The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,46
that the greater horror for him, now, was the parents’ horror: he could imagine withstanding his own torture, his own pain, but the idea of Max suffering, of his cries, of Alec’s helplessness… he shuddered and caught Magnus’s eye. Magnus was gazing at him with what Alec thought of as his cat’s gaze—heavily lidded, serious, enigmatic. He gave Magnus a smile, and Magnus gave him one back, although it was more wan than usual.
After dinner, Magnus disappeared abruptly, but Alec was stuck with his friends for a few minutes more. Liqin very shyly approached Clary to ask her advice on something; the conversation turned to training and weapons and runes, and Alec snuck away into the rapidly fading twilight of the house’s back patio, where he found Tian, Jem, Yun, and Magnus standing in a small circle, gazing up at the sky. Magnus’s arms were crossed tightly over his chest protectively, and Alec couldn’t tell why—the conversation was entirely in quiet, rapid Mandarin.
Magnus caught sight of him and beckoned him over. Alec slid in next to him and put his arm around Magnus’s shoulder; he was relieved to feel Magnus lean his weight against him, though he kept his arms crossed.
“Yun was just telling us that the Shanghai Institute fire-messaged her this evening,” said Jem. “They’re concerned, because a lot of the demons they’ve been seeing in the city are from Yanluo’s time and are associated with Diyu. But Yanluo has been dead, and Diyu shut down, for a long time.”
“Those children of Baigujing we fought today,” Tian said. “They are more like legends to my generation; nobody’s battled them in years.”
“To my generation, even,” Yun agreed in a quiet but still-intense voice. “The Xiangliu, too, were rare for my whole life, but the Institute says that now they seem to be in every dark alley.”
“Do you think Yanluo could have returned?” Alec said, not looking at Jem.
But Jem himself spoke up. “I don’t. Yanluo wasn’t a Prince of Hell; he could be killed and he was killed. But someone else could be accessing Diyu and letting its demons back into our world.”
“A million yuan says it’s Shinyun,” Magnus said grimly. “And Ragnor.”
“But why?” said Tian.
“Several reasons,” Alec agreed. He had come to much the same conclusion himself, earlier. “We know they’ve declared their fealty to Sammael”—Yun looked sharply at Alec, her eyes suddenly wide—“but we don’t know where Sammael is now, or what power he has, or even whether Shinyun and Ragnor have direct access to him,” he continued. “Maybe it’s a distraction from their own activities. Maybe Sammael has some interest in Diyu.”
Magnus let out a long exhale. “Ragnor found Sammael a realm, apparently.”
“A million yuan—” began Alec.
“No bet,” said Tian. “If Sammael has taken Diyu, then he is one step away from walking in our world again.”
“He’s one realm away,” Jem said. “There is warding that keeps Sammael away from Earth, in place since the Taxiarch defeated him. But it would only be a matter of time.”
“Maybe less time than we’d like,” said Magnus. “They have the Book of the White, and we don’t know what they want it for. We don’t know where this old Portal was, or if Sammael might be trying to reopen it. Maybe he already has reopened it, and that’s how these demons are getting here.”
“We don’t know anything,” said Alec in frustration. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his friends, with Liqin, marching in the dusk out to the training ground. He didn’t want to leave Magnus’s side, but he itched to join them, to lose himself in the regularity of sparring and training. He knew the others were trying to give Magnus and him some space, and to let Magnus reconnect with Jem and Yun. Alec couldn’t help worrying that Magnus was more vulnerable than they guessed—he always projected an image of unassailable confidence, but Alec understood that as close as Magnus might be to Clary, to Jace, to Simon, there was a private Magnus that only he and a few others ever saw. Catarina. Jem and Tessa. Ragnor. “We have to try to find Ragnor,” Alec said. “He’ll talk to you, Magnus, I know he will—even if he’s trying to convert you to his side, he’ll still talk to you.”
“Ragnor is very good at not being found, if he doesn’t want to be,” said Magnus. “I’d have to look into some unusual magic to try to find him, given how easily he sidestepped the Tracking rune.”