Jace didn't appear. Simon didn't have to look around for him, as the entire cafeteria was on alert. Had there been a sighting of his mighty blond head, Simon would have heard the intake of breath. Dinner was followed by two hours of mandatory study in the library. After all that, Simon and George returned to their room, only to find Jace standing by the door.
"Evening," he said.
"Seriously," Simon said. "How long have you been lurking here?"
"I wanted to talk to you." Jace had his hands stuffed in his pockets and was leaning against the wall, looking like an advertisement for a fashion magazine. "Alone."
"People will say we're in love," Simon said.
"You could come into our room," George said. "If you want to talk. If it's private, I can put earplugs in."
"I'm not going in there," Jace said, glancing in the open doorway. "That room is so damp you could probably hatch frogs on the walls."
"Ah, that'll be in my head now," George said. "I hate frogs."
"So what do you want?" Simon said.
Jace smiled lightly.
"George, go inside the room," Simon said, a bit apologetically. "I'll be right in."
George ducked into their bedroom and shut the door behind him. Simon was now alone with Jace in a long corridor, which was a situation he felt like he'd been in before.
"Thank you," Jace said, surprisingly directly. "You were right about Tessa."
"She's related to you?"
"I went to talk to her." Jace looked shyly pleased, as if a small light inside him had been turned on. It was the sort of expression that would, Simon suspected, have slain adolescent girls in their tracks. "She's my great-great-great-something-grandmother. She was married to Will Herondale. I've learned about him before. He was part of stopping a massive demon invasion into Britain. She and Will were the first Herondales to run the London Institute. I mean, it isn't anything I didn't know, historically, but it's-- Well, as far as I know, there isn't anyone alive who shares blood with me. But Tessa does."
Simon leaned back against the wall of the corridor. "Did you tell Clary?"
"Yeah, I was on the phone with her for a couple of hours. She said Tessa hinted at some of this stuff during Luke and Jocelyn's wedding, but she didn't come right out and say it. She didn't want me to feel burdened."
"Do you?" Simon said. "Feel burdened, that is."
"No," Jace said. "I feel like there's someone else who understands what it means to be a Herondale. Both the good parts and the bad. I worried because of my father--that maybe being a Herondale meant I was weak. And then I learned more and thought maybe I was expected to be some kind of hero."
"Yeah," Simon said. "I know what that's like."
They shared a small moment of bizarre, companionable silence--the boy who'd forgotten everything about his history, and the boy who'd never known it.
Simon broke the silence. "Are you going to see her again? Tessa?"
"She says she's going to take me and Clary on a tour of the Herondale house in Idris."
"Did you meet Jem, too?"
"We've met before," said Jace. "In the Basilias, in Idris. You don't remember, but I--"
"Stopped him being a Silent Brother," said Simon. "I do remember that."
"We talked in Idris," said Jace. "A lot of what he said makes more sense to me now."
"So you're happy," Simon said.
"I'm happy," said Jace. "I mean, I've been happy, really, since the Dark War ended. I've got Clary, and I've got my family. The only dark spot's been you. Not remembering Clary, or Izzy. Or me."
"So sorry to mess up your life with my inconvenient amnesia," Simon muttered.
"I didn't mean it that way," Jace said. "I meant I wish you remembered me because--" He sighed. "Forget it."
"Look, Herondale, you owe me one now. Wait out here."
"For how long?" Jace looked aggrieved.
"As long as it takes." Simon ducked into his room and shut the door. George, who had been lying in bed studying, looked glum when Simon informed him that Jace was lurking in the hall.
"He's making me nervous now," George said. "Who'd want Jace Herondale following them around, being all mysterious and taciturn and blond. . . . Oh, right. Probably loads of people. Still, I wish he wouldn't."
Simon didn't bother to lock the bedroom door, partially because there were no locks at Shadowhunter Academy, and partially because if Jace decided to come in and stand over Simon's bed all night, he was going to do that, lock or no.
"He must want something?" George said, stripping off his rugby shirt and throwing it into the corner of the room. "Is this a test? Are we going to have to fight Jace in the middle of the night? Si, not to bag on our awesome demon-fighting prowess, but I do not think that is a fight we can win."
"I don't think so," Simon said, dropping down onto his bed, which dropped much farther than it should have. That was definitely at least two springs breaking.
They got ready for bed. As usual, in the dark, they talked about the mold and the many zoological possibilities crawling around them in the dark. He heard George turn toward the wall, the signal that he was about to sleep and the nightly chat was over.
Simon was awake, hands behind his head, body still achingly sore from the fall out of the tree.
"Do you mind if I turn on a light?" he asked.
"Nae, go ahead. I can barely see it anyway."
They still said "turn on a light" like they were flicking a switch. They had candles at the Academy--nubby little candles that seemed to have been specially made to produce as little light as possible. Simon fumbled around on the small stand next to his bed and found his matches and lit his candle, which he pulled into the bed with him, balancing it on his lap in a way that was probably unsafe. One good thing about the floor of ultimate moisture was that it was unlikely to catch fire. He could still be burned, if the candle overturned in his lap, but it was the only way he would be able to see to write. He reached again for some paper and a pen. No texting here. No typing. Real pen to paper was required. He made a makeshift desk out of a book and began to write:
Dear Isabelle . . .
Should he start with "dear"? It was the way you started letters, but now that he saw it, it looked weird and old-fashioned and maybe too intimate.
He got a new piece of paper.
Isabelle . . .
Well, that looked stark. Like he was angry, just saying her name like that.
Another paper.
Izzy,
Nope. Definitely not. They were not at pet names yet. How the hell did you start a letter like this? Simon considered a casual "Hey . . ." or maybe just forgetting the salutation and getting right to the message. Texting was so much easier than this.
He picked up the paper that started with "Isabelle" again. It was the middle choice. He would have to go with that.
Isabelle,
I fell out of a tree today.
I'm thinking of you while I'm in my moldy bed.
I saw Jace today. He may develop food poisoning. Just wanted you to know.
I'm Batman.
I'm trying to figure out how to write this letter.
Okay. That was a possible start, and true.
Let me tell you something you already know--you're amazing. You know it. I know it. Anyone can see that. Here's the problem--I don't know what I am. I have to figure out who I am before I can accept that I'm someone who deserves someone like you. It's not something I can accept just because I've heard it. I need to know that guy. And I know I am that guy you loved--I just have to meet him.
I'm trying to figure out how that happens. I guess it happens here, in this school where they try to kill you every day. I think it takes time. I know things that take time are annoying. I know it's hard. But I have to get there the hard way.
This letter is probably stupid. I don't know if you're still reading. I don't know if you're going to rip this up or slice it in half with your whip or what.
All of that came out in one solid flow. He tapped
the pen against his forehead for a minute.
I'm going to give this to Jace to give to you. He's been trailing me around all day like some kind of Jacey shadow. He's either here to make sure I don't die, or to make sure I die, or maybe because of you. Maybe you sent him.
I don't know. He's Jace. Who knows what he's doing? I'm going to give this to him. He may read it before it gets to you. Jace, if you're reading this, I'm pretty sure you're going to get food poisoning. Do not use the bathrooms.
It wasn't romantic, but he decided to leave it in. It might make Isabelle laugh.
If you are reading this, Jace, stop now.
Izzy--I don't know why you would wait for me, but if you do, I promise to make myself worth that wait. Or I'll try. I can promise I am going to try.
--Simon
Simon opened the door and was not surprised to find Jace standing outside of it.
"Here," Simon said, handing him the letter.
"Took you long enough," Jace said.
"Now we're even," said Simon. "Go party in the Herondale house with your weird family."
"I plan to," said Jace, and smiled a sudden, strangely endearing smile. He had a chipped tooth. The smile made him seem like he was Simon's age, and maybe they were friends after all. "Good night, Wiggles."
"Wiggles?"
"Yes, Wiggles. Your nickname? It's what you always made us call you. I almost forgot your name was Simon, I'm so used to calling you Wiggles."
"Wiggles? What does that . . . even mean?"
"You would never explain," Jace said with a shrug. "It was the big mystery about you. As I said, good night, Wiggles. I'll take care of this."
He held up the letter and used it to make a salute.
Simon shut the door. He knew most people on the hall had probably done everything they could to make sure they heard that exchange. He knew that in the morning he would be called Wiggles and there was nothing he would ever be able to do about it.
But it was a small price to pay to get a letter to Isabelle.
A new cover will be revealed each month as the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy continue!
Continue the adventures of the Shadowhunters with Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn in
Lady Midnight
The first book in Cassandra Clare's new series, The Dark Artifices.
Emma took her witchlight out of her pocket and lit it--and almost screamed out loud. Jules's shirt was soaked with blood and worse, the healing runes she'd drawn had vanished from his skin. They weren't working.
"Jules," she said. "I have to call the Silent Brothers. They can help you. I have to."
His eyes screwed shut with pain. "You can't," he said. "You know we can't call the Silent Brothers. They report directly to the Clave."
"So we'll lie to them. Say it was a routine demon patrol. I'm calling," she said, and reached for her phone.
"No!" Julian said, forcefully enough to stop her. "Silent Brothers know when you're lying! They can see inside your head, Emma. They'll find out about the investigation. About Mark--"
"You're not going to bleed to death in the backseat of a car for Mark!"
"No," he said, looking at her. His eyes were eerily blue-green, the only bright color in the dark interior of the car. "You're going to fix me."
Emma could feel it when Jules was hurt, like a splinter lodged under her skin. The physical pain didn't bother her; it was the terror, the only terror worse than her fear of the ocean. The fear of Jules being hurt, of him dying. She would give up anything, sustain any wound, to prevent those things from happening.
"Okay," she said. Her voice sounded dry and thin to her own ears. "Okay." She took a deep breath. "Hang on."
She unzipped her jacket, threw it aside. Shoved the console between the seats aside, put her witchlight on the floorboard. Then she reached for Jules. The next few seconds were a blur of Jules's blood on her hands and his harsh breathing as she pulled him partly upright, wedging him against the back door. He didn't make a sound as she moved him, but she could see him biting his lip, the blood on his mouth and chin, and she felt as if her bones were popping inside her skin.
"Your gear," she said through gritted teeth. "I have to cut it off."
He nodded, letting his head fall back. She drew a dagger from her belt, but the gear was too tough for the blade. She said a silent prayer and reached back for Cortana.
Cortana went through the gear like a knife through melted butter. It fell away in pieces and Emma drew them free, then sliced down the front of his T-shirt and pulled it apart as if she were opening a jacket.
Emma had seen blood before, often, but this felt different. It was Julian's, and there seemed to be a lot of it. It was smeared up and down his chest and rib cage; she could see where the arrow had gone in and where the skin had torn where he'd yanked it out.
"Why did you pull the arrow out?" she demanded, pulling her sweater over her head. She had a tank top on under it. She patted his chest and side with the sweater, absorbing as much of the blood as she could.
Jules's breath was coming in hard pants. "Because when someone--shoots you with an arrow--" he gasped, "your immediate response is not--'Thanks for the arrow, I think I'll keep it for a while.'"
"Good to know your sense of humor is intact."
"Is it still bleeding?" Julian demanded. His eyes were shut.
She dabbed at the cut with her sweater. The blood had slowed, but the cut looked puffy and swollen. The rest of him, though--it had been a while since she'd seen him with his shirt off. There was more muscle than she remembered. Lean muscle pulled tight over his ribs, his stomach flat and lightly ridged. Cameron was much more muscular, but Julian's spare lines were as elegant as a greyhound's. "You're too skinny," she said. "Too much coffee, not enough pancakes."
"I hope they put that on my tombstone." He gasped as she shifted forward, and she realized abruptly that she was squarely in Julian's lap, her knees around his hips. It was a bizarrely intimate position.
"I--am I hurting you?" she asked.
He swallowed visibly. "It's fine. Try with the iratze again."
"Fine," she said. "Grab the panic bar."
"The what?" He opened his eyes and peered at her.
"The plastic handle! Up there, above the window!" She pointed. "It's for holding on to when the car is going around curves."
"Are you sure? I always thought it was for hanging things on. Like dry cleaning."
"Julian, now is not the time to be pedantic. Grab the bar or I swear--"
"All right!" He reached up, grabbed hold of it, and winced. "I'm ready."
She nodded and set Cortana aside, reaching for her stele. Maybe her previous iratzes had been too fast, too sloppy. She'd always focused on the physical aspects of Shadowhunting, not the more mental and artistic ones: seeing through glamours, drawing runes.
She set the tip of it to the skin of his shoulder and drew, carefully and slowly. She had to brace herself with her left hand against his shoulder. She tried to press as lightly as she could, but she could feel him tense under her fingers. The skin on his shoulder was smooth and hot under her touch, and she wanted to get closer to him, to put her hand over the wound on his side and heal it with the sheer force of her will. To touch her lips to the lines of pain beside his eyes and--
Stop. She had finished the iratze. She sat back, her hand clamped around the stele. Julian sat up a little straighter, the ragged remnants of his shirt hanging off his shoulders. He took a deep breath, glancing down at himself--and the iratze faded back into his skin, like black ice melting, spreading, being absorbed by the sea.
He looked up at Emma. She could see her own reflection in his eyes: she looked wrecked, panicked, with blood on her neck and her white tank top. "It hurts less," he said in a low voice.
The wound on his side pulsed again; blood slid down the side of his rib cage, staining his leather belt and the waistband of his jeans. She put her hands on his bare skin, panic rising up inside her. His skin fel
t hot, too hot. Fever hot.
"I have to call," she whispered. "I don't care if the whole world comes down around us, Jules, the most important thing is that you live."
"Please," he said, desperation clear in his voice. "Whatever is happening, we'll fix it, because we're parabatai. We're forever. I said that to you once, do you remember?"
She nodded warily, hand on the phone.
"And the strength of a rune your parabatai gives you is special. Emma, you can do it. You can heal me. We're parabatai and that means the things we can do together are . . . extraordinary."
There was blood on her jeans now, blood on her hands and her tank top, and he was still bleeding, the wound still open, an incongruous tear in the smooth skin all around it.
"Try," Jules said in a dry whisper. "For me, try?"
His voice went up on the question and in it she heard the voice of the boy he had been once, and she remembered him smaller, skinnier, younger, back pressed against one of the marble columns in the Hall of Accords in Alicante as his father advanced on him with his blade unsheathed.
And she remembered what Julian had done, then. Done to protect her, to protect all of them, because he always would do everything to protect them.
She took her hand off the phone and gripped the stele, so tightly she felt it dig into her damp palm. "Look at me, Jules," she said in a low voice, and he met her eyes with his. She placed the stele against his skin, and for a moment she held still, just breathing, breathing and remembering.
Julian. A presence in her life for as long as she could remember, splashing water at each other in the ocean, digging in the sand together, him putting his hand over hers and them marveling at the difference in the shape and length of their fingers. Julian singing, terribly and off-key, while he drove, his fingers in her hair carefully freeing a trapped leaf, his hands catching her in the training room when she fell, and fell, and fell. The first time after their parabatai ceremony when she'd smashed her hand into a wall in rage at not being able to get a sword maneuver right, and he'd come up to her, taken her still-shaking body in his arms and said, "Emma, Emma, don't hurt yourself. When you do, I feel it, too."
Something in her chest seemed to split and crack; she marveled that it wasn't audible. Energy raced along her veins, and the stele jerked in her hand before it seemed to move on its own, tracing the graceful outline of a healing rune across Julian's chest. She heard him gasp, his eyes flying open. His hand slid down her back and he pressed her against him, his teeth gritted.
The Whitechapel Fiend Page 5