Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)

by Cassandra Clare

How is this? I shall write a letter and give it to you if you promise to deliver it home yourself—and not to return.”

Jem grinned. “‘Demon pox,’” he said.

“Father …,” Gabriel began. “Father is a worm.” Will gave a short laugh.

Will hardly ever looked at her unless he had to.

“You screamed,” Will said. “Is that all you did?”

“A forty-foot worm?” Will muttered to Jem as they moved through the Italian garden, their boots—thanks to a pair of Soundless runes—making no noise on the gravel. “Think of the size of the fish we could catch.”

“There was a time when my inappropriate humor brought you a certain amusement,” sighed Will. “How the worm has turned.”

“By the Angel, it just crushed Sophocles,” noted Will as the worm vanished behind a large structure shaped like a Greek temple. “Has no one respect for the classics these days?”

“That sometimes when you cannot decide what to do, you pretend you are a character in a book, because it is easier to decide what they would

“You know that feeling,” she said, “when you are reading a book, and you know that it is going to be a tragedy; you can feel the cold and darkness coming, see the net drawing close around the characters who live and breathe on the pages. But you are tied to the story as if being dragged behind a carriage, and you cannot let go or turn the course aside.”

“You fear for Jem,” Will said. “Yes,” she said. “And I fear for you, too.” “No,” Will said hoarsely. “Don’t waste that on me, Tess.”

“Everyone’s been fussing over me and I can’t abide it; I wanted you because—because you wouldn’t. You make me laugh.”

“My conscience,” Will whispered. “You are my conscience. You have ever been, James Carstairs.

“And determined. You will not leave me. Not while I live.”

“Oh?” Will said. “And what do you want that you cannot have?” “For you to come home.”

“Nicely done, brother,” said Gabriel from the bed, blinking sleepy green eyes at Gideon. Gideon threw a scone at him.

“The next time one of our esteemed members turns into a worm and eats another esteemed member, we will inform you immediately.”

“Could be both,” said Will. “Haven’t you ever heard of pornographic gibberish before?”

“Not you. Gabriel Lightworm over here.”

“I would rather insult you than lose you,”

“No. Not your hands. You need your hands for the violin. What do I need mine for?”

“When did we change places?”

Will is going to die isnt he?

“Tessa, did you imagine that there exists any quarrel, large or small, that could make me stop loving you?”

could have given you … jewelry, but I wanted it to be something that was wholly yours. That no one else would hear or own. And I am not good with words, so I wrote how I felt about you in music.”

Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us. And there is a beauty that brevity alone provides.”

would give you more in two weeks than most men would give you in a lifetime.”

“To marry a girl just to make her a widow,” said Gabriel Lightwood. “Many would say that was not a kindness.”

Girl- That's not...

And yet when you walk that aisle to meet him and join yourselves forever you will walk an invisible path of the shards of my heart, Tessa. I would give over my own life for either of yours. I would give over my own life for your happiness.

I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that.

He has taken her exactly where you fled from. He has taken her to our home.”

“One girl, who is not Nephilim, is not, cannot, be our priority!” “She is my priority!” Will shouted.

I swore to stay with you. ‘If aught but death part thee and me—’” “Death will part us.”

And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done with beating.”

“If there is a life after this one,” he said, “let me meet you in it, James Carstairs.”

“You carry with you one of my few regrets.” Charlotte looked at him, puzzled. “I would have liked to see the baby.”

I know I gave Will my permission, but I want everyone to cease looking now, Charlotte. It is over.”

“He wishes us to cease searching for a cure. He has had the last of the yin fen; there is no more, and it is a matter of hours now. I have summoned the Silent Brothers. It is time to say good-bye.”

“Might I say that’s quite a fine necklace you’re wearing, old woman?”

Fucking dumbass

told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me,” Will said, his bloody hand on the hilt of the dagger. “And you are still with me. When I breathe, I will think of you, for without you I would have been dead years ago. When I wake up and when I sleep, when I lift up my hands to defend myself or when I lie down to die, you will be with me.

You say we are born and born again. I say there is a river that divides the dead and the living. What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, and if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so that we can cross together.”

“You hear that, James Carstairs? We are bound, you and I, over the divide of death, down through whatever generations may come. Forever.”

I am Cecily Herondale, Shadowhunter, and mine is a high and glorious position.

“Will,” she said. “The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like a hero from a storybook.

And I am—I am catastrophically in love with you.”

“For this I would have been damned forever. For this I would have given up everything.”

Brother Zachariah.”

JEMMMMMMM

“Everyone will be here quite soon to rescue you, and you may prefer to have clothes on when they arrive.”

“I love you. God, I love you. I waited so long to say it.”

“After all,” she said, “you weren’t lying about that tattoo of the dragon of Wales, were you?”

Tessa guessed from the whiteness of his face and the stillness of his body that it was too late to shield Henry from anything.

No fucking way...