[Extrait] Dreamless (Starcrossed #2) de Josephine Angelini

Ohh !! Josephine Angelini est décidément un ange ! Pour consoler les perdants du concours Dreamless (tome 2 de Starcrossed), elle a donné un extrait du premier chapitre ! Régalez-vous !

Chapter One

Red blood bloomed from underneath Helen’s torn fingernails, pooled in the crescents of her cuticles, and trailed down her knuckles in little rivers. Despite the pain, she gripped the ledge more tightly with her left hand so she could try to slide her right hand forward. There was grit and blood under her fingers, making her slip, and her hands were cramping so badly that the center of her palm was starting to spasm. She reached with her right, but didn’t have the strength to pull herself any farther forward.
Helen slid back with a gasp until she was dangling from her rigid fingertips. Six stories beneath her kicking feet was a dead flowerbed, littered with moldy bricks and slates that had slid off the roof of the dilapidated mansion and broken into bits. She didn’t have to look down to know that the same would happen to her if she lost her grasp on the crumbling window ledge. She tried again to swing a leg up and catch it on the windowsill, but the more she kicked the less secure her grip became.
A sob escaped from between her bitten lips. She had been hanging from this ledge since she descended into the Underworld that night. It felt to her like hours, maybe days had passed, and her endurance was flagging. Helen cried out in frustration. She had to get off this ledge and go find the Furies. She was the Descender– this was her task. Find the Furies in the Underworld, defeat them somehow, and free the Scions from the Furies’ influence. She was supposed to be ending the cycle of vengeance that compelled Scions to kill each other off, but instead here she was, hanging from a ledge.
She didn’t want to fall, but she knew that she would get no closer to finding the Furies if she went on clinging here for an eternity. And in the Underworld, every night lasted forever. She knew she needed to end this night and start the next anew, in some other, hopefully more productive, infinity. If she couldn’t pull herself up, that left only one option.
The fingers of Helen’s left hand began twitching and her grip gave way. She tried to tell herself not to fight it, that it would be better to fall because at least it would be over. But still she clung to the ledge with every bit of strength remaining in her right hand. Helen was too afraid to let herself go. She bit down on her bloody lip in concentration, but the fingers of her right hand slid across the grit and finally came away from the edge. She couldn’t hold on.
When she hit the ground she heard her left leg snap.

***

Helen slapped a hand over her mouth to keep the scream from erupting across her quiet Nantucket bedroom. She could taste the flinty grit of the Underworld on her cramped fingers. In the pewter-blue light of predawn, she listened intently to the sound of her father getting ready for the day down the hall. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to hear anything out of the ordinary, and he went downstairs to start cooking breakfast as if nothing were wrong.
Lying in bed, trembling with the pain of her broken leg and her pulled muscles, Helen waited for her body to heal itself. Tears slid down either side of her face, leaving hot tracks across her chilled skin. It was icy cold in her bedroom.
Helen knew she had to eat to heal properly, but she couldn’t go downstairs with a broken leg. She told herself to stay calm and wait. In time her body would be strong enough to move, then stand, and then walk. She would lie and say she’d over slept. She’d hide her sore leg from her father as best as she could, smiling and making small talk as they ate. Then, with a little food in her, she would heal the rest of the way.
She would feel better soon, she told herself, crying as quietly as she could. She just had to hold on.

***

Someone was waving a hand in Helen’s face.
“What?” she asked, startled. She turned to look at Matt, who was signaling her back to earth.
“I’m sorry, Lennie, but I still don’t get it. What’s a Rogue Scion?” he asked, his brow wrinkled with worry.
“I’m a Rogue,” she answered a bit too loudly. She’d faded for a second there, and still hadn’t caught up to the conversation.
Helen straightened her slumped shoulders and looked around at the rest of the room to find that everyone was staring at her. Everyone except Lucas. He was studying his hands in his lap, his mouth tight.
Helen, Lucas, Ariadne, and Jason were sitting around the Delos kitchen table after school, trying to catch Matt and Claire up on all things demigod. Matt and Claire were Helen’s best mortal friends, and they were both incredibly smart, but some things about Helen and her past were too complicated to be taken for granted. After everything they’d gone through, Matt and Claire deserved answers. They’d put their lives on the line to help Helen and the rest of the Delos family seven days ago.
Seven days, Helen thought, counting on her fingers to make sure. All that time in the Underworld makes it feel like seven weeks. Maybe it has been seven weeks for me.
“It sounds confusing, but it’s not,” Ariadne said when she realized that Helen wasn’t going to continue. “There are four Houses, and all four Houses owe each other a blood debt from the Trojan War. That’s why the Furies make us want to kill someone from another House. Vengeance.”
“A billion years ago someone from the House of Atreus killed someone from the House of Thebes and you are expected to pay that blood debt?” Matt asked dubiously.
“Pretty much, except it was a lot more than just one death. We’re talking about the Trojan War, here. A lot of people died, both demigod Scions and full mortals like you,” Ariadne said with an apologetic grimace.
“I know a lot of people died, but how does this blood-for-blood-thing get you anywhere?” Matt persisted. “It never ends. It’s insane.”
Lucas laughed mirthlessly and lifted his eye from his lap to meet Matt’s. “You’re right. The Furies drive us mad, Matt,” he said quietly, patiently. “They haunt us until we break.”
Helen remembered that tone. She thought of it as Lucas’s professor voice. She could listen to it all day, except she knew she shouldn’t want to.
“They make us want to kill each other in order to fulfill some twisted sort of justice,” Lucas continued in his measured tone. “They kill one person from our House, we kill one from theirs in retaliation, and on and on it goes for three and half thousand years. And if a Scion kills someone from his own House, he becomes an Outcast.”
“Like Hector,” Matt said tentatively. Even saying the name of their brother and cousin set off the Furies’ curse, angering the Delos clan. “He killed your cousin Creon because Creon killed your aunt Pandora, and now you all feel an irresistible urge to kill him, even though you still love him. I’m sorry. I’m still not seeing how that’s even remotely like justice.”
Helen looked around and saw Ari, Jason, and Lucas gritting their teeth. Jason was the first to calm himself
 “That’s why what Helen is doing is so important,” he replied. “She’s in the Underworld to defeat the Furies, and stop all this senseless killing.”
Matt gave up reluctantly. It was hard for him to accept the Furies, but he could see that no one at the table was any happier about their existence than he was. Claire still seemed like she needed to clarify a few things.
“Okay. That’s an Outcast. But Rogues like Lennie are Scions who have parents from two different Houses, but only one House can claim them, right? So they still owe a blood debt to the other House,” Claire spoke carefully, like she knew what she was saying was difficult for Helen to hear but she had to say it anyway. “You were claimed by your mother, Daphne. Or by her House, rather.”
“The House of Atreus,” Helen said dully, remembering how her long lost mother had returned to ruin her life nine days ago with some very unwelcome news.
“But your real father– not Jerry— even though, Lennie, I have to say, Jerry will always be your real dad to me,” Claire amended passionately before getting back on track. “Your biological father, who you never knew and who died before you were born…”
“Was from the House of Thebes.” For a moment Helen met Lucas’s eyes, then quickly looked away. “Ajax Delos.”
 “Our uncle,” Jason said, including Ariadne and Lucas in his glance.
“Right,” Claire said uncomfortably. She looked between Helen and Lucas who refused to meet her eyes. “And since you were both claimed by enemy Houses you two wanted each other dead at first. Until you…” she trailed off.
“Before Helen and I paid our blood debts to each other’s Houses by nearly dying for each other,” Lucas finished in a leaden tone, daring anyone to comment on the bond he and Helen shared.
Helen wanted to dig a hole straight down through the tiled floor of the Delos kitchen and disappear. She could feel the weight of everyone’s unasked questions.
They were all wondering: How far did Helen and Lucas go with each other before they found out they were first cousins? Was it just a little kissing, or did it get ‘scarred for life’ serious?
And: Do they still want to with each other, even though they know they’re cousins?
And: I wonder if they still do it sometimes.
It wouldn’t be hard for them because they can both fly. Maybe they sneak off every night and…
“Helen? We need to get back to work,” Cassandra said with bossy edge in her voice. She stood in the kitchen doorway with a fist planted on her slim, boyish hip.
As Helen stood up from the table, Lucas caught her eyes and gave her the tiniest of smiles, encouraging her. Smiling back ever so slightly, Helen followed Cassandra down to the Delos library feeling calmer, more self-assured. Cassandra shut the door and the two girls continued their search for some bit of knowledge that might help Helen in her quest.

C'est bon, pas vrai ? J'ai hâte de lire ce second tome vu à quel point j'avais aimé le premier. En plus je suis folle de la couverture...

Rappel de quelques dates :

Sortie VF de Starcrossed : 2 février 2012 chez Pocket Jeunesse

Sortie VO de Dreamless : Mai 2012 chez HarperCollins

[Extrait] Selena Rosa #2 : La marche pour la paix de Westley D. Northman

Je vous avais déjà parlé de Selena Rosa, pas vrai ? Enfin, l'auteur en a assurément mieux parlé que moi dans son interview (où vous trouverez toutes les informations sur le premier tome) ! Eh bien il se trouve que ce talentueux auteur, qui est aussi un ami (comment se retenir de se vanter, je vous le demande ?), a mis en ligne un extrait du second tome de sa série. Il s'agit en fait du prologue mais il ne contient aucun spoiler et même moi qui n'ai pas encore eu la chance d'avoir le premier tome entre les mains, je pourrais le lire. Sauf que je ne veux pas me gâcher la surprise... J'aime pas les extraits parce que je bave sur le reste après.

N'hésitez pas à commander le premier tome dans la boutique de Westley !

[Extrait] Traquée de PC et Kristin Cast

Traquée

Maison de la Nuit #5

Sortie en juin chez Pocket Jeunesse

Lire l'extrait

Résumé :

Zoey n'est plus seule. Les plans de Neferet pour la séparer de ses amis ont échoué.Tous se cachent désormais dans les souterrains avec les novices rouges. Mais un dangereux allié s'est rangé aux côtés de la grande prêtresse : Kalona, l'ange déchu, beau comme un dieu, aussi rusé que le diable. La Maison de la Nuit tout entière est envoûtée par son redoutable charisme,et personne ne semble se douter de la menace qu'il représente. 

Plus que jamais Zoey doit apprendre à déceler le mal ? ou le bien ? qui se cache au plus profond de chacun...

Entrez dans la Maison de la Nuit à vos risques et périls.

[Extrait] Hereafter de Tara Hudson

Tome 1 : Au-delà
      Prévu chez City Editions pour la fin septembre








            Couverture VO
              Source Lilie

Synopsis :

L'amour peut-il vraiment exister après la mort ?

Dérivant dans les eaux sombres d'une rivière mystérieuse, la seule chose dont Amelia est certaine, c'est qu'elle est morte. Elle n'a plus aucun souvenir de son passé ni de sa mort, elle est piégée, seule, dans une existence cauchemardesque. Tout cela change lorsqu'elle essaye de sauver un garçon, Joshua, de la noyade dans sa rivière. En tant que fantôme, elle ne peut pas faire grand chose à part lui insuffler sa volonté de vivre. Pourtant, dans un inoubliable moment de connexion, elle l'aide à survivre.

La connexion entre Amelia et Joshua devient sans cesse plus étroite alors qu'ils commencent à découvrir les circonstances étranges de la mort de la jeune fille et les secrets de la rivière noire qui la garde captive depuis si longtemps.

Les deux premiers chapitres en exclus pour les lecteurs de VO !

Chapter One

It was the same as always, but different from the first time.

It felt as if my sternum was a door into which someone had roughly shoved a key and twisted. The door—my lungs—wanted to open, wanted to stop fighting against the twist of the key. That primitive part of my brain, the one designed for survival, wanted me to breathe. But a louder part of my brain was also fighting any urge that might let the water rush in.

The black water seized and scrambled and found purchase anywhere it could. I kept my lips pressed together and my eyes shut tight, though I desperately needed sight to escape this nightmare. Yet the water still entered my mouth and my nose in little seeps. Even my eyes and ears couldn't hold it back. The water wrapped around my arms and legs like shifting fabric, tugging and pulling my body in all directions. I was buried under layers and layers of slippery, twisting fabric, and I wasn't going to claw my way free.

I'd struggled too long, fought too hard, and now my body was weakening from the lack of oxygen. The flail of my arms toward what I assumed was the surface became less exaggerated, as if the invisible fabric around them had thickened. I literally shook my head against the urge to breathe. I shouted No! in my head. No!

But instinct is a slippery thing, too—ultimate and untrickable.

My mouth opened and I breathed.

And as I always did, except for the first time I'd experienced this nightmare, I woke up.

My eyes remained closed and I continued to gasp. This time my gasp brought hysterical gulps of air, but not the brackish water that had flooded my lungs and stopped my heart during that first nightmare.

Now the air was useless, purposeless in my dead lungs. I nonetheless felt a dull joy at its presence: although my heart no longer beat, the air meant I was no longer drowning.

Still, I felt a little silly for being afraid. After all, it's not like you can die twice.

And I was already dead, that much was certain.

It had taken me awhile to accept the fact, perhaps years—time became a very uncertain thing in death. Years of wandering, confused and distracted by every sight and sound. Screaming at passersby, begging them to help me understand why I was so lost or even just to acknowledge my presence. I could see myself—bare feet, white dress, and dark brown hair that had dried into thick waves—but others couldn't. And I never saw another person like myself, someone dead, so there was really no point of comparison.

The nightmares were what made me finally see, and accept, the truth.

At first nothing in my wandering existence brought back memories of my life, nothing but the elusive familiarity of the woods and roads I wandered.

But then the nightmares began.

I would suddenly and without warning fall into periods of unconsciousness. During them I would drown again. Only after the first few nightmares did I see them for what they were: memories of my violent death.

So the memories of my death had returned. Yet only a few memories of my life came with them: my first name—Amelia—but not my last; my age at death— eighteen—but not my date of birth; and, of course, the fact that I'd apparently thrown myself off a bridge into the storm-flooded river below. But not the reason why.

Though I couldn't remember my life and what I'd learned in it, I still had some vague recollections of religious dogma. The few tenets I remembered, however, certainly hadn't accounted for this particular kind of afterlife. The wooded, dusty hills of southeastern Oklahoma weren't my idea of heaven; nor were the constant, narcoleptic revisits to the scene of my drowning.

The word "purgatory" would come to mind after I woke from each nightmare. I would play out my horrific little scene and then I would wake up, gulping and sobbing tearlessly, in the exact same place each time. It wouldn't matter where I'd been wandering when I went unconscious—an abandoned railroad track, a thick grove of pines, a half-empty diner—my destination was always the same. And each time the nightmare ended, I would wake in a field. It was always daylight, and I was always surrounded by row upon row of headstones. A cemetery. Probably mine.

I never waited around to find out.

I could have searched for my headstone maybe. Could have learned more about myself—about my death. Instead, I'd pull myself up from the weeds and dash for the iron gate enclosing the field, running as fast as my nonexistent legs would carry me.

And so it was with my existence: a montage of aimless wanderings; an occasional word spoken to an unhearing stranger; and then the nightmares and subsequent hasty escapes from my waking place.

Until this nightmare.

This nightmare had started the same. And, just as it always did, it ended with a terrified awakening. But this time when I finally opened my eyes, I didn't see the sunlight of a neglected cemetery. I saw only black.

The unexpected darkness brought back the terror, the frantic gasping. Especially since, after what would have been only one beat of my still heart, I recognized my location.

I was floating in the river again.

My renewed gulps, however, didn't drag in muddy water that surrounded me. My body was still as insubstantial as it had been before this nightmare. It floated, unaffected by the drag and pull of the angry water. This time things were different, although the dark, twisting scene looked almost the same as it did in each of my horrible dreams.

Almost.

Because this time I wasn't the one drowning.

He was.

Chapter Two

My first impression of the scene was wrong.

The water wasn't entirely black. Faint light shimmered above the surface—moonlight, maybe; it was too grayish to be sunlight. Below me two muted yellow beams seemed to rise from the depths of the river.

No, not rise. The beams pointed upward, but they were retreating. I spared a quick glance at them. They came from a huge, dark shape just below me. The shape—a car, its headlights beaming into the darkness—floated downward with an eerie slowness.

I shook my head. I didn't really care about the car; my attention was riveted on the boy illuminated in its headlights.

His body had shaped itself into a kind of X, arms floating limply upward and sneakered feet dangling. His head hung down, but I could tell his eyes were closed.

This boy didn't flail or struggle, and I had a sudden, sickening realization. The boy was unconscious. Not the kind of unconsciousness that torments the dead, but the kind that kills the living.

If he didn't wake up, this boy was going to drown.

Without another thought, I swam to him as fast as I could. When I reached him, I could see his face fully.

He was young, no older than I was when I died. His face looked peaceful in its stillness. He was strikingly handsome. I could see that, even under the water. His dark hair floated above his head almost lazily, considering the current. An involuntary and silly image sprang to my mind: his outspread arms resembled wings. Useless wings, at that. I wondered, almost idly, whether my arms had resembled his when I died.

My thoughts, then, were as sudden as they were fierce. This boy couldn't die. I couldn't watch him die. Not here, not like this.

I began to grasp at him, frantically trying to pull at his clothes and his limbs. To drag him to the surface. I tugged at his long-sleeved shirt and his jeans, even at his dark hair.

I pulled and pulled, but of course nothing happened. My stupid, dead hands couldn't touch him, couldn't save him. It was like struggling in the water on the night of my death—not a damn thing that I did would have any effect on the outcome. I was impotent, ineffective, and never more aware of the fact that I was dead.

Soon I started weeping my tearless sobs and pressed both my hands against his chest. As we sank deeper into the river, I became acutely aware of something: the sound of his slowing heartbeat.

As far as I knew, I possessed no supernatural senses whatsoever. Although some of my human senses had survived my death—my sight and hearing, obviously—I could no longer smell, taste, or feel anything in the living world. My remaining senses hadn't dulled, but they certainly hadn't improved, either.

So the sound of his heartbeat shocked me. I shouldn't have heard it so well, but I did. Even with a foot of water between us and with my no-better-than-human hearing, I could hear his heartbeat as clearly as if I'd pressed a stethoscope to his chest.

I wondered whether this had something to do with death. With being dead. Perhaps the dead could hear one of our own approaching, racing toward us. Or slowing toward us, in his case.

The boy and I continued to sink; and as we did so, his fragile heart beat unevenly toward its end. Each thud came slower than the one before it, until finally—

His heart stuttered once. Twice. And then I couldn't hear it anymore. A tiny bubble escaped the corner of his lips and floated upward.

I screamed. I screamed as I did in the first flush of death, angry and humiliated at my own lack of power. I screamed and slapped my useless hands against his chest.

At that moment his eyes opened.

He looked to the left and the right, taking in his surroundings. Then he looked at me. He looked right into my eyes.

I froze. Could he . . . see me?

He smiled, and then suddenly reached out his hand to place it upon my cheek. I felt his skin, warm on mine. Without thinking, I put my hand over his. His smile widened when I touched him.

He did see me.

He saw me, he saw me, he saw me.

My still, unbeating heart soared. And then so did his.

His heart—the one I'd just heard dying—stuttered, and stuttered again. The renewed beat sounded slow and uneven at first, but quickly it began to steady itself.

He looked down at his chest and back up at me, eyebrows arched in surprise at the sound coming from within him.

Then he coughed. The motion shook his whole body and sent bubbles flying out of his mouth.

He began to kick and flail. As he flailed, I realized I could no longer hear his heart. It was silent, at least to me. Yet he was thrashing about, fighting against the dark water. He continued to cough violently as his lungs spasmed back to life. Through the churning water, I could see his expression. He looked angry, terrified, and desperate.

I recognized that look. I had once felt that look. This boy was alive. He was alive, and he didn't want to die.

"Swim!" I screamed at him suddenly. "Up! Out!" He didn't look at me, but he began to scissor his legs and grab at the water above his head as if he were climbing out of a pit. Unlike my efforts on the night of my death, however, his struggles worked. He began to float upward, toward the surface of the river.

I'd never felt a wave of relief like this. Not in a million nightmare-wakings. Not in a million of those gasps that proved I was no longer drowning.

"Up!" I screamed again, this time with joy.

He continued to claw his way up, not once looking back at me or at the sound of my voice as I followed him effortlessly. Perhaps to him I was once again other, different—dead. For the moment, I couldn't have cared less. He would live. He wouldn't die in this cold, wet pit like I had. That was more than enough.

It felt like an eternity until he broke the surface of the river, but he did. In the night air, he choked and sputtered and gasped, flapping his arms against the water as if he were trying to fly away from it.

I floated beside him, entirely unaffected by the current or the churning his movements had created. When he sucked in a huge breath of air, I actually laughed aloud and clapped my hands together. Then I clapped my hands over my mouth. I'd never laughed. Not once since my death.

"Josh! Josh!"

The unfamiliar voice startled me. Someone had called out across the river to us. Well, to the boy anyway. I turned away from him, almost unwillingly, and saw a cluster of figures on the riverbank behind us.

"Josh!" a girl's voice screamed. "Oh Jesus, Josh, please! Someone help him!"

I turned to the boy, who was still coughing and flailing.

"Josh?" I asked. "Are you Josh?"

He didn't answer.

"Well, Josh or not Josh, I know you're tired. God knows I know. I know you probably can't hear me, either. But you've got to swim toward those voices. Do you understand?"

For a second he didn't react. Then, with painful slowness, he began to move his arms. The movements didn't exactly qualify as swimming, but they were enough to start pushing his body through the water.

As he got closer, the screams from the shore grew louder. In them I could almost make out a rational thread of conversation concerning the plan to pull him out of the river.

But really, I wasn't listening to the people on the shore. I was watching the boy swim, closer than I'd ever watched anything in my existence. I found myself praying for the first time since my death. Praying that he made it safely to the shore; praying that he didn't give up and let the current take him.

"Please," I whispered as I followed him. "Please, let him make it."

This boy proved much stronger than I ever had. For several more agonizing minutes, he fought his way through the current. Finally, he was close enough so that someone was able to grab his arm and half swim, half drag him to the shore.

Cries of both joy and fear rose up from the crowd that had gathered on the grass embankment and the bridge above us. A man, the one who had pulled the boy from the water, stretched the boy out upon the muddy red riverbank. As I rose out of the water and walked onto the shore, I could see the man flutter his hands over the boy's body, checking for some sign of life.

The boy instantly rolled over, coughed once, and began to vomit water. Audible sighs of relief rose up from the crowd. Their faces were illuminated by headlights from the cars parked in a jumble on the grass as well as on the bridge. The onlookers' expressions varied from tense to excited to scared.

"Josh. Josh," they called like a chorus.

They all seemed to know his name.

It was then that I noticed the multicolored flash of lights coming from the emergency vehicles that had formed their own sort of crowd behind the bystanders on the bridge. Within what seemed like only seconds, two uniformed paramedics had made their way down the embankment and knelt beside the boy, doing their own, more effective sort of fluttering over him. Within less than a minute after that, the boy—my boy, if I was honest in my suddenly possessive thoughts—was placed on a gurney and hoisted across the bank, then up toward an ambulance. The crowd surged forward with the paramedics, and I lost sight of him.

That should have been the end of the ordeal. Yet I couldn't stand still. I couldn't watch strangers take away the only living person to see me. My boy. My Josh.

Determined, I pushed through the crowd. They couldn't see or feel me, of course, but I still had to fight to find a clear path.

By some miracle I made it through. I shoved in between two figures and suddenly found myself at the side of the gurney just as the paramedics began to raise its wheels so they could slide it and its passenger into the ambulance.

I leaned over the boy. He looked pale in the moonlight, his face gaunt and drawn. For some reason I had to hold back a sob.

"Josh?" I moaned, unsure of what to do. Unsure of everything.

He opened his eyes then. Dark-colored eyes—too dark a color to identify at night. He looked at me and

held my gaze in the moment before the paramedics moved him out of my sight, possibly forever.

"Joshua," he croaked, his voice rough from the river water. "Call me Joshua."

La Cité des Ténèbres : Extrait + Cartes Postales

Cassandra Clare nous a dévoilé un magnifique extrait du tome 1 sur Alec et Magnus pour avoir réuni 30 000 fans sur twitter ! Le voilà :

It was printed on thin paper, nearly parchment, in a thin, elegant, spidery hand. It announced a gathering at the humble home of Magnus the Magnificent Warlock, and promised attendees “a rapturous evening of delights beyond your wildest imaginings.” —City of Bones

Standing in the stairwell of Magnus’ home, Alec stared at the name written under the buzzer on the wall. BANE. The name didn’t really seem to suit Magnus, he thought, not now that he knew him. If you could really be said to know someone when you’d attended one of their parties, once, and then they’d saved your life later but hadn’t really hung around to be thanked. But the name Magnus Bane made him think of a towering sort of figure, with huge shoulders and formal purple warlock’s robes, calling down fire and lightning. Not Magnus himself, who was more of a cross between a panther and a demented elf.

Alec took a deep breath and let it out. Well, he’d come this far; he might as well go on. The bare lightbulb hanging overhead cast sweeping shadows as he reached forward and pressed the buzzer.

A moment later a voice echoed through the stairwell. “WHO CALLS UPON THE HIGH WARLOCK?”

“Er,” Alec said. “It’s me. I mean, Alec. Alec Lightwood.”

There was a sort of silence, as if even the hallway itself were surprised. Then a ping, and the second door opened, letting him out onto the stairwell. He headed up the rickety stairs into the darkness, which smelled like pizza and dust. The second floor landing was bright, the door at the far end open. Magnus Bane was leaning in the entryway.

Compared to the first time Alec has seen him, he looked fairly normal. His black hair still stood up in spikes, and he looked sleepy; his face, even with its cat’s eyes, very young. He wore a black t-shirt with the words ONE MILLION DOLLARS picked out across the chest in sequins, and jeans that hung low on his hips, low enough that Alec looked away, down at his own shoes. Which were boring.

“Alexander Lightwood,” said Magnus. He had just the faintest trace of an accent, something Alec couldn’t put his finger on, a lilt to his vowels. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Alec looked past Magnus. “Do you have — company?”

Magnus crossed his arms, which did good things for his biceps, and leaned against the side of the door. “Why do you want to know?”

“I was hoping I could come in and talk to you.”

“Hmmm.” Magnus’ eyes raked him up and down. They really did shine in the dark, like a cat’s. “Well, all right then.” He turned abruptly away and disappeared into the apartment; after a startled moment, Alec followed.

The loft looked different without a hundred churning bodies in it. It was — well, not ordinary, but the sort of space someone might live in. Like most lofts, it had a big central room split into “rooms” by groupings of furniture. There was a square collection of sofas and tables off to the right, which Magnus gestured Alec toward. Alec sat down on a gold velvet sofa with elegant wooden curlicues on the arms.

“Would you like some tea?” Magnus asked. He wasn’t sitting in a chair, but had sprawled himself on a tufted ottoman, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

Alec nodded. He felt incapable of saying anything. Anything interesting or intelligent, that was. It was always Jace who said the interesting, intelligent things. He was Jace’s parabatai and that was all the glory he needed or wanted: like being the dark star to someone else’s supernova. But this was somewhere Jace couldn’t go with him, something Jace couldn’t help him with. “Sure.”

His right hand felt suddenly hot. He looked down, and realized he was holding a waxed paper cup from Joe, the Art of Coffee. It smelled like chai. He jumped, and only barely escaped spilling on himself. “By the Angel —”

“I LOVE that expression,” said Magnus. “It’s so quaint.”

Alec stared at him. “Did you steal this tea?”

Magnus ignored the question. “So,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Alec took a gulp of the stolen tea. “I wanted to thank you,” he said, when he came up for air. “For saving my life.”

Magnus leaned back on his hands. His t-shirt rode up over his flat stomach, and this time Alec had nowhere else to look. “You wanted to thank me.”

“You saved my life,” Alec said, again. “But I was delirious, and I don’t think I really thanked you. I know you didn’t have to do it. So thank you.”

Magnus’ eyebrows had disappeared up into his hairline. “You’re . . .welcome?”

Alec set his tea down. “Maybe I should go.”

Magnus sat up. “After you came so far? All the way to Brooklyn? Just to thank me?” He was grinning. “Now that would be a wasted effort.” He reached out and put his hand to Alec’s cheek, his thumb brushing along the cheekbone. His touch felt like fire, training tendrils of sparks in its wake. Alec sat frozen in surprise — surprise at the gesture, and surprise at the effect it was having on him. Magnus’ eyes narrowed, and he dropped his hand. “Huh,” he said to himself.

“What?” Alec was suddenly very worried that he’d done something wrong. “What is it?”

“You’re just . . .” A shadow moved behind Magnus; with fluid agility, the warlock twisted around and picked up a small gray and white tabby cat from the floor. The cat curled into the crook of his arm and looked at Alec with suspicion. Now two pairs of gold-green eyes were trained on him darkly. “Not what I expected.”

“From a Shadowhunter?”

“From a Lightwood.”

“I didn’t realize you knew my family that well.”

“I’ve known your family for hundreds of years.” Magnus’ eyes searched his face. “Now your sister, she’s a Lightwood. You—’

“She said you liked me.”

“What?”

“Izzy. My sister. She told me you liked me. Liked me, liked me.”

“Liked you, liked you?” Magnus buried his grin in the cat’s fur. “Sorry. Are we twelve now? I don’t recall saying anything to Isabelle . . .”

“Jace said it too.” Alec was blunt; it was the only way he knew how to be. “That you liked me. That when he buzzed up here, you thought he was me and you were disappointed that it was him. That never happens.”

“Doesn’t it? Well, it should.”

Alec was startled. “No — I mean Jace, he’s . . . Jace.”

“He’s trouble,” said Magnus. “But you are totally without guile. Which in a Lightwood, is a conundrum. You’ve always been a plotting sort of family, like low-rent Borgias. But there isn’t a lie in your face. I get the feeling everything you say is straightforward.”

Alec leaned forward. “Do you want to go out with me?”

Magnus blinked. “See, that’s what I mean. Straightforward.”

Alec chewed his lip and said nothing.

“Why do you want to go out with me?” Magnus inquired. He was rubbing Chairman Meow’s head, his long fingers folding the cat’s ears down. “Not that I’m not highly desirable, but the way you asked, it seemed as if you were having some sort of fit —”

“I just do,” Alec said. “And I thought you liked me, so you’d say yes, and I could try — I mean, we could try —” He put his face in his hands. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

Magnus’ voice was gentle. “Does anyone know you’re gay?”

Alec’s head jerked up; he found he was breathing a little hard, as if he’d run a race. But what could he do, deny it? When he’d come here to do exactly the opposite? “Clary,” he said, hoarsely. “Which is . . . Which was an accident. And Izzy, but she’d never say anything.”

“Not your parents. Not Jace?”

Alec thought about Jace knowing, and pushed the thought away, hard and fast. “No. No, and I don’t want them to know, especially Jace.”

“I think you could tell him.” Magnus rubbed Chairman Meow under the chin. “He went to pieces like a jigsaw puzzle when he thought you were going to die. He cares —”

“I’d rather not.” Alec was still breathing quickly. He rubbed at the knees of his jeans with his fists. “I’ve never had a date,” he said in a low voice. “Never kissed anyone. Not ever. Izzy said you liked me and I thought —”

“I’m not unsympathetic. But do you like me? Because this being gay business doesn’t mean you can just throw yourself at any guy and it’ll be fine because he’s not a girl. There are still people you like and people you don’t.”

Alec thought of his bedroom back at the Institute, of being in a delirium of pain and poison when Magnus had come in. He had barely recognized him. He was fairly sure he’d been screaming for his parents, for Jace, for Izzy, but his voice would only come out on a whisper. He remembered Magnus’ hands on him, his fingers cool and gentle. He remembered the death-grip he’d kept on Magnus’ wrist, for hours and hours, even after the pain had passed and he knew he would be all right. He remembered watching Magnus’ face in the light of the rising sun, the gold of sunrise sparking gold out of his eyes, and thinking how oddly beautiful he was, with his cat’s gaze and grace.

“Yes,” Alec said. “I like you.”

He met Magnus’ gaze squarely. The warlock was looking at him with a sort of admixture of curiosity and affection and puzzlement. “It’s so odd,” Magnus said. “Genetics. Your eyes, that color —” He stopped and shook his head.

“The Lightwoods you knew didn’t have blue eyes?”

“Green-eyed monsters,” said Magnus, and grinned. He deposited Chairman Meow on the ground, and the cat moved over to Alec, and rubbed against his leg. “The Chairman likes you.”

“Is that good?”

“I never date anyone my cat doesn’t like,” Magnus said easily, and stood up. “So let’s say Friday night?”

A great wave of relief came over Alec. “Really? You want to go out with me?”

Magnus shook his head. “You have to stop playing hard to get, Alexander. It makes things difficult.” He grinned. He had a grin like Jace’s — not that they looked anything alike, but the sort of grin that lit up his whole face. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

Alec drifted after Magnus toward the front door, feeling as if a weight had been taken off his shoulders, one he hadn’t even known he was carrying. Of course he’d have to come up with an excuse for where he was going Friday night, something Jace wouldn’t want to participate in, something he’d need to do alone. Or he could pretend to be sick and sneak out. He was so lost in thought he almost banged into the front door, which Magnus was leaning against, looking at him through eyes narrowed to crescents.

“What is it?” Alec said.

“Never kissed anyone?” Magnus said. “No one at all?”

“No,” said Alec, hoping this didn’t disqualify him from being datable. “Not a real kiss —”

“Come here.” Magnus took him by the elbows and pulled him close. For a moment Alec was entirely disoriented by the feeling of being so close to someone else, to the kind of person he’d wanted to be close to for so long. Magnus was long and lean but not skinny; his body was hard, his arms lightly muscled but strong; he was an inch or so taller than Alec, which hardly ever happened, and they fit together perfectly. Magnus’ finger was under his chin, tilting his face up, and then they were kissing. Alec heard a small hitching gasp come from his own throat and then their mouths were pressed together with a sort of controlled urgency. Magnus, Alec thought dazedly, really knew what he was doing. His lips were soft, and he parted Alec’s expertly, exploring his mouth: a symphony of lips, teeth, tongue, every movement waking up a nerve ending Alec had never known he had.

He found Magnus’ waist with his fingers, touching the strip of bare skin he’d been trying to avoid looking at before, and slid his hands up under Magnus’ shirt. Magnus jerked with surprise, then relaxed, his hands running down Alec’s arms, over his chest, his waist, finding the belt loops on Alec’s jeans and using them to pull him closer. His mouth left Alec’s and Alec felt the hot pressure of his lips on his throat, where the skin was so sensitive that it seemed directly connected to the bones in his legs, which were about to give out. Just before he slid to the floor, Magnus let him go. His eyes were shining and so was his mouth.

“Now you’ve been kissed,” he said, reached behind him, and yanked the door open. “See you Friday?”

Alec cleared his throat. He felt dizzy, but he also felt alive — blood rushing through his veins like traffic at top speed, everything seemingly almost too brightly colored. As he stepped through the door, he turned and looked at Magnus, who was watching him bemusedly. He reached forward and took hold of the front of Magnus’ t-shirt and dragged the warlock toward him. Magnus stumbled against him, and Alec kissed him, hard and fast and messy and unpracticed, but with everything he had. He pulled Magnus against him, his own hand between them, and felt Magnus’ heart stutter in his chest.

He broke off the kiss, and drew back.

“Friday,” he said, and let Magnus go. He backed away, down the landing, Magnus looking after him. The warlock crossed his arms over his shirt — wrinkled where Alec had grabbed it — and shook his head, grinning.

“Lightwoods,” Magnus said. “They always have to have the last word.”

He shut the door behind him, and Alec ran down the steps, taking them two at a time, his blood still singing in his ears like music.

Et voici des cartes postales échangées entre les personnages dans les quatrième et cinquième tomes !

 

 

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La Cité des Ténèbres : Dirty Sexy Balcony Scene

Un petit extrait de Clockwork Prince (sortie septembre 2011), ça vous tente ? Cassie Clare a donné un petit avant goût du second tome de Infernal Devices ! Et le voici pour vous !

"He reached up and unlocked Tessa's hands from around his neck. He drew her gloves off, and they joined her mask and the hairpins on the stone floor of the balcony. He pulled off his own mask next and cast it aside, running his hands through his sweat-dampened hair, pushing it back from his forehead. The lower edge of the mask had left marks across his high cheekbones, like light scars, but when she reached to touch them, he gently caught at her hands and pressed them down.
“No,” he said. “Let me touch you first."
Il attrapa les mains de Tessa autour de son cou et les en retira. Il lui ôta ses gants et ils rejoignirent le masque de Tessa ainsi que ses épingles à cheveux sur le sol en pierre du balcon. Puis il enleva son propre masque et le mit à côté, en faisant courir ses mains dans ses cheveux humides de sueur dégageant ainsi son front. Le bord de son masque avait laissé des traces sur ses pommettes, comme de légères cicatrices. Mais quand elle s'approcha pour les toucher il attrapa doucement ses mains et l'en empêcha.
"Non" dit-il "Laisse-moi d'abord te toucher"

Voilà qui donne envie, non ?

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