City of Lost Souls

Simon sat on the edge of the bed in Magnus’s spare room, staring down at the duffel bag in his lap.

He could hear voices from the living room. Magnus was explaining to Maia and Jordan what had happened that night, with Izzy occasionally interjecting a detail. Jordan was saying something about how they should order Chinese food so they wouldn’t starve; Maia laughed and said as long as it wasn’t from the Jade Wolf, that would be fine.

Starving, Simon thought. He was getting hungry—hungry enough to have begun to feel it, like a pull on all his veins. It was a different kind of hunger than human hunger. He felt scraped out, a hollow emptiness inside. If you struck him, he thought, he would ring like a bell.

“Simon.” His door opened, and Isabelle slid inside. Her black hair was down and loose, almost reaching her waist. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She saw the duffel bag on his lap, and her shoulders tensed. “Are you leaving?”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to stay forever,” Simon said. “I mean, last night was—different. You asked…”

“Right,” she said in an unnaturally bright voice. “Well, you can get a ride back with Jordan at least. Did you notice him and Maia, by the way?”

“Notice what about them?”

She lowered her voice. “Something definitely happened between them on their little road trip. They’re all couply now.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Jealous?” he echoed, confused.

“Well, you and Maia…” She waved a hand, looking up at him through her lashes. “You were…”

“Oh. No. No, not at all. I’m glad for Jordan. This will make him really happy.” He meant it too.

“Good.” Isabelle looked up then, and he saw that her cheeks were rosy red, and not just from the cold. “Would you stay here tonight, Simon?”

“With you?”

She nodded, not looking at him. “Alec’s going out to get some more of his clothes from the Institute. He asked if I wanted to go back with him, but I—I’d rather stay here with you.” She raised her chin, looking at him directly. “I don’t want to sleep by myself. If I stay here, will you stay with me?” He could tell how much she hated to ask.

“Of course,” he said, as lightly as he possibly could, pushing the thought of his hunger out of his head, or trying to. The last time he had tried to forget to drink, it had ended with Jordan pulling him off a semiconscious Maureen.

But that was when he hadn’t eaten for days. This was different. He knew his limits. He was sure of it.

“Of course,” he said again. “That would be great.”



Camille smirked up at Alec from her divan. “So where does Magnus think you are now?”

Alec, who had put a plank of wood across two cinderblocks to form a sort of bench, stretched his long legs out and looked at his boots. “At the Institute, picking up clothes. I was going to go up to Spanish Harlem, but I came here instead.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And why is that?”

“Because I can’t do it. I can’t kill Raphael.”

Camille threw up her hands. “And why not? Have you some sort of personal bond with him?”

“I barely know him,” Alec said. “But killing him is deliberately breaking Covenant Law. Not that I haven’t broken Laws before, but there’s a difference between breaking them for good reasons and breaking them for selfish ones.”

“Oh, dear God.” Camille began to pace. “Spare me from Nephilim with consciences.”

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Sorry? I’ll make you—” She broke off. “Alexander,” she went on in a more composed voice. “What of Magnus? If you continue as you have been, you will lose him.”

Alec watched her as she moved, catlike and composed, her face blank of anything now but a curious sympathy. “Where was Magnus born?”

Camille laughed. “You don’t even know that? My goodness. Batavia, if you must know.” She snorted at his look of incomprehension. “Indonesia. Of course, it was the Dutch East Indies then. His mother was a native, I believe; his father was some dull colonial. Well, not his real father.” Her lips curved into a smile.

“Who was his real father?”

“Magnus’s father? Why, a demon, of course.”

“Yes, but which demon?”

“How could it possibly matter, Alexander?”

“I get the feeling,” Alec went on stubbornly, “that he’s a pretty powerful, high-up demon. But Magnus won’t talk about him.”