Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2)

by Cassandra Clare

“I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope that you will not care that I am being selfish in trying to make the rest of my life—whatever its length—happy, by spending it with you. I want to be married to you, Tessa. I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life.” He looked up at her through the veil of silvery hair that fell over his eyes. “That is,” he said shyly, “if you love me, too.”

The way he looked at her, with those blue eyes like pieces of sky, as if trying to communicate something to her silently. But what on earth . . .?

He did not terrify her, as Mortmain had, but rather disgusted her, the way the sight of a fat worm wriggling across a garden might.

LMAO I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU

Will looked as if she had slapped him. “I didn’t save your life so you’d be grateful!” “Then, what?” Her voice rose. “You did it because it’s your mandate? Because the Law says—” “I did it because I love you!” he half-shouted, and then, as if registering the shocked look on her face, he said in a more subdued voice, “I love you, Tessa, and I have loved you, almost since the moment I met you.”

You and I, Tess, we’re alike. We live and breathe words. It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved by anyone again. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt—I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamed. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted—and then I realized that truly I just wanted you. The girl behind the scrawled letters. I loved you from the moment I read them. I love you still.”

“It’s too late,” she said. “Don’t say that.” His voice was half a whisper. “I love you, Tessa. I love you.” She shook her head. “Will . . . stop.”

“Jem has proposed to me,” she blurted out. “And I have said yes.” “What?” “I said that Jem proposed to me,” she whispered. “He asked if I would marry him. And I said I would.” Will had gone shockingly white. He said, “Jem. My Jem?”

She felt as if she were watching the life bleed out of Will Herondale, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“You’re only seventeen. Plenty of time to find a cure,” she whispered. “And we will. Find one. I will be with you. Forever.”