Free Born to Endless Night by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan Page A

though he had nothing to gain from it. I tried to help him along, but that was all I could do, and I could only hope it would be enough. One by one, the students followed his lead and started to fall from strictly Nephilim ways, like a set of rebellious dominoes. George Lovelace moved to the dregs dormitory with Simon. Beatriz Velez Mendoza and Julie Beauvale sat with them at mealtimes. Marisol Rojas Garza and Sunil Sadasivan started fighting with the elite kids at every opportunity. The two streams became a group, became a team—even Jonathan Cartwright. It was not all Simon. These are children who know Shadowhunters fought side by side with Downworlders when Valentine attacked Alicante. These are children who saw Dean Penhallow welcome me to their Academy. They are the children of a changing world. But I think they needed Simon here, to be their catalyst.”
    “And you here, to be their teacher,” said Magnus. “Do you think you have found a new vocation in teaching?”
    He gazed down at her, slim and sky blue in their friend’s old stone-and-green room. She made a terrible face.
    “Hell no,” said Catarina Loss. “The only thing more terrible than the food are all the horrible, whiny teenagers. I’ll see Simon safely Ascended and then I am out of here, back to my hospital, where there are easy problems to deal with like gangrene. Ragnor must have been crazy.”
    Magnus lifted Catarina’s hand, which he was still holding, to his lips. “Ragnor would have been proud.”
    “Oh, stop it,” said Catarina, shoving him. “You’re so mushy since you fell in love. And now you’re going to be even worse, because you have a baby . I remember what it was like. They’re so small, and you put so much hope into them.”
    Magnus glanced at her, startled. She almost never mentioned the child she had raised, Tobias Herondale’s child. Partly because it was not safe: It was not a secret the Nephilim could ever know, not a sin they would ever forgive. Partly, Magnus had always suspected, Catarina did not speak of him because it hurt too much.
    Catarina caught the glance. “I told Simon about him,” she said. “My boy.”
    “You must really trust Simon,” Magnus said slowly.
    “Do you know?” said Catarina. “I really do. Here, take these. I want you to have them. I’m done with them.”
    She picked up the old coin on the desk and put it in Magnus’s palm, in the hand that already held Raphael’s letter to Ragnor. Magnus looked at the coin and the letter.
    “Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure,” said Catarina. “I read the letter a lot during my first year in the Academy, to remind myself what I was doing here and what Ragnor would have wanted. I’ve honored my friend. I’ve almost completed my task. You take them.”
    Magnus tucked away the letter and the good-luck charm, sent by one of his dead friends to another.
    He and Catarina walked out of Ragnor’s room together. Catarina said she was going to eat dinner, which Magnus thought was extremely reckless of her.
    “Can’t you do something safe and soothing, like bungee jumping?” he asked, but she insisted. He dropped a kiss on her cheek. “Come by the attics later. The Lightwoods will be there, so I need protection. We’ll have a party.”
    He turned and left her, unwilling to enter the dining hall and behold the slime lasagna again. As he made his way up the stairs, he met Simon on his way down.
    Magnus looked at Simon consideringly. Simon seemed alarmed by this.
    “Come with me, Simon Lewis,” Magnus commanded. “Let’s have a chat.”
    *    *    *
    Simon stood at the top of one of the towers in Shadowhunter Academy with Magnus Bane, looking out at the gathering twilight and feeling vaguely uneasy.
    “I could swear this tower used to be crooked.”
    “Huh,” said Magnus. “Perception’s a funny thing.”
    Simon was just not sure what Magnus wanted. He liked Magnus. He’d just never had a heart-to-heart with Magnus, and now Magnus was