The Infernal Devices

Jessamine recoiled from the paper as if it were a snake. “A lady does not read the newspaper. The society pages, perhaps, or the theater news. Not this filth.”

“But you are not a lady, Jessamine-,” Charlotte began.

“Dear me,” said Will. “Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

“A very magnanimous statement, Gideon,” said Magnus. 

“I’m Gabriel.”

Magnus waved a hand. “All Lightwoods look the same to me.” 

“You are not plain,” Henry said, his face still blazing. “You are beautiful. And I didn’t ask your father if I could marry you out of duty; I did it because I loved you. I’ve always loved you. I’m your husband.”“I didn’t think you wanted to be,” she whispered.

Henry was shaking his head. “I know people call me eccentric. Peculiar. Even mad. All of those things. I’ve never minded. But for you to think I’d be so weak-willed—Do you even love me at all?”

“Of course I love you!” Charlotte cried. “That was never in question.”

“Wasn’t it? Do you think I don’t hear what people say? They speak about me as if I weren’t there, as if I were some sort of half-wit. I’ve heard Benedict Lightwood say enough times that you married me only so that you could pretend a man was running the Institute—”

Now it was Charlotte’s turn to be angry. “And you criticize me for thinking you weak-willed! Henry, I’d never marry you for that reason, never in a thousand years. I’d give up the Institute in a moment before I’d give up …”

Henry was staring at her, his hazel eyes wide, his ginger hair bristling as if he had run his hands madly through it so many times that he was in danger of pulling it out in chunks. “Before you’d give up what?”

“Before I’d give you up,” she said. “Don’t you know that?”

And then she said nothing else, for Henry put his arms around her and kissed her. Kissed her in such a way that she no longer felt plain, or conscious of her hair or the ink spot on her dress or anything but Henry, whom she had always loved. Tears welled up and spilled down her cheeks, and when he drew away, he touched her wet face wonderingly.

“Really,” he said. “You love me, too, Lottie?”

“Of course I do. I didn’t marry you so I’d have someone to run the Institute with, Henry. I married you because—because I knew I wouldn’t mind how difficult directing this place was, or how badly the Clave treated me, if I knew yours would be the last face I saw every night before I went to sleep.” She hit him lightly on the shoulder. “We’ve been married for years, Henry. What did you think I felt about you?”

He shrugged his thin shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “I thought you were fond of me,” he said gruffly. “I thought you might come to love me, in time.”

“That’s what I thought about you,” she said wonderingly. “Could we really both have been so stupid?”

“Well, I’m not surprised about me,” said Henry. “But honestly, Charlotte, you ought to have known better.”

(Source: henryjocelynbranwell)

She had looked so worried, and the thought that she might have been worried about him had given him an unexpected pleasure.

Thank the Angel for glamours, Will thought. The sight of a boy riding bareback on a charging black horse down Farringdon Road would normally be enough to raise eyebrws even in a metropolis as jaded as London. 

“You know, I cannot function as your missing sense of self-preservation forever. Eventually you will have to learn to manage without me.”

“If your point was that there was a pretty girl in the room and it was distracting you, then I would have taken your point handily.”

“You think she is pretty?” Will was surprised; Jem rarely opined on this sort of thing.

“Yes, and you do too.”

“I hadn’t noticed, really.”

“Yes, you have, and I’ve noticed you noticing.”

Cassie read a snippet from Clockwork Princess, in which Cecily tells Will that she could see through him, and she knows he loves Tessa.Cassie also explained that at the end of CP2, there will be a family tree that will show how Emma Carstairs got her surname.

“You will be Boadicea someday, Tessa,” he said, “but not tonight.”