“That’s black magic,” said Magnus. “Not quite necromancy, but—”
“No one need know.”
“Really.” Magnus’s tone was acid. “These things have a way of getting out. And if the Clave found out I’d sent one of their own, their most promising, to be rent apart by demons in another dimension—”
“The Clave does not consider me promising.” Will’s voice was cold. “I am not promising. I am not anything, nor will I ever be. Not without your help.”
“I am beginning to wonder if you’ve been sent to test me, Will Herondale.”
Will gave a harsh little bark of laughter. “By God?”
“By the Clave. Who might as well be God. Perhaps they simply seek to find out whether I am willing to break the Law.”
Will swung around and stared at him. “I am deadly earnest,” he said. “This is not some sort of test. I cannot go on like this, summoning up demons at random, never having them be the correct one, endless hope, endless disappointment. Every day dawns blacker and blacker, and I will lose her forever if you—”
“Lose her?” Magnus’s mind fastened on the word; he sat up straight, narrowing his eyes. “This is about Tessa. I knew it was.”
Will flushed, a wash of color across the pallor of his face. “Not just her.”
“But you love her.”
Will stared at him. “Of course I do,” he said finally. “I had come to think I would never love anyone, but I love her.”
“Is this curse supposed to be some business about taking away your ability to love? Because that’s nonsense if I’ve ever heard it. Jem’s your parabatai. I’ve seen you with him. You love him, don’t you?”
“Jem is my great sin,” said Will. “Don’t talk to me about Jem.”
“Don’t talk to you about Jem, don’t talk to you about Tessa. You want me to open a portal to the demon worlds for you, and you won’t talk to me or tell me why? I won’t do it, Will.” Magnus crossed his arms over his chest.
Will rested a hand on the mantel. He was very still, the flames showing the outlines of him, the clear beautiful profile, the grace of his long slender hands. “I saw my family today,” he said, and then amended that quickly. “My sister. I saw my younger sister. Cecily. I knew they lived, but I never thought I would see them again. They cannot be near me.”
“Why?” Magnus made his voice soft; he felt he was on the verge of something, some sort of breakthrough with this odd, infuriating, damaged, shattered boy. “What did they do that was so terrible?”
“What did they do?” Will’s voice rose. “What did they do? Nothing. It is me. I am poison. Poison to them. Poison to anyone who loves me.”
“Will—”
“I lied to you,” Will said, turning suddenly away from the fire.
“Shocking,” Magnus murmured, but Will was gone, gone into his memories, which was perhaps for the best. He had begun to pace, scuffing his boots along Camille’s lovely Persian carpet.
“You know what I’ve told you. I was in the library of my parents’ house in Wales. It was a rainy day; I was bored, going through my father’s old things. He kept a few things from his old life as a Shadowhunter, things he had not wanted, for sentiment I suppose, to give up. An old stele, though I did not know what it was at the time, and a small, engraved box, in a false drawer of his desk. I suppose he assumed that would be enough to keep us out, but nothing is enough to keep out curious children. Of course the first thing I did upon finding the box was open it. A mist poured out of it in a blast, forming almost instantly into a living demon. The moment I saw the creature, I began to scream. I was only twelve. I’d never seen anything like it. Enormous, deadly, all jagged teeth and barbed tail—and I had nothing. No weapons. When it roared, I fell to the carpet. The thing was hovering over me, hissing. Then my sister burst in.”
“Cecily?”
“Ella. My elder sister. She had something blazing in her hand. I know what it was now—a seraph blade. I had no idea then. I screamed for her to get out, but she put herself between the creature and me. She had absolutely no fear, my sister. She never had. She was not afraid to climb the tallest tree, to ride the wildest horse—and she had no fear there, in the library. She told the thing to get out. It was hovering there like a great, ugly insect. She said, ‘I banish you.’ Then it laughed.”
It would. Magnus felt a strange stirring of both pity and liking for the girl, brought up to know nothing about demons, their summoning or their banishment, yet standing her ground regardless.
“It laughed, and it swung out with its tail, knocking her to the ground. Then it fixed its eyes on me. They were all red, no whites at all. It said, ‘It is your father I would destroy, but as he is not here, you will have to do.’ I was so shocked, all I could do was stare. Ella was crawling over the carpet, grabbing for the fallen seraph blade. ‘I curse you,’ it said. ‘All who love you will die. Their love will be their destruction. It may take moments, it may take years, but any who look upon you with love will die of it, unless you remove yourself from them forever. And I shall begin it with her.’ It snarled in Ella’s direction, and vanished.”
Magnus was fascinated despite himself. “And did she fall dead?”
“No.” Will was still pacing. He took off his jacket, slung it over a chair. His longish dark hair had begun to curl with the heat coming off his body, mixing with the heat of the fire; it stuck to the back of his neck. “She was unharmed. She took me in her arms. She comforted me. She told me the demon’s words meant nothing. She admitted she had read some of the forbidden books in the library, and that was how she knew what a seraph blade was, and how to use it, and that the thing I had opened was called a Pyxis, though she could not imagine why my father would have kept one. She made me promise not to touch anything of my parents’ again unless she was there, and then she led me up to bed, and sat reading while I fell asleep. I was exhausted with the shock of it all, I think. I remember hearing her murmur to my mother, something about how I had been taken ill while they had been out, some childish fever. By that point I was enjoying the fuss that was being made over me, and the demon was beginning to seem a rather exciting memory. I recall planning how to tell Cecily about it—without admitting, of course, that Ella had saved me while I had screamed like a child—”
“You were a child,” Magnus noted.
“I was old enough,” said Will. “Old enough to know what it meant when I was woken up the next morning by my mother howling with grief. She was in Ella’s room, and Ella was dead in her bed. They did their best to keep me out, but I saw what I needed to see. She was swelled up, greenish-black like something had rotted her from inside. She didn’t look like my sister anymore. She didn’t look human anymore.
“I knew what had happened, even if they didn’t. ‘All who love you will die. And I shall begin it with her.’ It was my curse at work. I knew then that I had to get away from them—from all my family—before I brought the same horror down on them. I left that night, following the roads to London.”
Magnus opened his mouth, then closed it again. For once he didn’t know what to say.