The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare

CHAPTER FIVEThe Chessboard

MAGNUS ALWAYS STAYED AT THEsame hotel in Shanghai, mostly out of nostalgia. He had largely found nostalgia to be a dangerous drug well kept away from—otherwise he would spend too much of his time nostalgic for when Manhattan still had farmland, or for the court of the Sun King, or for the days when Coca-Cola had real drugs in it. He indulged himself in this case because he had slept in the hotel a few times before it was ever a hotel, when it was the private residence of the notorious mob boss Du Yuesheng. It was a lavish Western-style villa in the French Concession, all classical white columns, stone wreaths, and pillared balconies curled around with gold. Du had bought it in the 1930s for, Magnus was sure, the main purpose of throwing the city’s most scandalous parties, and Magnus made it to quite a lot of cities’ most scandalous parties in the 1930s. Du Yuesheng had been a dangerous, violent man, but extremely intelligent: far too intelligent to suppose Magnus had any interest in opium. They usually talked about opera, and opera singers.

Now, decades after his death, it was the Mansion Hotel. It reminded Magnus of an earlier time—not a better time, just an earlier time. But who might stay in the Mansion Hotel today who remembered it as it was? Only the very oldest mundanes, if any remained. The place was decorated with relics of bygone, more decadent days: an old opium pipe, a phonograph that still played opera from crackling speakers, sepia photographs on the walls that Magnus had magically removed himself from, deep velvet chairs, and carved ebony cabinets. It was a great pleasure to sweep in through the gates and up the steps, past small stone guardians and fountains, and approach the opulent crystal-white facade with anticipation.

Magnus looked over at the others. They had iratzed and otherwise cleaned themselves up, but were still bedraggled enough from the fight that they’d kept their glamours on and waited outside as he went by himself to check in.

Magnus returned with keys dangling from his fingers, and they split into three groups. Magnus had booked a balcony suite for himself and Alec; he opened the door with a flourish.

Alec looked around consideringly. Magnus couldn’t help but remember the young man Alec had been when they’d first visited Venice, the way he’d touched everything in their hotel room with wondering, surprised fingers.

Now he smiled. “It’s very you.”

Magnus laughed. “Because it’s opulent yet tasteful?”

“That, but—I’m sure there are plenty more over-the-top hotels in Shanghai. More jewels, more gold, more glitter.”

“I’m not always over-the-top,” Magnus protested, sitting down on the end of the bed.

“Exactly,” Alec said, and leaned over to kiss him. “This hotel feels like a piece of the past. Not modern glass-and-steel Shanghai, a different place. Not quieter or less, just—different.”

Magnus felt his heart swell up with love for this man who understood him so well. But all he said was, “It’s way better than whatever barracks the Institute would put you in—”

Alec had thrown his jacket over a chair as they came in, and now whipped his shirt off. He grinned as it came over his head.

“Well,” said Magnus, “my evening is looking better and better.”

“It’s a good thing you think scars are sexy,” Alec said. He brushed at his arm and made a face. “I feel like I rolled in snake demon. I need a shower. Be right back? Hold that thought?”

Magnus pulled him down for another kiss, then, just for good measure, planted another one on the side of his jaw. Alec inhaled, his eyes closing. He bit Magnus gently on the lower lip and drew away. “Shower.”

Relenting, Magnus fell back on the bed and let his eyes close.

The last time he’d been in Shanghai, it had been in 1990, with Catarina. It was the first time he’d set foot in the city since things had become bad there, in the 1940s, and stayed bad through the fifties and sixties and seventies. A family of Sighted mundanes had found and adopted a young warlock, only a toddler, and they desperately needed someone to teach them how to parent a Downworlder. The warlocks of Shanghai at the time were a strange lot, scholars obsessed with Chinese astrology and disinterested in the problems of a stray child; they would have just taken her away from the mundanes and left her to run in the streets of the Shadow Concession, taken care of by whatever Downworlders were around. Concerned parties had found Catarina, and she had convinced Magnus to come with her as an interpreter, and, Magnus suspected, because she was worried about him.

The warlock child was a scared-looking girl with huge bat ears, maybe three years old. When she saw Magnus for the first time, crowded into the tiny kitchen with her new parents and Catarina, she burst into tears, which did not strike him as a great start.

So he kept his distance while Catarina talked with the parents. Luckily, they knew about Downworld already, and Magnus found himself writing down lists in Chinese of magical supplies as Catarina rattled off her recommendations in English. When there was a pause, he tried to flash a smile at the child—apparently named Mei—who ducked behind her mother’s leg.

Was it his eyes? He returned to translating for Catarina, feeling self-conscious. A rare experience for him.

At some point the parents went into a different room of the house, apparently to discuss the situation with an older relative who wasn’t in good enough health to emerge. They asked Catarina if she would watch Mei, and of course she agreed.

Mei slowly made her way over to Magnus, her eyes wide and her ears twitching slightly. Magnus tried to look as unthreatening as possible. He thought it was going fairly well, but then she suddenly shrieked and retreated.

Magnus held up his hands in surrender, and Mei moved back even farther and began to sob.

Catarina made a disapproving sound at Magnus. “What are you doing? Talk to her! Interact with her!”

“She doesn’t like me,” Magnus said. “I think she’s scared of my eyes.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” said Catarina impatiently. “She isn’t scared of your eyes. She just doesn’t know you.”

“Well,” said Magnus, “I’m giving her space.”

Catarina rolled her eyes. “You don’t give toddlers space, Magnus. She’s been alone enough already.” She went over to Mei and got down on her knees to embrace her. Mei immediately stuffed her head into Catarina’s chest, and Catarina just held her there. “This child is very lucky,” she said quietly. “A warlock raised by loving mundane parents is… well, she’s lucky.”

“You’re very lucky, Mei,” Magnus said to Mei in Mandarin, in as gentle a voice as he could muster.

Mei peeked out from where she had buried her face against Catarina and looked at Magnus sideways, considering.

“And one day, you will wield great power!” Magnus said cheerfully.

Mei laughed, and Catarina gave Magnus a long-suffering look. But Magnus was pleased with himself.

“You see?” said Catarina. “It isn’t so hard.”

Magnus sometimes wondered if the girl remembered him. Probably not; he didn’t remember much from when he was only three years old. Why did he care, anyway? He’d spent an hour with her, decades ago.

Strange, to touch someone’s life and for them not to remember it.

NOW HE FELT THE BEDsink down next to him, and opened his eyes to discover Alec beside him. Alec’s hair was wet, dripping onto his shoulders, blacker than a spill of ink. “First night without Max in the next room,” said Magnus softly. “For a while.”

“So I guess we can take our time,” said Alec, running his finger under Magnus’s waistband.

Magnus shivered. Clever repartee had deserted him; only Alec had ever been able to undo him so completely, reduce him to stammering component parts that all wanted only one thing.

“I guess we can,” he said. And then there was no talking, for a time. Alec flowed into Magnus’s arms, and he was all warm bare skin and damp hair and kisses that tasted like rain.

They kissed, at first gingerly, like they had when they were newly together, and then with a deepening sense of want. Magnus slid his hands down Alec’s back, palms following the slope of his spine, the hard muscle of his latissimus dorsi. His lips grazed Alec’s cheek, the little place behind his ear that Alec liked. There was something urgent in their connection, something that had been constrained and held back. Magnus reminded himself that there was no child in the next room, no chance that a siren-like wail would pierce the moment and declare it to be abruptly over. He missed Max, very badly. But he had also missed this.

Alec reached for Magnus’s shirt buttons and started to undo them. Magnus focused on distracting Alec while Alec tried to concentrate on fine motor movements. Normally this led to a frustrated tearing off of the shirt, with buttons flying everywhere, which Magnus always enjoyed. This time, however, Alec managed to keep it together, and Magnus shrugged the shirt off one shoulder, then the other. Alec moved down to kiss Magnus’s throat and the top of his chest, and then he stopped.

Magnus opened his eyes. Alec was looking at the wound that the Svefnthorn had given him, a diagonal slash across his heart glowing lightly in a shifting reddish-pink. Alec had seen the wound the night Magnus got it, but he hadn’t been face-to-face with it like this.

Alec continued looking at Magnus’s chest, his head tilted. Magnus regarded him with bemusement. Slowly, thoughtfully, Alec licked his finger, then brought it down, keeping eye contact with Magnus, and traced his wet finger along the length of the wound.

“Does it hurt?” he said hoarsely.

“No,” Magnus said. “It’s just the remnants of magic. It doesn’t feel any different than if it weren’t there.”

Alec reached his hand up to touch Magnus’s face, fingertips brushing from the curve of his eye, trailing down his cheek, curling under his jaw so Magnus was held still for a moment. Then Alec let out a long breath. Magnus hadn’t even noticed the tension Alec was holding, but he felt when it dissipated and the taut line of Alec’s shoulders eased.

Magnus found himself sitting up again. He balled up the shirt, now totally free of his body, and tossed it aside. He reached for Alec and gathered him into his lap, and Alec kissed him again. Magnus wove a hand through Alec’s hair and tugged a little to bring him even closer, catching Alec’s sharply torn breath in his own mouth. The kiss went from light to heat. Magnus curled two fingers into the knot holding Alec’s towel together, and sealed the space between them, so not even the moonlight through the curtains could slide between their bodies. Alec didn’t break that craving, clinging kiss as his hands slid up Magnus’s arms and their kisses grew wilder, a savage accompaniment to the sweet interplay of touch and heat and pressure.

Their bodies pressed together hard. Magnus’s head was full of smoke and his skin alive with fire as he reached down and deftly peeled away Alec’s towel. The towel quickly went the way of the shirt.

“We’re still us,” Alec whispered to Magnus, and Magnus felt a wave of love and desire go through him, fervent desire. They loved Max, they loved him more than life itself, but it was also true: they were still them.

“To always being us,” Magnus murmured, and pulled Alec down onto the bed with him.

AFTERWARD, THEY LAY IN EACHother’s arms, breathing together quietly. Moonlight came in through the window, and the ambient glow of the French Concession outside. An unknown amount of time passed, and then Magnus heard Alec’s muffled voice: “I hate to spoil the mood, and I would honestly be happy just staying here and not moving ever again, but… I need to sleep, or we’re going to have to fight through demons and jet lag.”

“I’ve got it,” Magnus said, and he raised his hand in the air and waved it, making whorls of golden dust in the air that, he knew, would settle upon them gently and lull them into an easy slumber.

Or that was the plan, anyway. Instead Magnus felt a jolt of magic burst into his hand from the warm node in the center of his chest, and way more sleep dust than he’d intended appeared in the air, then fell in a clump directly onto their faces. Alec sputtered and laughed. “What was that?” he said, his eyes already closed, and then he went limp against the pillow and began to snore gently.

“I seem to be having some issues with calib—” said Magnus, and then he too was asleep.

THE NEXT MORNING MAGNUS WOKEto find himself alone. Alec had gotten up at daybreak, along with the other Shadowhunters, and they had all gone to the Institute. Alec left a note saying he had let Magnus sleep because he seemed to need it—which made Magnus immediately suspicious. After all, he had a more direct connection to the Ke family than any of them; why had they not wanted him to come with them?

He trailed wearily into the bathroom. He splashed water on his tired face and stared into the gold-framed glass above the porcelain-and-walnut sink. The jagged line carved into his chest stared back at him, still emanating its strange light. He was being ridiculous, he told himself—Alec was always forthright with him, and if he said he let Magnus sleep because he seemed to need the sleep, then he was surely telling the truth.

The velvet curtains were tightly shut across the tall balcony doors, the rattle and purr of the busy city morning muffled. The dimness made everything look shadowy, even Magnus’s eyes. He opened the curtains and squinted into the light.

He put on clothes—Shanghai was hot and muggy, as always, so Magnus opted for white linen pants, a guayabera, and a white Panama hat—and went downstairs, wondering if it was too late for breakfast. Attached to the hotel was an enclosed garden, its walls tall, white, and adorned with loops of white stone made to resemble wrought ironwork. He found himself wandering out into it, enjoying the sun on his face. Tourists wandered the graveled paths, elegantly dressed; Magnus counted at least ten languages being spoken in his immediate vicinity. Deep red flowers grew on bushes here, dark green leaves offering up their hearts to the sky. Branches from other trees curved over the walls as if they wanted to enter the garden too. There were benches scattered about, and a stone bridge in an angular geometric pattern, leading to a little green-and-yellow pagoda open to the elements and guarded by a stone creature.

On the bridge was Shinyun.

In a major change from her usual, more traditional clothes, she had gone for razor-sharp tailoring and a blood-red business suit. The Svefnthorn was strapped to her back, its ugly twisted point jutting out behind her head.

This, Magnus thought, was a lot to deal with before coffee.

“Magnus!” Shinyun called to him sharply. “Stay there.” She glanced around. “Or I’ll have to hurt one of these nice little traveling folks. What does one call them? Tourists.”

Magnus weighed his options. They were grim. None of the tourists had turned to look at Shinyun when she spoke: he expected she was glamoured. He could try to lunge in with some warding magic, but at least a few mundanes were likely to be hurt or killed even so, and he wasn’t sure of the current extent of Shinyun’s powers.

He didn’t move as Shinyun approached. Quietly, he began to surround himself with wards. He could at least protect himself from another thorning.

“If you want to fight,” said Magnus lightly, “I’ll have to put you on my calendar. I can’t possibly do anything before I’ve eaten.”

“It needn’t come to that if you don’t do anything stupid,” she said. “I just want to talk.”

“If you want to talk,” said Magnus, “you’d better be ready to talk over breakfast.”

Shinyun drew herself up with dignity and said, “I am.” She brought out a plastic bag from within her purse. “Do you like ci fan?”

“I do,” said Magnus, eyeing the little parcels of glutinous rice. “I like them very much.”

A few minutes later found them seated on benches in the garden. It was a fine morning, sunny and breezy. The osmanthus flowers were blooming in Shanghai, and the wind brought their gentle scent, a little like peach or apricot. He chewed a mouthful of pork and pickled vegetables and felt a little better. Unfortunately, this reminded him that he was breakfasting with an unstable person, who had stabbed him the last time they’d met, with a weapon she currently had with her, and who, if Clary’s dream meant anything, might try to stab him again. On the other hand, at least he was pretty sure the breakfast was not poisoned.

Magnus popped another ci fan into his mouth and checked his protective wards. They were still in place. A charging rhino shouldn’t be able to get through them.

“How did you find me?” he asked around a mouthful. “I ask only out of professional curiosity.”

“We have been in Shanghai for months,” Shinyun said. “Obviously by now we’ve assembled a team of secret informants throughout the city.”

“Obviously,” murmured Magnus. If it turned out that he and his friends hadn’t been able to find Ragnor only because he was more successfully tracking them, he was going to be very annoyed. He hoped the others hadn’t encountered Ragnor on their way to the Institute or anything. On the other hand, he also hoped they didn’t come back before he figured out how to get rid of Shinyun. “So, uh—how’s your evil master? How are his evil plans going?”

“Sammael’s only counsel is his own,” said Shinyun. “I follow his lead without question. It’s very relaxing, actually.”

“So you don’t even know what he’s trying to do? Do you know why he wanted the Book of the White? Do you know why he wanted Ragnor?”

“Oh, that’s easy enough.” Shinyun took a bite. “He wanted Ragnor to find him a realm. And Ragnor did. A while ago. But by then he’d come to accept Sammael’s victory and became his willing minion.”

“His willing minion?” said Magnus, eyeing the Svefnthorn. “That doesn’t sound like the Ragnor Fell I know.”

“Sammael is not like other demons,” Shinyun said. She regarded Magnus thoughtfully. “You think I’m a fool, tying my fortunes to the Serpent of the Garden.”

“No, no,” Magnus protested. “Serpent of the Garden, he sounds very trustworthy.”

“It’s not a matter of trust,” Shinyun said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay,” said Magnus. “What are you doing?”

“Here on Earth,” Shinyun said, “power is a complicated, strange thing. Humans grant one another power; it’s exchanged, it’s gained and lost—it’s all very abstract. But out there—” She gestured above her.

“In the sky?” said Magnus.

“Out beyond our own world, in the worlds of demons and angels and whatever else is out there. Out there power is not some abstract piece of human culture. Power is power. What we here on Earth call magic is just power by another name, power wielded here in this realm.”

“And you want power,” Magnus said. Despite himself, he was a little interested. He had always known there were Princes of Hell and mad archangels out there, playing with humanity as if with a chessboard. This was like a peek into the gaming room.

“Power is all anybody can ever want,” said Shinyun. “Power is the ability to choose what happens, to will something and have it come to pass. Ideals humans talk about—having freedom, meting out justice—these are all just power by other names.”

“You’re wrong,” Magnus said, but gently. “And even if somewhere, out in some primordial abyss, you’d be right, it doesn’t matter. Because we live here on Earth, where power is complicated and interesting, instead of cosmic and boring.”

Shinyun bared her teeth, a strange sight given the blankness of her expression. “That may have been true of Earth once,” she said, “but then Sammael released cosmic, boring demons all over it, and Raziel released cosmic, boring Shadowhunters to fight them.” She shook her head. “Maybe you can’t understand. You were born to great heritage. You don’t know what it’s like to go through this world in weakness.”

Magnus laughed. “I was born to dirt-poor farmers in an oppressed imperial colony. I’m doing all right now, but—”

“Of course I’m not talking about your mundane parent,” hissed Shinyun. “I’m talking about Asmodeus.”

Reflexively, Magnus looked around; no one was looking at them. No one had tried to sit on their bench, either; glamours were useful that way.

“Any warlock,” Shinyun went on in a quieter but no less intense voice, “who thinks he is more similar to humans than he is to demons, that humans deserve his protection—that warlock is deluding himself. He is not a human. He is a demon gone native.”

“Look,” Magnus said, as she stared bug-eyed at him, “I get it. I get why you would try to find the biggest, baddest demon you can, and make him your protector. But you don’t need to do that. You don’t need to find any demons. You’re a warlock: you already wield magical power that humans couldn’t dream of. And you’re immortal! You’ve got it pretty good, Shinyun. You’re the only one who doesn’t know it. Settle down. Start a family! Adopt a kid, maybe.”

Shinyun said, “Living forever isn’t a power when your life is a tragedy.”

Magnus sighed. “Every warlock’s life starts as a tragedy. There are no love stories in any warlock’s origins. But you get to choose. You choose what kind of world you live in.”

“You don’t,” said Shinyun. “Fish eat smaller fish. Demons eat smaller demons.”

“That’s not all there is,” Magnus insisted. “Shinyun.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “Why did you come to see me? It can’t have been to win this argument.”

Shinyun giggled, a disconcerting segue from her previous attitude. “I came to give you the present I promised you back in Brooklyn. And I wanted to win this argument. And now I can do both at the same time.”

She lunged, her hand a blur of motion; Magnus was already on his feet, his hand upraised, blue fire humming from his palm.

Something stabbed through and through him. He gasped.

He had been ready for Shinyun to thrust with the Svefnthorn, had been braced with magic to block her, but his wards shattered apart like glass as the Svefnthorn drove directly into the wound it had already made in his chest.

A spasm of magic, not quite pain and not quite pleasure, but overwhelming whatever its valence, drove Magnus to his knees. He looked down at the spike sticking out of his chest for the second time. He took a shuddering breath. “How—?”

Looming above him, Shinyun said, in a tone of both satisfaction and pity, “The thorn is already part of your magic, Magnus. Your magic cannot ward against itself.”

She twisted the thorn in his chest, like a key opening a lock.

“You cannot guard against the Svefnthorn.” She twisted it again before finally withdrawing it from his chest. There was no blood on the spike, but Magnus thought he saw it glitter with blue light as she returned it to its scabbard. “Don’t tell me you haven’t looked it up since I told you about it.”

“It’s from Norse mythology, and it puts people to sleep,” said Magnus. “Except obviously it’s somehow connected to Sammael, who isn’t part of Norse mythology, so no, I guess we have only done the barest minimum research so far, now that I say it out loud.”

“Outside of mundane myth,” Shinyun said, “it has quite a history. My first task from Sammael was to recover it from its hiding place and attune it to my master. It was quite an adventure, actually. I faced many perils, and engaged in many small intrigues—”

“Please,” said Magnus, holding up his hand. “I don’t care.” He put his hand to his chest, felt the heat emanating from the wound. The node of magic in his chest continued to thump and beat like a second heart, stronger than before. It felt—well, actually, it felt pretty good.

Shinyun sat herself down next to Magnus where he knelt on the grass. She seemed quite calm. “You’ll come to understand,” she said, as though confiding a secret. “I thorned myself as soon as I was given permission to do so. I have never regretted it. Soon you’ll appreciate what I’ve done for you.”

“If I don’t,” said Magnus, “are you going to stab me again?”

Shinyun shook her head. She seemed excited, as though she’d had to wait a long time to tell Magnus something, and now she was finally getting to do so. “No,” she said. “Now you have a choice. Now you’ll choose to be struck again by the thorn.”

Magnus could tell that she desperately wanted him to ask what she meant. He refused to give her the satisfaction, and just waited silently while Shinyun watched him eagerly.

Finally she said, “Once you’ve tasted the thorn twice—”

“Please don’t say ‘tasted,’ ” said Magnus, put off.

“—you are connected to the power of my master. A third taste—”

“Please,” said Magnus.

Shinyun made an impatient gesture, but she said, “A third wound with the thorn will make you his entirely. He shall become the master of your will, and with your newfound gift, you will serve him.”

Magnus goggled at her. “Why would I ever do that?”

“Because,” she said, almost bouncing on her knees with glee, “if you aren’t wounded a third time, the thorn will burn you from the inside out. You’ll be consumed by its flame. Only by accepting Sammael into your heart can you avoid death.”

Magnus put his hand to his chest again, alarmed. “What?” he said. “So I have to accept Sammael into my heart literally? Or I die?”

“That’s how it works,” Shinyun said. “No magic can reverse the course of the thorn once it has burrowed into you.” She playfully pointed at Magnus’s chest. He slapped her finger away. “Soon enough,” she said, “you’ll realize this is the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

“I would be very surprised,” said Magnus, forcing himself to stand up, “if it made it off the ‘worst things that have ever happened to me’ list. But I’ll keep you posted.” He took a deep breath around the wound and looked at Shinyun. “I thought you’d learn. We tried to help you, we really did.”

“And now I’m helping you,” she said. “The next time we meet, you’ll feel differently. I promise.”

“And when will that be?”

“The time is closer than you think. The time may be closer than even I think.” Shinyun was almost dancing, she was so pleased with herself.

“What does that mean?” Magnus yelled in exasperation. “Why are you so crazy?”

But a blood-red fog had appeared beneath Shinyun’s feet, and it swiftly swirled in a rising cloud to cover her completely. When it dissipated into the morning breeze, she was gone.