“Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice.Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love."Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped.”

“What...what are you doing?""I won't know," he said with a grin. He took a step towards me. "But I'm pretty sure you were doing it too.”

“I could not resist the temptation to ask: Tell me something, Damiana: what do you recall? I wasn't recalling anything, she said, but your question makes me remember. I felt a weight in my chest. I've never fallen in love, I told her. She replied without hesitation: I have. And she concluded, not interrupting her work: I cried over you for twenty-two years. My heart skipped a beat. Looking for a dignified way out, I said: We would have made a good team. Well, it's wrong of you to say so now, she said, because you're no good to me anymore even as a consolation. As she was leaving the house, she said in the most natural way: You won't believe me but thanks be to God, I'm still a virgin.”

“Wanderer: You don't really feel that way about me you know. It's this body... she's pretty isn't she?Ian: She is. Melanie is a very pretty girl. Even beautiful. But pretty as she is, she is a stranger to me. She's not the one I... care about.Wanderer: It's this body.Ian: That's not true at all. It's not the face, but the expressions on it. It's not the voice, but what they say. It's not how you look like in that body, it's what you do with it. You are beautiful.”

“But he would understand,” he said dazedly. “If we explained it to him. If we told him…he would understand.”She made her voice as cold as she could. As calm. “Told him what?”Will only looked at her. There had been light in his eyes on the stairs… And it was going now, fading like the last breath of someone dying. She felt as if she were watching the life bleed out of Will Herondale. “Jem would forgive me,” Will said, but there was hopelessness in his face, his voice, already. He had given up, Tessa thought. “He would,” she said, “He would never stay angry at you, Will; he loves you too well for that. I do not even think he would hold anger toward me. But this morning he told me he thought he would die without ever loving anyone as his father loved his mother, without ever being loved like that in return. Do you want me to go down the hallway and knock on his door and take that away from him? And would you love me still, if I did?”“Then…please, Tessa, don’t tell him what I just told you…”“I will tell no one,” she said. “I swear it…”

“As she lifted her own backpack over the side of the black, heavy-duty dodge pickup, Owen took it out of her hands and set it beside the one-man tent and sleeping bag the FBI had provided for him.“I could have done that,” she said.“Sure you could. But my daddy taught me a gentleman always helps a lady.” Bay was so startled at what he’d said, and the chagrined way he’s said it, that she laughed. “Oh, my god. Chauvinism is alive and well—”“We call it chivalry, or Southern courtesy, ma’am,” he said. She realized he was heading around the truck to open the door for her.She stepped in front of him and said, “It’s going to be a long trip if you refuse to let me pull my weight. I can get my own door, Mr. Blackthorne.”For a minute, she thought he was going to make an issue of it. Then he touched the brim of his hat, shot her a rakish grin that turned her insides to mush, and said, “Whatever you say, Mizz Creed.”She was so flustered, she took a half step backward, slid into the seat when he opened the door for her after all, and said, “My friends call me Bay.”Bay flushed as she realized what she’d said. As he came around the hood and got in, she said, “That is—I mean—you know what I mean!”He belted himself into the driver’s seat and started the engine, before he turned to her and said, “My friends call me Owe. You can call me Owen.”She stared at him disbelief. “Oh. You. Blackthorne, you.”