We did get a break, though. Right before we were about to leave, Emma went to look at a display for visitors on the wall about the history of the church. There was a whole bit about how in the Second World War the dome of Abchurch St. Abchurch was hit by a bomb during the Blitz of London (Tessa was a nurse during the Blitz—did you know that?). Most of it was about the dome and how it was broken and how long it took to fix and who fixed what, but at the end there was a bit about how a number of the church’s more valuable possessions were removed for safekeeping. There was an artist’s rendering of those possessions—I guess most of them didn’t end up coming back to the church—and now at last you get to find out why I’m writing to you and not Magnus.
At one end of the illustration was a pair of candlesticks,and on the candlesticks a very familiar symbol indeed. Flames—not just flames, but the same flames you’ll find on that family ring of yours. And also a big script “L.”
So, any chance you or Isabelle recognize these? Did they get taken out of the church by a Lightwood, or returned to one? I know it’s a long shot, but it seems like it would be too big a coincidence for a pair of Shadowhunter candlesticks to randomly turn up. Let me know if the candlesticks ring any bells for you or Izzy and give our love to the kiddies!
Julian
EMMA
Dear Cristina!
Sorry to startle you, I just wrote “Dear Cristina” with the comma first and it seemed a little down. Thought I would try to spice it up a little. And I want to hear from you because I miss you and it’s highly annoying that you couldn’t get to New York while we were there.
Why did Nene have to pick this exact time to visit you guys? Is it because she has faerie intuition and schemed to keep us apart? I mean, no, probably not, she seems like a good person. But still! Show up a week later, Nene! Also disappointed to hear she didn’t spill anything about what the heck is up in the Seelie Court. I guess if she had given up the court’s secrets to the technical King of the Unseelie Court, the Seelie Queen would consider that “bad” and Nene to be a “traitor.” But that’s nothing compared to how much we want to know what’s up.
We’re back from New York, where the weather wasmuch worse than in London, but whatever. We’d sent the picture of the candlesticks from the church to Alec, and he showed them to his mom, who recognized them. She said Robert had brought them along with a bunch of other inherited Lightwood stuff when they left Idris for NYC, and she had no idea what had happened to them since, but they were probably in the NY Institute somewhere. Well, we’ve got the Ghost Sensor, so we said goodbye to Rupert and headed over. (Julian wondered whether Rupert misses us when we’re gone, but it’s hard to tell if ghosts can tell the passage of time. In any case, we didn’t find sad faces or anything drawn in the dust when we came back.)
We saw Jace and Clary, of course, and Alec came to help. I think he was particularly curious since it’s his family’s stuff. We were hoping to see Simon and Isabelle, but they were off recruiting for Shadowhunter Academy. And Magnus stayed home with the kids. He texted us a video from their apartment where he asked Max and Rafe, “Are we going to help our friends?” and they both shouted, “No!” It was cute. I mean, Max and Rafe were cute. Magnus was maybe milking it a little.
Finding the candlesticks was…pretty easy, actually. Kind of anticlimactic. They were hiding in plain sight in the Institute’s nave among all the other candlesticks and candelabras and other candle-related things. And the Sensor led us right to them. So maybe they weren’t removed in the Blitz but instead the Lightwoods tookthem back? Or maybe they were removed and then brought back and sometime after that Robert’s parents took them out of the church? We’ll probably never know, but it also doesn’t much matter since, whatever, we have them, mystery solved.
In celebration we ordered a pizza and ate it by the light of the candlesticks. New York pizza! It is the best. It hurts to say that a little, as an L.A. girl, but the truth is the truth. I’d missed it so. Pizza in London is…well, it’s more polite not to speak of it.
While we were eating, Jace asked Alec if there was any news from Idris, and Julian and I kind of looked at each other because there’s never news from Idris, the Cohort have all shut themselves in there and refuse to come out or let anyone in, you know the deal.
Alec revealed they had been working on a new variation on fire-messages that would be able to get through the wards around Idris. Mostly using Clary’s power to invent new runes. They’ve been sending them for a while, trying different things, but hadn’t gotten any responses until very recently when they heard from one of my least favorite people, Manuel.
So Alec and Manuel have been sending messages back and forth. Zara refuses to respond and Manuel implied she didn’t like that he and Alec were talking. Alec thinks he might be lying and Zara might not even know. But Alec also thinks Manuel is tired of being stuck there and might be their way in, since (as we all know) Manuel cares aboutManuel above everything else, certainly way more than he cares about the Cohort’s supposed mission. Like Jace said, Zara is a true believer, but Manuel is just an opportunist.
This was all super interesting, but Julian and I started to feel bad remembering that Alec is, you know, the Consul. Julian said he knew Alec had important Consul stuff to do and it was great that he had come to help find the candlesticks anyway. And then Alec said a really nice thing! He said their New York crew had always had to work in secret, that they’d always thought of the Clave as the enemy. Well, maybe not the enemy, but not their ally. The Clave they grew up with, you know, locked Jace in the Silent City and refused to believe Valentine was returning. They would never have thought of going to them for help. So Alec said it was very important to him as Consul to actually be there for the Shadowhunters, to be someone they could know and talk to. Someone they wouldn’t instinctively hide problems from, but might even go to for help with those problems. And I guess we did know Alec personally before, and they are his family’s candlesticks, but still, it was nice he thought of it as part of his Consul duties to help us out rather than as something taking time away from his Real Work. He said this was his Real Work, and we’d better not stop coming to him and Magnus for help.
After a while, Clary announced that she and I needed to have some girl talk and whisked me off to Taki’s for coffee. She left Julian with Jace and Alec. When last I sawhim, Jace was guiding him towards the weapons room to take a look at the collection of seventeenth century Spanish military swords he’d recently found in one of the church weapons caches somewhere in New York. Julian watched me leave like a puppy being taken to the vet for shots, but he claims now he had a good time.
Clary and I settled into a booth at Taki’s. She asked me how I was doing, and I started telling her, but she seemed distracted, and I realized maybe she needed to talk to me about how she was doing. Which turned out to be true. She’s worried because Alec likes to believe the best of people, and he’s optimistic about the progress they’ve made getting in touch with Manuel, but Clary thinks Zara is a manipulative psycho. On that topic we agree.
“You think it’s a trick?” I said. “Or a trap?”
She didn’t know. But then she kind of argued with herself and said she understood how important it was to open up Idris, that she knew the Clave couldn’t survive forever split in two like this.
I told her it seemed like it was weighing heavily on them, and she sighed and gave me the big news, or rather the lack of big news, which is that she and Jace have decided they don’t want to get married until the Clave is reunited. And Simon and Isabelle feel the same way.
“It’s not like there’s any reason to rush,” she said. She was looking out the window as she said it, though, and she sounded a bit melancholy. “But we don’t want a weddingwhere all anyone is thinking about is how Idris is off-limits and the Clave is broken.”
She kept looking past me, so I asked if she saw someone out there, and she looked guilty and turned back to me. “Oh, no, I thought I saw Jace for a minute, but it wasn’t him.”
Finally we got around to how I’m doing and I got to tell her the thing I’m worried about, which you and I have talked about a little. Which is that Julian and I are fixing up this house and I guess…we’re going to move here? Like, move to London. And out of Los Angeles for good. And I haven’t really gotten to think about what that would be like. I was thinking of it as a temporary thing where we would fix up the house and then go home. It’s easy to feel that way because of all the stuff going on with the Clave.
But for Julian, this is going to be our new home. I can’t blame him for wanting that. I mean, for one thing, he’s a Blackthorn and it’s Blackthorn Hall. But we grew up in Los Angeles. I’m an L.A. girl; all my memories of my parents are of them in Los Angeles. But then we both do have many hard memories from the L.A. Institute, and it would be nice to put them behind us and get a fresh start. I don’t know. Do you ever find it strange that you live in New York now? And Faerie? Do you miss the D.F.?
Maybe it’s Idris being out of reach that makes it feel so strange. I grew up always knowing that, however spread out the Shadowhunters might be, we all had a home togetherin Idris. It held the Clave together all over the world. But what if Idris is actually gone for us, Cristina?
What if it’s gone forever?
XOXOX
Emma
JULIAN
