The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,91

It was a strange thing to see on his face, Alec thought, Jace who was always so confident, who went through the world without hesitating or doubting himself. “But that can get people hurt.”

“You do crazy, rash things all the time!” Alec protested.

Jace shook his head. “Yeah, but that’s just risking me,” he said. “I can risk my safety. It’s different to risk other people.” He was looking at Clary.

Clary said, “Jace, do you really think when you risk your own safety, that has no effect on anybody else? On me?”

“On your parabatai?” Alec agreed.

“On everyone else who has to deal with the consequences?” Magnus grumbled.

“You’re one to talk,” Jace said.

“Speaking of decision-making,” Magnus said brightly, “where are we trying to land, exactly? If those shapes below are Reverse Shanghai, we’ll reach them soon enough.”

“There must be some place in Shanghai we can go to. In Reverse Shanghai, I mean,” said Clary.

“The Institute?” said Jace.

“The church,” Alec said, remembering. “Xujiahui Cathedral. Tian pointed it out to us when we were on our way to the Market.”

“Maybe it was a trick,” Jace said, his eyes narrowing.

“You’re suggesting,” said Clary dryly, “that Tian knew that we were going to be in free fall, in Diyu, trying to decide what part of Reverse Shanghai we should try to crash-land into, and he pointed out the cathedral so that we would fall into his trap of trying to crash-land into it instead of somewhere else.”

Jace hesitated. “I mean, when you put it like that, it does seem a little complicated.”

Magnus was moving one hand around below him and looked like he was concentrating. “Saint Ignatius is actually a great choice,” he said, “because it’s so distinctive. Easy to spot from the air.”

“Can you find it?” said Alec.

“Well, there’s something down there with two big Gothic towers,” Magnus said. “That’s probably it.”

“You think there’ll be a weapons cache there, like in the real one?” Jace said.

“Reverse weapons,” suggested Clary. “You stab someone with them and they feel better.”

“Magnus,” Alec said, “are you growing a tail?”

“Not on purpose,” said Magnus, but he looked uneasy. Alec had been mostly leaving him alone, letting him sustain the magic keeping them safe without distraction, but now he took a closer look, and the odd inhuman features that had come along with the Svefnthorn seemed more prominent. Maybe it was an illusion, the odd angle he was looking from, the way their bodies were stretched by being in free fall… but Magnus’s eyes, luminous and acid green, looked bigger than normal. His ears, too, looked a little pointed, like a cat’s, and when he opened his mouth, Alec was sure his canine teeth had become longer and sharper.

Magnus looked at him, his brow furrowed in concern, but didn’t say anything further.

“Maybe try not to wield too much of your magic,” Alec said hesitantly.

“Maybe after we’ve landed safely?” Jace said, a little frantically.

“Alec,” Magnus said. “If it all goes wrong… if I…”

“Don’t think about it now,” said Alec. “Get us to the ground. We’ll take things as they come.”

* * *

MAGNUS CONTINUED TO SCAN BELOW him, looking for the cathedral. He felt magic surge within him when after a minute or two he located it, and he began to slowly surround Alec and Jace and Clary and himself with a protective haze, a bubble that would lower them safely to the black towers waiting below.

His eyes drooped. His vision blurred. Expending a lot of magic was always tiring, but this was something well beyond the usual. The sound of his friends became muffled as he dissociated from the endless free fall, from the void around them. Every particle of his magic he poured into the spell radiating from his hands, protecting, preserving. His mind fell away, and though he remained conscious, and his hands kept up the magic safeguarding them all, Magnus dreamed.

He was home. Home in Brooklyn, in his apartment, just the way they’d left it to come to Shanghai. He was in their bedroom, but he couldn’t remember what he’d come in for. On the bed, the maps that they’d used to try to Track Ragnor were still laid out across the rumpled blankets.

I should pick those up, he thought, and reached out to grab them, but then jerked his hand back and held it up to examine it. He wasn’t doing any magic, but his hand was glowing brightly anyway. Too brightly: almost too much to look at without hurting his eyes. He squinted and saw that within