Ghosts of the Shadow Market

by Cassandra Clare

A few nights ago, he had sat at Will Herondale’s bedside and watched his old friend struggle to draw a breath. Jem’s hand on the coverlet was the hand of a young man still, and Tessa, of course, would never grow old. How must it seem to Will, who loved them both, that he must go on so far ahead of them? But then, Jem had left Will first, and Will had had to let him go. It would only be fair when, soon, Jem would be the one left behind. Inside his head, Brother Enoch said, It will be hard. But you will be able to bear it. We will help you bear it. I will endure it because I must, Brother Zachariah said.

Knock, knock, Brother Zachariah said. “What?” Sister Emilia said. He said again, Don’t pay any attention to Belial. He thrives on it. It’s not real. It’s illusions. Nothing more. Demons won’t kill those they owe a debt to. Knock, knock. “Who’s there?” she said. Spell. Sister Emilia’s throat was so dry she could barely speak at all. The pommel of her sword was blazingly hot, as if she had her hand in the heart of a forge. “Spell who?” If you insist, Brother Zachariah said. W-H-O.

In the mirrors around them, Emilia saw visions of what Belial was promising, of all that his cure would mean. The woman Brother Zachariah adored would not be alone. He would be with her, able to share her pain and to love her wholly once more. He could rush to the side of the friend he loved, see his friend’s blue eyes shine like stars on a midsummer night as he beheld Brother Zachariah transformed. They could clasp hands with no shadow of grief or pain upon them, just once. They had been waiting all their lives for that moment, and feared it would never come.

But his parabatai, Will Herondale, is old and frail and drawing near the end of his life. I want you to give them both a span of time. Both of them in a time and place where they can be young and happy and together.”

Magnus and Catarina had both tried to speak to her tactfully of immortal lives and other loves, but if she lived until the sun died, there would never be any other for her besides Will and Jem, those two twin souls, the only souls she had ever loved.

“Love charm for the handsomest Silent Brother?” asked the faerie woman for the fifth time, leering through her dandelion-clock hair. Sometimes one could wish the Shadow Market had not become quite so comfortable with him. He remembered this woman, he thought, dimly recollecting her hurting a golden-haired child. It had been so long ago. He had cared very much at the time.

The dead woman’s eyes stared into his face, a last empty gleam before the dark consumed all. It seemed as if he were as empty as she. Why had he ever fought? Only he remembered. He would not allow himself to forget. Tessa, he thought. Will. Despair was never stronger than the thought of them. He could not betray them by giving up. They are Will and Tessa, and you were Ke Jian Ming. You were James Carstairs. You were Jem.

The boy took a step back, nervous and agile, but stopped with his chin high. Apparently he had a question. Zachariah was not expecting the one he asked. “What do the initials mean? On your staff. Do all Silent Brothers have them?” They looked together at the staff. The letters were worn by time and Zachariah’s own flesh, but they had been struck deep into the wood in the precise places where Zachariah would put his hands on them when he fought. So, in a way, they would always be fighting together. The letters were W and H. No, said Brother Zachariah. I am the only one. I carved them into the staff on my first night in the City of Bones. “Were they your initials?” the boy asked, his voice low and a little timid. “Back when you were a Shadowhunter, like me?” Brother Zachariah still considered himself a Shadowhunter, but Jonathan clearly did not mean any offense. No, said Jem, because he was always James Carstairs when he spoke of what was dearest to him. Not mine. My parabatai’s.

“You’re obviously great,” said Alec. “You just need someone to have your back.” He put his hand lightly on Jonathan’s shoulder as he spoke. It was a small gesture Isabelle would not even have noted, except for the fact that she had never seen Alec reach out like that to anyone who was not family and that Jonathan Wayland went perfectly still at his touch, as if he was afraid the tiniest movement would scare Alec away.

If life is a wheel, it will bring you back to me. All I must do is keep faith.

Many years ago, when Jem was still a child, his uncle Elias had come to the London Institute and offered to take him away. “After all,” he’d said, “we are family.” “You should go,” Will had said stormily to Jem. “I don’t care.” Will had slammed the door on his way out, declaring he was off on a wild adventure. After Elias departed, Jem had found Will sitting in the dark in the music room, staring at Jem’s violin. He’d sat down on the floor beside Will. “Entreat me not to leave thee, idiot,” Jem had said, and Will had put his head down on Jem’s shoulder. Jem had felt him trembling with the effort not to laugh or cry, and known Will wanted to do both. Blood was not love.

Alec looked at Jem, those blue eyes wide and sorrowful. He looked like Will, but he wasn’t Will, any more than Jace was. None of them could ever be Will.

“At some of the worst and darkest times in my life, you have always known what to say to comfort me,” said Tessa. “I had one of my darkest moments when we were young, and we had only known each other a little while. You came to me and said words that I carried with me like a light. That was one of the moments that made me fall in love with you.” She lifted her hand to his face, her fingers tracing the scars there. Jem dropped a kiss on her wrist. “If my words comforted you, we are even,” he said. “Your voice is the music I love best in all the world.” “You see,” Alec muttered darkly to Lily. “We do love an eloquent babe,” said Lily.

He glanced at Joaquín, who was wiping tears from his eyes. Alec frowned at him and mouthed, “What?” “Oh, it’s j-just the way Jem is translating,” Joaquín explained. “I mean, your speech is good too, very stern, it makes me want to do everything you say. And Jem is basically repeating it, but it’s the way he puts things, you know? It’s beautiful.”

To Alec, love always meant this: his shining city of eternal light. The land of lost dreams reclaimed, his first kiss and his last.

“No bed!” he argued. “Stay up. Be with Rafe.” He sidled up to a stunned-looking Rafael and gave him a big hug. “I’m love him.” Rafe hesitated, then hugged Max shyly back. The sight of them made Alec’s chest hurt.

He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Tessa’s hair. Behind his lids, he did not see darkness but the light of a London morning and Will there, smiling at him. A new soul made of you and Tessa, Will said. I can hardly wait to meet such a paragon. “Do you see him too?” Tessa whispered. “I see him,” Jem said, and he held her even more tightly against him, the new life they had created together between them.

“You want the other kids to think you’re cool, right, Min?” he asked her as she burbled agreement. “You’re lucky I’m here.” Tessa swooped on Kit from behind, ruffling his golden hair with the hand not holding her pastry, on her way to get Jem coffee from the stove. “We’re all lucky you’re here,” she told him. Kit bowed his head, but not before Jem saw his face flush, pleased and shy.

“What does all this mean?” Kit asked. “Do you think I’d take them and—do you want me to—?” He sounded lost. His blue eyes fell on Tessa’s first editions, on Jem’s Stradivarius violin, as though they were signposts and he was trying to find his way in a terribly strange land. Jem said, “We want you to stay, and to know that the choice is entirely yours, and we wanted to show you something. We want you to know there is nothing in this house more precious to us than you.” Kit had stayed.

“Yeah, I’m still absorbing the fact that I’m literally Rosemary’s baby,” he remarked. “Read that book,” Tessa said with a faint smile. “Saw that movie,” returned Kit. “I have no idea what you two are talking about,” said Jem, as he usually did when they played Read that book/Saw that movie.

for his wife and his baby and the boy who was safe in his keeping, here together in this warm small room at home. One day they might be parted, but they could remember this moment and this melody. “The story that I love you,” Tessa sang. “It has no end.” Jem believed her.

Kit hesitated, then said, “Will?” and Jem nodded. “Do you . . .” Kit bit his lip. “Do you still think about him a lot?” “I loved him better than I love myself,” said Jem. “I still do. I think about him every day.”

Jem went inside to his wife and his baby and his boy, to his long-awaited home. Above the low slate roof, sunset had dyed the clouds a color darker than gold. This evening the whole sky was bronze, as though to summon wicked powers.