#clockwork prince

pantone color series

Henry (Branwell) Fairchild - 22

color - tangerine tango

flower - begonia

“They were all growing up and into each other like trees striving together for the sun.”

— Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

part five: the infernal devices characters

It always felt like a story about loneliness.

About three people trying to survive the kind of pain that changes who you are forever.

Tessa entering London after her aunt’s death, believing she still understands the world, only to discover she’s suddenly completely alone. Forced into a life she never chose, treated like something dangerous because of powers she doesn’t even understand herself.

Will spending years convincing everyone around him that he is cruel, careless and impossible to love because he genuinely believes loving him means destroying people.

And Jem living every single day knowing his life is slowly slipping away from him, yet still choosing kindness over bitterness every single time.

That’s what makes this trilogy hurt so much. Every character is carrying grief long before they even realize it.

“You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.”

What stayed with me most is how deeply the story understands love as something painful and transformative at the same time.

Not just romantic love. But friendship. Loyalty. The quiet devastation of caring about someone so much that their suffering becomes yours too.

The relationship between Will and Jem honestly feels like the emotional heart of the trilogy. They love each other with this terrifying level of devotion where every sacrifice becomes unbearable because neither of them knows how to choose themselves over the other.

And Tessa slowly becomes the place where both of them feel understood.

Not fixed. Not saved. Just understood.

“There is no pretending. I love you, and I will love you until I die…”

I think what makes the story feel so haunting is that everyone is constantly running out of time.

Jem’s illness. Will’s fear. Tessa watching people she loves suffer while knowing she cannot stop it.

Even the atmosphere of Victorian London feels heavy with it — clocks ticking, machines breaking apart, people trying desperately to hold onto each other before everything changes again.

And underneath all the fantasy and danger, the trilogy keeps asking the same question over and over: how do you continue loving people when loss is inevitable?

“Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.”

The ending of Clockwork Princess honestly shattered me because it understands something very human: that love does not end simply because time passes.

People leave. Lives change. Years disappear. And somehow love still remains in different forms.

That’s why The Infernal Devices never really feels like a fantasy trilogy to me.