Jaime makes Dru smile in new ‘Queen of Air and Darkness’ snippet + another Q&A

Can you give us information about Shade? So sorry I keep asking these but homeboy here is desperate.

C: We will find out who Shade really is in QoAAD.

Is Max also sick in TDA? Or is he to young and doesn’t have magic yet so he’s not affected?

C: The sickness does affect those who have used magic more, as they discover, so Max is not yet sick as of Queen starting, because he’s too young to have ever used it. Magnus, on the other hand… (x)

I wanted to ask something that will not let me sleep that it’s about Dru, will she ever find Ash or Jaime again?

C: She will definitely see both of them again. 🙂 (x)

Will we see Kit’s mother in QOAAD or is she set to show up in TWP?

C: A very popular question! Obviously the identity of Kit’s mother is a mystery right now, and a significant one. Kit only knows the story his father told him, which isn’t true. A great deal of the details of this mystery are shown in Ghosts of the Shadow Market: we will meet her, as part of Jem and Tessa’s search for the Lost Herondale. If you don’t read Ghosts, you’ll get the answer to Kit’s mother’s identity in Queen and TWP.

It’s a fairly significant part of Kit’s story, and part of the reason Jem and Tessa were so keen to find him.

Can you tell us more about the dynamic of the friendship between Ty and Kit in QoAaD??

C: Obviously the dynamic between Kit and Ty is going to be significantly affected by Livvy’s death. It’s a crushing occurrence for Ty, and the way he responds to it is going to affect his future and his relationship with Kit. Kit is desperate to make sure Ty is okay in the moment, so much so that it may blind him to longer-term issues.

could you tell us something on we don’t know yet on Rayan Maduabuchi? I love him in Lord of Shadows!

C: I’m fond of Rayan too — along with Divya Joshi he forms a sort of power triad with Diego at the Scholomance, in terms of the Centurions who aren’t assholes. He helps Diego hide Kieran, and rescues Kieran from a specific and unusual torment set up by the Cohort. He also runs afoul of Horace Dearborn …

I would like to know if Jamie has a big role in this book? And if we meet more Rosales, like Cristina’s mom?

C: You might well meet Cristina’s mom 😉 Jaime has a role in this book, but it is not huge — Diego has a much much bigger role, because Jaime is one of the main characters of TWP and so this series is meant to serve as an introduction to him, not a telling of his story. This is Cristina and Diego’s time (as far as Rosaleses go) and Jaime’s comes later. Jaime’s a lot of fun, so I’m definitely excited for his place at the forefront.

will we be seeing a lot of Dru & Helen bonding now that she’s back and Livvy is gone? I’d love to see more sisterly bonding in TDA especially after what happened in lord of shadows!

C: I think it’s natural to look at Dru’s situation (and Helen’s) and think they each just lost a sister, so here’s a sister restored to them, and clearly they would be joyous. And they are, but people are more complex than that. Dru worries Helen has been away so long that they won’t understand each other, and resents Helen for doing the things Julian usually does because it feels to her as if he’s being replaced. Helen worries that Dru won’t love and accept her, and worries she has no idea how to deal with kids or raise them. Aline makes a frittata. It’s not as if they don’t bond, but it’s a complicated path!

Is Kieran ok? Do they take care of him in the Scholomance? Are they giving him good food?

C: Diego is the one who takes care of Kieran in the Scholomance (along with Divya and Rayan) and it’s all from his POV. The Scholomance experience really changes Kieran, in the way he looks at the world, at Shadowhunters and even at his own responsibilities to his people. In the meantime he annoys Diego by sleeping under his bed, and Diego feeds him juice, berries, meat, and anything else unprocessed. 😛

i absolutely loved kieran! his redemption, his flaws, his strength, his relationship with christina. i have made some awful mistakes, and seeing characters like kieran who have too but then overcome them is so comforting and inspiring, in a way. i am wondering if we will see more of kieran as a character in himself? not just mark’s ex, but as the exiled faerie prince?

C: I’m glad you like Kieran! Of course Kieran’s relationships with other characters, including Cristina and Mark, are extremely significant to him — they are an enormous part of how he has changed, and overcome his past mistakes. All characters are defined in part by their relationships with other characters, as Emma and Julian’s relationship is significant to them, as Emma’s relationship to Malcolm defines her, as Julian’s relationship with Ty changes him, as Mark’s relationships with Kieran, Cristina and Julian define him  — we are all an interconnected web of love and friendship and enmity and forgiveness. No man is an island, etc. 😉

That said, Kieran being an exiled Faerie prince has always been significant, from his ability to gather information that would save Tavvy in LM, to his summoning of his father and meeting with Adaon in LoS. It is even more significant in Queen, where we start to see how the politics of faerie are falling apart and building back up again, and what role Kieran has in all of that. Who will sit the Unseelie Throne if not the King we know is a big piece of the QUAAD puzzle, and Kieran is integral to that — with Mark, or Cristina, or both, by his side. 😉

I was wondering if you could tell us more about Helen and Aline in tec and tda.

C: I always love to see love for Helen and Aline! Helen and Aline are back in Queen of Air and Darkness with a bang, and we see how they work with the established dynamic of the LA Institute. Everyone is thrilled to have them back, but it is also weird when a disruption comes to one’s life, even if it is a joyful disruption. Aline is always standing up for her lady, and sometimes Helen really needs it.

Will we see Jace and clary in Qoaad, and if so will we get their POVs?

C: You will see them. POVs are pretty unlikely, but there is a special additional story about them in the first edition of Queen! (x)

For more information regarding the first edition of Queen of Air and Darkness click here.

will we see julian go on an anti-hero kind of path for qoaad or maybe twp?

C: I guess I would say there’s a big difference between a hero, an anti-hero, and a villain. We’re all pretty clear on heroes, but anti-heroes are a bit more complicated. They tend to be heroes who lack the traditional qualities of heroes — often lacking the “always choosing the unselfishly right thing” quality we attribute to heroes.

But they can also lack characteristics I would consider part of the traditional stereotypical gender binary — male heroes who aren’t physically strong, female heroes who have vices like smoking or drinking — in short, characters doing significant work at undermining traditional gender roles is sometimes enough to get you labeled an anti-hero or even a villain. We are often cued to see flouting of gender roles as an aspect of immorality, since we are all influenced by the stories which came before us, many of which feature very traditional takes on gender—that is, in fact, what traditions are made from. (Good women need to be rescued, witches have agency, villainous men take an interest in clothes and are openly emotional, &c.) I definitely did want to interrogate and invert gender roles for Emma and Julian in some aspects, so Emma is the stronger fighter physically, and the one with sexual experience, while Julian is the cerebral one, focused on children and homemaking. And I think that does make people eye them sideways, feeling unconsciously cued to discomfort. I get a lot of questions about Emma’s morality tied into her sexual past, and Julian’s morality tied into what he might be plotting (as if he wasn’t always working towards the clear goal of protecting his family, and instead had “burn down the world” yearnings a la Sebastian), and I do think it’s partially because we are used to having characters who seem to differ from the societal norm be “immoral.”

But of course, characters don’t just seem anything—what makes character is what characters do, and why. Antiheroes include Sherlock Holmes, Tony Stark, Jessica Jones, Severus Snape, Jaime Lannister, House, The Bride in Kill Bill, Spike in later seasons of Buffy … Will in Clockwork Angel appears to be an anti-hero and turns out to be a hero. Hero, villain and anti-hero all exist along a spectrum of morality, and they can switch places with surprising ease.

In some ways Julian has always been an anti-hero so asking if he will turn into one — well that horse has left the barn. Julian lies to protect his family and does ruthless things to protect his family: he chooses his family’s good over the greater good and always has. He is able to keep secrets from both Emma and from the reader, which makes him (I hope) an interesting character but also an unsettling one. We don’t always know what he’s up to, while by the end of Clockwork Prince we knew what Will was about.

It’s natural to feel unsettled about Julian — he’s shown a willingness to go to extremes to protect his children. We know he’s suffered a huge blow at the end of LoS and we know big moral choices are coming up for him in terms of figuring out how he and Emma can be together (a solution they are both desperately invested in). Julian will make some complicated ones. But so will Emma, and Kit, and Ty, and Cristina, and Kieran, and Mark … Julian isn’t the only one to worry about in the wake of Livvy’s death, and while he has always been an anti-hero, he has never yet been a villain. (x)

I’ve had this question brewing in my mind ever since I first read this quote in LM. It’s a very sad thought but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Julian said, “If she died, I would want to die. I know it’s not healthy. But it’s the truth.” So my question is – if Emma died, would Julian kill himself? On one hand, his family means everything to him, and he’d be having to make the conscious decision to leave them. But on the other hand, he loves Emma so much – too much.

C: My feeling about Emma and Julian is that their situation is what is unhealthy, rather than their relationship. They’ve known each other for a long time. They’ve been through a lot together, and grown together, and developed into the people they are together, and while some of that has been difficult and complicated and painful, there is a core of strength and love and support to their relationship that has been an overwhelmingly positive force for both of them. Neither would ever intentionally bring any harm to the other.

In some ways Julian and Emma have a problem like Mark and Kieran did when they were in the Wild Hunt: How do you have a healthy relationship in a messed up situation, when you’re under crushing pressure, some of it magically induced and messing with your natural reactions? I’m not sure Julian loves Emma “too much” as much as he lacks coping strategies for dealing with his emotions — he’s only seventeen, and he’s had to be his own parent for years. Therefore he has had to rely on Emma in ways that, were they in an ideal situation, he’d never have had to. Because of the way they have been forced to grow up, there’s a weight on their relationship that there otherwise wouldn’t be. While it does influence their feelings, it is in some ways external to them, and their relationship would be much less fraught if that weight was lifted.

In Lady Midnight, Julian says: “If she died, I would want to die. I know that’s not healthy. But it’s the truth.” Aside from the fact that it’s good that Julian recognizes that this is not healthy, there is a big difference between not wanting to exist without another person, and hating the imagined idea of that absence, and actually not being able to exist without them—feeling like there is no choice in the matter. Things being as they are at the end of Lord of Shadows, I don’t think Julian would end his own life if Emma died. He cares about his family far too much. He’d never put them through that, especially not after they all lost Livia. (x)