Maureen clapped her hands together. "Oh," she said in her elfin little voice. "It's pretty." "Pretty?" Simon looked quickly at the hunched shape on top of the concrete block. "Maureen, what the hell-

What?” Simon looked alarmed. ”I‘m not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get your attention. Not that your mom isn’t a very attractive woman for her age.

And what about us? Do you want a vampire boyfriend?" He laughed bitterly. "Because I forsee many romantic picnics in our future. You, drinking a virgin piña colada. Me, drinking the blood of a virgin.

One of the things he'd always loved about Clary was how easily caught up in her imagination she was, how easily she could wall herself away in illusory worlds of curses and princes and destiny and magic.

With a sigh she reached into her pocket and drew out a small velvet bag, which upended on the table. Two gold rings fell out, landing with a soft clink. Simon looked at them puzzled. "You want to get married?

I'm not sure you're quite sensible of the honor I'm doing you," Jace said. "you'll be the first mundane who has ever been inside the Institute." "Probably the smell keeps the rest of them away.

For the first time, he looked at her, and she wasn’t a stranger, she was Clary—his friend. His family. The girl he’d sworn always to protect. The girl he loved as fiercely as he loved himself.

Say it," she said. "Say it sober.""I love you," he said."I don't want you to say it back unless you mean it, but I love you."She leaned back over him, and pressed the pads of her fingertips against his."I mean it.

Hey," said Jace. who was sitting on an overturned speaker, looking at his cellphone, "do you want to see a photo of Alec and Magnus in Berlin?""Not really," said Simon. "Magnus is wearing lederhosen.""And yet, still no.

She made an impatient noise. "By the Angel, you don't know anything about your kid, do you? Do you even really know how vampires are made?""Well, when a mommy vampire and a daddy vampire love each other very much ...

Simon bristled. She wasn’t his Isabelle, not anymore. He wondered if she ever truly had been. Isabelle didn’t seem like the type of girl to belong to someone. It was one of the things he liked best about her.

Everybody in this academy, Shadowhunters and mundanes, people with the Sight and without it, every one of them is looking to be a hero. We are all hoping for it, and trying for it, and soon we will all be bleeding for it.

Magnus snapped his fingers again, menacingly. "Get up.""Or you'll be the next one to go up in smoke," said Simon with relish."There's no need to clarify my finger snap. The implication was clear in the snap itself.

I have a dress fitting to get to at three.' (Simon)'Cool,' said Kyle, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder and heading for the door. 'Get them to make you something in red. It's totally your color.

So you're trying to make her happy despite the fact that the reason she's unhappy in the first place is you," said Simon, not very kindly. "That seems contradictory, doesn't it?""Love is a contradiction," said Jace.