Page 89 of Better in Black
“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 popculture 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 bigbut.
“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 shewantedhim 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’sparabatai,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.
