City of Lost Souls

Looking a little disappointed, Magnus let Alec go. “There’s got to be a key,” he said. “To unlocking them. Some language I haven’t looked at yet. Something ancient. This is old black magic, very dark, not like anything I’ve ever seen before.” He looked at the paper again, his head tilted to the side. “Can you hand me that snuffbox over there? The silver one, on the edge of the table.”


Alec followed the line of Magnus’s gesture and saw a small silver box perched on the opposite side of the big wooden table. He reached over and picked it up. It was like a miniature metal chest set on small feet, with a curved top and the initials W.S. picked out in diamonds across the top.

W, he thought. Will?

Will, Magnus had said when Alec had asked him about the name Camille had taunted him with. Dear God, that was a long time ago.

Alec bit his lip. “What is this?”

“It’s a snuffbox,” said Magnus, not looking up from his papers. “I told you.”

“Snuff? As in snuffing people out?” Alec eyed it.

Magnus looked up and laughed. “As in tobacco. It was very popular around the seventeenth, eighteenth century. Now I use the box to keep odds and ends in.”

He held out his hand, and Alec gave the box up. “Do you ever wonder,” Alec began, and then started again. “Does it bother you that Camille’s out there somewhere? That she got away?” And that it was my fault? Alec thought but didn’t say. There was no need for Magnus to know.

“She’s always been out there somewhere,” said Magnus. “I know the Clave isn’t terribly pleased, but I’m used to imagining her living her life, not contacting me. If it ever bothered me, it hasn’t in a long time.”

“But you did love her. Once.”

Magnus ran his fingers over the diamond insets in the snuffbox. “I thought I did.”

“Does she still love you?”

“I don’t think so,” Magnus said dryly. “She wasn’t very pleasant the last time I saw her. Of course that could be because I’ve got an eighteen-year-old boyfriend with a stamina rune and she doesn’t.”

Alec sputtered. “As the person being objectified, I… object to that description of me.”

“She always was the jealous type.” Magnus grinned. He was awfully good at changing the subject, Alec thought. Magnus had made it clear that he didn’t like talking about his past love life, but somewhere during their conversation, Alec’s sense of familiarity and comfort, his feeling of being at home, had vanished. No matter how young Magnus looked—and right now, barefoot, with his hair sticking up, he looked about eighteen—uncrossable oceans of time divided them.

Magnus opened the box, took out some tacks, and used them to fix the paper he had been looking at to the table. When he glanced up and saw Alec’s expression, he did a double take. “Are you okay?”

Instead of replying, Alec reached down and took Magnus’s hands. Magnus let Alec pull him to his feet, a questioning look in his eyes. Before he could say anything, Alec drew him closer and kissed him. Magnus made a soft, pleased sound, and gripped the back of Alec’s shirt, rucking it up, his fingers cool on Alec’s spine. Alec leaned into him, pinning Magnus between the table and his own body. Not that Magnus seemed to mind.

“Come on,” Alec said against Magnus’s ear. “It’s late. Let’s go to bed.”

Magnus bit his lip and glanced over his shoulder at the papers on the table, his gaze fixed on ancient syllables in forgotten languages. “Why don’t you go on ahead?” he said. “I’ll join you—five minutes.”

“Sure.” Alec straightened up, knowing that when Magnus was deep in his studies, five minutes could easily become five hours. “I’ll see you there.”

“Shhh.”

Clary put her finger to her lips before motioning for Simon to go before her through the front door of Luke’s house. All the lights were off, and the living room was dark and silent. She shooed Simon toward her room and headed into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Halfway there she froze.

Her mother’s voice was audible down the hall. Clary could hear the strain in it. Just like losing Jace was Clary’s worst nightmare, she knew that her mother was living her worst nightmare too. Knowing that her son was alive and out there in the world, capable of anything, was ripping her apart from the inside out.

“But they cleared her, Jocelyn,” Clary overheard Luke reply, his voice dipping in and out of a whisper. “There won’t be any punishment.”

“All of it is my fault.” Jocelyn sounded muffled, as if she had buried her head against Luke’s shoulder. “If I hadn’t brought that… creature into the world, Clary wouldn’t be going through this now.”

“You couldn’t have known…” Luke’s voice faded off into a murmur, and though Clary knew he was right, she had a brief, guilty flash of rage against her mother. Jocelyn should have killed Sebastian in his crib before he’d ever had a chance to grow up and ruin all their lives, she thought, and was instantly horrified at herself for thinking it. She turned and swung back toward the other end of the house, darting into her bedroom and closing the door behind her as if she were being followed.