The Ragpicker King (The Chronicles of Castellane, #2)

by Cassandra Clare

“Unfortunately, how to convince one’s husband to take a lover is outside my experience,”

“Indeed,” Conor says, “he has neither looks nor personality to recommend him. Is there some good quality of his I am overlooking?”

Merren would say the difference between a remedy and a poison is only in the dosage.

Conor looked woeful. “I was so lonely I considered drowning myself in this fountain, but the water is full of frogs.”

“Good morning, Linnet.” She nearly shrieked. Her grandfather was seated at her kitchen table, a thin stream of gray smoke rising from the pipe in his mouth. She narrowed her eyes at him. How had he gotten in? Surely he was too old to have begun a new career as a housebreaker.

“The Solstice Ball is troubling you, then? Don’t tell me. Your costume isn’t ready, or they’ve sent you the wrong one and you’re going to have to go as a hedgehog instead of a lion.” “I would make a noble hedgehog,” said Conor gravely.