She's My Parabatai

Chapter 4

Jace knocked violently on Magnus' door. "Open up, Warlock!" he shouted right before the door opened.

"You're all so persistent," Magnus sighed, standing in the doorway. He let the three of us inside. "As you can tell, I did not harm your parabatai." Alec was sitting on the couch with a cat in his lap.

"We're going, Alec," Jace declared.

"Oh, right," Alec replied, gingerly setting the cat down on the couch and standing up. The tabby meowed and stared after him as he walked away.

"Thank you for your help, Alexander," Magnus said as we walked out the door.

"R-right, anytime," Alec replied. The warlock was grinning at him like an idiot and did Alec look...shy? I glanced at Izzy but her face didn't give anything away. I'd ask her about it later.

The four of us began walking away from the warlock's loft and Jace looked at Alec. "What did Magnus want with you anyway?"

"Oh, he needed him finding Chairman Meow," the ebony haired boy explained.

"Chairman what?" Jace questioned.

"His cat," Alec sighed. "It was hiding underneath Magnus' bed the entire time." I remembered the warlock saying something about the party being for Chairman Meow...who gave their cat a birthday party?

"Who knew you were so pet friendly, Alec," Izzy laughed. "The cat looked like he was really smitten with you." I sensed that her words held a double meaning, just another thing I would ask her about later.

"Apparently animals like me," Alec decided. "Just not Church."

"Church doesn't like anybody," Jace told him.

"Who's Church?" I asked. That was a name I had not heard before.

"He's our cat," Izzy told me. "I'm surprised you haven't seen him already. He's usually around."

"Max pulled his tail the other day," Jace said. "He's in a mood."

"Since when do you have a cat? I've known you for my entire life and you never mentioned a cat." I was really confused about the whole cat thing. Having an animal was usually something you mentioned to somebody, especially if you were bound for life.

"He's not exactly our cat," my parabatai explained. "He's kind of just been at the Institute forever. He's immortal or something." I didn't even want to question how a cat could become immortal so I left that subject alone. Growing up a shadowhunter you learned that some things were just weird.

*~*~*

We arrived back at the Institute and I went off to find Sebastian. We needed to talk to him about what Simon had said. Jace hadn't told Alec about the killing yet either. He was going to wait until my brother was there so we wouldn't have to explain it twice.

I got lucky because Sebastian and the Ascended were taking a break. Or they were supposed to be, I actually found him lunging with his sword in the empty training room. Phaesphoros was the name of the blade. The twin to mine. Our father had given it to him when he received his first rune, just as I was given Heosphoros when I received mine.

My brother noticed me and stopped. "How'd it go today?" I questioned. Sebastian walked over towards me, stopping short at the table to take a drink of water.

"Alright I guess," Sebastian replied.

"Good then." I grabbed his wrist and started pulling him out of the room. "We need to talk."