Chapter 28
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Jace, ncing around the room,ughed. “Where’s
Isabelle?”
A rush of guilty concern hit ry. She’d forgotten
about Simon. She spun around, looking for the
familiar skinny shoulders and shock of dark hair. “I
don’t see him. Them, I mean.”
“There she is.” Alec spotted his sister and waved her
over, looking relieved. “Over here. And watch out for
the phouka.”
“Watch out for the phouka?” Jace repeated, ncing
toward a thin brown-skinned man in a green paisley
vest who eyed Isabelle thoughtfully as she walked by.
“He pinched me when I passed him earlier,” Alec said
stiffly. “In a highly personal area.”
“I hate to break it to you, but if he’s interested in your
highly personal areas, he probably isn’t interested in
your sister’s.”
“Not necessarily,” said Magnus. “Faeries aren’t
particr.”
Jace curled his lip scornfully in the warlock’s direction.
“You still here?”
Before Magnus could reply, Isabelle was on top of
them, looking pink-faced and blotchy and smelling
strongly of alcohol. “Jace! Alec! Where have you
been? I’ve been looking all over—”
“Where’s Simon?” ry interrupted.
Isabelle wobbled. “He’s a rat,” she said darkly.
“Did he do something to you?” Alec was full of
brotherly concern. “Did he touch you? If he tried
anything—”
“No, Alec,” Isabelle said irritably. “Not like that. He’s a
rat.”
“She’s drunk,” said Jace, beginning to turn away in
disgust.
“I’m not,” Isabelle said indignantly. “Well, maybe a
little, but that’s not the point. The point is, Simon
drank one of those blue drinks—I told him not to, but
he didn’t listen—and he turned into a rat.”
“A rat?” ry repeated incredulously. “You don’t mean
…”
“I mean a rat,” Isabelle said. “Little. Brown. Scaly tail.”
“The ve isn’t going to like this,” said Alec
dubiously. “I’m pretty sure turning mundanes into rats
is against the Law.”
“Technically she didn’t turn him into a rat,” Jace
pointed out. “The worst she could be used of is
negligence.”
“Who cares about the stupid Law?” ry screamed,
grabbing hold of Isabelle’s wrist. “My best friend is a
rat!”
“Ouch!” Isabelle tried to pull her wrist back. “Let go of
me!”
“Not until you tell me where he is.” She’d never
wanted to smack anyone as much as she wanted to
smack Isabelle right at that moment. “I can’t believe
you just left him—he’s probably terrified—”
“If he hasn’t been stepped on,” Jace pointed out
unhelpfully.
“I didn’t leave him. He ran under the bar,” Isabelle
protested, pointing. “Let go! You’re denting my
bracelet.”
“Bitch,” ry said savagely, and flung a surprised-
looking Isabelle’s hand back at her, hard. She didn’t
stop for a reaction; she was running toward the bar.
Dropping to her knees, she peered into the dark
space under it. In the moldy-smelling gloom, she
thought she could just detect a pair of glinting, beady
eyes.
“Simon?” she said, her voice choked. “Is that you?”
Simon-the-rat crept forward slightly, his whiskers
trembling. She could see the shape of his small
rounded ears, t against his head, and the sharp
point of his nose. She fought down a feeling of
revulsion—she’d never liked rats, with their yellowy
squared-off teeth all ready to bite. She wished he’d
been turned into a hamster.
“It’s me, ry,” she said slowly. “Are you okay?”
Jace and the others arrived behind her, Isabelle
looking more annoyed now than tearful. “Is he under
there?” Jace asked curiously.
ry, still on her hands and knees, nodded. “Shh.
You’ll frighten him off.” She pushed her fingers
gingerly under the edge of the bar, and wiggled them.
“Pleasee out, Simon. We’ll get Magnus to
reverse the spell. It’ll be okay.”
She heard a squeak, and the rat’s pink nose poked
out from beneath the bar. With an exmation of
relief, ry seized the rat in her hands. “Simon! You
understood me!”
The rat, huddled in the hollow of her palms, squeaked
glumly. Delighted, she hugged him to her chest. “Oh,
poor baby,” she crooned, almost as if he really were a
pet. “Poor Simon, it’ll be fine, I promise—”
“I wouldn’t feel too sorry for him,” Jace said. “That’s
probably the closest he’s ever gotten to second base.”
“Shut up !” ry red at Jace furiously, but she did
loosen her grip on the rat. His whiskers were
trembling, whether in anger or agitation or simple
terror, she couldn’t tell. “Get Magnus,” she said
sharply. “We have to turn him back.”
“Let’s not be hasty.” Jace was actually grinning, the
bastard. He reached toward Simon as if he meant to
pet him. “He’s cute like that. Look at his little pink
nose.”
Simon bared long yellow teeth at Jace and made a
snapping motion. Jace pulled his outstretched hand
back. “Izzy, go fetch our magnificent host.”
“Why me?” Isabelle looked petnt.
“Because it’s your fault the mundane’s a rat, idiot,” he
said, and ry was struck by how rarely any of them,
other than Isabelle, ever said Simon’s actual name.
“And we can’t leave him here.”
“You’d be happy to leave him if it weren’t for her,”
Isabelle said, managing to inject the single syble
word with enough venom to poison an elephant. She
stalked off, her skirt flouncing around her hips.
“I can’t believe she let you drink that blue drink,” ry
said to rat-Simon. “Now you see what you get for
being so shallow.”
Simon squeaked irritably. ry heard someone
chuckle and nced up to see Magnus leaning over
her. Isabelle stood behind him, her expression furious.
“Rattus norvegicus,” said Magnus, peering at Simon.
“Amon brown rat, nothing exotic.”
“I don’t care what kind of rat he is,” ry said crossly.
“I want him turned back.”
Magnus scratched his head thoughtfully, shedding
glitter. “No point,” he said.
“That’s what I said.” Jace looked pleased.
“NO POINT?” ry shouted, so loudly that Simon hid
his head under her thumb. “HOW CAN YOU SAY
THERE’s NO POINT?”
“Because he’ll turn back on his own in a few hours,”
said Magnus. “The effect of the cocktails is temporary.
No point working up a transformation spell; it’ll just
traumatize him. Too much magic is hard on
mundanes; their systems aren’t used to it.”
“I doubt his system is used to being a rat, either,”
ry pointed out. “You’re a warlock; can’t you just
reverse the spell?”
Magnus considered. “No,” he said.
Material ? N?velDrama.Org.
“You mean you won’t.”
“Not for free, darling, and you can’t afford me.”
“I can’t take a rat home on the subway either,” ry
said intively. “I’ll drop him, or one of the MTA police
will arrest me for transporting pests on the transit
system.” Simon chirped his annoyance. “Not that
you’re a pest, of course.”
A girl who had been shouting by the door was now
joined by six or seven others. The sound of angry
voices rose above the hum of the party and the
strains of the music. Magnus rolled his eyes. “Excuse
me,” he said, backing into the crowd, which closed
behind him instantly.
Isabelle, wobbling on her sandals, expelled a gusty
sigh. “So much for his help.”
“You know,” Alec said, “you could always put the rat in
your backpack.”
ry looked at him hard, but couldn’t find anything
wrong with the idea. It wasn’t as if she had a pocket
she could have tucked him in. Isabelle’s clothes didn’t
allow for pockets; they were too tight. ry was
amazed they allowed for Isabelle.
Shrugging off her pack, she found a hiding ce for
the small brown rat that had once been Simon,
nestled between her rolled-up sweater and her
sketchpad. He curled up atop her wallet, looking
reproachful. “I’m sorry,” she said miserably.
“Don’t bother,” Jace said. “Why mundanes always
insist on taking responsibility for things that aren’t their
fault is a mystery to me. You didn’t force that cocktail
down his idiotic throat.”
“If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have been here at
all,” ry said in a small voice.
“Don’t tter yourself. He came because of Isabelle.”
Angrily ry jerked the top of the bag closed and
stood up. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sick of this ce.”
The tight knot of shouting people by the door turned
out to be more vampires, easily recognizable by the
pallor of their skin and the dead ckness of their
hair. They must dye it, ry thought. They couldn’t
possibly all be naturally dark-haired; and besides,
some of them had blond eyebrows. They were loudly
comining about their vandalized motorbikes and
the fact that some of their friends were missing and
unounted for.
“They’re probably drunk and passed out somewhere,”
Magnus said, waving long white fingers in a bored
manner. “You know how you lot tend to turn into bats
and piles of dust when you’ve downed a few too many
Bloody Marys.”
“They mix their vodka with real blood,” Jace said in
ry’s ear.
The pressure of his breath made her shiver. “Yes, I
got that, thanks.”
“We can’t go around picking up every pile of dust in
the ce just in case it turns out to be Gregor in the
morning,” said a girl with a sulky mouth and painted-
on eyebrows.
“Gregor will be fine. I rarely sweep,” soothed Magnus.
“I’m happy to send any stragglers back to the hotel
come tomorrow—in a car with cked-out windows,
of course.”
“But what about our motorbikes?” said a thin boy
whose blond roots showed under his bad dye job. A
gold earring in the shape of a stake hung from his left
earlobe. “It’ll take hours to fix them.”
“You’ve got until sunrise,” said Magnus, temper visibly
fraying. “I suggest you get started.” He raised his
voice. “All right, that’s IT! Party’s over! Everybody out!”
He waved his arms, shedding glitter.
With a single loud twang the band ceased ying. A
drone of loudint rose from the partygoers, but
they moved obediently toward the doorway. None of
them stopped to thank Magnus for the party.
“Come on.” Jace pushed ry toward the exit. The
crowd was dense. She held her backpack in front of
her, hands wrapped protectively around it. Someone
bumped her shoulder, hard, and she yelped and
moved sideways, away from Jace. A hand brushed
her backpack. She looked up and saw the vampire
with the stake earring grinning at her. “Hey, pretty
thing,” he said. “What’s in the bag?”
“Holy water,” said Jace, reappearing beside her as if
he’d been conjured up like a genie. A sarcastic blond
genie with a bad attitude.
“Oooh, a Shadowhunter,” said the vampire. “Scary.”
With a wink he melted back into the crowd.
“Vampires are such prima donnas,” Magnus sighed
from the doorway. “Honestly, I don’t know why I have
these parties.”
“Because of your cat,” ry reminded him.
Magnus perked up. “That’s true. Chairman Meow
deserves my every effort.” He nced at her and the
tight knot of Shadowhunters just behind her. “You on
your way out?”
Jace nodded. “Don’t want to overstay our wee.”
“What wee?” Magnus asked. “I’d say it was a
pleasure to meet you, but it wasn’t. Not that you aren’t
all fairly charming, and as for you—” He dropped a
glittery wink at Alec, who looked astounded. “Call
me?”
Alec blushed and stuttered and probably would have
stood there all night if Jace hadn’t grasped his elbow
and hauled him toward the door, Isabelle at their
heels. ry was about to follow when she felt a light
tap on her arm; it was Magnus. “I have a message for
you,” he said. “From your mother.”
ry was so surprised she nearly dropped the pack.
“From my mother? You mean, she asked you to tell
me something?”
“Not exactly,” Magnus said. His feline eyes, slit by
their single vertical pupils like fissures in a green-gold
wall, were serious for once. “But I knew her in a way
that you didn’t. She did what she did to keep you out
of a world that she hated. Her whole existence, the
running, the hiding—the lies, as you called them—
were to keep you safe. Don’t waste her sacrifices by
risking your life. She wouldn’t want that.”
“She wouldn’t want me to save her?”
“Not if it meant putting yourself in danger.”
“But I’m the only person who cares what happens to
her—”
“No,” Magnus said. “You aren’t.”
ry blinked. “I don’t understand. Is there—Magnus,
if you know something—”
He cut her off with brutal precision. “And onest
thing.” His eyes flicked toward the door, through which
Jace, Alec, and Isabelle had disappeared. “Keep in
mind that when your mother fled from the Shadow
World, it wasn’t the monsters she was hiding from.
Not the warlocks, the wolf-men, the Fair Folk, not
even the demons themselves. It was them. It was the
Shadowhunters.”
They were waiting for her outside the warehouse.
Jace, hands in pockets, was leaning against the
stairway railing and watching as the vampires stalked
around their broken motorcycles, cursing and
swearing. He had a faint smile on his face. Alec and
Isabelle stood a little way off. Isabelle was wiping at
her eyes, and ry felt a wave of irrational anger—
Isabelle barely knew Simon. This wasn’t her disaster.
ry was the one who had the right to be carrying on,
not the Shadowhunter girl.
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