The Shadowhunter's Codex (18 page)

Entrances to Faerie tend to be hidden, rather than guarded, and tend to be permanently located in a single place. (The fey may close an entrance and open a new one when the original entrance has become dangerous or unworkable, or in the rare case when wars break out between fey courts and entrances must be closed or guarded.) Faerie entrances are normally found in natural surroundings rather than in man-made areas, and they are often given away by some aspect of their natural appearance that is “wrong” or “off”—a tree in an impossibly specific shape, a reflection in water that does not match the world above the reflection, an apparently empty cave from which faint music can be heard if all else is quiet.

For the most part it is wise for Shadowhunters to avoid Faerie. Though it is described as a realm and one can travel in it like in a country, it does not tolerate being surveyed and does not have a consistent layout. Seasons can change in the blink of an eye, mountains and caverns can appear where minutes before no such things were visible, and its rivers change their courses at the whim of some unknown force. No map of Faerie has ever been produced. Do not wander there; you are likely to join the untold throng of humans who have crossed the borders into the feylands and never returned.

What a surprise, that we are all mixed up with faerie stuff that we should absolutely positively avoid. Have we as a group ever met a warning we didn’t ignore?

Speak for yourself, Fangs.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND THINGS TO TRY

1. What is your favorite Downworlder? Why?

Warlocks, because they are fabulous!

Offended. Also, many warlocks not fabulous. Only the one we know.

Vampires, because they keep bothering me. This question is stupid.

2. Do you have any prejudices about any Downworlders that might affect your ability to work with them? If so, it is important to recognize these biases and discuss them with the head of your Institute before you begin active service.

Vampires keep bothering me, a werewolf gives me my curfew, a warlock hid my memories from me, and faeries are just constantly messing with me.

The part where you’ve learned that Downworlders are a pain in the neck is accurate.

Honestly, the stuff Downworlders have done is nothing compared to what Shadowhunters have done to me, so . . .

3. Have you been tested to see if you possess inherited faerie or werewolf blood? It may affect your ability to take on certain Marks. Symptoms to look for include naturally occurring Sight and frequent cravings for red meat, respectively.

Um, no, actually. I haven’t.

I think you’re pretty safe. Both of your parents were full Shadowhunters, and one of them was obsessed with blood purity.

I bet Valentine had a werewolf grandmother or something. That’s usually how that kind of thing turns out.

I just wrote a thing, but it was not appropriate for a textbook so I erased it.

A room. You two. Get one.

ANGELS:

OUR MYSTERIOUS PATRONS

also terrifying

No “If You Meet an Angel” section, Codex? You are not helpful to me at all.

About angels little is known, much is conjectured, and few who might speak knowledgeably live to do so. Of all the supernatural creatures discussed herein, we know the least about angels. They are the great absent generals of our army, having left us a thousand years ago with their heavenly endorsement, basic marching orders, and enough magic to fight for ourselves. Much has been done in their name, both good and evil, even though the number of confirmed manifestations of angels in our world in the entire history of the Nephilim can be counted on one hand.

And yet their blood runs in the veins of every Nephilim, your-self included, flowing into our bodies through the transformative properties of the Mortal Cup. Angels may be absent patrons, but our patrons and spiritual parents they are, and we recognize them with our prayers, our invocations, and in the names of our most holy weapons.

In truth no one knows why angels are so distant from the events of our world. The first great heretical question of Nephilim history is one that has probably already occurred to you: If Raziel and his angels were so determined to wipe the demonic menace from our world, why not do it themselves? Like so many other questions about the nature and purpose of angels, this one remains unanswerable, and angels remain an ineffable foundation upon which our lives and our mission are built.

Writings about angel sightings through history are notoriously unreliable. The general consensus is that angels are shaped like humans, but are much larger, winged, and glowing with heavenly fire—but many authors have suggested that when angels
do
manifest in our world, they take whatever shape witnesses will recognize as angelic. Today the Clave is dubious of claims about angel appearances and mostly declines to investigate them. This attitude has been firmly in place ever since an embarrassing episode in 1832 during which a Prussian farmer and Shadowhunter, Johannes von Mainz, called the entire Clave to his farm to witness the “angel” he had summoned to his cow barn. Awe quickly turned to chagrin when some of the neighbors recognized the “angel” as Johannes’s son Hans, covered in gold leaf and bellowing pronouncements in a vulgar mix of Latin, German, and what appears to have been a nonsense language of Hans’s own invention. The angel’s wings turned out to be a mix of goose, duck, and chicken feathers haphazardly pasted to a wooden frame. Johannes retreated to his farm in humiliation, and Hans was no longer able to so much as go into town without receiving catcalls and being pelted with feathers. Since then most Shadowhunters have been very cautious in either making or checking claims of angel appearances.
Oh, Johannes, what will we do with you?

THE ANGEL RAZIEL

Teacher? I did an independent study, does that count?

Yes. You may skip this section. Enjoy your newfound sixty seconds.

The Angel Raziel holds, of course, a special role as the patron of the Shadowhunters and the creator of the Nephilim. His role in that creation is discussed thoroughly elsewhere in this volume; here we address what is known about Raziel himself.

Raziel is believed to be of the rank of archangel, within the heavenly chorus. In Jewish mystical traditions he is often called the Keeper of Secrets and the Angel of Mysteries. Interestingly, Jewish mysticism includes what appears to be a distorted version of the Gray Book, known as the Book of Raziel and containing a strange amalgam of kabbalistic teachings, angelology, glosses on the Jewish creation stories, and corrupted forms of demonic incantation. The book also contains a large number of runes, most of them totally invented but some of them corruptions of true Marks (but without any instruction on how they might be used or what their purpose might be). Extant copies of this text exist in both Hebrew and Latin today but only as historical curiosities. The movement during the mundane Renaissance in Europe against magic of all kinds labeled the book a dangerous work of dark magic, and its use was suppressed by mundane religious authorities, to the benefit of the Nephilim.