Chapter 9 : CATCHING A TRAITOR — PART 2
The storage room's single lamp cast harsh shadows across Hodge's face as he began to talk.
"Valentine is rebuilding." The words came slowly, dragged out against the curse that punished Circle discussions. "New recruits from disaffected Shadowhunter families. Young hunters who believe the Clave has grown weak, that the Accords have compromised our sacred duty."
I leaned against the opposite wall, maintaining distance. Trust was for people who hadn't spent two weeks watching a traitor operate.
"How many?"
"Thirty, perhaps forty active members. More sympathizers who haven't committed yet." Hodge rubbed his neck where the curse mark burned. "He's patient. Building slowly. Learning from the mistakes of the Uprising."
The Uprising. Twenty years ago, Valentine had led the Circle in open rebellion against the Accords, attempting to overthrow the Clave and exterminate all Downworlders. The rebellion had failed. Valentine had supposedly died. And the survivors — like Maryse, Robert, and Hodge — had been granted mercy in exchange for cooperation.
Mercy that Hodge was currently abusing.
"The Mortal Cup," I said. "That's his objective."
Hodge's eyes widened slightly — the first genuine surprise I'd seen since the confrontation began. "How do you know that?"
"Call it pattern recognition." I kept my voice flat. "Valentine needs an army. The Cup creates Shadowhunters. Not difficult logic."
"It's more than that." Hodge's voice dropped. "He believes the Cup can purify those with demon blood. Forcibly convert Downworlders into something... cleaner. The experiments he ran before the Uprising — they weren't just cruelty. He was testing theories."
Information I knew from the show, but hearing it confirmed added weight. Valentine wasn't just a zealot. He was a zealot with a plan.
"Where is he now?"
"A compound somewhere in Europe. The location changes frequently — I only receive messages, never send directly to his position. There are intermediaries. Cutouts."
"Names."
Hodge hesitated. The curse mark pulsed visibly, punishment for approaching forbidden territory.
"Pangborn handles recruitment. Blackwell manages logistics. There are others I've never met — Valentine keeps his network compartmentalized."
Pangborn. Blackwell. Names I recognized from the show, mid-level Circle lieutenants who would cause trouble in the episodes to come.
"What about Clave contacts?"
The hesitation was longer this time. Whatever Hodge was about to reveal crossed a line he'd been protecting.
"There are... sympathizers. In positions of authority." Each word seemed to cost him physical pain. "Aldertree in the Inquisitor's office. Wayland — not Jace's branch, a distant cousin — serves on the Council. They don't report directly to Valentine, but they... smooth paths. Suppress investigations. Redirect attention."
Clave corruption. Deep enough to protect Circle operations, subtle enough to avoid detection. This was information the show had never explicitly revealed — the infrastructure that allowed Valentine to operate for two decades without capture.
I filed the names away. Aldertree. Wayland. Future leverage, future targets.
"And me?" Hodge's voice had gone quiet. Defeated. "What exactly do you want me to do?"
"Continue your reports." I pushed off the wall, closing some of the distance between us. "But from now on, everything goes through me. I'll tell you what information reaches Valentine and what gets... adjusted. You'll be my filter, Hodge. My window into his network."
"And if he discovers the manipulation?"
"Then we'll be in trouble. Both of us." I met his eyes directly. "But Valentine is arrogant. He believes his people are loyal because he believes his cause is righteous. That arrogance is a weakness. He won't suspect you unless we give him reason to."
Hodge absorbed this. The curse mark had stopped pulsing — we'd moved past the most dangerous territory into the realm of practical conspiracy.
"You're not what I expected." The words came slowly, almost wondering. "Your parents — Maryse and Robert — they believed. When they were in the Circle, they truly believed Valentine's vision was righteous. I watched them struggle with that faith after the Uprising. Watched them build a new life on the ashes of the old."
"I'm not my parents."
"No." Something shifted in Hodge's expression. "You're not. They would have turned me in. The law, the rules, the proper way of doing things — that's how Lightwoods survive. But you..." He studied me like I was a weapon he hadn't seen before. "You think differently."
Because I'm not really a Lightwood, I didn't say. Because I watched your story play out on a screen and learned that sometimes the proper way gets people killed.
"I think practically." I pulled out my phone, opened the camera roll to the evidence I'd gathered. "This stays between us. You report to me, I guide your reports to Valentine. When the time comes to move against him — and that time will come — you'll be positioned to help from the inside."
"And my curse?"
The mark on his neck. The punishment that bound him to the Institute grounds, that prevented him from ever escaping the consequences of his past choices.
"Magnus Bane." I watched his reaction carefully. "The High Warlock of Brooklyn owes me a favor. When this is over — when Valentine is dealt with — I'll ask him to examine your curse. No promises, but if anyone can break it, he can."
Hope flickered across Hodge's weathered features. Brief, quickly suppressed, but real.
"You've already contacted Magnus?"
"I told you. I think practically."
The alliance — if it could be called that — was taking shape. Hodge Starkweather, Circle traitor turned double agent. Feeding Valentine filtered intelligence while reporting the enemy's movements to me.
It wasn't elegant. It wasn't clean. The original Alec would probably have found another way.
But I wasn't the original Alec.
"One more thing." I turned toward the door, then paused. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you betray them? The Lightwoods took you in. Protected you from Clave justice. Treated you like family." I let the question hang. "What could Valentine offer that was worth throwing that away?"
Hodge's silence stretched long enough that I thought he wouldn't answer.
"He offered to break my curse," he said finally. "Promised that when he won — when the Circle rose again — I'd be free. Free to leave these walls. Free to see the world outside. Free to die somewhere other than this stone prison." A bitter laugh escaped him. "Twenty years, Alec. I've spent twenty years watching your family grow, watching the world change through windows I can never open. Valentine's promise was probably a lie. But it was the only hope I had."
I thought of the Ravener's memories I'd absorbed — the alien hunger, the mindless consumption, the fragments of terror from victims I'd never met. Hodge's confession felt similar in some ways. The desperate choices of someone trapped in circumstances they couldn't escape.
"You have a new hope now." I opened the storage room door. "Don't waste it."
I left him there, surrounded by dust and shadows and the weight of his redirected betrayal.
[CORRIDOR — FIVE MINUTES LATER]
The Institute's halls felt different as I walked back toward my quarters.
I'd just turned Valentine's primary intelligence asset. Compromised his information network. Taken the first real step toward changing the timeline in ways that couldn't be undone.
In the show, Hodge's betrayal had enabled catastrophe. The Cup stolen. Trust shattered. A chain of events that led to death and destruction across two seasons.
Now that chain was broken. Or at least, bent in a new direction.
The parabatai bond pulsed gently — Jace, sleeping, unaware of what I'd done. Izzy in her own room, probably dreaming of the Pandemonium trip she'd convinced me to attend. Max in Idris with Robert, safe for now, alive because I intended to keep him that way.
Family I hadn't earned. Responsibilities I hadn't asked for.
But mine now, regardless.
The phone in my pocket contained photographs of forbidden marginalia and evidence of Hodge's treachery. Two kinds of dangerous knowledge, both useful, both potentially catastrophic if discovered.
I had twelve days until Clary Fray's birthday. Twelve days until Valentine made his opening move and the real game began.
Valentine would notice eventually. When his intelligence started arriving wrong, when his operations encountered unexpected resistance, when the Institute proved harder to crack than his reports suggested.
He'd know something had changed. He just wouldn't know what.
My quarters appeared ahead. Inside, Alec's bed waited — the mattress that had finally started feeling familiar, the pillow that no longer smelled entirely like a stranger.
But sleep could wait.
I pulled up the photos I'd taken of the Gray Book's margins. The angelic script glowed faintly on my phone's screen, secrets that the Clave had tried to erase, warnings that previous generations had deemed too dangerous to preserve.
This path leads only to consumption.
What you gain, you lose.
What you take, takes you.
Somewhere in these annotations, I might find explanations for what I was becoming. Rune evolution. Demon consumption. Abilities that existed outside normal Nephilim parameters.
The Gray Book had been lying for a thousand years.
Time to start uncovering the truth.
I sat on my bed, phone in hand, and began the slow work of translation.
Valentine would notice when his information started arriving wrong.
But by then, I intended to be ready.
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