City of Broken Hearts
Simon Lewis was used to feeling like he didn’t belong.
There was his time at the Shadowhunter Academy, when many of the students—not to mention many of the teachers—did their best to make him give up and go home.
There was, of course, his vampire era, when he was too dead for most Shadowhunters to want him around but too alive for the other vampires to trust him.
And, of course, there was high school and junior high before that, there was the school cafeteria and gym class and Jessie Karlish’s bat mitzvah…
suffice to say, Simon had a lot of practice being made to feel like he didn’t quite fit in.
It didn’t happen as much anymore—and when it did, Simon tried to take it as a compliment.
But this night, standing backstage at one of New York City’s hottest nightclubs, it was hard not to feel like the same gawky twelve-year-old who, after kissing Jessie Karlish at her bat mitzvah, tripped and fell face-first into the cake.
The Midnight Club was little more than a dark basement, but it seemed like every hipster in lower Manhattan was crammed inside for the Mortal Instruments concert.
Simon had arrived early, which was lucky, because the bouncer refused to believe that he was with the band.
If he hadn’t had Isabelle by his side—stunning, effortlessly cool, and carrying enough hidden weapons to slay a demon army—he might still be standing out in the cold.
“I don’t understand why we couldn’t just glamour ourselves and walk in,” Izzy complained, once they finally made it inside and into the greenroom. The rest of the band hadn’t arrived yet, so they had the space to themselves.
Simon didn’t know how to explain that his pride would not allow him to sneak into his own concert.
He had left the band when he went to Shadowhunter Academy, and now just subbed in for their bass player when he had a free night.
It was fun and he got to feel like a rock star for a while.
Rock stars didn’t sneak in the back door.
Or if they did, it was only to avoid the horde of screaming fans waiting for them in the front.
There was a grungy mirror in the greenroom, surrounded by wads of dried-up gum.
Simon eyed his dim reflection as he tuned his bass.
He was wearing his Shadowhunter gear, which he thought made him look a little punk rock.
He had muscles, and was covered in what looked, to the mundane eye, like cool tattoos.
He had a beautiful girlfriend. He was a musician, for Pete’s sake.
So how did the bouncer recognize that deep down, Simon was still deeply, fundamentally uncool?
Izzy told him he was imagining things. Simon was sure he was not.
But this was another thing he couldn’t explain to Izzy. Most of the time, he didn’t think about him and Izzy this way. She was his girlfriend. She was beautiful, yes, but she was also brilliant and fun and surprisingly quirky. They got each other’s jokes. They fit.
But sometimes, when he was low, his insecurities surfaced.
Old ghosts of a time when he had thought of the Shadowhunters as distant, almost magical beings, not people you could date.
And he was feeling particularly low tonight, for no real reason.
Not low, exactly, he thought—just strangely off, somehow.
“Forget about the bouncer.” Izzy had brought cupcakes for the band, and was laying them out now on the card table in the corner.
They were unusual flavors, as was par for the course with Isabelle’s cooking: mushroom, oyster, beet, and raisin.
“He was probably just jealous I get to hook up with the sexy bass player.”
“Ah, so the truth comes out; you only want me because I’m in a cool band,” Simon teased.
Izzy rolled her eyes. “If I wanted to date someone in a cool band, I’d be with that phouka who hit on me in Pandemonium last week.
” She kissed him. “Much as I love staying up all night in dark basements that smell like pee, pretending that Eric’s voice doesn’t sound like an angry cat, I think I could handle it if you decided it was time to hang up your bass for good. ”
“That’s good, since this might be my last show for a while.”
Izzy looked surprised. “Why?”
Simon gulped. He hadn’t meant to start this conversation here—it had just slipped out.
But maybe now was the time. Clary had been on him all week to tell Izzy the truth.
What are you so afraid will happen, she kept asking.
But she was his parabatai, not to mention his best friend.
She knew exactly what he was afraid of. She just thought he was being ridiculous.
Simon took a deep breath. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you—”
Izzy tensed. It made him sad, sometimes, thinking about how early she’d learned the lesson: Danger can come from anywhere, any time. Be prepared.
“It’s good news,” he added quickly.
“Then why is your face doing that thing?”
“What thing?”
“The thing where it seems like it’s trying to run away from your head.”
“I got a job offer,” Simon admitted.
“You have a job.”
Simon looked ruefully at his bass. “I don’t think you can call it a job if they pay you in pizza.”
“I meant Shadowhunter,” Izzy said. “You know, killing demons? That job you’ve worked so hard to get?” She spoke lightly, but there was worry in her dark eyes when she looked at him.
Just spit it out, Simon told himself.
So he did. He told her that he had been offered a job at the Scholomance, the advanced Shadowhunter school located high in the Carpathian Mountains. He would be teaching a new generation of recruiters how to find and train mundanes with the Sight. It was a prestigious job, definitely a promotion.
“That’s wonderful!” Izzy beamed. “Of course they want you to teach! You’re brilliant and you’re kind and you’re an amazing Shadowhunter. You’ll be great.” She flung her arms around him. “Should I start calling you Professor Lewis? That’s a little sexy, I guess, in an Indiana Jones kind of way.”
“You know I love it when you talk movie to me,” Simon said, laughing.
When he met her, Izzy had been ignorant of every pop culture landmark near and dear to his heart.
Now she’d seen them all—or at least, she’d seen the first twenty minutes.
At that point she usually fell asleep. Or pretended to.
“I haven’t officially taken the job yet,” Simon said.
“Why not?”
“Well…it would mean living at the Scholomance for the year.”
“Oh.” Izzy stiffened in his arms. “You couldn’t just Portal back and forth?”
“No.” This was the part he hadn’t been looking forward to telling her. “They think it’s important for instructors to be part of the culture of the school. To be available whenever students need them. They’d want me to live there. At the Scholomance.”
“I see,” she said, sounding very far away.
Simon took a deep breath. “I was thinking maybe you’d want to come with me?”
“To the Carpathians? For a whole year?”
“Yeah,” Simon said. “It would be an adventure. It could be fun, and I’m sure they could find you a job too. You’re such a great Shadowhunter, you could teach anything.”
“That’s a nice offer,” Izzy said slowly, looking troubled. It wasn’t exactly the reaction he’d been hoping for. It looked like the lead-up to a big but.
“But,” Izzy said. “My life is here. I can’t walk away for a whole year, especially now. I’m super involved in the Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance, and Alec needs me. I’d rather not be that far from any of my family, to be honest.”
“Right,” Simon said. “I understand that, too. So…do you want me to stay?”
“I’m definitely not saying that!” Izzy said quickly.
Oh.
Simon felt his cheeks burning. Not only did she not want to come with him—not only had she not even hesitated before rejecting the idea out of hand—but she didn’t even want him to stay? He felt like a total idiot.
“I mean, it’s an amazing opportunity,” she added. “You can’t pass it up.”
He examined her face, carefully, looking for the slightest hint that she didn’t wholly mean it. But there was nothing. Maybe she wanted him to be gone. But then, maybe he was being paranoid. He still felt like something was off, something was wrong, even.
But that didn’t stop the intrusive thoughts.
If Isabelle had changed her mind about the relationship, she couldn’t exactly dump him cold, could she?
Clary was inevitably going to be her sister-in-law and he was Clary’s parabatai, which meant he and Izzy would be awkwardly stuck in each other’s lives forever.
Maybe she’d just been waiting for an easy way to escape the relationship without too many hurt feelings, and he’d handed it to her.
You’re overthinking things, he told himself. And you’re probably just nervous, because you haven’t played in front of anyone in a while.
As if on cue, Eric, Kirk, and Matt waltzed into the greenroom. They looked like the Brooklyn hipsters they were, in torn vintage jeans and oversized shirts. They wore matching square glasses, even though none of them needed them, and Eric had dyed his hair purple.
If they sensed a tense atmosphere, they didn’t show it. They walked right past Simon and Izzy with the usual greetings, and launched themselves at the cupcakes on the table.
“Yum,” Kirk said, stuffing his face with a pink cupcake. “Beet.”
Simon glanced at Izzy, hoping to catch her eye, hoping she could read from his expression that he wanted to pick their conversation up again as soon as the gig was over.
But she seemed to be avoiding his gaze. With a smile plastered on her face, she wished the band luck, and headed out of the greenroom (“I have to go meet Clary”) without another glance at Simon.
—