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

She said “mundane” exactly like Jon always did. Like it was a synonym for “nothing.”


“This isn’t you, Isabelle. This isn’t what you’re like.” He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince her or himself.

“You don’t know what I’m like, remember?”

“I know enough.”

“Then you know that you should trust me. But if you don’t, go ahead. Tell,” she said. “Then everyone will know what you’re like. What kind of friend you are.”

He tried.

He knew it was the right thing to do.

At least, he thought it was the right thing to do.

The next morning, before the lecture, he went to Catarina Loss’s office—Jon was right, she was his favorite warlock and his favorite faculty member, and the only one he would trust with something like this.

She welcomed him in, offered him a seat and a mug of something whose steam was an alarming shade of blue. He passed.

“So, Daylighter, I take it you have something to tell me?”

Catarina intimidated him somewhat less than she had at the beginning of the year—which was a bit like saying Jar Jar Binks was “somewhat less” annoying in Star Wars: Episode II than he’d been in Star Wars: Episode I.

“It’s possible I know something that . . .” Simon cleared his throat. “I mean, if something were happening that . . .”

He hadn’t let himself think through what would happen once the words were out. What would happen to his friends? What would happen to Isabelle, their ringleader? She couldn’t exactly get expelled from an Academy where she wasn’t enrolled . . . but Simon had learned enough about the Clave by now to know there were far worse punishments than getting expelled. Was summoning a minor demon to use as a party trick a violation of the Law? Was he about to ruin Isabelle’s life?

Catarina Loss wasn’t a Shadowhunter; she had her own secrets from the Clave. Maybe she’d be willing to keep one more, if it meant helping Simon and protecting Isabelle from punishment?

As his mind spun through dark possibilities, the office door swung open and Dean Penhallow poked her blond head in. “Catarina, Robert Lightwood was hoping to chat with you before his session—oh, sorry! Didn’t realize you were in the middle of something?”

“Join us,” Catarina said. “Simon was just about to tell me something interesting.”

The dean stepped into the office, furrowing her brow at Simon. “You look so serious,” she told him. “Go ahead, spit it out. You’ll feel better. It’s like throwing up.”

“What’s like throwing up?” he asked, confused.

“You know, when you’re feeling ill? Sometimes it just helps to get everything out.”

Somehow, Simon didn’t think vomiting up his confession straight to the dean would make him feel any better.

Hadn’t Isabelle proven herself enough—not just to him, but to the Clave, to everyone? She had, after all, pretty much saved the world. How much more evidence would anyone need that she was one of the good guys?

How much evidence did he need?

Simon stood up and said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I just wanted to tell you that we all really enjoyed that beet stew they served for dinner. You should serve that again.”

Dean Penhallow gave him an odd look. “Those weren’t beets, Simon.”

This didn’t surprise him, as the stew had had an oddly grainy consistency and a taste reminiscent of dung.

“Well . . . whatever it was, it was delicious,” he said quickly. “I better get going. I don’t want to miss the beginning of Inquisitor Lightwood’s final lecture. They’ve been so interesting.”

“Indeed,” Catarina said dryly. “They’ve been almost as delicious as the stew.”

*





1984