Literature / Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy

A collection of short stories set in The Shadowhunter Chronicles universe. It is co-written by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson and Robin Wasserman.

At the end of City of Heavenly Fire Simon lost all memories of his friends and the Shadow World and became a mundane again. Magnus managed to restore some memories, but Simon isn’t sure who he is anymore. When the Shadowhunter Academy reopens, Simon decides to join it to become a Shadowhunter and to find out who he is. But the Academy definitely has some problems. Humans have to live at the basement and most of the Shadowhunters look down upon them.

Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy is the second collection of short stories in The Shadowhunter Chronicles universe after The Bane Chronicles. Chronologically it takes place in between The Mortal Instruments and The Dark Artifices.

The book includes the short stories:

1. Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy (February 17, 2015): Simon adjusts to his new life in the Shadowhunter Academy.
2. The Lost Herondale (March 17, 2015): The Academy class is introduced to the story of the Lost Herondale.
3. The Whitechapel Fiend (April 21, 2015): Tessa Gray is invited for a guest lecture at the Academy and tells the class how the London Institute was involved in the Jack the Ripper murders.
4. Nothing but Shadows (May 19, 2015): Simon learns from Catarina Loss the story of James Herondale, the son of Will and Tessa, and how he ended up getting expelled from the Academy.
5. The Evil We Love (June 16, 2015): Robert Lightwood lectures about the origins of the Circle and his friendship with Valentine Morgenstern.
6. Pale Kings and Princes (July 21, 2015): Helen Blackthorn is temporarily allowed to take a period of leave from her exile to teach the Academy class about her family's relationship with the Fair Folk.
7. Bitter of Tongue (August 18, 2015): Simon and his fellow Academy colleagues are assigned on a mission that leads Simon to briefly enter Faerie, where he encounters Mark Blackthorn.
8. The Fiery Trial (September 22, 2015): Simon and Clary Fairchild become witnesses to the parabatai ceremony of Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn, while making plans for their own parabatai ceremony after Simon graduates.
9. Born to Endless Night (October 20, 2015): Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood decide to adopt a baby warlock left at the doorstep of the Academy.
10. Angels Twice Descending (November 17, 2015): Simon and his class graduate from the Academy and those who are Mundanes undergo Ascension, only for a tragedy to strike one of them.

The ten stories were published online before being collected into a physical edition on November 15, 2016. Unlike The Bane Chronicles, it did not add content beyond the ones already published.

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This book series provides examples of:

• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: In The Whitechapel Fiend, Tessa tells the students the real story behind Jack the Ripper. The mundanes believe that he is just a normal serial killer, but in reality he was actually a demon child.
• Blatant Lies: Jon claims to the other students that he is good friends with Jace Herondale. Simon, who actually is a good friend to Jace and has partaken many adventures with him, calls him out on this.
• Boarding School of Horrors: For the mundane students, the Shadowhunter Academy is definitely this, as they have to endure ungodly amount of bullying, racist taunts and persecution (both from Shadowhunter students and teachers) and still have to think about their studies.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Those who fail the Ascension ceremony are shown in Angels Twice Descending: their bodies are literally cooked from the inside out as they spend their last moments screaming in agony. Unfortunately, the victim is Simon's best friend in the Academy, George Lovelace.
• Death by Newbery Medal: To a T. George Lovelace is Simon's closest friend in the Academy and the one who helps him find a purpose in his new life. He ends up dying in the last short story, Angels Twice Descending, right after Simon tells him that he considers him to be a brother, no less.
• Due to the Dead: After George's death, Simon takes "Lovelace" as his Shadowhunter name. He then visits his graveyard in London, where another Lovelace, Jessamine, was also buried.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • In addition to James Herondale, who debuted in The Midnight Heir, Nothing but Shadows officially introduces Matthew Fairchild (son of Charlotte Fairchild and Henry Branwell), Thomas Lightwood (son of Gideon Lightwood and Sophie Collins), Christopher Lightwood (son of Gabriel Lightwood and Cecily Herondale), and Alastair Carstairs (Jem's cousin), who would become the central characters of The Last Hours series.
  • Bitter of Tongue introduces Kieran, an Unseelie faerie prince who would become a recurring character in The Dark Artifices.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • Most of the Shadowhunters (especially those living in Idris) have some pretty racist attitudes towards Mundanes (who they see as inferior and useless) and Downworlders (who they see as evil and untrustworthy).
  • In Nothing but Shadows, James Herondale ends up being expelled from the Academy for a crime he didn't commit. It becomes obvious that this is mainly because the students and teachers fear his demonic ancestry.
• Flashback Episode: The Whitechapel Fiend, Nothing but Shadows, and The Evil We Love are all this.
• Homosexual Reproduction: Subverted in the story Born To Endless Night. Robert Lightwood suspects that Magnus somehow did this magically when he and Alec suddenly adopt an abandoned, blue-skinned, warlock baby. Noting that Alec's eyes are deep blue, and Magnus's magic glows blue, Robert strongly hints that he thinks Magnus created the baby using himself and Alec as some kind of biological donors. Magnus is so stunned that he simply states that he is going to pretend that Robert never asked him about this. Which only seems to make Robert believe it more.
• I Want Grandkids: Maryse and Robert Lightwood have this attitude in the story Born To Endless Night, despite agreeing on very little else. To the extent that even with their history of Fantastic Racism, they are positively ecstatic when Alec and Magnus adopt an abandoned warlock baby. The head of the New York Institute and the Inquisitor of the Clave — both former members of Valentine's Circle! That they approve of the adoption the instant they find out about it, and proceed to drown Alec and Magnus in parenting advice, while imposing time limits on which of them gets to hold the baby for how long, makes it clear that they consider a warlock grandchild better than no grandchild.
• Love Redeems: Jon Cartwright is initially introduced as a racist jerk who constantly belittles anything related to mundanes. But he ends up falling in love with Marisol Garza, a mundane, and starts to grow out of his former views.
• Muggle Born of Mages: George eventually reveals that he is not a Shadowhunter, but a mundane who was adopted by the Lovelace family because they didn't have a heir.
• "Rashomon"-Style: A few of the stories are told in this fashion. The first version is sanitized for the Shadowhunters and therefore biased to their side, while the second version is considered to be the "true" one.
  • In The Lost Herondale, the Clave version of the Lost Herondale story is that Tobias Herondale cowardly left his mates to die and his pregnant wife to take the blame of his disappearance, leading to the latter's execution. The truth, as told by Catarina, is that Tobias was traumatized by a vision that the warlock gave him and went mad. Also, his wife, Eva Blackthorn, managed to give birth to a son that Catarina brought to America to be raised safely, away from the wrath of the Clave.
  • In Pale Kings and Princes, Helen tells the class about how her parents met. Her faerie mother, Nerissa, enchanted Andrew to fall in love with her, conceiving Helen and her brother Mark, while torturing Andrew's brother, Arthur, to insanity. Arthur, in his last bits of sanity, managed to knock Andrew out of the enchantment and killed Nerissa. The truth, known to no one, is that Andrew and Nerissa genuinely fell in love with each other, while Arthur was tortured not by Nerissa, but by her sister. Andrew eventually found out about this and, feeling guilty, left Faerie with his brother, which Nerissa reluctantly approved of.
• Token Good Teammate: Beatriz among the students from the Shadowhunter class. After Simon transfers to the mundane class, she personally meets and asks him not to break things up with her.
• The 'Verse: Part of The Shadowhunter Chronicles consisting of this book, The Mortal Instruments, prequel series The Infernal Devices, sequel series The Dark Artifices, The Last Hours (sequel to The Infernal Devices), The Wicked Powers (sequel to The Dark Artifices), The Eldest Curses (spin-off focusing on Alec and Magnus), The Shadowhunter Codex (guide book), The Bane Chronicles (short story collection), Ghosts Of The Shadowmarket (short story collection), all taking place in the Shadowhunter world.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: Deconstructed. The other shadowhunters he trains with are always saying bad things about mundanes, but then they point out that Simon is not like the other mundanes. On this, Simon realizes just how shallow they are and proceeds to transfer from the Shadowhunter class (which he was originally assigned in, because of his previous experiences with the Shadow World) to the mundane class, so he can be with people who don't see him by his status first.

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