What do you want?" "Just coffee. Black - like my soul.

Her throat ached: adoration, heartbreak, in equal measure. “Kiss me,” she said. “Please.

Do you want to go back to Vienna?” he said. Alec didn’t answer, just stared into space. “Or we could go somewhere else,” said Magnus. “Anywhere you want. Thailand, South Carolina, Brazil, Peru – Oh, wait, no, I’m banned from Peru. I’d forgotten about that. It’s a long story, but amusing if you want to hear it.

It was, of course, odd for a lady to be opening her own door, but from the look of the place, Magnus assumed the entire staff of servants had been given the decade off.

I tell so many lies, sweetheart," he said. "which one specifically?

A parabatai. Like he was. And Jace knew, too, what that faded rune meant: a parabatai whose other half was dead. He felt his sympathy leap toward Brother Zachariah, as he imagined himself without Alec, with only that faded rune to remind him where once he had been bonded to someone who knew all the best and worst parts of his soul.

She had loved him for such a long time, she thought. How was it that she did now know him at all?