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

Sometimes, Robert felt like his entire life was an act. That it was only a matter of time before his fellow students saw through him, and realized what he really was, beneath all that brawn and bluster: Cowardly. Weak. Worthless. Having Maryse by his side was like wearing a suit of armor. No one like her would choose someone worthless. Everyone knew that. Sometimes, Robert even believed it himself.

He loved the way she made him feel when they were in public: strong and safe. And he loved even more the way she made him feel when they were alone together, when she pressed her lips to the nape of his neck and traced her tongue down the arc of his spine. He loved the curve of her hip and the whisper of her hair; he loved the gleam in her eye when she strode into combat. He loved the taste of her. So why was it that whenever she said, “I love you,” he felt like such a liar for saying it back? Why was it that he occasionally—maybe more than occasionally—found his thoughts straying to other girls, to how they might taste?

How could he love the way Maryse made him feel . . . and still be so uncertain that what he felt was love?

He’d taken to surreptitiously watching the other couples around him, trying to figure out whether they felt the same way, whether their declarations of love masked the same confusion and doubt. But the way Amatis’s head nestled comfortably against Stephen’s shoulder, the way Jocelyn carelessly threaded her fingers through Valentine’s, even the way Maryse idly played with his jeans’ fraying seams, as if his clothing, his body, were her property . . . all of them seemed so certain of themselves. Robert was certain only of how good he’d gotten at faking it.

“We should glory in the danger, if it means a chance to take down a filthy, rogue Downworlder,” Valentine said, glowering. “Even if this wolf pack doesn’t have a lead on the monster that—” He swallowed, hard, and Robert knew what he was thinking, because it seemed like these days, it was all Valentine was ever thinking, the fury of it radiating off him as if the thought were written in fire, the monster that killed my father. “Even if it doesn’t, we’ll be doing the Clave a favor.”

Ragnor Fell, the green-skinned warlock who’d taught at the Academy for nearly a century, paused halfway across the quad and peered over at them, almost as if he could hear their discussion. Robert assured himself that was impossible. Still, he didn’t like the way the warlock’s horns angled toward them, as if marking his target.

Michael cleared his throat. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk like that about, uh, Downworlders out here.”

Valentine snorted. “I hope the old goat does hear me. It’s a disgrace, them letting him teach here. The only place a Downworlder has at the Academy is on the dissection table.”

Michael and Robert exchanged a glance. As always, Robert knew exactly what his parabatai was thinking—and Robert was thinking the same. Valentine, when they first met him, had cut a dashing figure with his blinding white hair and blazing black eyes. His features were smooth and sharp at once, like sculpted ice, but beneath the intimidating veneer was a surprisingly kind boy roused to anger only by injustice. Valentine had always been intense, yes, but it was an intensity bent toward doing what he believed was right, what was good. When Valentine said he wanted to correct the injustices and inequities imposed on them by the Clave, Robert believed him, and still did. And while Michael may have had a bizarre soft spot for Downworlders, Robert didn’t like them any more than Valentine did; he couldn’t imagine why, in this day and age, the Clave was still allowing warlocks to meddle in Shadowhunter affairs.

But there was a difference between clear-eyed intensity and irrational anger. Robert had been waiting a long time now for Valentine’s grief-fueled rage to simmer down. Instead, it had sparked an inferno.