Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy

by Cassandra Clare

  Magnus found, for some reason, that his own focus had slipped to the baby. It was natural concern, he told himself. Anybody would be concerned. Jace, as far as Magnus knew, was not accustomed to children. It was not like the Shadowhunters were always babysitting for the kids down the block.

  Jace was holding the baby somewhat awkwardly. His golden head, his hair full of fluff and dirt from lying down on the floor dealing with crevices, was bowed over the baby, staring down into the baby’s solemn little face.

  The baby was dressed, Magnus saw. He was wearing an orange onesie, and the feet of the onesie were shaped to look like little fox paws. Jace rubbed one of the fox paws with a brown hand, fingers scarred like a warrior’s and slim as a musician’s, and the baby gave a sudden, vigorous wriggle.

  Magnus rushed forward, realizing he had moved only when he was halfway across the room. He also realized that everyone else had lunged forward to catch the baby too.

  Except Jace had kept hold of the baby despite the wriggle.

  Jace looked flat-out terrified for a minute, then relaxed and looked around at everyone with his usual air of mild superiority.

  “He’s fine,” Jace told them. “He’s tough.”

  He looked toward Robert, clearly remembering Robert’s early words, and bounced the baby gingerly. The baby flailed, one small fist bouncing off Jace’s cheek.

  “That’s good,” Jace encouraged. “That’s right. Maybe a little harder next time. We’ll have you punching demons in the face in no time. Do you want to punch demons in the face with me and Alec? Do you? Yes, you do.”

  “Jace, honey,” Maryse cooed. “Give me the baby.”

  “Want to hold the baby, Clary?” asked Jace in the tone of one offering an enormous treat to his lady love.

  “I’m good,” said Clary.

  The Lightwoods, including Jace, all stared at her with a kind of sad wonder, as if she had just proven herself tragically insane.

  Isabelle had leaped down from the stool at the same time they had all rushed forward, ready to catch him. She looked at Magnus now.

  “Are you going to kneecap your parents so you can hold the baby?” Magnus asked.

  Isabelle laughed lightly. “No, of course not. Soon his formula will be ready. Then . . .” Isabelle’s face changed, set with terrifying determination. “I am going to feed the baby. Until then, I can wait, and help you guys come up with the perfect name for him.”

  “We were talking about that a little as we came in from Alicante,” said Maryse, her voice eager.

  Robert made another of his lightning-swift, cat-footed, and unsettling moves, this time to Magnus’s side. He put a heavy hand on Magnus’s shoulder. Magnus eyed Robert’s hand and felt deep unease.

  “Of course, it’s up to you and Alec,” Robert assured him.

  “Of course,” said Maryse, who never agreed with Robert on anything. “And we don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I would never want the little darling to have a name associated with—sadness rather than joy, or for either of you to feel like you have to do this. But we thought since . . . well, warlocks pick their own surnames a little later, so ‘Bane’ is not part of a family tradition . . . We thought you might consider, in memory but not as a burden . . .”

  Isabelle said, her voice clear: “Max Lightwood.”

  Magnus found himself blinking, partly in perplexity, but partly because of another feeling he found much less easy to define. His vision had blurred again and something in his chest had twisted.

  The mistake the Lightwoods had made was ridiculous, and yet Magnus could not help but be stunned by their offer, and how genuine and sincere it had been.

  This was a warlock child, and they were all Shadowhunters. Lightwood was an old, proud Shadowhunter name. Max Lightwood had been the Lightwoods’ youngest son. It was a name for one of their own.

  “Or if you don’t like that . . . Michael. Michael’s a nice name,” Robert offered into the long silence. He cleared his throat after he spoke, and looked out of the attic windows, into the woods surrounding the Academy.

  “Or you could hyphenate,” Isabelle said, her voice a little too bright. “Lightwood-Bane or Bane-Lightwood?”

  Alec moved, reaching out not to take the baby but to touch him. The baby flung a hand up, tiny fingers curling around Alec’s finger, as if reaching back. Alec’s face, stricken since the mention of his brother’s name, was warmed by a sudden faint smile.

  “Magnus and I haven’t talked about it yet, and we need to,” he said quietly. His voice had authority, even when it was quiet. Magnus saw Robert and Maryse nodding along to it, almost unconsciously. “But I was thinking maybe Max as well.”

  That was when Magnus realized the magnitude of the situation. It was not just a wild conclusion Isabelle had leaped to and improbably convinced everyone else of. It was not just the Lightwoods.

  Alec thought that he and Magnus were keeping the baby as well.

  Magnus did go and sit down then, on one of the rickety chairs with a cushion from home placed on it. He could not feel his fingers. He thought he might be in shock.

  Robert Lightwood followed him.

  “I couldn’t help but notice that the baby is blue,” Robert said. “Alec’s eyes are blue. And when you do the”—he made a strange and disturbing gesture, and then made the sound whoosh, whoosh—“magic, sometimes there’s a blue light.”

  Magnus stared at him. “I’m failing to see your point.”

  “If you made the baby for yourself and Alec, you can tell me,” said Robert. “I’m a very broad-minded man. Or—I’m trying to be. I’d like to be. I would understand.”

  “If I made . . . the . . . baby . . . ?” Magnus repeated.

  He was not certain where to start. He had imagined Robert Lightwood knew how babies were made.

  “Magically,” Robert whispered.

  “I am going to pretend you never said that to me,” said Magnus. “I am going to pretend we never had this conversation.”

  Robert winked, as if they understood each other. Magnus was speechless.

  The Lightwoods continued on their quest to childproof the suite, feed the baby, and all hold the baby at once. Witchlight on every side, filling the whole small space of the attic, blazed and burned in Magnus’s vision.

  Alec thought they were keeping the baby. He wanted to name him Max.

  “I saw Magnus Bane and a sexy vampire lady in the hall,” Marisol announced as she passed Simon’s table.

  Jon Cartwright was carrying her tray, and he almost dropped it. “A vampire,” he repeated. “In the Academy?”

  Marisol looked up into his scandalized face and nodded. “A sexy one.”

  “They’re the worst kind,” Jon breathed.

  “So you weren’t too bad, then, Simon,” Julie remarked as Marisol walked on, spinning her tale of an alluring vampiress.

  “You know,” Simon said, “sometimes I think Marisol goes too far. I know she likes jerking Jon’s chain, but nobody is dumb enough to believe in a warlock baby and a vampire on the same day. It’s too much. It makes no sense. Jon is going to catch on.”

  He poked a mysterious lump in his stew. Dinner was very late tonight, and very congealed. Marisol fibbing about vampires must have put the idea in his head: Simon looked back on drinking blood and thought that it could not have been as bad as this.

  “You would think she’d had enough excitement for one day,” George agreed. “I wonder how the poor little baby is doing. I was thinking, do you think he might change colors like a chameleon? How cool would that be?”

  Simon brightened. “So cool.”

  “Nerds,” said Julie.

  Simon took that as praise. He did feel that George had really come along under his tutelage. He had even voluntarily bought graphic novels when he was in Scotland over Christmas. Maybe someday the student would become the master.

  “This is hard luck for you, Simon,” said George. “I know you wanted to talk to Alec.”


  Simon’s brief moment of cheer faded, and he collapsed with his face on the table. “Forget about talking to Alec. When I went to tell them about the baby, I walked in on Alec and Magnus. If Alec didn’t like me before, he definitely hates me now.”

  Another old memory flashed in Simon’s mind, absolutely unwelcome: Alec’s pale, furious face as he looked down at Clary. Maybe Alec hated Clary, too. Maybe once someone crossed him, he never forgot and never forgave, and would always hate them both.

  His hideous imaginings were interrupted by a sensation around their dinner table.

  “What? Where? When? How? Did Magnus seem like an athletic yet tender lover?” Julie demanded.

  “Julie!” said Beatriz.

  “Thank you, Beatriz,” said Simon.

  “Don’t say a word, Simon,” said Beatriz. “Not until I have acquired a pen and paper so I can write down everything you say. I’m sorry, Simon, but they are famous, and celebrities have to bear with this interest in their love lives. They’re like Brangelina.”

  Beatriz rummaged through her bag until she found a notebook, and then opened it and gazed at Simon with an expectant air.

  Julie, Idris born and bred, made a face. “What is Brangelina? It sounds like a demon.”

  “It does not!” George protested. “I believe in their love.”

  “They are not like Brangelina,” Simon said. “What would you even call them? Algnus? That sounds like a foot disease.”

  “Obviously you would call them Malec,” said Beatriz. “Are you stupid, Simon?”

  “I will not be distracted!” said Julie. “Does Magnus have piercings? Of course he does; when would he miss an opportunity to shine?”

  “I didn’t notice, and even if I had noticed, I wouldn’t discuss it,” said Simon.

  “Oh, because people in the mundane world never obsess about celebrities and their love lives,” Beatriz said. “See also, Brangelina. And that boy band George is obsessed with. He has all kinds of theories about their romances.”

  “What . . . boy band . . . George is obsessed with?” Simon asked slowly.

  George looked shifty. “I don’t want to talk about it. The band’s going through some hard times lately, and it makes me too sad.”

  Far too many disturbing and upsetting things had happened to Simon today. He decided to stop thinking about George and the boy band.

  “I’m the one who grew up a subway ride from Broadway, I know people get too interested in celebrities,” he said. “But it’s weird for me when you girls obsess over Jace or Magnus. It’s weird when Jon trails after Isabelle with his tongue hanging out.”

  “Is George’s crush on Clary weird too?” asked Beatriz.

  “Is this Betray George Day, Beatriz?” George demanded. “Si, I may have had certain thoughts about certain pocket-size vixens, but I would never tell you about them! I don’t want to make it weird!”

  “Pocket-size vixens?” Simon stared. “Congratulations, you made it weird.”

  George hung his head in shame.

  “It’s weird for me because everybody acts as if they know famous people, but I really do know these people. They’re not images, like posters to hang on the wall. They’re not anything like you think they are. They have a right to privacy. It’s weird because I see everyone acting like they know who my friends are, when they only know a tiny bit of them, and it’s weird to see anyone acting as if they have some sort of claim on my friends and their lives.”

  Beatriz hesitated, then put her pen down. “Okay,” she said. “I can see it’s weird for you, but—it does come from everyone admiring what they’ve done. People act like they know them because they want to know them. And being admired means they have a lot of influence over other people. They can do a lot of good with that. Alec Lightwood is Sunil’s inspiration to be a Shadowhunter. And you, Simon. A lot of people follow you because they admire you. There might be some weirdness mixed in with being admired like that, but I think there’s more good.”

  “Oh, it’s not the same for me,” Simon mumbled. “I mean, I don’t even remember. I meant my friends. Including Alec, who is . . . my friend who doesn’t like me. They’re the special ones.”

  He couldn’t be cool and assured like Magnus or Jace. He didn’t know what Beatriz was talking about. Also he felt suddenly paranoid over whether people were wondering if he had piercings.

  Simon had no piercings. He used to be a musician in Brooklyn. He probably should have piercings.

  Beatriz hesitated another instant, then tore off the page she’d written on and rolled it into a ball. “You’re special too, Simon,” she said, and blushed. “Everybody knows that.”

  Simon looked at her red face and remembered George mentioning someone had a crush on him. He’d thought for a moment it might be Julie, and though it would be both bizarre and bizarrely flattering to have changed the heart of a Shadowhunter ice princess with his manly charms, he supposed Beatriz made more sense. He and Beatriz were really good friends. Beatriz had the best smile in the Academy. Simon would’ve been thrilled to have an attractive girl he was friends with get a crush on him, back in Brooklyn.

  He felt mainly awkward now. He wondered if he was supposed to let Beatriz down easily.

  Julie cleared her throat. “And just so you know . . . ,” she said, “there have been invasive questions asked about you. Also there was an incident where someone tried to steal one of your used socks and keep it as a trophy.”

  “Who was the sock person?” Simon demanded. “That’s just nasty.”

  “We never tell them anything,” Julie said. “And they may ask once, but they never ask again.” Her lip curled back from her teeth. She looked like a snarling blond tiger. “Because you’re a real person to us, Simon. And you’re our friend.”

  She reached across the table and touched Simon’s hand, then drew it back as if she had been burned. Beatriz snatched Julie’s hand as soon as she’d drawn it back and pulled her out of her chair and toward the corner of the room where the food was laid out.

  Neither of them needed more food. They had barely touched their stew. Simon watched as they went, and then stood talking to each other in fraught whispers.

  “Well, they both seem strangely upset.”

  George rolled his eyes. “Come on, Si, don’t be dense.”

  “You can’t mean . . . ,” began Simon. “They can’t both—like me?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Neither of them like you?” Simon said. “You work out. And! You have a Scottish accent.”

  “Don’t rub it in. Maybe girls fear me, because my keen eyes see too deeply into their souls,” George said. “Or maybe they’re intimidated by my good looks. Or maybe . . . Please don’t make me talk about what a lonely bugger I am anymore.”

  He looked after Julie and Beatriz a little wistfully. Simon could not tell if George was wistful about Julie or Beatriz, or simply wistful about love in general. He’d had no idea his friends were involved in such an emotional tangle.

  He was surprised. He felt awkward. And he didn’t feel anything else.

  He liked Beatriz a lot. Julie was terrible, but Simon thought of Julie telling him about her sister, and he had to admit: Julie was terrible, but he liked her, too. Both of them were beautiful and badass and did not come with a burden of lost memories and tangled emotions.

  He wasn’t even pleased they liked him. He wasn’t even slightly tempted.

  He wished, with single-minded intensity, that Isabelle was here—not a letter, not a voice on the phone, but here.

  He looked at George’s sad face and offered: “Want to talk about when Magnus and Alec go, and we steal their suite and make our own meals in our own little kitchen?”

  George sighed. “Could we really, Simon, or is that too beautiful a dream? Every day would be a song. All I want is to make a sandwich, Simon. Just a humble sandwich, with ham, cheese, maybe a little dab of . . . oh my God.”

  Simon wondered what a dab of “oh my God” would taste
like. George had frozen, spoon to his lips, eyes fixed on a point over Simon’s shoulder.

  Simon turned around in his seat and saw Isabelle framed in the doorway of the Academy dining hall. She was wearing a long dress the color of irises and her arms were spread wide, bracelets gleaming. Time seemed to slow, like a movie, like magic, like she was a genie who could appear in a puff of glittering smoke to grant wishes, and every wish would be her.

  “Surprise,” said Isabelle. “Miss me?”

  Simon jumped to his feet. He might have knocked his bowl clear across the table and into George’s lap. He was sorry, but he would make it up to him later.

  “Isabelle,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Congratulations, Simon, that’s a very romantic question,” Isabelle told him. “Am I meant to take it as ‘No, I didn’t miss you, and I’m seeing other girls’? If so, don’t worry about it. Why worry, when life is short? Specifically, your life, because I am going to cut off your head.”

  “I’m confused by what you’re saying,” Simon told her.

  Isabelle raised her eyebrows and opened her lips, but before she could speak Simon caught her by the waist and drew her in against him, kissing her surprised mouth. Isabelle’s mouth relaxed, curving under his. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him back, sultry and exuberant at once, a femme fatale and a warrior princess, all the dream girls of all his nerdy fantasies in one. Simon pulled back for a moment to look into Isabelle’s night-dark eyes.

  “I wasn’t aware,” said Simon, “that there are any other girls in the world but you.”

  He was embarrassed as soon as he said it. It was in no way a smooth line. It was pathetically honest, trying to tell Isabelle what he had only just realized himself. But he saw Isabelle’s eyes shine like new stars waking in the night, felt her arm around his neck pulling him down for another kiss, and he thought to himself that the line might be a little smooth. After all, it had gotten him a girl, the girl. The only girl Simon wanted.

  It was midnight before Magnus got all of the Lightwoods out of their suite. Isabelle had left to see Simon some time before, and Clary and Jace could usually be persuaded to go off together, but for a while he thought he was actually going to have to use magic on Maryse and Robert. He shoved them out of the door while they were still giving him helpful baby tips.