So, I created a text from TLKOF in case someone is uncomfortable reading from a photo. I am publishing several parts at once.
Here is a first taste of The Last King of Faerie. I'm so excited for you to read the whole book and step into this story alongside Kit, Ty, Dru, and Ash.
It has been such a delight to write Dru-fierce, funny, stubborn, plus-size, and proud and to unravel the mysteries surrounding Ash, a faerie prince caught between worlds. And, of course, to return to Kit and Ty, whose history with each other continues to shape everything they do (Will they ever truly work through their past?). Each of them carries their own hopes, wounds, loyalties, and secrets.
On a personal note: For two decades we've traveled together through New York and London and Idris, into the heart of Faerie and beyond. Now we set off on one final adventure together- a story that allows us to revisit beloved places and familiar faces, while exploring new dynamics, seeing parts of the Shadowhunter world we've never seen before, and, of course, facing new dangers. There is something special about returning to a place you love. It feels like coming home-and yet home is never exactly the same as when you left it, because you're never the same person you were the last time you walked through the door.
Thanks for sticking with our Shadowhunters through all the changes. With love,
IN DREAMS BEGINS RESPONSIBILITY
"Look, Ty," said Catarina Loss, the blue-eyed, blue-skinned warlock currently in charge of academics at the Scholomance. "It's not that you're not a good student. You're a wonderful student."
Livvy watched anxiously as her brother sank down in his chair. Ty wasn't always perfect at picking up the invisible implications of neurotypical speech, but he appeared to have gotten the message that the fact that Catarina was complimenting him meant some- thing bad was coming. Livvy supposed that shouldn't be surprising; Catarina rarely called students to her office unless they were in trouble.
"Is this about my final project?" Ty asked. He had taken one of his fidget toys out of his pocket-- Livvy knew this one, it had been made from sea glass, by their older brother Julian-and was playing with it, his thumb sweeping over the uneven surface.
Catarina hesitated. "It is and it isn't," she said. "You told us your final project would be about solving crimes using magic. But this" — she tapped the stack of paper in front of her — "seems to be about the alternate dimension Thule. It includes a section on how one might possibly get there—"
"That part is theoretical," said Ty.
"All right," Catarina said. "But the final project is supposed to cover the kind of work you want to do when you leave the Scholomance. You're eighteen now. An adult Shadowhunter. Solving crimes using magic seems like something you could do. Attempting interdimensional travel to a hell world does not. I know your brother Julian visited that other world, and that he met the alternate version of your twin there, but there were extenuating circumstances involved, ones that will never be replicated."
"I said it was theoretical—"
"If you opened a door to hell in your dorm room and a beast came through and ate you, that wouldn't be theoretical."
"No, I would call that empirical evidence. But I'm not doing that."
Catarina templed her hands beneath her chin. "I believe you," she said. "And I don't think you actually want to go to Thule, even if a version of Livvy is alive there. I think you turned in a final project you knew couldn't possibly pass on purpose."
Ty froze, his gaze flicking to Livvy, who was floating atop one of Catarina's bookshelves. Catarina glanced over to see what Ty was looking at, but of course, Livvy wasn't visible to her.
"Why would I do that?" Ty asked.
"So you can stay here at the Scholomance," Catarina said. "It's comforting to stay in a familiar place for pretty much everyone. For people like you, even more so."
"You mean because I have autism?" Ty asked. Most Shadowhunters still didn't know much about neurodivergence (although the Blackthorn family had learned as much as they could, to sup port Ty better), but Catarina had been a hospital nurse once and was much more aware of conditions for which only mundanes had real words.
"That, yes. Things here naturally run to a schedule, and you're encouraged to explore any interests you may have. But there are also your life circumstances. You experienced a great deal of trauma before you came to the Scholomance, and you may be fearful of returning to the outside world."
"So does that mean I can stay here?"
Catarina smiled at Ty. "You're one of the smartest pupils we've ever had, and I don't want to deprive the world of your talents." She tapped the papers on her desk. "This obviously won't work as a final project. I'd like you to get started on your thesis paper about magic and crime. After it's done, we can reevaluate the situation."
As Ty got ready to leave the office, Livvy couldn't help but wonder: Did Catarina really believe that it was the schedule of the Scholomance that was keeping Ty here?
Because Livvy knew better. Ty wanted to stay because of her.
She drifted after him, out into the stone-bound hallway. Witch-light burned in iron sconces along the walls, though the light didn't illuminate the darkest corners of the Scholomance's high ceilings and dark stairwells. It was a Gothic sort of place, one where Livvy felt that being a ghost was entirely appropriate. In fact, she was sure her presence added to the vibe.
"It worked," Ty said, shoving his hands into his pockets. There was no one else in the corridor, so he and Livvy could talk openly. "She rejected the paper, so I get to stay longer."
Livvy swooped around to face him. "She's right, though. You can't stay here forever. Not for me. I'll be with you wherever you go."
"It's not just for you," Ty said. "I do want to complete the last projects Anush and I have been working on. We were doing one on the Princes of Hell-everyone says there are nine of them, but really, aren't there eight? Lucifer hasn't appeared to anyone for a thousand years."
"Which seems like a good thing, doesn't it?"
Ty ignored the question. "And what if I wanted to become a teacher here? That's a perfectly fine reason for staying at the Scholomance."
"Well, they won't let you unless you go out and get some real-life experience," Livvy said, floating along backward as Ty walked.
"I was at the Battle of the Imperishable Fields. I have plenty of real-life experience," Ty said. This was true enough. Livvy hadn't seen the waging of the Battle of the Imperishable Fields. It had been a massive skirmish in the war between the Clave and the Cohort-- a breakaway splinter group of brutally xenophobic Shadowhunters-- with different Downworlders having pledged their allegiance to each side. But Ty had been there, and Livvy knew he'd fought bravely.
"I think when they say 'real-life experience,' they mean more than fighting," Livvy said, but Ty didn't reply. They had reached the room he shared with Anush; Ty unlocked the door with a massive iron key and ducked inside. Livvy floated through the door, not for any real reason, but because it seemed like more fun.
Inside, the room was a mess on Anush's side, and neat on Ty's. Photographs of Ty and Livvy's family-Julian and Emma, Helen and Mark, Dru and Tavvy and Aline-hung on the wall, as well as a photo of the beach below the Los Angeles Institute. Next to it was a different photo, an old one, tinged sepia. It was of Cirenworth, the manor house where Jem and Tessa lived with Kit. Ty had never been there, and Livvy had often wanted to ask him why he had the photo, but she never had.
There were some things that were just impossible to say to Ty, Livvy thought, as he sat down on the bed to stroke the thick, light brown fur on Irene's head. Irene was Ty's pet, a lynx he had ad- opted when they found her outside the Scholomance, injured and freezing. She adored Ty and immediately set herself to licking his hand.
I'm worried about you, Livvy wanted to say to Ty. Your dead sister can't be your best friend. You need friends who will grow and change with you. I will always be fifteen.
The words were on the tip of her tongue, as they'd been so many times before, but she couldn't make herself say them. She knew the grief he had experienced when she had died; she knew it had driven him to raise her from the dead despite necromancy being the kind of crime that could get you banished from the Clave. Not counting the Cohort, locked away behind their wards in Idris, plotting whatever it was they were plotting.
Livvy knew he felt safe here partly because Livvy herself was safe here-only Ty could see her (aside from the other ghosts in the Scholomance, who barely noticed her). If Anush or any of the other students caught Ty talking to himself, they didn't take note of it; a lot of the students had absent-minded habits.
"When I need to go somewhere else, I will," said Ty, still patting Irene. "But it isn't just the stuff with Anush-it's all the progress you and I have made, with the wards around Idris."
Yes, Livvy thought, but every time I visit Idris, I have to go far away from you. And that's starting to present its own problems.
Again, she couldn't say it. There was too much bound up in all the conversations they weren't ready to have. Eventually it would be impossible not to talk about it. But, Livvy thought, as she settled herself at the foot of Ty's bed, not today. Not today.
Dru sat in Luke's office, her booted feet up on his desk. Early autumn light poured in through the open windows, that pretty golden light Dru liked despite her goth tendencies. Autumn wasn't something you got in Southern California, so she'd grown up without leaves that turned red, gold, and ochre, without the scent of apples and campfire smoke drifting on clear air. In a way, these things were exotic.
She could hear the voices of some of the other students carried on the wind, and felt a jolt of annoyance. Luke was the one who'd demanded she be here; he could have at least shown up. She'd been waiting in his office for fifteen minutes already.
With a sigh, she toyed idly with the idea of sneaking around to see if there was anything interesting in the student files, but dropped it as soon as she heard footsteps in the hall outside. A moment later, the office door swung open and Luke came inside.
He was, as usual, dressed more like a farmer than the administrator of a school-- even a very strange, very secret school. He wore work boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt. All that was missing was a piece of hay for him to chomp on, Dru thought, as he sank into the seat across from her and stared at her grimly. He'd been giving her these troubled looks for half a year, ever since she'd gotten lost on an assignment in the springtime and gone missing for three days.
"Drusilla--" Luke started, at the same time. They both went silent. Dru grinned.
"Aw," she said. "How about you talk first?"
"I'm not sure I need to," Luke said. "We both know why you're here." He glanced briefly at her boots, resting on his desk. Dru knew it annoyed him, but he wouldn't say anything about it. Luke was a man who knew how to pick his battles.
"Speaking of my being here," Dru said, "do you really think it's wise to keep pulling me out of class? Professor Wrayburn was about to start a lecture on common demons of Southeast Asia. I am concerned," she added primly, "that these frequent trips to your office are having a deleterious effect on my education."
"Perhaps if you would stop fighting in class, I could stop pulling you out," Luke said.
Dru sat up, swinging her boots off the desk. "I wasn't fighting in class. I didn't hit anybody--"
Luke looked at her, his eyebrows raised. "It's my understanding that you raised your hand as Professor Wrayburn was teaching and said that you felt it was important for everyone to know that Paige Ashdown was in a hate group. Which you must have known would cause Paige to lunge at you."
"Well," said Dru, "she was in a hate group."
Luke pushed his glasses up his nose. "So was I," he said. "I was a part of Valentine's Circle, a group arguably just as bad as the Cohort."
But that was so long ago. Dru didn't say the words out loud. Valentine's Circle seemed like history; it had happened before she was born. But for Dru, what the Cohort had done-- their ugly beliefs in Shadowhunter superiority and dominance, their betrayal of every Shadowhunter who wasn't in their group, the battle on the Imperishable Fields that left so many dead-- felt like yesterday.
"That's different," she said, with a wave of her hand. She noticed her black nail polish was chipped. She'd have to beg Thais to fix it before they went to New York. "You saw the error of your ways. You got out, you got away from Valentine, you even tried to stop what he was doing. And you've lived your whole life trying to make up for it."
Luke sighed. "I changed because someone believed in me," he said. "Because I was given a second chance. Paige, whatever you may think of her involvement with the Cohort, walked away from them. She deserves a second chance."
"She walked away to save her own skin."
Luke passed a hand across his face. "Maybe. Maybe not. I know you have a history with Paige, and you may not be able to forgive her. But that doesn't mean you should stand between her and forgiveness. Can you understand that?"
Dru didn't reply, just kicked at her chair with the heels of her boots. After a moment, she said, "Would you give Zara and Manuel a second chance?"
Zara Dearborn and Manuel Villalobos were the leaders of the Cohort, a sect of Shadowhunters who existed in opposition to the Clave. It had been Zara's father who had poisoned so many minds, who thought of Downworlders as filth, not human. Who had believed that friendship with Downworlders had weakened the Clave, made it corrupt. After his death at the Imperishable Fields, Zara had taken over for him, with Manuel by her side. Instead of accepting defeat, she and Manuel had locked their group of true believers into Idris with them. Magical wards had been raised around the whole country, cutting Idris off from the rest of the world.
No Shadowhunters could get into Idris now. And the Cohort couldn't get out. It wasn't a tenable situation for a host of reasons-- the Cohort was probably starving in there, and the Clave couldn't be cut off from their homeland forever-- but no one was sure how to change it.
"I was thinking about grounding you for the weekend-" Luke began.
New Dru sat up straight. "No," she said, horrified. "Not this weekend. There's a concert in the city-- Simon's band is playing-- and Thais and I were going to go down and see everyone--"
"But I decided it was too harsh a punishment," Luke finished, waggling his eyebrows. "I know how much you've been looking forward to this weekend, and barring you from it wouldn't really be fair. But I do want you to answer me honestly-- are you all right? This is a stressful time for everyone, with the upcoming peace talks, and the whole situation is closer to you than it is to most of us. You know Alec and Magnus, Jace, Clary, the rest..."
His voice faded in Dru's ears. Alec Lightwood, as the Consul, led the Clave and, by extension, spoke for all Shadowhunters. For four years he'd been trying to get the Cohort, silent behind their wards in Idris, to respond to his messages and agree to peace talks. For the first time, it seemed it might actually happen. "I guess," she said, slowly, "that I don't understand exactly what we're hoping for. If the Cohort agrees to peace, and to leave Idris, are we expecting them to rejoin the Clave like nothing happened? Like they didn't cause a war and get a bunch of Shadowhunters killed? Like they didn't try to round up and register Downworlders? I understand wanting Idris back, but I don't understand wanting these people back."
Luke nodded. "For many people, the Cohort is something abstract, an obstacle to a united Clave. But for you, it's more personal. They harmed a lot of people you love."
Dru's rage, once hot, had turned to ice, but it was no less fierce when she spoke. "Why shouldn't I want justice? If the Cohort hadn't goaded Annabel into killing Livvy, my sister would still be alive."
Annabel. Even her name made Dru feel a little sick.
Luke's eyes widened behind his glasses. But before he could respond, the door opened again and Jocelyn, his wife-- and Clary's mother-- stuck her head into the room. She had her hair up in its usual bun, kept in place by paint-stained pencils. "Luke, darling did you ever make it into town? My art supplies" She broke off, registering Dru's presence. She smiled. She had Clary's smile, one, that lit up her whole face and made her freckles stand out. "Dru! How lovely to see you."
Dru just nodded. She wondered if Jocelyn could sense the tension in the room.
"Are you heading to the city tomorrow?" Jocelyn hadn't lived in New York all her life, but she'd definitely lived there long enough to refer to it as "the city," as though there were no other metropolis in the world.
"Thais and I are taking the train down," Dru said. "We want to get better at using mundane public transportation."
"I wish I could go," Jocelyn said. "I'd so love to see everyone. But I'm desperately trying to finish six paintings in time for my gallery show."
Dru rose to her feet. "I'm sure the show will be great. Can't wait to see it." She glanced over at Luke. "Are we done here?"
She thought she saw a flicker of defeat in his eyes. "Yes, we're done here. But remember, Dru-- my door is always open."
"Is it?" Dru said, already squeezing past Jocelyn on her way out. "You should probably get that fixed."
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