The Red Scrolls of Magic

“I’m sorry,” he said as soon as he did. “I’m used to telling her everything.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” said Magnus instantly, but there was misery on his face again, misery he was trying to hide but that Alec could see perfectly well. “I need to—look, tell your sister anything you like. Tell anyone anything you want.”

“Wow,” said Shinyun. “That’s extremely rash, Magnus. There is trust and then there is just foolishness. Do you want to be thrown in prison by the Clave?”

“No, I don’t,” Magnus snapped.

Alec wanted to tell Shinyun to shut up, but he knew Magnus wanted him to be kind to her. So he didn’t tell Shinyun to shut up.

Instead he said, “When we get to Rome, I was thinking I should go to the Rome Institute.”

“So Magnus can get thrown in prison—” Shinyun began, this time angrily.

“No!” said Alec. “I was going to get more weapons. And carefully and discreetly ask if there’s any word of demon-summoning activities that might lead us to the Crimson Hand. All we know is that we’re going to Rome. It’s a big city. But I was thinking, it’d be better if—if I went on my own. They won’t be suspicious of me.”

Shinyun opened her mouth.

“Do it,” said Magnus.

“You’re out of your mind,” said Shinyun.

“I trust him,” said Magnus. “More than you. More than anybody.”

Alec worried that Magnus’s trust was misplaced when they found an Internet café near the Boboli Gardens and printed out what Isabelle had sent him. Which turned out to be a scan of the first few pages of the Red Scrolls of Magic.

“Not to be overdramatic,” said Magnus, “but—aaaargh. Aaaargh. Why! I cannot believe we broke into a secret sanctum in a creepy dungeon to find something your sister would e-mail us the next day.”

Alec looked at the page on the glorious history of the Crimson Hand, in which the Great Poison commanded his followers to paint white stripes on horses and make the wooden mouse the national animal of Morocco.

“It is ironic,” he admitted.

“It’s not,” said Shinyun. “That’s not what irony—”

Magnus gave her a look of fury and she stopped.

Alec shrugged. “No harm having another copy. Shinyun’s reading the book. Now I can read it too.”

It had to be easier reading than the map. As they walked back toward the car, Magnus glanced at Alec and tossed his keys from hand to hand.

“We’ll go faster if two of us are sharing driving duties,” Alec offered hopefully.

“Ever driven stick before?”

Alec hesitated. “Can’t be harder than shooting a bow and arrow while riding a horse at a full gallop.”

“It’s definitely not,” said Magnus. “Besides, you have superhuman reflexes. What’s the worst that could happen?”

He threw Alec the keys and slid into the passenger’s seat with a smile. Alec grinned and jogged over to the driver’s seat.

Magnus suggested some practice loops in the parking lot.

“You have to lift your left foot as you’re applying gas with the right foot,” he said. Alec looked at him.

“Oh no,” he said dryly. “I have to move both feet at the same time. How can I possibly handle such demands of my agility.” He turned back, applied the gas, and was rewarded with a high-pitched screech, like a banshee in a trap. Magnus smiled but did not say anything.

Soon enough, of course, Alec was maneuvering competently around the lot.

“Ready to take the show on the road?” Magnus asked.

Alec only answered with a smile as he peeled out. A whoop of delight and surprise escaped from his throat as the Maserati fishtailed on the narrow street. They turned onto a straightaway and Alec punched the acceleration.

“We’re going very fast,” said Shinyun. “Why are we going so fast?”

The low friendly growl of the little red convertible filled the air. Alec glanced over to see Magnus put on his sunglasses and rest his elbow on the door as he leaned over the side and smiled at the rush of the wind across his face.

Alec was glad to be able to give Magnus a break. Also, he hadn’t realized this kind of wild, dramatic driving was a thing available to him. When he thought of cars he thought of Manhattan: far too many vehicles, not nearly enough road, chugging slowly and unhappily through the veins of the city. There, being on foot was liberation. Here in the Tuscan countryside, though, this car was its own kind of liberation, a thrilling kind. He looked over at his unbearably handsome boyfriend, hair blown back and eyes closed behind his shades. Sometimes, his life was okay. He willfully ignored the grumpy warlock ride-along in the backseat.

For the next hour, they followed the Apennines through the heart of Tuscany. To their left were sunset-soaked golden fields spanning to the horizon, and to their right were rows of stone villas on hilltops overlooking a green vineyard sea. Cypress trees whispered in the wind.

It was black night by the time they reached what Magnus said was called the Chianti mountain range. Alec didn’t look. He felt pretty confident handling the Maserati by now, but managing a stick shift along the many sharp turns while driving near the edge of a cliff in the dark was an entirely separate and existentially threatening experience.