Cassandra Clare shares ‘Cast Long Shadows’ snippet (+ another Q&A)

Happy Sunday everyone! Although Cassandra Clare had a very busy Satuday at the North Texas Teen Book Festival – check out some retweeted photos on our Twitter @TMI_Source – she still managed to share a snippet from her and Sarah Rees Brennan’s upcoming Cast Long Shadows, the second short story in Ghosts of the Shadow Market. In this snippet we meet three characters that we previously met in Nothing But Shadows. Here is what Sarah wrote about the snippet:

The accusation really is horrible and an evil cliffhanger so it’s up to you whether you want to read the snippet or wait 16 more days until Cast Long Shadows is released as an ebook.

Alastair, you horrible, horrible person!!! 😡 How dare you?

I also put all of Cassie’s recent answers to Ghosts of the Shadow Market/Son of the Dawn questions together, do not read these if you haven’t read Son of the Dawn yet – unless you like spoilers 😉

First of all, Cassie talked about self-publishing and piracy:

Quick question, will Son of The Dawn be available on your website any time soon for those of us who may not have the money readily available? I am dying to read the story but I can’t afford it at the moment so I was just wondering if you had other plans in the future!/ I follow u on twitter and tumblr and everywhere, and I saw there was a whole issue with amazon, and read that u were self-publishing the Ghosts of the Shadow Market stories? Can u tell me why u decided to do that with the new stories and not the Bane Chronicles and Shadowhunter Academy, and why it’s different from being published by a publisher–like, a publisher gives u a bunch of money and then handles stuff like the cover from then on, right? Did u want to pick the covers so that’s why we have the awesome drawn ones now? (luv Anna.) Or was it about the content–not that Im asking you if there’ll be sexy stuff.

C: Hey there. Thanks for asking, guys.

Okay, a few things: One is that no, we don’t plan to put the content up online for free. These aren’t “extras” like you’d find in the back of a novel – short pieces that I did write for free, and which are essentially advertising for the books. These are books in their own right: each story is technically a novelette, and not a short one. Several have been novellas! (Typically a short story is under 7k words, novelettes are 7k to 20k, novellas are 20k to 40k, and novels are anything over 40k.) (The short piece at the end of Son of the Dawn, called Not For Humans, has been online for free before, and will be again shortly.) This is a book, just delivered to you in an atypical–but I hope fun–way. It is one of the books our free content has been advertising, and whose sales provide the money that all five of us live off of, and which allows us to keep writing.

Content isn’t and never has been the issue, though speaking generally self publication has for many offered the chance to write more diversely, without publishers to decide that’s an uncommercial move. This lets readers decide the content they want to consume, which is part of why self publishing is such an exciting place to be.  We wanted to get these stories out fast, and we wanted control over how to release and advertise them, as well as have freedom about what was going to be in them, if we needed that. We’ve run into some bumps (Amazon not believing I was me, etc.) but it’s been fun.

I did want to take this opportunity to talk about the issue of piracy as regards Ghosts of the Shadow Market.

You are correct that normally a publisher gives you money — an advance — and that money goes toward your living expenses while you write your book. It’s how authors survive during the long wait for publication. Choosing to self-publish means we don’t have advance money for these short stories. We did get an advance for the print version of the book, which is being published by Simon and Schuster — but that advance has gone toward all the things a publisher usually pays for, because we are the publisher. We’ve paid for the copyeditor and proofreader, the graphic designer and the artist who has illustrated all the covers. We were able to ask for and change up specific covers. We’ve paid for our project manager, our own publicity, etc. So all our advance money has gone to that — which we’re fine with, because when you self-publish, you are paid much more quickly than a publisher would pay you (months instead of years.) But that all depends on whether or not people buy the e-books.

Piracy hits us much harder and more directly than it would if we were publishing traditionally. If people don’t pay for the stories, we just aren’t paid — even if you intend to buy the print edition someday, that’s great for Simon and Schuster, but doesn’t really help us writers; it’s a very different thing. I’m aware sometimes people don’t see ebooks as real books, but they are real: it is not the paper you buy, but the story that the five of us have worked hard to produce. I know I can’t deter people from pirating — if they want to, they will — but I can certainly say that I’ve seen real proof of the damage piracy does, and self-publishing is a way for us to see that up close. (Here’s an interesting and really smart post by Maggie Stiefvater about piracy and Raven Boys. One thing she hits on is the way people disseminate pirated copies before the story is even available, thus cannibalizing the sales.) Certainly if piracy becomes too much of an issue, we would be unlikely to try such a project again — writers do have to get paid for the work they do, or they can’t live, just like doctors or electricians or plumbers.

If you can’t afford the story, please consider that the audiobook is on Amazon for zero dollars. It’s a way to experience the story legally, for free. Audiobooks aren’t everyone’s favorite format, but our audiobook reader is fabulous, and it’s a way to read/hear the story for no money, without hurting the authors who’ve written the stories, and without endangering the chances that a project like this will ever exist again.

Thanks! — the GoTSM writers. (x)

in GOTSM, will we see any flashbacks to Jem’s childhood? We see a lot of Will’s childhood in TID but not Jem, and it would be cool to see what it was like growing up in Shanghai. I imagine he was the kid who brought home starving stray animals and begged his parents to let him keep them… 🙂 Also, so excited for Through Blood, Through Fire! Can’t wait to see how Jem is adjusting to modern life.

C: We will see Jem thinking about his childhood in both GOTSM and The Lost Book of the White, in which he is in Shanghai again and sees the descendants of his mother’s family, which brings back the memories of his early youth. But stories tend not to be about the times when people are totally OK: we don’t actually see much of Will and Cecily’s childhood, except that we see Will make his one terrible mistake. If we were going to see Jem’s childhood, we would see the moment it all went wrong: Jem’s parents killed, Jem tortured, which is not quite what you’re asking for. I think you’re right that Jem was definitely a kind boy. We can see Jem’s childhood, the grounding Jem’s parents gave him, from the way he deals with the many blows life gives him: I think we can infer Jem’s parents did a great job. And we promise you plenty of modern Jem in the later stories: Jem has to go through bitter waters to get to the sweet, but you will see Jem happy, and I do understand that’s what people want–and what he deserves.

My question is not about SotD but about the next story. I read the preview at the end of SotD and the fact that matthew called jem “uncle jem” got me thinking about their relationship. I know we are going to see more about it in the next story, but can you tell something about them?

C: In CLS Matthew does not actually know Jem super well–he feels like he knows him better than he does, from all the Herondales’ stories about him. (TLH is all about stories!) Jem, of course, has to live in the Silent City, so Matthew hasn’t had the opportunity to get to know him very well, but he calls Will Uncle Will, and Uncle Jem seems to follow naturally from that. Matthew has a bit of a complex about being separate from his friends: Charlotte being Consul meant much less time in London for him, and Matthew’s friend group are all cousins except for him. Matthew tries to love all that his parabatai loves, and really wants Jem to think well of him, and hopes Jem will believe that James has an OK parabatai. So Matthew’s laying himself out to be charming, and Jem’s charmed by Matthew–people usually are! We see them get to know each other better in CLS, and by the end, Jem knows a secret about Matthew nobody else does. (x)

I was wondering why the part in the institute was written from Isabelle’s POV?/i was wondering why the other pov was isabelle, and not alec, who would eventually be jace’s parabatai?

C: Well, I talked in an earlier post about PoVs, and how I decide people are getting PoVs–it happens for many, many reasons, but the end result is (I hope) to get the best reading experience possible. Isabelle’s PoV came naturally to me and Sarah for many reasons—I don’t think we ever considered Alec for this story.
For one thing, Isabelle isn’t going to be the co-protagonist of The Eldest Curses series: people have a lot of Alec’s PoV upcoming, and Isabelle is just as important and beloved, so I thought it would be fun for her get a PoV here, being young and fierce and optimistic. Plus, Alec’s getting a PoV in The Land I Lost, to parallel Magnus’s PoV in Born to Endless Night, so now we get a look inside of both their heads in GOTSM.
For another, Isabelle’s PoV worked because Isabelle is the one literally seeing the most, and giving us the clearest perspective possible on what’s happening. Remember what I said about often not having a PoV because that character has a secret? Isabelle in this story is the kid who isn’t hiding anything, who at this time–before she knows the secret of her father’s infidelity–believes in her family entirely, and sees them all from a sympathetic, loving, and not defensive viewpoint. She’s not shy like Alec, so she’s open-minded about Jace coming. From Alec’s perspective, the scene where Jem and Raphael visit might well go: “Isabelle is giving a Silent Brother googly eyes, whereas I, Alec, am having a cool casual conversation with a cool individual in a cool jacket” which doesn’t convey as much of what’s actually going on. Isabelle’s sharp, too, and she alone sees that Raphael is actually putting out ‘Save me!’ vibes during said conversation, whereas Alec wants to think he’s having a successful social interaction, and Maryse is frightened for her kids, so she sees a vampire talking to her children automatically as a vampire preying on her children. That’s often how prejudice works–we project the discomfort we feel onto others, and try to make it their fault.
Isabelle’s the least prejudiced person in the room–Jem isn’t prejudiced, but he doesn’t really know the Lightwoods or how they work, and is trying to convince Robert and Maryse to help with the yin fen, so he doesn’t have much opportunity to notice the kids until Maryse calls attention to them, and can’t know that Alec isn’t just a friendly kid. Similarly, Isabelle has the least baggage when observing Jace, and she notices a lot of details and draws conclusions even more accurate than she knows. Robert and Maryse are both viewing Jace through the lens of him being Michael Wayland’s son, with all the baggage that entails, and which influences how each of them sees Jace–Robert expected Jace to look like Michael, which of course Jace doesn’t, and Maryse isn’t expecting to feel a maternal pull to Jace, which she does. Max and Alec are a bit dazzled by the new arrival, and Alec’s shyness is still present, as is his discomfort with this stranger in their home–for some time Jace and Alec are going to be uncertain of how to read the other, and whether the other one likes them, while Isabelle can see what’s up from this first night. Jace’s PoV of the first night, for instance, would be a panicked mess: he doesn’t know these people, he’s hurt, he badly wants to please, and the one who seems best disposed toward him is baby Max, whose burbling Jace cannot understand. Isabelle understands Max: she’s the PoV because she’s the one who best understands everybody in the room and what’s going on in their hearts — better even than they do.

I loved Son of the Dawn, and I’m particularly in love with getting Isabelle’s POV! I love the way she thinks and she felt young- she also hinted at her parents fighting, and said that her mother would never tell her something she didn’t want to hear. What made Maryse tell Isabelle about Robert’s affair, and how did that affect how Isabelle felt towards her mother?

C: Maryse is in a very isolated position. In exile with her family, it wasn’t as if she had friends she could confide in when she found out Robert was unfaithful but she desperately needed one. She made a classic mistake and treated her daughter as if her daughter were her friend and not her child. I think we see a lot in CoFA and after about how Isabelle felt about being her mother’s confidant — from feeling that she herself had to protect “the boys” from the truth about their father, to resenting her mother, to resenting her father, to finally coming to peace with the knowledge that her parents were flawed people, as everyone is. I’m glad you enjoyed little Izzy’s POV! (x)

I have a question about Jace growing up with the Lightwoods and Hodge: how come over all the years none of them ever saw Jace’s star mark (while cleaning a wound like in the story or helping with training, idk) and realised he was a Herondale? Wouldn’t they have known what that meant because of Stephen? A mark coming from an angel doesn’t seem like something that would be kept as a secret.

C: The Herondale mark is not dissimilar to a scar, and Jace sadly already comes to the Lightwoods with many scars on him. Jocelyn and Clary are not Herondales, and they have a similar (though not the same) mark, due to Valentine’s experiments, which Clary thinks is a chicken pox scar. So if one of the Lightwoods happened to see a mark on Jace, well, as Gideon says in TID, the Shadowhunters are a people of many scars, and scars can come in many shapes. The star mark is not always in the same place, either, so they really would have to be scrutinizing Jace’s body pretty carefully, and be thinking a lot about the Herondales’ scar, even though the Herondales are not even the only family who prides themselves on having a mark or scar that makes them special — and even though they have no reason to be thinking about the Herondales at all.

The Herondales have a myth about their angel mark–that it was given to them by an angel. That’s their story and they’re sticking to it–”Totally chosen by an angel, we’re supremely Nephilim!” — but again, they’re not the only family with a family myth, and while there have been some great Herondales, there have also been some questionable ones. Insecurity about their heritage may well have been a cause for Stephen joining the Circle, and for Imogen’s harshness. Both of them were trying to prove they were true Shadowhunters, and in the process they became not great human beings.

The Herondales didn’t show their star mark all over town, though they would have been very aware of it themselves. So, say, Robert might or mightn’t have ever seen Stephen’s mark, but if he did, he didn’t study it or think much about it, and he isn’t looking for it on Jace: they all think they know who Jace is, and who his father was. Maryse doesn’t like to think about the Circle days and also probably didn’t see Stephen’s mark or even know about this particular Herondale story. Robert is the one who knew Stephen best, but Robert is the last person who would suspect–he wanted Jace to be Michael’s kid, so that he could make up for his own guilt over rebuffing Michael. If Jace was Stephen Herondale’s, or Valentine’s, that meant Michael died and his son died, horribly, years before, and Robert didn’t even know, and Robert cannot make up for anything. He would only have his guilt and his grief, and the knowledge that sometimes when you are weak and cruel, you do a wrong that can never be remedied.

In sum: Not everyone knows about the Herondale mark, or thinks of it as significant, not because it was a secret but because there are a million such stories floating around the Nephilim world; if Jace’s origins had been mysterious, people might well have looked him over for clues and resemblances to someone or other, but everyone was sure they knew who he was and where he came from so they didn’t. Alas! (x)

I loved Lily in this story! Does she constantly make up nicknames for all of her friends? Does she do nicknames for Alec, Magnus, and Maia when they’re in meetings?

C: Aw thank you, I’m seeing lots of love for Lily and it makes me and Sarah very happy!
I don’t know that Lily constantly makes up nicknames for all her friends, but I don’t think she’d be opposed to nicknames either, depending on the situation (like, she wouldn’t have called Raphael by any sexy nicknames, even in jest, because it would’ve upset him. Whereas Jem was entirely chill about his many nicknames. Got to know your audience!). She does love to joke around. It’s quite possible she would come up with team nicknames for the members of the Alliance, and have to be restrained from introducing Maia to people as the Fuzzy Avenger. Her series of nicknames for Jem started with her just being stunned that Brother Zachariah looks so different from the other Silent Brothers, as Jem is an attractive guy in possession of his eyes, and Lily wasn’t expecting Mr January Through December of the Hot Silent Brothers calendar, and they continued because Raphael was so horrified by them. On their second meeting, you may notice Lily stepped the nicknames up several notches: probably because Raphael was like “Noooooo!” as soon as they were back at the hotel. In The Land I Lost, you’ll see her and Jem together again, and she calls him a few more things. And there is one other person Lily calls by a name she thinks is funny… (x)

it was clear that Lily was in love with Raphael, but he is more reserved with his feelings. Did Raphael ever respond to Lily’s feelings?

C: Lily is and has been in love with Raphael, which was hinted at in earlier stories — Lily is actually pansexual, but Raphael is asexual and aromantic. It isn’t that he doesn’t love Lily, it’s as he says “For your information, I do not have any interest in romance of any kind and never will.” He cares about Lily very much as a friend, and Lily knows that Raphael is aromantic (even though she’d be unlikely to be familiar with the word) so she’d never pressure him for a specific kind of love he isn’t comfortable with. Lily’s happy to flirt with Jem, who she genuinely thinks is a mega fox, but she doesn’t flirt with Raphael: she talks about them as a team. In TftSA, Lily said “I thought Raphael would always be there.” They’ve known each other almost 50 years at this point, and have a very well established relationship dynamic, based above all on respect. In the story, we see Lily reach out to touch Raphael, but she doesn’t do it. She doesn’t care if Jem sees her, she only cares about not bothering or burdening Raphael.

Raphael has a traumatic past and issues with intimacy that are entirely apart from being ace and aro, as Jem observes and as we’ve seen elsewhere—his relationship to Magnus is definitely not romantic or sexual on either side, but he consistently refuses to show closeness to Magnus, and Magnus has no idea Raphael thinks of him as highly as Raphael does. Lily is hurt by some of Raphael’s distancing behavior, as when he refers to her as a colleague and not a friend; she’s unsure of his regard for her in that moment, but later she can see his protective actions towards her and is clearly touched by them. By and large, though, they are much more often on the same page than not.

So I noticed that Lily is clearly in love with Raphael and Raphael harbors nothing back. But he knows about it. Does he consider Lily a friend? Does he feel uncomfortable? Can you give us a little more insight into their relationship. Also doesn’t he look fourteen and her nineteen?

C: Raphael does look younger than Lily, and in fact he is younger than Lily by several decades at least (though we don’t have a specific age for Lily… yet). But how people look isn’t that significant in a world of immortals — Tessa looked a lot younger than Will, for a lot of their relationship, and presumably Magnus is going to look a lot younger than Alec for much of theirs. And when both people never age, how they look becomes even less important; it’s how old they actually are. In the end, Lily and Raphael aren’t romantically involved, not because of what age each of them look, but because Raphael isn’t interested in being sexually or romantically involved with anyone, ever.

Raphael and Lily, as City of Heavenly Fire says, were “always thick as thieves.” He chose to bring her with him to the Shadow Market, trusting her, and chooses to hang around with her often (Lily, Raphael and their friend Elliott were off to Taki’s on a social outing when they run into Alec and Magnus in TBC, and you will see Lily and Elliott drag Raphael to a party in Italy in The Red Scrolls of Magic). He gets wounded defending her, and in a battle you can’t guarantee you won’t get killed: he was putting his life at risk. Had it been Camille in the line of fire, Raphael would’ve been found filing his nails in a mysterious other location.

It’s always fun to write a relationship with a bit of a dichotomy to it, in that Lily’s always been older and Raphael always acted older–he was a big brother, the oldest of a large family, and as we saw in TBC, he tried to boss Lily around from the moment he met her. (And she responded with, “LOL, cute.”) Lily’s always been pretty dedicated to the party lifestyle–it was how she came to join up with Camille–and she’s prone to acting somewhat heedlessly and immaturely, while Raphael has always tried to be mature and responsible. Which doesn’t mean Lily’s immature–as soon as she has to, she reaches out to Maia, cooperates with Alec and Magnus, leads the clan as best she can. She just didn’t care what happened with the clan or the city, before Raphael, and she didn’t have to step up, while Raphael was there. She figured they were for always, and she’d never have to know what she’d do, if something happened to him… but Raphael says he hopes she’d do something practical. She did. Raphael has faith sometimes, too: Raphael had faith in her, and we know faith was important to him, and we know his faith was more than justified.

I was just wondering whether Magnus ever found out that 11 year old Alec was totally crushing on Raphael and what his reaction would have been. 

C: Magnus would be amused. He might be a bit incredulous as well (”Raphael?! Really?!”) but everyone has crushes as a kid, like when you find out what awful popstar your significant other liked when they were 12. Probably it’s a good thing that Magnus had an uneasy relationship with the Lightwoods and seldom saw them, since I’m sure a younger Alec would’ve got a huge crush on Magnus, and had terrible trouble getting Magnus to take him seriously later. (x)

Will we find out what werewolves were doing with yin fen? 

C: Yin fen, as we see in TID, has several uses for the unscrupulous! Remember the werewolves with yin fen in Clockwork Prince? But in SotD, their evil plan was foiled, and only a bit the point —what Sarah and I wanted to achieve by using yin fen was for Jem and Raphael to have a very personal, but very different, stake in what was happening.
Raphael cares about his city—his home, and Jace’s new home. In The Bane Chronicles, we saw Camille getting her clan to dabble in drugs. Raphael, as someone with impulses to lose control and slaughter people that he once gave way to (and which he blames himself for, though anyone would’ve done it), and who grew up as a Latino kid in a rough neighborhood, knows about loss of control and—as a very strong-willed and responsible person—is disgusted by it. Raphael is emphatically not there for drugs in any way, and not up for a repeat performance for his clan, or for his city. He has to take direct action, and he doesn’t trust either his clan leader or the Shadowhunters at the New York Institute. He does trust Magnus, but he wouldn’t go to Magnus for help, because he already owes Magnus huge. But where did Raphael know to go to Jem, and about yin fen? From Tessa. Raphael has strong ties to the warlocks—he’s close to and in constant communication with Ragnor, as we see in Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. Raphael likes and trusts Tessa—indeed, we see them, though Tessa is unnamed, in the party at the end of City of Glass. Tessa told Raphael to go to Jem—to trust him. Raphael isn’t exactly the trusting type, though. He tests Jem. He says specifically that he won’t tell Jem how he knows about the yin fen, and he doesn’t mention Tessa, which would’ve got Raphael Jem’s help 10000% no questions asked. Instead Jem is presented with a conundrum–does he help people he doesn’t know, when the Silent Brothers might punish him by stopping him from seeing Tessa?
Raphael’s home may be in danger during this story, but Jem’s heart is in danger–he’s at a very low ebb in this story, very far away from humanity, and he makes a choice to try to swim, as it were, through a cold sea back toward what makes us human, toward being able to become human again in City of Heavenly Fire. It says a lot about Jem that even as someone whose heart has been effectively muted for over a hundred years, he is caring and empathetic enough to risk something very important to him to do what he believes is right, and to spare strangers suffering that he’s already endured. Yin fen has already destroyed Jem’s life in every way possible. It can’t hurt him any longer. But it could hurt someone else, and he knows how much. Jem doesn’t even know it, but he justified Tessa’s faith in him. Have faith, he tells Raphael. Keep faith, he tells himself. And as we see, Jem lives by his beliefs: he chose to live for Tessa and Will and he lives as if, every day, Will and Tessa are watching.
Through the device of the yin fen, we show Raphael’s home and Jem’s heart under threat, and by placing Jace on that ship, in their path, we see Jace discovering his own home and heart. (x)

I have a couple of question — why is young Jace in such a rush to become parabatai with someone when growing up he was taught they were a weakness?

C: I wouldn’t say Jace is in a rush: he doesn’t ask Alec or anything, and won’t for years. But young Jace is deeply lonely, as we can see from his reactions to Alec and Maryse especially, and Jem’s words about having a parabatai strike him deeply. He does ask Isabelle if she and Alec are going to be parabatai, because Jace at this point is very conscious of being an interloper and doesn’t want to discommode anybody–as in the story, when he says he won’t bother Maryse. If Isabelle had staked a claim on Alec as a parabatai, that would have been the end of that, but as Isabelle had no interest, it left the possibility open, and given Jem’s interesting words, Jace is considering it.

Valentine trained Jace to be the ideal warrior. He made that the ultimate goal to work toward, teaching Jace that showing emotion or vulnerability was weakness that would not just get Jace killed, but severely disappoint the father Jace loved–the father who was all Jace had in the world. Valentine taught Jace that to love was to destroy. Jace was raised by a man who praised him only for being a heartless soldier. For Jace being the best Shadowhunter and warrior ever isn’t just about his duty, or pride in his prowess, but in a very real psychological sense about Jace feeling valuable, and worthy of love. It’s a horrible conundrum for a mistreated child, longing for love but taught to distrust it.

Jace wants love, but he doesn’t think he should want it–why would he want to be destroyed? But both Jem and Alec give Jace a way to rationalize reaching out for love–this bond makes you a better warrior, Jem says, and as Jem observes Jace seizes on that–yes, to be a better warrior! Exactly what Valentine would have wanted! And Alec, showing kindness and concern for Jace, suggests someone having Jace’s back, which as we know, Alec will later dedicate all his training to doing. He’ll be protecting Jace and Isabelle. Over the years, Jace is going to see Alec shield them, over and over, at the risk of his own life. They’re not empty words. It actually does make Jace a better warrior to have Alec for a parabatai – he doesn’t know it yet, but there is brightness on the horizon. Like the dawn.

But as Jem sees, what Jace is actually drawn to, though he pretends otherwise even to himself, is the idea of having someone to belong to. Jace, as he says in the story, isn’t anybody’s anything, but Robert is taking him in because (as he thinks) his parabatai was Jace’s father–another thing that impresses Jace, as well as Jem’s words: Jace is literally getting a home because Robert respects the parabatai bond, and Robert is awkwardly and painfully trying to convey that he loved Michael.

Being parabatai is a sacred and respected bond among the Nephilim, in many ways transcending the bonds of family. Throughout the Shadowhunter Chronicles we see how the parabatai bond works in their society: Emma gets to stay with the Blackthorns, Matthew gets taken back with James, Jem himself got to refuse to live with Elias Carstairs and stay with his parabatai Will. Whither thou lodgest I will lodge, and thy people will be my people. It’s not adoption or marriage, but it is a bond with that kind of resonance. Jace is terribly young and terribly alone–as Jem was, and as Will was, and as Emma would have been, if she had been parted from the Blackthorns. It makes sense that Jace would want a bond of his own, just as long as he can convince himself that bond might mean strength, instead of weakness. Jem gives him a way to do that.

In the end, Jem convinces Jace because, in fact, Jem is right. Jace can feel that Jem is right. Jem’s love and Jem’s belief carry conviction. This is the first step for Jace to become a healthier person. This is where it starts to get better. Jem is right. Valentine was wrong. Love does not destroy, but saves. Jem, through his love for the long dead Will, can save Jace… and that will lead Jace to grow up to be a man — Alec’s parabatai, Clary’s love, Isabelle’s brother — who is strong and good and can save Jem, too: can redeem him from his suffering in City of Heavenly Fire, and deliver him back to life and love. There is a symmetry in that, in the loop of love, which never ends, which inspires more and more love, from Will and Jem to Jace and Alec, and back again. (x)

There’s a line that mentions Jem remembering something about the faerie woman he sees at the Shadow Market, “dimly recollecting her hurting a golden-haired child. It had be so long ago.” My memory is kinda foggy, or maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m assuming we should know about this child?

C: Actually it’s a reference to Cast Long Shadows, which in the print version will be the first story. We decided to release the stories out of chronological order because we felt like people would be excited to read Son of the Dawn in which they knew all the characters rather than steamrolling them right into the TLH characters, who haven’t had a book published about them yet! We’re hoping people will have enjoyed SotD and be willing to take a chance on the next ones.

Let Matthew know that if he needs someone to fight that awful faerie woman who hurt him to shoot me a fire message. I love Matthew and have a lot of rage that he was hurt. :p

C: Good job guessing it was Matthew! I think it’s a little puzzling to guess immediately because we don’t think of Matthew as a “child” at all, and “golden-haired child” does make him sound like a tiny tot. But we were trying to draw a bit of a distinction between Matthew at the beginning of Cast Long Shadows (innocent and boyish) and Matthew by the end. So it makes sense that Jem (who is so much older) would remember Matthew as a child in that scene.

I was wondering two small things. First, is this the encounter that Raphael remembers Alec from when he was twelve?/There’s a line I remember from one of the books where Raphael meets Alec (I think it might be from TBC) and he said “I distinctly remember you being twelve” In SOTD when Alec meets Raphael and said “I’m basically twelve” was this kinda a reference to that scene or am I just over thinking this. Love the book btw Alec’s many gay moments made me very happy!

C: Aw, you are too kind! I didn’t know the exact details as they transpired, but I did figure — and so did Sarah — that Raphael’d had a run-in with the Lightwoods before, and remembered Alec as a kid, and thought there might be an amusing tale there. It was also fun to see Alec and Alec’s sexuality from Isabelle’s perspective — from his little kid crushes to more mature crushes (especially as we know he will one day find his man and be happy!)

And indeed, Raphael remembers how old Alec told him he was, which wasn’t actually accurate…

in the Bane Chronicles when Rafael bumps into Alec and Magnus on a date and tells Alec he remembers him being 12, did you always know that Alec and Raphael’s first interaction was in Son of the Dawn?

C: We suspected it was actually a much more memorable encounter for Raphael than for Alec, since as we see Alec goes on his merry way, whereas I think Raphael was expecting trouble but was NOT expecting what he got! I figure Raphael went home to the hotel and told Lily about what had transpired, and Lily was highly amused, but both of them were like “oh, that won’t end well, with Shadowhunters being the way they are, there goes trouble.” And then, as Raphael considers it, he turned around for a brief moment and suddenly there was Magnus, right in the middle of trouble!  I feel Raphael came out of Taki’s in the Bane Chronicles tale, and was like, “Lily, Magnus is going to get his stupid head CUT OFF.”

will we get to see the s4 and the residents of the London institute (Will, Thomas, Lucie, James etc) in person in Cast Long Shadows, or only in Matthew’s thoughts and flashbacks?

C: You’ll definitely see the S4 in Cast Long Shadows from Matthew’s perspective and then again in Every Exquisite Thing from Anna’s. Hopefully it’ll give you a better understanding of their dynamic!

Is Catherine Ashdown Cameron’s mom? Or a different relation? Why would she be escorting Jace from Idris if the Ashdowns are from LA?

C: Catherine is not Cameron’s mom — not every Ashdown is going to be a close relation of Cameron’s. Paige is Cameron’s sister and lives in LA; Vanessa is a cousin who lives in Idris with other Idris Ashdowns, and Catherine is simply part of the Idris branch of the (very big) family!

We will see James or Lucie Herondale or even Cordelia Carstairs in one of the GOTSM stories?

C: You will see James and Lucie in Cast Long Shadows and Every Exquisite Thing, but Cordelia does not appear (except in Jem’s thoughts and memories) because she has not yet moved to London. (x)

i’m wondering if all these ebooks will be published together in a physical format after qoaad?

C: Yep — just like with The Bane Chronicles and Tales from Shadowhunter Academy, the stories will all be published as e-novellas first, then bound up and printed together as physical books next year.

Will we find out any more about the Blackthorns in GoTSM? And will we need to have read all of the GoTSM instalments before QoAaD to get the whole story (for example, to get all the fun references in CoHF about Jem, you had to have read TID)? 

C: There isn’t too much about the Blackthorns in GOTSM, since we’re following Jem as he looks into a solves a mystery and by the time of TDA, he’s solved it. There are two stories that take place after the events of TDA, and they won’t be published before Queen comes out as they contain spoilers. There may be some small Blackthorn mentions in Through Blood, Through Fire. Remember, you can find summaries of the stories here:

summaries

I was wondering if we’ll see any Malec in GOTSM?

C: Yes, in the story The Land I Lost, there’s some Malec! It is about Alec adopting Rafe after all.

I didn’t get it why the yin fen was coming from idris?

C: “A large quantity of yin fen is on its way to the city, on board a ship carrying cargo from Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh, Vienna, and Idris itself.”

The ship was carrying cargo from several places. The yin fen was not coming from Idris! Jace was the cargo from Idris. 🙂

 

jace and jem meet each other again in tmi. do they remember meeting each other back in 2000, when son of the dawn is set?

C: It’s true, Jace doesn’t really recognize Jem/Zachariah in City of Fallen Angels. In his defense, he was possessed and hadn’t seen Jem since he was ten. As for Jem, he does recognize Jace as the boy he met, but he’s focused on the fact that he didn’t recognize Jace as a Herondale. He feels bad about that and says that if he’d spent more time with Jace he believes he would have known.

I’m just wondering, do the Silent Brothers have a shared mind? Like, can they hear each others’ thought even in great distances? That’s the impression I got when I read this, by the way.

C: The Silent Brothers do indeed have a sort of telepathy that allows them to tune into a constant, low-level silent discussion, regardless of distance. Think of it as a mental chatroom they can go into and out of. (x)

I was wondering which GOTSM story was your favorite to write?

C: We have not written them all yet, my darling, but I loved writing Every Exquisite Thing. Matthew’s sin in Cast Long Shadows is pretty fun too. (x)

just wanted to ask you if Anna’s secret lover is someone we have heard of or just a random new character. ❤

C: Anna had a first love that didn’t go well, but not a “secret lover” really. I don’t believe we do know who she will be, but we’ll find out soon enough in Every Exquisite Thing, and she certainly is a character in TLH (though admittedly I haven’t described/publicly named every character yet.)

Can you tell us more about how the relationship is between Anna and her parents (Gabriel and Cecily)?

C: I can promise that Every Exquisite Thing is very much about that. It’s not just about Anna’s first love, but about her identity and what it means for her in terms of her family and her place in it. (x)

how did you come up with the titles for the Ghosts Of The Shadow Market short stories?

C: The Shadowhunters books have always been grounded in the premise “what if all the stories were true?” and thus I have always tried to weave in elements of myth, legend, classic tales and references that readers might pick up on–not stuff that was necessary for people to know, but that if they did know might add an extra richness to my work. For instance, “The Mortal Instruments” itself is taken from the Shakespearean quote “I have not slept. Between the acting of a dreadful thing, and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasm, or a hideous dream: the genius and the mortal instruments are then in council.”
Writing with other writers is an interesting thing–it’s fun, as I do it with my friends and it means we all get excited and yell and create together, but it’s also an evolving process as we learned to work together, and since these stories are for really loyal readers who want to learn about the gaps between the major series, as we learned more about what those readers wanted. For the stories in the Bane Chronicles, they had titles describing what happens in the story (in mine and Maureen Johnson’s The Runaway Queen, a Queen runs away!) but we noted that people thought the titles were a bit too jokey. “What if we did story titles more like your chapter titles?” Sarah Rees Brennan suggested, and that’s the naming system we used for Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy and now for Ghosts of the Shadow Market.
We came up with the titles the same day we came up with the plots for the stories: when my friends and I were all together on a writing retreat in Italy. Kelly Link thrilled us all by saying she’d like to write stories in this collection as well. Maureen, Kelly, Robin Wasserman and I swam in the pool of the house we were renting, and Sarah sat at the side of the pool and took notes of everybody’s suggestions (and sneakily added Raphael Santiago to one of the stories she and I were doing together). Sarah, who co-wrote Nothing But Shadows and has a Matthew attachment, screamed that she bagged Matthew’s story and would not be gainsaid. Sarah and Maureen fought for a while over the possession of A Deeper Love, and Maureen won the story because she knows everything about London Tube stations. Robin and I agreed she should definitely be the one to work with me on The Wicked Ones, as we worked together on The Evil We Love, which dealt with Robert Lightwood and Michael Wayland, and Robin loves the tragedy of Valentine’s Circle and the idea of writing the girl who would become Celine Montclaire Herondale be… almost saved. (Maureen loves London and absurdism. Sarah passionately adopts sarcastic secondary characters — like Raphael, Lily and Ragnor. Robin is always able to be sympathetic and understanding about evils both great and small. Kelly Link, as you will see, has an amazing knack of elegiac strangeness and beauty found in the oddest places.) Together we came up with titles that we felt both had mythic resonance, and suited the stories they were attached to.
The titles are all quotes, some modified, which reflect the overall tone of the story. I mentioned Every Exquisite Thing the other day, talking about the tragedy in Anna’s past. Cast Long Shadows is a quote from the proverb “old sins cast long shadows” which both hints at Matthew’s great sin and how it will affect his future, and reflects the tale as a story that is companions with (parabatai stories if you will!) Matthew’s parabatai James Herondale’s tale “Nothing But Shadows’ in Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. If you guys find the quotes the titles refer to, you will have more of an idea what the story is about! Think of them like Easter eggs if you want Easter eggs, and if not, I hope you think they’re pretty and suit the stories, and fit in well with my world. That’s what we were going for!
In Ghosts of the Shadow Market, there is now an ongoing mystery that runs through all the stories, a more complex and intense throughline than we’ve ever used before, and that’s an exciting challenge–we can follow through every tale, like Jem, to find clues that will ultimately lead to the truth about Kit Herondale. I can’t tell you guys much about the stories I’m writing with Kelly and Sarah for the print edition of Ghosts of the Shadow Market, since they will contain spoilers for Queen of Air and Darkness, but the titles are Ghosts of Old Loves (”of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old loves are the worst”–Arthur Conan Doyle), and Forever Fallen (”Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!”–Paradise Lost). (x)

Will we see any Catarina Loss in GoTSM?

C: Yes, the fifth story, A Deeper Love, finds Caterina and Tessa serving as nurses together during the London Blitz. Quick summaries of the stories in GOTSM are here: summaries. (x)

Whew, who made it until the end? 😉

Tell us your favourite part in Son of the Dawn in the comments below!

Cast Long Shadows is published on May 8 wherever ebooks are sold!