An arrow flew. It missed Ragnor by a hair, but tore a scrap from the back of the warlock’s cloak as the Portal closed around him.
There was a sudden silence. Alec turned to Magnus, who was holding and rocking Max. Max had gone quiet.
“Was that Ragnor Fell?” Alec looked stunned. “With Shinyun Jung?” Alec had never met Ragnor, but there were plenty of photos, sketches, and even one large oil painting of the warlock among Magnus’s belongings.
“That’s exactly who it was,” Magnus said into the silence.
Alec crossed the room and crouched down to retrieve the arrow and the scrap of cloth it had pinned to the floor. When he looked up at Magnus, his expression was somber. “But Ragnor Fell is dead.”
“No,” said Magnus. He shook his head, suddenly exhausted. “Ragnor lives.”
CHAPTER TWO Between Air and Angels
WHILE MAGNUS RETURNED MAX TO bed, Alec went to put some clothes on. His whole body was still tensed, full of adrenaline and anxiety; he was unsure of what had just happened in his home, or what it meant. Magnus had talked about Ragnor mostly as a figure from his past—his mentor, his teacher, his fellow traveler among the Shadowhunters at various points. He remembered the stoic calm with which Magnus had reacted to Ragnor’s death three years ago. At the time, he’d assumed it represented Magnus’s great existential wisdom, born of a life lived through so many deaths.
Now he wasn’t so sure. When he heard Magnus come into the bedroom behind him he pulled a T-shirt on over his boxers and said, “So you knew about Ragnor? Being alive?”
“Sort of,” said Magnus.
Alec waited.
“I knew he was planning to fake his own death, but—he had promised to be in touch. And he had been in deadly danger. That’s why he’d gone into hiding. When weeks passed, months, a year, two years, I assumed something had gone badly wrong.”
“So first you thought he wasn’t dead,” said Alec. He turned to face Magnus, who looked oddly vulnerable and uncertain. He’d put the black robe back on. “And then you thought he was dead?”
“It was the obvious conclusion,” said Magnus. “And I was right, in a way—he had been caught. Just by Shinyun.” He looked at Alec with intensity. “He was holding Max,” he said quietly. He came over and sat on the end of the bed. “I didn’t—that’s the first—”
He took a moment and then spoke again, the quaver gone from his voice. “There is something quite marvelous about having a child,” he said. “In times of danger, it does focus the mind very well.”
Alec went over to Magnus and put his hands on his boyfriend’s shoulders. “It isn’t just us anymore.”
“I had to hold it together,” said Magnus. “I had to. I had no other option. So I did. Otherwise I would be very shaken up right now.”
Alec gave him a wry smile. “Because Ragnor Fell is alive? Because Shinyun Jung is back in our lives? Because they’re working together? Because they took the Book of the White?”
“Actually,” said Magnus mildly, shrugging off his pajama top and robe, “because Shinyun stabbed me with a mythological stick and I don’t know what it’s done.”
Alec looked. There was a fissure in Magnus’s chest, from which flowered wisps of scarlet flame that dissipated as soon as they appeared. He wondered why Magnus was not more concerned. He himself was very, very concerned. Before speaking, he bent down and grabbed his trousers from the floor.
“It’s called a Svefnthorn, apparently,” said Magnus. The lightness of his tone set Alec’s teeth on edge. What was wrong with Magnus? Was he in shock? “Why are you putting on your pants?” he asked.
Alec held up the cell phone he’d just withdrawn from his pocket. “I’m calling Catarina.”
“Oh, don’t bother her in the middle of the night—” Magnus began. Alec held up a finger to silence him.
A voice still half-buried in sleep came over the phone. “Alec?”
“I’m so sorry to wake you up,” Alec said in a rush. “But—it’s Magnus. He’s been stabbed by a… well, by a big thorn, I guess. Something demonic, definitely. And now he’s got a magical fissure in his chest and there’s a light coming out of it.”
When she spoke again, Catarina sounded completely awake and alert. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let him do anything.” She hung up.
“She says don’t do anything,” Alec told him.
“Excellent news,” said Magnus. He put his robe back on and lay down on the bed. “That was already my plan.”
Alec grabbed the arrow from where it lay discarded on his nightstand and pulled the scrap of cloth from it.
He’d missed Ragnor with the arrow on purpose. Even in his panic, his rage that his home had been invaded and Max and Magnus threatened, he had recognized the green-skinned warlock as one of Magnus’s oldest friends. He couldn’t hurt him.
So he’d gone for a piece of his cloak instead. He closed his hand around it now.
“I’m going to try to Track Ragnor.”
Magnus’s eyes were half-closed. “Good idea. Great initiative.”
“What do you think they want with the Book of the White?” Alec said. He drew a quick Tracking rune on the back of his hand with his stele. He felt the bit of cloak seem to come alive inside his fist, the strange tickle in the back of his mind that said the rune was working to locate Ragnor Fell.
After a moment, Magnus, eyes still closed, said, “No idea. To practice dark magic in Sammael’s name, I assume. Any news?”
“Yes,” said Alec. “He’s to the west.”
“How far to the west?”
Alec frowned, concentrating. “Very far.”
Magnus opened his eyes. “Hang on.” He got up from the bed with an unexpected alacrity, considering how fatigued he’d looked a moment ago, and went into a desk drawer across the room. He waved a folded paper with excitement. “Here we have an excellent opportunity for warlock-Shadowhunter collaboration. You come here with your rune, and—” He unfolded what turned out to be a map of New York City across the surface of the bed and wiggled his fingers around over it. Then he grabbed Alec’s wrist and wiggled his fingers under that. Then he leaned over and kissed the back of Alec’s hand.
Alec smiled. “How does it feel to kiss an active rune?”
“There’s a little scent of heavenly fire, but otherwise it’s nice,” Magnus said. “Now what do you have, my noble tracker?”
Alec concentrated over the map. “Um, well, he’s to the west of this whole map.”
“Be right back.” Magnus left the room; in a few moments he returned and laid an unfolded map of the whole Northeast over the other map.
“West of all this,” Alec said apologetically.
Magnus came back with a map of the entire United States.
“West,” said Alec. He and Magnus exchanged a look. Magnus left again and this time came back struggling with a gigantic globe of the earth, easily two feet in diameter.
“Magnus,” said Alec. “That’s a bar.” He opened the globe at the hinge, revealing four crystal decanters inside.
“It’s still a globe,” Magnus said, closing it. Alec shrugged and began to move his fist slowly over the globe’s surface. When it came to rest, Magnus squinted to get a look. “Eastern China. Along the coast. Looks like… Shanghai.”
“Shanghai?” said Alec. “Why would Ragnor and Shinyun be in Shanghai?”
“No reason I can think of,” Magnus said. “Maybe that makes it a good hiding place.”
“What about Sammael?”
Magnus shook his head. “The last time Sammael walked the earth, Shanghai was a small fishing village. There’s no connection between them that I know of.” His dressing gown gaped open as he leaned over the globe, and Alec stared again at the place where Magnus’s skin had split open, a grotesque wound, but with no blood, only that eerie light. Magnus caught him looking and primly gathered the collar at his throat. “It’s fine.”
Alec threw up his hands. “Aren’t you concerned at all?�
�� he said. “You have a stab wound. The stab wound is leaking weird magic. That’s serious business. You’re like Jace sometimes. It doesn’t make you weaker to accept help, you know.” He softened. “I’m just worried about you, Magnus.”
“Well, I haven’t become the thrall of Sammael, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Magnus. He stretched his arms and legs. “I feel fine. I just need some high-quality sleep. We’ll let Catarina confirm that everything’s okay, and then tomorrow morning we’ll go to Shanghai, track down Ragnor and Shinyun, and get the Book back. Easy.”
“We will not,” said Alec.
“Well, someone has to,” Magnus said reasonably.
“We’re not going just the two of us. We need backup.”
“But—”
“No,” said Alec, and Magnus stopped, though he remained smiling. “What happens if I need runes? What happens if Shinyun and Ragnor are too powerful with the Book for us to take on by ourselves? And hey—are we taking Max with us? Because I don’t think we are.”
“I sort of hoped Catarina could watch him,” Magnus said. “For the brief time we’ll be gone.”
“Magnus,” said Alec. “I know you want to solve every problem yourself. I know you hate looking vulnerable—”
“I have help,” Magnus said. “I have you.”
“I will do everything in my power,” said Alec, “and there are lots of things we can do as just us.”
“Some of my favorite things,” Magnus put in, waggling his eyebrows.
“But this could be serious. If we go, we go with backup. I won’t go otherwise.”
Magnus opened his mouth to object, but at that moment, mercifully, the doorbell buzzed, announcing Catarina’s arrival. Alec opened the door for her, and she strode straight past him without a word. She was wearing blue scrubs almost the same color as her skin, and her white hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. As Alec followed her back toward the bedroom, she said, “How long ago did it happen?”
“Not long,” said Alec. “Twenty minutes, maybe. He says he’s fine.”
“He always says he’s fine,” said Catarina. She went into the bedroom and barked, “Take that hideous silk thing off, Magnus, let’s see this injury.” She paused. “Also, why is your bed covered in maps?”
“It’s a perfectly nice robe,” said Magnus. “And we were planning a post-stabbing vacation.”
“We were attacked by Shinyun Jung, the warlock we met in Europe a few years ago,” Alec said. “We were Tracking—anyway, we found out where she is. Looks like Shanghai.”
Catarina nodded; it was clear to Alec this meant nothing to her. He wondered if Magnus was going to mention Ragnor. It was, he thought, definitely up to Magnus whether to share that news. He looked at Magnus, who said only, “She did it with something she called a Svefnthorn.”
“Never heard of it,” Catarina said. “But isn’t this whole apartment full of books about magic?”
Alec said, a little defensively, “I didn’t want to start looking through books before I knew whether Magnus was okay.”
“I’m great,” said Magnus, as Catarina prodded at his temples and then peered closely into one of his eyes.
Alec watched nervously as Catarina examined Magnus. After a few minutes, she sighed. “My official diagnosis is that this wound is definitely not good, and I don’t know how to make it go away. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be directly harming you at the moment.”
“So what you’re saying,” said Magnus, “is that in your professional opinion, there’s no reason for us not to go directly to Shanghai to find Shinyun and get this cleared up.”
“I am not saying that,” said Catarina. “Alec can do some research in your library and the Institute’s library, and I will look at my own sources in the morning and see what I can find. You should definitely not go haring off to Shanghai with a glowing magical hole in your chest.”
Magnus put up a bit more of a fuss, but in the end, as Alec had known he would, he deferred to Catarina’s wisdom. Once Magnus had promised to take her assessment of the situation seriously, she sighed, ruffled his hair, and headed out.
Alec walked Catarina to the door, where she gave him a long look. “Magnus Bane,” she said, “is like a cat.”
Alec raised his eyebrows.
“He’ll never let you know how much pain he’s in. He’ll put on a brave face, even to his own detriment.” She put her hand on Alec’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here to take care of him now. I worry about him a little less these days.”
“If you think I can make Magnus do what I say,” Alec said with a smile, “you have been sadly misinformed. He’ll listen to me, but he does what he likes. I guess that’s another way he’s like a cat.”
Catarina nodded and said, deadpan, “Also, he has cat eyes.”
Alec gave her a quick hug. “Good night, Catarina.”
Back in the bedroom, Alec found Magnus with his robe back on, digging around under the bed. “What are you doing?” Alec cried.
“Obviously,” said Magnus, eyes gleaming, “we are haring off to Shanghai to find Shinyun and Ragnor.”
“No, we are not,” said Alec. “You promised Catarina you’d take this injury seriously.”
“I am,” said Magnus. “I’m feeling very seriously that getting hold of Shinyun and Ragnor is the best way to start healing up.”
“Maybe,” said Alec. “But right now, we are getting the four hours of sleep we can get before Max wakes up.”
Magnus looked mutinous, but then sighed and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Hell. We didn’t ask Catarina if she would watch Max while we’re gone.”
“Another reason to wait for morning. We can figure out the plan for Max and gather at least a little information before we go.” Alec waited a moment and then said, carefully, “We could be gone for days, you know.”
Magnus hesitated, then nodded in acceptance. “That’s true. Okay. Tomorrow morning we see who can watch Max for… for days.” He gave Alec an incredulous look that he knew well by now, as it was a look that he gave Magnus too. It was a look that said, How is this our life? How is it so strange, and difficult, and exhausting, and wonderful?
“How has this not come up before?” Alec said. “Having to find someone to watch Max?”
“Well, things have been quiet,” said Magnus.
He was right. It had been a relatively peaceful year—aside from the Cold Peace, of course, which continued to loom over all of Downworld. They had both barely been called away from New York, and certainly not overnight. They had left Max with others, but only for a few hours—a Conclave meeting, a fight breaking out somewhere locally, Downworlder politics gone awry. They had never been away from Max for longer than that. Max had never gone to sleep without them there.
Through force of will, Alec stopped his train of thought before it got too far out of the station. “We will make a plan for Max,” he said, “in four hours.” He threw himself onto the bed and reached out to pull Magnus down next to him. The warlock lay on his side, and Alec curled himself around Magnus, feeling a long exhale leave Magnus’s body as they nestled comfortably together.
The thrum of tension in Alec’s stomach slowed and eventually came to a rest. By the time Chairman Meow appeared from under the bed and perched smugly on top of Magnus’s hip, Magnus’s breathing was even and low. Alec planted a soft kiss on the top of his boyfriend’s head and allowed himself, too, to finally sleep.
* * *
IN HIS DREAM MAGNUS RULED over a ruined world. He sat on a golden throne at the top of a million golden stairs, calling orders in a language he didn’t understand to scurrying gray creatures far below him. He was so high that clouds floated by on the stairs below his throne, and beyond the stairs he could see the sun, bloated and red, reflected in flames on the surface of a vast flat ocean.
No other people were there. Other than the bedraggled, beaked gray things that lurched below him, he was alone. Slowly he stood up and walked, curious
, down a few of the stairs. He thought that if he descended far enough, he would be able to see himself reflected in the ocean below.
He kept walking down the stairs, although when he glanced over his shoulder the throne barely seemed to recede behind him. Eventually he looked down at the surface of the sea and beheld himself. He was gigantic, he realized—fifty feet tall, a hundred feet tall. His cat’s eyes were huge and luminous. There was no sign of the wound in his chest that the Svefnthorn had made. Instead the skin of his chest was rough, textured, thick like the hide of an animal. He raised his hands up in front of him, palms out, and noted with some interest the huge curving claws at the ends of his fingers.
“What is this for?” he yelled. “Why would I be in this place?”
The gray creatures all stopped as one and turned to gaze at him. They spoke to him, but he couldn’t understand them. They seemed either to greatly love him or to be greatly frightened of him. He couldn’t tell which. He didn’t want either.
* * *
MAGNUS KNEW HE HAD SLEPT late when he awoke and saw the angle of the sunlight on the wall. He found the other side of the bed empty and concluded that Alec had decided to let him sleep in before their departure.
He found his robe, blinked the sleep from his eyes, and went into the kitchen, where Jace Herondale was pouring coffee into Magnus’s I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL mug.
Magnus was glad he had not wandered out into the kitchen naked. “Don’t you have your own coffeepot?” he said blearily.
Jace, blond hair in its usual, preternaturally excellent state, flashed him a winning smile that Magnus was not prepared to deal with before he, too, had some coffee. “I hear you got stabbed by a weird Norwegian thorn,” Jace said. “Also, do you have any soy milk? Clary’s doing a whole soy milk thing now.”
“What are you doing in my apartment?” said Magnus.
The Lost Book of the White Page 3