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Authors: Cassandra Clare,Robin Wasserman

Tags: #Teen & Young Adult, #Literature & Fiction, #Short Stories, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy

Angels Twice Descending (6 page)

BOOK: Angels Twice Descending
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They told me a Lovelace is always welcome at the London Institute,
George had said when he heard about his placement.

After his death the Institute made good on their word.

There had been a funeral, which Simon had endured. There had been a variety of reunions, big and small, with his friends from the Academy, Simon and the others telling stories and trading memories and trying not to think about that last day. Jon almost always cried.

Then there had been everything else: Life as a Shadowhunter, mercifully busy with training and experimenting with his newfound physical grace and energy, along with fighting off the occasional demon or rogue vampire. There had been long days with Clary, reveling in the fact that he could now remember every second of their friendship, preparing for their
parabatai
ceremony, which was only days away. There had been numerous training bouts with Jace, usually ending with Simon flat on his back while Jace stood over him, gloating about his superior skill, because that was Jace’s way of showing affection. There had been evenings babysitting Magnus and Alec’s son, snuggling the little blue boy to his chest and singing him to sleep, and feeling, for a few precious minutes, almost at peace.

There had been Isabelle, who loved him, which made every day glow.

There had been so much to make life worth living, and so Simon had lived, and time had passed—and George was still dead.

He’d asked Clary to Portal him here, to London, for reasons he didn’t quite understand. He’d said good-bye to George so many times now, but somehow none of it felt quite final—it didn’t feel right.

“I’ll take you there,” Clary had said. “But I’m coming with you.”

Isabelle had insisted too, and Simon was glad of it.

A soft breeze blew through the Institute’s garden, rustling the leaves and carrying the faint scent of orchids. Simon thought that George would be glad, at least, to spend eternity in a place where there was no threat of sheep.

Simon rose to his feet, flanked by Clary and Isabelle. Each of them slipped her hand into his, and they stood silently, bound together. Now that Simon had regained his past, he could remember all the times he’d almost lost one of them—as he could remember now, vividly, all the people he
had
lost. To battle, to murder, to sickness. Being a Shadowhunter, he knew, meant being on an intimate basis with death.

But then, so did being human.

Someday he would lose Clary and Isabelle, or they would lose him. Nothing could stop that. So what was the point? he’d asked Catarina, but he knew better than that. The point wasn’t that you tried to live forever; the point was that you
lived
, and did everything you could to live well. The point was the choices you made and the people you loved.

Simon gasped.

“Simon?” Clary said in alarm. “What is it?”

But Simon couldn’t speak; he could only gape at the gravestone, where the air was shimmering, and translucent light was shaping itself into two figures. One was a girl about his age; she had long blond hair, blue eyes, and the old-timey petticoats of a BBC duchess. The other was George, and he was smiling at Simon. The girl’s hand was on his shoulder, and there was something kind about the gesture, something warm and familiar.

“George,” Simon whispered. Then he blinked, and the figures were gone.

“Simon,
what
are you staring at?” Isabelle asked in the tight, irritated tone she used only when she was trying not to be afraid.

“Nothing.” What was he supposed to say? That he’d seen George’s ghost rise from the mist? That he’d seen not just George, which would have almost made sense, but some beautiful old-fashioned stranger? He knew Shadowhunters could see ghosts when those ghosts wanted to be seen, but he also knew that grieving people often saw what they wanted to see.

Simon didn’t know what to think. But he knew what he
wanted
to think.

He wanted a beautiful Shadowhunter spirit from the past, maybe even a long-dead Lovelace, to take George away with her, to wherever it was spirits went. He wanted to believe that George had been welcomed into the arms of his ancestors, where some part of him would live on.

Not likely,
Simon reminded himself. George was adopted, not a Lovelace by blood. And for Shadowhunters—presumably even the dead ones who haunted British gardens—everything came down to blood.

“Simon—” Isabelle pressed her lips to his cheek. “I know how much you . . . I know he was like your brother. I wish I could have known him better.”

Clary squeezed his hand. “Me too.”

Both of them, Simon was reminded, had also lost a brother.

And both of them cared about more than just bloodlines. Both understood that family could be a matter of choice—a matter of love. So did Alec and Magnus, who’d taken someone else’s child into their home and their hearts. So did the Lightwoods, who’d adopted Jace when he had no one else.

And so did Simon, who was now a Shadowhunter himself. Who could change what it meant to be a Shadowhunter just by making new choices. Better choices.

He understood now why he’d felt the need to come here, almost as if he’d been summoned. Not to say good-bye to George but to find a way to hold on to a piece of him.

“I think I know what I want my Shadowhunter name to be,” he said.

“Simon Lovelace,” Clary said, as always, knowing his mind as well as he did. “It has a certain ring to it.”

Isabelle’s lips quirked. “A sexy ring.”

Simon laughed and blinked away a tear. For one blurry-eyed moment, he thought he saw George grinning through the mist again, and then he was gone. George Lovelace was gone.

But Simon Lovelace was still here, and it was time to make that count.

“I’m ready,” he told Clary and Isabelle, the two wonders who had changed his life, the two warriors who would risk anything and everything for those they loved, the two girls who had become his heroes and his family. “Let’s go home.”

All the covers have finally been revealed!

Continue the adventures of the Shadowhunters with Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn in

Lady Midnight

The first book in Cassandra Clare’s new series, The Dark Artifices.

Emma took her witchlight out of her pocket and lit it—and almost screamed out loud. Jules’s shirt was soaked with blood and worse, the healing runes she’d drawn had vanished from his skin. They weren’t working.

“Jules,” she said. “I have to call the Silent Brothers. They can help you. I
have
to.”

His eyes screwed shut with pain. “You can’t,” he said. “You know we can’t call the Silent Brothers. They report directly to the Clave.”

“So we’ll lie to them. Say it was a routine demon patrol. I’m calling,” she said, and reached for her phone.

“No!” Julian said, forcefully enough to stop her. “Silent Brothers know when you’re lying! They can see inside your head, Emma. They’ll find out about the investigation. About Mark—”

“You’re not going to bleed to death in the backseat of a car for Mark!”

“No,” he said, looking at her. His eyes were eerily blue-green, the only bright color in the dark interior of the car. “You’re going to fix me.”

Emma could feel it when Jules was hurt, like a splinter lodged under her skin. The physical pain didn’t bother her; it was the terror, the only terror worse than her fear of the ocean. The fear of Jules being hurt, of him dying. She would give up anything, sustain any wound, to prevent those things from happening.

“Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded dry and thin to her own ears. “Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Hang on.”

She unzipped her jacket, threw it aside. Shoved the console between the seats aside, put her witchlight on the floorboard. Then she reached for Jules. The next few seconds were a blur of Jules’s blood on her hands and his harsh breathing as she pulled him partly upright, wedging him against the back door. He didn’t make a sound as she moved him, but she could see him biting his lip, the blood on his mouth and chin, and she felt as if her bones were popping inside her skin.

“Your gear,” she said through gritted teeth. “I have to cut it off.”

He nodded, letting his head fall back. She drew a dagger from her belt, but the gear was too tough for the blade. She said a silent prayer and reached back for Cortana.

Cortana went through the gear like a knife through melted butter. It fell away in pieces and Emma drew them free, then sliced down the front of his T-shirt and pulled it apart as if she were opening a jacket.

Emma had seen blood before, often, but this felt different. It was Julian’s, and there seemed to be a lot of it. It was smeared up and down his chest and rib cage; she could see where the arrow had gone in and where the skin had torn where he’d yanked it out.

“Why did you pull the arrow out?” she demanded, pulling her sweater over her head. She had a tank top on under it. She patted his chest and side with the sweater, absorbing as much of the blood as she could.

Jules’s breath was coming in hard pants. “Because when someone—shoots you with an arrow—” he gasped, “your immediate response is not—‘Thanks for the arrow, I think I’ll keep it for a while.’”

“Good to know your sense of humor is intact.”

“Is it still bleeding?” Julian demanded. His eyes were shut.

She dabbed at the cut with her sweater. The blood had slowed, but the cut looked puffy and swollen. The rest of him, though—it had been a while since she’d seen him with his shirt off. There was more muscle than she remembered. Lean muscle pulled tight over his ribs, his stomach flat and lightly ridged. Cameron was much more muscular, but Julian’s spare lines were as elegant as a greyhound’s. “You’re too skinny,” she said. “Too much coffee, not enough pancakes.”

“I hope they put that on my tombstone.” He gasped as she shifted forward, and she realized abruptly that she was squarely in Julian’s lap, her knees around his hips. It was a bizarrely intimate position.

“I—am I hurting you?” she asked.

He swallowed visibly. “It’s fine. Try with the
iratze
again.”

“Fine,” she said. “Grab the panic bar.”

“The what?” He opened his eyes and peered at her.

“The plastic handle! Up there, above the window!” She pointed. “It’s for holding on to when the car is going around curves.”

“Are you sure? I always thought it was for hanging things on. Like dry cleaning.”

“Julian,
now is not the time to be pedantic.
Grab the bar or I swear—”

“All right!” He reached up, grabbed hold of it, and winced. “I’m ready.”

She nodded and set Cortana aside, reaching for her stele. Maybe her previous
iratzes
had been too fast, too sloppy. She’d always focused on the physical aspects of Shadowhunting, not the more mental and artistic ones: seeing through glamours, drawing runes.

She set the tip of it to the skin of his shoulder and drew, carefully and slowly. She had to brace herself with her left hand against his shoulder. She tried to press as lightly as she could, but she could feel him tense under her fingers. The skin on his shoulder was smooth and hot under her touch, and she wanted to get closer to him, to put her hand over the wound on his side and heal it with the sheer force of her will. To touch her lips to the lines of pain beside his eyes and—

Stop.
She had finished the
iratze.
She sat back, her hand clamped around the stele. Julian sat up a little straighter, the ragged remnants of his shirt hanging off his shoulders. He took a deep breath, glancing down at himself—and the
iratze
faded back into his skin, like black ice melting, spreading, being absorbed by the sea.

He looked up at Emma. She could see her own reflection in his eyes: she looked wrecked, panicked, with blood on her neck and her white tank top. “It hurts less,” he said in a low voice.

The wound on his side pulsed again; blood slid down the side of his rib cage, staining his leather belt and the waistband of his jeans. She put her hands on his bare skin, panic rising up inside her. His skin felt hot, too hot. Fever hot.

“I have to call,” she whispered. “I don’t care if the whole world comes down around us, Jules, the most important thing is that you
live
.”

“Please,” he said, desperation clear in his voice. “Whatever is happening, we’ll fix it, because we’re
parabatai
. We’re forever. I said that to you once, do you remember?”

She nodded warily, hand on the phone.

“And the strength of a rune your
parabatai
gives you is special. Emma, you can do it. You can heal me. We’re
parabatai
and that means the things we can do together are . . . extraordinary.”

There was blood on her jeans now, blood on her hands and her tank top, and he was still bleeding, the wound still open, an incongruous tear in the smooth skin all around it.

“Try,” Jules said in a dry whisper. “For me, try?”

His voice went up on the question and in it she heard the voice of the boy he had been once, and she remembered him smaller, skinnier, younger, back pressed against one of the marble columns in the Hall of Accords in Alicante as his father advanced on him with his blade unsheathed.

BOOK: Angels Twice Descending
3.57Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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