Emma Carstairs is a seventeen year-old Shadowhunter at the Los Angeles Institute with her parabati, Julian Blackthorn, friend Cristina Rosales, and the younger Blackthorns: twins Livia (Livvy) and Tiberius (Ty) who are both fifteen, Drusilla (Dru) who is thirteen, and the youngest of seven years old, Octavian (Tavvy). Five years ago, Emma's parents were killed by an unknown murderer and left by the sea. Their bodies turned into dust. Emma vowed revenge on her parent's killer and spent the next 5 years finding clues and keeping them in her closet and information from Jonny Rook at the Shadow Market. The Clave blames her parents' deaths on Sebastian Morgenstern during the Dark War, but Emma, Jace Herondale, and Clary Farchild (who run the New York Institute) are also not conviced. Now more bodies start turning up like her parents', and Emma is determined to solve the mystery.
One day the Wild Hunt arrive at the Institute. During the Dark War, Mark Blackthorn (who was 16 at the time, and Julian and Emma were 12) was taken by the Wild Hunt because he is half Faerie. The oldest, Helen Blackthorn, was exiled to Wrangel Island by the Clave because of her Faerie parent also after the Dark War (Lady Nerissa, same as Mark's). Mark is returned to the Institute by the Wild Hunt in exchange for the Shadowhunter's help in solving the murders, since some of the victims are of the fair folk. The Shadowhunters cannot call the Clave for help because they're breaking the Cold Peace- a new law installed after the Dark War forbidding Shadowhunters from working with the fair folk after they allied with Sebastian in the war.
While Mark was in the Hunt, he met a Faerie prince, Kieran, who he fell in love with. Mark admits he's bisexual, as he is also attracted to Cristina (who is having a thing with her "friend" from Mexico, Diego [or Perfect Diego, as Emma called him]).
The group works out the investigation where a secret club is involved, called the Followers, where they hold a lottery. If your name is picked you have to kill someone.
Everything adds up at the end of the novel when the group discovers that the leader of the evil group, also known as The Guardian, is Malcom Fade, the High Warlock of Los Angeles and their friend who sometimes came over to take care of the children and eat pizza (Anslem Nightshade, a vampire, was framed about selling demonic pizza by Julian so that people avoid what Julian and Emma did). There is a poem about a girl named Annabel Lee written on the bodies of the murdered, and they realize that it is a spell to awaked her from the dead. She was Malcom's lover and she was killed by the Clave. He wants to bring her back using dark magic.
The group goes to the cavern where this takes place when Tavvy is kidnapped by Malcom on the beach. Part of the poem is Blackthorn Blood, so Malcom plans to kill Tavvy to complete the spell. The hands of the murderers of the lottery were put on a candelabra as Hands of Glory (another ingredient). Malcom is killed by Emma Carstairs when she uses an Endurance rune on her arm to deflect the killling blow of his magic (Julian put it there) and stabs Malcom with her sword, Cortana.
All while this is happening, Julian and Emma have very much fallen in love with eachother. The problem-they're parabati, which makes it forbidden. They have sex on the beach after he rescues her from the sea (the cave lead into the ocean). At the end of the novel, Jem Carstairs tells Emma of why parabati cannot fall in love-the runes turn into magic and power (which is what happened in the cavern) since the bond is a romantic bond (closer). Emma takes Julian aside and tells him she does not want to secretly date him because she is afraid of this magic (she didn't tell Julian about the power runes, but that she doesn't want to love him anymore in secret. It's a lie but IT BREAKS MY HEART and well, hers). To complete her lie, she asks Mark to become her fake-boyfriend since she took the whipping that was meant for him. He says "why lie?" and I think takes her hand.
Tessa and Jem find Kit Rook, son of Jonny Rook (now dead by demons), because he is actually Christopher Herondale, son of Tobias Herondale. Tobias was exiled but no one could find him so they gave his punishment to his pregnant wife. Someone helped the baby (forget) and hid him. Now Kit is at the LA Institute, probably going to make friends with Ty (even though Ty held Kit at knifepoint when the investigation team went to Kit's house to see Jonny Rook for information).
In the epilogue, Annabel opens her eyes.
I can't believe Emma did that. She's going to kill Julian's heart forever :'(
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