“You never cared that I was your sister before.”“Didn’t I?” His black eyes flicked up and down her. “Our father’s dead,” he said. “There are no other relatives. You and I, we are the last. The last of the Morgensterns. You are the only one left whose blood runs in my veins, too. You are my last chance.”

“Why did you?” Clary asked.“Why did I what?”“Help me back there.”“You’re my sister.”She swallowed. In the morning light, Sebastian’s face had some color in it. There were faint burns along his neck where demon ichor had splashed him.“You never cared that I was your sister before.”“Didn’t I?” His black eyes flicked up and down her. “Our father’s dead,” he said. “There are no other relatives. You and I, we are the last. The last of the Morgensterns. You are the only one left whose blood runs in my veins, too. You are my last chance.”

“She paused and saw him tense in expectation. He wouldn’t like to hear this, but better from her than one of the others. “You aren’t the only pilot I have in my service. And you aren’t the only person with a dark past, though the illegal things that you did, you were forced to do by the Core. But I will tell you what I’ve told the others. This is your last chance. You screw up with me and you get shipped up river. I don’t offer second chances—I offer last chances.”Nope, he didn’t like it. She saw the hand not holding the bottle of beer curl into a fist.Sin and Del, from Sunscapes Trilogy, Book 1: Last Chance”

“He would have told her - he would have said, it matters not if you are here or there, for I see you before me every moment. I see you in the light of the water, in the swaying of the young trees in the spring wind. I see you in the shadows of the great oaks, I hear your voice in the cry of the owl at night. You are the blood in my veins, and the beating of my heart. You are my first waking thought, and my last sigh before sleeping. You are - you are bone of my bone, and breath of my breath.”

“How are you?”Rosa shrugged her shoulders. “My sister turned into a giant snake last night. And your cousin Tano—”“Second cousin.”“He was there too. He was a tiger. I recognized him from his eyes. Then I fainted.” She looked at him. “How does that sound?”

“If you decide you have to kill yourself,” he said, “in the last second before you act, picture my face. Listen to me giving you one last plea not to do it. And know that someone really cares.”