Achilles was murdered with a poisoned arrow, and Jason died alone, killed by his own rotting ship. Such is the fate of heroes.

She had fallen asleep with her head on his arm, the clockwork angel, still around her throat, resting against his shoulder just to the left of his collarbone. As she moved away, the clockwork angel slipped free and she saw to her surprise that where it had lain against his skin it had left a mark behind, no bigger than a shilling, in the shape of a pale white star.

They say you cannot love two people equally at once,” she said. “And perhaps for others that is so. But you and Will—you are not like two ordinary people, two people who might have been jealous of each other, or who would have imagined my love for one of them diminished by my love of the other. You merged your souls when you were both children. I could not have loved Will so much if I had not loved you as well. And I could not love you as I do if I had not loved Will as I did.

Memories did one no good, not when one knew the truth in the present

There's nothing wild about me. I'm a solid middle-aged man." "Except that once a month you turn into a wolf and go tearing around slaughtering things," Clary said. "It could be worse," Luke said. "Men my age have been known to purchase expensive sports cars and sleep with supermodels.

That was what humans did: They left on another messages through time, pressed between pages or carved into rock. Like reaching out a hand through time, and trusting in a phantom hoped-for hand to catch yours. Humans did not last forever. They could only hope what they made would endure.

There is more to life than surviving.