The Mortal Instruments Trivia
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99 free The Mortal Instruments trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series follows Clary Fray from a Brooklyn nightclub into the world of Shadowhunters, runes, Downworlders and the Mortal Cup, across six novels that spent over 100 straight weeks on the bestseller list. This Mortal Instruments trivia covers the characters, the plot of every book, the wider Shadowhunter Chronicles, the 2013 City of Bones film and the Shadowhunters TV series. Every answer is sourced, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
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Q 01What is Cassandra Clare's real name?
Judith Lewis
Judith Lewis. Born Judith Rumelt, she took her pen name from The Beautiful Cassandra, a Jane Austen story she had turned into an epic novel in high school.
Q 02By what other name are the Shadowhunters of The Mortal Instruments known?
Nephilim
Nephilim. The books take the name from the Bible, where the Nephilim are often read as the offspring of humans and angels, because Shadowhunters carry angel blood.
Q 03Which line is the recurring theme of Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter books?
All the stories are true
All the stories are true. The line is the ground rule of Clare's world, and it is the reason vampires, werewolves, faeries and warlocks can all turn up in the same books.
Q 04Where is Clary when she first sees Shadowhunters at the start of City of Bones?
The Pandemonium club
The Pandemonium club. Clary follows a blue-haired boy into a storeroom and watches three teenagers kill him, then finds that the bouncer Simon fetches can't see them.
Q 05Which order do Clary and Jace consult in a sanctuary beneath a cemetery in City of Bones?
The Silent Brothers
The Silent Brothers. Their Silent City is the City of Bones of the title, and Valentine massacres them there in the next book to steal one of the Mortal Instruments.
Q 06What object does Jace use to prove Clary has Shadowhunter blood?
A stele
A stele. After a demon poisons Clary, Jace draws a Mark on her with it and she comes to no harm, a real gamble because powerful Marks drive ordinary humans mad.
Q 07Which sacred object does Clary's mother hide in City of Bones?
The Mortal Cup
The Mortal Cup. Jocelyn painted a tarot deck for her neighbour Madame Dorothea and hid it inside the Ace of Cups, and Clary draws it back out of the card.
Q 08What does Simon turn into after drinking a blue potion at Magnus's party?
A rat
A rat. Vampires at the party mistake him for one of their own and carry him off to the Hotel Dumort, so Clary and Jace have to break in to get him back.
Q 09Where does Jace take Clary for a midnight picnic on her sixteenth birthday?
The Institute's greenhouse
The Institute's greenhouse. They share their first kiss there, but running into Simon straight afterwards leaves Jace stung and cold towards her.
Q 10Which demon possesses Madame Dorothea in City of Bones?
Abaddon
Abaddon. The Greater Demon wears Dorothea's body as a disguise to ambush Clary as she recovers what her mother hid, and it takes Simon's arrival to get her out alive.
Q 11Who betrays the Shadowhunters by handing an unconscious Jace over to Valentine in City of Bones?
Hodge
Hodge. The tutor is bound by a curse that stops him ever leaving the Institute, and he bargains with Valentine to be freed from it.
Q 12What special ability sets Clary apart from other Shadowhunters in The Mortal Instruments?
Creating new runes
Creating new runes. In City of Ashes she blows Jace's cell open with an amplified Opening rune, then devises a Fearless rune that no Shadowhunter has seen before.
Q 13Under which false identity did Valentine raise Jace?
Michael Wayland
Michael Wayland. When Jace was ten, Valentine staged his own murder as Wayland in front of the hidden boy, who grew up believing he had watched his father die.
Q 21Which Lightwood sibling is killed by Sebastian in City of Glass?
Max
Max. The youngest Lightwood dies in the attack on Alicante, and years later his brother Alec names his adopted warlock son Max in his memory.
Q 22Which angel does Valentine try to raise at Lake Lyn in City of Glass?
Raziel
Raziel. Clary rubs out Valentine's name in the summoning runes and writes her own, so the angel strikes him dead and grants her one wish: Jace's life back.
Q 23What does Alec do in front of his parents in City of Glass?
Kisses Magnus
Kisses Magnus. During the fighting he had promised to introduce Magnus to his family if they both survived, and the kiss is how his parents learn he is gay.
Q 14Who is revealed to be Jace's biological father in The Mortal Instruments?
Stephen Herondale
Stephen Herondale. Jocelyn reveals it at the end of City of Glass, overturning Valentine's claim that Jace and Clary are brother and sister.
Q 15Who is Jace's parabatai in The Mortal Instruments?
Alec Lightwood
Alec Lightwood. The oath makes them battle partners for life and forbids only one bond, romance, yet in City of Bones Alec believes he is in love with Jace.
Q 16What weapon does Isabelle Lightwood carry?
A gold electrum whip
A gold electrum whip. It once saves Jace's life: Isabelle arrives just as he is about to be killed and takes off his attacker's hand with it.
Q 17Which vampire brings the dying Simon to the Institute in City of Ashes?
Raphael Santiago
Raphael Santiago. He tells them Simon must either be staked or be buried to rise again, so his friends bury him and Simon is reborn a vampire.
Q 18What does Simon become after drinking Jace's blood in City of Ashes?
A Daylighter
A Daylighter. It means a vampire who can walk in sunlight, and in the next book a suspicious Clave throws Simon in prison to find out how he does it.
Q 19Who is the Inquisitor who has Jace imprisoned in City of Ashes?
Imogen Herondale
Imogen Herondale. She offers Valentine a trade, Jace's life for the stolen Mortal Instruments, and after he refuses she dies throwing herself between Jace and a demon.
Q 20In which country is the Shadowhunter capital Alicante?
Idris
Idris. City of Glass moves the story there when Clary goes looking for a cure for her mother, and one of the country's lakes proves to be the missing third Mortal Instrument.
Q 24What is Magnus Bane's title in The Mortal Instruments?
High Warlock of Brooklyn
High Warlock of Brooklyn. At the end of City of Bones it is his magic that heals the young Shadowhunter poisoned in the fight with a Greater Demon.
Q 25Who is Magnus Bane's demon father in The Mortal Instruments?
Asmodeus
Asmodeus. He is a Prince of Hell, and in City of Heavenly Fire a desperate Magnus calls on him to get his friends home, knowing the price will be ruinous.
Q 26What does Magnus do for Clary every two years on Jocelyn's orders in The Mortal Instruments?
Blocks her Sight
Blocks her Sight. Jocelyn wants her daughter raised as an ordinary girl, safely out of Valentine's reach, but the spell is already wearing thin when the story begins.
Q 27How did Luke Garroway become a werewolf in The Mortal Instruments?
Valentine led him into a trap
Valentine led him into a trap. He took Luke hunting at a werewolf nest, and once the bite had turned him, handed him a dagger and told him to do the honourable thing.
Q 28In The Mortal Instruments, what was the Circle?
Valentine's anti-Downworlder faction
Valentine's anti-Downworlder faction. Its young Shadowhunters attacked the signing of a peace treaty with the Downworlders, and the Uprising failed because his own wife had warned the other side.
Q 29Jocelyn's adopted surname Fray blends which two names in The Mortal Instruments?
Fairchild and Gray
Fairchild and Gray. Jocelyn joined her maiden name to that of the warlock Tessa Gray, who had stood in at the infant Clary's protection ritual, as a thank-you.
Q 30What did Valentine secretly feed Jocelyn while she was pregnant with Jonathan in The Mortal Instruments?
Demon blood
Demon blood. Valentine mixed it into her food in the hope of breeding a stronger warrior, and the son it produced grew into the series' cruellest villain.