Chain of Gold

I am a Herondale. We love but once.

Matthew did not answer. He was still looking at the dance floor—though not just the crowd of dancers themselves, but rather a specific couple. Cordelia Carstairs and James Herondale.

It was only in stories that heroes were rewarded; in real life, acts of heroism went unrewarded, or were punished, and the world turned on as it always had.

And yet, was not knowing what it was like to taste it not also a form of torment?

Matthew spoke in a low voice. “It would be one thing if James loved her. I would go into the quiet dark like Jem did and never speak of her again. But he doesn’t love her.”

Magnus cleared his throat. “I see why my waistcoats cannot hold your attention, Fairchild. I’ve been where you are. Wanting what you can’t have will only rip your heart apart.”

thought, why no one else seemed to notice that Matthew was only standing up because the wall was holding him.

Sona smiled at her—a weary, worried smile, the smile of so many Shadowhunter parents down through the ages who had watched their children march into the night, carrying blades blessed by angels, knowing they might never return. “Layla, my daughter. You can wear mine.”

“I thought, if you were dying, I would use it to bring you back.”

a khanjar whose blade bore an inscription in Persian: I wanted so much to have a gleaming dagger, that each of my ribs became a dagger.