I like that stick of yours," he said. "It's a staff." Jem swung out to knock another automaton sideways. "Made by the Iron Sisters, only for Silent Brothers." [...] "Anyone can sharpen a stick." "It's a staff," Jem repeated, and saw Will's quicksilver smile out of the corner of his eye.

She supposed they were imperfections, those marks, but they didn't feel that way to her; they were a history, cut into his body: the map of a life of endless war.

As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss.

No one can live with nothing.

I suppose you've always been amazing at this stuff?" "I was born amazing" Jace stroked her cheek with the tips of his fingertips, lightly but enough to make her shiver.

What is this?” he went on now, spearing an unfortunate object on a fork and raising it to eye level. “This… this… thing?” “A parsnip?” Jem suggested. “A parsnip planted in Satan’s own garden.” said Will. He glanced about. “I don’t suppose there’s a dog I could feed it to.” “There don’t seem to be any pets about,” Jem—who loved all animals, even the inglorious and ill-tempered Church—observed. “Probably all poisoned by parsnips,” said Will.

Tessa looked quickly to Will, but he only crossed the room as he always did to lean against the fireplace mantel. Cecily had never been able to decide if he did this because he was perpetually cold or because he thought he looked dasing standing before the leaping flames.