Born to Endless Night Read online

  "Would you believe," said Catarina, appearing at Magnus's elbow, "that the Cartwright kid was the biggest bully in the Academy?"

  "Seems like he met a bigger bully," Magnus murmured.

  He congratulated himself on the correct Cartwright guess. It was hard to be sure, with Shadowhunter families. Certain traits did seem to run in their family lines, inbred as they were, but there were always exceptions.

  For instance, Magnus had always found the Lightwoods rather forgettable. He'd liked some of them--Anna Lightwood and her parade of brokenhearted young ladies, Christopher Lightwood and his explosions, and now Isabelle--but there had never been a Lightwood who touched his heart, as some Shadowhunters had: Will Herondale or Henry Branwell or Clary Fray.

  Until the Lightwood who was unforgettable; until the Lightwood who had not only touched but taken his heart.

  "Why are you smiling to yourself?" Catarina asked, her voice suspicious.

  "I was just thinking that life is full of surprises," said Magnus. "What happened to this Academy?"

  The mundane girl could not bully the Cartwright boy unless the boy cared about what happened to her--unless he saw her as a person, and did not dismiss her the way Magnus had seen countless Nephilim dismiss mundanes and Downworlders, too.

  Catarina hesitated. "Come with me," she said. "There's something I want to show you."

  She took his hand and led him out of the Academy cafeteria, her blue fingers intertwined with his blue-ringed hands. Magnus thought of the baby and found himself smiling again. He had always thought blue was the loveliest color.

  "I've been sleeping in Ragnor's old room," Catarina said.

  She mentioned their old friend briskly and practically, with no hint of feeling. Magnus held her hand a little tighter as they went up two flights of stairs and down through stone corridors. The walls bore tapestries illustrating Shadowhunters' great deeds. There were holes in several of the tapestries, including one that left the Angel Raziel headless. Magnus feared sacrilegious mice had been at the tapestries.

  Catarina opened a large, dark oak wood door and led him into a vaulted stone room where there were a few pictures on the walls Magnus recognized as Ragnor's: a sketch of a monkey, a seascape with a pirate ship on it. The carved oak bed was covered in Catarina's severe white hospital sheets, but the moth-eaten curtains were green velvet, and there was a green leather inlay on a desk placed under the room's single large window.

  There was a coin on it, a circle of copper turned dark with age, and two yellowed pieces of paper, turning up at the edges.

  "I was going through the papers in Ragnor's desk when I found this letter," Catarina said. "It was the only really personal thing in the room. I thought you might like to read it."

  "I would," said Magnus, and she put it into his hands.

  Magnus unfolded the letter and looked at the spiky black writing set deep into the yellow surface, as if the writer had been annoyed by the page itself. He felt as if he were listening to a voice he had thought silenced forever.

  To Ragnor Fell, preeminent educator at Shadowhunter Academy, and former High Warlock of London:

  I am sorry but not surprised to hear the latest crop of Shadowhunter brats are just as unpromising as the last lot. The Nephilim, lacking imagination and intellectual curiosity? You astonish me.

  I enclose a coin etched with a wreath, a symbol of education in the ancient world. I was told a faerie placed good luck on it, and you are certainly going to need luck reforming the Shadowhunters.

  I am as ever impressed by your patience and dedication to your job, and your continuing optimism that your students can be taught. I wish I could have your bright outlook on life, but unfortunately I cannot help looking around at the world and noticing that we are surrounded by idiots. If I were teaching Nephilim children I imagine I would sometimes feel forced to speak to them sharply and occasionally feel forced to drain them entirely of blood.

  (Note to any Nephilim illegally reading Mr. Fell's letters and invading his privacy: I am, naturally, joking. I have a very droll personality.)

  You ask how life in New York is and I can only report the usual: smelly, crowded, and populated almost entirely by maniacs. I was almost knocked over by a party of warlocks and werewolves on Bowery Street. One particular warlock was in the front, waving a glittering purple ladies' feather boa over his head like a flag. I am so embarrassed to know him. Sometimes I pretend to other Downworlders that I do not. I hope they believe me.

  The main reason I am writing to you is, of course, so that we may continue your Spanish lessons. I enclose a fresh list of vocabulary words, and assure you that you are coming along very well. If you should ever make the terrible decision to accompany a certain badly dressed warlock of our acquaintance to Peru again, this time you will be prepared.

  Yours most sincerely,

  Raphael Santiago

  "Ragnor would not have known the Academy was going to be shut down after Valentine's Circle attacked the Clave," Catarina said. "He kept the letter so he could learn the Spanish, and then he was never able to come back for it. From the letter, though, it seems like they wrote to each other quite frequently. Ragnor must have burned the others, since they contained comments that would have gotten Raphael Santiago into trouble. I know Ragnor was fond of that sharp-tongued little vampire." She leaned her cheek against Magnus's shoulder. "I know you were, as well."

  Magnus shut his eyes for a moment and remembered Raphael, who he had once done a favor; Raphael, who had died for him in return. He had known him when he was first turned, a snippy child with a will of iron, and known him through the years as Raphael led a vampire clan in all but name.

  Magnus had never known Ragnor when Ragnor was young. Ragnor had been older than Magnus and, by the time Magnus met him, had become perpetually cranky. Ragnor had been yelling at kids to get off his lawn before lawns were invented. He had always been kind to Magnus, willing to fall in with any of Magnus's schemes as long as he could complain throughout while they did it.

  Still, in spite of Ragnor's dark outlook on life in general and Shadowhunters in particular, Ragnor had been the one who came to Idris to teach Shadowhunters. Even after the Academy was closed, he had stayed in his little house outside the City of Glass and tried to teach the Nephilim who were willing to learn. He had always hoped, even when he refused to admit it.

  Ragnor and Raphael. They were both supposed to be immortal. Magnus had thought they would last forever, as he did, down the centuries, that there would always be another meeting and another chance. But they were gone, and the mortals Magnus loved lived on. It was a lesson, Magnus thought, to love while you could, love what was fragile and beautiful and imperiled. Nobody was guaranteed forever.

  Ragnor and Magnus had not gone to Peru again, and never would now. Of course, Magnus was banned from Peru, so he could not go anyway.

  "You came to the Academy for Ragnor," Magnus said to Catarina. "For the sake of Ragnor's dreams, to see if you could teach the Shadowhunters to change. It seems a pretty different place, this time around. Do you think you succeeded?"

  "I never thought I would," said Catarina. "This was always Ragnor's dream. I did it for him, and not the Shadowhunters. I always thought Ragnor teaching was foolish. You cannot teach people anything if they do not want to learn."

  "What changed your mind?"

  "I didn't change my mind," said Catarina. "This time, they did want to learn. I could not have done this alone."

  "Who helped you?" asked Magnus.

  Catarina smiled. "Our former Daylighter, Simon Lewis. He's a sweet boy. He could have skated by on being a hero of the war, but he declared himself a member of the dregs, and he kept speaking up even though he had nothing to gain from it. I tried to help him along, but that was all I could do, and I could only hope it would be enough. One by one, the students followed his lead and started to fall from strictly Nephilim ways, like a set of rebellious dominoes. George Lovelace moved to the dregs dormitory with Simon. Bea
triz Velez Mendoza and Julie Beauvale sat with them at mealtimes. Marisol Rojas Garza and Sunil Sadasivan started fighting with the elite kids at every opportunity. The two streams became a group, became a team--even Jonathan Cartwright. It was not all Simon. These are children who know Shadowhunters fought side by side with Downworlders when Valentine attacked Alicante. These are children who saw Dean Penhallow welcome me to their Academy. They are the children of a changing world. But I think they needed Simon here, to be their catalyst."

  "And you here, to be their teacher," said Magnus. "Do you think you have found a new vocation in teaching?"

  He gazed down at her, slim and sky blue in their friend's old stone-and-green room. She made a terrible face.

  "Hell no," said Catarina Loss. "The only thing more terrible than the food are all the horrible, whiny teenagers. I'll see Simon safely Ascended and then I am out of here, back to my hospital, where there are easy problems to deal with like gangrene. Ragnor must have been crazy."

  Magnus lifted Catarina's hand, which he was still holding, to his lips. "Ragnor would have been proud."

  "Oh, stop it," said Catarina, shoving him. "You're so mushy since you fell in love. And now you're going to be even worse, because you have a baby. I remember what it was like. They're so small, and you put so much hope into them."

  Magnus glanced at her, startled. She almost never mentioned the child she had raised, Tobias Herondale's child. Partly because it was not safe: It was not a secret the Nephilim could ever know, not a sin they would ever forgive. Partly, Magnus had always suspected, Catarina did not speak of him because it hurt too much.

  Catarina caught the glance. "I told Simon about him," she said. "My boy."

  "You must really trust Simon," Magnus said slowly.

  "Do you know?" said Catarina. "I really do. Here, take these. I want you to have them. I'm done with them."

  She picked up the old coin on the desk and put it in Magnus's palm, in the hand that already held Raphael's letter to Ragnor. Magnus looked at the coin and the letter.

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure," said Catarina. "I read the letter a lot during my first year in the Academy, to remind myself what I was doing here and what Ragnor would have wanted. I've honored my friend. I've almost completed my task. You take them."

  Magnus tucked away the letter and the good-luck charm, sent by one of his dead friends to another.

  He and Catarina walked out of Ragnor's room together. Catarina said she was going to eat dinner, which Magnus thought was extremely reckless of her.

  "Can't you do something safe and soothing, like bungee jumping?" he asked, but she insisted. He dropped a kiss on her cheek. "Come by the attics later. The Lightwoods will be there, so I need protection. We'll have a party."

  He turned and left her, unwilling to enter the dining hall and behold the slime lasagna again. As he made his way up the stairs, he met Simon on his way down.

  Magnus looked at Simon consideringly. Simon seemed alarmed by this.

  "Come with me, Simon Lewis," Magnus commanded. "Let's have a chat."

  *

  Simon stood at the top of one of the towers in Shadowhunter Academy with Magnus Bane, looking out at the gathering twilight and feeling vaguely uneasy.

  "I could swear this tower used to be crooked."

  "Huh," said Magnus. "Perception's a funny thing."

  Simon was just not sure what Magnus wanted. He liked Magnus. He'd just never had a heart-to-heart with Magnus, and now Magnus was giving him a look that said what is your deal, Simon Lewis? Magnus even made the tatty gray shirt he was wearing look faintly stylish. He was fairly certain Magnus was too cool to care about his deal.

  He glanced over at Magnus, who was standing at one of the large, glassless windows in the tower, the night wind blowing his hair back.

  "I said to you once," Magnus offered, "that one day, of all the people we know, the two of us might be the only ones left."

  "I don't remember," said Simon.

  "Why should you?" Magnus asked. "Barring some freak tornado that sweeps away everyone we love, that is no longer true. You're mortal now. And even the immortal can be killed. Maybe this tower will collapse and leave everyone to mourn us."

  The view from the tower, the stars over the woods, was beautiful. Simon wanted to get down.

  Magnus reached into his pocket and took out an old, carved coin. Simon could not see the inscription on it in the dark, but he could see that there was one.

  "This belonged to Raphael once. Do you remember Raphael?" Magnus asked. "The vampire who turned you."

  "Only in bits and pieces," Simon said. "I remember him telling me Isabelle was out of my league."

  Magnus turned his face away, not quite successfully hiding a smile. "That sounds like Raphael."

  "I remember--feeling him die," said Simon, his voice sticking in his throat. That was the worst of his stolen memories, that the weight of the memory remained when all else was gone, that he felt loss without knowing what he had lost. "He meant something to me, but I don't know if he liked me. I don't know if I liked him."

  "He felt responsible for you," Magnus said. "It occurred to me today that maybe I should have felt responsible for you in the same way. I was the one who performed the spell that brought you back your memories; I was the one who set you on the path to Shadowhunter Academy. Raphael was the first one to place you in another world, but I placed you in another world as well."

  "I made my own choices," Simon said. "You gave me the chance to do that. I'm not sorry you did. Are you sorry you restored my memories?"

  Magnus smiled. "No, I'm not sorry. Catarina filled me in on a little of what's been going on at the Academy. It seems like you have been doing just fine making your choices without me."

  "I've been trying," said Simon.

  He had been shocked by Alec praising him, and it was not as if he had expected Magnus to do it. But he felt warmed by Magnus's words, suddenly warm all over, despite the wind sweeping in from the crystalline coldness of the sky. Magnus was not talking about the bits and pieces of his half-forgotten past but about what he was now and what he had done with his time since then.

  It wasn't anything remarkable, but he had been trying.

  "I also heard you had a little adventure in Faerieland," said Magnus. "We've been having trouble in New York with faerie fruit sellers as well. Part of the faeries running wild is the Cold Peace itself. People who are not trusted become untrustworthy. But there is something else wrong as well. Faerie is not a land without rules, without rulers. The Queen who was Sebastian's ally has vanished, and there are many dark rumors as to why. None of which I would repeat to the Clave, because they would only impose harsher punishments on the faeries. They become harsher, and the fey wilder, and the hate between both sides grows day by day. There are storms behind you, Simon. But there is another and a greater storm coming. All the old rules are falling away. Are you ready for another storm?"

  Simon was silent. He didn't know how to answer that.

  "I've seen you with Clary, and with Isabelle," Magnus continued. "I know you are on the path to Ascension, to having a parabatai and a Shadowhunter love. Are you happy with it? Are you certain?"

  "I don't know about being certain," Simon said. "I don't know about being ready, either. I can't say I haven't had doubts, that I haven't thought about turning back and being a kid in a band in Brooklyn. I think sometimes it's too hard to believe in yourself. You just do the things you're not sure you can do. You just act, in spite of not being certain. I don't believe I can change the world--it sounds stupid to even talk about it--but I'm going to try."

  "We all change the world, with every day of living in it," Magnus said. "You just have to decide how you want to change the world. I brought you into this world, the second time around, and though your choices are your own I do take some responsibility. Even if you are committed, you have other choices. I could arrange for you to be a vampire again, or a werewolf. Both are risky, but none as
risky as Ascension."

  "Yes. I want to try changing the world as a Shadowhunter," said Simon. "I really do. I want to try and change the Clave from the inside. I want that particular power to help people. It's worth the risk."

  Magnus nodded.

  He had meant it, Simon thought, when he said that Simon's choices were his own. He had left it up to Simon, that day in Brooklyn when he and Isabelle had approached Simon outside his school. He did not question Simon now, even though Simon was afraid that choosing to be a Shadowhunter and not a Downworlder might have offended him. He didn't want to be like the Shadowhunters who acted as if they were better than Downworlders. He wanted to be an entirely different kind of Shadowhunter.

  Magnus did not look offended. He stood on the tower top, on stone in starlight, turning the coin that had belonged to the dead over and over in his fingers. He looked thoughtful.

  "Have you thought about your Shadowhunter name?"

  "Um . . . ," Simon said shyly. "A little bit. I was wondering, actually--what's your real name?"

  Magnus sent him a sidelong glance. Nobody gave side-eye like someone with cat's eyes. "Magnus Bane," he said. "I know you've forgotten a lot, Smedley, but really."

  Simon accepted the subtle reproof. He understood why Magnus would object to the implication that the name he had chosen to define himself by, kept over long years and made both infamous and illustrious, was not real.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "It's just that my mind does keep coming back to names. If I survive Ascension, I'll have to pick a Shadowhunter name. I don't know how to pick the right one--I don't know how to pick one that will mean something, mean more than any other name would."

  Magnus frowned.

  "I'm not sure I'm cut out for this wise-advice business. Maybe I should wear a fake white beard to convince myself I am a sage. Pick the one that feels right, and don't worry too much," Magnus said eventually. "It's going to be your name. You're going to live with it. You're going to give it meaning, not the other way around."