He flushed, the colour dark against his pale skin. 'I mean. Tessa Gray, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?' Jem.

I'll just be your brother from now on." he said, looking at her with a hopeful expectation that she would be pleased, which made her want to scream that he was smashing her heart into pieces and he had to stop. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?" It took her a long time to answer, and when she did, her own voice sounded like an echo, coming from very far away. "Yes," she said, and she heard the rush of waves in her ears and her eyes stung as if from sand or salt spray. "That's what I wanted.

Jem touched the parabatai rune on his shoulder, through the thin material of his nightshirt. "I am not alone," he said. "Wherever we are, we are as one.

I feel myself dissolving, vanishing into nothingness, for if there is no one in the world who cares for you, do you really exist at all?

While the Clave disapproves of trespassers, oddly they take an even darker view of beheading and skinning people. They're peculiar that way.

trying to read his face. It was like a book written in a foreign language she'd studied all too briefly.

We needn't talk about Tessa if you don't want to, you know." "It's not Tessa." This was true. Will hadn't been thinking of Tessa. He was getting good at not thinking about her, really; all it took was determination and practice.