The Lost Book of the White

“What about other seabirds?”

Ragnor sighed and sat down next to Magnus. “I have to go into hiding. I have to make Sammael think I’m gone where nobody can ever reach me. Ragnor Fell, the expert on dimensional magic, must disappear forever.”

Magnus processed that for a moment. He stood and walked out of the bedroom to regard the devastation Ragnor had wreaked upon his living room. He liked this house. It had been a place that felt like a second home for more than a hundred years. Ragnor had been his friend, his mentor, for many more years before that. He felt sad, and angry. Without turning back, he said, “How will I find you?”

“I’ll find you,” said Ragnor, “in whatever new persona I adopt. You’ll know me.”

“We could have a code word,” said Magnus.

“The code word,” Ragnor said, “is that I will tell the story of the first night you, Magnus Bane, consumed the Eastern European plum brandy known as slivovice in the Czech tongue. I believe you sang a song that night, of your own composition.”

“Maybe no code word,” said Magnus. “Maybe you can just wink or something.”

Ragnor shrugged. “It should not take me long to reestablish myself. I wonder who I shall be. Anyway, if there is nothing more—”

“There is,” Magnus said. He turned and found that Ragnor had gotten up from the desk and come to join him in the living room. Magnus said quietly, “I need the Book of the White.”

Ragnor began to chuckle and then broke into a heartier laugh. He slapped Magnus on the back. “Magnus Bane,” he said. “Keeping me drowning in Downworld intrigue to my fake last breath. Why, why could you possibly need the Book of the White now?”

Magnus turned to face Ragnor. “I need to wake up Jocelyn Fairchild.”

Ragnor laughed again. “Amazing. Amazing! You not only need the Book of the White, you need to find it before Valentine Morgenstern. My friendship with you has always been a rich tapestry of terrible things happening, Magnus. I think I’ll miss it.” He smiled. “It’s in Wayland manor. In the library, inside another book.”

“It’s hidden in Valentine’s old house?”

Ragnor smiled even wider. “Jocelyn hid it there. Inside a cookbook. Simple Recipes for Housewives, I believe it’s called. Remarkable woman. Terrible choice of husband. Anyway, I’m off.” He began to make for the door.

“Wait.” Magnus followed and tripped over what turned out to be a statue of a monkey cast in brass. “Jocelyn’s daughter is on her way to ask you about the book right now.”

Ragnor’s eyebrows went up. “Well, I can’t help her. I’m dead. You’ll have to pass on the information yourself.” He turned to go.

“Wait,” Magnus said again. “How, um… how did you die?”

“Killed by Valentine’s thugs, obviously,” said Ragnor. “That’s why I’m doing this now.”

“Obviously,” murmured Magnus.

“They were looking for the Book of the White themselves. There was a scuffle; I was killed.” Ragnor looked impatient. “Do I have to do everything for you? Here.” He stomped past Magnus, pointed at the back wall with his left index finger, and began to write on it in fiery Abyssal script. “I’ll write it on the wall for you so you won’t forget.”

“Really? Abyssal?”

“ ‘I… was… killed… by… Valentine’s… goons… because… they…’ ” He paused and glanced at Magnus. “You never kept up your Abyssal, Magnus. This will be good practice for you.” He turned back to the wall and resumed writing. “ ‘Now… I… am… dead… oh… no.’ There. Easy enough for you.”

“Wait,” Magnus said a third time, but he didn’t actually have anything to ask. He grabbed at a random glass jar, tipped over on top of the mantelpiece. “You’re not taking your”—he peered at the label and cocked an eyebrow at Ragnor—“horn polish?”

“My horns will have to go unpolished,” Ragnor said. “Get out of my way, I’m faking my own death now.”

“I didn’t know you had to polish your horns.”

“You do. Or at least you should. If you have horns. If you don’t want them to look dirty and unkempt. I’m leaving, Magnus.”

Finally Magnus’s composure broke. “Do you have to?” he said, sounding to his own ears like a petulant child. “This is insane, Ragnor. You don’t have to die to protect yourself. We can talk to the Spiral Labyrinth. You don’t have to deal with this alone. You have friends! Powerful friends! Such as myself!”

Ragnor gazed at Magnus for a long moment. Eventually, he walked over and with great solemnity gave his friend a hug. Magnus reflected that this was perhaps their fifth or sixth hug in their hundreds of years of friendship. Ragnor was not much for physical touch.

“This is my problem, and I will deal with it myself,” said Ragnor. “My dignity demands it.”

“What I’m saying,” said Magnus, “is that you don’t have to.”

Ragnor stepped away and looked at him sadly. “I do, though.” He turned to go.

Magnus looked at the letters of fire on the wall, now fading to invisibility. “I don’t know why I’m making such a big deal of this,” he said. “You just love a dramatic gesture. We’ll see if this ‘fake death’ thing lasts a week before you get bored and show up in my apartment with your crokinole set.”

Ragnor chuckled and vanished without another word.

Magnus stood there for a long time, staring at the empty space where Ragnor used to be. His former mentor had taken no luggage, not a change of clothes or a toothbrush. He had simply disappeared from the world.

The front door hung open, as Ragnor had left it. It looked better for the scenario he was trying to portray, but it gnawed at Magnus like a wound, and after a short while he closed it gently.

In the ruins of Ragnor’s kitchen Magnus found an enormous clay tobacco pipe, and in the ruins of the bathroom a jar of a rare dried leaf, of Idrisian origin, that had been popular for Shadowhunters to smoke back when Magnus himself was a child, hundreds of years ago. For Ragnor’s sake, for old times’ sake, he lit the pipe and puffed on it thoughtfully.

From the window he watched the steady footfalls of Clary Fairchild’s and Sebastian Verlac’s horses as they descended into the clearing to meet him.

PART I New York

CHAPTER ONE The Sleep Thorn

September 2010

IT WAS LATE, AND UNTIL a moment ago, all had been quiet. Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn, sat in his living room on his favorite chair, open book facedown in his lap, and watched the latch of his top-story window jiggle. For the last week, somebody had been prodding and testing the magical wards protecting his apartment. Now it seemed they had decided to prod more directly.

Magnus thought this a foolish decision on their part. Warlocks kept late hours, for one thing. For another, he lived with a Shadowhunter—who was currently out on patrol, true, but Magnus was fully capable of defending himself, even in his pajamas. He cinched the belt of his black silk robe tighter and wiggled his fingers in front of him, feeling magic gather in them.

He reflected that years ago he would have been much more casual about this kind of break-in, letting it play out naturally and trusting his instincts to lead him through. Now he sat pointing literal finger-guns at the window. Now his infant son was asleep just down the hall.

At just over a year old, Max was sleeping through the night most of the time now. This was a relief, but also an inconvenience, because both of Max’s parents kept nocturnal hours. Max, on the other hand, kept military hours, waking every morning at five thirty with a cheerful shriek that Magnus both adored and dreaded.

The window slid upward. Fire woke in both of Magnus’s palms, and magic blazed in the dark, sapphire-blue.

A figure pulled its torso through the window and then froze. Framed in the opening was a Shadowhunter in full demon-hunting gear, bow looped over one shoulder. He looked surprised.

“Uh, hi,” said Alec Lightwood. “I’m home. Please don’t shoot me with magical rays.”

Magnus waved with both hands, blue lights paling, then winking out, leaving faint traces of smoke curling around his fingers. “You usually use the door.”

“Sometime I like the change of pace.” Alec pulled himself the rest of the way in and closed the window behind him. Magnus gave him a look. “Okay. Truth. A demon ate my keys.”

“We go through so many keys.” Magnus got up to embrace his boyfriend.

“Wait, no. I smell.”

“There’s nothing wrong,” proclaimed Magnus, moving his head toward Alec’s neck, “with the smell of the sweat of a hard night’s work—you do smell. What is that?”

“That,” said Alec, “is the musk of the common subway tunnel smoke demon.”

“Oh, honey.” Magnus kissed Alec’s neck anyway. He breathed through his mouth.

“Hang on, it’s mostly on the gear,” said Alec. Magnus gave him a little space and he began taking it off: the bow, the quiver, his stele, some seraph blades, his leather jacket, his boots, his shirt.

“Let me help you with the rest of that,” Magnus murmured as Alec finished unbuttoning the shirt, and Alec gave him a real smile, his blue eyes warm, and Magnus felt a wave of love thrum through him. Three years in, he still felt as strongly as ever for Alec. More so every day. Still. He marveled at it.

Alec’s mouth quirked, and he shifted his gaze to the hallway past Magnus.

“He’s asleep,” Magnus said, and kissed Alec’s mouth. “Been asleep for hours.” He moved to pull Alec toward the couch. Only a quick wiggle of his fingers, and the candles on the end table lit and the lamps dimmed.

Alec laughed, low in his chest. “We have a perfectly good bed, you know.”