Angels Twice Descending (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #10)

George busied himself with neatly tucking his socks into a suitcase compartment, which Simon found alarming, since it was the first time in two years George had done anything neatly. “You’re my best friend, you know,” George said without looking up. Then, quickly, as if to forestall argument, “Don’t worry, I know I’m not your best friend, Si. You’ve got Clary. And Isabelle. And your bandmate mate. I get it. I just thought you should know.”


On some level, Simon had already known this. He’d never bothered to think much about it—he didn’t think much about George, period, because that was the beauty of George. Simon never had to think about him, to puzzle out what he would do or how he would react. He was just steady, dependable George, always there, always full of cheer and eager to spread it around. Now Simon did think about him, about how well George knew him, and vice versa—not just in the big ways: their dead-of-night fears about washing out of the Academy, Simon’s hapless pining for Isabelle, George’s even more hapless, if more halfhearted, pining for most girls who crossed his path. They knew each other in the little ways—that George was allergic to cashews, that Simon was allergic to Latin homework, that George had a paralyzing fear of large birds—and somehow, that seemed to matter even more. Over the past two years, they’d developed a roommate shorthand, almost a silent language. Not exactly like a parabatai, Simon thought, and not exactly like a best friend. But not something less than. Not something he ever wanted to leave behind for good.

“You’re right, George. I do have more than enough best friends.”

George’s face fell, so slightly that only someone who knew him as well as Simon would have noticed.

“But there’s something else I’ve never had,” Simon added. “At least until now.”

“What’s that?”

“A brother.” The word felt right. Not someone you chose—someone the fates assigned you, someone who, under any other circumstances, might never have given you a second look, nor you him. Someone you would die for and kill for without a second thought, because he was family. Judging from George’s radiant smile, the word sounded right to him, too.

“Are we going to have to hug now or something?” George said.

“I think that may be inescapable.”

*

The Council Hall was intimidatingly beautiful, morning light streaming in through a window in its high domed ceiling. It reminded Simon of pictures he’d seen of the Pantheon, but this place felt more ancient than even ancient Rome. This felt timeless.

The Academy students huddled together in small clumps, all of them looking too nervous and distracted to do much more than comment blandly on the weather. (Which, as always in Idris, was perfect.) Marisol gave Simon a bright smile and a sharp nod when she saw him enter the chamber, as if to say, I never doubted you . . . almost.

Simon and George were the last to arrive, and shortly after they did, everyone took their places for the ceremony. The seven mundanes were arranged in alphabetical order in the front of the chamber. There were meant to be ten of them, but apparently Sunil wasn’t the only one who’d reconsidered at the last moment. Leilana Jay, a very tall, very pale girl from Memphis, and Boris Kashkoff, an Eastern European with ropy muscles and ruddy cheeks, had both slipped away sometime in the night. No one spoke of them, not the teachers, not the students. It was like they never existed, Simon thought—and then imagined Sunil, Leilana, and Boris out there in the world somewhere, living alone with their knowledge of the Shadow World, aware of evil but without the will or ability to fight it.

There’s more than one way to fight evil in this world, Simon thought, and it was Clary’s voice in his head, and it was Isabelle’s, and his mother’s, and his own. Don’t do this because you think you have to. Do it because you want to.