“’Course you do, James,” said Matthew. “Forgot who I was talking to for a moment there. Anyway, Christopher and my father are truly brilliant. Their inventions have already changed the way Shadowhunters navigate the world, the way they battle demons. And all Shadowhunters everywhere will always look down on them. They will never see what they do as valuable. And someone who wanted to write plays, to make beautiful art, they would throw away like refuse from the streets.”
“Do you—want that?” James asked hesitantly.
“No,” said Matthew. “I can’t draw for toffee, actually. I certainly can’t write plays. The less said about my poetry the better. I do appreciate art, though. I’m an excellent spectator. I could spectate for England.”
“You could, um, be an actor,” James suggested. “When you talk everyone listens. Especially when you tell stories.”
Also there was Matthew’s face, which would probably—go over well onstage or something.
“That’s a nice thought,” said Matthew. “But I think I would rather not get thrown out of my home and still see my father occasionally. Also, I do think violence is terrible and pointless, but—I’m really good at it. In fact, I enjoy it. Not that I’m letting on to our teachers. I wish I was good at something that could add beauty to the world rather than painting it with blood, I really do, but there you have it.”
He shrugged.
James did not think they were going to fight after all, so he sat back down on the step. He felt he wanted a sit-down. “I think Shadowhunters can add beauty to the world,” he said. “I mean, for one thing—we save lives. I know I said it before, but it’s really important. The people we save, any one of them could be the next Leonardo da Vinci, or Oscar Wilde, or just someone who is really kind, who spreads beauty that way. Or they might just be someone who—someone else loves, like you love your father. Maybe you’re right that Shadowhunters are more limited, that we do not get the full range of possibilities mundanes get, but—we get to make the mundanes’ lives possible. That’s what we’re born to. It is a privilege. I’m not going to run away from the Academy. I’m not running away from anything. I can bear Marks, and that makes me a Shadowhunter, and that’s what I will be whether the Nephilim want me or not.”
“You can be a Shadowhunter without going to the Academy, though,” said Matthew. “You can be trained in an Institute, like Uncle Will was. That’s what I wanted, so I could stay with Father.”
“I could. But—” James hesitated. “I didn’t want to be sent home. Mother would have to know why.”
Matthew was silent for a little while. There was nothing but the sound of the falling rain.
“I like Aunt Tessa,” he said. “I never came to London because I worried about leaving Father. I always wished—she could come to Idris more often.”
James had received several shocks this morning that were actually not so bad, but this revelation was unwelcome and inevitable. Of course Mother and Father scarcely ever went to Idris. Of course James and Lucie had been raised in London, a little apart from their families.
Because there were people in Idris, there were arrogant Shadowhunters who thought Mother was not worthy to walk among them, and Father would never have let her be insulted.
Now it would be worse, now people would whisper that she had passed on the taint to her children. People would say horrible things about Lucie, James knew—about his scribbling, laughing little sister. Lucie could never be allowed to come to the Academy.
Matthew cleared his throat. “I suppose I can understand all that. Maybe I will stop being so jealous that you are able to get chucked out of school. Maybe I can understand that your aims are noble. However, I still do not understand why you must make it so clear you detest the sight of me. I know, I know, you’re aloof and you wish to be alone with literature all the time, but it’s particularly horrible with me. It’s very lowering. Most people like me. I told you that. I don’t even have to try.”
“Yes, you’re very good at Shadowhunting and everybody likes you, Matthew,” said James. “Thanks for clarifying that.”
“You don’t like me!” Matthew exclaimed. “I did try with you! And you still don’t.”
“The thing is,” said James, “I tend to like very modest people? Humble, you know.”
Matthew paused, considered James for a moment, and then burst out laughing. James was amazed by how gratifying that was. It made him feel like he could let out the humiliating truth.
He closed his eyes and said: “I was jealous of you.”
When he opened his eyes, Matthew looked wary, as if expecting a trick. “Of what?”
“Well, you’re not considered an unholy abomination upon this earth.”
“Yes, but—no offense, James—nobody but you is,” Matthew pointed out. “You are our unique feature in the school, like a sculpture of a warrior chicken. If we had one of those. You disliked me before anybody knew you were an unholy abomination, anyway. Well, I suppose you are simply trying to spare my feelings. Decent of you. I under—”
“I’m not aloof,” said James. “I don’t know where you got that idea.”