The Lost Herondale

“Did you ever wonder why I was here?” Julie asked him. “Training at the Academy, rather than in Alicante or some Institute somewhere?”


“Actually . . . no,” Simon admitted, but maybe he should have. The Academy had been shut down for decades, and he knew in that time, Shadowhunter families had gotten used to training their children themselves. He also knew that most of them, in the wake of the Dark War, were still doing so, not wanting to let their loved ones too far out of their sight.

She looked away from him then, and her fingers knit together, needing something to hold on to. “I’m going to tell you something now, Simon, and you won’t repeat it.”

It wasn’t a question.

“My mother was one of the first Shadowhunters to be Turned,” she said, her voice deadened. “So she’s gone now. After, we evacuated to Alicante, just like everyone else. And when they attacked Alicante . . . they locked all the children up in the Accords Hall. They thought we’d be safe there. But there wasn’t anywhere safe that day. The faeries got in, and the Endarkened—they would have killed us all, Simon, if it weren’t for you and your friends. My sister, Elizabeth. She was one of the last to die. I saw him, this faerie with silver hair, and he was so beautiful, Simon, like liquid mercury, that’s what I was thinking when he brought down his sword. That he was beautiful.” She shook herself all over. “Anyway. My father’s useless now. So that’s why I’m here. To learn to fight. So next time . . .”

Simon didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry felt so inadequate. But Julie seemed to have run out of words.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked gently.

“Because I want someone to understand that it is a big deal, what they’re sending us out to do. Even if it’s just one vampire against all of us. I don’t care what Jon says. Things happen. People—” She nodded sharply, like she was dismissing not just him but everything that had passed between them. “Also, I wanted to thank you for what you did, Simon Lewis. And for your sacrifice.”

“I really don’t remember doing anything,” Simon said. “You shouldn’t thank me. I know what happened that day, but it’s like it all happened to someone else.”

“Maybe that’s how it seems,” Julie said. “But if you’re going to be a Shadowhunter, you have to learn to see things how they are.”

She turned away then, and started to head for her room. He was dismissed.

“Julie?” he called softly after her. “Is that why Jon and Beatriz are at the Academy, too? Because of the people they lost in the war?”

“You’ll have to ask them,” she said, without turning back. “We all have our own story of the Dark War. All of us lost something. Some of us lost everything.”

*

The next day, their history lecturer, the warlock Catarina Loss, announced that she was handing the class over to a special guest.

Simon’s heart stopped. The last guest lecturer to honor the students with her presence had been Isabelle Lightwood. And the “lecture” had consisted of a stern and humiliating warning that every female in a ten-mile radius should keep her grubby little hands off Simon’s hot bod.

Fortunately, the tall, dark-haired man who strode to the front of the classroom looked unlikely to have any interest in Simon or his bod.

“Lazlo Balogh,” he said, his tone implying that he should have needed no introduction—but that perhaps Catarina should have done him the honor of supplying one.

“Head of the Budapest Institute,” George whispered in Simon’s ear. In spite of his self-proclaimed laziness, George had memorized the name of every Institute head—not to mention every famous Shadowhunter in history—before arriving at the Academy.

“I have come to tell you a story,” Balogh said, eyebrows angling into a sharp, angry V. Between the pale skin, dark widow’s peak, and faint Hungarian accent, Balogh looked more like Dracula than anyone Simon had ever met.

He suspected Balogh wouldn’t have appreciated the comparison.

“Several of you in this classroom will soon face your first battle. I have come to inform you what is at stake.”

“We’re not the ones who need to be worrying about stakes,” Jon said, and snickered from the back row.

Balogh lasered a furious glare at him. “Jonathan Cartwright,” he said, his accent giving the syllables a sinister shadow. “Were I the son of your parents, I would hold my tongue in the presence of my betters.”

Jon went sheet white. Simon could feel the hatred radiating from him, and thought that it was likely Balogh had just made an enemy for life. Possibly everyone in the classroom had, too, because Jon wasn’t the type to appreciate an audience to his humiliation.

He opened his mouth, then shut it again in a thin, firm line. Balogh nodded, as if agreeing that, yes, it was right that he should shut up and burn with silent shame.

Balogh cleared his throat. “My question for you, children, is this. What is the worst thing a Shadowhunter can do?”