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

George, Jon, and the others were lined up against the wall, faces pale, eyes wide, all of them looking steeled for a firing squad. While Isabelle was standing by her father’s side . . . beaming?

“Failures, all of you!” Robert Lightwood boomed. “You lot are supposed to be the best and brightest this school has to offer, and this is what you have to show for yourselves? I warned you about the dangers of charisma. I told you of the need to stand up for what’s right, even if it hurts the ones you love most. And all of you failed to listen.”

Isabelle coughed pointedly.

“All of you except two,” Robert allowed, jerking his head at Simon and Julie. “Well done. Isabelle was right about you.”

Simon was reeling.

“It was all a stupid test?” Jon yelped.

“A rather clever test, if you ask me?” Dean Penhallow said.

Catarina looked as if she had some things to say on the subject of foolish Shadowhunters playing cat-and-mouse games with their own, but as usual, she bit her tongue.

“What percentage of our grades will this be?” Sunil asked.

With that, there was a lot of yelling. Quite a bit of ranting about sacred responsibilities and carelessness and how unpleasant a night in the dungeons of the Silent City can be. Robert thundered like Zeus, Dean Penhallow did her best not to sound like a babysitter scolding her charges for stealing an extra cookie, while Catarina Loss put in the occasional sarcastic remark about what happened to Shadowhunters who thought it would be fun to slum it in warlock territory. At one point, she interrupted Robert Lightwood’s tirade to add a pointed comment about Darth Vader—and a sly look at Simon that made him wonder, not for the first time, just how closely she was watching him, and why.

Through it all, Isabelle watched Simon, something unexpected in her gaze. Something almost like . . . pride.

“In conclusion, next time, you’ll listen when your elders talk,” Robert Lightwood shouted.

“Why would anyone listen to anything you had to say about doing the right thing?” Isabelle snapped.

Robert’s face went red. He turned to her slowly, fixing her with the kind of icy Inquisitor glare that would have left anyone else whimpering in a fetal ball. Isabelle didn’t flinch.

“Now that this sordid business is concluded, I’d ask you all to give me and my dutiful daughter here some privacy. I believe we have some things to settle,” Robert said.

“But this is my room,” Jon whined.

Robert didn’t need to speak, just turned that Inquisitor glare on him; Jon flinched.

He fled, along with everyone else, and Simon was about to follow suit when Isabelle’s fingers snatched for his wrist.

“He stays,” she told her father.

“He most certainly does not.”

“Simon stays with me, or I leave with him,” Isabelle said. “Those are your choices.”

“Er, I’m happy to go—” Simon began, “happy” being his polite substitute for “desperate.”

“You stay,” Isabelle commanded.

Robert sighed. “Fine. You stay.”

That ended the discussion. Simon dropped down onto the edge of Jon’s bed, trying to wish himself invisible.

“It’s obvious to me that you don’t want to be here,” Robert told his daughter.

“What gave it away? The fact that I told you a million times that I didn’t want to come? That I didn’t want to play your stupid game? That I thought it was cruel and manipulative and a total waste of time?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “That.”

“And yet you made me come with you anyway.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Look, if you thought enforced bonding time was going to fix anything or make up for what you—”

Robert sighed heavily. “I’ve told you before, what happened between your mother and me has nothing to do with you.”

“It has everything to do with me!”

“Isabelle . . .” Robert glanced at Simon, then lowered his voice. “I would really prefer to do this without an audience.”

“Too bad.”