There was, at least at first, nothing particularly Downworld about the place, although it wasn’t like Downworlders had their own styles of architecture. It looked like Shanghai in miniature, really, an eclectic pile of the city’s history all built on top of itself. Traditional Chinese curved roofs jostled against Western-style buildings, some looking like they had been teleported directly from the English or French countryside, some all classical columns and marble. And all the people were Downworlders.
The streets weren’t crowded this time of morning, but Alec was amazed to see faeries, werewolves, even the occasional warlock walking around, no glamours or illusions at all. He saw Magnus taking it in as well: a place where Downworlders lived freely, without having to constantly hide themselves from the mundane world. It was strange. It was nice.
Tian caught his look. “The whole concession is warded from mundanes,” he said. “The arch looks like the entrance to a ruined building, destroyed in the 1940s and never rebuilt.”
“Why doesn’t this exist anywhere else?” Clary said. “Why aren’t there glamoured Downworlder neighborhoods all over?”
Magnus, Tian, and Jace all spoke at the same time.
Tian said, “Shanghai has a very specific and unusual history that allowed this to happen.”
Magnus said, “The Shadowhunters would never allow it.”
Jace said, “The Downworlders in most places fight each other too much.”
They all looked at one another.
“I think it’s probably all those things,” Alec said diplomatically. Magnus nodded but looked around, distracted.
“Any chance we could grab some food?” he said.
Alec gave him a funny look. “We just had breakfast.”
“Research demands calories,” Magnus said.
“I could eat,” put in Clary. “Tian, is there dim sum?”
“There is a lot of dim sum,” Tian confirmed. “Follow me.”
Though it was in better shape than the neighborhood of old Shanghai that they’d been to a couple of days before, the Downworlder Concession was the same kind of confusing warren of narrow streets. What Alec took to be an alley turned out to be the entrance to a house; what he took to be a storefront turned out to be a road.
Alec trusted Tian—he was a fellow Shadowhunter, he was a Ke, he had been vouched for by Jem—but he couldn’t help thinking that there was no way they would be able to find their way out again without Tian’s help. He exchanged a glance with Jace, who was clearly thinking the same thing, then reached around to put a reassuring hand on his bow before remembering he didn’t have it.
After a few turns, the street opened up onto a larger courtyard, with restaurants on all sides and clusters of plane trees in the center. Tian gestured around him. “Welcome to the dim sum district, so to speak. I don’t know how often you eat at Downworlder establishments—”
“Maybe more frequently than you’d think,” said Clary.
“Well,” said Tian, “there’s vampire dim sum, faerie dim sum, and werewolf dim sum.”
“Which do we want?”
“We definitely want werewolf dim sum,” Tian said.
Werewolf dim sum turned out to be not all that different from New York mundane dim sum, except that the tough gray-haired women pushing the carts around were all werewolves. They also spoke no English, but this was, for one thing, also not very different from New York, and for another, easily solved by simply pointing to the stacked steamer baskets and metal bowls as needed. Alec was not the biggest congee fan and had eaten only a small bowl so as not to insult Mother Yun, so he dug into shrimp dumplings, turnip cakes, steamed buns, clams in black bean sauce, stir-fried gai lan—and carefully watched Tian’s face and the subtle shake of his head when things came by that were too werewolfish for them: tiny blood sausage, slices of raw red meat, what appeared to be some kind of deep-fried small rodent in sweet-and-sour sauce. Tian tried to stop Magnus from grabbing chicken feet, but once Magnus was contentedly nibbling on one of them, he gave in and ordered some chicken feet of his own. Oddly, so did Jace.
“You like chicken feet?” Tian said, surprised.
“I like everything,” Jace said, mouth full of food.
Simon shook his head. “My ancestors fled their home country so they wouldn’t have to eat chicken feet anymore. I’m not about to start now. Does anything on the table not have meat in it?”
Tian grabbed some vegetable dumplings and mushrooms wrapped in bean curd from the next cart, and the werewolf lady gave Simon a disapproving look.
“Sorry,” Tian said. “Even the ones without meat often use dry shrimp or pork fat.”
“I’m used to it,” Simon said with resignation.
“Also,” pointed out Clary, chewing on a steamed bun, “they’re werewolves.”
Satiated, the team headed out again. As they walked behind Tian, Alec came over to Magnus and bumped into him affectionately. “Hey, are you all right? You were quiet all through the meal.”
“Fat and sassy,” Magnus said, rubbing his stomach and smiling at Alec. Alec smiled back but felt an uncertain twist in his gut. The chains, the shining wound—and Magnus had awoken in the night screaming. He had claimed it was only a random nightmare, but Alec wasn’t sure.
He also hadn’t told the rest of them about the chains on Magnus’s body. He wasn’t sure how exactly to bring such a thing up.
Where a moment ago Alec had been in good spirits, all of a sudden he felt far away from home, unsettled and on edge. He found himself very aware that he couldn’t read any of the street signs or storefronts, that he was half a world away from his child, that there were people here who might hate him for being a Shadowhunter in a Downworlder neighborhood, no matter how friendly relations were. The weight of the Cold Peace and Magnus’s wound and the unknowns stacked on top of unknowns came down upon him.
“I wish Max were here,” he whispered to Magnus, and that was when the thing with wings swooped down and collided violently with Tian.
* * *
MAGNUS WAS DISTRACTED BY THE feeling in his chest; ever since they’d passed through the gate into the concession, he’d felt it. Each time his heart beat, it sent a small throb of magic through his body, and he could feel that throb burst behind his chest wound and extend in spirals along the links of the chains on his arms. It didn’t feel bad, but he didn’t know what it was, and he didn’t like that. He wanted to head straight for the Celestial Palace and bury himself in research; privately he thought talking to Peng Fang was a waste of time. In the past, he probably would have voiced this feeling. In the past, he probably would have convinced them to skip Peng’s entirely and go straight to the bookstore.
He was so lost in thought that he didn’t see the shadow pass over them, and he was taken aback when the bird-woman smashed into Tian.
He saw Alec and the other New York Shadowhunters drop back and reach for the few weapons they had on them—except for Simon, who put up his hands as though blocking a punch and looked around as if wondering what to do. Quickly, however, they all realized that Tian didn’t seem worried—indeed, he was smiling and laughing.
“Jinfeng!” he was saying, and Magnus realized that the bird-woman had given Tian a quick hug and, while she had moved away, was smiling at him.
She was a faerie, he realized a little belatedly, and a striking one at that: a feng huang, a phoenix. The Chinese phoenix was an entirely different faerie from the Western phoenix, and much more beautiful. She was almost as tall as Tian, and her gleaming black hair fell to her feet. Wings of red, yellow, and green spread from her back, rippling in the air; her skin was traced with delicate designs in luminous gold. Her dark eyes, ringed with long lashes, shimmered as she regarded the group.
Jace, Clary, and Isabelle were slowly lowering their weapons in confusion. Simon continued to stare wide-eyed, and Alec, of course, was watching Magnus, giving him a questioning look.
Tian was speaking quietly to the faerie girl. “Oh,” she said in Mandarin, “I’m so sorry. Are these… who…” She trailed off, smiling shyly.
“Would you like to introduce us, Tian?” said Magnus mildly.
“Yes,” said Tian. “This is Jinfeng, everybody. Jinfeng,” and he continued in Mandarin, “these are the Shadowhunters of New York. And also Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn.”
The phoenix pulled back, suddenly wary. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I know I—the Cold Peace—”
“It’s okay,” Magnus said. “We don’t like the Cold Peace much ourselves.”
“Jinfeng is the daughter of the weaponsmiths I was talking about yesterday,” Tian said. “And also”—he sighed—“my girlfriend.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,” said Jace. Clary whacked him on the shoulder. Jinfeng nervously moved back over to Tian and put an arm around him. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, and he smiled.
“As you can imagine,” Tian continued, “we’ve had to keep our relationship secret when others are around. My family has no problem with our being together, but there are plenty in the Shanghai Conclave who would love to use it against us.”
“How do your parents feel about Tian?” Magnus said to Jinfeng. “Or their court?”
Jinfeng turned to Magnus, pleased to have someone other than Tian who could converse with her in Mandarin. “They like him,” she said, her feathers rustling a little, “and they trust him. But they don’t trust his people.” She took in Alec, who had his arm draped casually around Magnus. “How do your people feel about him?”
“I don’t really have people,” Magnus said, “but they seem to mostly like him. And these are all his closest friends and family, right here, and I would trust them with my life.” At this, Tian raised his eyebrows. Magnus caught his look and went on, “It’s taken a few years, though. I’m vouching for you guys, by the way,” he added to the rest of them, this last sentence in English.