My Beautiful One

15. False hope

Magnus Bane.

"I know you!" I gasped, pointing at him in almost an accusatory fashion.

Of course I knew Magnus Bane. Well, not personally. I'd never met him, but I'd heard of him. Hell, I'd even teased Clary about being engaged to him the day she told me she'd accepted Jace's proposal.

And then another thought came to me.

"You broke Alec's heart!" This time it really was an accusation. I didn't know Alec so well, but he was on the good side, and Jace cared about him. That was excuse enough for me not to like the guy, plus the fact that he was working for Sebastian. But at the same time, I refused to see him in a bad light. In my eyes, this thin, glitzy, eyeliner-stealing warlock was a guardian angel, because he could set me free.

He could set me free.

"Guilty." Magnus sighed, closing his green cats eyes. "Immortal relationships are different; you'll see."

"I will never see. I'll never see past my bedroom window if you don't let me out. You could, couldn't you? Isn't that why you're here?" I asked eagerly.

Magnus's eyes snapped open again. "I could, but I'm not going to. And no, that is not why I'm here. I'm here because Sebastian called me for my healing services, and nothing else."

It felt like I'd had the world pulled out from under me. I could see the colour draining from my face in the vanity mirror before me, and I nearly collapsed. But the warlock was there to catch me, stopping me before I could hit the floor, and carrying me back to the bed.

"But you're..." I gasped between short breaths, "Good. You're good... aren't you? You loved Alec, you fought against the Morgensterns, you-" I started coughing, and Magnus tried to hand me a glass of water. Not about to trust the traitor, I turned my head away and tried to reach for the Herondale dagger on my bed side table. But I was two weak, and Magnus restrained me easily.

"Don't try, Amari." He said, his voice a lulling murmur. "You're sick. You talked for over twenty four hours without food or drink or sleep, and you just don't have the energy."

"I will never... stop." I whisper in my hoarse voice. "I can't stop fighting. I won't. Until the day I finally give up and put a knife through my heart, I will hate Sebastian, and you, and-" I coughed, and blood spotted my white pillow.

"Shh..." He patted me on the head before getting up off the bed and starting to mix little vials of liquid into the glass of water. "You shouldn't hate Sebastian so much. He cares about you; if he didn't, he wouldn't have summoned me here. And he's saved you from all this war: isn't that a good thing?"

"There wasn't supposed to be a war!" I groaned, finally giving up and taking a deep gulp of the drink Magnus had finally finished mixing. "I was supposed to kill Jonathan Morgenstern! Jace and I had a shot at ending it before it could turn into a full-scale battle. And now there's no hope due to one selfish Shadowhunter and a warlock that's so hung up on break-up issues that he's willing to risk hundreds of lives by not freeing me."

The aforementioned warlock narrowed his eyes at me. "Watch it, Silverdown; you don't know what it's like to be in a real battle. If you did, you'd be thanking Sebastian and me."

"There's a battle going on?" I asked, alarmed.

Magnus shook his head, glitter coming free from the strands and almost making me sneeze. "There hasn't been any fighting yet. But there's a storm coming; tensions are rising on both sides. More and more demons have been getting past the barriers in Alicante, and every Institute on Earth is prepping Shadowhunters for war."

I opened my mouth to comment in shock, and my healer took the opportunity to shove some kind of chewy tablet into it, stopping my speech. He then started muttering, which made a mass of blue sparks swirl around his fingers. He put those glowing hands on either side of my head for a moment, and when he withdrew them, I felt remarkably better.

I blinked in shock. "Wow."

"I know. I'm just so awesome, aren't I?" Said Magnus, smiling at me fleetingly while gathering his things. He seemed to be preparing to leave. "Honestly, I don't see why your little white-haired fuss-pot called me. You had a pretty bad case of exhaustion and dehydration, but normally people can only bother to afford my help when it's serious enough that there's someone dying. When I saw that Jona- oops, sorry, Sebastian was demanding my services..." He trailed off, looking at me long and hard. "Yeah, I guess can see why."

"What d'you mean?" I demanded, my tone defensive.

"You do know that you are incredibly beautiful, Amari." He said simply, turning back to put the last of his things away. "In fact, your name actually means 'eternally beautiful'. I can see why Sebastian would jump through hoops for you."

"I'd jump through windows to get away from him." I muttered bitterly. I'd pretty much given up hope on Magnus helping me, so I let myself be miserable again for just a little while.

But I wanted to give it one last try.

"Magnus, if I gave you a letter to deliver to the Institute, would you take it there for me?" I asked, widening my eyes, pouting slightly, and going for the pleading look that tended to get me whatever I wanted with males. I wasn't so sure about it working on Magnus (he liked guys after all), but I was almost desperate.

He sighed. "Sure, Amari. But don't let it give you false hope."

But my hope was up and running anyway, and I felt like I'd be zapped by Magnus' blue sparks all over again. With determination burning through me once more, I leaped off the bed and dashed across the room to my desk. I grabbed the sharpest pencil I could find and immediately started writing like my life depended on it, which it did.

"You misspelled 'psychotic'." Said Magnus, looking over my shoulder as my hand flew across the page. "I think they'll get the picture all the same." I snapped distractedly back, finishing my sentence and signing the letter off. "Here." I folded the paper, jammed it into an envelope, wrote the Institute's address on that, and then handed it to Magnus.

"I'll guard it with my life." He said mockingly, tucking it into his jacket pocket.

"You better." I warned.

The warlock just grinned, his cat-eyes glittering. "Or what, Amari?"

And then he disappeared, leaving me standing in my empty room. I sighed and let myself fall backwards onto my bed, staring at my ceiling like all those hours I had before. The difference was that this time, I had something to live for.

*   *   *

Magnus' POV

I'd never expected Alec to forgive me.

Heck, I'd never thought I'd even see him again.

And yet here I was standing at the gates of the Insitute, face to face with my ex-boyfriend, and slightly heartbroken by the fact that he obviously hadn't forgiven me. He just stood there on the other side of the gate, his blue eyes narrowed in a glare.

"What are you doing here?" He said, suddenly finding his boots much more interesting than me.

I crossed my arms. "Well, this is hardly the Hallelujah Chorus I was expecting."

"Good." He mumbled. It was obvious he was trying to sound spiteful, but Alec had never been a good at telling untruths.

"Look, I'm not here for you." I lied. It wasn't really that much of a lie, since my official reason had been to drop off Amari's letter, but the driving force which put me past the fear of defying Jonathan Morgenstern was my need to see Alec again.

"I didn't expect that to be the reason. Why are you here?" He snapped. "Have you finally crawled back to the good side because we pay better than Jonathan Morgenstern does?"

"I don't have time to argue with you." I said, exhaling sharply in a gesture of exasperation. "The only reason I'm here is because I just met a girl who I'm pretty sure is either going to kill herself or me if I don't give you this letter."

"What girl?" Demanded Jace, who had jogged up towards the gates after hearing our raised voices.

The girl that's like none other. I thought, recalling a memory of Amari Silverdown. She had certainly been the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen; all the faerie loveliness, but with the freaky side strained out by her Shadowhunter blood. She'd been brave like a Shadowhunter, and after hearing her story, I'd been astounded that she was loyal to the Clave despite how they'd shunned her. And to top it all off, she was now the latest obsession of Jonathan Morgenstern and didn't even know it.

"Who, Magnus?" Now Clary had joined the crowd, and stared at me with wide green eyes.

"Amari Silverdown." I replied, reaching inside my jacket and handing Amari's letter to Jace. "Jonathan Morgenstern's got her."

Author's note: On the side is a hilarious picture made by my awesome friend lani_bear. It's Sebastian, Magnus, Jace, and Amari, in that order.