Okay, I feel a little better after writing all that down. I’m going to go put the dagger someplace safe and try to get some sleep. Thanks for listening as always, Bruce. You’re a pal.
And tomorrow—we get to see Jem and Tessa and Kit and Mina, because we’re going to Cirenworth!
TATIANA
To the Blackthorn Nephilim residing at
Blackthorn Hall, Chiswick
From Hypatia Vex, Fellow,
Spiral Labyrinth
My greetings. Attached please find the first pages of Tatiana Blackthorn’s diary, translated from Purgatic. I hope you don’t mind, but I thought Magnus Bane might shed some light on the situation that caused you to bring the diary to me, and he did, speaking of a curse upon the house. I have skipped many entries related to the author’s clothes, opinions about her peers, complaints about the weather, and so on, in favor of one I think will be of special interest. It rather contradicts, however, what I have known as the history of the house. Benedict Lightwood, of course, was hardly known to be trustworthy, or perhaps things have changed since his time. A mystery for you to delve into, perhaps?
I will be in touch soon with further translation.
Yours,
H. Vex
Dear Diary, tonight I am in a state of rare elation. It seems that my patience and care may not be as worthless as they are usually assumed to be by the members of this family. For I believe Father has at long last come to accept and even approve of my betrothal to Rupert! (Oh, happy day, oh darling Rupert!) More astonishing, he has communicated this not by anything so clumsy as an awkward sentimental statement, but instead by taking me into his confidence, and telling me of things I am sure he has never shared with my brothers.
It was after supper. The Terrible Gs were off whacking at each other with swords or some such nonsense. Father made to repair to his study as usual, but tonight, very unusually, he asked that I accompany him there. As I am his most dutiful child, I dutifully followed.
There he closed the door with care and bade me sit in one of the wing chairs facing his desk. He settled himself in his own chair and began by telling me the Lightwood name is a powerful and ancient one.
I replied that I was aware and, indeed, never forgot it.
He continued to say such a name brings with it great prestige and influence, but also great enmity. The adversaries of the Lightwoods were many, he said. “And I speak notof the demons we make war on, or even of the half-demons permitted to roam the earth by the Clave’s sufferance, but of enemies even among our own race, that is, the Nephilim.” He explained there was great envy towards us, and while it would not be expressed directly, there were those who would seek to destroy us.
I asked him who he was thinking of in particular, but he demurred. The enemies change, he said, with the times. Alliances form and crumble, as the varying Shadowhunter families’ interests are altered by time and fate.
(I am recording his words as exactly as I can recall them, Diary. I admire the forceful manner by which he expresses himself, and wish to take it upon myself, since the others in my family do not.)
He went on to explain that, while it is not widely known, we are well-protected here in Lightwood House, not only by the sound brick and stone, but by an enchantment upon the house and its grounds themselves.
An enchantment! I was astonished. I knew magic was a subject of interest to Father, and his research led him to minor experimentations. I had no idea he had accomplished so much. This I expressed in, I hope, a complimentary manner. He said it had taken him several years to make the preparations, for he did not trust anyone, even a warlock paid well for their silence, with the knowledge of the house’s protection.
The enchantment is very elaborate, as I understand, and its effects somewhat difficult to communicate. Father said itserved both to prevent other Nephilim from investigating the house, and to keep areas of the house, and possessions of the family, hidden from discovery. I asked by what means did the enchantment work, and he said it had to do with ley lines, the seams of magic that cross the earth, and exactly half-a-dozen objects selected and placed at locations along those ley lines, locations whose details are a matter of elaborate calculation.
I pressed him for more detail, reminding him I shared his interest in the topic of magic, but that was all he would tell. He explained that I was as yet an unmarried girl who need not trouble herself with the ways of the world—and here I finally reach the reason for telling this story, Diary.
As he spoke of me, he gave me a look, one that at first I could not decipher. But soon enough I realized: He said I was “as yet” unmarried. By the glint in his eye I understood what he was saying: You will soon be a married woman.
And so all comes clear, in a beautiful burst of triumph!
Father accepts Rupert, and will approve our marriage—
This will cause me to gain my majority—
That will cause Father to take me further into his confidence about the nature of Lightwood House and his work in magic—
Because he understands that, whatever the Law may say, I am the right and proper heir of his goals and his work—
And because he intends Rupert and I to become the masters of this Manor after him!
Though my efforts have been long and arduous, Diary, and I have feared they would never come to fruition, I sleeptonight with victory within my grasp, and only pity for my poor brothers, too vacuous and pigheaded to even understand what has happened while they beat each other with sticks in the training room.
