City of Lost Souls

Simon sat on the back porch steps of the farmhouse, looking down the path that led through the apple orchard and down to the lake. Isabelle and Magnus were on the path, Magnus glancing toward the lake and then up at the low mountains ringing the area. He was making notes in a small book with a pen whose end glowed a sparkling blue-green. Alec stood a little distance away, looking up at the trees lining the ridge of hills that separated the farmhouse from the road. He seemed to be standing as far from Magnus as he could while remaining in earshot. It seemed to Simon—the first to admit that he was not that observant about these things—that despite the joking around in the car, a perceptible distance had come between Magnus and Alec recently, one he couldn’t quite put a finger on, but he knew it was there.

Simon’s right hand was cradled in his left, his fingers circling the gold ring on his finger.

Clary, please.

He’d been trying to reach her every hour since he’d gotten the message from Maia about Luke. He’d gotten nothing. Not a flicker of response.

Clary, I’m at the farmhouse. I’m remembering you here, with me.

It was an unseasonably warm day, and a faint wind rustled the last of the leaves in the tree branches. After spending too long wondering what sort of clothes you were supposed to wear to meet angels in—a suit seemed excessive, even if he did have one left over from Jocelyn and Luke’s engagement party—he was in jeans and a T-shirt, his arms bare in the sunlight. He had so many happy sunlit memories attached to this place, this house. He and Clary had come up here with Jocelyn almost every summer for as long as he could remember. They would swim in the lake. Simon would tan brown, and Clary’s fair skin would burn over and over. She’d get a million more freckles on her shoulders and arms. They’d play “apple baseball” in the orchard, which was messy and fun, and Scrabble and poker in the farmhouse, which Luke always won.

Clary, I’m about to do something stupid and dangerous and maybe suicidal. Is it so bad I want to talk to you one last time? I’m doing this to keep you safe, and I don’t even know if you’re alive for me to help you. But if you were dead, I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d feel it.

“All right. Let’s go,” Magnus said, appearing at the foot of the steps. He eyed the ring on Simon’s hand, but made no comment.

Simon stood up and brushed off his jeans, then led the way down the wandering path through the orchard. The lake sparkled up ahead like a cold blue coin. As they neared it, Simon could see the old dock sticking out into the water, where once they had tied up kayaks before a big piece of the dock had broken off and drifted away. He thought he could almost hear the lazy hum of bees and feel the weight of summer on his shoulders. As they reached the lake’s edge, he twisted around and looked up at the farmhouse, white-painted clapboard with green shutters and an old covered sunporch with tired white wicker furniture on it.

“You really liked it here, huh?” Isabelle said. Her black hair snapped like a banner in the breeze off the lake.

“How can you tell?”

“Your expression,” she said. “Like you’re remembering something good.”

“It was good,” Simon said. He reached up to push his glasses up his nose, remembered he no longer wore them, and lowered his hand. “I was lucky.”

She looked down at the lake. She was wearing small gold hoop earrings; one was tangled in a bit of her hair, and Simon wanted to reach over and free it, to touch the side of her face with his fingers. “And now you’re not?”

He shrugged. He was watching Magnus, who was holding what looked like a long, flexible rod and drawing in the wet sand at the lake’s edge. He had the spell book open and was chanting as he drew. Alec was watching him, with the expression of someone watching a stranger.

“Are you scared?” Isabelle asked, moving slightly closer to Simon. He could feel the warmth of her arm against his.

“I don’t know. So much of being scared is the physical feeling of it. Your heart speeding up, sweating, your pulse racing. I don’t get any of that.”

“That’s too bad,” Isabelle murmured, looking at the water. “Guys getting all sweaty is hot.”

He shot her a half smile; it was harder than he thought it would be. Maybe he was scared. “That’s enough of your sass and back talk, missy.”

Isabelle’s lip quivered as if she were about to smile. Then she sighed. “You know what it never even crossed my mind I wanted?” she said. “A guy who could make me laugh.”

Simon turned toward her, reaching for her hand, not caring for the moment that her brother was watching. “Izzy…”

“All right,” Magnus called out. “I’m done. Simon, over here.”

They turned. Magnus was standing inside the circle, which was glowing with a faint white light. It was really two circles, a slightly smaller one inside a larger one, and in the space between the circles, dozens of symbols had been scrawled. They, too, glowed, a steely blue-white like the reflection off the lake.

Simon heard Isabelle’s soft intake of breath, and he stepped away before he could look at her. It would just make it all harder. He moved forward, over the border of the circle, into its center, beside Magnus. Looking out from the center of the circle was like looking through water. The rest of the world seemed wavering and indistinct.