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Magnus strolled through the streets of The Never Isles with no particular plan in mind. The days for the king of Edom were long and tedious and he’d decided to slip out quietly for a change of pace today. His friends, ever worried about both his safety and his impulsive tendencies, had accompanied him.
He had no plan here today - you never could when you visited here. It was the place where all the lost things from other realms slipped through the cracks - keys, toys, missing socks, priceless works of art...even people were known to slip through the cracks from time to time though that was a much rarer occurrence.
“Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll find some of that delicious Scottish whiskey again,” his friend Ragnor commented from somewhere behind him as Magnus stopped to poke at a decorative jeweled egg. The seller shouted and moved to slap his hand away until he caught sight of who was standing in front of his booth and instantly paled. The rulers of each of the nine realms were both recognizable and completely unique. Magnus had always stood out with his eccentric style, taste for the shinier things in life, and unique gold thorned crown (which he was currently wearing haphazardly on his head purely because Ragnor had insisted.)
The seller’s tactics changed - he offered the egg to Magnus to inspect more closely and he turned it over gently in his hands. He’d heard about these eggs - many, many years ago when he’d still lived on Earth - and they certainly were pretty to look at but he had no use for more useless trinkets to adorn the harsh stone walls of his castle in Edom. He set the egg back on its decorative stand and walked off - the seller still shouting lower and lower offers behind him.
No, today he was looking for something different.
Ragnor’s favorite whiskey had been one such find. Large pieces of the Amber room also occasionally surfaced and Magnus made sure to snatch those up no matter what was being charged for them. A priceless painting or two, rare tomes that had been lost to time… he was open to anything today as long as it was new, exciting, and different.
He passed by a stack of books that smelled like one of the other hell dimensions and stopped to peruse them. Two of them stood out - books of healing that he knew Catarina would like. He passed them to her to inspect and she nodded. “These aren’t in your library yet.” He paid the horned woman behind the stall and kept moving.
His friends had told him time and time again that the longer he spent in Edom, the more the realm changed him.
He’d once been carefree and warm - skirting through his immortal life on parties, travel, and his own exquisite taste.
Now, he was told, he’d grown darker and colder - a shadow of the former High Warlock that he’d once been and every single bit the king of a hell dimension.
They continued to weave their way through the rows of colorful stall booths - finding only a few more small things to look at (and none of the whiskey that Ragnor had not-so-secretly had his heart set on.)
At the very end of the row was a small stage and an auctioneer. Magnus typically tended to avoid this part of the Never Isles. He had little need for livestock in Edom (though he did once pick up a spectacular racehorse that he’d worked a little manage on to keep the stallion alive far longer than any horse should live.) Today was certainly no exception but he couldn’t help but glance that way as he passed by to continue into the next row.
He stopped in his tracks once he saw what was on the stage.
A shadowhunter.
De-runed, sure, but the telltale scars where his runes had been stripped from his skin and healed poorly without the use of an iratze were clearly visible.
What in Edom’s name was a Shadowhunter doing here?
The last time he had been topside, the Nephilim were so clearly invested in their angelic blood and their pure bloodlines. This one must have done something truly terrible if he managed to slip between the cracks and end himself in the land of lost things.
The Shadowhunter on the stage was in heavy metal shackles with a thick collar wrapped around his neck. Both were leading towards bolts at the front of the stage. And he struggled. The man had no weapons, no runes, and no stele but he was still fighting for his life in this strange land where they were trying to sell him like cattle.
Magnus was intrigued.
He was more than intrigued, in fact, he was absolutely smitten. It had been a very, very long time since someone had so clearly captured his attention like the man held captive on the stage had.
“Magnus?” Raphael had stopped next to him and was following his gaze to find out what had caused him to stop so suddenly. Once his eyes landed on the Shadowhunter in front of them, the vampire scoffed. “Really? Was it the black hair and blue eyes, Magnus? What are you going to do with a shadowhunter in Edom? A de-runed one at that...he can’t even be useful to you.”
Magnus chose not to justify that with an answer, instead, threw a glamor up and slipped quietly through the crowd to the front of the stage.
Most of the buyers weren’t from one of the realms connected to Earth and saw little value in what appeared to be a normal human. The bids were currently disgustingly low and Magnus couldn’t help himself...he was far too impulsive, after all.
He held his hand up and frowned as he was outbid.
He held it up again and went back and forth with the lizard-looking man on the other side of the stage before the other man shook his head and indicated that he wasn’t bidding again.
Magnus had won.
He’d won and now he had a Shadowhunter of his very own.
There was no Clave to come after him. There were no Accords that he was violating.
This one might not have runes but he didn’t need runes to have angel blood.
Magnus could do so much with that.
He heard Raphael sigh drastically from somewhere behind him as the Shadowhunter was unchained and lead, with great difficulty, off the stage and to somewhere in the outbuilding behind. Magnus walked over to a booth to the side and pulled out his coin purse. The price he’d bought his shadowhunter was still staggeringly low. He had a feeling that had the auctioneer known what he had on the stage, he would have demanded a much higher price.
Once his payment had been accepted, the man behind the counter stared at him with a judging eye. “It’s protocol to brand it before we let you leave. It helps us track where these things end up. Do you have one?”
Magnus pulled a signet ring off his finger and handed it over. “Brand him with this.”
The man glanced down at the symbol on the ring and he obviously recognized it as the crest of the king of Edom. He might not know it was Magnus himself who stood in front of him but he did know the shadowhunter had been purchased for Edom’s royalty. “Right away, sir. Please wait here while we complete your transaction.”
The man scurried off and Magnus watched him retreat into the barn to permanently put his symbol on the Shadowhunter’s runeless body. Soon, Magnus reminded himself, the Shadowhunter would be in his possession soon.