“Yeah, obviously,” said Jon. “He’s probably mentioned me.”
“Not that I recall . . . ,” said Simon. “But I do have demon amnesia. So there’s that.”
Jon nodded and shrugged. “Right. Bummer. He’s probably mentioned me and you forgot, on account of the demon amnesia. Not to brag, but we’re pretty close, me and Jace.”
“I wish I was close to Jace Herondale,” Julie sighed. “He is so gorgeous.”
“He is foxier than a fox fur in a fox hole on fox hunting day,” Beatriz agreed dreamily.
“Who’s this?” asked Jon, squinting at George, who was leaning back in his chair and looking rather amused.
“Speaking of people being foxy, do you mean? I’m George Lovelace,” said George. “I say my surname without shame, because I am secure in my masculinity like that.”
“Oh, a Lovelace,” said Jon, his brow clearing. “Yeah, you can sit with us.”
“I’ve got to say, my surname has never actually been a selling point before, though,” George remarked. “Shadowhunters, go figure.”
“Well, you know,” said Julie. “You’re going to want to hang out with people in your own stream.”
“Come again?” Simon asked.
“There are two different streams in the Academy,” Beatriz explained. “The stream for mundanes, where they inform the students more fully about the world and give them badly needed basic training, and the stream for real Shadowhunter kids, where we’re taught from a more advanced curriculum.”
Julie’s lip curled. “What Beatriz’s saying is, there’s the elite and there’s the dregs.”
Simon stared at them, with a sinking feeling. “So . . . I’m going to be in the dregs course.”
“No, Simon, no!” Jon exclaimed, looking shocked. “Of course you won’t be.”
“But I’m a mundane,” Simon said again.
“You’re not a regular mundane, Simon,” Julie told him. “You’re an exceptional mundane. That means exceptions are going to be made.”
“If anyone tried to put you in with the mundanes, I’d have words with them,” Jon continued loftily. “Any friend of Jace Herondale’s is, naturally, a friend of mine.”
Julie patted Simon’s hand. Simon stared at his hand as if it did not belong to him. He did not want to be put in the stream for losers, but he didn’t feel comfortable about being assured he would not be either.
But he did think he remembered Isabelle, Jace, and Alec saying some sketchy things about mundanes, now and then. Isabelle, Jace, and Alec weren’t so bad. It was just the way they were brought up: They didn’t mean what it seemed like they meant. Simon was pretty sure.
Beatriz, who Simon had liked on sight, leaned in across Julie and said: “You’ve more than earned your place.”
She smiled shyly at him. Simon could not help smiling back.
“So . . . I’m going to be in the dregs course?” George asked slowly. “I don’t know anything about Shadowhunters and Downworlders and demons.”
“Oh no,” said Jon. “You’re a Lovelace. You’ll find it will all come very easily to you: It’s in your blood.”
George bit his lip. “If you say so.”
“Most students in the Academy will be in the elite course,” Beatriz said hastily. “Our new recruits are mostly like you, George. Shadowhunters are searching all over the world for lost and scattered people with Shadowhunter blood.”
“So it’s Shadowhunter blood that gets you into the elite stream,” George clarified. “And not knowledge at all.”
“It’s perfectly fair,” Julie argued. “Look at Simon. Of course he’s in the elite stream. He has proven himself worthy.”
“Simon had to save the world, and the rest of us get in because we have the right surname?” George asked lightly. He winked at Simon. “Hard luck on you, mate.”
There was an uncomfortable silence around the table, but Simon suspected nobody felt as uncomfortable as he did.
“Sometimes those of Shadowhunter blood are put in the dregs stream, if they disgrace themselves,” Julie said shortly. “Mainly, yes, it is reserved for mundanes. That’s the way the Academy always worked in the past; it’s how it will work in the future. We take some mundanes, those with the Sight or with remarkable athletic promise, into the Academy. It’s a wonderful opportunity for them, a chance to become more than they could have ever dreamed. But they cannot keep up with real Shadowhunters. It would hardly be fair to expect them to. They can’t all be Simon.”
“Some of them simply will not have the aptitude,” Jon remarked in a lofty tone. “Some of them won’t live through Ascension.”
Simon opened his mouth, but before he could ask any further questions he was interrupted by the sound of a lone clap.
“My dear students, my present and future Shadowhunters,” said Dean Penhallow, rising from her chair. “Welcome, welcome! To Shadowhunter Academy. It is such a joy to see you all here at the auspicious official opening of the Academy, where we will be training a whole new generation to obey the Law laid down by the Angel. It is an honor to have been chosen to come here, and a joy for us to have you.”
Simon looked around. There were about two hundred students here, he thought, uncomfortably crammed around rickety tables. He noticed again that several of them were very young, and grubby and desolate. Simon’s heart went out to them, even as he wondered exactly what the running water situation at the Academy was.
Nobody looked as if they felt honored to be here. Simon found himself wondering again about the Shadowhunters’ recruiting methods. Julie talked about them as if they were noble, searching for lost Shadowhunter families and offering mundanes amazing opportunities, but some of these kids looked about twelve. Simon had to wonder what your life must be like, if you were ready to leave it all and go fight demons at twelve.
“There have been a few unexpected losses from the staff, but I’m certain we will do splendidly with the excellent personnel we have remaining,” Dean Penhallow continued. “May I introduce Delaney Scarsbury, your training master.”
The man sitting next to her got up. He made Jon Cartwright’s biceps look like grapes held up to a grapefruit, and he actually had an eye patch, like the angel in the stained-glass window.
Simon turned slowly and looked at George, who he hoped would feel him on this one. He mouthed: No way.
George, who obviously did feel him on this one, nodded and mouthed: Pirate Shadowhunter!
“I look forward to crushing you all into a pulp and molding that pulp into ferocious warriors,” announced Scarsbury.
George and Simon exchanged another speaking glance.
A girl at the table behind Simon began to cry. She looked about thirteen.
“And this is Catarina Loss, a very estimable warlock who will be teaching you a great deal about—history and so on!”
“Yay,” said Catarina Loss, with a desultory wave of her blue fingers, as if she’d decided to try clapping without bothering to lift both hands.
The dean soldiered on. “In past years at the Academy, because Shadowhunters come from all over the globe, every day of the week we would serve a delicious dish from a different nation. We certainly intend to keep up that tradition! But the kitchens are in a slight state of disrepair and for now we have—”
“Soup,” said Catarina flatly. “Vats and vats of murky brown soup. Enjoy, kids.”
Dean Penhallow continued her one-woman applause. “That’s right. Enjoy, everyone. And again, welcome.”
There really was nothing on offer but huge metal vats full of very questionable soup.
Simon lined up for food, and peered into the greasy depths of the dark liquid. “Are there alligators in there?”
“I won’t make you any promises,” said Catarina, inspecting her own bowl.
Simon was exhausted and still starving when he crawled into bed that night. He tried to cheer himself up thinking again about how lately a girl had been on the bed. A girl on his bed for the first time ever, Simon thought, but then memories came like a wisp of cloud over the moon, dimming all certainty. He remembered Clary sleeping in his bed, when they were so little their pajamas had trucks and ponies on them. He remembered kissing Clary, and how she had tasted like fresh lemonade. And he remembered Isabelle, her dark hair flowing over his pillow, her throat bared to him, her toenails scratching his leg, like a sexy vampire movie aside from the bit about the toenails. The other Simon had been not only a hero but a lady-killer. Well, more of a lady-killer than Simon was now.
Isabelle. Simon’s mouth moved to form the shape of her name, pressing it into his pillow. He’d told himself he wasn’t going to think about her, not until he was really getting somewhere in the Academy. Not until he was on his way to being better, being the person she wanted him to be.
He turned so he was flat on his back and stared up at the stone ceiling.
“Are you awake?” George whispered. “Me too. I keep worrying that the possum will come back. Where did it even come from, Simon? Where did it go?”