The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,84

raising his ax tentatively and lowing. Without looking at him, Ragnor raised his hand and waved them upward, and both Ox-Head and Horse-Face were lifted twenty feet into the air, held in a reddish cloud. They flailed around within it but succeeded only in spinning slowly end over end in the air. Horse-Face began to bellow loudly, and Ragnor, with a flash of annoyance that reminded Magnus of the Ragnor he knew, twitched his hand again. The sound stopped abruptly.

Magnus cleared his throat. “So, I suppose this is what I have to look forward to, with the thorning? Bigger horns, mostly?”

Ragnor said, in a voice whose familiarity was unsettling, coming out of his much-altered face, “I’m only here to talk.”

Nobody put their weapons away. “So talk,” said Alec.

“Are you still Sammael’s henchman?” said Jace. “Let’s start with the basics.”

“Look,” said Ragnor. “Everything is already spinning out of control. None of you are supposed to be here. None of this was part of the plan.”

“You always did like a plan,” noted Magnus.

“So I’m going to help you get out of here,” Ragnor went on.

Next to Magnus, Alec breathed a long sigh of relief. “Ragnor,” he said, “that’s great. With you on our side, we can—”

“Shinyun was never supposed to thorn Magnus,” Ragnor went on, ignoring Alec. (This, too, struck Magnus as normal behavior for the Ragnor he knew.) “She never asked permission or even thought about what it would mean for the rest of the plans.” He looked scornful. “Any idiot should have realized that with your… close ties to the Nephilim, involving you would add an infinity of complications.” He looked around at the assembled Shadowhunters with an expression of distaste.

“Yes, Shinyun is clearly deranged,” agreed Alec. “So—”

“I can’t do anything about the thorning,” Ragnor said to Magnus. “No one can. It’s not reversible. But I can help you find your way out of here. You’re far too much a threat to my master’s plans, you see.”

Magnus’s heart sank. “Your master.”

Ragnor looked surprised. “Yes. I believe the whole situation with the Svefnthorn was explained to you already, Magnus. You never pay attention to details. That’s always been your besetting sin. My master,” he went on, “does not need some hero Shadowhunters and a rogue warlock wandering through his realm, confusing the situation and messing things up. So if you’ll allow me.” He raised his hands and crimson magic, the twin of Magnus’s, burst forth in his palms, which bore the same spiked-circle pattern that Magnus’s did.

Magnus felt fairly sure it was a terrible idea to let Ragnor perform unspecified magic on them in his current state, even if he said he was going to help them. For all they knew, he would “help” them by killing them; that was usually the way this kind of thing went. But he didn’t have a chance to decide what to do about it, because Ragnor suddenly stumbled forward, blasted in the back by a new jolt of scarlet lightning.

Alec looked over at Magnus, who quickly said, “That wasn’t me.”

“Ragnor!” They all looked up to see Shinyun, floating in the sky near where Ox-Head and Horse-Face still tumbled lazily in circles. Ox-Head looked like he had fallen asleep. “You will not betray our master.”

Shinyun, like Ragnor, had changed in appearance significantly. Her arms and legs were longer, spindlier, giving her a spiderlike look. There was a white aura surrounding her, and though her face was as expressionless as ever, her eyes blazed and glowed with a purplish flame within. Her cloak was cut low over her chest, revealing clearly the X of the thorn’s cuts below her throat.

Ragnor had recovered and stood to face Shinyun. “You’re making things more complicated,” he said, in a lecturing tone. “Much more complicated than they need to be. I’m going to take these… unexpected factors”—this while waving generally at Magnus and his friends—“and return them to Earth, and then we can get on with things the way we’re supposed to.”

“Hey,” said Magnus, “I’ve always wanted to be an unexpected factor.”

“You used to be an unexpected factor all the time,” Clary said.

“Used to?”

“Well,” she said, “eventually we started expecting you.”

Shinyun’s eyes glittered dangerously. “You fool. You think they’ll just leave us alone if you send them back? You think they’ll just let us reopen the Market Portal, not try to come back here? The complication is already done. Now we must deal with it.”

“Now you must deal with it,” Ragnor said grumpily. “Dragging them into this was your idea.