Clockwork Princess characters

Also known as Theresa Gray

Appears from the start

A young American woman living at the London Institute, able to Change into another person by holding something that belonged to them and to reach that person's thoughts and memories. She is engaged to Jem Carstairs, whose illness is worsening, and she is still the object of Axel Mortmain's plans, which no one at the Institute understands. She has no family left, no legal standing among Shadowhunters, and no clear idea of what she is; she wears a small clockwork angel that belonged to her mother and that ticks like a heart. She loves Jem and has never resolved what she feels for his parabatai, Will Herondale.

Also known as William Herondale

Appears from the start

A Shadowhunter of the London Institute, Welsh by birth, released at the end of the previous book from a childhood belief that everyone who loved him would die. Free to feel and to be loved for the first time in five years, he finds that Tessa is promised to Jem, his parabatai and the person he loves most in the world, and he has chosen to say nothing further about it. His sister Cecily is now living at the Institute and trying to persuade him to come home. He is a formidable fighter, still reckless, and no longer performing cruelty for anyone's benefit.

Also known as James Carstairs

Appears from the start

Will's parabatai and Tessa's fiance, kept alive by a demon drug that is also killing him. The drug turned his hair and eyes silver and the doses that sustain him shorten what is left of his life. He is patient, generous and clear-sighted, plays the violin, and is the steadying centre of the household. He and Tessa are planning their wedding against the clock: his supply of the drug has become nearly impossible to obtain, and everyone in the Institute knows what that means.

Appears from the start

Head of the London Institute, who held her post against Benedict Lightwood's challenge and is now expecting her first child while running the household, its investigations and its dealings with a Clave whose leadership she knows to be compromised. She is practical, tenacious and protective of everyone under her roof, including those the Clave would not count as hers.

Appears from the start

Charlotte's husband, an inventor who works in the Institute crypt on devices most of the household treats as a joke. Cheerful, forgetful and entirely devoted to Charlotte, he is more useful than anyone expects when the Institute needs equipment that does not exist yet.

Appears from the start

Formerly a mundane maid at the Institute, scarred by a previous employer's son and taken in by Charlotte. She is now training in earnest with the household's weapons, is trusted as a member of it rather than a servant, and is attached to Gideon Lightwood, a Shadowhunter, which is a difficult thing for a mundane woman to be.

Also known as Cecy

Appears from the start

Will's younger sister, living at the Institute and training as a Shadowhunter after arriving alone at its door. She came to bring Will home to their parents in Wales and has stayed instead, learning the work from scratch as an adult among people who began as children. She is as stubborn and as sharp as her brother, resents being treated as a novice, and finds herself increasingly interested in Gabriel Lightwood.

Appears from the start

Benedict Lightwood's elder son, who broke with his father and moved into the Institute. Reserved and dependable, he trains the household's women, is quietly in love with Sophie, and carries the shame of what his family has done.

Appears from the start

Benedict Lightwood's younger son, who stayed with his father when his brother left and is increasingly unable to explain or excuse what is happening at the family house. Proud, quick-tempered and out of his depth, he has an old feud with Will and a growing interest in Will's sister Cecily.

Also known as The Magister

Appears from the start

A mundane inventor and industrialist with an army of clockwork automatons animated by bound demon energies, still at large after the Institute failed twice to take him. He was raised by warlocks whom Shadowhunters killed, and his war on the Nephilim is a revenge he has spent his life preparing. He wants Tessa Gray, claims to have arranged her birth, and has enough reach into ordinary commerce to control what the Institute can buy.

First appears in chapter 2

Head of the Lightwood family, forced to withdraw his claim on the Institute after his dealings with Mortmain and his demon pox came to light. He has shut himself up in his house, refuses visitors, and is deteriorating in ways his sons cannot manage or explain.

First appears in chapter 3

A Shadowhunter girl raised at the Institute, returned to it from the Silent City under confinement after passing information to Mortmain's agent, the man she believed would marry her and take her away from Shadowhunter life. She is frightened, diminished and kept apart from the household, and no one is certain how far she can be trusted.

First appears in chapter 3

A servant taken on at the Institute who turns out to be an extraordinary fighter and a considerable asset in the armoury. She sings long, bloody ballads about murder and betrayal while she works, to the household's general discomfort.

First appears in chapter 5

A centuries-old warlock of London, extravagant, well-connected and one of the few Downworlders who will work with the Institute. He helped Will in the previous book, knows more about Mortmain's kind of magic than the Nephilim do, and is the person the household turns to when the problem is not one a blade solves.

First appears in chapter 8

Head of the London werewolf pack, fastidious, theatrical and openly uninterested in Shadowhunter opinion. He is Magnus Bane's lover, and the Institute has reason to want both his information and his goodwill.