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

“It’s not arrogance if it’s accurate,” Jon said, grinning, and just like that, the night righted itself again.

Simon tried to pay attention to his friends’ banter and did his best not to think about Jon’s question, about whether or not he was nervous—whether he should be spending this night in sober consideration of his “options.”

What options? How, after two years at the Academy, after all his training and study, after he’d sworn over and over again that he wanted to be a Shadowhunter, could he just walk away? How could he disappoint Clary and Isabelle like that . . . and if he did, how could they ever love him again?

He tried not to think about how it would be even harder for them to love him—or at least for him to appreciate it—if something went wrong in the ceremony, and he ended up dead.

He tried not to think about all the other people who loved him, the ones who, according to Shadowhunter Law, he was supposed to pledge never to see again. His mother. His sister.

Marisol and Sunil didn’t have anyone waiting for them back home, something that had always seemed unbearably sad to Simon. But maybe it was easier, walking away when you were leaving nothing behind. Then there was George, the lucky one—his adopted parents were Shadowhunters themselves, even if they’d never picked up a sword. He would still be able to go home for regular Sunday dinners; he wouldn’t even have to pick a new name.

George had been teasing him lately, saying that Simon shouldn’t have much trouble picking a new name, either. “‘Lightwood’ has quite a ring to it, don’t you think?” he liked to say. Simon was getting very good at feigning deafness.

Secretly, though, a blush rising to his cheeks, he would think: Lightwood . . . maybe. Someday. If he dared let himself hope.

In the meantime, though, he had to come up with a new name of his own, a name for his new Shadowhunter self—which was approximately as unfathomable as everything else about this process.

“Um, can I come in?” A scrawny, spectacled girl of around thirteen stood in the doorway. Simon thought her name was Milla, but he wasn’t sure—the Academy’s new class was so large, and so inclined to goggle at Simon from a distance, that he hadn’t gotten to know many of them. This one had the eager but confused look of a mundane, one who, even after all these months, couldn’t quite believe she was really here.

“It’s public property,” Julie said, a haughty—or rather, even haughtier-than-usual—note entering her voice. Julie loved lording it over the new kids.

The girl crept toward them skittishly. Simon found himself wondering how someone like her had ended up at the Academy—then caught himself. He knew better than to judge by appearances. Especially given how he’d looked when he showed up two years before, so skinny he could only fit into girl-size gear. You’re thinking like a Shadowhunter, he chided himself.

Funny how that almost never sounded like a good thing.

“He told me to give this to you,” the girl whispered, handing a folded paper to Marisol, and then quickly backing away. Marisol, Simon gathered, was somewhat of a hero to the younger mundanes.

“Who did?” Marisol asked, but the girl was already gone. Marisol shrugged and opened the note, her face falling as she read the message.

“What?” Simon asked, concerned.

Marisol shook her head.

Jon took her hand, and Simon expected her to slap him, but instead she squeezed tight. “It’s from Sunil,” she said in a tight, angry voice. She passed the note to Simon. “I guess he ‘considered his options.’”

I can’t do it, the note read. I know it probably makes me a coward, but I can’t drink from that Cup. I don’t want to die. I’m sorry. Say good-bye to everyone for me? And good luck.

They passed the note around one by one, as if needing to see the words in black and white before they could really believe it. Sunil had run away.

“We can’t blame him,” Beatriz said finally. “Everyone has to make his own choice.”