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June 7 - June 7, 2024
When you find a man you wish to marry, Tessa, remember this: You will know what kind of man he is not by the things he says, but by the things he does.
“There’s plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.”
“They ate it too,” Will reminisced. “Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,’” Will quoted. “‘It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’” “Sydney Carton? But you said you hated A Tale of Two Cities!” “I don’t really.” Will seemed unabashed by his lie. “And Sydney Carton was a dissipated alcoholic.”
He looked at her curiously. He did something that surprised her then, and took her hand, turning it over. She looked down at it, at her bitten fingernails, the still-healing scratches along the backs of her fingers. He kissed the back of it, just a light touch of his mouth, and his hair—as soft and light as silk—brushed her wrist as he lowered his head. She felt a shock go through her, strong enough to startle her, and she stood speechless as he straightened, his mouth curving into a smile. “Mizpah,” he said.
There was no chance for Tessa to say anything in response, for he had turned and run down the steps to join Will, who was as motionless as a statue, his face upturned, at the foot of the steps. His hands, sheathed in black gloves, were in fists at his sides, Tessa thought. But perhaps it was a trick of the light, for when Jem reached him and touched him on the shoulder, he turned with a laugh, and without another look at Tessa, he swung himself up into the driver’s seat, Jem following him.
She looked over at Tessa as she came in, and something about the way she looked, for a moment, reminded Tessa of the way Will had looked at her in the courtyard. But that was ridiculous; there were no two people in the world more unalike than Sophie and Will.
“De Quincey, the Magister!” she cried. “That poncing, preening vampire! Oh, what a joke! You fools, you stupid little fools!”
Thomas spoke as if it were a fact obvious to anyone that Will would have come back for Tessa’s sake.
“Good cat, Church.”
“He,” Jem corrected with mock severity, “was not a familiar but a poor creature she planned to sacrifice as part of her necromantic spell casting. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was now immortal considering all the magic practiced on him. If nothing else, he ought to live a very long time. And Charlotte’s been saying that we ought to keep him because it’s good luck to have a cat in a church. So we started calling him “the church cat,” and from that . . .” He shrugged. “Church. And if the name helps keep him out of trouble, so much the better.”
needle in a tower full of other needles.” “Plunge your hand into a tower of needles,” said Magnus, “and you are likely to cut yourself badly. Are you really sure this is what you want?”
“I cannot burden him with that knowledge! He would keep it secret if I asked him to, but it would pain him to know it—and the pain I cause others would only hurt him more. Yet if I were to tell Charlotte, to tell Henry and the rest, that my behavior is a sham—that every cruel thing I have said to them is a lie, that I wander the streets only to give the impression that I have been out drinking and whoring when in reality I have no desire to do either—then I have ceased to push them away.” “And thus you have never told anyone of this curse? No one but myself, since you were twelve years old?”
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“And then they would die,” said Magnus.
“As if we’d know what to do with Will if he didn’t have the morbs every day,” said Jessamine. “Anyway, he can’t have cared about his family that much in the first place or he wouldn’t have left them.”
“‘Up and dusted,’” said Jem. “I like that. Makes it sound like he left a cloud of dust spinning in his wake. He didn’t say anything, no—just elbowed his way through the crowd and was gone. Nearly knocked down Cyril coming to get us.”
She had grown so used to Jem’s presence, the ease with which she could converse with him, the comfort of his hand on her arm when they walked, the fact that he was the only person in the world now she felt she could say absolutely anything to.
Magnus waved a hand. “All Lightwoods look the same to me—”
Henry, who was wearing two pairs of goggles at the same time—one on his head and one over his eyes—looked both pleased and nervous to be asked. (Magnus presumed the two pairs of goggles was a fit of absentmindedness, but in case it was in pursuit of fashion, he decided not to ask.)
If necessary, I shall swear by the Mortal Sword that all this is true. Yours in Raziel’s name, Gabriel Lightwood
FUCK YOU
“Yes, that was horrible,” Tessa said. “But it does not excuse the things you’ve done.”
“Yes, they are,” he said. “They are. The blood of a Shadowhunter, the runes on the body of a Shadowhunter, are death to a warlock child in the womb. But your mother was not Marked.”
You are immortal, girl, but you are not invulnerable. You can be killed. The angel is tuned to your life; it is designed to save you if you are dying. It may have saved you a hundred times before you were ever born, and it’s saved you since. Think of the times you have been close to death. Think of the way it intervened.”
“So is death,” said Tessa. “I am not human, and you let the Dark Sisters torture me. I could never forgive you for that. Even if you convinced me my brother’s death was his fault, that Thomas’s death was justified, that your hatred was reasonable, I could never forgive you for that.”
“You—you want to use me to breed your children?”
“If that was not my father, if I did not end my father’s life, then where is he?” Gabriel whispered “Where is my father?” and felt Charlotte reach up to draw him down, to embrace him as a mother would, holding him as he choked dryly against her shoulder, tasting tears in his throat but unable to shed them. “Where is my father?” he said again, and when she tightened her hold on him, he felt the iron in her grip, the strength of her holding him up, and wondered how he had ever thought this small woman was weak.
You must regret that letter now huh? That the woman you betrayed conforts you as if you were her own.
Gabriel took a long, gasping breath. “No,” he said, and reached into his sleeve. He drew out a folded paper and threw it down onto the table. Cecily stared at it. It was smudged with fingerprints and soft at the edges, as if it had been folded and unfolded many times. “I could not do it. I did not tell him anything at all.” Cecily let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Sorry dude clearly I misjudged you haha no hard feelings
My name, said the angel, was Ithuriel.
“After all,” she said, “you weren’t lying about that tattoo of the dragon of Wales, were you?”
All the air rushed out of Tessa’s lungs in a single instant. The Silent Brother was Jem.
“You would make a very ugly woman.” “I would not. I would be stunning.” Tessa laughed. “There,” she said. “There is Will. Isn’t that better? Don’t you think so?”
“I am here because in life I did not wish to be a Shadowhunter, to guard the Nephilim. I am charged now with the guard of the Institute, for as long as it needs guarding.”
Tessa touched his wrist lightly with her hand. “Be brave,” she said. “It’s not a duck, is it?”
