Born to Endless Night (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #9)

“Ms. Loss is our teacher, and I am trying to eat.” Beatriz stared dispiritedly at her plate.

“Vampires are gross and dead, werewolves are gross and hairy, and faeries are treacherous and would sleep with your mom,” said Julie. “Warlocks are the sexy Downworlders. Think about it. They all have daddy issues. And Magnus Bane is the sexiest of them all. He can be High Warlock of my pants.”

“Uh, Magnus has a boyfriend,” said Simon.

There was a frightening glint in Julie’s eye. “There are some mountains you still want to climb, even though there are ‘No Trespassing’ signs up.”

“I think that’s gross,” said Simon. “You know, the way you think vampires are.”

Julie made a face at him. “You’re so sensitive, Simon. Why must you always be so sensitive?”

“You’re so terrible, Julie,” said Simon. “Why must you always be so terrible?”

Alec had been with Magnus, Julie reported. Simon was thinking more about that than Julie’s terribleness, which after all was not anything new. Alec was going to be staying at the Academy for weeks. He usually saw Alec in crowds of people, and it had never seemed the right time to talk to him. It was the right time now. It was time to talk it out, the problem between them that Jace had hinted at so darkly. He didn’t want there to be something wrong between him and Alec, who seemed like a good guy from what Simon could remember. Alec was Isabelle’s big brother, and Isabelle was—he was almost certain—Simon’s girlfriend.

He wanted her to be.

“Should we try to get a little archery practice in before class?” George asked.

“That’s jock talk, George,” said Simon. “I’ve asked you not to do that. But sure.”

They all got up, pushing their bowls aside, and walked to the front doors of the Academy, heading for the practice grounds.

That was the plan, but none of them made it to the practice grounds that day. None of them made it past the threshold of the Academy. They all stood on the front step, in a horrified cluster.

On the stone of the front step was a bundle, wrapped in a fuzzy yellow blanket. Simon’s eyes failed him in a way that had nothing to do with his glasses and everything to do with panic, refusing to register what was actually before him. It’s a bundle of junk, Simon told himself. Someone had left a parcel of garbage on their doorstep.

Except the bundle was moving, in small incremental movements. Simon watched the fretful stir beneath the blanket, looked at the gleaming eyes peering out from the cocoon of fuzzy yellows, and his mind accepted what he was seeing, even as another shock came. A tiny fist emerged from the blankets, waving as if in protest at everything that was occurring.

The fist was blue, the rich navy of the sea when it was deep and you were on a boat as evening fell. The blue of Captain America’s suit.

“It’s a baby,” Beatriz breathed. “It’s a warlock baby.”

There was a note pinned to the baby’s yellow blanket. Simon saw it at the precise moment that the wind caught it, snatching it off the blanket and whirling it away. Simon grabbed the paper out of the cold grip of the wind and looked at the writing, a hasty scribble on a torn scrap of paper.

The note read: Who could ever love it?

*

“Oh no, the baby’s blue,” said George. “What are we going to do?”

He frowned as if he had not meant that to rhyme. Then he knelt down, because George was the not-so-secret sweetheart of the group, and awkwardly took the yellow-wrapped bundle in his arms. He stood up, his face ashen, holding the baby.

“What are we going to do?” Beatriz warbled, echoing George. “What are we going to do?”

Julie was plastered up against the door. Simon had personally seen her cut off a very large demon’s head with a very small knife, but she appeared as if she would expire with terror if someone asked her to hold the baby.