The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,16

or so.”

“Another advantage of the magical hamster ball,” said Magnus. “Magic shield. I didn’t want Max knocking out the neighbors’ cable again.”

“Well, my mother doesn’t have a magical hamster ball,” said Alec.

Magnus rolled Max out into the hallway, to squeals of delight, and called back, “She’s a Shadowhunter! She’s supposed to be able to handle warlocks. She raised you!” He ducked his head back into the bedroom and raised his eyebrows. “She raised Jace.”

“All right!” said Alec, laughing. “You win. I’ll call her.”

* * *

IT TOOK THEM TWENTY MINUTES to pack their things, and then two hours to assemble Max’s gear, which was strewn all over the apartment. It hadn’t seemed like a lot of stuff, but when it was all in one place, it made quite a haul: his stroller, his Pack ’n Play, a huge stack of clothes, a cardboard box of baby food, and a black satchel into which Magnus stuffed a few of Max’s favorite picture books and toys, and also some components for the more useful wards to handle Max’s accidental magic.

Eventually, after fishing a recalcitrant Chairman Meow out of the satchel, where he’d gone to sleep, they departed and made their way to the Institute.

The New York Institute was a solemn stone castle amid towers of metal and glass. Magnus liked the churches of New York, the way they carved a hushed and sacred space into the bustle of the city. Maybe that was why he had always found the self-seriousness of the Shadowhunters oddly charming. They tended to be flippant about it if you asked—even Alec—but the Institute was a reminder, even when it would be easy to forget, that theirs was a divine assignment.

It could be both good and bad that warlocks were so much more idiosyncratic and disorganized. Even the idea of High Warlocks had started as a joke, an affectation among the rare warlocks of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were able to achieve some prestige in the mundane society that mostly rejected them as monsters. Magnus would estimate that a good half of the “High Warlocks” in the world today had appointed themselves to the position. Even cities with a long history of High Warlocks, like London, still mostly named them as a result of dares at parties.

Magnus was, in fact, one of those self-appointed warlocks; the whole joke about his being the High Warlock of Brooklyn was that no other New York borough had a High Warlock at all. He’d hoped to popularize the idea, but so far nobody had stepped up, except for a young woman with a unicorn horn sticking out of her forehead who had declared herself the “Medium Warlock,” also of Brooklyn. But over the years, he’d come to feel it as a kind of real responsibility. And the Shadowhunters, he’d learned fast, were thrilled to have a warlock they could reliably call upon—even the Lightwoods, who, when they came to run the Institute in New York, Magnus had known only as members of a famous Shadowhunter hate group. And Magnus, for his part, was thrilled to have a steady, recurring revenue stream.

When he’d heard they were coming, Magnus took a deep breath, added a 15 percent “Nuisance Fee” to his already monstrous rates, and, when it was absolutely necessary, breezed into the Institute and tried to keep things light. How have you been; lovely non-apocalyptic weather we’re having; enjoy this beautiful spell you don’t deserve; please pay my absurdly high bill promptly; am I providing regular protection spells for fugitives in hiding from the Nephilim? Why, no!

It was strange to walk into that same Institute, with a Lightwood next to him, holding their child. To have Maryse Lightwood as something more like family and less like a business partner he could never fully trust. He was glad that Robert, at least, was busy with Inquisitor business in Idris. Inquisiting some folks, he assumed.

The entrance hall of the Institute stretched high above them, silent and dim and imposing. It always seemed to Magnus that the small group of Shadowhunters who lived here really rattled around the place. He knew it well, but in the manner that he might know a hotel lobby he’d passed through many times. It was not his place, and despite the efforts of the Lightwoods and Jace to make him feel comfortable here, he remained almost unconsciously on guard. Three years of close collaboration and friendship with the local Shadowhunters did not erase decades of more tense times spent