“Shadowhunters can exchange wedding rings,” I said. “It’s not traditional. But they can if they want.”
Whatever it was, it was Rupert’s. He had followed Kit’s hand as it picked up the ring, and now he was reaching out for it with his own thin ghostly hand. He wrapped it around the ring, which did absolutely nothing since he’s a ghost. Kit kind of held it in place for him. Then his eyes closed (Rupert’s, I mean) and he got this expression on his face of relief and gratitude and peace, and he just…faded out, right there. Just slowly vanished and was gone. No more Rupert. On to hopefully not being reunited with his wife, since she was also his jailer for more than a century. (Also, she was a pill. I wouldn’t wish her on anyone, even her own husband.)
“He didn’t even say goodbye,” Emma said quietly.
“That’s for the best,” I said. “He was never supposed to be here at all.”
“Well, Rupert, if you can hear me,” said Emma, “it was nice being haunted by you.”
“Five stars,” said Kit solemnly, putting the ring back on the table. “Would be haunted again.”
And all the candles went out in the room at once. Which, if it was Rupert, was a nice touch. Though it may have only been a draft. Sorry, a draught; this is England, after all.
We all filed out of the room quietly. “It’s different,” Julian said. He was looking around at the hallway. “I can feel it already.”
I could feel it as well. A lightness was spreading over the place. A sort of pleasant hominess a good house conveys that had always been absent from Blackthorn Hall in the time I’ve known it. It’s hard to describe, but all at once it felt like Julian and Emma’s home in a way it hadn’t before. I’ve always known it as a forbidding place, and then as a hideous ruin, but for the first time I thought, this was a place the Blackthorns could fill with joy.
And I’m certain they will.
See you very soon, my love. I shall kiss you until a toddler forces us apart to pay attention to him. So plan for a kiss of about thirty to sixty seconds, based on previous experience. But I wish, as always, it could be endless.
Love,
Magnus
EMMA
Dear Bruce,
We did it! The curse is broken! Rupert is free! Long live Rupert!
In retrospect, it’s insane how much of this we tried to do by ourselves. We should have known that when we finally succeeded we would do it with a whole team present—in this case Jem, Tessa, Kit, and Magnus. (Mina assisted by raising morale and drawing all over everything with her toy stele.)
Everyone’s still here, too, and we can relax a little in a newly uncursed house. It really is quite homey now that it’s been cleaned up and, you know, had its demonic aura dispelled. Well, everyone is here except Magnus, who left this afternoon in a great rush to get back to New York. (One weird thing: Ty had sent a postcard saying he was going to come see everyone here, but he never showed up. I sent him a fire-message and he said he’d had someScholomance work come up and had forgotten to let me know. Which is fine, but it isn’t like Ty to be absent-minded like that.)
New paragraph to talk about this, because I have a lot of questions that don’t have answers and I can only ask you, Bruce. Magnus was in a hurry to get back because of a meeting Alec is holding with Luke and some other Downworlders about plans for negotiating with the Cohort. Okay, but I feel like the Cohort doesn’t have much leverage, right? The situation is way worse for them than for us. We should be able to wait them out—shouldn’t we?
I guess they have a symbolic advantage. We’re all Shadowhunters and we all miss Idris and Alicante and Lake Lyn and probably a lot of us left stuff there we can’t get back and, oh right, also a lot of people lived there who have had to evacuate all over the world and want to get back. I get it. But, like…what are the Cohort even eating in there? Idris doesn’t really grow food. Are they all homesteading in there? Raising crops? Churning butter? It’s kind of hard to imagine Zara doing any of that. But you never know. I mean, there aren’t even any demons to fight in there, which is a good reminder that the Cohort have a bizarre view of Shadowhunters, since we are definitely not meant to hole up in Idris where there’s no demons to fight. I feel like Raziel was clear on that point.
They must be losing their minds in there. I hope they found some board games or something.
Maybe Zara has declared herself Queen for Life andshe doesn’t have to farm because she just marches around threatening to kill anybody who doesn’t grow her a potato right this instant.
Or maybe we haven’t heard anything because they all ate each other. Or maybe they mutinied against Zara and someone else gets to threaten to kill people now.
Okay, end of pondering the Cohort. I’m in a good mood, or was before I started this entry, anyway. We’ve been hanging out with Jem and Tessa and Kit and it’s wonderful. We ordered in Chinese (delivery couriers are always a bit terrified to come up the driveway, but we tip them like crazy, so they’ve started to know us while we’ve been here). We lit candles—for ambience instead of for dark magic, what an idea!—and ate dumplings until we were too full to move, a thing I haven’t done since Magnus and Alec’s wedding. Apparently if I am offered dumplings, I will eat them until I become a dumpling myself. To that I say: I heartily embrace becoming that which I love most.
Even Kit was less broody than usual tonight. He was hanging out with Round Tom, and they seemed to be getting on okay. Oh, and I almost forgot! How could I forget! The workers found a coffin buried in the garden. But rather than a horrifying dead body inside, there was a bunch of old stuff. Using a coffin as a time capsule seemed like a weird choice to me, but Tessa and Jem made some faces and noises that suggested there was a long-ish story there we’ll have to ask about later.
Anyway, in the coffin was a scabbard for Cortana.I mean, right? Can you believe it? Tessa said it used to belong to Cordelia Carstairs, who was Cortana’s wielder generations ago. The scabbard needs a lot of cleaning but then it can be reunited with Cortana. After all, I think it’s probably more Cortana’s possession than anyone else’s; I like to think they’ll be happy to be back together.
There was also a sword for Julian—what used to be a Blackthorn family sword, but this one is only a hilt; its blade is totally missing, I have no idea why. He’s talking about getting it reforged. Big shock, Round Tom knows a guy. Triangular Jerry. No, I’m kidding on the name, but Round Tom actually does know a blacksmith and he and Julian have started talking about getting that done. Actually, what Round Tom wants to do is have a forge installed at Chiswick, which is a cool idea, but do we want another building project on top of all the others? I mean, maybe having a forge here at the house would be cool.
Oh, you might be wondering about Rupert’s ring. Magnus checked it out and his theory, which is probably right because he’s Magnus, is that whatever Tatiana did to trap Ragnor in the Phantom Zone (or wherever he was) so she could try to resurrect him, the ring was trapped in there too. The most hidden of the things that the enchantment hid. Rupert obviously couldn’t take the ring with him, so we weren’t sure what to do with it. Magnus says it’s just an ordinary ring now, magic-free, but of course none of us is going to wear it. We putit on the mantelpiece in the drawing room. Where it will remain.
The Gray-Carstairs-Herondaleses are heading back to Cirenworth tomorrow. It’s been great having them here, but you know, it will be nice to have them go and have it be just Julian and me here in the house, not feeling creepy all the time. I see good times in our near future.
***
