“Okay, that’s definitely a flail,” said Clary.
“Let me have this one,” Jace said. “It’ll be good in case I have to fight before my foot heals completely. I can spin this around and keep demons off me.”
“You’re not useless in a battle with a broken foot, you know,” Clary said. “You’re good at strategy and tactics.”
Jace shook his head, smiling. “We all know the main thing I have going for me is my sumptuous, lithe physicality. Without that,” he added, “who am I?”
Clary rolled her eyes. “You are the guy who figured out how to break us into Sebastian’s fortress in Edom. For one thing.”
“Sure,” Jace said, “one thing.”
Clary smiled. “Remember, your most sumptuous muscle is your brain.”
Tian watched this interaction with amusement. “I don’t think you should have trusted us more, by the way,” Alec said to him. “Any more than we would have trusted you with all of our secrets after such a short time.” He sighed. “It’s just… it’s getting worse, among Shadowhunters. Less and less trust. More and more secrets. I don’t know how far the system can bend,” he added, almost to himself, “before it breaks.”
Jace turned up a surprisingly decent horn bow, with curved, double-bent ears, and a quiver of arrows. He offered it to Alec, who took it but said, “I’m going to give this to Simon. I’ve got Black Impermanence, after all.”
They headed back down the transept toward the nave, their feet echoing on the stone floor. Magnus broke the silence unexpectedly, his voice low and steady. “My father is a Prince of Hell, Asmodeus,” he said to Tian.
Tian stopped walking and blinked at him.
“It’s just something I think you should know,” Magnus said. “Before we go into battle with Sammael. He’s mentioned me being an eldest curse a few times. And Jem said Shinyun was after Tessa because she was an eldest curse. It makes me think it matters to them, who my father is.”
“Oh,” said Tian. He thought about this for a moment. “What does that mean for our plans?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Magnus said. “Maybe nothing. Maybe Sammael thinks there’s some power he can extract from me. Or maybe he thinks he’s some kind of uncle to me. I just—like I said, I thought you should know.”
He started walking again, and after a brief hesitation, the rest of them did too. Alec saw Jace and Clary exchange troubled looks.
“That’s terrible,” said Tian. “I mean, for you.”
Magnus looked at him with surprise.
“You never asked to have a Prince of Hell as your father,” Tian said. “And now it probably means you’ll have Greater Demons and Princes of Hell bothering you… well, forever.”
“Regularly,” agreed Magnus.
“What can you do about it?” Tian said.
“Nothing,” said Magnus. “Live my life. Protect my family.”
“Be protected by your family,” Alec put in.
“And friends,” added Clary.
They walked in silence for another moment. “Thank you,” said Tian. “For deciding you trust me enough to tell me. I will tell no one.”
They turned toward the apse, where Simon was gazing out one of the windows at the nothingness outside. Isabelle was at the other end of the room.
“It’s up to you to decide if you need to tell anyone,” said Magnus. “To decide who you would trust. That’s how trust works.” He paused. “Also, Jem knows and would be happy to answer any questions about it. He’s got some experience in this area.”
As they approached the apse, it was obvious that Isabelle was not happy. She was watching Simon from across the room, her brow knitted in worry. Her arms were folded tightly over her chest.
“Izzy?” Clary called.
Alec wanted to go to Isabelle, his instincts for protecting his sister kicking in, but he was still awkwardly holding the bow and arrows he’d found, so he went to give them to Simon first. Jace went with him, for which Alec was grateful. Magnus and Tian hung back uncertainly.
“Simon,” Alec offered as they approached. “I found you a bow.”
“Great,” said Simon, without turning around. “A souvenir. Let’s go home.”
Alec and Jace traded looks. Jace spoke first. “What are you talking about, Simon?”
“I want to go home,” said Simon. “You should want to go home too.”
“Of course we want to go home,” said Alec cautiously. “But we can’t go yet. Sammael still has the Book of the White, and we need to—”
“We’re all back together,” Simon said dully. “We’re all safe, for the moment. There’s no reason to stay here.”
“We don’t have a way back,” said Alec. “We’ll need to find one.”
“So let’s find one,” said Simon in that same flat tone. “That should be the plan. Find a way to leave. Then leave.” He looked up at Jace hopefully. “Come back with reinforcements. You love reinforcements.”
“Magnus is still in danger,” Alec said. “We have to figure out how to deal with the Svefnthorn.”
“Well,” said Simon, “maybe it would be easier to find a solution somewhere other than literally in Hell.”
Clary was walking over with Isabelle. She looked wary. “Simon,” she said. “This isn’t like you.”
“This isn’t even your first trip to a hell dimension,” Jace pointed out.
Simon turned around now, and Alec had expected to see tears, given the tone of Simon’s voice. But there were no tears. Instead Simon’s face burned with barely contained rage.
“It’s too much,” he said quietly. “It’s too much gambling with people’s lives.” He wouldn’t look at them. “With all your lives.”
“Simon…,” said Clary again. “We’ve been through so much already and we’re okay. You’ve been undead, you’ve been invulnerable. You’re one of the only people alive to have seen an angel, and you’ve been in the presence of two different Princes of Hell. You killed Lilith!”
“The Mark of Cain killed Lilith,” said Simon in a colorless tone. “I just happened to be there.”
“Being a Shadowhunter—” Alec began to say, but to his surprise, Isabelle stopped him with a glare.
Simon lifted his head. He looked lost, distant. “We went through the Portal, gambling we’d be able to get back. You gave yourself to the demons,” he added to Isabelle. He sounded sick. “You were gambling you’d be able to get away. Tian pretended to betray us. Gambling he’d be able to save Isabelle once Sammael wasn’t watching him.”
“But that all worked out,” said Jace. “I mean, I guess we don’t know how we’ll get back from Diyu yet, but given all the Portals everywhere…”
“It’s too much gambling,” said Simon. “You can’t win every time. Eventually you lose.”
“But not yet,” said Alec.
Simon glowered. “In May,” he said, his voice shaking, “I watched George Lovelace die screaming. For no reason. He drank from the Mortal Cup and he burned and he died. He was no different than me. No less worthy of Ascension. If anything, he was more worthy than me.”
No one spoke.
“It was the final lesson of the Academy,” he said quietly. “Shadowhunters die. They just… die for no reason.”
“It’s a dangerous job,” said Jace.
“George wasn’t doing anything dangerous,” Simon ground out. “He didn’t die in a noble act of sacrifice; he didn’t die because a demon got the better of him. He died because sometimes Shadowhunters die, and it isn’t for anything. It just is. That was the lesson.”
“Isabelle was rescued,” said Alec. “You’re rescued. Tian is okay.”
“This time!” Simon laughed. “Yes, this time it worked out. What about next time? And by the way, next time is tomorrow. How do you do it?” he said, looked around at them helplessly. “How do you risk yourself and everyone you love, over and over again?”
Isabelle went to Simon and put her hands on his shoulders. He looked up into her eyes, s
earching for something there. Alec knew what he himself would say: that this was the gig. That being a Shadowhunter was a high and lonely task, that being chosen for such a purpose was a gift and a curse, that its risk was precisely why it was so important, that he had fought with Simon for years now and Simon was definitely, obviously worthy of being one of the Nephilim. He thought of Isabelle, her ferocity, her intensity, her commitment, and he expected her to say something like what he himself would say.
But she didn’t. Instead she put her arms around Simon and hugged him tightly. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know. It doesn’t always make sense, my love. Sometimes it makes no sense at all.”
Simon made a low, choked sound, and buried his head against Isabelle’s neck. She held him there, still and silent.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“He has to understand,” Alec said very quietly.
Isabelle gave a tiny nod of her head. “He does understand,” she said. “Just—give us one second, okay?”
Clary bit her lip. “I love you, Simon,” she said. “I love you both.”
She turned and walked away, and the others followed: as Simon’s parabatai, in an odd sort of way, it was Clary’s call. Alec could hear Isabelle murmuring softly to Simon, until they had moved far enough away that the sound disappeared.
“Isabelle’s right,” Clary said, once they had returned to the nave. “Simon knows—he’s just hurting. It’s only been a few months since he lost George.” She leaned against one of the stone walls. “I wish I could do more. Be a better parabatai. Fighting alongside someone you love isn’t just about fighting more effectively. It’s also about supporting each other when things go wrong.”
“We know exactly what you mean,” Alec said, looking at Jace. “And you are a good parabatai, Clary. Watching you and Simon together—”
“It’s like seeing the two of us,” Jace said, indicating himself and Alec. “Strength and beauty. Perfect harmony. Skill and intuition, exactly matched.”
Alec raised an eyebrow. “Are you strength or beauty?”
“I think we all know the answer to that,” said Jace.
“You really are a very strange group of people,” observed Tian.
Jace grinned. Alec knew he’d been trying to lighten the mood, and he’d succeeded. “Maybe we should find somewhere to sleep. I thought I saw some larger benches, down the other transept.”
“How will we know to wake up?” Alec said, realizing. “It’s not like the sun’s going to rise down here.”
Clary perked up, drawing her stele. “Let me see your arm,” she said. Alec held it out and she scrawled a shape he hadn’t seen before onto his arm, a circle with a number of radiating arms of different lengths curving in a spiral from its center. Clary counted under her breath as she drew it, then said, “There. Something I’ve been working on. Alarm rune. It’ll go off in seven hours.”
“Or you could use your phone,” said Jace.
Clary shrugged. “Runes are more reliable. Also cooler.”
“The Alliance rune is still your best work,” said Alec, smiling.
“They can’t all be world-savers,” said Clary. “Sometimes you just need to wake up on time.”
“No, I mean, it’s the thing you were talking about,” said Alec. “It lets us share our strength with each other. Not just our strength—our vulnerabilities, too.”
Clary looked over at Magnus and then back at Alec. She smiled a little, though she was still clearly worried about Simon. “Well… I’m glad I could give that to you.”
Jace took her hand, drawing her close. His arms went around her. Clary laid her head against Jace’s shoulder, and he closed his eyes; Alec knew what he was feeling, for he felt it himself, whenever he was with Magnus. That inner wonder at the enormity of love, how the joy of it was so intense it was nearly tinged with pain. Jace rarely spoke of his feelings, but he didn’t need to: Alec could read them on his face. Jace had chosen Clary to love, just as Alec had chosen Magnus, and he would love her forever and with his whole heart.
Jace brushed his lips against Clary’s hair and released her; she took his hand. With a crooked smile, Jace mouthed “See you” to Alec, and headed off with Clary into the dark shadows in the depths of the cathedral.
“I suppose I should bid you good night as well,” Tian began, then paused. Isabelle and Simon had descended the steps into the nave. They were holding hands, and Simon looked a little abashed.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Alec. “You said it yourself. It’s been a day.”
Tian and Magnus stepped back a bit, giving Alec a moment with his sister and Simon. Alec thought he saw the tracks of recent tears on Simon’s face. It didn’t make him respect Simon any less; in fact, he thought, he might respect him a little more.
Simon looked at him steadily. “I think I just have to get used to not being invulnerable anymore. It’s not like being a vampire—or having the Mark of Cain—was a nonstop party, but it was a nice insurance policy. That’s gone now.” Simon straightened his shoulders. “I signed up to fight,” he said. “I wanted to be a Shadowhunter so much. So now I am, and now I fight. It would be great if you didn’t have to constantly work to preserve the things and the people you love, but… you do.”
“That’s being a Shadowhunter,” said Alec.
Simon shook his head. “No, that’s being a person. At least as a Shadowhunter my work involves exotic travel and awesome hand-to-hand combat.”
Isabelle kissed him on the cheek. “Never doubt that you are a badass, sweetie.”
“See?” said Simon. “My life rules. My girlfriend has a flame whip! That’s a true statement I just made.”
“You two get out of here before my brotherly instincts kick in,” Alec said, and the two of them went off to find someplace private to rest.
Alec looked around and saw Magnus engaged in conversation with Tian. Magnus had White Impermanence free of its sheath, and Tian was speaking intently while gesturing to it. Curious, Alec went to join them.
Magnus looked up as he joined them, and Alec was startled yet again by the changes in him. His face seemed narrower, his features sharper. His eyes glowed luminous green in the dim light. There was something hungry in his look, like a vampire who had not fed in a long time.
Alec knew that hunger was for the Svefnthorn’s third strike, and he shuddered. It was easy to celebrate that they had saved Simon, that Tian hadn’t betrayed them, that he had rescued Isabelle. That they were, at this instant, out of harm’s way. It was easy to assume that they would find some solution for Magnus, some way to draw the thorn out of him, some loophole in the magic. But Simon was right: Sometimes things went bad. Sometimes there was suffering. Sometimes there was death. It was too late for Ragnor, for Shinyun, but what about Magnus?
Tian said, “May I see your sword?”
Alec shrugged and drew Black Impermanence. He handed it to Tian, who held the two swords next to one another and examined them.
“Do you know what it is you’re wielding?” he said to both of them.
Alec thought. “Gan Jiang and Mo Ye… they said they weren’t swords—they were gods.”
“They’re clearly swords,” said Magnus. “Alec has been cutting through demons with his all day.”
“They also said they were keys,” said Alec.
Tian rolled his eyes. “They like being cryptic, Gan Jiang and Mo Ye. I guess they think it’s their prerogative, given their age. I don’t know what it means that they’re keys,” he admitted. “But they are gods. I meant to talk to you about it before…” He trailed off, not saying, before Sammael revealed that I was working for him. “But if we’re heading toward a confrontation… you should know something of what they are. They may be our strongest weapon in this place.”
“Maybe this is a stupid question,” said Alec, “but if they’re swords, how are they also gods?”
“The Heibai Wuchang
,” said Tian, “were a god in black, and a god in white, and long ago, they were responsible for escorting the spirits of the dead to Diyu. There are hundreds of stories about them, from all over China, but they are from long before the Nephilim, so we have no idea which, if any, are true.”
“All the stories are true,” Alec murmured to himself, and Magnus heard and quirked his mouth in a small smile.
“The faeries say that the Heibai Wuchang grew tired of being constantly bothered by mortals, who sought them out to ask for their wishes to be granted, and they retreated into these swords.” Tian shook his head. “I don’t know what it means that we have brought them back to their original home in Diyu, but if the smiths thought it was wisdom to do so, they must have had a reason.”
“Maybe they thought the swords could hurt Sammael?” Alec suggested.
“Maybe they unlock a door and then we kick Sammael through it?” Magnus offered.
Tian said, “I don’t know. I just thought that you should know what it is you’re wielding. Who you’re wielding.” He held up the black sword and handed it back to Alec. “Fan Wujiu. Meaning: there is no salvation for evildoers.” He handed the white sword to Magnus. “Xie Bi’an: be at peace, all those who atone.”
“Some disagreement between the two of them, I see,” Magnus said.
But Tian shook his head. “I don’t think so. In some stories they are referred to as one being. Whatever they are, they are supposed to be in balance with one another.”
“Aw, just like us,” Magnus said, winking at Alec.
Alec did think of himself and Magnus as in balance, at least under normal circumstances. But was that still true? The thorn had invaded Magnus’s body, had thrust him in the direction of its will—of Sammael’s will, Alec reminded himself. Magnus was still Magnus, of course, but he was changing, and they didn’t know of any way to change him back.
Alec strapped Black Impermanence—Fan Wujiu—back on and said to Tian, “Thanks. Now I’m prepared just in case my sword suddenly turns into a dude.”
The Lost Book of the White Page 27