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

“I’ve been trying,” said Simon.

He had been shocked by Alec praising him, and it was not as if he had expected Magnus to do it. But he felt warmed by Magnus’s words, suddenly warm all over, despite the wind sweeping in from the crystalline coldness of the sky. Magnus was not talking about the bits and pieces of his half-forgotten past but about what he was now and what he had done with his time since then.

It wasn’t anything remarkable, but he had been trying.

“I also heard you had a little adventure in Faerieland,” said Magnus. “We’ve been having trouble in New York with faerie fruit sellers as well. Part of the faeries running wild is the Cold Peace itself. People who are not trusted become untrustworthy. But there is something else wrong as well. Faerie is not a land without rules, without rulers. The Queen who was Sebastian’s ally has vanished, and there are many dark rumors as to why. None of which I would repeat to the Clave, because they would only impose harsher punishments on the faeries. They become harsher, and the fey wilder, and the hate between both sides grows day by day. There are storms behind you, Simon. But there is another and a greater storm coming. All the old rules are falling away. Are you ready for another storm?”

Simon was silent. He didn’t know how to answer that.

“I’ve seen you with Clary, and with Isabelle,” Magnus continued. “I know you are on the path to Ascension, to having a parabatai and a Shadowhunter love. Are you happy with it? Are you certain?”

“I don’t know about being certain,” Simon said. “I don’t know about being ready, either. I can’t say I haven’t had doubts, that I haven’t thought about turning back and being a kid in a band in Brooklyn. I think sometimes it’s too hard to believe in yourself. You just do the things you’re not sure you can do. You just act, in spite of not being certain. I don’t believe I can change the world—it sounds stupid to even talk about it—but I’m going to try.”

“We all change the world, with every day of living in it,” Magnus said. “You just have to decide how you want to change the world. I brought you into this world, the second time around, and though your choices are your own I do take some responsibility. Even if you are committed, you have other choices. I could arrange for you to be a vampire again, or a werewolf. Both are risky, but none as risky as Ascension.”

“Yes. I want to try changing the world as a Shadowhunter,” said Simon. “I really do. I want to try and change the Clave from the inside. I want that particular power to help people. It’s worth the risk.”

Magnus nodded.

He had meant it, Simon thought, when he said that Simon’s choices were his own. He had left it up to Simon, that day in Brooklyn when he and Isabelle had approached Simon outside his school. He did not question Simon now, even though Simon was afraid that choosing to be a Shadowhunter and not a Downworlder might have offended him. He didn’t want to be like the Shadowhunters who acted as if they were better than Downworlders. He wanted to be an entirely different kind of Shadowhunter.

Magnus did not look offended. He stood on the tower top, on stone in starlight, turning the coin that had belonged to the dead over and over in his fingers. He looked thoughtful.

“Have you thought about your Shadowhunter name?”

“Um . . . ,” Simon said shyly. “A little bit. I was wondering, actually—what’s your real name?”

Magnus sent him a sidelong glance. Nobody gave side-eye like someone with cat’s eyes. “Magnus Bane,” he said. “I know you’ve forgotten a lot, Smedley, but really.”