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marcythewerewolf · 7 years ago

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I am suddenly reminded of my giant, never to be written TDA AU, where the events of Lady Midnight happen a few years earlier, and slightly differently. Malcolm successfully raises Annabel and then kind of kidnaps the Blackthorn kids and quickly loses any control of the situation because Annabel is not a happy zombie girl and Julian and Emma aren’t making things easy for him and Arthur’s ghost is kicking around. Also Diana is trying to hunt them down and the faerie courts get involved. Everyone is mentally ill and everyone is messed up. It’s a disaster, and I just wanted to get it all down somewhere since I love it and it will never be expressed in the two million word epic gothic format it truely deserves, so a super long summary textpost will have to suffice. Warning for being just... so long. This is practically fic, guys.

It would start shortly after Julian and Emma’s parabatai ceremony, I think, so they’d be fourteen or so and still dealing with this fresh soul bond on their consciences. When the deaths start up Diana successfully conceals them from lil’ Emma, and because all the people who would foil him are too young to really put up a fight or be much of an adversary, Mark doesn’t come back and Malcolm more or less gets away with most of his plan up until the last part. He still needs that Blackthorn blood.

Meanwhile Julian is starting to have suspicions. Handling most of the Institute’s paperwork in secret, he’s cottoned onto the fact that there is an ongoing investigation and Centurions are in the city (the Clave sent a cursory note to Arthur). He tells Emma and while she tears off to search the city as much as a fourteen year old girl without a car can, he guards the Institute. He’s there when Malcolm turns up and asks to speak to Arthur alone, upstairs. He’s perceptive enough to realize something is off, and confronts Malcolm. Malcolm, who has known Julian for years now and is getting kind of tired of lying, lays it all out on the table. Yeah, sure, I’m totally going to murder someone. I thought your uncle might be nicer to you, since you haven’t harmed me much, literal ninth grader that you are, but I will absolutely take you down and grab Dru if that’s what it takes. I’m a warlock, I could do it. Make a choice, Julian. And don’t get in my way.

And Julian, still not old enough to grow a beard but with his father’s blood on his hands, hesitates. That’s enough. Arthur draws himself together, falls over his desk, and says Malcolm can have him, under one condition. He has to promise to take care of the Blackthorn children.

Malcolm is delighted, since a willing sacrifice is so much better. He’ll look after the kiddos, sure thing. No skin off his back, once Annabel is back. But Arthur’s a big man, and Malcolm isn’t, so Julian is enlisted to help carry him out.

Julian is like neck deep in this and having nine different crises, but there’s no way to back out. He helps carry Uncle Arthur out. He tells Livvy and Ty (all of twelve) to hold down the fort until he gets back, because Uncle Arthur is very, very sick and Malcolm is helping him. Then, once they’re out of earshot, he puts a knife to Malcolm’s throat and makes him swear again, on his life, that the children won’t be harmed. Arthur is important. He’s all that’s keeping their family together.

“I’ll fix that,” Malcolm reassures him, and portals off, and comes back with Uncle Arthur’s blood all down his shirt and a waxen, slightly stunned looking young woman with long dark hair and Blackthorn eyes in his arms.

“She tried to stab me a little,” Malcolm says, looking lovestruck, “But I think she’s just in shock. Help me get her to the Institute, will you? Then tell your siblings to pack their bags. Emma too, I suppose.”

The choices at that point are to go along with Malcolm, or tell the Clave that the only family member willing to take care of them all just got murdered by a rogue warlock. Julian is willing to get a little kidnapped for that, at least for now, while he makes another plan.

He tells the kids and a recently returned, slightly grimy, disappointed Emma that something terrible has happened, he’ll explain later, but for now they need to get out. Then, just for effect, they set the Institute a little bit on fire on the way out. Just the bits they don’t use.

Malcolm is kind of overwhelmed as well. He expected to be going back to his cottage in Cornwall with Annabel, triumphant, with the Clave none the wiser to his scheme. Instead he’s mildly daggared, and has half a dozen kids on his hands who he kind of promised to take care of. And he may have spilled a bit too much of his plan to Julian, so he doesn’t want the boy leaking that to the Clave. He could just murder all the baby Blackthorns, but that seems a little unfair, especially now that Annabel is awake. She’s less stabby if she wakes up and is immediately disoriented by a ten year old girl asking her lots of questions about her hair.

The cottage won’t fit them all, but not going to Cornwall is... not an option. He really needs to return to the site the tortures inflicted on him and Annabel to really feel like love has won out. He ends up dropping the kids at the Cornwall Institute, and then staying to keep an eye on them. It’s a place full of bad memories, but it can also fit a lot of people. They dust the spiders out, settle the kids down and then Julian and Malcolm and Annabel have a Chat.

(Emma is barred, because she still doesn’t know Malcolm killed her parents. He rather suspects she wouldn’t like that. Julian doesn’t know either, but he trust himself to keep it a secret less with Emma around. She’s wily and more focused on revenge than child protection.)

Julian wants a guarantee of safety for the kids, a modicum of security, all the comforts of home. The Institute at Cornwall, once it’s cleaned out a bit, can provide that. He wants to know they won’t be separated. Malcolm can definitely promise that. Malcolm wants to know that Julian isn’t going to snitch on him to the Clave, or talk to the Clave, or really go anywhere near the Clave. Julian isn’t ready to say that unless the pot is sweetened a little, so Malcolm pulls his ace. He has contacts in Faerie and he can try to negotiate for Mark’s return. That seals the deal.

Annabel doesn’t say much, but she’s listening very closely, and occasionally asking questions about how the Clave works these days, and how the Blackthorn kids are related to her, and how they ended up parentless, and why Julian is so blase about the fact his uncle just got stabbed. The last one kind of messes Julian up, which by extension messes Annabel up, and Malcolm kind of vaguely dismisses the meeting by picking up his girlfriend and fleeing.

MEANWHILE

Diana Wrayburn shows up to work the next morning and finds out that all her charges have disappeared into the night with most of their possessions, there is blood all over the front hall (Arthurs) and also a third of the Institute is smoking mildly. Authorities are alerted. A full scale investigation is launched, with Diana both desperately trying to find her kids and also not blow her cover.

Ty is exploring the grounds of the Institute, finding lots of fun bugs and hidey-holes and investigating. Dru is helping. Livvy is locked in a spider free room with Taavy. Ty finds lots of interesting old books, some sketches, and some hints of Annabel and Malcolm’s former life. He thinks they were nice. They grew up together, just like Julian and Emma!

Back to the big couples, Emma is not happy about being locked out of the loop, and compensates by finding Julian ASAP and grilling him for details. She gets... some of them. Not enough. There is a parabatai fight, ending in a parabatai makeup, because even Emma has to admit it’s all pretty messed up. Julian finally spills some more deets, like the fact that Arthur has been ill for years and also he died as part of a ritual to bring Annabel back from the dead. He says Arthur’s participation in this human sacrifice was “not really voluntary, I don’t think, it was messed up”. He does not mention his part in the messed up. Then he says Malcolm can get Mark back. Emma says she thinks Malcolm is very shady now and she doesn’t trust Annabel, but for Mark, she’ll refrain from stabbing.

In a closed room, behind two sets of doors, Annabel is saying much the same thing to Arthur’s ghost. Arthur, like any good if befuddled uncle leaving his brother’s kids with a murderous immortal, decided to stick around through the afterlife. Unfortunately none of the Blackthorn kids can see him, so he can’t do much for them. Annabel on the other hand spent a lot of time dead and is very much aware of his presence. They have a conversation that more or less boils down to: “Your life sucks, my life sucked, Malcolm is messed up, I’m sorry, but let’s focus on the little ones, shall we?” There are some arguments. Even in death Arthur is still prone to rambling. His illness didn’t stop when his heart did. Annabel just got forcibly revived and is just super duper traumatized. They bounce off of each other for a while before Arthur makes an impassioned plea on the behalf his niblings, which is only slightly ruined by the fact that he can’t remember some of their names. Annabel decides that she will also not stab, and she will go talk to Malcolm. There are going to be some changes around here. She didn’t come back from the dead to be anyone’s happy ending, especially not Mr. Murder A Middle Aged Invalid. They’re doing things Annabel style now.

*cue sunglasses and long YEAAAH*

*also cue the disaster of the century as six kids, a murderer, a ghost, and a dead girl, try to play happy families in a rundown old ghost house in England*

Malcolm is pretty desperate to please, even if it means playing nice with the little Blackthorns. He pretended to love them for years, pretended so hard sometimes he forgot he didn’t. He can pretend a little longer, especially if it’s what Annabel wants, or at least what he thinks Annabel wants.

Julian and Emma are pretty desperate to keep Malcolm and Annabel away from the kids, but aren’t sure how to do so without revealing the whole “semi-murdered Uncle Arthur” thing which seems... less than ideal. So at least for a little while it’s all adorable, slightly creepy hijinks. Malcolm tries to take Tavvy and Dru down to the store in town for a shopping trip, Emma runs interference. Unbeknownst to anyone, Uncle Arthur’s ghost helps. Annabel and Livvy bond while Julian freaks out in the background. Everyone pitches in with magic and runes to get the spiders out of the basement, but because of Ty’s campaigning they have to do it non-lethally. Just good, cute, unsettling stuff while the kids settle into the abandoned Institute and Annabel readjusts to life. Movie night! Ice cream on the beach!

Annabel and the twins bond especially. She values their contributions a lot, and they like having someone new and adult and mostly trustworthy around. She’s like a cool older sister who’s actually old enough to drive. Sometimes you can hear her wake up screaming at night, but it’s all fine. She shows them all the places around town and the Institute where she and Malcolm used to hide and play, teaches them about the animals and the plants and the pixies in the sea grass. She and Livvy spar. It’s very sweet. People on th

All the while Julian and Emma are putting pressure on Malcolm to follow through on his promise to get Mark back. Malcolm is busy doting on Annabel and cleaning up the cottage and setting up wards to protect them all from the Clave, but Julian and Emma are insistent. They demand action. This is because they have a Plan, or at least thirty percent of one.

Since they’re still kids, and they are technically hostages, they figure they’re all right. No one can blame children for cooperating with their captors. They snuck into town to call Helen and Aline, assured them that they were all right, and checked in on the status of the Clave (the investigation into the disappearance of the Blackthorn children is ongoing but being blamed on faeries because why not?). All the while they’re collecting information on Malcolm, what magic he has active, and what his ties are the the courts, so that they’ll have a good body of blackmail material. They general gist of the plan is to get Mark then make a run for it and seek refuge in Idris, possibly lighting some things on fire on the way out. With information and maybe a few magic relics grabbed from Malcolm, they figure they can make a deal with the Consul. At the very least, Mark will be with Helen, and not alone.

It isn’t a very good plan, but they’re fourteen. So sue them.

Malcolm is dragging his feet though, which means Emma and Julian are left brooding and trying to take care of the kids and maintain some order in an orderless environment. Julian gives them lessons, so they won’t be behind when they go back. He and Annabel bond over art, it’s great.

BACK WITH DIANA

Things are not great. She’s been cleared of all suspicion, because why would she be the culprit, she’s a Shadowhunter, but there’s little progress on actually finding the Blackthorn kids. The Clave is super not happy, since Nephilim blood is precious and losing six full blooded Shadowhunters in training at once is less than ideal, but all they’ve done is sent lots of war parties to negotiate with the Seelie and Unseelie courts which Diana doesn’t think is going to get them anywhere. The whole thing is quickly becoming less about finding the children, and more about demonizing faeries, and by extension, Downworlders, further, and she’s had enough.

She makes a choice. She leaves Idris and the investigation, goes back to LA, and starts searching for the truth on her own. This cop is going rogue. Of course, like most people looking for something in LA, she starts with Johnny Rook, who is locked down in his house under like twenty wards.

After she breaks in, she and Johnny argue a lot. She meets little Kit, which gives her enough bargaining power in the conversation to weasel out of Johnny that Malcolm is the one who told him to hide, that Shadowhunters were looking for trouble. Diana realizes that Malcolm must have been a suspect as well, he was close to the Blackthorns, and goes to his LA house, only to find it abandoned. She calls him, he tells her he got interrogated but didn’t have anything helpful to say and wanted to get out of town in case they were looking for someone to blame.

Dead end. Diana decides to take a different approach. She asks Catarina and some other warlocks of her acquaintance to help dig up a connection between the Blackthorns and the deaths the Silent Brothers told her to hide, the ones killing faeries and humans around Los Angeles. Looking back, she thinks she recognizes the symbols on the bodies from Emma’s Wall of Revenge, and there’s a definite suspicious circumstance there. Then she figures out how to get to Wrangel Island to talk to Helen and Aline.

They’re weirdly unhelpful, closed off and edgy about the investigation. Part of that might be that they’ve been hurt before, but Diana feels like something is off. It all stinks, and she needs to figure out why.

So she goes back to Johnny Rook. This time, she’s getting answers, even if she has to camp out in front of his house and harass him to get them.

Arthur’s ghost and Annabel are bonding over the time they spent in Cornwall as young people, centuries apart, and the dangers of loving where love is forbidden. Annabel opens up about her memories of her death a little and has some traumatic flashbacks. Arthur quotes Marcus Aurelius at her.

Malcolm finally brings Iarlath home and introduces him to Julian and Emma, “Yes, these are the children I am in a mutual blackmail pact with, my girlfriend loves the little rascals to death, bless them” and starts to open the issue of Mark. Iarlath is here for his own reason entirely. Shadowhunters are asking about children, Malcolm. They’re very insistent. It’s making trouble and it’s jeopardizing the King’s interests. You need to either kill these kids and blame it on some else or return them in a non-dangerous way. Like, maybe cut out their tongues so they can’t say anything? Idk, just a suggestion.

Malcolm: Dude, Annabel wouldn’t approve of that.

Iarlath: Why does everyone always get boring after they get into a relationship?

Emma and Julian are both obviously very alarmed, but Julian, a forward thinker, always, has a way to pull this in his advantage. The Clave isn’t happy, huh? Well, he could make that easier, maybe misdirect them a little bit. Some anonymous letters saying the kids have run away, for example, or some other way to push blame onto an alternate party. Iarlath gets where he’s going and has to admit, it’s not a terrible plan to shift the fault. In fact, the Seelie Court has a long history of cooperating with the kidnapping of Blackthorn children, doesn’t it?

Julian is starting to feel a little bit out of his depth, so Emma makes some vague threats as well, and Iarlath decides he’ll talk it over with his king and get back to you, Malcolm and kids. Maybe you’ll get your big brother back, who knows? In the meantime, the Unseelie Court will be keeping a close eye on him.

Everyone leaves the meeting feeling a little shaken up. Malcolm suggests a day out on the town, mostly because he really hates being in the Institute, but their plans get interrupted when Annabel sprints in saying that she saw a warlock woman with blue skin in town. Luckily the lady didn’t known her, or know enough to recognize Annabel in jeans and a tee, but Annabel rightly surmises that this means someone is poking around Cornwall. They hustle the kids down to the basement and Malcolm goes back to his cottage to run interception on Catarina, who started looking up Blackthorn scandals as a favour to Diana, remembered Malcolm’s history with the family, and is now getting suspicious. Ty beats everyone at Uno while Malcolm convinces Catarina that he’s looking for the missing Blackthorn tykes too, really! He decided to use their old family home in England as a base, figuring English raised Arthur might decide to come back if they were to escape from their captors.

Catarina buys it, but just barely, and she leaves sounding mighty suspicious. This means that it’s probably time for a change of pace. Time to hide out in the Unseelie Court!

The Blackthorns are reluctant to go, and so is Annabel, for her own reasons. Since Arthur spent a lot of time in Cornwall when he was younger, he can more or less hang out around the Institute, but he can’t come to Faerie, and she likes having a ghostly presence on her side. Also, knowing he was who rescued Malcolm but not her, she is not the Unseelie King’s biggest fan.

There’s an argument, and despite technically having more power in this situation, Malcolm is helplessly outnumbered and gets shot down. Eventually he concedes defeat, but does point out that it’s probably not a good idea for the kids to leave the Institute anymore, which does Not make Livia happy, because, as it turns out, she has been taking advantage of the trips to make friends with a bunch of local girls and now has a crush on a mundane girl she met at the beach.

Nevertheless, Julian rules, best to stay safe. Livia flounces off to sulk, accompanied by a sympathetic Dru. Emma goes to practice stabbing things, since she has a lot of anger issues to work out at this point and is getting antsy cooped up. All the Shadowhunters kind of are. They’re meant for fights, not interminable politics.

Back with Diana and the Rooks, we get a lot of worldbuilding about the Market and Johnny’s place in it while Diana just relentlessly trails him, and by extension little Kit, though she is trying to leave the kid out of it.

She has lots of contacts due to her medical needs, but nothing like Johnny’s reservoir of friends and favours. She sees Barnabas and Anselm, and marks Anselm down on her list of suspects since he and Arthur were close. Nothing related to the Blackthorns other than a lot of ill-will comes up, though everyone is even more against the fair folk these days, and she sees Hyacinth putting up a fight against the new surge of prejudice.

Eventually Johnny catches her and she and he have a long conversation full of thinly veiled threats. Diana brings up Emma’s visits to him, Johnny points out that that’s more Diana’s fault then his, then makes a veiled reference to Diana’s medical status. Diana lashes back with an ill thought out jab at Johnny’s kid, young Kit, and Johnny panics a little. Actually, a lot. Maybe even a little too much.

In a flash of insight, Diana throws one of her weapons at him, and it lights up when he catches it, confirming her suspicions. She now has the power needed to make Johnny talk, at least a little, but finds with a sinking feeling that she really doesn’t want to use it. She’s not going to ruin another set of lives through the Clave. She apologizes, recommends Johnny find Kit a good combat teacher because she saw that boy trying to come and confront her a few times and if he’s that much of a troublemaker he should know how to fight, then excuses herself, promising not to mention it to anyone. Johnny, in a rare show of good faith, throws her a line. Something is going on with the Unseelie, something dark and complicated, and factions inside faerie aren’t happy about it. He suggests she find someone there willing to talk to her.

Once again, it comes back to the fair folk. Diana is not thrilled.

And a cut to Helen and Aline, who have their own stuff going on. When your mysteriously missing younger sibling calls you out of the middle of nowhere and tells you not to worry, it somehow raises even more questions. Helen trusts Julian absolutely, but she also knows he’s just a kid and whatever’s going on with him, he’s going to need help. So Helen is kind of putting together an army, through Skype. She’s got Magnus and Alec, who know Clary and Jace are at the Seelie Court, interrogating her and looking for the kids. She knows there are other people out looking for them too. Someone named Tessa and someone named Jem and a lot of other Downworlders, who know clearing their name is bound to get the Clave to stop poking around. The New York Wolf pack and Magnus’s alliance have promised to help out if things come to a fight.

Aline is handling the Shadowhunter side of things, coordinating with her mom and listening to gossip from her dad and passing it on. Meanwhile Helen and Aline both are keeping their eyes on some weird ward activity, looking for any sign that they need to call in the troops.

Diana calls up Anselm Nightshade and has a nice chat with him about the best way to get in touch with the fey outside of Clave rules. Anselm, who used to be a Shadowhunter once, comments that he knows for a fact the Rosales family used to have ties to them, and they’re not too far away. Diana considers this for a while, considers Anselm with his shady business dealings and seventeen tiny dogs, and then decides she’s going to trust him on this one. In the meantime, she asks him to talk to the local Downworlders and make it clear that the best way to get this Manhunt and Blame Party About The Blackthorn Children over with is to find the real culprits. Otherwise, the Clave and all the Shadowhunters who she knows have just been waiting for a chance to scapegoat the Downworlders? They’ll start a war, or a registration or something.

Anselm agrees. He’s seen this sort of situation before, he’ll keep an eye out. Questionable business ventures or not, he knows no one really profits in a conflict, especially not the closest people to the epicenter of it.

With that promise in hand, and some century old intel on the Rosales, Diana heads down to Mexico City to find someone to talk to about faeries.

Back at the Blackthorn house, tensions are running high when Iarlath comes back and says that the king will see them, in person, to discuss the matters of Mark Blackthorn and getting the Clave off their back, because it is kind of an emergency at this point? It’s getting emergent. He doesn’t say as much, but he does look a little nervous.

With Catarina poking around, leaving anyone behind isn’t really an option. They’re going to have to haul everyone to the Unseelie Court, including the little kids. Julian isn’t happy about that, but no one is really happy about this. Time passes strangely in faerie land after all, and they have no guarantee except the King’s word that things will still be peachy when they get back.

Still, they get everyone decked out in coats and socks and sturdy shoes, pack some bags of food and weapons (though Iarlath insists that they won’t need the latter) and set out for the nearest fairy fort to make their entrance, Iarlath escorting them and making all the Blackthorns very uncomfortable.

(Annabel whispers goodbye to Arthur before they go, and promises to take care of his nieces and nephews. Arthur gives her some bizarre advice about dealing with the fey, then promises to look after the house.)

They trek across faerie, which takes more time than it should because Taavy and Dru get tired and Emma gets distracted by a revel and kisses a very cute boy who then turns out to be about four hundred years old. Iarlath tries to rush them, but Annabel and Emma object to being bossed around on principle and push back. When they enter Unseelie lands, Julian is the first to notice that their runes don’t work like they’re supposed to, since he’s been using them to keep everyone old enough to wear them awake and moving. Malcolm administers some emergency ice cream as a replacement, and they all move on, but are moderately freaked out because Faerie isn’t supposed to work like this and Iarlath refuses to answer questions on the topic.

Eventually they make it to the court, where the Unseelie King greets Malcolm like he knows him, and Annabel like he knows of her, and gives the Blackthorn children a general unimpressed once over before asking who he’s supposed to be negotiating with here, because all he sees are children. Not even big children!

Julian, trying to hold hands with all four of his younger siblings at once, says it’s him, he’s in charge. Relatively in charge. Emma is his stony faced backup while he awkwardly makes his case, but the entire thing is undermined by the fact that Dru is staring at everything and Ty is laying on his stomach inspecting the grass with interest, and also he’s holding a six year old. Livvy is getting increasing distracted by the nice boys, presumably the king’s youngest sons, on the edge of the circle, and is starting to wander off towards them, and eventually does escape with her twin to explore, much to everyone in the Court’s delight. The overwhelming impression is that they think this is like watching a bunch of kittens trying to scam the UN. Very cute, little Shadowhunters.

Livvy, meanwhile, is making friends and taking names among the preteen section of the Unseelie Court, while Ty hangs back and listens carefully. One boy pushing his way from the very back of the throng is catching his attention though. He looks about thirteen, or so, with fair hair and the rich clothes of nobility, and people keep trying to hold him back from the Shadowhunters but he’s hard to deter. Ash, as he introduces himself, hasn’t ever seen a Shadowhunter before and has some questions. Livvy is tightlipped on the subject of her family, but friendly, and asks lots of questions in return. Ty, sensing based on the sudden guard presence around them, that this fellow young man is important, very loudly brings up the subject of their brother Mark who was stolen from them and who they really want back. Ty is straightforward, but earnest, and eventually the adults around decide that a pair of twelve year olds, Shadowhunters or not, probably aren’t a threat to Ash and the younger princes. They all talk about weapons for a while, while Ty, a born mystery solver, hangs back and thinks for a while about where he’s seen Ash’s face before.

Diana goes to the Mexico Institute and first has an audience with Cristina’s mother which goes very, very badly and more or less ends with her threatening to call the Clave because they will not be involved in treason. However as Diana leaves, she is pulled into a corner by the dynamic trio of Cristina, Diego, and Jaime, sixteen and fourteen, respectively, and pretty interested all of them in faeries. Cristina especially likes the idea of getting in touch with them, especially to save the Blackthorns (Diego says she has a minor fixation) and is willing to offer her substantial teenage knowledge, access to the Institute library, and the help of some of the elder members of the Rosales clan who Diego and Jaime know might be more sympathetic. Although the family history with the fey doesn’t get discussed much anymore, it’s still there, and it might be enough to help Diana.

After some hasty research, because she doesn’t know how much of a time limit she’s on, Diana decides the best thing to do would be to jump the moon path as soon as possible and use some information from the Rosales to find the Wild Hunt, one of the parties Anselm mentioned Hyacinth mentioned was not thrilled with the current situation in faerie. She knows Julian and the Blackthorns well enough to know that they’ve never truly forgotten about Mark, and whatever’s going on he might be involved. Seeing the Hunt, much less straight up summoning them, is wildly dangerous, but Diana is willing to give it a try.

The second young Cristina Rosales, teen optimist, hears about Diana’s plans she wants to come as well, but Diana, Diego, and Jaime all talk her down. Diana departs, alone, to make her way into faerie. On the way in Cristina Rosales catches up with her. Diana tries to send her back, but Cristina refuses to be dissuaded and uses her medallion, a powerful charm against the dangerous time streams of the realm, as a bargaining chip. Since, short of wrestling the Rosales girl home, which Diana doesn’t have time for, she doesn’t know how else to make her go away, she reluctantly accepts her assistance. They cross into faerie together, meeting various guardians along the way and doing the usual faerie song and dance of riddles, enigmatic advice, and strange sacrifices. Diana gives up a weapon that belonged to her late sister, and Cristina is told when she would naturally die, which shakes her even though she admits that as a Shadowhunter she’s probably not going to make it that far.

Eventually they’re on solid ground, and by a stream of blood, Diana readies herself to call the Wild Hunt. She makes Cristina hide, then calls on Gwyn Ap Nudd. Gwyn Ap Nudd, obediantly, appears, along with a stampede of riders bearing down on her. Without flinching, Diana stands them down, and, shouts her intentions. Gwyn, suitably impressed and a little charmed, stops and dismounts.

Diana says she is looking for the Blackthorn children, whose disappearance has caused so much chaos, and that failing that she would like to see her brother. For the sake of all of Faerie, this matter must end as soon as possible.

Gwyn admits he doesn’t have Mark anymore, though he wishes he does. He was taken by emissaries of the Unseelie Court, and is now in their custody. Besides, even if Gwyn wanted to help, which he kind of does because this whole disaster is getting messy and also Diana is very pretty, he couldn’t. He and all his riders swore not to go after Mark. Also, though you are lovely, strange Shadowhunter lady, you did just ring up the Wild Hunt. That has to have consequences.

Prepared for this by the Rosales kids, Diana answers that she’s willing to meet her fate, but first, she would like a favour. A small gift, for a doomed woman. Gwyn, sensing where this is going and willing to be “tricked” into not murdering this very nice lady, agrees, expecting to be asked for a rowan branch picked by his own hand, or something like that. Which, in fairness had been what Diana was planning.

Except... a young man with blue hair is making frantic hand gestures as her and he looks like he’s been crying, and do you know what? Diana Wrayburn hasn’t gotten far through playing it safe so far. Instead, Diana asks for his cape.

Gwyn is furious. He calms down quickly though, seems to realize what’s going on, and begs her to ask him for anything else. Anything but this.

Now, they’re really cooking with gas. Diana asks for, just to start with, the full story of what’s going on and why. The Hunt, meanwhile, is pulling a discovered Cristina out of the underbrush, but Gwyn waves them down. He’s being blackmailed by an attractive lady over here.

Gwyn gives up the whole story, and then some, at least as much as he can say without violating his oaths. Something is going on with the Unseelie, it’s not Super Great, Mark was taken by them, he’s probably there now. The other Blackthorn children he hasn’t heard direct word of, but if they took Mark something must be going down. Diana tells him everything she’s figured out as well, that there is a faction in the Clave determined to make life hard for Downworlders, that they’re coming down hard now, that the fey are being scapegoated with every day the Blackthorn kids stay missing. She says that she thinks Julian and Emma left to find Mark and possibly revenge for the deaths of Emma’s parents, who might have been killed by the Fair Folk or another party in the aftermath of the Dark War, as part of some dark rite, and that they’re in way over their head. Also, this is Cristina, she won’t leave me alone, because all I needed was another teen in danger. Gwyn agrees, kids are trouble. For example, slightly traitorous blue haired boy (introduced as Kieran) has been trying to run away every day since Mark was taken, and frankly Gwyn doesn’t blame him.

Cristina recognizes the sigil on Kieran’s gloves as that of the Unseelie King, and asks if Kieran is one of his sons. Gwyn can neither confirm nor deny.

Recognizing that Gwyn really wants to help but can’t Diana comes up with a plan. Gwyn can’t go after Mark, but surely he can repay her for not taking his cloak by letting her and Cristina go and lending them Kieran to “guide them to the Unseelie Court” (and most certainly not do any Mark rescuing whatsoever).

Gwyn is straight up delighted to agree, hands over Kieran with orders to take these nice ladies and help them however he can. Then, just to be safe, he gives Diana a kiss and slips her an acorn she can summon him with in the future.

Kieran is sulky until he realizes this is his Mark rescue chance, and then brightens up considerably. He still isn’t good company, but he pulls Cristina and Diana up on his horse and swears he’ll convey them to the Unseelie. He really wants his Mark back. Cristina is visibly puzzled as to why, meanwhile Diana is just resigned. She hates working with teenagers so much.

Back with Julian, the Unseelie King is ready to make his case. It’s a very short case. It goes, hi, we have your brother, we have some ideas of ways to make the Clave leave us alone, and you’re all going to cooperate, or else. Just to make his point, he drags a very bloody, semi-unconscious Mark out, and then starts to make his demands.

He wants the Blackthorn children, and he wants them peaceably, and frankly since their runes and steles don’t work and they just wandered into his court without securing really good terms of safe passage, he doesn’t think he’s going to have much trouble with this, right Malcolm?

Malcolm hesitates, and Annabel goes off.

Everyone, faerie and Shadowhunter alike, watches as they have just the most epic row in the history of rows. There is shouting, there are accusations, there’s a lot of “I brought you back to life!” and a lot more of “well maybe you didn’t consider that I didn’t want that!”. It’s messy, both of them are rapidly flirting on the edge of a total nervous breakdown since most of their mental health at this point is questionable. Although it starts off being about the Blackthorn children and how much Malcolm hates them and how much Annabel hates that he hates them (which makes Dru and Tavvy very upset) it eventually devolves into a rehash of their shared past. It’s... disturbingly like Emma and Julian’s childhood, actually. Especially in the details.

All of their story is awful and heartbreaking and the Unseelie seem to be really into it, honestly, which makes sense. Even Emma and Julian are nodding along as they slowly back away with the kids. The closer they get to the specifics of Annabel’s resurrection though, the more edgy Malcolm (who still has some self preservation instincts) gets. He really doesn’t want Annabel talking about this, but Annabel is on full rant now. She can’t be stopped, won’t be stopped.

Uncle Arthur’s death, in every gory detail, spills out from her, the way the blood felt on her skin, how she could feel herself coming back to life, inch by painful inch as his lifeblood flowed out. Julian is shaking. The twins are staring in horror, and so are Dru and Tavvy. Even Emma, who mostly knew this happened, is pretty upset. No one likes to hear about an old man being killed.

But Annabel goes further. She talks about rituals, about hands, about dark murders, about burning and drowning, and Emma slowly starts to feel recognition sink over her. She knows this, she knows she does.

“So many people, Malcolm!” Annabel shouts, “So many people I had to feel die, just to come back to life. Do you know what that’s like, do you? Ever since you killed that couple two years ago, I felt everything.”

Emma knows at almost the exact same moment Malcolm realizes how close Annabel is to spilling the secrets that have kept Julian and Emma more or less cooperative. He moves on Annabel, hands raised.

And Emma, in the middle of the Unseelie Court, stabs him in the back with Cortana.

There is silence for a second.

Then the Unseelie King starts clapping, and eventually the whole Court is, a hollow sort of applause that rings around the children, cages them in, reminds them of how outnumbered they are.

“Now that our little piece of theater is over,” he suggests, “And you’ve killed, frankly, the only one of you who I think could put up much of a fight here, why don’t you all surrender?”

Back with Diana, Cristina is in full sixteen year old form, asking Kieran all sorts of questions about the Hunt and Mark and is it really so bad if Gwyn gives up his cloak. Kieran is ignoring her, and Diana is focusing on logistics. She isn’t so naive as to think they’ll be able to charge into a full faerie court and win. She’s going to have to do this stealthily. Luckily Kieran, who knows his way around the court, thinks he can help. Anything to help Mark.

In the Unseelie Court, things are not going great. Annabel has rallied and is trying to make a case for herself and the Blackthorn kids, using some of Arthur’s quotes about Faeries and also some random latin, but while it does distract everyone (there’s nothing the folk love more than a good show and a compelling disaster, and Annabel is more or less the Hottest of Messes right now) she isn’t putting together much of a coherent argument. Julian grabs one of her lines about “children and the mad” though and uses it to point out that technically, all the Blackthorn’s fall under the purview of the fey right now, and can therefore demand certain rights, unlike enemy Shadowhunters who wandered in illegally.

And... no one can really argue right now that they aren’t children and Annabel isn’t mentally ill, but really, child, what are you going to do with that, demand trial by combat?

Almost immediately upon hearing that this is an option, Emma does so. She wants trial by combat! For Mark! He’s blood, and blood matters to faeries, and they want him back, as is their right as relatives.

The Unseelie King accepts, of course, because it would be wrong not to. However he’s not willing to let Emma face combat, he needs these kids alive to placate the Clave. No, he wants Annabel.

Annabel isn’t in any sort of state to fight right now, that much is obvious. She’s a powerful warrior, but no one staring at the love of their life’s corpse on the ground is really in much of a state to fight. Whatever her (big) issues with Malcolm, they did love each other, and between that and the Baseline Stress of being Annabel Lee Blackthorn at this point, she’s barely managing to not disassociate out of her.

Julian is actually ninety percent panicking now, because he doesn’t want Emma to fight but also he doesn’t want Annabel to lose (which she definitely will). Emma grabs his arm, taps “TRUST ME” on his hand, and nods. He knows what he has to do, he clearly does, even if she doesn’t entirely yet.

So Jules, well read up on the fey because he’s had to be, fourteen, and utterly determined, steps forward, kneels next to Annabel, and slashes a tendon in her left leg. Blood spurts, Annabel collapses. Then he stands up.

“I think technically Annabel is injured now, and unable to fight duels? Take Emma, or me, I guess, but I think you’re going to have better luck convincing the Clave Emma accidentally died then me. She’s impulsive, you see.”

He keeps eye contact until the Unseelie King, rapidly losing patience with this and the Blackthorn kids period, gives the order to have his champion readied. They’re fighting a duel with a little girl, apparently.

Against the fully armoured faerie knight, Emma looks even more outmatched than wild eyed Annabel (who Julian is now trying to bandage up without looking away from his parabatai). She proves herself quickly however, making up for what she lacks in reach and size and experience with sheer tenacity and down and dirty fighting. At one point she does knee her opponent in the groin. She’s got way more skill than her age would suggest, and she gets him down on the ground eventually. Jules’ nod is all the confirmation that she needs that she needs to make the killing blow.

She’s killed faeries before, but here, in the hush of the ring, with her adversary prone and not actively trying to kill her, it feels different. When she removes his helmet with shaking hands, she’s almost unsurprised to see her mother staring at her with wide, fearful eyes.

Emma hesitates. She falls to pieces. And amid the laughing of the crowd, there is a childish shriek and Ty drags Ash forward, with a knife to his throat.

Livia has a split second of trying to scold him for being rude, before she realizes that this is her twin and she’s always behind him. She draws her sword too, and uses it to keep everyone else at bay as Ty pulls Ash in front of the King, which takes longer than you’d think. Ash is strong for his age, or anyone’s age, and clearly has some combat training, but turns out to be no match for the combined strength of the twins and the element of surprise.

As soon as Ty grabs him, the earth starts quaking, little shakes at first, but growing in size. By the time they’re standing in front of the furious King, next to Julian, the rumble is audible and Ty has to shout over it to say,

“Let us go, or we’ll kill the Queen’s son.”

He doesn’t mention the other thing, because he’s not sure of it yet, but the moment of recognition as Dru looks at the boy is enough. Ty’s good at mysteries, and he knows this boy is the key to freedom.

Back at Wrangel Island, Helen and Aline have already noticed the surges of magic around LA and Cornwall that marked Malcolm’s death. Now their entire maps are going wild. Something is up, as clearly as the sky is blue. Helen calls Magnus, waking him up from sleep, and tells him it’s time. Magnus turns over and wakes up Alec, who immediately contacts Jace, who is in the Seelie Court feeling the same phenomenon, and tells the Queen to find every warrior she can, now. Jem and Tessa, crashing on the Bane-Lightwood apartment’s pullout couch while they help with the case of the Missing Blackthorn kids, wake up immediately ready to help. Slowly, an army pulls together.

In Los Angeles, Johnny Rook grabs Kit off the couch and throws him through the front door, before a swarm of demons descend on the house. Across the city, Catarina, searching Malcolm’s house, has had to save herself from the whole thing collapsing on her. When she fights her way out of the rubble, she notices the cloud of demons down city immediately, and on instinct moves to help.

She gets to a bloody and running Kit, recognizes his face even though years of inheritance has changed it so much. With him pulled tightly to her side, she banishes the demons, using almost every bit of power she has. She’s older than Magnus, and she knows what she’s doing.

Even with her considerable skills, it’s too late for Johnny once she gets to him, and she feels a moment of regret for the great-great-great adopted grandchild she never knew.

Then, because she’s a healer, she takes Kit away. It’s not healthy for a boy his age to be seeing things like this.

The hostage situation unfolding in the Unseelie Court is Not Going Great. Weapons are finally being drawn, patience with these Shadowhunters wearing thin. Ash is still trying to fight free, and has bit Ty doing so, and now both Ty and Livia and Dru are restraining him one limb at a time. The ground is still quaking. Their steles are shaking slightly to, which concerns everyone. Emma is still on the ground, cradling what looks like her mother. Still, Ty remains adamant and the fact that they aren’t dead yet means he’s on to something. Julian pushes their hand.

Except, as the Unseelie King reminds him coldly, he has a hostage too. He turns back to Mark...

Only to find the guards around Mark in various states of being on the ground, and Kieran and a young dark haired girl in Shadowhunter clothes trying to sneak him away. Mark, who refused to even look at his half-siblings when they were placed in front of him, is similarly reluctant to trust Kieran. The Unseelie Court put him through some stuff. He is, however, not as opposed to Cristina, who’s a relative stranger and not immediately threatening.

More faeries approach them, but Kieran shoots them, even as his father shouts curses on him as a traitor, and other things to the tune of “you get back here right now, young man!” Kieran wavers, but stays firm. Gotta save that Mark.

In this drama, Annabel crawls Emma, still crying on the ground, but mostly forgotten amid the chaos. Emma is desperately trying to help her “mother” but no one is paying attention.

Annabel pries her hands away, holds her close, and talks low and fast to her, about Julian, about the Blackthorns.

You love him, don’t you? More than life itself? You would do anything for him, you have done anything for him. You put your revenge aside to help his brother, Arthur heard, Arthur told me, sweet girl. Now, put aside the past to help him, or he might die.

Her words shake Emma out of her reverie, just enough. It’s the memory of Julian’s skin on hers and the Blackthorn children, and the Hall of Accords when there was nothing but each other that helps her the rest of the way.

She stares down at her mother, her mother’s lips moving, begging for help, telling her how much she loves her, how much she cares.

“I avenged you”, she promises, and stabs down.

The glamour lifts, and Emma, shaken but now starting to realize that she’s been tricked, pulls herself up, and Annabel as well. Waving Cortana wildly, they hobble over to Julian and the others. Faeries try to stop them, with swords and blows, but Diana is over her, protecting her, and helps get them back to the main group, the Blackthorn children and the wailing, increasingly hard to control Ash.

Kieran and Cristina make a break for the woods with Mark, and Diana leans into Julian’s ear and says, “Explanations later. Your brother is safe, we need to go.”

Julian nods, and slowly the little bundle starts moving backwards, using Ash as a shield, the ground shaking underneath them. The court lets them, because they have no other choice. As soon as they’re away from the bulk of the group, Julian scoops Tavvy onto his back, tells Dru to hold onto him, and tells them all to run.

They try.

It’s nearly impossible, as a cluster of children and unwilling hostages and the injured. They can’t even let go of Ash for long enough to hand him to Emma, because he is just a tiny wolverine of a boy, and so Ty and Livvy are burdened down. Annabel is still limping.

Kieran and Cristina are waiting for them, because Cristina made them, but they still have only one horse and no hope of escaping on foot. Kieran, realizing how big of a rescue operation this is, starts to regret things. The King and his steeds will be coming, sooner rather than later.

Annabel, leaning on Emma for balance, right herself mostly and asks for a sword, because she’s going to stay behind and fight them off while everyone else runs. There are protests, some more heartfelt than others, but at the moment with her hair in her face and her eyes flat, it seems to be the only thing Annabel is sure of.

“I promised your Uncle I’d take care of you,” she say, “And it is not fair for the living to die, when the dead are right there to take the blow. Now go.”

Julian and Diana, no nonsense to the end, make them. Kieran is already gone, and he’s taken Mark and Cristina with him (To get the Hunt and help, he promises, but his horse cannot carry more, especially not people who might fall off, and though Cristina tries to give up her seat to Tavvy and Dru, the little ones can’t be trusted there) Livia pauses and reaches over Ash to pat Annabel’s hand and say goodbye. Emma lingers the longest, making sure everyone else runs into the woods, runs toward safety.

“Thank you,” she says to Annabel.

Annabel shrugs. “Go. Love your Julian, make the most of it.”

Emma is momentarily too scandalized to remember she needs to run. “We’re parabatai,” she points out, “It’s illegal.”

Annabel, sweet Annabel, shrugs. “Two centuries ago, I could not love Malcolm,” she points out. “And I paid the price. Make a better story, Emma Carstairs. And take care of our nephews and nieces. Now, run for your life.”

Emma does. Being young and fast, she catches up with the others quickly, and then keeps pace with them as they trip and fall over roots and branches, as the earth shakes around them. Julian tries to make Ty let Ash go, but as he collapses to the ground the earth starts going suspiciously ashy around him so Ty just grabs him by the collar again and keeps running. No time for that, whatever that was.

They run, and run, and run, as the hounds close in behind them. There are some screams, Annabel’s, behind them. Diana gives in and picks up Dru, so they can go faster.

Soon they are running on ash, white as the moon, and not the forest floor. Soon they are running breathless.

When the army comes out of nowhere in front of them, Emma almost goes at the first person she sees just on instinct. The fact that it’s Clary Fray, looking oddly at home on a faerie horse, somewhat dissuades her.

Ash, screaming at the top of his lungs, and Ty, halfway to a meltdown and screaming with him, collapse into a puddle as the group stops short and are quickly separated by Seelie Knights, which does seems to make Ash shape up somewhat. He seems almost... relieved? Delighted? Only Ty is really sure what’s going on and Ty has decided that if he is no longer needed he’s just going to fall apart. Livvy holds him tightly, but she’s crying as well. The rest of the Blackthorn kids dissolve as well, once the immediate threat is gone. Emma is injured from her duel, and finally realizes it. Tavvy and Dru are shellshocked but in the clingy way kids are. They refuse to let go of Julian, and Julian refuses to let go of Emma, and Emma won’t let go of anyone because she’s terrified if she does they’ll die, and frankly even though Clary and Jace are here, Emma isn’t really in a mental place to trust anyone anymore.

Diana takes over as the leading adult, which is good, especially when Kieran shows up with the Hunt. Someone needs to adult here. She helps bandage Emma up, because runes still aren’t quite working. Then, once they’re back in the relative safety of the Unseelie Court, a blonde woman who looks like Mark applies poultices to Emma and the Blackthorns and a totally out of it Mark who calls her something in the language of the faeries that makes her cry. Then, she puts them all to bed.

When they wake up, the world makes a little more sense.

Things have been sorted out more or less in secret, in meetings between the Seelie Queen and Clary and Magnus, and at least one that blue haired Kieran got to attend which he is very proud of. Once Mark is sensible, there are tearful reunions. Diana introduces them all to Cristina, who “gives Emma a run for her money in terms of bullheadedness”.

Clary brings them all in front of the Queen, who is resplendent. Ash, the screaming boy, looks very different and yet very much the same, in Seelie finery, sitting on the step below her. He and Ty and Livia make faces at each other.

The matter of Ash’s ancestry is not exactly brought up, but with him in full daylight, it’s impossible to deny whose child he is. Emma looks livid. Julian just looks resigned. A tired looking Clary promises it’s all under control, seriously, auntie’s promise just, maybe don’t mention this to the Clave? It could make things... difficult.

All the Blackthorn children promise, as long as they get Mark back.

That’s more difficult to negotiate, but it gets done, and he’s theirs again, fresh faced and shining. Kieran is reluctant to see him go, but he’s even more reluctant to see Mark hurt again.

Politics happen, in bits and pieces, but with their brother returned to them, the Blackthorn children don’t care.

It’s when they get back to the Clave that things really get complicated. There are rounds of questioning, the Mortal Sword again, for the second time in their young lives. Clary coaches them all carefully on what to say, so as not to reveal too much. The reveal that Malcolm and the Unseelie Court collaborated on some great evil that literally shook magic to its core is enough to spook the Clave, they don’t need to know about Ash or some of the other messy stuff.

The Cold Peace is upheld, to some extent, because there can be no forgiveness after what the Unseelie King did. The Queen on the other hand, is reluctantly welcomed back into the fold, some of the restrictions on her are weakened.

It’s all Jia can do to protect Mark from the same backlash, but she does, using the great help the Blackthorns were and their bravery, convince the Clave that Mark can be forgiven, Helen pardoned. It will take a while to reassign Helen and Aline back, but they will come back and take over the LA institute as soon as anyone can find a qualified replacement for them. In the meantime, Diana is the Blackthorn children’s temporary guardian. It’s an empty gesture, at this point everyone important knows that Julian has been raising the kids for a while.

Still, it seems important to at least try to protect the children, though at this point, Livia says they might as well not try. Been there, done that, been traumatized.

(Tavvy and Dru are back to having nightmares of death and their father’s blood, except this time it’s Malcolm who’s being stabbed. Never mind how cruel he was, first he was kind and that’s a hard thing to forget. Livia and Ty’s nightmares are more ghoulish, they dream of Annabel’s fate and the empty Cornwall beach and the ground turning to ash underneath them. Emma doesn’t have nightmares, but she and Julian aren’t really sleeping these days. They sit up together instead, in each other’s arms, with the kids on the bed next to them, and find that as long as they draw an energy rune the next morning, they’re fine, which is weird. Maybe being in faerie made them stronger.)

Before Helen and Aline come back, there is one more thing to do. Julian asks Magnus to take them all to Cornwall, to the Institute there, and with all the Blackthorn children in the main hall, he thanks Uncle Arthur. He tells him their all fine now, they’re safe, and Mark and Helen are coming home, and please, if he can, he should be at peace now. The Blackthorns have had enough restlessness in death.

Then, he and Emma take the children back out, through the paths Malcolm and Annabel once walked, and they go home.

(As they pass the church on the way out, there’s an incident with a demon that has Magnus very concerned, but Emma and Julian light everything on fire, so it’s an issue for another day.)

Some more notes on this AU

Jem and Tessa are kind of miffed that as soon as they took a second to spend on another project, Catarina found the lost Herondale child before they could. They very much appreciate her help saving Kit though. Catarina is more reluctant to surrender this Herondale bb to the Clave, and instead offers to raise Kit in New York herself. He can go to the Institute after school and learn safely there. Kit adores her, and gets along well with Alec, although not so much Jace at first. He and Ty and Livvy meet though Clary, and stay in touch because Catarina insists Kit have other Shadowhunters his age to compare his life to. Livvy is delighted to have a penpal.

The twins also keep in touch with Ash, although that’s less willing and more of a burgeoning nemesis-hood. Dru, possibly just to spite the twins, possibly as a way of acting out, insists she has a crush on him. Luckily time passes differently in faerie and the Seelie Queen is eager to keep him away from people, so other than a few instance of belligerent eye contact and some accidental dream sharing, it’s mostly at a distance.

The primary reason they even see each other at all is because Kieran got handed to the Seelie Queen as a “hostage” after all the polticking went down. (It was the safest way to keep him away from his family and out of trouble.) Unfortunately Kieran isn’t going to let a little thing like technical prisonerhood prevent him from seeing Mark. Mark is still readjusting to being a Shadowhunter, and Kieran makes him confused, but it’s a good confused and also no one knows how to make them stop.

It means lots of “Taking Kieran Back To The Seelie At 3AM” though.

Cristina is delivered back to her family with a condemnation a dagger for bravery and an Official Scolding From The Consul. She’s grounded until she’s eighteen but she’s too happy with the results to care. She helped rescue Mark Blackthorn! She and Diana stay in touch, and though Diana she and Emma become especially close. Cristina swears that as soon as she’s of age she’s taking her travel year in LA. Diego and Jaime feel neglected in contrast.

Helen returns to take care of the kids, and she and Mark are reunited, and it’s beautiful, but it’s still been years and she’s awkward around her younger siblings. Julian does a lot of the day to day childcare work, but he’s finally not taking care of every issue at the Institute on top of that and everyone comments on how less stressed he seems to be with his sister home. He and Emma spend a lot more time together, keeping their growing relationship secret. They learned a lot from Malcolm and Annabel, including how not to get caught.

Bad things are still happening demonically speaking. No one is quite sure how to stop it, not even the Seelie Queen. Clary swears they’re going to get it under control though, and at least for now, Emma and Julian trust her.

I think there would definitely be some followup books dealing with the Unseelie King’s revenge and Emma and Julian hurtling down the path of catastrophe and also Ash being a little anti-christ. The Black Book is still missing, ect. Annabel and Malcolm would come back as actual zombies. That sort of thing. I just really wanted more Blackthorn feels a tighter, more family focused narrative. Also, more Malcolm and Annabel. (And more Diana and Arthur, it turned out. Just, more traumatized grownups.)

I just... love these tragic kids so much and I want them to self destruct more explicitly and ten times as slowly.

#the dark artifices #lord of shadows spoilers #malcolm fade #annabel blackthorn #diana wrayburn #arthur blackthorn #m writes #fanfic #blackthorn babies #long post very long post

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