"Go back to Alicante, New York, and it's late November, maybe even early December. Valentine has—at this point—been killing anyone he deems "unworthy" for years. He's also been tracking your mother for seven months. I tried to warn her, but she already knew and would do nothing to stop it. Something about having to distract Valentine from whatever he was trying to do. To this day, we don't know if your mother ever succeeded. We don't even know what she was trying to stop.

"Don't look at me like that, I'm telling the truth, I promise. He caught her and took her somewhere…horrible. We can't know for sure; in fact, we barely know anything about those early times. This was all before I had even founded C-PVA. We also don't know exactly what he did with her, but…a few months later, there was you.

"Valentine—we later figured out from another warlock who had been closely spying from the cells in Valentine's prison—had been experimenting on you before you'd been born. Injecting some kind of…drug. He'd wanted it to enhance your skills, make you the unstoppable, perfect fighter. Instead, you turned out incredibly powerful, more than you yet know, but didn't have the heart—or lack thereof—to ruthlessly kill.

"So he killed your mother and left you out on the streets at age five months old. He'd been so angry that he'd immediately travelled to the Herondale Manor. Jace's parents had been undercover, without our knowledge, posing as his closest constituents while gathering dirt on Valentine. He murdered them both.

"From then, we've been hunting him. Jace joined our team when he was old enough to. Normally we don't take in apprentices until they're age nineteen, but Jace was a special case. He was training at age five, and was better than most fully grown agents. He was a certified agent by age twelve.

"So you know, he wasn't assigned to you until he met you. It wasn't like he was stalking you or anything. In fact, we didn't set him on the mission for two weeks after you two had met.

"Your father was completely silent for years. We couldn't find him anywhere. We knew he was committing crimes, and usually we'd be able to track him through those, but this time around, he was flawless. 100% under the radar, out of sight.

"Then Auro sent Jace to high school. They'd been taking pictures of him around the campus every once in a while. You were caught in just one, laughing at a pose in the distance. Consequently, that was one of the photos Auro decided to publish.

"Your father saw it, and has been tracking you. We only know because he messed up, just once. Caught his prints on a gun that was used to kill an Auro lawyer because she had the photo in her possession. We've been closer on his trail now than we've ever been before, and that's why things are so hectic with you now. That's why we were training you, and why Jace felt strongly enough about your safety that he had to betray you to protect you."

I felt…so many things. Magnus stayed silent, watching me, Jace watching the fire. I didn't know what to think about first.

Somehow, I managed to stand on legs so shaky I had toppled back down onto the couch the first time I'd tried. But I steeled myself and walked forward, straight toward the door. Magnus was calling my name and I heard footsteps close behind me, but I desperately needed air. I didn't quite feel like I was suffocating just yet, but I felt slightly strangled.

Once outside, I just started walking. I had no sense of direction, time, or temperature. I couldn't sense anything around me until suddenly there was a coat hanging around my shoulders. Only then, when I looked at Jace standing there with his minimal shirt stirring in the violent wind, did I realize it must be cold.

Without really thinking, I shifted the coat so half of it was hanging on his shoulder, half of it on mine. It meant we were very close, but his body was so warm that I didn't truly mind. Jace tensed up for half a second, enough that I wouldn't have felt it if I hadn't been watching him for over three years.

Just as he'd been watching me.

I started walking, dragging Jace along with me through his huge jacket, eyes back on the ground.

"If you want, just start talking. Say everything that's on your mind and I'll just listen and never bring it up again. It'll help," he suggested.

Perhaps it was my lack of awareness, but for some reason, I believed him.

"The first thing that comes to mind is that my father could've killed you."

Jace sucked in a breath and I gave him one sidelong glance through the corner of my eye before facing back towards the path in front of us.

"And I never would've known. Who you were, what you would've been to me. I never would've made it here, I don't think. Because even though you should've told me about the mission, I understand why you did everything you did, and you're still my person. My only person.

"I'm sorry that your parents died before you even got to know them, but I'll forever count it as a miracle that my father couldn't get to you.

"Also, my father…I don't want to call him that. A father is a protector, and a loving caretaker. I don't even know what Valentine looks like. But he raped my mother and I'm so beyond furious that I've reached this sort of icy calm and I can't feel anything. And that scares me.

"Not to mention…everything Magnus told me about the things you've done…

"I don't know why my brain keeps coming back to you. But maybe it's not my brain. Maybe it's my heart.

"Either way, I realized I've been so harsh to you without cause. You knew better than me, and I didn't even give you a chance. It was so horrible of me, and I am so sorry. I know that if our positions had switched I would do the same thing."

In a normal case, I would never talk this much. But there had been some kind of spell cast on me, one I didn't particularly want to remove. Not when Jace whirled on his heel and grabbed by chin, hard but not painful, so I would look him in his beautiful golden eyes.

"No, you wouldn't have. You would have told me and then we would have gone out hunting for Valentine together. And that is exactly what I should have done," he spilled.

"But the C-V-,"

"Screw the agency, they're not getting anything done anyway," with that, Jace started walking forward again, pulling me along like I had done to him.

We were silent for very long. Too long. I still wanted to ask him…

"Jace, there's one thing I still don't understand."

He turned to look at me and pressed his lips together. I had a feeling he knew what I meant. He turned back to the road, as if he couldn't look at me while he talked about it. There was the tension in his muscles, though, that said he would do it again.

"I didn't mean to," he started finally. "I wasn't planning on it, I mean. The two times I've done it before, it was quick and painless. Middle of the night, needle behind the ear. I never had to worry about…

"But this time was different. I followed you out because I felt like there was this string, so taut, between us and I just had to loosen it. I let you, or that tether on my heart, drag me forward until I was calling your name, and you were turning around and my brain just flew out the window.

"I had to. That's all I remember, just thinking that if I didn't kiss you right then I would just…disintegrate. And I would've been fine with that. But then I started thinking again and I just—did it. And then you looked at me and I could tell you hated me so much. All I wanted to do in that moment was take it away because I know that hate ruins people, and I couldn't stand the thought of you being so angry you'd never feel happy again. And I wanted to take away your hate, not so that you would want me back, but because I had enough hate for myself to cover the both of us and probably the entire C-VPA. And I'm probably overreacting. I've probably exaggerated the whole story, but…that's just how it felt."

All I did was take his hand and squeeze it. I went to put it back by my side, and instead Jace didn't let go. So we stayed like that, Jace staring at our joined fingers.

"You know, I regret so much of what I did. But mostly, the fact that I don't remember what it felt like," Jace said, smirking. I knew that the Jace I knew had returned. It seemed he'd had enough of pain and suffering for one day.

And I had too.

Jace had been hinting about kissing me when he'd made that statement. But he obviously hadn't thought I would agree.

I saw his golden eyes widen seconds before I pressed my lips to his, just like I had when protecting Magnus and Alec, but somewhat less urgently. And Jace responded in seconds this time, tucking me against him and holding tight, like I'd somehow turn into a breath of air in between his arms.

I started feeling again, the awareness rushing back to me like flood. Such awareness that I wondered if what we were doing was a bad idea, not because I felt I couldn't trust him, but because there was no way Jace wanted me for more than kissing. It was surprising enough that he'd wanted to kiss me at all, seeing as he had a whole world of supermodels to choose from.

I normally wouldn't have gone for it. I would've been too afraid, even without most of my senses, that he would reject me and say something like, "Listen, Clary, I like you but…"

But when Jace had talked about what he'd felt, the same desperation I had unknowingly mirrored in that moment before kissing me, I hadn't been able to resist. It was like a much less heart-shattering version of that first kiss.

Like I said, though, Jace didn't want me.

That's what I thought.

But it went straight out the window when Jace didn't pull away for the longest time, and when he did we were both panting, and Jace had stars in his eyes. I was second-guessing all of it.