“Lost in thought, it took her several moments to realize that Jace had been saying something to her. When she blinked at him, she saw a wry grin spread across his face. "What?" she asked, ungraciously."I wish you'd stop desperately trying to get my attention like this," he said. "It's become embarrassing.""Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt," she told him."I can't help it. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain.""Your pain will be outer soon if you don't get out of traffic. Are you trying to get run over by a cab?""Don't be ridiculous," he said. "We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood.”

“Are you trying to get run over by a cab?""Don't be ridiculous. We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood.”

“Hodge says he's on his way and he hopes you can both manage to cling to your flickering sparks of life until he gets here," she told Simon and Jace. "Or something like that.""I wish he'd hurry," Jace said crossly. He was sitting up in bed against a pair of fluffed white pillows, still wearing his filthy clothes."Why? Does it hurt?" Clary asked."No. I have a high pain threshold. In fact, it's less of a threshold and more of a large and tastefully decorated foyer. But I do get easily bored." He squinted at her. "Do you remember back at the hotel when you promised that if we lived, you'd get dressed up in a nurse's outfit and give me a sponge bath?""Actually, I think you misheard," Clary said. "It was Simon who promised you the sponge bath."Jace looked involuntarily over at Simon, who smiled at him widely. "As soon as I'm back on my feet, handsome.”

“I'm sorry. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain.”

“This could be the last night of our lives, certainly the last even barely ordinary one. The last night we go to sleep and get up just as we always have. And all I could think of was that I wanted to spend it with you."Her heart skipped a beat. "Jace-""I don't mean it like that," he said. "I won't touch you, not if you don't want me to. I know it's wrong - God, it's all kinds of wrong - but I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life." There was desperation in his voice. "It's just this one night. In the grand scheme of things, how much can this one night matter?" ...There was nothing she had ever wanted in her life more than she wanted this night with Jace."Close the curtains, then, before you come to bed," she said. "I can't sleep with this much light in the room.”

“She smiled at him. “How did you know just what I’d want to see?”“How could I not?” he said. “When I think of you, and you are not there, I see you in my mind’s eye always with a book in your hand.” He looked away from her as he said it, but not before she caught the slight flush on his cheekbones. He was so pale, he could never hide even the least blush, she thought — and was surprised how affectionate the thought was.”

“I was trying to make you jealous!" Simon screamed, right back. His hands were fisted at his sides. "You're so stupid, Clary. You're so stupid, can't you see anything?"She stared at him in bewilderment. What on earth did he mean? "Trying to make me jealous? Why would you try to do that?"She saw immediately that this was the worst thing she could have asked him."Because," he said, so bitterly that it shocked her, "I've been in love with you for ten years, so I thought it seemed like the time to find out whether you felt the same about me. Which, I guess you don't.”