“Sometimes carrying the burden of an upsetting truth, and hiding it, is actually a gift you give to someone else. You bear that burden, so they don’t have to, in a situation where telling them will change nothing.”

“Was this what it meant to love someone? That any burden was a burden shared, that they could give you comfort with a word or a touch?”

“We are not our parents, Gabriel. We do not have to carry the burden of their choices or their sins.”

“I’d do almost anything for you,” Simon said quietly. “I’d die for you. You know that. But would I kill someone else, someone innocent? What about a lot of innocent lives? What about the whole world? Is it really love to tell someone that if it came down to picking between them and every other life on the planet, you’d pick them? Is that—I don’t know, is that a moral sort of love at all?”

“Jem’s eyes had widened, and then he’d laughed, a soft laugh. “Did you think I did not know you had a secret?” he’d said. “Did you think I walked into my friendship with you with my eyes shut? I did not know the nature of the burden you carried. But I knew there was a burden.” He’d stood up. “I knew you thought yourself poison to all those around you,” he’d added. “I knew you thought there to be some corruptive force about you that would break me. I meant to show you that I would not break, that love was not so fragile. Did I do that?”

“How could you have guessed?” Miserable though Will was, he felt free, as if a heavy burden had been displaced from him. “I did all I could to hide and deny it. You—you never hid your feelings. Looking back, it was clear and plain, and yet I never saw it. I was astonished when Tessa told me that you were engaged. You’ve always been the source in my life of such good things, James. I never thought you would be the source of pain, and so, wrongly, I never thought of your feelings at all. And that is why I was so blind.”

“I've noticed the Fair Folk often say 'perhaps' when there is a truth they want to hide," Clary said. "It keeps you from having to give a straight answer.""Perhaps so," said the Queen with an amused smile."'Mayhap' is a good word too," Alec suggested."Also 'perchance,'" Izzy said."I see nothing wrong with 'maybe'," said Simon. "A little modern, but the gist of the idea comes across.”