Chapter 22
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“Go ahead,” she said.
The first contact came as a whisper inside her head,
delicate as the brush of a falling leaf. State your name
for the Council.
rissa Fray.
The first voice was joined by others. Who are you?
I’m ry. My mother is Jocelyn Fray. I live at 807
Berkeley ce in Brooklyn. I am fifteen years old. My
father’s name was—
Her mind seemed to snap in on itself, like a rubber
band, and she reeled soundlessly into a whirlwind of
images cast against the insides of her closed eyelids.
Her mother was hurrying her down a night-ck street
between piles of heaped and dirty snow. Then a
lowering sky, gray and leaden, rows of ck trees
stripped bare. An empty square cut into the earth, a
in coffin lowered into it. Ashes to ashes. Jocelyn
wrapped in her patchwork quilt, tears spilling down her
cheeks, quickly closing a box and shoving it under a
cushion as ry came into the room. She saw the
initials on the box again: J. C.
The images came faster now, like the pages of one of
those books where the drawings seemed to move when
you flipped them. ry stood on top of a flight of stairs,
looking down a narrow corridor, and there was Luke
again, his green duffel bag at his feet. Jocelyn stood in
front of him, shaking her head. “Why now, Lucian? I
thought that you were dead …” ry blinked; Luke
looked different, almost a stranger, bearded, his hair
long and tangled—and branches came down to block
her view; she was in the park again, and green faeries,
tiny as toothpicks, buzzed among the red flowers. She
reached for one in delight, and her mother swung her up
into her arms with a cry of terror. Then it was winter on
the ck street again, and they were hurrying, huddled
under an umbre, Jocelyn half-pushing and half-
dragging ry between the looming banks of snow. A
granite doorway loomed up out of the falling whiteness;
there were words carved above the door: THE
MAGNIFICENT. Then she was standing inside an
entryway that smelled of iron and melting snow. Her
fingers were numb with cold. A hand under her chin
directed her to look up, and she saw a row of words
scrawled along the wall. Two words leaped out at her,
burning into her eyes: MAGNUS BANE.
A sudden painnced through her right arm. She
shrieked as the images fell away and she spun upward,
breaking the surface of consciousness like a diver
breaking up through a wave. There was something cold
pressed against her cheek. She pried her eyes open
and saw silver stars. She blinked twice before she
realized that she was lying on the marble floor, her
knees curled up to her chest. When she moved, hot
pain shot up her arm.
She sat up gingerly. The skin over her left elbow was
split and bleeding. She must havended on it when
she fell. There was blood on her shirt. She looked
around, disoriented, and saw Jace looking at her,
unmoving but very tense around the mouth.
Magnus Bane. The words meant something, but what?
Before she could ask the question aloud, Jeremiah
interrupted her.
The block inside your mind is stronger than we had
anticipated, he said. It can be safely undone only by the
one who put it there. For us to remove it would be to kill
you.
She scrambled to her feet, cradling her injured arm. “But
I don’t know who put it there. If I knew that, I wouldn’t
havee here.”
The answer to that is woven into the thread of your
thoughts, said Brother Jeremiah. In your waking dream
you saw it written.
“Magnus Bane? But—that’s not even a name!”
It is enough. Brother Jeremiah got to his feet. As if this
were a signal, the rest of the Brothers rose alongside
him. They inclined their heads toward Jace, a gesture of
silent acknowledgment, before they filed away among
the pirs and were gone. Only Brother Jeremiah
remained. He watched impassively as Jace hurried over
to ry.
“Is your arm all right? Let me see,” he demanded,
seizing her wrist.
“Ouch! It’s fine. Don’t do that; you’re making it worse,”
ry said, trying to pull away.
“You bled on the Speaking Stars,” he said. ry looked
and saw that he was right: There was a smear of her
blood on the white and silver marble. “I bet there’s aw
somewhere about that.” He turned her arm over, more
gently than she would have thought he was capable of.
He caught his lower lip between his teeth and whistled;
she nced down and saw that a glove of blood
covered her lower arm from the elbow to the wrist. The
arm was throbbing, stiff, and painful.
“Is this when you start tearing strips off your T-shirt to
bind up my wound?” she joked. She hated the sight of
blood, especially her own.
“If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have
just asked.” He dug into his pocket and brought out his
stele. “It would have been a lot less painful.”
Remembering the stinging sensation when the stele had
touched her wrist, she braced herself, but all she felt as
the glowing instrument glided lightly over her injury was
a faint warmth. “There,” he said, straightening up. ry
flexed her arm in wonder—though the blood was still
there, the wound was gone, as were the pain and
stiffness. “And next time you’re nning to injure
yourself to get my attention, just remember that a little
sweet talk works wonders.”
ry felt her mouth twitch into a smile. “I’ll keep that in
mind,” she said. And as he turned away, she added,
“And thanks.”
He slid the stele into his back pocket without turning to
look at her, but she thought she saw a certain
gratification in the set of his shoulders. “Brother
Jeremiah,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “you’ve
been very quiet all this time. Surely you have some
thoughts you’d like to share?”
I am charged with leading you from the Silent City, and
that is all, said the archivist. ry wondered if she were
imagining it, or if there was actually a faintly affronted
tone to his “voice.”
“We could always show ourselves out,” Jace suggested
hopefully. “I’m sure I remember the way—”
The marvels of the Silent City are not for the eyes of the
uninitiated, said Jeremiah, and he turned his back on
them with a soundless swish of robes. This way.
When they emerged into the open, ry took deep
breaths of the thick morning air, relishing the city stench
of smog, dirt, and humanity. Jace looked around
thoughtfully. “It’s going to rain,” he said.
He was right, ry thought, looking up at the iron-gray
sky. “Are we taking a carriage back to the Institute?”
Jace looked from Brother Jeremiah, still as a statue, to
the carriage, looming like a ck shadow in the
archway that led to the street. Then he broke into a grin.
“No way,” he said. “I hate those things. Let’s hail a cab.”
11
MAGNUS BANE
JACE LEANED FORWARD AND BANGED HIS HAND
AGAINST THE partition separating them from the cab
driver. “Turn left! Left! I said to take Broadway, you
brain-dead moron!”
The taxi driver responded by jerking the wheel so hard
to the left that ry was thrown against Jace. She let
out a yelp of resentment. “Why are we taking Broadway,
anyway?”
“I’m starving,” Jace said. “And there’s nothing at home
except leftover Chinese.” He took his phone out of his
pocket and started dialing. “Alec! Wake up!” he shouted.
ry could hear an irritated buzzing on the other end.
“Meet us at Taki’s. Breakfast. Yeah, you heard me.
Breakfast. What? It’s only a few blocks away. Get
going.”
He clicked off and shoved the phone into one of his
many pockets as they pulled up to a curb. Handing the
driver a wad of bills, Jace elbowed ry out of the car.
When hended on the pavement behind her, he
stretched like a cat and spread his arms wide.
“Wee to the greatest restaurant in New York.”
It didn’t look like much—a low brick building that sagged
in the middle like a copsed soufflé. A battered neon
sign proiming the restaurant’s name hung sideways
and was sputtering. Two men in long coats and tipped-
forward felt hats slouched in front of the narrow
doorway. There were no windows.
“It looks like a prison,” said ry.
N?velDrama.Org owns all ? content.
He pointed at her. “But in prison could you order a
spaghetti fra diavolo that makes you want to kiss your
fingers? I don’t think so.”
“I don’t want spaghetti. I want to know what a Magnus
Bane is.”
“It’s not a what. It’s a who,” said Jace. “It’s a name.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“He’s a warlock,” said Jace in his most reasonable
voice. “Only a warlock could have put a block in your
mind like that. Or maybe one of the Silent Brothers, but
clearly it wasn’t them.”
“Is he a warlock you’ve heard of?” demanded ry, who
was rapidly tiring of Jace’s reasonable voice.
“The name does sound familiar—”
“Hey!” It was Alec, looking like he’d rolled out of bed and
pulled jeans on over his pajamas. His hair, unbrushed,
stuck out wildly around his head. He loped toward them,
eyes on Jace, ignoring ry as usual. “Izzy’s on her
way,” he said. “She’s bringing the mundane.”
“Simon? Where did hee from?” Jace asked.
“He showed up first thing this morning. Couldn’t stay
away from Izzy, I guess. Pathetic.” Alec sounded
amused. ry wanted to kick him. “Anyway, are we
going in or what? I’m starving.”
“Me too,” said Jace. “I could really go for some fried
mouse tails.”
“Some what?” asked ry, sure that she’d heard wrong.
Jace grinned at her. “Rx,” he said. “It’s just a diner.”
They were stopped at the front door by one of the
slouching men. As he straightened, ry caught a
glimpse of his face under the hat. His skin was dark red,
his squared-off hands ending in blue-ck nails. ry
felt herself stiffen, but Jace and Alec seemed
unconcerned. They said something to the man, who
nodded and stepped back, allowing them to pass.
“Jace,” ry hissed as the door shut behind them.
“Who was that?”
“You mean ncy?” Jace asked, ncing around the
brightly lit restaurant. It was pleasant inside, despite the
lack of windows. Cozy wooden booths nestled up
against each other, each one lined with brightly colored
cushions. Endearingly mismatched crockery lined the
counter, behind which stood a blond girl in a waitress’s
pink-and-white apron, nimbly counting out change to a
stocky man in a nnel shirt. She saw Jace, waved, and
gestured that they should sit wherever they wanted.
“ncy keeps out undesirables,” said Jace, herding her
to one of the booths.
“He’s a demon,” she hissed. Several customers turned
to look at her—a boy with spiky blue dreads was sitting
next to a beautiful Indian girl with long ck hair and
gauzelike golden wings sprouting from her back. The
boy frowned darkly. ry was d the restaurant was
almost empty.
“No, he isn’t,” said Jace, sliding into a booth. ry
moved to sit beside him, but Alec was already there.
She settled gingerly onto the booth seat opposite them,
her arm still stiff despite Jace’s ministrations. She felt
hollow inside, as if the Silent Brothers had reached into
her and scooped out her insides, leaving her light and
dizzy. “He’s an ifrit,” Jace exined. “They’re warlocks
with no magic. Half demons who can’t cast spells for
whatever reason.”
“Poor bastards,” said Alec, picking up his menu. ry
picked hers up too, and stared. Locusts and honey were
featured as a special, as were tes of raw meat, whole
raw fish, and something called a toasted bat sandwich.
A page of the beverage section was devoted to the
different types of blood they had on tap—to ry’s
relief, they were different kinds of animal blood, rather
than type A, type O, or type B-negative.
“Who eats whole raw fish?” she inquired aloud.
“Kelpies,” said Alec. “Selkies. Maybe the asional
nixie.”
“Don’t order any of the faerie food,” said Jace, looking at
her over the top of his menu. “It tends to make humans
a little crazy. One minute you’re munching a faerie plum,
the next minute you’re running naked down Madison
Avenue with antlers on your head. Not,” he added
hastily, “that this has ever happened to me.”
Alecughed. “Do you remember—” he began, and
launched into a story that contained so many mysterious
names and proper nouns that ry didn’t even bother
trying to follow it. She was looking at Alec instead,
watching him as he talked to Jace. There was a kic,
almost feverish energy to him that hadn’t been there
before. Something about Jace sharpened him, brought
him into focus. If she were going to draw them together,
she thought, she would make Jace a little blurry, while
Alec stood out, all sharp, clear nes and angles.
Jace was looking down as Alec spoke, smiling a little
and tapping his water ss with a fingernail. She
sensed he was thinking of other things. She felt a
sudden sh of sympathy for Alec. Jace couldn’t be an
easy person to care about. I wasughing at you
because derations of love amuse me, especially
when unrequited.
Jace looked up as the waitress passed. “Are we ever
going to get any coffee?” he said aloud, interrupting Alec
midsentence.
Alec subsided, his energy fading. “I …”
ry spoke up hastily. “What’s all the raw meat for?”
she asked, indicating the third page of her menu.
“Werewolves,” said Jace. “Though I don’t mind a bloody
steak myself every once in a while.” He reached across
the table and flipped ry’s menu over. “Human food is
on the back.”
She perused the perfectly ordinary menu selections with
a feeling of stupefaction. It was all too much. “They have
smoothies here?”
“There’s this apricot-plum smoothie with wildflower
honey that’s simply divine,” said Isabelle, who had
appeared with Simon at her side. “Shove over,” she said
to ry, who scooted so close to the wall that she could
feel the cold bricks pressing into her arm. Simon, sliding
in next to Isabelle, offered her a half-embarrassed smile
that she didn’t return. “You should have one.”
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