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"Then I'll have to find another way to stop you," Simon said.
"You gonna tell on us?" Jon sneered. "You gonna go be a crybaby and tattle to your favorite warlock?" He snorted. "Once a teacher's pet, always a teacher's pet."
"Shut up, Jon." Isabelle whacked him softly on the arm. Simon probably should have been pleased, but whacking still required touching, and he preferred that Isabelle and Jon never come into physical contact of any sort. "You could try to tell on us, Simon. But I'll deny it. And then who will they believe--someone like me, or someone like you? Some mundane."
She said "mundane" exactly like Jon always did. Like it was a synonym for "nothing."
"This isn't you, Isabelle. This isn't what you're like." He wasn't sure whether he was trying to convince her or himself.
"You don't know what I'm like, remember?"
"I know enough."
"Then you know that you should trust me. But if you don't, go ahead. Tell," she said. "Then everyone will know what you're like. What kind of friend you are."
He tried.
He knew it was the right thing to do.
At least, he thought it was the right thing to do.
The next morning, before the lecture, he went to Catarina Loss's office--Jon was right, she was his favorite warlock and his favorite faculty member, and the only one he would trust with something like this.
She welcomed him in, offered him a seat and a mug of something whose steam was an alarming shade of blue. He passed.
"So, Daylighter, I take it you have something to tell me?"
Catarina intimidated him somewhat less than she had at the beginning of the year--which was a bit like saying Jar Jar Binks was "somewhat less" annoying in Star Wars: Episode II than he'd been in Star Wars: Episode I.
"It's possible I know something that . . ." Simon cleared his throat. "I mean, if something were happening that . . ."
He hadn't let himself think through what would happen once the words were out. What would happen to his friends? What would happen to Isabelle, their ringleader? She couldn't exactly get expelled from an Academy where she wasn't enrolled . . . but Simon had learned enough about the Clave by now to know there were far worse punishments than getting expelled. Was summoning a minor demon to use as a party trick a violation of the Law? Was he about to ruin Isabelle's life?
Catarina Loss wasn't a Shadowhunter; she had her own secrets from the Clave. Maybe she'd be willing to keep one more, if it meant helping Simon and protecting Isabelle from punishment?
As his mind spun through dark possibilities, the office door swung open and Dean Penhallow poked her blond head in. "Catarina, Robert Lightwood was hoping to chat with you before his session--oh, sorry! Didn't realize you were in the middle of something?"
"Join us," Catarina said. "Simon was just about to tell me something interesting."
The dean stepped into the office, furrowing her brow at Simon. "You look so serious," she told him. "Go ahead, spit it out. You'll feel better. It's like throwing up."
"What's like throwing up?" he asked, confused.
"You know, when you're feeling ill? Sometimes it just helps to get everything out."
Somehow, Simon didn't think vomiting up his confession straight to the dean would make him feel any better.
Hadn't Isabelle proven herself enough--not just to him, but to the Clave, to everyone? She had, after all, pretty much saved the world. How much more evidence would anyone need that she was one of the good guys?
How much evidence did he need?
Simon stood up and said the first thing that popped into his mind. "I just wanted to tell you that we all really enjoyed that beet stew they served for dinner. You should serve that again."
Dean Penhallow gave him an odd look. "Those weren't beets, Simon."
This didn't surprise him, as the stew had had an oddly grainy consistency and a taste reminiscent of dung.
"Well . . . whatever it was, it was delicious," he said quickly. "I better get going. I don't want to miss the beginning of Inquisitor Lightwood's final lecture. They've been so interesting."
"Indeed," Catarina said dryly. "They've been almost as delicious as the stew."
*
1984
For most of his time at the Academy, Robert had watched Valentine from a distance. Even though Robert was older, he looked up to Valentine, who was everything Robert wanted to be. Valentine excelled at his training without visible effort. He could best anyone with any weapon. He was careless with his affection, or at least seemed to be, and he was beloved. Not many people noticed how few he truly loved back. But Robert noticed, because when you're watching from the sidelines, invisible, it's easy to see clearly.
It never occurred to him that Valentine was watching him, too.
Not until the day, toward the beginning of this year, that Valentine caught him alone in one of the Academy's dark, underground corridors and said quietly, "I know your secret."
Robert's secret, that he told nobody, not even Michael: He was still afraid of the Marks.
Every time he drew a rune on himself, he had to hold his breath, force his fingers not to tremble. He always hesitated. In class, it was barely noticeable. In battle, it could be the split-second difference between life and death, and Robert knew it. Which made him hesitate even more, at everything. He was strong, smart, talented; he was a Lightwood. He should have been among the best. But he couldn't let himself go and act on instinct. He couldn't stop his mind from racing toward potential consequences. He couldn't stop being afraid--and he knew, eventually, it would be the end of him.
"I can help you," Valentine said then. "I can teach you what to do with the fear." As if it were simple as that--and under Valentine's careful instruction, it was.
Valentine had taught him to retreat to a place in his mind that the fear couldn't touch. To separate himself from the Robert Lightwood who knew how to be afraid--and then to tame that weaker, loathed version of himself. "Your weakness makes you furious, as it should," Valentine had told him. "Use the fury to master it--and then everything else."
In a way Valentine had saved Robert's life. Or at least, the only part of his life that mattered.
He owed Valentine everything.
He at least owed Valentine the truth.
"You don't agree with what I did," Valentine said quietly as the sun crept above the horizon. Michael and Stephen were still asleep. Robert had passed the hours of darkness staring at the sky, sifting through what had happened, and what he should do next.
"You think I was out of control," Valentine added.
"That wasn't self-defense," Robert said. "That was torture. Murder."
Robert was seated on one of the logs around the remains of their campfire. Valentine lowered himself beside him.
"You heard the things it said. You understand why it had to be silenced," Valentine said. "It had to be taught its lesson, and the Clave couldn't have mustered the will. I know the others wouldn't understand. Not even Lucian. But you . . . we understand each other, you and I. You're the only one I can really trust. I need you to keep this to yourself."
"If you're so sure you did the right thing, then why keep it a secret?"
Valentine laughed gently. "Always so skeptical, Robert. It's what we all love most about you." His smile faded. "Some of the others are starting to have doubts. About the cause, about me--" He waved away Robert's denials before they could be voiced. "Don't think I can't tell. Everyone wants to be loyal when it's easy. But when things get difficult . . ." He shook his head. "I can't count on everyone I would like to count on. But I believe I can count on you."
"Of course you can."
"Then you'll keep what passed this night a secret from the others," Valentine said. "Even from Michael."
Much later--too late--it would occur to Robert that Valentine probably had some version of this conversation with each member of the Circle. Secrets bound people together, and Valentine was smart enough to know it.
"He's my par
abatai," Robert pointed out. "I don't keep secrets from him."
Valentine's eyebrows shot sky-high. "And you think he keeps no secrets from you?"
Robert remembered the night before, whatever it was Michael had been trying so hard not to say. That was one secret--who knew how many more there were?
"You know Michael better than anyone," Valentine said. "And yet, I imagine there are things I know about him that might surprise you. . . ."
A silence hung between them as Robert considered it.
Valentine didn't lie, or issue empty boasts. If he said he knew something about Michael, something secret, then it was true.
And it was temptation, dangling here before Robert.
He needed only to ask.
He wanted to know; he didn't want to know.
"We all have competing loyalties," Valentine said, before Robert could give in to temptation. "The Clave would like to make these things simple, but it's just another example of their obtuseness. I love Lucian, my parabatai. I love Jocelyn. If those two loves were ever to come into conflict . . ."
He didn't have to complete the thought. Robert knew what Valentine knew, and understood that Valentine loved his parabatai enough to allow it. Just as Lucian loved Valentine enough never to act on it.
Maybe some secrets were a mercy.
He held out his hand to Valentine. "You have my word. My oath. Michael will never know about this."
