Nothing But Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

to be expelled, Mr. Fairchild?” thundered one teacher.
    â€œDo what you feel you must,” said Matthew, folding his hands and smiling like a cherub.
    Matthew did not get expelled. Nobody seemed quite sure what to do with him. His teachers began calling in sick out of despair.
    He did only half the work and insulted everyone in the Academy on a daily basis, and he remained absurdly popular. Thomas and Christopher could not be pried away from him. He wandered the halls surrounded by adoring throngs who wanted to hear another amusing anecdote. His and James’s room was always completely crowded.
    James spent a good deal of time in the stairwells. He spent even more time being called Goatface Herondale.
    â€œYou know,” Thomas said shyly once, when James had not managed to escape his own room fast enough, “you could pal around with us a little more.”
    â€œI could?” James asked, and tried not to sound too hopeful. “I’d . . . like to see more of you and Christopher.”
    â€œAnd Matthew,” Thomas said.
    James shook his head silently.
    â€œMatthew’s one of my best friends,” Thomas said, almost pleadingly. “If you spent some time with him, I am sure you would come to like him.”
    James looked over at Matthew, who was sitting on his bed telling a story to eight people who were sitting on the floor and gazing up at him worshipfully. He met Matthew’s eyes, trained in his and Thomas’s direction, and looked away.
    â€œI feel I have to decline any more of Matthew’s company.”
    â€œIt makes you stand out, you know,” Thomas said. “Spending your time with the mundanes. I think it’s why the—the nickname for you has stuck. People are afraid of anybody who is different: It makes them worry everyone else is different too, and just pretending to be all the same.”
    James stared at him. “Are you saying I should avoid the mundanes? Because they are not as good as we are?”
    â€œNo, that’s not—” Thomas began, but James was too angry to let him finish.
    â€œThe mundanes can be heroes too,” James said. “You should know that better than I. Your mother was a mundane! My father told me about all she did before she Ascended. Everyone here knows people who were mundanes. Why should we isolate people who are brave enough to try to become like us—who want to help people? Why should we treat them as if they’re less than us, until they prove their worthiness or die? I won’t do it.”
    Aunt Sophie was just as good as any Shadowhunter, and she had been brave long before she Ascended. Aunt Sophie was Thomas’s mother. They should know this better than James did.
    â€œI didn’t mean it that way,” said Thomas. “I didn’t think of it that way.”
    It was as if people didn’t think at all, living in Idris.
    â€œMaybe your fathers don’t tell you stories like mine does,” James said.
    â€œMaybe not everyone listens to stories like you do,” Matthew said from across the room. “Not everyone learns.”
    James glanced at him. It was an unexpectedly nice thing for Matthew, of all people, to say.
    â€œI know a story,” Matthew went on. “Who wants to hear it?”
    â€œMe!” said the chorus from the floor.
    â€œMe!”
    â€œMe!”
    â€œNot me,” said James, and left the room.
    It was another reminder that Matthew had what James would have given anything for, that Matthew had friends and belonged here at the Academy, and Matthew did not care at all.
    Eventually there were so many teachers calling in with an acute overdose of Matthew Fairchild that Ragnor Fell was left to supervise the training courses. James wondered why he was the only one who could see this was absurd, and Matthew was ruining classes for everyone. Ragnor could do magic, and was not at all interested in war.
    Ragnor let Esme braid ribbons in her