“Wanna know another secret?” George asked.
Simon was slightly terrified of another revelation, and worried George was a secret agent, but he nodded anyway.
“Everybody in this academy, Shadowhunters and mundanes, people with the Sight and without it, every one of them is looking to be a hero. We are all hoping for it, and trying for it, and soon we will be bleeding for it. You’re just like the rest of us, Si. Except there’s one thing about you that’s different: We all want to be heroes, but you know you can be one. You know in another life, in an alternate universe, however you want to think of it, you were a hero. You can be one again. Maybe not the same hero, but you have it in you to make the right choices, to make the big sacrifices. That’s a lot of pressure. But it’s a lot more hope than any of the rest of us have. Think about it that way, Simon Lewis, and I think you’re pretty lucky.”
Simon had not thought about it that way. He’d just kept thinking that a switch was going to be flipped, and he was going to be special again. But Isabelle was right: This could not just be about being special. He remembered seeing the Academy for the first time, how glamorous and impressive it had looked from a distance, and how different it had looked close up. He was starting to think the process of becoming a Shadowhunter was the same way. He was starting to believe it would all be cutting himself with a sword and having his horse run away with him, eating terrible soup and scraping slime off the walls, and figuring out slowly and awkwardly who he really wanted to be, this time around.
George leaned against the bathroom wall, which was an obviously rash and dangerous move, and grinned at him. Seeing that grin, seeing George refuse to be serious for more than a second, reminded Simon of something else about his first day at the Academy. It reminded him of hope.
“Speaking of luck, Isabelle Lightwood is a total babe. Actually, she’s better than a babe: She’s a hero. She came all the way here to tell the world you were hers. You’re telling me she doesn’t know another hero when she sees one? You’re going to figure out what you’re doing here. Isabelle Lightwood believes in you, and for what it’s worth, I do too.”
Simon stared up at George.
“It’s worth a lot,” he said finally. “Thanks for saying all that.”
“You’re welcome. Now please get up off the floor,” George implored. “It is so nasty.”
Simon did get up off the floor. He left the bathroom, George ahead of him, and both of them almost plowed into Catarina Loss, who was dragging a huge covered tureen over the flagstones with a scraping sound.
“Ms. Loss . . . ,” said Simon. “Can I ask you—what you’re doing?”
“Dean Penhallow has decided that she is not going to order fresh food supplies until all this delicious, nutritious soup has been consumed. So I am going to bury this soup in the woods,” announced Catarina Loss. “Grab the other handle.”
“Huh. Okay, good plan,” said Simon, grabbing the other handle of the tureen and falling in with Catarina. George followed them as they went, unsteadily balancing the soup tureen between them. As they walked through the drafty, echoing corridors of the Academy, Simon added: “I just have one quick question about the woods. And bears.”
About the Authors
Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Mortal Instruments series and the Infernal Devices trilogy, and coauthor of The Bane Chronicles with Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson. She also wrote The Shadowhunter's Codex with her husband, Joshua Lewis. Her books have more than 35 million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts. Visit her at CassandraClare.com. Learn more about the world of the Shadowhunters at Shadowhunters.com.