Dear Mark,
Hey, how are things? Don’t worry, nothing is wrong here. Or I guess I should say nothing new is wrong. I’m just writing to keep you updated on the situation here at Blackthorn Hall. And to check on all of you at Polyamorous Cottage, as Emma calls it. We think you guys should lean into that, by the way. Maybe give the house a real name like Polyam House or, for something a little classier, Maison de Beaucoup Amours.
Sorry. I’m just teasing. You know we love you guys and we love that you’re all together. We miss you and look forward to visiting you at Booty Palace as soon as it’s feasible.
Meanwhile I’ve got a story for you—a story in which a warlock was wrong. Very wrong.
As you know, we only have one more object to find of the ones Tatiana used to power the curse on BlackthornHall. Ragnor Fell came up with a couple of locations at intersecting ley lines in central London that he thought would be likely places to look. One of them led us (eventually) to the Lightwood candlesticks. The other pointed to a townhouse in an alley in Soho, which Ragnor identified as the location of the “Hell Ruelle.” When he knew it, it was a Downworlder club of some notoriety—a “salon” where Downworlders came to discuss art and politics, gamble, drink, and watch other Downworlders dance erotically. (His words, not mine.) He made it sound quite scandalous, known for bawdy excess but also for attracting all the most prominent and interesting Downworlders in the city. Something halfway between an academic symposium and a burlesque club, but also, it’s open 24 hours a day and serves alcohol. Ragnor’s tone suggested he disapproved, but since I’ve almost never known Ragnor to approve of anything, that wasn’t a big surprise.
He also said that they weren’t fond of Shadowhunters, so we put on the clothes we thought might be most appropriate to a Soho club—Emma put on a little flowered dress and I grabbed a couple of things out of the Groovy Sixties Wardrobe, hoping maybe they had come back around to being cool again—and went over there when we thought it would be busy, around ten on Friday night.
Sooooooo Ragnor’s information was somewhat out of date. The Hell Ruelle is still a club all right, and a Downworlder club, but now it’s the other kind of club. The kind full of very old men in leather armchairs readingnewspapers. Downworlder old men, in this case. Some very white-haired werewolves, vampires dressed like it was 1840 (or they were on their way to a cosplay convention), some faeries that, to be frank, looked like human-sized dried fruit that had learned to read newspapers. The sitting rooms have little nooks and crannies that I guess must have been used for assignations and rendezvous and so on, but now they are mostly occupied by irate prunes complaining to equally pruny waiters that their soup isn’t hot enough. There is still a bar, of course. And gambling, though it seems to mostly be bridge. Poker would be a little too intense for this crew, I think.
Anyway, I have no idea what they made of us. Emma and I thought they would complain about our outfits or our being Shadowhunters but nobody paid us any attention at all. We were even walking around with the Sensor out and pointing it at things, to no reaction of any kind.
The Sensor went off a few times but nowhere near any objects, just at random spots around the house, which Emma suggested were probably ghosts that were none of our business. It certainly felt like a house that would be popular with ghosts. Many of the guests seemed more than halfway there already.
Finally, the Sensor went off near an actual object. Unfortunately, it was only a cardboard box, a little smaller than a shoebox, stuffed above some old books on one of the bookshelves. All of these, box, books, shelves, were covered in an impressive sediment of dust. The box looked like ithad once held a gift—it was wrapped in bright gold paper and there was some ribbon around it—but inside it was totally empty.
We didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe the box itself was the cursed object, but that seemed ridiculous when the other objects have been obviously valuable, meaningful things. So the object must have been in the box, and still leaving some traces of ghostliness that the Sensor picked up. Eventually, we worked up the courage to ask the bartender if we could talk to someone in charge, and surprisingly he just went in the back to get the guy, no questions asked. I guess it’s a pretty boring gig for a bartender and he was happy to have something to do.
The Hell Ruelle is run these days by a warlock named Zebulon Spoon, and his thing is that he has a cat head. Like, instead of a human head, his head is shaped like a cat’s, with the giant eyes and the whiskers and fur. He had cat ears on the top of his head but they were folded over, kind of like a dog’s. He was also wearing a jaunty brown hat with holes cut out for the ears. (My main reaction was to think, Magnus got off easy with his warlock mark.)
Anyway, he didn’t meow or anything, only narrowed his eyes at us and asked our business. He started to go into the Ruelle’s licenses and how they were all supporters of the Accords, and I think there must be some history where the club refused membership to Shadowhunters. We reassured him that we weren’t here about that, but were only doing some research into family history. That we’dbeen led to this box but we weren’t sure what had been in it, or where that thing had gotten to.
Spoon harumphed at us—he harumphed a lot in this conversation—and said, “I do happen to know that box. I thought it had been discarded long ago. It contained a fish slice.”
“Like a knife?” Emma said.
Spoon looked affronted. “Like a fish slice,” he said to us, in a tone that suggested he thought we might be idiots.
Luckily Emma had her phone with her, and we were able to broach the language barrier between American and British English. Here, a “fish slice” means…a spatula. I know, I was underwhelmed too.
“Someone gave a spatula as a present?” I said. “Just a spatula?”
The warlock looked more and more affronted with every word. “This fish slice was sterling silver,” he said. “It was a wedding present, long ago, from Shadowhunters to other Shadowhunters. It must be a hundred years old if it’s a day. Here, there are names on the side, if they’re still readable.”
He was right. It was fairly smudged with time, but on one side of the box we were able to make out, “Congratulations W&T,” and on the opposite side, “with love from Henry and Charlotte.”
“Who were Henry and Charlotte?” Emma said.
“No idea,” said Spoon. “This is all decades before I was born. I’m only seventy years old, you know.”
“A veritable spring chicken,” I said, and he lookedpleased. Do warlocks care about being young? They don’t physically age! Perhaps Spoon was just unusually susceptible to flattery.
“As I say, I don’t know how it made its way here,” Spoon went on. “When I first started here I found it in the Dark Magic Room.”
“The Dark Magic Room?” I said politely.
“You know,” he said, puzzled. “The Dark Magic Room. A lot of odds and ends get left behind here, you see, and most of them are just bulging with dark magic. None of the staff want anything to do with dark magic, obviously, but we can hardly just put them in the bin. One must be careful with evil artifacts.”
“Yes,” I said slowly, exchanging a look with Emma. “One must.”
Spoon didn’t appear to notice. “So we store them in the Dark Magic Room. It used to be a larder, I suppose, but it’s been strongly warded since before I got here.”
Emma said, “Does anyone ever come back for something they’ve left?”
Spoon shrugged. “Occasionally,” he said. “So we keep them safe. Better than sorry, eh?” He gave me an odd look. “They’re not ours, though,” he added quickly. “Not the Ruelle’s. They belong to the patrons who left them, right?”
