Cassandra Clare

How can you tell? That I like books, I mean.The look on your face when you walked in, somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me.

You know that feeling,_ she said, __hen 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 tight 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.

We live and breathe words.

she was glad she had been scarred. She said that whoever loved her now would love her true self, and not her pretty face.

Once there was a boy,_ said Jace.Clary interrupted immediately. __ Shadowhunter boy?___f course._ For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. __hen the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors _ killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.__he falcon didn__ like the boy, and the boy didn__ like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn__ know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.__e stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn__ bring himself to do it _ instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. Hee fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen.__e began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like likght. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he neary shouted with delight Sometimes the bird would hope to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.__nstead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. __ told you to make it obedient,_ his father said, and dropped the falcon__ lifeless body to the ground. __nstead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.___ater, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he__ learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.

One must always be careful of books,' said Tessa, 'and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.' 'I'm not sure a book has ever changed me,' Will finished. 'Well, there is one volume that promises to teach one how to turn into an entire flock of sheep-' 'Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry,' said Tessa, determined not to let him run wildly off with the course. 'Of course, why one would want to be and fire flock of sheep is another matter entirely,' Will finished.

Haven't you ever heard of pornographic gibberish before?

He picked up the sketchbook, turning it so she could see his work - a gorgeous rendition of a stone bridge they'd passed, surrounded by the drooping boughs of oak trees."You could sketch me," said Emma. She flung herself down onto her seat, leaning her head on her hand. "Draw me like one of your french girls.

Little James Herondale, age two, was in fact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion, sending out a burst of feathers. "Ducks," he said, pointing at the feathers.

When did you get that?""The shirt? At Macy's. Winter sale.

I thought you came down right on the side of go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.

jace's clothes had been clean,stylish,ordinary. Sebastian had been wearing a long black wool trench coat that had looked expensive. Like an evil Burbeery ad, Simon said when she was done.

She smiled smugly. __e came to an agreement, the duck and I.

Simon turned to Jordan, who was lying down across the futon, his head propped against one of the woven throw pillows. "How much of that did you hear?""Enough to gather that we're going to a party tonight," said Jordan. "I heard about the Ironworks event. I'm not in the Garroway pack, so I wasn't invited.""I guess you're coming as my date now." Simon shoved the phone back into his pocket. "I'm secure enough in my masculinity to accept that," said Jordan. "We'd better get you something nice to wear, though," he called as Simon headed back into his room. "I want you to look pretty.

The door buzzer sounded again. The two boys exchanged a single look before both bolting down the narrow hallway to the door. Jordan got there first. He grabbed for the coatrack that stood by the door, ripped the coats off it, and flung the door wide, the rack held aboe his head like a javelin. On the other side of the door was Jace. He blinked. "Is that a coatrack?"Jordan slammed the coatrack down on the ground and sighed. "If you'd been a vampire, this would have been a lot more useful.""Yes," said Jace. "Or, you know, just someone with a lot of coats.

My darling, you are indisposed! You must remain abed for the next eight months. Little Buford - ""I am NOT naming our child Buford...

There is no pretending",Jace said with absolute clarity."I love you,and I will love you until I die,and if there's a life after that,I'll love you then."She caught her breath.He had said it-the words there was no going back from.

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 ...