I don't know why on Earth I haven't made a Shadowhunter Chronicles blog yet. I'm here to discuss things, I'm here to ask questions about the series, I'm here to give you some (hopefully funny quotes), and I'm here to freak the hell out about what's going on in the Shadow World. By the Angel, let's get to it!
After several days of tension, we’re relieved to report that the threats to Christopher Herondale and Wilhelmina Carstairs appear to have been resolved. We have liaised with Gwyn ap Nudd, of the Hunt, and he assures us that the unsworn faerie known as Mother Hawthorn has been relocated to a remote location and her place there will be maintained by the Hunt going forward.
Unfortunately, the safety of Christopher Herondale is still in question in the long term. Please see attached pages of personal correspondence for more informal thoughts and questions at your leisure.
Undersigned,
James Carstairs
Tessa Herondale-Carstairs
Dear Alec,
I made Jem do the formal part of the report because it makes my eyes cross. I felt bad for asking him, but he waved me off—apparently none of us would believe how much paperwork the Silent Brothers file. I was surprised because “paperwork” and “City of Bones” don’t really go together in my mind, but hey.
Anyway, the report is accurate. Julian Blackthorn, clever boy that he is, reached out to Gwyn, who agreed to deal with Mother Hawthorn. (Julian also didn’t tell anyone he did this, of course, because he also loves a dramatic reveal, which I’m sure we all remember well.) After being so terrified, it was certainly wonderful when the whole Wild Hunt swept in and seized Mother Hawthorn and brought Mina back to us.
Mina, by the way, is happy and healthy and not the least bit shaken, unlike her parents. She was nothing but delighted by the Wild Hunt and has been excitedly and repeatedly telling us that she met a lot of horses and the horses are her friends. Kit, of course, is at least as shaken as we are, possibly more. He’s barely let her out of his sight since she got back. He’s even been sleeping on the floor of her room. (We did move a daybed in there after the first couple of nights.) He has taken this quite hard. He hasn’t wished to talk about it much, but it’s obviously weighting heavily upon him, and there is a familiar troubled look behind his eyes that has remained since the incident. He is, we fear, beginning to understand what his heritage might really mean, as hard as we have tried to insulate him from it.
Despite Gwyn’s helpfulness, neither we nor Julian really know what exactly has happened between the Hunt and Mother Hawthorn, and we’re disinclined to ask. We know Faerie can be brutal, and most brutal to its own, and it has its own sense of justice and discipline, which often seems very…inhuman. That said, we do trust Gwyn, not least because we trust Diana Wrayburn. If he says that Mother Hawthorn won’t be bothering Kit again, we believe him.
We still don’t quite know what it was Mother Hawthorn said to Kit in that time in which they were alone — when we could see them, and Mina, but not hear them. Kit says it was only what we would have expected, but when he came back to us, his eyes were haunted. I wish I could demand to know what it was she said, or threatened, or revealed, but I know I cannot. He will tell us when he is ready.
That said, we don’t know if Mother Hawthorn has allies who might also know Kit’s secret. However she might have tried to wheedle Kit, we know her aim is hostile; we met her in Buenos Aires, before we even knew of Kit’s existence, and she was very clear. The words have stuck in my head: There is still a First Heir in the world. When the First Heir rises, in all the awful glory bought by the blood of Seelie and Unseelie and Nephilim, I hope destruction comes to the Shadowhunters as well as Faerie. I hope the whole world is lost.
I cannot look at Kit — stretched out on the daybed in Mina’s room, his hand fastened around one of the slats of her crib, even while he’s sleeping — and think awful glory. He’s like any Shadowhunter boy, an unordinary sort of ordinary. He likes movies and spaghetti nights and he bites his nails. He’s just a person, not a destiny.
As for now — very few people know of Kit’s heritage. Emma and Julian, of course, and you and Magnus, Jace and Clary, . . . even Julian’s brothers and sisters don’t know, or know only a vague shadow of the truth. But who else might Mother Hawthorn have told? Not the Seelie Court, surely; we are both sure that the Queen would have already taken steps to get hold of Kit if she knew. Kieran knows, of course, but we have no idea who in his Court he might have told (Emma says Mark and Cristina know some, but not all, of the situation). Obviously Kieran is an ally, and his Court loyal to him. But it’s too easy to imagine an enterprising courtier—or some wild fey—might learn the story and seek to take advantage of that knowledge.
The reality, we have realized, is that secrets like Kit’s come out eventually, and cannot be indefinitely contained. Just among Shadowhunters, keeping it within a small circle of trusted friends still means easily a dozen people.
Which leads us to our first actual request: would Magnus be able to come to Cirenworth sometime soon, to shore up its wards against the incursions of those who might wish to harm Kit? We’re forced to recognize that they are only a temporary solution, but for now they’re the best we can do.
Meanwhile, we feel strongly (and we’re sure you’ll agree) that we need to try to stay ahead of this threat. We’ve asked Kieran to have his spies keep an ear out for any rumors circulating about the First Heir in Faerie. Would you be willing to do the same, through the Alliance? We know that the timing of this is terrible for you—we surely would have chosen less of a precarious political moment for the Clave to have this trouble, if we could have. Know that we support you and will always stand by you. We may have withdrawn from active Shadowhunter life, but we will always be there if you need us.
You’re so young to have taken all of this on your shoulders. Does it not always seem that responsibility comes to us Shadowhunters too early in the morning of our lives? I look at my dear Kit, and I know. We all know what’s coming, like knowing sunset is coming on a day you don’t want to end. The long sunny day of Kit’s childhood is nearly over. I shudder to think what he will have to face when night comes.
Im glad to know who knows about Kit now! Tessa did end it on a bleak note, but I'm also kind of hyped for how incredible Kit will be in the coming series.
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.
This isn’t a timeline of everything that’s ever happened in the Shadowhunter Chronicles--it’s a best guess on a timeline for all the Shadowhunter Chronicles stories. So, basically, I included all the extra stories Cassie has written that are a.) canon and b.) new content. I didn’t include rewrites of scenes, deleted scenes, or things that didn’t add anything new to the universe, but everything else in the Shadowverse is in here. The order of some of the things are a best guess because, for instance, there’s nothing to say for sure whether, in 1897, Lucie was hassled by a ghost outside of the London Institute by a ghost before or after she and Cordelia decided to become parabatai that same year. The Black Volume of the Dead’s placement is also a best guess. There were also some stories, like What Really Happened in Peru, that had multiple years it took place in, so those stories are listed more than once. Any flashbacks in stories or retellings done by one of the characters, like the ones in TftSA, aren’t listed separately.
The only stories listed are the ones where the POV was set in the actual time period. For instance, Catarina telling Simon about Tobias Herondale isn’t listed as taking place in 1828 because the story was being told in 2008. However, Tessa’s story about Jack the Ripper that she told in 2008 is also listed in 1888 because the story changes from Simon’s POV in 2008 to Tessa’s in 1888. Some of these stories take place during one of the others, so I’ve listed them after the parent story. For example, Through Blood, Through Fire ends in the same place Lady Midnight does, but if you read the first before the second, it would be super confusing, so it’s best to read it after Lady Midnight, even if they take place pretty much within the same time period. Also, please bear in mind that this was posted before Chain of Thorns has been released, so there will most likely be more extra stories and short stories to add in the future, not to mention a proper timeline for TEC and TWP.
My Shadowhunter Chronicles Reading Order + My Most Recent Re-Read Order
If you would like to prepare yourself before this post begins, please know that there will be spoilers for everything and this post is going to be long as fuck. Please also note that some of you reading started reading these books right when they came out and, thus, had no choice but to read them in the publication order; because of that, you may prefer that order. That’s perfectly fine. I’m speaking about this from the hindsight perspective of having almost all the pieces of the entire saga on the table now. Enjoy.
Let’s talk about how to read the Shadowhunter Chronicles. I’ve seen a few reading orders thrown about in this fandom, and generally, people are told to consume media in the publication order, no matter what is. I do kind of get the point of that in the case of the Shadowhunter Chronicles, which I’ll get into first, but I want to propose another first-time reading order that I think is best. And then, for the hell of it, I wanted to talk about my most recent re-read order beacuse I found myself reading the Chronicles a bit more sporadically than I have in the past. At the time of posting, Chain of Iron and SoBH are the two most recent Cassandra Clare releases with Chain of Thorns coming up soon. My thoughts about TEC in this post, especially, will be very different depending on whether you’re reading it before or after The Black Volume of the Dead has been published, so keep that in mind.
My Opinion on the By-Publication Reading Order
Here’s the thing about this reading order that I think people like: you’ll see the information as Cassandra Clare planned for it be revealed. I don’t actually think that makes an insanely strong argument for reading the books as they were released, but I can understand people advocating for this order because Cassie theoretically published these as she did because she liked how the information was being trickled out to the audience by releasing TID between TMI releases. People have said that this order avoids spoilers, but I don’t think it really does. The characters only know what they know, right? So, it’s not like you’re gonna be reading TID and get a flash forward of the Uprising or something. I think reading things out of publication order does give context to some things before actually reading those things, but I don’t think many of those instances have serious consequences. I should clarify that this mostly applies to when to read TID and TMI as my opinions on TDA and TLH are a bit different.
So, for example, if you read by publication order, you’re going to find out Jem is Brother Zachariah just before he’s fully revealed to be Jem Carstairs in City of Heavenly Fire. It’s the exact same thing if you read chronologically, so it doesn’t really spoil anything to read the Chronicles that way. All it does is give you the opportunity to read Brother Zachariah as Jem from the get-go. Though, in the publication reading order, Jem is introduced before Brother Zachariah is in TMI, so for first-timers, it’s possible they’d guess at Jem’s identity from the get-go anyway. Basically, I don’t see a benefit to this order beacuse it’s not keeping you from spoilers and it makes for choppy reading having to jump from TID to TMI and back again.
My First-Time Reading Order
When I first got involved with this series, TDA had been announced but not released, which means that I only had access to TID, TMI, and TBC. I knew there were multiple series in the Shadowhunter Chronicles and thus began chronologically with TID. Here’s why I think this is a good first move for first-timers: this saga is all about references and allusions. The joy of having five series (once TWP gets published) and a bunch of companion stories set in the same universe is to see how they connect. I found it’s much more satisfying to move from TID to TMI than it is the other way around.
The one exception I can think of is Magnus. Because Magnus is so important to TMI, reading him there first would mean that seeing him in TID was a huge deal. However, I don’t think a Magnus Easter egg is enough to promote the publication order, especially since Magnus wasn’t even that big of an influence in TMI until after he appeared in TID anyway.
Jem is an example I’ve already talked about, but I find it way cooler to start TMI, meet Brother Zachariah, and know immediately who he is and what his story is. Re-reading this series is great, and sometimes not finding references until a second or third re-read is preferable, but in Jem’s case, it’s so impactful to know exactly what his vague references to his life before the Brotherhood mean in the moment you’re reading them. You want to know he’s talking about Will and Tessa when he’s talking about the two people he would have died for in his other life, for instance (which happened in City of Lost Souls, before Clockwork Princess was published). It’s not as emotional to read that if you don’t also know how Jem lost both of them, how he said goodbye to them, and how he made sure to remain in their lives afterward regardless of being a Brother.
Will, though, is my go-to reason for why reading chronologically makes the most sense. If you read TMI and found out Jace was a Herondale without knowing who Will was... I perish the thought. Oh my goodness, that reveal is so much more impactful when you already know about the Herondales. In the publication order, you hear “Herondale” and think, “Oh, so he’s, like, related to Valentine’s right-hand man?” because Clockwork Angel hadn’t yet been published by the time Jace’s lineage was brought up. But if you’ve read TID already, and you, like most of us in this fandom, find Will to be one of the absolute best characters out of all the series, you’d read the reveal and be super excited and pleased beacuse a.) it makes total sense that Jace’s personality is a Herondale personality (yes, I know the “spoiler” may be that knowing Will means you end up predicting Jace’s lineage, but I find that fun) and b.) this broken boy who never knew where he belonged descended from the most wonderful man ever. Plus you get the bonus excitement of knowing that Tessa is still around and, at one point in your future reading of TMI, she and Jace are likely going to interact somehow (which they kind of do; I guess they more like acknowledge each other without actually having a one-on-one scene together, but still).
What About the Rest of the Shadowhunter Chronicles?
So, really, the reading order issue is more about TID and TMI because their installments’ releases were staggered with each other. Where does that leave TLH and TDA? To remind you, I had no choice but to read TLH and TDA by publication order because I was actively following the series by the time Lady Midnight came out. These two series’ installments all came out one after the other (I mean, TEC is staggered with TLH, but TEC isn’t one of the core series, so it’s a bit different). For first-timers, I do think the publication order, in this case, should be followed. Of course, read TDA after TID and TMI, but save TLH until after TDA. That might sound weird, but it’s for basically the same reasons as why you should read TID before TMI: references and allusions.
TID and the first two books of TMI are pretty light on the references because Cassie simply hadn’t built the world up much yet. It’s hard to reference things that don’t exist yet unless you’ve seriously planned everything way ahead of time. As far as I can tell, that wasn’t the case when TMI began publishing. TLH and TDA, however, were--I think--announced close to the same time, so Cassie was thinking of TLH while writing TDA. At least, she knew she was doing TLH and roughly what that would look like. So, if you’re reading TID first, you’re not missing a lot of references that you would’ve gotten if you read TMI first. You’ll notice, though, by the time you get to the final four books--especially the final book--of TMI, the Shadowverse is humungous. References are flying around left and right, and that’s just with TID having been published and a general direction for TDA decided. That barrage of wonderful references, allusions, and Easter eggs only grows as more is added to the Chronicles. So, TDA and TLH have far more than TMI or TID because Cassie had the pre-written material to sneak into the later series.
Because of that, TDA and TLH are much closer in tone to each other than TLH is to TID or TDA is to TMI. It’d be a bit jarring for a first time reader to go straight to TLH after reading TID, and not only that but they would entirely miss all the great references in TLH. As I’ve said: those connections are key to a huge saga like this. I’d want first-time readers to get that “Oh my goodness, this references something from the other series!” moment as much as possible.
What About the Companion Novels and Short Stories?
So, in (rough) order of publication (TEC’s placement is based on the first novel’s release only), you’ve got TBC, TftSA, TEC, GotSM, and SoBH that are the main companion pieces to the Shadowhunter Chronicles. Actually, I always feel the need to mention TPH (The Penultimate Hours), too, because that’s basically just a non-bound version of the others with shorter stories (but there’s still ten of them, just like the other companion books). TPH started coming out between The Red Scrolls of Magic and GotSM, but you’d wanna read it right before starting TLH, after reading GotSM.
All right, I’ve typically always read the companion books in an order determined by the chronological placement of their final story, or as close to it as I can get without reading any of the main series in a choppy order (I don’t like the idea of stopping a series in the middle to read something else and come back if you’re reading the Chronicles for the first time). So, with TBC, the final story was about Magnus and Alec’s break up, so I read it after TMI because it takes place during TMI, and since I didn’t want to stop reading TMI to read TBC, I saved TBC until afterward. TftSA has flashbacks, yes, but mostly it takes place between TMI and TDA, so that’s something I’d read after TBC. GotSM I’d read after TDA because the last story takes place a year after TDA. SoBH is set around a year before TWP, so I’d say it makes sense to read SoBH after GotSM. My argument for that is that SoBH hints at stuff in Chain of Thorns so, even though you might think to read it right before TWP because it’s so close to that series, it’d be a bit bothersome to read a story trying so hard to set up something for a novel you already read. I think, at least, that it’d take the anticipation for TLH out of your sails, whether you’re reading or re-reading.
TEC is a bit different because it’s a trilogy that takes place at different points across the Chronicles and all has the same style to the writing, much like the companion books, but unlike those books, TEC mostly references itself, not the other series. So, really, you could read The Red Scrolls of Magic and The Lost Book of the White back-to-back because the first one takes place during TMI (so you’d read it after TMI) and the second one takes place after TftSA but before TDA (so you’d read both of the first two TEC novels in between TftSA and TDA), or you could split up all three books by reading The Red Scrolls of Magic, TftSA, The Lost Book of the White, TDA, GotSM, TWP, and then The Black Volume of the Dead (because, as of now, the final TEC installment will take place during TWP, so you’d read it after). It really depends on whether you think you’ll forget the TEC plots by the time you come back around to reading the next installment. Typically, I just read TEC together between TftSA and TDA because then I can catch where one installment references another.
How I’ve Recently Re-Read the Shadowhunter Chronicles
When I re-read the Shadowhunter Chronicles recently, I also made an effort to read all the extra, canonical stories that Cassie has released over the years. Not the deleted or rewritten scenes--the stories that added something new and interesting to the universe, even if not all of them are strictly meant to further the plot of one of the main series or companion novels. For instance, the story Cassie wrote about why no one could remember Jem and Tessa’s wedding would have qualified for my recent re-read. The way I read those stories was to read the parent series first and then read the corresponding stories. Because I already know well what happens in the Shadowhunter Chronicles, though, I wasn’t too strict about when I read stuff. I didn’t want to be reading about Sebastian as a child when I was in the middle of TDA, but I read the story about Tessa and Jem meeting after the Dark War after I read TID because the story was Tessa and Jem-based, and Tessa and Jem are, in my head, connected to TID before anything else.
Besides that, I began by reading TID, then TPH, then TLH. Now, I know I said reading TLH after TID is jarring, but again, once you know what happens, it really isn’t that bad. Actually, I prefer the chronological reading order for re-reads. After TLH, I went to TMI but, oddly, decided to read TBC before reading City of Heavenly Fire. The reason I this? Well, to be honest, TBC is the novel I enjoy the least during my re-reads because the stories aren’t as rich as the other companion novels’--even though I still like it a lot, mind you; no Shadowhunters book is bad--so I wanted to get it out of the way. Actually, I truly did read TBC based on the last story during this re-read because I read the Alec and Magnus break up story right after they’d actually broken up. In that way, it was kind of nice not to have to read all of TMI and then go back into TMI after the fact to read about Alec’s sad voicemails. I still don’t think first-timers should break up series like that, though. After TBC and TMI, I read TftSA, followed by TEC. At the time of my re-read, I was trying to catalog all the references and allusions in these novels, so I wanted to read the first two TEC installments back-to-back to make sure I found all of them. Otherwise, as TEC is also not my absolute favorite Shadowhunter series, I would probably have liked to get The Red Scrolls of Magic out of the way before reading City of Fallen Angels, saving The Lost Book of the White until after TftSA. After TEC, I read TDA and, finally, GotSM, not too long after which I discovered SoBH and began reading that.
Ultimately, I prefer a pseudo-chronological reading order now that I know the series well, which means that, sometimes, I’ll want to read TBC during TMI and, sometimes, it’ll be after. TEC does partially belong within TMI, but a lot of the time, I’ll probably just want to read the whole series together. So, basically, I like to re-read the series in chronological order... for the most part.
How I Would Like to Try Re-Reading the Series in the Future
I think, actually, it’d be quite interesting to put together a thorough timeline (which I’ve already partially done by noting the rough periods in which the extra short stories and companion stories took place) of when each story occurred and read them in a super constricted chronological order. It’d be extremely tedious, and I’d only do it once because I don’t think this is the best way to read or re-read the Chronicles, but I think it’d be fun to pick everything apart and rebuild it into a straight timeline with no jumps at all. Obviously, that’d be hard to do perfectly because you have flashbacks happening within even the main series (like Jocelyn and Luke’s stories of their time in the Circle that were pretty long sections in TMI), but I think something close to perfect could be done.
Like, for example, the very first thing you’d read is the story of Catarina and Magnus meeting for the first time because it took place the earliest. Then you’d read a story about Will and Jem from before they met Tessa and so on. Where it gets tricky is the companion books. Actually TftSA is the real issue. TBC and GotSM you can just read the stories in the proper order in relation to the main series. So, for GotSM, you’d read the stories about Matthew and Anna, put down GotSM, read TLH, go back to GotSM, read all the stories that take place before TDA, read TDA, etc. TPH and SoBH you can just read straight through when the timeline permits (before TLH and after GotSM respectively). TftSA, though, doesn’t really have flashbacks so much as it tells a story within a story. You’ll switch from Simon’s POV in the beginning, for example, to James’s, back to Simon’s. The stories from the past you hear in TftSA are told from the time period the took place in, not as a flashback.
But I still think it’d be interesting to read the stories that have those story-within-a-story pieces by breaking them up. So, you’d read TID, then the story from TftSA (which is told from Tessa’s POV in 1888) but only the parts where Tessa is telling the story. Once you make it to 2008 (when Simon’s part of this story is set in TftSA), you’d just read Simon’s parts of this story, skipping over the Tessa parts. I still think that isn’t a great way to do it because Simon does talk about these story-within-a-story stories since he’s hearing them as the reader is. So, if you broke it up like I just described, you’d get Simon sitting down to listen the story followed up by him talking about it without, as the reader, having read the stuff in between that Simon had just heard. It’s not that big of a deal because characters in stories all the time skip over the storytelling part when they’re retelling a story to another character, so it’d be like that with Simon.
My Suggested Reading Order
You’ve probably picked it up as I’ve gone through this, but I’ll give you a concise version of my official, recommended, first-timer Shadowhunter Chronicles reading order (minus all the extra stories--you’ll have to figure those out on your own):
Of course, on a re-read, you can really do whatever you want with the order; split series up, split the short stories up, who cares? But for first-time readers, I really do think focusing on one story at a time and doing it in this order would showcase the Shadowhunter Chronicles best. Let me know your favorite reading (or re-reading) order in the notes below. Thanks for reading!
You can see ghosts but you cannot see me. Not when I come to sit by you while you sleep. Not when I am in the movements of the shadows across the lawn, or the twitch of a curtain. You cannot hear me, even though I am speaking to you because I have things I need to tell you.
I want to tell you about Ty.
He was there. We were there.
You don’t know we were there.
Kit knows.
Let me start over.
You like surprises, Ty says. Ty doesn’t like surprises, but you do.
He is learning Portals, how to open them, how to close them. You need a warlock. But Ty is learning and he is getting better. He wanted to come to see you and Ragnor said he would help.
We wanted to come to see you.
Ty warned Emma, but he told her not to tell you, so it would be a surprise.
So we came through together.
A ghost travels through a Portal just like a Shadowhunter. I didn’t know that. Isn’t that funny?
Well, I thought it was funny.
The Portal opened in the kitchen.
The kitchen looks nice. I am only a spirit caught between the world and the void but I think you chose an excellent shade for the walls. You have always been so good with color.
Other than the color, which was a surprise but not a bad one, there was another surprise in the kitchen. Kit.
Kit was in the kitchen. Wearing that jacket he likes, with the fuzzy collar. The sun came through the window and lit him up.
Everything in Ty froze. Even I almost froze. I’ve seen Kit, of course. I visit him sometimes. Still because I wasn’t expecting him, it hit me how different he looks from the way he did when he lived at the Institute with us. He looks older, and taller. More muscular. He moves like a Shadowhunter now. Graceful.
He’s beautiful.
I heard Ty take a breath like he never has before. Like he was gasping for air, like he’d been sucker-punched and he was trying to breathe and trying to breathe and he couldn’t.
He whispered, “That’s not how you clean a gun.”
Sorry, I should have said before. Kit was cleaning a gun. Why would there be a gun at your house? Blackthorn Hall is like a rock. You turn it over and so many things are underneath. This time a gun was underneath.
Kit went whiter than any ghost I’ve ever seen. He dropped the gun onto the counter. And he didn’t speak. I wonder if he was wondering what I was wondering. I was wondering how Ty knew how to clean a gun. Enough to tell someone they were doing it wrong.
Maybe he just didn’t know what to say, so he said that.
After that they looked at each other.
Time is not fast or slow where I am. And yet it was long enough for me to feel like the whole world was disappearing, like there was nothing else in it except Kit and Ty looking at each other.
Kit said, “You shouldn’t be here.”
He has never spoken to me like that. With such a cold voice. He had put his hands in his pockets and his shoulders were thrust forward, like he was being aggressive, but I could see his hands in his pockets, all knotted up. I wonder if Ty saw it too. Kit’s fingers, digging and digging into themselves.
But Ty wasn’t looking at Kit. He was looking past him at the window. I could hear birds, and quiet English sounds, and Ty breathing. He said, “How long do you think it will take you to forgive me?”
Kit looked at me. He looked a little betrayed, as if somehow I had known he would be here, had planned this. But I didn’t. “I don’t know,” he said.
“But not now,” Ty said in the smallest voice.
“No,” Kit said. “Not now.”
There was no more reason to stay then.
Maybe there was a reason. Maybe it was Kit’s hands crushing in on themselves, till I thought the bones would break like hearts.
But Ty couldn’t see that. Ty was in pain. I put myself next to him, wrapped myself around him, held him while we went back through the Portal. I was sad. I wanted to see you very much, Jules. But Ty needed me to be there with him.
If you dream this, maybe you will know we were there in your house. I am sorry we didn’t stay.
Julian, I don’t know what to do. Ty misses Kit more than he thought he could miss someone. He misses him as much now as he did the day he left. He loves him the same. I think he always will and it scares me.
Kit is used to not needing people, but Ty needs people. He is afraid to need people but that is only because he needs them so much. He is not going to stop needing Kit. I don’t know if Kit will always need Ty. But Ty will always need him.
I couldn't not reblog this. My goodness, I thought there was no chance of getting to see Ty and Kit reunite in SoBH. Boy, am I glad to be wrong. This may be a bitter meeting between them, but it's only the beginning of the greatness that will be TWP. I'm so excited.
He ends up in the Scholomance. How that would happen and what he’d be doing there, I don’t know, because the Centurions stopped being a thing after the Accords were signed.
BUT in The Lost World, Livvy read a carving from 1904 in Ty’s room at the Scholomance that said, “I did not choose this life.” I guess it doesn’t have to be Matthew. Maybe Charles ends up there or something.
But Cassie did say that some characters would have not-so-good endings. Matthew going to the Carpathian mountains sounds like something I wouldn’t want. So.
I Love Matthew, and I Don’t Want Him to Die: A Short TED Talk
I feel like Matthew will definitely be a causality of Chain of Thorns, and that upsets me, but he’s also the only character without an endgame (like another character he can fall in love with, which is how all the main characters’ stories have ended so far in the Shadowhunter Chronicles, save for Jem’s in TID, but even he got his endgame with Tessa by the end of TMI). You’d think he’d be Clary’s ancestor since Charles is gay, but now I’m thinking that Matthew will die and Charles will marry a girl and have a family. And I’m sure Charles would love those kids, but it makes me sad that he’ll be living a life that doesn’t reflect who he truly is. Unless he finds a nice man to settle down with and they adopt. But Matthew would still be dead, which isn’t ideal. Even if it does make the most sense narratively. In fact, if Matthew does indeed die, I’ll consider that the biggest and most significant death so far in the Shadowhunter Chronicles (yes, even including Livvy). I’m terrified of the end of Chain of Thorns, but I’m still so excited for it.
Charlotte: No, Will, I'm saying why did you bring my son to London with you from the Academy when we live right in Idris?
Will: Charlotte, I've told you: Matthew is going to be James's parabatai. I can hardly keep them apart.
Charlotte: He provided the means for Christopher to blow up the Academy! They asked the poor thing to leave school, Will; I must have a talk with my son!
Will: It was only the south wing, hardly the whole Academy, and besides, that school isn't worth the trouble, not after what they did to--
Charlotte: Will!
Will: All right, I shall have young Matthew back to you once the ceremony is over.
Charlotte: The ceremony?! They just decided they want to be parabatai! Shall I wait for you to bring my son home for months on end?
Will: Really, Charlotte, the boys must train together. I have no power over this matter. Perhaps you and Henry and Charles should just move to London.
Charlotte: I shall cut off your head for this, Will Herondale.
Edit: As I was sleeping last night, I realized that Jessamine’s house had burned down, and that’s why she was orphaned. Silly me, but this still would have been a cool connection if it were true.
Disregard the following, incorrect, headcanon:
So, Jace told Kit about Cordelia and James’s Curzon Street home in Lord of Shadows, so we know those two things are the same house. But Jessamine told Tessa that she used to live on Curzon street with her parents. Do we think this is the same house as Cordelia and James’s? It’s more likely that they’re two seperate houses on the same street, but that would be a cool connection.
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