Denise's Reading Blog: January 2022

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices Book 2) by Cassandra Clare-Notes & Highlights

I just wanted to note that I was reading The Shadowhunters Codex at the same time I was reading the Infernal Devices like how Tessa would read the book in her bed in her room in the first book. I thought it was funny that some things that I read in The Codex were referenced in my reading of The Infernal Devices. Like Woolsey Scott being the creator of the praetor lupus and demon pox. There were quite the lot of references between the two books!

The male narrator of “Clockwork Prince,” Ed Westwick, who was in Gossip Girl, sounded like Alan Rickman in Harry Potter as Professor Severus Snape when he voiced Benedict Lightwood. I think Westwick was influenced by Rickman’s performance because their voices sound similar.

My physical copy of the book that I got from Barnes & Noble. I think I got it with a gift card.

“The moment Henry left, Will and Jem fell into an earnest discussion of reparations, Downworlders, Accords, covenants, and laws that left Tessa’s head spinning. Quietly she rose and left the table, making her way to the library.

Despite its immense size, and the fact that barely any of the books that lined its walls were in English, it was her favorite room in the Institute. There was something about the smell of books, the ink-and-paper-and-leather scent, the way dust in a library seemed to behave differently from the dust in any other room—it was golden in the light of the witchlight tapers, settling like pollen across the polished surfaces of the long tables. Church the cat was asleep on a high book stand, his tail curled round above his head; Tessa gave him a wide berth as she moved toward the small poetry section along the lower right-hand wall. Church adored Jem but had been known to bite others, often with very little warning.

She found the book she was looking for and knelt down beside the bookcase, flipping until she found the right page, the scene where the old man in ‘Christabel’ realizes that the girl standing before him is the daughter of his once best friend and now most hated enemy, the man he can never forget.

Alas! they had been friends in youth;

But whispering tongues can poison truth;

And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny; and youth is vain;

And to be wroth with one we love,

Doth work like madness in the brain.

. . .

Each spake words of high disdain

And insult to his heart’s best brother:

They parted—ne’er to meet again!

The voice that spoke above her head was as light as it was drawling—instantly familiar. ‘Checking my quotation for accuracy?’

The book slid out of Tessa’s hands and hit the floor. She rose to her feet and watched, frozen, as Will bent to pick it up, and held it out to her, his manner one of utmost

Politeness.

‘I assure you,’ he told her, ‘my recall is perfect’” (63-64).

“‘Well, there's no accounting for taste,’ Tessa said sweetly, knowing he was trying to goad her, and refusing to take the bait. ‘What is one person's pleasure is another's poison, don't you find?’” (66).

“But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;

(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him desolate!)

And round about his home the glory

That blushed and bloomed,

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

—Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Haunted Palace’” (97).

“The human heart has hidden treasures,

In secret kept, in silence sealed;

The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,

Whose charms were broken if revealed

—Charlotte Brontë, ‘Evening Solace’” (123).

“Will swung around and stared at him. ‘I am deadly earnest,’ he said. ‘This is not some sort of test. I cannot go on like this, summoning up demons at random, never having them be the correct one, endless hope, endless disappointment. Every day dawns blacker and blacker’” (140).

Earnest = serious; That’s what it feels like sometimes.

“‘What did they do?’ Will’s voice rose. ‘What did they do? Nothing. It is me. I am poison. Poison to them. Poison to anyone who loves me’” (141).

I relate to Will at this moment because I feel like poison to my family because of what I do to them on a daily basis. I act bitter and project my pessimistic side. I act this way towards my eldest sister and father the most. I wish to change so much. I can only hope there is enough time left for me.

“‘Ella. My elder sister. She had something blazing in her hand. I know what it was now—a seraph blade. I had no idea then. I screamed for her to get out, but she put herself between the creature and me. She had absolutely no fear, my sister. She never had. She was not afraid to climb the tallest tree, to ride the wildest horse—and she had no fear there, in the library. She told the thing to get out. It was hovering there like a great, ugly insect. She said, “I banish you.” Then it laughed’” (142).

My eldest sister is the same way. I can never be half as brave as her. She also has absolutely no fear, my sister. She was not afraid to work two jobs to chase her dreams, to leave the nest and have her own apartment, to have a successful career due to hard work and study. These are all the things I admire and wish to achieve at least once in my miserable life.

“‘So, you see,’ said Will, ‘my curse can hardly be called nonsense. I have seen it at work. And since that day I have striven to be sure that what happened to Ella will happen to no one else in my life. Can you imagine it? Can you?’ He raked his hands through his black hair, letting the tangled strands fall back into his eyes. ‘Never letting anyone near you. Making everyone who might otherwise love you, hate you. I left my family to distance myself from them, and that they might forget me. Each day I must show cruelty to those I have chosen to make my home with, lest they let themselves feel too much affection for me’” (144).

I can imagine it, Will. I feel like I want to do the same but am unable to.

“‘I do not think so. I have been foul enough to her.’ Will’s voice was wretchedness and misery and self-loathing all combined. ‘I think there was a time when she almost—I thought she was dead, you see, and I showed her—I let her see what I felt. I think she might have returned my feelings after that. But I crushed her, as brutally as I could. I imagine she simply hates me now’” (144).

That's how I have been, Will.

“‘And Jem,’ said Magnus, dreading the answer, knowing it.

‘Jem is dying anyway,’ Will said in a choked voice. ‘Jem is what I have allowed myself. I tell myself, if he dies, it is not my fault. He is dying anyway, and in pain. Ella’s death at least was swift. Perhaps through me he can be given a good death.’ He looked up miserably, met Magnus’s accusing eyes. ‘No one can live with nothing,’ he whispered. ‘Jem is all I have.’

‘You should have told him,’ said Magnus. ‘He would have chosen to be your parabatai anyway, even knowing the risks.’

‘I cannot burden him with that knowledge! He would keep it secret if I asked him to, but it would pain him to know it—and the pain I cause others would only hurt him more. Yet if I were to tell Charlotte, to tell Henry and the rest, that my behavior is a sham—that every cruel thing I have said to them is a lie, that I wander the streets only to give the impression that I have been out drinking and whoring when in reality I have no desire to do either—then I have ceased

to push them away.’

‘And thus you have never told anyone of this curse? No one but myself, since you were twelve years old?’

‘I could not,’ Will said. ‘How could I be sure they would form no attachment to me, once they knew the truth? A story like that might engender pity, pity could become attachment, and then . . .’

Magnus raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you not concerned about me?’

‘That you might love me?’ Will sounded genuinely startled. ‘No, for you hate Nephilim, do you not? And besides, I imagine you warlocks have ways to guard against unwanted emotions. But for those like Charlotte, like Henry, if they knew the persona I presented to them was false, if they knew of my true heart . . . they might come to care for me.’

‘And then they would die,’ said Magnus.

* * *

” (144 - 146).

This is such a cruel curse.

“‘Well, no, of course not,’ said Charlotte hastily, ‘but perhaps not to live with the memory constantly, as a sort of dreadful weight on you’” (146).

I thought this an interesting quote.

“‘No,’ said Tessa. ‘We arrived, and he just up and dusted—sorry, got up and ran,’ she corrected herself, their blank looks alerting her to the fact that she was using American slang.

“‘Up and dusted,’” said Jem. ‘I like that. Makes it sound like he left a cloud of dust spinning in his wake. He didn’t say anything, no—just elbowed his way through the crowd and was gone. Nearly knocked down Cyril coming to get us’” (148).

I thought this was such a cool and funny quote.

“He reminded Magnus of someone; the memory tickled at the back of his mind, refusing to come

clear.

…

Will’s face twisted. ‘Don’t make it sound like that. Like some ordinary sort of grief. It’s not like that. They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite. Over. This is a fresh wound every day’” (151).

“‘I feel myself diminished, parts of me spiraling away into the darkness, that which is good and honest and true—If you hold it away from yourself long enough, do you lose it entirely? If no one cares for you at all, do you even really exist?’” (152).

Do you? Does being in complete darkness omit your chance to see the light?

“‘Then nothing is mine,’ said Will, and pushed himself away from the mantel, staggering a little as if he really were drunk. ‘If I don’t even own my own life—’

‘Who ever said we were owed happiness?’ Magnus said softly, and in his mind he saw the house of his childhood, and his mother flinching away from him with frightened eyes, and her husband, who was not his father, burning. ‘What about what we owe to others?’

‘I’ve given them everything I have already,’ said Will, seizing his coat off the back of the chair. ‘They’ve had enough out of me, and if this is what you have to say to me, then so have you—warlock’” (153).

Why would Will talk to Magnus like that if he is his only option for help? I think the part of the quote where Magnus asks Will about what we owe to others is talking about suicide and its effect on other people, the people who care about us. That is my interpretation of those lines.

“… And Dear Nate, I missed you so much today, I thought I would die. If you are gone, there is no one in the world who cares if I am dead or alive. I feel myself dissolving, vanishing into nothingness, for if there is no one in the world who cares for you, do you really exist at all?” (179).

Will used Tessa's words! I think he used them when he talked to Magnus because he admires her writing and the way she has with the written word. It's not exactly plagiarism, but instead an inspiration he took from that one line Tessa wrote in her letters.

“They were more of a diary than letters, the only place where she could pour forth her horror, her sadness, and her fear” (179).

That's exactly how I feel about my journal, Tessa! I think I will have to write about this connection in my journal after this.

“Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,

And the loves that complete and control

All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows

That wear out the soul.

—Algernon Charles Swinburne, ‘Dolores’” (183).

“Jem said something then, in a language she didn't understand. It sounded like ‘khalepa ta kala.’

She frowned at him. ‘That isn't Latin?’

‘Greek,’ he said. ‘It has two meanings. It means that that which is worth having—the good, fine, honorable, and noble things—are difficult to attain.’ … ‘It means something else as well.’

Tessa swallowed. ‘What's that?’

‘It means “beauty is harsh”” (186).

“...as if she had exhausted her body's capacity to feel emotion” (207).

“...and yet he seemed to be unburdening his soul to her” (227).

“‘Eleven o’clock.’ He put his head to the side, studying her. ‘Are you all right? You look as if your peace of mind has been rather cut up’” (240).

“But all these were things he could not want, because they were things he could not have, and wanting what you could not have led to misery and madness” (244).

“Will rocked back slightly, as if Jem had pushed him. ‘I . . .’ He swallowed, looking for the words. It had been so long since he had searched for words that would earn him forgiveness and not hatred, so long since he had sought to present himself in anything but the worst light, that he wondered for a panicked moment if it were even something he was still able to do” (247).

“‘Mr. Gray.’ A dull, mechanical voice spoke from behind Nate's shoulder. It was one of the blank-faced automatons, holding out a silver tray on which was a folded piece of paper. ‘A message for you.’

Nate turned in surprise and plucked the paper from the tray; Tessa watched as he unfolded it, read it, cursed, and stuffed it into his coat pocket. ‘My, my,’ he said. ‘A note from himself.’ He must mean the Magister, Tessa thought. ‘I'm needed apparently. A dreadful bore, but what can you do?’ He took her hand and raised her to her feet, then leaned in for a chaste kiss on the cheek. ‘Speak to Benedict; he'll make sure you're escorted back out to the carriage, Mrs. Gray.’ He spoke the last two words in a whisper” (285).

My first impression of this passage was confusion. Does Nate know that it’s Tessa under Jessa's skin? (I wrote this note the first time I read the book. The note was in my Google Keep quotes label) I had to pause the audiobook to get a grip because I was literally scared for Tessa’s safety. But after reviewing the situation Nate must mean his wife Jessamine Gray, he can't mean Tessa because she is not married, hence, Miss Gray.

“‘And therefore,’ said Magnus, squeezing Will's arm with a meaning pressure, ‘we must go.’

Will blinked at him. ‘Go where?’

‘Don't worry about that right now, my love.’

Will blinked again. ‘Pardon?’ He glanced around, as if he half-expected people to be watching. ‘I—where's my coat?’

…

‘Yes, you are,’ Magnus said, and kissed him. It wasn't the most dramatic kiss, but Will flailed his free arm as if a bee had landed on him; Magnus had to hope Camille would assume this was passion. When they broke apart, Will looked stunned. So did Camille, for that matter.

…

‘Did you just kiss me?’ Will inquired.

Magnus made a split-second decision. ‘No.’

‘I thought—’

‘On occasion the aftereffects of the painkilling spells can result in hallucinations of the most bizarre sort.’

‘Oh' Will said. ‘How peculiar’” (318-319).

Of course Magnus had to have a slice of the Will pie LOL XD <3

“‘There's Will,’ said Charlotte, and frowned. ‘Speaking of, where is Will?’

‘Having a lie-in, no doubt,’ said Jem, ‘and as for him being a witness, everyone thinks Will is a lunatic as it is—’

‘Ah,’ said a voice from the doorway, ‘having your annual everyone-thinks-Will-is-a-lunatic meeting, are you?’

‘It's biannual,’ said Jem. ‘And no, this is not that meeting’” (327).

lolz

“She paused for a moment, watching the people stream around him, the busy life of London roaring around him, and Gideon as calm as a rock in the middle of a churning river. All Shadowhunters had something of that to them, she thought, that stillness, that dark aura of separateness that set them apart from the current of mundane life” (334-335).

“Except that she had told him they were trustworthy. And he had not cared. He had wanted what Mortmain was offering him. More than he had wanted her safety. More than he had cared about anything else. All the years between them, the time that had knitted them together so closely that she had thought them inseparable, had meant nothing to him” (353).

“‘Gideon Lightwood?’ she said in surprise.

‘There.’ Charlotte slipped the map she was holding into her pocket. ‘The Institute will not be Shadowhunterless’” (363).

“‘There are more offices that way,’ said Henry, pointing to the far end of the room. ‘Charlotte and I will search them. Will, Jem, you examine the second floor.’

It was a rare and novel thrill when Henry gave orders; Will looked at Jem and grinned, and commenced making his way up the rickety wooden stairs” (368).

Lolz XD

“The night air was cold, …, he let the front door fall shut” (402-414).

Touching Will & Magnus Scene: this entire scene with Will, Magnus, and Will’s demon, Marbas.

“‘Demon pox,’ said Sophie. ‘Mr. Lightwood’s got it, has had for years, and it’ll kill him in a right couple of months if he doesn’t get the cure. And Mortmain said he can get it for him.’

The room exploded in a hubbub. Charlotte raced over to Sophie; Henry called after her; Will leaped from his chair and was dancing in a circle. Tessa stayed where she was, stunned, and Jem remained beside her. Meanwhile, Will appeared to be singing a song about how he had been right about demon pox all along.

“Demon pox, oh, demon pox,

Just how is it acquired?

One must go down to the bad part of town

Until one is very tired.

Demon pox, oh, demon pox

I had it all along—

No, not the pox, you foolish blocks,

I mean this very song—

For I was right, and you were wrong!”

‘Will!’ Charlotte shouted over the noise. ‘Have you LOST YOUR MIND? CEASE THAT INFERNAL RACKET! Jem—’

Jem, rising to his feet, clapped his hands over Will’s mouth. ‘Do you promise to be quiet?’ he hissed into his friend’s ear.

Will nodded, blue eyes blazing. Tessa was staring at him in amazement; they all were. She had seen Will many things—amused, bitter, condescending, angry, pitying—but never giddy before.

Jem let him go. ‘All right, then.’

Will slid to the floor, his back against the armchair, and threw his arms up. ‘A demon pox on all your houses!’ he announced, and yawned.

‘Oh God, weeks of pox jokes,’ said Jem. ‘We’re for it now’” (438-439).

This scene renders a big lolz from me! XD Charlotte’s scream at Will reminded me of when Mom yelled at lil Ale when she screamed at her phone game! XDXD

“‘Astriola,’ he said. ‘That is demon pox. You had evidence that demon pox existed and you didn’t mention it to me! Et tu, Brute!’ He rolled up the paper and hit Jem over the head with it.

‘Ouch!’ Jem rubbed his head ruefully. ‘The words meant nothing to me! I assumed it a minor sort of ailment. It hardly seemed as if it were what killed her. She slit her wrists, but if Benedict wanted to protect his children from the fact that their mother had taken her own life—’” (441).

lolz

“Jem had reached them, and heard this last remark; he grinned. ‘Tessa, do let poor Will gather his wits about him; he’s been out all night and looks as if he can barely remember his own name.’ He put his hand on his parabatai’s arm. ‘Come along, Herondale. You seem as if you need an energy rune—or two or three.’

Will tore his eyes away from Tessa’s and let Jem lead him off down the corridor. Tessa watched them, shaking her head. Boys, she thought. She would never understand them” (447).

I know this is something that Clary would say, but I wonder if there is a caffeine rune. It would be like drinking a cup of coffee for Shadowhunters lolz XD ☕

“Tessa felt tears sting the backs of her eyes and sat down hastily on the edge of the bed. The thought that Charlotte, with everything else that was going on, would think of Tessa’s comfort at all made her want to cry. But she stifled the urge, as she always did. ‘Sophie,’ she said, her voice

uneven. ‘I ought—no, I wanted—to apologize to you’” (448).

“I thought it was the beginning of the curse. I fled my family and came here. It seemed to me the only way to keep them safe, not to bring them death on death. I did not realize at first that I was walking into a second family. Henry, Charlotte, even bloody Jessamine—I had to make sure that no one here could ever love me” (465).

“‘Jem is dying. You let Jem in because he was already near death? You thought the curse wouldn’t affect him?’

‘And with every year that passed, and he survived, that seemed more likely. I thought I could learn to live like this. I thought when Jem was gone, after I turned eighteen, I’d go live by myself, not inflict myself or my curse on anyone—and then everything changed. Because of you.’

‘Me?’ said Tessa in a quiet, stunned voice” (466).

This is like The Mortal Instruments. Clary changed Jace’s life like how Tessa changed Will’s.

“He took another step forward, and this time she did not move back. She was staring at him, at the pale, almost translucent skin under his eyes, at the dark hair curling at his temples, the nape of his neck, at the blue of his eyes and the curve of his mouth. Staring at him the way she might stare at a beloved place she was not sure she would ever see again, trying to commit the details to

memory, to paint them on the backs of her eyelids that she might see it when she shut her eyes to sleep” (467).

“‘She didn’t,’ he said. ‘I pulled them out of the fire myself. I read them all. Every word you wrote. You and I, Tess, we’re alike. We live and breathe words. It was books that kept me from taking my own life after I thought I could never love anyone, never be loved by anyone again. It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt—I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamed. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted—and then I realized that truly I just wanted you. The girl behind the scrawled letters. I loved you from the moment I read them. I love you still.’

Tessa had begun to tremble. This was what she had always wanted someone to say. What she had always, in the darkest corner of her heart, wanted Will to say. Will, the boy who loved the same books she did, the same poetry she did, who made her laugh even when she was furious. And here he was standing in front of her, telling her he loved the words of her heart, the shape of her soul. Telling her something she had never imagined anyone would ever tell her. Telling her something she would never be told again, not in this way. And not by him.

And it did not matter.

‘It’s too late,’ she said” (468).

“Will, she thought. Will, is that you? The backs of her eyes ached. Somehow she found that she was sitting on the floor in front of the grate of the fire. She stared at the flames, waiting for the tears to come. Nothing happened. After such a long time of forcing them back, it seemed, she had lost the ability to cry” (474).

“Jem stopped playing and opened his eyes. ‘Telemann,’ he said. ‘Fantasia in E-flat major.’ He set the violin and bow down. ‘Well, come in, then. You’re making me nervous, standing there’” (478).

This piece fits in perfectly with this scene and the overall vibe of The Infernal Devices. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECmlddEks7k

“‘Tessa,’ said Will. Her name was like knives in his mouth” (479).

“The Inquisitor, who had been pacing up and down the platform, stopped and looked Charlotte keenly in the face. ‘You say this girl was like a daughter to you,’ he said, ‘and yet you handed her over to the Brothers willingly? Why would you do something like that?’

‘The Law is hard,’ said Charlotte, ‘but it is the Law.’

Consul Wayland’s mouth flicked up at the corner. ‘And here you said she’d be too soft on wrongdoers, Benedict,’ he said. ‘Any comment?’” (484).

I’m like, “mm-hmm!” *flicks hair* lolz XD