Bianca

“Names are just words. I know that. But learning that the last name I’d used all my life was fake…
“So what should I call myself, then?” I asked. “Sophie Atherton? Sophie Brannick?” Both sounded weird and made me feel like I was wearing clothes that didn’t fit.
Mom smiled and brushed my hair away from my face. “You can call yourself whatever you want.”
“Okay. Sophie Awesome Sparkle-Princess it is.”
― Rachel Hawkins, Spell Bound

“What else did he say?”
She screwed up her face. “Oh, some weird thing about telling you that he still feels the same way about that tent, and he promises to say it to you in person next time he sees you.”
I gave a bark of laughter that was more of a sob. “That asshat,” I blubbered.
Elodie nodded in sympathy. “Such an asshat.”
― Rachel Hawkins, Spell Bound

“Oh, good, it worked,” Archer said, his ghostly face relieved. Unlike Elodie, his voice came in loud and clear, and so familiar that my heart broke all over again.
I stood frozen, my back against the door. Even though he was faint, I could see him smirk.
“Um…Mercer? Haven’t seen you in nearly a month. I was expecting something like, ‘Oh, Cross, love of my heart, fire of my loins, how I’ve longed—’”
“You’re dead,” I blurted out, pressing a hand against my stomach. “You’re a ghost, and you think—”
All the humor disappeared from his face, and he held up both hands. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not dead. Promise.”
My heart was still hammering. “Then what the heck are you?”
Archer almost looked sheepish as he reached inside his shirt and pulled out some kind of amulet on a thin silver chain. “It’s a speaking stone. Lets you appear to people kind of like a hologram. You know. ‘Help me, Sophie-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.’”
“Did you steal it from the cellar at Hecate, too?” Archer had collected all sorts of magical knickknacks back when we had cellar duty at Hex Hall.
“No,” he said, offended. “I found it at a…store. For magical stuff. Okay, yes, I stole it from the cellar.”
― Rachel Hawkins, Spell Bound

“Lex malla, lex nulla,” said Julian with a regretful wave of his hand. It was the Blackthorn family motto: A bad law is no law.
“I wonder what other family mottoes are,” Emma mused. “Do you know any?”
“The Lightwood family motto is ‘We mean well.’ ”
“Very funny.”
Julian looked over at her. “No, really, it actually is.”
“Seriously? So what’s the Herondale family motto? ‘Chiseled but angsty’?”
He shrugged. ‘If you don’t know what your last name is, it’s probably Herondale’?”
Emma burst out laughing. “What about Carstairs?” she asked, tapping Cortana. “ ‘We have a sword’? ‘Blunt instruments are for losers’?”
“Morgenstern,” offered Julian. “ ‘When in doubt, start a war’?”
― Cassandra Clare, Lord of Shadows