The Fiery Trial Page 5

  He was sitting with Clary in Java Jones. They were watching Eric read poetry. Simon had decided this was the moment--he was going to tell her. He had to tell her. He had gotten them both coffees and the cups were hot. His fingers were burned. He had to blow on them, which was not a smooth move.

  He could feel the burning. The feeling that he had to speak.

  Eric was reading some poem that contained the words "nefarious loins." Nefarious loins, nefarious loins . . . the words danced in his head. He had to speak.

  "There's something I want to talk to you about," he said.

  Clary made some remark about his band name, and he had to get her back on point.

  "It's about what we were talking about before. About me not having a girlfriend."

  "Oh, I don't know. Ask Jaida Jones out. She's nice, and she likes you."

  "I don't want to ask Jaida Jones out."

  "Why not? You don't like smart girls? Still seeking a rockin' bod?"

  Was she blind? How could she not see? What exactly did he have to do? He had to keep it together. Also, "seeking a rockin' bod"?

  But the more he tried, the more oblivious she seemed. And then she became fixated on a green sofa. It was like that sofa contained everything in the world. Here he was, trying to declare his lifelong love, and Clary had fallen for the furniture. But it was more than that. Something was wrong.

  "What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong? Clary, what's wrong?"

  "I'll be right back," she said. And with that, she put down the coffee and ran away. He watched her through the window, and somehow he knew that this moment was over, forever. And then he saw . . .

  The ring of fire had extinguished. It was over. The oath was made, and Emma and Julian stood before them all. Julian had a rune on his collarbone, and Emma on her upper arm.

  Clary was tugging his arm. He looked over at her and blinked a few times.

  You okay? her expression said.

  His memory had chosen quite a moment to return.

  *

  After the ceremony, they returned to Alicante, where they were taken to the Blackthorn manor to change their clothes. Emma and Julian were taken by the staff to rooms on the main floor. Clary and Simon were led up the grand staircase.

  "I don't know what I'm supposed to change into," Simon said. "I didn't get a lot of advance notice."

  "I brought you a suit from home," Clary said. "I borrowed it."

  "Not from Jace."

  "From Eric."

  "Eric has a suit? Do you promise it wasn't, like, his dead grandfather's?"

  "I can't promise anything, but I do think it will fit."

  Simon was shown to a small, fussy bedroom on the second floor, overstuffed with furniture and crowded in by flocked wallpaper and the penetrating stares of some long-deceased Blackthorns who had taken up residence in the form of severe portraits. The suit bag was on the bed. Eric did have a suit--a plain black one. A shirt had also been provided, along with a silver-blue tie and some dress shoes. The suit was an inch or two too short. The shirt was too tight--Simon's daily training had made him into one of these people who burst through a dress shirt. The shoes didn't fit at all, so he wore the soft black shoes that were part of the formal gear. The tie fit fine. Ties were good for this.

  He sat on the bed for a moment and let himself think about all that had happened. He closed his eyes and fought the urge to sleep. He felt himself wobbling and dropping off when there was a soft knock on the door. He snorted as he came back from the microsleep.

  "Sure," he said, which wasn't what he meant to say. "Yeah. I mean, come in."

  Clary entered wearing a green dress that perfectly complemented her hair, her skin, every part of her. And Simon had a revelation. If he still felt romantic attraction toward Clary, seeing her at that moment might have caused him to start sweating and stammering. Now he saw someone he loved, who looked beautiful, and was his friend. And that was all.

  "Listen," she said, shutting the door, "back at the ceremony, you looked . . . weird. If you don't want to do it . . . The parabatai thing. It was a shock and I don't want you to be . . ."

  "What? No. No."

  Instinctively he reached for her hand. She squeezed it hard.

  "Okay," she said. "But something happened in there. I saw it."

  "In the hallucination I had, from the lake water, I saw Jace, and he kept telling me to remember how we met," he said. "So I was trying to remember. And then right in the middle of the ceremony, I got the memory back. It just kind of . . . downloaded."

  Clary frowned, her nose wrinkling in confusion. "The memory of how you met Jace? Wasn't it at the Institute?"

  "Yes and no. The memory was really about us, you and me. We were in the coffee shop, Java Jones. You were naming all of these girls I could date and I was . . . I was trying to tell you that you were the one I liked."

  "Yeah," Clary said, looking down.

  "And then you ran out. Just like that."

  "Jace was there. You couldn't see him."

  "That's what I thought." Simon studied her face. "You ran out while I was telling you how I felt. Which is okay. We were never meant to be . . . like that. I think that's what my subconscious, in the annoying form of Jace, wanted me to know. Because I think we are meant to be together. Parabatai can't like each other like that. That's why it was important for me to remember. I had to remember that I felt like that. I had to know it was different now. Not in a bad way. In the right way."

  "Yes," Clary said. She had gotten a little teary-eyed. "In the right way."

  Simon nodded once. It was too big to reply to in words. It was everything. It was all the love he saw in Jem's eyes when he talked about Will, and the love in Alec's face when he looked at Jace, even when Jace was being annoying, and a clear memory he had of Jace holding Alec while he was wounded and the desperation in Jace's eyes, that terror that comes only from thinking you might lose someone you can't live without.

  It was Emma and Julian, looking at each other.

  Someone was calling for them from downstairs. Clary brushed away a tear and got up and smoothed her already smooth dress.

  "This is like a wedding," she said. "I feel like they're going to tell us we have to go pose for the photographer in a minute."

  Clary hooked her arm through his.

  "One thing," he said, remembering Maia, and Jordan. "Even when I'm a Shadowhunter, I'm still going to be a little bit a Downworlder. I'm never going to turn my back on them. That's the kind of Nephilim I want to be."

  "I wouldn't have expected anything else," Clary said.

  Downstairs, the two new parabatai were examining each other from across the room. Emma stood on one side, wearing a brown dress covered in twining gold flowers. Julian stood on the other, twitching inside his gray suit.

  "You look amazing," Clary said to them both, and they looked down shyly.

  At the Accords Hall, Jace was waiting for them on the front step, looking like Jace in a suit. Jace in a suit was unbearable. He gave Clary a look up and down.

  "That dress is . . ."

  He had to clear his throat. Simon enjoyed his discomfiture. Not much ever threw Jace, but Clary had always been able to throw him like a Wiffle ball on a windy day. His eyes were practically cartoon hearts.

  "It's very nice," he said. "So how was the ceremony? What did you think?"

  "Definitely more fire than a bar mitzvah," Simon said. "More fire than a barbecue. I'm going to go with Formal Event with the Most Fire."

  Jace nodded.

  "They were amazing," Clary said. "And . . ."

  She looked to Simon.

  "We have news," she said.

  Jace cocked his head in interest.

  "Later," she said, smiling. "I think everyone is waiting for us to sit down."

  "Then we need to get Emma and Julian over here."

  Emma and Julian were lurking in the corner of the room, heads close, but with an awkward gap between their bodies.

  "I'm going to go t
alk to them," Jace said, nodding at Julian and Emma. "Give them a few words of manly, thoughtful advice."

  As soon as Jace walked away, Clary started to speak, but they were immediately joined by Magnus and Alec. Magnus was about to start guest teaching at the Academy and they wanted to know how bad the food was. Julian's younger brothers and sisters--Ty, Livvy, Drusilla, and Octavian--were clustered together around the table with the appetizers. Simon glanced over his shoulder and saw Jace unloading Jacely advice onto the new parabatai. There was the delicious smell of roasting meat. Large platters of it were being placed on the tables now, along with vegetables and potatoes and breads and cheeses. The wine was being poured. It was time to celebrate. It was nice, Simon thought, in the midst of all the terrible things that could happen and sometimes did happen, there was also this. There was a lot of love.

  As Simon turned back, he saw Julian hurrying out of the hall. Jace returned, his arm around Emma's shoulders.

  "Everything okay?" Clary asked.

  "Everything's fine. Julian needed air. This ceremony, it's intense. So many people. You need to eat."

  This was to Emma, who smiled, but kept looking over at the door her parabatai had just gone through. Then she turned and saw Ty running across the Hall with a tray containing an entire wheel of cheese.

  "Oh," she said, "yeah, that's bad. He can actually eat that entire cheese, but then he'll throw up. I'd better get that or this will end badly for Jules."

  She ran after Ty.

  "They have a lot on their hands," Jace said, watching her go. "Good thing they have each other. They always will. That's what parabatai is about." He smiled at Alec, who grinned back at him in a way that lit up his whole face.

  "About that parabatai business," Clary said. "We might as well tell you the news. . . ."

  A new cover will be revealed each month as the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy continue!

  Continue the adventures of the Shadowhunters with Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn in

  Lady Midnight

  The first book in Cassandra Clare's new series, The Dark Artifices.

  Emma took her witchlight out of her pocket and lit it--and almost screamed out loud. Jules's shirt was soaked with blood and worse, the healing runes she'd drawn had vanished from his skin. They weren't working.

  "Jules," she said. "I have to call the Silent Brothers. They can help you. I have to."

  His eyes screwed shut with pain. "You can't," he said. "You know we can't call the Silent Brothers. They report directly to the Clave."

  "So we'll lie to them. Say it was a routine demon patrol. I'm calling," she said, and reached for her phone.

  "No!" Julian said, forcefully enough to stop her. "Silent Brothers know when you're lying! They can see inside your head, Emma. They'll find out about the investigation. About Mark--"

  "You're not going to bleed to death in the backseat of a car for Mark!"

  "No," he said, looking at her. His eyes were eerily blue-green, the only bright color in the dark interior of the car. "You're going to fix me."

  Emma could feel it when Jules was hurt, like a splinter lodged under her skin. The physical pain didn't bother her; it was the terror, the only terror worse than her fear of the ocean. The fear of Jules being hurt, of him dying. She would give up anything, sustain any wound, to prevent those things from happening.

  "Okay," she said. Her voice sounded dry and thin to her own ears. "Okay." She took a deep breath. "Hang on."

  She unzipped her jacket, threw it aside. Shoved the console between the seats aside, put her witchlight on the floorboard. Then she reached for Jules. The next few seconds were a blur of Jules's blood on her hands and his harsh breathing as she pulled him partly upright, wedging him against the back door. He didn't make a sound as she moved him, but she could see him biting his lip, the blood on his mouth and chin, and she felt as if her bones were popping inside her skin.

  "Your gear," she said through gritted teeth. "I have to cut it off."

  He nodded, letting his head fall back. She drew a dagger from her belt, but the gear was too tough for the blade. She said a silent prayer and reached back for Cortana.

  Cortana went through the gear like a knife through melted butter. It fell away in pieces and Emma drew them free, then sliced down the front of his T-shirt and pulled it apart as if she were opening a jacket.

  Emma had seen blood before, often, but this felt different. It was Julian's, and there seemed to be a lot of it. It was smeared up and down his chest and rib cage; she could see where the arrow had gone in and where the skin had torn where he'd yanked it out.

  "Why did you pull the arrow out?" she demanded, pulling her sweater over her head. She had a tank top on under it. She patted his chest and side with the sweater, absorbing as much of the blood as she could.

  Jules's breath was coming in hard pants. "Because when someone--shoots you with an arrow--" he gasped, "your immediate response is not--'Thanks for the arrow, I think I'll keep it for a while.'"

  "Good to know your sense of humor is intact."

  "Is it still bleeding?" Julian demanded. His eyes were shut.

  She dabbed at the cut with her sweater. The blood had slowed, but the cut looked puffy and swollen. The rest of him, though--it had been a while since she'd seen him with his shirt off. There was more muscle than she remembered. Lean muscle pulled tight over his ribs, his stomach flat and lightly ridged. Cameron was much more muscular, but Julian's spare lines were as elegant as a greyhound's. "You're too skinny," she said. "Too much coffee, not enough pancakes."

  "I hope they put that on my tombstone." He gasped as she shifted forward, and she realized abruptly that she was squarely in Julian's lap, her knees around his hips. It was a bizarrely intimate position.

  "I--am I hurting you?" she asked.

  He swallowed visibly. "It's fine. Try with the iratze again."

  "Fine," she said. "Grab the panic bar."

  "The what?" He opened his eyes and peered at her.

  "The plastic handle! Up there, above the window!" She pointed. "It's for holding on to when the car is going around curves."

  "Are you sure? I always thought it was for hanging things on. Like dry cleaning."

  "Julian, now is not the time to be pedantic. Grab the bar or I swear--"

  "All right!" He reached up, grabbed hold of it, and winced. "I'm ready."

  She nodded and set Cortana aside, reaching for her stele. Maybe her previous iratzes had been too fast, too sloppy. She'd always focused on the physical aspects of Shadowhunting, not the more mental and artistic ones: seeing through glamours, drawing runes.

  She set the tip of it to the skin of his shoulder and drew, carefully and slowly. She had to brace herself with her left hand against his shoulder. She tried to press as lightly as she could, but she could feel him tense under her fingers. The skin on his shoulder was smooth and hot under her touch, and she wanted to get closer to him, to put her hand over the wound on his side and heal it with the sheer force of her will. To touch her lips to the lines of pain beside his eyes and--

  Stop. She had finished the iratze. She sat back, her hand clamped around the stele. Julian sat up a little straighter, the ragged remnants of his shirt hanging off his shoulders. He took a deep breath, glancing down at himself--and the iratze faded back into his skin, like black ice melting, spreading, being absorbed by the sea.

  He looked up at Emma. She could see her own reflection in his eyes: she looked wrecked, panicked, with blood on her neck and her white tank top. "It hurts less," he said in a low voice.

  The wound on his side pulsed again; blood slid down the side of his rib cage, staining his leather belt and the waistband of his jeans. She put her hands on his bare skin, panic rising up inside her. His skin felt hot, too hot. Fever hot.

  "I have to call," she whispered. "I don't care if the whole world comes down around us, Jules, the most important thing is that you live."

  "Please," he said, desperation clear in his v
oice. "Whatever is happening, we'll fix it, because we're parabatai. We're forever. I said that to you once, do you remember?"

  She nodded warily, hand on the phone.

  "And the strength of a rune your parabatai gives you is special. Emma, you can do it. You can heal me. We're parabatai and that means the things we can do together are . . . extraordinary."

  There was blood on her jeans now, blood on her hands and her tank top, and he was still bleeding, the wound still open, an incongruous tear in the smooth skin all around it.

  "Try," Jules said in a dry whisper. "For me, try?"

  His voice went up on the question and in it she heard the voice of the boy he had been once, and she remembered him smaller, skinnier, younger, back pressed against one of the marble columns in the Hall of Accords in Alicante as his father advanced on him with his blade unsheathed.

  And she remembered what Julian had done, then. Done to protect her, to protect all of them, because he always would do everything to protect them.

  She took her hand off the phone and gripped the stele, so tightly she felt it dig into her damp palm. "Look at me, Jules," she said in a low voice, and he met her eyes with his. She placed the stele against his skin, and for a moment she held still, just breathing, breathing and remembering.

  Julian. A presence in her life for as long as she could remember, splashing water at each other in the ocean, digging in the sand together, him putting his hand over hers and them marveling at the difference in the shape and length of their fingers. Julian singing, terribly and off-key, while he drove, his fingers in her hair carefully freeing a trapped leaf, his hands catching her in the training room when she fell, and fell, and fell. The first time after their parabatai ceremony when she'd smashed her hand into a wall in rage at not being able to get a sword maneuver right, and he'd come up to her, taken her still-shaking body in his arms and said, "Emma, Emma, don't hurt yourself. When you do, I feel it, too."

  Something in her chest seemed to split and crack; she marveled that it wasn't audible. Energy raced along her veins, and the stele jerked in her hand before it seemed to move on its own, tracing the graceful outline of a healing rune across Julian's chest. She heard him gasp, his eyes flying open. His hand slid down her back and he pressed her against him, his teeth gritted.