The Return of The Shadow World: A 'The Red Scrolls of Magic' Review

When he had a choice, the Magnus he knew always chose to be kind.

Oh, I cannot adore this book enough. I've definitely not had enough of them, even after a complete bookload. Of all the pairs Cassie created, Malec has to be one of my most favorites. Theirs has always been a story that made me want to hold on to them more, and really, it's no different now. I always ache for characters that are kind and funny and good but I never ache for them together, like the unit they are. And Cassandra Clare finally delivered them. Through the whole The Mortal Instruments and The Dark Artifices (TMI and TDA from now on) series, I yearned for glimpses into their lives, just waiting for and stealing their cutesy little moments gladly. I remember squealing silently when I learned there was a book - the first in another series - that was entirely focused on Magnus and Alec. Has anything ever seemed so wonderful? I think NOT. This novel is set in three different cities in Europe, apart from New York, in the vacation that Magnus and Alec had taken during The City of Fallen Angels. The lines dedicating to each city at the beginning of those chapters made me want to fly over and sail across the ocean immediately.

The vacation was a well-orchestrated escape from the wails and whines of the Shadow World for them, a sigh of respite from venomous attacks, a chance to revel in the freshness and all kinds of palpitations and unmarred expectations of a new relationship.

But, of course, that cannot happen.

As is the wont with every Shadowhunter novel, there is a volley of demons ambushing them right from the almost-romantic dinner in the magically enchanted hot-air balloon several miles up in the air. From there, it kind of goes how you'd expect it to: attacks and running-aways and more attacks, interspersed with little moments of cute romance. Soon the engineer of this onslaught of demons becomes apparent: the upshot of the existence of a demon-worshipping cult, bent on killing its very founder, Magnus.

And here comes the gimmick: Magnus's amnesia. Well, it's really not an amnesia, since Magnus is a warlock, and warlocks do not get amnesia, do they? No, they have their memory wiped out or blurred or indiscernible. A huge portion of the book was spent on Magnus attempting, in vain, to trace the trails of a memory that comes just in flashes, whose only vestige left with him was him and Ragnor, talking about founding the cult in the throes of inebriation.

Magnus' father makes a prolonged appearance in the novel, stemming our imagination finally from conjuring up Magnus' deleterious history with him. All through the book, we find Magnus re-gauging the cost of his relationship with Alec, battling with the heap of regrets of his past and the shadow of a father whose dark smear he is afraid to have left permanent scars and blights on his soul, the palimpsest of whom Magnus now thinks he is.

Everything I am is all mine.

We meet Helen here too, the faerie-blooded Blackthorn we were always curious about, and then Ragnor Fell, the warlock who was Magnus' dear friend from the beginning of time, and then some other characters from the previous series, that just made it more desirable.

My favorite scene was definitely at the Paris Shadow Market when Magnus had asked Alec to stay back, and Alec, looking around tentatively, had hugged him tightly for few spare moments. Or no, probably it was when Alec had enveloped Magnus, who was nearly destroyed to death, into a crushing embrace after the said near-death ordeal. The best thing about the Shadowhunter novels is how often these life-threatening situations arise and people tend to spill those sometimes-achingly sweet things to each other. They are both so kind individually and to each other. And I don't think I have loved a pair more than them.

Is my fangirling drool visible here? Although I did expect a bit more conflict in the book. Not the obvious, demonic kind. But conflict between Magnus and Alec as a couple, for it seemed plain sometimes. There was palpable tension rippling through them at times, but they seem to navigate every other hellish hurdles flung at them with a too-calm coordination. But that's still all right, as long as there is another full novel on them. And Helen and Aline's backstory also had an entry, which I have always wanted to know. But somehow, they seemed different here from how they were in TDA. Where Aline was seen as the headstrong and protective and too-confident type and Helen the gentle, caring, and awkward one in the relationship there, it was almost reversed here. As if their spirits had swapped bodies in this novel. But other than that, I guess, I have no gripes about it. I am definitely counting down the moments till the next book is published.