"Now," Jace said, "bend a bit at the knees. And then I want you to just step off in one large stepping motion. Don't jump with both feet. Just step. And as you go down, bring your legs together and keep yourself relaxed."
This should not have been the hardest thing he'd ever done. Simon knew he'd done more. He knew he'd fought demons and come back from the dead. Jumping out of a tree should not have felt this terrifying.
He stepped into the air. He felt his brain react to this new information--There's nothing there, don't do it, there's nothing there--but momentum had already pulled his other leg off the branch and then . . .
The good thing that could be said about the experience was that it was quick. Points to gravity on that one. A few seconds of almost blissful fear and confusion and then a hammering feeling as his feet met the earth. His skeleton juddered, his knees buckled in submission, his aching skull lodged a formal complaint, and he fell over sideways in what would have been a roll if he had rolled and not, in fact, just remained there on the ground in a shrimp position.
"Get up, Lewis!" Scarsbury yelled.
Jace landed beside him, like a large killer butterfly, barely making a noise.
"The first one is always the hardest," he said, offering Simon a hand. "The first few dozen, really. I can't remember."
It hurt, but he didn't appear to be hurt. The wind was knocked out of his lungs, and he needed a moment to take a few deep breaths. He staggered back to where George was waiting, a sympathetic look on his face. The last two students completed the task, each looking as miserable as Simon, and then they were free to go for lunch. Most of the group was limping as they made their way back across the field.
*
Since Catarina had buried the soup in the woods, the kitchens of the Academy had been forced to try to come up with some other kind of foodstuff. As usual, an attempt was made to feature food from around the world, to reflect the many nations the students had come from. Today, Simon was informed, featured Swedish cuisine. There were meatballs, a vat of lingonberry sauce, mashed potatoes, smoked salmon, fish balls, beet salad, and at the very end, a strong-smelling item that Simon was informed was a special pickled herring from the Baltic region. Simon got the sense that, prepared by people who knew what they were doing, everything on offer would have looked a lot more delicious--except possibly the pickled herring from the Baltic region. In terms of what a vegetarian could eat, there wasn't much. He got some potatoes and lingonberry sauce and scraped one portion's worth of beet salad out of the practically empty container. Some kind Shadowhunter from Alicante had clearly taken pity on the students and provided bread rolls, which were eagerly snatched up. By the time Simon limped up to the basket, it was empty. He turned to make his way to a table and found Jace in his path. He had a roll in his hand and had already taken a bite.
"How about you sit with me?"
The Academy cafeteria looked less like a school dining hall and more like a terrible, cheap restaurant that had gotten its furnishings out of Dumpsters. There were big tables, and tiny, intimate ones. Simon, still too sore to make jokes about lunch dates, followed Jace to one of the small, rickety tables on the side of the room. He was aware of everyone watching them go. He gave George a nod, hoping to convey that he just had to do this--no offense in not sitting with him. George nodded back.
Jon, Julie, and the others in the elite course, who had been devastated to miss Falling Out of Trees with Jace Herondale 101, all stared over as if ready to leap up and save Jace from the bad company he'd fallen into, carry him away in a litter made of chocolate and roses, and bear his children.
Once they sat, Jace tucked into his lunch and didn't say a word. Simon watched him eat and waited, but Jace was all about the food. He had taken large helpings of most things, including the pickled Baltic herring. Now that he was even closer to it, Simon began to suspect that this fish had not been pickled at all. Someone at the famed Shadowhunter Academy kitchens had attempted to pickle fish--something that took skill and precise adherence to instructions--and had probably just invented a new form of botulism. Jace shoveled it back. Then again, Jace was the sort of Man vs. Wild guy who would probably be happy to fish a trout out of a stream with his bare hands and eat it while it was still flopping.
"Did you want to talk to me about something?" Simon finally asked.
Jace forked up a meatball and looked at Simon meditatively. "I've been doing research," he said. "Into my family."
"The Herondales?" Simon supplied, after a short pause.
"You might not remember, but I have kind of a complicated family history," Jace said. "Anyway, I only found out I was a Herondale a little while ago. It took me a while to adjust to the idea. They're kind of a legendary family."
Back to the food for a few minutes. When his plates and bowls were empty, Jace sat back and regarded Simon for a moment. Simon considered asking if Jace was kind of a big deal, but decided he wouldn't get the joke.
Jace went on. "Anyway, the whole thing, it started to remind me--well, of you. It's like there are these important things in my history but I don't know all of them, and I'm trying to pull together an identity that has all these holes in it. The Herondales--some of them were good people, and some of them were monsters."
"None of that needs to affect you," Simon said. "The choices you make are what matter, not your bloodline. But I imagine you have a lot of people in your life to tell you that. Clary. Alec." He looked at Jace sideways. "Isabelle."
Jace's eyebrows went up. "You want to talk about Isabelle? Or Alec?"
"Alec hates me and I do not know why," Simon said. "Isabelle hates me and I do know why, which is almost worse. So no, I do not want to talk about the Lightwoods."
"It's true you have a Lightwood problem," Jace said, and his golden eyes glinted. "It started with Alec. As you astutely observed, you two have a history. But I shouldn't get in the middle of that."
"Please tell me what's going on with Alec," Simon said. "You are really freaking me out."
"No," Jace said. "There are so many deep feelings involved. There's so much hurt. It wouldn't be right. I didn't come here to stir up trouble. I came here to show potential Shadowhunters how to drop from heights without breaking their necks."
Simon stared at Jace. Jace stared back with wide, innocent golden eyes.
Simon decided that the next time he saw Alec, he would have to ask Alec himself about the secrets that lay between them. This was obviously something he and Alec had to work out on their own.
"But I will say this about your Lightwood problem," Jace said, very casually. "Isabelle and Alec both have difficulty showing when they feel pain. But I can see it in both of them, especially when they try to hide it. She's in pain."
"And I made it worse," Simon said, shaking his head. "This is my fault. Me, with my memory wiped out by some kind of demon king. Me, with no concept of what happened in my life. Me, the guy with no special abilities who's probably going to get killed in school. I'm a monster."
"No," Jace said evenly. "No one blames you for not being able to remember. You offered yourself as a sacrifice. You were brave. You saved Magnus. And you saved Isabelle. You saved me. You need to bend your knees more."
"What?"
Jace was standing up now.
"When you first step off. Bend the knees right away. Otherwise you did pretty well."
"But what about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "What do I do?"
"I have no idea," Jace said.
"So you just came here to torture me and talk about yourself?" Simon demanded.
"Oh, Simon, Simon, Simon," said Jace. "You may not remember, but that's kind of our thing."
With that, he walked away, clearly aware of the admiring glances that followed his every step.
*
After lunch they had a history lecture. Usually the two groups of students were divided for classes--but in certain cases, everyone was assembled together in the main hall. There was no grandeur to the hall--just some crooked bench
es, and not enough of them. The chairs from the cafeteria were dragged in to supplement, but there still weren't enough seats. So some students (the elites) had chairs and benches, and the dregs sat on the floor at the front, like the little kids in middle school. After this morning, though, a few hours of sitting on a bare, cold, stone floor was luxury.
Catarina took her place at the wobbly lectern.
"We have a special guest lecturer today," she said. "She is visiting us to talk about the role Shadowhunters play in writing history. As you are likely aware, though I don't want to make any overly optimistic assumptions, Shadowhunters have been involved in many prominent moments in mundane history. Because Shadowhunters must also guard mundanes from knowing about our world, you must also sometimes take control of the writing of that history. By this I mean you have to cover things up. You need to provide a plausible explanation for what's happened--one that does not involve demons."
"Like Men in Black," Simon whispered to George.
"So please give your full attention to our esteemed guest," Catarina went on. She stepped aside, and a tall young woman took her place.
"I am Tessa Gray," she said in a low, clear voice. "And I believe in the importance of stories."
The woman at the front of the room looked like she might be a sophomore in college. She was elegantly dressed in a short black skirt, cashmere sweater, and paisley scarf. Simon had seen this woman once before--at Jocelyn and Luke's wedding. Clary had said she had played a very important role in Clary's life when she was a child. She had also informed Simon that Tessa was about a hundred and fifty years old, though she certainly didn't look it.
"For you to understand this story, you have to understand who and what I am. Like Catarina, I am a warlock--however, my mother was not human but a Shadowhunter."
A murmur from around the room, which Tessa glossed over.
"I am not able to bear Marks, but I once lived among Shadowhunters--I was a Shadowhunter's wife, and my children were Shadowhunters. I was witness to much that no other Downworlder ever saw, and now I am almost the only person alive who recalls the truth behind the stories mundanes made up to explain away the times their world brushed ours. I am many things. One is a living record of Shadowhunter history. Here is one story you may have heard of--Jack the Ripper. What can you tell me about that name?"
Simon was ready for this one. He'd read From Hell six times. He'd been waiting all his life for someone to ask him an Alan Moore question. His hand shot up.
"He was a murderer," Simon burst out. "He killed prostitutes in London in the late 1800s. He was probably Queen Victoria's doctor, and the whole thing was a royal cover-up to hide the fact that the prince had had an illegitimate child."
Tessa smiled at him. "You are right that Jack the Ripper is the name given to a murderer--or at least, to a series of murders. What you refer to is the royal conspiracy, which has been disproven. I believe it is also the plot of a graphic novel and film called From Hell."
Simon's love life was complicated, but there was a pang, just for a moment, for this woman talking graphic novels with him. Ah, well. Tessa Gray, foxy nerd, was probably dating someone already.
"I will give you the simple facts," Tessa said. "Once, I was not called Tessa Gray but Tessa Herondale. In that time, in 1888, in East London, there was a string of terrible murders . . ."
London, October 1888
"It's not appropriate," Tessa said to her husband, Will.
"He likes it."
"Children like all sorts of things, Will. They like sweets and fire and trying to stick their head up the chimney. Just because he likes the dagger . . ."
"Look how steadily he holds it."
Little James Herondale, age two, was in fact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion, sending out a burst of feathers.
"Ducks," he said, pointing at the feathers.
Tessa swiftly removed the dagger from his tiny hand and replaced it with a wooden spoon. James had recently become very attached to this wooden spoon and carried it with him everywhere, often refusing to go to sleep without it.
"Spoon," James said, tottering off across the parlor.
"Where did he find the dagger?" Tessa asked.
"It's possible I took him to the weapons room," Will said.
"Is it?"
"It is, yes. It's possible."
"And it's possible he somehow got a dagger from where it is secured on the wall, out of his reach," Tessa said.
"We live in a world of possibilities," Will said.
Tessa fixed a gray-eyed stare on her husband.
"He was never out of my sight," Will said quickly.
"If you could manage it," Tessa said, nodding to the sleeping figure of Lucie Herondale in her little basket by the fire, "perhaps you won't give Lucie a broadsword until she's actually able to stand? Or is that asking too much?"
"It seems a reasonable request," Will said, with an extravagant bow. "Anything for you, my pearl beyond price. Even withholding weaponry from my only daughter."
Will knelt down, and James ran to him to show off his spoon. Will admired the spoon as if it were a first edition, his scarred hand large and gentle against James's tiny back.
"Spoon," James said proudly.
"I see, Jamie bach," murmured Will, who Tessa had caught singing Welsh lullabies to the children on their most sleepless nights. To his children, Will showed the same love he had always shown to her, fierce and unyielding. And the same protectiveness he had only ever showed to one other person: the person James had been named after. Will's parabatai, Jem.
"Uncle Jem would be so impressed," she told Jamie with a smile. It was what she and Will called James Carstairs around their children, though between the two of them he was just Jem, and in public he was Brother Zachariah, a feared and respected Silent Brother.
"Jem," echoed James, quite clearly, and her smile grew. Will and James both tilted up their heads as one to look at her, their storm-cloud-black hair framing their faces. Jamie's was small and round, baby fat obscuring the bones and angles of a face that would one day be as like Will's as his hair. Two pairs of eyes, one darkly brilliant blue and one celestial gold, looked up at her with absolute trust and more than a little mischief. Her boys.
The long, long London summer days that Tessa was still getting used to, even after several years, were now starting to shorten rather rapidly. No more sunlight at ten at night--now the night was gathering at six, and the fog was heavy, and faintly yellow, and it pressed against the windows. Bridget had drawn the curtains, and the rooms were dim but cozy.
It was a strange thing, being a Shadowhunter and a parent. She and Will had been living lives that constantly involved danger, and then suddenly, two very small children had joined them. Yes, they were two very small children who occasionally got hold of daggers and would one day start training to become warriors--if they wished to do so. But now they were simply two very small children. Little James, wobbling around the Institute with his spoon. Little Lucie napping in her cradle or basket or in one of many pairs of willing arms.
These days Will was, Tessa was glad to note, a bit more careful about taking risks. (Usually. She would really have to make sure there were no more daggers for the children.) Bridget could usually keep the children well in hand, but Tessa and Will liked to be at home as much as they could. Cecily and Gabriel's little Anna was a year older than James, and had already blazed her way through the Institute. She sometimes made attempts to go for walks on her own in London, but was always blocked by Auntie Jessamine, who stood guard by the door. Whether or not Anna knew that Auntie Jessamine was a ghost was unclear. She was simply the loving, ethereal force by the doorway who shooed her back inside and told her to stop taking her father's hats.
It was a good life. There was a feeling of safety about it that reminded Tessa of a more peaceful time, back when she was in New York, back before she knew all the truths about herself and the world she lived in. Sometimes, when she sat with her
children by the fire, it all felt so . . . normal. Like there were no demons, no creatures in the night.
She allowed herself these moments.
"What are we having this evening?" Will asked, tucking the dagger into a drawer. "It smells a bit like lamb stew."
Before Tessa could answer, she heard the door open and Gabriel Lightwood came hurrying in, the smell of the cold fog trailing in his wake. He didn't bother to remove his coat. From the way he was walking and the look on his face, Tessa could tell that this little moment of domestic tranquility was over.
"Something wrong?" Will asked.
"This," Gabriel said. He held up a broadsheet newspaper called the Star. "It's awful."
"I agree," Will said. "Those halfpenny rags are terrible. But you seem to be more upset about them than is appropriate."
"They may be halfpenny rags, but listen to this."
He stepped under a gaslight, unfolded the paper, and snapped it once to straighten it.
"The terror of Whitechapel," he read.
"Oh," Will said. "That."
Everyone in London knew about the terror in Whitechapel. The murders had been extraordinarily horrible. News of the killings now filled every paper.
". . . has walked again, and this time has marked down two victims, one hacked and disfigured beyond discovery, the other with her throat cut and torn. Again he has got away clear; and again the police, with wonderful frankness, confess that they have not a clue. They are waiting for a seventh and an eighth murder, just as they waited for a fifth, to help them to it. Meanwhile, Whitechapel is half mad with fear. The people are afraid even to talk with a stranger. Notwithstanding the repeated proofs that the murderer has but one aim, and seeks but one class in the community, the spirit of terror has got fairly abroad, and no one knows what steps a practically defenceless community may take to protect itself or avenge itself on any luckless wight who may be taken for the enemy. It is the duty of journalists to keep their heads cool, and not inflame men's passions when what is wanted is cool temper and clear thinking; and we shall try and write calmly about this new atrocity."
"Very lurid," said Will. "But the East End is a violent place for mundanes."
The Whitechapel Fiend Page 2
