“Gotta go.”
“Stop,” Raphael commanded. “Do not hang up.”
Alec hung up.
Raphael immediately tried to call him back. Alec turned his phone off.
“What’s happening?” Aline asked. “Why do you look like that?”
“Helen,” said Alec. “You mentioned Hypatia Vex as a possible suspect. So Mori Shu never specifically said the leader of the Hand was a man?”
Helen blinked. “He didn’t say anything that would indicate either way.”
“People at the Paris Shadow Market spoke as if it was a man,” Alec said in a low voice. “Because the rumor was that it was Magnus. Even if someone didn’t believe it was Magnus, they said ‘he’ without thinking. And Magnus and I were so busy defending him, we didn’t think.”
The informant on the Crimson Hand, murdered at the party in Venice. Marked with the point of a three-sided blade.
In times of trouble, remember: all roads lead to Rome.
The line was missing from the version of the Red Scrolls of Magic Isabelle had sent him. The one in the Chamber had been altered to add an extra rule, pointing them toward Rome.
And Shinyun Jung, a warlock who was clearly a well-trained warrior, whose movements were usually quick and graceful, had tripped, and made sure they found the altered book. Leading them here.
“We have to go,” said Alec. “Now.”
Just as he turned back in the direction they had come, the woods around them came alive. A sharp wind rustled the branches and tumbled the leaves. The air around them warmed, the temperature spiking alarmingly. It had been a cool, breezy night a few seconds ago, but now they were in sweltering heat.
Five pillars of fire rose at the edge of the clearing around them, each several stories tall and as thick as a tree trunk. Branches and rocks snapped, flames licked the vegetation and consumed it, and the air became thick and nearly impossible to breathe. The pillars crackled and ejected large embers into the sky, hundreds of fireflies swirling in the air.
All three Shadowhunters took out steles and rapidly drew some Marks for defense: Accuracy. Stamina. Strength. And, maybe most important, Fireproof.
Putting away her stele, Aline whispered, “Jophiel,” and her angel-infused daggers appeared in her hands. Alec took out his bow, and a glowing white light illuminated Helen’s hand as she drew her seraph blade and named an angel as well. Alec couldn’t hear the name over the roar of the flames.
“At the risk of sounding redundant,” said Helen. “Oh no. This is a trap.”
They gathered, standing back to back to back, in the middle of the clearing. In light of what they were facing, it seemed very inadequate.
“This was stupid, coming here with only three of us,” said Alec. “The Crimson Hand knew exactly where we would be, and when.”
“How?” Aline demanded.
Alec nocked an arrow on his bowstring. “Because their leader—she told us to be here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
* * *
The Great Poison
THE ANCIENT VILLA TOWERED BEFORE Magnus, its broken towers like jagged teeth rising into the sky.
“Subtle, these cultists are not,” Magnus commented. He checked his watch. “Alec should be here by now.”
Shinyun was standing beside him. He could feel the tension running through her entire body.
“Maybe they’re questioning him at the Rome Institute,” she said. “You know the Nephilim will not look favorably on anything he has been doing. He could be in a lot of trouble. And if we wait for him any longer, we’ll lose our chance to capture the Crimson Hand.”
According to Shinyun’s informant, senior members of the Crimson Hand were meeting with a group of potential disciples. Their leader might even be present.
Alec would want Magnus to wait for him. Magnus wanted to wait for Alec. But Shinyun was right. Alec could be trapped, answering difficult questions at the Rome Institute, and it would be all Magnus’s fault.
The best thing Magnus could do would be to capture the leader and put an end to the Crimson Hand. Surely the Nephilim would be appeased, and Alec cleared of any suspicion.
Shinyun said, “This could be our only opportunity.”
Magnus took a deep breath and decided his hesitation was absurd.
This was nothing he could not handle on his own. He had always done just fine by himself before.
“Lead the way,” he told Shinyun.
They entered the villa through what had evidently once been a stable and searched their way through a series of rooms. The building had long since been ransacked. Broken cabinets, torn tapestries, shattered glass littered the floors. Nature had already begun the slow process of consuming the villa. Weeds and vines infiltrated the cracks in the walls and windows. The strong scent of stagnant water lingered in the air. Everything was damp. The dank smell was making Magnus light-headed. He was finding it a little difficult to breathe.
“Evil can be excused, sometimes. Squalor, though, never,” Magnus murmured.
Shinyun murmured back, “Will you stop making jokes?”
“Unlikely,” said Magnus.
They entered a long room with a low ceiling and broken shelves. In another life, it had probably served as a pantry. Now rotting wood, cracked stone, and overgrown vines spiderwebbed the walls. A pool of water rested where the ground had sunk in. Shinyun held up a finger and froze. Magnus listened. There it was, a noise at last; the faint sound of chanting.
Shinyun pointed to the other end of the room and crept across, giving the dirty pool of water a wide berth. Just as she was about to leave the room, a metal portcullis, apparently in much better repair than the rest of the place, slammed down in the doorway in front of her.
Magnus moved toward the doorway behind them, from where they had entered, but it was too late. There was the sound of rolling metal and another gate crashed down before he could reach it. Magnus grasped the gate and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. They were trapped.
Shinyun tried the first gate again. Magnus crossed the room and joined her. It was no use; it was far too heavy. He stepped back and mustered his magic, meaning to shatter the iron gate to dust. His hand glowed dark blue, and a streak of energy left his fingertips, but it died before it reached the gate.
He felt unexpectedly weak, as if he had just performed a huge spell instead of something very standard. He blinked away the dimness in his vision.
“Something wrong?” Shinyun asked.
Magnus waved his hand carelessly. “Nothing at all.”
Shinyun grabbed a large rock from the ground and began to hammer at the rustiest parts of the gate. Magnus retreated to the center of the room.
“What are you doing?” Shinyun asked.
A green funnel rose up around him, whipping his coat and making his hair stand sideways. He called up every drop of magic he could to help the funnel gain steam, right up to the point that the spell began to fracture. With a final cry, Magnus channeled everything he had into this howling tornado and focused it on the doorway from which they had entered. The iron screeched and groaned, and then the gate tore free of the stone and flew down the hallway. It disappeared into the darkness before clanging into stone off in the distance.
Magnus fell to one knee, gasping. There was something very wrong with his magic.
“How could you do that?” Shinyun asked softly. “How did you get to be so strong? Surely now you have no power left.”
Magnus forced himself to stand and began to stagger toward the blasted-open exit.
“I’m leaving.”
Just as he was about to pass Shinyun, she threw an arm out and grabbed him by the front of the shirt. “I don’t think so.”
Magnus studied her still face in the shadowed light. His heartbeat rang in his own ears, signaling danger far too late.
“I see that my beautiful trusting nature has been imposed on,” he said. “Again.”
Shinyun spun, using Magnus’s own weight as momentum to throw him, sending him t
umbling halfway across the room. He tried to get back on his feet but was thrown back by a kick to the chest. He fell again, slamming into the remaining gate. Then he heard the sound of metal on metal and the grind of the portcullis lifting upward, and he felt several pairs of strong hands closing on his arms. He was almost unable to see.
I was exposed to a potion that made me lose control of my shape-shifting abilities, Tessa had told him. Magnus should have remembered.
“You put poison in my drink at the Aqua Morte,” he said, struggling to form the words. “You distracted me with a sob story. Was it all a lie?”
Shinyun knelt down beside him on the wet stone. He could only make out the outlines of her face, like a mask hanging in the dark.
“No,” she whispered. “I had to make you feel sorry enough for me. I had to tell you the truth. That’s one more thing I can never forgive you for.”
MAGNUS WASN’T THAT SURPRISED TO wake up in prison.
A trickle from the ceiling had found its way to his forehead, bouncing drops off it every few seconds, which reminded him of how the Silent Brothers used to discipline him to get him to stop talking during his studies.
Some of the water dribbled into his mouth and he spat it out. He hoped it was only water. Whatever it was tasted foul. He blinked, trying to acclimate to his surroundings. He was enclosed by a curved windowless wall with an iron gate leading out to more darkness, and a hole on the far side that was either an old escape route or a latrine. Judging by the smell in the air, Magnus thought maybe it had been both.
“It’s official,” he declared to no one in particular. “This is the worst vacation ever.”
He looked up. There wasn’t much moonlight, but what there was created a faint glow through a circular grate. This place looked like the bottom of a cistern, maybe, or a well, not that it made any difference. A hole, a cell, the bottom of a well. It was still prison. His hands were chained to the wall over his head, and he was sitting on a bed of hay that looked like it had already passed through the horse. The floor beneath him was cut stone, so he was probably still on the grounds of the villa somewhere. Magnus swallowed. His face and neck hurt. A lot. He could really use a drink.
He hoped Alec truly was stuck at the Rome Institute. That he hadn’t gone where Shinyun had told him to go, which, he now realized, was clearly not this place. At the Institute, Alec would be safe.
A silhouette appeared on the other side of the gate. Metal clanged and a hinge squealed as the gate swung open.
“Don’t worry,” said Shinyun. “The poison won’t kill you.”
“ ‘Because I will,’ ” intoned Magnus. Shinyun blinked at him. “That was where you were going with that, wasn’t it?” he asked. He closed his eyes. He had the worst headache.
“I measured the poison very carefully,” said Shinyun. “Just enough to put you out and obliterate your magic. I want you on your feet when you fulfill your ever so glorious destiny.”
That didn’t sound good. When Magnus opened his eyes, she was standing in front of him. She was dressed all in snowy white, with silver embroidery at her collar and cuffs.
“My glorious destiny?” Magnus asked. “It’s always a glorious destiny. Have you noticed that? Nobody ever references the mediocre destinies.”
Shinyun said, “No. Mine is the destiny that will be glorious. You do not deserve glory. You started this cult as a joke. You had people pull pranks and heal the sick. You made a mockery of the name of Asmodeus.”
“Mockery is the best use I’ve found for his name,” Magnus murmured.
Shinyun’s voice was furious. “We should both have been loyal to Asmodeus. He favored you so greatly. You are not worthy of him.”
“He’s not worthy of me,” Magnus remarked.
Shinyun shouted over him. “I’m tired of your endless mockery and disrespect. We owe Asmodeus life. I will never be like you. I will never betray my father!”
“Your father?” echoed Magnus.
Shinyun paid him no attention.
“I had been buried alive for five days when the Crimson Hand rescued me. They told me Asmodeus had sent them to rescue his daughter. My father’s people saved me, because my father is always watching me. My mortal family betrayed me, and I slaughtered them. Asmodeus is the only one who loves me, and all I have to love. I have transformed the Crimson Hand from a mockery to a reality, and it is time to destroy the last insult. It is time to remove you, Great Poison. I will kill you for insulting Asmodeus. I will sacrifice your immortal life to him, and let him loose upon this world, and sit by his side for all eternity as his beloved daughter.”
“Yeah, about that,” said Magnus. “If you had the power of a Prince of Hell, I would have noticed.”
“If any warlock alive had the power of a Prince of Hell, they would already rule this world,” Shinyun told him impatiently. “All warlocks are Asmodeus’s children, if they prove themselves worthy. That’s what the Crimson Hand taught me.”
“So you’ve . . . adopted Asmodeus?” Magnus said. “Or he’s adopted you?”
He looked at her. He was not thrilled about being in prison. He was even less thrilled by the prospect of his inglorious destiny.
But he still couldn’t hate her. He still understood why she was the way she was, the forces that had shaped her and where the shadow of his own hands fell across her past.
“Don’t look at me like that! I don’t want your pity.” Shinyun stepped forward and closed her hands about his throat. Magnus gagged and choked—warlocks were immortal, but not invulnerable. He would die if deprived of oxygen. “You were never worthy,” she whispered, as he strained for breath. “My people should never have followed you. My father should never have honored you. Your place belongs to me.”
After a moment, Shinyun must have realized that she was choking the life out of her so-called father’s sacrifice. She let him go.
Magnus sagged back in his chains, gasping, as air rushed into his lungs.
“Why?” He choked. “All this time you were helping us, you were just leading us into this trap. Why didn’t you just grab me in Paris or on the train, or at any other opportunity you had? Why go through this charade?”
“Alec.” Shinyun said his name as if it was poison. “Every time I was close to seizing you, he got in the way. I had you cornered in the Paris Shadow Market until he arrived at the alley. We actually had you in our grasp on the train until he began cutting down all my demons like chaff. Alec took out the pack of Raum demons and most of the Ravener swarm. All that was left was my maimed brood mother. I couldn’t trust her to finish the job, and I couldn’t risk losing track of you. I decided I had to stay as close to you as possible.”
Shinyun’s laugh was different from any laugh Magnus had heard from her before. It was cruel, hollow, and bitter.
“I’ve become very skilled at pretending, over the centuries, in the service of my father. My face is a gift given to me, that I might serve Asmodeus better. People cannot see what I truly feel. They project onto a mask what they wish for, and never think that I am real beneath the mask. I give them what they want to see and tell them what they want to hear. But that Shadowhunter didn’t want anything from me, and the only thing that worked on you was making you feel sorry for me. I hated doing that so much, I hated you so much, and I still couldn’t stop him watching you, protecting you, always at the ready. I realized that the only way I could take you down was if I got you away from Alexander Lightwood first.”
Magnus thought of his regret earlier that day that Alec had felt driven to go to the Rome Institute. Now he was only grateful. Alec would be safe there, and Magnus could face anything, if Alec was safe.
Shinyun snapped her fingers, and several men entered Magnus’s cell. They were all dressed in white, with severe faces.
“Take him to the Pit, Bernard,” said Shinyun.
“Don’t take me to the Pit, Bernard,” suggested Magnus. “I hate the word ‘pit.’ It sounds ominous, and grubby. Also, hello, evil cult
member Bernard!”
Evil cult member Bernard gave Magnus a peeved look. He was stick thin with dark hair slicked back in a way that accentuated his pointy chin and tuft of a beard, and an air of wannabe authority. He snapped the iron manacles off Magnus’s hands with unnecessary force. Magnus slid down to the ground with the chains no longer supporting him. Even Bernard posed a significant threat to Magnus right now. He forced himself to stand upright, but it was all he could do. He felt sick, and dizzy, and utterly bereft of magic.
Shinyun had taken no chances with her poison. She clearly wanted Magnus to have no chance in the Pit.
“One last thing,” said Shinyun, and she sounded like she was smiling.
She stepped close to Magnus.
“I led you to a place where you could not receive calls. I rendered your phone unusable. And I contacted Alec myself on your behalf.” She smiled. “I set a trap for each of you. Alec Lightwood should be dead shortly.”
Magnus could face anything, if Alec was safe.
It was a dark explosion in Magnus’s mind, a howling scream of agony and rage. A rage that he rarely if ever allowed himself to feel. A rage that came from his father. He lunged for Shinyun. Bernard and the other cult members grabbed his arms, holding him back as he struggled. Blue sparks, faint and pale, appeared at his fingertips.
Shinyun patted Magnus’s face, the gesture almost hard enough to be a slap.
“I do hope you said a proper farewell to your child of the Angel, Magnus Bane,” she murmured. “I can’t imagine you two are going to the same afterlife.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
* * *
Helen Blackthorn’s Blood
THE PILLARS OF FIRE CLIMBED tall, each rising above the tree line. The heat was intensifying, clawing at Alec’s skin as though it could tear his runes away. He considered his dwindling options. The pillars were spaced about fifty feet apart in a rough circle. If they were quick, they could charge between two and escape. But just as Alec moved to dive through an opening, the pillars on either side bent to block him, reshaping themselves in an instant, and then returning to their original height when he backed off.
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