“I’m sure Max will be fine,” said Maia.
“Honestly, I’m more worried about my mother,” said Alec.
“I’ll stop by a few times,” Maia said. “I’m sure I can come up with some boring bureaucratic reasons I need to come to the Institute anyway. Um, anyway—” She suddenly looked up and past him. “You have company.”
Alec turned in surprise to see Jace, Clary, Simon, and Isabelle, all in gear and fully armed. They were mostly holding their usual favorite weapons—Simon his bow, Clary her sword, Isabelle her whip. Jace, for some reason, was carrying a kind of spiked flail on a chain. They and Maia waved—Jace waved very carefully, due to the flail—and exchanged hellos.
“We made a pile of our luggage,” Clary said, gesturing vaguely behind her. “So Magnus can teleport it later if we need to stay overnight.”
“Got the Projection working, I see,” Simon said to Maia approvingly. He gave her a thumbs-up.
“Wait—how can you tell she’s a Projection?” said Alec.
“You can totally tell,” Jace said. “You just get a feel for it.”
“You do?” said Alec.
“Yeah.” Simon nodded.
“Huh. What’s with the, uh, flail, Jace?”
“It’s a morning star,” said Clary, in deeply mournful tones.
“Morning stars don’t have chains,” said Alec. “It’s a flail.”
“He wants us to call it a morning star,” said Clary, even more gloomily. “You’re not even a Morgenstern,” she said to Jace. “I’m a Morgenstern.”
“I’m still closely associated with the name,” Jace insisted. “I was just feeling like—can I pull off having a morning star as my signature weapon? Is it me?”
“You mean, can you avoid looking like a heavy-metal album cover?” said Simon.
“I don’t know what that is, and I don’t want to,” said Jace. “I just mean, am I cool enough?”
“Of course you are, honey,” said Clary. “Look,” she added to Alec, “I see the concern on your face. I figure we let this run its course for a week or so. If it doesn’t burn out by then we can step in.”
“Fair enough,” said Alec.
“It’s a trial run,” agreed Jace. “Maybe I won’t like it and I’ll stop using the morning star. I’ve got seraph blades too, obviously. And, I don’t know, probably four or five knives on my person that were already in the pockets of my clothes when I put them on.”
Alec felt a rush of fondness for his parabatai. “I wasn’t worried.”
They said their good-byes to Maia, and she disappeared just as Magnus appeared at the door of the Sanctuary. He’d changed clothes—only the Angel knew where he had gotten the new outfit from—and was now in a velvet suit in dark navy, with a matching navy shirt and tie. Alec had always secretly found Magnus to be at his absolute most handsome in a suit and was pleased that his boyfriend had gone in that direction. He also noted that it prevented any possibility of his glowing wound being visible.
Behind Magnus was Alec’s mother, holding Alec’s son. It still felt strange, even after half a year, to think, my son. Strange but good. Maryse and Max were both waving excitedly.
“Wish your daddies luck on their mission,” Maryse said. “Let’s hope they get the magic book back from the bad woman who stole it.” Alec nodded. They had all agreed, at Magnus’s pleading, not to tell the Clave about Ragnor. So all Maryse knew was that a warlock named Shinyun Jung of Magnus’s acquaintance, who was bad news, had stolen the Book of the White, and that they were going to Shanghai to find her.
Alec went over to them and kissed Max’s forehead. “Be nice to your grandma, okay, kiddo?” Max put his hand on Alec’s nose and Alec quickly turned, gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, and retreated successfully without choking up.
“You kids be careful out there,” Maryse said.
Isabelle said, “Mom, we’re grown-ups.”
“I know,” said Maryse, leaning forward to embrace her daughter. She turned to Jace and, after a brief standoff, he also allowed her to hug him. “But be careful anyway.”
She blew Magnus a kiss and retreated, closing the door behind her.
Alec began to laugh. “This is not the way I’m used to launching a mission. It’s very emotional compared to the old way.”
Jace said, “You mean sneaking out under cover of darkness? I myself don’t miss it.”
“So, we’re already in the Sanctuary,” Magnus said. “I may as well make the Portal right here.” With some flourishes, he applied himself to the Portal’s construction. Alec watched him. Magnus could be extremely elegant even when he was giving it the least thought; the dexterity with which he went through the gestures and words that made up the Portal summoning was a beautiful thing to behold, a reminder that Alec not only loved Magnus but also continued to admire so much about him.
His reverie was interrupted when the Portal opened and Magnus’s expression changed from concentration to alarm. The view through the Portal definitely did not look like it was of a place on Earth. The colors were wrong.
Out of it swarmed a dozen demonic beetle-creatures, each about the size of a basketball.
Magnus yelled in surprise and began to wave frantically, working to shut the Portal. Alec drew a seraph blade, murmured, “Kalqa’il,” to it, and leaped at the nearest beetle.
“They’re Elytra demons,” called Simon. “I think.”
“Any further insights to share about them?” said Jace, drawing his flail. “Other than their name? Greetings, Elytra demons! Welcome to our dimension. Your time here will be instructive but short.”
“I have an insight,” said Isabelle. She swiftly gave a kick to the nearest beetle. When it flipped onto its back, she plunged a blade into the soft body under its hard carapace. “Kick ’em over.”
“Roger that,” said Jace. He spun his flail and, after a moment’s winding up, smashed it into the side of an Elytra, which promptly crumpled and vanished. “That also works, by the way. If you’ve got a flail with you.”
“Ha! I told you it was a flail!” yelled Alec, kicking over a beetle of his own.
They made quick work of the demons. When things were quiet again, Alec immediately made for Magnus, who had barely gotten a wrinkle in his suit, though Alec had seen him dispatch two of the beetles himself with bolts of blue fire. “What happened?” he said.
Magnus shook his head. “I have no idea. That was Shanghai, but… not our Shanghai. That doesn’t usually happen. And by that I mean, that doesn’t ever happen. You don’t open a door to an alternate world by accident. It’s hard enough to do on purpose.” He looked around at them. “Clary, can you try? Just try reactivating the one I closed.”
Clary looked at Magnus in surprise. Alec schooled his own expression, but he was just as taken aback. “Of course,” Clary said. She took out her stele and went to work.
Into the ensuing silence, Alec said, “Could it be because of the thorn?” Someone had to, after all.
Magnus hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We’ve been rushing around getting ready to leave, and I haven’t so much as googled the word Svefnthorn.”
“I googled it,” Jace said, to Alec’s surprise. “While we were getting our stuff together.”
“You,” said Alec, “googled it.”
“Yeah,” said Jace. “It sounded Norse, so I went into the library and looked it up in the Saga Concordances. Like a normal person. That’s googling, right?”
“More or less,” said Simon.
“And?” said Isabelle.
Jace shrugged. “It means ‘thorn of sleep.’ It shows up a few times. Some god uses a Svefnthorn to put another god into a magical slumber. You know, usual god stuff.”
“It didn’t put me to sleep,” Magnus said doubtfully. “Nobody mentioned sleep.”
“Well, that’s just mundane mythology,” Jace said. “I didn’t have time to go into our own texts, or anything demonic.”
“Unluckily,” said Magnus, “I fe
ar that the library of the Shanghai Institute may mostly be in Chinese. Luckily, we happen to be traveling to a city that is home to one of the greatest wonders of Downworld: the Celestial Palace.”
“How is a palace going to help?” said Simon.
“Because,” said Magnus, clearly relishing this, which Alec found adorable, “the Celestial Palace is that greatest of things: a bookstore.”
From where she was working a few yards away, Clary waved her arms; she had the Portal open. “It looks okay?” she said uncertainly.
Magnus came to peer through it and shrugged. “Sky’s the right color, there are stars, moon’s out, buildings look right, no giant beetles. I say we go for it.”
“That’s a very inspiring speech, Magnus,” said Jace.
“What the hell,” said Isabelle.
They gathered together and walked through the Portal. The cool breeze became a soft enveloping cloud of humidity. The low rumble from outside the Sanctuary windows was replaced by a cacophonous, honking orchestra of cars and the steady clamor of a crowded city street at evening. Bright colored lights flickered, animated and swirling in the night sky.
And Alec’s world tilted; that sky was in the wrong place. And he was falling. They were all falling. They were falling quite awhile.
PART II Shanghai
CHAPTER FOUR Heavenly Places
IT WAS A WONDER THEY didn’t hurt anyone. The Shadowhunters emerged through the pearlescent frame of the Portal into thin air, twelve feet off the ground, and fell to the pavement amid an enormous bustling crowd of people.
They all landed safely, or at least cushioned themselves well enough to suffer only a few bruises. Alec carefully got to his feet, glad to be glamoured into invisibility. Wherever in the city they were, it was crowded.
It was full evening in Shanghai, a pleasantly warm one, and as he straightened up, Alec realized they stood on a massive pedestrian thoroughfare that extended in both directions beyond the distance he could see. The crowds were thick—Manhattan thick—and both sides of the street were lined with buildings shining with huge, brightly lit signs. Every wall was flooded with neon color and vivid advertisements. Large vertical signs in Chinese characters hung from each building into the streets, painting the walls in an electric rainbow of blue, red, and green. In the distance, a needle-shaped structure shot up into the night sky, glowing in waves of dazzling purple. Around it was the rest of the Shanghai skyline, some of it half-finished and surrounded by cranes, other parts lit up to stand as totems above the teeming city below.
There were English signs among the Chinese. “It looks like Times Square!” Isabelle said brightly. “Shanghai Times Square.”
“It’s much cooler than Times Square,” Simon said, gazing around at the spectacle before him. “More neon and lasers and banks of colored lights, fewer giant video screens.”
“There are plenty of giant video screens,” said Clary. “And it’s not Times Square. Well, I guess it kind of is, but it’s more like Fifth Avenue. We’re on East Nanjing Road—it’s a big shopping area with no cars.”
“So,” said Simon, “you thought, better hit up the sales before we find the evil warlocks?”
“They’re not necessarily evil,” Alec said. “The, uh, misguided warlocks.”
“The misguided warlocks who make terrible decisions,” amended Isabelle.
“No,” said Clary. “I mean—I was reading about this place on my phone this morning. I was just looking up the famous places to go in Shanghai. I wasn’t trying to end up here. I was trying to go to the Institute, and this is nowhere near it.”
“Also,” said Alec with a jolt, “where is Magnus?”
They looked around. Alec was keeping a clamp on his feelings, the way you might put pressure on a bleeding wound. He couldn’t panic now. That wouldn’t be helpful to Magnus.
“Clary, can you see through the Portal?” he demanded. “Is Magnus still back on the other side?” He squinted at the small glowing square floating well above their heads.
Clary backed up and shook her head. “No, nothing.”
Alec took out his phone and called Magnus. He did not pick up. Alec continued not to panic. Instead, he sent a text: WE ARE IN NANJING RD SHOPPING AREA, WHERE YOU?
They stood there, waiting, with the unseeing crowd streaming around them, hidden within their glamours. Alec wasn’t sure what they would do if they couldn’t find Magnus. Would they just have to keep going through with the mission? How would that even work? Magnus was the only one of them who spoke Mandarin. Magnus had the scrap of Ragnor’s cloak that was necessary to Track him. They could go to the Institute—itself a project involving getting cash, finding a taxi, and so on—but even there, Magnus had spoken of his long relationship with the Ke family, who ran the place. Alec had expected to have Magnus’s help when they arrived.
The others were all looking at Alec worriedly. Jace had come a little closer, not quite putting his hand on Alec’s shoulder, but as if he were about to. And indeed, Alec knew, if Magnus didn’t appear, and soon, there would be no more mission, no matter how many intellectual exercises he ran about it in his head. Even if the danger of a Prince of Hell loomed in the future, Alec would abandon everything else and go after Magnus first, wherever he might be.
Alec’s phone beeped.
He grabbed at it, flipping it over. It was a message from Magnus. They all crowded around to read it: TOOK AN UNEXPECTED SWIM. MEET ME IN FRONT OF THE MCDONALD’S NEAR GUIZHOU ROAD.
Alec felt Jace’s hand graze his back lightly, a silent reassurance: See, brother, everything is fine.
“Of course there’s a McDonald’s,” said Isabelle, and they headed off, using the GPS on Simon’s phone to guide them.
Sometimes Alec thought that eventually the modern world would overtake the Shadowhunters, despite their best attempts to stay out of it. It was inevitable, if you lived in a big city; just navigating your way around took a certain understanding of the mundane world and how it worked. Here Alec had been dropped into one of the most crowded spots in one of the biggest cities in the world, about as far from his home as he could get while remaining on the planet. And yet he felt a certain familiarity: big city shopping streets were big city shopping streets. The signs were in Chinese, and the aesthetic wasn’t the same, but the feel was the same: the night and the lights and the people, families, strange pairings, solo workers just trying to get through the crowd to get home. It should have been totally alien to Alec, but it wasn’t. It was new. But there was something there he already understood. He was surprised to find how many things in his life worked that way, when he gave them a try.
They met Magnus at the point where the pedestrian part of the road ended and car traffic began. The warlock’s hair was, strangely, soaking wet, and spiked angrily up above his head. His clothes were dry, but they were not the same clothes he had been wearing when they went through the Portal. Alec was a little disappointed—he loved Magnus in a suit—but Magnus had perhaps wisely chosen to blend in, in black jeans, a sleek black button-down shirt, and a black leather motorcycle jacket. He looked like a sexy urban race-car driver. Alec was in favor of it.
He swept up to Alec, put his arms around his neck, and kissed him. Alec kissed him back, passionately, relief coursing through his veins. He would have liked to grab handfuls of Magnus’s shirt and drag him closer, kiss him until they were both staggering, but. He was standing in front of his sister and his parabatai and his parabatai’s girlfriend and her parabatai. He had to draw a line somewhere. He did kiss Magnus back as strongly as he was able; Magnus was here, he was fine, and Alec could feel his body relax.
“I guess you didn’t get to the Institute either,” said Clary, when a significant amount of time had passed.
Magnus broke the kiss.
“Is it all right? For two men to kiss in a crowded street in Shanghai? I don’t know if I’d kiss you that way in Times Square,” said Alec.
“Darling,” Magnus said quietly, “we’re invisible.”
“Oh,” said Alec. “Right.”
“I did not go to the Institute, no,” said Magnus to Clary. “I went to thirty or so feet above the Huangpu River.” He saw Alec’s look of alarm. “Then a few seconds passed, and I was in the Huangpu River.”
“What did you do?” said Jace.
“I tumbled through the air gracefully and landed on my feet on the back of a friendly porpoise,” said Magnus.
“That is very believable,” said Simon, encouraging as always.
Magnus waved his hand. “That is how I wish you to think of me. Riding a porpoise to shore, and straight to join you. I don’t understand it. That’s two Portals in a row that have gone wrong, in ways Portals should not go wrong. How did we get split up?”
“I think,” said Jace, “we were all hoping you would know.”
“I just draw ’em,” said Clary. “That doesn’t mean I understand the magic behind them.”
“No more Portals for a while, anyway,” said Magnus. He pulled the scrap of Ragnor’s cloak from his pocket with a flourish and handed it over to Alec. Jace took out his stele and gestured to Alec, who dutifully held out his hand for Jace to refresh the Tracking rune.
“The rune is still just going to pull us in a direction, and Shanghai is huge,” said Alec. “How are we going to handle this?”
“We’re going to take a taxi,” said Magnus, holding his arm out to the street. “So un-glamour yourselves.” The taxis in Shanghai appeared to be an assortment of colors, but they were all silver on their bottom half and the same model of car, so it was pretty easy to spot them in traffic. One, a vivid shade of violet, quickly pulled over for them.
Magnus eyed the size of their group. “Two taxis.”
Alec waved down a second taxi, and Magnus quickly spoke to the driver of the new taxi, then went to get into the first one.
“Wait, what did you tell him?” Alec said.
“I told him to follow the first cab. And that the dark-haired man with the bright blue eyes would be handling the fare.” He hesitated. “Alec—if Ragnor doesn’t know we’re Tracking him, and he’s in Shanghai, he’ll still be here tomorrow morning. If you don’t want to go racing off without anything to go on but this Tracking rune, I totally get that. We can take a couple of hotel rooms—I know some great places—and tomorrow morning we can go to the Institute and do this through the proper channels.”
The Lost Book of the White Page 6
