Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who favorited other stories I have written or are now following me on here. Enjoy this chapter.

Chapter 14

On the next night, Michael rode into town and left his horse at a stable before he walked into the Gard and took a flight of steps downstairs to the prison. He stepped into the head prison guard's office and resigned from his job, effective the next morning. When that was finished he went to the locker room to dress for the night, watching the door for Stephen's arrival. It was nearly time for Michael to go downstairs when Stephen walked in and opened his locker. Michael dropped a brown paper bag into Stephen's lap, full of treats from home, a peace offering, of sorts.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Stephen said.

"It's fine. I was in talking with the boss before I came down here. Tonight's my last night here," Michael said.

"You're quitting?" Stephen asked. The prison was a dark and miserable place; Michael felt bad abandoning Stephen, yet he was relieved. The same guards that worked in the prison also guarded the Cup. Any one of those guards could discover the Cup was missing and recognize Michael from the night he and Stephen came to pray.

"It's Josie," Michael said, keeping his voice even. "She's worried about me working here, with it being so dangerous." Stephen nodded, pulling his uniform jacket on. Michael glanced around to see that the locker room was emptying out.

"I'll miss you," Stephen said.

"I'll miss you to, pumpkin," Michael said. "Come visit me at my manor any time, day or night, alright?" Stephen blushed and bit his lip, looking down at the floor.

Once they were ready they left the locker room and started down a flight of stairs to the prison cells. Michael felt Stephen's arm brush against his despite the layers of cloth between them. They fell into step together, a matched team without the formalities associated with parabatai. He thought about his childhood spent in London with Stephen, of the golden haired boy who raided the kitchen at all hours of the night and had the Institute staff wrapped around his little finger. He thought of training together when they were at the Academy, and he thought of a room at the London Institute, shiny buttons on dress gear, and Stephen, excited for the future with Amatis. So much had changed since the beginning of summer; Michael could hardly believe it had only been four months.

"I'm sorry about the other night, with Celine," Stephen whispered. Michael swallowed and nodded. "It shouldn't have happened. I should have never been with her that way, not when I'm still married to Amatis." Michael nodded. "We did things before, her and I. When I woke up after my initiation, she was there, in my room, and we kissed, the way a married man shouldn't kiss a girl he's not married to."

The night before Stephen's initiation, it had been Michael who had gone out with Valentine and was injured. When his eyes had opened he had found Celine beside the bed; only, he had escorted her to the door.

"So the other night…" Michael began. "Why did you…?"

"She was right there," Stephen said, his eyes looking into the shadows. "I knew it was bad. I knew I shouldn't, but… why not? What's one more sin in a long line of unforgivable sins? I might as well just continue to sin, because I'll never be good again." Michael nodded, understanding how that felt.

"Jocelyn told me you've asked Amatis for a divorce," Michael said.

"Amatis was never right for me. I was with her to rebel against my father. We were children playing at the idea of marriage. Amatis deserves better," Stephen said. "I can't be with her, knowing everything that has happened. She deserves someone better than me."

"I don't think divorce is the answer," Michael said. "I think the six month rule is bullshit. If you plan to annul your marriage after only being married a few months, you should have never gotten married." He forced himself to not think about Stephen and Amatis's wedding day, or even their times spent together at the Academy, madly in love. Stephen was stubborn; he would never change his mind once it was made up. "But that being said, does it feel right? Does divorcing Amatis feel like the right thing to do?"

"I don't know what the right thing is anymore," Stephen whispered. "She deserves better. I love her enough to let her find someone who will love her more."

"Then I have to support your decision," Michael said.

"So we're okay? We're friends again?" Stephen asked.

"We were never not friends," Michael said. "I've got your back until the very end."

A week later Valentine took a group of Shadowhunters from the Circle into Berlin, Germany, where they broke into a nest of vampires and slaughtered them all before burning a building to the ground to destroy the evidence. On the next night they were in Paris, chasing werewolves down the street with battle axes in hand, killing any Downworlder they came in contact with. On the night after that, they were standing in a sweltering rainforest south of the equator beside a phosphorescent lit lagoon. Robert was knelt on the shoreline, holding a faerie's head beneath the water.

Michael little experience with faeries. He had assumed that they couldn't be drowned yet found that he was wrong, because on that night, Robert had his knee to the back of a faerie young girl they had captured earlier in the evening and spent hours tormenting. His hand was spread wide across the back of her head, keeping her face beneath the water. Only her right hand was left free to splash at the water as she struggled to lift her head but Robert held it down, biting his lower lip hard, until the faerie's hand stopped splashing and finally went limp.

When Robert had let the faerie go he stood up and blood from his lip ran down his chin. He had been so intent on hurting another creature; he hadn't realized he was hurting himself as well. That night, when Valentine opened a Portal and stepped into it, Robert reached back, grabbing Michael by the wrist as he always did, pulling him towards the shimmering wall. Michael had jerked his hand away, not wanting to be touched by someone who had so carelessly taken something else's life.

The plan following a mission was to portal back to Fairchild Manor yet Michael closed his eyes and thought of somewhere else and as the members of the Circle dropped into the backyard of Fairchild Manor, Michael landed in the garden of Wayland Manor and walked into the house, stripping off his bloody gear as he went.

"Only a human can have a soul," Valentine said. It was another night, this time having been spent in Florence, Italy, and they were now in the attic of an abandoned house. Valentine had captured a vampire and suspended it by a rope from a point in the ceiling. As the sun came up, he slowly uncovered a window, letting the sun beam, which grew larger with every passing minute, burn the vampire, causing its pale flesh to sizzle like fat thrown onto a fire. "If a creature burns in the sunlight, how can that creature have a soul?"

Michael was knelt on the floor beside Robert, feeling Hodge's breath against his neck. Robert was staring at the vampire intently, nodding slowly, and listening to Valentine's madness as if it made perfect sense to him. So desperately, Michael wanted to raise his hand and ask Valentine who had given him the power to decide whether or not a creature had a soul. Instead he kept silent, remembering the last time he had questioned Valentine. Now there was far too much at stake.

When the Circle killed a creature based on questionable pretences from Valentine, Michael stood by, quiet, wishing that he and Robert could go back to the people they used to be.

There was no going back.

Absent from many of the missions was Stephen. Michael expected Valentine's second in command to come along on missions with the rest of the Circle yet Stephen often remained at Fairchild Manor, where his days seemed composed of doing very little and orbiting around Celine whenever she gave him the chance to. If they were sleeping together it wasn't obvious, but Michael saw it in the way they behaved around one another. There was an intimacy to their actions that not just anyone shared. If Stephen was heartbroken over his impending divorce, Celine was the balm that made it hurt a little less.

A few weeks later, as the first frost began turning leaves from green to yellow, Michael climbed out of his bed and pulled a shirt on, his body tired and sore from a half a night of hard training. Gone were the days of swimming and lounging about. Valentine had split his Circle cleanly down the middle with everyone serving a purpose. Maryse, Josie, Jocelyn and Celine, as well as some of the other wives were excused from training due to pregnancies. Most of the men of the Circle and some of the women were requested at Fairchild Manor, where Valentine began drilling them relentlessly in various fighting styles, sharpening their skills and training them on new weapons.

The fire in the grate had burned low and Michael added a small log to the fireplace before he looked back at Josie, who was sprawled across the middle of the bed dressed in an old shirt of Michael's. Had his mind been clear he might have crawled back into bed and taken her into his arms, kissing her gently until she woke up enough to help him get back to sleep. Instead, he felt bad disturbing her sleep, and tucked the blankets tighter around her body before leaving the room.

The house was nearly silent due to the late hour, and all Michael could hear was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the entry way. He went to the kitchen for cookies and a glass of milk, then continued down the hallway to the heavy wooden door of the library. He opened the door and stepped inside, inhaling the sweet smell of old books at the same moment a flash of light illuminated a figure standing beside a bookshelf, its back to the door. In the next instant, the library was plunged into darkness.

Michael wasn't alone.

With a soft breath, Michael let the door close silently, leaning back against it. He reached into a showcase and his hand closed around the jeweled hilt of a ceremonial dagger, which would be of little use against an intruder. He could scream but it was no use; his parents were at the other end of the hall and it wasn't as if his father could defend himself.

For the first time, Michael realized how isolated the manor was. The closest house was the Fairchild's, and even that was at least a half mile away. Lightwood Manor was the same distance away, in a different direction. If Michael's family was in danger, there was no one who could come to save them.

For a terribly long time Michael stared into the darkness, waiting for what would come next. It was the intruder who moved first, raising a hand and turning to him. Michael didn't think; he pulled his hand back and let the dagger fly, watching it sail across the room and bury itself in the spine of a book just above the intruder's head. The intruder shrieked and jumped out of the way, and Michael took the chance to grab another dagger, turn on a light switch and storm across the room. He grabbed the intruder roughly by the arm, slammed them against the bookshelf, and tugged the hood covering the intruder's face back, raising the dagger, ready to strike, and recoiled when he looked into the frightened green eyes of Jocelyn Morgenstern.

"Michael," Jocelyn gasped, "I thought…" Michael let go of her arm but didn't lower the dagger.

"You thought what?" He demanded. "It's two o'clock in the morning. Why are you in my home?"

"I thought you were Valentine," Jocelyn said. She raised her hand and touched the back of his, slowly lowering his hand to bring the dagger down.

"I could have killed you," Michael snapped. He wasn't ready to admit that he thought the same. Then again, had Valentine broken into his home, Michael might not have thought twice about stabbing Valentine in the back. "How did you get in here? Why are you here?" He loosened his grip on the dagger but refused to put it down.

"There are tunnels that connect our homes," Jocelyn said. "They've been there for centuries. You go through the basement…"

"I know," Michael said. He had played in the tunnels when they he was much younger, until his father had sealed them up along with the much of the expansive basement that once held a collection of spoils. "What do you want with the basement?" Jocelyn drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders and shook her head. "Why are you here?"

"I'm on your side," Jocelyn said. "I know I can trust you. Josie said you are honest. You can't be corrupted. You aren't like the others- you still know right from wrong. You are good through and through."

"My wife speaks very highly of me," Michael said. "I'm not on a side. I only know…" He struggled with the truth. "I took a vow and pledged my faithfulness to the Circle. I am on the side that follows Valentine."

"Yet you oppose his stealing of the Mortal Cup," Jocelyn said. "The guilt of what you've done eats away at you, doesn't it? You don't want any of this, do you?" Michael stayed silent. "Valentine tried to destroy your conscience but it didn't work. You have doubts, and so do I, and so did Luke, and so do many others. I am on your side."

"I have no doubts," Michael said. The lie felt wrong in his mouth. He thought of Robert, and of the blank look in his eyes as he drowned the faerie with his own hand. Robert would blindly follow Valentine into a fire if asked to. "I don't know what you are talking about, or why you are here." There was a noise somewhere in the house and Michael looked at the door to the library.

"Whose side are you on?" Jocelyn asked, quickly and quietly. "Are you on Valentine's side? Or are you on the side of the Angel? The Circle is not fighting the war the Angel mandated that we fight. You and I both know that."

"Jocelyn," Michael said, defeated, settling for her name rather than a lie or a truth he was too afraid to admit.

Jocelyn reached into the sleeve of her cloak, withdrew a glittering gold cup with rubies around the rim of it, and held it out to Michael.

"I need you to hide this," she said. "Josie hollowed out a book for me. A cook book. Simple Recipes for Housewives. We're going to hide the Cup in there, to keep it out of Valentine's hands for the time being. Michael. I need you to hide this for me." Michael looked down at the Cup held in Jocelyn's quivering hand. He resisted taking it from her, not wanting the responsibility just yet.

"How do you know I'm not going to return the Cup to Valentine and tell him you took it from him?" Michael asked.

"Because a part of you cares about me and has since the moment you laid eyes on me in the bakery. Because Jonathan feels unnatural to you and every single thing you've done for Valentine since pledging your loyalty to the Circle feels wrong to you," Jocelyn said. "Because you don't want to help a madman raise an army and slaughter all those who oppose him. Pick your reason, Michael, but your mind is already made up."

Michael reached out and seized the Cup from Jocelyn. He walked over to the bookshelf she had been standing beside, found the book, and opened it to find a hole carved into the pages of it. He slipped the Cup into the book and replaced the book on a shelf high above the floor, where neither of his parents would bother to reach.

"If I were you, I would find out what side your parabatai is on," Jocelyn said. "This is war, Michael." Michael nodded, keeping his back to her. "You are the only one who dares to oppose Valentine. You are the Clave's only hope." She stepped over to Michael and rested a hand on his arm. "Things are happening. Josie knows everything and she will tell you things as you need to know them, but you're too close to Valentine and Stephen. The less you know, the better." Jocelyn pulled the hood up around her face and pushed on a bookshelf, revealing a flight stairs descending down into darkness.

"What's happening?" Michael asked.

"Valentine plans to overthrow the Clave at the Accords to be held thirteen months from now," Jocelyn said. "I need you to stop him."

Author's Note: Thank you for reading! I can promise Waywood in the next chapter.

Teaser:

"What happened?" Celine demanded, looking right at Michael. "What did you do to him?"