He made a sound like a choked laughed before he reached out and pulled her into her arms. She was aware of Luke watching them from the window, but she shut her eyes resolutely and buried her face against Jace's shoulder. He smelled of salt and blood, and only when his mouth came close to her ear did she understand what he was saying, and it was the simplest litany of all: her name, just her name.

Clary didn't ask what that was. She was busy trying not to fall over. The ground was heaving up and down under her feet. "Jace," she said, and crumpled into him. He caught her as if he were used to catching fainting girls, as if he did it every day. Maybe he did.

No," said Simon. "I know we're not much compared to you, but we don't kill our friends. We try to save them. If Heaven didn't want it that way, we ought to have been given the ability to love." He shoved his hair back, baring the Mark more fully. "No, you don't need to help me. But if you don't, there's nothing stopping me from calling you up again and again, now that I know you can't kill me. Think of it as me leaning on you Heavenly doorbell... forever.

It is the mundanes who look at me and see something they do not understand—a boy who is not quite white and not quite foreign either." "Just as I am not human, and not demon either," Tessa said softly. His eyes softened. "You are human," he said. "Never think you are not. I have seen you with your brother; I know how you care for him. If you can feel hope, guilt, sorrow, love—then you are human.

I need a bodyguard." Simon eyed him. "Have you been watching The Bodyguard? Because I am not going to fall in love with you and carry you around in my burly arms.

Hope is not an illusion.

Excuse me, Bane?" said Roderick Morgenstern. "Are you attending?" "I'm so sorry," Magnus said politely. "Somebody incredibly attractive just came into the room, and I ceased to pay attention to a word you were saying.