Simon looked from Magnus, to Asmodeus, to Magnus again. He couldn't believe what he was seeing: Magnus, who had saved Alec after they had fought Abbadon, Magnus, who had cured Luke and Maia when they were dying of poison, Magnus, who had kept them all safe after Sebastian had taken Jace. He had done so much for them, had asked for so little in return. He had opened his heart, been dragged into all of this for no reason but that, and now he was going to die having done less than any of them to warrant it. He was going to die, and they could do nothing to prevent it.
No. He could do something. It was a scary thought, one that would have filled him with a cold sense of dread had he still been sensitive to temperature. He looked again at Magnus, crumpled in a heap, and Alec, standing in front of him as if he could protect him from Asmodeus. And he made his decision.
"No," he said forcefully, moving to stand alongside Alec. "He doesn't deserve this. I have immortality; take me instead."
He looked around the room. Alec, staring at him with a mixture of relief and horror, Magnus, for once completely speechless, Clary, staring at him, mouth open in shock, Jace, beside her, looking at him with something like grim admiration, and finally Isabelle, deathly pale, her dark eyes wider and more fearful than he had ever seen them. A single second passed.
Then the realization fully hit them. Isabelle was the first to react; she threw herself at him, only to find Jace standing in her path. She tried to push past him, but he was faster: he caught her wrist and, gaze still fixed on Simon, tried to pull her back, but she stood her ground.
"You can't!" she cried, trying desperately to break Jace's hold.
Simon shook his head. "I have to," he said simply. "There's no one else who can do this. It's the only way."
Isabelle fought furiously against her brother; her nails dug into his wrist, drawing blood. He winced but didn't let go.
"Let go of me!" she shouted. "Simon, there has to be another way. We could-"
"There isn't." They all turned to look at Magnus, who had pushed himself painfully into a standing position. "It has to be an immortal." He fixed his cat-like eyes on Simon. "But I have to agree with her; this isn't your problem. He's my father, I'm the one who should-"
"It's our fault you're here at all," Simon interrupted. "I can't let you die for us."
Magnus' gaze hardened. "I've had a long life; I've lived and laughed and loved countless times, whereas you have barely got to know this world." He gestured at the room around them. "All of this, the Shadow World, you didn't even know this existed until a few months ago. I've had centuries to-"
"But I haven't lived out a mortal life," Simon said. "Like you said, I've only been a vampire for a few months. I'll still be alive after I lose my immortality. I never even wanted immortality anyway-"
Magnus shook his head. "That isn't how it works. You're a vampire. You're essentially a corpse frozen in time. If time unfreezes…"
Simon looked at them all again. Suddenly the magnitude of the situation sank in. It wasn't just now about a selfless act. He now had to choose: he could keep Magnus alive, or he could save himself.
"What?" Clary shrieked. "Simon, you can't-"
"It's my choice to make," Simon shot back. He was beginning to tremble slightly; he hoped he was the only one who had noticed. "And this is my decision."
"No!" It was Isabelle speaking again. In one swift motion she broke free of Jace's hold- preoccupied with the discussion, he hadn't been paying attention to her. She raced over to him now, an expression of horror on her face. "You can't just give yourself up like this, I won't let you-"
"Izzy," Simon said quietly. She stopped speaking abruptly. "What would you do if it were me? If I were in danger, and you could save me?"
She looked at him. Her eyes, impossibly dark, were filled with worry. "Anything," she said. He could tell from a glance around the room that he was the only one who had heard.
Simon took her hand. It was shaking slightly. "Then you have to let me do the same."
Isabelle's eyes were sparkling- Isabelle, who never cried. "Aren't you scared?" she whispered.
He could have lied, could have laughed her concerns off. But he knew that she would have known, would have seen through any feeble attempt at cockiness or arrogance. And in any case, this was a time for truth. "Yes," he admitted. "But not for the first time. And if I hadn't done anything I was scared of, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be with you."
Izzy moved closer to him- she was really crying now, tears cascading silently down her cheeks. "Now, is this the part where we say goodbye?" she said.
Simon pulled her gently against him, his arms encircling her waist. "Not forever," he said, and kissed her. It wasn't like those they had shared the night before, or in Idris. It was a kiss of words that were never to be said, to amend for the time that they would lose. Simon slid his hand up her back, allowing it to move through her hair. He could feel tears on his face- whether they were Isabelle's or his own, he didn't know. Then the moment was over, and she was leaning back from him, an expression of regret on her face. Alec moved to stand beside her. He looked up at Simon as he passed, as if to say "Thank you for doing this." His jaw was set grimly.
"It is time," Asmodeus declared. "Come here, Daylighter. Your time is up."
Clary watched on, horrified, as Simon knelt before Magnus' father. His face was set, determined. Even if there had been another way, there was no stopping him now.
"Are you quite prepared, Daylighter?" Asmodeus asked. "Not that it matters, but I always try to be courteous."
"I'm prepared," Simon said. His hands were clenched into fists.
Asmodeus looked down at the figure kneeling before him. "This will hurt, I'm afraid." He didn't seem remotely bothered by it as he placed his hands on Simon's shoulders.
Simon jerked sideways, as if seized by an invisible pulling force. His eyes were shut, his face twisted in pain. Clary started towards him, but Magnus- she hadn't even seen him come over- stopped her. "This is how it is meant to be," he told her. His feline eyes were filled with pity.
A ring of light was starting to spread out from the centre of the room. Through it she could see Simon, hunched in the middle, an unearthly glow coming from his still body.
Jace came over to her. His face was urgent. "Don't look," he said.
The words were familiar to her- familiar and sickening. He had said the same thing back at Renwick's, months before, when Valentine had been about to kill Luke. "I can't just shut my eyes and pretend it's not happening," she said fiercely. "He's my best friend and he's dy-"
Jace pulled her away from the centre of the room. "Clary, I mean it, don't look-"
She realised suddenly what he meant: the glow was becoming unbearable, almost blinding. She averted her eyes as the flashing ring washed over them all, its light reflecting off the walls, casting long shadows around the room. She was aware of the sound of blowing wind. Then the light was gone, as quickly as it had come, and everything was quiet.
She turned to look at the centre of the room again. The window behind the thrones, she saw, the one that had shown Alicante, was whole again. So Asmodeus had kept his word. Her eyes were drawn, though, to the figure slumped in the centre of the room. As if in a dream she walked over to it, her heart contracting like a tortoise retreating into its shell. She was aware, dimly, of Magnus descending on him, and of Alec and Isabelle moving to meet him. Alec looked solemn, and Isabelle furious: she heard her start screaming at Magnus, something about how it was all his fault, how it was his father that had done this, how it had been his idea to bring him here, and Magnus retorting that it had been Simon's decision to give himself up, that they should respect it. This, it seemed, only enraged Isabelle more.
"Why, though?" she shouted. "Why did he have to do it? Because of you, because you were too scared, and now he's-"
Her voice caught on the word dead. Magnus looked on helplessly as she started to cry again. In an instant Alec was there to comfort her. Slowly she made her way to Simon's prone form. Her heart felt as if it were slowly turning to ice. She remembered lying by the shore of Lake Lyn, watching as Jace's life bled away, and wanting nothing more than to be dead along with him. She could feel something similar overtaking her now. Slowly she sank to her knees beside Simon, pulling him into her lap. He looked peaceful enough to be sleeping; still, calm, unmoving.
Not unmoving. It couldn't have been, she must have imagined it. It had been her eyes playing tricks, or worse yet, a cruel illusion maintained by Asmodeus to give her false hope. It had surely been a false alarm. Then it happened again- an almost imperceptible flutter of eyelids- and all doubt left her mind. Almost without thought her hand moved from his head down to to his neck, searching, yearning, hoping…
And there it was: for the first time since she had held Simon, bloody and dying, on the steps of the Institute, for the first time in months, a pulse, tiny but there, beat in his throat.