Angels Twice Descending

by Cassandra Clare

  "Seriously, Clary. I know what Ascension means."

  The words sat heavily between them, and as always, Clary heard what he didn't say: That this was too big to talk about seriously. That joking was, for the moment, the best he could do.

  "Besides, Lewis, I'd say you're buff enough already." She poked his biceps, which, he couldn't help but notice, were very close to bulging. "Any more and you'll have to buy new clothes."

  "Never!" he said indignantly, and smoothed out his T-shirt, which had a baker's dozen holes in the soft cotton and read I'M COSPLAYING AS MYSELF in letters nearly too faded to read. "Did you, uh, did you happen to bring Isabelle with you?" He tried to keep the hope out of his voice.

  Hard to believe that two years ago, he'd come to the Academy in part to escape Clary and Isabelle, the way they'd looked at him like they loved him more than anyone else in the world--but also like he'd drowned their puppy in a bathtub. They'd loved some other version of him, the one he could no longer remember, and that version had loved them, too. He didn't doubt it; he just couldn't feel it. They'd been strangers to him. Terrifyingly beautiful strangers who wanted him to be someone he wasn't.

  It felt like another life. Simon didn't know if he'd ever get all of his memories back--but somehow, despite that, he'd found his way back to Clary and Isabelle. He'd found a best friend who felt like his other half, who would someday soon be his parabatai. And he'd found Isabelle Lightwood, a miracle in human form, who said "I love you" whenever she saw him and, incomprehensibly, seemed to mean it.

  "She wanted to come," Clary said, "but she had to go deal with this rogue faerie thing in Chinatown, something about soup dumplings and a guy with a goat head. I didn't ask too many questions and--" She smiled knowingly at Simon. "I lost you at 'soup dumplings,' didn't I?"

  Simon's stomach growled loudly enough to answer for him.

  "Well, maybe we can grab you some on the way," Clary said. "Or at least a couple slices of pizza and a latte."

  "Don't toy with me, Fray." Simon was very touchy these days on the subject of pizza, or the lack thereof. He suspected that any day now his stomach might resign in protest. "On the way where?"

  "Oh, I forgot to explain--that's why I'm here, Simon." Clary took his hand. "I've come to take you home."

  *

  Simon stood on the sidewalk staring up at his mother's brownstone, his stomach churning. Traveling by way of Portal always made him feel a bit like puking up his lower intestine, but this time he didn't think he could blame the interdimensional magic. Not entirely, at least.

  "You sure this is a good idea?" he said. "It's late."

  "It's eleven p.m., Simon," Clary said. "You know she's still awake. And even if she's not, you know--"

  "I know." His mother would want to see him. So would his sister, who, according to Clary, was home for the weekend because someone--presumably a well-meaning, redheaded someone with his sister's cell number--had told her Simon was stopping in for a visit.

  He sagged against Clary for a moment, and, small as she was, she bore his weight. "I don't know how to do it," he said. "I don't know how to say good-bye to them."

  Simon's mother thought he was away at military school. He'd felt guilty lying to her, but he'd known there wasn't any other choice; he knew, all too well, what happened when he risked telling his mother too much truth. But this--this was something else. He was forbidden by Shadowhunter Law to tell her about his Ascension, about his new life. The Law also forbade him from contacting her after he became a Shadowhunter, and though there was nothing saying he couldn't be here in Brooklyn to say good-bye to her forever, the Law forbade him from explaining why.

  Sed lex, dura lex.

  The Law is hard, but it is the Law.

  Lex sucks, Simon thought.

  "You want me to go in with you?" Clary asked.

  He did, more than anything--but something told him this was one of those things he needed to do on his own.

  Simon shook his head. "But thanks. For bringing me here, for knowing I needed it, for--well, for everything."

  "Simon . . ."

  Clary looked hesitant, and Clary never looked hesitant.

  "What is it?"

  She sighed. "Everything that's happened to you, Simon, everything . . ." She paused, just long enough for him to think through how much that everything encompassed: getting turned into a rat and then a vampire; finding Isabelle; saving the world a handful of times, at least so he'd been told; getting locked in a cage and tormented by all manner of supernatural creature; killing demons; facing an angel; losing his memories; and now standing at the threshold of the only home he'd ever known, preparing himself to leave it behind forever. "I can't help thinking it's all because of me," Clary said softly. "That I'm the reason. And . . ."

  He stopped her before she could get any further, because he couldn't stand for her to think she needed to apologize. "You're right," he said. "You are the reason. For everything." Simon gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. "That's why I'm saying thank you."

  *

  "Are you sure you don't want me to heat that up for you?" Simon's mother asked as he shoveled another heaping spoonful of cold ziti into his mouth.

  "Mmff? What? No, it's fine."

  It was more than fine. It was tangy tomato and fresh garlic and hot pepper and gooey cheese, and better than leftover pasta from the corner pizza place had any right to be. It tasted like actual food, which already put it head and shoulders above what he'd been eating for the last several months. But it wasn't just that. Takeout from Giuseppi's was a tradition for Simon and his mother--after his father died and his sister went away to school, after it was just the two of them knocking around an apartment that felt cavernous with just the two of them left in it, they'd lost the habit of having daily meals with each other. It was easier to just grab food whenever they thought of it, on the way in or out of the apartment, his mother heating up TV dinners after work, Simon picking up some pho or a sandwich on his way to band practice. It was, maybe, easier not to face the empty chairs at the table every night. But they made it a rule to eat together at least one night each week, slurping down Giuseppi's spaghetti and drenching garlic knots in spicy sauce.

  These cold leftovers tasted like home, like family, and Simon hated to think of his mother sitting in the empty apartment, week after week, eating them on her own.

  Children are supposed to grow up and leave, he told himself. He wasn't doing anything wrong; he wasn't doing anything he wasn't meant to do.

  But there was a part of him that wondered. Children were supposed to leave home, maybe. But not forever. Not like this.

  "Your sister tried to wait up for you," his mother said, "but apparently she's been up for a week straight studying for exams. She was passed out on the couch by nine."

  "Maybe we should wake her up," Simon suggested.

  She shook her head. "Let the poor girl sleep. She'll see you in the morning."

  He hadn't exactly told his mother he was staying over. But he had let her believe it, which he supposed amounted to about the same thing: yet another lie.

  She settled into the chair beside him and stabbed a ziti onto her fork. "Don't tell my diet," she stage-whispered, then popped it into her mouth.

  "Mom, the reason I'm here . . . I wanted to talk to you about something."

  "That's funny, I've actually--I've been wanting to talk to you about something too."

  "Oh? Great! Uh, you go first."

  His mother sighed. "You remember Ellen Klein? Your Hebrew school teacher?"

  "How could I forget?" Simon said wryly. Mrs. Klein had been the bane of his existence from second grade through fifth. Every Tuesday after school, they'd fought a silent war, all because, in an unfortunate playground incident, Simon had accidentally dislodged her wig and sent it flying into a pigeon's nest. She'd spent the next three years determined to ruin his life.

  "You know she was just a nice old lady trying to get you to pay attention," his mother said now with a k
nowing smile.

  "Nice old ladies don't throw your Pokemon cards in the trash," Simon pointed out.

  "They do when you're trading them for kiddish wine at the back of the sanctuary," she said.

  "I would never!"

  "A mother always knows, Simon."

  "Okay. Fine. But that was a very rare Mew. The only Pokemon that--"

  "Anyway. Ellen Klein's daughter just got married to her girlfriend, a lovely woman, you'd like her--we all like her. But . . ."

  Simon rolled his eyes. "But let me guess: Mrs. Klein is a raging homophobe."

  "No, it's not that--the girlfriend's Catholic. Ellen had a fit, wouldn't go to the wedding, and now she's wearing mourning clothes and telling everyone that her daughter might as well be dead."

  Simon opened his mouth to crow about how he'd been right all along, that Mrs. Klein was indeed a horrible shrew, but his mother held up a finger to stop him.

  A mother, apparently, always knows.

  "Yes, yes, it's horrible, but I'm not telling you so you can feel vindicated. I'm telling you . . ." She knitted her fingers together, looking suddenly nervous. "I had the strangest feeling when I heard the story, Simon, like I knew she would regret it--because I regretted it. Isn't that strange?" She let out a nervous little giggle, but there was no humor in it. "Feeling guilty for something you haven't even done? I can't say why, Simon, but I feel like I've betrayed you in some terrible way I can't remember."

  "Of course you haven't, Mom. That's ridiculous."

  "Of course it's ridiculous. I would never. A parent should have unconditional love for her child." Her eyes were glossy with unshed tears. "You know that's how I love you, Simon, don't you? Unconditionally?"

  "Of course I know that."

  He said it like he meant it--he did mean it. But, of course, it was just another lie. Because in that other life, the one that had been wiped clean from both their minds, she had betrayed him. He'd told her the truth, that he'd been turned into a vampire, and she had thrown him out of the house. She had told him he was no longer her son. That her son was dead. She'd proven, to both of them, the conditions of her love.

  He couldn't remember it happening, but on some level deeper than conscious thought, he remembered the feeling of it--the pain, the betrayal, the loss. It had never occurred to him she might remember, too.

  "This is silly." She brushed away a tear, gave herself a little shake. "I don't know why I'm getting so emotional over this. I just . . . I just had this feeling that I needed to tell you that, and then you showed up here like it was meant to be, and . . ."

  "Mom." Simon pulled his mother out of her chair and into a tight hug. She seemed so small to him suddenly, and he thought how hard she'd worked all these years to protect him, and how he would do anything to protect her in return. He was a different person now than he'd been two years before, a different Simon than the one who'd confessed to his mother and been turned out of the house--maybe his mother was different too. Maybe making that choice once was enough to ensure she would never make it again; maybe it was time to stop holding it against her, this betrayal neither of them could quite remember. "Mom, I know. And I love you, too."

  She pulled away then, just far enough to meet his gaze. "What about you? What did you have to tell me?"

  Oh, nothing much, I'm just joining a supernatural cult of demon-fighters who've forbidden me to ever see you again, love ya.

  It didn't have quite the right ring to it.

  "I'll tell you in the morning," he said. "You look exhausted."

  She smiled, exhaustion painted across her face. "In the morning," she echoed. "Welcome home, Simon."

  "Thanks, Mom," he said, and miraculously managed to do so without getting choked up. He waited for her to disappear behind her bedroom door, waited for her soft snores to begin. Then he scribbled a note apologizing for having to leave so abruptly. Without saying good-bye.

  His sister snored, too--though, like their mother, she denied it. He could, if he stayed very silent, hear her all the way in the kitchen. He could wake her up, if he wanted, and he could probably even tell her the truth, or some version of it. Rebecca could be trusted--not just to keep his secrets, but to understand them. He could do what he'd come here to do, what he was supposed to do, say good-bye to her and tell her to love and protect their mother enough for both of them.

  "No." He'd spoken softly, but the word seemed to echo in the empty kitchen.

  The Law was hard, but it was also riven with loopholes. Hadn't Clary taught him that? There were Shadowhunters who found a way to keep their mundane loved ones in their lives--Simon himself was proof. Maybe that was why Clary had brought him here tonight--not to say good-bye, but to realize that he couldn't. Wouldn't.

  This isn't forever, Simon promised his mother and sister as he slipped out the door. He promised himself it wasn't cowardly, leaving without saying anything. It was a silent promise--that this wasn't the end. That he'd find a way. And despite the fact that there was no one to appreciate his flawless Schwarzenegger accent, he swore his oath aloud: "I'll be back."

  *

  Clary had said to give her a call when he was ready to head back to the Academy, but he wasn't ready yet. It was strange: In another day, there'd be nothing keeping him from returning to New York for good. After his Ascension, he'd be a Shadowhunter for real. No more school, no more training missions, no more long days and nights in Idris missing his morning coffee. He hadn't given much thought to what would happen next, but he knew he'd come home to the city and stay in the Institute, at least temporarily. There was no reason to feel so homesick for New York when he was this close to being back for good.

  Except he wasn't quite sure who he'd be when he came back. When he Ascended. If he Ascended, if nothing terrible happened when he took his drink from the Mortal Cup.

  What would it mean to become a Shadowhunter, really? He'd be stronger and swifter, he knew that much. He'd be able to bear runes on his skin, see through glamours without a warlock's help. He knew plenty about what he'd be able to do--but he didn't know anything about how it would feel. About who he'd be when he was a Shadowhunter. It's not that he thought one drink from a magic cup would instantly turn him into an egomaniacal, preternaturally handsome, wildly reckless snob like . . . well, like almost all the Shadowhunters he knew and loved. Nor did he expect that turning into a Shadowhunter would make him automatically disdain D&D, Star Trek, and all technology and pop culture invented after the nineteenth century. But who could know for sure?

  And it wasn't just the confusing transformation from human to angel-warrior. He'd been assured that, in all likelihood, if he survived Ascension, he would get back all his memories. All those memories of the original Simon, the "real" Simon, the one he'd worked so hard to persuade people would be gone forever, would come flooding back into his brain. He supposed this should make him happy, but Simon found he felt rather territorial of his brain as it was now. What if that Simon--the Simon who'd saved the world, the Simon whom Isabelle had first fallen in love with--didn't much like this Simon that he'd become? What if he drank from the Cup and lost himself all over again?

  It gave him a headache, thinking of himself as so many different people.

  He wanted one last night in the city as just this one: Simon Lewis, myopic, manga-loving mundane.

  Also, he still wanted some of those soup dumplings.

  Simon wandered down Flatbush, soaking in the familiar noises of New York at night, sirens and construction drills and road-rage honking, along with the slightly less familiar sounds of glamoured faerie hounds barking at the pigeons. He crossed the Manhattan Bridge, metal rattling beneath his feet as the subway roared past, the lights of the Financial District glittering through the fog. Even before he'd known anything about demons and Downworlders, Simon thought, he had always known New York was full of magic. Maybe that was why it had been so easy for him to accept the truth about the Shadow World: In his city, anything was possible.

  Conveniently,
the bridge dumped him off in the heart of Chinatown. As he popped into his favorite hole-in-the-wall and scarfed a to-go order of dumplings, Simon's mind strayed to Isabelle, wondering if she was close by, slashing evildoers with her electrum whip. It boggled his mind--if you thought about it, he was basically dating a superhero.

  Of course, the thing about dating a superhero was that you couldn't exactly ask them to take a break from saving the world just because you were in the mood for a last-minute date. So Simon kept walking, soaking in the rhythm of the midnight city, letting his mind wander as aimlessly as his feet. At least, he thought he was wandering aimlessly, until he found himself on a familiar block of Avenue D, passing a bodega where the milk was always sour but the guy behind the counter would give you free coffee with your morning doughnut, if you knew enough to ask.

  Wait, how did I know that? Simon thought. The answer came to him on the heels of the question. He knew that because, in some other forgotten life, he had lived here. He and Jordan Kyle had shared an apartment in the crumbling redbrick building on the corner. A vampire and a werewolf living together--it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke, but the only bad joke was that Simon had practically forgotten it ever happened.

  And Jordan was dead.

  It hit him now almost as hard as it had when he first heard: Jordan was dead. And not just Jordan. Raphael was dead. Isabelle's brother Max, dead. Clary's brother Sebastian, dead. Julie's sister. Beatriz's grandfather and father and brother, Julian Blackthorn's father, Emma Carstairs's parents--all of them dead, and those were only the ones Simon had been told about. How many other people he had cared about, or people the people he loved had cared about, had been lost to one Shadowhunter war or another? He was still a teenager--he wasn't supposed to know this many people who had died.

  And me, he thought suddenly. Don't forget that one.

  Because it was true, wasn't it? Before life as a vampire, there'd been death. Cold and bloodless and underground.

  Then, later, there'd been the forgetting, and that was a kind of death too.

  Simon wasn't even a Shadowhunter yet, and already, this life had taken so much from him.

  "Simon. I thought you'd be here."

  Simon turned around and was reminded that for all the losses, there'd also been some very significant gains. "Isabelle," he breathed, and then, for quite a while, his lips were too occupied to speak.