"I resented them at first," Alec shared, glancing over at Luke and shaking his head. "My parents, I mean. I resented them for taking Jace in because it had just been me and Isabelle for so long. I thought he'd come in and ruin everything."

It hadn't happened like that. He and Jace were polar opposites, two completely different types of people but they fit. They fit with each other, they fit against each other, and they fit as two parts of a larger unit. Jace was his brother. Jace was his parabatai.

He rubbed the Mark near his shoulder, hating the empty feeling that he had been left behind when he'd ended up in Darrow. Jace wasn't dead but he was far away, out of Alec's reach.

"I was wrong," Alec said, something he didn't admit very often. "I didn't really understand why my parents took him in until a lot later. I think they were probably trying to atone for what they did. I think it started out like that but turned into something else."

He trailed off then, having spoken more than he'd intended. Luke wouldn't spread the information around, he knew, but still. Being open was a new thing for him, a hard and treacherous path that scared him sometimes.