Chapter 43
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Jace looked up at Hodge, surprised. ry noted the
contrast: the ravaged face of the older man and the
boy’s unlined one, the pale locks of hair falling into
Jace’s eyes making him look even younger. “I’m not
sure what you mean,” Jace said.
Hodge’s breath hissed out through his teeth. “You look
so much like him.”
“Like who?” said Jace in astonishment; he had clearly
never heard Hodge talk this way before.
“Like your father,” Hodge said, and raised his eyes to
where Hugo, ck wings stirring the humid air,
hovered just overhead.
Hodge narrowed his eyes. “Hugin,” he said, and with
an unearthly caw the bird dived straight for ry’s
face, ws outstretched.
ry heard Jace shout, and then the world was
whirling feathers and shing beak and ws. Bright
pain bloomed along her cheek and she shrieked,
instinctively throwing her hands up to cover her face.
She felt the Mortal Cup yanked from her grasp. “No!”
she cried, grabbing for it. An agonizing pain shot up
her arm. Her legs seemed to go out from under her.
She slipped and fell, striking her knees painfully
against the hard floor. ws raked her forehead.
“That’s enough, Hugo,” said Hodge in his quiet voice.
Obediently the bird spun away from ry. Gagging,
she blinked blood out of her eyes. Her face felt
shredded.
Hodge had not moved; he stood where he was,
holding the Mortal Cup. Hugo was circling him in wide,
agitated rounds, cawing softly. And Jace—Jacey on
the floor at Hodge’s feet, very still, as if he had fallen
suddenly asleep.
All other thoughts were driven from her mind. “Jace!”
Speaking hurt—the pain in her cheek was startling
and she could taste blood in her mouth. Jace didn’t
move.
“He’s not hurt,” said Hodge. ry started to her feet,
meaning to fling herself at him—then reeled back as
she struck something invisible but as hard and strong
as ss. Infuriated, she struck against the air with her
fist.
“Hodge!” she shouted. She kicked out, nearly bruising
her feet on the same invisible wall. “Don’t be stupid.
When the ve finds out what you’ve done—”
“I’ll be long gone by then,” he said, kneeling over
Jace.
“But—” A shock ran through her, a jolt of electric
realization. “You never sent a message to the ve,
did you? That’s why you were so weird when I asked
you about it. You wanted the Cup for yourself.”
“Not,” said Hodge, “for myself.”
ry’s throat was dry as dust. “You work for
Valentine,” she whispered.
“I do not work for Valentine,” said Hodge. He lifted
Jace’s hand and drew something from it. It was the
engraved ring Jace always wore. Hodge slipped it
onto his own finger. “But I am Valentine’s man, it is
true.”
With a swift movement he twisted the ring three times
around his finger. For a moment nothing happened;
then ry heard the sound of a door opening and
turned instinctively to see who wasing into the
library. When she turned back, she saw that the air
beside Hodge was shimmering, like the surface of a
lake seen from a distance. The shimmering wall of air
parted like a silver curtain, and then a tall man was
standing next to Hodge, as if he had coalesced out of
the humid air.
“Starkweather,” he said. “You have the Cup?”
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Hodge raised the Cup in his hands, but said nothing.
He appeared paralyzed, whether with fear or
astonishment, it was impossible to tell. He had always
seemed tall to ry, but now he looked hunched and
small. “My Lord Valentine,” he said, finally. “I had not
expected you so quickly.”
Valentine. He bore little resemnce to the handsome
boy in the photograph, though his eyes were still
ck. His face was not what she had expected: It was
a restrained, closed, interior face, the face of a priest,
with sorrowful eyes. Creeping out beneath the ck
cuffs of his tailored suit were the ridged white scars
that spoke of years of the stele. “I told you I would
come to you through a Portal,” he said. His voice was
resonant, and strangely familiar. “Didn’t you believe
me?”
“Yes. It’s just—I thought you’d send Pangborn or
ckwell, note yourself.”
“You think I would send them to collect the Cup? I am
not a fool. I know its lure.” Valentine held out his hand,
and ry saw, gleaming on his finger, a ring that was
the twin of Jace’s. “Give it to me.”
But Hodge held the Cup fast. “I want what you
promised me first.”
“First? You don’t trust me, Starkweather?” Valentine
smiled, a smile not without humor in it. “I’ll do as you
asked. A bargain is a bargain. Though I must say I
was astonished to get your message. I wouldn’t have
thought you’d mind a life of hidden contemtion, so
to speak. You never were much for the battlefield.”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Hodge said, letting out
his breath with a hissing gasp. “Being afraid all the
time—”
“That’s true. I don’t.” Valentine’s voice was as
sorrowful as his eyes, as if he pitied Hodge. But there
was dislike in his eyes too, a trace of scorn. “If you did
not intend to give the Cup to me,” he said, “you should
not have summoned me here.”
Hodge’s face worked. “It is not easy to betray what
you believe in—those who trust you.”
“Do you mean the Lightwoods, or their children?”
“Both,” said Hodge.
“Ah, the Lightwoods.” Valentine reached out, and with
a hand caressed the brass globe that stood on the
desk, his long fingers tracing the outlines of continents
and seas. “But what do you owe them, really? Yours is
the punishment that should have been theirs. If they
had not had such high connections in the ve, they
would have been cursed along with you. As it is, they
are free toe and go, to walk in the sunlight like
ordinary men. They are free to go home.” His voice as
he said “home” thrilled with all the meaning of the
word. His finger had stopped moving over the globe;
ry was sure he was touching the ce where Idris
would be.
Hodge’s eyes darted away. “They did what anyone
would do.”
“You would not have done it. I would not have done it.
To let a friend suffer in my ce? And surely it must
engender some bitterness in you, Starkweather, to
know that they so easily left this fate to you …”
Hodge’s shoulders shook. “But it is not the children’s
fault. They have done nothing—”
“I never knew you to be so fond of children,
Starkweather,” Valentine said, as if the idea
entertained him.
The breath rattled in Hodge’s chest. “Jace—”
“You will not speak of Jace.” For the first time
Valentine sounded angry. He nced at the still figure
on the floor. “He is bleeding,” he observed. “Why?”
Hodge held the Cup against his heart. His knuckles
were white. “It’s not his blood. He’s unconscious, but
not injured.”
Valentine raised his head with a pleasant smile. “I
wonder,” he said, “what he will think of you when he
wakes. Betrayal is never pretty, but to betray a child—
that’s a double betrayal, don’t you think?”
“You won’t hurt him,” whispered Hodge. “You swore
you wouldn’t hurt him.”
“I never did that,” said Valentine. “Come, now.” He
moved away from the desk, toward Hodge, who
flinched away like a small, trapped animal. ry could
see his misery. “And what would you do if I said I did
n to hurt him? Would you fight me? Keep the Cup
from me? Even if you could kill me, the ve will
never lift your curse. You’ll hide here till you die,
terrified to do so much as open a window too widely.
What wouldn’t you trade away, not to be afraid any
longer? What wouldn’t you give up, to go home
again?”
ry tore her eyes away. She could no longer bear
the look on Hodge’s face. In a choked voice he said,
“Tell me you won’t hurt him, and I’ll give it to you.”
“No,” said Valentine, even more softly. “You’ll give it to
me anyway.” And he reached out his hand.
Hodge closed his eyes. For a moment his face was
the face of one of the marble angels beneath the
desk, pained and grave and crushed beneath a
terrible weight. Then he swore, pathetically, under his
breath, and held the Mortal Cup out for Valentine to
take, though his hand shook like a leaf in a high wind.
“Thank you,” said Valentine. He took the Cup, and
eyed it thoughtfully. “I do believe you’ve dented the
rim.”
Hodge said nothing. His face was gray. Valentine bent
down and gathered up Jace; as he lifted him up
lightly, ry saw the impably cut jacket tighten
over his arms and back, and she realized that he was
a deceptively massive man, with a torso like the trunk
of an oak tree. Jace, limp in his arms, looked like a
child byparison.
“He’ll be with his father soon,” said Valentine, looking
down at Jace’s white face. “Where he belongs.”
Hodge flinched. Valentine turned away from him and
walked back toward the shimmering curtain of air that
he hade through. He must have left the Portal
door open behind him, ry realized. Looking at it
was like looking at sunlight bouncing off the surface of
a mirror.
Hodge reached out an imploring hand. “Wait!” he
cried. “What of your promise to me? You swore to end
my curse.”
“That is true,” said Valentine. He paused, and looked
hard at Hodge, who gasped and stepped back, his
hand flying to his chest as if something had struck him
in the heart. ck fluid seeped out around his syed
fingers and trickled to the floor. Hodge lifted his
scarred face to Valentine. “Is it done?” he asked
wildly. “The curse—it is lifted?”
“Yes,” said Valentine. “And may your bought freedom
bring you joy.” And with that he stepped through the
curtain of glowing air. For a moment he himself
seemed to shimmer, as if he stood underwater. Then
he vanished, taking Jace with him.
20
IN RATS’ ALLEY
HODGE, GASPING, STARED AFTER HIM, HIS
FISTS CLENCHING and unclenching at his sides. His
left hand was gloved with the wet dark fluid that had
seeped from his chest. The look on his face was a
mixture of exultation and self-loathing.
“Hodge!” ry mmed her hand into the invisible
wall between them. Pain shot up her arm, but it was
nothingpared to the searing pain inside her
chest. She felt as if her heart were going to m its
way out of her rib cage. Jace, Jace, Jace—the words
echoed in her mind, wanting to be screamed out loud.
She bit them back. “Hodge, let me out!”
Hodge turned, shaking his head. “I can’t,” he said,
using his immactely folded handkerchief to rub at
his stained hand. He sounded genuinely regretful.
“You’ll only try to kill me.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.”
“But you were not raised a Shadowhunter,” he said,
“and your promises mean nothing.” The edge of his
handkerchief was smoking now, as if he’d dipped it in
acid, and his hand was no less ckened. Frowning,
he abandoned the project.
“But, Hodge,” she said desperately, “didn’t you hear
him? He’s going to kill Jace.”
“He didn’t say that.” Hodge was at the desk now,
opening a drawer, taking out a piece of paper. He
drew a pen from his pocket, tapping it sharply against
the edge of the desk to make the ink flow. ry
stared at him. Was he writing a letter?
“Hodge,” she said carefully, “Valentine said Jace
would be with his father soon. Jace’s father is dead.
What else could he have meant?”
Hodge didn’t look up from the paper he was scribbling
on. “It’splicated. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand enough.” Her bitterness felt like it might
burn through her tongue. “I understand that Jace
trusted you and you traded him away to a man who
hated his father and probably hates Jace, too, just
because you’re too cowardly to live with a curse you
deserved.”
Hodge’s head jerked up. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s what I know.”
Heid his pen down, shaking his head. He looked
tired, and so old, so much older than Valentine had
looked, though they were the same age. “You only
know bits and fragments, ry. And you’re better off
that way.” He folded the paper he’d been writing on
into a neat square and tossed it into the fire, which
red up a bright acidic green before subsiding.
“What are you doing?” ry demanded.
“Sending a message.” Hodge turned away from the
fire. He was standing close to her, separated only by
the invisible wall. She pressed her fingers against it,
wishing she could dig them into his eyes—though
they were as sad as Valentine’s had been angry. “You
are young,” he said. “The past is nothing to you, not
even another country as it is to the old, or a nightmare
as it is to the guilty. The veid this curse on me
because I aided Valentine. But I was hardly the only
member of the Circle to serve him—were the
Lightwoods not as guilty as I was? Were not the
Wands? Yet I was the only one cursed to live out
my life without being able to set so much as a foot
outdoors, not so much as a hand through the
window.”
“That’s not my fault,” said ry. “It’s not Jace’s fault.
Why punish him for what the ve did? I can
understand giving Valentine the Cup, but Jace? He’ll
kill Jace, just like he killed Jace’s father—”
“Valentine,” said Hodge, “did not kill Jace’s father.”
A sob broke free from ry’s chest. “I don’t believe
you! All you do is tell lies! Everything you’ve ever said
was a lie!”
“Ah,” he said, “the moral absolutism of the young,
which allows for no concessions. Can’t you see, ry,
that in my own way I’m trying to be a good man?”
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