The Lost Herondale

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Simon asked, starting to get irritated.

George cleared his throat, visibly uncomfortable. “Come on, if he doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s his business.”

“Not when it’s our lives at stake.” Julie was blinking hard, like she had something in her eye or—Simon caught his breath. Was she blinking back tears?

“What’s going on?” he asked, feeling more clueless than usual, which was saying a lot.

Beatriz sighed and gave Simon a shy smile. “We’re not asking you for anything personal or, you know, painful. We just want you to tell us what you know about vampires from, um . . .”

“From being a bloodsucker,” Jon filled in for her. “Which, as you may recall, you were.”

“But I don’t recall,” Simon pointed out. “Or have you not been paying attention?”

“That’s what you say,” Beatriz argued, “but . . .”

“But you think I’m lying?” Simon asked, incredulous. The black hole at the center of his memories was such a central fact of his existence, it had never even occurred to him someone might question it. What would be the point of lying about that—and what kind of person would do so? “You all think that? Really?”

One by one, they began to nod . . . even George, though at least he had the grace to look sheepish.

“Why would I pretend not to remember?” Simon asked.

“Why would they let someone like you in here, if you really didn’t have a clue?” Jon retorted. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“Well, I guess it’s a mad, mad, mad world,” Simon snapped. “Because what you see is what you get.”

“A whole lot of nothing, then,” Jon said.

Julie elbowed him, sounding uncharacteristically angry—usually she was happy to go along with whatever Jon said. “You said you’d be nice.”

“What’s the point? Either he doesn’t know anything or he doesn’t want to tell us. And who cares, anyway? It’s just one Downworlder. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Julie said. “Have you ever even been in battle? Have you ever seen anyone get hurt? Die?”

“I’m a Shadowhunter, aren’t I?” Jon said, though Simon noticed that wasn’t much of an answer.

“You weren’t in Alicante for the war,” Julie said darkly. “You don’t know how it was. You didn’t lose anything.”

Jon reared on her. “Don’t you tell me what I’ve lost. I don’t know about you, but I’m here to learn how to fight, so that next time—”

“Don’t say that, Jon,” Beatriz pleaded. “There won’t be a next time. There can’t be.”

Jon shrugged. “There’s always a next time.” He sounded almost hopeful about it, and Simon understood that Julie was probably right. Jon talked like someone who’d been kept very far away from death of any kind.

“I’ve seen dead sheep,” George said brightly, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “That’s about it.”

Beatriz frowned. “I don’t really want to have to fight a vampire. Maybe if it were a faerie . . .”

“You don’t know anything about faeries,” Julie snapped.

“I know I wouldn’t mind killing a couple of them,” Beatriz said.

Julie deflated abruptly as if someone had pricked her and let all the air out. “Me neither. If it were that easy . . .”

Simon didn’t know much about Shadowhunter-Downworlder relations, but he’d figured out pretty quickly that faeries were public enemy number one in Shadowhunterland these days. The actual enemy number one, Sebastian Morgenstern, who’d started the Dark War and Turned a bunch of Shadowhunters into evil Sebastian-worshipping zombies, was long dead. Which left his secret allies, the Fair Folk, to bear his consequences. Even Shadowhunters like Beatriz, who seemed to honestly believe that werewolves were like anyone else, if a little hairier, and had a bit of a fangirl crush on the infamous warlock Magnus Bane, talked about the faeries like they were a roach infestation and the Cold Peace like it was merely a pit stop to extermination.

“You were right this morning, George,” Julie said. “They shouldn’t be sending us out like this, not any of us. We’re not ready.”

Jon snorted. “Speak for yourself.”

As they bickered among themselves about exactly how hard it would be to kill one vampire, Simon stood up. Bad enough that they all thought he was a liar—even worse that, in a way, he sort of was. He couldn’t remember anything about being a vampire—nothing useful, at least—but he remembered enough to be extremely uncomfortable with the idea of killing one.

Or maybe it was just the idea of killing anything. Simon was a vegetarian, and the only violence he’d ever committed was on-screen, blowing up pixelated dragons and sea slugs.