A Mark that spoke of loss was still a Mark, a remembrance. You could not lose something you never had.

The front door shut, leaving Alec sitting in the half-lit garden, alone. He closed his eyes for a moment, the image of a face hovering behind his lids. Not Jace's face, for a change. The eyes set in the face were green, slit-pupiled. Cat eyes.

He taught me there's a place on a man's back where, if you sink a blade in, you can pierce his heart and sever his spine, all at once,' Sebastian had said. 'I guess we got the same birthday present that year, big brother,' Jace thought. 'Didn't we?

Too much of anything could destroy you, Simon thought. Too much darkness could kill, but too much light could blind.

The rich bought wonderful clothes you recognized. The richest had their pople go to Paris and buy the entire new collection that no one outside of the fashion house has seen.

There was human goodness in the world, she thought-all caught up with desires and dreams, regrets and bitterness, resentments and power, but it was there.

Clarissa," he said, "here with the vampire, I see. When things have settled a bit, we really must discuss you choice in pets.