I wouldn't have gone to the Academy if I hadn't begged my parents. They were old and tired and I came to them as a surprise—my mother never thought she'd ever get pregnant but she did. They left me to my own devices often, and I'd spend most of my time reading and studying the plants and herbs in the forests near the Starkweather manor in the countryside. It wasn't really a manor, mind you. It was called that out of sympathy, but it was nothing compared to the great manors of the Fairchilds and the Lightwoods and the Penhallows. The Starkweathers were once a great Shadowhunter family and we ran the York Institute in England, but by my time, we were nothing. We had a modest fortune and that small townhouse in Alicante, but no more and no less. I never knew any different, and never thought I was missing out on anything.
When I was old enough, I begged my parents to let me attend the Shadowhunter Academy. They didn't want to let me go, saying it wasn't necessary, but I insisted. I later realized why they didn't want me to go. I wasn't the prototype for a Shadowhunter warrior. I was skinny and weak and cowardly; I couldn't fight as well as the others. It took me twice as long to learn how to hit the target with a throwing knife and even longer to get a blow in with a seraph blade. I was surprisingly adept at using chakrams and I stuck with them for the rest of my life—they were the only weapons I felt comfortable with.
I was a scholar, not a fighter. I couldn't beat anyone in a sparring match, but I always received perfect marks on written exams. I wasn't as brave as the others to enter a demon nest without flinching, but I was never scared of getting picked on during lectures to answer the most obscure history question our professors could think of. But because I wasn't what a normal Shadowhunter was supposed to be, I was shunned. I was picked on and scorned and beat up because they knew I wouldn't fight back—and they were right.
A year into the Academy, my parents died. My mother died first, and then my father died two months later. They died of old age—not a lot of Shadowhunters can claim that. But I was all alone now, still doing dreadful in sparring matches and agility and high jumps. I barely read any books like I used to anymore and while I still got decent grades on my exams, I wasn't enthusiastic anymore. I even thought about becoming a Silent Brother; I didn't have anyone that cared for me, and I didn't have any close friends.
And then came Valentine. That's his MO—his modus operandi—he comes to you at your most vulnerable time because that's when you're more likely to fall for his charms and his facade. And I did. He made me feel included and wanted, that my opinions mattered. I got better at fighting under his wing; he was a good teacher. Then came Lucian Greymark, Jocelyn Fairchild, Robert Lightwood, Maryse Trueblood, and Michael Wayland. We created what was the Circle, and I wrote the loyalty oath. But you know that already.
Around this time was when I met Marigold. She was a mundane with the Sight found by the New Orleans conclave after she told them a warlock was practicing necromancy in the French Quarter. We were never in any lectures together because trueborn Shadowhunters attend different classes than those studying to Ascend, but we used the same facilities. I met her in the library while she argued with the librarian, asking her why they didn't have the works of Tolkien when they were all about magic. She started the conversation with me.
"Can you believe this? Everyone knows Tolkien!"
And I was very honest. "I don't know who Tolkien is."
"At least lie and say you do!"
I could hear her talk all day. She went on and on about Middle Earth and hobbits and rings of power and the Angel knows what else, but she was so passionate about this author, about the world he created and the beauty of his prose and how Merry was her favorite and how the elves were nothing like the fey she learned about in her classes. That's why I introduced you to the books; I knew you would love them as much as Marigold did.
Stephen Herondale was the newest member of the Circle and he knew all about mundane culture and had many contacts in London since his family ran the Institute there. I asked him if he could get me the Tolkien books and without even asking what I wanted them for, that kid had all of them for me in a few days—from the Silmarillion all the way to the Hobbit. Stephen was such a nice young man.
I gave the books to Marigold and she was over the moon. I realized then and there that I needed to find excuses to be around her; I was drawn to her energy. It was hard to ignore her when she walked by. She was beautiful and cheerful and so kind to everyone she met, but no one ever suspected Marigold was such a shameless tease. She'd poke fun of you, but it never annoyed you. She did it so flawlessly and so genuine, you'd be laughing at your own expense by the end of it.
We'd meet in the library often and we'd talk about both Nephilim and mundane history, about all the books she loved, about all the books I loved. We traded books often and then we'd go on and on about them. I told her I had a forest behind my house in the countryside that I fashioned into a plant nursery. She'd asked if I could show it to her one day and I agreed. I later found out she wanted to get me alone—I think she realized I was in love with her before I even realized it myself.
No, I won't go into detail about how our date went! But I will say that I proposed to her a bit after that and she accepted. I gave her the Starkweather ring to wear and I think the Academy blew up with gossip after that. Marigold was so pretty, and I was...well...the poor, weakling Hodge Starkweather. No one really understood how that happened, but Marigold and I didn't care. We were in love, and we were just waiting to graduate and for her Ascension, and we could finally be together.
I was present at her Ascension ceremony and she rose as Marigold Brandybuck. I'm sure you know that name—she took it from the Tolkien books. One of the hobbits, I believe. I was shocked she got away with it, but she seemed amused that she did.
"What? It's their fault they don't know anything about mundane culture. Besides, I'm going to be Marigold Starkweather soon."
It flattered me she was proud to be my wife, because I surely didn't deserve her. She was so perfect, and I could barely swing a seraph blade and defend myself properly from demons. But she reminded me she loved me, and I always made sure to tell her too.
We married a few weeks after Valentine and Jocelyn. I don't remember much about the reception after the ceremony—I got terribly drunk and woke up the next afternoon with a splitting headache and horrible nausea. Marigold found the entire ordeal very amusing. I loved her so much—even at my worst, she always found some redeeming quality in me.
After we returned from our honeymoon in Vienna, Valentine began to encourage Marigold to join the Circle. I'd tell her she should join, so she could be with me and what I was part of. She always kindly refused, telling me she didn't mind I went off to Circle meetings and did things without her. Valentine insisted I have her join because he said he wanted the most important person in my life to be part of the most important moment in the history of Nephilim. He had such a manipulative way of saying things—I always fell for it and I'm disgusted with myself. Marigold kept refusing kindly, and it was only later I found out that Marigold had a bad feeling about Valentine. He was my friend, so she never said a thing for my sake, but she felt there was something more to him, something sinister and wicked.
Then I noticed a sudden change in Marigold. She refused to eat and barely slept at night. She wouldn't let me near her, or touch her, or even kiss her. It hurt me to see her like that; she was pushing me away and I didn't know why. I was worried for her; she wasn't smiling anymore, or teasing me, or using the hair products I made for her, or reading, or decorating the house with flowers from the garden. She wouldn't go out, she'd refuse to see anyone, and we were arguing for any little thing. I was heartbroken by her sudden change—she wasn't the woman I loved and I knew something was wrong.
I went against her wishes and summoned one of the Silent Brothers and he told us she was pregnant. I was thrilled to hear the news—I was going to be a father! But Marigold didn't look excited at all. In fact, she got worse. She spiralled into a pit I couldn't get her out of. Her depression was driving me insane; I didn't know what to do. I'd tell her she'd hurt the baby, that she needed to tell me why she was feeling this way, that I could help her, but she would refuse and send me away. I stupidly went to Valentine and told him what was happening. You know what he told me?
"Don't worry, Starkweather. She wouldn't dare do anything to risk the life of your unborn child."
Then one day I came home after a Circle meeting and Tessa Gray was in my sitting room with Marigold. They told me everything. What Valentine did, how he lured my wife into the Fairchild manor and had her drink some demonic potion and had her and Ithuriel—I don't even know what to call it. A child born of rape...but on a technicality, it wasn't, and that's what Valentine no doubt used to justify his sick actions.
The guilt that ate away at Marigold was drowning her. Seeing me so ecstatic, telling everyone I was going to be a father, having Valentine of all people approach her and congratulate her and I didn't notice her discomfort. I felt sick to my stomach when I was told what truly happened, and I didn't go kill Valentine because I knew I couldn't. He was a much better fighter than I was.
But I was a much better liar. I learned from the best after all.
Tessa brought in Catarina Loss, Brother Enoch, and Brother Zachariah. Together, we came up with our plan to hide you and protect you from Valentine. It was foolproof, or so we thought, and we were hopeful it would strike enough fear into Valentine that he'd never attempt to do something like this ever again. We found out we were having a girl around this time; Brother Zachariah told us. Of course, we would tell everyone it was a boy, but we knew we were having a beautiful baby girl.
Marigold became much livelier after that. The huge weight was lifted from her shoulders and she began to glow. Her pregnancy made her unnervingly beautiful; sometimes I felt like she'd grow wings and become an angel herself. Anything she touched would spring back up to life; dead flowers, rotting fruit, dried branches and leaves, or the dried herbs I had set aside for cooking. She had to be careful. I called her Queen Midas to tease her.
When the time came, Catarina arrived and performed a C-section. I assisted her with it and I'm glad I did because...I'll get to that later. But you were born; beautiful and wailing and with a head full of curly black hair. Marigold named you.
"Evangeline. It's the perfect name for her."
Of course, you were James Johann in the official Nephilim archives. The Silent Brothers gave us their names before they joined the Brotherhood—I believe Zachariah was James, and Enoch was Johann.
Valentine looked revoltingly pleased his plan produced a son. He carried you when the Circle came to see you. I'm sorry for that; we didn't want to let him anywhere near you but we had no choice.
We raised you for as long as we could. You were such a cheerful baby. I loved it when you smiled at me and you rarely cried unless you were hungry. You were even starting to flip over on your own and had already discovered your toes. Unfortunately, the longer we had you, the more dangerous it became. You were starting to look more like your mother, more like a baby girl, so we knew it was time for the second phase of the plan. The hardest part.
Brother Zachariah agreed to take you away and place you in an Institute somewhere in the world as an orphaned Nephilim. For everyone else's sake, he would be the only one to know where he'd placed you. For an added layer of protection, Tessa placed an oath of silence on all of us so if Valentine ever figured it out, he'd be unable to extract the truth from us.
The third and final phase of the plan was to set fire to the Starkweather manor using the vase infused with heavenly fire Tessa and Catarina received from the Archangel Gabriel. Marigold and I were going to barely make it out of the fire, act like we did everything we could to go back in there for you but the flames were too powerful. We were going to tell Valentine that a spontaneous fire began, probably a kettle was left on or the fireplace spit out embers that spread too quickly.
But Marigold was starting to suspect our plan wouldn't work.
"Valentine is too smart; he knows when you're faking. You have to feel real grief for him to believe you've truly lost someone you love."
I didn't know what she meant when she said that; I told her it would be fine. Valentine would be too shocked by the heavenly fire. I was too stupid to realize Marigold was completely right about Valentine's talent for detecting emotional deciet, and I was too stupid to realize the undertones in what Marigold said.
That morning I left for Alicante to shop at the local farmer's market for some fresh fruits. Then I saw the fire; it was enormous. You could see it from the city. It shot up into the sky as if it was trying to return to Heaven, like a waterspout of flames. It happened so suddenly, the demon towers began glowing in red. Everyone thought we were under attack. I don't remember running out of the city and up to the manor, but when I got there, the residents from the neighboring manors were present: Valentine and a pregnant Jocelyn, Robert and Maryse with little Alec, the Herondales, the Waylands. The entire countryside was there.
I tried to go inside. I didn't care about that fire. I had to get Marigold out. I knew right then and there what she'd meant the night before about grief. We couldn't play the part of grieving parents; we knew our child was alive somewhere. Valentine would see through it.
She sacrificed herself. She would die in that fire with our child, and leave me behind to grieve. A grief that Valentine would see as true, only he'd never be able to tell that the grief I felt was only for my wife, not for my child.
I was angry at Marigold for doing what she did for a time. I wanted to bring her back from the dead and kill her for what she did. For leaving me, for letting her guilt get to her as it did, for throwing me into a never-ending cycle of grief and rage. Even though she slowly recovered, I knew she hadn't forgiven herself for falling for Valentine's trickery, for cheating on me, for laying with an angel—a no doubt blasphemous thing to do in her mind even though we knew about the true origins of Jesus. It wasn't her fault. None of it was. It was mine. I brought Valentine into our lives and kept him there. I was too much of a coward to renounce my friendship with him, if one could call it that. I was the one that didn't notice she couldn't stand to be near him and I didn't find it strange she kept refusing to join the Circle. I was the stupid one.
Valentine came to my house in the city, under the guise of checking up on me because everyone was so worried. I was the one who told him the fire probably started in the nursery, that there had been spontaneous fires and I had assumed it was the fire grate. I told him I'd changed it, and that I didn't know why the fire started. I even cried at his feet. Those were real tears, but they were for Marigold. The image of her shattering the vase and bursting into flames haunted me at night. I woke up screaming from my nightmares. I still do.
He believed me. I lied to his face and he believed me. Marigold was right: genuine grief would fool him. He told everyone the fire was a conspiracy by the Clave, that they started the fire in the nursery to start killing off the second generation of the Circle and that they'd come for his unborn son and for Maryse and Robert's son too.
I acted like Valentine's blind follower after that. I needed to stay in his good graces. I did unspeakable things, things that disgust me to say but I had to do them. Valentine killed Stephen Herondale because he was losing faith in him, and then he recruited me to get rid of his wife Celine. We killed her and made it look like a suicide. I cut her son out of her womb as Valentine watched—he insisted the child needed to be saved because he was not responsible for his father's betrayal. I knew he was lying, of course, and I knew he was only saving Stephen's son because he wanted something from the boy. Only the Angel knows what.
I was terrified of telling you about this. I've killed innocents to prove my loyalty to Valentine: I was never brought along to raids because I was a dreadful fighter, but I'd find out where the vampire and werewolf hideouts were for them—I'd lead the Circle to them to slaughter. I killed a pregnant woman and cut her child out of her. I don't expect you to ever forgive me, and I don't expect to be forgiven by Stephen and Celine's son, wherever he may be if he's still alive. I deserve to be punished for everything I've done—the Clave was correct to curse me and banish me from Idris. I deserve much worse than that.
But I had to show Valentine I was loyal. That I truly believed him when he said the Clave was responsible for the death of Marigold and my son because that's what he would've expected from me. I had to keep you safe and if destroying my life and reputation was what had to be done, then so be it. I was more than willing to stain my hands with blood to keep his hands off you.
Then the Uprising occurred and I was among the few that surrendered willingly. Inquisitor Herondale was especially disgusted with us since she lost her son to Valentine. She chose our sentence.
When we arrived in New York, some conclave members were there expecting us. They told us that an orphan lived in the Institute after the Silent Brothers claimed they found her as an infant at the Silent City's entrance in the New York City Marble Cemetery. She was now about three years old, about Alec's age. I didn't think anything of it until I saw you playing with a doll in the library.
It was you! By the grace of the Angel, I was sentenced to live out my exile in the very Institute Brother Zachariah had chosen to place you in. He could've placed you in Los Angeles, in Paris, in Miami, or even London like your mother might've wanted, but he placed you in New York. I remember Maryse and Robert looked extremely worried and they approached me about your eerie likeness to Marigold. They even offered to convince the Inquisitor to transfer me to another Institute—the nicest thing they've ever told me, mind you. I kindly refused, telling them it wasn't worth mentioning and that I'd moved on. All lies of course. My incredible ability to lie horrified me.
I sent a message to the Silent Brothers shortly after, and they told Tessa and Catarina. I recall Catarina moved to the city to be close to you, and Enoch and Zachariah gave me specific instructions to summon them when you needed anything—we had no idea how your angel blood would react to runes or if you would show powers like Marigold did when she was pregnant with you. Thankfully, you didn't show anything too obvious; you bore Marks normally and had a parabatai with no issues.
When you were all hunting the Mortal Cup, I saw an opportunity to bargain with Valentine. I knew he could remove my curse and when he did, I could go into hiding with you until everything blew over. It was a stupid plan, one that I didn't think completely through and did on the spur of the moment. I was terrified of Valentine finding out about you and knowing he was in New York, where you could bump into him...I couldn't take the chance. I panicked.
He removed my curse like he promised and I tried to take you away. I didn't even know where I was going—I hadn't stepped outside for almost twenty years! I knew the streets from maps I'd looked through, but my mind was utterly blank with fear. I needed to get you far away, find Tessa, and then explain everything to you properly when she lifted the oath. But I didn't get the chance and you looked at me with such hatred that day in the alley, it haunted me every single time I managed to get some sleep. Lucian was kind enough not to dig his fangs too deep into me when we fought; out of all the Circle members, I got along with him the most. When you all left me there, I drew an iratze on myself and went to the nearest entrance into the Council Hall. I told the Consul and the Inquisitor that Valentine planned to attack the city, but they didn't believe me. They arrested me, smashed my glasses, and forgot about me in the cells of the Gard.
You have every right to cast me away and never see me again. I wouldn't blame you. Even after all these years, I still find it difficult to forgive myself. Raphael told me I shouldn't be afraid to tell you everything and I've told you everything. But whatever you decide to do, know that I will do whatever I can to help you fight against Valentine. Trust my hate for him, and trust my love for you and Marigold.
Thank you for reading!
