Cassie’s answer about Matthew in chot from today’s live
1) He’s gonna stay in the hotel where Oscar Wilde spent his last days.
2) Matthew loves telling people complicated fantastic stories which 50% of the time are not true. He’s gonna tell some of such stories to Cordelia and we’ll never know which of them really happened and which didn’t.
Since I’ve been spending too much time thinking about Chain of Gold, I may as well put this out there.
With all the confusion (read: shipwars) about Lucie’s TLH endgame, i.e., the Lucie x Jessie vs. Lucie x Matthew, I figured I’d look at the “evidence” we have for and against Fairondale and Jucie(?) so far in canon:
Fairondale’s canon:
- Age: Jessie and Lucie have a too-large age gap for Cassie’s books so far (excluding Malec, I guess). 16 and 24 is a LOT imo. Matthew and Lucie are much closer in age.
- TMI/City of Heavenly Fire: When Tessa meets Clary in the CoHF Epilogue, she says that “There are families—the Blackthorns, the Herondales, the Carstairs—for whom I have always felt a special affinity” and “The Fairchilds, too, have been dear to me in my life.” Tessa doesn’t talk about loving the Lightwoods or Lovelaces (lol) like that so it’s obvious she’s not referring to the TID crew. Also she (and Jem!) have obviously watched over the Fairchilds QUITE A BIT since Jocelyn called on Tessa of all people to perform Clary’s protection ritual. Thats a huge deal at a time when Jocelyn was hiding from the entire Shadow World. They are obviously very close and Jocelyn trusted Tessa (and Jem) THAT MUCH. Wonder why…
- Magnus’ POV: Magnus’ “necromancy is bad” conversation with Ty made it look like he wasn’t thinking of any exceptions. He’s around in TLH, and very close to the Herondales (he even mentions Lucie and James in CoHF), but he doesn’t make it sound like he thinks “necromancy is bad except for Lucie who found her soulmate through it”. Makes me pretty sure the necromancy for Jesse doesn’t end in a happily ever after.
- The family tree: Cassie’s said many many times that the family tree is lying to us. This means that at least one or more big ships are gonna come as surprises in the end. Now its looking like James and Cordelia might actually end up together since they both actually love each other (Gracelet-free!James does at least, and the Gracelet’s gonna go obv). Our 3 protagonists are Cordelia, James and Lucie. I really doubt the family tree gets ALL THREE of their endgames right - it’s just not Cassie’s style (in every series at least one of her mains gets a surprising ending) and it would lower the odds and surprise of the finale too much. And that leaves Lucie’s endgame. Meaning Lucie might end up with Matthew instead of Jesse.
Jucie’s canon:
- Attraction: Lucie’s attracted to Jesse as of ChoG at least (she notices that his skin is soft? and thinks about his eyes and hair all the time) and says she’s not attracted to Matthew - except for that one sentence (“Lucie”, he said softly, and she almost closed her eyes, remembering how he had put his coat around her in the street, the warmth of his touch, the faint scent of him, brandy and dry leaves.)
- Supernatural stuff: Lucie’s powers seem to be perfectly matched for Jessie’s, erm, circumstances. It really does seem to be a fated sort of thing.
- Family tree: If Fairondale end up together, AND if Clary’s descended from Matthew, it might mean that Jace and Clary are a little bit related, and both descended from Will. And I really don’t know if Cassie would do that after all the TMI stuff.
- City of Heavenly Fire: Again from the CoHF Epilogue: “There are families—the Blackthorns, the Herondales, the Carstairs—for whom I have always felt a special affinity”. If Jucie don’t end up together, I really can’t imagine a good reason for why Tessa cares about the Blackthorns. I doubt its because she cares so much about (dis)Grace.
It’s tea time. Now that Jules and I are living in England we are trying to embrace the concept of tea time, though as you already know I prefer to take my caffeine in the form of chocolate. (Unlike Cristina, who is literally addicted to coffee.) Chocolate chip cookies, brownie bars, ice cream—any form of chocolate is welcome and acceptable, and there is excellent chocolate in England. I have become addicted to Galaxy bars.
Julian is outside talking to the contractors — I can see Round Tom waving his arms around about something — so I thought I’d take a moment to fill you in on what happened since my last entry.
If you recall, we found a silver flask at the Devil Tavern that seemed to set off all Ty’s Ghost Detector alarms. It was a beautiful flask … etched with flowers and butterfly wings, and the initials MF. We brought it back to Blackthorn Hall and had a look at it in the bright light of day, where I immediately remembered where I’d seen that butterfly design before.
On the Fairchild family ring.
I know this because of Clary. (I don’t spend a lot of time staring at her jewelry, Bruce, but Shadowhunters are pretty into family symbols, generally speaking. And there was that time I borrowed her jacket in Faerie and then went to Thule and everyone thought she was dead because her ring was in the pocket…but that’s a story for another time. I’ve got enough to document in the present.) So Jules and I agreed that whoever owned this flask was likely a Fairchild whose first name began with M. Genius-level Sherlock detecting, I know.
Over a lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches we decided it would be better to do a little more diligent research rather than diving right in and asking the ghost ARE YOU A FAIRCHILD, Y/N. So we sent a fire message to Helen and Aline. There are several old Shadowhunter family histories in the LA Institute library, and we asked them to have a look for Fairchilds who had first names beginning with the letter M. I guess Helen was up early, because she got back to us pretty quickly with a short list of candidates. Medea Fairchild, Myles Fairchild, and Matthew Fairchild. It wasn’t clear from the records whether any of them are ancestors of Clary, but I am curious! (I personally hope Medea is, because that is a badass mythological name.) Anyway it didn’t take us long to nominate a candidate for Owner of the Silver Flask. (Drumroll, please, Bruce.) The candidate is….Matthew Fairchild!
We deduced this because Medea died in 1802 at the age of seventy-eight, and Myles died in 1857 at fifty-nine. So, given the timeframe we’re looking at—Jem said his friends were hanging out at the Devil Tavern during the early part of the last century—Matthew, born in 1886, was the only one who fit the bill. (There wasn’t a death date for him, apparently, which doesn’t mean he lived forever or died at birth, records from around that time tend to be spotty.)
Without further ado, we returned to the dining room to contact our mystery ghost. I swear, even though we’ve swept it multiple times, that room just seems to get dustier and dustier. I’d left some papers from the Blackthorn archives (which is a kind way of saying “from the pile of junk with occasional interesting stuff in it”) stacked on the dining table, and they were all in disarray. It made me wonder if the ghost was trying to read them in our absence.
Julian cleared his throat. “Attention, ghost,” he began.
“Maybe they don’t like being called ‘ghost’,” I hissed under my breath. “Maybe we should refer to them as ‘Deceased Person.’”
“That sounds medical,” said Julian. “Like we’re in a morgue.”
We both became dispirited about the idea of being in a morgue. After a moment’s thought, Julian said, “How about wraith or phantom?”
The curtains stirred even though the windows weren’t open. Apparently phantom was the popular choice.
“Matthew?” I said, slowly. “Matthew Fairchild?”
It’s a nice name, Matthew. I thought about Matthew Fairchild, born in 1886, and wondered what he’d been like. Wondered if all that was left of him was a breath of air stirring the curtains in our dining room.
Though the curtains weren’t stirring right now. They were utterly still.
“Are you Matthew Fairchild?” Jules asked, clearly deciding we needed to be more specific.
The curtains gave what I can only describe as an annoyed little shake. This stirred up some more dust, which made the air hazy. I heard a noise behind me and whirled around. The stack of papers on the table tipped over. Papers were being flung in all directions, by an unseen, angry hand.
“So — you’re not Matthew Fairchild?” I said, fighting the urge to sneeze. “Look, it’s fine if you aren’t — we just want to help — we’ll keep looking —”
The papers stopped flying. The room was quiet again. Hushed, even, like the inside of an Institute. I guessed our phantom friend had departed and I realized I was disappointed. I’d really been hoping we’d find an answer …
Then Julian laid his hand on my arm. And pointed. Goosebumps exploded across my skin. In the dust on the floor, an invisible finger was writing words — writing in the old-fashioned cursive that had become familiar since our arrival at Blackthorn Hall.
One by the one, the words appeared, the letters shaky and spiky, as if the ghost were agitated.
Read the diary
The imagine of Tatiana’s diary sprang into my mind. I knew, somehow, that was the diary the ghost was referring to. More words appeared:
READ THE DIARY
READ THE DIARY
READ THE DIARY
“But I have,” I said, without thinking. “I have read the diary.”
Julian turned to look at me, a blank expression of surprise spreading across his face. “Emma,” he said. “What diary?”
![[Hell is empty and all the devils are here]](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2192c16808c93b1cf368aae62c17d380/32b0a592dbea4765-e0/s30x30u_c1/c569d1157e0227d5d1312759646ea38053d37d1e.png){kind=small}
