“Just the coffee.”

em worth the bother. “Just the coffee.”

With a shrug the waitress took his laminated menu and went to put his order in. Simon sat back against the hard

plastic diner chair and looked around. Veselka, a diner on the corner of Ninth Street and Second Avenue, was

one of his favorite places on the Lower East Side—an old neighborhood eatery papered with black-and-white

murals, where they let you sit all day as long as you ordered coffee at half-hour intervals. They also served what

had once been his favorite vegetarian pierogi and borscht, but those days were behind him now.

It was mid-October, and they’d just put their Halloween decorations up—a wobbly sign that said TRICK-ORBORSCHT! and a fake cardboard cutout vampire nicknamed Count Blintzula. Once upon a time Simon and Clary

had found the cheesy holiday decorations hilarious, but the Count, with his fake fangs and black cape, didn’t strike

Simon as quite so funny anymore.

Simon glanced toward the window. It was a brisk night, and the wind was blowing leaves across Second Avenue

like handfuls of thrown confetti. There was a girl walking down the street, a girl in a tight belted trench coat, with

long black hair that flew in the wind. People turned to watch her as she walked past. Simon had looked at girls like

that before in the past, idly wondering where they were going, who they were meeting. Not guys like him, he knew

that much.

Except this one was. The bell on the diner’s front door rang as the door opened, and Isabelle Lightwood came in.

She smiled when she saw Simon, and came toward him, shrugging off her coat and draping it over the back of the

chair before she sat down. Under the coat she was wearing one of what Clary called her “typical Isabelle outfits”: a

tight short velvet dress, fishnet stockings, and boots. There was a knife stuck into the top of her left boot that

Simon knew only he could see; still, everyone in the diner was watching as she sat down, flinging her hair back.

Whatever she was wearing, Isabelle drew attention like a fireworks display.

Beautiful Isabelle Lightwood. When Simon had met her, he’d assumed she’d have no time for a guy like him. He’d

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