“I understand why they’re scared,” she said. “It’s the last book in the series. That’s sort of the ‘all gloves are off’ book in which pretty much anything can happen. There’s obviously a lot at stake. As I’m sort of wrapping it up now, there are sad parts, there are happy parts, there are funny parts, hopefully there are exciting parts. I hope that people will find it to be a good and fitting kind of coda to the end of the story of Jace, Clary, Simon, Isabelle, Alec and the rest of them. I really hope they’ll like it. There’s nothing more I can do at this point because I sort of feel like, I wrote the best books I could and this is what I envisioned for the characters, this is how it feels right for them to end.”

“Part of the fun part of writing The Dark Artifices has been writing in some of the new characters that will be in the next series,” she said. “I’m hoping people will get to know Emma and Julian and the Blackthorns and the Carstairs of the modern world and get to like them.”

 

"Simon (Robert Sheehan) is turned into a vampire," Clare teases, "And he goes from being this human who's Clary's friend to this ravenous undead thing." Clare adds that she pushed for Sheehan in the role, with early discussions about his casting centering on how right he'd look stalking the night and sucking blood. "Robbie was actually my idea," she says. "I saw him in 'Misfits,' which is a big comedy hit in Britain, and he's just so good and yet also able to be heartbreaking and I thought he'll be great and he will enjoy the hell out of being a vampire."

 

What else can fans expect from "City of Ashes?" Well, Sigourney Weaver is joining the series as the Inquisitor. Describing the previously-announced casting, Clare says the character is "This badass, scary lady" that fans can expect to enjoy. Although she's sworn to secrecy about any other details for the adaptation, Clare says there's a massive battle on the deck of a warship capping the second story that she's excited to see onscreen.

Clare says she had some "small" notes such as realizing that the character of Isabelle (Jemima West) went the entire movie without being named.

"In the books, the motorcycles can fly, and they didn't want to do flying motorcycles. We went back and forth on whether we should imply they can fly [laughs]."

 

Snippet from City of Heavenly Fire

cassandraclare sent me this scene to read. And I read it. And then I cried. And then I ran back to her begging her to let me draw a part of the scene into a comic and she said yes! So I did.

So I can’t say anything more about the scene but it’s glorious!

 

A parabatai. Like he was. And Jace knew, too, what that faded rune meant: a parabatai whose other half was dead. He felt his sympathy leap toward Brother Zachariah, as he imagined himself without Alec, with only that faded rune to remind him where once he had been bonded to someone who knew all the best and worst parts of his soul.

“How have you been keeping? You know, since the last time you summoned me,” said Elyaas, the demon.

“What?” Magnus asked.

“You don’t remember me?” said the tentacle demon.

“I summon a lot of demons,” Magnus said weakly.

There was a long pause. Magnus stared into the bottom of his coffee cup and desperately willed more coffee to appear. This was something a lot of mundanes did too, but Magnus had one up on those suckers. His mug did slowly fill again, until it was brimming with rich dark liquid. He sipped and looked at Elyaas, who was shifting uncomfortably from tentacle to tentacle.

“Well,” said Elyaas. “This is awkward.”

“It’s nothing personal,” said Magnus.

“Maybe if I jogged your memory,” Elyaas suggested helpfully. “You summoned me when you were searching for a demon who cursed a Shadowhunter? Bill Herondale?”

“Will Herondale,” said Magnus.

Elyaas snapped his tentacles as if they were fingers. “I knew it was something like that.”

“You know,” Magnus said, enlightened, “I think I do remember. I’m sorry about that. I realized right away that you weren’t the demon I was looking for. You looked kind of blue in one of the drawings, but obviously you are not blue, and I was wasting your time. You were pretty understanding about it.”

“Think nothing of it.” Elyaas waved a tentacle. “These things happen. And I can look blue. You know, in the right light.”

“Lighting’s important, it’s true,” said Magnus.

“So whatever happened with Bill Herondale and that curse a blue demon put on him?” The cecaelia demon’s interest seemed genuine.

“Will Herondale,” Magnus said again. “It’s actually rather a long story.”

“You know, sometimes we demons pretend we’re cursing people and we don’t really do it,” said Elyaas chattily. “Like, just for kicks? It’s kind of a thing with us. Did you know that?”

“You could have mentioned it a century or two ago,” Magnus observed frostily.

Elyaas shook his head, smiling a slime-bedecked smile. “The old pretend-to-curse. It’s a classic. Very funny.” He appeared to notice Magnus’s unimpressed expression for the first time. “Not from your perspective, of course.”

“It wasn’t funny for Bill Herondale!” said Magnus. “Oh, damn it. Now you’ve got me doing it.”

— from What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything