The mundanes put their faith in their paper money, and when that turns to ash, the world will turn upside down.

They're power-hungry, the mundane said of the magical people. They're immoral, people said, and they're scary. Playing with the dark arts could plunge me into evil. I'd be pulled toward depravity. Blasphemy would begin to seem like truth, bad like good, God like Satan. It had happened to people through the centuries, they said. And they were right. All that did happen.

Every student, Shadowhunter and mundane alike, knew the name Herondale. It was Jace’s last name. It was the name of heroes.

Everybody in this academy, Shadowhunters and mundanes, people with the Sight and without it, every one of them is looking to be a hero. We are all hoping for it, and trying for it, and soon we will all be bleeding for it.