “We fell in love, had brilliant magical sons.”

Magnus sighed, flopping dramatically over the side of the chair. “Your brother, Alexander, is dating our younger son. And your ex-fake-fiancé is sleeping in the same room as our older son. The family tree needs footnotes.”

Alec took a long sip of coffee. “At least no one’s tried to marry the cat.”

“I checked,” Magnus said darkly. “Chairman Meow still holds a restraining order against a faerie lord from Prague.”

“But the family’s happy,” Alec said, voice warm. “Max laughs more. Raphael doesn’t snap at everyone anymore. Max doesn’t wear those cursed leather pants as often.”

Magnus nodded slowly. “You’re right. I love them. Even when they drink my imported wine and steal my eyeliner.”

There was a pause as Alec came to sit beside him, handing him the coffee.

Magnus looked over, eyes softening behind all the glitter. “You know, for a warlock who swore off romance, and a Shadowhunter who thought love was a weakness... we did pretty damn well.”

“We did,” Alec said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “We chose each other. Over and over again.”

Magnus smiled gently. “And we’ll keep choosing each other. Even if our family keeps getting weirder.”

They sat like that for a while, basking in their moment of rare peace.

Then Magnus sighed and added, “Still, I gave Derek the sex talk last night.”

Alec spit out his coffee. “You what?!”

“He looked so uncomfortable, Alexander. It was precious.”

“You’re going to give me a stroke.”

Magnus patted his leg sweetly. “You’ll look dashing in recovery.”

Outside, Max was casting illusion spells with Derek watching silently. Derek already knew them all, but he let Max show off anyway.

Nearby, Leo and Raphael were halfway into an argument about who was more “emotionally available.” Leo was quoting poetry. Raphael was quoting the Clave rulebook. Chairman Meow had wisely retreated to a bookshelf upstairs.

And inside, in their chaos-proofed home, Alec and Magnus sat hand in hand, hearts full.

They had fought wars. They had seen lifetimes. They had broken rules and built families.

But what mattered most, in the end, was this:

Their family—magical, strange, glitter-covered and ever-growing—was safe. Together. Messy. And loved.

And really, that was the best kind of magic.
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The End ❤️