Debbnk

Jace—

I don’t know why I’m writing, I don’t know why I’m writing to you, I’m just sitting here trying to stay calm but all these thoughts are in my head repeating over and over and I need to put them down and send them somewhere. You said you would always be there if I needed to talk so hi, yes, hello, I need to talk. I can’t go to Jem and Tessa, they’re just as traumatized as I am, maybe more. And Emma and Julian were there and they were having such a good time, enjoying their house that was finally safe and pleasant and comfortable and then suddenly a baby is kidnapped right out of that safe and pleasant house without anybody noticing anything.

The truth is—I haven’t wanted to admit it, but the truth is Mina’s always been in danger. Because of me. Because I have some long-past faerie ancestors, so everyone close to me is in danger. Nothing I can do about it, nothing I did to deserve it. And it means Jem and Tessa, because they adopted me, because they love me, got their daughter kidnapped for their troubles.  

By the way, since you are someone I care about, you’re a member of the group of people I’ve put in danger. Sorry about that. But you’re Jace Herondale! You eat danger for breakfast. You eat danger flakes topped with perilberries. You’ll be fine. But Mina…she’s so little. And she’s never been away from her family before.

I keep telling myself they won’t hurt her. It’s not her they want. It’s something else.

Every indication is that she was grabbed by faeries. Most of Round Tom’s workers have left and we don’t know if one of them maybe did it, or helped whoever did it. Round Tom himself says he doesn’t know anything and is as confused as everyone else—never concerns himself with politics. Everyone is suspicious of him anyway, but, well, he can’t lie, and the sentence, “I had no knowledge of anything to do with your daughter’s kidnapping,” is hard to interpret any other way.

But it may not matter. If Mina was kidnapped by faeries…especially faeries under direct orders by one of the Courts…that’s a violation of the Accords. And that means war with Faerie. Another war with Faerie.

How do you live like this, man? How do you get through the day knowing that you endanger everyone, just by existing?

I guess I can answer that myself. You are who you are because of everything you’ve been through. You handle stuff because you’ve had to handle stuff. Jem and Tessa adopted me thinking they could keep me safe, but maybe nothing can keep me safe. I’ve been drifting along, playing happy families, but the truth is I have to change. Be harder. Stronger. More powerful. Be someone the bad guys should be afraid of. Not a kid who has to be protected. That has to end.

I’m not a kid anymore.

Anyway. I just realized that you know the whole situation already, because I’m sure Alec has filled you in. But it helps to write it down myself, like I said. I don’t think there’s anything you can do, and I’m not asking for help. I just thought of all people, you’d get it. That you could be someone for me to talk to about this. Hope it’s okay for you to be that for me.

Dear delectable muffin of love,

I hope this perfumed letter finds you well, and that you and R and M are having an excellent time in your exotic journey to…well, I believe the term you used was “upstate.” I have heard legends of this Upstate[JL1] , but never did I know that my family would see for themselves its mountains, its twee farm markets, its River of the Son of Hud.

More to the point, I hope the kids are enjoying their visit with Grandma, and I hope you are referring to Maryse as “Grandma” as often as possible because I enjoy the face she makes when we do. On a less pleasant but more urgent note, I hope you’ve had a chance to talk with Luke about the Cohort/Idris stuff.

But do not tire your beautiful hands with a written reply. I will be heading to this “Upstate” myself to join you later this afternoon, as I am relieved to report that the business with the Blackthorn kids’ cursed house is more or less resolved. Although it was touch and go, let me tell you.

I don’t think I even showed you the note Jem sent, which said, “Emma and Julian are trying not to bother you about their house, and that is very nice of them, but unlike them, I feel absolutely no compunction about bothering you, and so this is me, now, in this note, bothering you. We are in need of a warlock and you are the best one I know for this. We would all really appreciate your help.”

As is often the case, I was both mildly annoyed and mildly impressed with Jem, who managed to be both very kind and also to remind me that I am a sucker when it comes to him and Tessa and will rush to their aid when I can. Because I am a sucker when it comes to him and Tessa, I wrote back quickly saying I would come.

I know what you’re thinking: “How could Tessa need a warlock when she is a warlock?” But different warlocks have different expertises, as you know, and while Jem was flattering me that I was the best choice, the reality is that I have dealt with a lot more curses than Tessa. That’s what comes of spending the past decades hiring your services out to any miscreants who come by, instead of more intelligently living a calm life as a magic researcher in the Spiral Labyrinth. Tessa always was the smartest of us.

Anyway, I must give Emma and Julian credit. I expected to arrive and find them banging the cursed objects against one another or something, but they had set up a decent enough protective circle and even found a spell. It was an old, kind of generic spell that I have found to rarely be of much use with actual curses in the modern day, but still.

Rather stupidly I set up a basic workaday curse-breaking circle of my own, and gave it a try. “Stupidly” because I had forgotten who did the curse in the first place. Your worst ancestor, Benedict Lightwood, all-around demon enthusiast and dilettante necromancer. How in bed with demons was Benedict? He literally died of demon pox — which if you do not know, because you are beautifully pure, my Alec — is a sexually transmitted demon disease.

But I forgot that in the moment, so I was surprised when the curse put up an impressive resistance. It writhed and thrashed and struck out, like Max being lowered into a bath. The cursed objects were all glowing, kind of neon green, where they were tied to the magic, and eventually I realized I was going to have to carefully unknot each object from the curse, one at a time.

I managed the flask, the dagger, and one of the candlesticks (don’t ask me to explain how THAT happens), but after that I was stuck.

It’s not a great look for a warlock to strike a big magic pose and then nothing happens. I am sure I looked ridiculous, like a mundane magician who couldn’t understand why the rabbit wasn’t coming out of the hat. Julian and Emma are very polite and only waited patiently but I felt quite silly.

And then I lost all my focus temporarily because the door opened and Kit walked in. He sort of looked around at the scene and finally said, “Professor Plum in the library with the candlestick, I see.”

“Purple is always an appropriate color for a warlock,” I said. “It is the decorative color of magic.”

Emma, of course, said, “Your magic is blue,” because she is an inveterate smartass.

“Maybe he meant me,” said Julian. “I’m wearing a purple hoodie. Also because it is the decorative color of magic,” he added with a nod in my direction, which I appreciated.

“Maybe you could put the objects on a purple tablecloth instead of a white one,” Kit said, and while he was talking he walked out to get a closer look.

And when he got close to the circle, Alec, I felt the strangest sensation. A feeling of…power, I suppose, kind of humming in Kit. You know the way your body kind of vibrates when there’s a really really low sound? That rumbling feeling? It was like that, but silent. I’ve never had that experience any of the times I’ve seen Kit before. I could also tell that Kit didn’t feel anything unusual. Or if he did, he was surprisingly casual about it.

So I suggested he come join us around the circle and add his focus to the magic. “Especially since Jem and Tessa have snuck off somewhere rather than helping out with this round.”

“They’re out in the garden with Mina,” Kit said, a little defensively.

I redirected everyone’s attention to the objects and established a somewhat souped-up version of my go-to curse breaker. I went for the other candlestick and BANG. No resistance anymore! There was a big burst of blue and all the knots of magic tying the objects to the curse broke into pieces.

Everyone blinked a bunch. Eventually I said something like, “Well, that was more what I was hoping for. I guess four people made the difference.”

I checked. The curse seemed…gone. I was actually a little shaken. I haven’t mentioned it to Tessa and Jem, because I don’t want to make a big deal of it, but I think it worked because of Kit. Not because we needed a fourth person. Something is going on with him, some magic that is totally outside his awareness. I assume it has something to do with being a descendant of the First Heir, but I’ve never been an expert on that kind of faerie enchantment. (And do burn this letter, after you get it — very few of us know about Kit being the First Heir, and it’s best if we keep it that way.)

It makes me sad to think of it. Kit is a good kid who deserves a good, ordinary life. I know that’s what Jem and Tessa want for him, more than anything, after the chaos that was his growing up. But I am not sure he will have a choice in the matter. Fae may not let him choose.

Julian reached out and took hold of the flask. He held it for a moment, frowning.

“What?” said Emma.

“Nothing,” Julian said. He looked up at me. “Is that it? No more curse?”

“No more curse,” I said. “I hope.”

And then down from the ceiling drifted Rupert the Ghost. I never met Rupert Blackthorn when he was alive. I don’t know what to think of him. On the one hand, he seems to have been an innocent who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, a spirit trapped in a house he never lived in because of evil he never knew about while he lived. On the other hand, he met Tatiana Lightwood and thought that lady seems like marriage material, so there must have been something weird going on with him.

Rupert had been hovering and he descended until he was right above the table. He was staring at something on it.

“What is it, Rupert?” said Emma. “What are you looking at?”

Kit followed his gaze and started pushing the objects out of the way. “It’s the ring,” he said.

Emma said, “What ring?”

Indeed, what ring? There wasn’t a ring among the cursed objects. But there was a ring on the table now. Kit picked it up. It was a gold ring, etched with a design of thorns and set with a black stone.

“Blackthorn family ring?” Kit said.

“It’s not how family rings usually look,” Emma said.

“Wedding band?” said Kit.

“Shadowhunters don’t use wedding rings,” said Emma, but Julian had that thoughtful look he gets.

“I am bound here by a silver band,” he said softly.

“Shadowhunters can exchange wedding rings,” I said. “They just aren’t expected to. But they can if they want.”

Whatever it was, it was Rupert’s. He had followed Kit’s hand as it picked up the ring, and now he was reaching out for it with a thin ghostly hand. He wrapped it around the ring, which did absolutely nothing since he’s a ghost – Kit just kind of held it there for him. Then his eyes closed (Rupert’s, I mean) and he got this expression on his face of relief and gratitude and peace, and he just…faded out, right there. Just slowly vanished and was gone. No more Rupert. On to hopefully not being reunited with his wife, since she was also his jailer for over a hundred years.

“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Emma said quietly.

“That’s for the best,” I said. “He was never supposed to be here at all.”

“Well, Rupert, if you can hear me,” said Emma, “it was nice being haunted by you.”

“Five stars,” said Kit solemnly, putting the ring back on the table. “Would be haunted again.”

And all the candles went out in the room at once. Which, if it was Rupert, was a nice touch. Though it may have just been a draft.

We all filed out of the room quietly. “It’s different,” Julian said. He was looking around at the hallway. “I can feel it already.”

I could feel it as well. There was a lightness that had not been there. A kind of pleasant hominess that a good house conveys and that had always been absent from Blackthorn Hall in the time I’ve known it. It’s hard to describe, but all at once it felt like Julian and Emma’s home, in a way it hadn’t before. I’ve always known it as a forbidding place, and then as a hideous ruin, but for the first time I thought, this was a place the Blackthorns could fill with joy.

And I’m certain they will.

See you very soon, my love. I shall kiss you until a toddler forces us apart to pay attention to him. So plan for a kiss of about 30-60 seconds, based on previous experience. But I wish, as always, that it could be endless.

Love,

But.

Have we considered General Winter's debrief to Kieran when he next reports in?

"Boss, we've found the First Heir."

Kieran leans in, anxious. "Who is it? Where are they?"

"It's your brother-in-law's girlfriend's cousin's ward."

Once Kieran works out it's Kit, he's shooketh but ready to roll with it.

He drafts a letter immediately to Kit, inviting him to chat about his heritage (on neutral ground in London- Kieran is not such a fool to think that Kit would agree to go to the Unseelie Court, or that Jem and Tessa would allow that to happen).

...

The way we’ve seen so many faeries immediately know who Kit is upon first glance …

Would Kieran keep it to himself to protect Kit from that knowledge? Where his father sought to murder the First Heir, would he now perhaps be using his power as King to protect him?

But my immediate follow up question to this, and the one I also asked while reading the entry- exactly when did it suddenly become obvious to the Fae that Kit was the First Heir? Because Kieran and Kit interacted a few times TDA and there's a specific line where Kieran asks- "who are you?" and Kit replies "nobody"... that doesn't exactly scream that Kieran knew who he was.

Maybe after he pulled off the feat with the Riders? That his er- faerie power aura start to give off signals? Or is it more- as years have passed, Kit has grown into his features and looks more like Auraline's line than before?

Either way, I'd kill to be the fly on the Unseelie Court's wall after Winter returns to give Kieran an update. 👀

Ty,

I need someone to talk to and I don’t want it to be Julian or Emma. Or Jem or Tessa. So it’ll have to be you. Which means I can’t ever send this and you can’t ever read it. I’ll burn it in the garden when I’m done writing it so I’m not tempted to send it.

The gardens here are really excellent, by the way. I guess you know that since you’ve been here. There’s an old Georgian greenhouse, and a little pond with lilies and frogs and benches to watch them, and a walled garden, and it’s just very nice to walk around here with Mina. I never had a sister or brother before, you know that, but being with Mina makes me realize more about how you felt about Livvy. Still feel about Livvy I guess. I’m not saying I forgive you. Just maybe I understand more.

Blackthorn Hall is still being restored, of course, and there are faeries everywhere doing the restorations. They’re brownies, apparently, and even though they aren’t doing anything that interesting—weeding and carrying wheelbarrows of dirt and whatever—I can’t stop watching them. I have hardly seen any faeries at all since—well, since we were in that battle with them. I guess I didn’t realize how strictly I was being kept apart from them. Until now.

I should really stay away from them, because every time I get close enough for them to talk to me, they do something to freak me out. The head builder, this guy Round Tom— he’s not even that round, honestly — anyway the first time Round Tom saw me he did a little thing where he jumped in a circle and made some odd gestures in the air, and then bowed in my direction. I just turned around on my heel and walked off in the other direction like I had just remembered I forgot something.

And then General Winter, like Kieran’s General Winter, was there helping out—Julian says he’s there to keep all the workers in line since they are scared of General Winter but not Round Tom—and he knew I was the First Heir. Like the Riders did.

The Riders whose horses I made disappear. Or something. I don’t know if they ever came back. No one seems to know.

I tried to pretend I didn’t hear General Winter either but we were just out in the open and it would have been way too obvious. So when he addressed me as First Heir all I could think of to say was, “That’s me. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“If you’ve been told,” he said, “then it is true, since we do not lie.”

I wanted to say buddy, I worked at the Los Angeles Shadow Market for years. Faeries do all kinds of sketchy stuff. Instead I just said, “I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do about it.”

 General Winter watched me with this thoughtful look on his face, and said, “You need do nothing about it, yet. Indeed, at this moment that might be the wisest course of action. For things are strange in Faerie.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“There are disturbances,” he said slowly. “Rumors swirl about the Seelie Court. And Mother Hawthorn walks again.”

BEfore I could ask him what any of that meant, Round Tom came rushing over. “Cousins.” (I had forgotten faeries sometimes addressed each other like that, and it gave me a little shiver, like he was saying, you are one of us.) “I have found something. Please come with me.”

He led us around to one of the big plane trees. A little ways away from the trunk was a huge hole, and then on the other side of the tree were two sawhorses across which balanced a coffin.

At least I think it was a coffin. It was really busted up, half-rotted, cracked everywhere, caked in dirt. It was obviously the thing that had come out of the hole.

“A tomb?” said General Winter as we got closer, but Round Tom was shaking his head.

“We would not have disturbed a tomb,” said Round Tom. “But none lie buried here. Only magic, of a dark and powerful kind.” He stepped back. “Look inside.”

I came closer. There was indeed a bunch of random stuff inside the coffin. It looked like—well, you know how old Egyptian pharaohs were buried with all their belongings? It was like that, I assume for a Shadowhunter, except the belongings were a weird assortment. It was dirty and falling apart and mostly just junk—papers and little jars and bits of fabric and the hilt of a sword with no blade, that kind of thing.

“How old is it?” I said, and Round Tom reached it and fished out a liquor bottle. The label was pretty faded and ripped but it was a printed label, in a Victorian style. I wondered if Jem or Tessa would have any guess whose stuff it could be.

“You said there was magic here?” I said.

“Dark magic,” Round Tom said gravely. “Wild magic.”

“The curse?” said General Winter.

Round Tom’s expression cleared and he shrugged. “Perhaps not. It’s actually much less demonic in nature than the curse on the house. But emanating from the foot of an unremarkable tree it bore exploration. There are two items that might be of further interest.”

He cleared away some of the mess and revealed a scabbard. It was a very nice scabbard. Sorry, that doesn’t really capture it. A very very nice scabbard. It needed some cleaning up, but it was obviously beautiful and, I’m sure, valuable. It was steel but covered in gold inlay all over in the shape of leaves and birds. There were some runes on it, too, so it was definitely a Shadowhunter’s at some point.

“Nice,” I said.

“It is more than ‘nice,’” General Winter said. “It is clearly the work of Lady Melusine herself. See how it has not deteriorated at all?”

Round Tom looked important. “And yet it is the less interesting of the two pieces,” he said. With a great dramatic gesture that he had clearly practiced ahead of time, he pushed all of the junk to one side in the coffin, leaving—

“Is that…a gun?” I said.

“One of those mundane weapons, yes,” said Round Tom. He picked it up as though it might go off, though it was rusty and covered in dirt. It was a revolver. It didn’t look any different than revolvers from a million gangster movies, or Westerns—I guess if I were really sending this to Ty I would have to explain what a Western was.

Anyway the big difference was this gun was covered in etchings and runes and words and was obviously magic af. (Which means . . . oh, never mind what it means.)

“But Shadowhunters don’t use guns,” I said.

“They never have,” General Winter agreed. He picked up the gun with a surprising amount of familiarity, and sighted along it in the direction of a nearby tree. He tried to fire and it just clicked — the cylinder didn’t even turn.

“Rusted shut, probably,” said Tom. General Winter handed it to me to look at. I’m not good enough with runes to know any of the ones that were on it. I pointed it at the same tree, kind of as a joke, kind of just to feel how heavy it was, and pulled the trigger, and there was a huge BANG and a bunch of wood splinters exploded from the tree.

My arm kicked back from the force of the shot. And we all stared. My ears were buzzing, but I thought I heard Round Tom say something to General Winter. I’m pretty sure the words First Heir were in there.

Certainly when I looked at them again, at Round Tom and General Winter, their expressions were guarded. Closed.

“Perhaps we should take this item inside and see if the other Nephilim recognize anything about it,” General Winter said flatly.

 “I’m sure it just only works for Shadowhunters,” I told General Winter, but he just gave me kind of a troubled look and said nothing. “Anyway. I’ll bring it in.”

I could feel General Winter and Round Tom watching me as I ran across the lawn and into the house. Jem and Tessa were sitting on a couch in the drawing-room, watching Mina coloring with crayons on some butcher paper.

The moment I came in holding the gun both of them looked utterly shocked. Tessa got to her feet and moved between me and Mina. I told myself she was standing between the gun and Mina, but it still felt rotten.

“What—” said Jem, standing up, but he didn’t finish the sentence. He just stared at me, and the gun.

“Round Tom found it in the garden,” I said. “Is this a gun for Shadowhunters?” I could feel my voice getting tighter. “Shadowhunters don’t use guns.”

“Long ago, Christopher Lightwood tried to create a gun that Shadowhunters could fire,” said Tessa. She was still staring at the gun.

 “It was in a coffin,” I said. “With a bunch of other stuff. A broken sword, and a fancy scabbard.”

“I wondered what he did with it,” said Jem. He? Who was he?

Jem and Tessa exchanged a look.  “The gun belonged to my son James,” she said. I felt kind of sick. Tessa hardly ever talked about her children with Will. “He was the only one who could use it. It would not fire in anyone’s hands but his.”

“I fired it,” I said.

They both looked stunned, and not in a good way. 

“You are very special, Kit,” Jem said. “You are the First Heir. We don’t yet know the extent of how that power works in you.”

“Or perhaps it is just that he has faerie blood,” said Tessa.

I could have said that it definitely wasn’t just faerie blood because General Winter couldn’t use the gun and he doesn’t only have faerie blood, he has a full faerie body with faerie organs and everything. But I didn’t say anything. I just felt a weird feeling in my stomach. I said I would put the gun away and not use it, and Jem and Tessa seemed to feel that was the best thing I could do, and Mina piped up and said “Gun!” and then I felt like the worst person on earth.

So now it’s late and I’m up writing this letter to you that I am going to burn when I’m done, because I can’t sleep. Because I don’t want to be the only person in the world who can fire a magic gun. I don’t want General Winter to straighten up when I’m nearby like I outrank him. I don’t want any of this. I had five minutes where I got to think, oh neat, I found this cool-looking gun and I bet there’s a story behind it, I wonder if they’ll let me keep it or if it needs to go to a museum or something. And then I fired it and instantly—just another thing that’s weird about me.

Good night, Ty. I’ll never send this, and you’ll never read it.

Dear Bruce,

Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Will I keep writing to you when all these renovations are done? When things have returned to some form of normalcy? Or is normalcy over—is the crack in the Nephilim world one that can’t be healed but will only widen over time, with more and more changes, until finally there is too much change to bear? In which case I guess I will keep writing to you, Bruce, as a kind of silent witness to the strangeness of these times.

Sorry, sorry. I am feeling a little poetic tonight because Jem and Tessa and Kit and Mina arrived today and…well, that’s just kind of how Jem and Tessa talk. Being, you know. Way old. And because it feels like all this business with the cursed house is in its final chapters and I don’t have any idea how things are going to be after that.

In any event we didn’t do anything about the curse today, we just ended up visiting with the Carstairs-Herondales, who should definitely pick a shorter name we can use for them. Team Victorian Era? Team Time When Everything Was Very Romantic But It Took Forever To Get Anywhere? Hm. I guess I’ll ask them for ideas, since mine are, uh, bad.

There was some complication right when they arrived. We had picked out a couple of bedrooms for them to use and asked the brownies to make them up with sheets and towels and all that. And then we checked them before the guests arrived and I’m glad we did because the faeries had made up all the rooms for…birds? Like, for huge, person-sized birds. Big nests of sticks, six feet across, and branches to perch on. And big balls of birdseed hanging from the ceiling.  So we had to ask them to redo the rooms and the brownies looked so disappointed. (But we didn’t say the guests were birds! I have no idea why they thought that!) The worst part is they did a really nice job, like, if we were being visited by giant birds they would have been very comfortable. They still seemed puzzled when everyone did show up that Mina wasn’t a big egg. Faeries, man.

Speaking of Mina, who is not a big egg but rather a small toddler, she is extremely cute. She is walking now, or toddling, I guess, and she says “mama” and “dada” and also “kish” which apparently is what she calls Kit. And she has a little wooden toy stele that she is constantly trying to scribble on everyone with. Apparently Kit has been learning runes and Mina wants to learn them too.

We should have just gone straight into curse-breaking but to be honest we were just having a very nice time hanging out. Tessa and Jem are very easy to spend time with, which is nice given how high-strung most of our other friends are. I suppose once you’ve gone through all the stuff that has happened to them, it takes a lot to upset you. Just the way Jem talks about the curse makes me feel more reassured that we’ll be able to fix it, even though we don’t really know what we’re doing or what’s gone wrong so far.

They seem really impressed by the house, also, which makes Julian look all proud of himself in a highly adorable way. Tessa said the last time either of them were here was after Tatiana was arrested and sent to be an Iron Sister, and they were searching it for demon stuff. (Most of which, she admitted, they clearly didn’t find. It seems obvious from the way she talks that they didn’t understand how dangerous Tatiana really was until it was too late—I really want to ask her about that but it seemed a dark topic while we were all having a good time.) Jem said by that time it was already in pretty bad shape, but Tessa said she saw the house once “in its prime” at a ball, and then she blushed a little. Whatever happened during that ball must have been pretty impressive if she’s blushing about it 130 years later!

Of course there’s still that overall shroud of heavy memory that kind of hangs over the place, and no amount of new paint and replaced windows can help that. That’d be the curse, of course. Still, it felt cheerier this evening than it ever has before. For the first time I felt a little like it was our house and friends had come to visit and it was surprisingly nice and ordinary. As long as I don’t think about what’s going on with the Clave.

Also a concern: Kit. He was hanging out with us most of the day, but he was really quiet, for him, and a couple of times he excused himself to go take a walk in the garden. Julian said he thinks Kit broke up with his girlfriend and maybe he’s sad about that, but I don’t know. He was really jumpy whenever any of the builders were around, and kept a close eye on them anytime they were nearby. Round Tom introduced himself and Kit nodded, but he didn’t say his name or much of anything else. I mean, you can hardly blame him. His relationship to faeries, and Faerie itself, is complicated. According to Tessa, Cirenworth is very tightly warded against faerie incursions, and even the town and the roads nearby are protected. Magnus and Catarina made sure of it. So this would be one of the first times he’s been around faeries since the big battle outside Alicante; even though these faeries are safe, it must be weird for him.

But you know Kit. He has this aura about him like he doesn’t want to answer any questions about how he’s doing. Today he’s been out front, watching the faeries in the garden — it could be he’s worried about them, or maybe he wants to join them? I don’t know. Maybe Julian or I can get him to open up a little while he’s here. Or maybe I’ll get a moment to ask Jem or Tessa if they know what’s up.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now, Bruce. Tomorrow we break a curse! I hope!

Dear Jem,

As promised, the newest updates on the House That Wouldn’t Stop Being Cursed. Spoiler alert: I think we’re going to need your help again. (Ask Kit if you don’t know what a “spoiler” is.)

So here’s where we are: we’ve assembled all of the items—we think—that are tied to the curse. We placed them all in the dining room together and lit some candles, but nothing happened. Julian said it was like we were trying to get the objects to have a romantic evening together. I guess it was optimistic to think things would be that simple!

During the past few weeks we’ve collected a number of books on curse-breaking. And looked up some stuff about it on the Internet, though I have to say you never know with “online” whether you’re accessing a real magic spell or something tied to some kind of game. Julian, of course, had already read the books, and noted the similarities between most of the curse-breaking spells. They all require cursed objects to be brought together, and for candles made of pure tallow to be lit. Fortunately we were able to grab tallow candles at the Shadow Market, and we arranged them in a circle around the objects. When we lit them, it did look very mysterious and magicy.

We combined several of the Latin spells in the books to try to get something workable. A sort of We call out for the curse laid upon these objects to be broken, in the name of the Angel Raziel. We tried to make ourselves sound very important, like we knew Raziel well and would be having a pint down at the pub with him once the curse breaking was over.

Now, I’m sure you’re staring in horror that we decided to do this ourselves, and you’re right, we shouldn’t have, but we were just so excited to have all the objects that we thought it was worth at least a try. After all, how wrong could it go?

Answer: very wrong! A chill, clammy wind immediately rose up inside the dining room and swirled in circles, blowing out most of the candles. I started shivering, not because it was cold (although it was suddenly very cold) but because my skin was crawling. I had a terrible sense of encroaching darkness, like my vision was beginning to fade at the edges. Julian started paging through the books fast, looking for some kind of cancellation spell.

And then, of course, the music box on the sideboard began playing by itself. And not the tune it usually plays, which is a Strauss waltz. This was some other tune, something dissonant and harsh (as harsh as the tinkly sounds of a music box can be, I suppose). And it was loud, much louder than any music box could be, like the sound was being picked up and whirled around the room.

“Nooo.” It was a harshly breathed word, and I felt a presence sweep into the room. Rupert, half-transparent and looking furious. He swept a glowing hand through the candles, snuffing out the flames. Thank the Angel, the wind died down and the chill went out of the air. And I felt like I could breathe again. Julian and I stared at each other.

“Nephilim,” Rupert breathed. It was probably the most we’ve ever heard him say, in terms of real distinct words and phrases. I don’t know if it was because he was angry, or because the curse-breaking spell had had a tiny effect. “Nephilim — do not play with magic. Tatiana played with magic. She was . . . destroyed.” He was so upset that the features of his face seemed to be rearranging themselves, his eyes widening to be huge like an anime drawing. His mouth turned down at the sides. “Not worth destroying yourselves,” he whispered. “Find another way. Or leave me prisoned.”

And with that, he disappeared — kind of flew apart in white-silver pieces, like papers blowing on the wind.

A shudder went up my spine. Rupert. I think I liked him better when he could only move things around in the dust.

Anyway, we could use your help. Maybe it’s that we need a warlock to do the right magic, but the more we look at the items we’ve collected the more we wonder if one of them is wrong. We’ve followed some sketchy clues to find them, after all. And we’ve bothered Hypatia, Magnus, and Ragnor so much that I don’t think we could bear to have one of them come and then tell us it’s the objects that are the problem.

So…would you and Tessa be willing to come visit and check out the situation? Maybe you’ll be able to tell something about the objects since you recognized some of them. And between an ex-Silent Brother and a warlock I’m sure you’d bring enough magical wisdom to work out what we should be doing. We’d love to see all four of you, in fact, if you’d like to make it a family outing. We can watch Mina for you! There will be scones! And now that the faeries have gotten rid of all the hogweed choking the gardens, they’re looking very nice. Lovely for walks, or if Kit is in a teenage brooding mood, they’re great for brooding. Did I mention the scones?

Love,

1)Cassie always wants to put a name to everything: She wanted to make Ty’s autism very clear instead of casually revealing it years later. Christoper probably has ADHD.

2)Whose POV were sometimes difficult to write? Anna’s because she’s so confident, Alastair’s because he’s so angry, and also Mark’s because he’s been through a lot of trauma.

3)Cassie gets ideas while walking in the woods and listening to music with no lyrics.

4)A fan asked Cassie to write about the Merry Thieves discovering custard cream in 1908, she laughed and wasn’t against it. 😉

5)Cassie wants to do one more short story collection like The Bane Chronicles once The Wicked Powers is done. She has one specific person in mind.

6)Matthew is thinking stuff that Cassie doesn’t want us to know now, it was the same with Ty due to his whole plan in Queen of Air and Darkness. That’s why we don’t have POVs of these two characters. The only time we got Ty’s POV was in Ghosts of the Shadow Market and Cassie consulted neuroatypical writers before writing The Lost World.

7)About The Wicked Powers: Dru goes to Faerie. Ty has to ask Kit for help after something major and bad happened. Kit is the only one who can help and that’s how the boys reunite.

8)If The Shadowhunter Chronicles were food, what would they be? Cassie cannot cook, but her husband Josh can so the answer was a bit difficult for her. She settled on a pie with rhubarb, ginger, turmeric and noodles.

9)Did Cassie ever change a relationship into a completely different direction? At the beginning Cassie meant for Mark and Cristina to be together in The Dark Artifices, but then she was like: “Hey, there’s also Kieran!” and the rest is obviously history.