“I did it because I love you!" he half-shouted, and then, as if registering the shocked look her face, he said in a more subdued voice, "I love you, Tessa, and I have loved you, almost since the moment I met you.”

“I love you, Tessa, and I have loved you, almost since the moment I met you.”

“It's too late," she said."Don't say that." His voice was half a whisper. "I love you, Tessa. I love you.”

“This is about Tessa. I knew it was." Will flushed, a wash of color across the pallor of this face. "Not just her.""But you love her."Will stared at him. "Of course I do," he said finally. "I had come to think i would never love anyone, but I love her.”

“Then, if you love him," he said quietly, "please, Tessa, don't tell him what I just told you. Don't tell him that I love you.”

“The moment the door closed behind him, Tessa was in Will's arms, her hands locked about his neck. "Oh, by the Angel," she said. "That was mortifying." Will slid his hands into her hair and was kissing her, kissing her eyelids and her cheeks and then her mouth, quickly but with fervor and concentration, as if nothing could be more important. "Listen to you," he said. "You said 'by the angel.' Like a Shadowhunter." He kissed the side of her mouth. "I love you. God, I love you. I waited so long to say it.”

“I cannot explain love," he said. "I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you. That you were the center of everything I did and felt and thought.”