The Lost Book of the White

But for now, here were expensive cigars and brandy, fresh newspapers, and a library rumored to be larger than the city of Shanghai’s. Magnus was unsurprised to find Catarina in it.

Though no one but Magnus could see her, she was elegantly put together as always: her dress was a slender column of white satin, with a black lace overlay and butterfly sleeves. A black velvet sash waistband completed the affair. Magnus thought he saw the hand of Paul Poiret, the famous designer, at work; Magnus wondered if Catarina had managed to outdress him.

She was seated in one of the club chairs, gazing at the shelves across from her as though she was studying their spines from a distance, though they were too far for Magnus to read. He sat down in the chair opposite Catarina and said, “So what’s the plan? Are we tearing this whole place down in the name of freedom and equality?”

Catarina looked up at him. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. “I had to watch a man die here once,” she said.

Magnus leaned forward sharply. “What?”

“It was a few years ago,” she said. “I was here, in the library, and a man fell to the ground, writhing in pain. A medic was called, the other club members gathered around their mate, but none of them had any medical training or knew what to do—they argued about whether to elevate his legs or elevate his head, whether he should be prone or supine—and he died there, before any doctor or nurse could reach him.”

She looked distant. “Could I have saved him? Magically or otherwise? Could the mundane doctors, if there had been one here? I don’t know. Maybe he would have died regardless. But what could I do? I couldn’t simply appear to them as if from a dream; they’d think somebody had poisoned the punch.”

“Do they still serve the punch?” said Magnus.

Catarina raised an eyebrow. “You think I am being morbid.”

“I think,” said Magnus, “that the fact that mundanes die, and we can’t save them, isn’t something you just recently learned.”

Catarina sighed. “It’s not that we can’t save them,” she said, “it’s that we can’t save them even if we love them very, very much.” There were tears in her eyes now. He knew better than to say anything; instead he simply took her hands in his.

After a moment she said, “For mundanes, it is considered the greatest of tragedies if a parent outlives their child. For warlock parents it is an inevitability. I always thought it was strange that most warlocks spend their lives alone, without attachments, without ever putting down roots.…”

Magnus let her trail off and said, gently, “If you had it to do over again, would you choose not to do it?”

“No,” Catarina said without hesitation. “Of course I would do it again. No matter how many times I was made to choose, I would choose to adopt and raise Ephraim again, to see him become a man, to have children and grandchildren of his own. However hard it was. However hard it is now.”

“I’ve never had a child,” said Magnus, “but I know what it is to lose someone you love, for no better reason than that all humans must die.”

“And?” said Catarina.

“So far,” said Magnus, “life seems to me to be a matter of choosing love, over and over, even knowing that it makes you vulnerable, that it might hurt you later. Or even sooner. You just have no choice. You choose to love or you choose to live in an empty world with no one there but you. And that seems like a truly terrible way to spend eternity.”

Catarina didn’t quite smile, but her eyes glistened. “Do you think vampires go through this kind of thing too?”

Magnus rolled his eyes. “Of course they do. I’ve found you can’t get them to shut up about the topic for even a moment.”

“Thank you for coming, Magnus.”

“I would always come,” he said.

Catarina wiped her eyes with her hand. “You know,” she said, sniffling a bit, “this club contains the longest bar in the world, downstairs.”

“The longest bar?” said Magnus.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s at least a hundred feet long. It’s called the Long Bar.”

“The English are good at luxury,” Magnus said, “but they don’t always make creative naming decisions, do they?”

“You’ll see,” said Catarina. “It’s very long.”

“Lead the way, dear lady.”

* * *

AS THEY TUMBLED FORTH FROM the Portal, Alec at first was sure that Portals were still malfunctioning. He expected the busy streets of Shanghai, but they seemed to have ended up in a patch of trees, towering and narrow and densely planted, their leaves beginning to change from pale green to yellow to orange. Nearby Alec could see the moon reflected on water.

It was dark, which surprised him, but he wasn’t quite sure how many hours they had spent in Diyu, and knowing how bizarre dimensional travel could be, there was probably some time dilation effect. He could probably ask Ragnor.

“Where have we ended up?” Alec called out. “Are we close to Shanghai?”

He turned to see Jace raise his eyebrows at him in surprise. Wordlessly Jace gestured to the view behind him.

Alec took a few steps, and through the trees, very suddenly, were the lights of Shanghai, sparkling in every color. “Oh,” he said.

“There are these things called ‘parks,’ ” said Jace.

“It’s been a long couple of days,” said Alec.

“People’s Park,” said Tian. He gestured to the water Alec had noticed before, which he now could see was a small pond with banks of carefully arranged stones. Lilies floated, black against the glassy surface. “That’s the Hundred Flower Pond there. A good choice,” he added to Ragnor and Magnus.

Ragnor nodded in acknowledgment. “I thought it would be quiet, this time of night.”

“What time is it?” said Clary.

After a moment of peering at the sky, Magnus said, “It’s about ten thirty.”

“You can tell the time from the sky?” said Alec, amused.

Magnus looked surprised. “You can’t?”

“Hey, guys?” said Simon. “Can we take a moment to, uh, just quickly celebrate that we won, and nobody died? Because I don’t think we should just let that go without mentioning it.”

“Hear, hear,” said Isabelle, punching the air in victory. “Hooray for us. We beat a Prince of Hell.”

“Well,” said Ragnor, “to be fair, you all saved Magnus and me from the Svefnthorn—Alec specifically, obviously—and then Shinyun went mad and began wrecking Diyu, so the Prince of Hell left to find a different realm, and he’ll definitely be back at some point. Shinyun, also, is a loose end, as she is now some kind of dragonfly-spider thing.”

Everyone paused to soberly consider that for a moment. Finally Simon said, “But everyone lived. Magnus saved you. And Alec saved Magnus. And my girlfriend saved me while riding on a giant tiger.”

“Yes,” acknowledged Ragnor, “the day has not been a complete loss.”

Alec smiled, but he was tired of being away. And he felt a pull toward home, one that he wasn’t used to, but that now beckoned him with an incredible force. Max. Max.

He tried to catch Magnus’s eye, but Magnus had come up to Tian, who looked as weary as the rest of them. “Would you say good-bye to Jem for us? And give him all our regards?”

Tian looked surprised. “You’re leaving?”

Magnus nodded. “I really feel like we didn’t have time to explore Shanghai in the way I’d have preferred, but I hope you won’t take it as an insult if we New Yorkers head home straight from here.” Magnus looked over and caught Alec’s eye. “I’d like to see my kid.”

“Of course not.” Tian smiled. A light had come back to his dark eyes that Alec hadn’t even realized was missing before. “I’m going to go see Jinfeng. She’ll be pretty happy to hear I’m not going to be spending time in Diyu anymore. Ragnor—” Ragnor turned to him, surprised. “As far as I know, you’re the only person alive who has been stabbed by Heibai Wuchang and survived. There might be some interesting side effects.”

“Excellent,” said Ragnor mournfully. “Something to look forward to in my coming years of shame and anonymity.”

Tian turned to face the others. “Thank you all, by the way, for all that you have done. And for keeping my and Jinfeng’s secret.”

“And thank you, Tian,” said Simon, reaching to shake the other boy’s hand. “For saving Isabelle. For helping us.”

There was a chorus of assent. “The Cold Peace won’t last forever,” said Alec. “We’ll keep working to make the Clave see reason and bring it to an end.”

“I hope they will,” said Tian, “but I know you’re not the only influential force within the Clave these days.” He put a hand on Alec’s shoulder. “You must understand how much of an inspiration you are,” he said firmly. “Your family—the two of you and your son—just by existing, by being so prominent in the Clave, you are doing much. Your family—if the Clave is to survive, that is their future. It must be.”

“No pressure, though,” said Alec with a smile. “And you’re an inspiration yourself. Don’t forget it.”

Tian inclined his head. “It’s only a matter of time before there’s a real fight for the soul of the Clave. If we don’t want the Cohort’s vision to become reality, we will have to be involved. To be loud, even if we would prefer not to be.”

“You’re a good guy, Tian,” Alec said. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

He wasn’t the loud one, in his family. He was the quietest by a good margin. But Tian was right. And he was going to do some thinking.

Ragnor and Magnus had started preparations on a Portal home, though Ragnor seemed to be letting Magnus do most of the heavy lifting. His argument was that he was recovering from three strikes by a Svefnthorn, whereas Magnus was only recovering from two.