She knew how breakups went from hearing other girls complain about them. First the pulling away, the gradual refusal to return notes or phone calls. The vague messages saying nothing was wrong, that the other person just needed a little space. Then the speech about how "It's not you, it's me." Then the crying part.She'd never thought any of that would apply to her and Jace. What they had wasn't ordinary, or subject to the ordinary rules of relationships and breakups. They belonged to each other totally, and always will, and that was that.But maybe everyone felt that way? Until the moment they realized they were just like everyone else, and everyone they'd thought was real shattered apart.

Mother." Alec's voice as he interrupted his mother was firm, implacable, and notunkind. "Father. There's something I have to tell you." He smiled at them. "I'm seeing someone."Robert Lightwood looked at his son with some exasperation. "Alec," he said."This is hardly the time.""Yes, it is. This is important. You see, I'm not just seeing anyone." Wordsseemed to be pouring out of Alec in a torrent, while his parents looked on inconfusion. Isabelle and Magnus were staring at him with expressions of nearly identical astonishment. "I'm seeing a Downworlder. In fact, I'm seeing a war—"Magnus's fingers moved, quick as a flash of light, in Alec's direction. There was a faint shimmer in the air around Alec — his eyes rolled up — and he dropped to the floor, felled like a tree.

I don't hate you, Jace.""I don't hate you, either."She looked up at him, relieved. "I'm glad to hear that—""I wish I could hate you," he said. His voice was light, his mouth curved in an unconcerned half smile, his eyes sick with misery. "I want to hate you. I try to hate you. It would be so much easier if I did hate you. Sometimes I think I do hate you and then I see you and I—"Her hands had grown numb with their grip on the blanket. "And you what?""What do you think?" Jace shook his head. "Why should I tell you everythingabout how I feel when you never tell me anything? It's like banging my head on awall, except at least if I were banging my head on a wall, I'd be able to make myself stop."Clary's lips were trembling so violently that she found it hard to speak. "Do you think it's easy for me?" she demanded.

She was looking at Alec instead, watching him as he talked to Jace. There was a kinetic, almost feverish energy to him that hadn’t been there before. Something about Jace sharpened him, brought him into focus. If she were going to draw them together, she thought, she would make Jace a little blurry, while Alec stood out, all sharp, clear planes and angles. Jace was looking down as Alec spoke, smiling a little and tapping his water glass with a fingernail. She sensed he was thinking of other things. She felt a sudden flash of sympathy for Alec. Jace couldn’t be an easy person to care about. I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited. Jace looked up as the waitress passed. “Are we ever going to get any coffee?” he said aloud, interrupting Alec midsentence. Alec subsided, his energy fading.

If Jem dies, I cannot be with Tessa,” said Will. “Because it will be as if I were waiting for him to die, or took some joy in his death, if it let me have her. And I will not be that person. I will not profit from his death. So he must live.” He lowered his arm, his sleeve bloody. “It is the only way any of this can ever mean anything. Otherwise it is only —”“Pointless, needless suffering and pain? I don’t suppose it would help if I told you that was the way life is. The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away,” Magnus said.“I want more than that,” said Will. “You made me want more than that. You showed me I was only ever cursed because I had chosen to believe myself so. You told me there was possibility, meaning. And now you would turn your back on what you created.

Jem’s knees gave out, and he sank to the trunk at the foot of his bed, still playing. He played Will breathing the name Cecily, and he played himself watching the glint of his own ring on Tessa’s hand on the train from York, knowing it was all a charade, knowing, too, that he wished that it wasn’t. He played the sorrow in Tessa’s eyes when she had come into the music room after Will had told her she would never have children. Unforgivable, that, what a thing to do, and yet Jem had forgiven him. Love was forgiveness, he had always believed that, and the things that Will did, he did out of some bottomless well of pain. Jem did not know the source of that pain, but he knew it existed and was real, knew it as he knew of the inevitability of his own death, knew it as he knew that he had fallen in love with Tessa Gray and that there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.

Love potions? For Will 'erondale? 'Tain't my way to turn down payment, but any man who looks like you 'as got no need of love potions, and that's a fact.""No," Will said, a little desperation in his voice. "I was looking for the opposite, really -- something that might put an end to being in love.""An 'atred potion?" Mol still sounded amused."I was hoping for something more akin to indifference? Tolerance?"She made a snorting noise, astonishingly human for a ghost. "I 'ardly like to tell you this, Nephilim, but if you want a girl to 'ate you, there's easy enough ways of making it 'appen. You don't need my help with the poor thing."And with that she vanished, spinning away into the mists among the graves. Will, looking after her, sighed. "Not for her," he said under his breath, though there was no one to hear him, "for me..." And he leaned his head against the cold iron gate.

So it's true what they say about warlocks, then?"Alec gave him a very unpleasant look. "What's true?""Alexander," said Magnus coldly, and Clary met Simon's eyes across the table. Hers were wide, green, and full of an expression that said Uh-oh. "You can't be rude to everyone who talks to me."Alec made a wide, sweeping gesture. "And why not? Cramping your style, am I? I mean, maybe you were hoping to flirt with werewolf boy here. He's pretty attractive, if you like the messy-haired, broad-shouldered, chiseled-good-looks type.""Hey, now," said Jordan mildly. Magnus put his head in his hands. "Or there are plenty of pretty girls here, since apparently your taste goes both ways, Is there anything you aren't into?""Mermaids," said Magnus into his fingers. "They always smell like seaweed.""It's not funny," Alec said savagely, and kicking back his chair, he got up from the table and stalked off into the crowd.

Shapes began to appear in the mist as it thickened. Clary saw herself and Simon as children, holding hands, crossing a street in Brooklyn,; she had barrettes in her hair and Simon was adorably rumpled, his glasses sliding off his nose. There they were again, throwing snowballs in Prospect Park; and at Luke's farmhouse, tanned from summer, hanging upside down from tree branches. She saw them in Java Jones, listening to Eric's terrible poetry, and on the back of a flying motorcycle as it crashed into a parking lot, with Jace there, looking at them, his eyes squinted against the sun. And there was Simon with Isabelle, his hands curved around her face, kissing her, and she could see Isabelle as Simon saw her: fragile and strong, and so, so beautiful. And there was Valentine's ship, Simon kneeling on Jace, blood on his mouth and shirt, and blood at Jace's throat, and there was the cell in Idris, and Hodge's weathered face, and Simon and Clary again, Clary etching the Mark of Cain onto his forehead. Maureen, and her blood on the floor, and her little pink hat, and the rooftop in Manhattan where Lilith had raised Sebastian, and Clary was passing him a gold ring across a table, and an Angel was rising out of a lake before him and he was kissing Isabelle...

Tess, Tess, Tessa. Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it – a heart ringing – but when you touch me that is what it is like: as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.Why have I written these words in this book? Because of you. You taught me to love this book where I had scorned it. When I read it for the second time, with an open mind and heart, I felt the most complete despair and envy of Sydney Carton. Yes, Sydney, for even if he had no hope that the woman he loved would love him, at least he could tell her of his love. At least he could do something to prove his passion, even if that thing was to die.I would have chosen death for a chance to tell you the truth, Tessa, if I could have been assured that death would be my own. And that is why I envied Sydney, for he was free.And now at last I am free, and I can finally tell you, without fear of danger to you, all that I feel in my heart.You are not the last dream of my soul.You are the first dream, the only dream I ever was unable to stop myself from dreaming. You are the first dream of my soul, and from that dream I hope will come all other dreams, a lifetime’s worth.With hope at least,Will Herondale

The cord pulled taut and she rebounded, flying back up before falling again. As her velocity slowed, she opened her eyes and found herself dangling at the end of the cord, about five feet above Jace. He was grinning. "Nice," he said. "As graceful as a falling snowflake.""Was I screaming?" She asked, genuinely curious. "You know, on the way down."He nodded. "Thankfully no one's home, or they would have assumed I was murdering you.""Ha. You can't even reach me." She kicked out a leg and spun lazily in midair. Jace's eyes glinted. "Want to bet?"Clary knew that expression. "No," she said quickly. "Whatever you're going to do-"But he'd already done it. When Jace moved fast, his individual movements were almost invisible. She saw his hand go to his belt, and then something flashed in the air. She heard the sound of parting fabric as the cord above her head was sheared through. Released, she fell freely, too surprised to scream- directly into Jace's arms. The force knocked him backward, and they sprawled together onto one of the padded floor mats, Clary on top of him. He grinned up at her."Now," he said, "that was much better. You didn't scream at all.""I didn't get the chance." She was breathless, and not just from the impact of the fall. Being sprawled on top of Jace, feeling his body against hers, made her hands shake and her heart beat faster.

Look. I don’t want to push you into anything, but do you maybe want to —” “Call Magnus? Look, that’s a dead end, I know you’re trying to be helpful, but —” “—kiss me?” Jace finished. Alec looked as if he were about to fall off his chair. “WHAT? What? What?” “Once what would do.” Jace did his best to look as if this were the sort of suggestion one made all the time. “I think it might help.” Alec looked at him with something like horror. “You don’t mean that.” “Why wouldn’t I mean it?” “Because you’re the straightest person I know. Possibly the straightest person in the universe.” “Exactly,” Jace said, and leaned forward, and kissed Alec on the mouth. The kiss lasted approximately four seconds before Alec pulled forcefully away, throwing his hands up as if to ward Jace off from coming at him again. He looked as if he were about to throw up. “By the Angel,” he said. “Don’t ever do that again.” “Oh yeah?” Jace grinned, and almost meant it. “That bad?” “Like kissing my brother,” said Alec, with a look of horror in his eyes. “I thought you might feel that way.” Jace crossed his arms over his chest. “Also, I’m hoping we can just gloss over all the irony in what you just said.” “We can gloss over whatever you want to,” Alec said fervently. “Just don’t kiss me again.

But what of you?” Gabriel said, and theywere very close now, almost touching. “It isyour choice to make now, to stay or return.”“I will stay,” Cecily said. “I choose thewar.”Gabriel let out the breath he hadn’t realizedhe was holding. “You will give up yourhome?”“A drafty old house in Yorkshire?” Cecilysaid. “This is London.”“And give up what is familiar?”“Familiar is dull.”“And give up seeing your parents? It isagainst the Law …”She smiled, the glimmer of a smile.“Everyone breaks the Law.”“Cecy,” he said, and closed the distancebetween them, though it was not much, andthen he was kissing her—his hands awkwardaround her shoulders at first, slipping on thestiff taffeta of her gown before his fingersslid behind her head, tangling in her soft,warm hair. She stiffened in surprise beforesoftening against him, the seam of her lipsparting as he tasted the sweetness of hermouth. When she drew away at last, he feltlight-headed. “Cecy?” he said again, hisvoice hoarse.“Five,” she said. Her lips and cheeks wereflushed, but her gaze was steady.“Five?” he echoed blankly.907/1090“My rating,” she said, and smiled at him.“Your skill and technique may, perhaps, requirework, but the native talent is certainlythere. What you require is practice.”“And you are willing to be my tutor?”“I should be very insulted if you chose another,”she said, and leaned up to kiss himagain.

Clary, Despite everything, I can't bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more then I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other. I'm leaving you our family ring because you have as much right to it as I do.I'm writing this watching the sun come up. You're asleep, dreams moving behind your restless eyelids. I wish I knew what you were thinking. I wish I could slip into your head and see the world the way you do. I wish I could see myself the way you do. But maybe I dont want to see that. Maybe it would make me feel even more than I already do that I'm perpetuating some kind of Great Lie on you, and I couldn't stand that. I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I'd break myself trying to make you happy. My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling I have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you can't have and wanting what you shouldn't want. And I shouldn't want you.All night I've watched you sleeping, watched the moonlight come and go, casting its shadows across your face in black and white. I've never seen anything more beautiful. I think of the life we could have had if things were different, a life where this night is not a singular event, separate from everything else that's real, but every night. But things aren't different, and I can't look at you without feeling like I've tricked you into loving me.The truth no one is willing to say out loud is that no one has a shot against Valentine but me. I can get close to him like no one else can. I can pretend I want to join him and he'll believe me, up until that last moment where I end it all, one way or another. I have something of Sebastian's; I can track him to where my father's hiding, and that's what I'm going to do. So I lied to you last night. I said I just wanted one night with you. But I want every night with you. And that's why I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward. Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldn't make myself go. I don't blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you. _Jace

To my son,If you are reading this letter, then I am dead.I expect to die, if not today, then soon. I expect that Valentine will kill me. For all his talk of loving me, for all his desire for a right-hand man, he knows that I have doubts. And he is a man who cannot abide doubt.I do not know how you will be brought up. I do not know what they will tell you about me. I do not even know who will give you this letter. I entrust it to Amatis, but I cannot see what the future holds. All I know is that this is my chance to give you an accounting of a man you may well hate.There are three things you must know about me. The first is that I have been a coward. Throughout my life I have made the wrong decisions, because they were easy, because they were self-serving, because I was afraid.At first I believed in Valentine’s cause. I turned from my family and to the Circle because I fancied myself better than Downworlders and the Clave and my suffocating parents. My anger against them was a tool Valentine bent to his will as he bent and changed so many of us. When he drove Lucian away I did not question it but gladly took his place for my own. When he demanded I leave Amatis, the woman I love, and marry Celine, a girl I did not know, I did as he asked, to my everlasting shame.I cannot imagine what you might be thinking now, knowing that the girl I speak of was your mother. The second thing you must know is this. Do not blame Celine for any of this, whatever you do. It was not her fault, but mine. Your mother was an innocent from a family that brutalized her. She wanted only kindess, to feel safe and loved. And though my heart had been given already, I loved her, in my fashion, just as in my heart, I was faithful to Amatis. Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae. I wonder if you love Latin as I do, and poetry. I wonder who has taught you.The third and hardest thing you must know is that I was prepared to hate you. The son of myslef and the child-bride I barely knew, you seemed to be the culmination of all the wrong decisions I had made, all the small compromises that led to my dissolution. Yet as you grew inside my mind, as you grew in the world, a blameless innocent, I began to realize that I did not hate you. It is the nature of parents to see their own image in their children, and it was myself I hated, not you.For there is only one thing I wan from you, my son — one thing from you, and of you. I want you to be a better man than I was. Let no one else tell you who you are or should be. Love where you wish to. Believe as you wish to. Take freedom as your right.I don’t ask that you save the world, my boy, my child, the only child I will ever have. I ask only that you be happy.Stephen