Chapter Text
The first time Rafael saw a Phoenix he was walking through the shadow market holding his bapak hand.
Going to the market had always been one of his favorite activities and, given his good behavior and the fact that he had been in charge of washing the dishes all week, he asked for a night stroll through the witch shops in the New York market as a reward, although his favorite in the whole world was still the one in Cairo.
He greatly regretted having to grow up on nights like this. In less than a year he would turn twelve and would have to receive his first mark, being officially recognizable as a shadowhunter and, therefore, marking a dividing line between himself and that wonderful world that the downworlders had built far from the eyes of the Clave.
He had planned to make marks only where they could not be seen, and to cover the vision rune he had bought in advance some black gloves that he had been using uncomfortably for the last four months so as not to raise suspicions by using them since the day of the ceremony of his first rune. However, his tutor, and aunt, Isabell Lovelace had recently taught him that where the mark was placed also had to do with how effective it would be on him, so his plan was going a little overboard.
Would it be suicide to wear a swaeater in the summer?
Of course it was. His bapak would never allow him to wear a turtleneck in the middle of 2018. He had to keep considering options.
Rafa was in the midst of his creative process when they came across Leo's pet stand, a big, fat guy with a lion's mane that accentuated the irony of his name, although when the boy met him he assured him flatly that his choice was a coincidence.
The counter that separated the shop from the street was full of all kinds of interesting trinkets, Komodo dragon teeth, bottled and labeled snake venom, rattlesnake tails, deer skin, feathers from different birds of all sizes and colors. Rafa couldn't help but take a small souvenir for himself with a quick movement of his hand while the adults were too busy talking about rumors about the war.
In the cages at the top of the stand he saw some pixies that tried to knock their iron cages to the ground with the movement of their wings, flying back and forth at full speed, and although he was tempted to free them, the incident from last time had taught him his lesson. Except for them, the rest of the animals were unmoored, probably tied to the spot by a spell that didn’t seem to bother them.
A Cerberus cub was playing tug at what he hoped was a toy leg of some tall herbivore, perhaps a satyr with very bad luck at worst. Next to him a shadow cat was asleep, rare and expensive, his brother had asked for one for Christmas for three Christmases in a row; he quickly took out his phone and sent him a picture. Rafael still didn’t understand how it was possible that Max didn’t enjoy accompanying them to the market.
Finally, among the snakes that frolicked in the branches of some shrunken trees, there was a sleeping orange bird, with a bright reddish crest and a long quetzal-like tail resting like a blaze of yellow feathers.
“Bapak,” Rafael tried to whisper so as not to wake the daytime creatures. And so as not to be the next toy for the three-headed dog, who in his first six months was already the size of a large bull. “What kind of bird is that?”
“It’s a phoenix.” Magnus said calmly. “And no, you can’t have a phoenix.”
Then he turned on his heels after bidding his friend a polite farewell and began walking towards a werewolf’s stand that sold gold jewelry supposedly consecrated to the moon, as if he hadn’t just broken the boy’s heart into a thousand pieces. Rafa hurried to catch up his bapak.
Magnus was a great father, the best ever, but he usually forgot that his legs were long for an eleven-year-old boy and Rafael had to jog behind him to keep up. And, by the looks of things, it would have to be that way for the rest of his life, he was losing hope that his teenage growth spurt would be anything impressive. As long as it wasn’t sadly disappointing, that was enough.
“Why not?” He croaked. His voice had started to change a few weeks ago, he hated it. His arguments were losing seriousness.
“Because: One, you are incapable of taking care of even yourself. Two, we don’t have room for two cats, a dog, a lizard, and now a bird with a wingspan of almost three meters…”
“Three meters? Wow, it didn’t look that big, now I want it more.” Rafael’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
“That’s still a chick, but it will grow. And third, those things set themselves on fire as soon as they reach adulthood because yes, because no, and because maybe.” Magnus tried not to say it in a scolding tone, it didn’t come out well at all. “So, you can’t have the bird.”
“What if we move to a bigger house? Can I have it?”
“We’re not moving just because you want a phoenix, Rafa.” His bapak spoke between laughs, even though he was quite serious. It bothered him how often people laughed at things he said seriously, he would have to keep practicing his authoritative tone. But not with Magnus, definitely not with him.
“What if I have it somewhere else?”
“So, what do you want it for?” The warlock was somewhat disinterestedly trying on some rings at the werewolf girl’s stand, not paying much attention to her, used to saying no to his children without hesitation. It was his hobby. “You wouldn’t see it or play with it. The poor animal would spend all its time alone.”
“That’s what you said about Julian, and now he’s very happy!” He protested.
“Julian is now Ty’s, visiting him once a year doesn’t make the boa yours. And you named it after his brother. You’re lucky he has a good sense of humor.” Although he tried to be serious, his father couldn’t hide the laughter that the name of his former pet snake caused him.
“It reminded me of him. They had the same eye color. And both scared me a little at first…”
Magnus simply bought all the rings he had tried on, because apparently adults can make impulse purchases, but children can’t, and he kept walking without checking if Rafa was following him.
He knew what that meant, end of topic. If he insisted any longer, he would end up being sent straight to his room in a portal and banned from the shadow market for at least the next six months, and he couldn’t afford that luxury. He had to get the bird.
That night Rafael didn’t sleep a wink, thinking of a way to get to the Phoenix. According to the sign in the store it was priced at three thousand dollars, and he had the impression that in the Darth Vader piggy bank his Uncle Simon had given him he wouldn’t have even a fifth of everything he needed to get the bird. Not to mention the truly complicated factors of the plan: Going to the shadow market and convincing Leo not to call his parents, which would probably cost him some extra dollars, and then hiding the bird in a spacious, little-frequented place, but one that he could go to regularly enough to visit and feed it. What did Phoenixes eat?
Well, that was a problem for Rafa in the future.
Surrendering to the call of his heart, Rafael jumped out of bed and snuck into his younger brother’s room. They were at most two years apart in age and most of the time they got along especially well, more when it came to getting into trouble together.
“Max,” Rafa grabbed his brother by the shoulder and shook him just enough to wake him up. The light from his bearded dragon, Abi’s, greenhouse illuminated the entire room, his cat Mila was half asleep on a chair next to the bed looking at him with judgmental eyes, as if she knew what they were about to do. “Wake up, I have a plan. Do you want a phoenix? If you don’t wake up, you can’t help me choose the name.”
“Female or male?” His voice sounded sleepy, and his eyes were half closed, but he was already returning to the world of the living.
“What does it matter? Don’t be a misogynist.”
Max roared as a dragon lightly before taking a deep breath and answering, “Females lay an egg every six months, even if it’s not fertilized, which you can use in some pretty interesting potions. If you’re going to get me in trouble I want eggs, otherwise let me sleep.” And with that he curled up in his cars blankets again.
“And how am I supposed to know if it’s male or female? I didn’t ask for its birth certificate, it’s a bird.” I tried not to sound desperate; I was honestly failing at it.
“Did you see it?” Max was losing the battle against sleep.
“Yes… Today, at the market. With bapak.”
“Did it have a yellow or red tail?” He was sounding awake again, though still not awake enough. Little manipulator.
“Yellow… Unless that makes it male, in which case it’s red.”
“Yellow is female, what can I do for you?”
Max sat up in his bed with an agility strange for a warlock, he had dedicated himself to training as much as a shadowhunter, even Rafael could risk saying that much more than most of the nephilim, and the older he got the more recognizable the results of his perseverance were.
Rafael, for his part, was much more interested in doing things like having a phoenix, and that was reflected in his battle style and qualifications. The price of being incredible.
“They don't accept enchanted money in the market, and the bird costs three thousand greens, so it occurs to me that perhaps a certain talented warlock I know could make some potions and enchantments and a certain trickster nephilim could sell them to some fairies who are quite interested in changing shape.” The plan was solid.
Alec had received reports of fairies taking the form of servants, bears and swans recently, and although he was not very clear about what it meant for them to do so during mating season and why they were not allowed, Rafael saw a business opportunity that was without competition in sight.
“What if they discover us?” Max’s voice was genuinely terrified, which was no small thing, both would be risking a sanction from the Clave, the spiral labyrinth and, worst of all, their parents. But, if everything went according to plan, they could have a beautiful phoenix just for them.
“We die,” Rafa didn’t want to be dramatic, but to be honest it didn’t seem like an exaggeration, whatever the adults decided to do to him would be pretty close to that “but, if we succeed, think of everything you could do. Phoenix eggs, feathers, flames, tears or whatever can be done with what she does. Without hurting her, of course.”
Max stood for a moment looking at his lizard’s terrarium, then at Mila, thinking about his own pros and cons of the plan. “An what do you want her for?”
It was a good question, his brother was right. Rafa want it mostly because it was orange, however, that didn't sound like a good enough answer to say out loud.
“I want to teach her tricks.” He lied, although saying it sounded kind of cool. Maybe he would. A phoenix playing dead? It's a great plan.
“That's stupid,” Max said seriously, “I'm in. How do we sell the potions to the fairies?”
“Make me a potion too, so I look like an adult. I'll sell it to them saying it was me.” If it worked for Huey, Dewey and Louie forming a tower of ducklings to pretend to be an adult duck, he figured it couldn't be that hard. “We can sell them at an absurd price, no one else would dare make potions against dad's official statement.”
“Did dad make a statement...?” Max now looked horrified, his eyes widened and he suddenly paled, as if he had already done everything he had thought of.
“A small one, what does it matter? They won’t catch us.” He didn’t think he was right in the least, he just hoped they would be discovered in time enough to think of a less stupid alibi than buying a pet because it shined pretty.
“Be thankful I’m curious, tomorrow in class I’ll ask uncle Ragnor how to do the positions and I’ll start working on it. If I need materials it will take me longer because I’ll have to steal them gradually so bapak doesn’t notice.” Max was great, warlocks grew twice as fast as nephilim children and most of the time he behaved like a teenager much more than a nine-year-old. If it weren’t for his adorable squirrel cheeks Rafa could swear he was talking to an older boy.
Making the deal to sell the potions was suspiciously easy. Max was good, terrifyingly good and evil, he made him a position to look like a werewolf of about forty years, with several terrifying scars and a deep voice; he even prepared an emergency potion in case he had to take the form of a wolf, although he recommended him not to use it, and he kept the small bottle jealously hidden in his pants pocket. Thanks to the angel the fairies did not ask many questions about why a son of the moon was selling products of the children of Lilith, they wanted their potions, and Rafael would give them to them for twice what was needed to buy the bird.
They had stolen a change of clothes from Aunt Clary's father, Luke, on a quick visit they managed to make to his house under the excuse that Max wanted to eat Jocelyn's famous lasagna recipe, to have a dog scent that apparently Camila's shampoo, his father's border collie, had not managed to give Rafa on its first attempt.
On the agreed date Rafael had sneaked out the window of the guest room down the fire escape to go to Central Park. Magnus usually kept the guards on so no one could enter the house, he didn't imagine that his children would start running away through the window before they turned 16 and Rafa was a little offended that Magnus underestimated him like that. He ordered an Uber there and back, paid in cash with money from both of their piggy banks, and a quick exchange of information with the fairies about their peculiar requests allowed Max to work on the potions over the course of the week.
They turned out to be much simpler than they had thought, Rafa took it upon himself to keep his parents busy getting into every mess he could think of while his little brother brewed potions without resting in his room. All in the name of adventure.
In the end, the boys managed to collect all the money. Was it really that easy to make money? By this moment all what Rafael needs to do was wait patiently for the waters at home to calm down enough for his parents to lower their guard again and trust enough to let them spend the night with his uncles at the institute.
It was the final phase of his plan; he needed to quickly escape to the market, buy the bird, put it in the greenhouse and get into bed as if nothing had happened. He had to remember to ask what she was eating, he couldn't forget to ask what she was eating, otherwise the poor creature would end up eating chocolate cereal for dinner for the rest of its miserable days.
The day finally arrived. The Lightwood-Bane siblings packed their backpacks with a couple of changes of clothes and said goodbye to their parents at the door of the institute, where their red-haired aunt greeted them with a smile. Their parents always seemed happy to leave them at one of their uncles' houses, they didn't understand the excitement of getting rid of them, they almost always behaved well at night. At least that they knew about.
During the afternoon they dedicated themselves to playing cards and some board games, Rafa explained his sudden interest in botany as one of his new special interests, as his psychologist called them, and he talked about the plants in the greenhouse with his uncle for a few hours. Although it was just an excuse to visit the place, the truth is that the subject was not so bad. There was a flower that opened at midnight and in a few months autumn would arrive and the trees in the greenhouse, with non-evergreen leaves, would begin to change color and fall to the ground. That sounded especially interesting.
Apparently, there were also animals in the little Eden on the top floor, to maintain a self-sustaining cycle. Some bats, a wild cat native to Idris that slept most of the day and was especially shy, and a huge number of insects. Could his phoenix hunt insects? That could be a problem.
Around three in the night the only person awake at the institute was probably his uncle Simon, who would soon be out on patrol, so Rafa stayed glued to the window waiting to see him go down the street to grab his things and go down the stairs at full speed and stealth. He didn't want to risk the loud elevator waking his uncles.
The Uber dropped him off right at the east entrance of the market, it was his first time walking alone in a place like this since he had been adopted, but the sound of voices in the distance, the music of the fairies, and the delicious smell of Salvadoran food from Mrs. Rodriguez's stand made him take a breath of air before starting to walk. After all, even if that didn't like him very much, he was the son of the Consul and the great warlock of Brooklyn, no one was stupid enough to hurt him.
He spotted Leo in the distance. The Cerberus cub was not at the entrance and that made him feel a hollow in the middle of his stomach, what if all his effort had been for nothing? Maybe his phoenix was already being the happy bird of another child with excellent ornithological tastes, and he was wasting his time walking fearfully towards the shop.
He hurried to the warlock’s stand, almost skidding through the puddles that still wet the ground after the afternoon rain. Leo looked at him strangely, raised his eyes lazily searching for one of his parents. Then, he looked at the little boy who had sneaked into his shop and looked at the phoenix stupidly. “I'll buy you the bird,” Rafael said as firmly as he could, “and I'll give you the same amount if you don't tell my parents that I came.”
The warlock didn't know what to say, or what to think. It was common knowledge in the shadow world that Bane's little nephilim was a troublemaker, but he never imagined he could disobey his parents like this from such a young age. He had potential, he would make a mental note about it.
“And why would I get in trouble with the Clave, especially with your daddy, just for six thousand dollars?” Leo's voice was amused. Rafael was starting to consider kicking him in the calf, just for the pleasure of the surprise factor. He didn't think he was actually capable of causing the slightest damage.
“There won't be any problems, if they find out I'll say I stole it.” The boy seemed sure of his words.
“The little son of the angel, stealing from me?” Leo's laughter was cut off when Rafael pulled out of his pocket one of the Komodo dragon fangs he had taken on the last visit he made to the market with his bapak. The boy quickly stuffed it into his jacket pocket before I could snatch it from his hand.
“You’ll believe me. I could steal it if I wanted to, but I’m not that kind of person.” There was fierceness and determination in the boy’s eyes, he would have his damn bird no matter what. Even if he had to snatch it from Leo’s ugly and huge hands.
“Okay, angel boy. But if your parents find out, I’ll personally make sure you regret stealing from me and involving me in your stupidities.” He turned around and snapped his fingers, a spacious cage appeared surrounding the bird in the blink of an eye, she seemed unfazed. “Don’t think I’ll stop because you’re a dwarf.”
“Good luck with that.” He said with much more conviction than he had, Rafael learned to do that from his bapak. He pulled out the bills and watched Leo count them methodically, with some poorly concealed surprise, once the accounts were clear he handed him the bird and the shadowhunter headed towards the east entrance.
The boy's Uber was two minutes away and he was about a mile from the entrance when he realized his mistake, turned on his own axis and started walking back on his steps. He sighed loudly as he did so, he didn't even bother anymore, he was used to it.
Leo's face was a poem when he saw his little black eyes peeking over the counter again. "What do you want?" He said in a feline growl, Rafael was also used to that kind of hissing.
"What do you feed her?" Rafa said in a pitiful sigh, while he wrote a message to the driver asking him to wait for him a few minutes.
"It's a bird, bird food." Leo spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. How the hell would he know what a bird eats?
Without saying anything else he nodded and started walking back to school, he imagined that with some internet photos for reference Max could conjure up some bird food to feed his new pet. Now he just wanted to get into bed.
Two months had passed without any major problems. The fairies who bought the potions had been arrested on charges that his dad wouldn't explain to him and that, honestly, he didn't care about. He felt a little guilty, but when he went to play with his bird after classes with Aunt Isabelle, it went away.
She hadn't laid a single egg yet, but Max was sure she was a female, and from what he'd seen in her nest she hadn't tried to eat anything other than some apples from the trees, so the critters in the place were safe. The wild cat, for his part, did try to hunt Felicia, the horrible name Max chose for his poor bird, but she fought back fiercely and had narrowly won. Since then, they had been in a cold war, each in a different corner of the greenhouse.
She was growing quickly, disturbingly fast, four inches a week and her feathers were scattered all over the place because she was molting. Fortunately, autumn was coming, and they were blending in with the fallen leaves on the ground.
The plan, in his opinion, had been a sure victory. He had never executed a project with such a level of detail and perfection, and he felt proud to think that it was due to the experience he was gaining over the years. He was looking forward to being an adult and being able to tell his parents about this great feat, if it weren't for the fact that his fatherly duty was to prevent him from breaking laws, he was sure they would find it a great story.
That was how one afternoon Rafael found himself ignoring his aunt in math class while praising himself when he heard the explosion. He had never wanted to be under demonic attack so much as that afternoon.
All the adults immediately took their weapons and their uniforms, his aunt took him by the arm and ran with him to the library, the safe area for children, where she met a pale Maxwell holding Magnus' hand. They both knew what, or rather, who had caused the explosion.
“We are under attack; I can’t believe they would do something as low as bomb an institute with children inside.” Magnus’ voice was firm, there were people running through the halls, some going upstairs to put out the fire and others evacuating the children to the library or rushing with their weapons to the main entrance to prepare for battle.
His bapak was conjuring a portal for the children to cross into a safe zone. This was getting out of hand.
Rafael exchanged a look with his brother, both knowing they should confess before a war started on the part of their parents. It would look very bad if the New York Institute faked a bombing to start a war that had been brewing for months. Goodbye to his Xbox, and not to mention the possibility of going to see the premiere of Bohemian Rhapsody with his uncle Simon. He would be lucky if he wasn’t even forbidden to sleep in his own room unsupervised for the next ten years.
“Boys, everything will be okay,” Magnus said in a voice as self-assured as he could. “I’ll see you at home. I love you.”
“It was us.” Max said in a whisper. Nothing to do, if the ship sinks it will sink with the crew.
“Yes, it was us.” Rafa said, immediately regretting it.
“You bombed the institute?” His bapak was between surprised and incredulous, however, coming from the two of them anything was possible. “Why?”
“It’s not a bomb, it was Felicia.” Max, always the bravest of the two when it came to confronting the warlock, said it loud and clear without looking up from the ground. He was sweating. “She’s our phoenix.”
Magnus’ face changed from disbelief to complete fury. He closed the portal of applause without even turning to look at it, probably for the dramatic effect of the scene, and stared at them waiting for an explanation without having to ask for it.
“It’s just that…” Rafael ventured. “She’s very pretty. I taught her some tricks… We didn’t think she was going to blow up the whole top floor…”
Without saying a word, Magnus ran at full speed to the top floor to help the shadow hunters. A few days later, the children would discover that, unfortunately for them, the phoenix fire can only be extinguished with water from Lake Lyn, Ness and Atitlan.
The punishment was not as bad as they expected. Max was sure that they had surpassed their parents’ capacity for surprise and despite their attempts to make them confess, neither of them explained where they had gotten the money or the bird. Leo denied knowing anything about it and cleverly said that a few weeks before Rafael began visiting the greenhouse, a thief had broken into his shop and stolen some animals. In the end, the Consul and the warlock assumed that they had gotten the bird from a smuggler who sold it at a bargain price, not suspecting that the children had collected the full amount to buy the bird themselves and the seller’s silence.
Fortunately, the cat, the bats, and the other animals in the greenhouse were protected by an ancient enchantment placed on them by a Scottish wizard several centuries ago, so, apart from the fright of their lives, no one was hurt. Except for Felicia, who, turned to ashes, ended up being reborn as a teenage bird in Uncle Ragnor Fell's house. Max's tutor happily agreed to take the phoenix to Idris, apparently it was Felicia's homeland, and now there was an ocean of distance between the children and their precious bird that laid eggs with astonishing frequency.
Both of them lost the right to video games for almost six months, neither of them objected, they had to take boring classes about the magical world and its exotic animals that Uncle Ragnor personally made torturously long, slow, and uncomfortable by explaining something about mating and the creation of babies. Rafael didn't want to think about that anymore. Magnus placed strict guards at the entrances and exits of the apartment, he could detect even the smallest attempt at magic on Max's part and they checked both their backpacks when entering and leaving each place.
They decided not to tell the council of witches anything, fortunately for Max, since buying a smuggled bird is not illegal and blowing up an institute, if it is your own house and your family's, apparently neither. But both he and his brother dedicated the afternoons of the entire following year in the greenhouse, taking care of the plants, feeding the animals that waited for their home to grow again and being challenged by their uncles in turns.
The only treasure he had from that whole fruitless odyssey was the komodo dragon fang that had never returned to Leo's shop, so he made sure to always carry it in his pocket on behalf of Felicia. His beautiful phoenix that was now doing tricks in another man's house.