2. While this book is
supernaturally boring, there
is nothing magical or sinister
about it
3. You’re lucky I love you so much
EMMA
CRISTINA
?
EMMA
That is you
The most beautiful person
in the whole world
CRISTINA
That’s right
EMMA
CRISTINA
EMMA
Dear Bruce,
Bruce, my friend. You don’t even know (because you are a diary and you never leave the house). I have spent the day among the mundanes. Not just mundanes. Tourists. All things considered, I’ll take the haunted cursed mansion, thanks.
When last I wrote, we found out Ghost!Rupert thinks there’s a cursed object in this Herondale house on Curzon Street here in London. After that, we have no idea, which is going to be a big problem because ley lines are, you know, lines, so objects could be anywhere along them. But one thing at a time.
The National Trust operates tours of the Curzon Street house, and I assume some Herondale in the past was smart enough to get rid of, or at least glamour the heck out of, anything too Shadowhuntery there. It’s advertised as being a reconstruction of a “typical Edwardian home,” which isclose enough to the right time period for our purposes. So we got dressed up in mundane costumes—Jules found an excellent vintage Sex Pistols t-shirt in Arthur and Andrew Blackthorn’s Groovy Chambers of Love—and bought tickets for the 2:00 tour the next day.
What we learned from the house tour is that Edwardian décor would look pretty okay in a modern house! It’s light and airy, lots of soft colors, interesting patterned fabric, and so on. Oh, and we also learned the Edwardian period missed Tatiana Blackthorn entirely, since everything about Blackthorn Hall is the very opposite of light and airy. (Julian pointed out she probably left it the way it was when her father died.) I liked the feel of Curzon Street a lot. It was homey. I even took a photo of some wallpaper and I want to ask Tessa if she remembers who made it and, uh, whether they’re still in business, I guess. What’s happened to us? We’re renovating a house. I feel so old.
The tour was fine, I guess, lots of detail about eras and maker’s marks and furniture. People asked ridiculous questions—one of the American couples demanded to know where the piano was and when the guide said sorry, no piano, they got angry and told her all Edwardian homes had a piano so there must be one, and she had to apologize and move on. It was awkward and I did not feel great about the people of my land.
But mostly I tuned out all that. The house was interesting enough. Persian carpets everywhere! An ivory chess set! A pewter-clad bathtub! Oh, there was aframed playbillfrom the time period that was from a Downworlder nightclub, that was especially cool. But, most importantly, none of these were things enchanted by Tatiana.
I spent most of the time looking for anything that made it clear Shadowhunters lived there. The only thing I spotted was a bunch of weapons used for decoration, which the tour guide noted was not usual for the period. Of course you and I know, Bruce, weapons are always appropriate décor. But it’s like Julian says, sometimes you don’t even need glamours, because mundanes don’t see what they don’t want to see. Like, the tour guide went on and on about a beautiful jadeite sculpture atop one of the mantels and said nobody knew what the shape was meant to represent. And it was obviously meant to be displaying a sword that is long gone.
Anyway we
Oh, wait.
It’s not long gone. It’s on the dressing table on the other side of the room. I can see it from where I’m writing this.
A real chill went up my spine, thinking of that. At the house today I was wondering about the people who lived there, James Herondale and Cordelia Carstairs, but to be honest I didn’t really feel an emotional connection to them while I was there. Maybe it’s that all the very personal stuff would have been taken out of the house before it became a museum. But also, I didn’t know them. Tessa and Jem did, of course, and Magnus, and heck, maybe some of the other warlocks, I don’t know. But I didn’t, and I never will.
But you know who else knew them? Cortana. I wish I’d brought it with me to the house today. (But nooooo, Julian said only weapons that could be completely concealed. What if the tour guide had turned out to be an Eidolon demon lying in wait for us? I would have faced it with a boot knife smaller than I’d use to peel an apple. Though I have yet to meet an Eidolon that would know that much about turn of the century furniture. Anyway, we were there to find an object, so let me finish the story.)
