The Lost Book of the White

“Okay, Tian,” Magnus said, coming to join them. “So are you in league with Sammael, or not? I’m starting to get confused.”

“I’m not.” Tian shook his head. “And now he knows it. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to act on the knowledge I’ve gained, pretending to ally with him.” He nodded at Simon. “I knew that if you ended up in Diyu, Simon would be taken. And when Isabelle also went… it seemed the right time.”

“You knew Simon would be taken? And you let it happen?” Clary wasn’t looking very forgiving.

“You must have known what Sammael would do to him.” Isabelle didn’t sound too pleased either.

“I also have a lot of questions for Tian,” Alec said. “But maybe we should leave this particular hell first?”

“I’d like that,” said Simon. Isabelle and Clary were helping him upright. Many of his wounds were closing up, but he was still pale and shocked-looking. “It’s been a day.”

“It’s not over,” Jace said grimly, leaning against Alec’s shoulder. “I think my foot is broken.”

Alec took his stele out.

Shinyun said abruptly, “I am summoned. I go to speak with my master, who I am going to try to get back on track.” She looked around at all of them. “Why do you make everything so complicated?” she said, as if to herself, and then she vanished into the dark of the cave.

Alec, having runed Jace—the break was a bad one, pushing against the force of his iratzes like an insistent hand—put his stele away and glanced around. “Okay,” he said. “What’s with the tiger?” The tiger, who didn’t seem all that interested in anything going on now that Sammael and his demons had departed, had lain down and was licking its front paw with a massive pink tongue.

“Oh!” Tian went back over to the tiger and leaned down. “Thank you, Hu Shen,” he said in Mandarin. “The Nephilim of Shanghai owe you a favor.”

Hu Shen yawned and stretched, then stood up. He lay one enormous paw on Tian’s shoulder and gazed at him for a moment. Then he trotted away, disappearing into the depths of the cave beyond where they could see.

“A great faerie of legend, Hu Shen,” Tian said as they watched him go. “A guide for lost travelers. Sometimes it is useful to be on good terms with the fey.”

“Will he be all right?” Clary said.

Tian looked in the direction Hu Shen had gone. “Faeries aren’t bound by the same rules as the rest of us. And he’s been around much longer than any of us. Even you,” he added, nodding in Magnus’s direction.

Clary had gone over to Jace and was talking to him in a low voice, clearly concerned. Jace was standing on one foot, looking irritated, and using his longspear as a kind of crutch. “I really am fine,” he said, “but it might be a while before it’s healed. I won’t be too speedy until then.”

“No more wrestling skeletons today,” Alec said. “I hope.”

“I’ll be fine in a few hours,” repeated Jace. Magnus was entertained to see how annoyed he was at having suffered an injury, and how quick he was to change the subject. “What was that weapon you were using?” Jace asked Isabelle.

“Flame whip,” Isabelle said happily. Jace reached out a hand and she slapped it away. “Well, don’t touch it,” she scolded. “It’s hot.”

“I think we could all use a bit of time to catch up and heal our broken feet. And exchange information,” Magnus said. “Especially information about what game you’ve been playing, Tian.”

Tian had the courtesy to look chagrined. “I am sorry. I will explain.”

“Hey, guys?” said Simon. “Time to go? I’d really like to not be here anymore. You know, in the torture cave.”

Magnus thought that was an excellent idea. “I’ll bring us back to the cathedral,” he said, wiggling his fingers.

Tian’s eyebrows went up. “Xujiahui? I wondered if you’d get there.”

Magnus nodded and, with a wave of his hands, opened a Portal. It glimmered blackly, with the same uncanny light as the one Sammael himself had opened earlier. Magnus exchanged a look with Alec.

“That doesn’t look right,” said Clary, and Simon looked hesitant. But they could all see the interior of the cathedral through the Portal’s aperture, and none of them wanted to stay in the cave. There was nothing for it but to step through, and hope that Diyu and its masters would give them a moment’s rest. They all, Magnus could see, desperately needed it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Phoenix Feather

THEY FOUND THE CATHEDRAL UNTOUCHED, and they set up camp in the apse, where the altar would have been in the real building. Here, of course, there was no altar, just an expanse of cracked white marble. Simon, Isabelle, Clary, and Jace perched on the marble steps that led down toward the pews, while Tian sat in the first row and Magnus leaned casually against a pillar.

Alec paced back and forth across the apse, restless and worried. Magnus had summoned some nourishment for them, which he had promised was safe—plain bowls of rice in broth, and capped thermoses of water. They didn’t taste like much, but everyone had wolfed them down anyway.

Though Alec would have liked it if Magnus could have been convinced to take more than a few bites. Instead, he was gazing at Tian, a shimmer of concentration in his gold-green eyes. “So, Ke Yi Tian,” he said. “What’s the story? With you and Sammael?”

With a sigh, Tian put aside his empty bowl, nodded once, and told his tale.

* * *

I WAS FIRST APPROACHED BY Jung Shinyun and Ragnor Fell in the Sunlit Market, months ago. Already there had been mutterings in the Downworlder Concession about these two warlocks, neither of them locals, who had come from nowhere and instantly became regulars. The Shanghai Conclave took an interest, and since I knew the concession well, I began keeping an eye on them. What vendors were they visiting? What were they buying? Did they meet with anyone?

In retrospect, I think that they were surveying the Market itself, learning how well and in what ways it was surveilled and defended. So all my careful recordings of their purchases of bird entrails and quartz crystals were probably irrelevant. But at the time, they were only persons of interest, newcomers to keep an eye on.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, Jung and Fell were keeping an eye on me. And I’ve grown… incautious about my relationship with Jinfeng. I’m lucky enough to live in a place where Downworlders and Shadowhunters are on good terms, and Jinfeng and I are lucky enough that both our families approve of us. So where I should have been vigilant, I was unguarded. Vulnerable.

One day in the Market they found me in a dark corner. They told me they knew about Jinfeng and me, and that they could get me in trouble. I told them my family knew, that the Shanghai Conclave supported me. But then they spoke of the Cohort.

* * *

ALEC KNEW OF THE COHORT. Scattered among the Clave were a small number of Shadowhunters who not only thought the Cold Peace was a good policy, but believed that it was the first step toward the return of the ultimate supremacy of the Nephilim over all of Downworld. Where Valentine Morgenstern and his Circle had argued that only by making war on Downworlders could the Shadowhunters be “purified,” the Cohort took a more subtle approach, proposing new rules to restrict the rights of Downworlders, often in small, localized ways. The danger of the Cohort, as far as Alec was concerned, was not that they would start a new Mortal War, but that the rest of the Clave would allow them to make these small changes, not noticing the larger dangers until it was too late. As yet they were still a small faction, but Alec’s father kept a close eye on them, and there was a growing worry that their numbers were increasing, however slowly.

Tian and Jinfeng’s relationship was illegal, under the Cold Peace, and Alec knew that its discovery and exposure to the larger Clave could well bring down not just Tian himself but his family’s control of the Shanghai Institute, and destroy the careful balance that had been achieved in the city.

Tian took in the grim look on their faces and said, “I see you understand.”

Alec nodded. “Go on.”

Tian continued.

* * *

SOUTHWEST OF SHANGHAI, ONLY A hundred miles or so away, is the city of Hangzhou. Its Institute is run by the Lieu family. The husband of the head of the Institute there is Lieu Julong, and while he is not officially a member of the Cohort, it is well known among the Shadowhunter families of China that he is sympathetic to their cause. It is also well known that the Lieus would seize upon any opportunity to damage the reputation of the Ke family, in the hope of gaining control of the Shanghai Institute for themselves.

Shinyun knew this. She spoke of Lieu Julong by name. She said that my family would be forced to turn me over to the Clave for violations of the Cold Peace, if they wanted to keep the Institute. I said that they would never do such a thing, but in my heart I knew I would never allow them to lose their influence and their positions because of what I had done.

I asked the warlocks what they wanted of me. They wanted information—about the Institutes of China, their defenses, the number of Shadowhunters in each Conclave, the relations between the Shadowhunters and Downworlders in those cities as I understood them. I provided it all to the best of my understanding. I told myself that I was not giving away any crucial secrets, that all of this was knowledge they could find out on their own, even if I refused to help.

A month passed, perhaps two. Jung and Fell continued to be frequent visitors to the Sunlit Market, and one day they again waylaid me. They took me to a cellar on an anonymous street in the concession, where they’d set up a kind of office and laboratory.

The moment I saw their headquarters, I knew I was in terrible danger. They made no attempt to blindfold me or otherwise hide their work from me. And their work was as terrible as you would think. What I saw in a single glance there was enough of an Accords violation to sentence both warlocks to languish in the Silent City for eternity. I assumed they had brought me there to kill me.