Free The Bane Chronicles 1: What Really Happened in Peru by Sarah Rees Brennan Cassandra Clare

1791
    Magnus awoke in his roadside inn just outside Lima, and once he had arrayed himself in an embroidered waistcoat, breeches, and shining buckled shoes, he went in search of breakfast. Instead he found his hostess, a plump woman whose long hair was covered with a black mantilla, in a deep, troubled conference with one of the serving girls about a recent arrival to the inn.
    “I think it’s a sea monster,” he heard his hostess whisper. “Or a merman. Can they survive on land?”
    “Good morning, ladies,” Magnus called out. “Sounds like my guest has arrived.”
    Both women blinked twice. Magnus put the first blink down to his vivid attire, and the second, slower blink down to what he had just said. He gave them both a cheery wave and wandered out through wide wooden doors and across the courtyard into the common room, where he found his fellow warlock Ragnor Fell skulking in the back of the room with a mug of chicha de molle .
    “I’ll have what he’s having,” Magnus said to the serving lady. “No, wait a moment. I’ll have three of what he’s having.”
    “Tell them I’ll have the same,” said Ragnor. “I achieved this drink only through some very determined pointing.”
    Magnus did, and when he returned his gaze to Ragnor, he saw that his old friend was looking his usual self: hideously dressed, deeply gloomy, and deeply green of skin. Magnus often gave thanks that his own warlock’s mark was not so obvious. It was sometimes inconvenient to have the gold-green, slit-pupilled eyes of a cat, but this was usually easily hidden with a small glamour, and if not, well, there were quite a few ladies—and men—who didn’t find it a drawback.
    “No glamour?” Magnus inquired.
    “You said that you wanted me to join you on travels that would be a ceaseless round of debauchery,” Ragnor told him.
    Magnus beamed. “I did!” He paused. “Forgive me. I do not see the connection.”
    “I have found I have better luck with the ladies in my natural state,” Ragnor told him. “Ladies enjoy a bit of variety. There was a woman in the court of Louis the Sun King who said none could compare to her ‘dear little cabbage.’ I hear it’s become quite a popular term of endearment in France. All thanks to me.”
    He spoke in the same glum tones as usual. When the six drinks arrived, Magnus seized on them.
    “I’ll be needing all of these. Please bring more for my friend.”
    “There was also a woman who referred to me as her sweet peapod of love,” Ragnor continued.
    Magnus took a deep restorative swallow, looked at the sunshine outside and the drinks before him, and felt better about the entire situation. “Congratulations. And welcome to Lima, the City of Kings, my sweet peapod.”

    After breakfast, which was five drinks for Ragnor and seventeen for Magnus, Magnus took Ragnor on a tour of Lima, from the golden, curled, and carved façade of the archbishop’s palace to the brightly colored buildings across the plaza, with their practically mandatory elaborate balconies, where the Spanish had once executed criminals.
    “I thought it would be nice to start in the capital. Besides, I’ve been here before,” Magnus said. “About fifty years ago. I had a lovely time, aside from the earthquake that almost swallowed the city.”
    “Did you have something to do with that earthquake?”
    “Ragnor,” Magnus reproached his friend. “You cannot blame me for every little natural disaster that happens!”
    “You didn’t answer the question,” Ragnor said, and sighed. “I am relying on you to be . . . more reliable and less like you than you usually are,” he warned as they walked. “I don’t speak the language.”
    “So you don’t speak Spanish?” Magnus asked. “Or you don’t speak Quechua? Or is it that you don’t speak Aymara?”
    Magnus was perfectly aware he was a stranger everywhere he went, and he took care to learn all the languages so he could go anywhere he chose. Spanish had been the