The Dark Artifices

The Dark Artifices is an ongoing trilogy written by Cassandra Clare and is the sequel series to The Mortal Instruments. It is the third series to be published in The Shadowhunter Chronicles, and is the fourth chronologically.

Set in Los Angeles in 2012, the series will follow Emma Carstairs, Julian Blackthorn, Cristina Rosales, and the other residents of the Los Angeles Institute.

Books

• Lady Midnight
• Lord of Shadows
• The Queen of Air and Darkness

Teasers

Snippets

For more, either go to the individual pages of the upcoming installments or check the unidentified snippets page.

Teaser #1

Cristina looked after Emma, her hand going to the pendant at her own throat. It was silver, in the shape of a circle with a rose inside it. The rose was wrapped around with thorny briars. Words were written in Latin on the back: she didn't need to look at them to know them. She’d known them all her life. Blessed be the Angel my strength who teaches my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. The rose for Rosales, the words for Raziel, the Angel who had created the Shadowhunters a thousand years ago. Cristina had always thought Emma fought for her parabatai and for revenge, while she fought for family and faith. But maybe it was all the same thing: maybe it was all love, in the end.

Teaser #2

"I know things haven't been exactly right between us since I got back from England," he said. "And I don't know if it's because I'm a little jealous of Cristina, or a lot jealous of —"

"JULIAN," Emma said.

Teaser #3

"Hello? This is Clary Fairchild."

"Clary? It’s me, Emma."

"Oh, Emma, hi! I haven't heard from you in ages. My mom says thanks for the wedding flowers, by the way. She wanted to send a note but Luke whisked her away on a honeymoon to Tahiti."

"Tahiti sounds nice."

"It probably is — Jace, what are you doing with that thing? There is no way it'll fit."

"Is this a bad time?"

"What? No! Jace is trying to drag a trebuchet into the training room. Alec, stop helping him."

"What's a trebuchet?"

"It's a huge catapult."

"What are they going to use it for?"

"I have no idea. Alec, you're enabling! You're an enabler!"

"Maybe it is a bad time."

"I doubt there'll be a better one. Is something wrong? Is there anything I can do?"

"I think we have your cat."

"What?"

"Your cat. Big fuzzy Blue Persian? Always looks angry? Julian says it's your cat. He says he saw it at the New York Institute. Well, saw him. It's a boy cat."

"Church? You have Church? But I thought — well, we knew he was gone. We thought Brother Zachariah took him. Isabelle was annoyed, but they seemed to know each other. I've never seen Church actually like anyone like that."

"I don't know if he likes anyone here. He bit Julian twice. Oh, wait. Julian says he likes Ty. He’s asleep on Ty's bed."

"How did you wind up with him?"

"Someone rang our front doorbell. Diana, she's our tutor, went down to see what it was. Church was in a cage on the front step with a note tied to it. It said For Emma. This is Church, a longtime friend of the Carstairs. Take care of this cat and he will take care of you. —J."

"Brother Zachariah left you a cat."

"But I don't even really know him. And he's not a Silent Brother any more."

"You may not know him, but he clearly knows you."

"What do you think the J stands for?"

"His real name. Look, Emma, if he wants you to have Church, and you want Church, you should keep him."

"Are you sure? The Lightwoods —"

"They're both standing here nodding. Well, Alec is partially trapped under a trebuchet, but he seems to be nodding."

"Jules says we'd like to keep him. We used to have a cat named Oscar, but he died, and, well, Church seems to be good for Ty's nightmares."

"Oh, honey. I think, really, he's Brother Zachariah's cat. And if he wants you to have him, then you should."

"Why does Brother Zachariah want to protect me? It's like he knows me, but I don't know why he knows me."

"I don't exactly know … But I know Tessa. She's his — well, girlfriend seems not the right word for it. They've known each other a long, long time. I have a feeling they're both watching over you."

"That's good. I have a feeling we're going to need it."

"Emma — oh my God. The trebuchet just crashed through the floor. I have to go. Call me later."

"But we can keep the cat?"

"You can keep the cat."

Teaser #4

"Ty was sitting beside his sister, carefully tying several pieces of licorice together"

Teaser #5

Julian had stepped away from them and was on the phone again, speaking in a low voice. Mark splashed up out of the water and jammed his wet feet into his boots. Neither he nor Cristina was glamoured, and Emma noticed the stares of mundane passers-by as he came toward her — because he was tall, and beautiful, and because he had eyes that shone brighter than the lights of the ferris wheel. And because one of his eyes was blue, and the other one was gold.

And because there was something about him, something indefinably strange, a trace of the wildness of Faerie that never failed to make Emma think of untrammeled, wide-open spaces, of freedom and lawlessness. I am a lost boy, his eyes seemed to say. Find me.

Teaser #6

Far below them the world spun by, a patchwork of summer-gold fields, green hills, and luminous, winding rivers of blue and green. It was beautiful, but Julian could not take his eyes off his brother. So this is the Wild Hunt, he thought. This freedom, this expanse, this ferocity of joy. For the first time, he understood how and why Mark’s choice to stay with his family might not be an easy one. For the first time he thought in wonder of how much his brother must love him after all, to consider giving up the sky for his sake.

Teaser #7

"You're hurting her," Ty said. "Don't."

Teaser #8

"Livvy would know," Ty said. "She'll know if I'm not here."

Teaser #9

Cristina smiled. "I love you, too, Emma," she said. "And maybe. Maybe I will."

Art

Trivia

• The poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe is part of the basis for The Dark Artifices.
• The series title, "the Dark Artifices", was taken from "The Annals of Imperial Rome," a historical work written by Tacitus.
• Ariadne Blackthorn, who was part of the original set of announced characters in the series, was written off during the writing of City of Heavenly Fire.
• While the original plan during the early stages of the book's development was to set the series in 2012, Cassie shared that she was moving the setting to 2013, before the final published version revealed that it was moved back to 2012.