“And then Mircea finally let me down, only to get his hands inside the coat and push me against the wall.
“I’m dirty,” I protested.
He waggled his eyebrows. “Promise?”
“Mircea!” I laughed in spite of myself…”

“One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.
The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.”

“Hmm…” Jason snapped his fingers. “I can call a friend for a ride.”
Percy raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah? Me too. Let's see whose friend gets here first.”

“I’ve built a wall around me, never letting anybody inside and trying not to venture outside myself”

“There He taught me the science full of sweetness.
And there I gave to Him
Myself without reserve;
There I promised to be His bride. ~ 27”

“I gave him my best cryptic smile. He did not fall down to his feet, kiss my shoes, and promise me the world. I must be getting rusty.”

“Our lovemaking was always risk and promise-for if he held my life in his hands when he lay with me, I held his soul, and knew it.”

“Well, I’m not kissing the mundane," said Jace. "I’d rather stay down here and rot."
"Forever?" said Simon. "Forever’s an awfully long time."
Jace raised his eyebrows. "I knew it," he said. "You want to kiss me, don’t you?”

“I look down at our linked fingers as I loosen my grasp, but he regains his grip on me. “No, don’t let go of me,” he says.”

“You’ll pardon me,” he finally said, “if the suggestion that the minuscule black turnip you call a heart is suddenly overflowing with generosity toward me leaves me wanting to arm myself and put my back against a wall.”