Will spun, side by side with Jem, ready to face his next attacker. But the man whose face met with Will's, eyes tracing the scene in pure emotional agony, wasn't a vampire – that much was obvious to the shadowhunter. The man's rumpled clothes and breathlessness suggested he'd arrived both recently and in a hurry. Will's mind flew to the possibilities. A mundane? This was a disaster.

"Who are you and what is your business here?" Will demanded, blade poised at the man's chest.

"Alastair." The man gasped, backing up a little. "Alastair Woodburn. I'm here for Camille. I'm her..."

"You're the man she left Magnus for!" Will exclaimed, lowering his blade. "Bloody hell, you must be something if she left a warlock for you, and Magnus Bane at that."

The man blinked, sandy blond hair blowing in the breeze, shifting messily. His brown eyes were wide, feverish.

"I have to find her!" he cried, head whipping around for a glimpse of ashy hair, emerald eyes, porcelain skin.

"Why?" Will asked.

"To get her to stop the battle." Alastair wheezed. "She will get hurt. I would die to protect her."

Magnus spun on his heel, throwing out a sparking hand and killing his oncoming attacker instantly. At least they wouldn't have suffered. After all, he was a downworlder himself, just like the vampire at his feet whose eyes had glazed and stared up at him. It felt like betrayal, killing one of his own in the name of a group of people who had looked down on people like him for hundreds of years. He looked back down at the creature who looked back, blank eyes imploring, judging, silently repeating Camille's words back to him; "Filthy traitor." But before a warlock, before a downworlder, he was a person. He couldn't just ally with the vampires because they were like him. His humanity dictated that he sided with who was right, and he knew that, in this instance, that was the shadowhunters.

"NO!"

Magnus turned around at the cry to see Will spin a blond man in front of him, a blade poised to the man's throat, an elbow to his ribcage, holding him in place. The battle seemed to have halted around them and Magnus looked at the man, wondering who he was, recognising him somehow, his face a sliding shadow in the depths of Magnus's mind.

"Stop!" Will called. "Camille, stop this – all of it; the battle, the drug trading, all of it. Or else, we kill this man."

"Do it." Camille said, shrugging nonchalantly. "You overestimate me, how trivial things like love matter so little to me."

"Camille!" Alastair cried, horrified, hurt, voice cracking. Will pressed the blade a little harder to the man's throat and Magnus saw him gulp, terrified. He turned his head a little, wincing, and his eyes met Magnus's. It was then, in that instant of eye contact, that the warlock realised who he was.

"Stop!" he shouted desperately. "Will, stop! Let him go!"

Will looked at Magnus with wide, confused blue eyes, but he didn't question why as he let Alastair go, removing the blade from against the man's throat. As Magnus approached, Alastair backed away. Shaking his hands out and shedding sparks, Magnus stopped before the man.

"You need to leave." He said quietly, with as much kind authority as he could muster.

"I...but – but Camille." Alastair stumbled.

"Leave her too. Leave all of this." Magnus advised.

"I cannot." Alastair said shakily. "We are in love."

"No." Magnus said, with the same forthrightness he wished someone had said the same to him. "You are in love. She is in lust. And, frankly, you deserve more."

Alastair had paled to an almost transparent white.

"You cannot be willing to cross the earth for someone who is not willing to cross the street for you." Magnus said gently. "You cannot die for Camille. And if you're willing to then that should be proof enough that you deserve someone better. You deserve a person who would do for you what you would do for them. That's what love is, my dear. So, I advise you take a horse and return to your home, to your life."

"You do not understand." Alastair said, tremulous, eyes glassy with unshed tears.

"I do." Magnus said softly. "Truly, I do."

Alastair's brown eyes widened in his pale face. "You're Magnus Bane."

Magnus nodded and lifted a hand to Alastair's face. He placed a hand under the man's chin, fingers careful, and another on his forehead. Sparks webbed from his fingers, electricity dancing across Alastair's skin as a spell was cast to take effect within an hour, an enchantment that would make him forget everything he knew about the shadow world. Alastair's brown eyes met Magnus's and a tear ran down his cheek. Magnus offered him a handkerchief. When he had wiped his face, and offered it back to Magnus, the warlock shook his head. He liked this man. Perhaps the white square of cloth would be some lasting memory of his presence.

"Go." Magnus said, as Alastair slipped the handkerchief into his pocket. "Go home and rest. Camille will be just fine. I assure you."

Alastair took a deep breath and nodded, shaking. His eyes lingered momentarily on Magnus's face, and Magnus saw some kind of silver lining within the man's hurt. The battle remained at a standstill as he mounted his horse, yanked at the reins, and rode through the gates, a loyal knight silhouetted in sunset.

However, during the chaos, Will had carefully, quietly stationed himself behind Camille and as Alastair disappeared from view, he caught her with an arm, placing a knife against her heart. She screamed and tensed in his grasp, struggling uselessly. Despite her supernatural strength, Will held her firm. He had an extra strength inside of him as he looked at Jem, who looked unsteady and had paled markedly – clearly impressed, apprehensive to see his plan, Will thought. Letting Camille go meant leaving Jem unavenged, the years of health robbed from him for naught. The thought physically pained Will to think about, like a stabbing pain under his ribcage.

"So, it is time to decide:" Will said fiercely, voice almost a wolfish snarl. "What will it be? Live and give up your cause, or die and die honouring your mission?"

"Okay." Camille gasped. "Okay. I surrender."

Will removed his knife and pushed her away from him hard.

"You're a coward." He spat, and turned on his heel.

Indeed, her own troops looked disgusted, glaring at her. Whilst on the battlefield, they were forbidden by their own intricate politics to kill her for the dominance of a new clan leader, but Magnus knew she would not stay around long enough to let that happen; she'd be on a ship to America by daylight, he was sure.

However, until she was killed, Camille was still their leader. Despite everything, vampires were unwaveringly loyal, faithful, obeying their own laws and rules with reverent insistence.

"Come along." Camille said. "We must go."

With one last look at their opponents and slaughtered dead – their demises now in vain – they left. Some sobbed bitterly, either in frustrated anger or grief at the death of someone they cared about. Camille led away first, the rest following her in reluctant submission. Even as the seven others watched, the vampires' backs to them as they retreated, all could feel the burning glares scalding Camille's back, branding her a coward.

Jem felt a weight lift as the vampires left, but with that, all the tension keeping him on his feet seemed to drain. He staggered a little. He put it down to exhaustion, to the effort and exertion of the battle. But a thrumming pain was beginning to throb behind his temples.

"I suppose we ought to check the area." Gideon said.

"Yes, the grounds are a mess." Gabriel agreed, looking down at the bloodied, body-dotted ground.

"Nothing a little magic cannot fix." Magnus added, and set off after the Lightwood brothers.

"Magnus," Will said, hurrying after him. "You saved that man, Alastair. Why?"

"People are people, Will." Magnus said simply.

Jem went to go after Will and the world shifted under the soles of his boots. He remained very still, refusing to give in to the dizziness. It was embarrassing, always having to be the person to make the group wait whilst he caught his breath or sat down to ease his vertigo. He took a breath and followed Will gingerly.

Magnus was midway through his conversation through Will when Jem caught up. He tried to listen, to pay attention, when a cough choked him. But, breathless as he was, he could barely ease his irritated throat. He gave a weak cough and blood trickled between his fingers, cutting a line like a gash down his chin.

"Will..." he said, voice shaking.

"One moment, Jem." He said, dismissive, not turning from his discussion with Magnus, which they both were enthralled in. As Jem coughed again, doubling over to spit the blood to the ground, the movement made him pitch forward. His vision blurred and his feet seemed to slip from under him. He was unconscious before he hit the floor.

From behind him, Will heard a thud.

"Jem?" Will asked, and turned. His eyes went to his parabatai's prone body, lying as elegantly on the floor as if he had simply laid down and fallen asleep. That was, except for his paper-white skin and the blood trickling down his chin and across his cheek from his open mouth. His silver eyes were closed as if in sleep, hair splayed out across his forehead, like an angel that had been sent to earth as a guardian for lonely souls like Will. All of this raced through Will's head in the time it took him to drop to his knees. That, and two very terrifying, loud, and insistent thoughts: Will had failed Jem, and this might really be the end.

"James!" Will cried. "James!"

Magnus was by Will in an instant.

"James," Will begged in a desperate whisper. "Please, be alright. Please. James, please!"

"Will, move out." Magnus said, brisk but gently, and eased Jem – still not moving or giving any sign of waking, but mercifully remaining breathing – into his arms. "Get Ciel to open the doors. We need to get him into a room to treat him."

Will, however, couldn't force a word from his dry throat. Ciel and Sebastian, surveying the damage at the top of the stairs leading to the mansion doors, spotted the three of them and Ciel's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Jem!" he exclaimed.

"Open the door. We need to lay him down." Magnus ordered, as Will followed, mute.

As Sebastian opened and directed them to a room without escorting them, for privacy, Will ignored the calls from below them as Ciel's staff greeted the others in a frenzy, whilst he and Magnus reached the top of the sweeping staircase. Jem's head lolled against Magnus's chest and Magnus made comforting noises, whether for the benefit of Jem or Will, he wasn't sure. In the quarters they had been issued, Magnus laid down softly on the bedsheets. Will dropped beside the bed, pulling his sleeve over his hand and wiping the blood from Jem's face with a hand both careful and shaking.

"Will," Magnus said quietly. "I cannot say this kindly: prepare for the fact this may be the end of Jem's life. He has lived longer than anyone could have hoped."

"And he will keep living." Will said, certainty making his voice hard. He took Jem's hand, stroking his finger across his parabatai's knuckles. "You said to that man that he deserved someone who would die for him and whom he would die for. I have that. I have Jem. He's all I have." Will's eyes stung and he rested his forehead against the bedclothes. "He's all I have, Magnus. He will keep living." Will vowed. "Even if it means I must die."