Outtake: Simon arrives in Alicante and meets Aline and Sebastian.
In
the original version of the story, Simon wound up in Idris as a result of
Jace’s trickery and not as an accident. I decided I didn’t like that—it made
Jace too manipulative and Clary too forgiving of his bad behavior—so I altered
it; this is, however, the original first scene in which Simon wakes up in
Alicante and meets Sebastian and Aline. Bonus: inclusion of Simon’s mysterious
last name.
“Where
are we?” Simon hissed through his teeth.
“Alicante,”
said Jace. “The City of Glass.” And, when Simon only stared at him, he added
with a touch of impatience: “We’re in Idris.” He leaned out the window a
little. “See,” he said, indicating the towers, “those are the demon towers. They’re
made of the same material our steles and seraph blades are made out of. It’s a
demon-repellent—”
“Why
have you taken me here?” Simon demanded, interrupting Jace’s lesson in local
geography.
Jace’s
eyes met his, and for a moment there was something in them—something almost
beseeching—and then Jace said, “You agreed. This is for Clary.”
“I
didn’t agree to anything!” Simon struck the window ledge with his fist. He’d
expected to it to hurt, but it didn’t; he still wasn’t used to his new
strength, and the blow left a dent in the stone. “Wait.” A thought occurred to
him. “Clary—you mean she’s here?” He whirled around as if half-expecting to see
her, but there was only the same stone room. “Where is she?”
Jace
pushed his hair back impatiently. “She’s not here—that’s just it. I traded her
for you.”
“You
what? What are you talking about? Why would anyone want me instead of Clary?”
“Search
me,” said Jace with a little of his old malice, “I certainly wouldn’t, but the
Clave is a little peculiar that way. They have their ways—”
“The
Clave?” Simon stared at Jace. “You brought me here because the Clave wanted
Clary, and you agreed to give them me instead?”
“I
know—bit of a dirty trick, wasn’t it?” remarked a light voice. Simon turned and
Isabelle Lightwood standing in the open doorway. She wore dark trousers and a
form-fitting white leather jacket against which her hair looked impossibly
black. Beside her was her brother, Alec, in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt
with a black runic mark scrawled across the front. “Jace didn’t tell us that
you didn’t know about it until we were already well through the Portal,”
Isabelle went on, ignoring the dirty look Alec was giving her. “Mom and Dad
were livid, but what can they do? The Clave is the Clave and Jace made a deal
with them. We couldn’t go back on it if we wanted to.”
“I
didn’t make a deal,” Simon said. He looked from Jace’s impassive face to
Isabelle—smiling as if this were all a game—to Alec, who looked at him out of
suspicious blue eyes and said nothing. “I didn’t agree to any of this.”
“You
did,” Jace said, “when you said you’d do anything for Clary. This is anything.”
Jace
was looking at him almost expectantly; Simon felt a spark of rage inside him
flicker and then die. “Fine.” He turned away from the window. “I did say I’d do
anything for Clary, and it’s true. But tell me one thing: why is it you want
Clary out of Idris so badly?”
“Oh,
I don’t care one way or the other,” Isabelle said airily, then saw Simon’s
expression and threw her hands up. “Sorry, you were asking Jace, weren’t you?”
“Isabelle,”
said Alec, in a voice like a groan.
Jace
just looked at Simon, steadily. For a moment, Simon thought he wasn’t going to
say anything at all. Finally, he sighed. “Look, Simon—”
“Is
that the vampire?” came a soft voice from the doorway.
A
slender teenage girl stood there, a tall, dark-haired boy beside her. The girl
was small-boned, with glossy black hair pulled back from her face, and a
mischievous expression. Her delicate chin narrowed into a point like a cat’s.
She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she was very striking.
The
boy beside her was more than striking. He was probably Jace’s height, but
seemed taller: he was broad-shouldered, with an elegant, restless face, all
sharp cheekbones and black eyes. There was something strangely familiar about
him, as if Simon had met him before, though he knew he never had. The black
inky swirls of Marks rose up from the collar of the boy’s shirt, and there was
a curving Mark on his face, just below his left eye, which surprised Simon—most
Shadowhunters were careful to keep Marks off their faces.
“Can
we see him?” the girl went on, moving into the room, the boy just behind her.
“I’ve never really been this close to a vampire before—not one I wasn’t
planning to kill. I can’t believe my parents let you bring him into the house.”
She looked Simon up and down as if she were taking his measurements. “He’s
cute, for a Downworlder.”
“You’ll
have to forgive Aline; she has the face of an angel and the manners of a Moloch
demon,” said the boy with a grin, coming forward. He held his hand out to
Simon. “I’m Sebastian. Sebastian Verlac.”
It
took Simon a moment to realize that the boy was offering his hand for Simon to
shake. Bemused, he shook it, and the same strange sensation passed over him
that he’d had before: the sense that this boy was someone he knew, someone
familiar. “I’m Simon. Simon Lewis.”
Sebastian
was still grinning. “And this is my cousin, Aline Penhallow. Aline—”
“I
don’t shake hands with Downworlders,” Aline said quickly, and went to stand by
Jace. “Really, Sebastian, you can be so bizarre sometimes.” She spoke with a
faint accent, Simon noticed—not British or Australian, something else. “They
don’t have souls, you know. Vampires.”
Sebastian’s
smile disappeared. “Aline—”
“It’s
true. That’s why they can’t see themselves in mirrors, or go in the sun—”
Very
deliberately, Simon stepped backward, into the patch of sunlight in front of
the window. He felt the sun hot on his back, his hair. His shadow was cast,
long and dark, across the floor, almost reaching Jace’s feet.
Aline
took a sharp breath, but said nothing. It was Sebastian who spoke, looking at
Simon with curious black eyes: “So it’s true,” he said. “The Lightwoods, said,
but I didn’t think—”
“That
we were telling the truth?” Jace said. “It’s true. That’s why the Clave’s so
curious about him. He’s unique.”
“I
kissed him once,” Isabelle said, to no one in particular.
Aline’s
eyebrows shot up. “They really do let you do whatever you want in New York,
don’t they?” she said, sounding half horrified and half envious. “I remember
the last time I saw you, Izzy, you wouldn’t even have considered—”
“The
last time we all saw each other, Izzy was eight,” Alec said. “Things change.
Now, are we all going to stand around in here for the rest of the day, or are
we going to go downstairs and find something to eat—which is what we were
discussing before Jace came up here to check on Simon, wasn’t it?”
“I
could eat,” Simon said, and grinned at Aline, wide enough to show his pointed
canines. She gave an appreciative shriek.
“Stop
that, Lewis,” Jace said. “Look, you can come downstairs with us if you promise
to behave.”
“Lewis?
You’re calling me by my last name now?”
“I
figured it was better than ‘vampire’,” Jace said as they all began to file out
of the room, and Simon had to agree that on the whole, this was true.
