What you need to know before reading ‘The Last King of Faerie’

Hello, hello! ♥

Today, on the eve of the long-anticipated release of Cassandra Clare’s The Last King of Faerie, I do have one final post before I am sharing my review tomorrow.
Some of you might not have had time to reread books from The Shadowhunter Chronicles and to help you out, I have written a recap with information you definitely need to know to be prepared. Spoilers for The Dark Artifices and other books ahead!

Here we go:

The general situation

• The Clave is separated. There’s the Cohort locked up in Idris, although they are somehow able to spy on the other Shadowhunters. The food situation isn’t that great.
• The other Shadowhunters are spread all over the world and Alexander Gideon Lightwood-Bane is their Consul. The new Clave’s headquarters are in New York City. Alec is in contact with Manuel; it’s not entirely clear whether Zara knows about this.
• Kieran is the Unseelie King; his brother Adaon is no longer at the Seelie Court. The Seelie Queen has found a new lover.
• Since the Clave is still separated, the weddings of Clary and Jace as well as Simon and Izzy are still off. 😦
• There is a prophecy about separated Claves (The Time of Two, in Better in Black) and “the end of all Shadowhunters.”

The characters

• Kit Herondale

He’s a descendant of Auraline, the daughter of the Seelie Queen and Unseelie King. Auraline was meant to reunite the two Courts, but since she was a girl, the Unseelie King wasn’t happy and wanted to get rid of her. She fled to the Mortal World where she met and eventually married Roland Loss aka Roland Herondale (raised by Catarina), the son of Tobias Herondale and Eva Blackthorn (there is a whole short story about him). Roland was the first Lost Herondale. This line led to Rosemary Herondale who then married Jack Crow/Johnny Rook (whatever he was actually called) and they had Kit. Because of Auraline, who had special powers, Kit also has some fey powers, but we do not know the extent of them yet. Kit grew up in LA with his father but never knew his mother because she was hunted by the Riders of Mannan, ancient faerie soldiers loyal to the Unseelie King, and therefore in hiding. Rosemary was killed by a Rider and Johnny killed by a demon. Emma, Tessa and Jem saved Kit who then lived with the Blackthorns for a short while before his fallout with Ty (see next paragraph for more information). This fallout was so bad – Kit among other things confessed his love to Ty, but got no reaction – that Kit decided to leave LA; he now lives in England with Tessa, Jem and litte Mina Carstairs. Kit briefly saw Ty at Blackthorn Hall but hasn’t had any other contact with him since the events of Queen of Air and Darkness. We know that he misses him.

• Ty Blackthorn

Ty loves animals, detective stories, his family and his lynx, Irene. He studies at the Scholomance and his roommate is Anush. Ty is sadly a twinless twin due to Livvy’s murder by Annabel Blackthorn in Lord of Shadows. Because Ty couldn’t live without his twin, he tried to resurrect her with a spell from the Black Volume of the Dead (very powerful spellbook with lots of black magic inside). Kit helped him, although he actually didn’t want to; the spell went wrong and only Livvy’s ghost was brought back from the dead. This is still bad and Magnus, who found out, said it might have consequences for Ty: “You don’t yet understand the price. And I hope you never have to pay it.””.
In Queen of Air and Darkness, Livvy tells Ty: ““But you have upended the universe, and we will all pay for it. You’ve ripped a hole in the fabric of life and death. You don’t know what you’ve done.”” + ““You cannot borrow from death. You can only pay for it.””
Livvy is now bound to Ty and they cannot be separated for long.
Ty is autistic and feels more comfortable wearing his headphones when he fights because of the loud noises.
Due to “a shocking disappearance”, Ty and Kit reunite after four years and have to work together on a quest.

• Dru Blackthorn

Dru is the youngest Blackthorn sister. She loves horror films and is friends with Jaime Rosales who went missing on a mission in Faerie.
Dru now studies at Shadowhunter Academy (Luke’s farm close to NYC), her roommate/best friend is Thais Pedroso, a Shadowhunter from Rio de Janeiro. They sometimes get in trouble together. Dru is also friends with Kit; they chat via their phones.
Dru is kidnapped at the beginning of The Last King of Faerie and Ash’s prisoner.

• Ash Morgenstern

He is the son of the Seelie Queen and Sebastian Morgenstern. He was kidnapped by the Unseelie King and lived at his Court for many years. There the Unseelie King worked some spells on him to make him the ultimate leader. One of Ash’s powers is total loyalty; people want to please him. He also has wings.
When he was younger, he very briefly met Dru who left a lasting impression on him.
While at the Unseelie Court, he was also raised by Annabel, a resurrected Blackthorn who killed Livvy Blackthorn and Robert Lightwood (hail and farewell. If you want to know more about Annabel’s backstory, read her wiki page. It’s only important that she was under Ash’s influence). Annabel pretty much kidnapped Ash into another dimension (Thule, read about it on the wiki page) where they lived with Sebastian and Jace for a while. Clary is dead in this world. Many other Blackthorns are as well, not Livvy though. Emma and Julian were also in Thule for a short time and offered to bring Ash back to his world; he refused. While there, Ash came across a drawing of Dru, made by our Julian, that he picked up. 👀

• Janus

He is Evil Jace from Thule and obsessed with Clary. He made a deal with our world’s Lily Chen because she misses Raphael so much. He wants to kill Jace and replace him to live with Clary.
Janus raised Ash while the latter was in Thule. He somehow managed to leave this world and they both came to the world we know. They now live in Faerie (Seelie Court). Janus wants the destruction of all the Shadowhunters. Dun dun duuun! 😉

You can also check out this post to find out what we already know about The Last King of Faerie.