The Shadowhunters' Wiki
Register
Advertisement
The Shadowhunters' Wiki
SPOILER WARNING: Plot details follow. Caution is advised!

I learned early on in my life that I had a healing gift. It's the kind of magic I do. So I work here, for crap pay, at this hospital, and I do what I can to heal mundanes who would scream if they knew what I really looked like. I could make a fortune selling my skills to Shadowhunters and dumb mundanes who think they know what magic is, but I don't. I work here.

–Catarina to Clary, City of Fallen Angels

Catarina Loss is an exceptionally powerful warlock who used to work as a nurse at the Beth Israel Hospital in New York.[3] Catarina taught at the Shadowhunter Academy for the first few years since its reopening.[4] Though she is currently at the Scholomance, she still occasionally gives lectures on Downworlder studies at the Academy.[5]

Biography[]

Early life[]

Catarina was born with blue skin. For this, her mother hid her and raised her in secret—lovingly, despite her being a child born from a demon raping her.[6] From an early age, she knew that she was a gifted healer. She used her magic to save and heal others but doesn't always have enough for herself. While she could have made a fortune using her skills in the Shadow World, she chose to work at a mundane hospital, instead. Since her warlock mark, her blue skin, is so prominent and not so easily concealed, Catarina uses glamour to work in the mundane world every day.

At some point in the estimated early 1600s, Catarina traveled to Leonberg to treat an outbreak of the Plague. Someone had caught her laying her glowing hands on a patient and was arrested as a witch and thrown in Steinhaus. She was then put to death by fire. Magnus Bane had been in a bar nearby at the time, having just completed a job, when he noticed the glamour on the woman about to be executed and then heard her screams as she caught fire. Despite the voice of his mentor Ragnor Fell, Magnus made the decision to save her life. The pair ran and met up with Ragnor at a tavern several hours later. She and Ragnor laughed at how stupid Magnus had been to try to save her but she did thank him for doing so and offered to be his second friend. The trio then agreed to travel in a group for a while for safety.[7][8]

In the early 1800s, despite it being a period before the Accords, Catarina developed a good relationship with the Herondale family. When the Clave claimed that Tobias Herondale abandoned his comrades in Bavaria and decided to punish his wife, Eva Blackthorn, for it, Catarina looked for and found him wandering mad in the forest but was unable to save him. Deciding to intervene, which she could not publicly or legally do, she snuck into Eva's prison in the Gard. She used magic to deliver Eva and Tobias's unborn child early, as well as to cloak this fact during Eva's execution.

Catarina then raised the boy, whom she named Ephraim until he was grown, in the New World as a mundane, never telling him what he was.[9] To give him a connection to his family, Catarina gave him a necklace with a heron etched on it.[10] Eventually Catarina faked her death to allow him a normal life and allow herself to get back to her's. Still, she kept tabs on him and didn't leave before she knew he had found love and later a family. In 1910, he died of old age in a bed surrounded by loved ones. Though she hadn't been with him for a long time at that point, Catarina was crushed by his death.[8]

Catarina was alarmed when one of his descendants Roland became famous in Downworld. Catarina tried to warn him away from using magic and was heartbroken when Roland disappeared after their fight, blaming herself.[10]

Friendships[]

Catarina was good friends with fellow warlocks Magnus Bane and Ragnor Fell, both of whom she went traveling within Peru in the late 1800s,[6] and, in later years, Tessa Gray.

At some point, Catarina was engaged to a mortal man. While she fully intended to someday marry him, Catarina's dedication to her work meant that she never found the time for the wedding. Her fiancé stayed with her, but he eventually died of old age, sometime around 1992. She has not had a serious romance since.[2]

There was a time when Catarina lived in Cornwall with Malcolm Fade. Catarina knew part of Malcolm's tragic past and was one of his friends who believed that Annabel Blackthorn had become an Iron Sister. She and Malcolm also had some trouble with the ley lines in Cornwall.[5]

During World War II, Catarina was in London serving as a wartime nurse at St. Bart's with Tessa. In December that year, at the time of the Blitz, Catarina met Brother Zachariah, whom Tessa knew as Jem Carstairs, who arrived at the hospital severely injured, slowly being killed by a cataplasm. Sensing Tessa's urgency, and due to Zachariah's refusal to seek treatment at the Silent City, Catarina and Tessa brought him to their apartment so she could try to treat him with her supplies.

After successfully treating Jem, Catarina overheard him tell Tessa that he had been looking for the "lost Herondales" and was the reason he was poisoned. Knowing what he was referring to, Catarina decided to tell him and Tessa about Ephraim and Roland, being the last Herondale of Ephraim's line that she was in contact with. Jem then told her that Roland wasn't driven away by their argument, but that he went on the run from those pursuing his faerie wife.[10]

Sometime in the early 1800s, Catarina met up with her friends Ragnor and Magnus for a brief vacation. They told her they had a great idea to build a joke cult. She told the pair not to do it before departing to save Ephraim. Unfortunately, they did not listen to her and made the Crimson Hand anyway. Though it was long considered a joke cult, the group straightened up and got more serious by the 2000s.

In 2007, Catarina, upon treating Tessa for wounds she sustained by the cult, learned that Magnus was in charge of taking care of the cult. She then ran into Magnus in Venice at Malcolm Fade's party celebrating their victory in the Mortal War. She confronted him about it and then chastised him for keeping his Shadowhunter boyfriend involved in this. She later changed her mind about Alec Lightwood when he saved her a couple of times as the building collapsed. Despite her earlier doubts about trusting him and if he truly loved her friend, she told Magnus he finally found a keeper before going to assist other party-goers who had been injured.[11]

Wrayburn[]

In 2003, Catarina was working as a nurse in Bangkok. During this time, she met and befriended Diana Wrayburn, a Shadowhunter from Idris who was on her travel year with her sister Aria. Catarina later rescued Diana and Aria after they were attacked by revenants and tended to them, though she was unable to save Aria.

While tending to Diana, Catarina discovered that she was physically male. She helped Diana work through her sister's death and her own confusion, and introduced her to the concept of "transgender". After weeks of nursing Diana back to health, Catarina traveled back to Bangkok with her and they lived together in Catarina's apartment for three years, with Diana living as a mundane. During this time, Catarina took Diana to a clinic and helped her transition, hiding her unusual test results from the doctors so that they would not be confused by her Shadowhunter blood.

When Diana's parents were killed, Catarina was the one to break the news to her, and after Diana returned to Idris to fight in the Mortal War and take over her father's shop, she continued to send Diana the medicine she required to balance her hormones.[12]

Beth Israel[]

When Jocelyn fell into a coma in 2007, Catarina was one of her nurses at Beth Israel Hospital. Catarina also helped Magnus concoct the antidote that revived her, and was the one Magnus entrusted to look after the Book of the White during the Mortal War.[13][14]

Catarina was soon phoned by Jocelyn regarding a recent discovery of dead babies. Jocelyn later went to the hospital and introduced Catarina to her daughter, Clary. Catarina went on to tell them that the mundane doctors could see that the babies are actually part-demon, and have black, fathomless eyes and small, black claws.[14]

Dark War[]

Catarina was assigned to create a Portal to Idris to transport the Shadowhunters from the New York Institute along with the Conclave. Catarina transported Clary, Jocelyn, Luke, and the Lightwoods to Idris. Catarina and Magnus were in the Hunter's Moon talking about his break up with Alec and also Sebastian's threat to the Shadowhunters. Catarina told Magnus to go to Alicante to talk to Alec as she gave her seat on the Council to him. Catarina gave Magnus an invitation to a dinner hosting by the Fair Folk before Magnus went to go speak to Bat Velasquez.

Catarina along with Malcolm Fade, the High Warlock of Los Angeles went to the New York werewolf pack headquarters to talk to Maia Roberts about the Downworld representatives being kidnapped by Jonathan and they discussed her and Malcolm wanting to help Maia to warn the other Downworlders about Sebastian. Catarina asked for Maia's help with a demon problem at the Beth Israel Hospital and Maia along with Bat and Lily went along with her. Catarina was able to subdue the demon with Maia and Bat's help as Lily filmed the event. Catarina and the others found out from the dandelion demon that Sebastian and his Endarkened were going to attack Alicante. Catarina sent a fire message to Jia Penhallow which was written by Maia warning her about Sebastian's army will be attacking Alicante.

Catarina attended Jocelyn and Luke's wedding at Three Arrows Farm along with the other Shadowhunters and Downworlders. Catarina talked to Magnus about the rumors going around Downworld about how the Fair Folk possibly wanting vengeance against the Nephilim for them having to sign the new terms given to them during the Council meeting after the Dark War for their betrayal.[15]

Academy[]

In 2008, Catarina began working as a teacher at the reopened Shadowhunter Academy, in order to honor Ragnor's memory.[16] She Portaled to Idris with Simon Lewis, a mundane who was going to be attending the Academy. Since most of the other faculty members left before she arrived, Catarina ended up taking over most of the lessons. She occasionally brought in guest lecturers to help her.[4]

During her time at the Academy, Catarina slept in Ragnor's old room. She took a special interest in Simon, as he had been a Downworlder before and she believed he would be responsible for great changes in the Academy's attitude towards mundanes and Downworlders.[16]

Once, after growing tired of eating soup for every meal, Catarina enlisted Simon's help in burying the tureen in the woods. She was also present at the Academy graduation ceremony, and held Simon back after George Lovelace failed to Ascend and died.[17] Having stayed at the Academy long enough to see the first-class graduate, Catarina intended to leave after Simon's Ascension.[16]

Later[]

A few months later, Catarina was called on by Alec because of a strange wound on Magnus. Catarina came over right away to examine it. Though she could not discern what it was or how harmful it was, she ordered that they look into it at home, rather than traveling to Shanghai like Magnus was planning. Of course, they ignored her advice and went anyway, even asking her to babysit, which she couldn't commit to but agreed to come over to check on Chairman Meow.

When they returned home a few days later, Catarina was at the Institute consulting with Maryse Lightwood and Kadir Safar who ended up watching Max for Alec and Magnus. Magnus promptly pulled her aside and confided to her that their friend Ragnor, was not actually dead, but alive and in hiding. She was then tasked, as a favor for Magnus, to bring the Book of the White to the Spiral Labyrinth for safe-keeping.[8]

Two weeks later, she received a message from Magnus that he would be performing oneiromancy in order to throw Jem and Tessa a proper wedding. Catarina made sure to go to bed at the appropriate time so she could attend. It is unknown if she still recalls the wedding or if the memory has faded, as dreams do, like the other participants.[18]

Eventually, Catarina ended up at the Scholomance. She would occasionally return to the Academy to give lectures on Downworlder studies.[5]

In 2012, Catarina received a call from Diana, requesting that she open a Portal at the Los Angeles Institute so she and the Blackthorns, along with Kit Herondale, could escape Malcolm's wrath. She informed Diana that she would be unable to Portal them to Idris but told her of her arrangement with the London Institute, which worked fine for them, and Catarina obliged.[12]

Catarina had been spending her time at the Spiral Labyrinth working to figure out why warlocks everywhere had been falling ill. They originally believed it was caused by the ley lines being corrupted after Malcolm's necromancy spells using them. Catarina spoke with Cristina Rosales and sent her to investigate in Los Angeles for her.

Cristina later got back to her that she believed the illness was actually being caused by the blight, which Catarina agreed to look more into. Upon this discovery, and because of her own growing concerns over Magnus, Magnus and Alec traveled to the LA Institute under Catarina's orders as she believed they would learn how to cure him there. Which turned out to be true. When they discovered the cure, Cristina tried to reach out to Catarina again but she had fallen into a sleep that none of the surrounding warlocks in the Spiral Labyrinth could wake her from. Instead, Tessa received the message and following the Wild Hunt having retrieved the cure—water from Lake Lyn—Catarina was administered some and recovered.

Catarina then attended Julian Blackthorn's war council and was later among the crowd of Livia's Watch that confronted the Cohort at the Cohort's parley. During the battle, she was in the city, helping care for the wounded with Tessa. When Jem brought Kit's unconscious body in, she and Tessa came running and the three of them ran off to work on him.

A few weeks later, Catarina joined the others on the beach in LA for Magnus and Alec's wedding party. She and Ragnor made glamour spells to block the area from Mundanes and then helped set up the food tables. The two later argued over who would escort Magnus down the aisle. To Ragnor's frustration, Catarina won and stood beside Magnus at the altar.[19]

Catarina soon returned to teaching following the Clave's exile. Though she spent most of her time teaching at the new Academy in New York, she still came by the Scholomance frequently to teach, restock the infirmary, or heal unusual magical ailments.

Luckily she was there when Ty Blackthorn found a dying Carpathian lynx kitten and was able to offer him advice on how to get her to eat and drink and how to care for her. When he fainted from his bond to his sister's ghost, she was also there to help heal and keep an eye on him—though she did not know of the bond or why he fainted. She also recommended that Anush Joshi come back to check on him in hopes of starting a friendship between them.[20]

Personality and traits[]

Magnus knew Catarina was always dangerously low on magic. She healed whoever came to her and never saved enough to protect herself.

Magnus Bane about Catarina, The Red Scrolls of Magic

Catarina is a hard-working and no-nonsense person. She has a dry wit and can be sarcastic to those who annoy her, but she is kind and has a strong sense of justice. Catarina cares deeply for her friends and feels their loss just as much, sometimes for centuries. She puts a lot of time into her work, so much so that she may forget to sleep or eat. Due to the hours she works, she leads a minimalist life and doesn't worry too much about comfort, but rather functionality. Catarina also enjoys card games, specifically ones involving monetary stakes.

Physical description[]

Catarina's warlock mark is her dark blue skin. She is a slim, young-looking warlock with dark blue eyes and snow-white hair. While glamoured as a mundane, Catarina sports dark skin.

Skills and abilities[]

  • Immortality: As a warlock, Catarina is immortal. Physically, Catarina does not age and has maintained the appearance of a young woman for centuries.
  • Magic: Catarina has access to magical powers, which manifests in color as white or blue. She is particularly skilled in healing magic.

Relationships[]

Catarina and Ragnor were very close friends, and his death affected her deeply. They would often go hiking and traveled a lot together. After his death, Catarina tried to honor his memory by teaching at the Shadowhunter Academy despite her dislike of the Nephilim.

Catarina is very close to Magnus and has known him for a long time. As one of the few immortal friends he has, they often confide in each other about their pasts and reminisce about those they've lost.

Catarina loved her adopted son very much and considered him a gift to mundane society, and someone who the Shadowhunters did not deserve. She kept the secret of his existence confined to her closest friends as she knew the Clave would punish her severely for saving him. Despite the danger this put her in, she remains glad and proud of her decision to save him.[9] Even centuries after his death, her friend Magnus suspected that Catarina doesn't speak of him because it hurts too much.[16]

Appearances[]

Trivia[]

  • Catarina cheats at card games, according to Magnus.[21]
  • According to Magnus, Catarina made up the rumors surrounding the Loch Ness Monster.[12]
  • Catarina is set to eventually talk to Kit Herondale about Ephraim—her adoptive son and his ancestor—someday, possibly in his new home with Jem and Tessa in Devon.[22]
  • Catarina can knit as she made Mina Carstairs a long woolen knitted blanket with her full name on it as a gift to Tessa and Jem for her birth.[20][23]
    • She also once knitted Alec Lightwood a blue sweater for Christmas that matched his eyes. However, she forgot to include a note that it was from her and Magnus blew it up, assuming it to be an anonymous assassination attempt.[24]
  • Sometimes she enjoys glamouring herself into the private spaces of rich mundanes so she could frequent places where she would generally not be allowed.[8]

References[]

Advertisement