The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,23

headed off, using the GPS on Simon’s phone to guide them.

Sometimes Alec thought that eventually the modern world would overtake the Shadowhunters, despite their best attempts to stay out of it. It was inevitable, if you lived in a big city; just navigating your way around took a certain understanding of the mundane world and how it worked. Here Alec had been dropped into one of the most crowded spots in one of the biggest cities in the world, about as far from his home as he could get while remaining on the planet. And yet he felt a certain familiarity: big city shopping streets were big city shopping streets. The signs were in Chinese, and the aesthetic wasn’t the same, but the feel was the same: the night and the lights and the people, families, strange pairings, solo workers just trying to get through the crowd to get home. It should have been totally alien to Alec, but it wasn’t. It was new. But there was something there he already understood. He was surprised to find how many things in his life worked that way, when he gave them a try.

They met Magnus at the point where the pedestrian part of the road ended and car traffic began. The warlock’s hair was, strangely, soaking wet, and spiked angrily up above his head. His clothes were dry, but they were not the same clothes he had been wearing when they went through the Portal. Alec was a little disappointed—he loved Magnus in a suit—but Magnus had perhaps wisely chosen to blend in, in black jeans, a sleek black button-down shirt, and a black leather motorcycle jacket. He looked like a sexy urban race-car driver. Alec was in favor of it.

He swept up to Alec, put his arms around his neck, and kissed him. Alec kissed him back, passionately, relief coursing through his veins. He would have liked to grab handfuls of Magnus’s shirt and drag him closer, kiss him until they were both staggering, but. He was standing in front of his sister and his parabatai and his parabatai’s girlfriend and her parabatai. He had to draw a line somewhere. He did kiss Magnus back as strongly as he was able; Magnus was here, he was fine, and Alec could feel his body relax.

“I guess you didn’t get to the Institute either,” said Clary, when a significant amount of time had passed.

Magnus broke the kiss.

“Is it all right? For two men to kiss in a crowded street in Shanghai? I don’t know if I’d kiss you that way in Times Square,” said Alec.

“Darling,” Magnus said quietly, “we’re invisible.”

“Oh,” said Alec. “Right.”

“I did not go to the Institute, no,” said Magnus to Clary. “I went to thirty or so feet above the Huangpu River.” He saw Alec’s look of alarm. “Then a few seconds passed, and I was in the Huangpu River.”

“What did you do?” said Jace.

“I tumbled through the air gracefully and landed on my feet on the back of a friendly porpoise,” said Magnus.

“That is very believable,” said Simon, encouraging as always.

Magnus waved his hand. “That is how I wish you to think of me. Riding a porpoise to shore, and straight to join you. I don’t understand it. That’s two Portals in a row that have gone wrong, in ways Portals should not go wrong. How did we get split up?”

“I think,” said Jace, “we were all hoping you would know.”

“I just draw ’em,” said Clary. “That doesn’t mean I understand the magic behind them.”

“No more Portals for a while, anyway,” said Magnus. He pulled the scrap of Ragnor’s cloak from his pocket with a flourish and handed it over to Alec. Jace took out his stele and gestured to Alec, who dutifully held out his hand for Jace to refresh the Tracking rune.

“The rune is still just going to pull us in a direction, and Shanghai is huge,” said Alec. “How are we going to handle this?”

“We’re going to take a taxi,” said Magnus, holding his arm out to the street. “So un-glamour yourselves.” The taxis in Shanghai appeared to be an assortment of colors, but they were all silver on their bottom half and the same model of car, so it was pretty easy to spot them in traffic. One, a vivid shade of violet, quickly pulled over for them.

Magnus eyed the size of their group. “Two taxis.”

Alec waved down a second taxi, and Magnus quickly spoke to the driver of the new taxi, then went