Moonlight streamed through the small, barred window facing the evergreen fields of the Gard. It was deathly quiet—no crickets, no voices, no whistling wind. It had rained earlier, and humidity suffocated the inside of the cell along with the pungent smell of wet soil.
Watching the raindrops slowly drip from the top of the window and pool into a puddle on the floor was the most entertainment Hodge received for the day. He counted them—exactly 67 before they stopped entirely. The guards brought him a pathetic dinner of bread and cheese with some water, tossing it under the cell door haphazardly. Hodge would give anything for some tea; any kind would do. Even terribly brewed tea with nothing to sweeten it.
His life was filled with wrong decisions, and now was no different. He always made the wrong choice, even when the better one stared him right in the face. He didn't have to agree to Valentine's deal to exchange the Mortal Cup for his freedom, but he did. He didn't have to continue being Valentine's friend back before the Uprising, but he did. He was a walking collection of regrets—it seems the only thing he doesn't regret in his life was marrying Marigold.
The look of betrayal on Eva's face was permanently etched into his memory. He should've taken the time to explain why he'd done what he'd done. Perhaps he should've told her what she was when she became an adult. Perhaps he shouldn't have kept so many secrets from her, and insisted no one ever say a thing about how much she looked like Marigold. It was easier, but it was also a truth that would eventually reach her ears.
He couldn't fathom the hurt he caused her. The hate that probably surged through her veins at the mere thought of him. How the Lightwood children must hate him as well, how Jace must despise him for turning him over to Valentine. He tried his best to raise him alongside Eva, the two orphans under his watch. Jace was Valentine's child, but he never knew which one. It was hard to tell, and like Eva, he decided keeping it a secret would be best.
Another bad decision.
Hodge rubbed his eyes, shaking off the sleep and the tears welled up in them. He barely slept nowadays—when it wasn't his recurring dream of Marigold bursting into flames it was a replay of what occurred in the alleyway with Eva. Sometimes he watched the scene happen, as if he weren't part of it, and other times he viewed it through his own eyes.
Despite his best attempts to fight his weariness, the stillness of the night and the steady moonlight and the warmth of summer was lulling him to sleep. In the distance, he could hear a voice calling his name. It was a harsh whisper, in a voice that was all too familiar. He didn't pay too much attention to it as his eyes fluttered, but when he heard the voice suddenly grow sharp in tone and in proximity, his head shot up.
"Hodge!"
Shadows danced in his cell, disrupting the moonlight. He pulled himself up, wincing at the stiffness of his injured shoulder. He neared the window, situated above his line of sight. He could see two forms looking down at him, but they were blurry beyond recognition. When he was arrested, the guards snatched his glasses to purposefully blind him, just to be cruel. He's gone weeks without seeing anything clearly.
"Hodge! It's me," the voice continued in a whisper. Hodge squinted, but he knew that voice. He simply couldn't believe she was here. "It's Eva."
"And Isabelle," the figure beside Eva laughed. "You look dreadful, by the way."
Hodge couldn't speak; he would simply open his mouth but no words escaped him. He saw Eva's hand reach through the bars, beckoning him to take it. He did, and they were delightfully warm against his cold skin.
"I know everything," she said. Hodge felt as if someone had doused him in ice water. "And I don't hate you. I never did, despite everything. I couldn't."
"How are you here?" Hodge finally asked. His voice was wavering as he clenched her hand. "How did you know I was down here?"
"Brother Enoch found out for us," Isabelle chimed in. "Took him, what? An hour?"
"But how did you get into the city?"
"We're Shadowhunters," Eva laughed softly. "C'mon, you taught us this."
Hodge frowned, making the girls laugh. Eva continued, "It's a long story, but we're here to break you out. You don't belong in there."
Eva let go of his hand and Hodge watched their blurry forms straighten, draw back, and deliver blows to the bars on the window with their boots. By the third kick, there were no bars left on the window and both girls reached out and hauled him out onto the grass. Hodge felt a bit embarrassed they did so very easily; he was a grown man, but he's been virtually starved and has lost a lot of weight.
Isabelle's voice was tight with a wince. "You reek, Hodge."
"I missed you as well," Hodge said with a smile. He knew Isabelle's way of showing affection was to insult or act aloof. It meant the world to him. Eva's way of showing affection was much more straightforward; she wrapped her arms around his thin waist and hugged him. Hodge clenched his jaw to hold back a sob of joy. She didn't hate him.
"As heartwarming as this is, we need to get the hell out of here," Isabelle patted their shoulders. "You two can suffocate each other later."
Hodge held onto Eva's gear jacket as they weaved through the city streets, hiding in the shadows like their namesake. Hodge could see the blurry dot of what appeared to be a full moon in the dark sky, and judging by how quiet and deserted the streets were, it must be very late.
Had he been wearing his glasses, he would have known where they were going. He walked these streets enough to know, and only until they pushed open the gate of the townhouse and he recognized the stone pathway did he realize this was his second home. The Starkweather house within the city.
His skin crawled when he stepped through the threshold. Part of the plan was to live in this townhouse with Marigold after the fire destroyed their manor and took their son with it. Alas, it didn't go as planned, and Hodge spent the darkest moments of his life on the kitchen floor—he couldn't stand being in the living room because the sight of the fireplace would throw him into a fit.
Hodge expected the house to be dusty and dark, with the smell of old and worn furniture. The latter hit his nose rather quickly, but there was a soft light flickering past the drawing room. When they led him into the living room, Hodge distinguished two more figures.
"Jace and Alec, in case you can't see them," Eva said, and turned her head towards the boys. "They took his glasses."
"And we all know Hodge can't see past his nose," Jace said jokingly. Hodge's shoulders stiffened, the pain of his injury dulled by the utter despair he felt at hearing Jace's voice. He let Valentine take him, trading him for the Mortal Cup and betraying him and his family. Jace seemed to notice his change in demeanor and added, "The ends justify the means, Hodge. You did it for Eva, so I can look past you betraying everyone and tossing me over to Valentine like I was a sack of potatoes."
Alec nudged Jace, making Hodge smile. These were his children, and they hadn't changed a bit. He was glad for it.
"We have a few hours until daybreak," Eva said. "Enoch said they change guards down in the prison cells just after sunrise, so we have until then."
"We brought you one of your old suits," Isabelle pointed down the hallway that led to the bedrooms upstairs. "Please shower, and throw on some perfume. I brought vanilla—"
"Raziel help us," Jace groaned. "Or should we ask Ithuriel for help?"
Hodge wanted to stay and ask these rambunctious children how they managed to get to Alicante and orchestrate this jailbreak or how they even found out about Eva's true origin, but he pushed it all aside. His body was weary with the thought of freedom and a hot shower. Perhaps it was hunger too. He took what felt like hours in the shower, washing his hair and shaving off the beard he grew out in that cell—they really thought of everything. His hair was too long for his liking, but he made do. The suit they brought him was on a hanger on the bathroom door and fit him very loosely due to his weight loss. He was normally frail and skinny—he'd have to eat truckloads of food to gain it all back.
When he walked back into the living room, he found it empty. The lone flickering candle had been moved into the adjacent room, into the kitchen, and he followed it to see four blurry figures huddled around something on what Hodge assumed was a very dusty counter.
"We're dying the grey out of your hair," Isabelle announced as she pushed him into one of the kitchen chairs. "And cutting it too. You look like Alec when he went through that rocker phase."
"Rocker phase?" Alec piped up, his tone pitched with offense.
Hodge took this opportunity to finally question—and lecture—these troublemakers. "This is against the Law! How did you—"
"We had a lot of help," Eva said, dragging a chair to sit in front of him. Isabelle was snipping away at his hair and he prayed to the Angel she was doing a decent job. "After Tessa told us everything, I said we had to find you. They didn't know where you ran off to after Valentine broke your curse, but Enoch asked a few of his sources and found out you went to the Clave to warn them of Valentine's plans to attack Alicante."
"A stupid decision," Hodge nodded, averting his eyes. "I couldn't possibly turn to Tessa or Catarina or the Silent Brothers after I...I thought they'd see me as a traitor, and I wouldn't blame them."
"The Clave didn't believe you," Alec said, straight to the point. "So they tossed you into the dungeons of the Gard since then."
"I didn't want to tell them everything—Valentine's spies are everywhere." Hodge felt Izzy dabbing at the roots of his hair with the slimy black dye. "But I know what Valentine plans to do. He plans to summon Raziel using the Mortal Instruments."
"He already has the Cup and the Sword," Jace said. "Does he have the Mirror?"
"The Mirror is Lake Lyn; the information was lost to time. That's why he tortured Ithuriel for all those years." Hodge met Eva's golden eyes; they looked like two blurry halos in the candlelight. "But Ithuriel never said a word, so he thought the next best plan was to create a Nephilim-Angel hybrid that he could use to destroy Downworlders and control the Clave."
"So I was born as a result," Eva said, though Hodge could trace no bitterness in her words. She seemed to be accepting of what she was, or perhaps it still hadn't sunk in. "But how does that explain the angel blood in Jace and Clary?"
Hodge cleared his throat awkwardly, thinking of the best way to say things without exposing the vile acts he had to do while he was fooling Valentine into believing he was loyal. "After the fire, I told Valentine it started in the nursery. He believed me, and he thought my son had lost control of his angelic abilities like how a warlock child would. I can only assume he found a way to administer the blood to Jace and Clary another way that was less...direct."
Silence fell upon the room as they brooded. Izzy had finished smearing hair dye over his greying roots and stood next to Eva, offering her parabatai strength with her proximity. There were things Hodge didn't want to get into, and he knew that if they kept poking him with questions, he'd have to either reveal truths or lie, and he didn't wish to lie anymore. Instead, he asked how they planned all this, and what they planned to do at dawn.
"Raphael and Tessa know a warlock that lives just outside of Alicante," Eva began. "He and Tessa opened a Portal for us and we walked into the city—we're Nephilim, so the guards at the gate let us through. We split up at Angel Square; Alec and Jace came here—Zachariah told us where the Starkweather house was and that it hadn't been bought because...well, no one wants it—and Izzy and I went to break you out and bring you here. When you showered and shaved, we were going to dye your hair black and then walk out of the city at dawn—"
"Just walk out?" Hodge interrupted gently. "I'm a fugitive of the Law, and you're harboring a fugitive."
"In his own home," Jace added with a smirk. "Because technically, it still is."
"Brother Enoch told us no one knows you're down there except the Inquisitor and the Consul," Alec chimed in. "And the guards were never told who you were—you're just a prisoner."
"So you're sneaking out of the city right under their noses," Izzy grinned mischievously. How she loved to break the rules, even if it meant breaking the Law. "Dying your hair is a precaution—you've gotten more grey than I remember."
"After we leave Alicante, we'll meet up at Ragnor's, and he'll open the Portal back to New York," Eva smiled meekly. "But since Maryse and Robert are at the Institute, I convinced Raphael to let you stay at the Dumort for the time being."
"I find it dubious he agreed so easily," Hodge frowned.
"It took a lot of convincing," Jace teased. "A few hours worth—I was impressed."
"Shut up!" Eva tossed the empty box of hair dye at him. He simply laughed.
Hodge chose to ignore the suggestiveness of Jace's words and let his mind wander. He hasn't been in this house since the Uprising. The Clave didn't let him come here after he was arrested—he was simply sentenced, cursed, and shipped off to New York. He spoke so softly, his voice was barely a whisper. He was desperately trying not to have it waver in grief.
"In the library upstairs," Hodge began. "There's a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Open it to page 526."
Without a word, Alec pushed off the kitchen counter and silently walked out of the room, Jace at his heels. As their footsteps faded down the hall and up the stairs, Hodge smiled softly. "Do you know what that number is? Did Tessa tell you?"
When Eva shook her head, Hodge smiled, "It's your birthday: May 26, 1989."
"But—"
"We celebrated your birthday in the summer because you were found by the Silent Brothers then, but you were born in the spring. Why do you think I always gave you gifts on that day?"
"I never noticed," Eva sniffled with a smile.
Alec and Jace returned, the latter holding a small square paper in his hand. He approached Eva and handed it to her. Hodge didn't need glasses to see her jaw dropped a bit.
"By the Angel, you do look like her," Izzy gasped. "You look so young, Hodge!"
"Well, I wasn't born looking like this," he said, pointing at his hair smeared with hair dye, making him look like he'd rolled in a puddle of mud and oil. Eva handed him the picture and despite having to hold the picture up close to his face, Hodge remembered it clearly as if it were yesterday.
It was a picture of him and Marigold in one of the many blooming wildflower gardens of the Idris countryside. Marigold was carrying a two-month old Eva, dressed in boy's overalls and a flat cap. She was chewing on her fists and Hodge remembered she wouldn't stop gurgling and cooing as a very pregnant Maryse took the picture.
"Let's wash out your hair," Izzy patted Hodge's shoulders. "I hope the color came out even..."
"And then we wait for sunrise and we head over to Ragnor's," Eva grinned. "He wasn't very pleased to see four Shadowhunters in his living room so late at night."
Jace let out an amused laugh. "And I'm sure he'll just love to see five Shadowhunters knocking on his door at the ass-crack of dawn."
Thanks for reading!
