City of Bones characters

Also known as Clarissa Fray

Appears from the start

A fifteen-year-old art student living in Brooklyn with her mother. She is small, red-haired, and stubborn, happier drawing than arguing, and has spent her whole life assuming she is entirely ordinary. On a night out at a Manhattan club she watches three armed teenagers kill a boy that nobody else in the room seems able to see, which is the first crack in that assumption.

Appears from the start

Clary's best friend since childhood, a bookish, dryly funny teenager who plays in a struggling band with his schoolfriends. He knows nothing of any world beyond the ordinary one and follows Clary into trouble out of pure loyalty. His feelings for her have gone past friendship, which she has not noticed.

Appears from the start

A fair-haired boy of about seventeen, one of the three young hunters Clary sees at the club. Arrogant, quick with an insult, and unnervingly good with a blade, he treats hunting demons as both a duty and a sport. He is genuinely startled that Clary can see him at all, since ordinary people cannot, and that curiosity is what makes him take an interest in her.

Appears from the start

A tall, dark-haired girl who hunts alongside Jace and her older brother, armed with a long electrum whip and willing to act as bait to draw a demon out of a crowd. Confident and theatrical, she enjoys the work and has very little patience for ordinary humans.

Appears from the start

Isabelle's older brother, dark-haired, quieter and far more cautious than either of his companions, and fiercely protective of Jace. He distrusts Clary from the moment she appears and resents the disruption she brings into their household.

First appears in chapter 2

Clary's mother, a painter who has raised her alone and told her almost nothing about her own past. Calm on the surface and immovable underneath, she responds to Clary's account of the club by announcing that the two of them are leaving the city at once, and lets slip words that mean nothing at all to her daughter.

First appears in chapter 3

Jocelyn's oldest friend, a big, shabby man who runs a second-hand bookshop and has been a steady presence in Clary's life since she was small. When Clary comes to him for help after her mother disappears, he is inexplicably cold to her and sends her away.

First appears in chapter 4

The eccentric woman who occupies the ground-floor apartment of Clary's building, reading fortunes from tarot cards and tea leaves amid a great deal of clutter and a very old set of curtains. She has known Jocelyn for years and clearly knows more about the family upstairs than a neighbour should.

First appears in chapter 5

The tutor at the New York Institute, a greying scholar who trains its young hunters, keeps its library, and is rarely seen without his black bird. Learned and kind in a distracted way, he has not set foot outside the building in many years and shows no sign of wanting to.

First appears in chapter 9

One of the Silent Brothers, the order of archivists and lorekeepers who guard the Bone City beneath a Manhattan cemetery. His eyes and mouth are sealed with runes and he speaks directly into the minds of those around him. His order can search a person's memory as readily as a book, and their judgement carries weight with the Clave.

First appears in chapter 9

A Shadowhunter of the previous generation who founded the Circle, a movement that meant to purge the Downworlder races and then turned on its own government. His rebellion was put down years ago and he is believed to have died in a fire; older Shadowhunters still lower their voices when they say his name. He is hunting for the Mortal Cup, the object that can make new Shadowhunters, and he does not much mind who he has to go through to reach it.

First appears in chapter 11

The High Warlock of Brooklyn, a glittering, theatrical figure with cat's eyes who throws enormous parties for the city's Downworlders. Centuries old and expensively bored, he does nothing for free, remembers everything, and takes an immediate interest in the Lightwood brother who cannot look at him directly.

First appears in chapter 14

A vampire of the New York clan who has the face of a boy of fourteen. Courteous, devout, and careful about the treaties that keep his kind and the Shadowhunters from open war, he would rather negotiate a problem away than fight over it.