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care mingled with the chill. James shuddered away from the Silent Brother and clung to Uncle Jem at the same time, face wet with tears, fists clutching his robes.
    This was his mother’s heritage, was what came from mingling the blood of a Shadowhunter with that of a demon, and then with a Shadowhunter again. They had all thought because James’s skin could bear Marks that James was a Shadowhunter and nothing else, that the blood of the Angel had burned away all else.
    It had not. Even the blood of the Angel could not burn away a shadow. James could perform this strange warlock trick, a trick no warlock Uncle Jem knew could perform. He could transform into a shadow. He could make himself something that was not flesh or blood—certainly not the blood of the Angel.
    â€œWhat—what am I?” James gasped out, his throat raw with sobs.
    You are James Herondale, said Uncle Jem. As you always were. Part your mother, part your father, part yourself. I would not change any part of you if I could.
    James would. He would have burned away this part of himself, wrenched it out, done anything he could to be rid of it. He was meant to be a Shadowhunter, he had always known he was, but would any Shadowhunter fight alongside him, with this horror about him revealed?
    â€œAm I—are they throwing me out of school?” he whispered in Uncle Jem’s ear.
    No, said Uncle Jem. A feeling of sorrow and anger touched James and then was pulled back. But James, I do think you should leave. They are afraid that you will—contaminate the purity of their children. They wish to banish you to where the mundane children live. They apparently do not care what happens to the mundane students, and care even less what happens to you. Go home, James. I will bring you home now if you wish it.
    James wanted to go home. He wanted it more than he could remember wanting anything, with an ache that made him feel as if every bone in his body were broken and could not be put back together until he was home. He was loved there, safe there. He would be instantly surrounded in affection and warmth.
    Except . . .
    â€œHow would my mother feel,” James whispered, “if she knew I had been sent home because of—she’ll think it’s because of her.”
    His mother, with her grave gray eyes and her flower-tender face, as quiet as James and yet as ready with words as Father. James might be a stain upon the world, might be something that would contaminate good Shadowhunter children. He was ready to believe it. But not Mother. Mother was kind, Mother was lovely and loving, Mother was a wish come true and a blessing on the earth.
    James could not bear to think how Mother would feel if she thought she had hurt him in any way. If he could get through the Academy, if he could make her believe there was no real difference to him, that would spare her pain.
    He wanted to go home. He did not want to face anybody at the Academy. He was a coward. But he was not enough of a coward that he would run away from his own suffering, and let his mother suffer for him.
    You are not a coward at all, said Uncle Jem. I remember a time, when I was still James Carstairs, when your mother learned—as she thought then—that she could not have children. She was so hurt by that. She thought herself so changed, from all she had thought she was. I told her the right man would not care, and of course your father, the best of men, the only one fit for her, did not. I did not tell her . . . I was a boy and did not know how to tell her, how her courage in bearing uncertainty of her very self touched me. She doubted herself, but I could never doubt her. I could never doubt you now. I see the same courage in you now, as I saw in her then.
    James wept, scrubbing his face against Uncle Jem’s robes as if he were littler than Lucie. He knew Mother was brave, but surely courage did not feel like this; he had thought it would be something fine, not a