Son of the Dawn, Page 4

  W and H. William Herondale. Will.

  The boy looked struck yet wary at the same time. There was a certain guardedness about him, as if he was suspicious of whatever Zachariah might say before he even had the chance to say it.

  "My father says--said--a parabatai can be a great weakness."

  Jonathan said the word weakness with horror. Zachariah wondered what a man who had drilled a boy to fight like that might have considered weakness.

  Brother Zachariah did not choose to insult an orphan boy's dead father, so he arranged his thoughts carefully. This boy was so alone. He remembered how precious that new link could be, especially when you had no other. It could be the last bridge that connected you to a lost life.

  He remembered traveling across the sea, having lost his family, not knowing that he was going to his best friend.

  I suppose they can be a weakness, he answered. It depends on who your parabatai is. I carved his initials here because I always fought best with him.

  Jonathan Wayland, the child who fought like a warrior angel, looked intrigued.

  "I think--my father was sorry he had a parabatai," he said. "Now I have to go and live with the man my father was sorry about. I don't want to be weak, and I don't want to be sorry. I want to be the best."

  If you pretend to feel nothing, the pretense may become true, said Jem. That would be a pity.

  His parabatai had tried to feel nothing, for a time. Except what he felt for Jem. It had almost destroyed him. And every day, Jem pretended to feel something, to be kind, to fix what was broken, to remember names and voices almost forgotten, and hoped that would become truth.

  The boy frowned. "Why would it be a pity?"

  We battle hardest when that which is dearer to us than our own lives is at stake, said Jem. A parabatai is both blade and shield. You belong together and to each other not because you are the same but because your different shapes fit together to be a greater whole, a greater warrior for a higher purpose. I always believed we were not merely at our best together, but beyond the best either of us could be apart.

  A slow smile broke across the boy's face, like sunrise bursting as a bright surprise upon the water.

  "I'd like that," said Jonathan Wayland, adding quickly: "To be a great warrior."

  He flung his head back in a sudden, hasty assumption of arrogance, as if he and Jem might both have imagined he meant that he would like to belong to someone.

  This boy, hell-bent on fighting rather than finding a family. The Lightwoods guarding against a vampire, when they could have extended some trust. The vampire, holding every friend at bay. All of them had their wounds, but Brother Zachariah could not help resenting them, for even the privilege of feeling hurt.

  All these people were struggling not to feel, trying to freeze their hearts inside their chests until the cold fractured and broke them. While Jem would have given every cold tomorrow he had for one more day with a warm heart, to love them as he once had.

  Except Jonathan was a child, still trying to make a distant father proud even when death had made the distance between them impossible. Jem should be kind.

  Jem thought of the boy's speed, his fearless strike with an unfamiliar weapon on a strange and bloody night.

  I'm sure you will be a great warrior, said Jem.

  Jonathan Wayland ducked his shaggy golden head to hide the faint color in his cheeks.

  The boy's forlornness made Jem recall too vividly the night he had carved those initials into his staff, a long, cold night with all the icy strangeness of the Silent Brothers new in his head. He had not wanted to die, but he would have chosen death rather than the awful severing from love and warmth. If only he could have had a death in Tessa's arms, holding Will's hand. He had been robbed of his death.

  It seemed impossible to stay anything like human, in among the bones and endless dark.

  When the alien cacophony of the Silent Brothers threatened to engulf all that he had been, Jem held fast to his lifelines. There had been none stronger than that one, and only one other so strong. His parabatai's name had been a shout into the abyss, a cry that always received an answer. Even in the Silent City, even with the silent howl insisting that Jem's life was no longer his own but a shared life. No longer my thoughts, but our thoughts. No longer my will, but our will.

  He would not accept that parting. My Will. Those words meant something different to Jem than to anyone else, meant: my defiance against encroaching dark. My rebellion. Mine, forever.

  Jonathan scuffed his shoe against the deck and peered up at Jem, and Jem realized he was trying to see Brother Zachariah's face beneath the hood. Jem drew the hood, and the shadows, close. Even though he had been rebuffed, Jonathan Wayland offered him a small smile.

  Jem had not looked for any kindness from this hurt child. It made Brother Zachariah think that Jonathan Wayland might grow up to be more than a great warrior.

  Maybe Jonathan would have a parabatai one day, to teach him the kind of man he wanted to be.

  This is the link stronger than any magic, Jem had told himself that night, knife in hand, cutting deep. This is the bond I chose.

  He had made his mark. He had taken the name Zachariah, which meant remember. Remember him, Jem willed himself. Remember them. Remember why. Remember the only answer to the only question. Do not forget.

  When he looked again, Jonathan Wayland was gone. He wished he could thank the child, for helping him remember.

  Isabelle had never been to the New York Passenger Ship Terminal before. She was not very impressed. The terminal was like a glass and metal snake, and they had to sit in its belly and wait. The ships were like warehouses on the water, when Isabelle had been picturing a boat from Idris as like a pirate ship.

  It had been dark when they woke, and it was barely dawn now, and freezing. Alec was huddled in his hoodie against the wind blowing off the blue water, and Max was fussing at their mother, cranky about being up so early. Basically both her brothers were cranky, and Isabelle did not know what to expect.

  She saw her father walk down the gangway with a boy beside him. The dawn drew a line of thin gold over the water. The wind made little white capelets for every wave in the river and played with the gold locks of the boy's hair. The boy's back was straight and slim as a rapier. He was wearing dark, close clothes that looked almost like gear. And there was blood on them. He had actually been part of the fighting. Dad and Mom had not let her or Alec fight even one tiny demon yet!

  Isabelle turned to Alec, confident he would share her sense of deep betrayal at this unfairness, and found him staring at the new arrival with wide eyes as though beholding a revelation with the morning.

  "Wow," Alec breathed.

  "What about that vampire?" Isabelle demanded, outraged.

  Alec said: "What vampire?"

  Mom hushed them.

  Jonathan Wayland had gold hair and gold eyes, and those eyes had no depths but only shiny reflective surface, showing as little as if they were metal doors slammed down on a temple. He did not even smile as he came to a stop in front of them.

  Bring back that Silent Brother, was Isabelle's feeling.

  She looked to her mother, but Mom was staring at this new boy with an odd expression on her face.

  The boy was looking back at her. "I'm Jonathan," he told her intently.

  "Hello, Jonathan," said Isabelle's mother. "I am Maryse. It's nice to meet you."

  She reached out and touched the boy's hair. Jonathan flinched but held himself still, and Maryse smoothed back the shining gold waves the wind had ruffled.

  "I think we need to get you a haircut," Mom said.

  It was such a Mom thing to say, it made Isabelle smile at the same time as she rolled her eyes. Actually, the boy Jonathan did need a haircut. The ends of his hair were spilling over his collar, untidy as if whoever had cut it last--too long ago--had not cared enough to do a good job. He had the faint air of a stray animal, fur rough and one breath away from a snarl, though that did not m
ake sense for a kid.

  Mom winked. "Then you will be even more handsome."

  "Is that even possible?" Jonathan asked dryly.

  Alec laughed. Jonathan looked surprised, as if he had not noticed Alec before then. Isabelle did not think he had paid attention to any of them except her mother.

  "Say hello to Jonathan, kids," said Isabelle's dad.

  Max stared up at Jonathan in awe. He dropped his stuffed rabbit on the cement floor, shuffled forward, and hugged Jonathan's leg. Jonathan flinched again, though this time it was more of an instinctive rear back, until the genius figured out he was not being attacked by a two-year-old.

  "Hello, Jonathing," said Max, muffled into the material of Jonathan's trousers.

  Jonathan patted Max on the back, very tentatively.

  Isabelle's brothers were so not showing sibling solidarity on the issue of Jonathan Wayland. It was worse when they got home and made awkward small talk even though everybody really wanted to go back to bed.

  "Jonathing can sleep in my room because we love each other," Max proposed.

  "Jonathan has his own room. Say 'Sleep well, Jonathan,'" said Maryse. "You can see Jonathan after we've all had a little more rest."

  Isabelle went to her own room, but she was still buzzing with excitement and could not sleep. She was painting her toenails when she heard the tiny creak of a door down the hall.

  Isabelle leaped up, the toenails of one foot painted sparkly black and the other foot still encased in a fuzzy pink sock, and ran to the door. She edged it open a fraction and poked her head out, and caught Alec doing the same thing from his own room. They both watched the silhouette of Jonathan Wayland creeping down the corridor. Isabelle made a complicated series of gestures to determine whether Alec wanted to follow him together.

  Alec stared at her in total bafflement. Isabelle loved her big brother, but sometimes she despaired about their future demon-hunting endeavors. He was so bad at remembering her cool military-style signals.

  She gave up and they both hurried after Jonathan, who did not know the layout of the Institute and could only retrace his steps to the kitchen.

  Which was where they found him. Jonathan had his shirt pulled up, and he was dabbing a wet dishtowel along the red cut running up his side.

  "By the Angel," said Alec. "You're hurt. Why didn't you say?"

  Isabelle hit Alec in the arm for not being stealthy.

  Jonathan stared at them, guilt written across his face as if he had been stealing from the cookie jar rather than injured.

  "Don't tell your parents," he said.

  Alec left Isabelle's side and ran to Jonathan. He examined the cut, then shepherded Jonathan toward a stool, making him sit down. Isabelle was unsurprised. Alec always fussed when she or Max fell down.

  "It's shallow," Alec said after a moment, "but our parents really would want to know. Mom could put an iratze on--or something--"

  "No! It's better for your parents not to know it happened at all. It was just bad luck one of them got me. I'm a good fighter," Jonathan protested sharply.

  He was so vehement it was almost alarming. If he hadn't been ten years old, Isabelle would have thought he was worried they might send him away for being an inadequate soldier.

  "You're obviously great," said Alec. "You just need someone to have your back."

  He put his hand lightly on Jonathan's shoulder as he spoke. It was a small gesture Isabelle would not even have noted, except for the fact she had never seen Alec reach out like that to anyone who was not family and that Jonathan Wayland went perfectly still at his touch, as if he was afraid the tiniest movement would scare Alec away.

  "Does it hurt a lot?" Alec added sympathetically.

  "No," Jonathan Wayland whispered.

  Isabelle thought it was perfectly clear Jonathan Wayland would claim having his leg cut off did not hurt, but Alec was an honest soul.

  "Okay," said her brother. "Let me grab a few things from the infirmary. Let's deal with this together."

  Alec nodded in an encouraging fashion and went to fetch supplies from the infirmary, leaving Isabelle and this weird bleeding boy alone together.

  "So you and your brother seem ... really close," Jonathan said.

  Isabelle blinked. "Sure."

  What a concept, being close to your family. Isabelle refrained from being sarcastic, as Jonathan was both unwell and a guest.

  "So ... I guess you're going to be parabatai," Jonathan ventured.

  "Oh, no, I don't think so," said Isabelle. "Being parabatai is a little old-fashioned, isn't it? Besides, I don't like the idea of giving up my independence. Before I am my parents' daughter or my brothers' sister, I am my own. I'm already a lot of people's something. I don't need to be anyone else's anything, not for a long time. You know?"

  Jonathan smiled. He had a chipped tooth. Isabelle wondered how that had happened, and hoped it had been chipped in an awesome fight. "I don't know. I'm not really anyone's anything."

  Isabelle bit her lip. She had never realized before that she took feeling secure for granted.

  Jonathan had glanced at Isabelle as he spoke, but immediately after he returned to watching the door through which Alec had disappeared.

  Isabelle could not help observing that Jonathan Wayland had lived in their home for less than three hours, and he was already trying to lock down a parabatai.

  Then he slouched farther into his chair, resuming his too-cool-for-the-Institute attitude, and she forgot the thought in annoyance that Jonathan was such a show-off. She, Isabelle, was the only show-off this Institute needed.

  She and Jonathan stared each other down until Alec returned.

  "Oh--would you rather I put on the bandages or do you want to do it yourself?"

  Jonathan's face was opaque. "I can do it myself. I don't need anything."

  "Oh," Alec said unhappily.

  Isabelle could not tell if Jonathan's expressionless face was to ward them off or protect himself, but he was hurt. Alec was still shy with strangers, and Jonathan was a closed-off human being, so they were going to be awkward even though Isabelle could tell they both really liked each other. Isabelle sighed. Boys were hopeless, and she had to take charge of this situation.

  "Hold still, idiot," she ordered Jonathan, seized ointment from Alec's hands, and began to smear it over Jonathan's cut. "I am going to be a ministering angel."

  "Um," said Alec. "That's a lot of ointment."

  It did look a little like when you squeezed the center of the tube of toothpaste too hard, but Isabelle felt you did not get results without being willing to make a mess.

  "It's fine," said Jonathan quickly. "It's great. Thank you, Isabelle."

  Isabelle glanced up and grinned at him. Alec efficiently unwound a bandage. Having got them started, Isabelle stepped back. Her parents would object if she accidentally turned their guest into a mummy.

  "What's going on?" said Robert Lightwood's voice from the door. "Jonathan! You said you were not hurt."

  When Isabelle looked, she saw both her mom and dad standing at the threshold of the kitchen, arms folded and eyes narrowed. She imagined they would have objections to her and Alec playing doctor with the new kid. Strong objections.

  "We were just patching Jonathan up," Alec announced anxiously, ranging himself in front of Jonathan's stool. "No big deal."

  "It was my fault I got hurt," said Jonathan. "I know excuses are for incompetents. It won't happen again."

  "It won't?" asked her mother. "All warriors get wounded sometimes. Planning to run away and become a Silent Brother?"

  Jonathan Wayland shrugged. "I applied to the Iron Sisters, but they sent me a hurtful and sexist refusal."

  Everyone laughed. Jonathan looked briefly startled again, then pleased, before he shut away his expressions as if slamming a lid down on a treasure chest. Isabelle's mother was the one who went and attended to Jonathan's wound, while her father stayed by the door.

  "Jonathan?" Maryse remarked. "Does anyone ever cal
l you anything else?"

  "No," said Jonathan. "My father used to tell a joke about having another Jonathan, if I wasn't good enough."

  Isabelle did not think that was much of a joke.

  "I always think that naming one of our kids Jonathan is like the mundanes calling kids Jebediah," said Isabelle's mother.

  "John," said her father. "Mundanes often call their kids John."

  "Do they?" asked Maryse, and shrugged. "I could have sworn it was Jebediah."

  "My middle name is Christopher," said Jonathan. "You can--you can call me Christopher if you like."

  Maryse and Isabelle exchanged a speaking look. She and her mother had always been able to communicate like this. Isabelle thought it was because they were the only girls, and special to each other. She could not imagine her mother telling her anything she would not want to hear.

  "We're not going to rename you," said Mom sadly.

  Isabelle was not sure if her mother was sad that Jonathan thought they would do that, give him a different name as if he were a pet, or sad that he would have let them.

  What Isabelle was sure about was that her mother was watching Jonathan in the same way she had watched Max when he was still learning to walk, and there would be no more discussion of a trial period. Jonathan was obviously here to stay.

  "Maybe a nickname," Maryse proposed. "What would you think of Jace?"

  He was silent for a moment, observing Isabelle's mother carefully from the corner of his eye. At last he offered her a smile, faint and cool as the light in early morning, but growing warm with hope.

  Jonathan Wayland said: "I think Jace will work."

  As a boy was introduced to a family, and vampires slept cold but curled together in the hold of a ship, Brother Zachariah walked through a city not his own. The people hurrying by could not see him, but he saw the light in their eyes as if it had been made new. The blare of car horns and scream of tires from yellow cabs and the chatter of many voices in many tongues formed a long, living song. Brother Zachariah could not sing the song, but he could listen.

  This was not the first time this had happened to him, seeing a trace of what had been in what was. The coloring was entirely different. The boy did not really have anything to do with Will. Jem knew that. Jem--for in the moments he remembered Will, he was always Jem--was used to seeing his lost and dearest Shadowhunter in a thousand Shadowhunter faces and gestures, the turn of a head or the note of a voice. Never the beloved head, never the long-silent voice, but sometimes, more and more rarely, something close.