The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses, #1)(67)

“Not before right this moment,” Alec snapped.

Aline shrugged. “Sorry. I think maybe I’m just not very romantic. I’ve never understood why people get so worked up about relationships.”

Alec used to feel the same. He remembered the first time Magnus kissed him, and every cell of his body thrilled to a new song. He remembered the sensation of the pieces of the world finally fitting together in a way that made sense.

“Well,” said Alec, “we’re still together. We’re on vacation. It’s great.” He shot Aline a challenging glare, then thought of Magnus and added, more softly, “He’s great.”

“So why are you at the Rome Institute when you’re meant to be on vacation?” Aline asked.

Alec hesitated. “Can I trust you?” he asked. “Can I really trust you? I mean it. I trust you with my life, but can I trust you with more than my life?”

“That got serious fast,” said Aline with a grin, which faded as she took in Alec’s grim expression. She bit her lip. “Your fight is my fight,” she said. “You can trust me.”

Alec gazed at her for a long moment. Then he explained as much as he could: that there was a cult called the Crimson Hand, that he’d gone to a warlock’s party in search of information, that the faerie girl he’d seen making out with a vampire girl there had turned out to be a Shadowhunter called Helen Blackthorn, that the Shadowhunters at the Rome Institute might have been alerted to be suspicious of Alec.

“I need to find out if there’s been any sign of cult activity in Rome,” he said, “but I can’t tell anyone else in the Institute what I’m looking for.”

Aline absorbed this. He could see the questions in her eyes, but she pressed her lips together.

“Okay,” she said at last. “Let’s go check out the logged demonic activity in the last few weeks. I’ll just say that my friend, a hero of the war, has dropped by to visit me. I think some more visitors are due. With any luck, everyone will be too busy to ask any questions.”

Alec gave her a grateful look. Aline was kind.

“If your warlock is doing something evil, we’re going to have to cut off his head,” Aline added.

Aline was kind, but perhaps not very tactful.

“He’s not,” said Alec. “If I’m a hero of the war, so is he.”

He saw Aline process this. She nodded, finished her coffee, and paid her bill. Alec took her hand as they stepped over the ropes of the café together.

They passed through the giant golden double entry doors of the Rome Institute and proceeded into the atrium. Alec whistled. This was one of the larger Institutes in the world. Alec had heard it described as “ornate,” but this turned out to be a significant understatement. It was an assault on the eyes, far too much to take in at once. There were beautiful and intricate designs and artworks everywhere he looked: the half-dozen statues on the left wall, the lifelike carvings on the right, the mesmerizing gold-and-silver-tiled dome several stories above them. Words were inscribed across the ceiling in Latin: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

“They modeled it after St. Peter’s Basilica,” noted Aline as she led them through the vestibule and down the side arcade.

Aline already knew her way around. She led him around the side passages, avoiding the more heavily trafficked main corridors. They went up a gilded spiral staircase, past at least ten more statues and a few dozen frescoes, before reaching a glass door.

“We have to go through the training room to get to the records room,” said Aline. “I hope there won’t be anyone inside, but if there is, we’ll brazen it out.”

“Okay,” said Alec.

Aline hit the glass door with her fist and cheerfully called out, “Hero of the war, coming through!”

“Who?” yelled a dozen voices at once.

Someone else shouted, “Is it Jace Herondale?”

“By the Angel, please let it be Jace Herondale!” said another voice.

Alec and Aline walked into a room as bright as a greenhouse, marble gleaming on the floor between practice mats, and more than a dozen Shadowhunters all in their gear. There were targets set up on the wall farthest from them, with arrows in the outer rings. Clearly, the Italian Shadowhunters needed to practice more, but Alec did not see why it had to be right then.

A girl at the front of the group sagged in disappointment. “Oh, it’s not Jace Herondale. It’s just some guy.”

Alec gave it two minutes before they processed their disappointment and started asking questions. There were too many of these people. He could not give them any answers.

He took a deep breath and drew his bow. He told himself not to worry about all the people, or about the cult, or about Magnus. He’d taught himself focus over many long nights practicing his archery, once he understood that Jace and Isabelle were always going to fling themselves into danger, and he would have to cover them. He could not do that with voices in his head warning him that he would fail, that his father would never be proud of him the way the Clave was of Jace, that he wasn’t good enough.

He fired five arrows into the five targets. Each one was a bull’s-eye. He put his bow away.

“I’m not Jace Herondale,” he said. “But I’ve learned to keep up.”