She supposed they were imperfections, those marks, but they didn't feel that way to her; they were a history, cut into his body: the map of a life of endless war.

Perhaps he's in love with Agatha," she said. "I hope not. I intend to marry Agatha myself. She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.

Also, I'm sleeping with your mom. Just thought you should know.

Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.

I need to know you believe me when I say I love you. That is all." "I believe everything you say," Tessa said with a smile, her hands creeping doen from his waist to his weapons belt. Her fingers closed on the hilt of the dagger, and she yanked it from the belt, smiling as he looked down at her in surprise. "After all," she said, "you weren't lying about the tattoo of the dragon of Wales, were you?

Marry me," he said. "Marry me, Tess. Marry me and be Tessa Herondale. Or be Tessa Gray, or be whatever you wish to call yourself, but marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.

Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre, Tessa pointed out. No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?