Born to Endless Night (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #9)

Simon turned around in his seat and saw Isabelle framed in the doorway of the Academy dining hall. She was wearing a long dress the color of irises and her arms were spread wide, bracelets gleaming. Time seemed to slow, like a movie, like magic, like she was a genie who could appear in a puff of glittering smoke to grant wishes, and every wish would be her.

“Surprise,” said Isabelle. “Miss me?”

Simon jumped to his feet. He might have knocked his bowl clear across the table and into George’s lap. He was sorry, but he would make it up to him later.

“Isabelle,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“Congratulations, Simon, that’s a very romantic question,” Isabelle told him. “Am I meant to take it as ‘No, I didn’t miss you, and I’m seeing other girls’? If so, don’t worry about it. Why worry, when life is short? Specifically, your life, because I am going to cut off your head.”

“I’m confused by what you’re saying,” Simon told her.

Isabelle raised her eyebrows and opened her lips, but before she could speak Simon caught her by the waist and drew her in against him, kissing her surprised mouth. Isabelle’s mouth relaxed, curving under his. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back, sultry and exuberant at once, a femme fatale and a warrior princess, all the dream girls of all his nerdy fantasies in one. Simon pulled back for a moment to look into Isabelle’s night-dark eyes.

“I wasn’t aware,” said Simon, “that there are any other girls in the world but you.”

He was embarrassed as soon as he said it. It was in no way a smooth line. It was pathetically honest, trying to tell Isabelle what he had only just realized himself. But he saw Isabelle’s eyes shine like new stars waking in the night, felt her arm around his neck pulling him down for another kiss, and he thought to himself that the line might be a little smooth. After all, it had gotten him a girl, the girl. The only girl Simon wanted.

*

It was midnight before Magnus got all of the Lightwoods out of their suite. Isabelle had left to see Simon some time before, and Clary and Jace could usually be persuaded to go off together, but for a while he thought he was actually going to have to use magic on Maryse and Robert. He shoved them out of the door while they were still giving him helpful baby tips.

As soon as they were gone, Alec stumbled over to the bed and lay flat on his face, instantly asleep. Magnus was left with the baby.

It was possible the baby was stunned by the Lightwoods too. He lay in his crib staring up at the world with wide eyes. The crib was under a window, and he was in a small pool of light, moonshine shimmering on his crumpled blanket and his little fat legs. Magnus crouched down by the crib and watched him, waiting for the next eruption of screaming that meant he needed to be changed and fed. Instead he fell asleep too, his mouth open, a tiny blue rosebud.

Who could ever love it? the baby’s mother had written, but the baby did not know that yet. He slept, innocent and serene as any child secure of love. Magnus’s mother might have thought the same despairing words.

Alec thought they were keeping him.

Keeping him had not even occurred to Magnus. He had thought he lived life believing a thousand possibilities were open to him, but he had not thought of this possibility as being open to him: family life like mundanes and Nephilim had, love so secure that it could be shared with someone brand-new to the world and helpless.

He tried out the thought now.

Keeping him. Keeping the baby. Having a baby, with Alec.

Hours passed. Magnus hardly noticed, time went by so quietly, as if someone had laid out the carpet of the night to muffle time’s footsteps. He did not register anything but that small face, until he felt a soft touch on his shoulder.

Magnus did not get up, but he turned to see Alec looking down at him. The moonlight turned Alec’s skin silver and his eyes a darker, deeper blue, infinitely tender.

“If you thought I was asking you to keep the baby,” Magnus said, “I wasn’t.”