Extraits

-He stay, 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 "desesperate".

-You stay, Isabelle commanded.

-Fine. You stay, Robert sighed.

Grabbing Isabelle Lightwood from behind was probably an invitation to amputation.

-And I'm being nice to your friends because I'm a nice person.

Now it was Simon who looked incredulous.

-Okey, I'm not, she admitted.

Robert Lightwood wasn’t much of a teacher. He gave them a neatly sanitized account of the early days of the Circle, laying out Valentine’s revolutionary principles as if they were a list of ingredients for baking a particularly bland cake. Simon, fruitlessly devoting most of his energy to telepathic communication with Isabelle, was barely listening. He found himself cursing the fact that Shadowhunters were so haughty about the whole we-don’t-do-magic thing. If he were a warlock, he’d probably be able command Isabelle’s attention with the flick of a finger. Or, if he were still a vampire, he could have used his vampy powers to enthrall her—but that was something Simon preferred not to think about, because it raised some unsettling questions about how he’d managed to enthrall her in the first place.

Ragnor Fell, the green-skinned warlock who’d taught at the Academy for nearly a century, paused halfway across the quad and peered over at them, almost as if he could hear their discussion. Robert assured himself that was impossible. Still, he didn’t like the way the warlock’s horns angled toward them, as if marking his target.

Valentine wanted the Circle’s unquestioning loyalty. He wanted their belief in him, their conviction in the cause, to suffuse their souls. And Robert wanted desperately to give that to him. He didn’t want to question Valentine’s logic or intent; he didn’t want to worry that he believed too little in the things that Valentine said. Or that he believed too much. Today, showered in sunlight, the infinite possibility of summer opening up before him, he didn’t want to worry at all. So, as Valentine’s words washed over him, Robert let his focus drift, just for a moment. Better to tune out than to doubt. Just for now, his friends could do his listening for him, fill him in later. Wasn’t that what friends were for?

Over the last several months of classes, training, and demon-hunting disasters, their class had grown pretty close—especially the handful of students who were around Simon’s age. George was George, of course; Beatriz Mendoza was surprisingly sweet for a Shadowhunter; and even Julie had turned out to be slightly less snotty than she pretended to be. Jon Cartwright, on the other hand . . . The moment they met, Simon had decided that if looks matched personalities, Jon Cartwright would look like a horse’s ass. Unfortunately, there was no justice in the world, and he looked instead like a walking Ken doll. Sometimes first impressions were misleading; sometimes they peered straight through to a person’s inner soul. Simon was as sure now as he’d ever been: Jon’s inner soul was a horse’s ass.

He’d written Clary a letter too, telling her how much he wanted to remember their friendship—asking for her help. Unlike Isabelle, she’d written back, telling him the story of how they first met. It was the first of many letters, all of them adding episodes to the epic, lifelong story of Clary and Simon’s Excellent Adventure. The more Simon read, the more he remembered, and sometimes he even wrote back with stories of his own. It felt safe, somehow, corresponding by letter; there was no chance that Clary could expect anything of him, and no chance that he would fail her, see the pain in her eyes when she realized all over again that her Simon was gone. Letter by letter, Simon’s memories of Clary were beginning to knit themselves together.

“Oh yeah, Shadowhunters really know how to party.” His heart wasn’t in the sarcasm. The truth was, his fellow students did know how to party, even if their idea of fun usually involved pointy weapons. With exams behind them and only one more week before the end-of-year party and summer vacation, Shadowhunter Academy felt more like camp than school. Simon couldn’t believe he’d been here the whole school year; he couldn’t believe he’d survived the year. He’d learned Latin, runic writing, and a smattering of Chthonian; he’d fought tiny demons in the woods, endured a full moon night with a newborn werewolf, ridden (and nearly been trampled by) a horse, eaten his weight in soup, and in all that time, he’d been neither expelled nor exsanguinated. He’d even bulked up enough to trade in his ladies’-size gear for a men’s size, albeit the smallest one available. Against all odds, the Academy had come to feel like home. A slimy, moldy, dungeonlike home without working toilets, maybe, but home nonetheless. He and George had even named the rats that lived behind their walls. Every night, they left Jon Cartwright Jr., III, and IV a piece of stale bread to nibble, in hopes they’d prefer the crumbs to human feet.

He’d tried to explain himself in the letter, apologize for pushing her away. He’d confessed how much he wanted to fight his way back to the person he once was. Her Simon. Or at least, a Simon worthy of her.

Izzy—I don’t know why you would wait for me, but if you do, I promise to make myself worth that wait, he’d written. Or I’ll try. I can promise I am going to try.