There must always be a first," said Jem. "It is not easy to be first, and it is not always rewarding, but it is important.

Must you go? I was rather hoping you'd stay and be a ministering angel, but if you must go, you must." "I'll stay," Will said a bit crossly, and threw himself down in the armchair Tessa had just vacated. "I can minister angelically." "None too convincingly. And you're not as pretty to look at as Tessa is," Jem said, closing his eyes as he leaned back against the pillow. "How rude. Many who have gazed upon me have compared the experience to gazing at the radiance of the sun." Jem still had his eyes closed. "If they mean it gives you a headache, they aren't wrong.

Tessa looked quickly to Will, but he only crossed the room as he always did to lean against the fireplace mantel. Cecily had never been able to decide if he did this because he was perpetually cold or because he thought he looked dasing standing before the leaping flames.

A Shadowhunter I believe you know send for me—Tatiana Blackthorn? The lady used to be a Lightwood, did she not?" Magnus turned to Will. "And your sister Cecily married her brother. Gilbert. Gaston. I have a shocking memory for Lightwoods." "I begged Cecily not to throw herself away on a Lightworm," Will muttered.

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.

She had thought she was going to save her mother, and now there was going to be nothing for her to do but sit by her mother's bedside, hold her limp hand, and home someone else, somewhere else, would be able to do what she couldn't.

Simon kept pace beside Clary for a few moments without speaking before he said, “So what did I miss? Naked dancing ladies?” Clary thought of the male faerie‘s torn-open ribs and shuddered. “Nothing that pleasant.