“Oh,” said James. “Thanks.”
“No hard feelings, old sport,” said Matthew. “As a bit of a jolly prank, I put all your belongings in the south wing. I don’t know why I did that! Boyish high spirits, I suppose.”
“You did what?” Alastair gave Matthew a harried look, and departed at speed.
Matthew turned to James’s father and dramatically clasped his hand.
“Oh, Mr. Herondale!” he said. “Please take me with you!”
“It’s Matthew, isn’t it?” Father asked. He tried to disengage his hand. Matthew clung to it with extreme determination.
James smiled. He could have told Father about Matthew’s determination.
“You see,” Matthew proceeded, “I am also expelled from Shadowhunter Academy.”
“You got expelled?” James asked. “When? Why?”
“In about four minutes,” Matthew said. “Because I broke my solemn word, and exploded the south wing of the Academy.”
James and his father both looked at the south wing. It stood, looking as if it would stand for another century.
“I hoped it would not come to this, but it has. I gave Christopher certain materials that I knew he could turn into explosives. I measured them very carefully, I made sure they were slow acting, and I made Thomas swear to bring Christopher away. I have left a note explaining that it was all my fault, but I do not wish to explain this to Mother. Please take me with you to the London Institute, so I can be taught how to be a Shadowhunter with James!”
“Charlotte will cut off my head,” said Father.
He sounded tempted, though. Matthew was sparkling wickedly up at him, and Father enjoyed wickedness. Besides which, he was no more immune to The Smile than anyone else.
“Father, please,” James said in a quiet voice.
“Mr. Herondale, please!” said Matthew. “We cannot be parted.” James braced himself for the explanation about truth and beauty, but instead Matthew said, with devastating simplicity: “We are going to be parabatai.”
James stared.
Father said: “Oh, I see.”
Matthew nodded encouragingly, and smiled encouragingly.
“Then nobody should come between you,” said Father.
“Nobody.” Matthew shook his head as he said “nobody,” then nodded again. He looked seraphic. “Exactly.”
“Very well,” said Father. “Everybody get into the carriage.”
“Father, you did not steal Uncle Gabriel’s carriage again,” said James.
“This is your time of trouble. He would want me to have it, and he would have given it to me if I asked him, which as it happens I did not,” said Father.
He helped James and Matthew up, then swung himself up to sit on James’s other side. He grasped the reins and they were off.
“When the south wing collapses, there could be flying debris,” Father remarked. “Any one of us could be injured.” He sounded very cheerful about this. “Best to stop on our way home and see the Silent Brothers.”
“That seems excessi—” Matthew began, but James elbowed him. Matthew would learn how Father was about the Silent Brothers soon enough.
Anyway, James did not feel Matthew had a right to characterize anyone else’s behavior as excessive, now that he had blown up the Academy.
“I was thinking we could split our training time between the London Institute and my house,” Matthew went on. “The Consul’s house. Where people cannot insult you, and can get used to seeing you.”
Matthew had really meant it about being trained together, James thought. He had worked it all out. And if James was in Idris more often, he could perhaps see Grace more often too.
“I’d like that,” said James. “I know you’d like to see more of your father.”
Matthew smiled. Behind them, the Academy exploded. The carriage jolted slightly with the force of the impact.
“We don’t . . . have to be parabatai,” Matthew said, his voice quiet under the sound of the blast. “I said it to make your father take me with you, so I could execute my new plan, but we don’t . . . have to. I mean, unless you . . . maybe want to be.”
James had thought he wanted a friend like himself, a parabatai who was shy and quiet and would enter in on James’s feelings about the terror of parties. Instead here was Matthew, who was the life and soul of every party, who made dreadful hairbrush decisions, who was unexpectedly and terribly kind. Who had tried to be his friend and kept trying, even though James did not know what trying to be a friend looked like. Who could see James, even when he was a shadow.
“Yes,” James said simply.
“What?” said Matthew, who always knew what to say.
“I’d like that,” said James. He curled his hands, one around his father’s coat sleeve, and one around Matthew’s. He held on to them, all the way home.
Shadowhunter Academy, 2008
“So James found a parabatai and everything worked out great,” Simon said. “That’s awesome.”
James was Tessa Gray’s son, Simon had realized, a long way into the story. It was strange to think of that: It seemed to bring that lost boy very close, he and his friend. Simon liked the sound of James. He’d liked Tessa, too.
And though he was starting to get the feeling, even without his memories, that he hadn’t always liked Jace Herondale—he liked him now.
Catarina rolled her eyes so hard Simon thought he could hear them roll, like tiny, exasperated bowling balls.
“No, Simon. The Academy drove James Herondale out for being different, and all the people who loved him could do was follow him out. The people who drove them out did have to rebuild part of their precious Academy, mind you.”
“Uh,” said Simon. “Sorry, is the message I’m meant to be learning ‘get out, get out as fast as you can’?”
“Maybe,” Catarina said. “Maybe the message is to trust your friends. Maybe the message is not that people in the past did badly but that now we must all strive to do better. Maybe the message is you have to work these things out for yourself. You think all lessons have easy conclusions? Don’t be a child, Daylighter. You’re not immortal anymore. You don’t have much time to waste.”
Simon took that as the dismissal it was, scooping up his books. “Thanks for the story, Ms. Loss.”
He ran down the stairs and out of the Academy, but he was too late, as he’d known he would be.
He was barely out of the door when he saw the dregs, filthy and tired, arm in arm, lurching up from the training grounds. Marisol was in front, her arm looped with George’s. It looked as if someone had tried to pull out all her hair.
“Where were you, Lewis?” she called. “We could have used you cheering for us as we won!”
Some way behind them were the elites. Jon was looking very unhappy, which filled Simon with a deep sense of peace.
Trust your friends, Catarina had said.