The Evil We Love (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #5)

“You care about George,” Beatriz pointed out. “And Marisol and Sunil. They’re all out there somewhere, and they trust Isabelle as much as you seem to. But I’m telling you, Simon, it doesn’t seem right to me. What she said about the Academy wanting us to screw up and get into trouble. More like she wants us to get in trouble. Or she wants something. I don’t know what it is. But I don’t like it.”


Something about what she said rang true more than he would have liked—but Simon wouldn’t let himself go there. It felt disloyal, and he’d been disloyal enough. This week was his chance to prove himself to Isabelle, show her that they belonged in each other’s lives. He wasn’t going to screw that up by doubting her, even if she wasn’t here to see it.

“I trust Isabelle,” Simon told Beatriz. “Everyone will be fine, and I’m sure they’ll be back before anyone knows they were gone. You should stop worrying about it.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. Something!”

“Well, I am doing something,” Simon said. “I’m going to go back to bed. I’m going to dream of coffee and a shiny new Fender Stratocaster and if George still isn’t back by morning, I’m going to tell Dean Penhallow that he’s sick, so he won’t get in trouble. And then I’ll start worrying.”

Beatriz snorted. “Thanks for nothing.”

“You’re welcome!” Simon called. But he waited until the door had slammed shut behind her to do it.

*

Simon was right.

When Robert Lightwood began his lecture that morning, every member of the student body was there to hear it, including a very bleary-eyed George.

“How was it?” Simon whispered when his roommate slid into the seat beside him.

“Bloody amazing,” George murmured. When Simon pressed him for details, George only shook his head and pressed his finger to his lips.

“Seriously? Just tell me.”

“I’m sworn to secrecy,” George whispered. “But it’s only going to get better. You want in, come along with me tonight.”

Robert Lightwood cleared his throat loudly. “I’d like to begin today’s lecture, assuming that’s all right with the peanut gallery.”

George looked around wildly. “They’re serving peanuts today? I’m starving.”

Simon sighed. George yawned.

Robert began again.

*





1984


The pack was small, only five wolves. In their deceptively human form: two men, one even bigger than Robert, with muscles the size of his head, and another stooped and aged with scraggly hair spurting from his nose and ears as if his inner wolf were gradually encroaching. One child in blond pigtails. The girl’s young mother, her glossy lips and undulating curves prompting thoughts Robert knew better than to say aloud, at least where Valentine could hear. And finally, one sinewy woman with a deep tan and deeper frown who seemed to be in charge.

It was disgusting, Valentine said, werewolves stinking up a distinguished Shadowhunter mansion. And although the manor was decrepit and long abandoned—vines snaking up its walls, weeds sprouting from its foundation, a once noble estate reduced to rust and rubble—Robert saw his point. The house had a lineage, had been home to a line of intrepid warriors, men and women who risked and eventually gave their lives to the cause of humanity, to saving the world from demons. And here were these creatures, infected by their demonic strain—these rogue creatures who’d violated the Accords and killed with abandon, taking refuge in the home of their enemy? The Clave refused to deal with it, Valentine said. They wanted more evidence—not because they weren’t sure that these wolves were filthy, violent criminals, but because they didn’t want to deal with Downworlder complaints. They didn’t want to have to explain themselves; they didn’t have the nerve to say: We knew they were guilty, and so we dealt with it.

They were, in other words, weak.