What would've happened if Magnus didn't stop the portal at Lorenzo's party in time?

Magnus saw the ripple in his glass before he even knew what was going on. Beside him, Catarina said something about her drink being weak as hell when all of a sudden the room began to shake. The warlocks around them all stopped talking immediately and looked around the room, looking for the source of the quaking.

"I can't control my magic," Catarina suddenly gasped. As Magnus turned to look at her, her skin was flickering blue which was her warlock mark.

In fact, all the warlocks around them were struggling with their powers; their marks flickering on their bodies and their hands sparking with magic. Magnus felt his own hands shake, the glasses of bourbon he'd been holding falling to the floor and shattering into tiny little pieces.

"What's happening?" Alec asked. He'd been playing a clapping game with Madzie and laid a protective hand on her shoulder as the quaking became worse.

One of the warlocks, a hulk of a man with a half shaved head, yelled "I'm out of here!" and opened a Portal with his hands.

But there was something wrong with it.

As soon as he opened the Portal, it shifted and turned red. The moment it touched his hand and closed in on the rest of his body, it burned away in midair, his screams echoing throughout the room.

Magnus saw that the Portal was getting close to Alec and made a move to stop it. Alec, being the protective Shadowhunter that he was, crouched down and shielded Madzie's body with his own, back turned away from the incoming Portal.

"Alexander!" Magnus yelled, hands sparking with magic. "Move now!"

Alec never had a chance to move. The Portal was so close to him that he felt the heat of it through his jacket and shirt. He winced, only screaming when he felt it burn away his clothes and a layer of skin on his back.

"NO!" Magnus yelled. A surge of power exploded out of his hands and the Portal disappeared. He could feel that his eyes were slitted like a cat's. He could feel it as well as see the expression on everyone's faces around him, including Lorenzo. Needless to say, the new High Warlock didn't look impressed.

A loud scream of pain interrupted the silence. On the floor behind him Magnus turned to see his boyfriend writhing on his stomach. His back was a gruesome sight; flesh sizzling and burning from touching the Portal that had touched his skin and melted away the runes on his back. Magnus had to swallow back the bile rising in his throat before he could finally take action.

"Lorenzo! Help me bring Alec upstairs!" He yelled to the new High Warlock. "Quickly!"

Lorenzo stood there, hands at his sides and a stern look on his face. "I need to get our people to safety first before we tend to the Shadowhunter here-"

"I'll get our people out," whispered Catarina. Her skin was back to its normal, glamored self at this point. "You help Magnus with Alexander. Once our people are safe, I'll come upstairs to have a look at the damage."

Rolling his eyes, Lorenzo strolled over to where Alec lay on the floor and helped Magnus lift him carefully. The Shadowhunter let out an agonizing moan of pain with each step they made upstairs.

"We'll lay him on the bed," Magnus told Lorenzo. The room they stepped into was the master bedroom, Lorenzo's room, and the High Warlock didn't seem too pleased with the idea of a bleeding Shadowhunter on his bed.

"He'll get blood all over the duvet!" Lorenzo exclaimed.

Magnus let his eyes flash dangerously like a cat's. "If you don't help me carefully lay Alec down on the bed, so help me God Lorenzo, blood on your precious duvet is going to be the least of your worries."

This put Lorenzo in his place. He helped Magnus gently place Alec on the bed, being extra careful not to touch the Shadowhunter's injured back. "Are you even sure you can save him? He's mortally injured, Magnus. The skin on his back is probably beyond repairing."

Magnus ignored him and began to work his magic on Alec's back. "I need a tonic. A single drop of vampire blood and some bone crushed to a fine powder. Think you can manage that?"

"Don't patronize me, Magnus. You're forgetting who the new High Warlock is and what he's capable of."

"Well at the rate you keep reminding people, Lorenzo, I don't think anyone's likely to forget anytime soon. Now get on with it, would you? Alec's life is at risk here and if he dies...." Magnus' voice dropped to a low warning whisper. "Do you really want the Clave to come knocking on your door?"

At this, Lorenzo quickly disappeared out into the hall without another word. When he left, Alec let out a muffled moan into the pillow he'd been biting on to keep from screaming in pain.

"M-Magnus," he whimpered. "Magnus!"

"Shh, love. I'm here. I'm here," Magnus said in a soothing voice. "I'm going to try and heal your back, okay? So this may hurt a little."

Alec gripped the sheets on the bed so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Yeah. Yeah. Do what you have to do. I'll just lay here for a while. Maybe take a nap."

Magnus frowned. "I'm glad you haven't lost your sense of humor. That would've been a real loss to us all."

Alec laughed but it caused a fresh wave of pain to flow through him so the laugh quickly turn into a cry of agony.

Madzie suddenly appeared by the bed. She looked like she'd been crying, her eyes red and puffy, the tip of her nose a faint pink.

"Alec?" Her small voice whispered. "Are you okay?"

Alec winced as Magnus worked his magic on his wounds. "Madzie. You shouldn't be in here, princess."

She sniffed and wiped her eyes as fresh tears rolled down her face. "It's my fault. You're hurt because of me."

"No, sweetheart. Don't think like that. It's not your-" Alec broke off to grunt in pain. "It's not your fault. I was doing it to protect you from getting hurt."

"But you got hurt...."

Alec smiled softly. "I'm fine. It's barely a scrat-" He screamed as Magnus moved his magic over a sensitive burn on his back.

"I know, Alexander. I'm trying to take away as much pain as I can. But I don't know if I can mend the runes back together though."

"Ugh.....don't mind the runes. Just see if you can put my skin back together."

Magnus went back to work again, wishing Catarina would hurry up and come help him upstairs. Little Madzie was even trying her best to cheer Alec up, slipping her tiny hand into his giant one and singing songs to him. This made Alec smile but the pain was still there, coursing through him like one giant pulse.

Catarina then stormed in through the doors, Lorenzo close behind her. "How is he doing?"

"I managed to dull the pain but I didn't try to mend his skin back together. Figured that was a job for a professional," Magnus told her. "Your knowledge of anatomy is much better than mine."

She grinned. "Are you saying I'm smarter than you?"

"I never said that-"

"People. Please. The more you bicker the longer the Shadowhunter ruins an original 18th century duvet from France with his blood." Lorenzo thrust a glass vial into Magnus' hands. "Your tonic, Bane. You're lucky I had just enough vampire blood left for you. Otherwise this would've been for naught."

Magnus grumbled something under his breath that would've been offensive to the High Warlock before turning back to Catarina. "Can you mend his skin again?"

Catarina sighed. "For the most part, yes. He'll be good as new. But the runes that he might've had before won't be there. He'll have to draw them on again."

Muffled because of the pillow he was screaming into, Alec mumbled "I'm not too concerned about my runes right now. I just don't want my back looking like hamburger meat whenever I take off my shirt."

"I wouldn't love you any less if it did," Magnus told him, patting his hand gently. "Catarina's the best healer I know. She'll patch you up nice and good. No one will even know a warlock Portal burned the skin off you."

Alec chuckled wryly at this, burying his face into the pillow again. Catarina's magic had the same warmth to it as Magnus' did but there was more power being put behind it. This was probably because she was putting in maximum effort to heal him.

"You're really brave Alec," said Madzie. She was still holding his hand as she took a look at the wound on his back.

Alec panted through the pain. "Yeah? Not too scary for you, is it?" 

She shook her head. "No. I saw scarier things."

Alec gave her hand a squeeze, carefully not to hurt her in case a wave of pain overwhelmed him. "So tell me about school. Do you like it?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I get to color and make new friends. All the other kids are warlocks too like me."

"That's great Mad-" Alec grunted and bit down into the pillow. He could feel sweat beginning to form on his skin the longer Catarina moved her magic along the length of his back.

"Alexander?" Magnus gripped his boyfriend's hand, worried.

"I'm fine. That one was just a bad one. I'm okay," Alec breathed out. "How do I look?"

Catarina lowered her hands. "All done. You look good as new, Lightwood. If your man wasn't here I'd glide a hand over this smooth looking back of yours. I'm actually kind of jealous of Magnus."

Magnus smiled as he helped Alec to his feet. "Don't touch the art, Cat. Remember Paris?"

Catarina sneered at him. "I'd rather not. So how does he look? I've repaired all the torn skin fragments and muscles. He's basically good as new-minus the runes of course."

Alec looked over his shoulder into a full length mirror to examine himself. "How am I going to explain this to my family?"

Lorenzo chimed in. "I honestly have no idea but I'd much prefer it if you deliberated off the premises of my home. I've had enough excitement for one night and now I have to find a way to clean my bedsheets of your blood."

Magnus shot him a look as he shrugged off his jacket for Alec to wear. "Well good luck with that. I sincerely hope you can save your sheets."

"Me too," Madzie smiled up at Lorenzo. "I used to pee my bed but not anymore. Nana used to clean my sheets and they always smelled good when they were clean."

Lorenzo pat her head awkwardly. "Good little....child. Off you go. Follow the grown ups out of my house-and don't touch any of my ceramics on the way out. I'll know if you do."

Alec, limping down the staircase beside Magnus, turned to him and smirked. "How mad do you think he'd be if we actually touched one?"

Magnus shook his head. "Don't tempt me. I almost gave the one at the top of the stairs a good kick across the room. I just imagined it being Lorenzo's head and it pissed me off."

They both snickered all the way down the stairs and on the way home.