Clockwork Prince

Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”

There is something horrible about a flower;

This, broken in my hand, is one of those

He threw it in just now; it will not live another hour;

There are thousands more; you do not miss a rose.

—Charlotte Mew, “In Nunhead Cemetery”

When two souls are as one, they stay together on the Wheel. I was born into this world to love you, and I will love you in the next life, and the one after that.”

You sound as if you don’t mind what happens to it,” said Tessa. “Won’t you miss it here? This place has been your home.”

His fingers stroked her wrist lightly, making her shiver. “You are home for me now.”

. Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind.”

Master Will has always been the brighter burning star, the one to catch attention—but Jem is a steady flame, unwavering and honest. He could make you happy

I haven’t betrayed the Institute for Tessa,” he said. “I haven’t lied to and endangered those who have cared for me since I was orphaned.”

“If you wouldn’t,” said Jessamine, “you don’t really love her.”

“If she asked me to,” said Jem, “I would know she did not really love me.”

The undiscover’d country from whose bourne no traveller returns.’

I have wanted to do this,” he said, “every moment of every hour of every day that I have been with you since the day I met you. But you know that. You must know. Don’t you?”

She looked up at him, lips parted in bewilderment. “Know what?” she said, and Will, with a sigh of something like defeat, kissed her.

“I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you. That you were the center of everything I did and felt and thought.”