“Yes. She got into a right state when she realized no one could read them, though. She's setting up some sort of literacy curse. Some of the boys want to know--is that like gypsy magic? Can you curse someone to read?”

“But she knows she has a curse on her,a curse she cannot win.For if someone gets too close to her,the pins stick further in.”

“She wondered if literature might lose some of its interest when she reached an age or state of mind where her life was set on such a sure course that the things she read might stop seeming so powerfully like alternate directions for her being.”

“From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.”

“Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.”

“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.”