The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,41
that was clearly his own, but he felt tendrils of it reaching out through the wound, reaching for… what? The thorn?
Sammael?
He found his clothes folded on a chair beside the bed and changed out of the dressing gown. Then he padded down the hall. At the end of the hall was a small sitting room, decorated mostly in weapons—Shadowhunters, thought Magnus with a sigh—and a man seated in one of the chairs. He was leaning forward, as though deep in thought or, possibly, napping, and Magnus couldn’t see his face. That’s funny, he thought, the Ke family still look like—
The man raised his head, and Magnus startled.
“Jem?” he said. He whispered it, like maybe it was supposed to be a secret.
Jem got up. He looked good, Magnus thought, for being 150 years old, for having been a Shadowhunter and a Silent Brother and then, after all those years, suddenly a mundane. Even in modern times, Jem still favored clothes a bit like what he’d worn as a much younger man—he was in a simple white shirt with pearl buttons, but over it was a brown riding coat cut in a vaguely Victorian shape. Under other circumstances, Magnus might have asked him the name of his tailor.
Without a word Jem stepped forward and embraced Magnus. They had been friends a long time. There were a lot of downsides to being a warlock, but the feeling of embracing a friend who you’d known for more than a century was not one of them.
“What are you doing here?” Magnus said. “Not that I’m not pleased to see you.”
“I have a perfect right to be here,” Jem said with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m a member of the Ke family, after all. Ke Jian Ming, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“So… a coincidence? You just happened to be visiting family? Is Tessa with you?”
Jem’s expression suddenly turned serious. “Tessa is not with me, and no, it’s not a coincidence that I’m here.”
He led Magnus outside, and they walked over to the pond. It seemed to Magnus that it was a bit different in shape than the last time he’d been here, but it had been beautiful then and it was beautiful now. Firs and willows leaned over the water, their branches so low they dipped into it. They shaded the gold, black, and white koi hurrying underneath, visible only as shifting shadows in the green water.
A red bridge, paint flaking away with age, arched over the pond, leading to a dirt-floored courtyard where a girl in gear, only eleven or twelve, ran through stick-fighting forms.
“I was born here, you know,” Jem said. “Before my parents ran the Institute.” He looked out at the sun’s reflection on the still water of the pond.
“Where’s Tessa?” said Magnus.
“The Spiral Labyrinth,” Jem said, and Magnus breathed a sigh of relief. “But not of her own choice. She was being pursued by a warlock. Of your acquaintance, I think. One with an unmoving face.”
“Shinyun Jung,” Magnus said. “I should say she’s of my acquaintance; I came here straight from fighting her and her monster squad.”
“So I heard from the others,” said Jem.
“Why would Shinyun be after Tessa?” Magnus said.
Jem looked at him in surprise. “Well—because she’s an eldest curse, of course. Like you.”
Magnus blinked. “You mean, because she’s the daughter of a Prince of Hell? Like me?”
“No. It’s more than that. Tessa went to the Labyrinth not just to hide but to research. Eldest curses are not just children of Princes of Hell. They’re the oldest living children of those princes. There can only be nine of them alive at any one time, and I know of only two. And I’m talking to one of them and married to the other.”
Magnus started. “I didn’t know you got married.” It had been a long, strange road for Jem and Tessa; he was glad if they were reaching a place they could finally rest together. “Congratulations.”
“Well, not really,” said Jem. “We got married by mundane laws—in private, you understand, in secret, no one there but us and the necessary officials.” He gazed at the water. “We want desperately to have a proper wedding, with all our friends and family, but—we lead a dangerous life. We have been searching a long time for something many bad people also want to find. More than just Shinyun has pursued us. I couldn’t ask my friends, or Tessa’s descendants, to come to a wedding ceremony where they might be in peril.”