The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare

CHAPTER TWOBetween Air and Angels

WHILE MAGNUS RETURNED MAX TObed, Alec went to put some clothes on. His whole body was still tensed, full of adrenaline and anxiety; he was unsure of what had just happened in his home, or what it meant. Magnus had talked about Ragnor mostly as a figure from his past—his mentor, his teacher, his fellow traveler among the Shadowhunters at various points. He remembered the stoic calm with which Magnus had reacted to Ragnor’s death three years ago. At the time, he’d assumed it represented Magnus’s great existential wisdom, born of a life lived through so many deaths.

Now he wasn’t so sure. When he heard Magnus come into the bedroom behind him he pulled a T-shirt on over his boxers and said, “So you knew about Ragnor? Being alive?”

“Sort of,” said Magnus.

Alec waited.

“I knew he was planning to fake his own death, but—he had promised to be in touch. And he had been in deadly danger. That’s why he’d gone into hiding. When weeks passed, months, a year, two years, I assumed something had gone badly wrong.”

“So first you thought he wasn’t dead,” said Alec. He turned to face Magnus, who looked oddly vulnerable and uncertain. He’d put the black robe back on. “And then you thought he was dead?”

“It was the obvious conclusion,” said Magnus. “And I was right, in a way—he had been caught. Just by Shinyun.” He looked at Alec with intensity. “He was holding Max,” he said quietly. He came over and sat on the end of the bed. “I didn’t—that’s the first—”

He took a moment and then spoke again, the quaver gone from his voice. “There is something quite marvelous about having a child,” he said. “In times of danger, it does focus the mind very well.”

Alec went over to Magnus and put his hands on his boyfriend’s shoulders. “It isn’t just us anymore.”

“I had to hold it together,” said Magnus. “I had to. I had no other option. So I did. Otherwise I would be very shaken up right now.”

Alec gave him a wry smile. “Because Ragnor Fell is alive? Because Shinyun Jung is back in our lives? Because they’re working together? Because they took the Book of the White?”

“Actually,” said Magnus mildly, shrugging off his pajama top and robe, “because Shinyun stabbed me with a mythological stick and I don’t know what it’s done.”

Alec looked. There was a fissure in Magnus’s chest, from which flowered wisps of scarlet flame that dissipated as soon as they appeared. He wondered why Magnus was not more concerned. He himself was very, very concerned. Before speaking, he bent down and grabbed his trousers from the floor.

“It’s called a Svefnthorn, apparently,” said Magnus. The lightness of his tone set Alec’s teeth on edge. What was wrong with Magnus? Was he in shock? “Why are you putting on your pants?” he asked.

Alec held up the cell phone he’d just withdrawn from his pocket. “I’m calling Catarina.”

“Oh, don’t bother her in the middle of the night—” Magnus began. Alec held up a finger to silence him.

A voice still half-buried in sleep came over the phone. “Alec?”

“I’m so sorry to wake you up,” Alec said in a rush. “But—it’s Magnus. He’s been stabbed by a… well, by a big thorn, I guess. Something demonic, definitely. And now he’s got a magical fissure in his chest and there’s a light coming out of it.”

When she spoke again, Catarina sounded completely awake and alert. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t let him do anything.” She hung up.

“She says don’t do anything,” Alec told him.

“Excellent news,” said Magnus. He put his robe back on and lay down on the bed. “That was already my plan.”

Alec grabbed the arrow from where it lay discarded on his nightstand and pulled the scrap of cloth from it.

He’d missed Ragnor with the arrow on purpose. Even in his panic, his rage that his home had been invaded and Max and Magnus threatened, he had recognized the green-skinned warlock as one of Magnus’s oldest friends. He couldn’t hurt him.

So he’d gone for a piece of his cloak instead. He closed his hand around it now.

“I’m going to try to Track Ragnor.”

Magnus’s eyes were half-closed. “Good idea. Great initiative.”

“What do you think they want with the Book of the White?” Alec said. He drew a quick Tracking rune on the back of his hand with his stele. He felt the bit of cloak seem to come alive inside his fist, the strange tickle in the back of his mind that said the rune was working to locate Ragnor Fell.

After a moment, Magnus, eyes still closed, said, “No idea. To practice dark magic in Sammael’s name, I assume. Any news?”

“Yes,” said Alec. “He’s to the west.”

“How far to the west?”

Alec frowned, concentrating. “Very far.”

Magnus opened his eyes. “Hang on.” He got up from the bed with an unexpected alacrity, considering how fatigued he’d looked a moment ago, and went into a desk drawer across the room. He waved a folded paper with excitement. “Here we have an excellent opportunity for warlock-Shadowhunter collaboration. You come here with your rune, and—” He unfolded what turned out to be a map of New York City across the surface of the bed and wiggled his fingers around over it. Then he grabbed Alec’s wrist and wiggled his fingers under that. Then he leaned over and kissed the back of Alec’s hand.

Alec smiled. “How does it feel to kiss an active rune?”

“There’s a little scent of heavenly fire, but otherwise it’s nice,” Magnus said. “Now what do you have, my noble tracker?”

Alec concentrated over the map. “Um, well, he’s to the west of this whole map.”

“Be right back.” Magnus left the room; in a few moments he returned and laid an unfolded map of the whole Northeast over the other map.

“West of all this,” Alec said apologetically.

Magnus came back with a map of the entire United States.

“West,” said Alec. He and Magnus exchanged a look. Magnus left again and this time came back struggling with a gigantic globe of the earth, easily two feet in diameter.

“Magnus,” said Alec. “That’s a bar.” He opened the globe at the hinge, revealing four crystal decanters inside.

“It’s still a globe,” Magnus said, closing it. Alec shrugged and began to move his fist slowly over the globe’s surface. When it came to rest, Magnus squinted to get a look. “Eastern China. Along the coast. Looks like… Shanghai.”

“Shanghai?” said Alec. “Why would Ragnor and Shinyun be in Shanghai?”

“No reason I can think of,” Magnus said. “Maybe that makes it a good hiding place.”

“What about Sammael?”

Magnus shook his head. “The last time Sammael walked the earth, Shanghai was a small fishing village. There’s no connection between them that I know of.” His dressing gown gaped open as he leaned over the globe, and Alec stared again at the place where Magnus’s skin had split open, a grotesque wound, but with no blood, only that eerie light. Magnus caught him looking and primly gathered the collar at his throat. “It’s fine.”

Alec threw up his hands. “Aren’t you concerned at all?” he said. “You have a stab wound. The stab wound is leaking weird magic. That’s serious business. You’re like Jace sometimes. It doesn’t make you weaker to accept help, you know.” He softened. “I’m just worried about you, Magnus.”

“Well, I haven’t become the thrall of Sammael, if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Magnus. He stretched his arms and legs. “I feel fine. I just need some high-quality sleep. We’ll let Catarina confirm that everything’s okay, and then tomorrow morning we’ll go to Shanghai, track down Ragnor and Shinyun, and get the Book back. Easy.”

“We will not,” said Alec.

“Well, someone has to,” Magnus said reasonably.

“We’re not going just the two of us. We need backup.”

“But—”

“No,” said Alec, and Magnus stopped, though he remained smiling. “What happens if I need runes? What happens if Shinyun and Ragnor are too powerful with the Book for us to take on by ourselves? And hey—are we taking Max with us? Because I don’t think we are.”

“I sort of hoped Catarina could watch him,” Magnus said. “For the brief time we’ll be gone.”

“Magnus,” said Alec. “I know you want to solve every problem yourself. I know you hate looking vulnerable—”

“I have help,” Magnus said. “I have you.”

“I will do everything in my power,” said Alec, “and there are lots of things we can do as just us.”

“Some of my favorite things,” Magnus put in, waggling his eyebrows.

“But this could be serious. If we go, we go with backup. I won’t go otherwise.”

Magnus opened his mouth to object, but at that moment, mercifully, the doorbell buzzed, announcing Catarina’s arrival. Alec opened the door for her, and she strode straight past him without a word. She was wearing blue scrubs almost the same color as her skin, and her white hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. As Alec followed her back toward the bedroom, she said, “How long ago did it happen?”

“Not long,” said Alec. “Twenty minutes, maybe. He says he’s fine.”

“He always says he’s fine,” said Catarina. She went into the bedroom and barked, “Take that hideous silk thing off, Magnus, let’s see this injury.” She paused. “Also, why is your bed covered in maps?”

“It’s a perfectly nice robe,” said Magnus. “And we were planning a post-stabbing vacation.”

“We were attacked by Shinyun Jung, the warlock we met in Europe a few years ago,” Alec said. “We were Tracking—anyway, we found out where she is. Looks like Shanghai.”

Catarina nodded; it was clear to Alec this meant nothing to her. He wondered if Magnus was going to mention Ragnor. It was, he thought, definitely up to Magnus whether to share that news. He looked at Magnus, who said only, “She did it with something she called a Svefnthorn.”

“Never heard of it,” Catarina said. “But isn’t this whole apartment full of books about magic?”

Alec said, a little defensively, “I didn’t want to start looking through books before I knew whether Magnus was okay.”

“I’m great,” said Magnus, as Catarina prodded at his temples and then peered closely into one of his eyes.

Alec watched nervously as Catarina examined Magnus. After a few minutes, she sighed. “My official diagnosis is that this wound is definitely not good, and I don’t know how to make it go away. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to be directly harming you at the moment.”

“So what you’re saying,” said Magnus, “is that in your professional opinion, there’s no reason for us not to go directly to Shanghai to find Shinyun and get this cleared up.”

“I am not saying that,” said Catarina. “Alec can do some research in your library and the Institute’s library, and I will look at my own sources in the morning and see what I can find. You should definitely not go haring off to Shanghai with a glowing magical hole in your chest.”

Magnus put up a bit more of a fuss, but in the end, as Alec had known he would, he deferred to Catarina’s wisdom. Once Magnus had promised to take her assessment of the situation seriously, she sighed, ruffled his hair, and headed out.

Alec walked Catarina to the door, where she gave him a long look. “Magnus Bane,” she said, “is like a cat.”

Alec raised his eyebrows.

“He’ll never let you know how much pain he’s in. He’ll put on a brave face, even to his own detriment.” She put her hand on Alec’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here to take care of him now. I worry about him a little less these days.”

“If you think I can make Magnus do what I say,” Alec said with a smile, “you have been sadly misinformed. He’ll listen to me, but he does what he likes. I guess that’s another way he’s like a cat.”

Catarina nodded and said, deadpan, “Also, he has cat eyes.”

Alec gave her a quick hug. “Good night, Catarina.”

Back in the bedroom, Alec found Magnus with his robe back on, digging around under the bed. “What are you doing?” Alec cried.

“Obviously,” said Magnus, eyes gleaming, “we are haring off to Shanghai to find Shinyun and Ragnor.”

“No, we are not,” said Alec. “You promised Catarina you’d take this injury seriously.”

“I am,” said Magnus. “I’m feeling very seriously that getting hold of Shinyun and Ragnor is the best way to start healing up.”

“Maybe,” said Alec. “But right now, we are getting the four hours of sleep we can get before Max wakes up.”

Magnus looked mutinous, but then sighed and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “Hell. We didn’t ask Catarina if she would watch Max while we’re gone.”

“Another reason to wait for morning. We can figure out the plan for Max and gather at least a little information before we go.” Alec waited a moment and then said, carefully, “We could be gone for days, you know.”

Magnus hesitated, then nodded in acceptance. “That’s true. Okay. Tomorrow morning we see who can watch Max for… for days.” He gave Alec an incredulous look that he knew well by now, as it was a look that he gave Magnus too. It was a look that said, How is this our life? How is it so strange, and difficult, and exhausting, and wonderful?

“How has this not come up before?” Alec said. “Having to find someone to watch Max?”

“Well, things have been quiet,” said Magnus.

He was right. It had been a relatively peaceful year—aside from the Cold Peace, of course, which continued to loom over all of Downworld. They had both barely been called away from New York, and certainly not overnight. They had left Max with others, but only for a few hours—a Conclave meeting, a fight breaking out somewhere locally, Downworlder politics gone awry. They had never been away from Max for longer than that. Max had never gone to sleep without them there.

Through force of will, Alec stopped his train of thought before it got too far out of the station. “We will make a plan for Max,” he said, “in four hours.” He threw himself onto the bed and reached out to pull Magnus down next to him. The warlock lay on his side, and Alec curled himself around Magnus, feeling a long exhale leave Magnus’s body as they nestled comfortably together.

The thrum of tension in Alec’s stomach slowed and eventually came to a rest. By the time Chairman Meow appeared from under the bed and perched smugly on top of Magnus’s hip, Magnus’s breathing was even and low. Alec planted a soft kiss on the top of his boyfriend’s head and allowed himself, too, to finally sleep.

IN HIS DREAM MAGNUS RULEDover a ruined world. He sat on a golden throne at the top of a million golden stairs, calling orders in a language he didn’t understand to scurrying gray creatures far below him. He was so high that clouds floated by on the stairs below his throne, and beyond the stairs he could see the sun, bloated and red, reflected in flames on the surface of a vast flat ocean.

No other people were there. Other than the bedraggled, beaked gray things that lurched below him, he was alone. Slowly he stood up and walked, curious, down a few of the stairs. He thought that if he descended far enough, he would be able to see himself reflected in the ocean below.

He kept walking down the stairs, although when he glanced over his shoulder the throne barely seemed to recede behind him. Eventually he looked down at the surface of the sea and beheld himself. He was gigantic, he realized—fifty feet tall, a hundred feet tall. His cat’s eyes were huge and luminous. There was no sign of the wound in his chest that the Svefnthorn had made. Instead the skin of his chest was rough, textured, thick like the hide of an animal. He raised his hands up in front of him, palms out, and noted with some interest the huge curving claws at the ends of his fingers.

“What is this for?” he yelled. “Why would I be in this place?”

The gray creatures all stopped as one and turned to gaze at him. They spoke to him, but he couldn’t understand them. They seemed either to greatly love him or to be greatly frightened of him. He couldn’t tell which. He didn’t want either.

MAGNUS KNEW HE HAD SLEPTlate when he awoke and saw the angle of the sunlight on the wall. He found the other side of the bed empty and concluded that Alec had decided to let him sleep in before their departure.

He found his robe, blinked the sleep from his eyes, and went into the kitchen, where Jace Herondale was pouring coffee into Magnus’s I’M KIND OF A BIG DEAL mug.

Magnus was glad he had not wandered out into the kitchen naked. “Don’t you have your own coffeepot?” he said blearily.

Jace, blond hair in its usual, preternaturally excellent state, flashed him a winning smile that Magnus was not prepared to deal with before he, too, had some coffee. “I hear you got stabbed by a weird Norwegian thorn,” Jace said. “Also, do you have any soy milk? Clary’s doing a whole soy milk thing now.”

“What are you doing in my apartment?” said Magnus.

“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 BUTClary. 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 chains. 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.