“Well,” said Jace, now rummaging in the fridge, “I’d like to think I’d be welcome anytime, what with my close relationship with all three of you. But in this case, Alec called us. Said something about Shanghai.”
“Who is us?” Magnus said suspiciously.
Jace waved his coffee cup around. “Us! You know. All of us.”
“All of you?” Magnus repeated. He held up a hand. “Wait. Stop. I am going to go put on something more substantial than a robe. You are going to use your angelic powers to pour me as large a mug of black coffee as you can find, and I will be right back, and then we can talk about terrible concepts like who ‘all of us’ are, and what Alec told you about last night.”
When he entered the living room, now suitably dressed, he found Alec, arms folded, looking long-suffering. In the far corner of the room, next to the ceiling, Max floated, tumbling in the air. He didn’t seem to be in peril—indeed, he was yelling, “Wheeeeeeeeeee,” and appeared to be having an excellent time. Under him, Clary Fairchild and Isabelle Lightwood attempted to nudge him back to the ground with a broom handle. With her free hand, Clary was waving a red braid, trying to get Max interested as though he were Chairman Meow. Max was upside down and obviously feeling good about it. Everyone other than Isabelle was in T-shirts and jeans, but she, of course, had shown up in a fitted black sweater over a tiered velvet maxi skirt. She was one of the few people who could occasionally make Magnus feel underdressed.
He went over to Alec. “Antigravity spell, I bet,” he said.
“He knows it drives us crazy. He’s loving Clary and Isabelle right now.” Alec seemed both annoyed and admiring, a tone of voice Magnus had not realized he would so closely associate with having a child.
“I thought we were haring off to Shanghai,” Magnus said quietly.
“We are,” said Alec. “But I told you. If we’re going to be fighting evil warlocks, we can’t go alone. I called Jace this morning.”
“And invited the whole gang?” The door opened and Simon Lovelace entered. He was wearing a black T-shirt that said, in large white bubble letters, GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR THING. But he had an unexpected look on his face—distracted, unhappy—and Magnus wondered why.
Maybe it was just the weight of the last few years on his shoulders. Even among their group, Simon had been through a lot. He’d been a mundane, been a vampire, been in Shadowhunter prison, become invulnerable, killed the Mother of Demons, met the Angel Raziel, lost his memories, gotten them back, and graduated from Shadowhunter Academy, and they’d all expected that would be it—a happily ever after for Simon.
But it hadn’t turned out that way. Four months ago, Simon had indeed gone through the ritual of Ascension to become a full-fledged Shadowhunter. And what should have been a time of triumph and celebration for all of them had turned tragic, as Simon’s closest friend at the Academy, George Lovelace, had died during the ritual. Died horribly, as a matter of fact, in front of all of them. The memory sprang to his mind unbidden, of Simon throwing himself hopelessly at George’s burning body and being held back by Catarina. Simon had taken George’s name in honor of his memory.
Considering this, Magnus had to admit it was actually stranger to see Simon break into a wryly amused smile as he took in the situation at the far end of the room. He ran to help Clary and Isabelle, and Magnus gave Alec a look. “So, the whole gang?”
“Well,” Alec said, “Jace thought Clary should come, and that seemed fine to me. And then Clary suggested that Simon should come along as well—he’s her parabatai, after all, and with demon activity being pretty minimal these days, he could use some more on-the-ground experience. And then Isabelle found out and she was offended that I hadn’t asked her first thing, and said she was coming too.”
Magnus had to wonder whether it was wise for Simon to come along on this trip, and why Clary had insisted. She knew better than anyone, except maybe Isabelle, how Simon was doing, and it was obvious that he wasn’t doing well. He would have to remember to ask her about it later.
For now he clapped his hands, very loudly, and the three Shadowhunters stopped in their tracks. Simon was holding on to Max’s arm as Max hung upside down above him, laughing delightedly. “All Shadowhunters in my house,” he called out. “If one of you would please put your hands out to catch my son, I’m going to deal with the spell. And where’s the blond kid with my coffee?”
Magnus quickly annulled his son’s spell with a few gestures, and Max returned to the ground (where he immediately crawled over to Alec and threw his arms around Alec’s leg in excitement). Jace returned from the kitchen with the promised coffee, and Magnus finally sat down on the couch. “All right, so what’s going on?” he asked.
Isabelle raised her eyebrows. “First—does that happen with Max a lot?”
Magnus shrugged. “Not a lot. Warlock babies do some magic sometimes. By accident.”
“It’s not so bad,” Alec said. “You just keep more extra clothes around, and you keep a fire extinguisher close by.”
Jace hopped up to sit on the window ledge, somehow managing not to spill any of his coffee. “I thought you were changing.”
“I did change,” Magnus said, puzzled.
“You’re still wearing a robe,” Jace said.
“I was wearing a yukata,” said Magnus. “Now I’m wearing a dressing gown.”
“Well, they both look like robes,” said Jace.
“Let’s talk about last night,” Magnus said. “What did Alec tell you?”
“Can we see the glowing fissure in your chest?” Simon asked.
“Simon, it’s rude to bring up glowing fissures in other people’s chests,” said Clary. “What do you think they want with the Book of the White, Magnus?”
Magnus turned to look at Alec. “So, you told them everything? Did you say the S-word? The R-word?”
Alec rolled his eyes. “If you’re asking if I told them about Shinyun and Ragnor, I did.”
“So you knew Ragnor wasn’t dead, that day I came to his house in Idris?” Clary said. “When I was with—with Sebastian? You lied to us?”
“I had to,” said Magnus. “I couldn’t risk anyone tracking Ragnor down and hurting him.” He looked at the ceiling. “But then he dropped out of contact and I thought he was dead anyway.”
“How do you feel now?” said Clary. She looked concerned, more so than Magnus would have expected.
“I feel fine,” he said, and realized he was telling the truth. He felt good, even, as if he’d had a full night’s sleep and a proper breakfast instead of barely any sleep and Jace’s too-strong black coffee. “That’s not me putting on a brave face,” he felt obligated to add. “I really do feel good. I’m not happy to have a magical glowing chest wound, but it doesn’t seem to be doing me any harm. Other than the aesthetics, of course.”
Simon looked up from where he had gotten down on the floor with Max. “It’s kind of working for you, actually. Adds to your overall mystique.”
“What Alec told us,” said Isabelle, “is that Ragnor Fell is alive, he’s working with that warlock you dealt with in Europe a few years ago, and they took the Book of the White to do something that will be good for whatever Greater Demon they’re working with.”
“And therefore bad for us,” put in Simon.
“Bad for the earth,” said Magnus.
“That’s bad for us,” Simon confirmed. “We live here.”
“Did you tell them which demon it is?” Magnus demanded of Alec. To the others he went on, “What does the name Sammael mean to you?”
There was a silence. “Oh,” said Jace. “That’s why you called,” he added to Alec, who nodded.
“He’s a Prince of Hell, right?” said Clary.
“A long-dead Prince of Hell,” said Jace. “He was the consort of Lilith. Pity they missed each other by a few years.” Lilith’s power was much diminished since the Dark War, shattered by the Mark of Cain while Simon bore it. Little had been seen of her since.
“He’s
more than that,” said Simon quietly. He was looking at the floor, very unlike himself, and Magnus figured he was recalling his ordeal with Lilith. “Remember, I only got out of the Academy a few months ago. I’ve studied this stuff more recently than any of you.” He rose to his feet and leaned against the wall, as if he needed bracing for what he was about to say. “Sammael is the oldest of the Princes of Hell, other than Lucifer himself. He is supposed to have been the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. He’s known as the Father of Demons, just like Lilith is called the Mother.”
“Everyone’s got father issues,” said Jace. “Even demons.”
Simon ignored him. “Shadowhunter history teaches that for thousands of years before the Shadowhunters, demons would make their way to our world, but only occasionally, and in tiny numbers. Sammael changed that. He did something—we don’t know what—that weakened the barriers between our world and the demon worlds. Sammael opened the path for demons to invade Earth. And when he came himself, devastation followed him.
“He couldn’t be defeated by any human being, no matter how powerful. So the story says the angels themselves intervened, and the Archangel Michael came down and defeated Sammael—”
Jace was nodding and picked up the narrative. “And Raziel came down and created us. But nobody could undo what Sammael had done, so the walls between the worlds remain thin and demons keep coming.”
“I guess defeating Sammael at least prevented the problem from getting worse,” said Clary. “I know Princes of Hell can’t be killed—”
“The blow that defeated him was dealt by an Archangel,” said Magnus. “I think everyone at least hoped it might actually kill him. Seems not.”
“How do we get Michael to come back and defeat him again?” said Isabelle. “It’d buy us another thousand years.”
“We can’t,” said Simon. “We’re on our own. That’s the whole thing with us, right? Shadowhunters. The angels aren’t here to deal with our problems. It’s just us.”
He looked grim. Magnus felt a stab of renewed concern for Simon. He’d been fighting demons just as long as Clary had, had been a Downworlder himself, had been face-to-face with Raziel, and through all of it Magnus had grown impressed with his morale, his willingness to persevere and keep a brave face even when the situation seemed worse than impossible. Simon had faced down Lilith and walked away—why was just the idea of Sammael enough to rattle him now?
Simon had wanted to become a Shadowhunter so badly, to fight demons directly, to be a colleague to Clary, to Isabelle, to all of them. But just now, he didn’t look like it had been good for him.
“I know I’m the guy acting casual about a magical hole in my chest,” said Magnus, “but can I provide some context here that might make us feel a little better? Shinyun and Ragnor mentioned Sammael, but other than this weapon Shinyun has, which she claims is his, we have no idea whether Sammael is even coming back. Shinyun and Ragnor could be involved with a mundane cult, or a Greater Demon pretending to be Sammael. The important thing is, Sammael is definitely, definitely not in our world. If he was, we’d know. He’d be doing things. Armies of demons would be ravaging the planet. And they’re not.” He smiled brightly. He really was feeling surprisingly positive about the situation. “So Alec and I will go to Shanghai, and we’ll track down Ragnor and Shinyun, and we’ll get the Book of the White back, and everything will be great.”
“So what you’re saying,” Isabelle said slowly, “is that the good news is that Sammael hasn’t destroyed Earth yet?”
“Even if it is the real Sammael, we probably have days to stop him!” Magnus said.
Clary and Isabelle exchanged worried looks.
Alec also looked worried. “Um, so, Magnus, who’s going to look after Max for days?”
Magnus waved his hands at the assembled group. “Some of these fine people.”
“Are you kidding?” said Clary, jumping up. “Obviously we’re all going to Shanghai. This is a big-deal situation, right? You need the whole team.”
Jace looked amused. “Sure. It can’t possibly be that you’re bored patrolling New York and want to go someplace new.”
“Okay, I am,” Clary admitted. “But also we have to stop the Father of Demons from, you know—fathering more demons, I guess.”
“A lot more demons,” said Simon. “Why not? Let’s go fight two powerful warlocks and a demon so bad it took an angel to kill him last time. I’m sure all my classroom experience will come in handy.”
Isabelle came over and affectionately tousled Simon’s hair. “Sure, sweetie, you’re just a newbie. You were never an invulnerable Daylighter vampire who’s been to a hell dimension or anything.”
“You’ll note the word ‘invulnerable,’ ” Simon grumbled, but he smiled a little, at least.
Magnus stood up and clapped his hands. “All right, my lovelies. Alec and I will need to pack our things and figure out what we’re doing with this one.” He gestured at Max, who Jace had hoisted onto his shoulders. Dutifully Jace put Max back on the ground. “You all no doubt need to return to the Institute to collect your gear, so—” He waved his arms. “Get out of my house.”
* * *
THEY HAD ALL LEFT BUT Clary. Alec had taken Max into the bedroom, and Magnus was headed to join them when Clary suddenly grabbed his arm and said, in a quiet but intense tone, “I need to talk to you for a moment.”
Magnus regarded her. It was so strange to see her now, a proper adult. For years, she had been a quiet, wide-eyed child whom he’d met over and over for the first time. She knew nothing of the Shadow World—and it had been Magnus’s job to make sure that remained true. And so when her mother would bring her over, she always had the same reaction—awe, uncertainty. Each time, she noticed his eyes, luminous and slit-pupiled—each time, he expected her to be frightened, but she was only ever curious. When she got old enough, she would ask him, “Why do you have cat eyes?” He got to try out plenty of responses.
“I traded them with my cat. Now he has human eyes.”
“The better to see you with, my dear.”
“Why do you not have cat eyes?”
It was strange to know that Clary didn’t share those memories. To have watched someone grow up without them remembering it. Until, of course, the day he saw her at Chairman Meow’s birthday party, surrounded by New York’s Shadowhunters, and without warning, transformed into the warrior she had been born to be, already the spitting image of Jocelyn at her age.
Now she looked uneasy, as though she was thinking about how to deliver bad news. A few years ago she would just have blurted it out, but now she was his friend and she was concerned about his feelings. It was nice, but strange.
She said, “I had a dream about you, this morning. Just before Alec’s call woke us up.”
“A funny dream?” Magnus said hopefully. “And not an ominous, prophetic dream, right?”
“I stopped having those after the Dark War, so I hope not. You seemed to be having a good time, actually,” said Clary. “You were on a big golden throne.”
“I had that dream too,” said Magnus. “At the top of lots of stairs? I was being attended by gray creatures with beaks?”
“No,” said Clary, looking concerned. “But you had become a hundred-foot-tall monster.”
Magnus nodded thoughtfully. “Are we talking a Godzilla-type situation?”
“More like a… demon situation. You had huge sharp teeth, and long claws coming out of your fingers. There was something wrong with your eyes. And there was—” She paused. “There was a red fire, in the shape of an X, burning from within your chest.”
“Well,” said Magnus heavily. “I have some good news. There is only one line of fire burning on my chest right now, not an X. Prophetic dream understood. Avoid getting another cut in the shape of an X. Excellent advice.”
“There’s more,” said Clary. “The confusing part.”
“So far, this has been very straightforward,” agreed Magnus.
“You were in cha
ins. Like, in lots of chains. Your legs were chained to the ground, your arms and your shoulders and your waist all chained to the wall. Huge chains, with huge iron links. You were weighed down by them. It was amazing you weren’t literally crushed to death under their weight.”
Magnus had to admit that did seem bad.
“But here’s the thing,” Clary said. “You didn’t look like you were in pain. Or even bothered. You looked happy. More than happy. You looked ecstatic. You looked… triumphant.”
She fixed her gaze on Magnus. “I don’t know what it means. Like I said—I don’t have prophetic dreams anymore. Usually. But I thought I should tell you anyway.”
“Better safe than sorry,” said Magnus. “I hope it’s totally abstract, like, I will be sad, but happy about being sad. Something like that. Rather than involving actual iron chains or having bigger teeth.”
“Well, here’s hoping,” said Clary.
“Run along to the Institute,” Magnus said. “I should go check on my family.”
Clary departed, and Magnus, uneasy for the first time since the morning, went to find Alec and their son and hold them close for a moment. Just to warm himself up.
CHAPTER THREE A Brief Farewell
ALEC WAS GETTING A LITTLE frustrated. He’d called Catarina and asked if she could look after Max for a couple of days, only to find out that she was working double shifts at the hospital and would barely be home (though she did agree to stop in and feed Chairman Meow in the evenings). He’d called Maia, who turned out to be hosting friends of Bat’s. He’d considered, but rejected, calling Lily. Lily often spoke of how Max was “so delicious” that she just wanted “to eat him up,” and while Alec trusted Lily, he was not completely sure she was speaking figuratively.
“What about your mother?” Magnus said. He had put Max into an iridescent magical bubble and was rolling him around the bedroom while Alec fetched suitcases from the back of their closet.
“What? No,” Alec said. He watched Max for a moment. “Is he in a magical hamster ball?”
The Lost Book of the White Page 4