Pale Kings and Princes (Tales from Shadowhunter Academy 6)

"I was there," Simon said quietly. "Remember?"

"Of course I do. But you don't. So it's not the same. You're not . . ."

"The same," he finished for her.

"That's not what I meant, I just--"

"Trust me, Izzy. I get it. I'm not him. I'll never be him."

Isabelle made a noise halfway between a hiss and a yowl. "Would you drop it already with this old Simon/new Simon inferiority complex? It's getting old. Why don't you get a little creative and find a new excuse?"

"New excuse for what?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"For you not to be with me!" she yelled. "Because you're obviously looking for one. Try harder."

She stomped out of the store, slamming the door shut behind her. It dinged as it closed and not-Diana emerged from the back. "Oh, it's still just you," he said, sounding distinctly disappointed. "Have you decided?"

Simon could give up right now; he could stop trying, stop fighting, just let her go. That would be the easiest of decisions. All he'd have to do would be to let it happen.

"I decided a long time ago," Simon said, and ran out of the shop.

He needed to find Isabelle.

It wasn't much of a challenge. She was sitting on a small bench across the street, head in her hands.

Simon sat down beside her. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

She shook her head without lifting it from her hands. "I can't believe I was dumb enough to think this would work."

"It still can," he said with an embarrassing tinge of desperation. "I still want it to, if you--"

"No, not you and me, idiot." She finally looked up at him. Mercifully, her eyes were dry. In fact, she didn't look sad at all--she looked furious. "This stupid weapons-shopping idea. Last time I take dating advice from Jace."

"You let Jace plan our date?" Simon said, incredulous.

"Well, it's not like either of us was doing a very good job of it. He took Clary here to buy a sword, and it was this whole disgustingly sexy thing, and I just thought, maybe . . ."

Simon laughed in relief. "I hate to break it to you, but you're not dating Jace."

"Um, yeah. Disgusting."

"No, I mean, you're not dating a guy who's anything like Jace."

"I wasn't aware I was dating anyone at all," she said, frost in her voice. His heart caught in his throat like it was snagged on barbed wire. But then, ever so slightly, she melted. "Kidding. Mostly."

"Relieved," he said. "Mostly."

Isabelle sighed. "I'm sorry this was such a disaster."

"It's not all your fault."

"Well, obviously it's not all my fault," she said. "Not even mostly my fault."

"Uh . . . I thought we'd moved into the apologies portion of the day."

"Right. Sorry."

He grinned. "See, now you're talking."

"So, what now? Back to the Academy?"

"Are you kidding?" Simon stood up and extended a hand to her. Miracle of miracles, she took it. "We're not giving up until we get this right. But we're not going to get there pretending to be Jace and Clary. That's our whole problem, isn't it? Trying to be people we're not? I can't be some kind of cool, hipster nightclub hopper."

"I don't think there's any such thing as a 'nightclub hopper,'" Isabelle said wryly.

"This proves my point. And you're never going to be some kind of gamer who wants to stay up all night debating Naruto plot points and battling D&D orcs."

"Now you're just making up words."

"And neither of us is ever going to be Jace and Clary--"

"Thank God," they said, in sync, then exchanged a grin.

"So what are you suggesting?" Izzy asked.

"Something new," Simon said, mind racing to come up with an actual concrete, useful idea. He knew he was onto something, he just wasn't sure what. "Not your world, not my world. A new world, for just the two of us."

"Please tell me you don't want us to Portal to some other dimension. Because that didn't work out so well the last time."

Simon grinned, an idea dawning. "Maybe we can find a spot slightly closer to home. . . ."

*

As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, the clouds overhead blushed cotton-candy pink. Their reflections gleamed on the crystalline waters of Lake Lyn. The horses whinnied, the birds chirped, and Simon and Isabelle crunched their peanut brittle and popcorn. This, Simon thought, was the sound of happiness.

"You still haven't told me how you found this place," Isabelle said. "It's perfect."

Simon didn't want to admit that it was Jon Cartwright who'd told him about the isolated inlet on the edge of Lake Lyn, its hanging willows and rainbow of wildflowers making it the perfect spot for a romantic picnic. (Even when the picnic consisted of peanut brittle, popcorn, and the handful of other random teeth-decaying, artery-clogging snacks they'd grabbed on their way out of Alicante.) Simon, who had long ago grown tired of hearing about Jon's romantic exploits, had done his best to tune the jerk out. But apparently a few details had lodged in his subconscious. Enough, at least, to find the place.

Jon Cartwright was a blowhard and a buffoon--Simon would maintain this to his dying day.

But it turned out the guy had good taste in romantic date spots.

"Just stumbled on it," Simon mumbled. "Good luck, I guess."

Isabelle gazed out at the impossibly smooth water. "This place reminds me of Luke's farm," she said softly.

"Me too," he said. In that other life, the one he barely remembered, he and Clary had spent many long, happy days at Luke's summer house upstate, splashing in the lake, lying in the grass, naming the clouds.

Isabelle turned to him. Simon's jacket was spread out between them as an improvised picnic blanket. It was a small jacket--not very much distance for him to cross, if he wanted to reach her.

He'd never wanted anything more.

"I think about it a lot," Izzy said. "The farm, the lake."

"Why?"

Her voice softened. "Because that was where I almost lost you--where I was sure I would lose you. But I got you back."

Simon didn't know what to say.

"It doesn't even matter," she said, harder now. "Not like you even know what I'm talking about."

"I know what happened there." Namely, Simon had summoned the Angel Raziel--and the Angel had actually shown up.

He wished he could remember it; he would like to know how that felt, talking to an angel.

"Clary told you," she said flatly.

"Yeah." Isabelle was a little sensitive on the subject of Clary. She definitely didn't need to hear about all the time he'd had with Clary this summer, the long hours spent lying in Central Park, side by side, swapping stories of their past--Simon telling her what he remembered; Clary telling him what actually happened.

"But she wasn't even there," Isabelle said.

"She knows the important stuff."

Isabelle shook her head. She reached across the picnic blanket and rested a hand on Simon's knee. He worked very hard to hear her over the sudden buzzing in his ears. "If she wasn't there, she can't know how brave you were," Isabelle said. "She can't know how scared I was for you. That's the important stuff."

There was silence between them, then. But finally, it wasn't the awkward kind. It was the good kind, the kind where Simon could hear what Isabelle was saying without her having to say it, and where he could answer her in kind.

"What's it like?" she asked him. "Not remembering. Being a blank slate."

Her hand was still warm on his knee.

She'd never asked him that before. "It's not quite a blank slate," he explained, or tried to. "It's more like . . . double vision. Like I'm remembering two different things at the same time. Sometimes one seems more real, sometimes the other does. Sometimes everything is blurry. That's when I usually take some Advil, and a nap."

"But you're starting to remember things."

"Some things," he allowed. "Jordan. I remember a lot about Jordan. Caring about him. Losing--" Simon

swallowed hard. "Losing him. I remember my mom freaking out about me being a vampire. And some stuff before Clary's mom got kidnapped. The two of us being friends, before all of this started. Normal Brooklyn stuff." He stopped talking as he realized her face was clouding over.

"Of course you remember Clary."

"It's not like that," he said.

"Like what?"

Simon didn't think about it. He just did it.