Jem Carstairs Quotes

As metal rang on metal, some inner part of Jem, some part that had been lost without his even knowing it was lost, felt the pleasure of fighting together with Will one last time.

I will still be in some part the Jem you knew, and I will see you with the eyes of my heart.

Come with me," she said. "Stay with me. Be with me. See everything with me. I have traveled the world and seen so much, but there is so much more, and no one I would rather see it with than you. I would go everywhere and anywhere with you, Jem Carstairs.

There are so many worse things than death. Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.

I don't know how to live in the world as a Shadowhunter without Will. I don't think i even want to. I am still a parabatai, but my other half is gone.

Your place is with me. It always will be. -Jem Carstairs

I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain

You are home for me now." --Jem to Tessa

All my life, since I came to the Institute, you were the mirror of my soul. I saw the good in me in you. In your eyes alone I found grace. When you are gone from me, who will see me like that?

She knew she could not be Jem for Will. No one could. But slowly the hollow places in his heart were filling in.

Listen to me. I am leaving, but I am living. I will not be gone from you entirely, Will. When you fight now, I will be still by you. When you walk in the world, I will be the light at your side, the ground steady under your feet, the force that drives the sword in your hand. We are bound, beyond the oath. The Marks did not change that. The oath did not change that. It merely gave words to something that existed already.

I love you. And I don't want to lose you.

James, you are all the family I have. I would die for you. You know that. I would die without you. If it were not for you, I would be dead a hundred times over these past five years. I owe you everything, and if you cannot believe I have empathy, perhaps you might at least believe I know honor--honor, and debt--

You swore to stay with me,” he said. “When we made our oath, as parabatai. Our souls are knit. We are one person, James.” “We are two people,” said Jem. “Two people with a covenant between us.” Will knew he sounded like a child, but he could not help it. “A covenant that says you must not go where I cannot come with you.” “Until death,” Jem replied gently. “Those are the words of the oath. ‘Until aught but death part thee and me.’ Someday, Will, I will go where none can follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later.

I shall see you on Blackfriars Bridge, Tessa.

Jem cried out with all his remaining strength. You cannot go where I am going! Nor would I want that for you!

I think there is hope for you yet, Will Herondale. I will try to learn how to have it, without you to show me. Tessa, Jem said. She knows despair, and hope as well. you can teach each other. Find her, Will, and tell her that I loved her always. My blessings, for all that it is worth, is on you both.

And now I need you to do for me what I cannot do for myself. For you to be my eyes when I do not have them. For you to be my hands when I cannot use my own. For you to be my heart when mine is done beating.

There is more to living than not dying," he said. "Look at the way you live Will. You burn as bright as a star.

If there is a life after this one, he said, let me meet you in it, James Carstairs.

Our hearts, they need a mirror, Tessa. We see our better selves in the eyes of those who love us.

Jem knotted his fingers in the material of Will's sleeve. "You are my parabatai," he said, "You said once I could ask anything of you.

Our souls are knit. We are one person, James.

Will’s voice dropped. “Everyone makes mistakes, Jem.” “Yes,” said Jem. “You just make more of them than most people.” “I —” “You hurt everyone,” said Jem. “Everyone whose life you touch.” “Not you,” Will whispered. “I hurt everyone but you. I never meant to hurt you.” Jem put his hands up, pressing his palms against his eyes. “Will —” “You can’t never forgive me,” Will said in disbelief, hearing the panic tinging his own voice. “I’d be —” “Alone?” Jem lowered his hand, but he was smiling now, crookedly. “And whose fault is that?

Someday, Will, I will go where none can follow me, and I think it will be sooner rather than later. Have you ever asked yourself why I agreed to be your parabatai?

The right man won't care

I know you feel inhuman, and as if you are set apart, away from life and love, but... I promise you, the right man won't care.

For that was love, wasnt it--to burn bright in someone else's eyes?

I promise to charm the dickens out of him,' said Will, sitting up and readjusting his crushed hat. 'I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.' 'The man's eighty-nine', muttered Jem. 'He may well have the problem anyway.

We’re Nephilim. Every one of our life’s passages has some mystical component — our births, our deaths, our, marriages, everything has a ceremony and a rune. There is one as well if you wish to become someone’s parabatai. It’s no small commitment.

He began it,” Cecily said, jerking her chin at Will, though she knew it was pointless. Jem, Will’s parabatai, treated her with the distant sweet kindness reserved for the little sisters of one’s friends, but he would always side with Will. Kindly, but firmly, he put Will above everything else in the world. Well, nearly everything.

There's nothing you could have done that would cause me to cease loving either of you. Will is myself, my own soul, and if I am not to have the keeping of your heart, then there is not other I would rather have that honor.

Jem is nothing but goodness. That he struck you last night only shows how capable you are of driving even saints to madness.

Will closed his eyes. He could not hear Jem go, not anymore; he did not want to know the moment when he left and Will was alone, did now want to know when his first day as a Shawdowhunter without a parabatai truly began. And if the place over his heart, where his parabatai rune had been, flared up with a sudden burning pain as the door closed behind Jem, Will told himself it was only a stray ember from the fire.

Wo wei ni xie de,” he said, as he raised the violin to his left shoulder, tucking it under his chin. He had told her many violinists used a shoulder rest, but he did not: there was a slight mark on the side of his throat, like a permanent bruise, where the violin rested. “You — made something for me?” Tessa asked. “I wrote something for you,” he corrected, with a smile, and began to play.

He played of love and loss and years of silence, words unsaid and vows unspoken, and all the spaces between his heart and theirs; and when he was done, and he'd set the violin back in its box, Will's eyes were closed, but Tessa's were full of tears.

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 take your hand, brother, so that you may go in peace. Will had opened his blue eyes that never lost their colour over all the passing years, and looked at Jem and then Tessa, and smiled, and died, with Tessa's head on his shoulder and and his hand in Jem's.

Wherever we are, we are as one

I do not believe you can threaten people into goodness.” - Jem Carstairs

You speak of sacrifice, but it is not my sacrifice I offer. It is yours I ask of you," he went on. "I can offer you my life, but it is a short life; I can offer you my heart, though I have no idea how many more beats it shall sustain. But I love you enough to hope that you will not care that I am being selfish in trying to make the rest of my life--whatever its length--happy, by spending it with you. I want to be married to you, Tessa. I want it more than I have ever wanted anything else in my life.

Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.- William Herondale

Say something in Mandarin,” said Tessa, with a smile. Jem said something that sounded like a lot of breathy vowels and consonants run together, his voice rising and falling melodically: “Ni hen piao liang.” “What did you say?” Tessa was curious. “I said your hair is coming undone — here,” he said, and reached out and tucked an escaping curl back behind her ear. Tessa felt the blood spill hot up into her face, and was glad for the dimness of the carriage. “You have to be careful with it,” he said, taking his hand back, slowly, his fingers lingering against her cheek.

This was a voice that drew out memories stretched thin by years of recollection, like paper unfolded and refolded too many times. A voice that brought back, like a wave, the memory of another time on this bridge, a night so long ago, everything black and silver and the river rushing away under her feet.

I told you before, Jem, that you would not leave me. And you are still with me. When I breathe, I will think of you, for without you I would have been dead years ago. When I wake up and when I sleep, when I lift up my hands to defend myself or when I lie down to die, you will be with me. You say we are born and born again. I say there is a river that divides the dead and the living. What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, and if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so that we can cross together.

What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, and if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so that we can cross together.

Do you remember when we stood together on Blackfriars Bridge?” he asked softly, and his eyes were like that night had been, all black and silver. “Of course I remember.” “It was the moment I first knew I loved you,” Jem said. “I will make you a promise. Every year, Tessa, on one day, I will meet you on that bridge. I will come from the Silent City and I will meet you, and we will be together, if only for an hour. But you must tell no one.

No, the last thing she cared about was whether people were staring at the boy and girl kissing by the river, as London, it's cities and towers and churches and bridges and streets, circled all about them like the memory of a dream. And if the Thames that ran beside them, sure and silver in the afternoon light, recalled a night long ago when the moon shone as brightly as a shilling on this same boy and girl, or if the stones of Blackfriars knew the tread of their feet and thought to themselves: At last, the wheel comes to a full circle, they kept their silence.

Will: "Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ..." Jem: "Indeed. Perhaps, if we're fortunate, we can still catch syphilis." "Or demon pox," Will suggested cheerfully, trying the door under the stairs.

For five years it had been his absolute truth. Jem and Will. Will and Jem. Will Herondale lives, therefore Jem Carstairs lives also.