On this page will be a compilation of the extras, cut scenes, short stories, and other bonus features or special content within the series, released alongside The Eldest Curses or by Cassandra Clare herself.
Note: Text added here belong to Cassandra Clare, and her publishers for some stories, taken from the public domain. They are copied verbatim and is not to be revised in any way.
The Red Scrolls of Magic[]
Malec's first time[]
- source: Cassandra Clare on Tumblr
- An early draft of Magnus and Alec's first time written for The Red Scrolls of Magic, still then entitled The Lost Book of the White. This is the version that was written by Wesley Chu before Cassandra Clare rewrote it during editing, deciding that she'd "wanted a different direction for the scene to go. It was something that was decided later, for instance, that they'd have their first time at home and not on the trip."[1]
The two of them went straight for the bed, kissing and pulling and stumbling over each other, nearly falling over in the process. They tumbled onto the mattress in a tangle and clawed their way toward the headboard, hands in each other's hair, on each other's bodies, stirring each other to incandescent life.
Magnus tore himself away from Alec's lips and yanked futilely at the knots that kept the bedsheet looped around the Shadowhunter's body. "How did you tie this thing on?" he growled.
Alec, lips kiss-swollen and eyes dazed with desire, didn't seem able to respond — he just went for the buttons on Magnus' shirt with shaking fingers before eventually giving up and just tearing the garment apart down the middle, sending buttons flying across the room. Finally, more out of frustration that expediency, Magnus flicked his wrist at the bedsheet as if shooing away a fly and sent the entire thing fluttering somewhere over the Indian Ocean.
Alec raised his head to watch the sheet disappear. When he looked back at Magnus, the warlock was gazing down at him with a deep seriousness in his gold-green eyes. "You spend your entire life looking out and sacrificing for people," Magnus said, and his gentle fingers traced their way along Alec's bare torso, making him shiver. "It's your turn to just lay back and relax …"
Magnus's letter to Alec[]
- source: Cassandra Clare on Tumblr
- The letter Magnus included in the notebook he gives Alec at the end of City of Heavenly Fire containing The Bane Chronicles. The letter was included with pre-orders of the book made through Good Choice Readings Virtual Signings and was written in his handwriting on stationery with Magnus's monogram inside an envelope that has his blue wax seal.
Dear Alec,
I once told you that you were not trivial. It broke my heart that you would think so. I should have known then that one day I must tell you this.
It was never your fault that I didn’t talk to you about my past. Centuries are not easy to speak of, and they were not easy to live. There have been people I loved who thought that because I laugh so that I don’t weep or break, that I was trivial.
There have been people I loved who learned more of me, and thought I was evil incarnate who must be destroyed. I didn’t know how to make those I loved think of me as more than nothing, or less than a devil. I have seen the hearts of warlocks go hard and fragile as glass over time, seen them shatter and destroy the world around them.
I have seen hatred and evil in Shadowhunters and Downworlders and mundanes. I never dreamed that I would meet a son of the Angel who could love me. Once I met you, so many feelings seemed made new: love, and hope, and fear you would see me for what I truly was, and turn your face away. That you, steadfast and clean-hearted and clear-eyed, would be right to turn away.
I never doubted your heart. Only my place in it.
I hoped for a long time to meet someone like you. I didn’t know I had almost stopped hoping, until you came. Whether you choose me tonight or not, whether you want me for always or never again, thank you for being all that you are. Alexander Gideon Lightwood, archer boy who never misses, my hope past hope.
You will know me better after you read these stories. I don’t know what you will think of me then. I only hope you know this one truth about me, with all the good and all the bad. I spent days dying in chains, thinking you would never know this, so let me tell you now.
I will love you as long as I live. However long or short my life may be, it seems to me that I could never find time enough to love you as you deserve. Loving you made me believe in eternity.
Aku cinta kamu.
How Magnus and Catarina Met[]
- The story of how Magnus Bane and Catarina Loss first met and became friends. It was included as bonus content in Waterstones special editions and was later added as a flashback scene in The Lost Book of the White.
The Lost Book of the White[]
[]
- source: Cassandra Clare on Tumblr
- An early draft for a scene in The Lost Book of the White. A version of the scene still exists in the final copy of the book.
Now Magnus watched Alec walk toward their bed, safe and home and well-beloved, and he felt the last of the tension slip from his body. He could sleep again, he thought. It had been a while since they slept in their bed together, at the same time. Too long. He rolled his shoulders, sighing, and Alec’s eyes followed the movement.
“I’m not tired,” claimed Alec, clearly lying. “Are you tired? Or would you want to—stay awake?”
Oh. It had been a while for a few things.
Too long.
Magnus leaned in across the bed and lied, his voice soft and delighted: “I’m not tired.”
Alec was already leaning in to him, his lean warrior’s body stretched out on the bed and curving toward Magnus. They met halfway, the kiss moonlight soft at first. Magnus was smiling. Alec’s warm mouth curved, after a moment, into an answering smile. Moonlight changed to starlight, a feeling like points of brightness coming to shining life all through Magnus’s body.
Magnus separated reluctantly from Alec to help Alec slide off his worn T-shirt. Magnus dropped the T-shirt by the side of the bed, and began to draw his own rings from his fingers.
“Hey,” Alec murmured, eyes shining in the low light, voice husky. “Leave them on.”
It had been much too long.
“All right,” Magnus whispered back. “Anything you want.”
“Anything?” said Alec.
Magnus reached out and stroked the angelic rune traced against of Alec’s throat, and felt Alec swallow under the light pressure of Magnus’s fingers and the metal of his rings. Then Magnus clasped the nape of Alec’s neck and drew him in for another kiss. His free hand glided up the arch of Alec’s back, rings stuttering along his spine. His palm slid up to his shoulderblades, mapping the well-known and always wonderful stretch of soft skin and scars.
Alec broke the kiss with a gasp, and leaned his head down on Magnus’s shoulder, tucking his face into Magnus’s neck for a moment. He slid the robe off Magnus’s shoulders, and as the silk slid away he kissed the bared brown skin. The press of his mouth was tender as well as passionate, every move of Alec’s always so utterly sincere.
“Anything,” said Magnus, and meant it with all his heart. “What do you want?”
“Everything,” Alec mumbled. “You.”
“ ‘Everything’ and ‘me’ are not the same thing,” Magnus murmured.
“They are to me,” said Alec.
He kissed him again, kissed away the startled look Magnus knew he was wearing, still caught off guard by Alec Lightwood, still wondering if this could possibly be for him. This kiss went as deep as the first one tonight had been soft, and as they kissed Alec tumbled back on the silk pillows and pulled Magnus down against him.
Magnus nuzzled the rune on the side of Alec’s neck, then kissed the hollow at the base of his throat, and felt the shiver run through Alec’s body beneath him.
Then a scream broke the air.
In Dreams Begin[]
- A short story in first editions of The Lost Book of the White about Jem and Tessa's wedding, explaining why no one besides the couple and Magnus can remember it.
A Tale of Brunch[]
- source: Cassandra Clare's April 2023 newsletter
- A deleted scene included in the Waterstones special editions of The Lost Book of the White which shows the TMI gang celebrating Simon's graduation from the Shadowhunter Academy.
Today, Magnus and Alec fought the latest battle in an ongoing war, a war that every week tore their neighborhood asunder. The fruits of its victories were sweet, its defeats brutal.
The battlefield was Sunday brunch in Williamsburg.
Alec returned to the group waiting huddled on the sidewalk, grimacing. Magnus held Max, his expression wary. Alec could see his friends register from the look on his face that the news was bad. There was no point disguising the truth. He let his gaze wander across their hopeful faces: his parabatai, his sister, the love of his life and their infant child. It broke his heart to tell them.
“An hour and a half,” he said.
“An hour?” Clary echoed in horror. “For a table?”
“And a half.” Alec set his jaw. “I think we should stick it out. Simon isn’t even here yet.”
Clary looked with worry at the restaurant’s packed courtyard. “He’s been talking about doing the brunch at Old Filthy Joe’s for months,” she said staunchly, “and this is his celebration.”
Simon had graduated from Shadowhunter Academy just a couple of weeks ago, an achievement that had come along with a horrific tragedy. After Simon’s best friend at school, George Lovelace, died during the Ascension ritual, no one had felt much like celebrating. But now that a little time had passed, Clary firmly argued that Simon deserved to have a moment to feel proud of what he’d accomplished. And Alec and Magnus were always up for brunch.
“Otherwise, we don’t get out of the house,” Magnus had said, shaking his head. “We just stay in and coo over Max all day.”
Now they stood on the sidewalk in a circle. The day was a bit gray, and Alec had been dreaming of ensconcing himself at a cozy table and drinking cup after cup of coffee with his friends. Perhaps also having some eggs.
The patrons in the courtyard laughed and danced amid their sparkling banquet. Alec hated them.
“It’s very fancy,” Jace said doubtfully.
“Yeah, what gives?” Clary said to Magnus. “I thought Williamsburg was all, you know, illegal art galleries in abandoned factories. I thought that’s why you lived here.”
“When you were children it was like that, a little,” Magnus said, smirking. “Now it’s all high-rises and artisanal dog backeries.”
“Do the dogs run the bakeries?” Alec asked, just as his phone buzzed. Magnus gave him a dazzling smile. Max looked around like he was trying to figure out the joke.
Alec took a few polite steps away from the group’s sidewalk huddle to answer it, it was Maia. “Hour and a half,” he said.
Maia laughed. “Yes, that’s what we thought. Bat and I have occupied one of the giant booths upstairs at Maggie’s and you all should come here.”
“We’re waiting for Simon and Isabelle,” began Alec.
“Surprise! I intercepted Simon and Isabelle!” Maia interrupted, clearly proud of herself. “They’re already here. They’ve already got mimosas. Say hi, kids.”
“Hey,” came Isabelle’s voice from a little distance. “The mimosas are unlimited with the purchase of brunch.”
“I just want to see you guys!” called out Simon. “We don’t work nine to five, I can get to Old Filthy Joe’s for breakfast on a Tuesday or something. Get over here. We’ll eat our weight in pierogies.”
“We have a baby with us, by the way,” Alec added.
“We figured,” said Maia. “The staff said his mimosas are also unlimited, but he’ll need to supply his own sippy cup.”
“Maia!” said Alec, scandalized. “Did Lily show up?”
“Alec,” Maia said patiently. “Vampires don’t eat brunch.”
“Why not?” said Alec. “Brunch is great.”
“Oh, you know, it’s very expensive,” Simon called out.
“They don’t eat food,” said Maia. “And it’s daytime. Get your people over here, Alec. Maggie’s wants us to order. They’re giving us the eye. Yes, I see you looking,” she added to some unknown party.
“Have another mimosa,” Alec advised, and hung up.
He rejoined the circle, where Clary was saying, “I think Magnus should be the one to seduce the maître d’. He’s definitely the more practiced seducer.”
“But I have a radiant charisma,” Jace protested.
“I have a baby with me,” said Magnus. “It’s a bit of a handicap to the would-be seducer.”
“Nobody’s seducing anybody,” Alec said firmly. “The rest of the group is at Maggie’s. Simon is there,” he said quickly before anyone could object. “And he wants us to come to him.”
Maggie’s was an old haunt of Magnus’s, a Polish diner that had been on the same Greenpoint corner for forty years and somehow survived wave after wave of change. Once Alec and his friends had begun spending time with Magnus, it had become one of their haunts as well. It was a diner out of a time, grungy in a way that was somehow both welcoming and legitimately skuzzy.
It was about a ten-minute walk, during which Alec asked Magnus if he wanted Alec to take Max. Magnus pretended offense. “I may not spend the time working out that you do,” he said, “but I can make it around my neighborhood on foot with a baby.”
“Magnus,” Alec said, “Let me rephrase. I’d like to carry Max for a while.”
“Oh!” said Magnus. “Well in that case…”
In due time Max was unstrapped from Magnus and restrapped onto Alec, and they went on to Maggie’s. Maia had gotten them one of the enormous booths upstairs, which stood on a mezzanine and overlooked the rest of the dining room. It could easily fit the nine of them.
“So explain to me,” Jace said as they got themselves settled, “this mundane ritual known as ‘brunch.’”
“Allow me,” said Magnus, stretching a bit now he was no longer wrapped in an infant carrier. “Within the bounds of New York City, any meal eaten on a weekend, and especially a Sunday, can be counted as brunch and, thus, an appropriate time to drink champagne during the day.”
“But it comes at a terrible cost,” Clary put in. “You can’t make reservations for it. Also, Jace, please, no more of this business where you’re a Shadowhunter and so you don’t know what pizza is, or whatever. You know about brunch.”
“I suppose I learned an older definition from my people in the mountains of Central Europe,” Jace said doubtfully, “but I understood it to be a meal eaten between breakfast and lunch. It’s two in the afternoon.”
Isabelle put her hand on Jace’s shoulder. “Brunch is a state of being,” she said. “It’s a state of mind.”
Simon was across the table from Alec and Max, and he leaned forward to tickle Max under the chin. Max giggled. “Look at you,” Simon said admiringly. “Left on a doorstep and now you’re here.”
“At Maggie’s?” said Alec dryly.
“The big city. You’ve made it, kid!” Max made a serried of happy noises that were not quite words and waved his hands. “That’s right!” Simon cried. “Jazz hands!”
Isabelle shoved Simon on the shoulder. “Don’t talk to him about how he was left on a doorstep!” she whispered. “It’ll upset him.”
“Yeah, he looks very upset,” Simon said. He had offered Max his teaspoon, and Max and he were now both examining it very closely.
There was a general hubbub of menus and ordering. Maggie’s was known for, among other things, their chocolate chip pancakes, each the size of a bicycle tire; Alec made sure Jace ordered two for the table to share, as was tradition.
Next to Simon, Maia caught Alec’s eye. “So I hear your mom is maybe going to retire from running the Institute.”
Alec blinked. “She said something to me a few weeks ago about maybe stepping down at some point. Where did you hear about it?”
Maia shrugged. “Downworld talks. So who’s going to run it instead? What’s the inside scoop?”
The Shadowhunters looked at one another. Nobody volunteered any information.
“I could do it,” Jace offered, to chuckles from most of the table. “What?” he demanded.
Isabelle said, “It just doesn’t seem like something you’d want to do.”
“I’m not saying I want to do it,” Jace said, “just that I could.”
“But do you want to?” Isabelle pressed.
“No,” said Jace. “I don’t. I’m just saying that I would kill it as head of the Institute. But I don’t particularly need to prove it, or anything.”
Clary said, “I’m glad you’ve established that you would be excellent at something you have no interest in doing. But someone ought to do it,” she added. “I mean, someone in the New York Enclave. Otherwise the Clave will just send some random person who’s up for a promotion.”
“You cannot let them do that,” Bat said emphatically, and everyone turned in surprise. “They’ll send someone crazy.”
Jace swallowed his coffee and nodded. “They’ll send Marjorie Vogelspritz from Hamburg and she’ll make us alphabetize the weapons room.”
Alec shuddered. “They’ll send Leon Verlac from Paris and he’ll try to seduce everyone. Man, woman, faery who looks like an anthropomorphic plant. Everyone.” Max giggled, and Alec reminded himself that Max was definitely giggling at random, and not because he could understand the joke.
“That’s oddly specific,” commented Simon.
“I have a very specific recurring nightmare,” Alec said darkly. “Anyway, the point is, I don’t know when my mother is going to retire. She could be around for months or years more, I don’t know. She’s just…started talking about it.”
“All right, enough Shadowhunter business,” Magnus scolded. “We’ve got our drinks; we should be toasting the man of the hour.”
“That’s also Shadowhunter business,” said Clary.
“Yes, but it’s Shadowhunter business of a party-related nature,” Magnus said, “and as you know, all party business is my business.” Magnus raised his glass. “To Simon, the latest sucker to join the Nephilim!”
“I’m pretty sure that’s my line,” said Jace. “I mean not the ‘sucker’ part. Congratulations, Simon, remember you aren’t an unstoppable day-walking invulnerable vampire anymore.”
“I want to say ‘hear, hear,’” said Clary, “but not on such a downer note.”
“So three cheers for Simon!” Jace added smoothly.
“Hear, hear!” Clary cried, and they cheered for Simon Lovelace, newly-minted Shadowhunter. Alec studied Simon’s face. He’d looked strangely blank during Magnus and Jace’s toasts, and now he shook his head, as if to clear his mind, and refocused his attention. He smiled and took a drink, and then continued to drink.
“Simon?” prompted Isabelle, but Simon held up one finger and everyone duly waited in silence for a few seconds while he emptied his glass.
“All right,” he said, slamming the glass back down on the table with a bang. “I’ve been away from New York, and I need the updates. What’s going on in Downworld? What’s everyone been up to? How has the city coped with my absence? How has the city handled the weight of the arrival of Max Lightwood-Bane, the greatest gift to New York’s overall coolness level since John Lennon—”
“Nobody knows what you’re talking about, sweetie,” Isabelle said in a kind voice, patting Simon on the arm.
“Maia!” Simon exclaimed. “What are you up to?”
“Uh,” Maia said. “I’ve been running the bookstore, actually.”
“What bookstore?” Simon said.
“The bookstore,” Maia said. “Garroway Books.”
“Oh!” said Simon. “Very cool.”
“Does the bookstore come with the werewolf pack?” Magnus said, amused.
“Yes,” Bat said gloomily.
“No,” Maia corrected. “Luke still owns the place, and we’re in touch most days, really. He’s just up at his farmhouse most of the time. And being a werewolf doesn’t pay the bills. You can’t be, like, a professional werewolf. And I already knew Luke was a good boss, so.”
“I want you to know,” Simon said soberly to Bat, “that I’ve always considered you a professional DJ, but an amateur werewolf.”
“Thank you,” said Bat. “I agree. For me, being a werewolf is more of a hobby than a vocation, you know?”
“First of all, you’re my second-in-command,” said Maia. “Second, as your pack leader I stand by my orders that you put in six shifts a week at the bookstore. It’s good for you. Maybe you’ll read a book.”
Bat shook his head at Magnus sadly. “She’s gone mad with power.”
“Also,” Maia said to Simon, ignoring Bat, “we’ve started holding the Alliance meetings in the attic, which is nice. I still want you to come in sometime. You’re the only Shadowhunter who used to be a Downworlder I can think of. I mean, usually it can only go the other way.”
Simon looked a bit pained. “I’ve only technically been a Shadowhunter for a few days,” he said. “Maybe when I’m a bit more used to it.”
“Can I report next?” Isabelle said, raising her hand excitedly. Simon looked relieved.
“Of course,” he said, and Alec saw that Isabelle had rescued him, that there was something in Simon’s jovial attitude that might slip, and if it slipped he might fall. It was good that Simon had Isabelle. That they had each other.
“I,” said Isabelle, “am currently putting up my boyfriend long-term in my childhood bedroom.”
“Oh, we know,” said Clary lightly.
“It’s weird. Isn’t weird?” Isabelle addressed this to Jace.
“Clary has her own room,” Jace said.
“Yeah, but she never sleeps there.”
Alec watched as Jace’s expression rapidly conveyed the process of thinking of a terrible thing to say in response, considering whether or not he wanted to say it, and deciding not to. He was very proud of his parabatai’s eventual, if still gradual, moves toward maturity.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m in a childhood bedroom,” Simon put in. “It feels like I’m in a martial arts dojo. A very luxurious one, don’t get me wrong. Very fashion forward, for a dojo.”
“If you ran the Institute, you could have a bigger room,” Alec pointed out, smiling.
“Oh, well, now I’m in,” Jace said.
“Isabelle, there are, like, thirty bedrooms in the Institute,” said Clary. “Just take a whole new one. Take three and rotate among them.”
“Well, we’re—” Simon began, and then stopped himself.
Alec looked over at Isabelle curiously.
“We’re looking for a place,” Isabelle said.
Alec sat up straighter. “Well, good for you!” he said. Max clapped. “Yeah, let’s clap for Aunt Isabelle getting her own place!”
“Uh, thanks,” Isabelle said.
Magnus leaned over and said, “He’s just happy he won’t be the bad kid who moved away anymore.”
“No, no, I’m starting to be the bad kid who still lives at home,” Isabelle protested.
“And I’m starting to be her ne’er-do-well boyfriend crashing with them,” Simon added.
Max broke out in a sudden wail of unhappiness.
“I know,” Simon said. “It’s completely unfair.”
“Kid’s got good judgement,” Magnus said, nodding and sipping daintily at his champagne glass. He leaned over towards Max. “Why such a fussy baby? Can you say bapak? It means daddy. Say bapak, baby.” Max stopped crying for a moment to wave his fingers at Magnus, but then started up again.
“I think he just needs to get up and walk around a little,” Alec said apologetically, scooping Max out of the chair. “It’s a lot of noise and a lot of goings-on.”
“It’s a lot for a blueberry to handle,” Isabelle agreed sympathetically.
“Excuse me,” Simon said, offended. “Max is a very rare great horned blueberry.”
“I’ve noticed,” Jace said conversationally as Alec got out of his seat, carefully keeping Max in his arms, “that Max is able to cast a powerful warlock spell that causes the brain of everyone in a six-foot radius to turn into pudding. He’s really very talented.”
Clary scoffed. “It’s not magic. It is only that he is the greatest baby of all time.” At Jace’s look, she patted his arm. “Except you, of course, honey.”
“I’m not jealous of the baby,” Jace protested.
Magnus caught Alec’s eye, and Alec gave a little shrug. Max was still crying and seemed to be gearing up for a real escalation in volume. “I’m going to walk,” he said, and left the table. He had scoped out the restaurant and between the crowds at the front and the general density of people eating, he knew his best bet for any kind of quiet in which to calm Max. He felt a great gratitude toward the restaurant for providing a parent with that greatest of things: a single occupancy restroom.
In stark contrast to the bright rainbow of color in the rest of the diner, it was pure white, almost blindingly so in the sun streaming in through the frosted window. Slabs of wide, flat, clean white stone all around, walls, ceiling, floor. The only detail in the room was the image framed in the mirror, just above the white sink with its white taps: The face of Alec Lightwood and, under it, the little blue face of his son.
Alec ran the sink, to create some white noise, and bounced Max up and down gently in his arms the way he liked. He hadn’t expected any of this. Not brunch, obviously; he had expected brunch. He hadn’t thought about fatherhood at all, really. If he had been asked, he probably would have shrugged and said he could see having a kid someday, but that he wasn’t overly concerned about it. He knew Magnus had never raised a child, and he had assumed that was Magnus’s statement about parenthood—he had certainly had plenty of time to try it out, and he had chosen not to. But the question of becoming a father disappeared the moment that it was replaced with the question of becoming Max’s father, and it was no surprise to Alec now that Magnus had said yes to that question just as fast as he had.
His love for his child continued to surprise him, amaze him, every day. Max had calmed and was looking at the mirror himself, his eyes wide with curiosity.
“That’s Daddy,” Alec said, leaning down to speak quietly next to his son’s head. He pointed at the mirror. “You see Daddy? And there below him, who could that be? It’s Max!”
Max looked at him dubiously, with a sideways expression.
“You’re too little to know that’s you in the mirror,” Alec said, “but I promise it’s you. It’s you and me.”
“Da,” said Max.
“You and me and bapak,” Alec murmured to himself, and his heart hurt with love.