Angels Twice Descending by Cassandra Clare, Robin Wasserman Page B

your free time accidentally getting locked in the dungeons or stalking the giant magical slug rumored to slither through the corridors in the predawn hours. Most nights for the last couple of months, Simon and his friends had ended up here, talking about their futures, and he’d expected they would spend this last night the same way.
    Marisol, who knew Sunil the best, shrugged. “Maybe he’s ‘considering his options.’” She curled her fingers around the phrase. This was how Dean Penhallow had advised students on the mundane track to spend their final evening, assuring them there was no shame in backing out at the last moment.
    “Humiliation. Lifelong embarrassment over your mundie cowardice and guilt for wasting all of our very valuable time,” Scarsbury had growled at them, and then, when the dean shot him a disapproving look, “But yeah, sure, no shame.”
    “Well, shouldn’t he be ‘considering’?” Julie asked. “Shouldn’t you all be? It’s not like going to doctor school and taking the Hypocritical oath or something. You don’t get to change your mind.”
    “First of all, it’s the Hippocratic oath,” Marisol said.
    “And it’s called medical school,” Jon put in, looking rather proud of himself. Marisol had been schooling him on mundane life. Against his will, or so Jon had led them to believe.
    “Second of all,” Marisol added, “why would you think any of us would be likely to change our minds? Are you planning to change your mind about being a Shadowhunter?”
    Julie looked affronted by the idea. “I am a Shadowhunter. You might as well have asked if I’m planning to change my mind about being alive.”
    “So what makes you think it’s any different for us?” Marisol said fiercely. She was the youngest of them by two years and the smallest by several inches, but Simon sometimes thought that she was the bravest. She was certainly the one he’d bet on in a fight. (Marisol fought well—she also, when necessary, fought dirty.)
    “She didn’t mean anything by it,” Beatriz said gently.
    “I really didn’t,” Julie said quickly.
    Simon knew it was true. Julie couldn’t help sounding like a mundane-hating snob sometimes, any more than Jon could help sounding like—well, like an asshole sometimes. That’s who they were, and Simon realized that, inexplicably, he wouldn’t have it any other way. For better or worse, these were his friends. In two years they’d faced so much together: demons, faeries, Delaney Scarsbury, the dining hall “food.” It was almost like a family, Simon reflected. You didn’t necessarily like them all the time, but you knew, push come to shove, you’d defend them to the death.
    Though he very much hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
    “Come on, aren’t you a little nervous?” Jon asked. “Who can remember the last time anyone Ascended? It sounds utterly ridiculous when you think about it: One drink from a cup and—poof— Lewis is a Shadowhunter?”
    “It doesn’t sound ridiculous to me,” Julie said softly, and they all fell silent. Julie’s mother had been Turned during the Dark War. One drink from Sebastian’s Infernal Cup, and she’d become Endarkened. A shell of a person, nothing more than a hollow vessel for Sebastian’s evil commands.
    They all knew what one drink from a cup could do.
    George cleared his throat. He couldn’t stand a somber mood for more than thirty seconds—it was one of the things Simon would miss most about living with him. “Well, I for one am entirely ready to claim my birthright,” he said cheerfully. “Do you think I’ll become unbearably arrogant on first sip, or will it take a little time to catch up with Jon?”
    “It’s not arrogance if it’s accurate,” Jon said, grinning, and just like that, the night righted itself again.
    Simon tried to pay attention to his friends’ banter and did his best not to think about Jon’s question, about whether or not he was nervous—whether he should be spending