The Red Scrolls of Magic

by Cassandra Clare

  Magnus was dangling in the air above a ravine. All that prevented him from falling to his death was the black tentacle wrapped around his waist.

  The tentacle was not a huge comfort.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  * * *

  Speed of Fire

  ALEC LOOKED, HIS HAND STILL extended, his heart forgetting to beat, at the empty space where Magnus had been standing just seconds ago.

  One moment he had been holding Magnus’s hand. Now he stood, his hand outstretched toward a window that had become ten thousand tiny jagged shards littering the plush wine-colored carpet.

  A shudder passed through Alec: he couldn’t suppress the thought of all he had lost in the battle at Alicante. He could not lose Magnus, too. He was meant to be a warrior and soldier, a steady light against the darkness. But the terror that went through him now was visceral and deep, stronger than any fear he’d ever felt in battle.

  Alec heard a cry, barely perceptible over the sound of the howling wind. He rushed to the broken window.

  There was Magnus, suspended in the air next to the train. He was in the grip of a creature, squatting on top of the train, that looked like a tree made of smoke. Magnus was caught in its black branches, his hands pinned by dark tentacles. Below them was a plummeting fall of hundreds of feet.

  The demon’s smoky surface bubbled and rippled in the air. Alec was tempted to put a few arrows into it, but he didn’t want to provoke it, not with Magnus in its grasp. Nor could Magnus use magic without his hands free. Alec looked down at the ravine; it was too dark to see the bottom.

  “Magnus!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”

  “Wonderful!” Magnus yelled back. “I’ll just hang around until then!”

  Alec climbed out onto the window frame and steadied himself as the train shook from side to side, silently thanking his Dexterity rune for maintaining his balance. He reached up and grabbed the T and E at the beginning of the word INTERNATIONALE that was blazoned in brass letters affixed to the train car, above the windows. All he had to do was pull himself up and swing his legs over onto the roof.

  It should have worked. Alec had completed similar feats hundreds of times in his training. But the letter T was less well-attached than he’d thought, and with a groan it pulled halfway out of the train, its screws stripped and bent. He managed to get only one leg onto the roof before it broke off completely. He scrambled for purchase, his arms and legs splayed against the curved edge of the train car.

  “Are you all right?” Magnus shouted.

  “All according to plan!” Alec began to slide off, one slow inch at a time.

  Sheer urgency ran hot through his veins. Desperation tightened his hands to claws. With a force borne only of his will to save Magnus, he managed to find some leverage beneath one foot, and with this he frantically scrambled his way up onto the roof.

  Before he could uncurl himself and stand up, something large and heavy barreled into him from behind. Tentacles closed around his legs and waist and squeezed. Dozens of small red suction cups pinched through the wet fabric of his shirt, burning his skin.

  Alec stared into the large buggy eyes and gaping maw of a Raum demon. It made a wet clicking sound as it snapped at him. Unable to use his bow or reach his seraph blade, Alec used the only weapon he had available. He raised his fist and punched the Raum demon in the face.

  His fist connected with a buggy eye. His elbow smashed into its snout. Alec battered the demon’s face until its tentacles loosened just enough for him to kick out and escape. He fell onto his back and somersaulted into a kneeling position. His bow was out, an arrow nocked, and he shot just as the Raum demon came at him.

  It blocked the first arrow with a tentacle, but stumbled when the second sank into its knee. It finally stopped its charge when, at near-point-blank range, the third punched into its chest. The demon chittered in agony, staggered, lost its balance, and toppled over the side of the train.

  The bow clattered to the ground. Alec exhaled and put a hand on the train’s roof to steady himself. His body burned from dozens of tiny poisonous wounds left by the demon’s tentacles. He fumbled for his stele and pressed it to his heart, drawing the iratze rune. Immediately the tightness in his chest lifted and the numbness subsided.

  He drew in a harsh breath. Demon poison wasn’t easily remedied. This relief was only temporary.

  He had to make the next few minutes count.

  He willed himself to his feet and focused on Magnus, still in the grasp of some dark octopus-like monster. It was unlike any demon he had ever seen before, and definitely not something he’d read about in the Codex. It didn’t matter. It had Magnus, and it was getting away.

  Alec picked up his bow and gave chase, speeding down the length of the train and hurdling over the gaps between the cars. He kept his eyes on Magnus, intent on not letting him out of sight again. His terror drove him forward with reckless abandon. He barely stayed on the train as it curved around a sharp turn.

  Several Ravener demons appeared, blocking his path with hissing jaws and poisonous scorpion tails. It was unusual, said an analytic voice in the back of his mind, to have so many different demon types attacking together. They tended to stay in packs of their own kind.

  This meant, almost certainly, that they had been summoned. That there was malicious purpose beyond this attack, directed at them in particular.

  Alec didn’t have time to pursue this insight at the moment, and didn’t have time to suffer Ravener demons, either. Every second lost meant Magnus got one second farther away. He fired arrows while running at full speed, sacrificing some accuracy to keep up. One arrow caught a Ravener in mid-leap, and Alec battered two more off the train with his bow. Another Raum demon got an arrow to the throat. His seraph blade seared through flesh as if it were night air.

  Alec stood wreathed in ichor and blood, and realized he had cut through the whole pack.

  His body ached in a hundred places, and the iratze rune was starting to wear off. He wasn’t done. He set his teeth and staggered forward. The smoke demon was just at the end of the train car. It had stopped moving. Two of its tentacles were still wrapped around Magnus, four were holding on to the sides of the train near the tracks, and the last two were dragging along the air as if testing the wind. No, the ends of the tentacles were glowing in a light that became more complex as the tentacles moved, remaining in place next to the demon even as the train rushed on.

  Alec squinted and realized the light was the red glow of a pentagram, emerging into the air beside the train. He nocked an arrow, aimed at a space in between the monster’s two eyes, and loosed it. The arrow bounced harmlessly off the demon’s roiling skin. He drew another and struck it again; same result. By now the pentagram had opened and the demon was moving Magnus into it. It could drop him into another dimension or some bottomless abyss.

  Alec drew yet another arrow. This time he aimed at one of the tentacles holding Magnus. He whispered a prayer to the Angel and fired.

  The arrow sank into the tentacle a few feet away from Magnus’s body. The monster reared and relaxed its grip just a bit. Magnus didn’t waste any time and, as soon as he had a hand free, began weaving it through the air rapidly. A web of blue electricity flared onto the remaining tentacle holding him. The smoke demon screamed and its tentacles jerked back, releasing Magnus. The warlock hit the roof of the train with a heavy thud and rolled, beginning to slip over the side.

  Alec dove forward, sliding along the cold metal, perilously close to the edge. He brushed Magnus’s fingertips and grasped only air as Magnus tumbled off the train.

  Alec lunged off the side of the train and grasped a handful of wet material. He grabbed hold of Magnus’s shirt in both hands and strained to pull him up, using all the strength he had left.

  His vision blurred with the effort, but then Magnus was in his arms, blinking his still-stunned golden eyes.

  “Thank you, Alexander,” Magnus said. “Alas, the octopus monster is attacking again.”

/>   Alec rolled them both to the side. A black tentacle slammed into the place they had just been. The tentacle rose to strike again. Magnus shot into a sitting position and threw up his hands, a beam of blue fire slicing across one of the whipping tentacles. Black ichor sprayed as the demon jerked the injured tentacle back.

  Magnus rose to his feet. Alec started to get up, but a wave of dizziness struck him. The effects of the iratze rune were almost entirely gone, and the Raum poison was again a corroding agent within his veins.

  “Alec!” Magnus shouted. His hair was wild in the wind whipping across the train’s roof. He hauled Alec to his feet even as the smoke demon moved toward them once again. “Alec, what’s wrong?”

  Alec felt for his stele, but his vision was fading. He could hear Magnus calling his name, hear the approach of the demon. There was no way Magnus could both help Alec and fend off the demon at the same time.

  Magnus, he thought. Run. Protect yourself.

  The smoke monster lunged, just as a dark shape threw itself between the demon and Alec and Magnus.

  A woman, her dark cloak and dark hair whipping in the wind. In one hand she gripped a three-sided sword. It gleamed under the moonlight.

  “Stay back!” she shouted. “I’ll take care of this.”

  She waved a hand and the smoky demon gave a long crackling squeal, like the sound of wood breaking as it was burned.

  “I’ve seen her before,” Alec said, wondering. “It’s the woman I fought at the Shadow Market in Paris. Magnus . . .”

  Another bolt of sick, poisonous pain coursed through him. His vision dimmed. He felt as though he was being beaten, struck in the stomach, his legs cut out from under him.

  “Magnus,” he said again.

  The sky began to fail, the stars blinking out one by one, but then Magnus was there, catching him. “Alec,” he was saying, over and over, and his voice wasn’t at all like Magnus’s voice, which was cool and dismissive and charming. It was ragged and desperate. “Alec, please.”

  There was a heavy weight on Alec’s eyelids. Everything in the world wanted him to shut them. Alec forced them open, to catch one final glimpse: Magnus hovering above him, his strange lovely eyes the last light Alec had left.

  Alec wanted to tell him that it was all right. Magnus was safe. Alec had everything he wanted.

  He tried to lift a hand and touch Magnus’s cheek. He could not.

  The world was so dark. Magnus’s face faded and, like everything else, was swallowed by the now starless night sky.

  CHAPTER NINE

  * * *

  Shinyun

  DEMONIC ACID HAD DESTROYED HALF their compartment. In fact, the entire train had suffered a great deal of damage, which had been concealed from the mundane staff and passengers with a clever combination of glamours and dropped words about partying European royalty.

  Magnus was regrowing the wood frame, and incidentally doing a little redecorating, when he heard Alec stir. It was only a tiny movement beneath the covers, but Magnus had been waiting for it all night.

  He turned in time to see Alec stir again. He hastened over to sit on the side of the bed.

  “Hey, gorgeous, how are you feeling?” he murmured.

  Alec reached out his hand, his eyes still closed. It was a mute but trusting gesture—the gesture of a boy who could always count on loving hands and loving voices when he was sick or injured. Magnus remembered when he himself had turned up at the Institute, summoned there to heal Alec from demon injuries. Isabelle had been in a panic, Jace pacing the halls, white-faced.

  It had reminded Magnus of times long ago, the memory of Nephilim he had cared for once, and how very much they had cared for each other. Knowing the way Will and Jem loved each other had changed his feelings for Nephilim, and seeing Jace—calm, superior Jace—in pieces over Alec had made him like the boy much more.

  Now Alec’s hand was outstretched to him, and Magnus took it like the offer of trust it was. Alec’s skin was cool. Magnus pressed his cheek to their joined hands, closing his eyes for just a moment, letting his relief that Alec was all right wash over him. Alec’s skin had been hot with fever for a while there, but Magnus was very experienced in treating the Nephilim.

  Since Shadowhunters, however loving, were all reckless lunatics.

  Of course, Alec had been a reckless lunatic in the cause of saving Magnus’s life. He thought of Alec balancing atop the train car as it hurtled around twisting mountain passes, his clothes wet, his skin smeared with blood and dust. It was heartbreaking and hot, all at once.

  “I’ve been better.” Alec’s bedsheets were damp from sweat, but color was returning to his face. He sat up and the blanket slid down to his bare waist. “I’ve been worse, too. Thanks for healing me.”

  Magnus sat up and hovered his free hand over Alec’s chest. A faint blue glow expanded from his palm and shimmered before disappearing through Alec’s skin. “Your heartbeat is stronger. You should’ve asked me to take care of that poison immediately.”

  Alec shook his head. “If you recall, an octopus demon was carrying you away.”

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “About that. I deeply appreciate you saving my life. I’m very attached to my life. However, if it comes to a choice between your life and mine, Alec, remember I have already lived a very long time.”

  It was strange to say. Immortality was a difficult thing to talk about. Magnus barely remembered being young, but he had never been old, either. He had been with mortals of varying ages, and he had never been able to comprehend how time felt for them. Nor had they ever been able to understand him.

  Yet cutting himself off from mortals would mean severing his ties with the world. Life would become a long wait, without warmth or connection, until his heart died. After a century of loneliness, anyone would go mad.

  Alec risking himself for Magnus’s sake—that felt like madness as well.

  Alec’s eyes were narrowed. “What are you saying?”

  Magnus linked his fingers with Alec’s. Their hands lay on the bedsheet, Alec’s pale and rune-marked, Magnus’s brown and gleaming with rings.

  “You should keep yourself safe—first. Your safety, it’s more important, it means more than mine.”

  Alec said, “I would say the same thing to you.”

  “But you’d be wrong.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion. What was that demon?” Magnus had to admire the brazenness with which Alec changed the subject. “Why did it attack you?”

  Magnus had been wondering that himself.

  “Attacking is what demons usually do,” said Magnus. “If it was after me specifically, I assume it was jealous of my style and charm.”

  Alec wasn’t distracted. Magnus hadn’t really believed he would be.

  “Have you ever seen anything like it? We need to figure out the best way to fight another one if it comes. If I could get to the New York library, check the bestiaries . . . Maybe I could get Isabelle to do it. . . .”

  “Oh, you relentless Nephilim,” said Magnus, letting Alec’s hand go before Alec could let him go first. “Can’t you get your bursts of energy from caffeine like everybody else?”

  “The demon was a Raum brood mother,” said a woman’s voice from behind them. “It takes powerful magic to coax one out of its lair.”

  Alec snatched the blanket up with one hand to cover himself, while grabbing his seraph blade with the other.

  “Also,” said Magnus without raising his voice, “may I introduce our new friend, Shinyun Jung? She dissolved the demon attacking us into vapor. It made an excellent first impression.”

  Alec and Shinyun both regarded Magnus with disbelief.

  “My first impression of her,” Alec pointed out with some sharpness, “was her attacking me at the Shadow Market.”

  “My first impression of you,” Shinyun returned, “was you attacking me. All I wanted to do was talk to Magnus, but you drew a weapon on me.”

  “We should probably have a little chat to clear things up,�
�� Magnus agreed.

  He’d been too worried about Alec to think it through before. Shinyun had dropped to her knees and started helping him heal Alec’s wounds. At the time, that was all he had needed to know.

  “Yes,” Shinyun agreed. “Why don’t we continue this conversation outside, with all of us dressed?”

  “I’d appreciate that,” said Alec.

  “I suggest the bar car.”

  Magnus brightened. “I’d appreciate that.”

  THEY REGROUPED IN THE DOWNWORLDER bar. The room was still packed, but the crowd was noticeably more subdued after the demon attack. Three spots in a row at the main bar were suddenly vacant, and as they sat down on the stools, a free bottle of champagne and three glasses appeared without them having ordered it. When Alec looked suspiciously around, a vampire shot him a wink and finger guns.

  Magnus might not have to worry so much about all Downworlders hating Alec. Not on this train, anyway.

  “I didn’t think Shadowhunters were this popular among Downworlders,” said Shinyun.

  “Only my Shadowhunter,” Magnus said, pouring.

  The bar was lit from above with hanging brass pendants. Their warm light fell full on Shinyun’s countenance. Her lips and eyes moved when she spoke, but the rest of her round face, unblinking eyelids, and smooth cheeks did not. Her voice was dry and seemed to float from her mouth without cadence.

  That was her warlock mark, the affectless face. All warlocks were uniquely marked, the markings usually appearing in early childhood, often resulting in tragedy. Magnus’s mark was his golden cat eyes. Magnus’s stepfather had called them windows into Hell.

  Magnus could not stop remembering kneeling on top of the train car, frantic with fear, Alec losing consciousness in his arms. Magnus had seen the demon dissipate into smoke around Shinyun as she threw her hood back and looked down at him. He’d recognized her immediately—not who she was, but that she was like him. A warlock.

  It had been quite an entrance.