Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan Page B

go to the Academy. It was opening its doors for the first time in decades to welcome trainees who could restore the Shadowhunters’ ranks that the recent war had decimated.
    Clary hadn’t liked the idea. Isabelle had said absolutely nothing on the subject, but Simon knew she hadn’t liked it either. Jace had argued that he was perfectly capable of training Simon in New York, had even offered to do it all himself and catch Simon up with Clary’s training. Simon had thought that was touching, and he and Jace must be closer than he actually remembered them being, but the awful truth was that he didn’t want to stay in New York.
    He didn’t want to stay around them . He didn’t think he could bear the constant expression on their faces—on Isabelle’s and Clary’s most of all—of disappointed expectation. Every time they saw him, they recognized him and knew him and expected things of him. And every time he came up blank. It was like watching someone digging where they knew they’d buried something precious, digging and digging and realizing that whatever it was—was gone. But they kept digging just the same, because the idea of losing it was so terrible and because maybe.
    Maybe.
    He was that lost treasure. He was that maybe. And he hated it. That was the secret he was trying to keep from them, the one he was always fearing he would betray.
    He just had to get through this one last good-bye, and then he would be away from them until he was better, until he was closer to the person they all actually wanted to see. Then they would not be disappointed in him, and he would not be strange to them. He would belong.
    Simon did not try to alert the whole group to his presence at once. Instead he sidled up to Jace.
    “Hey,” he said.
    “Oh,” Jace said carelessly, as if he hadn’t been waiting out here for the express purpose of seeing Simon off. He looked up, golden gaze casual, then looked away. “You.”
    Being too cool for school was Jace’s thing. Simon supposed he must have understood and been fond of it, once.
    “Hey, I figured I wasn’t going to get the chance to ask this again. You and me,” Simon said. “We’re pretty tight, aren’t we?”
    Jace looked at him for a moment, face very still, and then bounded to his feet and said: “Absolutely. We’re like this.” He crossed two of his fingers together. “Actually, we’re more like this.” He tried to cross them again. “We had a little bit of initial tension, as you may later recall, but that was all cleared up when you came to me and confessed that you were struggling with your feelings of intense jealousy over my—these were your words—stunning good looks and irresistible charm.”
    “Did I,” said Simon.
    Jace clapped him on the shoulder. “Yeah, buddy. I remember it clearly.”
    “Okay, whatever. The thing is . . . Alec’s always really quiet around me,” Simon said. “Is he just shy, or did I tick him off and I don’t remember it? I wouldn’t like to go away without trying to make things right.”
    Jace’s expression took on that peculiar stillness again. “I’m glad you asked me that,” he said finally. “There is something more going on. The girls didn’t want me to tell you, but the truth is—”
    “Jace, stop monopolizing Simon,” said Clary.
    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