Magnus’s mind was torn. On the one hand, he was filled with affection and appreciation, for Alec, for Max, for a life he never thought he could have. On the other hand, he thought of the magic growing within his chest, and whatever had happened in the alley. He thought of Ragnor, currently lost in thrall to a demon after hundreds of years of doing only good with his powers.
“How will we ever explain to Max?” he said quietly. “Where he came from. Where I came from. That people will look at him and make decisions about who he is without knowing him at all. That his parents put themselves in danger over and over again, but that we’ll always come back to him.”
“I think you just said it pretty well,” said Alec. “And… I don’t know. I’m a beginner at this too. But we’ll figure it out together. That’s the whole idea.” He put his hand behind Magnus’s head and pulled him in for a kiss. Magnus expected something quick, but Alec kissed him deeply, his mouth slightly open, warm, reassuring, and full of love and desire. Magnus allowed himself to relax into the kiss, but as he did, he felt his tongue pass over his own teeth. They felt different. Were they bigger? Was he growing fangs? What was happening to him?
He decided that he would take things one step at a time, and this step was kissing Alec. Often these days their kisses were casual, familiar, lovely in the way they felt like home. But now they kissed with a desperation and hopefulness, drowning in one another, as they had in the earliest days of being together. After what felt like a long time, Alec broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against Magnus’s. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll figure it all out. We always do.”
A werewolf passed by and called out in Mandarin, “Get a room, cute boys!”
Alec turned and waved cheerily to the man. “What did he say?”
“Let’s get to the Palace,” Magnus suggested. “We’ve got figuring out to do.”
They walked on, holding hands, and for a short time Magnus felt a little more at ease than he had the last couple of days.
* * *
MOMENTS AFTER THEY STARTED WALKING again, a fire-message burst in Alec’s face, startling him. He grabbed at it and read it to Magnus.
“ ‘Where are you? Found thorn info. Faeries watching us like we’re going to rob the place. Come as soon as you can.—Jace.’ ”
They hurried down the street, and Magnus followed his dead reckoning until they turned onto an old street in the Market and his favorite bookstore in Asia appeared before him.
The Celestial Palace was the size of a city block, a double-eaved structure that looked like one of the court buildings of Beijing as reinterpreted by faeries. It claimed to be the oldest Downworld business in Shanghai, preceding the concession itself by hundreds of years. Magnus wasn’t sure he bought that story—although maybe it was right, since faeries couldn’t lie—but it was an impressive piece of old Shanghai regardless, and a show of faerie power. Rather than the brick, stone, and tile that were used to construct its mundane inspirations, the Palace was all colored glass, gold, and glossily polished wood. On either side of the massive double doors, a glass dragon stood guard. They were painted with mercury, and their eyes were huge sea pearls.
As Magnus approached, one of them turned its serpentine head to regard them. “Magnus Bane,” it intoned in a voice like stones scraping against one another. “Long time no see.”
“Huang.” Magnus nodded to it, then turned to the other. “Di.”
The one called Di didn’t move its head. “Wait.”
With a bang, the doors burst open and a small faerie with fox ears ran out, a huge tome under one arm. He bumped into Alec’s shoulder, pushing him aside, and took off down the street.
He had made it only a short distance when a prismatic ray of light burst from Di’s mouth. It struck the fox faerie, who froze and then vanished in a puff of blue smoke. The tome dropped to the ground. There was a smell like ozone in the air.
Huang regarded Magnus and Alec. “Thus ever to book thieves. Art makes lives worth living, and so theft is the next-door neighbor to murder. They shall be ever cursed, and will never escape the eyes of the Huangdi.”
“Noted,” said Alec nervously. “We don’t steal books.”
“It’s not personal,” put in Di. “It’s just business.”
“May your trade be always prosperous and your wealth plentiful,” Magnus said.
“What he said,” agreed Alec.
The eyes of the dragons watched them as they passed through the doors.
* * *
ALEC HAD SEEN PLENTY OF wonders in his short life so far, but even he had to admit that the interior of the Celestial Palace was something to behold. Despite appearing to be only two stories from the outside, it rose five levels on the inside, each ringed with a balcony boasting floor-to-ceiling shelves containing a seeming infinitude of books. The whole interior was of carved rosewood forming the shapes of twisting vines and branches, and in the center of the huge open space above them, three great spheres of flame hung suspended in the air, giving the whole place a warm glow.
He had been worried that they would have a hard time finding their friends in such a large place, but he caught sight of them almost immediately. Isabelle was perched high up on a ladder, moving easily despite towering heels, his sister fearless about heights as she was about most things. She called down to Simon to move the ladder very fast to the section on blood curses, and screamed, “Whee!” when he did.
Clary came running over, carrying a calfskin book with an unfamiliar symbol stamped on the cover. “We found the thorn,” she said. She opened the book on a nearby table, covered with what looked to be faerie cookbooks, and pointed in triumph at the drawing of a thorned spike, below which were paragraphs of runic writing.
“So what’s the deal? Why does the sleep-thorn not put people to sleep?” said Magnus.
“That’s only what it does to Norse gods, I guess,” Jace said. “Look.” He pointed to the text. “Do you want me to translate for you?”
“Of course you can read Old Norse runes,” Magnus said, rolling his eyes.
“I am a man of many talents,” said Jace. “Also, my dad was an abusive taskmaster.”
“Fair point.”
“So,” Jace resumed. “The Svefnthorn is made of black adamas.”
“Which is what exactly?” said Clary.
“Adamas corrupted by a demon realm,” Magnus said. “Very rare stuff.” He traced his finger along the illustration of the thorn. “It ties a warlock to that realm and its ruler, and the warlock draws power from it. Makes warlocks much stronger than usual.”
“That doesn’t seem so bad,” said Alec.
“Until the power overwhelms them, and they either die or are stabbed three times by the thorn and become the willing lackey of the demon who rules the realm,” added Magnus.
“That seems pretty bad,” Alec corrected himself.
“So it’s basically… magic meth?” said Clary.
Jace said, “The Spiral Labyrinth forbade its use in… wait, let me convert the date… 1500 or so.”
“Why would Shinyun say it was a gift?” Alec said.
“Because she’s crazy?” offered Magnus. “The realm has to be Diyu, of course. But why would Shinyun thorn herself? Even she isn’t crazy enough to kill herself for a temporary power boost.”
“Maybe she thinks her demon daddy can prevent her from dying,” suggested Clary.
“The question is, how do we prevent Magnus from dying?” Alec said. He realized he had curled his hands into fists, and made himself uncurl them.
“Maybe an eldest curse can handle it?” suggested Magnus. “Maybe they think there’s something in the Book of the White that would help?”
“I would guess that either you need to go to Diyu as soon as you can, or make sure you never go to Diyu,” said Jace.
Alec rubbed his temples with his fingers. “Maybe Shinyun will show up again and we can ask her in between fights with her demon army.”
“Simon and Isabelle are supposed to be looking into the whereabouts of the Diyu Portal,” said Clary. They all looked over at where they’d last seen the two of them. A stern-looking goblin in rimless spectacles appeared to be angrily lecturing Simon, who was making apologetic gestures. Behind them it appeared that they’d upset a reading circle of toddler-aged hobgoblins. Isabelle saw the others and came over, a stack of books under her arm.
She put them down with a sigh. “Can we come back when we have time to browse? Local history isn’t really my thing.”
“Did you find anything about the location of the old Portal?” said Alec.
“Not really. Simon was writing down the list of places mentioned, but it just reads like a tourist guide to the city.” Isabelle sounded frustrated. “It’s like every famous place is rumored to be the site of the Portal.”
“Shinyun and Ragnor must know,” said Magnus. “They have some way of communicating with Sammael, and we’re pretty sure he’s in Diyu.”
“So we’re back to hoping they show up,” said Clary. “Or checking out every one of these possible locations. Any one of which could turn out to be an open Portal to Hell. Just saying.”
Simon came over to join them, running his hands through his hair. “Word of advice, guys, never piss off a goblin bookseller. They are strict.”
“I hear you’ve got nothing,” Jace said brightly. Simon gave him a look.
“We don’t have nothing,” said Alec. “We know more about the thorn.”
“And I did some reading about Diyu,” said Simon. He plonked his stack of books on top of Isabelle’s.
“It’s Chinese Hell, right?” said Clary.
“Well,” Simon said. “Not really. It’s maybe more like Chinese purgatory? Souls go there to be tortured for their sins for some amount of time before they get reincarnated. It all seems to be very organized—lots of different hells, each with a different ruler; there are judges, and they decide what hell you go to; and civil servants keeping it all running. Or at least,” he added, “it was organized, under Yanluo’s rule. But Yanluo is gone.”