Simon told her the story Jordan had recounted to him, trying to keep his explanation as evenhanded as he could.
He felt like it was at least important to explain to Isabelle that he hadn’t known who Jordan really was at first, and also, that Jordan regretted what he’d done. “Not that that makes it okay,” he finished. “But, you know—” We’ve all done bad things. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her about Maureen. Not right now.
“I know,” Isabelle said. “And I’ve heard of the Praetor Lupus. If they’re willing to have him as a member, he can’t be a complete washout, I guess.” She looked at Simon a little more closely. “Although I don’t get why you need someone to protect you. You have . .
.” She pointed at her forehead.
“I can’t go through the rest of my life with people running at me every day and the Mark blowing them up,” Simon said. “I need to know who’s trying to kill me. Jordan’s helping with that. Jace too.”
“Do you really think Jordan’s helping you? Because the Clave has some pull with the Praetor. We could get him replaced.”
Simon hesitated. “Yeah,” he said. “I really do think he’s helping. And I can’t always rely on the Clave.”
“Okay.” Isabelle leaned back against the wall. “Did you ever wonder why I’m so different from my brothers?” she asked without preamble. “Alec and Jace, I mean.”
Simon blinked. “You mean aside from the whole thing where you’re a girl and they . . .
aren’t?”
“No. Not that, idiot. I mean, look at the two of them. They have no problem falling in love. They’re both in love. The forever kind. They’re done. Look at Jace. He loves Clary like—like there’s nothing else in the world and there never will be. Alec’s the same. And Max—” Her voice caught. “I don’t know what it would have been like for him.
But he trusted everyone. And as you might have noticed, I don’t trust anyone.”
“People are different,” Simon said, trying to sound understanding. “It doesn’t mean they’re happier than you—”
“Sure it does,” Isabelle said. “You think I don’t know that?” She looked at Simon, hard.
“You know my parents.”
“Not well.” They had never been terribly eager to meet Isabelle’s vampire boyfriend, a situation that hadn’t done much to ameliorate Simon’s feeling that he was merely the latest in a long line of undesirable suitors.
“Well, you know they were both in the Circle. But I bet you didn’t know it was all my mom’s idea. My dad was never really enthusiastic about Valentine or any of it. And then when everything happened, and they got banished, and they realized they’d practically wrecked their lives, I think he blamed her. But they already had Alec and were going to have me, so he stayed, eventhoughIthink he kind of wanted to leave.And then,whenAlec was about nine, he found someone else.”
“Whoa,” Simon said. “Your dad cheated on your mom? That’s—that’s awful.”
“She told me,” said Isabelle. “I was about thirteen. She told me that he would have left her but they found out she was pregnant with Max, so they stayed together and he broke it off with the other woman. My mom didn’t tell me who she was. She just told me that you couldn’t really trust men. And she told me not to tell anyone.”
“And did you? Tell anyone?”
“Not until now,” Isabelle said.
Simon thought of a younger Isabelle, keeping the secret, never telling anyone, hiding it from her brothers. Knowing things about their family that they would never know. “She shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” he said, suddenly angry. “That wasn’t fair.”
“Maybe,” said Isabelle. “I thought it made me special. I didn’t think about how it might have changed me. But I watch my brothers give their hearts away and I think, Don’t you know better? Hearts are breakable. And I think even when you heal, you’re never what you were before.”
“Maybe you’re better,” said Simon. “I know I’m better.”
“You mean Clary,” said Isabelle. “Because she broke your heart.”
“Into little pieces. You know, when someone prefers their own brother over you, it isn’t a confidence booster. I thought maybe once she realized it would never work out with Jace, she’d give up and come back to me. But I finally figured out that she’d never stop loving Jace, whether it was going to work out with him or not. And I knew that if she was only with me because she couldn’t have him, I’d rather be alone, so I ended it.”
“I didn’t know you broke it off with her,” said Isabelle. “I assumed . . .”
“That I had no self-respect?” Simon smiled wryly.
“I thought that you were still in love with Clary,” Isabelle said. “And that you couldn’t be serious about anyone else.”
“Because you pick guys who will never be serious about you,” said Simon. “So you never need to be serious about them.”
Isabelle’s eyes shone when she looked at him, but she said nothing.
“I care about you,” Simon said. “I always cared about you.”
She took a step toward him. They were standing fairly close together in the small room, and he could hear the sound of her breathing, and the fainter pulse of her heartbeat underneath. She smelled of shampoo and sweat and gardenia perfume and Shadowhunter blood.