The Lost Book of the White

You're my heart, Magnus Bane. Stay unbroken, for me.

So far," said Magnus, "life seems to me to be a matter of choosing love, over and over, even knowing that it makes you vulnerable, that it might hurt you later. Or even sooner. You just have no choice. You choose to love or you choose to live in an empty world with no one there but you. And that seems like a truly terrible way to spend eternity.

If I only jumped when I knew where I was going to land, I would never jump at all.

The Institute has a very old magic woven into its walls. I shall now use it to commune with my mother, wherever she might be found." He put his hands around his mouth and bellowed at the top of his lungs. "MOOOOOOOOOM!

Magnus hesitated. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We’ve been rushing around getting ready to leave, and I haven’t so much as googled the word Svefnthorn.” “I googled it,” Jace said, to Alec’s surprise. “While we were getting our stuff together.” “You,” said Alec, “googled it.” “Yeah,” said Jace. “It sounded Norse, so I went into the library and looked it up in the Saga Concordances. Like a normal person. That’s googling, right?” “More or less,” said Simon.

Why would Shinyun be after Tessa?” Magnus said. Jem looked at him in surprise. “Well—because she’s an eldest curse, of course. Like you.” Magnus blinked. “You mean, because she’s the daughter of a Prince of Hell? Like me?” “No. It’s more than that. Tessa went to the Labyrinth not just to hide but to research. Eldest curses are not just children of Princes of Hell. They’re the oldest living children of those princes. There can only be nine of them alive at any one time, and I know of only two. And I’m talking to one of them and married to the other.

I’ve made some weird calls in my time,” Jace mused, “but spending ten minutes in free fall from one unknown place in a hell dimension to a different unknown place in a hell dimension is pretty reckless even for me.” “Don’t feel bad,” said Magnus. “It wasn’t really your decision.

Good God, I've been rescued by an idiot!"-- Catarina Loss

Can we see the glowing fissure in your chest?” Simon asked. “Simon, it’s rude to bring up glowing fissures in other people’s chests,” said Clary. “What do you think they want with the Book of the White, Magnus?” Magnus turned to look at Alec. “So, you told them everything? Did you say the S-word? The R-word?” Alec rolled his eyes. “If you’re asking if I told them about Shinyun and Ragnor, I did.

Alec," Kadir said, very intensely. "I also must speak to you about "The Very Small Mouse Who Went a Very Long Way," by Courtney Gray Wiese." "What about it?" Alec said. "You did not tell me," Kadir said. "You did not warn me sufficiently." "We tried," said Alec. In bleak tones, Kadir recited, "The finest mouse will go neglected/Who is not often disinfected." "It's hard to prepare someone for it," Alec said. "You kind of have to experience it for yourself." "Indeed," said Kadir. "I am glad for "Where the Wild Things Are," at least. I have learned, after all these years, where the wild things are. They are in this Institute.

Each time, she noticed his eyes, luminous and slit-pupiled—each time, he expected her to be frightened, but she was only ever curious. When she got old enough, she would ask him, "Why do you have cat eyes?" He got to try out plenty of responses. "I traded them with my cat. Now he has human eyes." "The better to see you with, my dear." "Why do you not have cat eyes?

He leaned forward and kissed Magnus, gently, slowly, the way he would on a Sunday morning in bed. It was totally at odds with their situation, totally at odds with how either of them felt in that moment. It was wonderful. "Not the time!" Jace yelled from a little ways ahead of them. "Always the time," Alec murmured against Magnus's mouth. He called back to Jace, "Just working to keep up morale!

Nina bobo, ni ni bobo," he was singing in his deep, beautiful voice, an Indonesian lullaby, much older than Magnus himself. He rocked their child in his arms. Max was waving his hands as though to conduct the song, or to catch the firefly-bright and cobalt-blue sparks of magic floating around the room. Magnus was smiling down at Max, a small, tender, and impossibly sweet smile, even as he sang. Alec meant to let them be and return to bed, but Magnus paused in his song and tossed Alec a glance as though he knew he'd been watching. Alec leaned in the doorway of the bedroom, resting his hand over his head against the doorframe. "Is that your bapak?" he said to Max. After some consideration, Max said, "Bapak." The look Magnus gave Alec was golden as a coin, as Nephilim wedding cloth, as the morning light through the windows of home.

Just keep it in mind. Your my heart, Magnus Bane. Stay unbroken. for me.

Magnus had grown used to a lot of things about spending time with Shadowhunters, but the five solid minutes of drawing on one another that preceded every battle continued to be just a little bit funny to him every time.

The window slid upward. Fire woke in both of Magnus's palms, and magic blazed in the dark, sapphire-blue. A figure pulled its torso through the window and then froze. Framed in the opening was a Shadowhunter in full demon-hunting gear, bow looped over one shoulder. He looked surprised. "Uh, hi," said Alec Lightwood. "I'm home. Please don't shoot me with magical rays." Magnus waved with both hands, blue lights paling, then winking out, leaving faint traces of smoke curling around his fingers. "You usually use the door." "Sometimes I like the change of pace." Alec pulled himself the rest of the way in and closed the window behind him. Magnus gave him a look. "Okay. Truth. A demon ate my keys." "We go through so many keys.

Alex seemed near tears. "I'm very proud of you," he said to Jace. "You actually made a plan." "I'm good at plans!" Jace said. "You are, actually, good at plans," Magnus said. "it's just usually you're yelling them behind you as you sprint toward danger." "But you used your sumptuous brain and you're all okay!" Alec said, thumping Jace on the shoulder.

Magnus handed the bowl he was holding to Jem. He ignored Jem’s raised eyebrow. “Did you ever have to wash dishes in the Silent City?” “No,” said Jem. “Then this’ll be good practice.

Magnus laughed, unable to stop himself. He leaned over and grabbed Ragnor into a tight bear hug. "I assume," said Magnus after a moment, "that you're tolerating being hugged for this long because you are suffused with your love for me as your dearest friend and also your savior, and not because you are too weak to get away." "Think what you like," said Ragnor.

They all looked at Magnus, who threw up his hands. "I don't have any better ideas," he said. "I'm sorry you've all followed me into Hell again." Clary snorted. "It's easier the second time." "It's what we do," said Jace. He went to retrieve his spear from where he'd left it leaning against the wall. "Lead the way.

Also, we are from the New York Institute, and we are past masters of letting it slide.

I wish I could do more. Be a better parabatai. Fighting alongside someone you love isn't just about fighting more effectively. It's also about supporting each other when things go wrong. "We know exactly what you mean," Alec said, looking at Jace. "And you are a good parabatai, Clary. Watching you and Simon together—" "It's like seeing the two of us," Jace said, indicating himself and Alec. "Strength and beauty. Perfect harmony. Skill and intuition, exactly matched." Alec raised an eyebrow, "Are you strength or beauty?" "I think we all know the answer to that," said Jace. "You really are a very strange group of people," observed Tian.

He was holding Max," he said quietly. He came over and sat on the end of the bed. "I didn't—that's the first—" He took a moment and then spoke again, the quaver gone from his voice. "There is something quite marvelous about having a child," he said. "In times of danger, it does focus the mind very well." Alec went over to Magnus and put his hands on his boyfriend's shoulders. "It isn't just us anymore." "I had to hold it together," said Magnus. I had to. I had no other option. So I did. Otherwise I would be very shaken up right now.

It should have been totally alien to Alec, but it wasn't. It was new. But there was something there he already understood. He was suprised to find how many things in his life worked that way, when he gave them a try.

I've never had a child," said Magnus, "but I know what it is to lose someone you love, for no better reason than that all humans must die." "And?" said Catarina. "So far," said Magnus, "life seems to me to be a matter of choosing love, over and over, even knowing that it makes you vulnerable, that it might hurt you later. Or even sooner. You just have no choice. You choose to love or you choose to live in an empty world with no one there but you. And that seems like a truly terrible way to spend eternity.

Great news," said Magnus, and he jumped off the platform. He floated slowly down to the plain, waving at Isabelle as he passed. "Magnus!" said Clary, lopping the head off one of the Baigujing skeletons. "Good to see you!" "I'm going to say something," Simon said in Clary's direction, "and I don't want you to get mad." Clary let out a long, beleaguered breath. "Go ahead. I guess you've earned it." "Magnus," Simon said with a smirk. "Nice of you to drop in." Clary sighed again.

By his nature, Alec didn't like acting on hunches. He liked to study a situation, make a plan, and execute the plan. It got him teased by Jace, by Isabelle, who both believed in jumping off a cliff and somehow sewing a parachute on the way down. They acted on instinct, and usually it turned out all right. But Alec didn't have the same kind of faith in his own instincts. He believed in gathering intelligence, doing research, being prepared. (To be fair, Isabelle and Jace also believed in those things; they just believed other people should do them, because they were boring.)

He was angry at Magnus, but equally obviously liked Catarina, and the two of them had quickly fallen into as pleasant a rapport as Magnus had with either of them. Unfortunately, their favourite topic so far was how stupid Magnus had been for attempting the rescue. "I saved your life!" he protested. "And a very careful, understated saving it was," Ragnor said. "How do you think I found you? Within minutes the whole area was buzzing with rumors of a vile magician swooping through the sky over Leonberg on a black cloud, flying through flame and carrying a foul with out of the fire meant to sanctify her." "So we stay out of the Holy Roman Empire for a while." Magnus shrugged, grinning. "I won't miss it." "It takes up half of Europe, Magnus." "Very overrated, Europe.

He's got a point," said Jace. With the handle of his spear, he had pushed the oilcloth aside, uncovering a two-handed sword with an immense broad curved blade, like a cross between a scimitar and a machete. He gingerly nudged the tip with his good foot. "As does this. Clary? Dadao?" Clary took it and went to the other end of the room, where she stepped through a few two-handed sword forms, her bright red braid whipping around her head as she spun through a series of forward cuts, ending with the sword elegantly held downwards. She flashed them a smile. "I like it." Jace was staring. Alec patted him on the shoulder. "There's something about a tiny girl with a gigantic sword," Jace murmured. Clary came back over. Jace visibly restrained himself from grabbing her and kissing her, and instead went back to the pile of weapons at their feet.

Your second lesson: the Silent Brothers don't need to wash themselves or their clothes, but you do. You very much do." The boy laughed. "Let's keep ourselves sparkling clean from now on, shall we?" Ragnor suggested. "And for God's sake, get some nice clothes." Later, Ragnor would say he wished he'd never come to the City of Bones that day, and he'd never intended for Magnus to go so far overboard with the clothes. And of course he'd never foreseen the invention of cosmetic glitter.