Angels Twice Descending Read Free Page A

he wasn’t.
    It felt like another life. Simon didn’t know if he’d ever get all of his memories back—but somehow, despite that, he’d found his way back to Clary and Isabelle. He’d found a best friend who felt like his other half, who would someday soon be his parabatai . And he’d found Isabelle Lightwood, a miracle in human form, who said “I love you” whenever she saw him and, incomprehensibly, seemed to mean it.
    “She wanted to come,” Clary said, “but she had to go deal with this rogue faerie thing in Chinatown, something about soup dumplings and a guy with a goat head. I didn’t ask too many questions and—” She smiled knowingly at Simon. “I lost you at ‘soup dumplings,’ didn’t I?”
    Simon’s stomach growled loudly enough to answer for him.
    “Well, maybe we can grab you some on the way,” Clary said. “Or at least a couple slices of pizza and a latte.”
    “Don’t toy with me, Fray.” Simon was very touchy these days on the subject of pizza, or the lack thereof. He suspected that any day now his stomach might resign in protest. “On the way where?”
    “Oh, I forgot to explain—that’s why I’m here, Simon.” Clary took his hand. “I’ve come to take you home.”
    *    *    *
    Simon stood on the sidewalk staring up at his mother’s brownstone, his stomach churning. Traveling by way of Portal always made him feel a bit like puking up his lower intestine, but this time he didn’t think he could blame the interdimensional magic. Not entirely, at least.
    “You sure this is a good idea?” he said. “It’s late.”
    “It’s eleven p.m., Simon,” Clary said. “You know she’s still awake. And even if she’s not, you know—”
    “I know.” His mother would want to see him. So would his sister, who, according to Clary, was home for the weekend because someone— presumably a well-meaning, redheaded someone with his sister’s cell number—had told her Simon was stopping in for a visit.
    He sagged against Clary for a moment, and, small as she was, she bore his weight. “I don’t know how to do it,” he said. “I don’t know how to say good-bye to them.”
    Simon’s mother thought he was away at military school. He’d felt guilty lying to her, but he’d known there wasn’t any other choice; he knew, all too well, what happened when he risked telling his mother too much truth. But this—this was something else. He was forbidden by Shadowhunter Law to tell her about his Ascension, about his new life. The Law also forbade him from contacting her after he became a Shadowhunter, and though there was nothing saying he couldn’t be here in Brooklyn to say good-bye to her forever, the Law forbade him from explaining why.
    Sed lex, dura lex .
    The Law is hard, but it is the Law.
    Lex sucks, Simon thought.
    “You want me to go in with you?” Clary asked.
    He did, more than anything—but something told him this was one of those things he needed to do on his own.
    Simon shook his head. “But thanks. For bringing me here, for knowing I needed it, for—well, for everything.”
    “Simon . . .”
    Clary looked hesitant, and Clary never looked hesitant.
    “What is it?”
    She sighed. “Everything that’s happened to you, Simon, everything . . .” She paused, just long enough for him to think through how much that everything encompassed: getting turned into a rat and then a vampire; finding Isabelle; saving the world a handful of times, at least so he’d been told; getting locked in a cage and tormented by all manner of supernatural creature; killing demons; facing an angel; losing his memories; and now standing at the threshold of the only home he’d ever known, preparing himself to leave it behind forever. “I can’t help thinking it’s all because of me,” Clary said softly. “That I’m the reason. And . . .”
    He stopped her before she could get any further, because he couldn’t stand for her to think she needed to apologize.