Alec had seen a Shadowhunter jump flames this high once before, but he was not Jace, and he couldn’t do it.
“Oh, by the Angel,” said Helen.
Alec assumed she was just bemoaning their situation, but when he glanced at her he saw her eyes were closed. Her hair streamed in her face, a silver mirror that almost reflected the firelight.
She said, “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
“How could this possibly be your fault?” Aline asked.
“Mori Shu sent me a message asking for protection because he was being hunted by the leader of the Crimson Hand,” said Helen in a rush. “He came to Paris to find me. He picked me, specifically, because my mother was a faerie. He thought I would be more worried about the faerie deaths and more sympathetic to Downworlders. I should have taken Mori Shu into protective custody. I should have told the Paris Institute everything, but instead I tried to deal with it on my own. I wanted to find the leader of the Crimson Hand and prove I was a great Shadowhunter, and nothing like a Downworlder at all.”
Aline pressed a hand to her mouth as she watched Helen. There were tears sliding down Helen’s face, under her long curling eyelashes. Alec kept his eyes moving, checking on the pillars of flame, which seemed content to simply trap them here until, probably, something worse showed up.
“But from the start, I kept messing up,” Helen went on. “I was meant to meet with Mori in Paris, but instead the Crimson Hand caught up with him and sent demons to kill us. Mori Shu fled. Leon was following me around, and we both would’ve been killed by the demons if Alec hadn’t intervened. I still didn’t ask anybody for help. Maybe Mori Shu would still be alive if I had. I didn’t go to the head of the Paris Institute, or the head of the Rome Institute once Mori Shu pointed me there. Now we’re caught in a trap, waiting to die, all because I didn’t want to tell anybody that a warlock had chosen me. I didn’t want the Clave to think of me as any more of a Downworlder than they already do.”
Aline and Alec exchanged a glance. Just because Valentine’s crusade for Shadowhunter purity had been defeated didn’t mean the bigotry he represented had ended. There were people who would always believe Helen was tainted by her Downworlder blood.
“There’s nothing wrong with Downworlders,” said Alec.
“Tell the Clave that,” Helen said.
Aline said, unexpectedly loudly, “The Clave is wrong.” Helen looked up at her, and Aline swallowed. “I know how they think,” she continued. “I didn’t shake a Downworlder’s hand once, and then he became one of the”—Aline darted another glance at Alec—“one of the Downworlder heroes of the war. I was wrong. The way they think is wrong.”
“It has to change,” Alec said. “It will change.”
“Will it change in time for my brothers and sisters?” Helen demanded. “I don’t think so. I’m the oldest of seven. My brother Mark has the same faerie mother as I do. The others have a Shadowhunter mother. My father had only just married a Shadowhunter woman when Mark and I were sent to their home. That Shadowhunter woman could have scorned us. She loved us instead. She was so good to me when I was small. She always treated me exactly like her own. I want my family to be proud of me. My brother Julian is so smart. He could be Consul one day, like your mother is now. I can’t stand in the way of what he could accomplish—what they all could accomplish.”
As though they weren’t in imminent danger of their lives, Aline went over to Helen and took one of her hands.
“You’re on the Council, right?” she asked. “And you’re only eighteen. You’re already making them proud. You’re a great Shadowhunter.”
Helen opened her eyes and gazed at Aline. Her fingers curled around Aline’s. Hope glowed in Helen’s face, then flickered and failed.
“I’m not a great Shadowhunter,” she said. “But I want to be. If I’m great, if the Clave is impressed with me, then I belong. I’m so afraid they will decide I don’t.”
“I understand,” said Aline.
Alec did too. He and Aline and Helen all exchanged a look, united against the same lonely fear.
“I’m sorry,” Helen whispered, her voice floating to him soft as smoke.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” said Alec.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell anyone what we were doing or where we were going, and now we’re going to die,” said Helen.
“Well,” said Alec, scanning the treetops, “when you put it that way it does sound bad.” He spotted a section of a wall of fire that was sputtering slightly where it ran over a swampy portion of ground. The flames there were a little lower than the other barrier walls.
“Just in case we do die,” Aline said, “I know we just met, Helen, but—”
“We’re not going to die,” Alec broke in. “Helen, how high can you jump?”
Helen blinked and came back to herself. She set her shoulders and studied the flames. “I can’t jump that high.”
“You don’t have to,” said Alec. “Look.” He charged at the space between two of the pillars and, as before, the flames bent to block him.
“So?” said Aline.
“So,” said Alec, “I do that again, and then one of you jumps the flames while they’re lowered to block me.”
Helen surveyed the flames. “That’s still going to be a hard jump.” Her face hardened with resolve. “I’ll do it.”
“I can do it,” said Aline.
Helen put her hand on Aline’s shoulder. “But I got us into this, and I’m going to get us out.”
“You’ll only have a second or two,” said Alec, backing up to make the run. “You’ll have to be right behind me.”
“I will be,” Helen said.
An instant before Alec started toward the wall, Aline yelled, “Wait! What if there’s worse on the other side of the flames?”
“That,” said Helen, brandishing yet another seraph blade, “is why I am heavily armed. Sachiel.” A white, familiar light appeared, the glow of adamas a reassuring rebuke to the red, demonic flames around them.
Alec smiled to himself. He was beginning to like Helen. Then he started to run.
He dove for the ground, and felt the heat of the flames as they lowered to block him from escape. He stayed down, rolling, and he heard Aline give a cheer. He sprang up and brushed the dirt off of himself.
There was a small silence.
“Helen?” Aline called uncertainly.
“Demons! Fire demons! They’re demons!” Helen yelled back breathlessly. “The . . . pillars . . . are . . . demons! I’m fighting one of them now!”
Alec only now noticed that one of the flame pillars that had bent to stop him hadn’t returned to its original position. Instead, he realized, he was looking at the back of a huge humanoid form made of flame, on the other side of which, presumably, was Helen.
He and Aline looked at each other. Alec, uncertainly, drew his bow and fired an arrow directly into the center of the next pillar.
The pillar erupted into motion, splitting and shaping itself into a humanoid figure that Alec recognized as a Cherufe demon. The demon roared, flames like a hundred awful tongues in its gaping maw, and charged at Alec, fiery claws extended. It moved with the speed of a wildfire blaze, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
Alec twisted away from the claws, trying to roll in the direction of the gap between his demon and Helen’s, just managing to avoid being disemboweled and flambéed. The world rattled as he hit the ground hard and skidded several feet. Only the sting of a falling ember on his cheek snapped him back to consciousness.
He could only watch, dazed, as a streak of fire hurtled at him through the dark. The demon was coming back for another round.
Then Aline was there, slashing so quickly with her daggers that her arms were a blur. The angel blades had the effect of water on the demon fire, turning it into steam wherever they passed through it. One slash across its lower torso, one up the middle, and one to lop off its flaming arms, and the Cherufe demon disintegrated into a
puddle of magma, ichor, and steam. Aline stood outlined by orange sparks.
She tucked one dagger under her arm and offered Alec her free hand. Helen, singed but unhurt, joined them, appearing through the fading flames of the first demon as it fell into cinders. Together they turned to the other Cherufes, which had all now taken their usual humanoid shape.
Alec dropped to one knee, and three arrows streaked in the air in rapid succession, striking one Cherufe demon in the chest, its wounds spouting jets of flame. It roared and turned toward him, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. He loosed two more arrows, ducked and spun out of the monster’s path, and finished it off with one more arrow in the eye. The demon collapsed like a burning house.
Helen and Aline stood back-to-back in the dark of the forest clearing, the glitter of infernal sparks and the glow from angelic blades surrounding them. Helen finished off another demon with a spin move that separated its torso from its lower half. Alec carefully made his way around the melee, keeping himself at a distance, until he had a clear angle. One arrow took off a Cherufe demon’s arm, then several more caused it to tip over even as it tried to charge Aline. One downward stab of a dagger ended it.
Helen wore down the last demon with a series of quick slashes, puncturing its magma skin until it was shooting small jets of flame from all sides. Aline joined in, ducking a flaming fist and dashing past the demon to sink her blade into its back.
As soon as the last of the Cherufe demons fell, the fire was gone, leaving black scars on the earth and gray smoke drifting into the sky. There were still a few branches burning and pockets of ground smoldering, but there, too, the fire seemed to be slowly dying.
“Helen,” said Aline, panting, “are you all right?”
“I am,” Helen answered. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Alec. “Not that anyone asked.”
He stowed his bow and winced as he moved, but decided he could bear the pain. There was no time to celebrate their victory—he had to figure out where Magnus was, right away.
Helen clucked her tongue. “You are not fine.”
Alec was startled to recognize the expression on her face, half exasperation and half concern, which he knew he wore constantly whenever Jace or Isabelle was reckless. She really was an oldest sister.
Helen sat him down and pulled up his shirt, grimacing when she saw the red blistered wound. She took out her stele, pressed it over the injury, and began to draw an iratze. The outlines of her strokes glimmered gold and sank into his skin. Alec sucked in air through his clenched teeth as ripples of cold strummed his nerves. When the rune’s effects had subsided, there was only a raised red patch of skin left on his chest.
“I was slightly distracted by the walls of flame and our impending deaths,” said Aline. “But, Alec, did you say that the leader of the Crimson Hand told us to be here?”
He nodded. “There was a warlock who traveled with us named Shinyun Jung. She said she was a reformed Crimson Hand cultist and was trying to put an end to them—but I think she’s the leader we’ve been searching for. We need to find Magnus. He’s in danger.”
“Wait,” said Helen. “So you’re saying that your boyfriend isn’t the leader of the Crimson Hand, but you have another travel companion who is? Like, do you always insist on traveling with cultists?”
Alec glanced at Aline for support, but she only spread her hands, as if to indicate that she felt Helen was making a fair point.
“No, I always insist on traveling with cult leaders,” said Alec. He put his hand in the back pocket of his jeans and drew out the silk scarf he’d untied from Magnus’s throat this morning. He remembered that Magnus had kissed his wrist as he loosened the knot.
Alec clenched the silk material in his fist and drew a tracking rune on the back of his hand. It took a moment for the rune to take effect, and then he saw rows of figures all in white, and unclimbable walls. To his shock, he felt fear. He couldn’t imagine Magnus being afraid of anything.
Perhaps the fear he felt was his own.
He also felt a pull, his heart now a compass leading him in a specific direction. Back to Rome. No, not the city, but south of it.
“I found him,” Alec said. “We have to go.”
“I hate to mention this, but we did just escape a death trap,” said Aline. “How do we know we wouldn’t be walking right into another?”
Helen put her hand on Alec’s wrist and held tightly.
“We can’t go,” she said. “I’ve already made too many mistakes, going off on my own, and someone died as a result. We got lucky here. We need reinforcements. We need to go back to the Rome Institute and explain everything.”
“My priority is Magnus,” said Alec.
He knew Helen was only trying to do the right thing. Alec remembered his own deep frustration when his parabatai had started to chase a girl around on all kinds of lunatic death-defying missions. It felt very different now that he was the one in Jace’s shoes.
“Alec,” said Helen. “I know you don’t want to get Magnus in trouble—”
“I’ll go without you if I have to,” said Alec.
He couldn’t go to the Rome Institute. For one thing, he didn’t want to answer a lot of uncomfortable questions—if they were suspicious enough, they might send for the Mortal Sword, to force him to tell the truth. For another thing, he didn’t have time for any of that; he felt very certain that Magnus was in danger already. He needed to keep Magnus’s secret, and he needed to hurry.
He wished Aline and Helen would come with him, but he didn’t even know how to ask. He couldn’t demand that kind of faith from them. He had done nothing to deserve it.
“Of course you want to protect him,” said Helen. “If he’s not guilty, I want to protect him. We’re Shadowhunters. But the best way to protect him, and defeat the Crimson Hand, is to use every resource at our disposal.”
“No,” Alec said. “You don’t understand. Think of your family, Helen. You would die for them, I know. I would die for my family—for Isabelle, for Jace.” He exhaled. “And for Magnus. I would die for him, too. It would be a privilege to die for him.”
He shook off Helen’s hold on his wrist and started off in the direction the tracking rune guided him. Aline darted into his path.
“Aline,” Alec said with vehemence. “I will not risk Magnus’s life. I will not report to the Institute, I will not wait for reinforcements. I am going to get Magnus. Get out of my way.”
“I’m not in your way,” said Aline. “I’m coming with you.”
“What?” Helen cried.
Aline’s reply sounded anything but confident, but it was firm. “I trust Alec. I’m with him.”
Alec did not know what to say. Fortunately, there was no time to talk about emotions. He nodded at Aline and they surged together out of the clearing and toward the forest path.
“Wait,” said Helen.
Aline turned back toward her. Alec barely glanced over his shoulder.
Helen’s eyes were shut. “ ‘Go to Europe, Helen,’ they said. ‘Can’t be a homebody forever, Helen. Get out of L.A., soak up some culture. Maybe date somebody.’ Nobody said, ‘A cult and its demons will chase you around Europe, and then a lunatic Lightwood will lead you to your doom.’ This is the worst travel year anybody has ever had.”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you sometime,” said Aline, looking stricken.
“I’m leaving,” said Alec.
Helen sighed and made a gesture of despair with her seraph blade.
“All right, lunatic Lightwood. Lead the way. Let’s go get your man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
Cursed Daughter
THE PIT TURNED OUT TO be an existing part of the villa, not a new addition by the cult: a circular stone amphitheater sunk into the ground. Stone terraces led down to a grassy circular lawn at its center, on which an elevated stage of rough wooden planks had been constructed. Two sets of stone stairs, opposite each other, allowed
for passage from level ground to the terraces or down to the lawn, and along each terrace wooden benches had been set up. The stage was plain except for several awkwardly planted moonflowers in wildly crisscrossing rows. Most of them must have been crushed by the wooden stage. Cultists had no appreciation for the gardener’s hard work, Magnus thought.
The rows upon rows of benches were filled with cultists. Every seat was taken, and there were more people crowding behind them. Magnus supposed if he had to be a show, at least it was standing room only.
The cultists sat silent and still in their seats. They were dressed alike, in hideous fedoras and casual white business suits, with white shirts and white ties. The cult’s cleaning bills must have been astronomical.
The two men half-escorting, half-dragging Magnus brought him down the stairs, then threw him roughly onto the lawn next to the stage. Magnus picked himself up from his hands and knees, waved at the crowd, and bowed with a flourish.
He did not want to die in this banal pit, surrounded by the pallid ghosts of past mistakes, but if he had to die, he planned to die with style. He would not let any of these people see him crawl.
Shinyun stepped onto the lawn, her clothes starry white in the night’s gloom, and pointed in Magnus’s direction. Bernard, who’d followed behind, lifted a sword to Magnus’s throat.
“Robe him in white,” said Shinyun, “so the mark of the crimson hand will show upon him.”
Magnus crossed his arms and raised his voice and his eyebrows. “You can poison me and throw me in a dungeon. You can beat me and even sacrifice me to a Greater Demon. But I draw the line at wearing a white suit for an evening event.”
Bernard jabbed the blade toward Magnus’s throat. Magnus stared down at the curved sword in contempt. He put a finger on the sharp tip and flicked it to the side. “You’re not going to stab me. I’m the main attraction. Unless you guys plan to sacrifice Shinyun to Asmodeus?”
The Red Scrolls of Magic Page 24
