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Lord of Shadows is the second book of the The Dark Artifices trilogy.

Description[]

Sunny Los Angeles can be a dark place indeed.

Emma Carstairs has finally avenged her parents. She thought she'd be at peace. But she is anything but calm. Torn between her desire for her parabatai Julian and her desire to protect him from the brutal consequences of parabatai relationships, she has begun dating his brother, Mark. But Mark has spent the past five years trapped in Faerie; can he ever truly be a Shadowhunter again?

And the faerie courts are not silent. The Unseelie King is tired of the Cold Peace, and will no longer concede to the Shadowhunters' demands. Caught between the demands of faerie and the laws of the Clave, Emma, Julian, and Mark must find a way to come together to defend everything they hold dear—before it's too late.[1][2]


A Shadowhunter's life is bound by duty. Constrained by honor. The word of a Shadowhunter is a solemn pledge, and no vow is more sacred than the vow that binds parabatai, warrior partners—sworn to fight together, die together, but never to fall in love.

Emma Carstairs has learned that the love she shares with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, isn't just forbidden—it could destroy them both. She knows she should run from Julian. But how can she when the Blackthorns are threatened by enemies on all sides?

Their only hope is the Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book of terrible power. Everyone wants it. Only the Blackthorns can find it. Spurred on by a dark bargain with the Seelie Queen, Emma; her best friend, Cristina, and Mark and Julian Blackthorn journey into the Courts of Faerie, where glittering revels hide bloody danger and no promise can be trusted. Meanwhile, rising tension between Shadowhunters and Downworlders has produced the Cohort, an extremist group of Shadowhunters dedicated to registering Downworlders and "unsuitable" Nephilim. They'll do anything in their power to expose Julian's secrets and take the Los Angeles Institute for their own.

When Downworlders turn against the Clave, a new threat rises in the form of the Lord of Shadows—the Unseelie King, who sends his greatest warriors to slaughter those with Blackthorn blood and seize the Black Volume. As dangers close in, Julian devises a risky scheme that depends on the cooperation of an unpredictable enemy. But success may come with a price he and Emma cannot even imagine, one that will bring with it a reckoning of blood that could have repercussions for everyone and everything they hold dear.[3]

Chapters[]

There are 29 chapters; the titles are derived from lines (in no particular order) in the poem "Dreamland" by Edgar Allan Poe.[4][5]

Part One: Dreamland

  1. Still Waters
  2. Boundless Floods
  3. Where Dwell The Ghouls
  4. A Wild Weird Clime
  5. Earth And Heaven
  6. There The Traveler
  7. Seas Without A Shore
  8. Near The River
  9. These Lands
  10. So Wills Its King
  11. On A Black Throne
  12. By The Mountains
  13. Dreamland
  14. Through Darkened Glass

Part Two: Thule

  1. Friends Long Given
  2. Pass The Wanderer
  3. Haunted
  4. Memories Of The Past
  5. The Gray Woods
  6. Evermore
  7. The Eye Unclosed
  8. The Most Unholy
  9. Skies Of Fire
  10. Legion
  11. Start and Sigh
  12. Walk In Shadow
  13. Ill Angels Only
  14. The Sad Soul
  15. Ultima Thule

Characters[]

CJ Jem 01
“I cannot be sure, though I think it has something to do with
the clarity of them.”

This article contains content that was recently expanded and has not yet been reviewed by site staff. It may contain some errors and may not yet conform with the wiki's quality standards.

Shadowhunters[]

  • Emma Carstairs — Seventeen-year-old Emma is a Shadowhunter who is bent on discovering what killed her parents and avenging her losses.
  • Julian Blackthorn — Emma's parabatai, Jules has been responsible for his younger siblings, and indirectly the Los Angeles Institute, from a young age.
  • Mark Blackthorn — Half-faerie, half-Shadowhunter, Mark is returned to his family in Los Angeles as a bargaining chip after years with the Wild Hunt.
  • Cristina Rosales — Emma's eighteen-year-old best friend who currently resides at the Institute to learn about how their Shadowhunter culture differs from Mexico's.
  • Diana Wrayburn — The tutor of the young Shadowhunters of the Institute.
  • Arthur Blackthorn — The head of the Institute whose shock and trauma over the events of the Dark War has driven him over the edge.
  • Diego Rosales — A Shadowhunter from Cristina's past who is also a Centurion.
  • Livvy Blackthorn — Mark and Julian's younger sister and Ty's twin, incredibly brave and protective of her family.
  • Ty Blackthorn — Mark and Julian's younger brother and Livvy's twin who continues to help his siblings and helps ease newcomer Kit into the Shadow World.
  • Kit HerondaleJohnny Rook's son and a lost descendant of the Herondale line.
  • Dru Blackthorn — Mark and Julian's younger sister who's frustrated at—for being young—not allowed to help with "adult" matters but constantly makes discoveries around them.
  • Tavvy Blackthorn — Mark and Julian's baby brother and the youngest of the Blackthorn children.
  • Annabel BlackthornMalcolm Fade's lover whom he successfully resurrected.
  • Centurions — Graduates of the Scholomance; well-trained warriors who deal specifically in affairs with Downworld, namely Zara Dearborn, Manuel Casales, etc.

Downworlders[]

more...

Gallery[]

Art[]

Editions[]

International covers[]

Trailer[]

Special content[]

  • First edition: All first editions include 30 new runes designed by Valerie Freire printed on the inside cover of the book jackets.
  • Barnes & Noble edition: This edition will have the above runes and a deleted scene with Emma and Jules on Blackfriars Bridge talking about The Infernal Devices characters and indirectly relating their relationships to their own.
  • Target edition: This edition includes the runes and a map of Alicante by Drew Willis.[6]
  • Waterstones Exclusive Edition: These include the above deleted scene of Julian and Emma and a map of Alicante by Drew Willis. The cover features the parabatai rune and all 1,000 copies are stamp signed with a rune and Cassandra Clare's signature.[7]
    • An additional paperback special edition by Waterstones also includes the deleted scene and blue sprayed edges.[6]
  • Fifth anniversary edition: A special edition by Simon & Schuster UK released on September 1, 2022 to commemorate the book's 5-year anniversary since its first release. It includes an introductory letter from Cassandra Clare, the bonus story Emma's First Kiss (a version of which was previously released in her newsletter),[8][9] and the deleted scene of Emma and Julian on Blackfriars Bridge.
See all freely released additional content here

Trivia[]

  • The cover features Julian Blackthorn underwater,[10] the London skyline, with the Tower Bridge prominent, in the backdrop, a map of constellations behind Julian, and a "Magnitudes of the Stars" scale from 1 to 5 by the bridge.
  • The first announced title of the book was Prince of Shadows.[11][12]
  • This book is told from several points of view, namely: Emma, Julian, Cristina, Mark, Kit, Ty, Dru, Livvy, Kieran, Diana, and Annabel.
  • As with Lady Midnight and its eponymous character, the title of this book is also in reference to a character: the Unseelie King who is called the Lord of Shadows. After the release of Queen of Air and Darkness, it became the only book whose titular character isn't Annabel Blackthorn.
  • The beginning of the book is set about two weeks after the events of Lady Midnight.
  • An easter egg in the book was the line "Fire wants to burn", etched onto a table in Zara's hideout. "Fire wants to burn" is from Cassandra Clare's Magisterium series.
  • In some early editions of the book, the engraving in Cristina Rosales's room says "MF + LH" (Matthew Fairchild and Lucie Herondale) which is changed in later editions to "JB + LH" (Jesse Blackthorn and Lucie). Though Cassie claims the change to be unimportant and not an indicator of final relationships in The Last Hours series.[13]
  • Editions of the book bought at Costco in the US contained Julian's portrait of Emma that was mentioned in Lady Midnight, drawn by Cassandra Jean;[6] it has since been sold separately as a poster on TopatoCo.com along with a few other promotional posters for the book.

References[]

Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter Chronicles
The Mortal Instruments
City of Bones City of Ashes City of Glass
City of Fallen Angels City of Lost Souls City of Heavenly Fire
The Infernal Devices The Dark Artifices
Clockwork Angel Lady Midnight
Clockwork Prince Lord of Shadows
Clockwork Princess Queen of Air and Darkness
The Last Hours The Wicked Powers
Chain of Gold The Last King of Faerie
Chain of Iron The Last Prince of Hell
Chain of Thorns The Last Shadowhunter
The Eldest Curses
The Red Scrolls of Magic The Lost Book of the White The Black Volume of the Dead
The Bane Chronicles
What Really Happened in Peru Saving Raphael Santiago
The Runaway Queen The Fall of the Hotel Dumort
Vampires, Scones, and Edmund Herondale What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything
The Midnight Heir The Last Stand of the New York Institute
The Rise of the Hotel Dumort The Course of True Love (And First Dates)
The Voicemail of Magnus Bane
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy
Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy Pale Kings and Princes
The Lost Herondale Bitter of Tongue
The Whitechapel Fiend The Fiery Trial
Nothing but Shadows Born to Endless Night
The Evil We Love Angels Twice Descending
Ghosts of the Shadow Market
Cast Long Shadows Son of the Dawn
Every Exquisite Thing The Land I Lost
Learn About Loss Through Blood, Through Fire
A Deeper Love The Lost World
The Wicked Ones Forever Fallen
Companion books
Secrets of Blackthorn Hall
Better in Black: Tales of Romance
The Shadowhunter's Codex
A Long Conversation
An Illustrated History of Notable Shadowhunters & Denizens of Downworld
All the Stories are True: Classics Reimagined in the World of the Shadowhunters
Adaptations
The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novels
The Official Mortal Instruments Coloring Book
The Infernal Devices: Manga Series
City of Bones: The Graphic Novel
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments
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