“It’s public property,” Julie said, a haughty—or rather, even-haughtier-than-usual—note entering her voice. Julie loved lording it over the new kids.
The girl crept toward them skittishly. Simon found himself wondering how someone like her had ended up at the Academy—then caught himself. He knew better than to judge by appearances. Especially given how he’d looked when he showed up two years before, so skinny he could only fit into girl-size gear. You’re thinking like a Shadowhunter, he chided himself.
Funny how that almost never sounded like a good thing.
“He told me to give this to you,” the girl whispered, handing a folded paper to Marisol, and then quickly backing away. Marisol, Simon gathered, was somewhat of a hero to the younger mundanes.
“Who did?” Marisol asked, but the girl was already gone. Marisol shrugged and opened the note, her face falling as she read the message.
“What?” Simon asked, concerned.
Marisol shook her head.
Jon took her hand, and Simon expected her to slap him, but instead she squeezed tight. “It’s from Sunil,” she said in a tight, angry voice. She passed the note to Simon. “I guess he ‘considered his options.’?”
I can’t do it, the note read. I know it probably makes me a coward, but I can’t drink from that Cup. I don’t want to die. I’m sorry. Say good-bye to everyone for me? And good luck.
They passed the note around one by one, as if needing to see the words in black and white before they could really believe it. Sunil had run away.
“We can’t blame him,” Beatriz said finally. “Everyone has to make his own choice.”
“I can blame him,” Marisol said, scowling. “He’s making us all look bad.”
Simon didn’t think that was why she was really angry, not exactly. He was angry too—not because he thought Sunil was a coward, or had betrayed them. Simon was angry because he’d put so much effort into trying not to think about what could happen, or how this was his last chance to walk away, and now Sunil had made that impossible.
Simon stood up. “Think I need to get some air.”
“Want company, mate?” George asked.
Simon shook his head, knowing George wouldn’t be offended. It was another thing that made them such good roommates—each knew when to leave the other alone.
“See you guys in the morning,” Simon said. Julie and Beatriz smiled and waved good night, and even Jon gave him a sardonic salute. But Marisol wouldn’t even look at him, and Simon wondered whether she thought he’d be the next to run.
He wanted to reassure her there was no chance of that. He wanted to swear that, in the morning, he’d be there beside the rest of them in the Council Hall, ready to take the Cup to his lips without reservation. But swearing was a serious thing for Shadowhunters. You never promised unless you were absolutely sure.
So Simon just said a final good night and left his friends behind.
Simon wondered whether, in the history of time, anyone had ever said, “I need to get some air,” and actually meant it. Surely it was only ever used as code for “I need to be somewhere else.” Which Simon did. The problem was, nowhere felt like the right place to be—so, for lack of a better idea, he decided his dorm room would have to do. At least there he could be alone.
This, at least, was the plan.
But when he stepped into the room, he found a girl sitting on his bed. A petite, redheaded girl whose face lit up at the sight of him.
Of all the strange things that had happened to Simon in the last couple of years, the strangest had to be that this—beautiful girls eagerly awaiting him in his bedroom—no longer seemed particularly strange at all.
“Clary,” he said as he encompassed her in a fierce hug. It was all he needed to say, because that’s the thing about a best friend. She knew exactly when he most needed to see her and how grateful and relieved he was—without his having to say a thing.
Clary grinned at him and slipped her stele back into her pocket. The Portal she’d created was still shimmering in the decrepit stone wall, by far the brightest thing in the room. “Surprised?”
“Wanted to get one last look at me before I go all buff and demon-fightery?” Simon teased.
“Simon, you do know that Ascending isn’t going to be like getting bitten by a radioactive spider or something, right?”
“So you’re saying I won’t be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? And I don’t get my own Batmobile? I want my money back.”
“Seriously, though, Simon—”
“Seriously, Clary. I know what Ascension means.”
The words sat heavily between them, and as always, Clary heard what he didn’t say: That this was too big to talk about seriously. That joking was, for the moment, the best he could do.
“Besides, Lewis, I’d say you’re buff enough already.” She poked his biceps, which, he couldn’t help but notice, were very close to bulging. “Any more and you’ll have to buy new clothes.”
“Never!” he said indignantly, and smoothed out his T-shirt, which had a baker’s dozen holes in the soft cotton and read I’M COSPLAYING AS MYSELF in letters nearly too faded to read. “Did you, uh, did you happen to bring Isabelle with you?” He tried to keep the hope out of his voice.
Hard to believe that two years ago, he’d come to the Academy in part to escape Clary and Isabelle, the way they’d looked at him like they loved him more than anyone else in the world—but also like he’d drowned their puppy in a bathtub. They’d loved some other version of him, the one he could no longer remember, and that version had loved them, too. He didn’t doubt it; he just couldn’t feel it. They’d been strangers to him. Terrifyingly beautiful strangers who wanted him to be someone he wasn’t.
It felt like another life. Simon didn’t know if he’d ever get all of his memories back—but somehow, despite that, he’d found his way back to Clary and Isabelle. He’d found a best friend who felt like his other half, who would someday soon be his parabatai. And he’d found Isabelle Lightwood, a miracle in human form, who said “I love you” whenever she saw him and, incomprehensibly, seemed to mean it.
“She wanted to come,” Clary said, “but she had to go deal with this rogue faerie thing in Chinatown, something about soup dumplings and a guy with a goat head. I didn’t ask too many questions and—” She smiled knowingly at Simon. “I lost you at ‘soup dumplings,’ didn’t I?”
Simon’s stomach growled loudly enough to answer for him.
“Well, maybe we can grab you some on the way,” Clary said. “Or at least a couple slices of pizza and a latte.”
“Don’t toy with me, Fray.” Simon was very touchy these days on the subject of pizza, or the lack thereof. He suspected that any day now his stomach might resign in protest. “On the way where?”
“Oh, I forgot to explain—that’s why I’m here, Simon.” Clary took his hand. “I’ve come to take you home.”