The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(4)

My master, my master. Mr. Walker spoke the words with a mixture of adoration and awe.

Simon shuddered a little inwardly. How horrible to be so bound to someone else, and to have no real will of your own.

Isabelle was shaking her head; she mouthed “no” at Simon. She was probably right, he thought. Isabelle was an excellent Shadowhunter. She’d been hunting demons and lawbreaking Downworlders—rogue vampires, blackmagic-practicing warlocks, werewolves who’d run wild and eaten someone—since she was twelve years old, and was probably better at what she did than any other Shadowhunter her age, with the exception of her brother Jace.

And there had been Sebastian, Simon thought, who had been better than them both. But he was dead.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll go.”

Isabelle’s eyes rounded. “Simon!”

Both subjugates rubbed their hands together, like villains in a comic book. The gesture itself wasn’t what was creepy, really; it was that they did it exactly at the same time and in the same way, as if they were puppets whose strings were being yanked in unison.

“Excellent,” said Mr. Archer.

Isabelle banged the knife down on the table with a clatter and leaned forward, her shining dark hair brushing the tabletop. “Simon,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Don’t be stupid.

There’s no reason for you to go with them. And Raphael’s a jerk.”

“Raphael’s a master vampire,” said Simon. “His blood made me a vampire. He’s my—

whatever they call it.”

“Sire, maker, begetter—there are a million names for what he did,” Isabelle said distractedly. “And maybe his blood made you a vampire. But it didn’t make you a Daylighter.” Her eyes met his across the table. Jace made you a Daylighter. But she would never say it out loud; there were only a few of them who knew the truth, the whole story behind what Jace was, and what Simon was because of it. “You don’t have to do what he says.”

“Of course I don’t,” Simon said, lowering his voice. “But if I refuse to go, do you think Raphael is just going to drop it? He won’t. They’ll keep coming after me.” He snuck a glance sideways at the subjugates; they looked as if they agreed, though he might have been imagining it. “They’ll bug me everywhere. When I’m out, at school, at Clary’s —”

“And what? Clary can’t handle it?” Isabelle threw up her hands. “Fine. At least let me go with you.”

“Certainly not,” cut in Mr. Archer. “This is not a matter for Shadowhunters. This is the business of the Night Children.”

“I will not—”

“The Law gives us the right to conduct our business in private.” Mr. Walker spoke stiffly.

“With our own kind.”

Simon looked at them. “Give us a moment, please,” he said. “I want to talk to Isabelle.”

There was a moment of silence. Around them the life of the diner went on. The place was getting its late-night rush as the movie theater down the block let out, and waitresses were hurrying by, carrying steaming plates of food to customers; couples laughed and chattered at nearby tables; cooks shouted orders to each other behind the counter. No one looked at them or acknowledged that anything odd was going on. Simon was used to glamours by now, but he couldn’t help the feeling sometimes, when he was with Isabelle, that he was trapped behind an invisible glass wall, cut off from the rest of humanity and the daily round of its affairs.

“Very well,” said Mr. Walker, stepping back. “But my master does not like to be kept waiting.”

They retreated toward the door, apparently unaffected by the blasts of cold air whenever someone went in or out, and stood there like statues. Simon turned to Isabelle. “It’s all right,” he said. “They won’t hurt me. They can’t hurt me. Raphael knows all about . . .”

He gestured uncomfortably toward his forehead. “This.”

Isabelle reached across the table and pushed his hair back, her touch more clinical than gentle. She was frowning.

Simon had looked at the Mark enough times himself, in the mirror, to know well what it looked like. As if someone had taken a thin paintbrush and drawn a simple design on his forehead, just above and between his eyes. The shape of it seemed to change sometimes, like the moving images found in clouds, but it was always clear and black and somehow dangerous-looking, like a warning sign scrawled in another language.

“It really . . . works?” she whispered.

“Raphael thinks it works,” said Simon. “And I have no reason to think it doesn’t.” He caught her wrist and drew it away from his face. “I’ll be all right, Isabelle.”

She sighed. “Every bit of my training says this isn’t a good idea.”

Simon squeezed her fingers. “Come on. You’re curious about what Raphael wants, aren’t you?”

Isabelle patted his hand and sat back. “Tell me all about it when you get back. Call me first.”

“I will.” Simon stood, zipping up his jacket. “And do me a favor, will you? Two favors, actually.”

She looked at him with guarded amusement. “What?”

“Clary said she’d be training over at the Institute tonight. If you run into her, don’t tell her where I went. She’ll worry for no reason.”