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The problem was that Simon did not know how to pack like a badass.

For a camping trip, sure; to stay at Eric’s or overnight at a weekend gig, fine; or to go on a vacation in the sun with his mom and Rebecca, no problem. Simon could throw together a jumble of suntan lotion and shorts, or appropriate band T-shirts and clean underwear, at a moment’s notice. Simon was prepared for normal life.

Which was why he was so completely unprepared to pack for going to an elite training ground where demon-fighting half-angel beings known as Shadowhunters would try to shape him into a member of their own warrior race.

In books and movies, people were either whisked away to a magical land in the clothes they were standing up in, or they glossed over the packing part entirely. Simon now felt he had been robbed of critical information by the media. Should he be putting the kitchen knives in his bag? Should he bring the toaster and rig it up as a weapon?

Simon did neither of those things. Instead, he went with the safe option: clean underwear and hilarious T-shirts. Shadowhunters had to love hilarious T-shirts, right? Everyone loved hilarious T-shirts.

“I don’t know how they feel about T-shirts with dirty jokes on them in military academy, sport,” said his mom.

Simon turned, too quickly, his heart lurching up into his throat. His mom was standing in the doorway, arms folded. Her always-worried face was crumpled slightly with extra worry, but mostly she was looking at him with love. As she always had.

Except that in a whole other set of memories Simon barely had access to, he’d become a vampire and she’d thrown him out of their house. That was one of the reasons Simon was going to the Shadowhunter Academy, why he’d lied to his mom through his teeth that he desperately wanted to go. He’d had Magnus Bane—a warlock with cat eyes; Simon actually knew a warlock with actual cat eyes—fake papers to convince her that he had a scholarship to this fictitious military academy.

He’d done it all so he would not have to look at his mom every day and remember how she had looked at him when she was afraid of him, when she hated him. When she betrayed him.

“I think I’ve judged my T-shirts pretty well,” Simon told her. “I’m a pretty judicious guy. Nothing too sassy for the military. Just good, solid class-clown material. Trust me.”

“I trust you, or I wouldn’t be letting you go,” said his mom. She walked over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek, and looked surprised and hurt when he flinched, but she did not comment, not on his last day. She put her arms around him instead. “I love you. Remember that.”

Simon knew he was being unfair: His mother had thrown him out thinking he was not really Simon anymore but an unholy monster wearing her son’s face. Yet he still felt she should have recognized him and loved him in spite of everything. He could not forget what she had done.

Even though she had forgotten it, even though as far as she or almost anybody else in the world was concerned, it had never happened.

So he had to go.

Simon tried to relax in her embrace. “I’ve got a lot on my plate,” he said, curling his hand around his mom’s arm. “But I’ll try to remember that.”

She pulled back. “So long as you do. You sure you’re okay getting a lift with your friends?”

She meant Simon’s Shadowhunting friends (who he pretended were the military academy buds who had inspired him to join up too). Simon’s Shadowhunting friends were the other reason he was going.

“I’m sure,” said Simon. “Bye, Mom. I love you.”

He meant it. He’d never stopped loving her, in this life or any other.

I love you unconditionally, his mom had said, once or twice, when he was younger. That’s how parents love. I love you no matter what.

People said things like that, without thinking of potential nightmare scenarios or horrific conditions, the whole world changing and love slipping away. None of them ever dreamed love would be tested, and fail.

Rebecca had sent him a card that said: GOOD LUCK, SOLDIER BOY! Simon remembered, even when he’d been locked out of his home, door barred to him in every way it could be, his sister’s arm around him and her soft voice in his ear. She had loved him, even then. So there was that. It was something, but it wasn’t enough.

He could not stay here, caught between two worlds and two sets of memories. He had to escape. He had to go and become a hero, the way he had been once. Then all of this would make sense, all of this would mean something. Surely it would not hurt anymore.

Simon paused before he shouldered his bag and departed for the Academy. He put his sister’s card in his pocket. He left home for a strange new life and carried her love with him, as he had once before.

*    *    *

Simon was meeting up with his friends, even though none of them were going to the Academy. He’d agreed he would come to the Institute and say good-bye before he left.

There was a time when he could have seen through glamours on his own, but Magnus had to help him do it now. Simon looked up at the strange, imposing bulk of the Institute, remembering uneasily that he had passed this place before and seen an abandoned building. That was another life, though. He remembered some kind of Bible passage about how children saw through smudged glass, but growing up meant you could view things clearly. He could see the Institute quite plainly: an impressive structure rising high above him. The sort of building designed to make humans feel like ants. Simon pushed open the filigreed gate, walked down the narrow path that snaked around the Institute, and crossed through to the grounds.

The walls that surrounded the Institute enclosed a garden that struggled to thrive given its proximity to a New York avenue. There were impressive stone paths and benches and even a statue of an angel that gave Simon nervous fits, since he was a Doctor Who fan. The angel wasn’t weeping, exactly, but it looked too depressed for Simon’s liking.

Sitting on the stone bench in the middle of the garden were Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood, a Shadowhunter who was tall and dark and fairly strong and silent, at least around Simon. Magnus was chatty, though, had the aforementioned cat eyes and magic powers, and was currently wearing a clinging T-shirt in a zebra-stripe pattern with pink accents. Magnus and Alec had been dating for some time; Simon guessed Magnus could talk for both of them.

Behind Magnus and Alec, leaning against a stone wall, were Isabelle and Clary. Isabelle was leaning against the garden wall, looking over it and into the distance. She looked as if she were in the middle of posing for an unbelievably glamorous photo shoot. Then again, she always did. It was her talent. Clary, however, was staring stubbornly up into Isabelle’s face and talking to her. Simon thought Clary would get her way and get Isabelle to pay attention to her eventually. That was her talent.