Beatriz looked stunned.
“My father always said there was something off about him,” Jon murmured.
“This week, I will teach you about the misuses of power, about great evil and how it can take many forms. My able daughter, Isabelle Lightwood, will be assisting with some of the classwork.” Here he gestured to Isabelle, who glanced briefly at the crowd, her impossibly fierce glare somehow growing even fiercer. “Most of all, I will teach you about the Circle, how it began and why. If you listen well, some of you might even learn something.”
Simon wasn’t listening at all. Simon was staring at Isabelle, willing her to look at him. Isabelle studiously stared at her feet. And Robert Lightwood, Inquisitor of the Clave, arbiter of all things lawful, began to tell the story of Valentine Morgenstern and those who had once loved him.
1984
Robert Lightwood stretched out on the quad, trying not to think about how he’d spent this week the year before. The days after exams and before the summer break were, traditionally, a bacchic release of pent-up energy, faculty looking the other way as students pushed the Academy rules to their limits. A year ago, he and Michael Wayland had snuck off campus and taken a boldly illicit midnight skinny-dip in Lake Lyn. Even with their lips firmly sealed shut, the water had taken its hallucinogenic effect, turning the sky electric. They had lain on their backs side by side, imagining falling stars carving neon tracks across the clouds and dreaming themselves into a stranger world.
That was a year ago, when Robert had still imagined himself young, free to waste his time with childish delights. Before he had understood that, young or not, he had responsibilities.
That was a year ago, before Valentine.
The members of the Circle had co-opted this quiet, shady corner of the quad, where they would be safe from prying eyes—and where they, in turn, would be spared the sight of their classmates having their pointless, meaningless fun. Robert reminded himself that he was lucky to be huddled here in the shade, listening to Valentine Morgenstern declaim.
It was a special privilege, he reminded himself, to be a member of Valentine’s coterie, privy to his revolutionary ideas. A year ago, when Valentine had inexplicably befriended him, he’d felt nothing but intense gratitude and a desire to hang on Valentine’s every word.
Valentine said the Clave was corrupt and lazy, that these days it cared more about maintaining the status quo and fascistically suppressing dissent than it did carrying out its noble mission.
Valentine said the Shadowhunters should stop cowering in the darkness and walk proudly through the mundane world they lived and died to protect.
Valentine said the Accords were useless and the Mortal Cup was built to be used and the new generation was the hope of the future and the Academy classes were a waste of time.
Valentine made Robert’s brain buzz and his heart sing; he made Robert feel like a warrior for justice. Like he was a part of something, something extraordinary—like he and the others had been chosen, not just by Valentine, but by the hand of destiny, to change the world.
And yet, very occasionally, Valentine also made Robert feel uneasy.
Valentine wanted the Circle’s unquestioning loyalty. He wanted their belief in him, their conviction in the cause, to suffuse their souls. And Robert wanted desperately to give that to him. He didn’t want to question Valentine’s logic or intent; he didn’t want to worry that he believed too little in the things that Valentine said. Or that he believed too much. Today, showered in sunlight, the infinite possibility of summer opening up before him, he didn’t want to worry at all. So, as Valentine’s words washed over him, Robert let his focus drift, just for a moment. Better to tune out than to doubt. Just for now, his friends could do his listening for him, fill him in later. Wasn’t that what friends were for?
There were eight of them today, the Circle’s innermost circle, all sitting in hushed silence as Valentine ranted about the Clave’s kindness to Downworlders: Jocelyn Fairchild, Maryse Trueblood, Lucian and Amatis Graymark, Hodge Starkweather, and, of course, Michael, Robert, and Stephen. Though Stephen Herondale was the most recent addition to the crowd—and the most recent addition to the Academy, arriving from the London Institute at the beginning of the year—he was also the most devoted to the cause, and to Valentine. He’d arrived at the Academy dressed like a mundane: studded leather jacket, tight acid-washed jeans, blond hair gelled into preposterous spikes like the mundane rock stars who postered his dorm room walls. Only a month later, Stephen had adopted not only Valentine’s simple, all-black aesthetic but also his mannerisms, so that the only major difference between them was Valentine’s shock of white-blond hair and Stephen’s blue eyes. By first frost, he’d sworn off all things mundane and destroyed his beloved Sex Pistols poster in a sacrificial bonfire.
“Herondales do nothing halfway,” Stephen said whenever Robert teased him about it, but Robert suspected that something lay beneath the lighthearted tone. Something darker—something hungry. Valentine, he had noticed, had a knack for picking out disciples, homing in on those students with some kind of lack, some inner emptiness that Valentine could fill. Unlike the rest of their gang of misfits, Stephen was ostensibly whole: a handsome, graceful, supremely skilled Shadowhunter with a distinguished pedigree and the respect of everyone on campus. It made Robert wonder . . . what was it that only Valentine could see?
His thoughts had wandered so far astray that when Maryse gasped and said, in a hushed voice, “Won’t that be dangerous?” he wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Nonetheless, he squeezed her hand reassuringly, as this was what boyfriends were meant to do. Maryse was lying with her head in his lap, her silky black hair splayed across his jeans. He smoothed it away from her face, a boyfriend’s prerogative.
It had been nearly a year, but Robert still found it difficult to believe that this girl—this fierce, graceful, bold girl with a mind like a razor blade—had chosen him as her own. She glided through the Academy like a queen, granting favor, indulging her fawning subjects. Maryse wasn’t the most beautiful girl in their class, and certainly not the sweetest or the most charming. She didn’t care for things like sweetness or charm. But when it came to the battlefield, no one was more ready to charge the enemy, and certainly no one was better with a whip. Maryse was more than a girl, she was a force. The other girls worshipped her; the guys wanted her—but only Robert had her.