Born to Endless Night (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #9)

Born to Endless Night (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #9)

Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan




Every Night & every Morn

Some to Misery are Born

Every Morn and every Night

Some are Born to sweet delight

Some are Born to sweet delight

Some are Born to Endless Night

—“Auguries of Innocence,” William Blake

Magnus believed that many old things were creations of enduring beauty. The pyramids. Michelangelo’s David. Versailles. Magnus himself.

However, just because something was old and imbued with years of tradition did not make it a work of art. Not even if you were Nephilim and thought having the blood of the Angel meant your stuff was better than anybody else’s.

Shadowhunter Academy was not a creation of enduring beauty. Shadowhunter Academy was a dump.

Magnus did not enjoy the countryside in early spring, before winter had truly ended. The whole landscape was as monochrome as an old movie, without the narrative energy. Dark gray fields rolled under a pale gray sky, and trees were stripped down to gray claws clutching for the rain clouds. The Academy matched its surroundings, squatting in the landscape like a great stone toad.

Magnus had been here a few times before, visiting friends. He had not liked it. He remembered walking long ago under the cold eyes of students who had been trained in the dark, narrow ways of Clave and Covenant, and who were too young to realize the world might be more complicated than that.

At least back then the place had not been falling down. Magnus stared at one of the slender towers that stood at each of the four corners of the Academy. It was not standing up straight; in fact, it looked like a poor relation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Magnus stared at it, concentrated, and snapped his fingers. The tower leaped back into place as if it were a crouching person who had suddenly straightened up. There was a faint series of cries issuing from the tower windows. Magnus had not realized there were people inside. This struck him as unsafe.

Well, the inhabitants of the formerly leaning tower would soon realize he had done them a favor. Magnus eyed the angel in the stained-glass window set above the door. The angel stared down at him, sword blazing and face censorious, as if he disapproved of Magnus’s dress sense and was going to ask him to change.

Magnus walked under the judgmental angel and into the stone hall, whistling softly. The hall was empty. It was still very early in the morning, which perhaps explained some of the grayness. Magnus hoped the day would brighten before Alec arrived.

He had left his boyfriend in Alicante, at his father’s house. Alec’s sister, Isabelle, was staying there too. Magnus had slept uneasily at the Inquisitor’s house last night, and said he would leave them to have breakfast alone—just the family. For years he and Robert and Maryse Lightwood had arranged their lives so that they never saw each other unless duty called or large cash payments for Magnus beckoned.

Magnus was fairly sure Robert and Maryse missed those days and wished they would come back. Magnus knew they would never have chosen him for their son, and even if their son had to date a man, they would have preferred not a Downworlder, and certainly not a Downworlder who had been around during the days of Valentine’s Circle and seen them at a time in their lives they were not proud of now.

For himself Magnus did not forget. He might love one Shadowhunter, but it was impossible to love them all. He expected many more years politely avoiding and, when necessary, politely tolerating Alec’s parents. It was a very small price to pay to be with Alec.