The best lies are based on the truth, at least in part

Luke indicated Simon and Clary with a wave of his hand. 'I brought some people to see you.' Jace's eyes moved to them. They were as blanked as if the had been painted. 'Unfortunately, ' he said, 'I only had the one pencil.

Light like thin grey soup seeped through the windows. The door opened and Mrs. Dark came in, followed by her sister, who had no head, only the white bone of her spine protruding from her raggedly severed neck.

she glanced down and saw that a glove of blood covered her lower arm from the elbow to the wrist. The arm was throbbing, stiff, and painful. "Is this when you start tearing strips off your T-shirt to bind up my wound?" she joked. She hated the sight of blood, especially her own. "If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked." He dug into his pocket and brought out his stele. "It would have been a lot less painful.

He took her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to him, his fingers knotting in the fabric of her dress. Even more than in the attic, she felt caught in the eddy of a powerful wave that threatened to pull her over and under, to crush and break her, to wear her down to softness as the sea might wear down a piece of glass.

One thing you'll learn as you get older, Simon, is that when people tell you something unpleasant about themselves, it's usually true.

Not all that is mortal is useless.