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Magic sinks into things. A warlock can conceal their magical signature with the right spells, but it’s impossible to erase every trace of magic that’s been performed — there’s always a record somewhere, a hint of magic that sticks to the wall like a stain or hovers over the floorboards or collects in a corner. It’s always there, if you know how to look.
Sometimes, more rarely, the magic changes something, sinks in and triggers an evolution: perhaps the shirt, worn for centuries, appears oddly untouched by the passage of time. Warlocks frequently complain that a favourite Ming dynasty vase is a bit wonky after being magically repaired one too many times. Stories go around about warlocks’ pets who live nearly as long as their masters.
There’s a loft in Brooklyn bathed in the warmth of wards, a loft that’s been in many different places and many different buildings but always with the same spells wrapped around it, the same vibrant magic living within it. There’s a warlock with magic beyond the usual, magic that’s somehow both angelic and demonic, magic that bleeds off of him when he’s not thinking about it, magic that’s absorbed into his surroundings wherever he goes — not enough to notice, mostly, not unless he spends years in one place, and he generally switches countries too often to see anything change.
His name is Magnus Bane, and he lives in this loft, takes it with him when he moves. He’s lived in it until his magic makes up its bones, has knotted itself into the sinew of the rooms. Magic drifts down like dust and settles in corners, along edges, sinking into the wooden planks and the walls. It’s magic born of a Fallen Angel, magic beyond the ken of most, and nobody notices the changes it makes.
Sentience isn’t an on/off switch with nothing in-between. It’s a sliding scale, drifting from black to grey to white, and the loft slides imperceptibly along it. There’s no one moment when it opens its eyes and becomes a she; there’s no singularity where something changes and life emerges where there was none before.
The loft drifts into awareness slowly, thanks to the magic imbued in her structure, in whatever sense of self she has. She wakes over years, over decades; she moves quietly, slowly, up the steps that connect the inanimate to the animate, the dead to the living, the unthinking to the conscious.
She’s made from the magic of the warlock-who-lives-within-her, and Magnus Bane is the first person she knows, the one she knows best, the one she loves above all else.
He doesn’t know it, but she listens when he talks, wishes she could comfort him when he cries. Sometimes she’ll lend him what magic she can spare from what’s sunk into her; she’ll add a little boost to the spells he casts within her walls. There’s not much she can do, but the magic-that-makes-her is forever at his disposal. Her first emotion is love for him.
As she grows, though, she learns of other things: of gladness and of joy, of interest and of boredom. She’s never thought the word lonely, but sometimes she wonders if there are others out there like her, or if she’s the only one. If there are, she wonders if it’s possible for her to ever meet them.
She concludes that she most likely never will know, and she has no words for the pain she feels at the thought.
~
Nobody really understands what an Angelic Core is.
Despite the name, they’re not angelic. They’re more like the ley lines — a source of power aligned neither with heaven nor with hell. Each one feeds an Institute’s wards, forming the power centre of the building. The Angelic Cores existed well before Jonathan Shadowhunter, and will exist in all the millenia to come; there are theories that they’re some sort of expression of the ley lines’ power in an area, a physical stone located at their heart. Whatever the case, they have power, and so the Institutes were built around them to channel their power.
They’re usually small, with only enough power to keep a building fully warded, and that only with the help of a warlock. Institutes on larger ley line conjunctions tend to have larger Cores, however, and New York follows the trend: thanks to the no less than six ley lines which run beneath the city, the Core powers the wards all on its own, only needing a warlock to shape its raw power.
And still, extra energy hums under its skin. The few warlocks with occasion to visit the Institute have remarked a faint tingling sensation at times, but put it up to either the excess of angelic energy from the Shadowhunters, or to the glares coming from every side. Nobody stays long enough to wonder where the magic comes from, or where it goes.
The energy bleeds off of the Core and settles in the foundations of the Institute, crawls through the walls, and changes something deep within. It’s a subtle change at first, but it grows, like a snowball rolling faster and faster down a hill.
The New York Institute awakes.
Her first thought is for the people within her walls, to protect the Shadowhunters she’s built to house. She knows them, every one, can recognise their footsteps on her floors, their fingers brushing her walls. She is them, in a sense, built to fulfil the same purpose they were born for.
They die, all of them, one by one like sand through an hourglass. It takes her a while to understand what it means, the aching-hurting-gaping-space that opens up in her when she thinks about those she’s lost. It’s decades before she learns the word grief.
The years trickle on, one after another. She learns to count them by the people who walk her halls — the people who come and go, who love and live and laugh and die, who she protects to the best of her limited ability but who never know her.
She mourns when the Whitelaws are killed, across the city from her where she can do nothing to help. She’s not sure whether she likes the new people who move in, the Lightwoods; the older ones have an anger in them that she can feel in her bones, an anger that she wants to shy away from. An anger-that-drives, an anger-that-hurts.
But to make up for it, the Lightwood child has a heart like an ember to burn away the dark. He’s young, she knows, although she’s never been good at judging ages. She watches as he grows: from a toddler-of-laughter-and-smiles to a serious child of six, early-heavy-determination on his shoulders, who yet grins and laughs and cradles his newly born younger sister. The sister can’t pronounce his name, and so she uses a nickname; the Institute watches as the boy immediately declares that he wants to be known only as Alec now.
She watches as he grows older still, as he learns to carry the too-great weight that rests on his shoulders, as he chooses the bow and arrows that will be his weapons, as he cares for his sister and his two new brothers — the new-small-child, the older-hurting-arrogant-child.
She learns to love Alec as an individual, as himself: the emotion is something new to her, something he’s taught her, something warm-soft-gentle in what a human might call her heart.
She watches as he begins to steal glances at other boys, as the heavy-dirty-cold-shame of it creeps into his bones. She watches as his shoulders slump and his eyes grow dark and weary. She watches as he takes on weight after weight after weight that drags him down, watches as he shelters his siblings from the pressure that he can barely hold up, watches as he stumbles and wavers but refuses to fall because he doesn’t know if he could get back up.
She watches, and she loves.
There aren’t many ways for her to express that love, to comfort him, but she tries. The floor of his room when he wakes up isn’t quite as cold as it is anywhere else. The coffee he makes tastes better than anyone else’s. (When somebody pisses him off, she makes sure their coffee is cold.)
There’s nothing she can do about the heavy-weight-pressure that descends on him, but sometimes, when he’s alone but for her, he’ll press a hand to her walls and lean into her — relaxing in her presence, in the absence of impossible expectations. He doesn’t know she loves him, but she doesn’t need him to know. She simply wants to offer him what comfort she can.
Those times, anyone who tries to come near will incomprehensibly find themselves lost in a maze of passages they don’t recognise, or come across a locked door that they can’t open. The Institute marshals all the power she can to keep him safe, and even if he doesn’t know it’s her who brings him those moments of peace, a scrap of tension still eases from his shoulders-that-carry-too-much-weight. She smiles — or would smile, if she could — to know that she’s helped.
~
The loft is in Brooklyn this decade, taking up residence on the top floor of a brownstone. She likes her new surroundings; she can bring back that balcony from several moves ago, and it can jut out over the street below, offering a view of the city that Magnus enjoys. He’s High Warlock of this city, and so her wards are modified so that clients can come in and out so long as he’s home; people troop in and out of her doors in a regular stream, bringing problems-questions-worries, leaving with solution-answers-reassurance. She likes watching them, wondering who they are, where they’re going, where they come from. It’s entertaining, and she likes it when she proves to be right about somebody.
Beneath the amusement, though, she wonders: do any of them come from a place like her, a place-of-magic, a place-that-is-more?
She wonders if she’d be able to tell if they were — if she could feel a faint imprint on somebody of a magic akin to her own. If she leaves magic-touches-traces on them that somebody else could detect.
Something always clings to Magnus when he comes home from a visit to the Spiral Labyrinth — the faintest scent of a place-but-more. The Labyrinth isn’t awake like she is, she doesn’t think, but it’s a bit… more-than-this-realm, bigger-than-its-walls. She’s heard warlocks talk about the strange way its corridors seem to move, the impossibility of determining objectively exactly where any book is in its myriad shelves, the way nobody knows how it’s organised but somehow anything can be found if you look. Like her, the Labyrinth is made of magic as much as stone or wood or brick, but it’s not awake. It doesn’t feel like her, doesn’t wonder, doesn’t watch.
She’s still alone.
Then, one day, there’s a man within her walls whose skin sparks with something she recognises like an echo-through-spacetime, like a whisper on the breeze, like a reflection in a mirror.
He’s a Shadowhunter, one of the first she’s ever seen, although he seems far nicer than any other to come within her walls. He’s tall, black-rune-covered-skin, and he leaves tingles of angel-magic in the air as he walks. She notices him first because of the way Magnus looks at him — with more interest-openness-attention-welcome than she’s seen from him in decades.
(She’s lonely, yes, but Magnus is lonely too. She’s seen him in the middle of a crowded room with a face that looks the way she feels, sometimes: like something-missing, something-gone, something-unattainable. She’s seen him with lovers and with friends, but there’s always a wall-veil-barrier between them. When he’s alone but for her, the wall comes down, but there’s still nothing she can do to comfort him.
With the Shadowhunter, Magnus’ wall doesn’t seem to be there at all. So she notices.)
She notices him, and she looks closer, and that’s when she feels the magic dusted along his skin. The magic sings of life-born-of-magic, life-with-stone-walls-not-blood-and-bones, life-that-blossoms-unexpectedly-in-the-dark.
This Shadowhunter comes from a place-but-more, a place-like- her.
~
When Alec returns from his first meeting with Magnus Bane, the Institute can tell that something’s changed.
There’s a lot happening of late, thanks to the strange-runeless-Shadowhunter-who-tastes-of-too-much-angel-blood. She’s brought chaos to the Institute, chaos that brings anger down on Alec but never on her. The Institute doesn’t like Clary Fray very much.
But the emotions humming under Alec’s skin aren’t the irritation the Institute had expected. Instead, he feels — curious. Interested. Oddly-hopeful.
Alec shoves down those feelings as quickly as they rise, of course, but they’re there all the same, and the Institute wants to know why.
(She feels a hint of foreign-but-familiar magic on his skin, but it’s faint, so she thinks it’s only her imagination.)
When Magnus Bane comes to the Institute, she understands. This warlock flirts with Alec like she’s never seen before; he glows with magic-used-to-sustain-her-wards, but he’s never come inside of her before, and now that he’s within her halls, his magic shines with a strange angelic-demonic-brightness.
That’s not the most interesting thing about him, though. The most interesting part is the way Alec looks at him when he’s near, like he can’t keep his eyes away — and the way Magnus looks back at him, with a genuine interest that doesn’t fade even as Alec pushes him away.
(The strange-touch-of-magic on Magnus’ skin, the magic-that-feels-like- her, is the same magic she’s felt on Alec except stronger. She wonders if it’s some other aspect of Magnus’ magic, or if it’s something more.)
She watches as Alec tries to shut away the part of himself that wants to look at Magnus. She watches as Magnus doesn’t turn away.
When Magnus storms into the Institute to stop a wedding that she knows will end in Alec’s misery-hate-pain-sorrow, she leads Magnus down the most direct corridors and unlocks doors for him so that he bursts into the room just before the marriage is sealed.
Alec kisses Magnus, and she smiles.
She smiles, and she thinks about the strange-touch-of-magic on Magnus’ skin.
Later, when Alec comes back from visiting Magnus touched by the same magic, she wonders if it’s the touch of the place-where-Magnus-lives.
~
The loft likes Alec Lightwood for two reasons.
Firstly, because of Magnus. When they’re together, Magnus usually seems lighter-happier-brighter — and more than that, he’s more open. Even in those first weeks when their almost-relationship was more almost than relationship, when Magnus’ hopes seemed like dreams, Magnus was still less closed off. He carries his heart on his sleeve when it comes to Alec, and although that gives Alec an unprecedented ability to hurt him, the loft has seen for herself what happens when Magnus shuts his heart away from the world, and it’s worse.
So, she likes Alec because she loves Magnus.
But the other reason is more selfish: Alec carries the scent of that other place-but-more with him whenever he comes. The loft has realised that the scent is that of the Institute, and she’s increasingly certain that the Institute is, like her, alive. That’s all she knows, but she wants to know more, and every time Alec comes, she listens to the whispers-of-magic that cling to him and wonders what it would be like to feel the touch of that magic first-hand.
She can learn some things, although it’s really mostly guesswork and instinct more than knowledge. For some reason, the magic suggests a she to her, so that’s how she thinks of the Institute, the being-to-whom-the-magic-belongs. The Institute’s magic feels like the loft’s in its mix of sentience and immobility, but it also carries a hint of something wild-strange-elemental, something that feels like the ley-lines-that-run-through-the-city.
From the way the magic curls around Alec, the loft wonders if the Institute loves him the way she loves Magnus. From the lighter touch of that same magic on the other Shadowhunters’ skin, she guesses that Alec is special-loved-important to the Institute — which, perhaps, makes sense, seeing as he leads it in all but name.
She wonders if the Institute tastes her magic on Magnus, if the Institute wonders about her the same way she wonders about the Institute.
She’ll never know, but there’s a certain comfort in wondering.
~
The Institute has never really thought about whether there might be others-like-her.
There are other Institutes, of course, with other Angelic Cores. None are quite as powerful as hers, though, and the Shadowhunters transferred to her don’t carry that trace-of-living-magic on them the way Magnus does — and, increasingly, Alec.
She’s heard them talk about a loft in Brooklyn, and she wonders if the loft is as much like her as she’d like to imagine.
But thinking about the loft as a being-like-herself brings a new undercurrent to her emotions, one she hasn’t felt before. She thinks it might be jealousy. Alec is spending more and more time at the loft, and she can see that he’s happier with a life-outside-her-walls, she knows it’s better for him like this — but every time he spends a night away and comes back with the loft’s touch-of-magic on his skin, the Institute wonders if she’ll stop being a place-he-likes-to-be-in. She wonders what makes the loft better than her.
The Institute is a place of duty, of responsibility-weight-leadership, and Alec has learned, with Magnus’ help, to fulfil that role well — but he must be different in the loft, in a place-for-home rather than a place-for-work. What is it like, in the loft?
The Institute is inexpressibly glad that there’s a place, now, where Alec can set down his too-heavy-weight, where responsibility is not a mantle-over-his-shoulders. But something itches at her when she thinks of the loft, pain-longing-envy-wanting-confusion.
She doesn’t resent Alec for it — she still ensures, for example, that anyone who complains about the time he spends at the loft gets cold coffee the next morning. But she thinks she might resent the loft.
It’s only when Magnus and Alec lose the loft that she realises there’s more to it.
They’re with her now, sleeping in Alec’s-old-room, all their smiles and laughter for her-and-her-alone — but she misses feeling the loft on them, misses the touch-of-magic that drifts down into her bones. She doesn’t want to take the loft’s place: she wants to be with the loft, to be able to brush up against the loft with her magic directly rather than only through Magnus and Alec, she wants to know what it is about the loft that Magnus and Alec love so much.
The disasters and pain of the next few weeks, the heartbreak-apologies-pain pouring from both Magnus and Alec, occupy a good portion of her attention. But she still thinks about the loft, wonders how she feels about her new owner, shies away from imagining how she, the Institute, would feel, without Magnus or Alec.
So when Magnus and Alec step through the doors hand-in-hand with the magic of the loft twining around them, the Institute absorbs the magic greedily and tries not to mourn the fact that this second-hand touch is all she’ll ever get.
~
When Magnus and Alec walk back into the loft for the first time, she breathes them in with an almost-desperation.
Lorenzo’s magic was sticky-greasy-yellow, and the familiar touch of Magnus’ blue-bright-calm-magic is a welcome replacement. She’s even grown to like the cool-angel-tingle of Alec’s magic. But best of all is the magic that weaves around them: the Institute’s magic, magic that sings against her own, magic she’d feared she’d never touch again.
She basks in it, in the warmth it evokes in her. She tastes the strands of magic, welcomes them down into her floorboards, into her walls. She wants to absorb it all, or better yet to have a constant supply of it, to be able to touch the Institute and know her better.
That’s impossible, of course, so she contents herself with what touches she can have.
Because she does feel the Institute’s familiar-warm-wild-magic, more of it than before. Alec spends his days in the Institute and his nights in the loft, bringing back magic with him when he comes. The magic wraps around him gently-protectively-softly; it cradles him, and the loft wants to know what it would be like to be cradled like that.
She’ll never know, of course, but she wants it all the same.
~
The alarm goes off in the middle of the night.
The Institute is awake, of course — she doesn’t exactly need to sleep — but Alec’s in bed across the city, and neither Underhill nor Izzy nor Jace is on duty. Amy Bellefleur is the senior officer in Ops; the Institute knows she’s smart and capable, but she’s still new, and when the alarm goes off, she freezes, wide-eyed.
The Institute feels the demons throwing themselves against her wards; she funnels her magic into the wards, but somebody’s clearly messed with the demons — they’re stronger than usual, and their attacks are actually causing damage. Not enough that she’s in danger of falling anytime soon, thanks to how well Magnus has warded her, but enough that the Shadowhunters will need to head out and deal with the demons. Bellefleur’s hands are shaking-trembling-shuddering; she’s never been in charge in a situation like this, never expected to be for a few years yet.
When Alec moved out of the Institute, officially, and into the loft, Magnus spelled the wards so that an attack on them would send Alec a fire message, wherever he was. The Institute has felt the spell activate; Alec’s certainly received the message by now, which means he should arrive soon.
More Shadowhunters pile into Ops, but not yet anyone who’ll outrank Bellefleur; the Institute knows she’s searching the crowd for somebody to take over from her, even as she gives orders for an attack on the demons massing outside.
Then Jace is there, and Bellefleur gives up control with obvious relief; the Shadowhunters spill down the Institute’s steps like a river of ink in their black-gear-black-runes-dark-night, and fall on the demons just outside.
Where is Alec? The Institute doesn’t know what’s keeping him, and although the Shadowhunters are fighting well enough, Alec is supposed to be here. There’s a reason why Heads live in the Institute; yes, Magnus could portal Alec over in a moment most of the time, but Alec isn’t here yet and nobody knows why.
The demons fall to seraph blades, but the attack isn’t perfectly well-coordinated; the Institute watches, helpless-weak-obsolete, as one of her Shadowhunters stumbles and falls, as another takes a heavy hit to the shoulder.
The warlock who must’ve summoned the demons steps out of the shadows, purple-dark-hateful-magic coalescing around his hands; two more Shadowhunters drop to the ground. Jace yells and swings a blade at him, fighting magic-on-seraph-blade, which effectively distracts the warlock from attacking Shadowhunters, but the demons are still there. Where is Alec?
Jace dodges a magical blast and ducks sideways to avoid the follow-up. The warlock is off-balance for a moment, and Jace knocks him out with a well-placed blow before turning back to the chaotic mass of demons and Shadowhunters.
Alec rounds the corner at a dead run, firing arrows mid-stride, and the assembled Shadowhunters seem almost to take in a breath of relief. The few remaining demons fall quickly; the warlock is put in custody; the injured are brought to the infirmary, iratzes are applied, the Institute funnels a bit of her energy into boosting the efficacy of the runes. It’s over, but when Alec stares down at the injured Shadowhunters on the bed, the Institute knows the incident has left worries deep in Alec’s mind.
~
Alec is a nauseating mix of exhausted-tired-worried-guilty when he comes back to the loft. The last she saw of him was in the early hours of the morning, as he ran out her doors as fast as his feet could carry him to answer an alarm from the Institute; since Magnus is at a two-day meeting with the Spiral Labyrinth, she’s been alone all day, and worrying.
Worrying about Alec, of course, and whatever is happening to him — but also worrying about the Institute. The loft knows it’s highly unlikely that the Institute actually falls, but it’s still possible, and she can’t know anything about what’s going on there until Alec gets back.
So it’s a relief when Alec stumbles through her door, the Institute’s magic still strong on his skin, although he’s developing circles under his eyes and she can see a new source of tension in his shoulders. It’s early evening, and Magnus is due back soon enough; in the meantime, Alec sits down heavily on the couch, worry-fear-guilt bleeding off of him in waves. He doesn’t move for a solid quarter-hour, and the loft wishes fruitlessly to comfort him.
Alec raises his head when Magnus portals in and manages a small smile for him. “You’re back.”
Magnus pauses at the tiredness clear in Alec’s tone, frowning slightly. “Are you alright?”
“Not really,” Alec replies with a sigh. “I — there was an alarm at the Institute, a rogue warlock attacked, and we dealt with it, but it was in the middle of the night and four of my Shadowhunters were injured because I wasn’t there.”
“Not your fault,” Magnus says immediately, dropping down to sit on the couch beside Alec, although he doesn’t put an arm around Alec’s shoulders as the loft expects him to. “I’m sorry. If I’d been here to portal you—”
“It’s not your fault either,” Alec tells him quickly. “Your job isn’t to be here to portal me around. It’s just — most Institute Heads live in the Institute.”
“And because of me, you don’t,” Magnus agrees, something heavy in his features. “And normally, it’d be fine, since I can just portal you over—”
“—but I don’t want to have to take advantage of you like that, and you’re not here all the time,” Alec finishes for him. “But Magnus, none of this is your fault.”
Magnus huffs, which the loft interprets as a silent I-disagree-but-I’m-not-going-to-argue-with-you-over-it-right-now-because-you’re-insufferably-stubborn. Alec apparently interprets it similarly, because he frowns. “Magnus, this is not your fault. I know you’re probably beating yourself up because this wouldn’t be a problem without you—”
“—because it wouldn’t be,” Magnus interrupts, guilt-apology-fear pouring from him in waves.
“—but you need to understand that I wouldn’t give you up for anything. You are more important to me than anything, do you understand?” Alec looks at Magnus with an earnest-sincere-certainty which the loft particularly likes him for.
“I understand,” Magnus says, gently-softly-reassured, taking one of Alec’s hands in his, “but that doesn’t solve the problem.”
Alec chews his lip, looking down at their entwined fingers. “I can’t live so far away from the Institute, but I know you would hate to live there.”
Splitting up, the loft notes, is not an alternative which either of them mentions.
Magnus tilts his head to the side, considering-thoughtful-wondering-pained. “Obviously I don’t want to give up the loft, but living in the Institute itself wouldn’t be a problem. Maybe years ago I might’ve felt uncomfortable there, but you’ve made it into a place where I can relax. If moving there is the only way—”
“I don’t want to make you give up the loft again because of me,” Alec cuts in. “You’ve done it once before, and I know how much it hurt you.”
Reluctantly, Magnus nods, frowning, but then his face brightens. “What if I didn’t have to give up the loft to move to the Institute, though?”
~
The Institute doesn’t expect Alec to come back that evening, much less with Magnus in tow. She also doesn’t expect him to be smiling, any trace of the day’s worries gone-vanished-faded-erased.
And yet, that is precisely what happens.
She watches them, wondering what solution they’ve come up with to the conundrum — because they must have found a solution of some sort; that’s the only possible explanation. Has Magnus agreed to move into the Institute with Alec? To give up the loft? She shrinks away from the pain that thought brings.
Magnus and Alec head to the essentially unused hallway-where-the-Head-would-usually-sleep — it’s right beside the Head’s office, with an easy route to Ops, and it’s quite a bit larger than anyone else’s rooms. Alec’s never slept there.
“This is a lot smaller than the loft,” Alec says, frowning slightly. “Are you sure—”
“Don’t worry, love,” Magnus replies. “The building it’s in right now is a good deal too big as well, technically speaking. The loft’s probably fifty percent magic by now; physical space isn’t exactly a constraint.”
The Institute listens, confused, but her questions go unanswered: after looking around a bit, Magnus opens a portal and steps through with Alec at his side. The portal, she thinks, goes to the loft, judging by the faint hint of the loft’s magic in it.
She waits. Patience has always been something she’s good at, but she’s finding it surprisingly difficult now; she wants to know what Magnus and Alec are doing with an almost-desperate need. She can’t lose the loft, can’t bear to never again feel that touch-of-magic; Magnus and Alec can’t possibly give her up.
Then, she feels magic brushing up against her — Magnus’ magic, wrapped around another magic-that-she-knows, magic-of-the-loft, magic that reaches into her structure and whispers along her bones. There’s a stretching-warping-pulling-growing in the place where the Head’s rooms had been, and then her walls settle, but it’s nothing like it was before.
The magic, the loft’s magic, the magic of the being that the Institute has come to love — the loft is nestled inside of her, her oh-so-familiar magic brushing up against the Institute’s with fondness-surprise-joy- love, and the Institute feels like her entire being is overflowing with an entirely unexpected joy. The loft is anchored within her and it feels like an embrace, like two solitary beings that have found a home.
Hello there, the Institute whispers, knowing that if she were human, she’d be beaming.
Hello, the loft returns, and her voice is like music that flutters through the Institute’s bones. It’s nice to finally meet you.