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

Alec stopped playing patty-cake with the baby. He went still all over. “What do you mean?”


“You didn’t talk to me a lot, and I was a little worried about it,” Simon explained. “So I asked my friend, between us guys, if you had a problem with me. I asked my good friend Jace.”

There was a pause as Alec absorbed this news. “You did.”

“And Jace,” said Simon. “Jace told me that there was a big, dark secret issue between us. He said it wasn’t his place to talk about it.”

The baby looked at Simon, then back at Alec. His small face looked thoughtful, as if he might shake his head and go: That Jace, what will he do next?

“Leave this to me,” Alec said calmly. “He’s my parabatai and we have a sacred bond and everything, but now he has gone too far.”

“That’s cool,” said Simon. “Please exact awful vengeance for both of us, because I’m pretty sure he could take me in a fight.”

Alec nodded, admitting this very true fact. Simon could not believe he had been so worried about Alec Lightwood. Alec was great.

“Well,” Alec said. “Like I said . . . I do owe you.”

Simon waved a hand. “Nah. Call it even.”

*

Magnus was so tired, he stumbled into the Shadowhunter Academy dining room and thought about eating there.

Then he actually looked at the food and came to his senses.

It was not quite dinnertime, but there were a few students gathered early, even though Magnus did not anticipate there would be a rush on the slime lasagna. Magnus saw Julie and her friends at one table. Julie looked Magnus up and down, taking in the wrecked hair and Alec’s T-shirt, and Magnus read deep disillusionment on her face.

So a young girl’s dreams died. Magnus admitted, after a sleepless night and wearing one of Alec’s shirts because Isabelle had destroyed several of his own and the baby had been sick on several others, he might not be at his most glamorous.

It was probably good for Julie to face reality, though Magnus was determined to, at some point, take a shower, wear a better shirt, and dazzle the baby with his resplendence.

Magnus had visited Ragnor at the Academy, and he knew how the meals there worked. He squinted, trying to figure out which tables belonged to the elites and which to the dregs, the humans who aspired to be Nephilim but were not accepted by the Nephilim as good enough until they Ascended. Magnus had always thought the dregs showed enormous self-restraint by not rising up against Shadowhunter arrogance, burning down the Academy, and fleeing into the night.

It was possible that the Clave was right when they called Magnus an insurgent.

He could not work out, however, which tables belonged to whom. It had been very clear, years ago, but he was certain the blonde and the brunette Simon knew were Nephilim, and almost sure the gorgeous idiot who wanted to raise a baby with Simon in a sock drawer was not.

Magnus’s attention was attracted by the sound of a throaty, imperious voice coming from a Latina girl who looked all of fifteen. She was a mundane, Magnus knew at a glance. Something else he could tell at a glance: In a couple of years, whether she Ascended or not, she would be a holy terror.

“Jon,” she was saying to the boy across the table from her. “I am in so much pain from stubbing my toe! I need aspirin.”

“What’s aspirin?” asked the boy, sounding panicked.

He was obviously a Nephilim, through and through and through. Magnus could tell without seeing his runes. In fact, he was prepared to bet the boy was a Cartwright. Magnus had known several Cartwrights through the centuries. The Cartwrights all had such distressingly thick necks.

“You buy it in a pharmacy,” said the girl. “No, don’t tell me, you don’t know what a pharmacy is either. Have you ever left Idris in your whole life?”

“Yes!” said Jon, possibly Cartwright. “On many demon-hunting missions. And once Mama and Papa took me to the beach in France!”