toast-idk

[toast-idk]

The passageways from the dungeons to the courtroom were a labyrinth of moss, brick and earth, shadows hung themselves across the walls and spat inky blood in channels across them.

Ash shivered, deep underground the cold was insistent, constricting his chest and numbing his fingers. He couldn’t imagine staying down here as long as some of the prisoners had.

He knew most “normal teenagers” would ignore the gentle whisper of the wind across the marshy ground and claim an eerie silence, would look in horror at the clusters of fractured bones and century old dust stacked against the walls and not see the soft orange glow of fireflies flitting through the darkness.

Ash saw it all, the cruel beauty inherent in the Seelie courts.

But then again, Ash was by nobodies standards a normal teenager.

He let his wings stretch out and brush the edges of the space, midnight feathers staining the darkness a black that seemed a vacuum of light, rather than just an absence of it.

His mothers love had been restricting, as cruel as she was. It was refreshing to be allowed to wander where he wished without the constant second step of his guards behind him.

His mother was dead now. Ash had killed her himself.

He could still see the way her blood had spilt over the steps to her throne, a vivid red.

Her blood, his blood, one and the same.

The years in Thule had taught him nothing if not that to feel, to mourn, was weak. He couldn’t help the guilt that twisted and coiled inside him but he could despise it. Ignore it. He knew Janus would never let himself be so affected.

If Ash loved anyone, it was Janus, the only one who had loved him gently. There was no violence in his kindness, no pain in his lessons and no whip always, always in his hand.

Ash had chosen Janus the moment he had spared him from his fathers love.

And if Janus needed the Seelie queen dead then Ash had been only too happy to comply.

Guilt was nothing really.

But sometimes, Janus scared him.

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Ty sat by the shore next to his shoes, his socks tucked into the toes.

The tide had only just come in, meaning the still damp sand wouldn’t get into his clothes and shoes, instead it clumped around rocks and shifted into little rivulets that reminded Ty of a network of fast flowing rapids.

He’d made a point, since leaving to the scholomance, of not visiting the beaches when he returned to Los Angeles. But the institute was empty now, Helen and Aline on holiday and the rest of the Blackthorns scattered.

Alone, the past seemed more bearable to Ty. The memories less painful.

It was strange to Ty, and sometimes a little unnerving, how different his family was now: since the cohort had taken Idris.

No more pancakes in the morning or movie nights with Dru or reading stories to Tavvy.

There was still Livvy though. There would always be Livvy.

She sat beside him now, or as close to sitting as a ghost could get, her pale form shifting and shivering in the tentative morning light. It almost looked as if she were cold.

The water brushed his toes and he smiled at the icy wash, looking to Livvy, forgetting, for a moment, that she wouldn’t be able to feel it.

Ty had family. Ty had friends- a friend, anyway, Anush. He had Livvy.

He knew, rationally, that he shouldn’t feel so lonely, that was for the isolated, the missing. He knew Mark had sometimes felt terribly lonely in the hunt.

As he thought, his fingers found- as they always did- the graceful swoop of a herons wings around his neck, the chain icy in the frigid morning air.

At first the gift had sickened him, not the usual kind of illness but a twisting in his stomach and a dizziness so intense he’d had to sit down. He was sure there were a million words for what he’d felt holding the necklace. Regret, sorrow, perhaps even heartbreak, but only one thought had really struck Ty in that moment. He was lonely.

He missed Kit.

He could remember with unfortunate clarity the moment he had raised Livvy. The desperation and the heat of the fire and Kit beside him, somehow burning his skin more than even the flames could.

Hearing “I love you” shouted like a plea and Livvy, not quite there but close enough.

He had thought, foolishly it had turned out, that Kit would want Livvy back as much as he did. He had seen them kissing that day, and knew that they understood each other perhaps better than he could either of them.

“To never being parted” Kit had said across a campfire. Ty knew it wasn’t right to label him a liar but he’d left without even saying goodbye.

Livvy shifted beside him.

“What are you thinking about?” She asked him, her voice more quiet, more introspective than it had been when she was alive.

He never lied to Livvy.

“Kit.”

She didn’t reply, but moved a shimmering hand over his.

“I miss him.”

And he did, he could feel Kits absence under his ribs, a sort of hungry ache.

“I’m sure he misses you.”

Ty closed his eyes and lay back on the sand. He could hear the rustle of Livvy joining him.

The waves were loud in the silence between them, thunderous and unrelenting.

“I loved him.” He whispered, half hoping Livvy wouldn’t hear.

He knew that really, at 15, he had been too young for love, to understand the complexity of his own thoughts and emotions, too surrounded by loss to let himself think too hard about them.

It was a very sad thought that if he and Kit met today, if they had between them what had been there 3 years ago, Ty would know.

Perhaps now he would have told Kit that he loved him too. That he didn’t know how relationships and romance should go but that he would learn for him, with him.

But more likely, the two of them would barely speak at all, the desperation and fear that had driven them together missing. The bond broken before, in this alternate world, it had formed.

[toast-idk]

To Kit, Ty is a disease. He is an infestation that buries under his skin and spits poison into his veins. He's a shortness of breath and a sharp stab to the heart and a reminder of everything Kit has lost.

He sees the stormy grey devon skies and wants to pound his fists againt them, stare into them for the rest of time because they are almost the exact same shade as Ty's eyes. He wants to wind his fingers into the inky black of the night and feel feather soft curls. Even the sight of the squirrels in the trees by the house makes him almost delirious, the thought of Ty's quiet curiosity hitting him like a sugar rush.

His heart must be infected too, some kind of parasite, because it drinks the thought of Ty out of his blood and starves and starves and hungers for more.

[toast-idk]

Kit to Ty

Election day: misery, stress, hair-pulling, at least for Americans (and a lot of other people around the world affected by our politics!) So I thought I'd post a distraction; I hope it helps and doesn't annoy!

A while ago I posted the beginning of a letter from Kit to Ty, created for a Kickstarter backer. Here's the full text:

A letter from Kit to Ty, never sent.

Ty, Ty, Ty.

Your name looks strange written out like that. Like an abbreviation. But Tiberius would be so formal. I never think of you that way. Or, I suppose I should say, I never thought of you that way. Tenses matter in these situations, I guess.

It’s late, past midnight, and I’m sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom at Cirenworth. Jem and Tessa gave me one of the best rooms. Of course they did. It has a view out over the gardens. Sometimes I see the ghost of a dog there, a golden retriever I’m pretty sure, running in and out of the flowerbeds. He seems like a pretty happy ghost. I think about how much you like animals and how much they love you, because of course they do. But it’s too late; this dog passed away a long time ago. You probably couldn’t even see him. It’s too late for a lot of things, now.  

I’m still mad at you, and I don’t feel good about that. Maybe if I could forget, I could forgive. But I can’t forget that night you brought Livvy back. I’ll suddenly remember even when I’m thinking about something else. I’ll be in the middle of helping Tessa in the garden and suddenly I’ll turn around and I’m back in Idris. 

I remember I told you I loved you. I remember I told you I would help you, but not if you raised Livvy from the dead. Not if you did necromancy. But you wanted that more than you wanted me.

And I understand that. I’m not angry about that. Here’s what I’m angry about: when you brought Livvy back, you changed yourself. You made yourself a different person than the one I loved. I don’t know the person you are now. You took yourself away from me. I can’t forgive that. And you made me someone who has to keep a secret I never wanted to keep. I was raised by someone who had so many awful secrets, and when I started my life as a Shadowhunter I wanted to do it openly, and honestly. But now I’m just someone else with secrets I can never tell. Just like my dad.

It makes me angry, so angry. I want to yell at you. I wish you were here so I could yell at you.

Kit

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Just realised Tavvy was born 2004 so would be turning 20 this year🤯

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Dru lay sprawled out in a field of grass so green and perfect it could have been taken from one of Julian’s paintings.

The sky was clear, only a few wisps of clouds chasing each other across the vast expanse of a similarly impossible blue sky. Dru could feel the warmth of the sun kissing her skin with the seaside taste of sunscreen and summer.

It was unusual for her to lie so openly in the sun, but the day had been too beautiful to stay indoors, even for the sake of her complexion.

Thais lay near her, head also tilted up to the sky.

“Are you ok?” Thais asked, her soft voice joining the murmur of grass rippling in the wind.

For the first time in what felt like forever Dru was telling the truth when she nodded, grass tickling the back of her neck.

She knew Thais couldn’t see her but it didn’t matter between the two of them. Thais knew, she always did.

“I’m glad.” Thais said.

Dru reached out a hand to meet Thais’ own. They lay there for a moment, in a warm silence they both understood.

Dru was so used to being second best, second loved, that the feeling of this friendship was near overwhelming. They had chosen each other. For once, just Dru was enough.

“I love you” she whispered, it wasn’t a secret, but it felt a little like one.

“Me too.” Thais looked over to her, smiling, sunlight reflected off her usually brown eyes, colouring them a deep caramel.

So often, Dru felt, friendship was written off as unimportant, secondary to other, more mature feelings of romance and passion.

But this was love too, an uncomplicated, familiar kind of love. A perfect kind of love.

[toast-idk]

Kit had hidden his whole life.

In a dimly lit basement that smelt of dust and damp, waiting for his dad’s clients to leave.

From the Shadowhunters who his dad had told him would take him if they could and, when they had come, glorious warriors bathed in a heavenly light, he had hidden from the truth-that he was one of them.

He had grown up seeking safety in shadows, it was no wonder hiding became habitual.

Staying at the institute had changed that. The Blackthorns had changed that. Who was he kidding- Ty had changed that.

He’d had friends since then, a girlfriend even, but not one of them came close to the breathless thrill of Ty’s hand brushing his as he drew out the Voyance rune.

The rare sunshine smile that turned Ty from beautiful to radiant, the honesty Ty possessed, so different to the language of the market- a blend of deceit and secrets.

Everything about Ty, everything about them, together.

He’d liked Ty more than he’d ever liked anyone. He’d loved Ty.

There were times Kit let himself pretend, let himself imagine a future with a Ty who loved him back.

But that was just make-believe.

Perhaps really Kit never learnt anything, because now it was Ty he hid from, the thought of him, the sight of him, even the sound of his name. The reminder was too painful: Ty had never loved him like that, their friendship had been just one more heartbreak in a life of war and tragedy, he meant nothing to Ty anymore.

[toast-idk]

one of the things i'm most excited for when tlkof comes out is rereading tda and sobh before going straight into reading twp

after all these years of kit & ty suspense, it's going to be so satisfying to finally continue the story 🤍

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Dru liked to imagine that she carried a backpack. In her more lighthearted moments she would picture canvas cloth, beige or brown, with thick leather straps and silver buckles.

She must have first put it on after her mother died, or perhaps woken up with it one night, a sudden weight on her shoulders, reaching into her chest and growing barbs around her heart.

She forgot about it as she grew older, her gait adjusting to bear the little extra weight on her back.

Then, Mark was taken and suddenly the weight was heavier, a mess of inoccent confusion, fear and loss dragging the thorns deeper and sharper.

Then her dad, Helen, her home, the weight increasing until it was almost too much to bear.

But she'd learnt to grow with that extra pull, the added agony of a million tragedies becoming just as much a part of her body as her skin and bones.

And then Livvy.

Livvy who she'd seen crumple, knees giving way as blood blossomed across her chest, sword buried in her like excalibur in the stone.

The thorns had grown into her lungs then, stretching into her skin and worming through her veins.

But still, as always, she bore the unbearable, she didn't have a choice.

She didn't have a choice.

But sometimes, when the weight grew and she could see Ty, Julian, Tavvy, Emma join the pile of bodies that made up the grief she had been collecting since she was a child, the thorns rose up to her throat, splitting her in two until she couldn't breathe. She'd double over and wish, as her mind crowded and then slunk into nothingness that she could rip her heart out of her chest and walk unburdened, live her life as if she had not lost and lost her entire life.

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This reminds me of how waiting 2 MORE YEARS to read twp is going to feel😂😭

Kit and Ty are in love so their situation is really a long distance relationship just without seeing each other... Or talking... Or mentioning each other's names... For 3 years

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I feel like "Neutral Tones" by Thomas Hardy fits Kit and Ty so well:

"Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove

Over tedious riddles of years ago;

And some words played between us to and fro

On which lost the more by our love"

The poem is about seeing someone you once loved again, it's focused on the loss of that love and the inability of the speaker to fully move on, it really reminds me of Kit and Ty seeing each other again in sobh after so long, although hopefully their dynamic in twp will be more positive!

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I know Cassandra Clare is usually good at writing English characters (USUALLY😂😭) but i am SO scared of Britishisms the number of things i've read by US authors that have SCARRED ME FOR LIFE.😂😭😭 like please do not have Kit talking like he's googled britishisms🙏 tbf some are really common (although some I see a lot in fiction I've never heard in real life!) but i feel like a lotttt are misunderstood/overused when they aren't a regular part of your vocabulary which is fair

Cassie! The first chapter of TLKOF was amazing! When Dru mentioned Kit learning some UK slang, I lost it! Does it mean he has a bit of a british accent? 🤣

Hmm. I mean, probably not much of one? Usually after about age 11 it's pretty hard to lose your original accent. Also I'm not sure how we'd feel about English Accent Kit. He does use some Britishisms though because those are exactly the kind of thing you do pick up unconsciously.

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There is a part of Ty that despises Kit for what he has done to him. But it's a very small part, a part that aches and coils inside his stomach, that winds its way up to his throat and chokes him at just the thought of Kit. He tries to swallow it down, but it tastes bitter and angry and so, so lonely that he chokes on it.

There's a larger part of him that sees honey golden hair and blue eyes when he looks up at the sun and just... wants.

That remembers warm arms suffocating the rapid-fire agony of thought on a rooftop and the quiet whispering of words he'd never felt could be understood.

Remembers a promise, broken "to never being parted."

Remembers, "I love you, Ty. I love you," whispered alongside a type of sadness he hadn't realised was possible.

His Watson.

Mostly, Ty hates himself for not saying it back.