Also by Cassandra Clare

The Wild hunt, some Years ago
Mark Blackthorn came to the Wild Hunt when he was sixteen years old, and not because he wanted
to.
He remembered only darkness after he had been taken from the Institute that was his home,
before he woke in underground caverns, amid lichen and dripping moss. A massive man with eyes
of two different colors was standing over him, carrying a horned helmet.
Mark recognized him, of course. You couldn’t be a Shadowhunter and not know about the Wild
Hunt. You couldn’t be half-faerie and not have read about Gwyn the Hunter, who had led the hunt
for centuries. He wore a long blade of hammered metal at his waist, blackened and twisted as if it
had been through many fires. “Mark Blackthorn,” he said, “you are with the Hunt now, for your
family is dead. We are your blood kin now.” And drawing the sword, he sliced across his palm until
he drew blood, and dripped it into water for Mark to drink.
In the years to come Mark would see others come to the Hunt, and Gwyn say the same thing to
them, and watch them drink his blood. And he would watch their eyes change, splintering into two
different colors as if to symbolize the division of their souls.
Gwyn believed a new recruit had to be broken down to be built back up again as a Hunter,
someone who could ride through the night without sleep, someone who could suffer hunger that
was close to starvation and endure pain that would break a mundane. And he believed their loyalty
must be unswerving. They could choose no one over the Hunt.
Mark gave his loyalty to Gwyn, and his service, but he did not make friends among the Wild
Hunt. They were not Shadowhunters, and he was a Shadowhunter. The others were all of the faerie
Courts, pressed into service with the Hunt as punishment. They did not like the fact that he was
Nephilim, and he felt their scorn and scorned them in turn.
He rode through the nights alone, on a silver mare given to him by Gwyn. Gwyn seemed,
perversely, to like him, perhaps to spite the others of the Hunt. He taught Mark to navigate by the
stars and to listen for the sounds of a battle that might echo through hundreds, even thousands of
miles: cries of anger and the shouts of the dying. They would ride to the field of battle and,
invisible to mundane eyes, divest the dead bodies of precious things. Most of them were paid in
tribute to the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, but some Gwyn kept for himself.
Mark slept alone, every night, on the cold ground, wrapped in a blanket, a stone for his pillow.
When it was cold, he shivered, and dreamed of runes that would warm him, of the hot blaze of
seraph blades. In his pocket he kept the witchlight rune-stone Jace Herondale had given him,
though he dared not light it except when he was alone.
Each night as he fell asleep he recited the names of his sisters and brothers, in order of age.
Each word was weighted like an anchor, cleaving him to the earth. Keeping him alive.
Helen. Julian. Tiberius. Livia. Drusilla. Octavian.
The days blurred into months. Time was not like it was in the mundane world. Mark had given
up counting days—there was no way to mark them down, and Gwyn hated such things. Therefore