The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare

CHAPTER ELEVENThe First Court

HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO, MAGNUShad 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 know 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.

Alec rose and went over to join his boyfriend. He put his hand on Magnus’s shoulder. Magnus said, still looking at the messy suture in the sky, “It’s not pretty. But I think it’ll hold.”

Alec pulled Magnus into a tight embrace and held him for a moment, feeling the warmth of his body and the soothing sound of his breathing against him. Then he stepped back. “Shinyun?” he said. “Ragnor?”

“They were right behind me,” Magnus said. There was fatigue in his voice, and Alec wondered how much his whirlwind had taken out of him. “I would swear on my life they came through the Portal right behind me. But they didn’t appear on this side.”

“Well, Sammael is the Master of Portals and the master of Ragnor and Shinyun,” Alec offered. “So maybe they went somewhere else.”

“Who knows,” said Magnus flatly. Despite their success, he sounded defeated.

Isabelle’s voice, behind them, suddenly called out, “Simon?”

Alec turned. Isabelle, Clary, and Jace were coming over to join them—all of them looking like they’d been through a windstorm—but there was no sign of Simon.

Clary spun around. “Simon? Simon?”

They all looked around them, but it wasn’t like there was a hiding place on the bare rock that surrounded them. Simon was gone.

They all looked at Clary. She was holding her arms around herself, her face very pale. Jace put his hand on her back.

“Look for him,” he said gently. “Inside yourself.”

As Clary closed her eyes, Alec remembered a time, long ago, when Sebastian had taken Jace, and he had searched in vain inside himself for the spark that was his parabatai. Watching Clary now, he remembered the pain.

She inhaled sharply. “Okay… he’s alive, at least.”

“You think he went wherever Ragnor and Shinyun went?” Alec said to Magnus.

He expected Magnus to say who knows again, but the warlock’s expression had sharpened, and he looked a little more present again. “It’s possible,” he said.

“He definitely came through the Portal,” said Jace. “I saw him.”

Isabelle looked stricken. “He didn’t want to come,” she said. “To Shanghai, I mean. He thought something terrible would happen. I told him he was being ridiculous.” She pushed her tangled dark hair away from her face, her lips trembling.

“Iz,” said Alec. “We’ll find him.”

“We’ll have to figure out how to get back home ourselves,” said Jace. “And we have no idea how to do that, either.”

“And we can’t leave without the Book of the White,” put in Alec. “And we have to save you,” he added to Magnus.

“And we have to rescue Ragnor,” Magnus said.

They all looked at him. “Magnus,” Clary said gently, “we need to be rescued from Ragnor.”

“He’s not himself,” said Magnus. “He’s under Sammael’s control. I’m not leaving him like that. If there’s a way to save me, there’s a way to save him.”

After a moment, Jace nodded. “Right,” he said. “So we need to find the Book of the White, find Ragnor, defeat Ragnor, save Ragnor, find Simon, save Simon, figure out what Sammael’s up to, neutralize Shinyun, and destroy the permanent Portal between Diyu and Shanghai.”

“I thought we just did that last one,” said Isabelle, looking up at the scar in the sky. “Besides—it looks like Ragnor and Shinyun have figured out how to open a big hole between Diyu and our world any time they want.”

“Which begs the question,” said Jace, “if they can do that, why doesn’t Sammael just come through with them?”

Magnus templed his fingers together. “If Sammael could come into our world, he would,” he said. “So there’s some reason he can’t pass from Diyu to Earth yet. Probably something to do with the way he was banished. But I don’t know what it is.”

Jace looked around them, hands on his hips. “Maybe there’s an information booth somewhere. You know, like, ‘Welcome to Hell’?”

Magnus regarded him darkly.

“Well, we can’t just stay here on this rock,” said Alec. “Isn’t Diyu supposed to be a whole bureaucracy with judges and courts and torture chambers? That can’t all be gone, can it?”

“Hang on,” said Magnus, and launched himself into the air. Alec watched him, disconcerted. Magnus couldn’t fly, not normally, but now he was doing it without visible effort. The Svefnthorn in action, he supposed.

In the silence, they watched Magnus swoop around above the stony expanse. Clary put her hand on Isabelle’s shoulder, and Isabelle gave her a worried look. “We’ll find Simon,” Clary said. “He has no part in any of this stuff. There’s no reason for him to be in danger.”

“Sure,” said Isabelle faintly. “He’s only lost in Hell.”

Nobody had anything to say to that, and they stood in silence for another minute, until Magnus landed again, his coat billowing out around him elegantly as he descended. Even in a demonic underworld, Alec thought, Magnus had panache.

“This way,” he said, and led them off in what seemed to Alec an arbitrary direction. They all followed, bemused.

After a few minutes of walking, during which the landscape didn’t change or even suggest that they were going anywhere, Magnus stopped and gestured to the ground. “Voilà,” he said.

Below them, invisible from any distance beyond a few feet, there was a large rough opening in the ground. Stone stairs descended from it in a spiral.

“Where do they go?” said Clary.

Magnus gave her a look. “They go down,” he said, and started to descend the steps.

Clary gave him a look. “The only person who might have appreciated that reference,” she said, “is the one we’re trying to rescue.”

Magnus said easily, “Your comment suggests that you, too, appreciated it in your way.”

“At least we’ll die sassy,” muttered Isabelle as she followed them.

Alec followed too, his mind uneasy.

THE STAIRCASE WAS HUNDREDS OFsteps long, turning back and forth in a zigzag that kept them going more or less vertically straight down. There was no railing, of course, but Magnus had no idea what would happen if someone fell. He could catch them with his magic, he reasoned, but he hoped it didn’t come to that.

For a while, the stairs vanished into haze and smoke below them, with no end. But gradually a huge square shape came into focus below, and as they approached, Magnus realized he was looking down on a walled city.

From above, it could have been a city on Earth, albeit a city on Earth in ancient times. There was an outer wall in stone, marked at regular intervals by towers that, Magnus was sure, were the tops of gates in and out, although outside the walls was the same dark void that surrounded everything else. Inside was a series of courtyards separated from each other by red-roofed buildings that resembled courthouses or palaces.

As they got closer, it became clear to Magnus that he was looking at an abandoned place. All was silent. Nothing moved. When the angle allowed them to get a better look at the towers, Magnus could see that most of them were broken, and here and there on the ground far below, huge boulders of fallen rock blocked the streets.

It seemed at first as if they would descend right into the heart of the ruined city, but this was an optical illusion; when they reached the ground level, they could see that the staircase let them off outside the walls.

The five of them stepped off the final steps into a stone-paved courtyard, just as silent as the plain they’d left above. On three sides the courtyard seemed to end and fall off into nothing, but on the fourth side, two massive que towers stood. Their architecture was traditionally Chinese—“traditional” meaning a couple thousand years ago—elaborately carved and topped by flat roof tiles like broad-brimmed hats. As they neared the towers they could see that both were assembled from hundreds, even thousands of bones, from animals and humans alike. One tower shone bleached white, and the other gleamed in ebonized black. Between them, a path curved back and forth like a serpent, leading to an opening in the city walls through which all was dark.

Their steps echoed emptily. The silence was oppressive, the air completely still. They all walked down the winding path; there seemed to be no other way to go. Alec had drawn Black Impermanence and was carefully holding it in front of him, but nothing happened as they passed between the que towers.

Magnus wasn’t sure what he’d expected when they entered the city walls. The path dead-ended at another large rectangular courtyard, paved in stone. At the far end of the courtyard rose a white, half-timbered building with a hipped red roof, whose doors had been thrown wide. Red paper lanterns, unlit, dangled from the eaves. There was no way around the building; they would have to pass into it, and hopefully through it, before they could continue on.

Once inside, Magnus was reminded oddly of a hotel lobby. Tall stone pillars held up a ceiling so high that it vanished into haze, in a large open space that appeared designed to hold many people at once.

On both sides of the room, tapestries had been hung between a series of tall bronze poles. It looked to Magnus like they had once illustrated some tale, or maybe provided a suggestion of the punishments offered deeper into the realm, but now, other than the occasional face that could be made out, they were indecipherable, covered with dried bloodstains, frayed and torn at the bottom, and faded with age. At the far end of the room was a large but plain wooden desk, with a neat stack of dusty, rotted books and a pile of parchments flaked away to almost nothing. Behind the desk, a tiled wall depicted a surprisingly ordinary pattern of chrysanthemums.

There was no movement, no activity, no wind. Magnus’s breathing rang loudly in his own ears; his and his companions’ footfalls sounded like knocks upon a massive stone door.

Magnus walked toward the desk, uncertain, and as he did, he saw motion—a thick, stubby tentacle, green-black, appeared from below and flopped onto the desktop.

The Shadowhunters froze. Magnus heard a whisper and the corner of his eye caught the glow of a seraph blade being kindled.

A second tentacle joined the first, then a third. They shifted around on the desktop, leaving bits of slime. Then, acting in concert, they pressed down against the desk and levered into view a slimy head and torso, which rose until the creature was standing up. The tentacles slurped back off the desk and slapped on the stone floor wetly.

The demon had close-set green eyes and a vertical slit instead of a nose or mouth. It opened this slit and made a loud, gurgling noise, thick with slime, which might have been a roar or a yawn.

“Is that a Cecaelia demon?” Jace said, incredulous.

“Mortals!” intoned the demon, in a voice like a drowning man. “Welcome to Youdu, capital city of the hundred thousand hells! Here in the First Court the sins of your life will be tallied, and your punish—” He stopped and squinted at them. “Wait, I know you. Magnus Bane! What are you doing in Diyu, of all places?”

Alec said, “What?!” in a very loud voice.

“How do you know me, demon?” demanded Magnus, but a memory was already creeping into his mind, from a few years back. Early in his and Alec’s relationship… a client who wanted something to do with mermaids…

The demon was looking over at Alec. “Hey, is that Alec? So you two crazy kids made it work! Congratulations, guys, really.”

“Elyaas,” said Magnus weakly. “You’re Elyaas, aren’t you?”

“Magnus,” said Alec, using his most reasonable voice. “How are you and this demon acquainted?”

“You know—Elyaas!” Elyaas said enthusiastically, waving some tentacles around and dripping slime on the desk. “Magnus must have told you about me. We were roommates!”

“We weren’t roommates,” Magnus said sharply. “I summoned you to my apartment. Once.”

“But I was there all day! What did you end up getting Alec for his birthday?” Elyaas seemed legitimately pleased to see them.

Magnus turned to Alec with a sigh. “I summoned Elyaas as part of a job, a few years ago. Just standard business stuff, nothing exciting.”

“He was trying to figure out what to get you for your birthday,” Elyaas said in what was probably intended to be a sweet tone, but just sounded like a man choking to death on a whole octopus. “I always knew you two would stay together.”

“No,” said Magnus, “you told me he would always hate me in his heart, and that eventually my father would come for me.”

There was a pause. Elyaas said, “So I guess that didn’t happen.”

“Well, my father did come for me,” admitted Magnus, “but it didn’t go well for him.”

“Is this the demon that was dripping slime all over your apartment that day?” Isabelle said.

“Yes!” said Magnus, pleased that someone else could corroborate his version of events.

“Wait, you’ve met this demon?” Alec was giving Isabelle a look of betrayal.

“We’re all great friends,” enthused Elyaas.

“We are not,” said Magnus firmly. “What are you doing here?”

“Working the front desk,” said Elyaas with a flutter of tentacles that might have been a shrug. “This is the Office of Welcome, where the magistrate—that’s me—evaluates your sins and sends you to your appropriate eternal torment. So are you guys married?” he added eagerly. “Got any kids?”

“We have a kid now,” admitted Alec, against his better judgment.

“That’s wonderful,” said Elyaas. “I do love children.”

“I assume you mean to eat,” said Jace.

Elyaas looked disappointed. “You stepped on my line.”

“Look, Elyaas, it’s good to see you again,” Magnus said, lying. “But we’re trying to find some friends of ours and we really have to go. So whatever the procedure is for getting through here and into Diyu proper, we’re ready to get started.”

“Well…” Elyaas hemmed and hawed. “Nobody’s been through recently, so your friends didn’t come this way. In fact, nobody’s been through at all, ever, since I started working here.” He scratched his head with a tentacle. “I’m not actually sure of the procedure.”

“Can we just kill him and move on?” Jace called out.

“That’s very rude,” Elyaas said. “Just because you’re Shadowhunters doesn’t mean you’re supposed to kill every demon you see.”

“It does, actually,” Clary said, grimacing.

“This puts our relationship in a very different light,” Elyaas told Magnus in tones of disapproval. “I thought we had an understanding. I’ve never been summoned by the same warlock twice before.”

“Twice?” said Alec.

“The first time was way back,” Magnus said. “Like, nineteenth century. Elyaas, I promise I’ll summon you for a chat later. But we really do need to move.”

“Okay, okay. Um.” Elyaas picked up one of the rotting books from the desk and opened it with a tentacle. The front cover fell off and onto the floor, and his tentacle came away with pages stuck to it. “Just give me a moment. Why, why did I never learn to read Chinese?”

“Maybe,” said Alec, “you could just tell us where to go, and we’ll go there, and we’ll tell everyone you totally went through the whole thing with the books and the judgment.”

“And we won’t kill you,” added Jace. “This time.”

Elyaas considered this. “Okay. But you owe me one.”

“No,” said Magnus.

“Okay,” said Elyaas. “I owe you one.”

“Also no.”

“Just go through the door,” Elyaas said, waving his tentacles at a tall door that had appeared in the far wall. “It leads to the Second Court, and so on to the others. Your friends must be in one of them. If not, you’ll eventually get to the center of Diyu and find Sammael, and maybe he’ll help you.”

“Not all demons are as helpful as you, Elyaas,” Magnus said wearily. “We’ll be going.” He headed toward the door next to the desk, deeper into Diyu, and the Shadowhunters followed. Behind the door were more stone steps, and Magnus started down them.

“Thanks for coming by,” Elyaas said cheerfully. As Alec passed him, he added, “So you’re the famous Alec. Hmm.”

“What?” Alec snapped.

“Nothing,” said Elyaas. “I just thought you’d be better-looking, that’s all.”

Alec blinked at him. Behind him, Jace stifled a laugh.

“When I heard how he talked about you, I thought, this guy has to have a ton of tentacles. Hundreds of tentacles! But look at you.” He shook his head sadly. “None at all.”

Alec walked on without further comment.

As they descended the stairs, they could hear Elyaas’s wet voice fading in the distance:

“How would you rate your welcome experience today? Very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, a little satisfied, a little dissatisfied, somewhat…”

AT THE BOTTOM OF THEstairs was a stone archway leading into a second building much like the first. The archway was three times Alec’s height, and its supports were leaning against one another alarmingly. Blocking the way were the remains of two collapsed stone pillars, elaborately carved but now piled in a jumble of hunks of rock, like a gigantic child had been playing with blocks and had failed to put them away.

Magnus seemed ready to magic the stones out of the way, but Alec stopped him. “Let’s just climb over them,” he suggested, and Magnus agreed, though he gave Alec a strange look. Jace had already begun scrambling over the rocks, and the others followed.

The Second Court was in much worse shape than the First. Or maybe it had been more cluttered to begin with. There was a lot more furniture, some carved of stone, some of wood, all shattered and broken—desks, chairs, tables. There were broken tablets and ledgers, rolls of yellowed parchment abandoned in the dirt. Alec picked his way carefully around the detritus and reached down to pick up a cracked slab of wood with the remains of red and gold paint on it. It might have depicted a face, once.

“It’s a battlefield,” Jace said, looking around with a practiced eye; Alec thought he was probably right. Here and there abandoned weapons lay—swords, spears, and broken bows—and at the back of the large open courtroom was another table like the one Elyaas had sat behind, but this one was cleaved neatly in two. Five open doors led in various directions out of the room, in addition to the one they’d come from.

The only fully intact object in the room was an oil painting of a young woman in white, hanging on a wall near the broken desk. It had been painted in watercolor, with delicate brushstrokes. The woman was beautiful, Alec thought, and her brightness seemed out of place in these darkened ruins. The painting was marred only by a tear in the canvas across the woman’s cheek, a scar that would never fade.

Magnus came to stand next to Alec and look at the painting, and as he did, the woman’s face turned within the painting to look at them. Her eyes were empty and white.

“Ack! Evil painting!” Clary jumped back.

The woman’s head rolled eerily on her shoulders within the painting, and when she spoke, it was with a voice like the crackling of dry kindling.

“Welcome, lost souls,” she said. Alec thought perhaps she would say something about how lonely she had been, but she said only, “Here is where your path will be chosen, and you will pass through the ghost gate to your suffering.”

“Great news,” muttered Jace.

“Take heart,” the woman told him, with a smile that revealed long, needlelike teeth. “When your anguish equals the pain you caused in life, you will be released back into the cycle of living and death. I advise you to face your tribulations with courage. You cannot avoid them, so you may as well go to them with your face raised up.”

None of them said anything, and she went on, “All I will require is the standard toll for passage.”

“The standard toll?” said Alec.

“Yes,” said the woman. “Yuanbao are traditional, but these days we also accept the new paper money.”

Magnus groaned. “I assume,” said Alec, “you don’t have any cash on you.”

“I have the change from when I bought some faerie tea cakes earlier,” Clary said, fishing around in her jeans pocket. “Oh, never mind, it’s turned into leaves.”

“We don’t have any money,” Magnus told the painting, “but you see—”

“If you lack payment, you can traverse the Ice Caverns to the Bank of Sorrows,” the woman began.

“We’re not going to have any money in the bank of Hell,” Magnus explained. “We’re not dead, you see.”

The woman looked taken aback. “If no one has sent offerings of money to you, you may be able to claim remaining funds that were sent to your ancestors—”

Magnus interrupted. “We’re not dead! And also, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place is in ruins. Diyu has ceased normal operations. Can’t you see this whole court has fallen down?” The woman didn’t speak for a moment, and he went on, “When was the last time someone came through here?”

“Magnus—” Jace said. He was staring at one of the side doors, looking through it. “Someone’s coming.”

The woman spoke, slower than Alec would have liked. “It has been a long time,” she said, “and the beadles have done a wretched job of keeping it clean.”

“The beadles are gone,” Magnus said. “Their master with them. Yanluo, your Lord, was defeated and driven from this place more than a hundred years ago.”

“I don’t get out much,” the woman admitted. “Maybe you are right, but maybe you are a trickster who is trying to sneak through the ghost gate without paying.”

“He is right,” Alec said. “We just came from the First Court. It’s in ruins as well.”

“Guys…,” Jace said, more urgently. He caught up an abandoned dagger and handed it to Clary. Lifting his own spear, he held it in front of him. They all turned toward the source of the noise. Even Alec could hear it clearly now: footsteps, faint but getting louder, running toward them.

The woman in the painting hesitated. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I must demand payment. Even if there are temporary problems in the machinery of Diyu, they will no doubt be fixed soon. Souls cannot simply pile up forever with no place to go.”

“I told you, we don’t have any money,” Alec began angrily, and then stopped, because through a doorway came the source of the footsteps.

It was Tian. He looked as if he’d been through a wrestling match with a bag of razor blades. His clothes were torn and bloody, his hair tangled, his skin covered in cuts and scratches. Over his shoulder was a torn, stained white cloth that had been gathered into a makeshift bundle.

The woman in the painting turned to look at Tian. “Do you have the money to pay the toll?”

“Of course he doesn’t—” Magnus began.

“I do,” Tian said.

“Tian!” Alec said. “Where have you been? How did you get here?”

“We lost you after we left the smiths,” said Clary. “And then the demons attacked.”

“Friends, I have been through an ordeal,” Tian said wearily. Jace hadn’t put his spear away and was watching him suspiciously.

Magnus, too, looked suspicious. “How did you disappear without any of us noticing you?”

“I was seized by demons,” said Tian. “The vanguard of the warlocks’ army. I stepped outside the smithy to make sure all was safe, and great bat-winged demons swooped down and carried me off. They pushed me through a Portal almost immediately and I ended up here.”

“Why didn’t they wait for the rest of us?” Magnus said.

“I don’t think they knew the rest of you were there,” said Tian. “They must have seen me and just thought I was a random Shadowhunter in their way.” He looked around at them, breathing hard. “I’m very glad to see you all again, even if you are trapped here with me. What of the Portal?”

“It’s closed,” said Alec. “For now. But Simon disappeared too, and we need to find him before we can leave.”

“And, ideally, stop Sammael from doing whatever he’s doing,” put in Clary.

“And a whole list of other things, actually,” said Magnus.

Tian breathed a sigh of relief. “I think I can help.” He dumped his bundle on the ground, which made a metallic clank. The fabric fell away to reveal a pile of gold and silver ingots, each about the size of a fist. They were in a variety of shapes—some square, some round, some in the shape of stylized flowers or boats.

“You’ve been to the Bank of Sorrows, I see,” said Magnus, arching an eyebrow.

“I have,” said Tian. “There were quite a lot of offerings to the members of the Ke family over the years that have gone unclaimed. The imps who brought them to me seemed happy to have some business.” He gestured to the pile below him and addressed the woman in the painting, whose sharp teeth were bared in pleasure. “Honored Hua Zhong Xian,” he said, “will these serve as payment for the six of us to pass?”

The woman examined the pile for a moment and then said, “They will.”

“Great,” said Alec with a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Tian.”

“And now the Jiangshi will come to take you to your individual torments,” the woman went on.

Through all six doors began to pour a crowd of humanoid creatures, green-skinned with long white hair, their arms extended before them. Their mouths opened to reveal rows of sharp yellow teeth, and they began to emit a low, plaintive wail.

“So, zombies,” Clary said. “Now we have to deal with zombies.”

“Jiangshi demons,” corrected Tian. “But yes, they are very like zombies.”

“Oh, come on!” shouted Magnus in exasperation, startling Alec. His eyes flashed in fury, and Alec, who had begun reaching back to draw Black Impermanence, stopped and stared as beams of mottled pinkish-red light, the color of watery blood, fired from each of Magnus’s fingers. The beams pierced the Jiangshi, bursting them apart into ichor and ash. Magnus turned, an angry twist to his mouth, and fired beam after beam at the encroaching creatures. Within seconds, they were all destroyed, leaving only a burned smell in the air and the sound of Magnus’s hard breathing.

“Well, damn,” said Isabelle after a moment.

Magnus turned and caught Alec’s eye. For a moment, there was no recognition in his expression. His upper lip was curled, revealing teeth that seemed strange, longer and sharper than usual, and then he seemed to come back to himself. When he saw Alec’s expression, he hesitated. “I… I’m sorry. I got… impatient.”

Jace said, “All right. Now that we’ve—” He was interrupted by a new round of the low, keening cries of Jiangshi. “Oh no.”

More Jiangshi appeared in the doorways, moving inexorably and mindlessly toward them. Alec was about to speak, but Magnus’s fingers lit up with that cruel red light again.

“Wait!” the woman in the painting cried out. Alec thought perhaps Magnus wouldn’t hesitate, but he did, breathing hard but holding himself back as she went on: “They will keep coming,” she said, “forever, until they are given a soul to take. At least one.”

“Call them off!” shouted Alec.

The woman shook her head. “I cannot. I am a servant, no less than they are. We must serve our functions.”

“I’ll let them take me,” said Tian.

“No,” said Jace sharply. “You’ve studied Diyu, you know more about it than we do. We need you to have any chance of getting through this place. I’ll go.”

“You will not,” said Clary.

“I’ll go,” said Isabelle loudly, in a commanding tone. Her voice rang through the room. Even the Jiangshi stopped moving for a moment.

“Isabelle, you can’t —” Alec started.

“I’m going,” Isabelle said. “I’m going, and I’m going to find Simon. I swear I will.”

She turned and held her arms out to the Jiangshi. A sort of sigh swept through them, like an exhale of relief. They ceased pouring through the doorway.

“She has chosen,” said the Hua Zhong Xian.

Jace whirled to face Alec. “They’ll kill her—”

“No,” said Magnus in a tense, low voice. “This is already a place of the dead. They assume she’s dead. Whatever they do, it won’t be killing her.”

Tears ran down Clary’s face. She didn’t even try to wipe them away. “Isabelle, no.”

“Let her go,” said the painted woman. “Her choice is irrevocable. Should you try to take her back now, worse will come than the Jiangshi.”

“You stay out of this,” Alec snapped at her. He started toward Isabelle, but it was no use—in the blink of an eye, three of the demons had seized his sister. She put up no resistance. Her eyes were fixed on Alec as the Jiangshi marched her toward one of the doors they had come through. Don’t follow me, her gaze said. I love you, but don’t follow me.

“Isabelle,” Alec said desperately, “don’t do this. Please. We’ll find Simon—”

Magnus caught hold of Alec’s shoulder. Isabelle was almost at the door. Jace was gripping the spear in his hand so tightly his fingers had gone white. Clary appeared to be in shock.

“Remember, Lightwood girl,” said the Hua Zhong Xian. “Go to your torment with your head held high.”

Isabelle turned and regarded her. “I swear upon the power of the Angel,” she said in a clear voice, “that I will return. I will return, and we will tear down this place. We will scatter the undead to the winds. And I will, personally, tear you into ribbons.”

Then she was gone.