The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare

CHAPTER NINEThe Celestial Palace

ALEC WAS SILENT ON THEway to the bookstore, and Magnus, for the first time in a couple of years, felt an odd feeling. He felt awkward about the meeting with Peng Fang.

“I really don’t know Peng Fang that well,” he said. “I’ve just bought information from him a few times over the years.”

Alec nodded, distracted.

“It’s just… I know there’s a lot of sketchy stuff in my past,” Magnus went on. What was wrong with him? “I don’t want you to worry that any of it will come back to… well…”

He trailed off, and Alec stopped walking and gave him a curious look. “What’s this about?” he said.

“When we were meeting with Peng Fang, I just started to think about how shady it all was, how shady a lot of the things I have to do are. I mean, Peng Fang is harmless, it’s just that I’m very big with weirdos. They all think I love them.”

Alec grinned affectionately. “It’s your devilish charisma,” he said. “You can’t help it.”

“Yeah, but some of the weirdos I know have turned out to be dangerous. And I know we don’t want to put Max in danger,” Magnus began, and Alec began to laugh. “What?” Magnus demanded.

“Magnus, I’m the one with the dangerous job,” Alec said. “I literally fight demons for a living. We’ve adopted Max into an incredibly dangerous family situation. I know that! I mean, forget the actual fighting, the monsters, the dark magic. I’m a gay Shadowhunter in a relationship with a famous Downworlder, who is himself the son of a Prince of Hell. My father is the Inquisitor and my parents were members of a hate group. My parabatai has been imprisoned in the Silent City. More than once!”

“When you put it like that,” Magnus murmured, “it doesn’t sound like a great home environment.”

“But it is,” said Alec with more force than Magnus would have expected. “I like our life, Magnus. I like that I don’t know what will happen next. I like that we get a chance to give Max the kind of life that warlocks rarely get. I like that we’ll be doing it together. You remember what the note said when we found Max? ‘Who could ever love it?’ We could, Magnus. We could love him. We do love him.”

Magnus’s mind was torn. On the one hand, he was filled with affection and appreciation, for Alec, for Max, for a life he never thought he could have. On the other hand, he thought of the magic growing within his chest, and whatever had happened in the alley. He thought of Ragnor, currently lost in thrall to a demon after hundreds of years of doing only good with his powers.

“How will we ever explain to Max?” he said quietly. “Where he came from. Where I came from. That people will look at him and make decisions about who he is without knowing him at all. That his parents put themselves in danger over and over again, but that we’ll always come back to him.”

“I think you just said it pretty well,” said Alec. “And… I don’t know. I’m a beginner at this too. But we’ll figure it out together. That’s the whole idea.” He put his hand behind Magnus’s head and pulled him in for a kiss. Magnus expected something quick, but Alec kissed him deeply, his mouth slightly open, warm, reassuring, and full of love and desire. Magnus allowed himself to relax into the kiss, but as he did, he felt his tongue pass over his own teeth. They felt different. Were they bigger? Was he growing fangs? What was happening to him?

He decided that he would take things one step at a time, and this step was kissing Alec. Often these days their kisses were casual, familiar, lovely in the way they felt like home. But now they kissed with a desperation and hopefulness, drowning in one another, as they had in the earliest days of being together. After what felt like a long time, Alec broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against Magnus’s. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure it all out. We always do.”

A werewolf passed by and called out in Mandarin, “Get a room, cute boys!”

Alec turned and waved cheerily to the man. “What did he say?”

“Let’s get to the Palace,” Magnus suggested. “We’ve got figuring out to do.”

They walked on, holding hands, and for a short time Magnus felt a little more at ease than he had the last couple of days.

MOMENTS AFTER THEY STARTED WALKINGagain, a fire-message burst in Alec’s face, startling him. He grabbed at it and read it to Magnus.

“ ‘Where are you? Found thorn info. Faeries watching us like we’re going to rob the place. Come as soon as you can.—Jace.’ ”

They hurried down the street, and Magnus followed his dead reckoning until they turned onto an old street in the Market and his favorite bookstore in Asia appeared before him.

The Celestial Palace was the size of a city block, a double-eaved structure that looked like one of the court buildings of Beijing as reinterpreted by faeries. It claimed to be the oldest Downworld business in Shanghai, preceding the concession itself by hundreds of years. Magnus wasn’t sure he bought that story—although maybe it was right, since faeries couldn’t lie—but it was an impressive piece of old Shanghai regardless, and a show of faerie power. Rather than the brick, stone, and tile that were used to construct its mundane inspirations, the Palace was all colored glass, gold, and glossily polished wood. On either side of the massive double doors, a glass dragon stood guard. They were painted with mercury, and their eyes were huge sea pearls.

As Magnus approached, one of them turned its serpentine head to regard them. “Magnus Bane,” it intoned in a voice like stones scraping against one another. “Long time no see.”

“Huang.” Magnus nodded to it, then turned to the other. “Di.”

The one called Di didn’t move its head. “Wait.”

With a bang, the doors burst open and a small faerie with fox ears ran out, a huge tome under one arm. He bumped into Alec’s shoulder, pushing him aside, and took off down the street.

He had made it only a short distance when a prismatic ray of light burst from Di’s mouth. It struck the fox faerie, who froze and then vanished in a puff of blue smoke. The tome dropped to the ground. There was a smell like ozone in the air.

Huang regarded Magnus and Alec. “Thus ever to book thieves. Art makes lives worth living, and so theft is the next-door neighbor to murder. They shall be ever cursed, and will never escape the eyes of the Huangdi.”

“Noted,” said Alec nervously. “We don’t steal books.”

“It’s not personal,” put in Di. “It’s just business.”

“May your trade be always prosperous and your wealth plentiful,” Magnus said.

“What he said,” agreed Alec.

The eyes of the dragons watched them as they passed through the doors.

ALEC HAD SEEN PLENTY OFwonders in his short life so far, but even he had to admit that the interior of the Celestial Palace was something to behold. Despite appearing to be only two stories from the outside, it rose five levels on the inside, each ringed with a balcony boasting floor-to-ceiling shelves containing a seeming infinitude of books. The whole interior was of carved rosewood forming the shapes of twisting vines and branches, and in the center of the huge open space above them, three great spheres of flame hung suspended in the air, giving the whole place a warm glow.

He had been worried that they would have a hard time finding their friends in such a large place, but he caught sight of them almost immediately. Isabelle was perched high up on a ladder, moving easily despite towering heels, his sister fearless about heights as she was about most things. She called down to Simon to move the ladder very fast to the section on blood curses, and screamed, “Whee!” when he did.

Clary came running over, carrying a calfskin book with an unfamiliar symbol stamped on the cover. “We found the thorn,” she said. She opened the book on a nearby table, covered with what looked to be faerie cookbooks, and pointed in triumph at the drawing of a thorned spike, below which were paragraphs of runic writing.

“So what’s the deal? Why does the sleep-thorn not put people to sleep?” said Magnus.

“That’s only what it does to Norse gods, I guess,” Jace said. “Look.” He pointed to the text. “Do you want me to translate for you?”

“Of course you can read Old Norse runes,” Magnus said, rolling his eyes.

“I am a man of many talents,” said Jace. “Also, my dad was an abusive taskmaster.”

“Fair point.”

“So,” Jace resumed. “The Svefnthorn is made of black adamas.”

“Which is what exactly?” said Clary.

“Adamas corrupted by a demon realm,” Magnus said. “Very rare stuff.” He traced his finger along the illustration of the thorn. “It ties a warlock to that realm and its ruler, and the warlock draws power from it. Makes warlocks much stronger than usual.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad,” said Alec.

“Until the power overwhelms them, and they either die or are stabbed three times by the thorn and become the willing lackey of the demon who rules the realm,” added Magnus.

“That seems pretty bad,” Alec corrected himself.

“So it’s basically… magic meth?” said Clary.

Jace said, “The Spiral Labyrinth forbade its use in… wait, let me convert the date… 1500 or so.”

“Why would Shinyun say it was a gift?” Alec said.

“Because she’s crazy?” offered Magnus. “The realm has to be Diyu, of course. But why would Shinyun thorn herself? Even she isn’t crazy enough to kill herself for a temporary power boost.”

“Maybe she thinks her demon daddy can prevent her from dying,” suggested Clary.

“The question is, how do we prevent Magnus from dying?” Alec said. He realized he had curled his hands into fists, and made himself uncurl them.

“Maybe an eldest curse can handle it?” suggested Magnus. “Maybe they think there’s something in the Book of the White that would help?”

“I would guess that either you need to go to Diyu as soon as you can, or make sure you never go to Diyu,” said Jace.

Alec rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Maybe Shinyun will show up again and we can ask her in between fights with her demon army.”

“Simon and Isabelle are supposed to be looking into the whereabouts of the Diyu Portal,” said Clary. They all looked over at where they’d last seen the two of them. A stern-looking goblin in rimless spectacles appeared to be angrily lecturing Simon, who was making apologetic gestures. Behind them it appeared that they’d upset a reading circle of toddler-aged hobgoblins. Isabelle saw the others and came over, a stack of books under her arm.

She put them down with a sigh. “Can we come back when we have time to browse? Local history isn’t really my thing.”

“Did you find anything about the location of the old Portal?” said Alec.

“Not really. Simon was writing down the list of places mentioned, but it just reads like a tourist guide to the city.” Isabelle sounded frustrated. “It’s like every famous place is rumored to be the site of the Portal.”

“Shinyun and Ragnor must know,” said Magnus. “They have some way of communicating with Sammael, and we’re pretty sure he’s in Diyu.”

“So we’re back to hoping they show up,” said Clary. “Or checking out every one of these possible locations. Any one of which could turn out to be an open Portal to Hell. Just saying.”

Simon came over to join them, running his hands through his hair. “Word of advice, guys, never piss off a goblin bookseller. They are strict.”

“I hear you’ve got nothing,” Jace said brightly. Simon gave him a look.

“We don’t have nothing,” said Alec. “We know more about the thorn.”

“And I did some reading about Diyu,” said Simon. He plonked his stack of books on top of Isabelle’s.

“It’s Chinese Hell, right?” said Clary.

“Well,” Simon said. “Not really. It’s maybe more like Chinese purgatory? Souls go there to be tortured for their sins for some amount of time before they get reincarnated. It all seems to be very organized—lots of different hells, each with a different ruler; there are judges, and they decide what hell you go to; and civil servants keeping it all running. Or at least,” he added, “it was organized, under Yanluo’s rule. But Yanluo is gone.”

“So now what?” said Alec.

“Reports vary,” said Isabelle dryly.

“Nobody knows, because nobody’s been there since Yanluo died,” Simon added.

“Sammael could be trying to gain energy from all the soul torturing,” Alec offered.

“That seems like a lot of work,” Magnus said, frowning. “I’ve never thought of Sammael as the kind to run a civil service. He could just be squatting there.”

Clary looked troubled. “I feel like I should ask,” she said. “If we find an open Portal to Diyu, are we going to… go through it?”

Before anyone could answer, the front doors burst open and Tian came running up to them. He sounded out of breath.

“I hoped I’d find you here,” he said, without preamble. “Jinfeng’s parents want to see you at once. They said it’s important. They said, ‘The one with the chains must arm himself.’ ”

Everyone except Alec and Magnus looked baffled.

“What chains?” said Jace.

Magnus sighed and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it open to reveal the angry red chains extending from his wound and disappearing into his sleeves. Alec could not say for sure, but he thought they had become more well-defined than before. And had there also been chains extending down toward his legs and up toward his throat before? He couldn’t remember.

The other Shadowhunters stared at Magnus.

The bespectacled goblin who had yelled at Simon appeared unexpectedly beside them. He spoke in a hissed stage whisper. “I am sorry, but I must ask you to leave. You’re disturbing the other customers. They’re not used to Shadowhunters in the first place, and now you’re taking off your clothes—”

“Got it,” said Alec. “We were just leaving.”

“The Cold Peace says we’re allowed to prevent you from coming entirely,” the goblin went on. He had clearly prepared a speech and was going to deliver it no matter what. “But we said no, the Palace is a neutral territory, all of the Shadow World should be welcome. But we didn’t mean for a whole… squad of Nephilim to—”

“Yes, yes,” Alec said. “We’re going.” He began herding them toward the doors.

“Also,” the goblin continued, “this isn’t a lending library. Those books are for sale, and now we’ll have to reshelve all of them—”

Magnus had been slowly buttoning his shirt back up. Now he turned and put his hand on the goblin’s shoulder in a friendly manner. The faerie looked at it as if it were a poisonous snake. “Sir, my apologies for my companions,” he said. “I take full responsibility. They were only helping me with some of my research. I’m Magnus Bane, High Warlock of New York, and I’m going to buy all of these.”

The goblin looked suspicious. “I know of you. You’re only the High Warlock of Brooklyn.”

“Technicalities,” said Magnus. “The point is, sir—may I know your name?”

The goblin sniffed. “Well, if you must know. It’s Kethryllianalæmacisii.”

“Really?” said Magnus. “Well, anyway, Keth—may I call you Keth?”

“You may not.”

Magnus pressed on. “If you’ll just ring all of these up and have the bill sent to the Spiral Labyrinth. The books can be delivered to the Mansion Hotel, if you will.”

Simon had helpfully piled the books into a single large stack and presented them to Kethryllianalæmacisii, who staggered a bit under the weight, but was clearly not about to lose a decent-size sale to the Spiral Labyrinth. “Of course, Mr. Bane,” he said, through clenched teeth. “But if that’s all, my staff and I would appreciate—”

“Yes,” said Magnus, “we were just leaving.”

“Sorry,” said Simon to the goblin, who made a hissing noise at him.

Looking a bit dazed, Tian led them out of the store. When the doors opened, a bird in a cage above it sang a snatch of song, haunting and sweet. “Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild!”

On the steps outside, Alec said to Magnus, “Can you really bill things to the Spiral Labyrinth?”

“Let’s find out!” Magnus said. “Now, I’ve heard the one with chains must arm himself, so Tian, lead the way.”