Cassandra Clare

If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?

“By the Angel, it’s like the ninth circle of Hell down here—”

“The ninth circle of Hell is cold,” Tessa said automatically.

Will stared at her. “What?”

“In the Inferno,” she told him. “Hell is cold. It’s covered in ice.”

He stared at her for another long moment, the corners of his mouth twitching, then held out his hand. “Give me the witchlight.” At her blank expression he made an impatient noise. “The stone. Give me the stone.”

The moment his hand closed about the stone, light blazed up from it again, raying out through his fingers. For the first time Tessa saw that he had a design on the back of his hand, drawn there as if in black ink. It looked like an open eye. “As for the temperature of Hell, Miss Gray,” he said, “let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome young fellow who’s trying to rescue you from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky is purple and made of hedgehogs.”

Will, blood still dripping from his chin, looked at Jem with his eyebrows raised. “Nice throw,” he said.

Jem shook his head. “You bit de Quincey,” he said. “You fool. He’s a vampire. You know what it means to bite a vampire.”

“I had no choice,” said Will. “He was choking me.”

“I know,” Jem said. “But really, Will. Again?”