"This is the best Ethiopian I've ever had. Do you know a lot about food?" Alec asked. "I mean, obviously you do. Never mind. That was a dumb thing to say."
"No, it wasn't," Magnus said, frowning.
Alec reached for a bite of penne arrabiata. He immediately began to choke on it. Tears streamed from his eyes.
"Alexander!" said Magnus.
"I'm fine!" Alec gasped, looking horrified. He snatched at his piece of bread first and only realized that it was bread when he tried to dab his eyes with it. He dropped the bread hastily and grabbed his napkin up instead, hiding both streaming eyes and scarlet face.
"You are obviously not fine!" Magnus told him, and tried a very tiny bite of the penne. It burned like fire: Alec was still wheezing into his napkin. Magnus made a peremptory gesture for the waiter that might have included a few blue sparks snapping and crackling onto other people's tablecloths.
The people eating near them were edging their tables subtly away.
"This penne is much too arrabiata, and you did it on purpose," said Magnus when the surly werewolf waiter hove into view.
"Werewolf rights," Erik grumped. "Crush the vile oppressors."
"Nobody has ever won a revolution with pasta, Erik," said Magnus. "Now go get a fresh dish, or I'll tell Luigi on you."
"I--" Erik began defiantly. Magnus narrowed his cat's eyes. Erik met Magnus's gaze and decided not to be a waiter hero. "Of course. My apologies."
"What a pill," Magnus remarked loudly.
"Yeah," said Alec, tearing off a new strip of injera. "What have the Shadowhunters ever done to him?"
Magnus lifted an eyebrow. "Well, he did mention a dead uncle."
"Oh," said Alec. "Right."
He went back to gazing fixedly at the tablecloth.
"He's still a total pill, though," Magnus offered. Alec mumbled something that Magnus could not make out.
It was then that the door opened and a handsome human man with deep-set green eyes came in. His hands were in the pockets of his expensive suit, and he was surrounded by a group of gorgeous young faeries, male and female.
Magnus slunk down in his chair. Richard. Richard was a mortal who the faeries had adopted in the way they did sometimes, especially when the mortals were musical. He was also something else.
Magnus cleared his throat. "Quick warning. The guy who just walked in is an ex," he said. "Well. Barely an ex. It was very casual. And we parted very amicably."
At that moment, Richard caught sight of him. Richard's whole face spasmed; then he crossed the floor in two steps.
"You are scum!" Richard hissed, and then picked up Magnus's glass of wine and dashed it in his face. "Get out while you can," he continued to Alec. "Never trust a warlock. They'll enchant the years from your life and the love from your heart!"
"Years?" Magnus spluttered. "It was barely twenty minutes!"
"Time means different things to those who are of faerie," said Richard, the pretentious idiot. "You wasted the best twenty minutes of my life!"
Magnus grabbed hold of his napkin and began to clean off his face. He blinked through the red blurriness at Richard's retreating back and Alec's startled face.
"All right," he said. "It's possible I was mistaken about the amicable parting." He tried to smile suavely, which was difficult with wine in his hair. "Ah well. You know exes."
Alec studied the tablecloth. There was art in museums given less attention than this tablecloth.
"Not really," he said. "You're my first ever date."
This wasn't working. Magnus didn't know why he had thought it might work. He had to get out of this date and not hurt Alec Lightwood's pride too much. He wished he could feel satisfaction that he had a plan in place for this, but as he texted Catarina under the table what he felt was a sense of enveloping gloom.
Magnus sat there silently, waited for Catarina to call, and tried to work out a way to say, "No hard feelings. I like you more than any Shadowhunter I've met in more than a century, and I hope you find a nice Shadowhunter boy . . . if there are any nice Shadowhunter boys besides you."
His phone rang while Magnus was still mentally composing, the sound harsh in the silence between them. Magnus hastily answered. His hands were not entirely steady, and he was afraid for a moment that he would drop the phone as Alec had dropped his glass, but he managed to answer it. Catarina's voice filtered down the line, clear and unexpectedly urgent. Catarina was clearly a method actor.
"Magnus, there's an--"
"An emergency, Catarina?" Magnus asked. "That's terrible! What's happened?"
"An actual emergency happened, Magnus!"
Magnus appreciated Catarina's commitment to her role but wished that she would not shout so loudly right into his ear.
"That's so awful, Catarina. I mean, I'm really busy, but I suppose if there are lives at stake I can't say n--"
"There are lives at stake, you blithering idiot!" Catarina yelled. "Bring the Shadowhunter!"
Magnus paused.
"Catarina, I don't think you fully understand the point of what you're meant to do here."
"Are you drunk already, Magnus?" Catarina asked. "Are you off debauching and getting one of the Nephilim--one of the Nephilim who is under twenty-one--drunk?"
"The only alcohol that has passed my lips is the wine that was thrown in my face," said Magnus. "And I was totally blameless in that matter as well."
There was a pause. "Richard?" said Catarina.
"Richard," Magnus confirmed.
"Look, never mind him. Listen carefully, Magnus, because I am working, and one of my hands is covered in fluid, and I'm only going to say this once."
"Fluid," said Magnus. "What kind of fluid?"
Alec goggled at him.
"Only going to say this once, Magnus," Catarina repeated firmly. "There is a young werewolf in the Beauty Bar downtown. She went out on the night of a full moon because she wanted to prove to herself that she could still have a normal life. A vampire called this in and the vampires are not going to be of any help because the vampires never are. The werewolf is changing, she is in an unfamiliar and crowded place, and she will probably lose control and kill somebody. I cannot leave the hospital. Lucian Graymark has his phone off, and the word from his pack is that he is in a hospital with a loved one. You are not in a hospital: you are out on a stupid date. If you went to the restaurant you told me that you were going to, then you are the closest person I know who can help. Will you help, or will you continue to waste my time?"
"I'll waste your time another time, darling," said Magnus.
Catarina said, and he could hear the wry smile in her voice, "I bet."
She hung up. Catarina was often too busy to say good-bye. Magnus realized he did not have all that much time himself, but he did waste a moment looking at Alec.
Catarina had said to bring the Shadowhunter, but Catarina did not have a great deal to do with the Nephili
m. Magnus did not want to see Alec cut off some poor girl's head for breaking the Law: he did not want someone else to suffer if he made a mistake in judgment, and he didn't want to find himself hating Alec as he had hated so many of the Nephilim.
He also did not want mundanes to be killed.
"I'm so sorry about this," he said. "It's an emergency."
"Um," Alec said, hunching his shoulders, "it's okay. I understand."
"There's an out-of-control werewolf in a bar near here."
"Oh," said Alec.
Something inside Magnus cracked. "I have to go and try to get her under control. Will you come and help me?"
"Oh, this is a real emergency?" Alec exclaimed, and brightened immeasurably. For a moment Magnus felt pleased that a maddened werewolf was ravaging downtown Manhattan, if it made Alec look like that. "I figured it was one of those things where you arranged to have a friend call you so that you could get out of a sucky date."
"Ha ha," said Magnus. "I didn't know people did that."
"Uh-huh." Alec was already standing up, shrugging his jacket on. "Let's go, Magnus."
Magnus felt a burst of fondness in his chest; it felt like a small explosion, pleasant and startling at the same time. He liked how Alexander said the things that other people thought and never said. He liked how Alec called him Magnus, and not "warlock." He liked how Alec's shoulders moved under his jacket. (Sometimes he was shallow.)
And he was cheered that Alec wanted to come. He'd assumed that Alec might be delighted for the pretext to exit an uncomfortable date, but perhaps he'd read the situation wrong.
Magnus threw money down on the table; when Alec made a demurring noise, he grinned. "Please," he said. "You have no idea how much I overcharge Nephilim for my services. This is only fair. Let's go."
As they went out the door they heard the waiter yell "Werewolf rights!" at their backs.
The Beauty Bar was usually crowded at this time on a Friday night, but the people spilling out of the door were not doing it with the casual air of those who had meandered outside to smoke or hook up. They were lingering under the shining white sign that had "Beauty" written in spiky red letters and what seemed like a picture of a golden Medusa's head underneath. The whole crowd had the air of people who were desperate to escape, yet who hovered, pinned in place by a horrified fascination.