Extraits

Fear prickled up and down Emma’s arms like goosebumps. Since she was twelve, she had been terrified of the ocean: she had always believed her parents had died in it, dragged below the surface by Raziel knew what, choked to death on bitter seawater. The surge and crash of waves, the imagined black velvet of the ocean’s depths, had filled her nightmares.

Even when she found out her parents had been murdered on dry land by Malcolm Fade, their bodies thrown into the sea after death, the fear remained. She reached for it now, welcomed it in. She could feel it filling the empty spaces, the hollows left by grief.

She glanced back down at the sea. The surging whirlpool below, the waves slamming like dark blue walls against sheer needles of stone, looked like a painting of a maelstrom, a photograph of a hellscape taken from a safe distance.

The wind screamed in Emma’s ears like a warning. Another wave hurled itself against the cliffs, sending up an explosion of spray. Emma smiled grimly into the wind and salt, and jumped.

Mark knocked, and a harried-looking Simon Lewis opened the door.

“I can’t do this.” Helen tried to keep her voice steady, but it was nearly impossible. She hoped the strain would be covered by the sound of the waves crashing below them, but Aline knew her too well. She could sense when Helen was upset, even when she was trying hard not to show it.

“Baby.” Aline moved closer, wrapping her arms around Helen, brushing her lips softly with her own. “You can. You can do anything.”

Helen relaxed into her wife’s arms. When she’d first met Aline she’d thought the other girl was taller than she was, but she’d realized later it was the way Aline held herself, arrow-straight. The Consul, her mother, held herself the same way, and with the same pride — not that either of them was arrogant, but the word seemed a shade closer to what Helen imagined than simple confidence. She remembered the first love note Aline had ever written her. The curves of your lips rewrite history. The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. Later, she’d found out it was an Oscar Wilde quote, and had said to Aline, smiling, You’ve got a lot of nerve.

Aline had looked back at her steadily. “I know. I do.”

They both had, always, and it had stood them in good stead. But this —

“This is different,” Helen said. “They don’t want me here –“

“They do want you here.”

“They barely know me,” Helen said. “That’s worse.”

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)Alexander Lightwood-Bane. Magnus Lightwood-Bane. You are now married."

To have what Magnus and Alec had -- anyone would be lucky."

When they were done, the rune stood out stark and black on Alec's skin. It would never fade. It would never leave him, a sign of his love for Magnus for all time."

Love flashes out like fire, the brightest kind of flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. Now place me as a seal over thine heart, as a seal over thine arm: For love is strong as death. And so we are bound: stronger than flame, stronger than water, stronger than death itself."

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)Alexander Gideon Lightwood. Hast thou found the one thy soul loves ?"

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)"I found him," Alec said. "And I will not let him go."

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)"Magnus Bane. Hast thou gone among the watchmen, and in the cities of the world ? Hast thou found the one thy soul loves ?"

Spoiler(cliquez pour révéler)"I have found him," Magnus said, gazing at Alec. "And I will not let him go."

Alec had given him the gift of faith, a faith that Magnus was strong enough to make not just Alec happy, but a whole family happy."

No doubts. Magnus didn't need to search his soul. He'd searched it a thousand times, ten thousand, in the years he'd know Alec. Not because he doubted, but because it shocked him so much that he didn't. In all his life, he had never known such surety. He had lived happily and had no regrets."