Not anymore, he told himself. A year at the Academy, a year of study and battle and caffeine withdrawal had changed him. It had to.
The question was: Changed him into what?
* * *
She’d given him the wrong time.
Of course she had. By the time Simon burst into Jon Cartwright’s room, they were nearly ready to complete the ritual.
“You can’t do this,” Simon told them. “All of you, stop and think.”
“Why?” Isabelle said. “Just give us one good reason. Persuade us, Simon.”
He wasn’t good at speeches. And she knew it.
Simon found himself suddenly furious. This was his school; these were his friends. Isabelle didn’t care what happened here. Maybe there was no deeper story, no hidden pain. Maybe she was exactly what she seemed, and no more: a frivolous person who cared only for herself.
Something at his core revolted against this thought, but he silenced it. This wasn’t about his nonrelationship with his nongirlfriend. He couldn’t let it be about that.
“It’s not just that it’s against the rules,” Simon said. How were you supposed to explain something that seemed so obvious? It was like trying to persuade someone that one plus one equaled two: It just did. “It’s not just that you could get expelled or even taken before the Clave. It’s wrong. Someone could get hurt.”
“Someone’s always getting hurt,” George pointed out, ruefully rubbing his elbow, which, just a couple of days before, Julie had nearly sliced off with a broadsword.
“Because there’s no other way to learn,” Simon said, exasperated. “Because it’s the best of all bad options. This? This is the opposite of necessary. Is this the kind of Shadowhunter you want to be? The kind that toys with the forces of darkness because you think you can handle it? Have you never seen a movie? Read a comic book? That’s always how it starts—just a little temptation, just a little taste of evil, and then bam, your lightsaber turns red and you’re breathing through a big black mask and slicing off your son’s hand just to be mean.”
They looked at him blankly.
“Forget it.”
It was funny, Shadowhunters knew more than mundanes about almost everything. They knew more about demons, about weapons, about the currents of power and magic that shaped the world. But they didn’t understand temptation. They didn’t understand how easy it was to make one small, terrible choice after another until you’d slid down the slippery slope into the pit of hell. Dura lex—the Law is hard. So hard that the Shadowhunters had to pretend it was possible to be perfect. It was the one thing Simon had taken from Robert’s lectures about the Circle. Once Shadowhunters started to slide, they didn’t stop. “The point is, this is a no-win situation. Either your stupid imp gets out of control and eats a bunch of students—or it doesn’t, and so you decide next time you can summon a bigger demon. And that one eats you. That is the definition of a lose-lose situation.”
“He makes a fair point,” Julie said.
“Not as dumb as he looks,” Jon admitted.
George cleared his throat. “Maybe—”
“Maybe we should get on with things,” Isabelle said, and tossed her silky black hair and blinked her large, bottomless eyes and smiled her irresistible smile—and as if she’d cast some witchy spell over the room, everyone forgot Simon existed and busied themselves with the work of raising a demon.
He’d done everything he could do here. There was only one option left.
He ran away.
* * *
1984
Michael let a week pass before he asked the question Robert had been dreading. Maybe he was waiting for Robert to bring it up himself. Maybe he’d tried to convince himself he didn’t need to know the truth, that he loved Robert enough not to care—but apparently he had failed.
“Walk with me?” Michael said, and Robert agreed to take one last stroll through Brocelind Forest, even though he’d hoped to stay away from the woods until the next semester. By then, maybe, the memory of what happened there would have faded. The shadows wouldn’t seem so ominous, the ground so soaked in blood.
Things had been strange between them this week, quiet and stiff. Robert was keeping his secret about what they’d done to the werewolf, and mulling over Valentine’s suggestion, that he be Robert’s conscience and Robert’s strength, that it would be easier that way. Michael was . . .
Well, Robert couldn’t guess what Michael was thinking—about Valentine, about Eliza, about Robert himself. And that’s what made things so strange. They were parabatai; they were two halves of the same self. Robert wasn’t supposed to have to guess. Before, he’d always known.
“Okay, so what’s the real story?” Michael asked, once they were deep enough in the woods that the sounds of campus had long since faded away. The sun was still in the sky, but here in the trees, the shadows were long and the dark was rising. “What did Valentine do to that werewolf?”
Robert couldn’t look at his parabatai. He shrugged. “Exactly what I told you.”
“You’ve never lied to me before,” Michael said. There was sadness in his voice, and something else, something worse—there was a hint of finality in it, like they were about to say good-bye.
Robert swallowed. Michael was right: Before this, Robert had never lied.
“And I suppose you’ve never lied to me?” he charged Michael. His parabatai had a secret, he knew that now. Valentine said so.
There was a long pause. Then Michael spoke. “I lie to you every day, Robert.”
It was like a kick in the stomach.
That wasn’t just a secret, that wasn’t just a girl. That was . . . Robert didn’t even know what it was.
Unfathomable.
He stopped and turned to Michael, incredulous. “If you’re trying to shock me into telling you something—”
“I’m not trying to shock you. I’m just . . . I’m trying to tell you the truth. Finally. I know you’re keeping something from me, something important.”
“I’m not,” Robert insisted.
“You are,” Michael said, “and it hurts. And if that hurts me, then I can only imagine—” He stopped, took a deep breath, forced himself on. “I couldn’t bear it, if I’ve been hurting you like that all these years. Even if I didn’t realize it. Even if you didn’t realize it.”
“Michael, you’re not making any sense.”
They reached a fallen log, thick with moss. Michael sank onto it, looking suddenly weary. Like he’d aged a hundred years in the last minute. Robert dropped beside him and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “What is it?” He knocked softly at Michael’s head, trying to smile, to tell himself this was just Michael being Michael. Weird, but inconsequential. “What’s going on in that nuthouse you call a brain?”
Michael lowered his head.
He looked so vulnerable like that, the nape of his neck bare and exposed, Robert couldn’t bear it.
“I’m in love,” Michael whispered.
Robert burst into laughter, relief gushing through him. “Is that all? Don’t you think I figured that out, idiot? I told you, Eliza’s great—”
Then Michael said something else.
Something that Robert must have misheard.
“What?” he said, though he didn’t want to.
This time, Michael lifted his head, met Robert’s eyes, and spoke clearly. “I’m in love with you.”
Robert was on his feet before he’d even processed the words.
It seemed suddenly very important to have space between him and Michael. As much space as possible.
“You’re what?”
He hadn’t meant to shout.
“That’s not funny,” Robert added, trying to modulate his voice.
“It’s not a joke. I’m in—”
“Don’t you say that again. You will never say
that again.”
Michael paled. “I know you probably . . . I know you don’t feel the same way, that you couldn’t . . .”
All at once, with a force that nearly swept him off his feet, Robert was flooded by a rush of memories: Michael’s hand on his shoulder. Michael’s arms around him in an embrace. Michael wrestling with him. Michael gently adjusting his grip on a sword. Michael lying in bed a few feet away from him, night after night. Michael stripping down, taking his hand, pulling him into Lake Lyn. Michael, chest bare, hair soaked, eyes shining, lying in the grass beside him.
Robert wanted to throw up.
“Nothing has to change,” Michael said, and Robert would have laughed, if it wouldn’t so surely have led to puking. “I’m still the same person. I’m not asking anything of you. I’m just being honest. I just needed you to know.”
This is what Robert knew: That Michael was the best friend he’d ever had, and probably the purest soul he’d ever know. That he should sit beside Michael, promise him that this was okay, that nothing needed to change, that the oath they’d sworn to each other was true, and forever. That there was nothing to fear in Michael’s—Robert’s stomach turned at the word—love. That Robert was arrow straight, that it was Maryse’s touch that made his body come alive, the memory of Maryse’s bare chest that made his pulse race—and that Michael’s confession didn’t call any of this into doubt. He knew he should say something reassuring to Michael, something like, “I can’t love you that way, but I will love you forever.”
But he also knew what people would think.
What they would think about Michael . . . what they would assume about Robert.
People would talk, they would gossip, they would suspect things. Parabatai couldn’t date each other, of course. And couldn’t . . . anything else. But Michael and Robert were so close; Michael and Robert were so in sync; surely people would want to know if Michael and Robert were the same.
Surely people would wonder.
He couldn’t take it. He’d worked too hard to become the man he was, the Shadowhunter he was. He couldn’t stand to have people looking at him like that again, like he was different.
And he couldn’t stand to have Michael looking at him like this.
Because what if he started wondering, too?
“You’ll never say that again,” Robert said coldly. “And if you insist on it, that will be the last thing you ever say to me. Do you understand me?”
Michael just gaped at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
“And you will never speak of it to anyone else, either. I won’t have people thinking that about us. About you.”
Michael murmured something unintelligible.
“What?” Robert said sharply.
“I said, what will they think?”
“They’ll think you’re disgusting,” Robert said.
“Like you do?”
A voice at the back of Robert’s mind said, Stop.
It said, This is your last chance.
But it said so very quietly.
It wasn’t sure.
“Yes,” Robert said, and he said it firmly enough that there would be no question that he meant it. “I think you’re disgusting. I swore an oath to you, and I will honor it. But make no mistake: Nothing between us will ever be the same. In fact, from now on, nothing is between us, period.”
Michael didn’t argue. He didn’t say anything. He simply turned, fled into the trees, and left Robert alone.
What he’d said, what he’d done . . . it was unforgivable. Robert knew that. He told himself: It was Michael’s fault, Michael’s decision.
He told himself: He was only doing what he needed to do to survive.
But he saw the truth now. Valentine was right. Robert wasn’t capable of absolute love or loyalty. He’d thought Michael was the exception, the proof that he could be certain of someone—could be steady, no matter what.
Now that was gone.
Enough, Robert thought. Enough struggling, enough doubting his own choices, enough falling prey to his own weakness and lack of faith. He would accept Valentine’s offer. He would let Valentine choose for him, let Valentine believe for him. He would do whatever he needed to hang on to Valentine, and to the Circle, and to its cause.
It was all he had left.
* * *
Simon ran through the dingy corridors, skidded across slimy floors, and raced down dented stairways, the whole way cursing the Academy for being such a labyrinthine fortress with no cell reception. His feet pounded against worn stone, his lungs heaved, and though the journey seemed endless, only a few minutes passed before he threw himself into Catarina Loss’s office.
She was always there, day or night, and that night was no different.
Well, slightly different: That night she wasn’t alone.
She stood behind her desk with her arms crossed, flanked by Robert Lightwood and Dean Penhallow, the three of them looking so somber it was almost like they were waiting for him. He didn’t let himself hesitate or think of the consequences.
Or think of Izzy.
“There’s a group of students trying to raise a demon,” Simon panted. “We have to stop them.”
No one seemed surprised.
There was a soft throat clearing—Simon turned to discover Julie Beauvale creeping out from behind the door he’d flung open in her face.
“What are you doing here?”
“Same thing you are,” Julie said. Then she blushed and gave him an embarrassed little shrug. “I guess you made a good case.”
“But how did you get here before me?”
“I took the east stairwell, obviously. Then that corridor behind the weapons room—”
“But doesn’t that dead-end at the dining hall?”
“Only if you—”
“Perhaps we can table this fascinating cartographic discussion until later,” Catarina Loss said mildly. “I think we have more important business at hand.”
“Like teaching your idiot students a lesson,” Robert Lightwood growled, and stormed out of the office. Catarina and the dean strode after him.
Simon exchanged a nervous glance with Julie. “You, uh, think we’re supposed to follow them?”
“Probably,” she said, then sighed. “We might as well let them expel all of us in one shot.”
They traipsed after their teachers, letting themselves fall more and more behind.
As they neared Jon’s room, Robert’s shouts were audible from halfway down the corridor. They couldn’t quite make out his words through the thick door, but the volume and cadence made the situation quite clear.
Simon and Julie eased the door open and slipped inside.
George, Jon, and the others were lined up against the wall, faces pale, eyes wide, all of them looking steeled for a firing squad. While Isabelle was standing by her father’s side . . . beaming?
“Failures, all of you!” Robert Lightwood boomed. “You lot are supposed to be the best and brightest this school has to offer, and this is what you have to show for yourselves? I warned you about the dangers of charisma. I told you of the need to stand up for what’s right, even if it hurts the ones you love most. And all of you failed to listen.”
Isabelle coughed pointedly.
“All of you except two,” Robert allowed, jerking his head at Simon and Julie. “Well done. Isabelle was right about you.”
Simon was reeling.
“It was all a stupid test?” Jon yelped.
“A rather clever test, if you ask me?” Dean Penhallow said.
Catarina looked as if she had some things to say on the subject of foolish Shadowhunters playing cat-and-mouse games with their own, but as usual, she bit her tongue.
“What percentage of our grades will this be?” Sunil asked.
With that, there was a lot of yell
ing. Quite a bit of ranting about sacred responsibilities and carelessness and how unpleasant a night in the dungeons of the Silent City can be. Robert thundered like Zeus, Dean Penhallow did her best not to sound like a babysitter scolding her charges for stealing an extra cookie, while Catarina Loss put in the occasional sarcastic remark about what happened to Shadowhunters who thought it would be fun to slum it in warlock territory. At one point, she interrupted Robert Lightwood’s tirade to add a pointed comment about Darth Vader—and a sly look at Simon that made him wonder, not for the first time, just how closely she was watching him, and why.
Through it all, Isabelle watched Simon, something unexpected in her gaze. Something almost like . . . pride.
“In conclusion, next time, you’ll listen when your elders talk,” Robert Lightwood shouted.
“Why would anyone listen to anything you had to say about doing the right thing?” Isabelle snapped.
Robert’s face went red. He turned to her slowly, fixing her with the kind of icy Inquisitor glare that would have left anyone else whimpering in a fetal ball. Isabelle didn’t flinch.
“Now that this sordid business is concluded, I’d ask you all to give me and my dutiful daughter here some privacy. I believe we have some things to settle,” Robert said.
“But this is my room,” Jon whined.
Robert didn’t need to speak, just turned that Inquisitor glare on him; Jon flinched.
He fled, along with everyone else, and Simon was about to follow suit when Isabelle’s fingers snatched for his wrist.
“He stays,” she told her father.
“He most certainly does not.”
“Simon stays with me, or I leave with him,” Isabelle said. “Those are your choices.”
“Er, I’m happy to go—” Simon began, “happy” being his polite substitute for “desperate.”
“You stay,” Isabelle commanded.
Robert sighed. “Fine. You stay.”
That ended the discussion. Simon dropped down onto the edge of Jon’s bed, trying to wish himself invisible.
“It’s obvious to me that you don’t want to be here,” Robert told his daughter.
The Evil We Love (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy Book 5) Page 7