The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,35
for almost two thousand years. The complex had been constantly worked on, repaired, and updated over the centuries, and early in their history the Shadowhunters had taken the opportunity to claim some of the unused grounds to make their home.
Walking with his friends through the warm, sunny morning, Alec stopped outside the temple complex to look at its most famous sight, the Longhua Pagoda, a tower of six roofs with upturned eaves, stacked around a crimson-and-ochre octagon that rose into the sky. Alec had seen pictures of it dozens of times. “I can’t believe I’m actually here,” he said out loud.
“You could have come anytime,” Isabelle noted from behind him. “We have Portals.”
“I just didn’t take the opportunity before,” said Alec. “I should visit some of the others on my list, when we get home.” The brief, disloyal thought, I should have visited these places before I had a kid, flitted through his mind, and he rejected it. It wasn’t like he and Magnus were going to have to fly in a commercial mundane airplane with Max. They could just carry him through a Portal. Assuming Portals didn’t continue going to the wrong places, or being infested with beetle demons.
The pagoda was beautiful, but the crush of mundane tourists suddenly felt oppressive. He turned away. “Let’s go.”
The Institute was made of the same brick as most of the other temple buildings, with the same upturned eaves and hexagonal windows. In a tower off its central axis was a copper bell, the twin of the one in the mundane bell tower close by. The bells had been a set, created to ward off demons, and while the mundanes rang theirs only occasionally, the Shadowhunters welcomed the dusk by tolling theirs. Alec wondered if he’d get to hear it. He was already thinking about how to find an excuse to return here before they left.
Going up the stairs to the massive double doors, he hesitated. Leaving Magnus behind had been a hard choice, but his boyfriend needed a break. Magnus dealt with the stress of adding parenthood to his existing life simply by sleeping less and pushing himself more. It was the least Alec could do to let him sleep in today. It was true that Magnus knew the Ke family, who ran the Institute, and no doubt he would join them soon, but Alec was sure the rest of them could handle going to a friendly Institute without assistance. They were all in gear, and wearing runes, so they’d be immediately recognizable.
He started back up the stairs but froze as one of the giant doors creaked loudly on its hinges, then swung open fully.
Alec was somewhat surprised to discover that behind the door was a very young man—perhaps eighteen, a few years younger than Alec himself—tall and wiry, with straight-cut black hair and dramatic eyebrows. He was wearing gear in a dark, shiny burgundy—the famous oxblood lacquer of the Shadowhunters of China, which went in and out of fashion every few generations. He reminded Alec of someone, but he couldn’t think who it was.
Clary raised her hand in greeting and began to speak, but the young man was looking at Alec.
“Are you Alec Lightwood?” he asked, in accentless English.
Alec raised his eyebrows in surprise.
Isabelle said, “Oh no, Alec’s famous now.”
The man turned to look at her. “And you must be Isabelle, his sister. Come,” he said, waving them inside. “All of you are expected.”
* * *
THE INSTITUTE FELT SURPRISINGLY EMPTY. There were only, it turned out, four Shadowhunters at home, the man explained: the rest were out “investigating the Portal situation.”
“Forgive me,” he said when they had all filed in and he had closed the door after them. “I don’t mean to be mysterious. I am Ke Yi Tian—you should call me Tian—and I was told to expect you. Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, as well as Clary Fairchild, Jace Herondale, and Simon Lovelace.”