I have something for you," he said. He dug into his pocket and brought out something, which he pressed into her hand. It was a gray stone, slightly uneven, worn to smoothness in spots. "Huh," said Clary, turning it over in her fingers. "You know, when most girls say they want a big rock, they don't mean, you know, literally a big rock.

As the carriage whipped forward, they passed the alley she had spent so many days staring at—it was there, and then gone as they careened around a corner, nearly knocking over a costermonger pushing a donkey cart piled high with new potatoes. Tessa screamed. Will reached past her and yanked the curtain shut. "It's better if you don't look," he told her pleasantly. "He's going to kill someone. Or get us killed." "No, he won't. Thomas is an excellent driver." Tessa glared at him. "Clearly the word excellent means something else on this side of the Atlantic.

Do you even really know how vampires are made?' 'Well, when a mommy vampire and a daddy vampire love each other very much.

There was no way possible [the queen] could have done all of the things the pamphleteers claimed. The crimes were too gross, too immoral and far too physically challenging. Magnus himself had never attempted half of them.

Declarations of love amuse me. Especially when unrequited.

Hodge had given up a long time ago trying to live a better life or a different one; all he wanted was not to be afraid, and so he was afraid all the time

Let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome young fellow who's trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs.