"Pulvis et umbra sumus. It's a line from Horace. 'We are dust and shadows'. Appropriate, don't you think?"Will said. "It's not a long life, killing demons; one tends to die young, and then they burn your body - dust to dust, in the literal sense. And then we vanish into the shadows of history, nary a mark on the page of a mundane book to remind the world that once we existed at all."
"Will rolled up his sleeves. "We'll probably have to knock down the door--""Or,"said Jem, reaching out and giving the knob a twist, "not."The door swung open onto a rectangle of darkness. "Now, that's simply laziness,"said Will."
"Henry turned as if to dart out of the room, then swung around and stared at them, a look of confusion passing over his freckled face, as if he had only now had cause to wonder why Will, Tessa, and Jem might be crouching together in a mostly disused storage room. "What are you three doing in here, anyway?"Will tilted his head to the side and smiled at Henry. "Charades,"he said. "Massive game."
"Will suspected Jem was in fact cleverer than he was himself - but he lacked Will's tendency to assume the absolute worst about people and proceed from there."
"Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do."
"It was odd, (Tessa thought), what brought out tenderness in people."