The Lost Herondale

A murmur rippled across the classroom. Every student, Shadowhunter and mundane alike, knew the name Herondale. It was Jace’s last name. It was the name of heroes.

“Yes, yes, you’ve all heard of the Herondales,” Balogh said impatiently. “And perhaps you’ve heard good things—of William Herondale, for instance, or his son James, or Jonathan Lightwood Herondale today. But even the strongest tree can have a weak branch. Tobias’s brother and his wife died noble deaths in battle before the decade was out. For some, that was enough to wipe away the stain on the name Herondale. But no amount of Herondale glory or sacrifice will make us forget what Tobias did—nor should it. Tobias was inexperienced and distracted, on the mission under duress. He had a pregnant wife at home, and labored under the delusion that this should excuse him from his duties. And when the demon launched its attack, Tobias Herondale, may his name be blackened for the rest of time, turned on his heel and ran away.” Then Balogh repeated that last, cracking his hand against the desk with each word. “Ran. Away.”

He went on to describe, in gruesome, painful detail, what happened next: How three of the remaining Shadowhunters were slaughtered by the demon—one disemboweled, one burned alive, one doused with acidic blood that dissolved him into dust. How the fourth survived only by the intercession of the warlocks, who returned him—disfigured by demonic burns that would never fade—to his people as a warning to stay away.

“Of course, we returned in even greater force, and repaid the warlocks tenfold for what they’d done to the villagers. But the far greater crime, that of Tobias Herondale, still called for vengeance.”

“The greater crime? Greater than slaughtering a bunch of Shadowhunters?” Simon said before he could stop himself.

“Demons and warlocks can’t help what they are,” Balogh said darkly. “Shadowhunters are held to a higher standard. The deaths of those three men sit squarely on the shoulders of Tobias Herondale. And he would have been punished in kind, had he ever been foolish enough to show his face again. He never did, but debts need repaying. A trial was held in absentia. He was judged guilty, and punishment was carried out.”

“But I thought you said he never came back?” Julie said.

“Indeed. So the punishment was carried out on his wife, in his stead.”

“His pregnant wife?” Marisol said, looking like she was about to be sick.

“Sed lex, dura lex,” Balogh said. The Latin phrase had been hammered into them from the first day at the Academy, and Simon was coming to hate the sound of it—so often was it used as an excuse for acting like monsters. Balogh steepled his fingers and contemplated the classroom, watching in satisfaction as his message came clear. This was how the Clave treated cowardice on the battlefield; this was justice under the Covenant. “The Law is hard,” Balogh translated for the hushed students. “But it is the Law.”

*

“Choose wisely,” Scarsbury warned, watching the students sift through the many pointy options the weapons room had to offer.

“How are we supposed to choose wisely when you won’t even tell us what we’re going up against?” Jon complained.

“You know it’s a vampire,” Scarsbury said. “You’ll learn more when you arrive on site.”

Simon slung a bow over his shoulders and selected a dagger for melee fighting; it seemed the weapon he was least likely to accidentally stab himself with. As the Shadowhunter students Marked themselves with runes of strength and agility and tucked witchlights into their pockets, Simon hooked a slim flashlight to one side of his belt and a portable flamethrower to the other. He touched the Star of David hanging on the same chain as Jordan’s pendant around his neck—it wouldn’t help much unless this vampire happened to be Jewish, but it made him feel just a little better. Like someone was looking out for him.

There was an electric charge of anticipation in the air that reminded Simon of being a little kid, preparing to go on a field trip. Of course, a visit to the Bronx Zoo or the sewage treatment center carried with it less chance of disembowelment, and instead of lining up to board a school bus, the students assembled themselves in front of a magical Portal that would transdimensionally carry them thousands of miles in the blink of an eye.

“You ready for this?” George asked him, grinning. Decked out in full gear with a longsword slung over his shoulder, Simon’s roommate looked every inch the warrior.

For a brief moment, Simon imagined himself saying no. Raising his hand, asking to be excused. Admitting that he didn’t know what he was doing here, that every fighting tactic he’d been taught had evaporated from his mind, that he would like to pack up his suitcase, Portal home, and pretend none of this had ever happened.

“As I’ll ever be,” he said—and stepped through the Portal.

From what Simon remembered, traveling by school bus was a filthy, undignified experience, rife with foul smells, spitballs, and the occasional embarrassing bout of motion sickness.