The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses) by Cassandra Clare & Wesley Chu

Author:Cassandra Clare & Wesley Chu [Clare, Cassandra & Chu, Wesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2020-08-31T18:30:00+00:00

PART III Diyu

CHAPTER ELEVEN The First Court

HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO, MAGNUS had lain sleepless in the City of Bones, among the Silent Brothers. Then as now, peace had seemed an impossibility.

Magnus’s mother had killed herself because of what he was. His stepfather had tried to kill him for it. Magnus had murdered his stepfather instead. He didn’t recall the time after that very well. He’d been out of his mind, his powers out of control, a lost child carrying a storm of magic and rage in his breast. He remembered almost dying of thirst in a desert. He remembered an earthquake; falling rubble; screaming. When the Silent Brothers came, he’d stumbled through a rain of rocks toward their hooded figures, not knowing whether they would teach him or kill him.

They took him away, but even in their city of peace and silence, he dreamed of his stepfather burning. He desperately wanted help, but he had no idea how to ask for it.

The Silent Brothers approached the warlock Ragnor Fell for aid with this wayward warlock child.

The memory of their first meeting was still crystal clear. Magnus had been lying on his bed in the bare stone room the Silent Brothers had given him. They had done what they could, finding a soft, colorful blanket and a few toys for him to make the space more like a child’s bedroom, and less like a prison cell. It was still fairly uncomfortable, not least because the Silent Brothers themselves were so intimidating. Their kindness to him was at sharp odds with their terrifying eyeless faces, and he’d been trying to stop flinching when they entered the room.

He was finally getting used to the monsters caring for him, and then a new monster walked in. The door scraped open, steel on stone.

“Come now, boy,” said a voice from the door of his cell. “There’s no need to cry.”

A demon, the boy thought frantically, a demon like his parents said he was: skin green as the moss on graves, hair white as bone. His fingers each had an extra joint, and curled grotesquely into claws. Magnus scrambled to sit up and defend himself, an awkward preteen in the middle of an alarming growth spurt, limbs flailing and dangerous magic pouring out of him.

Only Ragnor lifted one of his strange hands, and Magnus’s magic turned to blue smoke, a blaze of harmless color in the dark.

Ragnor rolled his eyes. “It’s very impolite to stare at people.”

Magnus hadn’t expected this alien being to speak his language, but Ragnor’s Malay was smooth and effortless, if accented. “My first impressions are that you have no social grace, and that you are in desperate need of a bath.” He gave a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe I agreed to this. My first lesson to you, boy, is to never play cards against a Silent Brother.”

“What—what are you?” said Magnus.

“I am Ragnor Fell. What are you?”

Magnus could barely find his voice. “He said—she called me—they said I was cursed.”

Ragnor came closer.

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