Born to Endless Night (9 page)

Then Clary leaned forward and kissed Jace.

“Let’s pick up this conversation in about ten years,” she said. “Maybe longer! I’m going to dance with the girls.”

She went to join Isabelle, who was already dancing to the soft music in the midst of a circle of admirers who had come because they heard she was back. Foremost among them was Marisol, who Simon was pretty sure had determined to be Isabelle when she grew up.

The Lightwood baby celebration was in full swing. Simon smiled, watching Clary. He could remember a couple of times she had been wary around other girls, and they had stuck together instead. It was nice to see Isabelle hold out her hands to Clary, and Clary grasp them without hesitation.

“Jace,” said Simon as Jace watched Clary and smiled. Jace glanced at him and looked annoyed. “Remember when you told me that you wished I could remember?”

“Why are you asking me if I remember things?” Jace asked, sounding definitely annoyed. “I’m not the one who has problems with remembering. Remember?”

“I just wondered what you meant by that.”

Simon waited, giving Jace a chance to take advantage of his demon amnesia and tell him another fake secret. Instead, Jace looked incredibly uncomfortable.

“Nothing,” he said. “What would I mean? Nothing.”

“Did you just mean you wanted me to remember the past generally?” Simon asked. “So I’d remember all the adventures we had and the manly bonds we formed together?”

Jace continued to make an uncomfortable face. Simon remembered Alec saying Jace was so upset.

“Wait, was that actually it?” Simon asked incredulously. “Did you
miss
me?”

“Obviously not!” snapped Jace. “I would never miss you. I, um, was talking about something specific.”

“Okay. So, what specific thing did you want me to recall?” Simon asked. He eyed Jace suspiciously. “Was it the biting?”

“No!” said Jace.

“Was that a special moment for you?” Simon asked. “One that you wanted me to remember that we shared?”

“Remember this moment,” said Jace. “At the very next opportunity that offers, I am going to leave you to die at the bottom of an evil boat. I want you to remember why.”

Simon smiled to himself. “No, you won’t. You would never leave me to die at the bottom of an evil boat,” he muttered as Alec strolled over to the slanted sofa and Jace looked outraged by what he was hearing.

“Simon, normally it’s a pleasure to talk to you,” Alec said. “But could I have a word with Jace?”

“Oh, right,” Simon said. “Jace, I’d forgotten what I was trying to talk to you about. But now I remember very clearly. Alec and I had a little talk about his problem with me. You know, the one you told me he had. The terrible secret.”

Jace’s golden eyes went blank. “Ah,” he said.

“You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?”

“Though I realize that you are both a little annoyed with me, and this might not be the time to shower myself with praise,” Jace said slowly, “honesty compels me to tell you: Yes. Yes, I do think I am hilarious. ‘There goes Jace Herondale,’ people say. ‘Cutting wit, and also totally cut. It’s a burden Simon could never understand.’”

“Alec’s going to kill you,” Simon informed him, and patted Jace on the shoulder. “And I think that’s fair. For what it’s worth, I’ll miss you, buddy.”

He got up from the sofa. Alec advanced on Jace.

Simon trusted Alec to exact terrible vengeance for both of them. He had wasted enough time on Jace’s dumb joke.

George was dancing with Julie and Beatriz, clowning around to try and get them to laugh. Beatriz was already laughing, and Simon thought Julie would soon.

“Come on, dancing with me isn’t so bad,” George told Julie. “I may be no Magnus Bane . . .” He paused and looked over at Magnus, who had changed into a black gauze shirt with blue sequins twinkling underneath. “I definitely could not pull that off,” he added. “But I do work out! And I have a Scottish accent.”

“You know that’s right,” said Simon. He high-fived George and smiled at the girls, but he was already moving past them, on his way to the center of the dancers.

On his way to Isabelle.

He came up behind her and slid his arm around her waist. She leaned back against him. She was wearing the dress she’d worn the day he’d first met her for the second time, reminding him of the starry night over Shadowhunter Academy.

“Hey,” he whispered. “I want to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Isabelle whispered back.

Simon turned her toward him, and she let him. He thought they should have this conversation face-to-face.

Behind her, he could see Jace and Alec. They were hugging, and Alec was laughing. Jace was patting him on the back in a congratulatory way. So much for terrible vengeance, though Simon couldn’t really say he minded.

“I wanted to tell you before I try to Ascend,” he said.

The smile dropped off Isabelle’s face. “If this is an in-case-I-die speech, I don’t want to hear it,” she said fiercely. “You’re not going to do that to me. You’re not going to even consider dying. You’re going to be fine.”

“No,” Simon said. “You’ve got it all wrong. I wanted to say this now, because if I Ascend, I get my memories back.”

Isabelle looked confused instead of angry, which was an improvement. “What is it, then?”

“It doesn’t matter if I get my memories back or not,” Simon said. “It doesn’t matter if another demon gives me amnesia tomorrow. I know you: You’ll come find me again, you’ll come rescue me no matter what happens. You’ll come for me, and I’ll discover you all over again. I love you. I love you without the memories. I love you right now.”

There was a pause, broken by irrelevancies like the music and the murmur of the people all around them. He could not quite read the look on Isabelle’s face.

Isabelle said in a calm voice: “I know.”

Simon stared at her. “Was that . . . ,” he said slowly. “Was that a
Star Wars
reference? Because if it was, I would like to declare my love all over again.”

“Go on, then,” said Isabelle. “I mean it. Say it again. I’ve been waiting awhile.”

“I love you,” said Simon.

Isabelle was laughing. Simon would have thought he would be appalled to say those words to a girl and have her laugh at him. But Isabelle was always surprising him. He could not stop looking at her. “Really?” she asked, and her eyes were shining. “Really?”

“Really,” said Simon.

He drew her to him, and they danced together, on the top floor of the Academy, in the heart of her family. Since she’d been waiting awhile, he told her again and again.

*    *    *

Magnus kept misplacing his baby. This did not seem a good sign for the future. Magnus was sure you were meant to keep a firm grip on their location.

He eventually located the baby with Maryse, who had seized him in triumph and run away to coo over her treasure in the kitchen.

“Oh, hello,” said Maryse, looking a little guilty.

“Hello, you,” said Magnus, and curved a hand around the small blue head, feeling the crisp curls. “And hello, you.”

The baby let out a fretful little wail. Magnus thought he was learning to distinguish between the different wails, and he magicked up a bottle of formula, ready-made. He held out his arms and Maryse visibly summoned up the willpower to surrender the baby.

“You’re good with him,” Maryse offered as Magnus tucked him into the corner of his arm and popped the bottle into his small mouth.

“Alec’s better,” Magnus said.

Maryse smiled and looked proud. “He’s very mature for his age,” she said fondly, and hesitated. “I . . . wasn’t, at his age, when I was a young mother. I didn’t . . . behave in a way I would want any of my children to see. Not that it’s an excuse.”

Magnus looked down at Maryse’s face. He remembered facing off on opposite sides against her once, long ago, when she had been one of Valentine’s disciples and he had felt as if he would hate her and everyone to do with her forever.

He also remembered choosing to forgive another woman who had been on Valentine’s side, and who had come to him holding a child in her arms and wanting to make things right. That woman had been Jocelyn, and that baby had become Clary, the first and only child Magnus had ever seen grow up.

He had never thought he would have his own child, to watch grow up.

Maryse looked back at him, standing very tall and straight. Perhaps his assumption about how she had felt for all these years was wrong; perhaps she had never decided to ignore the past, and thought with Nephilim pride that he had to follow her lead. Perhaps she had always wanted to apologize and always been too proud.

“Oh, Maryse,” Magnus said. “Forget it. I’m serious, don’t mention it again. In one of those turns I never expected, we’re family. All the beautiful surprises of life are what make life worth living.”

“You still get surprised?”

“Every day,” said Magnus. “Especially since I met your son.”

He walked out of the kitchen with his son in his arms and Maryse behind him, back to the party.

His beloved Alec, paragon of maturity, appeared to be hitting his
parabatai
repeatedly around the head. Last time Magnus had seen them, they had been hugging, so he presumed Jace had made one of his many unfortunate jokes.

“What is wrong with you?” Alec demanded. He laughed and kept raining down blows as Jace flailed on the sofa, sending cushions flying, a vision of Shadowhunter grace. “Seriously, Jace, what is wrong with you?”

This seemed a reasonable question to Magnus.

He looked around the room. Simon was dancing with Isabelle, very badly. Isabelle did not seem to mind. Clary was jumping up and down with Marisol, barely taller than the younger girl. Catarina appeared to be fleecing Jon Cartwright at cards, over by the window.

Robert Lightwood was standing right beside Magnus. Robert had to stop creeping up on people like this. Someone was going to have a heart attack.

“Hello, little man,” said Robert. “Where did you go off to?”

He shot a suspicious look at Maryse, who rolled her eyes.

“Magnus and I were having a talk,” she said, touching Magnus’s arm.

Her behavior made perfect sense to Magnus: win over the son-in-law, gain more access to the grandchild. He had seen these kind of family interactions before, but he had never, never thought he would be part of them.

“Oh?” Robert said eagerly. “Have you decided on his name?”

The latest song stopped playing just as Robert asked the question. His booming voice rang out in the hush.

Alec leaped off Jace and over the back of the sofa, to stand beside Magnus. The sofa collapsed, gently, with Jace still trapped in the cushions.

Magnus looked at Alec, who looked back at him, hope shining in his face. That was one thing that had not changed about Alec in the time they had been together: He had no guile, used no tricks to hide how he really felt. Magnus never wanted him to lose that.

“We did talk about it, actually,” Magnus said. “And we thought that you had the right idea.”

“You mean . . . ,” Maryse said.

Magnus inclined his head, as close as he could come to a sweeping bow while holding the baby. “I am delighted to introduce you all,” he said, “to Max Lightwood.”

Magnus felt Alec’s hand rest, warm as gratitude and sure as love, against his back. He looked down at the baby’s face. The baby seemed much more interested in his bottle than his name.

The time might come when the child, being a warlock, would want to choose his own name to bear through the centuries. Until the time came when he was old enough to choose who he wanted to be, Magnus thought he could do a lot worse than this name, this sign of love and acceptance, grief and hope.

Max Lightwood.

One of the beautiful surprises of life.

There was a humming, delighted hush, with murmurs of pleasure and approval. Then Maryse and Robert began to fight about middle names.

“Michael,” Robert repeated, a stubborn man.

Catarina strolled up, tucking a roll of money into her bra and thus not looking like the most appropriate teacher in the history of time. “How about Ragnor?” she asked.

“Clary,” said Jace from the fallen sofa. “Help me. It’s gone all dark.”

Magnus wandered away from the debate, because Max’s bottle was almost empty and Max was starting to cry.

“Don’t magic a bottle, make a real one,” Alec said. “If he gets used to you being faster at feeding him, you have to feed him all the time.”

“That is blackmail! Don’t cry,” Magnus urged his son, going back into the kitchen so he could make up a bottle by hand.

It was not so difficult, getting the formula ready. Magnus had watched Alec do it several times now, and he found that he was able to follow along by doing what Alec had done.

“Don’t cry,” he coaxed Max again as the milk heated up. “Don’t cry, and don’t spit up on my shirt. If you do either of those things, I will forgive you, but I will be upset. I want us to get along.”

Max cried on. Magnus wiggled the fingers of his free hand over the baby’s face, wishing there was a magic spell to make babies hush that would not be wrong to cast.

To his surprise Max ceased crying, in the same way he had in the hall yesterday when transferred to Alec’s arms. He stared with a liquid, interested gaze at the sparkles cast on his face by Magnus’s rings.

“See?” Magnus said, and restored Max’s bottle to him, full again. “I knew we were going to get along.”

He went and stood in the kitchen doorway, cradling Max in his arms, so he could watch the party. Three years ago, he would not have thought any of this was possible. There were so many people he felt connected to, in this one room. So much had changed, and there was so much potential for change It was terrifying, to think of all that might be lost, and exhilarating to think of all he had gained.

He looked to Alec, who was standing between his parents, his stance confident and relaxed, his mouth curved in a smile at something one of them had said.

“Maybe one day it will be just you and me, my little blueberry,” Magnus said conversationally. “But not for a long, long time. We’ll take care of him, you and I. Won’t we?”