Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #1)(3)

She spoke firmly, as she always did, and Jace turned and answered to it, as he always did, responding to her call as he did to no one else’s. Clary came walking toward both of them, and Simon felt that pang in his chest again as her red head drew near. She was so small.

During one of their ill-fated training sessions, in which Simon had been relegated to an observer after a sprained wrist, Simon had seen Jace throw Clary into a wall. She’d come right back at him.

Despite that, Simon kept feeling as if she needed to be protected. Feeling this way was a particular kind of horror, having the emotions without the memories. Simon felt like he was insane to have all these feelings about strangers, without having them properly backed up by familiarity and experiences he could actually recall. At the same time, he knew he wasn’t feeling or expressing enough. He knew he wasn’t giving them what they wanted.

Clary didn’t need to be protected, but somewhere within Simon was the ghost of a boy who had always wanted to be the one to protect her, and he was only hurting her by staying around unable to be that guy.

Memories came, sometimes in an overwhelming and terrifying rush, but mostly in tiny shards, jigsaw pieces Simon could hardly make sense of. One piece was a flash of walking to school with Clary, her hand so little and his barely bigger. He’d felt big then, though, big and proud and responsible for her. He had been determined not to let her down.

“Hey, Simon,” she said now. Her eyes were bright with tears, and Simon knew they were all his fault.

He took Clary’s hand, small but calloused from both weapons and art. He wished he could find a way back to believing, even though he knew better, that she was his to protect.

“Hey, Clary. You take care of yourself,” he said. “I know you can.” He paused. “And take care of Jace, that poor, helpless blond.”

Jace made an obscene gesture, which actually did feel familiar to Simon, so he knew that was their thing. Jace hastily lowered his hand when Catarina Loss walked around the side of the Institute.

She was a warlock like Magnus, and a friend of his, but instead of having cat eyes she was blue all over. Simon got the feeling she did not like him very much. Maybe warlocks only liked other warlocks. Though Magnus did seem to like Alec quite a lot.

“Hello there,” said Catarina. “Ready to go?”

Simon had been dying to go for weeks, but now that the time had come he felt panic clawing at his throat. “Almost,” he said. “Just a second.”

He nodded to Alec and Magnus, who both nodded to him. Simon felt he had to clear up whatever was weird between himself and Alec before he ventured much more.

“Bye, guys, thanks for everything.”

“Believe me, even partially releasing you from a fascist spell was my pleasure,” said Magnus, lifting a hand. He wore many rings, which glittered in the spring sunshine. Simon thought he must dazzle his enemies with his magical prowess, but also his glitter.

Alec just nodded.

Simon leaned down and hugged Clary, even though it made his chest hurt more. The way she felt and smelled was both strange and familiar, conflicting messages running through his brain and his body. He tried not to hug her too hard, even though she was kind of hugging him too hard. In fact, she was pretty much crushing his rib cage. He didn’t mind, though.

When he let go of Clary, he turned and hugged Jace. Clary watched, tears running down her face.

“Oof,” said Jace, sounding extremely startled, but he patted Simon quickly on the back.

Simon supposed they usually fist-bumped or something. He did not know the warrior way of being bros: Eric was a big hugger. He decided it would probably be good for Jace, and ruffled his hair a little for emphasis before stepping away.

Then Simon gathered up his courage, turned, and walked over to Isabelle.

Isabelle was the last person he had to say good-bye to; she would be the hardest. She wasn’t like Clary, openly tearful, or like any of the others, sorry to see him go but basically all right. She seemed more indifferent than anyone, so indifferent Simon knew it was not real.

“I’m going to come back,” said Simon.

“No doubt,” Isabelle said, staring off into the distance beyond his shoulder. “You always do seem to turn up.”

“When I do, I’m going to be awesome.”

Simon made the promise, not sure if he could keep it. He felt as if he had to say something. He knew it was what she wanted, for him to return to her the way he had been, better than he was now.

Isabelle shrugged. “Don’t think I’ll be waiting around, Simon Lewis.”

Just like her pretense of indifference, that sounded like a promise of the complete opposite. Simon looked at her for a long moment. She was so overwhelmingly beautiful and impressive, he found it too much to handle. He could barely believe any of his new memories, but the idea that Isabelle Lightwood had been his girlfriend seemed more unbelievable than the fact that vampires were real and Simon had been one. He didn’t have the faintest idea how he had made her feel that way about him once, and so he didn’t have the faintest idea how to make her feel that way about him again. It was like asking him to fly. He’d asked her to dance once, to have coffee with him twice in the months since she and Magnus had come to him and given back as much of his memory as they could, but not enough. Each time Isabelle had watched him carefully, expectantly, waiting for some miracle he knew he could not perform. It meant he was tongue-tied around her all the time, so sure he was going to say the wrong thing and shatter everything that he could scarcely say anything.