The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (119 page)

Clary silently performed the mental trick that allowed her to peel glamour from the thing it disguised. She imagined herself rubbing turpentine on a canvas, peeling away layers of paint to reveal the true image underneath—and there it was, a small stone house with a sharply gabled roof, smoke twisting from the chimney in an elegant curlicue. A winding path lined with stones led up to the front door. As she looked, the smoke puffing from the chimney stopped curling upward and began to take on the shape of a wavering black question mark.

Sebastian laughed. “I think that means,
Who’s there?
”

Clary pulled her coat closer around her. The wind blowing across the level grass wasn’t that brisk, but there was ice in her bones nevertheless. “It looks like something out of a fairy tale.”

“Are you cold?” Sebastian put an arm around her. Immediately the smoke curling from the chimney stopped forming itself into question marks and began puffing out in the shape of lopsided hearts. Clary ducked away from him, feeling both embarrassed and somehow guilty, as if she’d done something wrong. She hurried toward the front walk of the house, Sebastian just behind her. They were halfway up the front path when the door flew open.

Despite having been obsessed with finding Ragnor Fell ever since Madeleine had told her his name, Clary had never stopped to picture what he might look like. A large, bearded man, she would have thought, if she’d thought about it at all. Someone who looked like a Viking, with big broad shoulders.

But the person who stepped out of the front door was tall and thin, with short, spiky dark hair. He was wearing a gold mesh vest and a pair of silk pajama pants. He regarded Clary with mild interest, puffing gently on a fantastically large pipe as he did so. Though he looked nothing at all like a Viking, he was instantly and totally familiar.

Magnus Bane.

“But …” Sebastian seemed as astonished as Clary. He was staring at Magnus with his mouth slightly open, a blank look on his face. Finally he stammered, “Are you—Ragnor Fell? The warlock?”

Magnus took the pipe out of his mouth. “Well, I’m certainly not Ragnor Fell the exotic dancer.”

“I …” Sebastian seemed at a loss for words. Clary wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but Magnus was a lot to take in. “We were hoping you could help us. I’m Sebastian Verlac, and this is Clarissa Morgenstern—her mother is Jocelyn Fairchild—”

“I don’t care who her mother is,” Magnus said. “You can’t see me without an appointment. Come back later. Next March would be good.”

“March?” Sebastian looked horrified.

“You’re right,” Magnus said. “Too rainy. How about June?”

Sebastian drew himself upright. “I don’t think you understand how important this is—”

“Sebastian, don’t bother,” Clary said in disgust. “He’s just messing with your head. He can’t help us, anyway.”

Sebastian only looked more confused. “But I don’t see why he can’t—”

“All right, that’s enough,” Magnus said, and snapped his fingers once.

Sebastian froze in place, his mouth still open, his hand partially outstretched.

“Sebastian!”
Clary reached out to touch him, but he was as rigid as a statue. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest showed that he was even still
alive
. “Sebastian?” she said again, but it was hopeless: She knew somehow that he couldn’t see or hear her. She turned on Magnus. “I can’t believe you just did that. What on
earth
is wrong with you? Has whatever’s in that pipe melted your brain? Sebastian’s on our side.”

“I don’t have a side, Clary darling,” Magnus said with a wave of his pipe. “And really, it’s your own fault I had to freeze him for a short while. You were awfully close to telling him I’m not Ragnor Fell.”

“That’s because you’re
not
Ragnor Fell.”

Magnus blew a stream of smoke out of his mouth and regarded her thoughtfully through the haze. “Come on,” he said. “Let me show you something.”

He held the door of the small house open, gesturing her inside. With a last, disbelieving glance at Sebastian, Clary followed him.

The interior of the cottage was unlit. The faint daylight streaming in through the windows was enough to show Clary that they stood inside a large room crowded with dark shadows. There was an odd smell in the air, as of burning garbage. She made a faint choking noise as Magnus raised his hand and snapped his fingers once again. A bright blue light bloomed from his fingertips.

Clary gasped. The room was a shambles—furniture smashed into splinters, drawers opened and their contents scattered. Pages ripped from books drifted in the air like ash. Even the window glass was shattered.

“I got a message from Fell last night,” said Magnus, “asking me to meet him here. I turned up here—and found it like this. Everything destroyed, and the stench of demons all around.”

“Demons? But demons can’t come into Idris—”

“I didn’t say they have. I’m just telling you what happened.” Magnus spoke without inflection. “The place stank of something demonic in origin. Ragnor’s body was on the floor. He hadn’t been dead when they left him, but he was dead when I arrived.” He turned to her. “Who knew you were looking for him?”

“Madeleine,” Clary whispered. “But she’s dead. Sebastian, Jace, and Simon. The Lightwoods—”

“Ah,” said Magnus. “If the Lightwoods know, the Clave may well know by now, and Valentine has spies in the Clave.”

“I should have kept it a secret instead of asking everyone about him,” Clary said in horror. “This is my fault. I should have warned Fell—”

“Might I point out,” said Magnus, “that you couldn’t
find
Fell, which is in fact why you were asking people about him. Look, Madeleine—and you—just thought of Fell as someone who could help your mother. Not someone Valentine might be interested in beyond that. But there’s more to it. Valentine might not have known how to wake up your mother, but he seems to have known that what she did to put herself in that state had a connection to something he wanted very much. A particular spell book.”

“How do you know all this?” Clary asked.

“Because Ragnor told me.”

“But—”

Magnus cut her off with a gesture. “Warlocks have ways of communicating with each other. They have their own languages.” He raised the hand that held the blue flame.
“Logos.”

Letters of fire, each at least six inches tall, appeared on the walls as if etched into the stone with liquid gold. The letters raced around the walls, spelling out words Clary couldn’t read. She turned to Magnus. “What does it say?”

“Ragnor did this when he knew he was dying. It tells whatever warlock comes after him what happened.” As Magnus turned, the glow of the burning letters lit his cat eyes to gold. “He was attacked here by servants of Valentine. They demanded the Book of the White. Aside from the Gray Book, it’s among the most famous volumes of supernatural work ever written. Both the recipe for the potion Jocelyn took and the recipe for the antidote to it are contained in that book.”

Clary’s mouth dropped open. “So was it here?”

“No. It belonged to your mother. All Ragnor did was advise her where to hide it from Valentine.”

“So it’s—”

“It’s at the Wayland family manor. The Waylands had their home very close to where Jocelyn and Valentine lived; they were their nearest neighbors. Ragnor suggested that your mother hide the book in their home, where Valentine would never look for it. In the library, as a matter of fact.”

“But Valentine lived in the Wayland manor for years after that,” Clary protested. “Wouldn’t he have found it?”

“It was hidden inside another book. One Valentine was unlikely to ever open.” Magnus smiled crookedly. “
Simple Recipes for Housewives
. No one can say your mother didn’t have a sense of humor.”

“So have you gone to the Wayland manor? Have you looked for the book?”

Magnus shook his head. “Clary, there are misdirection wards on the manor. They don’t just keep out the Clave; they keep out everyone.
Especially
Downworlders. Maybe if I had time to work on them, I could crack them, but—”

“Then no one can get into the manor?” Despair clawed at her chest. “It’s impossible?”

“I didn’t say no one,” Magnus said. “I can think of at least one person who could almost certainly get into the manor.”

“You mean Valentine?”

“I mean,” said Magnus, “Valentine’s son.”

Clary shook her head. “Jace won’t help me, Magnus. He doesn’t want me here. In fact, I doubt he’s speaking to me at all.”

Magnus looked at her meditatively. “I think,” he said, “there isn’t much that Jace wouldn’t do for you, if you asked him.”

Clary opened her mouth and then shut it again. She thought of the way Magnus had always seemed to know how Alec felt about Jace; how Simon felt about her. Her feelings for Jace must be written on her face even now, and Magnus was an expert reader. She glanced away. “Say I
can
convince Jace to come to the manor with me and get the book,” she said. “Then what? I don’t know how to cast a spell, or make an antidote—”

Magnus snorted. “Did you think I was giving you all this advice for free? Once you get hold of the Book of the White, I want you to bring it straight to me.”

“The book?
You
want it?”

“It’s one of the most powerful spell books in the world. Of course I want it. Besides, it belongs, by right, to Lilith’s children, not Raziel’s. It’s a warlock book and should be in warlock hands.”

“But
I
need it—to cure my mother—”

“You need one page out of it, which you can keep. The rest is mine. And in return, when you bring me the book, I’ll make up the antidote for you and administer it to Jocelyn. You can’t say it’s not a fair deal.” He held out a hand. “Shake on it?”

After a moment’s hesitation Clary shook. “I’d better not regret this.”

“I certainly hope not,” Magnus said, turning cheerfully back toward the front door. On the walls the fire letters were already fading. “Regret is such a pointless emotion, don’t you agree?”

The sun outside seemed especially bright after the darkness of the cottage. Clary stood blinking as the view swam into focus: the mountains in the distance, Wayfarer contentedly munching grass, and Sebastian immobile as a lawn statue, one hand still outstretched. She turned to Magnus. “Could you unfreeze him now, please?”

Magnus looked amused. “I was surprised when I got Sebastian’s message this morning,” he said. “Saying he was doing a favor for you, no less. How did you wind up meeting him?”

“He’s a cousin of some friends of the Lightwoods or something. He’s nice, I promise.”

“Nice, bah. He’s gorgeous.” Magnus gazed dreamily in his direction. “You should leave him here. I could hang hats on him and things.”

“No. You can’t have him.”

“Why not? Do you
like
him?” Magnus’s eyes gleamed. “He seems to like you. I saw him going for your hand out there like a squirrel diving for a peanut.”

“Why don’t we talk about
your
love life?” Clary countered. “What about you and Alec?”

“Alec refuses to acknowledge that we have a relationship, and so I refuse to acknowledge him. He sent me a fire-message asking for a favor the other day. It was addressed to ‘Warlock Bane,’ as if I were a perfect stranger. He’s still hung up on Jace, I think, though
that
relationship will never go anywhere. A problem I imagine
you
know nothing about …”

“Oh, shut up.” Clary eyed Magnus with distaste. “Look, if you don’t unfreeze Sebastian, then I can never leave here, and you’ll never get the Book of the White.”

“Oh, all right, all right. But if I might make a request? Don’t tell him any of what I just told you, friend of the Lightwoods or not.” Magnus snapped his fingers petulantly.

Sebastian’s face came alive, like a video flashing back to action after it had been paused. “—help us,” he said. “This isn’t just some minor problem. This is life and death.”

“You Nephilim think all your problems are life and death,” said Magnus. “Now go away. You’ve begun to bore me.”

“But—”

“Go,” Magnus said, a dangerous tone to his voice. Blue sparks glittered at the tips of his long fingers, and there was suddenly a sharp smell in the air, like burning. Magnus’s cat eyes glowed. Even though she knew it was an act, Clary couldn’t help but back away.

“I think we should go, Sebastian,” she said.

Sebastian’s eyes were narrow. “But, Clary—”

“We’re
going
,” she insisted, and, grabbing him by the arm, half-dragged him toward Wayfarer. Reluctantly, he followed her, muttering under his breath. With a sigh of relief, Clary glanced back over her shoulder. Magnus was standing at the door to the cottage, his arms folded across his chest. Catching her eye, he grinned and dropped one eyelid in a single, glittering wink.

“I’m sorry, Clary.” Sebastian had a hand on Clary’s shoulder and another on her waist as he helped her up onto Wayfarer’s broad back. She fought down the little voice inside her head that warned her not to get back onto the horse—or any horse—and let him hoist her up. She swung a leg over and settled herself in the saddle, telling herself she was balancing on a large, moving sofa and not on a living creature that might turn around and bite her at any moment.

“Sorry about what?” she asked as he swung up behind her. It was almost annoying how easily he did it—as if he were dancing—but comforting to watch. He clearly knew what he was doing, she thought as he reached around her to take the reins. She supposed it was good that one of them did.

“About Ragnor Fell. I wasn’t expecting him to be that unwilling to help. Although, warlocks are capricious. You’ve met one before, haven’t you?”

“I met Magnus Bane.” She twisted around momentarily to look past Sebastian at the cottage receding into the distance behind them. The smoke was puffing out of the chimney in the shape of little dancing figures. Dancing Magnuses? She couldn’t tell from here. “He’s the High Warlock of Brooklyn.”

“Is he much like Fell?”

“Shockingly similar. It’s all right about Fell. I knew there was a chance he’d refuse to help us.”