Cassandra Clare has been giving fans what they want for some time now and she's taking things to the next level with her upcoming anthology that is sure to make us fall in love with our favorite couples all over again. After raising a over $1 million in an exciting Kickstarter, Better in Black is finally getting its own traditional release that will definitely get us excited as we get a peek at what some of these characters have been up to!

Cosmopolitan has an exclusive look at Better in Black by Cassandra Clare, which is set to be released on December 2, 2025. The special anthology features 10 stories that follow various couples from the Shadowhunters universe as we get to see what their relationships are like now. Here's some more info from our friends at Knopf Books for Young Readers:

Ten original love stories by the reigning queen of romantasy, featuring fan-favorite couples from her #1 New York Times bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles—one of the most popular series of all time, with more than 50 million copies in print worldwide!

Ten couples. United by love. Divided by danger.

Jace and Clary, seeking out an exiled Shadowhunter and learning that love can save the world—or destroy it. Will and Tessa, honeymooning in Paris when a séance sends them down an unexpected path. Simon and Izzy, observing increased demonic activity around New York, on a hilarious urban romp.

These are just a few of the beloved couples whose romantic escapades will have you on the edge of your seat across time and storylines from Cassandra Clare’s expansive Shadowhunters series. Don’t miss a chance to reunite with:

• Anna and Ari
• Emma and Julian
• Kieran, Mark, and Cristina
• James and Cordelia
• Thomas and Alastair
• Sebastian and the Seelie Queen
• Jocelyn and Luke

A love letter to every fan of the Shadowhunter Chronicles, this riveting story collection also includes a sneak peek at The Wicked Powers, the majestic trilogy that will be the grand finale of the entire series!

Of course, what better way to celebrate this new anthology than by going back to the couple that started it all! Check out an exclusive except featuring Jace and Clary below! Just make sure to pre-order Better in Black and get ready for the final trilogy in the series, The Wicked Powers, by checking out Cassandra's other books!

An Excerpt From Better in Black
By Cassandra Clare

This is perfect happiness, Clary thought, as she often did in mo­ments like this—quiet moments, when they weren’t running around saving the world or dispatching demons. It wasn’t that she didn’t like being a Shadowhunter. She loved so many things about it. But life beyond the walls of the Institute had, in some ways, never felt so fraught. There was peace, in a way, but it felt more like paralysis. An intolerable wait for the next terrible thing to happen. But in their bedroom, Jace’s arms around her, it was impossible not to be at least a little happy. Even if that happiness had a slight flaw in it, like a fleck in amber.

Jace set his book down. He kissed the side of Clary’s neck, and she shivered a little, the way she always did at his touch. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.

“I was thinking that we have to help Maryse find her brother. Is that weird?”

Jace stopped kissing her neck. “Not as weird as you thinking I’m thinking about my adoptive mom right now.”

Clary laughed. “Sorry. I just can’t stop worrying about her. She seemed so anguished.”

It wasn’t as if Clary had never thought about Maryse’s past be­fore. Maryse and Robert had been Valentine’s loyal lieutenants in the Circle, alongside Luke and her mother. Somehow it was easy to imagine the headstrong teenagers that Luke and Jocelyn used to be. But Clary couldn’t picture Robert or Maryse as anything but adults. Cynical, tired adults who had been through a wringer, who had seen their adolescent idealism turn to poison, the leader they’d adored revealed as a purveyor of evil and lies.

“She’s lost so much these last few years,” Jace said. “She just doesn’t show it much.”

That was true. Maryse always did her best to make sure she was the last of anyone’s worries. Something all her children had also learned to master, in their own ways.

“You’ve lost a lot too,” Clary said.

“But I’ve gained so much.” Jace set his book aside. “And Isabelle found Simon. Alec has Magnus, the kids. When I met you, my life felt—confined. As if I were in a play with only a few characters. Now everything seems so much bigger.”

Clary put her hand over Jace’s. “I know what you mean,” she said, and she did. A few years ago, she’d had her mother and Luke, she’d had Simon—and that was it. Her life now was overflowing with people to care about, people whose lives she would defend to the death, and sometimes had.

“I never thought about how Maryse might feel the opposite,” Jace said. Clary turned to look at him; his dark gold eyes had soft­ened, lost in thought. “She lost Robert, she lost Max—our Max and her Max. Her kids grew up and now we’re all making our own fami­lies. Maybe she feels like she’s losing us too?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Clary said firmly. “And you know Maryse loves seeing her kids happy. She loves being a grandmother. She loves Kadir. Her life isn’t empty.”

Jace wound a lock of Clary’s hair around his finger. “You know, when I first came to the Institute, I was so determined not to get soft. I’d been taught that kindness was weakness. That love was poison. If Maryse had been more . . . motherly, I probably would have run away screaming. I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds true.” Jace so rarely talked about his childhood, es­pecially those raw months right after Valentine had “died” and left Jace an orphan.

“Maryse didn’t try to get me to talk about my feelings. She just let me sit with them, and she sat with me. That was enough. But there was this one time, Isabelle was having a temper tantrum. Not an unusual occurrence, you can imagine.”

Clary laughed. Isabelle was known to have the occasional tem­per tantrum even now.

“Maryse gave me this kind of secret smile, like we were a team—like she was saying we would never put on such a display. She was right. And, deep down? I was jealous. I put so much effort into keeping my pain a secret and there was Isabelle just . . . letting it out.”

“Maybe Maryse was jealous too,” Clary said. “People who are good at asking for help usually get it.” She turned her body around so she was facing Jace. She ached to put her arms around him—not just him the way he was now, but as the lonely little boy taught that love was poison. “You know what we have to do now, right?”

He ran a finger along her collarbone. “I have some thoughts.”

“Remove your mind from the gutter for a moment,” said Clary. “We have to find Maryse’s brother, and bring him home.”

To her surprise, Jace looked worried. “There’s the chance he won’t want to come home.”

“Of course he will. Think how you would feel, if you spent de­cades completely cut off from your family, your friends, everyone and everything you know.”

“I think,” Jace said carefully, “that I would feel extremely angry, if my family and friends and everyone I knew made me choose between them or losing you.”

“All the more reason to find him and tell him things are differ­ent now. That Maryse is different.”

“What if he doesn’t care? Just because she wants his forgive­ness doesn’t mean he’s ready to forgive. And . . .” Jace looked away. “Sometimes losing someone hurts less than getting them back.”

She knew he was thinking of Valentine. If Valentine had never returned, Jace would never have known his true self and his true background. But he also wouldn’t have known that the man he loved as a father was a power-hungry monster, willing to sacrifice Jace to get what he wanted.

“Loss can make people bitter,” said Jace. “We don’t know any­thing about Max Trueblood, Clary. We don’t know what he’d say to Maryse if he saw her, how it might hurt her. I’ve brought enough pain into her life.”

Sebastian, and what he wrought on this family, was not your fault, she wanted to say. But she’d said it many times—to him, to herself. They both knew it was true. Knowing didn’t make it easier to be­lieve.

“I get why you’re worried,” she said. “I really do. But it’s not just about Maryse, or her brother. What about his family? If he’s got kids, they don’t know anything about who their father really is. Who they really are. They think they’re alone.”

“Like you did,” Jace said.

“Like you did, too, in a way.”

She wove her fingers through his. If Valentine had never re­turned, then Clary would never have met Jace. She might have lived her whole life without knowing what she was, or what she was ca­pable of. What it felt like to love someone the way she loved Jace.

“Let’s not get Maryse’s hopes up,” she said. “We’ll try to track him down ourselves. And if it goes badly, that’ll be our secret. We don’t have to tell Maryse anything that might hurt her more.”

Jace nodded, serious now. “Okay. We’ll do it. But we can’t tell Alec and Isabelle. I don’t want them to have to keep that kind of secret.”

“You do realize that means we can’t ask Magnus for help?”

Now Jace finally did smile, and it was like dawn breaking. “That’s okay. If I recall, we make a pretty good team.”

Clary smiled and looped her arms around Jace’s neck. “We’ll get started tomorrow,” she said. “In the meantime, if you want to get your mind back in the gutter . . .”

She giggled as they fell back against the pillows.

Excerpted from Better in Black by Cassandra Clare. Copyright © 2025 by Cassandra Clare. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Better in Black, by Cassandra Clare will be released on December 2, 2025. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:

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