Sword Catcher

There was a slight commotion at the door. Kel looked up to a swirl of Castelguards outside, like an incursion of flames. In their midst was a boy, who passed through the door and closed it firmly behind him.

Bensimon straightened up; he did not seem surprised. Prince Conor.

Kel felt his stomach drop. Here was the boy he d been imper­sonating. A boy who had clearly never been sick. He gathered, now, that it had all been a test and that this was somehow the final part.

The Crown Prince was all in steel blue, just like Kel. He was not wearing a circlet, but Kel would have known him for a prince re­gardless. He was tall for his age, with his mother s fine features, and there was a sort of leaping flame behind his eyes and laughing ex­pression on his face that made Kel want to smile at him, which was startling enough in itself. He knew the boy ought to be terrifying he was royalty and he was, and yet Kel wanted to smile at the Prince all the same.

Though he had no more years than Kel, Conor seemed worlds older as he crossed the room with a light step and said, How was it, then? Being me?

An unexpected ache bloomed like a flower behind Kel s rib cage. I want to be like him, Kel thought. I want to walk through the world as if it will reshape itself around my dreams and desires. I want to seem as if I could touch the stars with light fingers and pull them down to be my playthings.

It was strange to want something you had never known you wanted.

Kel just nodded, as if to say that it was all fine. Conor tilted his head to the side, like a curious robin.  Leave us, Mayesh, he said. I would talk to Kel alone.

Kel rather expected the Counselor to put up a fight. Instead, Mayesh Bensimon seemed to be hiding a smile. As you wish, he said, and swirled from the room in a cloud of gray cloak.

When he was gone, Kel rather missed him. Bensimon was the person he had known longest in the Palace. Prince Conor, though Kel had spent the night pretending to

Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. She is also the co-author, with Holly Black, of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium. The Shadowhunter Chronicles have been adapted as both a major motion picture and a television series. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats.

Expert worldbuilding, swordplay, and politics, a colorful cast of characters, and a story that kept me reading from the first page to the last. #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin

A gorgeously built world of decadence, betrayal, and grand adventure. From the decadent and drunken parties of the nobles, to the dens of crime lords in the Warren and Maze, to the Sault, where the devotees of a lost goddess are penned, the city of Castellane makes the perfect backdrop for a delightful cast of characters to befriend, betray, and romance one another. This is Cassandra Clare at her cleverest, twistiest and most heart-stopping a triumph of a book. Holly Black, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Night

Clare plunges us into a thrilling world built with precision and brimming with enchantment. Her spellbinding cast of outlaws, healers, royals, and rogues will have you questioning your allegiances with every delicious turn of the plot. This is fantasy at its finest. Leigh Bardugo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hell Bent

Sweeping yet intimate, rich with romance and intrigue, Sword Catcher is Cassandra Clare at her magical best. In pages packed with sumptuous descriptions, Clare gives us a kingdom s worth of characters including Kel the sword catcher, trained to protect his prince at all costs, and Lin, a young physician of an outcast people forced to navigate a web of tangled loyalties between the loved ones they cherish and the powers they serve. This book will break your heart and leave you wanting more! Helene Wecker, New York Times bestselling author of The Golem and the Jinni

A sumptuous feast of a book, vivid and delicious and heady. Cassandra Clare s trademark skills are on full display here: epic worlds, wrenching romances, heart-slamming plot twists, Dickensian characters. I can t wait to visit Castellane again.