"Come on, Beatriz. You don't know her."
"I know what I see," Beatriz said.
"And what's that?"
"An entitled rich girl who doesn't have to follow the rules, and doesn't have to worry about consequences. What does she care if Julie and Jon get kicked out of here?"
"What do I care if Julie and Jon get kicked out?" Simon muttered, too loudly.
"You care about George," Beatriz pointed out. "And Marisol and Sunil. They're all out there somewhere, and they trust Isabelle as much as you seem to. But I'm telling you, Simon, it doesn't seem right to me. What she said about the Academy wanting us to screw up and get into trouble. More like she wants us to get in trouble. Or she wants something. I don't know what it is. But I don't like it."
Something about what she said rang true more than he would have liked--but Simon wouldn't let himself go there. It felt disloyal, and he'd been disloyal enough. This week was his chance to prove himself to Isabelle, show her that they belonged in each other's lives. He wasn't going to screw that up by doubting her, even if she wasn't here to see it.
"I trust Isabelle," Simon told Beatriz. "Everyone will be fine, and I'm sure they'll be back before anyone knows they were gone. You should stop worrying about it."
"That's it? That's all you're going to do?"
"What do you want to do?"
"I don't know. Something!"
"Well, I am doing something," Simon said. "I'm going to go back to bed. I'm going to dream of coffee and a shiny new Fender Stratocaster and if George still isn't back by morning, I'm going to tell Dean Penhallow that he's sick, so he won't get in trouble. And then I'll start worrying."
Beatriz snorted. "Thanks for nothing."
"You're welcome!" Simon called. But he waited until the door had slammed shut behind her to do it.
*
Simon was right.
When Robert Lightwood began his lecture that morning, every member of the student body was there to hear it, including a very bleary-eyed George.
"How was it?" Simon whispered when his roommate slid into the seat beside him.
"Bloody amazing," George murmured. When Simon pressed him for details, George only shook his head and pressed his finger to his lips.
"Seriously? Just tell me."
"I'm sworn to secrecy," George whispered. "But it's only going to get better. You want in, come along with me tonight."
Robert Lightwood cleared his throat loudly. "I'd like to begin today's lecture, assuming that's all right with the peanut gallery."
George looked around wildly. "They're serving peanuts today? I'm starving."
Simon sighed. George yawned.
Robert began again.
*
1984
The pack was small, only five wolves. In their deceptively human form: two men, one even bigger than Robert, with muscles the size of his head, and another stooped and aged with scraggly hair spurting from his nose and ears as if his inner wolf were gradually encroaching. One child in blond pigtails. The girl's young mother, her glossy lips and undulating curves prompting thoughts Robert knew better than to say aloud, at least where Valentine could hear. And finally, one sinewy woman with a deep tan and deeper frown who seemed to be in charge.
It was disgusting, Valentine said, werewolves stinking up a distinguished Shadowhunter mansion. And although the manor was decrepit and long abandoned--vines snaking up its walls, weeds sprouting from its foundation, a once noble estate reduced to rust and rubble--Robert saw his point. The house had a lineage, had been home to a line of intrepid warriors, men and women who risked and eventually gave their lives to the cause of humanity, to saving the world from demons. And here were these creatures, infected by their demonic strain--these rogue creatures who'd violated the Accords and killed with abandon, taking refuge in the home of their enemy? The Clave refused to deal with it, Valentine said. They wanted more evidence--not because they weren't sure that these wolves were filthy, violent criminals, but because they didn't want to deal with Downworlder complaints. They didn't want to have to explain themselves; they didn't have the nerve to say: We knew they were guilty, and so we dealt with it.
They were, in other words, weak.
Useless.
Valentine said they should be proud to do the job the Clave was unwilling to get done, that they were serving their people, even as they skirted the Law, and with his words, Robert felt that pride bloom. Let the other Academy students have their parties and their petty school melodramas. Let them think growing up meant graduating, marrying, attending meetings. This was growing up, just like Valentine said. Seeing an injustice and doing something about it, no matter the risk. No matter the consequences.
The wolves had a keen sense of smell and sharp instincts, even in their human bodies, so the Shadowhunters were careful. They crept around the decaying mansion, peered in windows, waited, watched. Planned. Five werewolves and four young Shadowhunters--those were odds even Valentine didn't want to play. So they were patient, and they were careful.
They waited until dark.
It was disconcerting to watch the wolves in human form, impersonating a normal human family, the younger man washing dishes while the elder one made himself a pot of tea, the child sitting cross-legged on the floor racing her model cars. Robert reminded himself that these trespassers were claiming a home and a life they didn't deserve--that they'd killed innocents and may even have helped slaughter Valentine's father.
Still, he was relieved when the moon rose and they reverted to monstrous form. Robert and the others clung to the shadows while three members of the pack sprouted fur and fangs, leaping through a broken window and into the night. They went out to hunt--leaving, as Valentine suspected they would, their most vulnerable behind. The old man and the child. These were odds more to Valentine's liking.
It wasn't much of a fight.
By the time the two remaining werewolves registered attack, they were surrounded. They didn't even have time to transform. It was over in minutes, Stephen knocking the older one unconscious with a blow to the head, the child cowering in a corner, inches from the tip of Michael's sword.
"We'll take them both for interrogation," Valentine said.
Michael shook his head. "Not the kid."
"They're both criminals," Valentine argued. "Every member of the pack is culpable for--"
"She's a little kid!" Michael said, turning to his parabatai for support. "Tell him. We're not dragging some child into the woods to throw her at the mercy of the Clave."
He had a point . . . but then, so did Valentine. Robert said nothing.
"We're not taking the child," Michael said, and the look on his face suggested he was willing to back up his words with action.
Stephen and Robert tensed, waiting for the explosion. Valentine didn't take well to being challenged; he had very little experience with it. But he only sighed, and offered up a charmingly rueful smile. "Of course not. Don't know what I was thinking. Just the old man, then. Unless you've got some objection to that as well?"
No one had any objections, and the unconscious old man was skin and bones, his weight barely noticeable on Robert's broad shoulders. They locked the child up in a closet, then carried the old man deep into the woods, back to the campsite.
They tied him to a tree.
The rope was woven with silver filament--when the old man woke up, he would wake to pain. It probably wouldn't be enough to bind him in wolf form, not if he was determined to escape. But it would slow him down. Their silver daggers would do the rest.
"You two, patrol a half-mile perimeter," Valentine told Michael and Stephen. "We don't want any of its grubby little friends catching its stench. Robert and I will guard the prisoner."
Stephen nodded sharply, eager as ever to do as Valentine willed.
"And when he wakes up?" Michael asked.
"When it wakes up, Robert and I will question it on the subject of its crimes, and what it knows about the crimes of its fellows," Valentine said. "Once we've
secured its confession, we'll deliver it to the Clave for its punishment. Does that satisfy you, Michael?"
He didn't sound like he much cared about the answer, and Michael didn't give him one.
"So now we wait?" Robert asked, once they were alone.
Valentine smiled.
When he wanted it to, Valentine's smile could worm its way into the most well-fortified heart, melt it from the inside out.
This one wasn't designed for heat. This was a cold smile, and it chilled Robert to the core.
"I'm tired of waiting," Valentine said, and drew out a dagger. Moonlight glinted off the pure silver.
Before Robert could say anything, Valentine pressed the flat side of the blade against the old man's bare chest. There was a sizzle of flesh, then a howl, as the prisoner woke to agony.
"I wouldn't," Valentine said calmly, as the old man's features began to take on a wolfish cast, fur sprouting across his naked body. "I'm going to hurt you, yes. But change back into a wolf, and I promise, I will kill you."
The transformation stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
The old man issued a series of racking coughs that shook his skinny body from head to toe. He was skinny, so skinny that ribs protruded from pale flesh. There were hollows beneath his eyes and only a few sorry strands of gray hair crossing his liver-spotted skull. It had never occurred to Robert that a werewolf could go bald. Under other circumstances, the thought of it might have amused him.
But there was nothing amusing about the sound the man made as Valentine traced the dagger's tip from jutting collarbone to belly button.
"Valentine, he's just an old man," Robert said hesitantly. "Maybe we should--"
"Listen to your friend," the old man said in a pleading, warbling voice. "I could be your own grandfather."
Valentine struck him across the face with the hilt of the dagger.
"It's not any kind of man," he told Robert. "It's a monster. And it's been doing things it shouldn't be doing, isn't that true?"
The werewolf, apparently concluding that playing aged and weak wouldn't get him out of this one, drew himself up straight and bared sharp teeth. His voice, when he spoke, had lost its tremble. "Who are you, Shadowhunter, to tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing?"
"So you admit it, then," Robert said eagerly. "You've violated the Accords."
If he confessed this easily, they could be done with this whole sordid affair, turn the prisoner in to the Clave, go home.
"I don't give my accord to killers and weaklings," the werewolf spat.
"Fortunately, I don't need your accord," Valentine said. "I need only information. You tell me what I need to know, and we'll let you go."
This wasn't what they'd discussed, but Robert held his tongue.
"Two months ago, a pack of werewolves killed a Shadowhunter at the western edge of these woods. Where can I find them?"
"And exactly how would I know that?"
Valentine's icy smile returned. "You better hope that you do, because otherwise you'll be of no use to me."
"Well then, on second thought, maybe I have heard tell of this dead Shadowhunter you're talking about." The wolf barked a laugh. "Wish I could have been there to see him die. To taste of his sweet flesh. It's the fear that gives the meat its taste, you know. Best of all when they cry first, a little salty with the sweet. And rumor has it your doomed Shadowhunter wept buckets. Cowardly, that one was."
"Robert, hold its mouth open." Valentine's voice was steady, but Robert knew Valentine well enough to sense the fury roiling beneath.
"Maybe we should take a moment to--"
"Hold its mouth open."
Robert gripped the man's feeble jaws and pried them open.
Valentine pressed the flat side of the dagger to the man's tongue and held it there as the man's shriek turned into a howl, as his scrawny muscles bulged and fur bloomed across his flesh, as the tongue bubbled and blistered, and then, just as the fully transformed wolf snapped its bindings, Valentine sliced off its tongue. As its mouth gushed blood, Valentine slashed a sharp line across the wolf's midsection. The cut was sure and deep, and the wolf dropped to the ground, intestines spilling from its wound.
Valentine leaped upon the writhing creature, stabbing and slicing, tearing through its hide, flaying flesh to pearly bone, even as the creature flailed and spasmed helplessly beneath him, even as the fight drained out of it, even as its gaze went flat, even as its broken body reclaimed human form, lay still on bloody earth, an old man's face bled pale and turned lifelessly to the night sky.
"That's enough," Robert kept saying, quietly, uselessly. "Valentine, that's enough."
But he did nothing to stop it.
And when his friends returned from their patrol to find Valentine and Robert standing over the disemboweled corpse, he didn't counter Valentine's version of events: The werewolf had slipped free of its bonds and tried to escape. They had endured a fierce battle, killed in self-defense.
The outline of this story was, technically, true.
Stephen clapped Valentine on the back, commiserating with him that he'd lost the potential lead to his father's killer. Michael locked eyes with Robert, his question clear as if he'd spoken it aloud. What really happened?
What did you let happen?
Robert looked away.
*
Isabelle was avoiding him. Beatriz was fuming at him. Everyone else was buzzing with too much excitement about the previous night's adventure and the secret one to come. Julie and Marisol only echoed George's cryptic promise--that something good was on the horizon, and if Simon wanted to know about it, he would have to join them.
"I don't think Isabelle would want me there," he told Sunil as they picked warily through the steamed heap of vaguely vegetable-shaped objects that passed for lunch.
Sunil shook his head and grinned. The smile fit his face poorly; Sunil with a grin was like a Klingon in a tutu. He was an unusually somber boy who seemed to consider good cheer as a sign of unseriousness, and treated people accordingly. "She told us to convince you to show up. She said 'whatever it takes.' So, you tell me, Simon." The unsettling smile grew. "What's it going to take?"
"You don't even know her," Simon pointed out. "Why are you suddenly so willing to do whatever she tells you to do?"
"We are talking about the same girl here, yes? Isabelle Lightwood?"
"Yes."
Sunil shook his head in wonder. "And you even have to ask?"
So that was the new order: the cult of Isabelle Lightwood. Simon had to admit, he could completely understand how a roomful of otherwise rational people could fall completely under her spell and give themselves to her entirely.
But why would she want them to?
He decided he was going to have to see this for himself. Simply to understand what was going on and make sure it was all on the up-and-up.
Not at all because he desperately wanted to be near her. Or impress her. Or please her.
Come to think of it, maybe Simon understood the cult of Isabelle better than he wanted to admit.
Maybe he'd been its charter member.
*
"You intend to do what?" On the last word, Simon's voice jumped two octaves above normal.
Jon Cartwright snickered. "Simmer down, Mom. You heard her."
Simon looked around the lounge at his friends (and Jon). Over the past year, he'd come to know them inside and out, or at least, he thought that he did. Julie bit her nails bloody when she was nervous. Marisol slept with a sword under her pillow, just in case. George talked in his sleep, usually about sheep-shearing techniques. Sunil had four pet rabbits that he talked about constantly, always worried that little Ringo was getting picked on by his bigger, fluffier brothers. Jon had covered one wall of his room with his little cousin's finger paintings, and wrote her a letter every week. They'd all pledged themselves to the Shadowhunter cause; they'd gone through hell to prove themselves to their instructors and one another. They'd almost finished out the year
without a single fatal injury or vampire bite . . . and now this?
"Ha-ha, very funny," Simon said, hoping he was doing an acceptable job of keeping the desperation out of his tone. "Nice joke on me, get me back for wussing out last night. Utterly hilarious. What's next? You want to convince me they're making another crap Last Airbender movie? You want to see me freak out, there are easier ways."
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "No one wants to see you freak out, Simon. Frankly, I could take or leave seeing you at all."
"So this is serious," Simon said. "You're seriously, not at all jokingly, actually, for real planning to summon a demon? Here, in the middle of the Shadowhunter Academy? In the middle of the end-of-year party? Because you think it will be . . . fun?"
"We're obviously not going to summon it in the middle of the party," Isabelle said. "That would be rather foolish."
"Oh, of course," Simon drawled. "That would be foolish."
"We're going to summon it here in the lounge," Isabelle clarified. "Then bring it to the party."
"Then kill it, of course," Julie put in.
"Of course," Simon echoed. He wondered if maybe he was having a stroke.
"You're making it sound like a bigger deal than it is," George said.
"Yeah, it's just an imp demon," Sunil said. "No biggie."
"Uh-huh." Simon groaned. "Totally. No biggie."
"Imagine the look on everyone's faces when they see what we can do!" Marisol was nearly glowing at the thought of it.
Beatriz wasn't there. If she had been, maybe she could have talked some reason into them. Or helped Simon tie them up and stuff them in the closet until the end of the semester had safely passed and Isabelle was back in New York where she belonged.
"What if something goes wrong?" Simon pointed out. "You've never faced off against a demon in combat conditions, not without the teachers watching your back. You don't know--"
"Neither do you," Isabelle snapped. "At least, you don't remember, isn't that right?"
Simon said nothing.
"Whereas I took down my first imp when I was six years old," Isabelle said. "Like I told your friends, it's no big deal. And they trust me."
I trust you--that's what he was meant to say. He knew she was waiting for it. They all were.
He couldn't.
"I can't talk you out of this?" he asked instead.
Isabelle shrugged. "You can keep trying, but you'd be wasting all our time."