I’m pretty sure the briars grew another few inches while we talked, but they would have to wait. I got Julian down from the roof and we went in to read.
It looks like Hypatia has started actually thinking about what she’s translating; instead of doing every entry, this time she had snippets from a bunch of entries put together (she dated each one). It’s a bit of a shame because I kind of liked seeing Tatiana talk about her clothes or her brothers or whatever in between all the, you know, evil demon stuff. But I admit that evil demon stuff is what we are here for. Like the old Shadowhunter motto says, “Shadowhunters: That Evil Demon Stuff Is What We Are Here For.” But in Latin, probably.
Some translated highlights for you, Bruce. I won’t include the dates, but they stretch over years. The first one is from 1878 and then most are in the 1880s, but then there’s a jump and the last one is from 1903. (Sometimebefore then she seems to have found a “patron” of some kind, but she doesn’t say who it is. Or why anybody would want to be the patron of such an unpleasant person…)
***
Father is dead and Rupert is dead. I cannot speak of what happened; when I try, the words will not come. It is the fault of the London Enclave, many of whom were present for their deaths. Not only did they not save either of the men I love most, I daresay they hastened the disaster. I shall be, at very least, registering a formal complaint with the Clave, but I have little hope of justice, of course. The corruption among the Nephilim here in London goes all the way to the roots.
I cannot believe I have been left all alone. My mother, gone. My brothers, gone. The walls of Lightwood House are my only companions, their silence a terrible reminder of how much I have lost, in such little time. Today I went from room to room, and wherever I found a mirror, I smashed it. The glass I left where it fell, a reminder that everything bright and good has been destroyed.
I have Rupert’s ring. It is all that remains of him. I know I must have felt happy, to stand beside him and recite the vows of marriage. I cannot dredge up the memory of that feeling. There is blood upon the ring. His blood. I shall never clean it off.
To honor my father’s memory, I have begun going through the books in his library. Not the library the Claveknows about, of course, the one they pillaged after the incident involving his death, but the other one—Father’s sanctum, which the enchantment hides. I wish to learn what he knew. To seek power that will help me, who now has been left with nothing. I have found only one thing that keeps my heart beating in my chest: because of his violent end, far from his own home, it is not unlikely the spirit of my Rupert remains here in the house. If so, I will find him. I will see him, and I will know our love is more powerful than death.
***
I have to admit, now that I have searched and searched, performed spell after spell. I have not seen any ghost, not of Rupert, not of Father. One or both of them should surely haunt this house, the site of both of their violent deaths, the snuffing out of their worldly pursuits unfinished. For that matter, I have seen no ghosts at all here. Not even of some Lightwood relation long dead who might have been haunting the place earlier. Is it my father’s enchantment that keeps the dead from this place? Or does it only prevent my finding them? But I am the master of the enchantment now, as I am the true inheritor of the house. (If G and G attempt to take it from me, they will find there is more than an enchantment that will work against them.)
Father’s protection is fading. I can feel it, as I remain here in the house, and it becomes a part of me, as I become a part of it. Someday my son—the last gift Rupert ever gave me—willinherit the house, and I will not have Blackthorn Hall made unsafe for myself and my family. I have been reading extensively on the topic of the enchantment and I place the blame on the urn containing mother’s ashes, which fell from its location in the Lightwood tombs in the countryside and chipped terribly. It did not shatter, but since then I have felt the eyes of the world more upon me. I believe the objects themselves can be replaced, as long as the spells are renewed, and so instead of the urn the enchantment now inhabits Father’s mourning brooch with its locks of Mother’s hair, and I have put it in the place of the urn. The spells have been rewoven. Father would be proud of me. He was right to make me the inheritor of his work.
***
Though I have not seen him, Rupert is here. He must be; where else, indeed, could he be other than close to me, where he belongs, where he was meant to dwell before his life was cut so short by the Enclave’s machinations. Sometimes in the night I feel I can almost see him, as though only a thin curtain divides the living realm from the dead.
And now he will remain close by, whatever the spirit realms may desire of him. With the aid of Father’s notebooks, I have made Rupert a part of the house. The ring I gave him is now woven into the house’s enchantments, not as one of the objects that maintain the enchantment but as something the enchantment guards and hides most thoroughly. And Ihave ensured that where the ring resides, so does my Rupert.
For someday, I will bring him back. Father’s notebooks hold the keys—if not to the knowledge itself, than at least guidance to where the knowledge might be gained. He is dead, yes, but he is not gone. He is in a place beyond life and death, poised in between. I will never see him or hear his voice, in this state—but it matters little. That absence will be more than compensated for by his full return, bodily, to me.
***
Vengeance. Vindication. They are close.
But the power of the house fades. At the worst time.
I appealed to my patron. He said the magic was of my own doing and only I may repair it. But—for he is perceptive beyond any other—he saw I had repaired it before. He asked me what objects held the enchantment and I told him: the brooch, the snakeskin, and so on.
And as I spoke, he only had to look at me in his knowing way for me to understand him. The objects were of my Father’s time, and while his memory and honor will never fade from my mind, more than twenty years have passed.
I comprehended my patron at once: The time had come to replace the six foci of the enchantment with new things, chosen by me. Who has been the house’s master for so many years now.
What could I use? I have been alone so long. I have lost a child and there has been no help for me. I have only one thing remaining: my vengeance. And so I will take the things of my enemies. I will take them from under their noses, from their own homes. Their sorrow, and my satisfaction in it, will be the force that keeps Blackthorn Hall safe—safe from them! It is the kind of cunning my patron is known for, and that he loves best.
And once my protections have returned to their fullest strength, they will finally pay for their sins. They will pay in their blood.
***
You can see, Bruce, that the last entry feels…different?
Eesh. Makes me shiver just reading it. I guess she didn’t actually make them pay in their blood or Tessa and Jem would have mentioned it. (They would have been some of the blood-payers, I’m quite sure.) But look how much more we know now, Bruce! We know the ghost is Rupert Blackthorn, Tatiana’s husband. We know he died in some kind of violent tragedy. We know she bound him up with the house’s curse somehow, and did it with his ring, which must be his “silver band.” And we know she blamed the families Tessa and Jem talked about—the Herondales, the Carstairs, the Lightwoods—for his death. So to keep the house’s enchantment going, she stole their stuff.
I guess we know what we need to do next.
JULIAN
Dear Magnus,
Mark this date down! For once I am writing to you with answers instead of questions. You probably felt a sinking sensation when you saw the letter was from me and considered going into the Witness Protection Program (Warlock Protection Program?), but I’m actually only writing to give you the latest updates. And the great news is, we know a lot more than the last time I we spoke.
