The Red Scrolls of Magic

Alec furrowed his brow. “So you’re scrapbooking?”

Magnus made a face. “To the lay observer, what I’m doing might look similar, yes.”

Alec looked at the photos as they floated by. One appeared to be of Magnus on a flying carpet over a desert. The next was of Magnus at a ball in Victorian clothes, waltzing with a coldly beautiful blond woman. Another showed Magnus with his arms around a handsome older man’s shoulders. Alec leaned forward, squinting at it. He thought he could make out tears on Magnus’s face.

Before his fingers could grasp the photo, it flittered away as if it were a leaf, somersaulting in the air.

“That one is sort of a private memory,” Magnus said hastily.

Alec didn’t press the issue. This wasn’t the first time in their fledgling relationship that he’d bumped up against Magnus’s past and his boyfriend had closed the door on him. Alec hated it, but he was trying to be understanding. They didn’t know each other all that well yet, but they would. Everyone had secrets. Alec had kept secrets from those closest to him before. There were a lot of reasons Magnus might be holding back.

Alec wanted Magnus to be able to tell him everything. At the same time, he didn’t know if he could handle what “everything” might be. He remembered the sick, scared feeling in his stomach when he’d asked whether Magnus and the beautiful brown-haired woman he was looking at so fondly used to be a couple. He’d been so relieved when Magnus and Tessa said they were just friends.

Maybe Alec would never have to meet any of Magnus’s exes. Maybe he would never have to think about them. Ever. There might not be any in New York. They might all be dead, Alec told himself encouragingly, and then felt bad about that.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked, doing his best to smooth over the momentary awkwardness.

“Not yet,” said Magnus. “I’m just getting started.”

Alec opened his mouth to volunteer to help, and then shut it again before he spoke. It was one thing to want Magnus to open up to him, but another to try to enter the swirl and ferment of centuries of memories, covering however many hundreds of people, dozens of homes, thousands of events.

“This will be a long, messy process,” said Magnus gently. “Seize this opportunity to see a few of the Parisian sights, Alexander. Some of the minor churches. Or one of the smaller art museums.”

“Okay,” said Alec. “I’ll be back in a little while to check in.”

“Great!” said Magnus, and gave Alec a slight, sideways smile, as if to thank him for understanding.

So Alec spent most of the day taking in some of the more famous sights of the city. He knew Paris was known for its churches, so he decided to make a survey of some of the most famous. He started amid the throngs at Notre Dame and went on to the stunning stained glass of Sainte-Chapelle, the famously massive pipe organ at Saint-Eustache, the peaceful, shadowed hush of Saint-Sulpice. In the église de la Madeleine, he gazed at its statue of Joan of Arc for much longer than he expected to. Joan stood prepared for battle, both hands on her sword, which she brandished upright, prepared to strike. Her face was tilted up at a sharp angle, as though whatever she faced down was much taller than her. It was a very Shadowhunter pose, though as far as he knew she hadn’t been one. The determination and grit in her expression as she beheld some unseen monster, towering over her, was inspiring nonetheless. For all the beauty of rose windows and Corinthian columns he’d beheld that day, it was the expression on Joan’s face that stayed with him for hours after.

In each church, he couldn’t help but wonder where the stash of Nephilim weapons was hidden. In almost every church in the world, a Shadowhunter rune pointed the way to a cache of arms, available for their use in case of emergency. He could have asked any of the Shadowhunters of the Paris Enclave, of course, but he was keeping his and Magnus’s presence in the city quiet. In Notre Dame he spent a few minutes examining the stone floors, looking for a rune he recognized, but he was beginning to attract looks—most visitors to Notre Dame spent their time there looking up, not down at the floor. He gave up; the place was massive, and the weapons cache could be anywhere.

Mostly he attracted no attention, but he had a terrible moment when among a crowd crossing the Pont des Arts he spotted two figures with familiar marks on their bare arms. He turned abruptly and walked the other way, taking the first turn into a narrow alley that he could. When he emerged after a few minutes, the unknown Shadowhunters were gone.

He stood on the crowded street for a moment, then, feeling very alone. He wasn’t used to hiding from other Shadowhunters; they were his colleagues and allies, after all. It was an unusual, uncomfortable sensation. But with this cult business to sort out, he didn’t want to cross paths with them. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Magnus—he didn’t believe for a second that Magnus was involved with the Crimson Hand right now. But might Magnus have been involved with them as a joke, a couple hundred years ago on a drunken night? That was closer to the realm of possibility. He wanted to call Magnus, but he didn’t want to bother him in the middle of his research.

Walking on, he took out his phone and called home. A few seconds later he heard his sister’s familiar voice. “Hey! How’s Paris?”

A grin curved Alec’s mouth. “Hi, Isabelle.”

In the background, he heard a terrible crash and another voice.