“Nothing,” he said. “What would I mean? Nothing.”
“Did you just mean you wanted me to remember the past generally?” Simon asked. “So I’d remember all the adventures we had and the manly bonds we formed together?”
Jace continued to make an uncomfortable face. Simon remembered Alec saying Jace was so upset.
“Wait, was that actually it?” Simon asked incredulously. “Did you miss me?”
“Obviously not!” snapped Jace. “I would never miss you. I, um, was talking about something specific.”
“Okay. So, what specific thing did you want me to recall?” Simon asked. He eyed Jace suspiciously. “Was it the biting?”
“No!” said Jace.
“Was that a special moment for you?” Simon asked. “One that you wanted me to remember that we shared?”
“Remember this moment,” said Jace. “At the very next opportunity that offers, I am going to leave you to die at the bottom of an evil boat. I want you to remember why.”
Simon smiled to himself. “No, you won’t. You would never leave me to die at the bottom of an evil boat,” he muttered as Alec strolled over to the slanted sofa and Jace looked outraged by what he was hearing.
“Simon, normally it’s a pleasure to talk to you,” Alec said. “But could I have a word with Jace?”
“Oh, right,” Simon said. “Jace, I’d forgotten what I was trying to talk to you about. But now I remember very clearly. Alec and I had a little talk about his problem with me. You know, the one you told me he had. The terrible secret.”
Jace’s golden eyes went blank. “Ah,” he said.
“You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”
“Though I realize that you are both a little annoyed with me, and this might not be the time to shower myself with praise,” Jace said slowly, “honesty compels me to tell you: Yes. Yes, I do think I am hilarious. ‘There goes Jace Herondale,’ people say. ‘Cutting wit, and also totally cut. It’s a burden Simon could never understand.’?”
“Alec’s going to kill you,” Simon informed him, and patted Jace on the shoulder. “And I think that’s fair. For what it’s worth, I’ll miss you, buddy.”
He got up from the sofa. Alec advanced on Jace.
Simon trusted Alec to exact terrible vengeance for both of them. He had wasted enough time on Jace’s dumb joke.
George was dancing with Julie and Beatriz, clowning around to try and get them to laugh. Beatriz was already laughing, and Simon thought Julie would soon.
“Come on, dancing with me isn’t so bad,” George told Julie. “I may be no Magnus Bane . . .” He paused and looked over at Magnus, who had changed into a black gauze shirt with blue sequins twinkling underneath. “I definitely could not pull that off,” he added. “But I do work out! And I have a Scottish accent.”
“You know that’s right,” said Simon. He high-fived George and smiled at the girls, but he was already moving past them, on his way to the center of the dancers.
On his way to Isabelle.
He came up behind her and slid his arm around her waist. She leaned back against him. She was wearing the dress she’d worn the day he’d first met her for the second time, reminding him of the starry night over Shadowhunter Academy.
“Hey,” he whispered. “I want to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Isabelle whispered back.
Simon turned her toward him, and she let him. He thought they should have this conversation face-to-face.
Behind her, he could see Jace and Alec. They were hugging, and Alec was laughing. Jace was patting him on the back in a congratulatory way. So much for terrible vengeance, though Simon couldn’t really say he minded.
“I wanted to tell you before I try to Ascend,” he said.
The smile dropped off Isabelle’s face. “If this is an in-case-I-die speech, I don’t want to hear it,” she said fiercely. “You’re not going to do that to me. You’re not going to even consider dying. You’re going to be fine.”
“No,” Simon said. “You’ve got it all wrong. I wanted to say this now, because if I Ascend, I get my memories back.”
Isabelle looked confused instead of angry, which was an improvement. “What is it, then?”
“It doesn’t matter if I get my memories back or not,” Simon said. “It doesn’t matter if another demon gives me amnesia tomorrow. I know you: You’ll come find me again, you’ll come rescue me no matter what happens. You’ll come for me, and I’ll discover you all over again. I love you. I love you without the memories. I love you right now.”
There was a pause, broken by irrelevancies like the music and the murmur of the people all around them. He could not quite read the look on Isabelle’s face.
Isabelle said in a calm voice: “I know.”
Simon stared at her. “Was that . . . ,” he said slowly. “Was that a Star Wars reference? Because if it was, I would like to declare my love all over again.”
“Go on, then,” said Isabelle. “I mean it. Say it again. I’ve been waiting awhile.”
“I love you,” said Simon.
Isabelle was laughing. Simon would have thought he would be appalled to say those words to a girl and have her laugh at him. But Isabelle was always surprising him. He could not stop looking at her. “Really?” she asked, and her eyes were shining. “Really?”
“Really,” said Simon.
He drew her to him, and they danced together, on the top floor of the Academy, in the heart of her family. Since she’d been waiting awhile, he told her again and again.
Magnus kept misplacing his baby. This did not seem a good sign for the future. Magnus was sure you were meant to keep a firm grip on their location.
He eventually located the baby with Maryse, who had seized him in triumph and run away to coo over her treasure in the kitchen.
“Oh, hello,” said Maryse, looking a little guilty.
“Hello, you,” said Magnus, and curved a hand around the small blue head, feeling the crisp curls. “And hello, you.”
The baby let out a fretful little wail. Magnus thought he was learning to distinguish between the different wails, and he magicked up a bottle of formula, ready-made. He held out his arms and Maryse visibly summoned up the willpower to surrender the baby.
“You’re good with him,” Maryse offered as Magnus tucked him into the corner of his arm and popped the bottle into his small mouth.
“Alec’s better,” Magnus said.
Maryse smiled and looked proud. “He’s very mature for his age,” she said fondly, and hesitated. “I . . . wasn’t, at his age, when I was a young mother. I didn’t . . . behave in a way I would want any of my children to see. Not that it’s an excuse.”
Magnus looked down at Maryse’s face. He remembered facing off on opposite sides against her once, long ago, when she had been one of Valentine’s disciples and he had felt as if he would hate her and everyone to do with her forever.
He also remembered choosing to forgive another woman who had been on Valentine’s side, and who had come to him holding a child in her arms and wanting to make things right. That woman had been Jocelyn, and that baby had become Clary, the first and only child Magnus had ever seen grow up.