Epilogue

When the cell door opened, Robert was sound asleep, though he sat up at the sound of metal scraping against stone and put his hands out, wrists together, waiting for the hand cuffs to fall onto his wrists and lock them together. It had been an immeasurable amount of days since Robert had woken up face down on the floor of the prison cell. At first he had thought he was blind, until he stared into the darkness around him and found himself unable to catch his breath, certain that he had been buried alive.

Death might have been a better fate.

When he had finally caught his breath, he found that his face was covered with dried blood. His head spun and pounded with every beat of his heart. The last thing he remembered was Marcus Herondale's blue eyes, narrowed with anger and pain, as he smashed his fist into Robert's face, knocking him, unconscious, to the floor of the Accord's Hall.

Now there was the kiss of metal against Robert's hands and the tightening of the cuffs, one click to tight. There was the warmth of another person leaning close and then Robert was hauled roughly to his feet. He followed after the prison guard, opening his mouth to speak, though no sound came out.

When he had finally summoned the will to scream from the floor after he first woke up, he found that his voice had been taken away, no doubt to prevent any of the Circle members from communicating with one another, should anyone else have survived.

Not that he had anything to say to any of them.

The Accords had been a nightmare. An absolute, living, nightmare. It had been clear very early on that the Circle was outnumbered, that they had misjudged the power of the Clave, and of the scores of Downworlders who came to battle the Circle in the Uprising. Still, they had fought on, killing anyone who dared to challenge them, until the floor of the Accords Hall had run slick with blood. Valentine had retreated, sneaking out a side door like a coward, and Michael had gone after him.

Michael. Robert had no idea what had happened to him, only that Michael had gone after Valentine, and Robert hadn't heard from him again since seeing Michael's blue eyes from across the Accord's Hall one last time. In his prison cell, Robert had lay on his cot for hours, one hand over his heart, trying to discern if Michael was alive or dead, though he couldn't feel anything.

In truth, the last year with Michael had weighed like a heaviness on Robert's soul. He had known Michael was unhappy but had been unable to make him happy and now the heaviness was gone. In its place was nothing at all; just a void where there had once been something that tied them together.

"You have two minutes," the guard said, shoving Robert into a bathroom. Robert stepped before a mirror and looked at his face to see his eyes black and blue and his nose still broken. He brushed his teeth and washed his faced and watched blood mix with the water and wash down the drain. Robert was amazed at how easily he became a model prisoner, as if good behavior would atone for all the crimes he had committed.

The first time he was taken from his cell, he was brought to a room for questioning and given his voice back. Immediately he demanded Maryse and was told that she was alive and being held in another part of the prison. Alexander was in the custody of the Clave and would remain there until a suitable punishment was decided upon.

The questioning was endless, and was often assisted by the Mortal Sword. When that happened Robert had no choice but to tell the Consul everything, until he was left crying and weak. He told the Consul about the scores of Downworlders he had killed. How one time he had held a faerie's head beneath the water just to watch it die. How Valntine once set the Circle loose in a house full of vampires, and told them to kill them all.

Only when he had told them everything he could was Robert told that Valentine was dead, along with Jocelyn and Jonathan, all burned to death in a fire at Fairchild Manor. Robert could only hope that it was Michael who had gotten to Valentine and Michael, who had opposed the Circle from the beginning, who had been the one to kill Valentine.

When the questioning was finished a guard would step forward and draw a rune on his throat, taking his voice away, and Robert would be returned to his cell. Sometimes he would be left alone in the darkness and sometimes the guards would come to torment him; to do things to him and laugh when he couldn't beg them to stop. When they had their fun they would leave him to pass the long, dark hours completely alone.

Now, the guard took a stele and drew a line across the rune on Robert's throat, giving him his voice back, before pulling him from the bathroom. Instead of going back to the cell or to a room for questioning, the guard pulled Robert in the opposite direction, and they headed up a set of stairs towards daylight. It was mid morning, Robert noticed, by the way the sunlight was cast on the far wall.

His charges had been laid out for him when he was first brought before the Consul. Along with the Circle, he had broken nearly every law possible. He had killed Downworlders without reason, he had willingly murdered Shadowhunters, and he had been part of a group that attempted to overthrow the Clave. He was guilty of treason in the highest degree. If found guilty he faced one of three punishments: excommunication from the Nephilim, a life of imprisonment in the Silent City, or execution.

The Consul was willing to execute him for his crimes.

Perhaps that was where he was headed now.

"You have to let me say goodbye," Robert said. He stopped walking and the guard tugged on his arms, causing the handcuffs to dig into his wrists and hurt him. "Please. I have a son. I have a wife. Please. Let me tell them goodbye. You have to let me say goodbye!" He had so much more to say and do, it couldn't be ending like this. How would they do it? Would it be quick and painless? Would he suffer? Would he know what was happening up until the final moments? Would anyone tell him Ave Atque Vale? He and Michael swore they would say it to one another if one of them died in battle, but Michael wasn't there to say it now. "I'm allowed that! Please!"

"You don't deserve your next breath," the guard whispered, and Robert was shocked, for just a moment. Had he been that heartless when he wore the guard uniform? He had thought himself so above everyone else that he would gladly see his fellow man put to death for crimes far less severe than the ones he was accused of?

A sob broke apart Robert's next words as the guard continued pulling him down a hallway. They stopped outside of a door and the guard unlocked the handcuffs before shoving Robert into a room.

Robert looked down at his hands, seeing slices in his skin from the cuffs. He raised his eyes and saw a window he could throw himself out of, a desk, and two chairs. There was a woman sitting behind the desk, something vaguely familiar about her. Her hair was an unnatural shade of blonde going grey and her eyes were a cold, crystal grey.

"You can tell your husband your news now," the woman said. Robert noticed a girl dressed in a shapeless grey gown sitting in a chair. Her black hair was full of knots, a dark bruise was on her cheek, and seconds later, she was in his arms, pressed tight to his chest, as they both cried.

"I love you so much," Robert said. "I'll save us, I promise. I told them everything. All of it." Maryse felt wooden in his arms. She pushed away from him, arms going to her sides. "I'll save us."

"We're beyond saving," Maryse said, "don't you know that?" She shook her head and didn't look him in the eyes.

"Tell him," the woman behind the desk said, smiling a Cheshire grin.

"Who are you?" Robert asked.

"I am Inquisitor Imogen Herondale," the woman said. Robert felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach. This was Stephen's mother, who Robert had last seen standing beside the table her dead son lay on. He had been surrounded by flowers and dressed in white. "It is up to me to decide your fate. I would like nothing more than to execute you both, in the presence of your own families, so that they may feel the pain that I feel every single day." Robert noticed the mourning runes on her hands, red against her pale flesh. Stephen had been dead for nearly a month, if not more.

She shouldn't have still been wearing the runes of mourning, unless she was mourning someone else.

"But I am a wife and a mother as well," Imogen continued. "You remember Stephen, my sweet, golden boy, and Celine, who was pregnant with Stephen's son, and even Marcus, my husband, who never once did anything to any of the people in your Circle. If I take you from your families, I am truly no better than you, am I?"

"No, ma'am," Maryse said.

"So tell us your news, Mrs. Lightwood. Your husband and I are both interested in what you have to say," Imogen said.

Maryse folded her hands over her stomach and said something that sent Robert's heart plummeting to the floor.

"You can repeat that," Imogen said, though Robert heard Maryse quite plainly the first time.

"I'm pregnant," Maryse said, raising her eyes to Robert's.

"That is possibly the only reason for why I am sparing you both," Imogen said. "No mother should have to suffer the pain of losing her child. No wife should have to lose her husband. Am I correct?"

"Yes ma'am," Maryse said.

"So you'll set Maryse free and send me to prison?" Robert asked, still looking into Maryse's eyes. He thought about his children growing up without him and found it to be possibly the most merciful outcome.

"I'm punishing you both with exile. You're to leave Idris and never return, only for Clave business. You'll take Hodge Starkweather with you. When your children grow, he can be their tutor," Imogen said. "Your Circle saw to it that the heads of the New York Institute were killed, leaving an open position you both shall fill. Your bags have been packed. You are to leave immediately."

"It wasn't our Circle," Robert said. "Valentine, he-"

"Threatened your lives? Forced you to commit treason? You took a vow!" Imogen cried. "You knew what you were doing was wrong and you did it anyway. You will suffer for what you have done but you will not do it in Idris. Guards, take them away."

"Thank you," Maryse said quickly. "Thank you for sparing our lives."

"I didn't do it for you. Remember that," Imogen said. "I will be everywhere. I will hunt down every single member of your pathetic Circle and I will bring them all to justice. You took my family from me. You killed my son and ended the Herondale line. I will defeat you, one way or another, and Robert Lightwood? I will see you again."

The End