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Simon was briefly startled and not sure why, until he dimly recalled that very few adult Shadowhunters had ever shown any signs of pleasure at having a vampire in their midst. Of course, she had no reason to hate him on sight now. She’d also seemed eager to meet Catarina, Simon thought; maybe she was all right. Or maybe she was just eager to have Catarina help her.
“Right,” said Catarina. “Well, what a surprise that the building left vacant after an upheaval decades ago isn’t ru
Everyone stared at Catarina.
“The inestimable tragedy, I meant,” Catarina amended, and smiled brightly. “Can one of the girls be spared to show Simon to his room?”
She seemed eager to get rid of Simon. She really did not like him. Simon could not think what he could possibly have done to her.
The dean stared at Catarina for a moment longer, and then snapped out of it. “Oh yes, yes, of course. Julie, would you please see to it? Put him in the tower room.”
Julie’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Yes, really. The first room as you enter the east wing,” the dean said, her voice strained, and turned back to Catarina. “Ms. Loss, I am once again most thankful you have arrived. Can you truly fix some of these irregularities?”
“There is a saying: It takes a Downworlder to clear up a Shadowhunter mess,” Catarina observed.
“I . . . hadn’t heard that saying,” said Dean Penhallow.
“How odd,” said Catarina, her voice fading as they walked away. “Downworlders say it often. Very often.”
Simon was left abandoned and staring at the remaining girl, Julie Beauvale. He’d liked the look of the other girl better. Julie was very pretty, but her face and nose and mouth were all oddly narrow, giving the impression that her entire head was pursed with disapproval.
“Simon, was it?” she asked, and her prepursed mouth seemed to purse further. “Follow me.”
She turned, her movements sharp as a drill sergeant’s, and Simon followed her slowly across the threshold of the Academy into an echoing hall with a vaulted ceiling. He tilted his head and tried to make out if the greenish cast of the ceiling was bad lighting from the stained-glass window or actual moss.
“Please keep up,” said Julie’s voice, floating from one of the six dark, small doorways cut into the stone wall. Its owner had already vanished, and Simon plunged into the darkness after her.
The darkness turned out to be only a dim stone stairway, which led up into a dim stone corridor. There was still hardly any light, because the windows were tiny slits in the stone. Simon remembered reading about windows like that, made so nobody could fire in at you but so you could fire arrows out.
Julie led him down one passage, down another, up a short flight of stairs, down still another passage, made her way through a small circular room, which was nice for a change but which led to yet another passage. All the dark, close stone and the fu
“So you’re a demon hunter,” said Simon, shifting his bag on his shoulders and hurrying after Julie. “What’s that like?”
“Shadowhunter, and that’s what you’re here to find out,” the girl told him, and then stopped at one of many doors, the wood stained oak with black iron fittings, the handle carved to look like an angel’s wing. She clasped the handle, and Simon saw that it must have been turned so often over the centuries that the details of the angel’s wing had been worn almost smooth.
Inside was a small stone room, containing two narrow beds—a suitcase open on one—with carved wooden bedposts, a diamond-paned window blurred with dust, and a large wardrobe tilted to one side as if missing a leg
There was also already a boy in there, standing on a stool. He revolved slowly on the stool to face them, regarding them from on high as if he were a statue on a plinth.
He did not look unlike a statue, if someone had dressed a statue up in jeans and a colorful red-and-yellow rugby shirt. The lines of his face were clean and statue-reminiscent, and he was broad-shouldered and athletic-looking, as most Shadowhunters were. Simon suspected the Angel did not choose the asthmatic or anyone who had ever gotten hit in the face by a volleyball in gym. The boy had a golden summer tan, dark brown eyes, and curly light-brown hair tumbling over his brow. The boy smiled at the sight of them, a dimple creasing one cheek.
Simon did not consider himself much of a judge of male beauty. But he heard a small sound behind him and glanced over his shoulder.
The small sound had been a sigh bursting in an irrepressible gust from Julie, who also, as Simon watched, performed a simultaneous sigh and slow, involuntary wriggle. Simon thought the siggle was probably an indication that this guy was something out of the ordinary when it came to looks.
Simon rolled his eyes. Apparently, all Shadowhunter dudes were underwear models, including his new roommate. His life was a joke.
Julie seemed occupied regarding the dude on the stool. Simon had several questions, like “who is that?” and “why is he on a stool?” but he didn’t want to be a bother.
“I’m really glad you guys are here. Now . . . don’t panic,” the guy on the stool whispered.
Julie backed up a step.
“What’s wrong with you?” Simon demanded. “Saying ‘don’t panic’ is guaranteed to make everyone panic! Be specific about the problem.”
“Okay, I get what you’re saying and you make a fair point,” continued the new boy. He had an accent, his voice light yet rumbling over certain syllables. Simon was fairly sure he was Scottish. “It’s just that I think there’s a demon possum in the wardrobe.”
“By the Angel!” said Julie.
Simon said: “That’s ridiculous.”
There was a sound from within the wardrobe. A dragging, grunting, hissing sound that raised the hairs on the back of Simon’s neck.
Quick as a flash and with Shadowhunter grace, Julie leaped onto the bed that did not have an open suitcase on it. Simon supposed that was his bed. The fact that he’d been here only two minutes and already had a girl hurling herself onto his bed would have been thrilling, except that of course she was fleeing infernal rodents.
“Do something, Simon!”
“Yes, Simon—are you Simon? Hi, Simon—please do something about the demonic possum,” said the guy on the stool.
“I’m sure it’s not a demonic possum.”
The sound of scuffling within the wardrobe was very loud, and Simon did not feel entirely sure. It did sound like there was something enormous lurking in there.
“I was born in the City of Glass,” said Julie. “I am a Shadowhunter and I can handle the demonic. But I was also raised in a nice house that was not infested with filthy wildlife!”
“Well, I’m from Brooklyn,” said Simon, “and not to bad-mouth my beloved city or call it a verminous garbage heap with good music or anything, but I know rodents. Also, I believe I was a rodent, but that was only for a little while—I don’t remember it clearly and I don’t want to discuss it. I think I can handle a possum . . . which again, I’m sure is not demonic.”
“I saw it and you guys didn’t!” exclaimed the guy on the stool. “I’m telling you, it was suspiciously large! Fiendishly large.”
There was another rustle, and some menacing snuffling. Simon sidled over to the open suitcase on the other bed. There were a lot more rugby shirts in there, but on top of them was something else.
“Is that a weapon?” Julie asked.
“Uh, no,” said Simon. “It’s a te
The Shadowhunters needed more extracurricular activities.