The Red Scrolls of Magic

by Cassandra Clare

  Shinyun carefully moved Magnus’s phone, which he had set on the side of the tub, out of the way as she reached for a hand towel. She wiped her face, which she did not actually need to do. She was clearly buying herself time.

  “Did you get anything?” Magnus asked. “From your contact, I mean.”

  “I did,” said Shinyun slowly. “But first I have a confession to make. I overheard your conversation the other night, about how you killed your stepfather.”

  Magnus had been speaking in a low voice. “So you eavesdropped. Magically eavesdropped,” he added.

  “I was curious,” said Shinyun with a shrug, as if this excused her. “And you’re famous, and you work closely with the Nephilim. I thought you had no problems, that you lived a life of careless luxury. I didn’t think you were like me.”

  She bowed her head. In this moment, there was an earnestness to her that Magnus hadn’t seen before. She seemed more vulnerable, more open, and it had nothing to do with the fact that they were both sitting mostly naked in a hot tub.

  She looked up at him. “Do you need a drink?”

  He didn’t, particularly, but he sensed she might want one. “Sure.”

  A silver platter appeared a few seconds later with a bottle of Barbera d’Asti and a couple of large balloon glasses. Shinyun poured for each of them and floated Magnus’s glass over to him. They touched glasses.

  She was struggling with her words. “I know your story now. It is only fair you know mine. I was lying to you before.”

  “Yes,” Magnus said. “I thought you might be.”

  Shinyun drained her glass in one gulp and set it aside.

  “When my demon mark manifested, my betrothed did not love me despite everything. My family rejected me—the whole village rejected me—and so did he. Men came with shovels and torches and cries for my life, and the person I’d always thought was my father handed me over to the mob. My beloved was the one who placed me in the wooden box to be buried alive.”

  Shinyun slid down in the tub until she was nearly horizontal, and only her face, still as a death mask, broke the water’s plane. She looked up at the marble ceiling. “I can still hear the dirt falling on the coffin, like the heavy drumming of rain on rooftops during a typhoon.” She curled her fingers beneath the surface of the water. “I clawed until my hands were raw.”

  Magnus could hear the scratching sounds of fingernails on wood as Shinyun wove magic around her tale. He could feel the walls closing in on him and the shortness of breath in his lungs. He took a gulp of wine to soothe his throat and set the glass aside.

  “ ‘Seek the children of demons. Love them as you love your lord. Do not let the children be alone.’ They dug me up. Together, we slaughtered every soul in my village. We killed them all. I did worse later, at the Crimson Hand’s behest. They told me to trust them. I was so grateful. I wanted to belong.”

  “I’m sorry,” Magnus whispered. Shinyun is me. She is my dark mirror.

  “I know,” Shinyun said. “The Crimson Hand always spoke of you, their lord who would return. They said we should make you proud, when the time came. I used to long for you to come back. I wanted you to be my family.”

  “I would have been,” said Magnus. “But I didn’t remember the cult. I didn’t know anything about you. If I’d known, I would have come.”

  “I believe you,” said Shinyun. “I trust you. My whole life, I was taught to trust you.”

  Magnus picked his glass up. “I promise I will do whatever it takes to help you, and to put an end to this.”

  “Thank you,” she said simply.

  They settled back into the tub. “I met with my informant,” Shinyun said, her voice returning to its usual businesslike demeanor. “She suggested a meeting place in Rome where the Crimson Hand are meant to assemble. She said their leader had been seen there recently.”

  “Did she say if it was Barnabas Hale?”

  “She didn’t know his name,” said Shinyun. “This is all secondhand. Nobody from the cult will talk. Not after what happened to Mori Shu.”

  “We should tell Alec,” said Magnus.

  “We can send him a text message,” Shinyun said, “but not from within the baths; there’s no reception here. I didn’t want to tell him before I told you and . . . you and I were able to have a word in private.”

  Magnus was briefly annoyed, but it seemed petty to quibble when Shinyun had just told him about being buried alive.

  “No time like the present,” he said. He stood and waved a hand, and his wet towel transformed itself into jeans and a dark blue shirt scattered with yellow stars. He retrieved his phone and frowned at it; the screen seemed to be frozen.

  Shinyun cast her own spell, and her towel began to snake all over her body, drying her off. When it was finished, it dropped to the floor. She was already dressed underneath, wearing the same black armored business suit she’d worn in Venice. She patted her waist and thigh, checking for two knives that disappeared as quickly as she pulled them out.

  Satisfied, she motioned to the door. “After you.”

  Magnus turned his phone off, rebooting it. What a time for it to break down. Still, there were plenty of ways to get a message to Alec. Soon they would be together again; soon they would find and stop the leader of the Crimson Hand. Soon they could be done with all this.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  * * *

  Fire in the Crimson Hand

  MAGNUS WAS LATE.

  Before they had gotten a block away from the Rome Institute, Alec received a curt message from Shinyun telling him that Magnus’s phone wasn’t working. She had gotten a tip from one of her local contacts, and she and Magnus were headed to a specific location in a forest somewhat outside the city.

  She didn’t explain why Magnus was with her or where they had been. When Alec shared the information with Helen and Aline, they all agreed it made sense to meet up with Magnus and Shinyun at this rendezvous—it was more current information than what Mori Shu had given Helen, and even if it turned out to be a dead end, at least they’d all be in one place.

  As time ticked by, Alec wondered whether Shinyun and Magnus had somehow gotten lost, or he’d misunderstood the direction. He’d been sure they would arrive by now, or that he would have heard from Magnus if there was a problem.

  He felt thrown off-balance by having heard from Shinyun on Magnus’s behalf. He checked the time again and looked to see the sun lost behind the trees. Evening was rushing upon them like an enemy, and there was only so much witchlight could do in a thick forest. He eyed the line of trees; he couldn’t see farther than a few feet.

  The forest felt haunted. Giant gnarled branches huddled close together, some intertwining like lovers, making it difficult to stray far past the narrow dirt path. Blossoming canopies masked the sky. Shadows of leaves danced with the wind.

  “Can’t cultists get a room?” Aline grumbled. “Like, in town?”

  It had rained earlier, so the ground was a wet, slippery slush, making traversing the terrain difficult and messy. Aline in particular was struggling, having worn shoes more suited to sitting at a café than tracking evildoers.

  “Here, try this.” Helen took out a knife and sliced two long pieces of bark off the nearest tree. She got down on one knee in front of Aline and cupped her heel. Aline froze in place as Helen gently raised Aline’s leg and tied the bark to the bottom of her foot. She repeated the operation on the other foot. “There, now you’ll have better traction.”

  Aline’s eyes were very wide. Alec noted disapprovingly that she did not even say thank you.

  Helen took the lead, and Alec lengthened his stride to keep up with her. His sneakers were sliding in the mud too, but nobody had offered him bark shoes. Helen’s footstep was lighter than his or Aline’s. She did not move exactly like a faerie. Alec had seen them walk without crushing a blade of grass. Yet she wasn’t sliding in the mud like they were either. Under the movements of a warrior was the shadow of faerie grace.

&nb
sp; “The bark shoes aren’t a faerie trick, if that’s what you two are thinking,” Helen snapped at Alec as he drew level with her. “I learned it from Shadowhunters in Brazil.”

  Alec blinked. “Why would we be thinking that? Look, I’m sorry if Aline is being weird. It’s my fault. I told her about what happened on the night of the party in Venice—I mean, how I first saw you with the Downworlder girl.”

  Helen snorted. “Don’t you mean the other Downworlder girl?”

  “No,” said Alec. “You’re a Shadowhunter. I’m really sorry. I was worried about Magnus, and I’m bad at lying. There was a time I would have hated if anyone told a stranger about me.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Helen. “It’s not a secret that I like girls as well as boys. Too bad if it bothers Aline.” She sneaked a look at Aline over her shoulder, then shrugged. “Pity. That girl is hot like hellfire.”

  Alec ducked his head and smiled. He was a bit surprised, but it was nice to talk with Helen about this, to see how calm and fearless she was.

  “Probably,” he said. “I wouldn’t know.” He added shyly, “I think my boyfriend’s pretty hot, though.”

  “Sure, I saw him,” said Helen. “I see why you lost your head. I just don’t trust him.”

  “Because he’s a Downworlder?” Alec’s voice was hard.

  “Because I have to be more objective when assessing Downworlders than anyone else does,” said Helen.

  Alec looked over at her, the curve of her ears and the faint luminous sheen to her skin beneath her Shadowhunter runes. Against the backdrop of a forest, Helen looked even more like a faerie.

  “You sure you’re being objective?”

  “I think Magnus Bane founded this cult,” said Helen. “Which makes him the obvious suspect for their leader. From everything people say, this leader is a powerful warlock. There are maybe a dozen warlocks in the world who fit the bill. How many of them were at the party?”

  “Malcolm Fade,” said Alec.

  Helen snapped, “It wasn’t Malcolm!”

  “It wasn’t the warlock you trust,” said Alec. “I see. How about Barnabas Hale?”

  Helen came to a halt, right there in the sliding mud and gathering dark.

  “He was there?” she asked. “He wasn’t on the guest list.”

  “He crashed the party,” said Alec. “So hard the mansion fell down.”

  “I knew Malcolm fought with another warlock,” Helen murmured. “I was so busy trying to get people out, I didn’t see the fight. I figured it must have been Magnus Bane.”

  So there was another reason Helen was so down on Magnus. She’d wanted to protect Malcolm, her own local High Warlock.

  “It wasn’t Magnus,” said Alec. “He got in the middle to stop the fight. He tried to get people out. Just like you did.”

  Helen took a moment to absorb this. Alec was glad to see she didn’t know everything, and even more glad she seemed to be willing to consider taking this new idea to heart. Maybe, with Helen and Aline to help him, they could inquire discreetly about Barnabas among the Shadowhunters.

  “I don’t know any of those warlocks,” Aline announced. “But I think this might be the meeting place.”

  She pointed at a small clearing a few steps away from the path.

  It did not take a Shadowhunter to tell that the area was being used for occult activity. The burned-in pentagram in the dirt at their feet was a dead giveaway, but there was more. There was a makeshift altar with two fire pits on either side and several slashes on the trees nearby that were reminiscent of claw marks. There was also a deep circular indentation pressed into the dirt. Helen walked to the edge of the clearing and checked in the bushes. She pulled out a beer keg and rolled it across the grass.

  “Whoa,” said Aline. “The evil cultists like to party?”

  “Partying hard is one of their sacred rules,” said Alec. Helen gave him a puzzled look and he explained, “The Red Scrolls of Magic. It’s their sacred text. I’ll, uh, loan you my copy.”

  He passed the phone, with the pictures Isabelle had sent, over to Aline, who then passed it to Helen without Alec’s permission.

  Helen frowned. “The last commandment is not to let children be alone,” she said. “That sounds . . . strangely nice. For a cult.”

  “It is nice, isn’t it?” Alec asked blandly.

  Everything about Magnus was strange, but nice. Alec did not say this, since Helen would take it as a confession.

  “Mori Shu was murdered by vampires,” Helen Blackthorn said sharply. “Neither Malcolm nor Barnabas Hale nor Hypatia Vex, the only other warlocks in the vicinity I know of with anything like enough power, have any particular affiliation with vampires. Whereas Magnus Bane is well known to have strong ties, and even romantic entanglements, with some of the worst vampires of the New York clan—several of whom were at the party where Mori Shu and I were supposed to meet up. The party where Mori Shu was killed, before he could tell anyone what he knew.”

  Alec scoffed silently at the idea of Magnus having romantic entanglements with vampires, especially criminal ones. He had seemed to regard Lily and Elliott and the others as amusing children.

  Although it was true he knew very little about Magnus’s love life. Magnus had opened up a great deal about his past on this trip, but not that part.

  He pushed the thought away. “Raphael and Lily didn’t murder anyone at that party.”

  “Who are they?” Helen demanded. “Are they vampires?”

  “Raphael Santiago is definitely a vampire,” said Aline, when Alec hesitated.

  “Close with them too, are you?”

  “No,” said Alec.

  Helen and Aline were surveying him with identical expressions of worry. Alec did not need them to tell him how bad this all looked. It looked bad.

  Magnus was still nowhere in sight. The forest was a maze, and the light was dying. He swept his gaze across the trees. It wouldn’t be long before they were veiled in darkness. Night was when demons came out, and when Shadowhunters did their work. Alec would not have minded the dark, except that he wanted Magnus to find them.

  Something else nagged at him, a worry under an ocean of worries. It was like taking a blow across the face and feeling, under the wash of pain, the consciousness of a loose tooth.

  “Helen,” said Alec. “What did you say the last commandment in the Red Scrolls of Magic was?”

  “To look after the children,” Helen answered, sounding puzzled.

  “Excuse me,” said Alec.

  He retrieved his phone and walked across the pentagram to the other side of the clearing. He had already tried calling Magnus, multiple times. He intended to try someone else.

  The phone rang twice and was picked up.

  “Hello?” Alec said. “Raphael?”

  “They’re not close,” Helen muttered. “Except he calls him to chat.”

  “I know,” said Aline. “Alec seems so guilty. I swear he’s not, but everything he’s doing looks really bad.”

  “Lose this number,” Raphael’s voice snapped on the other end of the line.

  Alec looked around the shadowy clearing at Helen and Aline, who were both shaking their heads sadly in his direction. He was apparently not impressing anybody tonight.

  “I know you’re not crazy about Shadowhunters,” Alec said. “But you did say I could call.”

  There was a pause.

  “That’s just how I answer all phone calls,” Raphael claimed. “What do you want?”

  “I thought this was about what you wanted. I thought you wanted to help,” said Alec. “You said you’d look into the Crimson Hand. I wondered if you’d learned anything. Specifically about Mori Shu.”

  The remains of both fires near the pentagram were still warm, and the candles had last been used only a few hours ago. He knelt next to one of the lines of the pentagram and sniffed the residue: blackened earth with charcoal and salt, but no blood.

  “No,” said Raphael.

  “Right,”
said Alec. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Wait!” Raphael snapped. “Hang on a minute.”

  There was another pause. It went on for a very long time. Alec heard the sound of footsteps on stone, and from far away, the silvery but somehow unpleasant sound of a woman’s voice.

  “Raphael?” said Alec. “Some of us are not immortal. So we can’t stay on the phone forever.”

  Raphael growled in frustration, which was a significantly more alarming sound coming from a vampire. Alec held the phone slightly away from his ear and drew it back when he heard Raphael forming actual words.

  “There is one thing,” said Raphael, and hesitated again.

  “Yes?”

  The silence between Raphael’s words was so empty. Raphael was not breathing in them. Vampires didn’t have to.

  “You’re not going to believe me. This is pointless.”

  “Try me,” said Alec.

  “Mori Shu wasn’t killed by a vampire.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Who was I going to tell?” Raphael snarled. “Just trot up to a Nephilim and say, oh please, sir, the vampires were framed. Yes, a body was found, and yes, it was missing blood, but not anything like enough blood, and yes, there were marks on the neck, but they were marks made by the point of a sword and not fangs, and oh no, Mr. Nephilim, please put the seraph blade away? No Nephilim would believe me.”

  “I believe you,” Alec said. “Were they made with a three-sided sword? Like a samgakdo?”

  There was a pause. “Yes,” Raphael said. “They were.”

  Alec’s stomach tightened. “Thanks, Raphael, you’ve been a lot of help.”

  “Have I?” Raphael’s voice was suddenly even more wary. “How?”

  “I’ll tell Magnus.”

  “Don’t you dare,” said Raphael. “Don’t call me anymore. I have no interest in helping you ever again. Don’t tell anyone about me helping you this time.”