The Lost Book of the White

by Cassandra Clare

  “No!” Magnus shouted, and threw himself at the spiders. He thrust his hand at one, and it passed with a splurch into the center of the demon’s guts. He opened his fist within the demon, which exploded. He glanced at Shinyun and was surprised to see her nodding with approval. This only drove Magnus to more fury, and he grabbed another one of the spiders in both hands and, bringing his palms together, smashed it like a melon.

  He stood there, his hands shaking, shocked at what he’d done. He didn’t even smash the regular spiders he found in his apartment. Though, truth be told, they deserved it far less than a demon did.

  “Magnus!” Alec’s voice sounded far away. “Can you close the Portal?”

  “Dealing with spiders,” he muttered to himself. One had rolled next to him, and he brought his foot down, crushing it. Clear for the moment, he looked up at the Portal and reached for its border with his magic, hoping he could pull it closed.

  Ragnor suddenly appeared above him, descending fast. It was the first time Magnus had seen him, other than in a dream, since that night in their apartment—was that really only a few days ago?—and Ragnor looked changed even since then. His eyes, normally dark and kind, glowed from within, and his horns had grown longer and more curled. Spikes had begun to sprout from the horns, and when Ragnor raised his hands, Magnus saw that they were bigger than usual, and tipped with black claws.

  “No chance,” Ragnor taunted him. “You’ll never close it. Not from this side.”

  Magnus ignored him, concentrating on the lines tying the Portal to the world. He gritted his teeth, feeling magic run in torrents from the nodule in his heart out through the chains on his arms, to emerge from his palms.

  “It’s not a matter of power,” Ragnor said, and he almost sounded like his old self, lecturing Magnus on matters of magical technique and theory. “This is a different magic. An older magic.

  “It’s your fault, you know,” he went on, conversationally. “That we opened the Portal here. We could have picked anywhere, but once our master knew you were in the Market, well, we just couldn’t resist.”

  “Me?” said Magnus.

  “All of you,” Ragnor said, in a gleeful tone that was chillingly wrong coming from him. “The Shadowhunters especially. The Serpent has a particular fondness for them. He wants all of Downworld to know that the Nephilim can’t possibly protect them.”

  “They seem to be doing a decent job of it,” said Magnus. “Ragnor—what’s happened to you? Why have you signed on with… not just a demon, but the worst evil in existence? You went into hiding to avoid Sammael, and now he’s your best friend. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do anything. You taught me that.”

  For the first time, Ragnor appeared to hesitate. Magnus pressed him. “Leave Sammael. Leave Diyu. Come with me. We can protect you—”

  But Ragnor was shaking his head. “You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like, to be in his presence. You’ve felt the thorn, but you haven’t felt when it’s his hand truly wielding it.”

  “We can reverse it,” Magnus said. “We’ll go to the Spiral Labyrinth. We’ll get Catarina, and Tessa…” He trailed off. Ragnor was smiling a toothy smile that was completely un-Ragnor-like.

  “Magnus,” he said. “It’s too late for me.” He put his hand on Magnus’s chest, over the X-shaped wound. “It’s too late for both of us. You just haven’t accepted it yet.” He looked up at the Portal in the sky, roiling with demons and a storm, lightning pulsing in the unnatural color of arterial blood. “You can close the Portal from the other side,” he said. “From Diyu. But not from here.”

  He was there one moment and gone the next, ascending into the sky so fast Magnus barely saw him go. Magnus had a lot more he wanted to say, but with Ragnor gone, he could turn his attention back to the Shadowhunters. They were fighting on but beginning to wear down. All five of them had gathered together in the center of the square, back-to-back, and as fast as they struck down demons, more came to take their place.

  Magnus ran toward them—his friends, and the love of his life. He felt the unfamiliar weight of White Impermanence on his back; how did the Shadowhunters carry these heavy hunks of metal around with them all the time? Alec was swinging Black Impermanence before him, knocking Baigujing demons away. Magnus hadn’t even seen them enter the fray. Alec called Magnus’s name and held up the sword before him.

  Magic thrashed in Magnus’s chest like a wild animal in a cage. He prepared to feel it thrum along the chains in his arms, as it had been doing, when he had an idea. He concentrated, felt the weight of White Impermanence on his back, and allowed his power to flow from his heart to his spine, to the back of his neck, and into the blade of the sword.

  With a crack like thunder, crimson lightning burst from the end of the blade. It sought its twin and passed into the blade of Black Impermanence as Alec held it. Tendrils of magic flared from the lightning, and demons scattered. The dusk was lit up with a hellish red light—but it was a light that could save them.

  The demons nearest to the lightning strike simply vaporized. Others nearby burst into flame and fled, screaming. The lightning stopped and for a moment, all was clear and still. In the distance above him, Magnus could see streaks of light: Ragnor and Shinyun descending as fast as their magic would allow.

  Magnus closed the distance to the other Shadowhunters, who had grouped together loosely, their weapons out. “Listen to me!” he called. “I need to close the Portal from the other side. From Diyu. It’s the only way.”

  Alec whirled to stare at him. “I’m coming with you. Obviously.”

  “No,” said Magnus, though he saw the look in Alec’s eyes, fierce and resolute. “But Max—”

  “Magnus,” said Alec savagely. “This is my job. This is our job. We go. We save all these people. We close the Portal.”

  “We’re all coming,” said Jace. His face was smudged with dirt and blood, his pale gold eyes alight. “Obviously. And then we’re all coming back.”

  “Might as well,” said Simon. “What’s one more hell dimension?”

  “We can’t all go,” protested Clary. “We can’t just leave the Market under attack by all these demons.”

  Magnus pointed. “Luckily for us, the cavalry is finally arriving.”

  They looked. At the edges of the square, through the gloomy blue light of dusk, they could see seraph blades lighting up, one after another. Ragnor and Shinyun both stopped descending, still well above the ground, and cautiously moved to face the newcomers.

  “Someone found the Conclave,” exhaled Isabelle. “Thank the Angel.”

  “Maybe Tian went to get them,” said Jace. “Is he there?”

  “We could stay and fight with them until it’s done,” Simon suggested.

  Magnus shook his head and was surprised to see Alec doing the same. Alec said, “We need to get the Portal closed or it won’t ever be done.” And we don’t want to answer questions about me, or Ragnor, Magnus thought, and exchanged a glance with Alec, who nodded.

  “But how do we get up there?” Isabelle said, turning her face up to the massive tear in the sky.

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” said Magnus, “but my magic power has been highly intensified.” He stepped back and looked at them. “Okay,” he said. “Everyone bunch up together. Like we’re taking a picture.”

  The Shadowhunters seemed puzzled, but they did as they were asked, shuffling toward one another until they were all pressed together closely. They were all standing on the same stone slab now. Behind them, the figures of Shadowhunters were beginning to engage with the demonic horde. Magnus looked to see if Tian was among them, but he couldn’t tell.

  Returning to the task at hand, he extended his hands and, with an effort, wrenched the slab out of the ground. It made a terrible grinding noise, but once it was free, it rose cleanly into the air, levitating the Shadowhunters a foot or so off the ground. Bits of gravel and concrete fell in chips, but the slab stayed in one piece. “O
kay,” Magnus said. “I’m right behind you. Try to hold on.”

  He couldn’t watch. He closed his eyes and crouched down, letting the weight of the slab and its five occupants settle onto the bedrock of his magic.

  “Lift with your knees!” suggested Clary.

  “Please tell me when this is over,” said Simon.

  Magnus felt his magic crackle within him. There was so much. It felt—great. Scary, but great.

  A whirlwind blew up around him and the Shadowhunters. It quickly gained speed and strength, widening. Magnus waited for it to become powerful enough… and quickly found it spinning out of his control.

  He saw his friends start to look alarmed as the whirlwind became faster and stronger than he’d intended. Soon it was more like a small tornado than the controlled gust he was aiming for. Lightning shimmered within its eddies, angry and red. Alec yelled Magnus’s name, but Magnus couldn’t hear him over the noise.

  It was now or never. Magnus gave himself over to his power and, with a great whoop, flung the Shadowhunters and the slab into the air. He went with it, pulled into the cyclone as it roared upward toward the Portal.

  The concrete slab spun and tilted, and Magnus saw his friends go flying off it. Clary managed to grab Simon’s arm, and the two spun together, connected but out of control.

  The five of them vanished through the Portal, followed by the slab, which rained broken-off hunks of gravel in Magnus’s direction as he rose into the sky behind it.

  His momentum would pull him through the Portal no matter what, and he was determined to make the best of the situation. He wrenched his body around in midair and reached out with his hands for Ragnor in one direction and Shinyun in another. The wind caught them, and they too flew toward the Portal, no more in control than Magnus himself.

  Tumbling through the air, all three warlocks followed the rocks and the Nephilim through the rupture between the worlds. It glowed like the light coming from Magnus’s chest.

  Then a darkness covered them, stronger than any light. There were clouds of smoke, and a cold wind, and then there was nothing at all.

  PART III Diyu

  CHAPTER ELEVEN The First Court

  HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO, MAGNUS had lain sleepless in the City of Bones, among the Silent Brothers. Then as now, peace had seemed an impossibility.

  Magnus’s mother had killed herself because of what he was. His stepfather had tried to kill him for it. Magnus had murdered his stepfather instead. He didn’t recall the time after that very well. He’d been out of his mind, his powers out of control, a lost child carrying a storm of magic and rage in his breast. He remembered almost dying of thirst in a desert. He remembered an earthquake; falling rubble; screaming. When the Silent Brothers came, he’d stumbled through a rain of rocks toward their hooded figures, not knowing whether they would teach him or kill him.

  They took him away, but even in their city of peace and silence, he dreamed of his stepfather burning. He desperately wanted help, but he had no idea how to ask for it.

  The Silent Brothers approached the warlock Ragnor Fell for aid with this wayward warlock child.

  The memory of their first meeting was still crystal clear. Magnus had been lying on his bed in the bare stone room the Silent Brothers had given him. They had done what they could, finding a soft, colorful blanket and a few toys for him to make the space more like a child’s bedroom, and less like a prison cell. It was still fairly uncomfortable, not least because the Silent Brothers themselves were so intimidating. Their kindness to him was at sharp odds with their terrifying eyeless faces, and he’d been trying to stop flinching when they entered the room.

  He was finally getting used to the monsters caring for him, and then a new monster walked in. The door scraped open, steel on stone.

  “Come now, boy,” said a voice from the door of his cell. “There’s no need to cry.”

  A demon, the boy thought frantically, a demon like his parents said he was: skin green as the moss on graves, hair white as bone. His fingers each had an extra joint, and curled grotesquely into claws. Magnus scrambled to sit up and defend himself, an awkward preteen in the middle of an alarming growth spurt, limbs flailing and dangerous magic pouring out of him.

  Only Ragnor lifted one of his strange hands, and Magnus’s magic turned to blue smoke, a blaze of harmless color in the dark.

  Ragnor rolled his eyes. “It’s very impolite to stare at people.”

  Magnus hadn’t expected this alien being to speak his language, but Ragnor’s Malay was smooth and effortless, if accented. “My first impressions are that you have no social grace, and that you are in desperate need of a bath.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe I agreed to this. My first lesson to you, boy, is to never play cards against a Silent Brother.”

  “What—what are you?” said Magnus.

  “I am Ragnor Fell. What are you?”

  Magnus could barely find his voice. “He said—she called me—they said I was cursed.”

  Ragnor came closer. “And do you always let other people tell you what you are?”

  Magnus was silent.

  “Because they will always try,” said Ragnor. “You have magic, just like I do.”

  Magnus nodded.

  “Well, then,” said Ragnor, “here are the most important things I can tell you. People will want to control you because of your power. They will try to convince you they are doing it for your own good. You must be very careful of them.” When Magnus flicked his eyes past Ragnor to the corridor outside his room, Ragnor said, “Yes. Even the Silent Brothers are helping you partly for their own purposes. The Shadowhunters have need of friendly warlocks, even if they might wish they didn’t.”

  “Is it wrong?” said Magnus quietly. “That they are helping me?”

  Ragnor hesitated. “No,” he said finally. “You are not their responsibility, and they have no guarantees about how you will turn out. You are lucky enough to have been born in a time when Shadowhunters like warlocks, rather than in one of the times in history when they’ve hunted us for sport.”

  “So it’s dangerous having magic,” Magnus said.

  Ragnor chuckled. “Life is tremendously dangerous whether you have magic or not,” he said, “but yes, especially for people like us. Warlocks don’t age like other humans, but we often die young anyway. Abandoned by our human parents. Burned at stakes by mundanes. Executed by Shadowhunters. This is not a safe world, but then, I know of no safe worlds. You have to be strong to survive in all of them.”

  The child who would be Magnus stammered, “How did you—how did you survive?”

  Ragnor came over and sat down on the cold earth floor beside Magnus, their backs against a wall of yellowed skulls. Ragnor’s back was broad, and Magnus’s narrow, but Magnus tried to sit up as straight as Ragnor did.

  “I was lucky,” Ragnor said. “That’s how most warlocks survive. We’re the lucky ones—the ones who were loved. My family were mundanes with the Sight, who knew a little of our world. They thought a green child might be a faerie changeling, and we didn’t find out differently until later. Even when they did, they loved me still.”

  The Silent Brothers had spoken to Magnus in his mind, had taught him a little of where warlocks came from, how demons broke through into the world, forcing or tricking humans into bearing their children.

  “And what about your father?”

  “My father?” Ragnor echoed. “You mean the demon? I don’t call that a father. My father raised me. The other, the demon, has nothing to do with me.

  “I know you weren’t one of the lucky ones,” Ragnor went on. “But we are warlocks. We live forever, and that means sooner or later, we are alone. When others call us the spawn of demons, try to use our power for their own ends, envy us, fear us, or simply die and leave us, we must decide ourselves what we shall be. Warlocks name ourselves, before someone else can name us.”

  “I’ll choose a name,” said the boy.

  “Then no doubt we will get to kn
ow each other better.” He looked Magnus up and down. “Your second lesson: the Silent Brothers don’t need to wash themselves or their clothes, but you do. You very much do.”

  The boy laughed.

  “Let’s keep ourselves sparkling clean from now on, shall we?” Ragnor suggested. “And for God’s sake, get some nice clothes.”

  Later, Ragnor would say he wished he’d never come to the City of Bones that day, and he’d never intended for Magnus to go so far overboard with the clothes. And of course he’d never foreseen the invention of cosmetic glitter.

  Magnus had hoped to find peace in the Silent City, but now he understood that such peace was impossible. He could only ask his questions. He hoped Ragnor would give him some of the answers, and then Magnus would give himself a name.

  * * *

  “MAGNUS!”

  Alec heard his own voice, echoing out into the desolate space that extended around and above him.

  Hell was empty.

  Alec lay on his back, out of breath but at least conscious. He’d blacked out as he tumbled through the Portal, he had no idea for how long. He lifted himself up on his elbows, expecting it to hurt, but he seemed uninjured.

  There was nothing here. The sky was absent of stars or moons or clouds—no, there was no sky whatsoever. There was no depth or distance, no shades or colors, just a sea of uniform claustrophobic void from horizon to horizon.

  Blinking, he sat up and looked around. He was on a vast, blank expanse of gray stone, flat but uneven, with large fissures here and there. The landscape was featureless, rolling away to empty horizons in all directions. The other Shadowhunters were scattered around him, no one farther than maybe fifty feet away. Jace was already standing—of course—and had somehow, miraculously, managed to retain a grip on the spear he’d taken from the smithy. The others were in various stages of rising to their feet. Nobody seemed to be hurt.

  Magnus was standing a short distance away from all of them, looking up. Alec followed his gaze and saw a knot of magic in the sky, tangled and chaotic, like a wound sewn up in haste on the battlefield. It crackled blackly, but no demons were emerging from it.