Shadowhunters would not come to speakeasies. They respected the mundane law against alcohol (always so tedious with their “The law is hard but it is the law”). This meant that Magnus had to take a trip to the Upper East Side, to the Institute.
The grandeur of the Institute never failed to impress him—the way it towered high and mighty above everything else, timeless and unmoving in its Gothic disapproval of all that was modern and changeable. Downworlders could not normally enter the Institute through the main door—the Sanctuary was their entrance. But Magnus was no ordinary Downworlder, and his connection to the Shadowhunters was long and well-known.
This didn’t mean that he got a warm reception. The housekeeper, Edith, said nothing as she admitted him except, “Wait here.” He was left in the foyer, where he eyed the fusty decorations with a critical eye. The Shadowhunters did love their burgundy wallpaper and their rose-shaped lamps and their heavy furnishings. Time would never move quickly here.
“Come on,” Edith said, returning.
Magnus followed her down the hall to a reception room, where Edgar Greymark, the head of the Institute, stood in front of a bookstand.
“Edgar,” Magnus said, nodding. “I see you’ve bowed to the pressure and installed a telephone.”
Magnus pointed to a telephone sitting on a small table in a dark corner, as if it was being punished for existing.
“It’s a dammed nuisance. Have you heard the noise it makes? But you can speak to the other Institutes easily and get ice delivered, so . . .”
He let the book he was reading close heavily.
“What brings you to see us, Magnus?” he said. “I understand you’ve been running a drinking establishment. Is that correct?”
“Quite correct,” Magnus said with a smile. “Though it currently might be more useful as a pile of kindling.”
Edgar didn’t ask for an explanation of that remark, and Magnus didn’t offer one.
“You are aware that the sale of liquor is currently against the law,” Edgar went on, “but I suppose that’s why you enjoy it.”
“Everyone should have a hobby or two,” Magnus said. “Mine just happen to include illegal trade, drinking, and carousing. I’ve heard of worse.”
“We tend not to have time for hobbies.”
Shadowhunters. Always better than you.
“I’m here because I’ve heard things in this drinking establishment of mine, things about the Downworld that you might want to know about.”
Magnus recounted everything he could think of—everything Aldous had said, including his odd demeanor. Edgar listened, his expression never changing.
“You’re basing this on the ramblings of Aldous Nix?” he said, when Magnus had finished. “Everyone knows Aldous isn’t himself these days.”
“I’ve lived longer than you,” Magnus said. “My experience is wide, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”
“We do not act on instinct,” Edgar said. “Either you have information, or you do not.”
“Considering our long history, Edgar, I think that perhaps you should act on what I am saying.”
“What would you have us do?”
Magnus resented having to spell everything out. He had come to the Shadowhunters with information. It wasn’t up to him to explain precisely how they should interpret it.
“Speak to him, perhaps?” Magnus said. “Do what you do best—keep an eye out.”
“We are always watchful, Magnus.” There was a slight edge of sarcasm to Edgar’s tone that Magnus really did not appreciate. “We will bear all of this in mind. Thank you for coming to see us. Edith will show you out.”
He rang a bell, and the sour-faced Edith appeared in an instant to take the Downworlder out of her house.
Before going to the Institute, Magnus had been resolved to do nothing. Just pass on the information and get on with his endless life. But Edgar’s dismissal of his concerns motivated him. Aldous said the Hotel Dumont was on 116th Street, which wasn’t far at all. That was just up in Italian Harlem, perhaps a twenty-minute walk away. Magnus set his course northward. New York was a place that changed very abruptly from neighborhood to neighborhood. The Upper East Side was moneyed and dignified to the point of pain. But as he went up, the houses got smaller, the driving more aggressive, and the horse carts more frequent. Above 100th Street, the children got more boisterous, playing stickball in the street and chasing one another as mothers shouted through windows.