Not for Humans

by Cassandra Clare, Holly Black

This is a short piece Holly and I wrote for John Green’s Project for Awesome a few years ago. I recently mentioned it and enough people asked to see it that I thought we ought to put it up! It’s a crossover between Holly Black’s Modern Faerie Tale series and Shadowhunter Chronicles. Kaye, Roiben, Corny and Luis are all from Holly’s books. You may well know the others. :) This is set before the beginning of City of Bones. Remember when Jace talked about eating faerie food and running naked down Fifth Avenue…?
---author's introduction

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Young Adult, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult Fantasy, Ebooks

7 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Tehran, Iran and spent much of her childhood travelling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father’s backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old.

Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called “The Beautiful Cassandra” based on a Jane Austen short story of the same name (and which later inspired her current pen name).

After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina’s world travels and Britney Spears’ wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favourite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.
Cassie’s first professional writing sale was a short story called “The Girl’s Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord” in a Baen anthology of humor fantasy. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted by reality TV shows and the antics of her cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friends, who see that she sticks to her deadlines.

City of Bones was her first novel. Sword Catcher is her most recent novel.

Reviews

[✨ Helena ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flashback to City of Bones:

"“Don’t order any of the faerie food,” said Jace, looking at her over the top of his menu. “It tends to make humans a little crazy. One minute you’re munching a faerie plum, the next minute you’re running naked down Madison Avenue with antlers on your head. Not,” he added hastily, “that this has ever happened to me.”"

Jace eating faery food and running naked down Fifth Avenue...

That's all I'm gonna say. Brb, when I come back from the dead because I just died from laughter! xD

P.S.: This is a short story written by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, and serves as a crossover between The Modern Faerie Tale series and the Shadowhunter Chronicles. Kaye, Roiben, Corny, Luis, Jace, Alec, Izzy, and Magnus are all there! :D

[Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute little story about fae and shadowhunter antics in a coffee shop. What I’d give to be able to go to a shop like that!

[Kiera LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was something I didn't know I needed until now!!!

[jessica ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t know I needed this in my life, but I absolutely did 😂 I didn’t know the characters from Holly Black’s book, but now that I finished this, I definitely need to get to them in the future!

[Noha Badawi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is was fun.
I didn't know I needed this back story in my life.
But now I have it and I'm happy.

[Paola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jace eating fairy food 🤣

[mahina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know how badly I needed this

[Catarina (TravelerBetweenWorlds)]

What the heck is this??? Sounds so fantastic!! :D

[Theodora · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Oh, by the Angel,” Alec said mournfully. “Another place we can never go to again. You’d think, in a city as big as New York …”

In this short story, the main characters from The Modern Faerie Tales by Holly Black meet Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters in Kaye's newly opened coffee shop. And Jace tastes some faerie food for the first time.

I enjoyed seeing the Shadowhunters and Magnus from The Mortal Instruments again after all these years, and I liked seeing some more of the Modern Faerie Tales cast, but, honestly, I'd have liked to see the characters from the two stories interact a bit more, perhaps in a slightly longer piece.

[Narges · Rating 5 out of 5]

یه کراس اور کوچیک بین دنیای کرول پرینس و شدوهانترز
کاش بلندتر بود...

[Aranza (grumpy version) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh. My. God. HAHAHAHAHAH

[Sophia Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious--I loved this short story. But way way wayyyy too short. I need more!! I can imagine this being a standalone novella published under both Cassandra Clare and Holly Black's names, which I reckon they should totally do and I guarantee it would get so much hype from both Shadowhunter fans and fans of Black's 'Folk of the Air' series.

[Chandni · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really fun story about Kaye starting up her coffee shop and having Alec, Jace, and Isabelle come in.

[Jos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Leí esto hace AÑOS y apenas veo que jamás lo registré en Goodreads

[Geno · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75★
---
Una historia simple, divertida, con algunos guiños y no mucho más.
Tiene cierto espíritu de fanfic y abrazo que las autoras no renieguen de eso.

El cuento mezcla personajes de "Cazadores de sombras" de Cassandra Clare y de "Modern Faerie Tale" de Holly Black.
Es un pequeño slice of life, un vistazo rápido a un café de hadas cuyos clientes son una variedad de criaturas mágicas y un inconveniente con comida de hadas y shadowhunters.

Aunque no suma demasiado al universo ya creado, es interesante ver "detalles" tan mundanos en una historia.
Solamente van a disfrutarla los fans.

---
Fun, silly and cute.
It reads as a fanfiction and I'm here for it.

At this point, I'm sure I will read anything with Alec in it and I'm not even sorry.
There is no so much to tell about this short story, it barely expands the Shadowhunters lore but stills manage to be fun and keep the campy spirit.

Only for fans.

[Lorien · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know this existed until I needed a book with "human" in the title. This short story fits that, and happens to be hilarious. More than once we've been told that the Shadowhunter books by Cassandra Clare, and Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales take place in the same universe, and this is the link. Jace got high on faerie food in Kaye's coffee shop, then left wearing only his underwear and took off, losing them along the way. Hilarious, and brilliant, and linking two of my favorite worlds.

It's available for free from Cassandra Clare's website, so a quick google and you can enjoy this too.

[Joana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having this short piece is a damn awesome addition. It was fun and awesome. Shadowhunter Extras are always welcome, I just wish it had matched City of Bones... in there Izzy says she ot the invitation for Magnus party from some Kelpie at Pandemonium, that he had a whole stack of them, but according to this a very drunk Magnus gave her the invitation directly. Maybe she doesn't remember that, ignored the paper and did in fact acquire another one at Pandemonium? It's possible. Anyway, I want more of these extras. I want all of it.

[Mariana · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 ⭐️

Not for Humans is a short story written by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. It's a crossover between the Shadowhunters and The Modern Fairy Tale of Holly Black. In this story we have Jace, Isabelle, Alec and Kaye and Corny.

It was really funny and I didn't know I needed it until I read this. I don't like Jace that much, but what happened to him here was really hilarious.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been working my way through the short stories and honestly this is the only one I really enjoyed. It's from Kaye's perspective, the faerie who owns the coffee shop the shadowhunters sometimes frequent. It was really cool seeing how faeries view shadowhunters and other races. I hope we get some faerie POVs in the next books.

[Kendra Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why did it end? I need more crossovers between the Modern Fairie gang and the New York Shadowhunters! Cassandra Clare and Holly Black weave their characters into a seamless story. I knew that they were connected (don't know if they still are with the publications of The Dark Artifacts or the Cruel Prince). But hey at least we have this glorious little gem to read!

[Aleja Carstairs (Shadowhunter Encyclopedia) Semi-Hiatus · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't like the way the narration was executed, I don't know if it is because of Holly's writing and having her character be narrating, or just the mix of Holly and Cassie's writing. I have read the novellas they've done together and they just mix better than this. BUt it was still really funny to see all of it happen.

[Cassie Hawkings · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting crossover between Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters world and Holly Black's world of faerie. I've only ever read the first three books in the Shadowhunters series plus the first book in the Internal Devices series, but I caught the references.

Looks like I will have to get into reading Holly Black books now too.

[Jessie Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never thought I needed a story about how Jace ended up running across Fifth Avenue naked…but here it is! I love it, and it definitely makes me want to read Holly Black’s novels (as they’re already on my list, this only moves up their position)!

[blue.iris · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an interesting story (I admittedly haven't read the source material from Holly Black), but it was good to see some of the og shadowhunter characters and what they did before we met them. I'm currently reading all the little shadowhunter short pieces and started here!

[Lindsay Crouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was funny, but read more like a fanfic piece than something written by the actual authors.

[Zero · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never read the Faeries series, but it's weird that Shadowhunters are eating food which the Fair Folk made?

[lyss · Rating 4 out of 5]

a naked jace running around new york w only antlers on his head? uh yes lol this was so funny and magnus staring at alec SO CUTE

[Rei · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED THIS STORY. I couldn't stop smiling.

“Don't try to stop me, Alec,” said Jace. “This body has to be free.”

I want more stories like this.

[♛ · Rating 5 out of 5]

this was sooooo cute

[Sakina Azhar · Rating 5 out of 5]

YASSS!!!!