Son of the Dawn (Ghosts of the Shadow Market #1)

Jem’s hand was firmly clasped around his staff. He had not paid attention to the carving beneath his palm like this for many a long, cold day.

This is a reminder of my faith. If there is any part of him that can be with me, and I believe there is, then he is at hand. Nothing can part us. He allowed himself a smile. His mouth could not open, but he could still smile. He could still speak to Will, though he could no longer hear any answer.

Life is not a boat, bearing us far away on a cruel, relentless tide from all we love. You are not lost to me on some forever distant shore. Life is a wheel.

From the river, he could hear mermaids. All the sparks of the city by morning were kindling a new fire. A new day was born.

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

Even when having a heart seemed hard past bearing, it was better than the alternative. Even when Brother Zachariah felt he was losing the struggle, losing everything he had been, there was hope.

Sometimes you seem very far away from me, my parabatai.

Light on water had not rivaled the boy’s blazing contradiction of a smile, somehow both indomitable and too easily hurt. He was a child going to a new home, as Will and the boy Zachariah had been had once traveled in lonely sorrow to the place where they would find each other. Jem hoped he would find happiness.

Jem smiled back at a boy long gone.

Sometimes, Will, he said. You seem very close.


Read on for an snippet from the second Ghosts of the Shadow Market story, “Cast Long Shadows,” by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan:





Cast Long Shadows excerpt


Old sins cast long shadows — English Proverb


London, 1901


The railway viaduct passed only a hair’s breadth away from the church of St. Savior. There had been discussion among the mundanes about the possibility of demolishing the church to make way for the railroad, but it had met with unexpectedly fierce opposition. Instead the railway took a slightly more circuitous route, and the spire of the church still remained, a silver dagger against the night sky.

Beneath the arches, crosses, and rattling rails, a mundane market was held by day, the largest association of grocers in the city. By night, the market belonged to the Downworld.

Vampires and werewolves, warlocks and the fey, met under the stars and under glamour that human eyes could not pierce. They had their magic stalls set up in the same pattern as the humans’ stalls, under the bridges and through tiny streets, but the Shadow Market stalls did not hold apples or turnips. Under the dark arches the stalls shone, laden with bells and ribbons, gaudy with color: snake green, fever red, and the startling orange of flames. Brother Zachariah smelled incense burning and heard the songs of werewolves for the distant beauty of the moon, and faeries calling for children to come away, come away.

It was the first Shadow Market of the New Year by English standards, though it was still the old year in China. Brother Zachariah had left Shanghai when he was a child, and London when he was seventeen, to go to the Silent City, where there was no acknowledgment of time passing save that the ashes of more warriors were laid down. Still he remembered the celebrations of the New Year in his human life, from egg nog and fortune-telling in London to the setting off of fireworks and nibbling of moon dumplings in Shanghai.

Now, snow was falling on London. The air was crisp and cold as a fresh apple, and felt good against his face. The voices of his brothers were a low hum in his head, affording Brother Zachariah a little distance.

Zachariah was here on a mission, but he took a brief time to be glad he was in London, in the Shadow Market, to breathe air clear of the dust of the departed. It felt something like freedom, like being young again.

He rejoiced, but that did not mean the people of the Shadow Market rejoiced with him. He observed many Downworlders, and even mundanes with the Sight, casting him looks that were the opposite of welcoming. As he moved, a dark murmur threaded through the hum of conversation all around him.

The denizens of the Downworld considered this Market time as space snatched away from angels. They clearly did not relish his presence among them. Brother Zachariah was one of the Silent Brothers, a voiceless fraternity that lived long amid old bones, sworn to seclusion with hearts dedicated to the dust of their city and their dead. Nobody could be expected to embrace a Silent Brother, and these people would not be likely to take pleasure in the appearance of any Shadowhunter at all.

Even as he doubted, he saw a stranger sight than any he had expected in the Market.

There was a Shadowhunter boy dancing a cancan with three faeries. He was Charlotte and Henry Fairchild’s younger son, Matthew Fairchild. His head was thrown back, his fair hair bright by firelight, and he was laughing.

Brother Zachariah had an instant to wonder if Matthew was spellbound before Matthew caught sight of him and bounded forward, leaving the fairies behind him looking discomfited. The Fair Folk were not accustomed to having mortals skip out on their dances.

Matthew did not appear to notice. He ran up to Brother Zachariah, threw an exuberant arm about his neck, and ducked his head under the hood of the Silent Brother to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Uncle Jem!” Matthew exclaimed joyfully. “What are you doing here?”




“Cast Long Shadows” by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan will be published on 8 May, 2018.





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About the Authors


CASSANDRA CLARE was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood traveling the world with her family. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old. Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on the eponymous Jane Austen short story (and from which she later took her current pen name).

After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favorite city.

In 2007, the first book in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Bones, introduced the world to Shadowhunters. The Mortal Instruments concluded in 2014, and includes City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls, and City of Heavenly Fire. She also created a prequel series, inspired by A Tale of Two Cities and set in Victorian London. This series, The Infernal Devices, follows bookworm Tessa Gray as she discovers the London Institute in Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, and Clockwork Princess.

The sequel series to The Mortal Instruments, The Dark Artifices, where the Shadowhunters take on Los Angeles, began with Lady Midnight, continues with Lord of Shadows and will conclude with Queen of Air and Darkness.

Other books in the Shadowhunters series include The Bane Chronicles, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, and The Shadowhunter’s Codex.

Her books have more than 36 million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Visit her at CassandraClare.com.