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Two flights of creaking steps led to a wooden door on which a line had been carved years ago: It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. S.J.
She supposed it was not the most romantic thing in the world to say that every time she saw James Herondale she felt as if she’d been attacked by a waterfowl, but it was true.
“That’s quite enough,” said Lucie, reaching over to smack James on the shoulder with a gloved hand. “Daisy is my friend, and you’re monopolizing her. Do go off somewhere else.”
“I will walk ten paces behind you like a train-bearer,” said James. “But I must keep you within sight, otherwise Mother will kill me, and then I will miss tomorrow’s ball and Matthew will kill me, and I will be dead twice.”
wasn’t that what power was, the ability to risk angering people? What was the point of being a female Consul if you still had to fret about keeping people happy?
I heard a bit of their conversation this morning by accident, though—” “Accident?” Cordelia raised an eyebrow. “I may have been hiding beneath a table,” said Lucie, with dignity. “But it was only because I had lost an earring and was looking for it.” Cordelia suppressed a smile. “Go on.”
“He meant you,” Lucie breathed. “Oh, how lovely! Imagine if you got married! We could be sisters in truth!” “Lucie!” Cordelia dropped her voice to a whisper. “We’ve no proof he meant me.”
Matthew was all gold hair and smiles, but she suspected there might be a lion under the kitty cat if hurting James was involved.
But she would never hurt James. She loved him. She had loved him all her life.
“Piffle,” said Matthew. “None of the girls care about your clothes anyhow. They’re all too busy gazing into your great big golden eyes.” He widened his eyes at James until he looked as if he were going mad. Then he crossed them.
James just frowned. His eyes were large, black-fringed, and the color of pale gold tea, but he’d been tormented too many times at school about his unusual eyes to find any pleasure in their uniqueness. Matthew held out his hands. “Pax,” he said wheedlingly. “Let it be peace between us. You can pour the rest of the port on my head.” James’s mouth curved up into a smile. It was impossible to stay angry with Matthew. It was almost impossible to get angry at Matthew. “Come with me to the ballroom and make up the numbers and we can call it peace.”
“Drink, and you will sleep; sleep, and you will not sin; do not sin, and you will be saved; therefore, drink and be saved.”
“Matthew, you could sin in your sleep,” said a languorous voice.
“You must be careful of him, Miss Carstairs. He has a reputation.”
big reputation big reputation
“Though I don’t think it suits me. Daisy sounds like a pretty little girl in hair ribbons.” “Well,” he said. “You are at least one of those things.” And he smiled. It was a sweet smile, the kind she was used to from James, but there was an edge to it, a hint of something more—did he mean she was pretty, or a little girl? Or did he just mean she was a girl? What did he mean? Goodness, flirting was vexing, Cordelia thought. Wait, was James Herondale flirting with her?
“Oh, we do,” said Will. “We’re always speaking very sternly to our children about that very thing. ‘If you don’t throw yourself into situations headlong, James and Lucie, you can expect bread and water for supper again.’ ”
He was glad Cordelia was in London, he realized. Not just for Lucie, but for himself. It was odd, he thought—almost as if he had forgotten what a steady light her presence could be when the world went dark.
daylight - taylor swift
Matthew and Anna were especially close: they enjoyed many of the same things, like fashionable clothes, disreputable salons, shocking art, and scandalous plays.
Matthew was like food, sleep, breathing; doing without him would not be possible.
gay
Stories offer a thousand fresh starts.”
“The only equivalent in real life is memory,” Tessa said, looking up as Will Herondale came into the room, followed by Cousin Jem. “But memories can be bitter as well as sweet.”
“I’ve seen you use your stele to part your hair,” said James dryly, as he began to examine the window locks. “The Angel gave me this hair,” replied Matthew. “It’s one of the Shadowhunters’ gifts. Like the Mortal Sword.” “Now that is blasphemy,” said Thomas.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever, Thomas,” said Matthew. “James, why are we locking all the windows? Are we afraid of overcurious pigeons?”
He opened his eyes and yelled. A pair of eyes was staring directly into his, so close that he could make out the details inside the green irises, the faint splotches of brown and black. “Matthew!”
The truth was that when he thought of Cordelia marrying someone else, it felt like being kicked in the heart. With a start, he realized that in his vague imaginings of the future Cordelia had always been there, a steady, welcome presence, a warm light in the dark of the unknown.
“Do you think she’s in love with James?” said Thomas. “Because he seems gone on her. I hope it’s not unrequited.” “She had better love him back,” said Matthew. “He deserves it.”
Were you not one, after you became parabatai with Uncle Jem?” “A better Shadowhunter and a better man,” said Will. “All the best of me, I learned from Jem and your mother. All I want for you and Cordelia is to have what I had, a friendship that shall shape all your days. And never to be parted.”
“Never mind. I think too much and I drink too much. That is always my problem.”
who touches the fire because it is lovely, and forgets that it will burn him.
For these days it had been as though nobody else existed in the entire world.
He had a perfectly lethal dimple that flashed when he smiled. Such things should be illegal.
“Ah, Magnus Bane,” said Matthew. “My personal hero.” “Indeed, you once described him as ‘Oscar Wilde if he had magic powers,’ ” said James.
“I must go,” Charles said. “But do not forget, Alastair, that whatever I do, it is with the thought of you ever in my mind.”
There is very little brightness and warmth in the world for me. There are only four flames, in the whole world, that burn fiercely enough for me to feel something like the person I was. Your mother, your father, Lucie, and you. You love, and tremble, and burn. Do not let those who cannot see the truth tell you who you are. You are the flame that cannot be put out. You are the star that cannot be lost. You are who you have always been, and that is enough and more than enough. Anyone who looks at you and sees darkness is blind.
“Then we go up the side of the building.” “I was afraid of this,” Matthew muttered as they followed James into a narrow, rubbish-choked alley. “My boots are new.”
“By the Angel, that sounds awful. I hope it’s all right for me to stay here tonight.” Tessa smiled. “We already made up one of the spare rooms for you.”
“You are a very attractive ghost,” said Matthew, tapping his ringed fingers against his chest. “I do hope Lucie and James have mentioned as much.” “They have not,” Jessamine noted. “Very remiss,” said Matthew, his eyes sparkling.
but there was something about the comfort of your parabatai—no one else could give it to you, not mother or sister or father or lover. It was a transcendence of all that.
People were wont to dismiss Matthew—because of his clothes, because of his jokes, because of the way he took nothing seriously. They assumed he was liable to break, to give way when things became difficult. But he wasn’t. He was holding James up now, as he always had—and making it look easy, as he always had.
He’d walked in on Matthew in compromising positions before with girls and boys, but he’d never thought Matthew’s heart was engaged with any of them.
“It comes when it comes, and we try to remember, even though we cannot imagine a day when it will release its hold on us, that all pain fades. All misery passes. Humanity is drawn to light, not darkness.”
of detachment was still there. As if nothing he did now mattered. “Tell me, Matthew,” he said. “Tell me the name of the shadow that is always hanging over you. I can become a shadow. I could fight it for you.” Matthew squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain. “Oh, Jamie,” he sighed. “What if I said there is no shadow?” “I would not believe you,” said James. “I know what I feel in my own heart.”
“Put that away,” he said. “I don’t fancy being stabbed; I am far too young and beautiful to die.”
“Anyone could see that. And none of you is so simple. Thomas is more than just kind, and Christopher more than beakers and test tubes, Matthew more than wit and waistcoats. Each of you follows his own star—but
but you are the thread that binds all four together. You are the one who sees what everyone needs, if anyone requires extra care from their friends, or even to be left alone. Some groups of friends drift apart, but you would never let that happen.”
“I had no idea your mother liked me so much,” said James. “I should come round more often when I am in need of feeling appreciated.” Cordelia made an exasperated sound. “I fear my mother might be equally enthused over any eligible bachelor who pretended an interest in tea. That is why I told you to find me one, remember?” She had made her voice light and joking, but the smile left James’s face anyway. “Right,” he said. “When all this business is over…” “Yes, yes,” Cordelia said, starting back up the stairs. “I really do like tea!” James shouted from the bottom of the steps. “In fact, I love
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“Cordelia,” said Matthew. He looked slightly stunned, as if he’d walked into a wall. “You look different.” “Different?” Anna scoffed. “She looks stunning.” James hadn’t moved. He was looking at Cordelia, and his eyes had darkened, from the color of a tiger’s eyes to something richer and deeper. Something like the gold of Cortana when it flashed in the air. He exhaled and let her go, stepping back. Cordelia could feel her heart beating in her throat, a sharp pulse, as if she had drunk too much of her mother’s strong tea. “We had better go in,” James said, and Cordelia saw Anna smile sideways, a
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It was beautiful—she was beautiful, but it was not a distant beauty. It was a beauty that lived and breathed and reached out with its hands to crush James’s chest and make him breathless.
he, too, was staring at Cordelia like a lovesick sheep. James had an overwhelming urge to kick him.
Beauty could tear at your heart like teeth, she thought, but she did not love James because he was beautiful: he was beautiful to her because she loved him.
