Chapter 30 : THE SUMMONS
"You could run."
Maryse Lightwood stood in the doorway of my office, her face a mask I couldn't read. The Clave summons lay on my desk between us like an unexploded bomb.
"I could. I won't."
"They'll make an example of you. A Lightwood, using forbidden magic." Her voice cracked slightly. "After everything our family went through to rebuild our reputation—"
"I saved Max."
The words hung in the air. Maryse's mask slipped, revealing something raw underneath — fear, anger, and a desperate love she didn't know how to express.
"I know you saved Max. I saw him this morning, walking and talking, scars where there should be a corpse." She crossed the room, stopping just short of my desk. "And I know the Clave would rather he died than have you break their rules to save him."
"Would you?"
"Would I what?"
"Rather he died. If that was the choice — Max's life or your good standing with the Clave."
The silence stretched. Maryse's face worked through emotions I'd never seen her show — the careful Lightwood control fracturing against something more fundamental.
"No." The word came out rough. "By the Angel, no. You did what I couldn't. What I would never have been brave enough to do." She reached out, touched my arm near the evolved rune. "But that doesn't change what's coming."
"I know what's coming."
"Do you?" Her grip tightened. "Inquisitor Herondale is a hard woman. Fair, but hard. She'll look at what you did and see a threat to everything Shadowhunters believe about rune magic. If you go before her without a defense—"
"I have a defense."
"Which is?"
I pulled up the file on my datapad — images of Gray Book marginalia, annotations nobody else could see, evidence of knowledge the Clave had deliberately suppressed.
"The rune I used isn't new. It's old. Older than the current Gray Book, from a time before the Clave decided what was forbidden and what was allowed." I showed her the photographs. "The evolution I experienced follows patterns that were documented centuries ago and then erased."
Maryse stared at the images. "Where did you get these?"
"Research."
"Research." She laughed, the sound bitter. "My son the researcher. My son the heretic. My son who saved his brother with magic that hasn't been seen in a thousand years." She released my arm. "Will the Inquisitor believe this?"
"She'll have to verify it. Which means accessing the original Gray Book, the one in Idris that still has the annotations." I pulled up the second part of my defense strategy. "And while she's verifying, Jace will testify."
"Jace?"
"He's a Herondale now. Her grandson. The family connection will buy me time." I met her eyes. "This isn't my first trial, Mother. It's just the first one where the stakes are personal."
The old title slipped out before I could stop it. Mother. A word the original Alec had probably used, though I had no memory of it.
Maryse's expression shifted. Something complicated moved behind her eyes.
"You've changed," she said slowly. "Since Max was born — no, before that. Since you took over as acting head. You're... different."
More different than you know.
"War changes people."
"Yes. But not usually like this." She studied me with the particular intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle. "Your father thinks you're becoming a leader. I think you're becoming something else. Something the Clave won't understand."
"And what do you think that is?"
She didn't answer. Instead, she crossed the room and did something I'd never seen Maryse Lightwood do — she embraced me. Awkwardly, briefly, but genuinely.
"Come back alive," she whispered. "Whatever else happens, come back alive."
Then she was gone, leaving me alone with the summons and the fear I'd been hiding all morning.
Magnus arrived an hour before the portal was scheduled to open.
"Legal strategy," he announced, setting down a folder of documents. "Precedents, case studies, arguments that even Clave hardliners will struggle to dismiss." He paused, taking in my expression. "You look terrible."
"Haven't slept."
"That's obvious. I meant emotionally." He crossed to stand in front of me, hands finding my shoulders. "You're scared."
"I'm realistic. The Clave doesn't forgive innovation."
"The Clave doesn't forgive threats. Innovation they can handle if it's properly managed." His thumbs traced circles against my collar. "The question is how you present yourself. Are you a dangerous heretic who broke sacred laws for personal gain? Or are you a devoted brother who discovered forgotten knowledge while saving a child's life?"
"Both are true."
"Truth is irrelevant. Narrative is what matters." Magnus straightened my collar, the gesture intimate despite the professional context. "You're going to walk into that room looking like exactly what you are — a young man who did impossible things for the right reasons. Let them see the grief and the determination and the exhaustion. Don't hide it. Show them Alec Lightwood, not the acting head of the New York Institute."
"You sound like you've done this before."
"Defended someone I care about against institutional stupidity? Only a few dozen times." His smile was sharp but warm. "The immortal life includes many encounters with bureaucratic idiots."
Jace found us twenty minutes later, dressed in formal Shadowhunter attire, the Herondale ring gleaming on his finger.
"The Inquisitor agreed to meet before the formal hearing," he said. "Grandmother-to-grandson conversation. I'll advocate for you before the trial even starts."
"And if she doesn't listen?"
"Then she doesn't listen. But she will." Jace's jaw set with determination. "You're family. Both of us. And Herondales protect their own."
Through the damaged parabatai bond, I felt his conviction — absolute, unwavering. Whatever the original Alec and Jace had built together, it had created something that survived even the loss of memory.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just don't do anything stupid in front of the Inquisitor." He paused. "Or at least, nothing stupider than what you've already done."
The portal shimmered to life in the Operations center. Blue-white energy, stable and waiting, leading to Idris and whatever judgment awaited.
Magnus kissed me — quick but fierce, a promise and a farewell wrapped in one gesture.
"Come back to me, Alexander."
"I intend to."
I stepped through the portal wearing armor I'd built from secrets, accompanied by a parabatai who'd lost his memory of loving me but loved me still, heading toward a trial that would determine whether I was a hero or a heretic.
The Clave was waiting.
Time to find out which story they wanted to hear.
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