Sunil shook his head and grinned. The smile fit his face poorly; Sunil with a grin was like a Klingon in a tutu. He was an unusually somber boy who seemed to consider good cheer as a sign of unseriousness, and treated people accordingly. “She told us to convince you to show up. She said ‘whatever it takes.’ So, you tell me, Simon.” The unsettling smile grew. “What’s it going to take?”
“You don’t even know her,” Simon pointed out. “Why are you suddenly so willing to do whatever she tells you to do?”
“We are talking about the same girl here, yes? Isabelle Lightwood?”
“Yes.”
Sunil shook his head in wonder. “And you even have to ask?”
So that was the new order: the cult of Isabelle Lightwood. Simon had to admit, he could completely understand how a roomful of otherwise rational people could fall completely under her spell and give themselves to her entirely.
But why would she want them to?
He decided he was going to have to see this for himself. Simply to understand what was going on and make sure it was all on the up-and-up.
Not at all because he desperately wanted to be near her. Or impress her. Or please her.
Come to think of it, maybe Simon understood the cult of Isabelle better than he wanted to admit.
Maybe he’d been its charter member.
* * *
“You intend to do what?” On the last word, Simon’s voice jumped two octaves above normal.
Jon Cartwright snickered. “Simmer down, Mom. You heard her.”
Simon looked around the lounge at his friends (and Jon). Over the past year, he’d come to know them inside and out, or at least, he thought that he did. Julie bit her nails bloody when she was nervous. Marisol slept with a sword under her pillow, just in case. George talked in his sleep, usually about sheep-shearing techniques. Sunil had four pet rabbits that he talked about constantly, always worried that little Ringo was getting picked on by his bigger, fluffier brothers. Jon had covered one wall of his room with his little cousin’s finger paintings, and wrote her a letter every week. They’d all pledged themselves to the Shadowhunter cause; they’d gone through hell to prove themselves to their instructors and one another. They’d almost finished out the year without a single fatal injury or vampire bite . . . and now this?
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Simon said, hoping he was doing an acceptable job of keeping the desperation out of his tone. “Nice joke on me, get me back for wussing out last night. Utterly hilarious. What’s next? You want to convince me they’re making another crap Last Airbender movie? You want to see me freak out, there are easier ways.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “No one wants to see you freak out, Simon. Frankly, I could take or leave seeing you at all.”
“So this is serious,” Simon said. “You’re seriously, not at all jokingly, actually, for real planning to summon a demon? Here, in the middle of the Shadowhunter Academy? In the middle of the end-of-year party? Because you think it will be . . . fun?”
“We’re obviously not going to summon it in the middle of the party,” Isabelle said. “That would be rather foolish.”
“Oh, of course,” Simon drawled. “That would be foolish.”
“We’re going to summon it here in the lounge,” Isabelle clarified. “Then bring it to the party.”
“Then kill it, of course,” Julie put in.
“Of course,” Simon echoed. He wondered if maybe he was having a stroke.
“You’re making it sound like a bigger deal than it is,” George said.
“Yeah, it’s just an imp demon,” Sunil said. “No biggie.”
“Uh-huh.” Simon groaned. “Totally. No biggie.”
“Imagine the look on everyone’s faces when they see what we can do!” Marisol was nearly glowing at the thought of it.
Beatriz wasn’t there. If she had been, maybe she could have talked some reason into them. Or helped Simon tie them up and stuff them in the closet until the end of the semester had safely passed and Isabelle was back in New York where she belonged.
“What if something goes wrong?” Simon pointed out. “You’ve never faced off against a demon in combat conditions, not without the teachers watching your back. You don’t know—”
“Neither do you,” Isabelle snapped. “At least, you don’t remember, isn’t that right?”
Simon said nothing.
“Whereas I took down my first imp when I was six years old,” Isabelle said. “Like I told your friends, it’s no big deal. And they trust me.”
I trust you—that’s what he was meant to say. He knew she was waiting for it. They all were.
He couldn’t.
“I can’t talk you out of this?” he asked instead.
Isabelle shrugged. “You can keep trying, but you’d be wasting all our time.”
“Then I’ll have to find another way to stop you,” Simon said.
“You gonna tell on us?” Jon sneered. “You gonna go be a crybaby and tattle to your favorite warlock?” He snorted. “Once a teacher’s pet, always a teacher’s pet.”
“Shut up, Jon.” Isabelle whacked him softly on the arm. Simon probably should have been pleased, but whacking still required touching, and he preferred that Isabelle and Jon never come into physical contact of any sort. “You could try to tell on us, Simon. But I’ll deny it. And then who will they believe—someone like me, or someone like you? Some mundane.”
She said “mundane” exactly like Jon always did. Like it was a synonym for “nothing.”
“This isn’t you, Isabelle. This isn’t what you’re like.” He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince her or himself.
“You don’t know what I’m like, remember?”
“I know enough.”
“Then you know that you should trust me. But if you don’t, go ahead. Tell,” she said. “Then everyone will know what you’re like. What kind of friend you are.”
He tried.
He knew it was the right thing to do.
At least, he thought it was the right thing to do.
The next morning, before the lecture, he went to Catarina Loss’s office—Jon was right, she was his favorite warlock and his favorite faculty member, and the only one he would trust with something like this.
She welcomed him in, offered him a seat and a mug of something whose steam was an alarming shade of blue. He passed.
“So, Daylighter, I take it you have something to tell me?”
Catarina intimidated him somewhat less than she had at the beginning of the year—which was a bit like saying Jar Jar Binks was “somewhat less” annoying in Star Wars: Episode II than he’d been in Star Wars: Episode I.
“It’s possible I know something that . . .” Simon cleared his throat. “I mean, if something were happening that . . .”
He hadn’t let himself think through what would happen once the words were out. What would happen to his friends? What would happen to Isabelle, their ringleader? She couldn’t exactly get expelled from an Academy where she wasn’t enrolled . . . but Simon had learned enough about the Clave by now to know there were far worse punishments than getting expelled. Was summoning a minor demon to use as a party trick a violation of the Law? Was he about to ruin Isabelle’s life?
Catarina Loss wasn’t a Shadowhunter; she had her own secrets from the Clave. Maybe she’d be willing to keep one more, if it meant helping Simon and protecting Isabelle from punishment?
As his mind spun through dark possibilities, the office door swung open and Dean Penhallow poked her blond head in. “Catarina, Robert Lightwood was hoping to chat with you before his session—oh, sorry! Didn’t realize you were in the middle of something?”
“Join us,” Catarina said. “Simon was just about to tell me something interesting.”
The dean stepped into the office, furrowing her bro
w at Simon. “You look so serious,” she told him. “Go ahead, spit it out. You’ll feel better. It’s like throwing up.”
“What’s like throwing up?” he asked, confused.
“You know, when you’re feeling ill? Sometimes it just helps to get everything out.”
Somehow, Simon didn’t think vomiting up his confession straight to the dean would make him feel any better.
Hadn’t Isabelle proven herself enough—not just to him, but to the Clave, to everyone? She had, after all, pretty much saved the world. How much more evidence would anyone need that she was one of the good guys?
How much evidence did he need?
Simon stood up and said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I just wanted to tell you that we all really enjoyed that beet stew they served for dinner. You should serve that again.”
Dean Penhallow gave him an odd look. “Those weren’t beets, Simon.”
This didn’t surprise him, as the stew had had an oddly grainy consistency and a taste reminiscent of dung.
“Well . . . whatever it was, it was delicious,” he said quickly. “I better get going. I don’t want to miss the beginning of Inquisitor Lightwood’s final lecture. They’ve been so interesting.”
“Indeed,” Catarina said dryly. “They’ve been almost as delicious as the stew.”
* * *
1984
For most of his time at the Academy, Robert had watched Valentine from a distance. Even though Robert was older, he looked up to Valentine, who was everything Robert wanted to be. Valentine excelled at his training without visible effort. He could best anyone with any weapon. He was careless with his affection, or at least seemed to be, and he was beloved. Not many people noticed how few he truly loved back. But Robert noticed, because when you’re watching from the sidelines, invisible, it’s easy to see clearly.
It never occurred to him that Valentine was watching him, too.
Not until the day, toward the beginning of this year, that Valentine caught him alone in one of the Academy’s dark, underground corridors and said quietly, “I know your secret.”
Robert’s secret, that he told nobody, not even Michael: He was still afraid of the Marks.
Every time he drew a rune on himself, he had to hold his breath, force his fingers not to tremble. He always hesitated. In class, it was barely noticeable. In battle, it could be the split-second difference between life and death, and Robert knew it. Which made him hesitate even more, at everything. He was strong, smart, talented; he was a Lightwood. He should have been among the best. But he couldn’t let himself go and act on instinct. He couldn’t stop his mind from racing toward potential consequences. He couldn’t stop being afraid—and he knew, eventually, it would be the end of him.
“I can help you,” Valentine said then. “I can teach you what to do with the fear.” As if it were simple as that—and under Valentine’s careful instruction, it was.
Valentine had taught him to retreat to a place in his mind that the fear couldn’t touch. To separate himself from the Robert Lightwood who knew how to be afraid—and then to tame that weaker, loathed version of himself. “Your weakness makes you furious, as it should,” Valentine had told him. “Use the fury to master it—and then everything else.”
In a way Valentine had saved Robert’s life. Or at least, the only part of his life that mattered.
He owed Valentine everything.
He at least owed Valentine the truth.
“You don’t agree with what I did,” Valentine said quietly as the sun crept above the horizon. Michael and Stephen were still asleep. Robert had passed the hours of darkness staring at the sky, sifting through what had happened, and what he should do next.
“You think I was out of control,” Valentine added.
“That wasn’t self-defense,” Robert said. “That was torture. Murder.”
Robert was seated on one of the logs around the remains of their campfire. Valentine lowered himself beside him.
“You heard the things it said. You understand why it had to be silenced,” Valentine said. “It had to be taught its lesson, and the Clave couldn’t have mustered the will. I know the others wouldn’t understand. Not even Lucian. But you . . . we understand each other, you and I. You’re the only one I can really trust. I need you to keep this to yourself.”
“If you’re so sure you did the right thing, then why keep it a secret?”
Valentine laughed gently. “Always so skeptical, Robert. It’s what we all love most about you.” His smile faded. “Some of the others are starting to have doubts. About the cause, about me—” He waved away Robert’s denials before they could be voiced. “Don’t think I can’t tell. Everyone wants to be loyal when it’s easy. But when things get difficult . . .” He shook his head. “I can’t count on everyone I would like to count on. But I believe I can count on you.”
“Of course you can.”
“Then you’ll keep what passed this night a secret from the others,” Valentine said. “Even from Michael.”
Much later—too late—it would occur to Robert that Valentine probably had some version of this conversation with each member of the Circle. Secrets bound people together, and Valentine was smart enough to know it.
“He’s my parabatai,” Robert pointed out. “I don’t keep secrets from him.”
Valentine’s eyebrows shot sky-high. “And you think he keeps no secrets from you?”
Robert remembered the night before, whatever it was Michael had been trying so hard not to say. That was one secret—who knew how many more there were?
“You know Michael better than anyone,” Valentine said. “And yet, I imagine there are things I know about him that might surprise you. . . .”
A silence hung between them as Robert considered it.
Valentine didn’t lie, or issue empty boasts. If he said he knew something about Michael, something secret, then it was true.
And it was temptation, dangling here before Robert.
He needed only to ask.
He wanted to know; he didn’t want to know.
“We all have competing loyalties,” Valentine said, before Robert could give in to temptation. “The Clave would like to make these things simple, but it’s just another example of their obtuseness. I love Lucian, my parabatai. I love Jocelyn. If those two loves were ever to come into conflict . . .”
He didn’t have to complete the thought. Robert knew what Valentine knew, and understood that Valentine loved his parabatai enough to allow it. Just as Lucian loved Valentine enough never to act on it.
Maybe some secrets were a mercy.
He held out his hand to Valentine. “You have my word. My oath. Michael will never know about this.”
As soon as the words were out, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. But there was no going back.
“I know your secret too, Robert,” Valentine said.
At this, an echo of the first words Valentine had ever said to him, Robert felt the ghost of a smile.
“I think we covered that,” Robert reminded him.
“You’re a coward,” Valentine said.
Robert flinched. “How can you say that after everything we’ve been through? You know I would never shy away from a battle or—”
Valentine shook his head, silencing him. “Oh, I don’t mean physically. We’ve taken care of that, haven’t we? When it comes to taking on physical risk, you’re the bravest there is. Overcompensating, perhaps?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Robert said stiffly—afraid he knew all too well.
“You’re not afraid of death or injury, Robert. You’re afraid of yourself and your own weakness. You lack faith—you lack loyalty—because you lack the strength of your own convictions. And it’s my own fault for expecting more. After all, how can you be expected to believe in anything or anyon
e if you don’t believe in yourself?”
Robert felt suddenly transparent, and didn’t much like it.
“I once tried to teach you to master your fear and your weakness,” Valentine said. “I see now that was a mistake.”
Robert hung his head, waiting for Valentine to cast him out of the Circle. Exile him from his friends and his duty. Ruin his life.
Ironic that it was his own cowardice that had made his worst fears come true.
But Valentine surprised him. “I’ve given the matter some thought, and I have a proposition for you,” Valentine said.
“What is it?” He was afraid to hope.
“Give up,” Valentine said. “Stop trying to pretend away your cowardice, your doubt. Stop trying to ignite some unshakable passion in yourself. If you can’t find the courage of your convictions, why not simply accept the courage of mine?”
“I don’t understand.”
“My proposition is this,” Valentine said. “Stop worrying so much about whether or not you’re sure. Let me be sure for you. Rely on my certainty, on my passion. Let yourself be weak, and lean on me, because we both know I can be strong. Accept that you’re doing the right thing because I know it to be the right thing.”
“If only it were that easy,” Robert said, and couldn’t deny a stab of longing.
Valentine looked mildly amused, as if Robert had betrayed a childlike misunderstanding of the nature of things. “It’s only as hard as you make it,” he said gently. “It’s as easy as you let it be.”
* * *
Isabelle brushed past Simon on his way out of the lecture.
“Nine p.m., Jon’s room,” she whispered in his ear.
“What?” It was like she was informing him of the exact time and place of his death—which, if he was forced to imagine what she might be doing in Jon Cartwright’s dorm room, would be imminent.
“Demon o’clock. You know, in case you’re still determined to ruin our fun.” She gave him a wicked grin. “Or join it.”
There was an implied dare on her face, a certainty that he wouldn’t have the nerve to do either. Simon was reminded that though he might have forgotten ever knowing Isabelle, she’d forgotten nothing about him. In fact, it could be argued that she knew him better than he knew himself.
The Evil We Love (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy Book 5) Page 6