Born to Endless Night by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan

little helplessly.
    “You asked me what I was scared of. I’m scared he won’t like me,” Alec said. “I’m scared I’ll let him down. But I want to try to be there for him. I want him. Do you?”
    “I didn’t expect him,” said Magnus. “I didn’t expect anything like this to come, for me. Even if I thought sometimes about what it might be like if you and I did have a family, I thought it would not be for years. But yes. Yes, I want to try as well.”
    Alec smiled, his smile so brilliant that Magnus realized how relieved he was, and realized belatedly how worried Alec had been that Magnus would say no.
    “It is quick,” Alec admitted. “I thought about having a family, but I guess I always thought . . . Well, I guess I never expected anything like this to happen before we got married.”
    “What?” said Magnus.
    Alec just stared up at him. One long, strong archer’s hand was dangling into the baby’s crib, but Alec was intent on Magnus, his dark blue eyes darker than ever in the shadows, one look from Alec more important than a kiss from anyone else. Magnus saw he meant it.
    “Alec,” he said. “My Alec. You have to know that’s impossible.”
    Alec looked stunned and horror-struck. Magnus began to speak, the words tumbling out of his mouth faster and faster, trying to get Alec to see.
    “Shadowhunters can marry Downworlders, in Downworlder or mundane ceremonies. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen other Shadowhunters dismiss those marriages as meaning nothing, and I’ve seen some Shadowhunters bow under pressure and break the vows they made. I know you would never bow or break. I know that type of marriage would mean just as much to you. I know that any promises you made me, you would keep. But I was alive before the Accords. I sat and ate and talked with Shadowhunters about peace between our people, and then those same Shadowhunters threw away the plates I ate off because they thought I irredeemably tainted whatever I touched. I will not have a ceremony that anyone looks down on as lesser. I do not want you to have any less than the ceremony you could have had, to honor your vows to a Shadowhunter. I have had enough of making compromises in the name of trying to make peace. I want the Law to change. I do not want to get married until we can get married in gold.”
    Alec was quiet, his head bowed.
    “Do you understand?” Magnus demanded, feeling almost desperate. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s not that I don’t love you.”
    “I understand,” said Alec. He took a deep breath and looked up. “Changing the Law might take a while,” he said simply.
    “It might,” said Magnus.
    They were both quiet for a little while.
    “Can I tell you something?” Magnus asked. “Nobody ever wanted me to marry them before.”
    He’d had other loves, but none of them had ever asked, and he had known, had sensed with a cold, sinking feeling, that it would be useless, not to ask them. Whether it was because they did not feel they could promise until death did them part when Magnus would not die, because they took Magnus lightly or thought, being immortal, that he took them lightly. He had never known the reasons they did not want to marry him, but there it was: There had been lovers willing to die with him, but nobody had ever been willing to swear to live with him every day for as long as they both had to live.
    Nobody until this Shadowhunter.
    “I never asked anyone to marry me before,” said Alec. “So that’s a no, then?”
    He laughed as he asked, a soft laugh, worn but happy. Alec always tried to give those he loved a path or an open door; he tried to give those he loved anything they wanted. They sat there, leaning against their baby’s crib together.
    Magnus lifted his hand, and Alec caught it in midair, their fingers linking. Magnus’s rings flashed and Alec’s scars glowed in the moonlight. Both of them held on.
    “It’s yes, one day,” Magnus said. “For you, Alec, it’s