The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(70)

“You do?” Simon was astonished.

She spun and glared at him. “Right now I do. But I can’t promise how long it’ll last.”

Simon held his hands up. “I want to talk to you, Iz. But I can’t go into the Institute.”

A line appeared between her eyebrows. “Why?” She broke off, looking from him to the doors, to Camille, and back again. “Oh. Right. How did you get in here, then?”

“Portaled,” said Simon. “But Jace said there’s an entryway that leads to a set of doors that go outside. So vampires can enter here at night.” He pointed to a narrow door set in the wall a few feet away. It was secured with a rusting iron bolt, as if it hadn’t been used in a while.

Isabelle shrugged. “Fine.”

The bolt made a screeching noise when she yanked it back, sending flakes of rust into the air in a fine red spray.

Beyond the door was a small stone room, like the vestry of a church, and a set of doors that most likely led outside. There were no windows, but cold air crept around the edges of the doors, making Isabelle, in her short dress, shiver.

“Look, Isabelle,” Simon said, figuring that the onus was on him to start the discussion. “I really am sorry about what I did. There’s no excuse—”

“No, there isn’t,” Isabelle said. “And while you’re at it, you might want to tell me why you’re hanging around with the guy who Turned Maia into a werewolf.”



Simon told her the story Jordan had recounted to him, trying to keep his explanation as evenhanded as he could.

He felt like it was at least important to explain to Isabelle that he hadn’t known who Jordan really was at first, and also, that Jordan regretted what he’d done. “Not that that makes it okay,” he finished. “But, you know—” We’ve all done bad things. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her about Maureen. Not right now.

“I know,” Isabelle said. “And I’ve heard of the Praetor Lupus. If they’re willing to have him as a member, he can’t be a complete washout, I guess.” She looked at Simon a little more closely. “Although I don’t get why you need someone to protect you. You have . .

.” She pointed at her forehead.

“I can’t go through the rest of my life with people running at me every day and the Mark blowing them up,” Simon said. “I need to know who’s trying to kill me. Jordan’s helping with that. Jace too.”

“Do you really think Jordan’s helping you? Because the Clave has some pull with the Praetor. We could get him replaced.”

Simon hesitated. “Yeah,” he said. “I really do think he’s helping. And I can’t always rely on the Clave.”

“Okay.” Isabelle leaned back against the wall. “Did you ever wonder why I’m so different from my brothers?” she asked without preamble. “Alec and Jace, I mean.”

Simon blinked. “You mean aside from the whole thing where you’re a girl and they . . .

aren’t?”

“No. Not that, idiot. I mean, look at the two of them. They have no problem falling in love. They’re both in love. The forever kind. They’re done. Look at Jace. He loves Clary like—like there’s nothing else in the world and there never will be. Alec’s the same. And Max—” Her voice caught. “I don’t know what it would have been like for him.

But he trusted everyone. And as you might have noticed, I don’t trust anyone.”

“People are different,” Simon said, trying to sound understanding. “It doesn’t mean they’re happier than you—”

“Sure it does,” Isabelle said. “You think I don’t know that?” She looked at Simon, hard.

“You know my parents.”

“Not well.” They had never been terribly eager to meet Isabelle’s vampire boyfriend, a situation that hadn’t done much to ameliorate Simon’s feeling that he was merely the latest in a long line of undesirable suitors.

“Well, you know they were both in the Circle. But I bet you didn’t know it was all my mom’s idea. My dad was never really enthusiastic about Valentine or any of it. And then when everything happened, and they got banished, and they realized they’d practically wrecked their lives, I think he blamed her. But they already had Alec and were going to have me, so he stayed, eventhoughIthink he kind of wanted to leave.And then,whenAlec was about nine, he found someone else.”

“Whoa,” Simon said. “Your dad cheated on your mom? That’s—that’s awful.”

“She told me,” said Isabelle. “I was about thirteen. She told me that he would have left her but they found out she was pregnant with Max, so they stayed together and he broke it off with the other woman. My mom didn’t tell me who she was. She just told me that you couldn’t really trust men. And she told me not to tell anyone.”

“And did you? Tell anyone?”

“Not until now,” Isabelle said.

Simon thought of a younger Isabelle, keeping the secret, never telling anyone, hiding it from her brothers. Knowing things about their family that they would never know. “She shouldn’t have asked you to do that,” he said, suddenly angry. “That wasn’t fair.”

“Maybe,” said Isabelle. “I thought it made me special. I didn’t think about how it might have changed me. But I watch my brothers give their hearts away and I think, Don’t you know better? Hearts are breakable. And I think even when you heal, you’re never what you were before.”