Magnus to Alec
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,
Magnus
