𝑶𝑭 𝑩𝑳𝑶𝑶𝑫 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑩𝑬𝑻𝑹𝑨𝒀𝑨𝑳

Ꮨ ᎠᏘRK RᏋFLᏋᏨTIᎧᏁ

"I don't know, baby."

"All I'm asking is that you remain cautious around him and if you can tell Clary to do the same, I'd appreciate it."

"Okay. I hear you."

"Good. Now, what are you trying to hide from me?" Jace was thrown by the complete 180 in the conversation.

"What?"

Alyssa folded her arms across her chest. "Your block has been up all day, and I can tell you're putting in extra effort to keep it up. Now, fess up." Jace opened and closed his mouth a few times, not knowing what to say. "Either you tell me now, or I find out later when the walls go down, which I guarantee you won't bode well for you. Unless you fancy spending the next few days or more sleeping on the couch."

Jace let out a sigh and sat on the bed. "Alec told me, Clary, and Antonio something this morning after you left with Max. It's something he doesn't want to get out to the Downworld in fear that there might be an uprising."

"I'm listening."

"The Clave doesn't have the Soul Sword. They never retrieved it after Valentine's siege." Alyssa let out a short laugh after Jace said this.

"Is that it?"

Jace looked up at her in surprise. "Why aren't you surprised? Usually this is the part where you say something about the Clave being liars or whatever."

"Babe, hearing that the Clave doesn't have the Sword isn't news to me, and hearing that they lied about it isn't news either."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh honey, you have got to start paying attention to everything I say, especially to certain members of the Clave." Jace was confused by this. "Jace, I've suspected that the Clave didn't want the Sword since the Inquisitor took over the Institute, before you found out she was your family."

"What?"

"Remember when you asked her why she was torturing Valentine to get answers about the whereabouts of the Cup and why she wasn't using the Soul Sword? And then she gave some bogus excuse about sending it to the Iron Sisters for purification."

"Yeah."

"That's when I suspected they were lying. The rune Clary drew was to deactivate the Sword to make it unable to kill Downworlders. It didn't do any damage to the capabilities of the Sword. It can still reveal the truth."

"There's more, though. We pieced together that..."

"Valentine's gathering the mortal instruments to summon Raziel so he can use that one wish to, in his words 'wipe out the demon filth'.

Yeah, I gathered that when we learned Valentine was after the Mortal Mirror." Alyssa said, rolling her eyes slightly. "Jace, you're only telling me things I know or suspected. But what I don't know is why Alec told you to keep this a secret from me."

"He's afraid of a Downworld uprising if it gets out, and so is the Clave."

"Okay, so? I'm co-head of the Institute, why wouldn't he want me to know? It's not like I would have gone around the city with a megaphone announcing the news about the Soul Sword to the Downworlders." Alyssa said with a little laugh. Then she saw the look on her husband's face. "Wait, is that what Alec thought I would do? He really thought..."

"No, but he did say that if you knew then so would Magnus and Luke, and if they knew then eventually so would the rest of the Downworld."

"So what? Magnus, my dad and I are now blabbermouths that can't keep our mouths shut. Wait, how long has he been keeping this a secret?" Jace was reluctant to speak. "Jace, how long?"