Henry's breath hissed out through his teeth. That ba-bad man, he finished, with a quick glance at Cecily, who rolled her eyes.

He felt his heart, which no longer beat, contract, and he wondered if there was anything in the world as painful as not being able to protect the people you loved.

Vampires, fey folk, werewolves, Shadowhunters, and demons - these things made sense to Magnus. But the mundane world - it seemed to have no pattern, no form. Their quicksilver politics. Their short lives.

She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance - shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up. Helplessly he pulled her against him. For a moment she clung to him tightly, warm and alive in his arms. Her hair brushed his cheek. The color had come back into the world; he could breathe again, and for that moment he breathed her in - she smelled of salt, blood, tears, and Tessa.

Great,” Simon said. “Maybe I’ll even make it back before my mother notices I’m gone. What’s the time difference between here and Manhattan?” “You have a mother?” Aline looked amazed.

i've never asked him but i'm sure he has a fairly stringent policy about random teenagers lurking in his strubbery

Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt.