What?” Simon looked alarmed. ”I‘m not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get your attention. Not that your mom isn’t a very attractive woman for her age.

The kitchen was bright, cheerful yellow, the walls decorated with framed chalk and pencil sketches Simon and Rebecca had done in grade school. Rebecca had some drawing talent, you could tell, but Simon's sketches of people all looked like parking meters with tufts of hair.

You're killing me because you want me to give a message to God for you?" Jace shook his head, the point of the blade scraping across his throat. "You're crazier than I thought

Demon pox. There's always demon pox.

I would rather insult you than lose you, he said, and before any of them could make a move to stop him, he cast both items into the fire.

The only way you would have failed," she said, "is if you had.

She had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand between Will and the world, protecting each one of them from the other.