The Midnight Heir

Do stop flirting with my husband," said Tessa. "I shall not," Magnus declared, "but I will pause briefly so that I may catch up on your news.

Hello, Uncle Brother Zachariah," James said without opening his eyes. "I would say that I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm sure this is the most excitement you've had all year. Not so lively in the City of Bones, now is it?" "James!" Will snapped. "Don't talk to Jem like that." "As if I am not used to badly behaved Herondales, Brother Zachariah said, in the way Jem had always tried to make peace between Will and the world.

How they loved each other, these three, how they had suffered for each another, and yet how much joy they clearly took from simply being in the same room.

Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpetine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, 'Ducks, embrace me as your king!

James had given his heart to this girl, Magnus thought, and Magnus knew well enough from Edmund and Will what it meant when a Herondale gave his heart away. It was not a gift that could be returned.

Oh, I'll trust you," the boy told him carelessly. "It hardly matters. We are all betrayed sooner or later—all betrayed, or traitors." "I see that a flair for the dramatic runs in the blood," Magnus said under his breath.

A Shadowhunter I believe you know send for me—Tatiana Blackthorn? The lady used to be a Lightwood, did she not?" Magnus turned to Will. "And your sister Cecily married her brother. Gilbert. Gaston. I have a shocking memory for Lightwoods." "I begged Cecily not to throw herself away on a Lightworm," Will muttered.

A great sadness welled up in Magnus at the sight of him. It was human to age and die, and Jem stood outside that humanity now, outside the light that burned so brightly and so briefly. It was cold outside that light and fire. No one had greater cause to know that cold than Magnus did.

I decided it was well past time to take him home and place him in bosom of his family. If you had rather I put him in an orphanage, I fully understand.

Let me say to you what I said once, in an entirely different context to Catherine the Great," Magnus declared. "My dear lady, you cannot afford me,and also, please leave that horse alone. Good night.

Being remembered, and remembered so kindly, touched him more than he would have thought possible.

[Will Herondale] would say he knew a warlock who was a better friend, and more worth trusting, than many a nephilim warrior.

The boy's eyes went to him, and a shock passed through Magnus. They were not Will's eyes, the eyes Magnus remembered being as blue as a night sky in Hell, eyes Magnus has seen both despairing and tender. This boy has shining golden eyes, like crystal glass filled brimful with crisp white wine and held up to catch the light of a blazing sun. If his skin was luminous, his eyes were radiant. Magnus could not imagine these eyes as tender. The boy was very, very lovely, but his was a beauty like that of Helen of Troy might have had once, disaster written in every line. The light of his beauty made Magnus think of cities burning.

As Magnus turned to walk away from the church, he heard the sound of violin music carried to him on the cloudy London air, and remembered another night, a night of ghosts and snow and Christmas music, and Will standing on the steps of the Institute, watching Magnus as he went.

I will add that I do not believe his admiration of my person, dazzling through I am, to be sincere. He told me I was a beautiful, sparkling lady.

Magnus did not take such suffering lightly, but even mortals did not die of broken hearts. No matter how cruel Grace had been, he told himself, James would heal. Even though he was a Herondale.

Magnus began to be truly alarmed. Will's voice would have shaken, betraying that his cruelty had been part of his playacting, but his son's laugh was that of someone genuinely delighted by the chaos erupting all around him

If you do not intend to help us," she said, "then leave this house. Dawn is coming." "I am not a vampire." Magnus said. "I shall not disappear with the light" "You will if I kill you before the sun comes up.

...there was no spell to cure a broken heart that did not also destroy that heart's capacity for love forever.

The boy was standing alone as though the broken glass all around him were a shining sea and he were an island.

Coaxing drunken Shadowhunters into making fools of themselves was a favorite occupation among the Downworlders, and this performance had been a tremendous success.

Magnus shrugged. "He also made inappropriate amorous advances to a startled grandmotherly sort selling flowers, an Irish wolfhound, and innocent hat stand in a dwelling he broke into, and myself.

Well, let me see. He stole a bicycle and rode it, not using his hands at any point, through Trafalgar Square. He attempted to climb Nelson’s Column and fight with Nelson. Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpentine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, ‘Ducks, embrace me as your king!’

She seemed shy, yet all her attention was focused on Magnus, as if he were the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. There was no man who did not want to see himself reflected like that in a beautiful girl's eyes.

She seemed like a creature made to attract everyone and express nothing real, though it would take a master observer, like Magnus, to know it.

It was, of course, odd for a lady to be opening her own door, but from the look of the place, Magnus assumed the entire staff of servants had been given the decade off.

[Magnus] reminded himself of his manners, and bowed. "Charmed," he said. "Or whatever effect would please you best, I'm sure.

Magic or nature, they were much the same thing to Magnus.

Tatiana's eyes were huge and poison-green, eyes with enough pain in them to eat away at a world and devour a soul.

Ladies who were no better than they should be, whose dresses were too tight, too bright and too all the things Magnus liked most, lounged on velvet-covered benches along the walls.