Stephen sat a long moment before pulling over the sheet of thick white stationery. He reached for his pen. Every movement was heavy, laborious with reluctance.

He did not want to do this. He had to do this.

He sat and stared down at the blank sheet of paper. He had faced down demons, had defied his parents, run his blade through vampires and werewolves, but this was, without a doubt, the hardest thing he had ever done. He couldn't even bring himself to start.

"Stephen?" With a rush of guilty relief—this task had been put off, at least for a few minutes—Stephen turned to face his wife.

Celine stood in the doorway, smiling at him, like she always did. She was leaning against the doorframe; her large belly, eight months pregnant, made it difficult for her to move or balance. Until very recently, the sight of her pregnancy had filled Stephen with revulsion and anger; now he just felt sad. Oh, Celine. Oh, my son. What have gotten you into?

"What is it, Celine?" he asked, careful to keep his voice gentle. Celine flinched whenever anyone raised a voice to her, or even sounded annoyed. She never complained when Stephen spoke to her brusquely, but it was one of many things that filled him with guilt and self-revulsion.

"Valentine wants to speak to you," said Celine. As always, her face lit up when she said Valentine's name, and Stephen's stomach knotted. "Tonight. He wants to discuss the Event with you."

The Event. That was how the Circle, Valentine's followers, always referred to the coming revolution. Until a few months ago, Stephen's heart would have bounded with joy, both at the thought of the Event and at Valentine's confidence in him. Now his heart sank even lower.

"All right," he said. "Thank you for telling me." He looked at his wife curiously. "Were you just with Jocelyn?"

She nodded happily. Celine was a beautiful woman—a beautiful girl, if one was going to be completely honest; she was only eighteen. Her hair was fine, and fair, and floating; her eyes were a gentle sky blue. Everything about her was pale, ephemeral, heartbreakingly fragile, even when, as now, her eyes sparkled and her cheeks bloomed with color.

"We had a wonderful time," she said, coming into the room to stand beside him. She spoke with the slightly incredulous joy that she used every time she ever reported having a wonderful time. Celine still couldn't believe it when she had any fun or laughter: she still had that air of delighted surprise that she'd had when Valentine had first recruited her. "She had her son—Jonathan, you know—and Maryse had her little boy, Alec. We played with the babies, and talked." She bit her lip. "Jocelyn still doesn't seem very happy, though."

No wonder, Stephen thought, but, as ever, he kept his cowardly mouth shut.

"She ought to try the tonics that Valentine makes for me," Celine said. She laid her hand on her stomach. "They really are wonderful. They make me feel so healthy and strong, and I'm sure they're good for the baby."

Stephen felt a chill. "Is that why he gives them to you?" he asked in a would-be casual voice. "For the baby."

She nodded. "They'll make him strong, Valentine said."

There was no way Stephen could describe his sense of creeping fear at this thought. For one thing, he could not articulate it, even to himself—why was he so sure those tonics were doing something bad to his unborn child?—and, for another, Celine would not listen to him. Celine believed that Valentine was perfect—had to believe that Valentine was perfect. Stephen understood: Valentine Morgenstern was almost the first person ever to show Celine any kindness or acceptance.

Celine had been born into a cruel family: her mother, a hard, almost vicious fighter, had taken Shadowhunter pride and arrogance to a ridiculous level; and her father had been an outright sadist, though no one would say so. Her brothers had been cast into the same mold: the worst kind of Nephilim, in Stephen's opinion, the kind who enjoyed inflicting pain and death, not because demons were evil, but because hurting things was fun. This family had been outraged at Celine: kind-hearted, fragile Celine, Celine who didn't like to kill, Celine who was an obvious target for any cruelty, one that her family had seized on with glee.

Her childhood had been one long nightmare, until a distant relative had taken her away from her brutal parents, her sadistic brothers, at the age of ten. But by then the damage had been done: Celine was scarred for life, flinching whenever anyone even looked at her angrily, unable even to bring herself to touch a seraph blade. It made her fellow Shadowhunters treat her with a contemptuous pity, until Valentine came and offered her a place in the Circle: a place where she was fully accepted, even befriended, by others.

Marrying Celine, hearing her horrific story, had been one of the things that had planted the first seeds of doubt in Stephen's mind. If the Nephilim really were a superior race, chosen by the Angel, how could this happen among them? And, indeed, Stephen had come to realize, this kind of horrific abuse and neglect was not only existent among the Shadowhunters, but common. Lots of Shadowhunter children were raised that way: the Nephilim culture of arrogance, superiority, paranoia and bloodshed positively encouraged it. Even Valentine boasted that his father's hardness had made him strong, made him the great warrior that he was.

Stephen sometimes wondered if he was the only one who thought this might be complete nonsense.

"Have you ever wondered…?" he began, voice venturing out onto the gulf of silence between them; then faltered.

Celine looked at him, wide-eyed. "What, Stephen?"

"Valentine…always talks about strength." Stephen had no idea where he was going with this; he had never even attempted to speak like this before. "But…Celine, have you ever wondered if…if…"

"If what?"

"If there aren't more important things?" Stephen's voice came out in a rush. "If maybe being strong isn't all that counts? Maybe things like—I don't know—love count more. Or faith. I mean, look at the mundanes. They're not so strong as we are, but they're the ones who rule this world, while we creep in the shadows."

Celine laughed gently. "That's one of the things that we're going to change, Stephen! With Valentine, we'll come out into the light, make the mundanes acknowledge us."

Yeah, but maybe that's not such a great idea, thought Stephen, but he kept his mouth closed. He'd already said too much. If he said any more, Celine would grow alarmed and report it all to Valentine, who already suspected him. Stephen couldn't even trust his own wife.

His own wife…

Again, that horrible scene arose before his eyes:

"You're…leaving?" Amatis stood in the cold light of the kitchen, still clutching her mug of coffee, though Stephen suspected that she'd forgotten all about it. Her face was slowly turning white, as though a vampire was sucking out her blood.

"Amatis, I have to," said Stephen patiently. He didn't like to do this, but he was sure it was right. Valentine had said so. "If I don't, Valentine will never choose me as his new lieutenant. This a great opportunity for me, Amatis, don't you see? If I don't leave you, my career will be finished."

She let out a screech at this, half outraged scream and half hysterical laughter. "Your career?! You're ending our marriage for your career?!"
"It's not just that." Stephen was hating this; he clung to what Valentine had said. "Valentine told me to. It's what's best for everyone. He needs me, Amatis, and we need him. All Nephilim do. If not for Valentine, we're just going to keep on with this self-destructive pandering to lower races, spending more time and resources hiding from mundanes than we do actually fighting demons. It's for the greater good."

She gave a very ugly at this. "This isn't about 'the greater good,' Stephen," she sneered. "This is about my brother. About Lucian becoming a werewolf! I'm dirty now, aren't I? Come on, admit: Valentine doesn't think I'm good enough anymore, because of my brother!"

There was too much truth in this for Stephen to face, so he just said pleadingly, "You don't understand, Amatis."

A moment later, a searing pain struck his face, his eyes, and he leaped back with a yell. Amatis had just thrown her coffee in his face. Now she rushed at him, screaming like a storm demon. "Oh, I understand, Stephen, you godforsaken coward! I'm not good enough for Valentine anymore, and you don't think I'm good enough for you! God damn you both for the lying bastards that you are! Coward! Coward! I hope you both rot in hell! Get out! Get out! I never want to see your face again, you good-for-nothing, lying, driveling, spineless piece of scum!"

Stephen had melted before this storm, hurrying out the front door of their house. Amatis had stood in the doorway, framed like light, like some dark omen of retribution.

"You have as much honor, as much loyalty, as a demon, Stephen Herondale." Her voice was no longer a passionate shout, but a cold, hard whisper that was more terrifying than her rage had been. "Perhaps you should go live with them."

And with that the door slammed shut, leaving Stephen alone in the dark.

Later, Stephen had discovered all his possessions piled up outside the house, all of them destroyed: his clothes torn, his books stamped into the mud, and every single one of his weapons bent, twisted, scratched or shattered. The whole affair had caused a scandal in Alicante.

"Stephen?" came Celine's voice, and he jerked himself back into the present. "Stephen, are you all right?"

"Yes, Celine, of course," he said, managing a smile. As always, his heart was shadowed with pity for her: poor girl, poor Celine. She deserved so much more than a husband whose heart still half-belonged to his old wife, who was every bit the coward that wife had called him.

He still wished he could have said no when Valentine told him to marry Celine.

"I'm fine," he said. "I just need to finish this." He gestured at the blank piece of paper.

She laughed gently. "Looks more like you need to start it to me."

He smiled weakly. "All the more reason, then."

She gave him a kiss on the top of his head. "I'll leave you to it." She straightened with a wince. "I'm going to go lie down, I think."

"You do that," said Stephen tenderly. "You take care of yourself."

She giggled happily. "I can't believe it's finally going to happen!" she said delightedly. "Just another month and we'll have a son all our own. What shall we call him?"

"Are you sure it's a boy, then?" said Stephen curiously.

She nodded emphatically; Celine had never had any doubts, from the moment she'd realized she was pregnant. "It will be a boy. The first of a whole boatload of children. We'll raise them in the new world."

Stephen concealed a shiver at the thought. "I'm sure you're right, dearest. Go get some rest."

She gave him another kiss and hurried out of the room.

Alone again with his task, Stephen sighed. He looked at the sheet of paper and thought of the child growing in Celine's womb, the child he would probably never meet.

He did not expect to live out the month.

It was a certain something in Valentine's eyes when he spoke to Stephen these days; a certain frown, a certain tone in his voice. Stephen doubted, and Valentine knew he doubted. And Valentine had no tolerance for doubts. Especially not from his right-hand man. And Stephen knew what Valentine did when he decided that he had no use for someone. Stephen no longer thought that Lucian Graymark's lycanthropy had been an accident, and Lucian had been Valentine's parabatai. What might Valentine do to Stephen, who had no such claim on him?

The answer was terrifyingly obvious.

The really galling thing, Stephen could now admit to himself, was that he would have reached this conclusion months ago if only he'd been able to face up to the truth and admit that his parents had been right. Right about the Circle, right about Valentine. But that had been something that he could not bring himself to think, not for a long time.

It wasn't that his parents were abusive, like Celine's; just the opposite, if anything. Stephen had never doubted that his parents loved him: loved him inordinately, loved him extremely, loved him so much that Stephen had felt drowned in it. He had never been able to say no to them: they watched over him and trained him, spent far more time with him than any child had a right to expect, until he felt smothered by them. Never once, Stephen felt, had he actually been asked what he wanted: his mother and father just assumed that they knew what was best and gave that to him, without ever considering what Stephen might think. It had felt so good—so spitefully good—to tell them that he was leaving them, joining the Circle; that he was not going to please them. Not going to make them proud. That he was his own man now, and could take his freedom.

And what had he done with that freedom? Given it immediately to a man who had enslaved him, wrecked his life, and was now going to kill him.

There was only one link to the future now, one hope, and that was Celine's baby. The son he had been prepared to hate, since it was the culmination of all his cowardice, all his stupid choices. But that son needn't be enslaved, as he was: that son could be free, could make his own life. He could be the greatest Shadowhunter ever, or an ordinary man. Stephen didn't care, as long as that son was happy, and did not make the same mistakes as him.

He wrote down the first words of the letter to that son.