The Red Scrolls of Magic

by Cassandra Clare

  Then it vanished.

  In the strange silence that followed, the two girls ran to seize hold of Shinyun and tie her wrists behind her; Shinyun made no move to resist. Magnus rolled to a sitting position, gasping, and realized he was still gripping Alec’s hand. He was still holding Alec—or more precisely, Alec was still holding him.

  Alec was filthy, covered in dirt, with blood on his face and a wild look in his blue eyes. Magnus was vaguely aware that people were still running around in the distance somewhere and that Shinyun was being led away. But he could see only Alec. Alec, who had come here to save him.

  “Alexander,” Magnus whispered. “I told you not to hold on.”

  Suddenly Alec’s arms were around him, crushingly hard. Magnus swallowed a breath that wanted to be a sob and buried his face in the curve of Alec’s neck and shoulder. Magnus’s hands ran up Alec’s back and shoulders, touched the softness of the back of his neck, his dark hair, feeding on the reassurance that he was alive and well and real.

  Alec pulled him even closer. Into Magnus’s ear he whispered, “I would never let you go.”

  THEY HAD EXACTLY THREE SECONDS to bask in the relief of reunion. The fallout from a failed ritual of this magnitude was spectacular on many levels.

  The ritual’s last gasp was a sudden, violent expulsion of magical energy, a thunderous crack followed by an explosion that blew a mushroom cloud of smoke and dust into the air. Magnus wrapped his arms around Alec, casting a hasty spell to protect them both from flying wreckage.

  When the explosion had finally ended, Magnus warily lowered his magical shields. He was still sitting with his arms and legs wrapped around Alec, who was blinking and glancing around.

  “Stop telling me to let you go,” said Alec. “I will never listen. I want to be with you. I never wanted anything more in my life. If you fall, I want to fall with you.”

  “Stay with me,” Magnus said, taking Alec’s face in his hands. The fires burning around them, reflected in Alec’s eyes, became stars. “I love being with you. I love everything about you, Alexander.”

  Magnus drew Alec into a kiss and felt Alec soften against him, his tightly knotted muscles relaxing. Alec tasted like heat and dirt and blood and heaven. Magnus felt the butterfly-soft brush of Alec’s lashes against his own cheek as Alec’s eyes fell shut again.

  “Guys!” said a woman’s voice. “I’m happy for your reunion, but there’s still cultists all over this place. Let’s go.”

  Magnus looked up at the dark-haired woman, one of the Shadowhunter girls who had helped Alec. Jia Penhallow’s daughter, he realized. Then he looked around at the devastation surrounding them on all sides.

  The air was still alive with magic, and part of the villa had caught fire, but the danger seemed to have passed. Most of the Crimson Hand cult members had fled; the rest were in the process of fleeing or were on the ground, wounded. A few of the more fanatical and stupid ones were trying to rally the rest to take control of the situation.

  “You’re totally right,” said Magnus to the Penhallow girl. “This is not the time for love. This is the time for leaving immediately.”

  He and Alec scrambled to their feet and made their way beside Aline to the front of the villa. The area seemed to be free of demons and cultists, at least for now. Helen was already there, and had bound Shinyun’s wrists to a broken marble pillar.

  Shinyun was silent, her head bowed. Magnus did not know whether she was physically hurt or only despondent. The two Shadowhunter women were deep in a whispered conversation: he studied them both, suddenly recognizing the golden-haired one from Council sessions. “You’re Helen Blackthorn. From the Los Angeles Institute, right?”

  Looking startled, Helen nodded.

  Magnus turned to the smaller woman. “And you must be Jia’s daughter. Irene?”

  “Aline,” blurted Aline, her eyes wide. “I didn’t think you knew my name. I mean, you were close enough. I saw you and Alec from a distance at the Gard. I’m a big fan.”

  “Always a pleasure to meet a fan,” said Magnus. “You’re the image of your mother.”

  He and Jia occasionally made cutting remarks about various Clave members to each other in Mandarin. She was a nice lady.

  Alec nodded to Aline and Helen. “I couldn’t have gotten to you without them.”

  “Thank you both,” said Magnus, “for coming to rescue me.”

  The golden-haired girl with the fey ears and the Blackthorn eyes twitched.

  “I didn’t come to rescue you,” Helen confessed. “I was planning on bringing you in for questioning. I mean . . . before. Not now, obviously.”

  “Well,” said Magnus. “That worked out pretty well for me. Thanks anyway.”

  “There’s about a zero percent chance the Shadowhunters at the Rome Institute aren’t going to notice a gladiatorial ring going supernova in the hills,” said Aline. She leaned against a crumbling marble wall and looked cheerfully up at Helen. “Congratulations, Blackthorn. You get to call for reinforcements at last.”

  Helen did not smile back at Aline. She scribbled a fire-message and sent it on its way, her face very pale.

  “What are we going to tell the other Shadowhunters?” Aline asked. “I still have no idea what happened in the pentagram.”

  Magnus began to talk his way through an abbreviated version of the night’s events, leaving out only the detail of Asmodeus being his father. He knew he should tell them, and yet his father’s words echoed in his head. If he did know, I’d have to kill him. Can’t have one of the Nephilim knowing about my eldest curse.

  Asmodeus was gone, but he wasn’t dead. Magnus hated obeying his father, but he would not do anything that meant he might lose Alec. Not now.

  Shinyun’s bowed head lifted as Magnus spoke, and he saw her eyes narrow in her still face as she realized what he was leaving out.

  She could tear Magnus’s last facade apart, he knew. She could tell these Nephilim the whole truth right now. Magnus bit his lip, tasting blood and fear.

  Shinyun said nothing. She did not even open her mouth. Her eyes seemed to be fixed on the distance, as if the real Shinyun were far away.

  “Shinyun did try to stop the Greater Demon, in the end,” Magnus said, almost against his will.

  “And then she tried to kill you,” pointed out Alec.

  “She didn’t have a choice,” said Magnus.

  “She had the same choice as you.”

  “She’s lost,” said Magnus. “She’s desperate. I was once all those things too.”

  Alec’s tone was grave. “Magnus, we can ask the Clave to show leniency to her. But that’s all we can do, after everything she’s done. You know it is.”

  Magnus remembered his father’s voice talking about the children of the Angel, born to righteousness. Maybe he only wished for mercy for Shinyun because he was so flawed himself. Maybe it was because she was keeping his secret, for now.

  “Yes,” said Magnus. “I know.”

  “Why are we even having this discussion?” Helen raised her voice, and as she did so, her voice cracked. “The whole Rome Institute is on its way by now! We all know that the Clave will have her executed.”

  It was the first thing Helen had said in some time, and her voice shook. Aline studied her with some concern. Magnus did not know Helen well, but he was entirely certain it was not Shinyun’s fate that had upset Helen so badly.

  “What’s wrong?” said Aline.

  “I was trying so hard to do the right thing, but I got it all wrong. If it hadn’t been for you and Alec, I wouldn’t have come, and innocents would have died,” Helen replied in a curt voice. “That isn’t the kind of Shadowhunter I want to be.”

  “Helen, you made a mistake,” Alec said. “The Clave tells us not to trust Downworlders. Despite the Accords, despite everything, we all get indoctrinated, and we—” He broke off, looking up at the clear, cold stars. “I used to follow the rules because I thought it would keep everyone I cared about safe,” he said. “But I’ve
started to realize that ‘everyone I care about’ is a bigger group and a different group than the Clave was built to accept.”

  “So what are you suggesting we do?” Helen whispered.

  “We change the Clave,” said Alec. “From inside. We make new Laws. Better ones.”

  “Institute Heads can suggest new Laws,” said Aline. “Your mother—”

  “I want to do this myself,” said Alec. “And I want more than to be head of an Institute. I’ve realized—I don’t need to change. And neither do you, Helen, or you, Aline. It’s the world that needs to change, and we’re going to be the ones to change it.”

  “The Shadowhunters are here,” Shinyun croaked unexpectedly. They looked at her. “Look.”

  She was right. The Shadowhunters of the Rome Institute had arrived. They spilled through the gates, gaping around at the burning villa, the charred ground, and the cultists—some lying wounded on the ground, some ranging around—in their white suits.

  The moment the cultists caught sight of the Shadowhunters, they began to run. The Shadowhunters gave chase. Bone-weary and exhausted, Magnus slumped against the wall of the villa and observed the shenanigans.

  He couldn’t help noticing that Shinyun was watching them too. She had shrunk back against the pillar, but was still silent.

  The Clave would kill her. The Spiral Labyrinth would not be inclined to treat her more kindly than the Nephilim. There wouldn’t be a lot of sympathy for a warlock who had murdered innocents and nearly summoned a Greater Demon prince into the world. Magnus could understand all that, and yet he was sorry.

  Alec squeezed his hand.

  A dark-haired Shadowhunter stalked toward their small group and began jabbering at Helen in Italian. Magnus gathered that she was Chiara Malatesta, head of the Rome Institute, and that she was both confused and annoyed.

  Eventually Magnus broke into the conversation. “Helen is very brave,” he said. “She knew she could not delay if the ritual were to be stopped. I owe my life to her and to Aline Penhallow.”

  “Hey,” said Alec, but he was smiling. Magnus kissed his cheek. Chiara Malatesta raised her eyebrows, then shrugged. Italians had a philosophical view of love.

  “Warlock,” she said, in perfect English. “I recall you from some Council meetings, I believe. Quite a few of the cultists are wounded. Can you help us heal them?”

  Magnus sighed and rolled up the sleeves of his abominable, hopelessly ruined white robe.

  “This is partly my mess,” he said. “Time to clean it up.”

  Helen and Aline agreed to join Signora Malatesta and the others as they swept the grounds for stray cultists and demonic activity. Alec remained to watch Shinyun—and, Magnus hoped, rest a little.

  Dust hung thick in the air, turning the fiery explosions in the sky into hazy brightness as Magnus walked across shards of stone. Every time he found a wounded cult member, he thought of how Alec had come for him, and healed them as if he were Catarina.

  Eventually he saw more Shadowhunters emerging from the smoke and fire. He tried to think of Alec and not of what would happen to Shinyun.

  “Oh, hello,” said a Shadowhunter boy, coming to an abrupt stop beside him. “Magnus Bane? I’ve never gotten a good look at you, not up close.”

  Magnus snorted. “I’ve looked better.” He gave some thought to his current state, bruised and battered and wearing a bloodstained, ill-fitting jacket. “Much better.”

  “Wow,” said the boy. “Will my heart be able to take it? I’m pretty close with Alec, by the way. We were talking about making plans for later. You’d be very welcome to join us. We could do anything you like.” He winked. “Anything.”

  “Hmm,” said Magnus. “And who are you?”

  “Leon Verlac,” said the boy.

  “Well, Leon Verlac,” Magnus drawled. “Keep dreaming.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  * * *

  The Quality of Mercy

  LEANING AGAINST A PILLAR OF cracked stone, Alec watched his friends. Helen and Aline were spreading out across the villa grounds, securing the cultists they came across. Their weapons were out, ready to deal with lingering demons, but the force of Asmodeus’s exit seemed to have dispelled them entirely. Not that there wasn’t plenty to handle—cultists half-buried under rubble, small fires to smother, Rome Shadowhunters to direct to relevant locations.

  Magnus was healing the cultists who had been eager to watch him get sacrificed. He went from person to person calmly, as Catarina had done at the party. Alec could always find him by the flowering of blue sparks at his fingertips. As far as Alec was concerned, Magnus’s actions weren’t just kind, they were practically saintly.

  He turned to look at Shinyun. My dark mirror, Magnus had said, but as far as Alec was concerned, they had nothing in common. She was still tied to the marble pillar, still staring out into the darkness. With a start, Alec realized tears were streaming silently down her face.

  “Hoping to gloat?” she said bitterly when she saw Alec watching her. “I was a fool. I thought Asmodeus was my father. I thought the Crimson Hand was my family. I was wrong. I was always alone, and I’m going to die alone. Satisfied?”

  Alec shook his head. “I was just wondering what you would be like if you found someone who didn’t betray you.”

  “Are you suggesting I should date Magnus?” Shinyun sneered.

  Even she, who had imprisoned Magnus and dragged him to an ugly public death, saw who Magnus was. Anyone could see. Uneasiness stirred in Alec at the reminder that surely a vast number of people wanted to be with Magnus. He didn’t want to think about it. Maybe he would never have to think about it.

  “You tried to stab him,” said Alec. “So obviously not.”

  Shinyun only scoffed. Alec tried not to think of her blade, hurtling down toward Magnus’s heart.

  “I’m sorry I tried to kill him,” Shinyun muttered, her eyes on the dirt. “Tell him that.”

  Alec remembered Magnus, in the moment when the barriers of the pentagram had fallen. Magnus had turned, and the elements seemed to turn with him. His hand was uplifted, magic wrapping around his smooth brown skin, magic lucent white against his corona of black hair, fire and wind in the light of his brilliant eyes. He was incandescent with power, impossibly beautiful, and dangerous.

  And he had hurt none of the people who had hurt him.

  Magnus had trusted Shinyun, and she’d betrayed him, but he would keep trusting people, Alec knew. Alec had trusted Aline and Helen and even the New York vampires, and it had worked out. Maybe it was the only thing that worked, taking the risk of trust.

  He didn’t want Shinyun to get away with this. It was only right that she be punished for her crimes, but Alec knew that if the Clave got hold of her, her punishment would be death.

  So be it, he told himself. The Law is hard, but it is the Law.

  His father had always told him to be careful, not to make mistakes, not to strike out on his own, to obey the spirit and the letter of the Law. He thought of Helen and how she was trying to be the perfect Shadowhunter for her family. Alec, uneasily aware that he was different, that he was sure to disappoint his father, had always tried to follow the rules.

  Magnus could have struck Shinyun down when he broke the pentagram, or at any moment since then. Instead he clearly and desperately wanted to spare her. When he had a choice, the Magnus he knew always chose to be kind.

  Alec leaned down and cut Shinyun’s cords with the edge of his seraph blade, its angelic power carving even through the magical binding.

  “What are you doing?” Shinyun breathed.

  Alec was hardly sure himself.

  “Go,” he said roughly. When all Shinyun did was sit and stare, Alec repeated himself. “Go. Or do you want to stay and throw yourself on the mercy of the Clave?”

  Shinyun scrambled to her feet, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. Her eyes flashed with a bitter hurt. “You think you know Magnus Bane. But you have no idea of the depth and darkness of the
secrets he is keeping from you. There is so much he hasn’t told you.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Alec said.

  Her smile was twisted. “One day you will.”

  Alec turned on her with sudden fury. Shinyun gulped and ran, as fast as she could, into the smoke.

  The Rome Shadowhunters were already on the villa grounds. She might be caught, but Alec had given her the best chance he could. Nobody could blame Magnus, or Aline, or Helen. Alec had done this himself.

  He looked out at the swirling dust, and the lights turning the sky deep purple and brilliant red. One day he would follow the rules again. When the rules were changed.

  He started when two figures emerged from the smoke, tense and ready to answer a barrage of questions from Italian Shadowhunters, but it was only Aline and Helen. Magnus was following after them, some distance behind. Aline was in front, and her mouth fell open as she saw Alec standing alone by the ruins, discarded ropes at his feet.

  “By the Angel,” Aline breathed. “Shinyun got away?”

  “Well,” Alec said, “she’s gone.”

  Aline closed her mouth. She looked like she had bitten into a lemon.

  “She’s gone?” Helen repeated. “What are we going to tell the other Shadowhunters? ‘We had a dangerous fugitive in custody and we let her slip through our fingers, guys, sorry!’ ”

  When she put it like that, it didn’t sound great.

  There was shouting nearby already. Alec could see the shapes of figures in gear, marching cultists away. Magnus joined their small knot around the sliced ropes. Alec’s heart gave a sharp little twist at the sight of his face, half joy and half painful concern. Magnus’s white robe was smeared in ash and blood. He was hurt, and he looked so tired.

  “Shinyun’s gone?” he asked, and shut his eyes for a moment. “I’m almost glad.”

  Magnus being almost glad made Alec’s rash decision seem worthwhile.

  “Listen, everyone,” said Magnus carefully. “You three deserve a lot of praise and gratitude for the work you did today. You triple-handedly tore through a mundane demon-worshipping cult and leveled a villa in the Italian countryside and prevented a Prince of Hell from encroaching on this world. I am sure there will be accolades and pats on the back for each of you at the Institute.”