Bane Chronicle teasers
He had not seemed to want to be taken from the cold depths of the water: had fought Magnus as he dragged him out, then laid his pale cheek against the dank earth of the riverbank, and hid his face in his arms.
For a moment Magnus had thought he was crying, but as he stooped down to check on the boy he found he was barely conscious. With his cruel golden eyes closed, he once again reminded Magnus of the lost boy Will had been: Magnus touched his damp hair gently, and said “James,” in as kind a voice as he could.
His eyes were shut, black lashes ink-dark crescents against the marble-pale lines of his cheekbones. Sparkling drops of water were caught in the curling ends of those lashes: he looked unhappy as he slept in a way he did not when awake.
***
Caution: these may contain spoiler for clockwork princess
This boy had pale amber eyes, like a crystal glass filled brimful with crisp white wine and held up to catch the light of the sun. Magnus could not imagine these eyes as tender. The boy was lovely, but his was a beauty like that Helen of Troy might have had once, disaster written in every line. The light of his beauty made Magnus think of cities burning.
Fog and gaslight receded into memory. His momentary lapse into foolish nostalgia was over. This was not Will. That broken, beautiful boy would be a man now, and this boy was a stranger.
“I,” the boy announced, “am James Herondale.”
***
PARIS
June, 1971
There was a smell to Paris in the simmer mornings that Magnus enjoyed. This was surprising, because on summer mornings Paris smelled of cheese that sat in the sun all day and fish and the less desirable parts of fish. It smelled of people and all the things that people produce (this does not refer to art or culture, but to the baser things that were dumped out of windows in buckets). But these were punctuated by other odors, and the odors would shift rapidly from street to street, or building to building. That heady whiff of a bakery might be followed by an unexpected flush of gardenias in a garden, which gave way to the iron-rich pong of a slaughterhouse. Paris was nothing if not alive–the Seine pumping along like a great artery, the vessels of the wider street, narrowing down the tiniest alleys…and every inch of it had a smell.
***
Just don’t leave me here,” said Ragnor. “You have to swear, Bane.”
Magnus raised his eyebrows. “I give you my word of honor!”
“I mean it,” Ragnor told him. “I will find you. I will find whatever chest of absurd clothes you have brought with you. And I will bring a llama into the place where you sleep and make sure that it urinates on everything in the chest.”
“There is no need to get nasty about this,” Magnus said. “Don’t worry. I can teach you every word that you need to know right now. One of them is ‘fiesta.’”
Ragnor scowled. “What does that mean?”
“It means ‘party.’ Another important word is ‘juerga.’”
“What does that word mean?”
Magnus was silent.
“Magnus,” said Ragnor, his voice stern. “Does that word also mean ‘party’?”
Magnus could not help the sly grin that spread across his face. “I would apologize,” he said. “But I have no regrets.”
***
“You’re quite wrong, you know. I am the most permanent person,” said Magnus, his voice breathless with laughter and his eyes stung a little by tears, “that you will ever meet. It is only that it never makes any difference.”
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