Jon gave Simon a patronizing pat on the shoulder. “I’m going to miss your witty repartee this summer, Lewis.”
“I’m going to hope you get eaten by a spider demon this summer, Cartwright.”
George slipped an arm around both of them, grinning maniacally and humming “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”
George had, perhaps, embraced the spirit of celebration a little too enthusiastically of late.
Up at the front of the hall, Dean Penhallow cleared her throat loudly, looking pointedly in their direction. “If we could have some silence, please?”
The room continued chattering, Dean Penhallow continued clearing her throat and asking nervously for order, and things could have gone on like that all morning had Delaney Scarsbury, their training master, not climbed up on a chair. “We’ll have silence, or we’ll have one hundred push-ups,” he boomed. The room hushed immediately.
“I suppose you’ve all been wondering how you would keep busy now that exams are past?” Dean Penhallow said, her voice rising at the end of her sentence. The dean had a way of turning almost everything into a question. “I think you’ll all recognize this week’s guest speaker?”
An intimidating barrel-chested man in gray robes strode onto the makeshift stage. The room gasped.
Simon gasped too, but it wasn’t the appearance of the Inquisitor that had blown his mind. It was the girl trailing after him, glaring fiercely at his robes like she hoped to set them on fire with her mind. A girl with a curtain of silky black hair and bottomless brown eyes: the Inquisitor’s daughter. Known to friends, family, and humiliatingly rejected ex-boyfriends as Isabelle Lightwood.
George elbowed him. “You seeing what I’m seeing?” he whispered. “You want a tissue?”
Simon couldn’t help remembering the last time Izzy had shown up at the Academy, for the express purpose of warning every girl in school away from him. He’d been horrified. Right about now, he couldn’t imagine anything better.
But Isabelle didn’t look inclined to say anything to the class. She simply sat beside her father, arms crossed, glowering.
“She’s even prettier when she’s angry,” Jon whispered.
In a miraculous triumph of restraint, Simon didn’t spear him in the eye with a pen.
“You’ve nearly completed your first year at the Academy,” Robert Lightwood told the assembled students, somehow making it sound less like a congratulations than it did like a threat. “My daughter tells me that one of the mundanes’ great heroes has a saying, ‘With great power comes substantial responsibility.’ ”
Simon gaped. There was only one way Isabelle Lightwood, as far from a comics nerd as a person could get, would know a line—even a mangled one—from Spider-Man. She’d been quoting Simon.
That had to mean something . . . right?
He tried to catch her eye.
He failed.
“You’ve learned a lot about power this year,” Robert Lightwood continued. “This week I’m going to talk to you about responsibility. And what happens when power runs unchecked, or is freely given to the wrong person. I’m going to talk to you about the Circle.”
At those words, a hush fell across the room. The Academy faculty, like most Shadowhunters, were very careful to avoid the subject of the Circle—the group of rogue Shadowhunters that Valentine Morgenstern had led in the Uprising. The students knew about Valentine—everyone knew about Valentine—but they learned quickly not to ask too many questions about him. Over the last year, Simon had come to understand that the Shadowhunters preferred to believe their choices were perfect, their laws infallible. They didn’t like to think about the time they’d been nearly destroyed by a group of their own.
It explained, at least, why the dean was hosting this session, rather than their history teacher, Catarina Loss. The warlock seemed to tolerate most Shadowhunters—barely. Simon suspected that when it came to former members of the Circle, “barely” was too much to hope for.
Robert cleared his throat. “I’d like all of you to ask yourselves what you would have done, were you a student here in Valentine Morgenstern’s day. Would you have joined the Circle? Would you have stood by Valentine’s side at the Uprising? Raise your hand, if you think it’s possible.”
Simon was unsurprised to see not a single hand in the air. He’d played this game back in mundane school, every time his history class covered World War II. Simon knew no one ever thought they would be a Nazi.
Simon also knew that, statistically, most of them were wrong.
“Now I’d like you to raise your hand if you think you’re an exemplary Shadowhunter, one who would do anything to serve the Clave,” Robert said.
Unsurprisingly, many more hands shot up this time, Jon Cartwright’s the highest.
Robert smiled mirthlessly. “It was the most eager and loyal of us who were first to join Valentine’s ranks,” he told them. “It was those of us most dedicated to the Shadowhunter cause who found ourselves the easiest prey.”
There was a rustling in the crowd.
“Yes,” Robert said. “I say us, because I was among Valentine’s disciples. I was in the Circle.”
The rustling burst into a storm. Some of the students looked unsurprised, but many of them looked as if a nuclear bomb had just gone off inside their brains. Clary had told Simon that Robert Lightwood used to be a member of the Circle, but it was obviously hard for some people to reconcile that with the position of the Inquisitor, which this tall, fearsome man now held.
“The Inquisitor?” Julie breathed, eyes wide. “How could they let him . . . ?”
Beatriz looked stunned.
“My father always said there was something off about him,” Jon murmured.
“This week, I will teach you about the misuses of power, about great evil and how it can take many forms. My able daughter, Isabelle Lightwood, will be assisting with some of the classwork.” Here he gestured to Isabelle, who glanced briefly at the crowd, her impossibly fierce glare somehow growing even fiercer. “Most of all, I will teach you about the Circle, how it began and why. If you listen well, some of you might even learn something.”
Simon wasn’t listening at all. Simon was staring at Isabelle, willing her to look at him. Isabelle studiously stared at her feet. And Robert Lightwood, Inquisitor of the Clave, arbiter of all things lawful, began to tell the story of Valentine Morgenstern and those who had once loved him.
1984
Robert Lightwood stretched out on the quad, trying not to think about how he’d spent this week the year before. The days after exams and before the summer break were, traditionally, a bacchic release of pent-up energy, faculty looking the other way as students pushed the Academy rules to their limits. A year ago, he and Michael Wayland had snuck off campus and taken a boldly illicit midnight skinny-dip in Lake Lyn. Even with their lips firmly sealed shut, the water had taken its hallucinogenic effect, turning the sky electric. They had lain on their backs side by side, imagining falling stars carving neon tracks across the clouds and dreaming themselves into a stranger world.
That was a year ago, when Robert had still imagined himself young, free to waste his time with childish delights. Before he had understood that, young or not, he had responsibilities.
That was a year ago, before Valentine.
The members of the Circle had co-opted this quiet, shady corner of the quad, where they would be safe from prying eyes—and where they, in turn, would be spared the sight of their classmates having their pointless, meaningless fun. Robert reminded himself that he was lucky to be huddled here in the shade, listening to Valentine Morgenstern declaim.
It was a special privilege, he reminded himself, to be a member of Valentine’s coterie, privy to his revolutionary ideas. A year ago, when Valentine had inexplicably befriended him, he’d felt nothing but intense gratitude and a desire to hang on Valentine’s every word.
Valentine said the Clave was corrupt and lazy, that these days it cared more about maintaining the status
quo and fascistically suppressing dissent than it did carrying out its noble mission.
Valentine said the Shadowhunters should stop cowering in the darkness and walk proudly through the mundane world they lived and died to protect.
Valentine said the Accords were useless and the Mortal Cup was built to be used and the new generation was the hope of the future and the Academy classes were a waste of time.
Valentine made Robert’s brain buzz and his heart sing; he made Robert feel like a warrior for justice. Like he was a part of something, something extraordinary—like he and the others had been chosen, not just by Valentine, but by the hand of destiny, to change the world.
And yet, very occasionally, Valentine also made Robert feel uneasy.
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?
There were eight of them today, the Circle’s innermost circle, all sitting in hushed silence as Valentine ranted about the Clave’s kindness to Downworlders: Jocelyn Fairchild, Maryse Trueblood, Lucian and Amatis Graymark, Hodge Starkweather, and, of course, Michael, Robert, and Stephen. Though Stephen Herondale was the most recent addition to the crowd—and the most recent addition to the Academy, arriving from the London Institute at the beginning of the year—he was also the most devoted to the cause, and to Valentine. He’d arrived at the Academy dressed like a mundane: studded leather jacket, tight acid-washed jeans, blond hair gelled into preposterous spikes like the mundane rock stars who postered his dorm room walls. Only a month later, Stephen had adopted not only Valentine’s simple, all-black aesthetic but also his mannerisms, so that the only major difference between them was Valentine’s shock of white-blond hair and Stephen’s blue eyes. By first frost, he’d sworn off all things mundane and destroyed his beloved Sex Pistols poster in a sacrificial bonfire.
“Herondales do nothing halfway,” Stephen said whenever Robert teased him about it, but Robert suspected that something lay beneath the lighthearted tone. Something darker—something hungry. Valentine, he had noticed, had a knack for picking out disciples, homing in on those students with some kind of lack, some inner emptiness that Valentine could fill. Unlike the rest of their gang of misfits, Stephen was ostensibly whole: a handsome, graceful, supremely skilled Shadowhunter with a distinguished pedigree and the respect of everyone on campus. It made Robert wonder . . . what was it that only Valentine could see?
His thoughts had wandered so far astray that when Maryse gasped and said, in a hushed voice, “Won’t that be dangerous?” he wasn’t sure what she was talking about. Nonetheless, he squeezed her hand reassuringly, as this was what boyfriends were meant to do. Maryse was lying with her head in his lap, her silky black hair splayed across his jeans. He smoothed it away from her face, a boyfriend’s prerogative.
It had been nearly a year, but Robert still found it difficult to believe that this girl—this fierce, graceful, bold girl with a mind like a razor blade—had chosen him as her own. She glided through the Academy like a queen, granting favor, indulging her fawning subjects. Maryse wasn’t the most beautiful girl in their class, and certainly not the sweetest or the most charming. She didn’t care for things like sweetness or charm. But when it came to the battlefield, no one was more ready to charge the enemy, and certainly no one was better with a whip. Maryse was more than a girl, she was a force. The other girls worshipped her; the guys wanted her—but only Robert had her.
It had changed everything.
Sometimes, Robert felt like his entire life was an act. That it was only a matter of time before his fellow students saw through him, and realized what he really was, beneath all that brawn and bluster: Cowardly. Weak. Worthless. Having Maryse by his side was like wearing a suit of armor. No one like her would choose someone worthless. Everyone knew that. Sometimes, Robert even believed it himself.
He loved the way she made him feel when they were in public: strong and safe. And he loved even more the way she made him feel when they were alone together, when she pressed her lips to the nape of his neck and traced her tongue down the arc of his spine. He loved the curve of her hip and the whisper of her hair; he loved the gleam in her eye when she strode into combat. He loved the taste of her. So why was it that whenever she said, “I love you,” he felt like such a liar for saying it back? Why was it that he occasionally—maybe more than occasionally—found his thoughts straying to other girls, to how they might taste?
How could he love the way Maryse made him feel . . . and still be so uncertain that what he felt was love?
He’d taken to surreptitiously watching the other couples around him, trying to figure out whether they felt the same way, whether their declarations of love masked the same confusion and doubt. But the way Amatis’s head nestled comfortably against Stephen’s shoulder, the way Jocelyn carelessly threaded her fingers through Valentine’s, even the way Maryse idly played with his jeans’ fraying seams, as if his clothing, his body, were her property . . . all of them seemed so certain of themselves. Robert was certain only of how good he’d gotten at faking it.
“We should glory in the danger, if it means a chance to take down a filthy, rogue Downworlder,” Valentine said, glowering. “Even if this wolf pack doesn’t have a lead on the monster that—” He swallowed, hard, and Robert knew what he was thinking, because it seemed like these days, it was all Valentine was ever thinking, the fury of it radiating off him as if the thought were written in fire, the monster that killed my father. “Even if it doesn’t, we’ll be doing the Clave a favor.”
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.
Michael cleared his throat. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk like that about, uh, Downworlders out here.”
Valentine snorted. “I hope the old goat does hear me. It’s a disgrace, them letting him teach here. The only place a Downworlder has at the Academy is on the dissection table.”
Michael and Robert exchanged a glance. As always, Robert knew exactly what his parabatai was thinking—and Robert was thinking the same. Valentine, when they first met him, had cut a dashing figure with his blinding white hair and blazing black eyes. His features were smooth and sharp at once, like sculpted ice, but beneath the intimidating veneer was a surprisingly kind boy roused to anger only by injustice. Valentine had always been intense, yes, but it was an intensity bent toward doing what he believed was right, what was good. When Valentine said he wanted to correct the injustices and inequities imposed on them by the Clave, Robert believed him, and still did. And while Michael may have had a bizarre soft spot for Downworlders, Robert didn’t like them any more than Valentine did; he couldn’t imagine why, in this day and age, the Clave was still allowing warlocks to meddle in Shadowhunter affairs.
But there was a difference between clear-eyed intensity and irrational anger. Robert had been waiting a long time now for Valentine’s grief-fueled rage to simmer down. Instead, it had sparked an inferno.
“So you won’t tell us where you got your intel from,” Lucian said, the only one other than Jocelyn who could question Valentine with impunity, “but you want us to sneak off campus and hunt down these werewolves ourselves? If you’re so sure the Clave would want them taken c
are of, why not leave it to them?”
“The Clave is useless,” Valentine hissed. “You know that better than anyone, Lucian. But if none of you are willing to risk yourselves for this—if you’d rather stay here and go to a party . . .” His mouth curled as if even speaking the word repelled him. “I’ll go myself.”
Hodge pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaped to his feet. “I’ll go with you, Valentine,” he said, too loud. It was Hodge’s way—always a little too loud or too quiet, always misreading the room. There was a reason he preferred books to people. “I’m always at your side.”
“Sit down,” Valentine snapped. “I don’t need you getting in the way.”
“But—”
“What good does your loyalty do me when it comes with a big mouth and two left feet?”
Hodge paled and dropped back to the ground, eyes blinking furiously behind thick lenses.
Jocelyn pressed a hand to Valentine’s shoulder—ever so gently, and only for a moment, but it was enough.
“I only mean, Hodge, that your particular skills are wasted on the battlefield,” Valentine said, more kindly. The shift in tone was abrupt, but sincere. When Valentine favored you with his warmest smile, he was impossible to resist. “And I couldn’t forgive myself if you were injured. I can’t . . . I can’t lose anyone else.”
They were all silent then, for a moment, thinking of how quickly it had happened, the dean pulling Valentine off the training field to deliver the news, the way he’d taken it, silent and steady, like a Shadowhunter should. The way he’d looked when he returned to campus after the funeral, his hollow eyes, his sallow skin, his face aging years in a week. Their parents were all warriors, and they knew: What Valentine had lost, any of them could lose. To be a Shadowhunter was to live in the shadow of death.
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy Page 22
