The Lost Herondale

Every decision you make, makes you. Never let other people choose who you’re going to be.

Every student, Shadowhunter and mundane alike, knew the name Herondale. It was Jace’s last name. It was the name of heroes.

Like all Herondales, his ability to love without measure, without end, was both his great gift and his great curse.

We are all what our pasts have made us,” Catarina said. “The accumulation of thousands of daily choices. We can change ourselves, but never erase what we’ve been.

All of us lost something. Some of us lost everything.

Isabelle. It was always Isabelle.

She was like an avenging angel, her vengeance swift and deadly.

The Herondales are a rather infamous line, as you probably know. Many of them heroes, some of them traitors, so many of them brash, wild creatures consumed by their passions, whether it be love or hate.

You couldn't know how much going away had changed you until you tried to go home.

For the first time, he looked at her, and she wasn’t a stranger, she was Clary—his friend. His family. The girl he’d sworn always to protect. The girl he loved as fiercely as he loved himself.

Simon bristled. She wasn’t his Isabelle, not anymore. He wondered if she ever truly had been. Isabelle didn’t seem like the type of girl to belong to someone. It was one of the things he liked best about her.

We want you to tell us about vampires." Simon grinned. "What do you want to know? Scariest is Eli in Let the Right One In, cheesiest is late-era Lestat, most underrated is David Bowie in The Hunger. Sexiest is definitely Drusilla, though if you ask a girl, she'll probably say Damon Salvatore or Edward Cullen. But..." he shrugged, "You know girls." Julie's and Beatriz's eyes were wide. "I didn't think you'd know so many!" Beatriz exclaimed. "Are they... are they your friends?" "Oh, sure, Count Dracula and I are like this," Simon said, crossing his fingers to demonstrate. "Also Count Chocula. Oh, and my BFF Count Blintzula. He's a real charmer...." He trailed off as he realized no one else was laughing. In fact, no one seemed to realize he was joking. "They're from TV," he prompted them. "Or, uh, cereal." "What's he talking about?" Julie asked Jon, perfect nose wrinkling up in confusion. "Who cares?" Jon said.

Tobias loved her more than he’d loved anything—his family, his duty, even himself. There, perhaps, the Herondale blood ran true.

You were a Downworlder once. That will always be a part of you. Even if you forget, they never will.

The Law is hard, but it's the Law," Simon added in disgust. "So freaking what? If the Law is wrong, why not change it? Do you know what the world would look like if we were still following the laws made up back in the Dark Ages?" "You know who else used to talk like that?" Jon asked ominously. "Let me guess: Valentine." Simon scowled. "Because apparently in all of Shadowhunter history only one guy has bothered to ask any questions.

Divided we stand,' Simon thought, his stubborn biceps refusing to bulge. 'United we do push-ups.

Be a hero, Simon," Simon muttered bitterly, remembering the life Magnus Bane had dangled before him in their first meeting - or at least, the first one Simon could remember. "Have an adventure, Simon. How about, turn your life into one long agonizing gym class, Simon." "Dude, you're talking to yourself again.

That was the last cruel irony of Tobias’s life: that he doomed the woman he would have died to save.

Don’t worry, hero. If the vamp shows up, I’m here to protect you.” “Great, I can hide behind your massive ego.

I do my best to live by the rule of Law. But I make my own decisions. There’s always a higher law.” “You say that like it’s so easy to know what it is,” Simon said. “To be so sure of yourself, that you’re right, no matter what the Law says.” “It’s not easy,” Catarina corrected him. “It’s what it means to be alive. Remember what I said, Simon. Every decision you make, makes you. Never let other people choose who you’re going to be.

Remember, children, all the stories are true." Simon tried to wrap his head around the idea that there might, somewhere in Germany, be a large bean stalk with an angry giant at the top.

We are all what our pasts have made us. The accumulation of thousands of daily choices. We can change ourselves, but never erase what we've been. Forgetting those choices doesn't unmake them, Daylighter. You'd do well to remember that.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Simon Lewis had been convinced that all gym teachers were actually demons escaped from some hell dimension, nourishing themselves on the agonies of uncoordinated youth. Little did he know he'd been almost right.

When He'd told his mother he wanted to go to military school so he could though up, she'd given him a strange look. (Not as strange as if he'd said he wanted to go to demon-fighting school so he could drink from the Mortal Cup, Ascend to the ranks of Shadowhunter, and just maybe get back the memories that had been stolen from him in a nearby hell dimension, but close.)

I’m worried about Isabelle.” “I’m pretty sure Isabelle can take care of herself.” “You don’t know her, Simon. I mean, not anymore.

He who saves a single life, it is as if he has saved an entire world.

But even the strongest tree can have a weak branch.

The last guest lecturer to honor the students with her presence had been Isabelle Lightwood. And the 'lecture' had consisted of a stern and humiliating warning that every female in a ten-mile radius should keep her grubby littler hands off Simon's hot bod. Fortunately, the tall, dark-haired man who strode to the front of the classroom looked unlikely to have any interest in Simon or his bod.

Simon was still hoping that somewhere in the Sadowhunter manual was the secret of the Vulcan death grip. After all, as his instructors kept reminding them: All the stories are true.

There’s always a little wiggle room,” he’d told Simon, “a little space to figure these things out yourself.” He’d taught Simon to ask questions, to challenge authority, to understand and believe in rules before he followed them. There was a noble Jewish heritage of arguing, his father liked to say, even when it came to arguing with God.