Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices Book 3)

by Cassandra Clare

“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 do.”

“Sometimes one must choose whether to be kind or honorable,” he said. “Sometimes one cannot be both.”

“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.” His

“The habits of years are not unlearned so quickly,” Tessa said, and her eyes were sad. “Do not make the mistake of believing that he does not love you because he plays at not caring, Cecily. Confront him if you must and demand the truth, but do not make the mistake of turning away because you believe that he is a lost cause. Do not cast him from your heart. For if you do, you will regret it.”

“I am not going to live, and I can choose to be as much for her as I can be, to burn as brightly for her as I wish, and for a shorter time, than to burden her with someone only half-alive for a longer time. It is my choice, William, and you cannot make it for me.”

You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.

The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away.”

“Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.”

“Will, I have already been up all night copying down the relevant parts. Much of it was—” “Gibberish?” Jem suggested. “Pornographic?” said Will at the same time. “Could be both,” said Will. “Haven’t you ever heard of pornographic gibberish before?”

We fail to see why one small woman needs so many hats. She is unlikely to be concealing additional heads upon her person.

“When I played, you saw what I saw. You understand my music.”

“What happened to them?” Tessa whispered. “The woodcutter and the musician?” Jem’s smile was sad. “Zhong Ziqi died, and Yu Boya played his last song over his friend’s grave. Then he broke his qin and never played again.”

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.” He

“I want to be married to you. I would wait for you forever,

“Herondales. As stubborn as rocks.

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. —Sarah Williams, “The Old Astronomer”

I always loved you, Will, whatever you did. 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.”

“Well, then,” he said, through a tight throat, “since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one.”

“Tessa,” Jem said. “She knows despair, and hope as well. You can teach each other. Find her, Will, and tell her that I loved her always. My blessing, for all that it is worth, is on you both.”

I fell asleep in the Rabies and Lycanthropy section. Woolsey bites on occasion, and I’m concerned.”

“There must always be a first,” said Jem. “It is not easy to be first, and it is not always rewarding, but it is important.”

“I lived for you,” he said. “And I lived for Will, and then I lived for Tessa—and for myself, because I wanted to be with her. But I cannot live for other people forever. No one can say that death found in me a willing comrade, or that I went easily. If you say you need me, I will stay as long as I can for you. I will live for you and yours, and go down fighting death until I am worn away to bone and splinters. But it would not be my choice.”

“You chose to come here. I was driven out of my home—chased here by the monster that was once my father.” “Well,” Cecily said kindly, “not chased all the way here. Only as far as Chiswick, I thought.”

“I am Will Herondale’s sister. You can’t expect me to be serious all the time.”

For five years it had been his absolute truth. Jem and Will. Will and Jem. Will Herondale lives, therefore Jem Carstairs lives also. Quod erat demonstrandum. To lose an arm or a leg would be painful, he imagined, but to lose the central truth of your life felt—fatal.

“And it came to pass . . . that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. . . . Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.” They were two warriors, and their souls were knit together by Heaven, and out of that Jonathan Shadowhunter took the idea of parabatai, and encoded the ceremony into the Law.

He was glad the parabatai rune had not simply vanished off his skin. A Mark that spoke of loss was still a Mark, a remembrance. You could not lose something you had never had.

Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee—for whither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried. The Angel do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.

“I 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.”

Will’s madness had always been like Hamlet’s, half play and half wildness, and all driving toward a certain end.

“Not my blood,” he said. “I was in a fight, earlier. He took objection . . .” “Took objection to what?” “To my cutting off all his fingers and then slitting his throat,”

“I have done wrong,” said Aloysius. “I want to make this right. My blood runs in that girl’s veins, even if demon blood does as well. She is my great-granddaughter.” He raised his chin, his watery, pale eyes rimmed with red. “I ask only one thing of you, Charlotte. When you find Tessa Gray, and you will find her, tell her she is welcome to the name of Starkweather.”

“I can find another maid; I cannot find another Sophie.

“It’s all very romantic,” Gabriel said, and then frowned. “Or it would be, if my brother could get a word out without sounding like a choking frog. I fear he will not go down in history as one of the world’s great wooers of women.”

“You haven’t proposed,” Sophie said with equanimity. “You did announce to the whole breakfast table that you intended to marry me, but that is not a proposal. That is only a declaration. A proposal is when you ask me.”

“My dear Miss Collins,” he said. “Please forgive me for my untoward outburst. It is simply that I have such—such strong esteem—no, not esteem, adoration—for you that I feel as if it must blaze from me every moment of the day. Ever since I came to this house, I have been struck more forcibly each day by your beauty, your courage, and your nobility. It is an honor I could never deserve but most earnestly aspire to if you could only be mine—that is, if you would consent to be my wife.” “Gracious,” Sophie said, startled out of all countenance. “Have you been practicing that?” Gideon blinked. “I assure you it was entirely extemporaneous.” “Well, it was lovely.” Sophie squeezed his hands. “And yes. Yes, I love you, and yes, I will marry you, Gideon.”

“Please forgive me, my dear Mr. Lightwood—I mean Gideon—but I must go and murder the cook. I shall be directly back.”

With a seraph blade in my hand, I am more than just Cecily Herondale, youngest of three, daughter of good parents, someday to make an advantageous marriage and give the world children. I am Cecily Herondale, Shadowhunter, and mine is a high and glorious position.

“You are a wonder, Tessa Gray. To have such faith in me, though I have done nothing to earn it.”

“The first time I saw you, I thought you looked like a hero from a storybook. You joked that you were Sir Galahad. Remember that? And for so long I tried to understand you that way—as if you were Mr. Darcy, or Lancelot, or poor miserable Sydney Carton—and that was just a disaster. It took me so long to understand, but I did, and I do now—you are not a hero out of a book.” Will gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “It’s true,” he said. “I am no hero.” “No,” Tessa said. “You are a person, just like me.” His eyes searched her face, mystified; she held his hand tighter, lacing her fingers with his. “Don’t you see, Will? You’re a person like me. You are like me. You say the things I think but never say out loud. You read the books I read. You love the poetry I love. You make me laugh with your ridiculous songs and the way you see the truth of everything. I feel like you can look inside me and see all the places I am odd or unusual and fit your heart around them, for you are odd and unusual in just the same way.” With the hand that was not holding his, she touched his cheek, lightly. “We are the same.”

“You said I am a good man,” he said. “But I am not that good a man. And I am—I am catastrophically in love with you.”

“I loved Jem,” she said. “I love him still, and he loved me, but I am not anybody’s, Will. My heart is my own. It is beyond you to control it. It has been beyond me to control it.”

“There are so many worse things than death,” he said. “Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.

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

“Dw i’n dy garu di am byth,” he said. “I love you. Always.”

“We’ve called it a Portal,” said Henry. The capitalization of the word was very clear in his tone.

We have come to fight with you. “To fight with us?” Gideon looked amazed. “But Silent Brothers don’t— I mean, they aren’t warriors—” That is incorrect. Shadowhunters we were and Shadowhunters we remain, even when changed to become Brothers. We were founded by Jonathan Shadowhunter himself, and though we live by the book, we may yet die by the sword if we so choose.