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Chapter Text

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

𝔣𝔢𝔶𝔰𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱: 

𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔦𝔯 𝔭𝔦𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔱 𝔟𝔬𝔞𝔯𝔡: 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔞𝔯𝔢 𝔞𝔩𝔴𝔞𝔶𝔰 𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔠𝔦𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔡, 𝔦 𝔩𝔬𝔬𝔬𝔳𝔢 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔱𝔥𝔢𝔪

𝔲𝔭𝔡𝔞𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔢𝔳𝔢𝔯𝔶 𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔡𝔞𝔶

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

ℜ𝔥𝔶𝔰𝔞𝔫𝔡

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

𝔉𝔢𝔶𝔯𝔢 

i will be changing a few things. 
-amarantha will be male(picture arobynn from tog). 
-there will be NO getting feyre drunk and making her dance for the mountain crowd. 

Chapter Text

✿° "There you are. I've been looking for you."  ✿°

credit for title: @dreamworlddweller on instagram

Chapter Text

      I blinked at the three strangers, dumbfounded as I beheld their sharp-featured faces--free of masks. They looked like High Fae, but there was something slightly different about them, something taller and leaner than Tamlin or Lucien—something crueler in their pitch-black, depthless eyes.

Faeries, then.

The one grasping my arm smiled down at me, revealing slightly pointed teeth.

"Human woman," he murmured, running an eye over me. "We've not seen one of you for a while." I tried yanking my arm back, but he held my elbow firm.

"What do you want?" I demanded, keeping my voice steady and cold.

The two faeries who flanked him smiled at me, and one grabbed my other arm--just as I went for my knife.

"Just some Fire Night fun," one of them said, reaching out a pale, too-long hand to brush back a lock of my hair.

I twisted my head away and tried to step out of his touch, but he held firm. None of the faeries near the bonfire reacted--no one bothered to look.

If I cried for help, would someone answer? Would Tamlin answer? I couldnt be that lucky again; I'd probably used up my allotted portion of luck with the naga.

I yanked my arms in earnest. Their grip tightened until it hurt, and they kept my hands well away from my knives. The three of them stepped closer, sealing me off from the others.

I glanced around, looking for any ally. There were more nonmasked faeries here now. The three faeries chuckled, a low hissing noise that ran along my body. I hadn't realized how far I stood from everyone else--how close I'd come to the forest's edge.

"Leave me alone," I said, louder and angrier than I'd expected, given the shaking that was starting in my knees.

"Bold statement from a human on Calanmai," said the one holding my left arm.

The fires didn't reflect in his eyes. It was as if they gobbled up the light. I thought of the naga, whose horrible exteriors matched their rotten hearts. Somehow, these beautiful, ethereal faeries were far worse.

"Once the Rite's performed, we'll have some fun, won't we? A treat--such a treat--to find a human woman here."

I bared my teeth at him.

"Get your hands off me," I said, loud enough for anyone to hear.

One of them ran a hand down my side, its bony fingers digging into my ribs, my hips. I jerked back, only to slam into the third one, who wove his long fingers through my hair and pressed close. No one looked; no one noticed.

"Stop it," I said, but the words came out in a strangled gasp as they began herding me toward the line of trees, toward the darkness.

I pushed and thrashed against them; they only hissed. One of them shoved me and I staggered, falling out of their grasp.

The ground welled up beneath me, and I reached for my knives, but sturdy hands grasped me under the shoulders before I could draw them or hit the grass.

They were strong hands--warm and slender. Not at all like the prodding, bony fingers of the three faeries who went utterly still as whoever caught me gently set me upright.

"There you are. I've been looking for you," said a deep, sensual female voice I'd never heard.

But I kept my eyes on the three faeries, bracing myself for flight as the female behind me stepped to my side and slipped a casual arm around my shoulders.

The three lesser faeries paled, their dark eyes wide.

"Thank you for finding her for me," my savior said to them, smooth and polished. "Enjoy the Rite."

There was enough of a bite beneath her last words that the faeries stiffened. Without further comment, they scuttled back to the bonfires.

I stepped out of the shelter of my savior's arm and turned to thank her.

Standing before me was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

Everything about the stranger radiated sensual grace and ease. High Fae, no doubt. Her long black hair gleamed like a raven's feathers, offsetting her pale skin and blue eyes so deep they were violet, even in the firelight. They twinkled with amusement as she beheld me.

For a moment, we said nothing. Thank you didn't seem to cover what she'd done for me, but something about the way she stood with absolute stillness, the night seeming to press in closer around her, made me hesitate to speak--made me want to run in the other direction.

She, too, wasn't wearing a mask. From another court, then. A half smile played on her full lips.

"What is a mortal woman doing here on Fire Night?"

Her voice was a lover's purr that sent shivers through me, caressing every muscle and bone and nerve. I took a step back.

"My friends brought me."

The drumming was increasing in tempo, building to a climax I didn't understand. It had been so long since I'd seen a bare face that looked even vaguely human.

Her dress--black and finely made--was cut close enough to her body that I could see how magnificent she was. As if she'd been molded from the night itself.

The dress was tight fit, clinging to her impressive curves. The low cut showed off the swell of her breasts.

"And who are your friends?" She was still smiling at me--a predator sizing up prey.

"Two ladies," I lied again.

"Their names?"

She prowled closer. I retreated a little more and kept my mouth shut. Had I just traded three monsters for something far worse?

When it became apparent I wouldn't answer, she chuckled.

"You're welcome," she said. "For saving you."

I bristled at her arrogance but retreated another step. I was close enough to the bonfire, to that little hollow where the faeries were all gathered, that I could make it if I sprinted. Maybe someone would take pity on me--maybe Lucien or Alis were there.

"Strange for a mortal to be friends with two faeries," she mused, and began circling me. I could have sworn tendrils of star-kissed night trailed in her wake. "Aren't humans usually terrified of us? And aren't you, for that matter, supposed to keep to your side of the wall?"

I was terrified of her, but I wasn't about to let her know. "I've known them my whole life. I've never had anything to fear from them."

She paused her circling. She now stood between me and the bonfire--and my escape route. "And yet they brought you to the Great Rite and abandoned you."

"They went to get refreshments," I said, and her smile grew. Whatever I'd just said had given me away. I'd spotted the servants hauling off the food, but--maybe it wasn't here.

She smiled for a heartbeat longer. I had never seen anyone so gorgeous--and never had so many warning bells pealed in my head because of it.

"I'm afraid the refreshments are a long way off," she said, coming closer now. "It might be a while before they return. May I escort you somewhere in the meantime?"

She offered me her arm. She'd been able to scare off those faeries without lifting a finger.

"No," I said, my tongue thick and heavy.

She waved her hand toward the hollow--toward the drums. "Enjoy the Rite, then. Try to stay out of trouble."

Her eyes gleamed in a way that suggested staying out of trouble meant staying far, far away from her.

Though it might have been the biggest risk I'd ever taken, I blurted, "So you're not a part of the Spring Court?"

She returned to me, every movement exquisite and laced with lethal power, but I held my ground as she gave me a lazy smile.

"Do I look like I'm part of the Spring Court?" The words were tinged with an arrogance that only an immortal could achieve. She laughed under her breath. "No, I'm not a part of the noble Spring Court. And glad of it." She gestured to her face, where a mask might go.

I should have walked away, should have shut my mouth. "Why are you here, then?"

The woman's deep set eyes seemed to glow--with enough of a deadly edge that I backed up a step.

"Because all the monsters have been let out of their cages tonight, no matter what court they belong to. So I may roam wherever I wish until the dawn."

More riddles and questions to be answered. But I'd had enough--especially as her smile turned cold and cruel.

"Enjoy the Rite," I repeated as blandly as I could.

Chapter Text

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The next day, Lucien joined us for lunch--which was breakfast for all of us. Ever since I'd complained about the unnecessary size of the table, we'd taken to dining at a much-reduced version.

Lucien kept rubbing at his temples as he ate, unusually silent, and I hid my smile as I asked him, "And where were you last night?"

Lucien's metal eye narrowed on me. "I'll have you know that while you two were dancing with the spirits, I was stuck on border patrol." Tamlin gave a pointed cough, and Lucien added, "With some company." He gave me a sly grin. "Rumor has it you two didn't come back until after dawn."

I glanced at Tamlin, biting my lip. I'd practically floated into my bedroom that morning. But Tamlin's gaze now roved my face as if searching for any tinge of regret, of fear. Ridiculous.

"You bit my neck on Fire Night," I said under my breath. "If I can face you after that, a few kisses are nothing."

He braced his forearms on the table as he leaned closer to me. "Nothing?" His eyes flicked to my lips. Lucien shifted in his seat, muttering to the Cauldron to spare him, but I ignored him.

"Nothing," I repeated a bit distantly, watching Tamlin's mouth move, so keenly aware of every movement he made, resenting the table between us. I could almost feel the warmth of his breath.

"Are you sure?" he murmured, intent and hungry enough that I was glad I was sitting.

He could have had me right there, on top of that table. I wanted his broad hands running over my bare skin, wanted his teeth scraping against my neck, wanted his mouth all over me.

"I'm trying to eat," Lucien said, and I blinked, the air whooshing out of me. "But now that I have your attention, Tamlin," he snapped, though the High Lord was looking at me again--devouring me with his eyes. I could hardly sit still, could hardly stand the clothes scratching my too-hot skin. With some effort, Tamlin glanced back at his emissary.

Lucien shifted in his seat. "Not to be the bearer of truly bad tidings, but my contact at the Winter Court managed to get a letter to me."

Lucien took a steadying breath, and I wondered--wondered if being emissary also meant being spymaster. And wondered why he was bothering to say this in my presence at all. The smile instantly faded from Tamlin's face.

"The blight," Lucien said tightly, softly. "It took out two dozen of their younglings. Two dozen, all gone." He swallowed. "It just burned through their magic, then broke apart their minds. No one in the Winter Court could do anything--no one could stop it once it turned its attention toward them. Their grief is unfathomable. My contact says other courts are being hit hard--though the Night Court, of course, manages to remain unscathed. But the blight seems to be sending its wickedness this way--farther south with every attack."

All the warmth, all the sparkling joy, drained from me like blood down a drain. "The blight can can truly kill people?" I managed to say.

Younglings. It had killed children, like some storm of darkness and death. And if offspring were as rare as Alis had claimed, the loss of so many would be more devastating than I could imagine.

Tamlin's eyes were shadowed, and he slowly shook his head--as if trying to clear the grief and shock of those deaths from him.

"The blight is capable of hurting us in ways you--"

He shot to his feet so quickly that his chair flipped over. He unsheathed his claws and snarled at the open doorway, canines long and gleaming.

The house, usually full of the whispering skirts and chatter of servants, had gone silent. Not the pregnant silence of Fire Night, but rather a trembling quiet that made me want to scramble under the table. Or just start running. Lucien swore and drew his sword.

"Get Feyre to the window--by the curtains," Tamlin growled to Lucien, not taking his eyes off the open doors. Lucien's hand gripped my elbow, dragging me out of my chair.

"What's--" I started, but Tamlin growled again, the sound echoing through the room.

I snatched one of the knives off the table and let Lucien lead me to the window, where he pushed me against the velvet drapes. I wanted to ask why he didn't bother hiding me behind them, but the fox-masked faerie just pressed his back into me, pinning me between him and the wall.

The tang of magic shoved itself up my nostrils. Though his sword was pointed at the floor, Lucien's grip tightened on it until his knuckles turned white.

Magic--a glamour. To conceal me, to make me a part of Lucien--invisible, hidden by the faerie's magic and scent.

I peered over his shoulder at Tamlin, who took a long breath and sheathed his claws and fangs, his baldric of knives appearing from thin air across his chest.

But he didn't draw any of the knives as he righted his chair and slouched in it, picking at his nails. As if nothing were happening.

But someone was coming, someone awful enough to frighten them--someone who would want to hurt me if they knew I was here.

The hissing voice of the Attor slithered through my memory. There were worse creatures than it, Tamlin had told me. Worse than the naga, and the Suriel, and the Bogge, too.

Footsteps sounded from the hall. Even, strolling, casual.

Tamlin continued cleaning his nails, and in front of me, Lucien assumed a position of appearing to be looking out the window. The footsteps grew louder--the sound of heels on marble tiles.

And then she appeared.

No mask. She, like the Attor, belonged to something else. Someone else.

And worse—I'd met her before. She'd saved me from those three faeries on Fire Night.

With steps that were too graceful, too feline, she approached the dining table and stopped a few yards from the High Lord.

She was exactly as I remembered her, with her fine, rich clothing cloaked in tendrils of night: an ebony dress brocaded with gold and silver, and black heels. Her raven hair flowed gracefully across her shoulders. I'd never dared to paint her--and now knew I would never have the nerve to.

"High Lord," the stranger crooned, inclining her head slightly. Not a bow.

Tamlin remained seated. With his back to me, I couldn't see his face, but Tamlin's voice was laced with the promise of violence as he said, "What do you want, Rhysand?"

Rhysand smiled--heartbreaking in its beauty--and put a hand on her chest. "Rhysand? Come now, Tamlin. I don't see you for forty-nine years, and you start calling me Rhysand? Only my prisoners and my enemies call me that."

Her grin widened as she finished, and something in her countenance turned feral and deadly, more so than I'd ever seen Tamlin look.

Rhysand turned, and I held my breath as she ran an eye over Lucien. "A fox mask. Appropriate for you, Lucien."

"Go to Hell, Rhys," Lucien snapped.

"Always a pleasure dealing with the rabble," Rhysand said, and faced Tamlin again. I still didn't breathe. "I hope I wasn't interrupting."

"We were in the middle of lunch," Tamlin said--his voice void of the warmth to which I'd become accustomed. The voice of the High Lord. It turned my insides cold.

"Stimulating," Rhysand purred.

"What are you doing here, Rhys?" Tamlin demanded, still in his seat.

"I wanted to check up on you. I wanted to see how you were faring. If you got my little present."

"Your present was unnecessary."

"But a nice reminder of the fun days, wasn't it?"

Rhysand clicked her tongue and surveyed the room.

"Almost half a century holed up in a country estate. I don't know how you managed it. But," she said, facing Tamlin again, "you're such a stubborn bastard that this must have seemed like a paradise compared to Under the Mountain. I suppose it is. I'm surprised, though: forty-nine years, and no attempts to save yourself or your lands. Even now that things are getting interesting again."

"There's nothing to be done," conceded Tamlin, his voice low.

Rhysand approached Tamlin, each movement smooth as silk. Her voice dropped into a whisper--an erotic caress of sound that brought heat to my cheeks.

"What a pity that you must endure the brunt of it, Tamlin--and an even greater pity that you're so resigned to your fate. You might be stubborn, but this is pathetic. How different the High Lord is from the brutal war-band leader of centuries ago."

Lucien interrupted, "What do you know about anything? You're just Amaros’s whore."

"His whore I might be, but not without my reasons." I flinched as her voice whetted itself into an edge. "At least I haven't bided my time among the hedges and flowers while the world has gone to Hell."

Lucien's sword rose slightly. "If you think that's all I've been doing, you'll soon learn otherwise."

"Little Lucien. You certainly gave them something to talk about when you switched to Spring. Such a sad thing, to see your lovely mother in perpetual mourning over losing you."

Lucien pointed his sword at Rhysand. "Watch your filthy mouth."

Rhysand laughed—a lover's laugh, low and soft and intimate. "Is that any way to speak to a High Lady of Prythian?"

My heart stopped dead. That was why those faeries had run off on Fire Night. To cross her would have been suicide. And from the way darkness seemed to ripple from her, from those violet eyes that burned like stars—

"You are not a High Lady; such a thing does not exist," Lucien disputed. She just shrugged her slim shoulders, a smirk playing her delicate lips.

"Come now, Tamlin," Rhysand said. "Shouldn't you reprimand your lackey for speaking to me like that?"

"I don't enforce rank in my court," Tamlin said.

"Still?" Rhysand crossed her arms. "But it's so entertaining when they grovel. I suppose your father never bothered to show you."

"This isn't the Night Court," Lucien hissed. "And you have no power here--so clear out. Amaros’s bed is growing cold."

I tried not to breathe too loudly. Rhysand--she'd been the one to send that head. As a gift. I flinched. Was the Night Court where this man--this Amaros—was located, too?

Rhysand snickered, but then she was upon Lucien, too fast for me to follow with my human eyes, growling in his face. Lucien pressed me into the wall with his back, hard enough that I stifled a cry as I was squished against the wood.

"I was slaughtering on the battlefield before you were even born," Rhysand snarled.

Then, as quickly as she had come, she withdrew, casual and careless. No, I would never dare to paint that dark, immortal grace--not in a hundred years.

"Besides," she said, "who do you think taught your beloved Tamlin the finer aspects of battle? You can't truly believe he learned everything in his father's little war-camps."

Tamlin rubbed his temples. "Save it for another time, Rhys. You'll see me soon enough."

Rhysand meandered toward the door. "He's already preparing for you. Given your current state, I think I can safely report that you've already been broken and will reconsider his offer."

Lucien's breath hitched as Rhysand passed the table. The Lady of the Night Court ran a slender finger along the back of my chair--a casual gesture.

"I'm looking forward to seeing your face when you--" Rhysand studied the table.

Lucien went stick-straight, pressing me harder against the wall. The table was still set for three, my half-eaten plate of food sitting right before her.

"Where's your guest?" Rhysand asked, lifting my goblet and sniffing it before setting it down again.

"I sent them off when I sensed your arrival," Tamlin lied coolly.

Rhysand now faced the High Lord, and her perfect face was void of emotion before her brows rose.

A flicker of excitement--perhaps even disbelief--flashed across her features, but she whipped her head to Lucien. Magic seared my nostrils, and I stared at Rhysand in undiluted terror as her face contorted with rage.

"You dare glamour me?" she snarled, her violet eyes burning as they bore into my own. Lucien just pressed me harder into the wall.

Tamlin's chair groaned as it was shoved back. He rose, claws at the ready, deadlier than any of the knives strapped to him.

Rhysand's face became a mask of calm fury as she stared and stared at me.

"I remember you," she purred. "It seems like you ignored my warning to stay out of trouble." She turned to Tamlin. "Who, pray tell, is your guest?"

"My betrothed," Lucien answered.

"Oh? Here I was, thinking you still mourned your commoner lover after all these centuries," Rhysand said, stalking toward me.

The sunlight didnt gleam on the metallic threads of her dress, as if it balked from the darkness pulsing from her.

Lucien spat at Rhysand's feet and shoved his sword between us. Rhysand's venom-coated smile grew.

"You draw blood from me, Lucien, and you'll learn how quickly Amaros’s whore can make the entire Autumn Court bleed. Especially its darling Lady."

The color leached from Lucien's face, but he held his ground. It was Tamlin who answered. "Put your sword down, Lucien."

Rhysand ran an eye over me. "I knew you liked to stoop low with your lovers, Lucien, but I never thought you'd actually dabble with mortal trash."

My face burned. Lucien was trembling--with rage or fear or sorrow, I couldn't tell.

"The Lady of the Autumn Court will be grieved indeed when she hears of her youngest son. If I were you, I'd keep your new pet well away from your father."

"Leave, Rhys," Tamlin commanded, standing a few feet behind the Lady of the Night Court.

And yet he didn't make a move to attack, despite the claws, despite Rhysand still approaching me.

Perhaps a battle between them could tear this manor to its foundations--and leave only dust in its wake.

Or perhaps, if Rhysand was indeed this man's lover, the retaliation from hurting her would be too great. Especially with the added burden of facing the blight.

Rhysand brushed Lucien aside as if he were a curtain. There was nothing between us now, and the air was sharp and cold.

But Tamlin remained where he was, and Lucien didn't so much as blink as Rhysand, with horrific gentleness, pried the knife from my hands and sent it scattering across the room.

"That won't do you any good, anyway," Rhysand said to me. "If you were wise, you would be screaming and running from this place, from these people. It's a wonder that you're still here, actually."

My confusion must have been written across my face, for Rhysand laughed loudly. "Oh, she doesn't know, does she?"

I trembled, unable to find words or courage.

"You have seconds, Rhys," Tamlin warned. "Seconds to get out."

"If I were you, I wouldn't speak to me like that."

Against my volition, my body straightened, every muscle going taut, my bones straining. Magic, but deeper than that. Power that seized everything inside me and took control: even my blood flowed where she willed it.

I couldn't move. An invisible, talon-tipped hand scraped against my mind. And I knew--one push, one swipe of those mental claws, and who I was would cease to exist.

"Let her go," Tamlin said, bristling, but didn't advance forward. A kind of panic had entered his eyes, and he glanced from me to Rhysand. "Enough."

"I'd forgotten that human minds are as easy to shatter as eggshells," Rhysand said, and ran a sharp, long nail across the base of my throat. I shuddered, my eyes burning. "Look at how delightful she is--look how she's trying not to cry out in terror. It would be quick, I promise."

Had I retained any semblance of control over my body, I might have vomited.

"She has the most delicious thoughts about you, Tamlin," she said with a smirk. "She's wondered about the feeling of your fingers on her thighs--between them, too."

She chuckled. Even as she said my most private thoughts, even as I burned with outrage and shame, I trembled at the grip still on my mind.

Rhysand turned to the High Lord. "I'm curious: Why did she wonder if it would feel good to have you bite her breast the way you bit her neck?"

"Let. Her. Go." Tamlin's face was twisted with such feral rage that it struck a different, deeper chord of terror in me.

"If it's any consolation," Rhysand confided to him, "she would have been the one for you--and you might have gotten away with it. A bit late, though."

Those invisible claws lazily caressed my mind again--then vanished. I sank to the floor, curling over my knees as I reeled in everything that I was, as I tried to keep from sobbing, from screaming, from emptying my stomach onto the floor.

"Amaros will enjoy breaking her," Rhysand observed to Tamlin. "Almost as much as he'll enjoy watching you as he shatters her bit by bit."

Tamlin was frozen, his arms--his claws--hanging limply at his side. I'd never seen him look like that.

"Please," was all that Tamlin said.

"Please what?" Rhysand said--gently, coaxingly. Like a lover.

"Don't tell Amaros about her," Tamlin said, his voice strained.

"And why not? As his whore," she said with a glance tossed in Lucien's direction, "I should tell him everything."

"Please," Tamlin managed, as if it were difficult to breathe.

Rhysand pointed at the ground, and her smile became vicious. "Beg, and I'll consider not telling Amaros."

Tamlin dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

"Lower."

Tamlin pressed his forehead to the floor, his hands sliding along the floor toward Rhysand's heels.

I could have wept with rage at the sight of Tamlin being forced to bow to someone, at the sight of my High Lord being put so low.

Rhysand pointed at Lucien. "You too, fox-boy."

Lucien's face was dark, but he lowered himself to his knees, then touched his head to the ground. I wished for the knife Rhysand had chucked away, for anything with which to kill her.

I stopped shaking long enough to hear Rhys speak again.

"Are you doing this for your sake, or for hers?" she pondered, then shrugged, as if she weren't forcing a High Lord of Prythian to grovel. "You're far too desperate, Tamlin. It's off-putting. Becoming High Lord made you so boring."

"Are you going to tell Amaros?" Tamlin said, keeping his face on the floor.

Rhysand smirked. "Perhaps I'll tell him, perhaps I won't."

In a flash of motion too fast for me to detect, Tamlin was on his feet, fangs dangerously close to Rhysand's face.

"None of that," Rhysand said, clicking her tongue and lightly shoving Tamlin away with a single hand. "Not with your lady present." Her eyes shifted to my face. "What's your name, love?"

Giving her my name--and my family name--would lead only to more pain and suffering. She might very well find my family and drag them into Prythian to torment, just to amuse herself. But she could steal my name from my mind if I hesitated for too long.

Keeping my mind blank and calm, I blurted the first name that came to mind, a village friend of my sisters' whom I'd never spoken to and whose face I couldn't recall. "Clare Beddor." My voice was nothing more than a gasp.

Rhysand turned back to Tamlin, unfazed by the High Lord's proximity. "Well, this was entertaining. The most fun I've had in ages, actually. I'm looking forward to seeing you three Under the Mountain. I'll give Amaros your regards."

Then Rhysand vanished into nothing--as if she'd stepped through a rip in the world--leaving us alone in horrible, trembling silence.

Chapter Text

i'm picturing Arobynn from TOG for male Amarantha.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The Attor kept its icy grip on my upper arm as it half dragged me to the throne room. It didn't bother to strip me of my weapons. We both knew they were of little use.

Tamlin. Alis and her boys. My sisters. Lucien. I silently chanted their names again and again as the Attor loomed above me, a demon of malice. Its leathery wings rustled occasionally--and had I been able to speak without screaming, I might have asked why it hadn't killed me outright.

The Attor just tugged me onward with that slithering gait, its clawed feet making leisurely scratches on the cave floor. It looked unnervingly identical to how I had painted it.

Leering faces--cruel and harsh--watched me go by, none of them looking remotely concerned or disturbed that I was in the claws of the Attor. Faeries--lots of them--but few High Fae to be seen.

We strode through two ancient, enormous stone doors--taller than Tamlin's manor--and into a vast chamber carved from pale rock, upheld by countless carved pillars.

That small part of me that had again become trivial and useless noted that the carvings weren't just ornate designs, but actually depicted faeries and High Fae and animals in various environments and states of movement. Countless stories of Prythian were etched on them.

Chandeliers of jewels hung between the pillars, staining the red marble floor with color.

Here--here were the High Fae.

An assembled crowd took up most of the space, some of them dancing to strange, off-kilter music, some milling about chatting--a party of sorts.

I thought I spied some glittering masks among the attendees, but everything was a blur of sharp teeth and fine clothing.

The Attor hurled me forward, and the world spun. The cold marble floor was unyielding as I slammed into it, my bones groaning and barking. I pushed myself up, sparks dancing in my eyes, but stayed on the ground, kept low, as I beheld the dais before me. A few steps led onto the platform. I lifted my head higher.

There, lounging on a black throne, was Amaros.

Though attractive, he wasn't as devastatingly handsome as I had imagined, wasn't some god of darkness and spite. It made him all the more petrifying.

His red-gold hair was kept long, much like Lucien's, with several strands braided. He wore a golden crown, the deep color enriching his snow-white skin.

But while his ebony eyes shone, there was some kind of permanent sneer to his features that made his allure seem contrived and cold. To paint him would have driven me to madness.

The highest commander of the King of Hybern. He'd slaughtered human armies centuries ago, had murdered his slaves rather than free them. And he'd captured all of Prythian in a matter of days.

Then I looked to the black rock throne beside him, and my arms buckled beneath me.

He was still wearing that golden mask, still wearing his warrior's clothes, that baldric--even though there were no knives sheathed along it, not a single weapon anywhere on him. His eyes didn't widen; his mouth didnt tighten. No claws, no fangs. He just stared at me, unfeeling--unmoved.

Unimpressed.

"What's this?" Amaros said.

From his neck hung a long chain--and from it dangled a single, age-worn bone the size of a finger. I didn't want to consider whom it might have belonged to as I remained on the floor. If I shifted my arm, I could draw my dagger--

"Just a human thing I found downstairs," the Attor hissed, and a forked tongue darted out between its razor-sharp teeth. It flapped its wings once, blasting foul-smelling air at me, and then neatly tucked them behind its skeletal body.

"Obviously," Amaros drawled. I avoided meeting his eyes, focusing on Tamlin's brown boots. He was ten feet from me--ten feet, and not saying a word, not even looking horrified or angry. "But why should I bother with her?"

The Attor chuckled, the sound like sizzling water on a griddle, and a taloned foot jabbed my side.

"Tell His Majesty why you were sneaking around the catacombs--why you came out of the old cave that leads to the Spring Court."

Would it be better to kill the Attor, or to try to make it to Amaros? The Attor kicked me again, and I winced as its claws bit into my ribs. "Tell His Majesty, you human filth."

I needed time--I needed to figure out my surroundings. If Tamlin was under some kind of spell, then I would have to worry about grabbing him.

I eased to my feet, keeping my hands within casual reach of my daggers. I stared at Amaros’s golden suit rather than meet his eyes.

"I came to claim the one I love," I said quietly.

Perhaps the curse could still be broken. Again I looked at him, and the sight of those emerald eyes was a balm.

"Oh?" Amaros said, leaning forward.

"I've come to claim Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court."

A gasp rippled through the assembled court. But Amaros tipped back his head and laughed--a crow’s caw.

The High King turned to Tamlin, and his lips pulled back in a wicked sneer. "You certainly were busy all those years. Developed a taste for human beasts, did you?"

He said nothing, his face impassive. What had he done? He didn't move--his curse had worked, then. I was too late. I'd failed him, damned him.

"But," Amaros said slowly. I could sense the Attor and the entire court looming behind me. "It makes me wonder--if only one human girl could be taken once she killed your sentinel—" His eyes sparked. "You let me torture that innocent girl to keep this one safe? You actually made a human worm love you."

Tortured. He'd tortured--

"Let him go," I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

Amaros laughed again. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't destroy you where you stand, human." His teeth were so straight and white--almost glowing.

My blood pounded in my veins, but I kept my chin high as I said, "You tricked him--he is bound unfairly." Tamlin had gone very, very still.

Amaros clicked his tongue and looked at one of his rough hands--at the ring on his index finger. A ring, I noticed as he lowered his hand again, set with what looked like a human eye encased in crystal. I could have sworn it swiveled inside.

"You human beasts are so uncreative. We spent years teaching you poetry and fine speech, and that is all you can come up with? I should rip out your tongue for letting it go to waste."

I clamped my teeth together.

"But I'm curious: What eloquence will pour from your lips when you behold what you should have been?"

My brows narrowed as Amaros pointed behind me, that hideous eye ring indeed looking with him, and I turned.

There, nailed high on the wall of the enormous cavern, was the mangled corpse of a young woman.

Her skin was burned in places, her fingers were bent at odd angles, and garish red lines crisscrossed her naked body. I could hardly hear Amaros over the roar in my ears.

"Perhaps I should have listened when she said she'd never seen Tamlin before," Amarantos said. "Or when she insisted she'd never killed a faerie, never hunted a day in her life. Though her screaming was delightful. I haven't heard such lovely music in ages." His next words were directed at me. "I should thank you for giving Rhysand her name instead of yours."

Clare Beddor.

This was where they'd taken her, what they'd done to her after they burned her family alive in their house. This was what I'd done to her, by giving Rhysand her name to protect my family.

My insides twisted; it was a concentrated effort not to empty my stomach onto the stones.

The Attor's talons dug into my shoulders as it shoved me around to face Amaros, who was still giving me that sneer. I had as good as killed Clare. I'd saved my own life and damned her.

That rotting body on the wall should be mine. Mine.

Mine.

"Come now," Amaros said. "What have you to say to that?"

I wanted to spit that he deserved to burn in Hell for eternity, but I could only see Clare's body nailed there, even as I stared blankly at Tamlin.

He'd let them kill Clare like that--to keep them from knowing that I was alive. My eyes stung as bile burned my throat.

"Do you still wish to claim someone who would do that to an innocent?" Amaros demanded.

I snapped my gaze to him. I wouldn't let Clares death be in vain. I wasn't going down without a fight.

"Yes," I said. "Yes, I do."

His lip curled back, revealing too-sharp canines. And as I stared into his black eyes, I realized I was going to die.

But Amaros leaned back in his throne. "Well, Tamlin," he said. "I don't suppose you ever expected this to occur."

He waved a hand in my general direction. A murmur of laughter from those assembled echoed around me, hitting me like stones.

"What do you have to say, High Lord?"

I looked at the face I loved so dearly, and his next words almost sent me to my knees.

"I've never seen her before. Someone must have glamoured her as a joke. Probably Rhysand."

Still trying to protect me, even now, even here.

"Oh, that's not even a halfway decent lie." Amarantos angled his head. "Could it be--could it be that you, despite your words so many years ago, return the human's feelings? A girl with hate in her heart for our kind has managed to fall in love with a faerie. And a faerie whose father once slaughtered the human masses by my side has actually fallen in love with her, too?"

He let out that crow's laugh again. He fingered the bone hanging from his necklace and looked at the encased eye upon his hand.

"I suppose if anyone can appreciate the moment,” he said to the ring, "it would be you, Jurian." He smiled. "A pity your human whore on the side never bothered to save you, though."

Jurian—that was his eye, his finger bone. Horror coiled in my gut. Through whatever evil, whatever power, he somehow held his soul, his consciousness, to the ring, the bone.

Tamlin still looked at me without recognition, without a flicker of feeling. Perhaps he had used that same power to glamour him; perhaps he'd taken all his memories.

"Things have been awfully boring since Clare decided to die on me. Killing you outright, human, would be dull." He flicked his gaze to me. "But Fate stirs the Cauldron in strange ways. Perhaps Clare had to die in order for me to have some true amusement with you."

"You came to claim Tamlin?" Amaros said—it wasnt a question, but a challenge. "Well, as it happens, I'm bored of his sullen silence. I was worried when he didn't flinch while I played with Clare, when he didn't even show those claws.

"But I'll make a bargain with you, human," he said, and warning bells pealed in my mind. Unless your life depends on it, Alis had said. "You complete three tasks of my choosing--three tasks to prove how deep that human sense of loyalty and love runs, and Tamlin is yours. Just three little challenges to prove your dedication, to prove to me, to Jurian, that your kind can indeed love true, and you can have your High Lord." He turned to Tamlin. "Consider it a favor, High Lord--these human dogs can make our kind so lust-blind that we lose all common sense. Better for you to see her true nature now."

"I want his curse broken, too," I blurted. He raised a brow, his smile growing, revealing far too many of those white teeth. "I complete all three of your tasks, and his curse is broken, and we—and all his court—can leave here. And remain free forever," I added.

Magic was specific, Alis had said —that was how Amaros had tricked them. I wouldnt let loopholes be my downfall.

"Of course," Amaros drawled. "I'll throw in another element, if you don't mind--just to see if you're worthy of one of our kind, if you're smart enough to deserve him." Jurian's eye swiveled wildly, and he clicked his tongue at it. The eye stopped moving.

"I'll give you a way out, girl," he went on. "You'll complete all the tasks--or, when you can't stand it anymore, all you have to do is answer one question." I could barely hear him above the blood pounding in my ears. "A riddle. You solve the riddle, and his curse will be broken. Instantaneously. I wont even need to lift my finger and he'll be free. Say the right answer, and he's yours. You can answer it at any time--but if you answer incorrectly " He pointed, and I didnt need to turn to know he gestured to Clare.

I turned his words over, looking for traps and loopholes within his phrasing. But it all sounded right. "And what if I fail your tasks?"

His smile became almost grotesque, and he rubbed a thumb across the dome of his ring. "If you fail a task, there won't be anything left of you for me to play with."

A chill slithered down my spine. Alis had warned me--warned me against bargains. But Amaros would kill me in an instant if I said no.

"What is the nature of my tasks?"

"Oh, revealing that would take all the fun out of it. But I'll tell you that you'll have one task every month--at the full moon."

"And in the meantime?" I dared a glance at Tamlin. The gold in his eyes was brighter than I remembered.

"In the meantime," Amaros said a bit sharply, "you shall either remain in your cell or do whatever additional work I require."

"If you run me ragged, wont that put me at a disadvantage?"

I knew he was losing interest—that he hadnt expected me to question him so much. But I had to try to gain some kind of edge.

"Nothing beyond basic housework. Its only fair for you to earn your keep." I could have strangled him for that, but I nodded. "Then we are agreed."

I knew he waited for me to echo his response, but I had to make sure. "If I complete your three tasks or solve your riddle, you'll do as I request?"

"Of course," Amaros said. "Is it agreed?"

His face ghastly white, Tamlin's eyes met with mine, and they almost imperceptibly widened. No. But it was either this or death—death like Clares, slow and brutal.

The Attor hissed behind me, a warning to reply. I didnt believe in Fate or the Cauldron—and I had no other choice.

Because when I looked into Tamlin's eyes, even now, seated beside Amaros as his slave, I loved him with a fierceness that swept up my whole heart. Because when he had widened his eyes, Id known he still loved me.

I had nothing left but that, but the shred of fools hope that I might win—that I might outwit and defeat a Faerie King as ancient as the stone beneath me.

"Well?" Amaros demanded.

Behind me, I sensed the Attor preparing to pounce, to beat the answer from me, if need be. He'd tricked them all, but I hadn't survived poverty and years in the woods for naught. My best chance lay in revealing nothing about myself, or what I knew. What was his court but another forest, another hunting ground?

I glanced at Tamlin one last time before I said "Agreed."

Amaros gave me a small, horrible smirk, and magic sizzled in the air between us as he snapped his fingers. He settled back in his throne.

"Give her a greeting worthy of my hall," he said to someone behind me.

The Attors hiss was my only warning as something rock-hard collided with my jaw. I was thrown sideways, stunned from the pain, but another brutal blow to my face awaited. Bones crunched—my bones. My legs twisted beneath me, and the Attors leathery skin grated against my cheek as it punched me again. I ricocheted away, but met with the fist of another—a twisted, lesser faerie whose face I didnt glimpse. It was like being slugged with a brick. Crunch, crack. I think there were three of them, and I became their punching bag—passed off from blow to blow, my bones screaming in agony. Maybe I was screaming in agony, too.

Blood sprayed from my mouth, and its metallic tang coated my tongue before I knew no more.

Chapter Text

I dozed on and off for what could have been hours or days. They gave me three miserable meals of stale bread and water at no regular interval that I could detect.

All I knew when the door to my cell swung open was that my relentless hunger no longer mattered, and it would be wise not to struggle when the two squat, red-skinned faeries half dragged me to the throne room.

I marked the path, picking out details in the hall--interesting cracks in the walls, features in the tapestries, an odd bend--anything to remind me of the way out of the dungeons.

I observed more of Amaros’s throne room this time, too, noting the exits. No windows, as we were underground. And the mountain I'd seen depicted on that map at the manor was in the heart of the land--far from the Spring Court, even farther from the wall. If I were to escape with Tamlin, my best chance would be to run for that cave in the belly of the mountain.

A crowd of faeries stood along a far wall. Over their heads, I could make out the arch of a doorway. I tried not to look up at Clare's rotting body as we passed, and instead focused on the assembled court. Everyone was clad in rich, colorful clothing--all of them seeming clean and fed.

Dispersed among them were faeries with masks. The Spring Court. If I had any chance of finding allies, it would be with them.

I scanned the crowd for Lucien but didn't find him before I was thrown at the foot of the dais. Amaros wore a red suit, drawing attention to his red-gold hair.

"You’re not looking well." He turned to Tamlin, still at his side. His expression remained distant. "Wouldn't you say she's taken a turn for the worse?"

He didn't reply; he didn't even meet my gaze.

"You know," Amaros drawled, leaning against an arm of his throne, "I couldn't sleep last night, and I realized why this morning." He ran an eye over me. "I don't know your name. If you and I are going to be such close friends for the next three months, I should know your name, shouldn't I?"

I prevented myself from nodding. There was something charming and inviting about him--a part of me began to understand why the High Lords had fallen under his thrall, believed in his lies. I hated him for it.

When I didn't reply, Amaros frowned. "Come, now, pet. You know my name--isn't it fair that I know yours?"

There was movement to my right, and I tensed as the Attor appeared through the parted crowd, grinning at me with row after row of teeth.

"After all—“ Aamros waved a firm hand to the space behind me, the crystal casing around Jurian's eye catching the light--"you've already learned the consequences of giving false names."

A black cloud wrapped around me as I sensed Clare's nailed form on the wall behind me. Still, I kept my mouth shut.

"Rhysand," Amaros said--not needing to raise his voice to summon her.

My heart became a leaden weight as those casual, strolling steps sounded from behind. They stopped when they were beside me--far too close for my liking.

From the corner of my eye, I studied the Lady of the Night Court as she bowed. Night still seemed to ripple off her, like some near-invisible cloak.

Amaros lifted his brows. "Is this the girl you saw at Tamlin's estate?"

She brushed some invisible fleck of dust off the bodice of her black gown before she surveyed me. Her violet eyes held boredom--and disdain. "I suppose."

"But did you or did you not tell me that girl," Amaros said, his tone sharpening as he pointed to Clare, "was the one you saw?"

"Humans all look alike to me."

"And what about faeries?" Amaros asked.

Rhysand bowed again--so smooth it looked like a dance. "Among a sea of mundane faces, yours is a work of art."

Had I not been straddling the line between life and death, I might have snorted.

Humans all look alike—I didn't believe her for a second. Rhysand knew exactly how I looked--she'd recognized me that day at the manor.

I willed my features into neutrality as Amaros’s attention again returned to me.

"What's her name?" he demanded of Rhysand.

"How would I know? She lied to me." Either toying with Amaros was a joke to her--as much of a joke as impaling a head in Tamlin's garden--or it was just more court scheming.

I braced myself for the scrape of those talons against my mind, braced myself for the order I was sure he was to give next.

Still, I kept my lips sealed. I prayed Nesta had hired those scouts and guards--prayed she'd persuaded my father to take the precautions.

"If you're inclined to play games, girl, then I suppose we can do this the fun way," Amaros said.

He snapped his fingers at the Attor, who reached into the crowd and grabbed someone. Red hair glinted, and I jolted a step as the Attor yanked Lucien forward by the collar of his green tunic.

No. No.

Lucien thrashed against the Attor but could do nothing against those needlelike nails as it forced him to his knees. The Attor smiled, releasing his tunic, but kept close.

Amaros flicked a finger in Rhysand's direction. The Lady of the Night Court lifted a groomed brow.

"Hold his mind," he commanded.

My heart dropped to the floor. Lucien went utterly still, sweat gleaming on his neck as Rhysand bowed her head to the king and faced him.

Behind them, pressing to the front of the crowd, came four tall, red-haired High Fae. Toned and muscled, some of them looking like warriors about to set foot on a battlefield, some like pretty courtiers, they all stared at Lucien--and grinned. The four remaining sons of the High Lord of the Autumn Court.

"Her name, Emissary?" Amaros asked of Lucien.

But Lucien only glanced at Tamlin before closing his eyes and squaring his shoulders. Rhysand began smiling faintly, and I shuddered at the memory of what those invisible claws had felt like as they gripped my mind. How easy it would have been for her to crush it.

Lucien's brothers lurked on the edges of the crowd--no remorse, no fear on their handsome faces.

Amaros sighed. "I thought you would have learned your lesson, Lucien. Though this time your silence will damn you as much as your tongue."

Lucien kept his eyes shut. Ready—he was ready for Rhysand to wipe out everything he was, to turn his mind, his self, into dust.

"Her name?" he asked Tamlin, who didnt reply. His eyes were fixed on Luciens brothers, as if marking who was smiling the broadest.

Amaros ran a hand down the arm of his throne. "I don't suppose your brothers know, Lucien," he said.

"If we did, Lord, we would be the first to tell you," said the tallest.

He was lean, well dressed, every inch of him a court-trained bastard. Probably the eldest, given the way even the ones who looked like born warriors stared at him with deference and calculation—and fear.

Amaros lifted his hand. Rhysand cocked her head, her eyes narrowing slightly on Lucien. Lucien stiffened. A groan slipped out of him, and--

"Feyre!" I shouted. "My name is Feyre."

It was all I could do to keep from sinking to my knees as Amaros nodded and Rhysand stepped back.

Amaros must have allowed Rhysand more power than the others, then, if she could still inflict such harm while leashed to him. Or else her power before he'd stolen it had been—extraordinary, for this to be considered the basest remnants.

Lucien sagged on the ground, trembling. His brothers frowned--the eldest going so far as to bare his teeth at me in a silent snarl. I ignored him.

"Feyre," Amaros said, testing my name, the taste of the two syllables on his tongue. "An old name--from our earlier dialects. Well, Feyre," he said. I could have wept with relief when he didn't ask for my family name. "I promised you a riddle."

Everything became thick and murky. Why did Tamlin do nothing, say nothing? What had Lucien been about to say before he'd fled my cell?

"Solve this, Feyre, and you and your High Lord, and all his court, may immediately leave with my blessing. Let's see if you are indeed clever enough to deserve one of our kind." His dark eyes shone, and I cleared my mind as best I could as he spoke.

There are those who seek me a lifetime but never we meet,

And those I kiss but who trample me beneath ungrateful feet.

At times I seem to favor the clever and the fair,

But I bless all those who are brave enough to dare.

By large, my ministrations are soft-handed and sweet,

But scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat.

For though each of my strikes lands a powerful blow,

When I kill, I do it slow

I blinked, and he repeated himself, smiling when he finished, smug as a cat. My mind was void, a blank mass of uselessness. Could it be some sort of disease? My mother had died of typhus, and her cousin had died of malaria after going to Bharat—But none of those symptoms seemed to match the riddle. Maybe it was a person?

A ripple of laughter spread across those assembled behind us, the loudest from Lucien's brothers. Rhysand was watching me, wreathed in night and smiling faintly.

The answer was so close--one little answer and we could all be free. Immediately, he'd said--as opposed to wait, had the conditions of my trials been different from those of the riddle? He'd emphasized immediately only when talking about solving the riddle. No, I couldn't think about that right now. I had to solve this riddle. We could all be free. Free.

But I couldn't do it—I couldn't even come up with a possibility. I'd be better off slitting my own throat and ending my suffering there, before he could rip me to shreds. I was a fool—a common human idiot.

I looked to Tamlin. The gold in his eyes flickered, but his face betrayed nothing.

"Think on it," Amaros said consolingly, and flicked a grin down at his ring--at the eye swiveling within. "When it comes to you, I'll be waiting."

I gazed at Tamlin even as I was pulled away to the dungeons, my vacant mind reeling. As they locked me in my cell once more, I knew I was going to lose.

Chapter Text

No one, not even Lucien, came to fix my arm in the days following my victory. The pain overwhelmed me to the point of screaming whenever I prodded the embedded bit of bone, and I had no other option but to sit there, letting the wound gnaw on my strength, trying my best not to think about the constant throbbing that shot sparks of poisoned lightning through me.

But worse than that was the growing panic--panic that the wound hadn't stopped bleeding. I knew what it meant when blood continued to flow. I kept one eye on the wound, either out of hope that I'd find the blood clotting, or the terror that I'd spy the first signs of infection.

I couldn't eat the rotten food they gave me. The sight of it aroused such nausea that a corner of my cell now reeked of vomit. It didn't help that I was still covered in mud, and the dungeon was perpetually freezing.

I was sitting against the far wall of my cell, savoring the coolness of the stone beneath my back. I'd awoken from a fitful sleep and found myself burning hot. A kind of fire that made everything a bit muddled. My injured arm dangled at my side as I gazed dully at the cell door. It seemed to sway, its lines rippling.

This heat in my face was some kind of small cold--not a fever from infection. I put a hand on my chest, and dried mud crumbled into my lap. Each of my breaths was like swallowing broken glass.

Not a fever. Not a fever. Not a fever.

My eyelids were heavy, stinging. I couldn't go to sleep. I had to make sure the wound wasn't infected, I had to--to

The door actually did move then--no, not the door, but rather the darkness around it, which seemed to ripple.

Real fear coiled in my stomach as a female figure formed out of that darkness, as if she'd slipped in from the cracks between the door and the wall, hardly more than a shadow.

Rhysand was fully corporeal now, and her violet eyes glowed in the dim light. She slowly smiled from where she stood by the door. "What a sorry state for Tamlin's champion."

"Go to Hell," I snapped, but the words were little more than a wheeze. My head was light and heavy all at once. If I tried to stand, I would topple over.

She stalked closer with that feline grace and dropped into an easy crouch before me. She sniffed, grimacing at the corner splattered with my vomit. I tried to bring my feet into a position more inclined for scrambling away or kicking her in the face, but they were full of lead.

Rhysand cocked her head. Her pale skin seemed to radiate alabaster light. I blinked away the haze, but couldn't even turn aside my face as her cold fingers grazed my brow.

"What would Tamlin say," she murmured, "if he knew his beloved was rotting away down here, burning up with fever? Not that he can even come here, not when his every move is watched."

I kept my arm hidden in the shadows. The last thing I needed them to know was how weak I was.

"Get away," I said, and my eyes stung as the words burned my throat. I had difficulty swallowing.

She raised an eyebrow. "I come here to offer you help, and you have the nerve to tell me to leave?"

"Get away," I repeated. My eyes were so sore that it hurt to keep them open.

"You made me a lot of money, you know. I figured I would repay the favor."

I leaned my head against the wall. Everything was spinning—spinning like a top, spinning like I kept my nausea down.

"Let me see your arm," she said too quietly.

I kept my arm in the shadows—if only because it was too heavy to lift.

"Let me see it." A growl rippled from her.

Without waiting for my reaction, she grabbed my elbow and forced my arm into the dim light of the cell.

I bit my lip to keep from crying out--bit it hard enough to draw blood as rivers of fire exploded inside me, as my head swam, and all my senses narrowed down to the piece of bone sticking through my arm.

They couldnt know—couldn't know how bad it was, because then they would use it against me.

Rhysand examined the wound, a smile appearing on her sensuous lips. "Oh, that's wonderfully gruesome." I swore at her, and she chuckled. "Such words from a lady."

"Get out," I wheezed. My frail voice was as terrifying as the wound.

"Don't you want me to heal your arm?" Her fingers tightened around my elbow.

"At what cost?" I shot back, but kept my head against the stone, needing its damp strength.

"Ah, that. Living among faeries has taught you some of our ways."

I focused on the feeling of my good hand on my knee--focused on the dry mud beneath my fingernails.

"I'll make a trade with you," she said casually, and gently set my arm down. As it met with the floor, I had to close my eyes to brace against the flow of that poisoned lightning. "I'll heal your arm in exchange for you. For two weeks every month, two weeks of my choosing, you'll live with me at the Night Court. Starting after this messy three-trials business."

My eyes flew open. "No." I'd already made one fool's bargain.

"No?" She braced her hands on her knees and leaned closer. "Really?"

Everything was starting to dance.

"Get out," I breathed.

"You'd turn down my offer--and for what?" I didnt reply, so she went on. "You must be holding out for one of your friends--for Lucien, correct? After all, he healed you before, didn't he? Oh, don't look so innocent. The Attor and his cronies broke your nose. So unless you have some kind of magic you're not telling us about, I don't think human bones heal that quickly."

Her eyes sparkled, and she stood, pacing a bit. "The way I see things, Feyre, you have two options. The first, and the smartest, would be to accept my offer."

I spat at her feet, but she kept pacing, only giving me a disapproving look.

"The second option--and the one only a fool would take--would be for you to refuse my offer and place your life, and thus Tamlin's, in the hands of chance."

She stopped pacing and stared hard at me. Though the world spun and danced in my vision, something primal inside me went still and cold beneath that gaze.

"Let's say I walk out of here. Perhaps Lucien will come to your aid within five minutes of my leaving. Perhaps he'll come in five days. Perhaps he won't come at all. Between you and me, he's been keeping a low profile after his rather embarrassing outburst at your trial. Amaros is not exactly pleased with him. Tamlin even broke his delightful brooding to beg for him to be spared--such a noble warrior, your High Lord. Amaros listened, of course--but only after he made Tamlin bestow Lucien's punishment. Twenty lashes."

I started shaking, sick all over again to think about what it had to have been like for my High Lord to be the one to punish his friend.

Rhysand shrugged, a beautiful, easy gesture. "So, it's really a question of how much you're willing to trust Lucien--and how much you're willing to risk for it. Already you're wondering if that fever of yours is the first sign of infection. Perhaps they're unconnected, perhaps not. Maybe it's fine. Maybe that worm's mud isn't full of festering filth. And maybe Amaros will send a healer, and by that time, you'll either be dead, or they'll find your arm so infected that you'll be lucky to keep anything above the elbow."

My stomach tightened into a painful ball.

"I don't need to invade your thoughts to know these things. I already know what you've slowly been realizing." She again crouched in front of me. "You're dying."

My eyes stung, and I sucked my lips into my mouth.

"How much are you willing to risk on the hope that another form of help will come?"

I stared at her, sending as much hate as I could into my gaze. She'd been the one who'd caused all this. She'd told Amaros about Clare; she'd made Tamlin beg.

"Well?"

I bared my teeth. "Go. To. Hell."

Swift as lightning, she lashed out, grabbing the shard of bone in my arm and twisting. A scream shattered out of me, ravaging my aching throat. The world flashed black and white and red. I thrashed and writhed, but she kept her grip, twisting the bone a final time before releasing my arm.

Panting, half sobbing as the pain reverberated through my body, I found her smirking at me again. I spat in her face.

She only laughed as she stood, wiping her cheek with the dark sleeve of her gown.

"This is the last time I'll extend my assistance," she said, pausing by the cell door. "Once I leave this cell, my offer is dead." I spat again, and she shook her head. "I bet you'll be spitting on Death's face when she comes to claim you, too."

She began to ripple with darkness, her edges blurring into endless night. She could be bluffing, trying to trick me into accepting her offer. Or she might be right--I might be dying. My life depended on it. More than my life depended on my choice. And if Lucien was indeed unable to come or if he came too late--

I was dying. I'd known it for some time now. And Lucien had underestimated my abilities in the past--had never quite grasped my limitations as a human. He'd sent me to hunt the Suriel with a few knives and a bow. He'd even admitted to hesitating that day, when I had screamed for help. And he might not even know how bad off I was. Might not understand the gravity of an infection like this. He might come a day, an hour, a minute too late.

Rhysand's moon-white skin began to darken into nothing but shadow.

"Wait."

The darkness consuming her paused. For Tamlin--for Tamlin, I would sell my soul; I would give up everything I had for him to be free.

"Wait," I repeated.

The darkness vanished, leaving Rhysand in her solid form as she grinned. "Yes?"

I raised my chin as high as I could manage. "Just two weeks?"

"Just two weeks," she purred, and knelt before me. "Two teensy, tiny weeks with me every month is all I ask."

"Why? And what are to to be the terms?" I said, fighting past the dizziness.

"Ah," she said, adjusting the straps of her obsidian bodice. "If I told you those things, there'd be no fun in it, would there?"

I looked at my ruined arm. Lucien might never come, might decide I wasn't worth risking his life any further, not now that he'd been punished for it. And if Amaros's healers cut off my arm--

Nesta would have done the same for me, for Elain. And Tamlin had done so much for me, for my family; even if he had lied about the Treaty, about sparing me from its terms, he'd still saved my life that day against the naga, and saved it again by sending me away from the manor.

I couldn't think entirely of the enormity of what I was about to give--or else I might refuse again. I met Rhysand's gaze.

"Five days."

"You're going to bargain?" Rhysand laughed under her breath. "Ten days."

I held her stare with all my strength. "A week."

Rhysand was silent for a long moment, her eyes traveling across my body and my face before she murmured: "A week it is."

"Then its a deal," I said. A metallic taste filled my mouth as magic stirred between us.

Her smile became a bit wild, and before I could brace myself, she grabbed my arm. There was a blinding, quick pain, and my scream sounded in my ears as bone and flesh were shattered, blood rushed out of me, and then—

Rhysand was still grinning when I opened my eyes. I hadnt any idea how long I'd been unconscious, but my fever was gone, and my head was clear as I sat up. In fact, the mud was gone, too; I felt as if I'd just bathed.

But then I lifted my left arm.

"What have you done to me?"

Rhysand stood, running a hand through her long, dark hair. "It's custom in my court for bargains to be permanently marked upon flesh."

I rubbed my left forearm and hand, the entirety of which was now covered in swirls and whorls of black ink. Even my fingers weren't spared, and a large eye was tattooed in the center of my palm. It was feline, and its slitted pupil stared right back at me.

"Make it go away," I said, and she laughed.

"You humans are truly grateful creatures, aren't you?"

From a distance, the tattoo looked like an elbow-length lace glove, but when I held it close to my face, I could detect the intricate depictions of flowers and curves that flowed throughout to make up a larger pattern. Permanent. Forever.

"You didn't tell me this would happen."

"You didnt ask. So how am I to blame?" She walked to the door but lingered, even as pure night wafted off her shoulders. "Unless this lack of gratitude and appreciation is because you fear a certain High Lord's reaction."

Tamlin. I could already see his face going pale, his lips becoming thin as the claws came out. I could almost hear the growl he'd emit when he asked me what I had been thinking.

"I think I'll wait to tell him until the moments right, though," Rhysand said.

The gleam in her eyes told me enough. Rhysand hadn't done any of this to save me, but rather to hurt Tamlin. And I'd fallen into her trap--fallen into it worse than the worm had fallen into mine.

"Rest up, Feyre," Rhysand said. She turned into nothing more than living shadow and vanished through a crack in the door.

Chapter Text

  ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The guards shoved me into a massive, dark bedroom, lit only by a few candles, and pointed to the looming fireplace.

"Servant spilled lentils in the ash," one of the guards grunted, tossing me a wooden bucket. "Clean it up before the occupant returns, or she'll peel off your skin in strips."

A slammed door, the click of a lock, and I was alone.

Sorting lentils from ash and embers--ridiculous, wasteful, and--I approached the darkened fireplace and cringed.

Impossible.

I cast a glance about the bedroom. No windows, no exits save the one I'd just been chucked through.

The bed was enormous and neatly made, its black sheets of--of silk. There was nothing else in the room beyond basic furniture; not even discarded clothes or books or weapons. As if its occupant never slept here.

I knelt before the fireplace and calmed my breathing. I had keen eyes, I reminded myself. I could spot rabbits hiding in the underbrush and track most things that wanted to remain unseen. Spotting the lentils couldnt be that hard.

Sighing, I crawled farther into the fireplace and began. I was wrong.

Two hours later, my eyes were burning and aching, and even though I combed through every inch of that fireplace, there were always more lentils, more and more that I'd somehow not spotted.

The guards had never said when the owner of this room would return, and so every tick of the clock on the mantel became a death knell, every footstep outside the door causing me to reach for the iron poker leaning against the hearth wall.

Amaros had never said anything about not fighting back--never specified that I wasn't allowed to defend myself. At least I'd go down swinging.

I picked through the ashes again and again. My hands were now black and stained, my clothes covered in soot. Surely there couldn't be any more; surely--

The lock clicked, and I lunged for the poker as I shot to my feet, my back to the hearth and the iron rod hidden behind me.

Darkness entered the room, guttering the candles with a snow-kissed breeze. I gripped the poker harder, pressing against the stone of the fireplace, even as that darkness settled on the bed and took a familiar form.

"As wonderful as it is to see you, Feyre, darling," Rhysand said, sprawled on the bed, her head propped up by a hand, "do I want to know why you're digging through my fireplace?"

I bent my knees slightly, preparing to run, to duck, to do anything to get to the door that felt far, far away.

"They said I had to clean out lentils from the ashes, or you'd rip off my skin."

"Did they now." A feline smile.

"Do I have you to thank for this idea?" I hissed.

She wasn't allowed to kill me, not with my bargain with Amaranthos, but there were other ways to hurt me.

"Oh, no," she drawled. "No one's learned of our little bargain yet--and you've managed to keep it quiet. Shame riding you a bit hard?"

I clenched my jaw and pointed to the fireplace with one hand, still keeping the poker tucked behind me.

"Is this clean enough for you?"

"Why were there lentils in my fireplace to begin with?"

I gave her a flat look. "One of your master's household chores, I suppose."

"Hm," she said, examining her nails. "Apparently he or his cronies think I'll find some sport with you."

"Or it's a test for you," I managed to get out. "You said you bet on me during my first task. He didn't seem pleased about it."

"And what could Amaros possibly have to test me about?"

I didn't balk from that violet stare. Amaros’s whore, Lucien had once called her.

"You lied to him. About Clare. You knew very well what I looked like."

Rhysand sat up in a fluid movement and braced her forearms on her thighs. Such grace contained in such a powerful form.

I was slaughtering on the battlefield before you were even born, she'd once said to Lucien. I didn't doubt it.

"Amaros plays his games," she said simply, "and I play mine. It gets rather boring down here, day after day."

"He let you out for Fire Night. And you somehow got out to put that head in the garden."

"He asked me to put that head in the garden. And as for Fire Night " She looked me up and down. "I had my reasons to be out then. Do not think, Feyre, that it did not cost me." She smiled again, and it didnt meet her eyes. "Are you going to put down that poker, or can I expect you to start swinging soon?"

I swallowed my curse and brought it out—but didn't put it down.

"A valiant effort, but useless," she said. True--so true, when she didnt even need to raise a hand to grip Lucien's mind.

"How is it that you have such power still and the others don't? I thought he robbed all of you of your abilities."

She lifted a groomed, dark brow. "Oh, he took my powers. This " A caress of talons against my mind. I jerked back a step, slamming into the fireplace. The pressure on my mind vanished. "This is just the remnant. The scraps I get to play with. Your Tamlin has brute strength and shape-shifting; my arsenal is a far deadlier assortment."

I knew she wasn't bluffing--not when I'd felt those talons in my mind. "So you can't shape-shift? It's not some court ruler specialty?"

"Oh, all the court rulers can. Each of us has a beast roaming beneath our skin, roaring to get out. While your Tamlin prefers fur, I find wings and talons to be more entertaining."

A lick of cold kissed down my spine. "Can you shift now, or did she take that, too?"

"So many questions from a little human."

But the darkness that hovered around her began to writhe and twist and flare as she rose to her feet.

I blinked, and it was done. I lifted the iron poker, just a little bit.

"Not a full shift, you see," Rhysand said, clicking the black razor-sharp talons that had replaced her fingers. Below the knee, darkness stained her skin—but talons also gleamed in lieu of toes. "I don't particularly like yielding wholly to my baser side."

Indeed, it was still Rhysand's face, her powerful female body, but flaring out behind her were massive black membranous wings--like a bat's, like the Attor's.

She tucked them in neatly behind her, but the single claw at the apex of each peeked over her slim shoulders. Horrific, stunning—the face of a thousand nightmares and dreams. That again-useless part of me stirred at the sight, the way the candlelight shone through the wings, illuminating the veins, the way it bounced off her talons.

Rhysand rolled her neck, and it all vanished in a flash--the wings, the talons, the feet, leaving only the female behind, well-dressed and unruffled. "No attempts at flattery?"

I had made a very, very big mistake in offering my life to her.

But I said, "You have a high-enough opinion of yourself already. I doubt the flattery of a little human matters much to you."

She let out a low laugh that slid along my bones, warming my blood. "I can't decide whether I should consider you admirable or very stupid for being so bold with a High Lady."

"Lucien said there's no such thing as a High Lady," I recalled. "You're just a Lady."

"Many have their prejudices and opinions on a female ruling alone," she admitted. "But I'm more powerful than all of the High Lords combined, so I think calling myself High Lady is quite appropriate."

I bristled at her arrogance, but wondered if that was the truth. Was she truly more powerful than all of the High Lord's combined? I didn't want to consider it.

Only around her did I have trouble keeping my mouth shut, it seemed. So I dared to ask, "Do you know the answer to the riddle?"

She crossed her arms. "Cheating, are you?"

"He never said I couldn't ask for help."

"Ah, but after he had you beaten to hell, he ordered us not to help you." I waited. But she shook her head. "Even if I felt like helping you, I couldn't. He gives the order, and we all bow to it." She picked a fleck of dust off her black sleeve. "It's a good thing he likes me, isn't it?"

I opened my mouth to press her--to beg her. If it meant instantaneous freedom--

"Don't waste your breath," she said. "I can't tell you—no one here can. If he ordered us all to stop breathing, we would have to obey that, too." She frowned at me and snapped her fingers. The soot, the dirt, the ash vanished off my skin, leaving me as clean as if I'd bathed. "There. A gift for having the balls to even ask."

I gave her a flat stare, but she motioned to the hearth.

It was spotless—and my bucket was filled with lentils. The door swung open of its own accord, revealing the guards who'd dragged me here. Rhysand waved a lazy hand at them.

"She accomplished her task. Take her back."

They grabbed for me, but she bared her teeth in a smile that was anything but friendly--and they halted.

"No more household chores, no more tasks," she said, her voice an erotic caress. Their yellow eyes went glazed and dull, their sharp teeth gleaming as their mouths slackened. "Tell the others, too. Stay out of her cell, and dont touch her. If you do, youre to take your own daggers and gut yourselves. Understood?"

Dazed, numb nods, then they blinked and straightened. I hid my trembling. Glamour, mind control--whatever it was she had done, it worked. They beckoned—but didnt dare touch me.

Rhysand smiled at me.

"You're welcome," she purred as I walked out.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Rhysand came to my cell a week later, darkness cloaking her as she appeared in front of me.

"Your second trial is tomorrow night," she said neutrally.

The gold-and-silver thread in her black gown shone in the candlelight. She never wore another color.

"So?"

"It could be your last," she said, and leaned against the door frame, crossing her arms.

"If you're taunting me into playing another game of yours, you're wasting your breath."

"Aren't you going to beg me to give you a night with your beloved?"

"I'll have that night, and all the ones after, when I beat his final task."

Rhysand shrugged, then flashed a grin as she pushed off the door and stepped toward me. "I wonder if you were this prickly with Tamlin when you were his captive."

"He never treated me like a captive—or a slave."

"No—and how could he? Not with the shame of his father and brothers brutality always weighing on him, the poor, noble beast. But perhaps if he'd bothered to learn a thing or two about cruelty, about what it means to be a true ruler, it would have kept the Spring Court from falling."

"Your court fell, too."

Sadness flickered in those violet eyes. I wouldn't have noticed it had I not  felt it—deep inside me. My gaze drifted to the eye etched in my palm. What manner of tattoo, exactly, had she given me?

But instead I asked, "When you were roaming freely on Fire Night—at the Rite—you said it cos  you. Were you one of the rulers that sold allegiance to Amaros in exchange for not being forced to live down here?"

Whatever sadness had been in her eyes vanished--only cold, glittering calm remained. I could have sworn a shadow of mighty wings stained the wall behind her.

"What I do or have done for my Court is none of your concern."

"And what has he been doing for the past forty-nine years? Holding court and torturing everyone as he pleases? To what end?"

Tell me about the threat he poses to the human world, I wanted to beg--tell me what all of this means, why so many awful things had to happen.

"The Lord of the Mountain needs no excuses for his actions."

"But--"

"I must leave you now," she said.

I knew I was on dangerous ground, but I didn't care. "What do you want with me? Beyond taunting Tamlin."

"Taunting him is my greatest pleasure," she said with a mock bow.

"You saved my life."

"And through your life, I saved Tamlin's."

"Why?"

She winked, smoothing her blue-black hair. "That, Feyre, is the real question, isn't it?" With that, she vanished from the room.

Chapter Text

My second task arrived.

Its teeth gleaming, the Attor grinned at me as I stood before Amaros. Another cavern--smaller than the throne room, but large enough to perhaps be some sort of old entertaining space.

It had no decorations, save for its gilded walls, and no furniture; the king himself only sat on a carved wooden chair, Tamlin standing behind him.

I didn't gaze too long at the Attor, who lingered on the other side of the king's chair, its long, slender tail slashing across the floor. It only smiled to unnerve me.

It was working. Not even gazing at Tamlin could calm me. I clenched my hands at my sides as Amaros smiled.

"Well, Feyre, your second trial has come."

He sounded so smug—so certain that my death hovered nearby. I'd been a fool to refuse death in the teeth of the worm. He crossed his arms and propped his chin on a hand. Within the ring, Jurian's eye turned—turned to face me, its pupil dilating in the dim light.

"Have you solved my riddle yet?"

I didn't deign to make a response.

"Too bad," he said. "But I'm feeling generous tonight."

The Attor chuckled, and several faeries behind me gave hissing laughs that snaked their way up my spine.

"How about a little practice?" Amaros said, and I forced my face into neutrality. If Tamlin was playing indifferent to keep us both safe, so would I.

But I dared a glance at my High Lord, and found his eyes hard upon me. If I could just hold him, feel his skin for just a moment—smell him, hear him say my name

"Begin," Amaros snapped.

Before I could brace myself, the floor shuddered.

My knees wobbled, and I swung my arms to keep upright as the stones beneath me began sinking, lowering me into a large, rectangular pit. Some faeries cackled, but I found Tamlin's stare again and held it until I was lowered so far down that his face disappeared beyond the edge.

I scanned the four walls around me, looking for a door, for any sign of what was to come. Three of the walls were made of a single sheet of smooth, shining stone--too polished and flat to climb. The other wall wasn't a wall at all, but an iron grate splitting the chamber in two, and through it--

My breath caught in my throat. "Lucien."

Lucien lay chained to the center of the floor on the other side of the chamber, his remaining russet eye so wide that it was surrounded with white. The metal one spun as if set wild; his brutal scar was stark against his pale skin. Again he was to be Amaros’s toy to torment.

There were no doors, no way for me to get to his side except to climb over the gate between us. It had such thick, wide holes that I could probably climb it to jump onto his side. I didn't dare.

The faeries began murmuring, and gold clinked. Had Rhysand bet on me again? In the crowd, red hair gleamed--four heads of red hair--and I stiffened my spine.

I knew his brothers would be smiling at Lucien's predicament--but where was his mother? His father? Surely the High Lord of the Autumn Court would be present. I scanned the crowd. No sign of them.

Only Amaros, standing with Tamlin at the edge of the pit, peering in. Amaros bowed his head to me and gestured with a rough hand to the wall beneath his feet.

"Here, Feyre, you shall find your task. Simply answer the question by selecting the correct lever, and you'll win. Select the wrong one to your doom. As there are only three options, I think I gave you an unfair advantage." He snapped his fingers, and something metallic groaned.

"That is," he added, "if you can solve the puzzle in time."

Not too high above, the two giant, spike-encrusted grates I'd dismissed as chandeliers began lowering, slowly descending toward the chamber--

I whirled to Lucien. That was the reason for the gate cleaving the chamber in two--so I would have to watch as he splattered beneath, just as I myself was squashed.

The spikes, which had been supporting candles and torches, glowed red--and even from a distance, I could see the heat rippling off them.

Lucien wrenched at his chains. This would not be a clean death.

And then I turned to the wall that Amaros had gestured to.

A lengthy inscription was carved into its smooth surface, and beneath it were three stone levers with the numbers I, II, and III engraved above them.

I began to shake. I recognized only basic words--useless ones like the and but and went.

Everything else was a blur of letters I didn't know, letters I'd have to slowly sound out or research to understand.

The spiked grate was still descending, now level with Amaros’s head, and would soon shut off any chance I stood of getting out of this pit. The heat from the glowing iron already smothered me, sweat starting to bead at my temples. Who had told him I couldnt read?

"Something wrong?" He raised an eyebrow.

I snapped my attention to the inscription, keeping my breathing as steady as I could. He hadn't mentioned reading as an issue--he would have mocked me more if he'd known about my illiteracy. Fate--a cruel, vicious twist of fate.

The chains rattled and strained, and Lucien cursed as he beheld what was before me. I turned to him, but when I saw his face, I knew he was too far to be able to read it aloud to me, even with his enhanced metal eye. If I could hear the question, I might stand a chance at solving it—but riddles werent my strong point.

I was going to be skewered by burning-hot spikes and then crushed on the ground like a grape. The grate now passed over the lip of the pit, filling it entirely—no corner was safe. If I didnt answer the question before the grate passed the levers—

My throat closed up, and I read and read and read, but no words came. The air became thick and stank of metal—not magic but burning, unforgiving steel creeping toward me, inch by inch.

"Answer it!" Lucien shouted, his voice hitched.

My eyes stung. The world was just a blur of letters, mocking me with their turns and shapes.

The metal groaned as it scraped against the smooth stone of the chamber, and the faeries' whispers grew more frenzied. Through the holes in the grate, I thought I saw Lucien's eldest brother chuckle.

Hot--so unbearably hot.

It would hurt--those spikes were large and blunt. It wouldn't be quick. It would take some force to pierce through my body.

Sweat slid down my neck, my back as I stared at the letters, at the I, II, and III that had somehow become my lifeline. Two choices would doom me—one choice would stop the grate.

I found numbers in the inscription—it must be a riddle, a logic problem, a maze of words worse than any worm's labyrinth.

"Feyre!" Lucien cried, panting as he stared at the ever-lowering spikes. The gleeful faces of the High Fae and lesser faeries sneered at me above the grate.

Three—grass—grasshop—grasshoppers

The gate wouldnt stop, and there wasnt a full body length between my head and the first of those spikes. I could have sworn the heat devoured the air in the pit.

were—boo—bow—boon—king—sing—bouncing

I should say my good-byes to Tamlin. Right now. This was what my life amounted to--these were my last moments, this was it, the final breaths of my body, the last beatings of my heart.

"Just pick one!" Lucien shouted, and some of those in the crowd laughed--his brothers no doubt the loudest.

I reached a hand toward the levers and stared at the three numbers beyond my trembling, tattooed fingers.

I, II, III.

They meant nothing to me beyond life and death. Chance might save me, but--

Two. Two was a lucky number, because that was like Tamlin and me--just two people. One had to be bad, because one was like Amaros, or the Attor--solitary beings.

One was a nasty number, and three was too much--it was three sisters crammed into a tiny cottage, hating each other until they choked on it, until it poisoned them.

Two. It was two. I could gladly, willingly, fanatically believe in a Cauldron and Fate if they would take care of me. I believed in two. Two.

I reached for the second lever, but a blinding pain racked my hand before I could touch the stone. I hissed, withdrawing. I opened my palm to reveal the slitted eye tattooed there. It narrowed. I had to be hallucinating.

The grate was about to cover the inscription, barely six feet above my head. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The heat was too much, and metal sizzled, so close to my ears.

I again reached for the middle lever, but the pain paralyzed my fingers.

The eye had returned to its usual state. I extended my hand toward the first lever. Again, pain.

I reached for the third lever. No pain. My fingers met with stone, and I looked up to find the grate not four feet from my head. Through it, I found a star-flecked violet gaze.

I reached for the first lever. Pain. But when I reached for the third lever—

Rhysand's face remained a mask of boredom. Sweat slipped down my brow, stinging my eyes. I could only trust her; I could only give myself up again, forced to concede by my helplessness.

The spikes were so enormous up close. All I had to do was lift my arm above my head and I'd burn the flesh off my hands.

"Feyre, please!" Lucien groaned.

I shook so badly I could scarcely stand. The heat of the spikes bore down on me. The stone lever was cool in my hand.

I shut my eyes, unable to look at Tamlin, bracing myself for the impact and the agony, and pulled the third lever.

Silence.

The pulsing heat didn't grow closer. Then--a sigh. Lucien.

I opened my eyes to find my tattooed fingers white-knuckled beneath the ink as they gripped the lever. The spikes hovered not inches from my head.

Unmoving--stopped.

I had won—I had—

The grate groaned as it lifted toward the ceiling, cool air flooding the chamber. I gulped it down in uneven breaths.

Lucien was offering up some kind of prayer. The floor beneath me rose, and I was forced to release the lever that had saved me as I was brought to the surface again.

My knees wobbled.

I couldnt read, and it had almost killed me. I hadnt even won properly. I sank to my knees, letting the platform carry me, and covered my face in my shaking hands.

Tears burned just before pain seared through my left arm. I would never beat the third task. I would never free Tamlin, or his people.

The pain shot through my bones again, and through my increasing hysteria, I heard words inside my head that stopped me short.

Dont let him see you cry. Put your hands at your sides and stand up.

I couldnt. I couldnt move.

Stand. Dont give him the satisfaction of seeing you break.

My knees and spine, not entirely of my own will, forced me upright, and when the ground at last stopped moving, I looked at Amaros with tearless eyes.

Good, Rhysand told me. Stare him down. No tears—wait until youre back in your cell.

Amaros’s face was drawn and white, his black eyes like onyx as he beheld me. I had won, but I should be dead. I should be squashed, my blood oozing everywhere.

Count to ten. Dont look at Tamlin. Just stare at him.

I obeyed. It was the only thing that kept me from giving in to the sobs trapped within my chest, thundering to get out.

I willed myself to meet Amaros’s gaze. It was cold and vast and full of ancient malice, but I held it. I counted to ten.

Good girl. Now walk away. Turn on your heel--good. Walk toward the door. Keep your chin high. Let the crowd part. One step after another.

I listened to her, let her keep me tethered to sanity as I was escorted back to my cell by the guards--who still kept their distance. Rhysand's words echoed through my mind, holding me together.

But when my cell door closed, she went silent, and I dropped to the floor and wept. I wept for hours. For myself, for Tamlin, for the fact that I should be dead and had somehow survived.

I cried for everything I'd lost, every injury I'd ever received, every wound--physical or otherwise. I cried for that trivial part of me, once so full of color and light--now hollow and dark and empty.

I couldnt stop. I couldnt breathe. I couldnt beat him. He'd won today, and he hadnt known it. He'd won; it was only by cheating that I'd survived. Tamlin would never be free, and I would perish in the most awful of ways.

I couldnt read—I was an ignorant, human fool. My shortcomings had caught up with me, and this place would become my tomb. I would never paint again; never see the sun again.

The walls closed in—the ceiling dropped. I wanted to be crushed; I wanted to be snuffed out. Everything converged, squeezing inward, sucking out air. I couldnt keep myself in my body—the walls were forcing me out of it.

I was grasping for my body, but it hurt too much each time I tried to maintain the connection. All I had wanted—all I had dared want, was a life that was quiet, easy. Nothing more than that. Nothing extraordinary. But now—now—

I felt the ripple in the darkness without having to look up, and didn't flinch at the soft footsteps that approached me. I didn't bother hoping that it would be Tamlin.

"Still weeping?"

Rhysand.

I didn't lower my hands from my face. The floor rose toward the lowering ceiling--I would soon be flattened. There was no color, no light here.

"You've just beaten his second task. Tears are unnecessary."

I wept harder, and she laughed. The stones reverberated as she knelt before me, and though I tried to fight her, her grip was firm as she grasped my wrists and pried my hands from my face.

The walls weren't moving, and the room was open--gaping. No colors, but shades of darkness, of night. Only those star-flecked violet eyes were bright, full of color and light.

She gave me a lazy smile before she leaned forward. I pulled away, but her hands were like shackles. I could do nothing as her mouth met with my cheek, and she licked away a tear.

Her tongue was hot against my skin, so startling that I couldn't move as she licked away another path of salt water, and then another.

My body went taut and loose all at once and I burned, even as chills shuddered along my limbs. It was only when her tongue danced along the damp edges of my lashes that I jerked back.

She chuckled as I scrambled for the corner of the cell. I wiped my face as I glared at her. She smirked, sitting down against a wall. "I figured that would get you to stop crying."

"It was disgusting." I wiped my face again.

"Was it?" She quirked an eyebrow and pointed to her palm--to the place where my tattoo would be. "Beneath all your pride and stubbornness, I could have sworn I detected something that felt differently. Interesting."

"Get out."

"As usual, your gratitude is overwhelming."

"Do you want me to kiss your feet for what you did at the trial? Do you want me to offer another week of my life?"

"Not unless you feel compelled to do so," she said, her eyes like stars.

It was bad enough that my life was forfeited to this Fae lady--but to have a bond where she could now freely read my thoughts and feelings and communicate—

"Who would have thought that the self-righteous human girl couldn't read?"

"Keep your damned mouth shut about it."

"Me? I wouldn't dream of telling anyone. Why waste that kind of knowledge on petty gossip?"

If I'd had the strength, I would have leaped on her and ripped her apart. "You're a disgusting bitch."

"I'll have to ask Tamlin if this kind of flattery won his heart."

She sighed as she stood, a soft, sweet noise that traveled along my bones. Her eyes met with mine, and she smiled slowly. I exposed my teeth, almost hissing.

She gave me a grin. She paused by the door, but didnt dissolve into darkness.

"I've been thinking of ways to torment you when you come to my court. I'm wondering: Will assigning you to learn to read be as painful as it looked today?"

She vanished into shadow before I could launch myself at her.

I paced through my cell, scowling at the eye in my hand. I spat every curse I could at it, but there was no response.

It took me a long while to realize that Rhysand, whether she knew it or not, had effectively kept me from shattering completely.

A month later, footsteps sounded inside my cell. I jolted into a sitting position, and Rhys stepped out of a shadow.

Her dress was low cut, revealing her cleavage, and she ran a hand through her blue-black hair before she wordlessly slumped against the wall across from me and slid to the floor.

"What do you want?" I demanded.

"A moment of peace and quiet," she snapped, rubbing her temples.

I paused. "From what?"

She massaged her pale skin, making the corners of her eyes go up and down, out and in. She sighed.

"From this mess."

I sat up farther on my pallet of hay. I'd never seen her so candid.

"That damned bastard is running me ragged," she went on, and dropped her hands from her temples to lean her head against the wall. "You hate me. Imagine how you'd feel if I made you serve in my bedroom. I'm High Lady of the Night Court--not his harlot."

So the slurs were true. And I could imagine very easily how much I would hate her--what it would do to me--to be enslaved to someone like that.

"Why are you telling me this?"

The swagger and nastiness were gone. "Because I'm tired and lonely, and you're the only person I can talk to without putting myself at risk." She let out a low laugh. "How absurd: a High Lady of Prythian and a--"

"You can leave if you're just going to insult me."

"But I'm so good at it." She flashed one of her grins. I glared at her, but she sighed. "One wrong move tomorrow, Feyre, and we're all doomed."

The thought struck a chord of such horror that I could hardly breathe.

"And if you fail," she went on, more to herself than to me, "then Amaros will rule forever."

"If he captured Tamlin's power once, who's to say he can't do it again?" It was the question I hadnt yet dared voice.

"He wont be tricked again so easily," she said, staring up at the ceiling. "Amaros’s biggest weapon is that he keeps our powers contained. But he can't access them, not wholly--though he can control us through them. Its why Ive never been able to shatter his mind--why he's not dead already. The moment you break Amaros’s curse, Tamlin's wrath will be so great that no force in the world will keep him from splattering Amaros on the walls."

A chill went through me.

"Why do you think I'm doing this?" She waved a hand to me.

"Because you're a monster."

She laughed. "True, but I'm also a pragmatist. Working Tamlin into a senseless fury is the best weapon we have against Amaros. Seeing you enter into a fool's bargain with him was one thing, but when Tamlin saw my tattoo on your arm—Oh, you should have been born with my abilities, if only to have felt the rage that seeped from him."

I didnt want to think much about her abilities. "Who's to say he won't splatter you as well?"

"Perhaps he'll try—but I have a feeling he'll kill Amaros first. That's what it all boils down to, anyway: even your servitude to me can be blamed on him. So he'll kill him tomorrow, and I'll be free before he can start a fight with me that will reduce our once-sacred mountain to rubble."

She picked at her long, sharp nails. "And I have a few other cards to play."

I lifted my brows in silent question.

"There's so much at stake," she mumbled, more to herself than to me.

I knew, but I still asked, "Like what?"

"Like my territory," she said, and her eyes held a far-off look that I hadnt yet seen. "Like my remaining people, enslaved to a tyrant king who can end their lives with a single word. Surely Tamlin expressed similar sentiments to you." He hadnt—not entirely. He hadnt been able to, thanks to the curse.

"Why did Amaros target you?" I dared ask. "Why make you his whore?"

"Beyond the obvious?" She gestured to her perfect face. When I didnt smile, she loosed a breath. "My father killed Tamlin's father."

I started. Tamlin had never said--never told me the Night Court was responsible for that.

"It's a long story, and I don't feel like getting into it, but let's just say that when he stole our lands out from under us, Amaros decided that he especially wanted to punish the daughter of his friend's murderer--decided that he hated me enough for my father's deeds that I was to suffer."

I might have reached a hand toward her, might have offered my apologies--but every thought had dried up in my head. What Amaros had done to her…

"So," she said wearily, "here we are, with the fate of our immortal world in the hands of an illiterate human." Her laugh was unpleasant as she hung her head, cupping her forehead in a hand, and closed her eyes. "What a mess."

Part of me searched for the words to wound her in her vulnerability, but the other half recalled all that she had said, all that she had done.

Regardless of her motives or her methods, Rhysand was keeping me alive. And had done so even before I set foot Under the Mountain.

"I've told you too much," she said as she got to her feet. "Perhaps I should have drugged you first. If you were clever, you'd find a way to use this against me. And if you had any stomach for cruelty, you'd go to Amaros and tell him the truth about his whore. Perhaps he'd give you Tamlin for it."

"When you healed my arm—You didnt need to bargain with me. You could have demanded every single week of the year." My brows knit together as she turned, already half-consumed by the dark. "Every single week, and I would have said yes."

It wasnt entirely a question, but I needed the answer. A half smile appeared on her sensuous lips.

"I know," she said, and vanished.

Chapter Text

     For my final task, I was given my old tunic and pants--stained and torn and reeking--but despite my stench, I kept my chin high as I was escorted to the throne room.

The doors were flung open, and the silence of the room assaulted me. I waited for the jeers and shouts, waited to see gold flash as the onlookers placed their bets, but this time the faeries just stared at me, the masked ones especially intently.

Their world rested on my shoulders, Rhys had said. But I didn't think it was worry alone that was spread across their features.

I had to swallow hard as a few of them touched their fingers to their lips, then extended their hands to me--a gesture for the fallen, a farewell to the honored dead. There was nothing malicious about it.

Most of these faeries belonged to the courts of the High Lords--had belonged to those courts long before Amaros seized their lands, their lives. And if Tamlin and Rhysand were playing games to keep us alive—

I strode up the path they'd cleared--straight for Amaros. The king smiled when I stopped in front of his throne. Tamlin was in his usual place beside him, but I wouldnt look at him--not yet.

"Two trials lie behind you," Amaros said, picking at a fleck of dust on his blood-red tunic. His red hair shone, a gleaming darkness that threatened to swallow up his golden crown. "And only one more awaits. I wonder if it will be worse to fail now--when you are so close."

But only a few laughs hissed from the red-skinned guards. Everyone else remained silent. Even Lucien's miserable brothers. Even Rhysand, wherever she was in the crowd.

I blinked to clear my burning eyes. Perhaps, like Rhysand's, their oaths of allegiance and betting on my life and nastiness had been a show. And perhaps now--now that the end was imminent--they, too, would face my potential death with whatever dignity they had left.

Amaros glared at them, but when his gaze fell upon me, he grinned broadly. "Any words to say before you die?"

I came up with a plethora of curses, but I instead looked at Tamlin. He didn't react--his features were like stone. I wished that I could glimpse his face--if only for a moment. But all I needed to see were those green eyes.

"I love you," I said. "No matter what he says about it, no matter if it's only with my insignificant human heart. Even when they burn my body, I'll love you."

My lips trembled, and my vision clouded before several warm tears slipped down my chilled face. I didnt wipe them away.

He didn't react--he didn't even grip the arms of his throne. I supposed that was his way of enduring it, even if it made my chest cave in. Even if his silence killed me.

Amaros said, "You'll be lucky if we even have enough left of you to burn."

I stared at him long and hard. But his words were not met with jeers or smiles or applause from the crowd. Only silence.

It was a gift that gave me courage, that made me bunch my fists, that made me embrace the tattoo on my arm. I had beaten him until now, fairly or not, and I would not feel alone when I died. I would not die alone. It was all I could ask for.

"You never figured out my riddle, did you?" he asked. I didnt respond, and he smiled. "Pity. The answer is so lovely."

"Get it over with," I growled.

Amaros looked at Tamlin. "No final words to her?" he said, quirking an eyebrow. When Tamlin didnt respond, he grinned at me. "Very well, then." He clapped his hands twice.

A door swung open, and three figures—two male and one female—with brown sacks tied over their heads were dragged in by the guards. Their concealed faces turned this way and that as they tried to discern the whispers that rippled across the throne room. My knees bent slightly as they approached.

With sharp jabs and blunt shoves, the red-skinned guards forced the three faeries to their knees at the foot of the dais, but facing me. Their bodies and clothes revealed nothing of who they were.

Amaros clapped his hands again, and three servants clad in black appeared at the side of each of the kneeling faeries. In their long, pale hands, they each carried a dark velvet pillow. And on each pillow lay a single polished wooden dagger. Not metal for a blade, but ash. Ash, because—

"Your final task, Feyre," Amaros drawled, gesturing to the kneeling faeries. "Stab each of these unfortunate souls in the heart."

I stared at him, my mouth opening and closing.

"They're innocent--not that it should matter to you," he went on, "since it wasn't a concern the day you killed Tamlin's sentinel. And it wasnt a concern for Jurian when he butchered my sister. But if it's a problem—well, you can always refuse. Of course, I'll take your life in exchange, but a bargain's a bargain, is it not? If you ask me, though, given your history with murdering our kind, I do believe Im offering you a gift."

Refuse and die. Kill three innocents and live. Three innocents, for my own future. For my own happiness. For Tamlin and his court and the freedom of an entire land. The wood of the razor-sharp daggers had been polished so expertly that it gleamed beneath the colored glass chandeliers.

I couldnt. I couldnt do it. It wasnt like hunting; it wasnt for survival or defense. It was coldblooded murder—the murder of them, of my very soul.

But for Prythian—for Tamlin, for all of them here, for Alis and her boys—I wished I knew the name of one of our forgotten gods so that I might beg them to intercede, wished I knew any prayers at all to plead for guidance, for absolution.

But I did not know those prayers, or the names of our forgotten gods—only the names of those who would remain enslaved if I did not act. I silently recited those names, even as the horror of what knelt before me began to swallow me whole. For Prythian, for Tamlin, for their world and my own—

These deaths would not be wasted—even if it would damn me forever.

I stepped up to the first kneeling figure—the longest and most brutal step Id ever taken. Three lives in exchange for Prythian's liberation—three lives that would not be spent in vain. I could do this. I could do this, even with Tamlin watching. I could make this sacrifice—sacrifice them—I could do this.

My fingers trembled, but the first dagger wound up in my hand, its hilt cool and smooth, the wood of the blade heavier than I'd expected. There were three daggers, because he wanted me to feel the a agony of reaching for that knife again and again. Wanted me to mean it.

"Not so fast." Amaros said, and the guards who held the first kneeling figure snatched the hood off its face.

It was a handsome High Fae youth. I didnt know him, Id never seen him, but his blue eyes were pleading.

"Thats better," Amaros said, waving his hand again. "Proceed, Feyre. Enjoy it."

His eyes were the color of a sky Id never see again if I refused to kill him, a color Id never get out of my mind, never forget no matter how many times I painted it.

He shook his head, those eyes growing so large that white showed all around. He would never see that sky, either. And neither would these people, if I failed.

"Please," he whispered, his focus darting between the ash dagger and my face. "Please."

The dagger shook between my fingers, and I clenched it tighter. Three faeries—thats all that stood between me and freedom, before Tamlin would be unleashed upon Amaros. If he could destroy him—Not in vain, I told myself. Not in vain.

"Dont," the faerie youth begged when I lifted the dagger. "Dont!"

I took a gasping breath, my lips shaking as I quailed. Saying "I'm sorry" wasnt enough. I'd never been able to say it to Andras—and now—now—

"Please!" he said, and his eyes lined with silver.

Someone in the crowd began weeping. I was taking him away from someone who possibly loved him as much as I loved Tamlin.

I couldnt think about it, couldnt think about who he was, or the color of his eyes, or any of it.

Amaros was grinning with wild triumph. Kill a faerie, fall in love with a faerie, then be forced to kill a faerie to keep that love. It was brilliant and cruel, and he knew it.

Darkness rippled near the throne, and then Rhysand was there, arms crossed--as if she'd moved to better see. Her face was a mask of disinterest, but my hand tingled. Do it, the tingling said.

"Don't," the young faerie moaned. I began shaking my head. I couldnt listen to him. I had to do it now, before he convinced me otherwise. "Please!" His voice rose to a shriek.

The sound jarred me so much that I lunged. With a ragged sob, I plunged the dagger into his heart.

He screamed, thrashing in the guards' grip as the blade cleaved through flesh and bone, smooth as if it were real metal and not ash, and blood—hot and slick—showered my hand. I wept, yanking out the dagger, the reverberations of his bones against the blade stinging my hand.

His eyes, full of shock and hate, remained on me as he sagged, damning me, and that person in the crowd let out a keening wail.

My bloody dagger clacked on the marble floor as I stumbled back several steps.

"Well done," Amaros said.

I wanted to get out of my body; I had to escape the stain of what I'd done; I had to get out—I couldnt endure the blood on my hands, the sticky warmth between my fingers.

"Now the next. Don't look so miserable, Feyre. Aren't you having fun?"

I faced the second figure, still hooded. A female this time. The faerie in black extended the pillow with the clean dagger, and the guards holding her tore off her hood.

Her face was simple, and her hair was gold-brown, like mine. Tears were already rolling down her round cheeks, and her bronze eyes tracked my bloody hand as I reached for the second knife. The cleanness of the wooden blade mocked the blood on my fingers.

I wanted to fall to my knees to beg her forgiveness, to tell her that her death wouldnt be for naught. Wanted to, but there was such a rift running through me now that I could hardly feel my hands, my shredded heart. What Id done—

"Cauldron save me," she began whispering, her voice lovely and even—like music. "Mother hold me," she went on, reciting a prayer similar to one Id heard once before, when Tamlin eased the passing of that lesser faerie whod died in the foyer. Another of Amaros's victims. "Guide me to you."

I was unable to raise my dagger, unable to take the step that would close the distance between us.

"Let me pass through the gates; let me smell that immortal land of milk and honey."

Silent tears slid down my face and neck, where they dampened the filthy collar of my tunic. As she spoke, I knew I would be forever barred from that immortal land. I knew that whatever Mother she meant would never embrace me. In saving Tamlin, I was to damn myself.

I couldnt do this—couldnt lift that dagger again.

"Let me fear no evil," she breathed, staring at me—into me, into the soul that was cleaving itself apart. "Let me feel no pain."

A sob broke from my lips. "Im sorry," I moaned.

"Let me enter eternity," she breathed.

I wept as I understood. Kill me now, she was saying. Do it fast. Dont make it hurt. Kill me now. Her bronze eyes were steady, if not sorrowful. Infinitely, infinitely worse than the pleading of the dead faerie beside her.

I couldnt do it.

But she held my gaze—held my gaze and nodded.

As I lifted the ash dagger, something inside me fractured so completely that there would be no hope of ever repairing it. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times I might try to paint her face.

More faeries wailed now—her kinsmen and friends. The dagger was a weight in my hand—my hand, shining and coated with the blood of that first faerie.

It would be more honorable to refuse—to die, rather than murder innocents. But  but

"Let me enter eternity," she repeated, lifting her chin. "Fear no evil," she whispered—just for me.

"Feel no pain."

I gripped her delicate, bony shoulder and drove the dagger into her heart.

She gasped, and blood spilled onto the ground like a splattering of rain. Her eyes were closed when I looked at her face again. She slumped to the floor and didnt move.

I went somewhere far, far away from myself.

The faeries were stirring now—shifting, many whispering and weeping. I dropped the dagger,  and the knock of ash on marble roared in my ears. Why was Amaros still smiling, with only one person left between myself and freedom? I glanced at Rhysand, but her attention was fixed upon Amaros.

One faerie—and then we were free. Just one more swing of my arm.

And maybe one more after that—maybe one more swing, up and inward and into my own heart. It would be a relief—a relief to end it by my own hand, a relief to die rather than face this, what I'd done.

The faerie servant offered the last dagger, and I was about to reach for it when the guard removed the hood from the male kneeling before me.

My hands slackened at my sides. Amber-flecked green eyes stared up at me. Everything came crashing down, layer upon layer, shattering and breaking and crumbling, as I gazed at Tamlin.

I whipped my head to the throne beside Amaros's, still occupied by my High Lord, and he laughed as he snapped his fingers. The Tamlin beside him transformed into the Attor, smiling wickedly at me.

Tricked—deceived by my own senses again. Slowly, my soul ripping further from me, I turned back to Tamlin. There was only guilt and sorrow in his eyes, and I stumbled away, almost falling as I tripped over my feet.

"Something wrong?" Amaros asked, cocking his head.

"Not—Not fair," I got out.

Rhysand's face had gone pale--so, so pale.

"Fair?" Amaros mused, playing with Jurian's bone on his necklace. "I wasn't aware you humans knew of the concept. You kill Tamlin, and he's free." His smile was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen. "And then you can have him all to yourself."

My mouth stopped working.

"Unless," Amaros went on, "you think it would be more appropriate to forfeit your life. After all: Whats the point? To survive only to lose him?" His words were like poison. "Imagine all those years you were going to spend together—suddenly alone. Tragic, really. Though a few months ago, you hated our kind enough to butcher us—surely you'll move on easily enough." He patted his ring. "Jurian's human lover did."

Still on his knees, Tamlins eyes turned so bright--defiant.

"So," Amaros said, but I didnt look at him. "What will it be, Feyre?"

Kill him and save his court and my life, or kill myself and let them all live as Amaros's slaves, let him and the King of Hybern wage their final war against the human realm. There was no bargain to get out of this--no part of me to sell to avoid this choice.

I stared at the ash dagger on that pillow. Alis had been right all those weeks ago: no human who came here ever walked out again. I was no exception. If I were smart, I would indeed stab my own heart before they could grab me. At least then I would die quickly—I wouldnt endure the torture that surely awaited me, possibly a fate like Jurians. Alis had been right. But—

Alis—Alis had said something  something to help me. A final part of the curse, a part they couldnt tell me, a part that would aid me—And all shed been able to do was tell me to listen. To listen to what Id heard—as if Id already learned everything I needed.

I slowly faced Tamlin again. Memories flashed, one after another, blurs of color and words. Tamlin was High Lord of the Spring Court—what did that do to help me? The Great Rite was performed—no.

He lied to me about everything—about why Id been brought to the manor, about what was happening on his lands. The curse—he hadnt been allowed to tell me the truth, but he hadnt exactly pretended that everything was fine. No—hed lied and explained as best he could and made it painfully obvious to me at every turn that something was very, very wrong.

The Attor in the garden—as hidden from me as I was from it. But Tamlin had hidden me—he'd told me to stay put and then led the Attor right toward me, let me overhear them.

He'd left the dining room doors open when he'd spoken with Lucien about—about the curse, even if I hadnt realized it at the time. Hed spoken in public places. Hed wanted me to eavesdrop.

Because he wanted me to know, to listen—because this knowledge  I ransacked each conversation, turning over words like stones. A part of the curse I hadnt grasped, that they couldnt explicitly tell me, but Tamlin had needed me to know

Amaros makes no bargains that are not advantageous to him.

He would never kill what he needed most—not when he needed Tamlin on his side, fighting in his army. But if I killed Tamlin—he either knew I couldnt do it, or he was playing a very, very dangerous game.

Conversation after conversation echoed in my memory, until I heard Lucien's words, and everything froze. And that was when I knew.

I couldnt breathe, not as I replayed the memory, not as I recalled the conversation I'd overheard one day. Lucien and Tamlin in the dining room, the door wide open for all to hear—for me to hear.

"For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days."

I looked at Tamlin, my eyes flicking to his chest as another memory flashed. The Attor in the garden, laughing.

"Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin," the Attor said, "you certainly keep a host of fear inside it."

Amaros would never risk me killing him—because he knew I couldnt kill him. Not if his heart couldnt be pierced by a blade. Not if his heart had been turned to stone.

I scanned his face, searching for any glimmer of truth. There was only that bold rebellion within his gaze.

Perhaps I was wrong—perhaps it was just a faerie turn of phrase. But all those times Id held Tamlin—Id never felt his heartbeat. Id been blind to everything until it came back to smack me in the face, but not this time.

That was how Amaros controlled him and his magic. How he controlled all the High Lords, dominating and leashing them just as he kept Jurians soul tethered to that eye and bone.

Trust no one, Alis had told me. But I trusted Tamlin—and more than that, I trusted myself. I trusted that I had heard correctly—I trusted that Tamlin had been smarter than Amaros, I trusted that all I had sacrificed was not in vain.

The entire room was silent, but my attention was upon only Tamlin. The revelation must have been clear on my face, for his breathing became a bit quicker, and he lifted his chin.

I took a step toward him, then another. I was right. I had to be.

I sucked in a breath as I grabbed the dagger off the outstretched pillow. I could be wrong—I could be painfully, tragically wrong.

But there was a faint smile on Tamlin's lips as I stood over him, ash dagger in hand. There was such a thing as Fate—because Fate had made sure I was there to eavesdrop when they'd spoken in private, because Fate had whispered to Tamlin that the cold, contrary girl he'd dragged to his home would be the one to break his spell, because Fate had kept me alive just to get to this point, just to see if I had been listening.

And there he was—my High Lord, my beloved, kneeling before me.

"I love you," I said, and stabbed him.

Tamlin cried out as my blade pierced his flesh, breaking bone. For a sickening moment, when his blood rushed onto my hand, I thought the ash dagger would go clean through him.

But then there was a faint thud—and a stinging reverberation in my hand as the dagger struck something hard and unyielding.

Tamlin lurched forward, his face going pale, and I yanked the dagger from his chest. As the blood drained away from the polished wood, I lifted the blade.

Its tip had been nicked, turned inward on itself.

Tamlin clutched his chest as he panted, the wound already healing. Rhysand, at the foot of the dais, grinned from ear to ear. Amaros climbed to his feet.

The faeries murmured to one another. I dropped the blade, sending it clattering across the red marble.

Kill him now, I wanted to bark at Tamlin, but he didnt move as he pushed his hand against his wound, blood dribbling out. Too slowly—he was healing too slowly. The mask didnt fall off. Kill him now.

"She won," someone in the crowd said.

"Free them," another echoed.

But Amaros's face blanched, his features contorting until he looked truly serpentine. "I'll free them whenever I see fit. Feyre didn't specify when I had to free them--just that I had to. At some point. Perhaps when you're dead," he finished with a hateful smile. "You assumed that when I said instantaneous freedom regarding the riddle, it applied to the trials, too, didnt you? Foolish, stupid human."

I stepped back as he descended the steps of the dais. His fingers curled into claws—Jurian's eye was going wild within the ring, his pupil dilating and shrinking.

"And you," he hissed at me. "You."

His teeth gleamed—turning sharp. "I'm going to kill you."

Someone cried out, but I couldn't move, couldn't even try to get out of the way as something far more violent than lightning struck me, and I crashed to the floor.

"I'm going to make you pay for your insolence," Amaros snarled, and a scream ravaged my throat as pain like nothing I had known erupted through me.

My very bones were shattering as my body rose and then slammed onto the hard floor, and I was crushed beneath another wave of torturous agony. I was being ripped apart from the inside out, and I thrashed, unable to out-scream the pain.

"Feyre!" someone cried out. No, not someone--Rhysand.

My back arched, and my ribs cracked, one by one. Rhysand yelled my name again--yelled it as though she cared. I blacked out, but he brought me back, ensuring that I felt everything, ensuring that I screamed every time a bone broke.

"What are you but mud and bones and worm meat?" Amaros raged. "What are you, compared to our kind, that you think youre worthy of us?"

Faeries began calling foul play, demanding Tamlin be released from the curse, calling Amaros a cheating liar. Through the haze, I saw Rhysand crouching by Tamlin. Not to help him, but to grab the--

"You are all pigs—all scheming, filthy pigs."

I sobbed between screams as his foot connected with my broken ribs. Again. And again. "Your mortal heart is nothing to us."

Then Rhysand was on her feet, my bloody knife in her hands. She launched herself at Amaros, swift as a shadow, the ash dagger aimed at his throat.

He lifted a hand--not even bothering to look---and she was blasted back by a wall of white light. But the pain paused for a second, long enough for me to see her hit the ground and rise again and lunge for him--with hands that now ended in talons.

She slammed into the invisible wall Amaros had raised around himself, and my pain flickered as he turned to her.

"You traitorous piece of filth," he seethed at Rhysand. "You're just as bad as these human beasts."

One by one, as if a hand were shoving them in, her talons pushed back into her skin, leaving blood in their wake. She swore, low and vicious.

"You were planning this all along," Amaros accused her.

His magic sent her sprawling, and it then hurled into Rhysand again--so hard that her head cracked against the stones and the knife dropped from her splayed fingers. No one made a move to help her, and he struck her once more with his power. The red marble splintered where she hit it, spiderwebbing toward me. With wave after wave he hit her. Rhys groaned.

"Stop," I breathed, blood filling my mouth. "Please."

Rhys's arms buckled as she fought to rise, and blood dripped from her nose, splattering on the marble. Her eyes met mine.

The bond between us went taut. I flashed between my body and hers, seeing myself through her eyes, bleeding and broken and sobbing.

I snapped back into my own mind as Amaros turned to me again.

"Stop? Stop? Dont pretend you care, human," he crooned, and curled his finger.

I arched my back, my spine straining to the point of cracking, and Rhysand cried my name as I lost my grip on the room.

Then the memories began—a compilation of the worst moments of my life, a storybook of despair and darkness. The final page came, and I wept, not entirely feeling the agony of my body as I saw that young rabbit, bleeding out in that forest clearing, my knife through her throat. My first kill—the first life Id taken.

Id been starving, desperate. Yet afterward, once my family had devoured it, I had crept back into the woods and wept for hours, knowing a line had been crossed, my soul stained.

A path cleared through my red-and-black vision. I found Tamlin's eyes—wide as he crawled toward Amaros, watching me die, and unable to save me while his wound slowly healed, while the king still gripped his power.

Amaros had never intended for me to live, never intended to let him go.

"Amaros, stop this," Tamlin begged at his feet as he clutched the gaping wound in his chest. "Stop. I'm sorry—I'm sorry for what I said about Clythia all those years ago. Please."

Amaros ignored him, but I couldn't look away. Tamlin's eyes were so green--green like the meadows of his estate. A shade that washed away the memories flooding through me, that pushed aside the evil breaking me apart bone by bone.

I screamed again as my kneecaps strained, threatening to crack in two, but I saw that enchanted forest, saw that afternoon we'd lain in the grass, saw that morning we'd watched the sunrise, when for a moment—just one moment—I'd known true happiness.

"Amaros, please," Tamlin moaned, his blood spilling onto the floor. "I'll do anything."

"I'll deal with you later," he snarled at him, and sent me falling into a fiery pit of pain.

"Love," I breathed, the world crumbling into a blackness with no end. A pause in Amaros's magic. "The answer to the riddle ," I got out, choking on my own blood, "is  love."

Tamlin's eyes went wide before something forever cracked in my spine.

I was far away but still seeing--seeing through eyes that werent mine, eyes attached to a person who slowly rose from her position on a cracked, bloodied floor.

Amaros's face slackened. There my body was, prostrate on the ground, my head snapped to one side at a horribly wrong angle.

A flash of red hair in the crowd. Lucien. Tears shone in Lucien's remaining eye as he raised his hands and removed the fox mask.

The brutally scarred face beneath was still handsome--his features sharp and elegant. But my host was looking at Tamlin now, who slowly faced my dead body.

Tamlin's still-masked face twisted into something truly lupine as he raised his eyes to the king and snarled. Fangs lengthened.

Amaros backed away--away from my corpse. He only whispered "Please" before golden light exploded.

The king was blasted back, thrown against the far wall, and Tamlin let out a roar that shook the mountain as he launched himself at him. He shifted into his beast form faster than I could see--fur and claws and pound upon pound of lethal muscle.

Amaros had no sooner hit the wall than Tamlin gripped him by the neck, and the stones cracked as he shoved him against it with a clawed paw.

He thrashed but could do nothing against the brutal onslaught of Tamlin's beast. Blood ran down his furred arm from where he scratched.

The Attor and the guards rushed for the king, but several faeries and High Fae, their masks clattering to the ground, jumped into their path, tackling them.

Amaros roared, kicking at Tamlin, lashing at him with his dark magic, but a wall of gold encompassed his fur like a second skin.

"Tam!" Lucien cried over the chaos.

A sword hurtled through the air, a shooting star of steel. Tamlin caught it in a massive paw. Amaros's scream was cut short as he drove the sword through his head and into the stone beneath.

And then closed his powerful jaws around his throat--and ripped it out.

Silence fell.

It wasnt until I was again staring down at my own broken body that I realized whose eyes I'd been seeing through.

But Rhysand didn't come any closer to my corpse, not as rushing paws--then a flash of light, then footsteps--filled the air. The beast was already gone.

Amaros's blood had vanished from his face, his tunic, as Tamlin slammed to his knees. He scooped up my limp, broken body, cradling me to his chest. He hadnt removed his mask, but I saw the tears that fell onto my filthy tunic, and I heard the shuddering sobs that broke from him as he rocked me, stroking my hair.

"No," someone breathed--Lucien, his sword dangling from his hand. Indeed, there were many High Fae and faeries who watched with damp eyes as Tamlin held me.

I wanted to get to Tamlin. I wanted to touch him, to beg for his forgiveness for what Id done, for the other bodies on the floor, but I was so far away.

Someone appeared beside Lucien—a tall, handsome brown-haired man with a face similar to his own. Lucien didnt look at his father, though he stiffened as the High Lord of the Autumn Court approached Tamlin and extended a clenched hand to him.

Tamlin glanced up only when the High Lord opened his fingers and tipped over his hand. A glittering spark fell upon me. It flared and vanished as it touched my chest.

Two more figures approached—both handsome and young. Through my host's eyes, I knew them instantly. The brown-skinned one on the left wore a tunic of blue and green, and atop his white-blond head was a garland of roses—the High Lord of the Summer Court.

His pale-skinned companion, clad in colors of white and gray, possessed a crown of shimmering ice. The High Lord of the Winter Court.

Chins raised, shoulders back, they, too, dropped those glittering kernels upon me, and Tamlin bowed his head in gratitude.

Another High Lord approached, also bestowing upon me a drop of light. He glowed brightest of them all, and from his gold-and-ruby raiment, I knew him to be High Lord of the Dawn Court. Then the High Lord of the Day Court, clad in white and gold, his dark skin gleaming with an inner light, presented his similar gift, and smiled sadly at Tamlin before he walked away.

Rhysand stepped forward, bringing my shred of soul with her, and I found Tamlin staring at me-- at us.

"For what she gave," Rhysand said, extending a hand, "we'll bestow what our predecessors have granted to few before." She paused. "This makes us even," she added, and I felt the twinkle of her humor as she opened her hand and let the seed of light fall on me.

Tamlin tenderly brushed aside my matted hair. His hand glowed bright as the rising sun, and in the center of his palm, that strange, shining bud formed.

"I love you," he whispered, and kissed me as he laid his hand on my heart.

Chapter Text

Everything was black, and warm--and thick. Inky, but bordered with gold. I was swimming, kicking for the surface, where Tamlin was waiting, where life was waiting. Up and up, frantic for air.

The golden light grew, and the darkness became like sparkling wine, easier to swim through, the bubbles fizzing around me, and--

I gasped, air flooding my throat.

I was lying on the cold floor. No pain—no blood, no broken bones. I blinked. A chandelier dangled above me--I'd never noticed how intricate the crystals were, how the hushed gasp of the crowd echoed off them.

A crowd--meaning I was still in that throne room, meaning—I—I truly wasn't dead. Meaning I had—I had killed those—I had—The room spun.

I groaned as I braced my hands against the floor, readying myself to stand, but--the sight of my skin stopped me cold. It gleamed with a strange light, and my fingers seemed longer where I'd laid them flat on the marble. I pushed to my feet. I felt--felt strong, and fast and sleek. And--

And I'd become High Fae.

I went rigid as I sensed Tamlin standing behind me, smelled that rain and spring meadow scent of him, richer than I'd ever noticed. I couldn't turn around to look at him--I couldn't couldn't move.

A High Fae—immortal. What had they done?

I could hear Tamlin holding his breath--hear as he loosed it. Hear the breathing, the whispering and weeping and quiet celebrating of everyone in that hall, still watching us--watching me--some chanting praise for the glorious power of their High Lords.

"It was the only way we could save you," Tamlin said softly.

But then I looked to the wall, and my hand rose to my throat. I forgot about the stunned crowd entirely.

There, beneath Clare's decayed body, was Amaros, his mouth gaping as the sword protruded from his brow. His throat gone--and blood now soaked the front of his clothes.

Amaros was dead. They were free. I was free. Tamlin was--

Amaros was dead. And I had killed those two High Fae; I has--I shook my head slowly.

"Are you--"

My voice sounded too loud in my ears as I pushed back against that wall of black that threatened to swallow me. Amaros was dead.

"See for yourself," he said.

I kept my eyes on the ground as I turned. There, on the red marble, lay a golden mask, staring at me with its hollow eyeholes.

"Feyre," Tamlin said, and he cupped my chin between his fingers, gently lifting my face. I saw that familiar chin first, then the mouth, and then--

He was exactly how I dreamed he would be.

He smiled at me, his entire face alight with that quiet joy I had come to love so dearly, and he brushed my hair aside. I savored the feel of his fingers on my skin and raised my own to touch his face, to trace the contours of those high cheekbones and that lovely, straight nose--the clear, broad brow, the slightly arching eyebrows that framed his green eyes.

What I had done to get to this moment, to be standing here—I shoved against the thought again. In a minute, in an hour, in a day, I would think about that, force myself to face it.

I put a hand on Tamlin's heart, and a steady beat echoed into my bones.

I sat on the edge of a bed, and while I'd thought being an immortal meant a higher pain threshold and faster healing, I winced a good deal as Tamlin inspected my few remaining wounds, then healed them.

We'd scarcely had a moment alone together in the hours that followed Amaros's death--that followed what I had done to those two faeries.

But now, in this quiet room—I couldnt look away from the truth that sounded in my head with each breath.

I'd killed them. Slaughtered them. I hadn't even seen their bodies being taken away.

For it had been chaos in the throne room in the moments after I'd awakened. The Attor and the nastier faeries had disappeared instantly, along with Lucien's brothers, which was a clever move, as Lucien wasn't the only faerie with a score to settle.

No sign of Rhysand, either. Some faeries had fled, while others had burst into celebration, and others just stood or paced—eyes distant, faces pale.

As if they, too, didnt quite feel like this was real.

One by one, crowding him, weeping and laughing with joy, the High Fae and faeries of the Spring Court knelt or embraced or kissed Tamlin, thanking him—thanking me. I kept far enough back that I would only nod, because I had no words to offer them in exchange for their gratitude, the gratitude for the faeries Id butchered to save them.

Then there had been meetings in the frenzied throne room—quick, tense meetings with the High Lords Tamlin was allied with to sort out next steps; then with Lucien and some Spring Court High Fae who introduced themselves as Tamlin's sentries.

But every word, every breath was too loud, every smell too strong, the light too bright. Keeping still throughout it all was easier than moving, than adjusting to the strange, strong body that was now mine. I couldnt even touch my hair without the slight difference in my fingers jarring me.

On and on, until every newly heightened sense was chafing and raw, and Tamlin at last noticed my dull eyes, my silence, and took my arm. He escorted me through the labyrinth of tunnels and hallways until we found a quiet bedroom in a distant wing of the court.

"Feyre," Tamlin said now, looking up from inspecting my bare leg. I had been so accustomed to his mask that the handsome face surprised me each time I beheld it.

This—this was what I had murdered those faeries for. Their deaths had not been in vain, and yet. The blood on me had been gone when Id awoken—as if becoming an immortal, as if surviving, somehow earned me the right to wash their blood off me.

"What is it?" I said. My voice was—quiet. Hollow. I should try—try to sound more cheerful, for him, for what had just happened, but

He gave me that half smile. Had he been human, he might have been in his late twenties. But he wasnt human—and neither was I.

I wasnt certain whether that was a happy thought or not.

It was one of my smallest concerns. I should be begging for his forgiveness, begging the families and friends of those faeries for their forgiveness. I should be on my knees, weeping with shame for all that I had done—

"Feyre," he said again, lowering my leg to stand between my knees. He caressed my cheek with a knuckle. "How can I ever repay you for what you did?"

"You dont need to," I said.

Let that be that—let that dark, dank cell fade away, and Amaros's face forever disappear from my memory. Even if those two dead faeries—even if their faces would never fade for me.

If I could ever bring myself to paint again, I would never be able to stop seeing those faces instead of the colors and light.

Tamlin held my face in his hands, leaning close, but then released me and grasped my left arm—my tattooed arm. His brows narrowed as he studied the markings. "Feyre--"

"I dont want to talk about it," I mumbled.

The bargain I had with Rhysand--another small concern compared to the stain on my soul, the pit inside it. But I didnt doubt Id see Rhys again soon.

Tamlin's fingers traced the marks of my tattoo. "We'll find a way out of this," he murmured, and his hand traveled up my arm to rest on my shoulder. He opened his mouth, and I knew what he would say—the subject he would try to broach.

I couldnt talk about it, about them—not yet. So I breathed "Later" and hooked my feet around his legs, drawing him closer.

I placed my hands on his chest, feeling the heart beating beneath. This—I needed this right now. It wouldnt wash away what Id done, but I needed him near, needed to smell and taste him, remind myself that he was real—this was real.

"Later," he echoed, and leaned down to kiss me.

I left Tamlin sleeping in the bed, his body heavy with exhaustion. In a few hours, we would be leaving Under the Mountain and returning home, and I didnt want to wake him sooner than I had to. I prayed I would ever get to sleep that peacefully again.

I knew who summoned me long before I opened the door to the hall and padded down it, stumbling and teetering every now and then as I adjusted to my new body, its new balance and rhythms.

I carefully, slowly took a narrow set of stairs upward, up and up, until, to my shock, a trickle of sunlight poured into the stairwell and I found myself on a small balcony jutting out of the side of the mountain.

I hissed against the brightness, shielding my eyes. I'd thought it was the middle of the night--I'd completely lost all sense of time in the darkness of the mountain.

Rhysand chuckled softly from where I could vaguely make her out standing along the stone rail. "I forgot that it's been a while for you."

My eyes stung from the light, and I remained silent until I could look at the view without a shooting pain going through my head. A land of violet snowcapped mountains greeted me, but the rock of this mountain was brown and bare—not even a blade of grass or a crystal of ice gleamed on it.

I looked at her finally. Her membranous wings were out--tucked behind her--but her hands and feet were normal, no talons in sight.

"What do you want?" It didn't come out with the snap I'd intended. Not as I remembered how she'd fought, again and again, to attack Amaros, to save me.

"Just to say good-bye." A warm breeze ruffled her hair, brushing tendrils of darkness off her shoulders. "Before your beloved whisks you away forever."

"Not forever," I said, wiggling my tattooed fingers for her to see. "Don't you get a week every month?" Those words, thankfully, came out frosty.

Rhys smiled slightly, her wings rustling and then settling. "How could I forget?"

I stared at the nose I'd seen bleeding only hours before, the violet eyes that had been so filled with pain.

"Why?" I asked.

She knew what I meant, and shrugged. "Because when the legends get written, I didn't want to be remembered for standing on the sidelines. I want my future offspring to know that I was there, and that I fought against him at the end, even if I couldn't do anything useful."

I blinked, this time not at the brightness of the sun.

"Because," she went on, her eyes locked with mine, "I didn't want you to fight alone. Or die alone."

And for a moment, I remembered that faerie who had died in our foyer, and how I'd told Tamlin the same thing.

"Thank you," I said, my throat tight.

Rhys flashed a grin that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I doubt you'll be saying that when I take you to the Night Court."

I didnt bother to reply as I turned toward the view. The mountains went on and on, gleaming and shadowed and vast under the open, clear sky.

But nothing in me stirred--nothing cataloged the light and colors.

"Are you going to fly home?" I said.

A soft laugh. "Unfortunately, it would take longer than I can afford. Another day, I'll taste the skies again."

I glanced at the wings tucked into her powerful body, and my voice was hoarse as I spoke. "You never told me you loved the wings--or the flying." No, she'd made her shape-shifting seem—base, useless, boring.

She shrugged. "Everything I love has always had a tendency to be taken from me. I tell very few about the wings. Or the flying."

Some color had already come into that moon-white face--and I wondered whether she might once have been tan before Amaros had kept her below ground for so long. A Lady who loved to fly--trapped under a mountain. Shadows not of her own making still haunted those violet eyes. I wondered if they would ever fade.

"How does it feel to be a High Fae?" she asked--a quiet, curious question.

I looked out toward the mountains again, considering. And maybe it was because there was no one else to hear, maybe it was because the shadows in her eyes would also forever be in mine, but I said,

"I'm an immortal--who has been mortal. This body " I looked down at my hand, so clean and shining--a mockery of what I'd done. "This body is different, but this"--I put my hand on my chest, my heart—"this is still human. Maybe it always will be. But it would have been easier to live with it" My throat welled. "Easier to live with what I did if my heart had changed, too. Maybe I wouldnt care so much; maybe I could convince myself their deaths werent in vain. Maybe immortality will take that away. I cant tell whether I want it to."

Rhysand stared at me for long enough that I faced her. "Be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who dont feel anything at all."

I couldnt explain about the hole that had already formed in my soul--didnt want to, so I just nodded.

"Well, good-bye for now," she said, rolling her neck as if we hadnt been talking about anything important at all.

She bowed at the waist, those wings vanishing entirely, and had begun to fade into the nearest shadow when she went rigid.

Her eyes locked on mine, wide and wild, and her nostrils flared. Shock—pure shock flashed across her features at whatever she saw on my face, and she stumbled back a step. Actually stumbled.

"What is--" I began.

She disappeared--simply disappeared, not a shadow in sight--into the crisp air.

Chapter Text

୧‿̩͙ ˖︵ to the stars who listen, and the dreams that are answered ︵˖ ‿̩͙୨

credit for title: @dreamworlddweller on instagram

Chapter Text

For a moment, I was nothing, no one. Then we were fused, two hearts beating as one, and I promised myself it always would be that way as he pulled out a few inches, the muscles of his back flexing beneath my hands, and then slammed back into me. Again and again.

I broke and broke against Tamlin as he moved, as he murmured my name and told me he loved me. And when that lightning once more filled my veins, my head, when I gasped out his name, his own release found him. I gripped him through each shuddering wave, savoring the weight of him, the feel of his skin, his strength.

For a while, only the rasp of our breathing filled the room. I frowned as he withdrew at last—but he didnt go far. He stretched out on his side, head propped on a fist, and traced idle circles on my stomach, along my breasts.

"I'm sorry about earlier," he murmured.

"Its fine," I breathed. "I understand."

Not a lie, but not quite true. His fingers grazed lower, circling my belly button.

"You are--you're everything to me," he said thickly. "I need I need you to be all right. To know they cant get to you--can't hurt you anymore."

"I know." Those fingers drifted lower. I swallowed hard and said again, "I know." I brushed his hair back from his face. "But what about you? Who gets to keep you safe?"

His mouth tightened. With his powers returned, he didnt need anyone to protect him, shield him. I could almost see invisible hackles raising--not at me, but at the thought of what he'd been mere months ago: prone to Amaros's whims, his power barely a trickle compared to the cascade now coursing through him.

He took a steadying breath, and leaned to kiss my heart, right between my breasts. It was answer enough.

"Soon," he murmured, and those fingers traveled back to my waist. I almost groaned. "Soon you'll be my wife, and it'll be fine. We'll leave all this behind us."

I arched my back, urging his hand lower, and he chuckled roughly. I didnt quite hear myself speak as I focused on the fingers that obeyed my silent command.

"What will everyone call me, then?"

He grazed my belly button as he leaned down, sucking the tip of my breast into his mouth.

"Hmm?" he said, and the rumble against my nipple made me writhe.

"Is everyone just going to call me 'Tamlin's wife'? Do I get a title?"

He lifted his head long enough to look at me. "Do you want a title?"

Before I could answer, he nipped at my breast, then licked over the small hurt--licked as his fingers at last dipped between my legs. He stroked lazy, taunting circles.

"No," I gasped out. "But I dont want people--I dont know if I can handle them calling me High Lady."

His fingers slid into me again, and he growled in approval at the wetness between my thighs, both from me and him.

"They won't," he said against my skin, positioning himself over me again and sliding down my body, trailing kisses as he went. "There is no such thing as a High Lady."

He gripped my thighs to spread my legs wide, lowering his mouth, and--

"What do you mean, theres no such thing as a High Lady?"

The heat, his touch—all of it stopped. He looked up from between my legs, and I almost climaxed at the sight of it. But what he said, what he'd implied He kissed the inside of my thigh.

"High Lords only take wives. Consorts. There has never been a High Lady."

"But Rhysand is a High Lady," I recalled.

"No, Rhysand calls herself a High Lady," he corrected. "That doesn't truly make her one. She likes to feed into the delusion that she's more important than she actually is."

"She rules over a Court just like the rest of you. But because she's a female, she doesn't she deserve the same title?"

"Do you think she deserves anything?" he challenged. "She was the whore of one of the cruelest kings to ever rule."

While part of me didn't think she deserved the same respect as my High Lord, I couldn't shake the memory of that night before the Third Task. It didn't seem like she'd had much of a choice in being his whore.

"She told me she's more powerful than all of the High Lord's combined," I remembered. "She thinks that alone earns her the title."

"Rhysand tends to think very highly of herself," he scoffed. "But not many others think she deserves any title at all."

"But Rhys--"

"I don't want to hear anyone else's name on your lips right now," he growled, and lowered his mouth to me.

At the first stroke of his tongue, I stopped arguing.

Chapter Text

I really, truly hated my wedding gown. It was a monstrosity of tulle and chiffon and gossamer, so unlike the loose gowns I usually wore: the bodice fitted, the neckline curved to plump my breasts, and the skirts . . . The skirts were a sparkling tent, practically floating in the balmy spring air.

No wonder Tamlin had laughed. Even Alis, as she'd dressed me, had hummed to herself, but said nothing. Most likely because Ianthe had personally selected the gown to complement whatever tale she'd weave today--the legend she'd proclaim to the world.

I might have dealt with it all if it weren't for the puffy capped sleeves, so big I could almost see them glinting from the periphery of my vision.

My hair had been curled, half up, half down, entwined with pearls and jewels and the Cauldron knew what, and it had taken all my self-control to keep from cringing at the mirror before descending the sweeping stairs into the main hall. My dress hissed and swished with each step.

Beyond the shut patio doors where I paused, the garden had been bedecked in ribbons and lanterns in shades of cream, blush, and sky blue. Three hundred chairs were assembled in the largest courtyard, each seat occupied by Tamlin's court. I'd make my way down the main aisle, enduring their stares, before I reached the dais at the other end--where Tamlin would be waiting.

Then Ianthe would sanction and bless our union right before sundown, as a representative of all twelve High Priestesses. She'd hinted that they'd pushed to be present--but through whatever cunning, she'd managed to keep the other eleven away. Either to claim the attention for herself, or to spare me from being hounded by the pack of them. I couldn't tell. Perhaps both.

My mouth went paper-dry as Alis fluffed out the sparkling train of my gown in the shadow of the garden doors. Silk and gossamer rustled and sighed, and I gripped the pale bouquet in my gloved hands, nearly snapping the stems. Elbow-length silk gloves—to hide the markings. Ianthe had delivered them herself this morning in a velvet-lined box.

"Don't be nervous," Alis clucked, her tree-bark skin rich and flushed in the honeygold evening light.

"I'm not," I rasped.

"You're fidgeting like my youngest nephew during a haircut."

She finished fussing over my dress, shooing away some servants who'd come to spy on me before the ceremony. I pretended I didnt see them, or the glittering, sunset-gilded crowd seated in the courtyard ahead, and toyed with some invisible fleck of dust on my skirts.

"You look beautiful," Alis said quietly. I was fairly certain her thoughts on the dress were the same as my own, but I believed her.

"Thank you."

"And you sound like you're going to your funeral."

I plastered a grin on my face. Alis rolled her eyes. But she nudged me toward the doors as they opened on some immortal wind, lilting music streaming in.

"It'll be over faster than you can blink," she promised, and gently pushed me into the last of the sunlight.

Three hundred people rose to their feet and pivoted toward me. Not since my last trial had so many gathered to watch me, judge me. All in finery so similar to what they'd worn Under the Mountain. Their faces blurred, melded.

Alis coughed from the shadows of the house, and I remembered to start walking, to look toward the dais--At Tamlin.

The breath knocked from me, and it was an effort to keep going down the stairs, to keep my knees from buckling. He was resplendent in a tunic of green and gold, a crown of burnished laurel leaves gleaming on his head. He'd loosened the grip on his glamour, letting that immortal light and beauty shine through--for me.

My vision narrowed on him, on my High Lord, his wide eyes glistening as I stepped onto the soft grass, white rose petals scattered down it--And red ones.

Like drops of blood amongst the white, red petals had been sprayed across the path ahead. I forced my gaze up, to Tamlin, his shoulders back, head high.

So unaware of the true extent of how broken and dark I was inside. How unfit I was to be clothed in white when my hands were so filthy. Everyone else was thinking it. They had to be.

Every step was too fast, propelling me toward the dais and Tamlin. And toward Ianthe, clothed in dark blue robes tonight, beaming beneath that hood and silver crown.

As if I were good--as if I hadnt murdered two of their kind.

I was a murderer and a liar.

A cluster of red petals loomed ahead--just like that Fae youth's blood had pooled at my feet. Ten steps from the dais, at the edge of that splatter of red, I slowed.

Then stopped.

Everyone was watching, exactly as they had when I'd nearly died, spectators to my torment. Tamlin extended a broad hand, brows narrowing slightly. My heart beat so fast, too fast.

I was going to vomit. Right over those rose petals; right over the grass and ribbons trailing into the aisle from the chairs flanking it.

And between my skin and bones, something thrummed and pounded, rising and pushing, lashing through my blood--

So many eyes, too many eyes, pressed on me, witnesses to every crime I'd committed. I don't know why I'd even bothered to wear gloves, why I'd let Ianthe convince me.

The fading sun was too hot, the garden too hedged in. As inescapable as the vow I was about to make, binding me to him forever, shackling him to my broken and weary soul. The thing inside me was roiling now, my body shaking with the building force of it as it hunted for a way out--

Forever--I would never get better, never get free of myself, of that dungeon where I'd spent three months--

"Feyre," Tamlin said, his hand steady as he continued to reach for mine. The sun sank past the lip of the western garden wall; shadows pooled, chilling the air.

If I turned away, they'd start talking, but I couldn't make the last few steps, couldn't, couldn't, couldn't--

I was going to fall apart, right there, right then--and they'd see precisely how ruined I was.

Help me, help me, help me, I begged someone, anyone.

Begged Lucien, standing in the front row, his metal eye fixed on me. Begged Ianthe, face serene and patient and lovely within that hood.

Save me—please, save me. Get me out. End this.

Tamlin took a step toward me—concern shading those eyes. I retreated a step. Tamlin's mouth tightened. The crowd murmured. Silk streamers laden with globes of gold faelight twinkled into life above and around us.

Ianthe said smoothly, "Come, Bride, and be joined with your true love. Come, Bride, and let good triumph at last."

Good. I was not good. I was nothing, and my soul, my eternal soul, was damned--

I tried to get my traitorous lungs to draw air so I could voice the word. No—no. But I didnt have to say it.

Thunder cracked behind me, as if two boulders had been hurled against each other. People screamed, falling back, a few vanishing outright as darkness erupted.

I whirled, and through the night drifting away like smoke on a wind, I found Rhysand straightening the skirt of her black dress.

"Hello, Feyre darling," she purred.

I shouldn't have been surprised. Not when Rhysand liked to make a spectacle of everything. And found pissing off Tamlin to be an art form.

But there she was.

Rhysand, Lady of the Night Court, now stood beside me, darkness leaking from her like ink in water. She angled her head, her blue-black hair shifting with the movement. Those violet eyes sparkled in the golden faelight as they fixed on Tamlin, as she held up a hand to where Tamlin and Lucien and their sentries had their swords half-drawn, sizing up how to get me out of the way, how to bring her down--

But at the lift of that hand, they froze. Ianthe, however, was backing away slowly, face drained of color.

"What a pretty little wedding," Rhysand said, studying her long nails as those many swords remained in their sheaths. The remaining crowd was pressing back, some climbing over seats to get away.

Rhys looked me over slowly, and clicked her tongue at my silk gloves. Whatever had been building beneath my skin went still and cold.

"Get the hell out," growled Tamlin, stalking toward us. Claws ripped from his knuckles.

Rhys clicked her tongue again. "Oh, I don't think so. Not when I need to call in my bargain with Feyre darling."

My stomach hollowed out. No—no, not now.

"You try to break the bargain, and you know what will happen," Rhys went on, chuckling a bit at the crowd still falling over themselves to get away from her. She jerked her chin toward me. "I gave you three months of freedom. You could at least look happy to see me."

I was shaking too badly to say anything. Rhys's eyes flickered with distaste. The expression was gone when she faced Tamlin again. "I'll be taking her now."

"Don't you dare," Tamlin snarled. Behind him, the dais was empty; Ianthe had vanished entirely. Along with most of those in attendance.

"Was I interrupting? I thought it was over." Rhys gave me a smile dripping with venom. She knew--through that bond, through whatever magic was between us, she'd known I was about to say no. "At least, Feyre seemed to think so."

Tamlin snarled, "Let us finish the ceremony--"

"Your High Priestess," Rhys said, "seems to think it's over, too."

Tamlin stiffened as he looked over a shoulder to find the altar empty. When he faced us again, the claws had eased halfway back into his hands. "Rhysand--"

"I'm in no mood to bargain," Rhys said, "even though I could work it to my advantage, I'm sure." I jolted at the caress of her hand on my elbow. "Let's go."

I didn't move.

"Tamlin," I breathed.

Tamlin took a single step toward me, his golden face turning sallow, but remained focused on Rhys. "Name your price."

"Don't bother," Rhys crooned, linking elbows with me. Every spot of contact was abhorrent, unbearable.

She'd take me back to the Night Court, the place Amaros had supposedly modeled Under the Mountain after, full of depravity and torture and death--

"Tamlin, please."

"Such dramatics," Rhysand said, tugging me closer.

But Tamlin didn't move--and those claws were wholly replaced by smooth skin. He fixed his gaze on Rhys, his lips pulling back in a snarl. "If you hurt her--"

"I know, I know," Rhysand drawled. "I'll return her in a week."

No—no, Tamlin couldn't be making those kinds of threats, not when they meant he was letting me go. Even Lucien was gaping at Tamlin, his face white with fury and shock.

Rhys released my elbow only to slip a hand around my waist, pressing me into her side as she whispered in my ear, "Hold on."

Then darkness roared, a wind tearing me this way and that, the ground falling away beneath me, the world gone around me. Only Rhys remained, and I hated her as I clung to her, I hated her with my entire heart--

Then the darkness vanished.

I smelled jasmine first--then saw stars. A sea of stars flickering beyond glowing pillars of moonstone that framed the sweeping view of endless snowcapped mountains.

"Welcome to the Night Court," was all Rhys said.

It was the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. Whatever building we were in had been perched atop one of the gray-stoned mountains. The hall around us was open to the elements, no windows to be found, just towering pillars and gossamer curtains, swaying in that jasmine-scented breeze.

It must be some magic, to keep the air warm in the dead of winter. Not to mention the altitude, or the snow coating the mountains, mighty winds sending veils of it drifting off the peaks like wandering mist.

Little seating, dining, and work areas dotted the hall, sectioned off with those curtains or lush plants or thick rugs scattered over the moonstone floor. A few balls of light bobbed on the breeze, along with colored-glass lanterns dangling from the arches of the ceiling.

Not a scream, not a shout, not a plea to be heard.

Behind me, a wall of white marble arose, broken occasionally by open doorways leading into dim stairwells. The rest of the Night Court had to be through there. No wonder I couldnt hear anyone screaming, if they were all inside.

"This is my private residence," Rhys said casually.

Her skin was darker than I'd remembered--golden now, rather than pale. Pale, from being locked Under the Mountain for fifty years. I scanned her, searching for any sign of the massive, membranous wings--the ones she'd admitted she loved flying with. But there was none. Just the female, smirking at me. And that too-familiar expression--

"How dare you--"

Rhys snorted. "I certainly missed that look on your face." She stalked closer, her movements feline, those violet eyes turning subdued--lethal. "You're welcome, you know."

"For what?"

Rhys paused less than a foot away, running a hand through her long, black hair. The night didn't seem to ripple from her here--and she appeared, despite her perfection, almost normal.

"For saving you when asked."

I stiffened. "I didn't ask for anything."

Her stare dipped to my left hand. Rhys gave no warning as she gripped my arm, snarling softly, and tore off the glove.

Her touch was like a brand, and I flinched, yielding a step, but she held firm until she'd gotten both gloves off. "I heard you begging someone, anyone, to rescue you, to get you out. I heard you say no."

"I didn't say anything."

She turned my bare hand over, her hold tightening as she examined the eye she'd tattooed. She tapped the pupil. Once. Twice. "I heard it loud and clear."

I wrenched my hand away. "Take me back. Now. I didn't want to be stolen away."

She shrugged. "What better time to take you here? Maybe Tamlin didn't notice you were about to reject him in front of his entire court--maybe you can now simply blame it on me."

"You're a bitch. You made it clear enough that I had . . . reservations."

"Such gratitude, as always."

I struggled to get down a single, deep breath. "What do you want from me?"

"Want? I want you to say thank you, first of all. Then I want you to take off that hideous dress. You look--" Her mouth cut a cruel line. "You look exactly like the doe-eyed damsel he and that simpering priestess want you to be."

"You don't know anything about me. Or us."

Rhys gave me a knowing smile. "Does Tamlin? Does he ever ask you why you hurl your guts up every night, or why you cant go into certain rooms or see certain colors?"

I froze. She might as well have stripped me naked. "Get the hell out of my head."

Tamlin had horrors of his own to endure, to face down.

"Likewise." She stalked a few steps away. "You think I enjoy being awoken every night by visions of you puking? You send everything right down that bond, and I don't appreciate having a front-row seat when I'm trying to sleep."

"Bitch."

Another chuckle. But I wouldnt ask about what she meant--about the bond between us. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of looking curious. "As for what else I want from you--" She gestured to the house behind us. "I'll tell you tomorrow at breakfast. For now, clean yourself up. Rest." That rage flickered in her eyes again at the dress, the hair. "Take the stairs on the right, one level down. Your room is the first door."

"Not a dungeon cell?" Perhaps it was foolish to reveal that fear, to suggest it to her.

But Rhys half turned, brows lifting. "You are not a prisoner, Feyre. You made a bargain, and I am calling it in. You will be my guest here, with the privileges of a member of my household. None of my subjects are going to touch you, hurt you, or so much as think ill of you here."

My tongue was dry and heavy as I said, "And where might those subjects be?"

"Some dwell here--in the mountain beneath us." She angled her head. "They're forbidden to set foot in this residence. They know they'd be signing their death warrant."

Her eyes met mine, stark and clear, as if she could sense the panic, the shadows creeping in.

"Amaros wasn't very creative," she said with quiet wrath. "My court beneath this mountain has long been feared, and he chose to replicate it by violating the space of Prythian's sacred mountain. So, yes: there's a court beneath this mountain--the court your Tamlin now expects me to be subjecting you to. I preside over it every now and then, but it mostly rules itself."

"When--when are you taking me there?"

If I had to go underground, had to see those kinds of horrors again I'd beg her--beg her not to take me. I didn't care how pathetic it made me. I'd lost any sort of qualms about what lines I'd cross to survive.

"I'm not." She rolled her shoulders. "This is my home, and the court beneath it is my occupation, as you mortals call it. I do not like for the two to overlap very often."

My brows rose slightly. "'You mortals'?"

Starlight danced along the planes of her face. "Should I consider you something different?"

A challenge. I shoved away my irritation at the amusement again tugging at the corners of her lips, and instead said, "And the other denizens of your court?"

The Night Court territory was enormous--bigger than any other in Prythian. And all around us were those empty, snow-blasted mountains. No sign of towns, cities, or anything.

"Scattered throughout, dwelling as they wish. Just as you are now free to roam where you wish."

"I wish to roam home."

Rhys laughed, finally sauntering toward the other end of the hall, which ended in a veranda open to the stars. "I'm willing to accept your thanks at any time, you know," she called to me without looking back.

Red exploded in my vision, and I couldnt breathe fast enough, couldnt think above the roar in my head. One heartbeat, I was staring after her--the next, I had my shoe in a hand.

I hurled it at her with all my strength. All my considerable, immortal strength. I barely saw my silk slipper as it flew through the air, fast as a shooting star, so fast that even a High Lady couldn't detect it as it neared--

And slammed into her head.

Rhys whirled, a hand rising to the back of her head, her eyes wide.

I already had the other shoe in my hand. Rhys's lip pulled back from her teeth. "I dare you." Temper--she had to be in some mood today to let her temper show this much.

Good. That made two of us. I flung my other shoe right at her head, as swift and hard as the first one. Her hand snatched up, grabbing the shoe mere inches from her face.

Rhys hissed and lowered the shoe, her eyes meeting mine as the silk dissolved to glittering black dust in her fist. Her fingers unfurled, the last of the sparkling ashes blowing into oblivion, and she surveyed my hand, my body, my face.

"Interesting," she murmured, and continued on her way.

I debated tackling her and pummeling that face with my fists, but I wasn't stupid. I was in her home, on top of a mountain in the middle of absolutely nowhere, it seemed. No one would be coming to rescue me--no one was even here to witness my screaming.

So I turned toward the doorway she'd indicated, heading for the dim stairwell beyond.

I'd nearly reached it, not daring to breathe too loudly, when a bright, amused female voice said behind me--far away, from wherever Rhys had gone to at the opposite end of the hall, "So, that went well."

Rhys's answering snarl sent my footsteps hurrying.

Chapter Text

     Rhys hadn't been lying when she said I was to join her for breakfast.

"I'm not a dog to be summoned," I said by way of greeting.

Slowly, Rhys looked over her shoulder. Those violet eyes were vibrant in the light, and I curled my fingers into fists as they swept from my head to my toes and back up again. She frowned at whatever she found lacking.

"I didn't want you to get lost," she said blandly.

My head throbbed, and I eyed the silver teapot steaming in the center of the table. A cup of tea . . .

"I thought it'd always be dark here," I said, if only to not look quite as desperate for that life-giving tea so early in the morning.

"We're one of the three Solar Courts," she said, motioning for me to sit with a graceful twist of her wrist. "Our nights are far more beautiful, and our sunsets and dawns are exquisite, but we do adhere to the laws of nature."

I slid into the upholstered chair across from her. Her dress dipped at the neck, revealing a hint of her tanned cleavage beneath.

"And do the other courts choose not to?"

"The nature of the Seasonal Courts," she said, "is linked to their High Lords, whose magic and will keeps them in eternal spring, or winter, or fall, or summer. It has always been like that--some sort of strange stagnation. But the Solar Courts--Day, Dawn, and Night--are of a more symbolic nature. We might be powerful, but even we cannot alter the sun's path or strength. Tea?"

The sunlight danced along the curve of the silver teapot. I kept my eager nod to a restrained dip of my chin.

"But you will find," Rhysand went on, pouring a cup for me, "that our nights are more spectacular--so spectacular that some in my territory even awaken at sunset and go to bed at dawn, just to live under the starlight."

I splashed some milk in the tea, watching the light and dark eddy together. "Why is it so warm in here, when winter is in full blast out there?"

"Magic."

"Obviously." I set down my teaspoon and sipped, nearly sighing at the rush of heat and smoky, rich flavor. "But why?"

Rhys scanned the wind tearing through the peaks. "You heat a house in the winter--why shouldn't I heat this place as well? I'll admit I don't know why my predecessors built a palace fit for the Summer Court in the middle of a mountain range that's mildly warm at best, but who am I to question?"

I took a few more sips, that headache already lessening, and dared to scoop some fruit onto my plate from a glass bowl nearby.

She watched every movement. Then she said quietly, "You've lost weight."

"You're prone to digging through my head whenever you please," I said, stabbing a piece of melon with my fork. "I don't see why you're surprised by it."

Her gaze didn't lighten, though that smile again played about her sensuous mouth, no doubt her favorite mask. "Only occasionally will I do that. And I can't help it if you send things down the bond."

I contemplated refusing to ask as I had done last night, but . . . "How does it work--this bond that allows you to see into my head?"

She sipped from her own tea. "Think of the bargain's bond as a bridge between us--and at either end is a door to our respective minds. A shield. My innate talents allow me to slip through the mental shields of anyone I wish, with or without that bridge--unless they're very, very strong, or have trained extensively to keep those shields tight. As a human, the gates to your mind were flung open for me to stroll through. As Fae . . ." A little shrug. "Sometimes, you unwittingly have a shield up--sometimes, when emotion seems to be running strong, that shield vanishes. And sometimes, when those shields are open, you might as well be standing at the gates to your mind, shouting your thoughts across the bridge to me. Sometimes I hear them; sometimes I don't."

I scowled, clenching my fork harder. "And how often do you just rifle through my mind when my shields are down?"

All amusement faded from her face. "When I can't tell if your nightmares are real threats or imagined. When you're about to be married and you silently beg anyone to help you. Only when you drop your mental shields and unknowingly blast those things down the bridge. And to answer your question before you ask, yes. Even with your shields up, I could get through them if I wished. You could train, though--learn how to shield against someone like me, even with the bond bridging our minds and my own abilities."

I ignored the offer. Agreeing to do anything with her felt too permanent, too accepting of the bargain between us. "What do you want with me? You said you'd tell me here. So tell me."

Rhys leaned back in her chair. "For this week? I want you to learn how to read."

Rhysand had mocked me about it once--had asked me while we were Under the Mountain if forcing me to learn how to read would be my personal idea of torture.

"No, thank you," I said, gripping my fork to keep from chucking it at her head.

"You're going to be a High Lord's wife," Rhys said. "You'll be expected to maintain your own correspondences, perhaps even give a speech or two. And the Cauldron knows what else he and Ianthe will deem appropriate for you. Make menus for dinner parties, write thank-you letters for all those wedding gifts, embroider sweet phrases on pillows . . . It's a necessary skill. And, you know what? Why don't we throw in shielding while we're at it. Reading and shielding--fortunately, you can practice them together."

"They are both necessary skills," I said through my teeth, "but you are not going to teach me."

"What else are you going to do with yourself? Paint? How's that going these days, Feyre?"

"What the hell does it even matter to you?"

"It serves various purposes of mine, of course."

"What. Purposes."

"You'll have to agree to work with me to find out, I'm afraid."

Something sharp poked into my hand.

I'd folded the fork into a tangle of metal.

When I set it down on the table, Rhys chuckled. "Interesting."

"You said that last night."

"Am I not allowed to say it twice?"

"That's not what I was implying and you know it."

Her gaze raked over me again, as if she could see beneath the peach fabric, through the skin, to the shredded soul beneath. Then it drifted to the mangled fork. "Has anyone ever told you that you're rather strong for a High Fae?"

"Am I?"

"I'll take that as a no." She popped a piece of melon into her mouth. "Have you tested yourself against anyone?"

"Why would I?" I was enough of a wreck as it was.

"Because you were resurrected and reborn by combined powers. If I were you, I'd be curious to see if anything else transferred to me during that process."

My blood chilled. "Nothing else transferred to me."

"It'd just be rather . . . interesting," she smirked at the word, "if it did."

"It didn't, and I'm not going to learn to read or shield with you."

"Why? From spite? I thought you and I get past that Under the Mountain."

But quick, light footsteps sounded down the hall, distracting us from our conversation.

And then she appeared.

If Rhysand was the most beautiful female I'd ever seen, this one was next in line for the title.

Her bright, golden hair was tied back in a casual braid, and the turquoise of her clothes--fashioned like my own--offset her sun-kissed skin, making her practically glow in the morning light.

"Hello, hello," she chirped, her full lips parting in a dazzling smile as her rich brown eyes fixed on me.

"Feyre," Rhys said smoothly, "meet my cousin, Morrigan. Mor, meet the lovely, charming, and open-minded Feyre."

I debated splashing my tea in her face, but Mor strode toward me. Each step was assured and steady, graceful, and . . . grounded. Merry but alert. Someone who didn't need weapons--or at least bother to sheath them at her side.

"I've heard so much about you," she said, and I got to my feet, awkwardly jutting out my hand.

She ignored it and grabbed me into a bone-crushing hug. She smelled like citrus and cinnamon. I tried to relax my taut muscles as she pulled away and grinned rather fiendishly.

"You look like you were getting under Rhys's skin," she said, strutting to her seat between us. "Good thing I came along."

Rhys slid incredulous eyes at her, her brows lifting. I hid the smile that tugged on my lips. "It's--nice to meet you."

"Liar," Mor said, pouring herself some tea and loading her plate. "You want nothing to do with us, do you? And wicked Rhys is making you sit here."

"You're . . . perky today, Mor," Rhys said.

Mor's stunning eyes lifted to her cousin's face. "Forgive me for being excited about having company for once."

"You could be attending your own duties," she said testily. I clamped my lips tighter together. I'd never seen Rhys . . . irked.

"I needed a break, and you told me to come here whenever I liked, so what better time than now, when you brought my new friend to finally meet me?"

I blinked, realizing two things at once: one, she actually meant what she said; two, hers was the female voice I'd heard speak last night, mocking Rhys for our squabble.

So, that went well, she'd teased. As if there were any other alternative, any chance of pleasantness, where Rhys and I were concerned.

A new fork had appeared beside my plate, and I picked it up, only to spear a piece of melon.

"You two look nothing alike," I said at last.

"Mor is my cousin in the loosest definition," she said. Mor grinned at her, devouring slices of tomato and pale cheese. "But we were raised together. She's my only surviving family."

I didn't have the nerve to ask what happened to everyone else. Or remind myself whose father was responsible for the lack of family at my own court.

"And as my only remaining relative," Rhys went on, "Mor believes she is entitled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit."

"So grumpy this morning," Mor said, plopping two muffins onto her plate.

"I didn't see you Under the Mountain," I found myself saying, hating those last three words more than anything.

"Oh, I wasn't there," she said. "I was in--"

"Enough, Mor," Rhys said, her voice laced with quiet thunder.

It was a trial in itself not to sit up at the interruption, not to study them too closely.

Rhysand set her napkin on the table and rose. "Mor will be here for the rest of the week, but by all means, do not feel that you have to oblige her with your presence."

Mor stuck out her tongue at her. Rhys rolled her eyes, the most human gesture I'd ever seen her make. She examined my plate. "Did you eat enough?" I nodded. "Good. Then let's go."

She inclined her head toward the pillars and swaying curtains behind her.

"Your first lesson awaits."

Mor sliced one of the muffins in two in a steady sweep of her knife. The angle of her fingers, her wrist, indeed confirmed my suspicions that weapons weren't at all foreign to her. "If she pisses you off, Feyre, feel free to shove her over the rail of the nearest balcony."

Rhys gave her a smooth, filthy gesture as she strode down the hall.

I eased to my feet when she was a good distance ahead. "Enjoy your breakfast."

"Whenever you want company," Mor said as I edged around the table, "give a shout."

She probably meant that literally.

I merely nodded and trailed after Rhys.

I agreed to sit at the long, wooden table in a curtained-off alcove only because she had a point. Not being able to read had almost cost me my life Under the Mountain. I'd be damned if I let it become a weakness again, her personal agenda or no.

And as for shielding . . . I'd be a damned fool not to take up the offer to learn from her. The thought of anyone, especially Rhys, sifting through the mess in my mind, taking information about the Spring Court, about the people I loved . . . I'd never allow it. Not willingly.

But it didnt make it any easier to endure Rhysand's presence at the wooden table. Or the stack of books piled atop it.

"I know my alphabet," I said sharply as she laid a piece of paper in front of me. "I'm not that stupid."

I twisted my fingers in my lap, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs.

"I didn't say you were stupid," she said. "I'm just trying to determine where we should begin." I leaned back in the cushioned seat. "Since you've refused to tell me a thing about how much you know."

My face warmed. "Can't you hire a tutor?"

She lifted a brow. "Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?"

"You're a High Lady--don't you have better things to do?"

"Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm."

"You're a real bitch, you know that?"

Rhys huffed a laugh. "I've been called worse. In fact, I think you've called me worse." She tapped the paper in front of her. "Read that."

A blur of letters. My throat tightened. "I can't."

"Try."

The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. Her writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked up.

"What, exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you'd tell me if I worked with you."

"I didn't specify when I'd tell you." I peeled back from her as my lip curled. She shrugged. "Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe--"

"I get it."

Rhys snorted. "Try to read it, Feyre."

I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out in my head. "Y-you . . . " The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic. "Look . . . "

"Good," she murmured.

"I didn't ask for your approval."

Rhys chuckled.

"Ab . . . Absolutely." It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. "De . . .Del . . ."

I deigned to glance at her, brows raised.

"Delicious," she purred.

My brows now knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward her. "You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That's what you wrote?"

She leaned back in her seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my mind and her voice whispered inside my head: It's true, isn't it?

I jolted back, my chair groaning. "Stop that!"

But those claws now dug in--and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to her grip, utterly at her command as she said, The fashion of the Night Court suits you.

I couldnt move in my seat, couldnt even blink.

This is what happens when you leave your mental shields down. Someone with my sort of powers could slip inside, see what they want, and take your mind for themselves. Or they could shatter it. I'm currently standing on the threshold of your mind . . . but if I were to go deeper, all it would take would be half a thought from me and who you are, your very self, would be wiped away.

Distantly, sweat slid down my temple.

You should be afraid. You should be afraid of this, and you should be thanking the gods-damned Cauldron that in the past three months, no one with my sorts of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out.

I couldn't. Those claws were everywhere--digging into every thought, every piece of self. She pushed a little harder.

Shove. Me. Out.

I didn't know where to begin. I blindly pushed and slammed myself into her, into those claws that were everywhere, as if I were a top loosed in a circle of mirrors.

Her laughter, low and soft, filled my mind, my ears. That way, Feyre.

In answer, a little open path gleamed inside my mind. The road out.

It'd take me forever to unhook each claw and shove the mass of her presence out that narrow opening. If I could wash it away--

A wave. A wave of self, of me, to sweep all of her out--

I didn't let her see the plan take form as I rallied myself into a cresting wave and struck. The claws loosened--reluctantly. As if letting me win this round.

She merely said, "Good."

My bones, my breath and blood, they were mine again. I slumped in my seat.

"Not yet," she said. "Shield. Block me out so I can't get back in."

I already wanted to go somewhere quiet and sleep for a while--

Claws at that outer layer of my mind, stroking--

I imagined a wall of adamant snapping down, black as night and a foot thick. The claws retracted a breath before the wall sliced them in two.

Rhys was grinning. "Very nice. Blunt, but nice."

I couldnt help myself. I grabbed the piece of paper and shredded it in two, then four.

"You're awful."

"Oh, most definitely. But look at you--you read that whole sentence, kicked me out of your mind, and shielded. Excellent work."

"Don't condescend to me."

"I'm not. You're reading at a level far higher than I anticipated."

That burning returned to my cheeks. "But mostly illiterate."

"At this point, it's about practice, spelling, and more practice. You could be reading novels by Nynsar. And if you keep adding to those shields, you might very well keep me out entirely by then, too."

Nynsar. It'd be the first Tamlin and his court would celebrate in nearly fifty years. Amaros had banned it on a whim, along with a few other small, but beloved Fae holidays that he had deemed unnecessary. But Nynsar was months from now.

"Is it even possible--to truly keep you out?"

"Not likely, but who knows how deep that power goes? Keep practicing and we'll see what happens."

"And will I still be bound by this bargain at Nynsar, too?"

Silence.

I pushed, "After--after what happened--" I couldnt mention specifics on what had occurred Under the Mountain, what she'd done for me during that fight with Amaros, what she'd done after-- "I think we can agree that I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing."

Her gaze was unflinching.

I blazed on, "Isn't it enough that were all free?" I splayed my tattooed hand on the table. "By the end, I thought you were different, thought that it was all a mask, but taking me away, keeping me here . . . "

I shook my head, unable to find the words vicious enough, clever enough to convince her to end this bargain.

Her eyes darkened. "I'm not your enemy, Feyre."

"Tamlin says you are." I curled the fingers of my tattooed hand into a fist. "Everyone else says you are."

"And what do you think?" She leaned back in her chair again, but her face was grave.

"You're doing a damned good job of making me agree with them."

"Liar," she purred. "Did you even tell your friends about what happened Under the Mountain?"

"I don't want to talk about anything related to that. With you or them."

"No, because it's so much easier to pretend it never happened and let them coddle you."

"I don't let them coddle me--"

"They had you wrapped up like a present yesterday. Like you were his reward."

"So?"

"So?" A flicker of rage, then it was gone.

"I'm ready to be taken home," I merely said.

"Where you'll be cloistered for the rest of your life, especially once you start punching out heirs. I can't wait to see what Ianthe does when she gets her hands on them."

"You don't seem to have a particularly high opinion of her."

Something cold and predatory crept into her eyes. "No, I can't say that I do." She pointed to a blank piece of paper. "Start copying the alphabet. Until your letters are perfect. And every time you get through a round, lower and raise your shield. Until that is second nature. I'll be back in an hour."

"What?"

"Copy. The. Alphabet. Until--"

"I heard what you said." Bitch.

"Then get to work." Rhys uncoiled to her feet. "And at least have the decency to only call me a bitch when your shields are back up."

She vanished into a ripple of darkness before I realized that I'd let the wall of adamant fade again.

By the time Rhys returned, my mind felt like a mud puddle.

I spent the entire hour doing as I'd been ordered, though I'd flinched at every sound from the nearby stairwell: quiet steps of servants, the flapping of sheets being changed, someone humming a beautiful and winding melody. And beyond that, the chatter of birds that dwelled in the unnatural warmth of the mountain or in the many potted citrus trees. No sign of my impending torment. No sentries, even, to monitor me. I might as well have had the entire place to myself.

Which was good, as my attempts to lower and raise that mental shield often resulted in my face being twisted or strained or pinched.

"Not bad," Rhys said, peering over my shoulder.

She'd appeared moments before, a healthy distance away, and if I hadn't known better, I might have thought it was because she didnt want to startle me. As if she'd known about the time Tamlin had crept up behind me, and panic had hit me so hard I'd knocked him on his ass with a punch to his stomach. I'd blocked it out--the shock on Tam's face, how easy it had been to take him off his feet, the humiliation of having my stupid terror so out in the open . . .

Rhys scanned the pages I'd scribbled on, sorting through them, tracking my progress.

Then, a scrape of claws inside my mind--that only sliced against black, glittering adamant.

I threw my lingering will into that wall as the claws pushed, testing for weak spots . . .

"Well, well," Rhysand purred, those mental claws withdrawing. "Hopefully I'll be getting a good night's rest at last, if you can manage to keep the wall up while you sleep."

I dropped the shield, sent a word blasting down that mental bridge between us, and hauled the walls back up. Behind it, my mind wobbled like jelly. I needed a nap.

Desperately.

"Look at you. Maybe we'll get to have some fun with our lessons after all."

I was still scowling at Rhys's toned back as I kept a healthy ten steps behind her while she led me through the halls of the main building, the sweeping mountains and blisteringly blue sky the only witnesses to our silent trek.

I was too drained to demand where we were now going, and she didn't bother explaining as she led me up, up--until we entered a round chamber at the top of a tower.

A circular table of black stone occupied the center, while the largest stretch of uninterrupted gray stone wall was covered in a massive map of our world. It had been marked and flagged and pinned, for whatever reasons I couldn't tell, but my gaze drifted to the windows throughout the room—so many that it felt utterly exposed, breathable. The perfect home, I supposed, for a Lady blessed with wings.

Rhys stalked to the table, where there was another map spread, figurines dotting its surface. A map of Prythian--and Hybern.

Every court in our land had been marked, along with villages and cities and rivers and mountain passes. Every court . . . but the Night Court.

The vast, northern territory was utterly blank. Not even a mountain range had been etched in. Strange, likely part of some strategy I didn't understand.

I found Rhysand watching me--her raised brows enough to make me shut my mouth against the forming question.

"Nothing to ask?"

"No."

A feline smirk danced on her lips, but Rhys jerked her chin toward the map on the wall. "What do you see?"

"Is this some sort of way of convincing me to embrace my reading lessons?"

Indeed, I couldnt decipher any of the writing, only the shapes of things. Like the wall, its massive line bisecting our world.

"Tell me what you see."

"A world divided in two."

"And do you think it should remain that way?"

I whipped my head toward her. "My family--" I halted on the word. I should have known better than to admit to having a family, that I cared for them--

"Your human family," Rhys finished, "would be deeply impacted if the wall came down, wouldnt they? So close to its border . . . If they're lucky, they'll flee across the ocean before it happens."

"Will it happen?"

Rhysand didn't break my stare. "Maybe."

"Why?"

"Because war is coming, Feyre."

Chapter Text

     War. The word clanged through me, freezing my veins. 

"Don't invade," I breathed. I'd get on my knees for this. I'd crawl if I had to. "Don't invade—please." Rhys cocked her head, her mouth tightening. 

"You truly think I'm a monster, even after everything." 

"Please," I gasped out. "They're defenseless, they won't stand a chance—" 

"I'm not going to invade the mortal lands," she said too quietly. 

     I waited for her to go on, glad for the spacious room, the bright air, as the ground started to slide out from beneath me. 

"Put your damn shield up," she snapped. 

     I looked inward, finding that invisible wall had dropped again. But I was so tired, and if war was coming, if my family— 

"Shield. Now." 

     The raw command in her voice—the voice of the Lady of the Night Court—had me acting on instinct, my exhausted mind building the wall brick by brick. Only when it'd ensconced my mind once more did she speak, her eyes softening almost imperceptibly. 

"Did you think it would end with Amaros?" 

"Tamlin hasn't said ... " And why would he tell me? But there were so many patrols, so many meetings I wasn't allowed to attend, such ... tension. He had to know. I needed to ask him—demand why he hadn't told me— 

"The King of Hybern has been planning his campaign to reclaim the world south of the wall for over a hundred years," Rhys said. "Amaros was an experiment—a forty-nine-year test, to see how easily and how long a territory might fall and be controlled by one of his commanders." 

     For an immortal, forty-nine years was nothing. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear he'd been planning this for far longer than a century. 

"Will he attack Prythian first?" 

"Prythian," Rhys said, pointing to the map of our massive island on the table, "is all that stands between the King of Hybern and the continent. He wants to reclaim the human lands there—perhaps seize the faerie lands, too. If anyone is to intercept his conquering fleet before it reaches the continent, it would be us." 

     I slid into one of the chairs, my knees wobbling so badly I could hardly keep upright. 

"He will seek to remove Prythian from his way swiftly and thoroughly," Rhys continued. "And shatter the wall at some point in the process. There are already holes in it, though mercifully small enough to make it difficult to swiftly pass his armies through. He'll want to bring the whole thing down—and likely use the ensuing panic to his advantage." 

     Each breath was like swallowing glass. "When—when is he going to attack?" 

     The wall had held steady for five centuries, and even then, those damned holes had allowed the foulest, hungriest Fae beasts to sneak through and prey on humans. Without that wall, if Hybern was indeed to launch an assault on the human world ... I wished I hadn't eaten such a large breakfast. 

"That is the question," she said. "And why I brought you here." I lifted my head to meet her stare. Her face was drawn, but calm. "I don't know when or where he plans to attack Prythian. I don't know who his allies here might be." 

"He'd have allies here?" 

     A slow nod. "Cowards who would bow and join him, rather than fight his armies again." I could have sworn a whisper of darkness spread along the floor behind her. 

"Did ...did you fight in the War?" For a moment, I thought she wouldn't answer. But then Rhys nodded. 

"I was young—by our standards, at least. But my father had sent aid to the mortal-faerie alliance on the continent, and I convinced him to let me take a legion of our soldiers." She sat in the chair beside mine, gazing vacantly at the map. "I was stationed in the south, right where the fighting was thickest. The slaughter was ... " She chewed on the inside of her cheek. "I have no interest in ever seeing full-scale slaughter like that again." 

     She blinked, as if clearing the horrors from her mind. 

"But I don't think the King of Hybern will strike that way—not at first. He's too smart to waste his forces here, to give the continent time to rally while we fight him. If he makes his move to destroy Prythian and the wall, it'll be through stealth and trickery. To weaken us. Amaros was the first part of that plan. We now have several untested High Lords, broken courts with High Priestesses angling for control like wolves around a carcass, and a people who have realized how powerless they might truly be." 

"Why are you telling me this?" I said, my voice thin, scratchy. 

     It made no sense—none—that she would reveal her suspicions, her fears. And Ianthe—she might be ambitious, but she was Tamlin's friend. My friend, of sorts. Perhaps the only ally we'd have against the other High Priestesses, Rhys's personal dislike for her or no ... 

"I am telling you for two reasons," she said, her face so cold, so calm, that it unnerved me as much as the news she was delivering. "One, you're ... close to Tamlin. He has men—but he also has long-existing ties to Hybern—" 

"He'd never help the king—" Rhys held up a hand. 

"I want to know if Tamlin is willing to fight with us. If he can use those connections to our advantage. As he and I have strained relations, you have the pleasure of being the go-between." 

"He doesn't inform me of those things." 

"Perhaps it's time he did. Perhaps it's time you insisted."

     She examined the map, and I followed where her gaze landed. On the wall within Prythian—on the small, vulnerable mortal territory. My mouth went dry. 

"What is your other reason?" 

     Rhys looked me up and down, assessing, weighing. "You have a skill set that I need. Rumor has it you caught a Suriel." 

"It wasn't that hard." 

"I've tried and failed. Twice. But that's a discussion for another day. I saw you trap the Middengard Wyrm like a rabbit." Her eyes twinkled. "I need you to help me. To use those skills of yours to track down what I need." 

"What do you need? Whatever was tied to my reading and shielding, I'm guessing?" 

"You'll learn of that later." I didn't know why I'd even bothered to ask. 

"There have to be at least a dozen other hunters more experienced and skilled—" 

"Maybe there are. But you're the only one I trust." I blinked. 

"I could betray you whenever I feel like it." 

"You could. But you won't."

      I gritted my teeth, and was about to say something vicious when she added, "And then there's the matter of your powers." 

"I don't have any powers." It came out so fast that there was no chance of it sounding like anything but denial. Rhys crossed her legs. 

"Don't you? The strength, the speed ... If I didn't know better, I'd say you and Tamlin were doing a very good job of pretending you're normal. That the powers you're displaying aren't usually the first indications among our kind that a High Lord's son might become his Heir." 

"I'm not a High Lord." 

"No, but you were given life by all seven of us. Your very essence is tied to us, born of us. What if we gave you more than we expected?" Again, that gaze raked over me. "What if you could stand against us—hold your own, a High Lady?" 

"There are no High Ladies." 

     Her brows furrowed, but she shook her head. "We'll talk about that later, too. But yes, Feyre—there can be High Ladies. I am proof of that. And perhaps you aren't one of them, but ... what if you were something similar? What if you were able to wield the power of seven rulers at once? What if you could blend into darkness, or shape-shift, or freeze over an entire room—an entire army?" 

      The winter wind on the nearby peaks seemed to howl in answer. That thing I'd felt under my skin ... 

"Do you understand what that might mean in an oncoming war? Do you understand how it might destroy you if you don't learn to control it?" 

"One, stop asking so many rhetorical questions. Two, we don't know if I do have these powers—" 

"You do. But you need to start mastering them. To learn what you inherited from us." 

"And I suppose you're the one to teach me, too? Reading and shielding aren't enough?" 

"While you hunt with me for what I need, yes." 

      I began shaking my head. "Tamlin won't allow it." 

"Tamlin isn't your keeper, and you know it." 

"I'm his subject, and he is my High Lord—" 

"You are no one's subject." I went rigid at the flash of teeth, the smoke-like wings that flared out. "I will say this once—and only once. You can be a pawn, be someone's reward, and spend the rest of your immortal life bowing and scraping and pretending you're less than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then fine. A shame, but it's your choice." The shadow of wings rippled again. "But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don't believe for one damn minute that you're remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—"

"Stop it—" 

"Or," she plowed ahead, "you've got another choice. You can master whatever powers we gave to you, and make it count. You can play a role in this war. Because war is coming one way or another, and do not try to delude yourself that any of the Fae will give a shit about your family across the wall when our whole territory is likely to become a charnel house." 

     I stared at the map—at Prythian, and that sliver of land at its southern base. 

"You want to save the mortal realm?" she asked. "Then become someone Prythian listens to. Become vital. Become a weapon. Because there might be a day, Feyre, when only you stand between the King of Hybern and your human family. And you do not want to be unprepared."  

      I lifted my gaze to her, my breath tight, aching. As if she hadn't just knocked the world from beneath my feet, Rhysand said, "Think it over. Take the week. Ask Tamlin, if it'll make you sleep better. See what charming Ianthe says about it. But it's your choice to make—no one else's." 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     I didn't see Rhysand for the rest of the week. Or Mor. The only people I encountered were Nuala and Cerridwen, who delivered my meals, made my bed, and occasionally asked how I was faring. 

     The only evidence I had at all that Rhys remained on the premises were the blank copies of the alphabet, along with several sentences I was to write every day, swapping out words, each one more obnoxious than the last: 

Rhysand is the most beautiful ruler in Prythian. 

Rhysand is the most delightful ruler in Prythian. 

Rhysand is the most cunning ruler in Prythian. 

     Every day, one miserable sentence—with one changing word of varying arrogance and vanity. And every day, another simple set of instructions: shield up, shield down; shield up, shield down. Over and over and over. 

     How she knew if I obeyed or not, I didn't care—but I threw myself into my lessons, I raised and lowered and thickened those mental shields. If only because it was all I had to do. 

     My nightmares left me groggy, sweaty—but the room was so open, the starlight so bright that when I'd jerk awake, I didn't rush to the toilet. No walls pushing in around me, no inky darkness. I knew where I was. Even if I resented being there. 

      The day before our week finally finished, I was trudging to my usual little table, already grimacing at what delightful sentences I'd find waiting and all the mental acrobatics ahead, when Rhys's and Mor's voices floated toward me. 

     It was a public space, so I didn't bother masking my footsteps as I neared where they spoke in one of the sitting areas, Rhys pacing before the open plunge off the mountain, Mor lounging in a cream-colored armchair. 

"Azriel would want to know that," Mor was saying. 

"Azriel can go to hell," Rhys sniped back, her white, tulle dress flowing in the wind. "He likely already knows, anyway." 

"We played games the last time," Mor said with a seriousness that made me pause a healthy distance away, "and we lost. Badly. We're not going to do that again." 

"You should be working," was Rhysand's only response. "I gave you control for a reason, you know." 

     Mor's jaw tightened, and she at last faced me. She gave me a smile that was more of a cringe. Rhys turned, frowning at me. 

"Say what it is you came here to say, Mor," she said tightly, resuming her pacing. 

     Mor rolled her eyes for my benefit, but her face turned solemn as she said, "There was another attack—at a temple in Cesere. Almost every priestess slain, the trove looted." 

     Rhys halted. And I didn't know what to process: her news, or the utter rage conveyed in one word as Rhys said, "Who." 

"We don't know," Mor said. "Same tracks as last time: small group, bodies that showed signs of wounds from large blades, and no trace of where they came from and how they disappeared. No survivors. The bodies weren't even found until a day later, when a group of pilgrims came by." 

      By the Cauldron. I must have made some tiny noise, because Mor gave me a strained, but sympathetic look. 

     Rhys, though ... First the shadows started—plumes of them from her back. And then, as if her rage had loosened her grip on that beast she'd once told me she hated to yield to, those wings became flesh. Great, beautiful, brutal wings, membranous and clawed like a bat's, dark as night and strong as hell. 

      Even the way she stood seemed altered—steadier, grounded. Like some final piece of her had clicked into place. 

     But Rhysand's voice was still midnight-soft and she said, "What did Azriel have to say about it?" 

     Again, that glance from Mor, as if unsure I should be present for whatever this conversation was. "He's pissed. Cassian even more so—he's convinced it must be one of the rogue Illyrian war-bands, intent on winning new territory."

"It's something to consider," Rhys mused. "Some of the Illyrian clans gleefully bowed to Amaros during those years. Trying to expand their borders could be their way of seeing how far they can push me and get away with it." 

     I hated the sound of his name, focused on it more than the information she was allowing me to glean. 

"Cassian and Az are waiting—" Mor cut herself off and gave me an apologetic wince. "They're waiting in the usual spot for your orders." 

     Fine—that was fine. I'd seen that blank map on the wall. I was an enemy's bride. Even mentioning where her forces were stationed, what they were up to, might be dangerous. I had no idea where Cesere even was—what it was, actually. 

      Rhys studied the open air again, the howling wind that shoved dark, roiling clouds over the distant peaks. Good weather, I realized, for flying. 

"Winnowing in would be easier," Mor said, following the Lady's gaze. 

"Tell the pricks I'll be there in a few hours," she merely said. 

     Mor gave me a wary grin, and vanished. I studied the empty space where she'd been, not a trace of her left behind. 

"How does that ... vanishing work?" I said softly. I'd seen only a few High Fae do it—and no one had ever explained. 

     Rhys didn't look at me, but she said, "Winnowing? Think of it as ... two different points on a piece of cloth. One point is your current place in the world. The other one across the cloth is where you want to go. Winnowing ... it's like folding that cloth so the two spots align. The magic does the folding—and all we do is take a step to get from one place to another. Sometimes it's a long step, and you can feel the dark fabric of the world as you pass through it. A shorter step, let's say from one end of the room to the other, would barely register. It's a rare gift, and a helpful one. Though only the stronger Fae can do it. The more powerful you are, the farther you can jump between places in one go." 

      I knew the explanation was as much for my benefit as it was to distract herself. But I found myself saying, "I'm sorry about the temple—and the priestesses." 

     The wrath still glimmered in those eyes as she at last turned to me. "Plenty more people are going to die soon enough, anyway." 

     Maybe that was why she'd allowed me to get close, to overhear this conversation. To remind me of what might very well happen with Hybern. 

"What are ... ," I tried. "What are Illyrian war-bands?" 

"Arrogant bastards, that's what," she muttered. I crossed my arms, waiting. Rhys stretched her wings, the sunlight setting the leathery texture glowing with subtle color. "They're a warrior-race within my lands. And general pains in my ass."

"Some of them supported Amaros?" 

     Darkness danced in the hall as that distant storm grew close enough to smother the sun. "Some. But me and mine have enjoyed ourselves hunting them down these past few months. And ending them." Slowly was the word she didn't need to add. 

"That's why you stayed away—you were busy with that?" 

"I was busy with many things." 

     Not an answer. But it seemed she was done talking to me, and whoever Cassian and Azriel were, meeting with them was far more important. 

     So Rhys didn't as much as say good-bye before she simply walked off the edge of the veranda—into thin air. 

     My heart stopped dead, but before I could cry out, she swept past, swift as the wicked wind between the peaks. A few booming wing beats had her vanishing into the storm clouds. 

"Good-bye to you, too," I grumbled, giving her a vulgar gesture, and started my work for the day, with only the storm raging beyond the house's shield for company. 

     Even as snow lashed the protective magic of the hall, even as I toiled over the sentences—Rhysand is interesting; Rhysand is gorgeous; Rhysand is flawless—and raised and lowered my mental shield until my mind was limping, I thought of what I'd heard, what they'd said. 

     I wondered what Ianthe would know about the murders, if she knew any of the victims. Knew what Cesere was. If temples were being targeted, she should know. Tamlin should know. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     That final night, I could barely sleep—half from relief, half from terror that perhaps Rhysand really did have some final, nasty surprise in store. But the night and the storm passed, and when dawn broke, I was dressed before the sun had fully risen. 

      I'd taken to eating in my rooms, but I swept up the stairs, heading across that massive open area, to the table at the far veranda. 

     Sprawled in her usual chair, Rhys was in the same clothes as yesterday, the tulle dress as rumpled as her hair. No wings, fortunately. 

      I wondered if she'd just returned from wherever she'd met Mor and the others. Wondered what she'd learned. 

"It's been a week," I said by way of greeting. "Take me home." 

      Rhys took a long sip of whatever was in her cup. It didn't look like tea. "Good morning, Feyre." 

"Take me home." 

     She studied my teal and gold clothes, a variation of my daily attire. If I had to admit, I didn't mind them. 

"That color suits you." 

"Do you want me to say please? Is that it?" 

"I want you to talk to me like a person. Start with 'good morning' and let's see where it gets us." 

"Good morning." 

"Are you ready to face the consequences of your departure?"

     I straightened. I hadn't thought about the wedding. All week, yes, but today ... today I'd only thought of Tamlin, of wanting to see him, hold him, ask him about everything Rhys had claimed.

      During the past several days, I hadn't shown any signs of the power Rhysand believed I had, hadn't felt anything stirring beneath my skin—and thank the Cauldron. 

"It's none of your business."

"Right. You'll probably ignore it, anyway. Sweep it under the rug, like everything else."

"No one asked for your opinion, Rhysand." 

"Rhysand?" She chuckled, low and soft. "I give you a week of luxury and you call me Rhysand?"

"I didn't ask to be here, or be given that week." 

"And yet look at you. Your face has some color—and those marks under your eyes are almost gone. Your mental shield is stellar, by the way." 

"Please take me home." She shrugged and rose. l

"I'll tell Mor you said good-bye."

"I barely saw her all week." Just that first meeting—then that conversation yesterday. When we hadn't exchanged two words. 

"She was waiting for an invitation—she didn't want to pester you. I wish she extended me the same courtesy."

"No one told me." I didn't particularly care. No doubt she had better things to do, anyway.

"You didn't ask. And why bother? Better to be miserable and alone." 

      She approached, each step smooth, graceful. Her hair was definitely ruffled, as if she'd been dragging her hands through it. Or just flying for hours to whatever secret spot. 

"Have you thought about my offer?" 

"I'll let you know next month."

     She stopped a hand's breadth away, her golden face tight. "I told you once, and I'll tell you again," she said. "I am not your enemy." 

"And I told you once, so I'll tell you again. You're Tamlin's enemy. So I suppose that makes you mine." 

"Does it?"

"Free me from my bargain and let's find out." 

"I can't do that."

"Can't, or won't?" 

     She just extended her hand. "Shall we go?" 

     I nearly lunged for it. Her fingers were cool, sturdy—callused from weapons I'd never seen on her. Darkness gobbled us up, and it was instinct to grab her as the world vanished from beneath my feet. 

     Winnowing indeed. Wind tore at me, and her arm was a warm weight across my back while we tumbled through realms, Rhys snickering at my terror.

     But then solid ground—flagstones—were under me, then blinding sunshine above, greenery, little birds chirping— 

      I shoved away from her, blinking at the brightness, at the massive oak hunched over us. An oak at the edge of the formal gardens—of home. 

      I made to bolt for the manor house, but Rhys gripped my wrist. Her eyes flashed between me and the manor. 

"Good luck," she crooned. 

"Get your hand off me." She chuckled, letting go. 

"I'll see you next month," she said, and before I could spit on her, she vanished.

Chapter Text

     The days passed in a blur. Tamlin was away more often than not, and whenever here turned, he didn't tell me anything. I'd long since stopped pestering him for answers. A protector—that's who he was, and would always be. What I had wanted when I was cold and hard and joyless; what I had needed to melt the ice of bitter years on the cusp of starvation. 

     I didn't have the nerve to wonder what I wanted or needed now. Who I had become. So with idleness my only option, I spent my days in the library. Practicing my reading and writing. Adding to that mental shield, brick by brick, layer by layer. Sometimes seeing if I could summon that physical wall of solid air, too. Savoring the silence, even as it crept into my veins, my head. 

     Some days, I didn't speak to anyone at all. Even Alis. I awoke each night, shaking and panting. And became glad when Tamlin wasn't thereto witness it. When I, too, didn't witness him being yanked from his dreams, cold sweat coating his body. Or shifting into that beast and staying awake until dawn, monitoring the estate for threats. What could I say to calm those fears, when I was the source of so many of them? 

     But he returned for an extended stay about two weeks after the Tithe—and I'd decided to try to talk, to interact. I owed it to him to try. Owed it to myself. He seemed to have the same idea. And the first time in a while ... things felt normal. Or as normal as they could be. 

     I awoke one morning to the sound of voices in the hallway outside my bedroom. Closing my eyes, I nestled into the pillow and pulled the blankets higher. Despite our morning roll in the sheets, I'd been rising later every day—sometimes not bothering to get out of bed until lunch.  

     A growl cut through the walls, and I opened my eyes again. 

"Get out," Tamlin warned. There was a quiet response—too soft for me to make out beyond basic mumbling. "I'll say it one last time—"

     He was interrupted by a feminine voice, and the hair on my arms rose. I studied the tattoo on my forearm as I did a tally. No—no, today couldn't have come so quickly. 

     Kicking back the covers, I rushed to the door, realizing halfway there that I was naked. Thanks to Tamlin, my clothes had been shredded and flung across the other side of the room, and I had no robe in sight. I grabbed a blanket from a nearby chair and wrapped it around me before opening the door a crack. 

     Sure enough, Tamlin and Rhysand stood in the hallway. Upon hearing the door open, Rhys turned toward me. The grin that had been on her face faltered. 

     Today, she wore a dress of violet, forgoing her usual black. It was a simple dress with panels on the sides of her stomach, showing off her tanned skin. The skirt was long enough to touch the ground, but a long slit ran up to her thigh. The bodice was low cut and sleeveless, providing a clear view of her impressive cleavage. Her dark curls fell loose over her shoulders. 

"Feyre." Rhys's eyes lingered, taking in every detail. "Are you running low on food here?" 

"What?" Tamlin demanded. 

     Those violet eyes had gone cold. Rhys extended a slim hand toward me. "Let's go." 

     Tamlin was in Rhysand's face in an instant, and I flinched. "Get out." He pointed toward the staircase. "She'll come to you when she's ready." 

     Rhysand just brushed an invisible fleck of dust off Tamlin's sleeve. Part of me admired the sheer nerve it must have taken. Had Tamlin's teeth been inches from my throat, I would have bleated in panic. 

     Rhys cut a glance at me. "No, you wouldn't have. As far as your memory serves me, the last time Tamlin's teeth were near your throat, you slapped him across the face." 

     I snapped up my forgotten shields, scowling. 

"Shut your mouth," Tamlin said, stepping further between us. "And get out." 

     The Lady of Night conceded a step toward the stairs and slid her hands into the pockets of her dress. 

"You really should have your wards inspected. Cauldron knows what other sort of riffraff might stroll in here as easily as I did." Again, Rhys assessed me, her gaze hard. "Put some clothes on." 

     I bared my teeth at her as I stepped back into my room. Tamlin followed after me, slamming the door hard enough that the chandeliers shuddered, sending shards of light shivering over the walls. 

     I dropped the blanket and strode for the armoire across the room, the mattress groaning behind me as Tamlin sank onto the bed. 

"How did she get in here?" I asked, throwing open the doors and rifling through the clothes until I found the turquoise Night Court attire I'd asked Alis to keep. I knew she'd wanted to burn them, but I told her I'd wind up coming home with another set anyway. 

"I don't know," Tamlin said. 

     I slipped on my pants, twisting to find him running a hand through his hair. I felt the lie beneath his words. "She just—it's just part of whatever game she's playing." 

     I tugged the short shirt over my head. "If war is coming, maybe we'd be better served trying to mend things." 

     We hadn't spoken of that subject since my first day back. I dug through the bottom of the armoire for the matching silk shoes, and turned to him as I slid them on. 

"I'll start mending things the day she releases you from your bargain." 

"Maybe she's keeping the bargain so that you'll attempt to listen to her." 

     I strode to where he sat on the bed, my pants a bit looser around the waist than last month. 

"Feyre," he said, reaching for me, but I stepped out of range. "Why do you need to know these things? Is it not enough for you to recover in peace? You earned that for yourself. You earned it. I relaxed the number of sentries here; I've been trying ... trying to be better about it. So leave the rest of it—" He took a steadying breath. "This isn't the time for this conversation." 

     It was never the time for this conversation, or that conversation. But I didn't say it. I didn't have the energy to say it, and all the words dried up and blew away. So I memorized the lines of Tamlin's face, and didn't fight him as he pulled me to his chest and held me tightly. 

     Someone coughed from the hall, and Tamlin's body seized up around me. But I'd had enough fighting, and snarling, and going back to that open, serene place atop that mountain ... It seemed better than hiding in the library. 

     I pulled away, and Tamlin lingered as I walked back into the hall. Rhys frowned at me. I debated barking something nasty at her, but it would have required more fire than I had—and would have required caring what she thought. 

     Rhys's face became unreadable as she extended a hand. Only for Tamlin to appear behind me, and shove that hand down. 

"You end her bargain right here, right now, and I'll give you anything you want. Anything." 

     My heart stopped dead. "Are you out of your mind?" Tamlin didn't so much as blink in my direction. Rhysand merely raised a brow. 

"I already have everything I want." 

     She stepped around Tamlin as if he were a piece of furniture and took my hand. 

     Before I could say good-bye, a black wind gathered us up, and we were gone. 

"What the hell happened to you?" Rhysand said before the Night Court had fully appeared around us. 

"Why don't you just look inside my head?" Even as I said it, the words had no bite. I didn't bother to shove her as I stepped out of her hold. 

"Where's the fun in that?" she winked. I didn't smile. "No shoe throwing this time?" 

     I could almost see the other words in her eyes. Come on. Play with me. 

     I headed for the stairs that would take me to my room. 

"Eat breakfast with me," she said. 

     There was a note in those words that made me pause. A note of what I could have sworn was desperation. Worry. I twisted, my loose clothes sliding over my shoulders, my waist. I hadn't realized how much weight I'd lost. Despite things creeping back to normal. 

     I said, "Don't you have other things to deal with?" 

"Of course I do," she said, shrugging. "I have so many things to deal with that I'm sometimes tempted to unleash my power across the world and wipe the board clean. Just to buy me some damned peace."

     She grinned, bowing at the waist. Even that casual mention of her power failed to chill me, awe me. "But I'll always make time for you." 

     I was hungry—I hadn't yet eaten. And that was indeed worry glimmering behind the cocky, insufferable grin. So I motioned her to lead the way to that familiar glass table at the end of the hall. 

     We walked a casual distance apart. Tired. I was so—tired. When we were almost to the table, Rhys said, "I felt a spike of fear this month through our lovely bond. Anything exciting happen at the wondrous Spring Court?" 

"It was nothing," I said. 

     Because it was. And it was none of her business. I glanced sidelong at her—and rage, not worry—flickered in those eyes. I could have sworn the mountain beneath us trembled in response. 

"If you know," I said coldly, "why even ask about it?" I dropped into my chair as she slid into hers. 

     She said quietly, "Because these days, all I hear through that bond is nothing. Silence. Even with your shields up rather impressively most of the time, I should be able to feel you. And yet I don't. Sometimes I'll tug on the bond only to make sure you're still alive." Darkness guttered. "And then one day, I'm in the middle of an important meeting when terror blasts through the bond. All I get are glimpses of you and him—and then nothing. Back to silence. I'd like to know what caused such a disruption." 

     I served myself from the platters of food, barely caring what had been laid on the table. "It was an argument, and the rest is none of your concern." 

"Is it why you look like your grief and guilt and rage are eating you alive, bit by bit?" I didn't want to talk about it. 

"Get out of my head." 

"Make me. Push me out. You dropped your shield this morning—anyone could have walked right in." 

     I held her stare. Another challenge. And I just ... I didn't care. I didn't care about whatever smoldered in my body, about how I'd slipped into Lucien's head as easily as Rhys could slip into mine, shield or no shield. 

"Where's Mor?" I asked instead. 

     She tensed, and I braced myself for her to push, to provoke, but she said, "Away. She has duties to attend to." 

      Shadows swirled around her again and I dug into my food. 

"Is the wedding on hold, then?" 

      I paused eating barely long enough to mumble, "Yes." 

"I expected an answer more along the lines of, 'Don't ask stupid questions you already know the answer to,' or my timeless favorite, 'Go to hell.'" 

       I only reached for a platter of tartlets. Her delicate hands were flat on the table—and a whisper of black smoke curled over her fingers. Like talons. 

     She said, "Did you give my offer any thought?" 

      I didn't answer until my plate was empty and I was heaping more food onto it. "I'm not going to work with you." I almost felt the dark calm that settled over her. 

"And why, Feyre, are you refusing me?" 

      I pushed around the fruit on my plate. "I'm not going to be a part of this war you think is coming. You say I should be a weapon, not a pawn—they seem like the same to me. The only difference is who's wielding it." 

"I want your help, not to manipulate you," she snapped. Her flare of temper made me at last lift my head. 

"You want my help because it'll piss off Tamlin." 

      Shadows danced around her shoulders—as if the wings were trying to take form. 

"Fine," she breathed. "I dug that grave myself, with all I did Under the Mountain. But I need your help." 

     Again, I could feel the other unspoken words: Ask me why; push me about it. And again, I didn't want to. Didn't have the energy to. 

     Rhys sighed and said quietly, "I was a prisoner in his court for nearly fifty years. I was tortured and beaten and fucked until only telling myself who I was, what I had to protect, kept me from trying to find a way to end it. Please—help me keep that from happening again. To Prythian." 

     Some distant part of my heart ached and bled at the words, at what she'd laid bare. But Tamlin had made exceptions—he'd lightened the guards' presence, allowed me to roam a bit more freely. He was trying. We were trying. I wouldn't jeopardize that. 

     So I went back to eating. Rhys didn't say another word. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     I didn't join her for dinner. I didn't rise in time for breakfast, either. But when I emerged at noon, she was waiting upstairs, that faint, amused smile on her face. 

     She nudged me toward the table she'd arranged with books and paper and ink. 

"Copy these sentences," she drawled from across the table, handing me a piece of paper. I looked at them and read perfectly: "Rhysand is a spectacular person. Rhysand is the center of my world. Rhysand is the best lover a person could ever dream of." 

     I set down the paper, wrote out the three sentences, and handed it to her. The claws slammed into my mind a moment later. And bounced harmlessly off a black, glimmering shield of adamant. She blinked. 

"You practiced." 

     I rose from the table and walked away. "I had nothing better to do." 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

      That night, she left a pile of books by my door with a note. 

I have business elsewhere. The house is yours. Send word if you need me. 

     Days passed—and I didn't. Rhys returned at the end of the week. I'd taken to situating myself in one of the little lounges overlooking the mountains, and had almost read an entire book in the deep cushioned armchair, going slowly as I learned new words. 

     But it had filled my time—given me quiet, steadfast company with those characters, who did not exist and never would, but somehow made me feel less ... alone. 

      The woman who'd hurled a bone-spear at Amaros ... I didn't know where she was anymore. Perhaps she'd vanished that day her neck had snapped and faerie immortality had filled her veins. 

     I was just finishing up a particularly good chapter—the second-to-last in the book—a shaft of buttery afternoon sunlight warming my feet, when Rhysand slid between two of the oversized armchairs, twin plates of food in her hands, and set them on the low-lying table before me. 

"Since you seem hell-bent on a sedentary lifestyle," she said, "I thought I'd go one step further and bring your food to you." 

       My stomach was already twisting with hunger, and I lowered the book into my lap. "Thank you." A short laugh. 

"Thank you? Not 'High lady and servant?' Or: 'Whatever it is you want, you can go shove it up your ass, Rhysand.'?" She clicked her tongue. "How disappointing."

     I set down the book and extended a hand for the plate. She could listen to herself talk all day if she wished, but I wanted to eat. Now.

     My fingers had almost grazed the rim of the plate when it just slid away. I reached again. Once more, a tendril of her power yanked the plate further back.

"Tell me what to do," she said. "Tell me what to do to help you."

     Rhys kept the plate beyond reach. She spoke again, and as if the words tumbling out loosened her grip on her power, talons of smoke curled over her fingers and great wings of shadow spread from her back. 

"Months and months, and you're still a ghost. Does no one there ask what the hell is happening? Does your High Lord simply not care?"

     He did care. Tamlin did care. Perhaps too much. 

"He's giving me space to sort it out," I said, with enough of a bite that I barely recognized my voice.

"Let me help you," Rhys said. "We went through enough Under the Mountain—" 

     I flinched.

"He wins," Rhys breathed. "That bastard wins if you let yourself fall apart."

     I wondered if she'd been telling herself that for months now, wondered if she, too, had moments when her own memories sometimes suffocated her deep in the night.

     But I lifted the book, firing two words down the bond between us before I blasted my shields up again. 

Conversation over.

"Like hell it is," she snarled. 

     A thrum of power caressed my fingers, and then the book sealed shut between my hands. My nails dug into the leather and paper—to no avail. 

     Slowly, I lifted my eyes to her. And I felt ... not hot temper—but icy, glittering rage. I could almost feel that ice at my fingertips, kissing my palms. And I swore there was frost coating the book before I hurled it at her head.

     She shielded fast enough that it bounced away and slid across the marble floor behind us.

"Good," she said, her breathing a bit uneven. "What else do you have, Feyre?"

     Ice melted to flame, and my fingers curled into fists. And the Lady of the Night Court honestly looked relieved at the sight of it—of that wrath that made me want to rage and burn.

     A feeling, for once. Not like that hollow cold and silence. And the thought of returning to that manor with the sentries and the patrols and the secrets ... I sank back into my chair. Frozen once more.

"Any time you need someone to play with," Rhys said, pushing the plate toward me on a star-flecked wind, "whether it's during our marvelous week together or otherwise, you let me know."

     I couldn't muster up a response, exhausted from the bit of temper I'd shown. And I realized I was in a free fall with no end. I had been for a while. From the moment I'd stabbed that Fae youth in the heart. I didn't look up at her again as I devoured the food.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

      The next morning, Tamlin was waiting in the shade of the gnarled, mighty oak tree in the garden. A murderous expression twisted his face, directed solely at Rhys. 

     Yet there was nothing amused in Rhys's smile as she stepped back from me—only a cold, cunning predator gazing out. 

     Tamlin growled at me, "Get inside."

     I looked between the two. And seeing that fury in Tamlin's face ... I knew there would be no more solitary rides or walks through the grounds.

     Rhys just said to me, "Fight it." And then she was gone.

Chapter Text

"I'm coming along whether you want me to or not." 

"No, you aren't." 

     Tamlin strode right through the door, his claws slashing the air at his sides, and was halfway down the steps before I reached the threshold. 

     Where I slammed into an invisible wall. 

     I staggered back, trying to reorder my mind around the impossibility of it. It was identical to the one I'd built that day in the study, and I searched inside the shards of my soul, my heart, for a tether to that shield, wondering if I'd blocked myself, but—there was no power emanating from me. 

     I reached a hand to the open air of the doorway. And met solid resistance. 

"Tamlin," I rasped. 

     But he was already down the front drive, walking toward the looming iron gates. Lucien remained at the foot of the stairs, his face so, so pale. 

"Tamlin," I said again, pushing against the wall. 

      He didn't turn. I slammed my hand into the invisible barrier. No movement—nothing but hardened air. And I had not learned about my own powers enough to try to push through, to shatter it ... I had let him convince me not to learn those things for his sake— 

"Don't bother trying," Lucien said softly, as Tamlin cleared the gates and vanished—winnowed. "He shielded the entire house around you. Others can go in and out, but you can't. Not until he lifts the shield." 

     He'd locked me in here. I hit the shield again. Again. Nothing. 

"Just—be patient, Feyre," Lucien tried, wincing as he followed after Tamlin. "Please. I'll see what I can do. I'll try again." 

     I barely heard him over the roar in my ears. Didn't wait to see him pass the gates and winnow, too. He'd locked me in. He'd sealed me inside this house. 

     I hurtled for the nearest window in the foyer and shoved it open. A cool spring breeze rushed in—and I shoved my hand through it—only for my fingers to bounce off an invisible wall. 

     Smooth, hard air pushed against my skin. Breathing became difficult. I was trapped. I was trapped inside this house. I might as well have been Under the Mountain; I might as well have been inside that cell again—I backed away, my steps too light, too fast, and slammed into the oak table in the center of the foyer. 

     None of the nearby sentries came to investigate. He'd trapped me in here; he'd locked me up. I stopped seeing the marble floor, or the paintings on the walls, or the sweeping staircase looming behind me. I stopped hearing the chirping of the spring birds, or the sighing of the breeze through the curtains. 

     And then crushing black pounded down and rose up from beneath, devouring and roaring and shredding. 

     It was all I could do to keep from screaming, to keep from shattering into ten thousand pieces as I sank onto the marble floor, bowing over my knees, and wrapped my arms around myself. 

     He'd trapped me; he'd trapped me; he'd trapped me—I had to get out, because I'd barely escaped from another prison once before, and this time, this time—Winnowing. I could vanish into nothing but air and appear somewhere else, somewhere open and free. 

     I fumbled for my power, for anything, something that might show me the way to do it, the way out. Nothing. There was nothing and I had become nothing, and I couldn't ever get out— 

     Someone was shouting my name from far away. Alis—Alis. But I was ensconced in a cocoon of darkness and fire and ice and wind, a cocoon that melted the ring off my finger until the golden ore dripped away into the void, the emerald tumbling after it. 

      I wrapped that raging force around myself as if it could keep the walls from crushing me entirely, and maybe, maybe buy me the tiniest sip of air—I couldn't get out; I couldn't get out; I couldn't get out— 

     Slender, strong hands gripped me under the shoulders. I didn't have the strength to fight them off. One of those hands moved to my knees, the other to my back, and then I was being lifted, held against what was unmistakably a female body. 

     I couldn't see her, didn't want to see her. There were words being spoken around me. Two women. 

"Please—please take care of her." Alis.

     From right by my ear, the other replied, "Consider yourselves very, very lucky that your High Lord was not here when we arrived. Your guards will have one hell of a headache when they wake up, but they're alive. Be grateful." 

     Mor. Mor held me—carried me. The darkness guttered long enough that I could draw breath, that I could see the garden door she walked toward. 

     I opened my mouth, but she peered down at me and said, "Did you think his shield would keep us from you? Rhys shattered it with half a thought." 

     But I didn't spy Rhys anywhere—not as the darkness swirled back in. I clung to her, trying to breathe, to think. 

"You're free," Mor said tightly. "You're free." 

     Not safe. Not protected. Free. She carried me beyond the garden, into the fields, up a hill, down it, and into—into a cave—I must have started bucking and thrashing in her arms, because she said, "You're out; you're free," again and again and again as true darkness swallowed us.  

     Half a heartbeat later, she emerged into sunlight—bright, strawberry-and-grass scented sunlight. I had a thought that this might be Summer, then.

 "I did everything by the book," Mor said. 

     I was passed from her arms to someone else's, and I struggled to breathe, fought for any trickle of air down my lungs. Until Rhysand said, "Then we're done here." 

     Wind tore at me, along with ancient darkness. But a sweeter, softer shade of night caressed me, stroking my nerves, my lungs, until I could at last get air inside, until it seduced me into sleep.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     I woke to sunlight, and open space—nothing but clear sky and snowcapped mountains around me. 

     And Rhysand lounging in an armchair across from the couch where I was sprawled, gazing at the mountains, her face uncharacteristically solemn. 

     I swallowed, and her head whipped toward me. No kindness in her eyes. Nothing but unending, icy rage. But she blinked, and it was gone. Replaced by perhaps relief. Exhaustion. 

     And the pale sunlight warming the moonstone floors ... dawn. It was dawn. I didn't want to think about how long I'd been unconscious. 

"What happened?" I said. My voice was hoarse. As if I'd been screaming. 

"You were screaming," she said. I didn't care if my mental shield was up or down or completely shattered. "You also managed to scare the shit out of every servant and sentry in Tamlin's manor when you wrapped yourself in darkness and they couldn't see you." My stomach hollowed out. 

"Did I hurt any—" 

"No. Whatever you did, it was contained to you." 

"You weren't—" 

"By law and protocol," she said, stretching out her long, tan legs, "things would have become very complicated and very messy if I had been the one to walk into that house and take you. Smashing that shield was fine, but Mor had to go in on her own two feet, render the sentries unconscious through her own power, and carry you over the border to another court before I could bring you here. Or else Tamlin would have free rein to march his forces into my lands to reclaim you. And as I have no interest in an internal war, we had to do everything by the book."  

      That's what Mor had said—that she did everything by the book. But— 

"When I go back ..." 

"As your presence here isn't part of our monthly requirement, you are under no obligation to go back." She rubbed at her temple. "Unless you wish to." 

     The question settled in me like a stone sinking to the bottom of a pool. There was such quiet in me, such ... nothingness. 

"He locked me in that house," I managed to say. 

     A shadow of mighty wings spread behind Rhys's chair. But her face was calm as she said, "I know. I felt you. Even with your shields up—for once." I made myself meet her stare. 

"I have nowhere else to go." It was both a question and a plea. She waved a hand, the wings fading. 

"Stay here for however long you want. Stay here forever, if you feel like it." 

"I—I need to go back at some point." 

"Say the word, and it's done." 

     She meant it, too. Even if I could tell from the ire in her eyes that she didn't like it. She'd bring me back to the Spring Court the moment I asked. Bring me back to silence, and those sentries, and a life of doing nothing but dressing and dining and planning parties. She crossed her legs.

"I made you an offer when you first came here: help me, and food, shelter, clothing ... All of it is yours." 

     I'd been a beggar in the past. The thought of doing it now ... 

"Work for me," Rhysand said. "I owe you, anyway. And we'll figure out the rest day by day, if need be." 

     I looked toward the mountains, as if I could see all the way to the Spring Court in the south. Tamlin would be furious. He'd shred the manor apart. But he'd ... he'd locked me up. 

     Either he so deeply misunderstood me or he'd been so broken by what went on Under the Mountain, but ... he'd locked me up. 

"I'm not going back." The words rang in me like a death knell. "Not—not until I figure things out." 

     I shoved against the wall of anger and sorrow and outright despair as my thumb brushed over the vacant band of skin where that ring had once sat. 

     One day at a time. Maybe—maybe Tamlin would come around. Heal himself, that jagged wound of festering fear. Maybe I'd sort myself out. I didn't know. 

     But I did know that if I stayed in that manor, if I was locked up one more time ... It might finish the breaking that Amaros had started. 

     Rhysand summoned a mug of hot tea from nowhere and handed it to me. "Drink it." 

     I took the mug, letting its warmth soak into my stiff fingers. She watched me until I took a sip, and then went back to monitoring the mountains. I took another sip—peppermint and ... licorice and another herb or spice. 

     I wasn't going back. Maybe I'd never even ... gotten to come back. Not from Under the Mountain. 

     When the mug was half-finished, I fished for something, anything, to say to keep the crushing silence at bay. 

"The darkness—is that ... part of the power you gave me?" 

"One would assume so." 

     I drained the rest of the mug. "No wings?" 

"If you inherited some of Tamlin's shape-shifting, perhaps you can make wings of your own." 

     A shiver went down my spine at the thought, at the claws I'd grown that day with Lucien. 

"And the other High Lords? Ice—that's Winter. That shield I once made of hardened wind—who did that come from? What might the others have given me? Is—is winnowing tied to any one of you in particular?" 

     She considered. "Wind? The Day Court, likely. And winnowing—it's not confined to any court. It's wholly dependent on your own reserve of power—and training." 

     I didn't feel like mentioning how spectacularly I'd failed to even move an inch. 

"And as for the gifts you got from everyone else ... That's for you to find out, I suppose." 

"I should have known your goodwill would wear off after a minute." 

     Rhys let out a low chuckle and got to her feet, stretching her toned arms over her head and rolling her neck. As if she'd been sitting there for a long, long while. For the entirety of the night. 

"Rest a day or two, Feyre," she said. "Then take on the task of figuring out everything else. I have business in another part of my lands; I'll be back by the end of the week." 

     Despite how long I'd slept, I was so tired—tired in my bones, in my crumpled heart. When I didn't reply, Rhys strode off between the moonstone pillars. And I saw how I would spend the next few days: in solitude, with nothing to do and only my own, horrible thoughts for company. I began speaking before I could reconsider. 

"Take me with you." 

     Rhys halted as she pushed through two purple gossamer curtains. And slowly, she turned back. "You should rest." 

"I've rested enough," I said, setting down the empty mug and standing. My head spun slightly. When had I last eaten? "Wherever you're going, whatever you're doing—take me along. I'll stay out of trouble. Just ... Please." 

     I hated the last word; choked on it. It hadn't done anything to sway Tamlin. For a long moment, Rhys said nothing. Then she prowled toward me, her long stride eating up the distance and her face set like stone. 

"If you come with me, there is no going back. You will not be allowed to speak of what you see to anyone outside of my court. Because if you do, people will die—my people will die. So if you come, you will have to lie about it forever; if you return to the Spring Court, you cannot tell anyone there what you see, and who you meet, and what you will witness. If you would rather not have that between you and—your friends, then stay here." 

     Stay here, stay locked up in the Spring Court ... My chest was a gaping, open wound. I wondered if I'd bleed out from it—if a spirit could bleed out and die. Maybe that had already happened. 

"Take me with you," I breathed. "I won't tell anyone what I see. Even—them." I couldn't bear to say his name. 

      Rhys studied me for a few heartbeats. And finally she gave me a half smile. "We leave in ten minutes. If you want to freshen up, go ahead." An unusually polite reminder that I probably looked like the dead. I felt like it. 

     But I said, "Where are we going?" Rhys's smile widened into a grin. 

"To Velaris—the City of Starlight." 

     The moment I entered my room, the hollow quiet returned, washing away with it any questions I might have had about—about a city. Everything had been destroyed by Amaros. If there were a city in Prythian, I would no doubt be visiting a ruin. 

     I jumped into the bath, scrubbing down as swiftly as I could, then hurried into the Night Court clothes that had been left for me. 

     My motions were mindless, each one some feeble attempt to keep from thinking about what had happened, what—what Tamlin had tried to do and had done, what I had done— 

     By the time I returned to the main atrium, Rhys was leaning against a moonstone pillar, picking at her long, sharp nails. 

     She merely said, "That was fifteen minutes," before extending her hand. 

     I had no glimmering ember to even try to look like I cared about her taunting before we were swallowed by the roaring darkness. 

     Wind and night and stars wheeled by as she winnowed us through the world, and the calluses of her hand scratched against my own fading ones before—Before sunlight, not starlight, greeted me. 

     Squinting at the brightness, I found myself standing in what was unmistakably a foyer of someone's house. The ornate red carpet cushioned the one step I staggered away from her as I surveyed the warm, wood-paneled walls, the artwork, the straight, wide oak staircase ahead. 

     Flanking us were two rooms: on my left, a sitting room with a black marble fireplace, lots of comfortable, elegant, but worn furniture, and bookshelves built into every wall. 

     On my right: a dining room with a long, cherrywood table big enough for ten people—small, compared to the dining room at the manor. 

     Down the slender hallway ahead were a few more doors, ending in one that I assumed would lead to a kitchen. 

     A town house. I'd visited one once, when I was a child and my father had brought me along to the largest town in our territory: it'd belonged to a fantastically wealthy client, and had smelled like coffee and mothballs. A pretty place, but stuffy—formal. 

     This house ... this house was a home that had been lived in and enjoyed and cherished. And it was in a city.

"Welcome to my home," Rhysand said. 

     A city—a world lay out there. Morning sunlight streamed through the windows lining the front of the town house. The ornately carved wood door before me was inset with fogged glass that peeked into a small antechamber and the actual front door beyond it, shut and solid against whatever city lurked beyond. 

     And the thought of setting foot out into it, into the leering crowds, seeing the destruction Amaros had likely wreaked upon them ... A heavy weight pressed in to my chest. 

     I hadn't dredged up the focus to ask until now, hadn't given an ounce of room to consider that this might be a mistake, but ... 

"What is this place?" 

     Rhys leaned a slender shoulder against the carved oak threshold that led into the sitting room and crossed her arms. 

"This is my house. Well, I have two homes in the city. One is for more ... official business, but this is only for me and my family." 

     I listened for any servants but heard none. Good—maybe that was good, rather than have people weeping and gawking. 

"Nuala and Cerridwen are here," she said, reading my glance down the hall behind us."But other than that, it'll just be the two of us." 

     I tensed. It wasn't that things had been any different at the Night Court itself, but—this house was much, much smaller. There would be no escaping her. Save for the city outside. 

     There were no cities left in our mortal territory. Though some had sprung up on the main continent, full of art and learning and trade. Elain had once wanted to go with me. I didn't suppose I'd ever get that chance now. 

     Rhysand opened her mouth, but then the silhouettes of two tall, powerful bodies appeared on the other side of the front door's fogged glass. One of them banged on it with a fist. 

"Hurry up, you lazy ass," a deep male voice drawled from the antechamber beyond. 

     Exhaustion drugged me so heavily that I didn't particularly care that there were wings peeking over their two shadowy forms. Rhys didn't so much as blink toward the door. 

"Two things, Feyre darling." 

     The pounding continued, followed by the second male murmuring to his companion, "If you're going to pick a fight with her, do it after breakfast." 

     That voice—like shadows given form, dark and smooth and ... cold. 

"I wasn't the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here," the first one said. Then added, "Busybody." 

     I could have sworn a smile tugged on Rhys's lips as she went on, "One, no one—no one—but Mor and I are able to winnow directly inside this house. It is warded, shielded, and then warded some more. Only those I wish—and you wish—may enter. You are safe here; and safe anywhere in this city, for that matter. Velaris's walls are well protected and have not been breached in five thousand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it. So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish. Those two in the antechamber," she added, eyes sparkling, "might not be on that list of people you should bother knowing, if they keep banging on the door like children." 

     Another pound, emphasized by the first male voice saying, "You know we can hear you." 

"Secondly," Rhys went on, "in regard to the two bastards at my door, it's up to you whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise person, take a nap since you're still looking a little peaky, and then change into city-appropriate clothing while I beat the hell out of one of them for talking to his High Lady like that." 

     There was such light in her eyes. It made her look ... younger, somehow. More mortal. So at odds with the icy rage I'd seen earlier when I'd awoken ... 

     Awoken on that couch, and then decided I wasn't returning home. Decided that, perhaps, the Spring Court might not be my home. 

     I was drowning in that old heaviness, clawing my way up to a surface that might not ever exist. I'd slept for the Mother knew how long, and yet ... 

"Just come get me when they're gone." 

     That joy dimmed, and Rhys looked like she might say something else, but a female voice—crisp and edged—now sounded behind the two males in the antechamber. "You Illyrians are worse than cats yowling to be let in the back door." 

     The knob jangled. She sighed sharply. "Really, Rhysand? You locked us out?" 

     Fighting to keep that immense heaviness at bay a bit longer, I made for the stairs—at the top of which now stood Nuala and Cerridwen, wincing at the front door. I could have sworn Cerridwen subtly gestured me to hurry up. 

     And I might have kissed both twins for that bit of normalcy. I might have kissed Rhys, too, for waiting to open the front door until I was halfway down the cerulean-blue hallway on the second level.

     All I heard was that first male voice declare, "Welcome home, you bitch," followed by the shadowy male voice saying, "I sensed you were back. Mor filled me in, but I—" 

     That strange female voice cut him off. "Send your dogs out in the yard to play, Rhysand. You and I have matters to discuss." 

     That midnight voice said with quiet cold that licked down my spine, "As do I." 

     Then the cocky one drawled to her, "We were here first. Wait your turn, Tiny Ancient One." 

     On either side of me, Nuala and Cerridwen flinched, either from holding in laughter or some vestige of fear, or perhaps both. Definitely both as a feminine snarl sliced through the house—albeit a bit halfheartedly. 

     The upstairs hall was punctuated with chandeliers of swirled, colored glass, illuminating the few polished doors on either side. 

     I wondered which belonged to Rhysand—and then wondered which one belonged to Mor as I heard her yawn amid the fray below: "Why is everyone here so early? I thought we were meeting tonight at the House." 

     Below, Rhysand grumbled—grumbled—"Trust me, there's no party. Only a massacre, if Cassian doesn't shut his mouth." 

"We're hungry," that first male—Cassian—complained. "Feed us. Someone told me there'd be breakfast." 

"Pathetic," that strange female voice quipped. "You idiots are pathetic." 

     Mor said, "We know that's true. But is there food?" 

      I heard the words—heard and processed them. And then they floated into the blackness of my mind. 

     Nuala and Cerridwen opened a door, leading to a fire-warmed, sunlit room. It faced a walled, winter-kissed garden in the back of the town house, the large windows peering over the sleeping stone fountain in its center, drained for the season. 

     Everything in the bedroom itself was of rich wood and soft white, with touches of subtle sage. It felt, strangely enough, almost human. 

     And the bed—massive, plush, adorned in quilts and duvets of cream and ivory to keep out the winter chill—that looked the most welcoming of all. 

      But I wasn't so far gone that I couldn't ask a few basic questions—to at least give myself the illusion of caring a bit about my own welfare. 

"Who was that?" I managed to say as they shut the door behind us. 

     Nuala headed for the small attached bathing room—white marble, a claw-foot tub, more sunny windows that overlooked the garden wall and the thick line of cypress trees that stood watch behind it. 

     Cerridwen, already stalking for the armoire, cringed a bit and said over a shoulder, "They're Rhysand's Inner Circle." 

     The ones I'd heard mentioned that day at the Night Court—who Rhys kept going to meet. 

"I wasn't aware that rulers in Prythian kept things so casual," I admitted. 

"They don't," Nuala said, returning from the bathing room with a brush. "But Rhysand does." 

     Apparently, my hair was a mess, because Nuala brushed it as Cerridwen pulled out some ivory sleeping clothes—a warm and soft lace-trimmed top and pants. 

     I took in the clothes, then the room, then the winter garden and the slumbering fountain beyond, and Rhysand's earlier words clicked into place. 

     The walls of this city have not been breached for five thousand years. Meaning Amaros ... 

"How is this city here?" I met Nuala's gaze in the mirror. "How—how did it survive?" 

     Nuala's face tightened, and her dark eyes flicked to her twin, who slowly rose from a dresser drawer, fleece-lined slippers for me in hand. Cerridwen's throat bobbed as she swallowed. 

"The High Lady is very powerful," Cerridwen said—carefully. "And was devoted to her people long before her father's mantle passed to her." 

"How did it survive?" I pushed. 

     A city—a lovely one, if the sounds from my window, the garden beyond it, were any indication—lay all around me. Untouched, whole. Safe. While the rest of the world had been left to ruin. 

     The twins exchanged looks again, some silent language they'd learned in the womb passing between them. Nuala set down the brush on the vanity. 

"It is not for us to tell." 

"She asked you not to—" 

"No," Cerridwen interrupted, folding back the covers of the bed. "The High Lady made no such demand. But what she did to shield this city is her story to tell, not ours. We would be more comfortable if she told you, lest we get any of it wrong." 

     I glared between them. Fine. Fair enough. Cerridwen moved to shut the curtains, sealing the room in darkness. 

     My heart stumbled, taking my anger with it, and I blurted, "Leave them open." 

     I couldn't be sealed up and shut in darkness—not yet. Cerridwen nodded and left the curtains open, both of the twins telling me to send word if I needed anything before they departed. 

     Alone, I slid into the bed, hardly feeling the softness, the smoothness of the sheets. I listened to the crackling fire, the chirp of birds in the garden's potted evergreens—so different from the spring-sweet melodies I was used to. That I might never hear or be able to endure again. 

     Maybe Amaros had won after all. And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me. 

     Sleep claimed me, swift and brutal and deep.

Chapter Text

     I awoke four hours later.

     It took me minutes to remember where I was, what had happened. And each tick of the little clock on the rosewood writing desk was a shove back-back-back into that heavy dark. But at least I wasn't tired. Weary, but no longer on the cusp of feeling like sleeping forever.

     I'd think about what happened at the Spring Court later. Tomorrow. Never.

     Mercifully, Rhysand's Inner Circle left before I'd finished dressing.

     Rhys was waiting at the front door—which was open to the small wood-and-marble antechamber, which in turn was open to the street beyond. She ran an eye over me, from the suede navy shoes—practical and comfortably made—to the knee-length sky-blue overcoat, to the braid that began on one side of my head and curved around the back.

     Beneath the coat, my usual flimsy attire had been replaced by thicker, warmer brown pants, and a pretty cream sweater that was so soft I could have slept in it. Knitted gloves that matched my shoes had already been stuffed into the coat's deep pockets.

"Those two certainly like to fuss," Rhysand said, though something about it was strained as we headed out the front door.

     Each step toward that bright threshold was both an eternity and an invitation.

     For a moment, the weight in me vanished as I gobbled down the details of the emerging city: Buttery sunlight that softened the already mild winter day, a small, manicured front lawn—its dried grass near-white—bordered with a waist-high wrought iron fence and empty flower beds, all leading toward a clean street of pale cobblestones. 

     High Fae in various forms of dress meandered by: some in coats like mine to ward against the crisp air, some wearing mortal fashions with layers and poofy skirts and lace, some in riding leathers—all unhurried as they breathed in the salt-and-lemon-verbena breeze that even winter couldn't chase away. 

     Not one of them looked toward the house. As if they either didn't know or weren't worried that their own Lady dwelled in one of the many marble town houses lining either side of the street, each capped with a green copper roof and pale chimneys that puffed tendrils of smoke into the brisk sky.

     In the distance, children shrieked with laughter. I staggered to the front gate, unlatching it with fumbling fingers that hardly registered the ice-cold metal, and took all of three steps into the street before I halted at the sight at the other end.

     The street sloped down, revealing more pretty town houses and puffing chimneys, more well-fed, unconcerned people. And at the very bottom of the hill curved a broad, winding river, sparkling like deepest sapphire, snaking toward a vast expanse of water beyond.

     The sea. The city had been built like a crust atop the rolling, steep hills that flanked the river, the buildings crafted from white marble or warm sandstone. Ships with sails of varying shapes loitered in the river, the white wings of birds shining brightly above them in the midday sun.

     No monsters. No darkness. Not a hint of fear, of despair.

     Untouched.

     The city has not been breached in five thousand years.

     Even during the height of his dominance over Prythian, whatever Rhys had done, whatever she'd sold or bartered ... Amaros truly had not touched this place.

     The rest of Prythian had been shredded, then left to bleed out over the course of fifty years, yet Velaris ... My fingers curled into fists.

     I sensed something looming and gazed down the other end of the street. There, like eternal guardians of the city, towered a wall of flat-topped mountains of red stone—the same stone that had been used to build some of the structures. 

     They curved around the northern edge of Velaris, to where the river bent toward them and flowed into their shadow. To the north, different mountains surrounded the city across the river—a range of sharp peaks like fish's teeth cleaved the city's merry hills from the sea beyond. 

     But these mountains behind me ... They were sleeping giants. Somehow alive, awake.

     As if in answer, that undulating, slithering power slid along my bones, like a cat brushing against my legs for attention. I ignored it.

"The middle peak," Rhys said from behind me, and I whirled, remembering she was there. She just pointed toward the largest of the plateaus. Holes and—windows seemed to have been built into the uppermost part of it. And flying toward it, borne on large, dark wings, were two figures. 

"That's my other home in this city. The House of Wind."

     Sure enough, the flying figures swerved on what looked to be a wicked, fast current.

"We'll be dining there tonight," she added, and I couldn't tell if she sounded irritated or resigned about it. And I didn't quite care. 

     I turned toward the city again and said, "How?"

     She understood what I meant. "Luck."

"Luck? Yes, how lucky for you," I said quietly, but not weakly, "that the rest of Prythian was ravaged while your people, your city, remained safe."

     Rhys's long hair caught in the wind, her face unreadable.

"Did you even think for one moment," I said, my voice like gravel, "to extend that luck to anywhere else? Anyone else?"

"Other cities," she said calmly, "are known to the world. Velaris has remained secret beyond the borders of these lands for millennia. Amaros did not touch it, because he did not know it existed. None of his beasts did. No one in the other courts knows of its existence, either."

"How?"

"Spells and wards and my ruthless, ruthless ancestors, who were willing to do anything to preserve a piece of goodness in our wretched world."

"And when Amaros came," I said, nearly spitting his name, "you didn't think to open this place as a refuge?"

"When Amaros came," she said, her temper slipping the leash a bit as her eyes flashed, "I had to make some very hard choices, very quickly."

     I rolled my eyes, twisting away to scan the rolling, steep hills, the sea far beyond.

"I'm assuming you won't tell me about it." But I had to know—how she'd managed to save this slice of peace and beauty.

"Now's not the time for that conversation."

     Fine. I'd heard that sort of thing a thousand times before at the Spring Court, anyway. It wasn't worth dredging up the effort to push about it.

     But I wouldn't sit in my room, couldn't allow myself to mourn and mope and weep and sleep. So I would venture out, even if it was an agony, even if the size of this place ... Cauldron, it was enormous. 

     I jerked my chin toward the city sloping down toward the river. "So what is there that was worth saving at the cost of everyone else?"

     When I faced her, her violet eyes were as ruthless as the churning winter sea in the distance. 

"Everything," she said.

     Rhysand wasn't exaggerating.

     There was everything to see in Velaris: tea shops with delicate tables and chairs scattered outside their cheery fronts, surely heated by some warming spell, all full of chattering, laughing High Fae—and a few strange, beautiful faeries. 

     There were four main market squares; Palaces, they were called: two on this side—the southern side—of the Sidra River, two on the northern. 

     In the hours that we wandered, I only made it to two of them: great, white-stoned squares flanked by the pillars supporting the carved and painted buildings that watched over them and provided a covered walkway beneath for the shops built into the street level.

     The first market we entered, the Palace of Thread and Jewels, sold clothes, shoes, supplies for making both, and jewelry—endless, sparkling jeweler's shops. Yet nothing inside me stirred at the glimmer of sunlight on the undoubtedly rare fabrics swaying in the chill river breeze, at the clothes displayed in the broad glass windows, or the luster of gold and ruby and emerald and pearl nestled on velvet beds.  

     I didn't dare glance at the now-empty finger on my left hand.

     Rhys entered a few of the jewelry shops, looking for a present for a friend, she said. I chose to wait outside each time, hiding in the shadows beneath the Palace buildings.

     Walking around today was enough. Introducing myself, enduring the gawking and tears and judgment ... If I had to deal with that, I might very well climb into bed and never get out.

     But no one on the streets looked twice at me, even at Rhysand's side. Perhaps they had no idea who I was—perhaps city-dwellers didn't care who was in their midst.

     The second market, the Palace of Bone and Salt, was one of the Twin Squares: one on this side of the river, the other one—the Palace of Hoof and Leaf—across it, both crammed with vendors selling meat, produce, prepared foods, livestock, confections, spices ... So many spices, scents familiar and forgotten from those precious years when I had known the comfort of an invincible father and bottomless wealth.

     Rhysand kept a few steps away, hands in her pockets as she offered bits of information every now and then. 

     Yes, she told me, many stores and homes used magic to warm them, especially popular outdoor spaces. I didn't inquire further about it.

     No one avoided her—no one whispered about her or spat on her or stroked her as they had Under the Mountain.

     Rather, the people that spotted her offered warm, broad smiles. Some approached, gripping her hand to welcome her back. She knew each of them by name—and they addressed her by hers.

     But Rhys grew ever quieter as the afternoon pressed on. We paused at the edge of a brightly painted pocket of the city, built atop one of the hills that flowed right to the river's edge. 

     I took one look at the first storefront and my bones turned brittle. The cheery door was cracked open to reveal art and paints and brushes and little sculptures.

     Rhys said, "This is what Velaris is known for: the artists' quarter. You'll find a hundred galleries, supply stores, potters' compounds, sculpture gardens, and anything in between. They call it the Rainbow of Velaris. The performing artists—the musicians, the dancers, the actors—dwell on that hill right across the Sidra. You see the bit of gold glinting near the top? That's one of the main theaters. There are five notable ones in the city, but that's the most famous. And then there are the smaller theaters, and the amphitheater on the sea cliffs ... " 

     She trailed off as she noticed my gaze drifting back to the assortment of bright buildings ahead.

     High Fae and various lesser faeries I'd never encountered and didn't know the names of wandered the streets. 

     It was the latter that I noticed more than the others: some long limbed, hairless, and glowing as if an inner moon dwelled beneath their night-dark skin, some covered in opalescent scales that shifted color with each graceful step of their clawed, webbed feet, some elegant, wild puzzles of horns and hooves and striped fur.

      Some were bundled in heavy overcoats, scarves, and mittens—others strode about in nothing but their scales and fur and talons and didn't seem to think twice about it.

     Neither did anyone else. All of them, however, were preoccupied with taking in the sights, some shopping, some splattered with clay and dust and—and paint.

     Artists. I'd never called myself an artist, never thought that far or that grandly, but ...

     Where all that color and light and texture had once dwelled, there was only a filthy prison cell. 

"I'm tired," I managed to say.

      I could feel Rhys's gaze, didn't care if my shield was up or down to ward against her reading my thoughts. 

     But she only said, "We can come back another day. It's almost time for dinner, anyway."

     Indeed, the sun was sinking toward where the river met the sea beyond the hills, staining the city pink and gold.

     I didn't feel like painting that, either. Even as people stopped to admire the approaching sunset—as if the residents of this place, this court, had the freedom, the safety of enjoying the sights whenever they wished. And had never known otherwise.

     I wanted to scream at them, wanted to pick up a loose piece of cobblestone and shatter the nearest window, wanted to unleash that power again boiling beneath my skin and tell them, show them, what had been done to me, to the rest of the world, while they admired sunsets and painted and drank tea by the river.

"Easy," Rhys murmured.

      I whipped my head to her, my breathing a bit jagged. Her face had again become unreadable. 

"My people are blameless."

     That easily, my rage vanished, as if it had slipped a rung of the ladder it had been steadily climbing inside me and splattered on the pale stone street.

     Yes—yes, of course they were blameless. But I didn't feel like thinking more on it. On anything. 

      I said again, "I'm tired."

      Her throat bobbed, but she nodded, turning from the Rainbow. "Tomorrow night, we'll go for a walk. Velaris is lovely in the day, but it was built to be viewed after dark."

     I'd expect nothing less from the City of Starlight, but words had again become difficult.

     But—dinner. With her. At that House of Wind. I mustered enough focus to say, "Who, exactly, is going to be at this dinner?"

      Rhys led us up a steep street, my thighs burning with the movement. Had I become so out of shape, so weakened? 

"My Inner Circle," she said. "I want you to meet them before you decide if this is a place you'd like to stay. If you'd like to work with me, and thus work with them. Mor, you've met, but the three others—"

"The ones who came this afternoon."

     A nod. "Cassian, Azriel, and Amren."

"Who are they?" 

     She'd said something about Illyrians, but Amren—the female voice I'd heard—hadn't possessed wings. At least ones I'd glimpsed through the fogged glass.

"There are tiers," she said neutrally, "within our circle. Amren is my Second in command. She may look High Fae, but something lurks beneath her skin. She might be older than this city, but she's vain, and likes to hoard her baubles and belongings like a firedrake in a cave. So ... be on your guard. You both have tempers when provoked, and I don't want you to have any surprises tonight."

     Some part of me didn't want to know what manner of creature, exactly, she was. "So if we get into a brawl and I rip off her necklace, she'll roast and eat me?"

     She chuckled. "No—Amren would do far, far worse things than that. The last time Amren and Mor got into it, they left my favorite mountain retreat in cinders." She lifted a brow. "For what it's worth, I'm the most powerful ruler in Prythian's history, and merely interrupting Amren is something I've only done once in the past century."

     The most powerful ruler in history. In the countless millennia they had existed here in Prythian, Rhys—Rhys with her smirking and sarcasm and bedroom eyes ...

     And Amren was worse. And older than five thousand years.

     I waited for the fear to hit; waited for my body to shriek to find a way to get out of this dinner, but ... nothing. Maybe it'd be a mercy to be ended—

     A slender hand gripped my face—gently enough not to hurt, but hard enough to make me look at her. 

"Don't you ever think that," Rhysand hissed, her eyes livid. "Not for one damned moment."

     That bond between us went taut, and my lingering mental shields collapsed. And for a heartbeat, just as it had happened Under the Mountain, I flashed from my body to hers—from my eyes to her own.

     I had not realized ... how I looked ...

     My face was gaunt, my cheekbones sharp, my blue-gray eyes dull and smudged with purple beneath. The full lips—my father's mouth—were wan, and my collarbones jutted above the thick wool neckline of my sweater. I looked as if ... as if rage and grief and despair had eaten me alive, as if I was again starved. Not for food, but ... but for joy and life—

     Then I was back in my body, seething at her. "Was that a trick?"

     Her voice was hoarse as she lowered her hand from my face. "No." She angled her head to the side. "How did you get through it? My shield."

     I didn't know what she was talking about. I hadn't done anything. Just ... slipped. And I didn't want to talk about it, not here, not with her. 

      I stormed into a walk, my legs—so damn thin, so useless—burning with every step up the steep hill.

      She gripped my elbow, again with that considerate gentleness, but strong enough to make me pause. "How many other minds have you accidentally slipped into?"

     Lucien—

"Lucien?" A short laugh. "What a miserable place to be."

     A low snarl rippled from me. "Do not go into my head."

"Your shield is down." I hauled it back up. "You might as well have been shouting his name at me." Again, that contemplative angling of her head. "Perhaps you having my power ... " She chewed on her bottom lip, then snorted. "It'd make sense, of course, if the power came from me—if my own shield sometimes mistook you for me and let you slip past. Fascinating."

      I debated spitting on her boots. "Take your power back. I don't want it."

     A sly smile. "It doesn't work that way. The power is bound to your life. The only way to get it back would be to kill you. And since I like your company, I'll pass on the offer." 

     We walked a few steps before she said, "You need to be vigilant about keeping your mental wards up. Especially now that you've seen Velaris. If you ever go somewhere else, beyond these lands, and someone slipped into your mind and saw this place ..." A muscle quivered in her jaw. "We're called daemati—those of us who can walk into another person's mind as if we were going from one room to another. We're rare, and the trait appears as the Mother wills it, but there are enough of us scattered throughout the world that many—mostly those in positions of influence—extensively train against our skill set. If you were to ever encounter a daemati without those shields up, Feyre, they'd take whatever they wanted. A more powerful one could make you their unwitting slave, make you do whatever they wanted and you'd never know it. My lands remain mystery enough to outsiders that some would find you, among other things, a highly valuable source of information."

     Daemati—was I now one if I, too, could do such things? Yet another damned title for people to whisper as I passed. 

"I take it that in a potential war with Hybern, the king's armies wouldn't even know to strike here?" I waved a hand to the city around us. "So, what—your pampered people ... those who can't shield their minds—they get your protection and don't have to fight while the rest of us will bleed?"

     I didn't let her answer, and just increased my pace. A cheap shot, and childish, but ... Inside, inside I had become like that distant sea, relentlessly churning, tossed about by squalls that tore away any sense of where the surface might be.

     Rhys kept a step behind for the rest of the walk to the town house.

     Some small part of me whispered that I could survive Amaros; I could survive leaving Tamlin; I could survive transitioning into this new, strange body ... But that empty, cold hole in my chest ... I wasn't sure I could survive that.

      Even in the years I'd been one bad week away from starvation, that part of me had been full of color, of light. Maybe becoming a faerie had broken it. Maybe Amaros had broken it.

     Or maybe I had broken it, when I shoved that dagger into the hearts of two innocent faeries and their blood had warmed my hands.

"Absolutely not," I said atop the town house's small rooftop garden, my hands shoved deep into the pockets of my overcoat to warm them against the bite in the night air.

      There was room enough for a few boxed shrubs and a round iron table with two chairs—and me and Rhysand.

      Around us, the city twinkled, the stars themselves seeming to hang lower, pulsing with ruby and amethyst and pearl. Above, the full moon set the marble of the buildings and bridges glowing as if they were all lit from within.

     Music played, strings and gentle drums, and on either side of the Sidra, golden lights bobbed over riverside walkways dotted with cafés and shops, all open for the night, already packed.

     Life—so full of life. I could nearly taste it crackling on my tongue.

     Clothed in black accented with silver thread, Rhysand crossed her arms. And rustled her massive wings as I said, "No."

"The House of Wind is warded against people winnowing inside—exactly like this house. Even against me. Don't ask me why, or who did it. But the option is either walk up the ten thousand steps, which I really do not feel like doing, Feyre, or fly in." 

     Moonlight glazed the talon at the apex of each wing. She gave me a slow grin that I hadn't seen all afternoon. 

"I promise I won't drop you."

     I frowned at the midnight-blue dress I'd selected—even with the long sleeves and heavy, luxurious fabric, the plunging vee of the neckline did nothing against the cold.

     I'd debated wearing the sweater and thicker pants, but had opted for finery over comfort. I already regretted it, even with the coat. But Rhysand was wearing a black gown far more luxurious than mine, and if his Inner Circle was anything like Tamlin's court ... better to wear the more formal attire. 

      I winced at the swath of night between the roof and the mountain-residence. "The wind will rip the gown right off."

      Her grin became feline.

"I'll take the stairs," I seethed, the anger welcome from the past few hours of numbness as I headed for the door at the end of the roof.

     Rhys snapped out a wing, blocking my path. Smooth membrane—flecked with a hint of iridescence. I peeled back. 

"Nuala spent an hour on my hair."

     An exaggeration, but she had fussed while I'd sat there in hollow silence, letting her tease the ends into soft curls and pin a section along the top of my head with pretty gold barrettes. But maybe staying inside tonight, alone and quiet ... maybe it'd be better than facing these people. Than interacting.

      Rhys's wing curved around me, herding me closer to where I could nearly feel the heat of her powerful body. 

"Do you really think I would enjoy flying so much if it ruined my hair?" Rhys challenged. "You'll be fine."  

     She lifted a hand as if she might tug on one of those loose curls, then lowered it. 

"If I'm to decide whether I want to work against Hybern with you—with your Inner Circle, can't we just ... meet here?"

"They're all up there already. And besides, the House of Wind has enough space that I won't feel like chucking them all off the mountain."

     I swallowed. Sure enough, curving along the top of the center mountain behind us, floors of lights glinted, as if the mountain had been crowned in gold. And between me and that crown of light was a long, long stretch of open air. 

"You mean," I said, because it might have been the only weapon in my arsenal, "that this town house is too small, and their personalities are too big, and you're worried I might lose it again."

     Her wing pushed me closer, a whisper of warmth on my shoulder. "So what if I am?"

"I'm not some broken doll." 

     Even if this afternoon, that conversation we'd had, what I'd glimpsed through her eyes, said otherwise. But I yielded another step.

"I know you're not. But that doesn't mean I'll throw you to the wolves. If you meant what you said about wanting to work with me to keep Hybern from these lands, keep the wall intact, I want you to meet my friends first. Decide on your own if it's something you can handle. And I want this meeting to be on my terms, not whenever they decide to ambush this house again."

"I didn't know you even had friends." 

     Yes—anger, sharpness ... It felt good. Better than feeling nothing.

     A cold smile. "You didn't ask."

     Rhysand was close enough now that she slid a hand around my waist, both of her wings encircling me. My spine locked up. A cage—

     The wings swept back.

     But she tightened her arm. Bracing me for takeoff. Mother save me. "You say the word tonight, and we come back here, no questions asked. And if you can't stomach working with me, with them, then no questions asked on that, either. We can find some other way for you to live here, be fulfilled, regardless of what I need. It's your choice, Feyre."

      I debated pushing her on it—on insisting I stay. But stay for what? To sleep? To avoid a meeting I should most certainly have before deciding what I wanted to do with myself? And to fly ...

     I studied the wings, the arm around my waist. "Please don't drop me. And please don't—"

     We shot into the sky, fast as a shooting star.

     Before my yelp finished echoing, the city had yawned wide beneath us. Rhys's hand slid under my knees while the other wrapped around my back and ribs, and we flapped up, up, up into the star-freckled night, into the liquid dark and singing wind.

     The city lights dropped away until Velaris was a rippling velvet blanket littered with jewels, until the music no longer reached even our pointed ears. The air was chill, but no wind other than a gentle breeze brushed my face—even as we soared with magnificent precision for the House of Wind.

     Rhys's body was soft and warm against mine, a solid force of nature crafted and honed for this. Even the smell of her reminded me of the wind—rain and salt and something citrus-y I couldn't name.

     We swerved into an updraft, rising so fast it was instinct to clutch her black dress as my stomach clenched. I scowled at the soft laugh that tickled my ear. 

"I expected more screaming from you. I must not be trying hard enough."

"Do not," I hissed, focusing on the approaching tiara of lights in the eternal wall of the mountain.

     With the sky wheeling overhead and the lights shooting past below, up and down became mirrors—until we were sailing through a sea of stars. Something tight in my chest eased a fraction of its grip.

"When I was a girl," Rhys said in my ear, "I'd sneak out of the House of Wind by leaping out my window—and I'd fly and fly all night, just making loops around the city, the river, the sea. Sometimes I still do."

"Your parents must have been thrilled."

"My father never knew—and my mother ..." A pause. "She was Illyrian. Some nights, when she caught me right as I leaped out the window, she'd scold me ... and then jump out herself to fly with me until dawn."

"She sounds lovely," I admitted.

"She was," she said. And those two words told me enough about her past that I didn't pry.

     A maneuver had us rising higher, until we were in direct line with a broad balcony, gilded by the light of golden lanterns. 

     At the far end, built into the red mountain itself, two glass doors were already open, revealing a large, but surprisingly casual dining room carved from the stone, and accented with rich wood. Each chair fashioned, I noted, to accomodate wings.

     Rhys's landing was as smooth as her takeoff, though she kept an arm beneath my shoulders as my knees buckled at the adjustment. I shook off her touch, and faced the city behind us.

     I'd spent so much time squatting in trees that heights had lost their primal terror long ago. But the sprawl of the city ... worse, the vast expanse of dark beyond—the sea ...

     Maybe I remained a human fool to feel that way, but I had not realized the size of the world. The size of Prythian, if a city this large could remain hidden from Amaros, from the other courts.

     Rhysand was silent beside me. Yet after a moment, she said, "Out with it."

     I lifted a brow.

"You say what's on your mind—one thing. And I'll say one, too."

     I shook my head and turned back to the city.

     But Rhys said, "I'm thinking that I spent fifty years locked Under the Mountain, and I'd sometimes let myself dream of this place, but I never expected to see it again. I'm thinking that I wish I had been the one who slaughtered him. I'm thinking that if war comes, it might be a long while yet before I get to have a night like this."

     She slid her eyes to me, expectant. I didn't bother asking again how she'd kept this place from him, not when she was likely to refuse to answer. So I said, "Do you think war will be here that soon?"

"This was a no-questions-asked invitation. I told you ... three things. Tell me one."

     I stared toward the open world, the city and the restless sea and the dry winter night. 

     Maybe it was some shred of courage, or recklessness, or I was so high above everything that no one save Rhys and the wind could hear, but I said, "I'm thinking that I must have been a fool in love to allow myself to be shown so little of the Spring Court. I'm thinking there's a great deal of that territory I was never allowed to see or hear about and maybe I would have lived in ignorance forever like some pet. I'm thinking ... " The words became choked. I shook my head as if I could clear the remaining ones away. But I still spoke them. "I'm thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I'm thinking maybe he knew that—maybe not actively, but maybe he wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn't work for who—what I am now."

     There.

     The words, hateful and selfish and ungrateful. For all Tamlin had done—

     The thought of his name clanged through me. Only yesterday afternoon, I had been there. No—no, I wouldn't think about it. Not yet.

     Rhysand said, "That was five. Looks like I owe you two thoughts." She glanced behind us. "Later."

     Because the two winged males from earlier were standing in the doorway.

     Grinning.

Chapter Text

    Rhys sauntered toward the two males standing by the dining room doors, giving me the option to stay or join.

     One word, she'd promised, and we could go.

     Both of them were tall, their wings tucked in tight to powerful, muscled bodies covered in plated, dark leather. Identical long swords were each strapped down the column of their spines. Perhaps I needn't have bothered with the fine clothes after all.

     The slightly larger of the two chuckled and said, "Come on, Feyre. We don't bite. Unless you ask us to."

     Surprise sparked through me, setting my feet moving.

"The last I heard, Cassian, no one has ever taken you up on that offer," Rhys teased.

     The second one snorted, the faces of both males at last illuminated as they turned toward the golden light of the dining room, and I honestly wondered why no one hadn't: if Rhysand's mother had also been Illyrian, then its people were blessed with unnatural good looks.

     Like their Lady, the males—warriors—were dark-haired, tan-skinned. But unlike Rhys, their eyes were hazel and fixed on me as I at last stepped close—to the waiting House of Wind behind them.

     That was where any similarities between the three of them halted.

     Cassian surveyed Rhys from head to foot, his shoulder-length black hair shifting with the movement. "So fancy tonight, sister. And you made poor Feyre dress up, too."

     He winked at me. There was something rough-hewn about his features—like he'd been made of wind and earth and flame and all these civilized trappings were little more than an inconvenience.

     But the second male, the more classically beautiful of the two ... Even the light shied from the elegant planes of his face. With good reason. Beautiful, but near-unreadable.

     Rhys said, "This is Azriel—my spymaster."

"Welcome," was all Azriel said, his voice low, almost flat, as he extended a brutally scarred hand to me.

     The shape of it was normal—but the skin ... It looked like it had been swirled and smudged and rippled. Burns. They must have been horrific if even their immortal blood had not been able to heal them.

     The leather plates of his light armor flowed over most of it, held by a loop around his middle finger. Not to conceal, I realized as his hand breached the chill night air between us. No, it was to hold in place the large, depthless cobalt stone that graced the back of the gauntlet.

     A matching one lay atop his left hand; and twin red stones adorned Cassian's gauntlets, their color like the slumbering heart of a flame.

     I took Azriel's hand, and his rough fingers squeezed mine. His skin was as cold as his face.

     But the word Cassian had used a moment ago snagged my attention as I released his hand and tried not to look too eager to step back to Rhys's side. "They're your brothers?"

     The Illyrians looked similar, but only in the way that people who had come from the same place did.

     Rhysand clarified, "They're my chosen brothers."

"And—you?" I asked Cassian.

     Cassian shrugged, wings tucking in tighter. "I command Rhys's armies."

     As if such a position were something that one shrugged off. And—armies. Rhys had armies. I shifted on my feet. Cassian's hazel eyes tracked the movement, his mouth twitching to the side.

"Cassian also excels at pissing everyone off. Especially amongst our friends. So, as a friend of Rhysand ... good luck," Azriel said.

     But Cassian nudged his brother out of the way, Azriel's mighty wings flaring slightly as he balanced himself.

"How the hell did you make that bone ladder in the Middengard Wyrm's lair when you look like your own bones can snap at any moment?"

      I met Cassian's gaze, if only because having Rhysand defend me might very well make me crumble a bit more. And maybe it made me as mean as an adder, maybe I relished being one, but I said, "How the hell did you manage to survive this long without anyone killing you?"

     Cassian tipped back his head and laughed, a full, rich sound that bounced off the ruddy stones of the House. Azriel's brows flicked up with approval as the shadows seemed to wrap tighter around him. As if he were the dark hive from which they flew and returned.

     Rhys's face was blank, but her eyes were wary. Assessing. I almost demanded what the hell she was looking at, until Mor breezed onto the balcony with, "If Cassian's howling, I hope it means Feyre told him to shut his fat mouth."

     Both Illyrians turned toward her, Cassian bracing his feet slightly farther apart on the floor in a fighting stance I knew all too well.

     It was almost enough to distract me from noticing Azriel as those shadows lightened, and his gaze slid over Mor's body: a red, flowing gown of chiffon accented with gold cuffs, and combs fashioned like gilded leaves swept back the waves of her unbound hair.

     A wisp of shadow curled around Azriel's ear, and his eyes snapped to mine. I schooled my face into bland innocence.

"I don't know why I ever forget you two are related," Cassian told Mor, jerking his chin at Rhys, who rolled her eyes. "You two and your clothes."

     Mor sketched a bow to Cassian. Indeed, I tried not to slump with relief at the sight of the fine clothes. At least I wouldn't look overdressed now.

"I wanted to impress Feyre. You could have at least bothered to comb your hair."

"Unlike some people," Cassian said, "I have better things to do with my time than sit in front of the mirror for hours."

"Yes," Mor said, tossing her long hair over a shoulder, "since swaggering around Velaris—"

"We have company," was Azriel's soft warning, wings again spreading a bit as he herded them through the open balcony doors to the dining room. I could have sworn tendrils of darkness swirled in their wake.

     Mor patted Azriel on the shoulder as she dodged his outstretched wing. "Relax, Az— no fighting tonight. We promised Rhys."

     The lurking shadows vanished entirely as Azriel's head dipped a bit—his night-dark hair sliding over his handsome face as if to shield him from that mercilessly beautiful grin.

     Mor gave no indication that she noticed and curved her fingers toward me. "Come sit with me while they drink."

     I had enough dignity remaining not to look to Rhys for confirmation it was safe. So I obeyed, falling into step beside her as the two Illyrians drifted back to walk the few steps with their Lady.

"Unless you'd rather drink," Mor offered as we entered the warmth and red stone of the dining room. "But I want you to myself before Amren hogs you—"

     The interior dining room doors opened on a whispering wind, revealing the shadowed, crimson halls of the mountain beyond.

     And maybe part of me remained mortal, because even though the short, delicate woman looked like High Fae ... as Rhys had warned me, every instinct was roaring to run.

     She was several inches shorter than me, her chin-length black hair glossy and straight, her skin tan and smooth, and her face—pretty, bordering on plain—was bored, if not mildly irritated. But Amren's eyes ...

     Her silver eyes were unlike anything I'd ever seen; a glimpse into the creature that I knew in my bones wasn't High Fae. Or hadn't been born that way.

     Mor groaned, slumping into a chair near the end of the table, and poured herself a glass of wine. Cassian took a seat across from her, wiggling his fingers for the wine bottle.

     But Rhysand and Azriel just stood there, watching—maybe monitoring—as the female approached me, then halted three feet away.

"Your taste remains excellent, High Lady. Thank you."

     Her voice was soft—but honed sharper than any blade I'd encountered. Her slim, small fingers grazed a delicate silver-and-pearl brooch pinned above her right breast.

     So that's who she'd bought the jewelry for. The jewelry I was to never, under any circumstances, try to steal.

      I studied Rhys and Amren, as if I might be able to read what further bond lay between them, but Rhysand waved a hand and bowed her head. "It suits you, Amren."

"Everything suits me," she said, and those horrible, enchanting eyes again met my own.

     She took a step closer, sniffing delicately, and though I stood half a foot taller, I'd never felt meeker. But I held my chin up. I didn't know why, but I did.

"So there are two of us now."

      My brows nudged toward each other.

      Amren's lips were a slash of red. "We who were born something else—and found ourselves trapped in new, strange bodies."

       I decided I really didn't want to know what she'd been before. Amren jerked her chin at me to sit in the empty chair beside Mor, her hair shifting like molten night.

     She claimed the seat across from me, Azriel on her other side as Rhys took the one across from him—on my right.

      No one at the head of the table.

"Though there is a third," Amren said, now looking at Rhysand. "I don't think you've heard from Miryam in ... centuries. Interesting."

     Cassian rolled his eyes. "Please just get to the point, Amren. I'm hungry."

     Mor choked on her wine. Amren slid her attention to the warrior to her right. Azriel, on her other side, monitored the two of them very, very carefully.

"No one warming your bed right now, Cassian? It must be so hard to be an Illyrian and have no thoughts in your head save for those about your favorite part."

"You know I'm always happy to tangle in the sheets with you, Amren," Cassian said. "I know how much you enjoy Illyrian—"

"Miryam," Rhysand said, "and Drakon are doing well, as far as I've heard. And what, exactly, is interesting?"

     Amren's head tilted to the side as she studied me. I tried not to shrink from it. "Only once before was a human Made into an immortal. Interesting that it should happen again right as all the ancient players have returned. But Miryam was gifted long life—not a new body. And you, girl ..."

     She sniffed again, and I'd never felt so laid bare. Surprise lit Amren's eyes. Rhys just nodded. Whatever that meant. I was tired already. Tired of being assessed and evaluated.

"Your very blood, your veins, your bones were Made. A mortal soul in an immortal body."

"I'm hungry," Mor said nudging me with a thigh.

     She snapped a finger, and plates piled high with roast chicken, greens, and bread appeared. Simple, but ... elegant. Not formal at all. Perhaps the sweater and pants wouldn't have been out of place for such a meal.

"Amren and Rhys can talk all night and bore us to tears, so don't bother waiting for them to dig in." She picked up her fork, clicking her tongue. "I asked Rhys if I could take you to dinner, just the two of us, and she said you wouldn't want to. But honestly—would you rather spend time with those two ancient bores, or me?"

"For someone who is the same age as me," Rhys drawled, "you seem to forget—"

"Everyone wants to talk-talk-talk," Mor said. "Can't we eat-eat-eat, and then talk?"

     I hadn't even realized Mor had poured me a glass until I finished my first sip, and she clinked her own against mine. "Don't let these old busybodies boss you around."

     Cassian said, "Pot. Kettle. Black." Then he frowned at Amren, who had hardly touched her plate. "I always forget how bizarre that is."

     He unceremoniously took her plate, dumping half the contents on his own before passing the rest to Azriel.

     Azriel said to Amren as he slid the food onto his plate, "I keep telling him to ask before he does that."

     Amren flicked her fingers and the empty plate vanished from Azriel's scarred hands. "If you haven't been able to train him after all these centuries, boy, I don't think you'll make any progress now."

"You don't—eat?" I said to her.

"Not this sort of food."

"Cauldron boil me," Mor said. "Can we not?"

     Rhys chuckled from my other side. "Remind me to have family dinners more often."

     Across from me, a cocoon of silence seemed to pulse around Azriel, even as the others dug into their food. I again peered at that oval of blue stone on his gauntlet as he sipped from his glass of wine. Azriel noted the look, swift as it had been. He held up his hands, the backs to me so both jewels were on full display.

"They're called Siphons. They concentrate and focus our power in battle."

     Rhys set down her fork, and clarified for me, "The power of stronger Illyrians tends toward 'incinerate now, ask questions later.' They have little magical gifts beyond that—the killing power."

"The gift of a violent, warmongering people," Amren added. Azriel nodded. Cassian gave him a sharp look, face tightening, but Azriel ignored him.

     Rhys went on, "The Illyrians bred the power to give them advantage in battle, yes. The Siphons filter that raw power and allow Cassian and Azriel to transform it into something more subtle and varied—into shields and weapons, arrows and spears. Imagine the difference between hurling a bucket of paint against the wall and using a brush. The Siphons allow for the magic to be nimble, precise on the battlefield—when its natural state lends itself toward something far messier and unrefined, and potentially dangerous when you're fighting in tight quarters."

     Cassian flexed his fingers, admiring the clear red stones adorning the backs of his own broad hands. "Doesn't hurt that they also look damn good."

     Amren muttered, "Illyrians."

     Cassian bared his teeth in feral amusement, and took a drink of his wine.

"How did you—I mean, how do you and Lord Cassian—"

     Cassian spewed his wine across the table, causing Mor to leap up, swearing at him as she used a napkin to mop her dress.

      But Cassian was howling, and Azriel had a faint, wary smile on his face as Mor waved a hand at her dress and the spots of wine appeared on Cassian's fighting—or perhaps flying, I realized—leathers. My cheeks heated. Some court protocol that I'd unknowingly broken and—

"Cassian," Rhys drawled, "is not a lord. Though I'm sure he appreciates you thinking he is." She surveyed her Inner Circle. "While we're on the subject, neither is Azriel. Nor Amren. Mor, believe it or not, is the only pure-blooded, titled person in this room."

     Not her? Rhys must have seen the question on my face because she said, "I'm half-Illyrian. As good as bastard-born where the thoroughbred High Fae are concerned."

"So you—you three aren't High Fae?" I said to her and the two males.

     Cassian finished his laughing. "Illyrians are certainly not High Fae. And glad of it." He hooked his black hair behind an ear—rounded; as mine had once been. "And we're not lesser faeries, though some try to call us that. We're just—Illyrians. Considered expendable aerial cavalry for the Night Court at the best of times, mindless soldier grunts at the worst."

"Which is most of the time," Azriel clarified. I didn't dare ask if those shadows were a part of being Illyrian, too.

"I didn't see you Under the Mountain," I said instead.

     Silence fell. None of them, even Amren, looked at Rhysand.

     It was Mor who said, "Because none of us were."

     Rhys's face was a mask of cold. "Amaros didn't know they existed. And when someone tried to tell him, they usually found themselves without the mind to do so."

     A shudder went down my spine. Not at the cold killer, but—but ... "You truly kept this city, and all these people, hidden from him for fifty years?"

     Cassian was staring hard at his plate, as if he might burst out of his skin.

     Amren said, "We will continue to keep this city and these people hidden from our enemies for a great many more."

     Not an answer.

     Rhys hadn't expected to see them again when she'd been dragged Under the Mountain. Yet she had kept them safe, somehow.

     And it killed them—the four people at this table. It killed them all that she'd done it, however she'd done it. Even Amren.

     Perhaps not only for the fact that Rhys had endured Amaros while they had been here. Perhaps it was also for those left outside of the city, too. Perhaps picking one city, one place, to shield was better than nothing. Perhaps ... perhaps it was a comforting thing, to have a spot in Prythian that remained untouched. Unsullied.

     Mor's voice was a bit raw as she explained to me, "There is not one person in this city who is unaware of what went on outside these borders. Or of the cost."

     I didn't want to ask what price had been demanded. The pain that laced the heavy silence told me enough.

      Yet if they might all live through their pain, might still laugh ... I cleared my throat, straightening, and said to Azriel, who, shadows or no, seemed the safest and therefore was probably the least so, "How did you meet?"

     Azriel merely turned to Cassian, who was staring at Rhys with guilt and love on his face, so deep and agonized that some now-splintered instinct had me almost reaching across the table to grip his hand.

     But Cassian seemed to process what I'd asked and his friend's silent request that he tell the story instead, and a grin ghosted across his face.

"We all hated each other at first."

     Beside me, the light had winked out of Rhys's eyes. What I'd asked about Amaros, what horrors I'd made her remember ...

      A confession for a confession—I thought she'd done it for my sake. Maybe she had things she needed to voice, couldn't voice to these people, not without causing them more pain and guilt.

      Cassian went on, drawing my attention from the silent Lady at my right, "We are bastards, you know. Az and I. The Illyrians ... We love our people, and our traditions, but they dwell in clans and camps deep in the mountains of the North, and do not like outsiders. Especially High Fae who try to tell them what to do. But they're just as obsessed with lineage, and have their own princes and lords among them. Az was the bastard of one of the local lords. And if you think the bastard son of a lord is hated, then you can't imagine how hated the bastard is of a war-camp laundress and a warrior she couldn't or wouldn't remember."

      His casual shrug didn't match the vicious glint in his hazel eyes.

"Az's father sent him to our camp for training once he and his charming wife realized he was a shadowsinger."

"Like the daemati," Rhys said to me, "shadowsingers are rare—coveted by courts and territories across the world for their stealth and predisposition to hear and feel things others can't."

     Cassian said, "The camp lord practically shit himself with excitement the day Az was dumped in our camp. But me ... once my mother weaned me and I was able to walk, they flew me to a distant camp, and chucked me into the mud to see if I would live or die."

"They would have been smarter throwing you off a cliff," Mor said, snorting.

"Oh, definitely," Cassian said. "Especially because when I was old and strong enough to go back to the camp I'd been born in, I learned those pricks worked my mother until she died."

     Again that silence fell—different this time. The tension and simmering anger of a unit who had endured so much, survived so much ... and felt each other's pain keenly.

"The Illyrians," Rhys smoothly cut in, that light finally returning to her gaze, "are unparalleled warriors, and are rich with stories and traditions. But they are also brutal and backward, particularly in regard to how they treat their females."

"They're barbarians," Amren said. "They cripple their females so they can keep them for breeding more flawless warriors."

"My mother was low-born," Rhys told me, "and worked as a seamstress in one of their many mountain war-camps. When females come of age in the camps--when they have their first bleeding—their wings are ... clipped. Just an incision in the right place, left to improperly heal, can cripple you forever. And my mother—she was gentle and wild and loved to fly. So she did everything in her power to keep herself from maturing. She starved herself, gathered illegal herbs—anything to halt the natural course of her body. She turned eighteen and hadn't yet bled, to the mortification of her parents. But her bleeding finally arrived, and all it took was for her to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, before a male scented it on her and told the camp's lord. She tried to flee—took right to the skies. But she was young, and the warriors were faster, and they dragged her back. They were about to tie her to the posts in the center of camp when my father winnowed in for a meeting with the camp's lord about readying for the War. He saw my mother thrashing and fighting like a wildcat, and the mating bond between them clicked into place. One look at her, and he knew what she was. He misted the guards holding her."

"Misted?"

      Cassian let out a wicked chuckle as Rhys floated a lemon wedge that had been garnishing her chicken into the air above the table. With a flick of her finger, it turned to citrus-scented mist.

"Through the blood-rain," Rhys went on, "my mother looked at him. And the bond fell into place for her. My father took her back to the Night Court that evening and made her his bride. She loved her people, and missed them, but never forgot what they had tried to do to her— what they did to the females among them. She tried for decades to get my father to ban it, but the War was coming, and he wouldn't risk isolating the Illyrians when he needed them to lead his armies. And to die for him."

"A real prize, your father," Mor grumbled.

"At least he liked you," Rhys countered, then clarified for me, "my father and mother, despite being mates, were wrong for each other. My father was cold and calculating, and could be vicious, as he had been trained to be since birth. My mother was soft and fiery and beloved by everyone she met. She hated him after a time—but never stopped being grateful that he had saved her wings, that he allowed her to fly whenever and wherever she wished. And when I was born, and could summon the Illyrian wings as I pleased ... She wanted me to know her people's culture."

"She wanted to keep you out of your father's claws," Mor said.

"That, too," Rhys added drily. "My powers began to show at a very young age. My father was thrilled when he discovered I was a daemati. He decided that I was to be his heir. Even though no High Lords had ever chosen a daughter as their heir, he declared that I would be powerful enough to make up for being female. It caused an uproar with most of the other High Lords, but he had made his decision. And he spent my entire childhood ruthlessly training my powers. He made sure I had all of the opportunities a son would. And when I turned eight, he demanded I be allowed to train in an Illyrian camp with the other boys my age. He fought with the camp lord for months, but eventually, it was decided that I could train."

      Rhys picked at her long nails, painted dark blue and perfectly filed, and sighed before she went on.

"When I turned eight, my mother brought me to the Illyrian war-camps. To be trained, as all Illyrian males were trained. And like all Illyrian mothers, she shoved me toward the sparring ring on the first day, and walked away without looking back."

"She abandoned you?" I found myself saying.

"No—never," Rhys said with a ferocity I'd heard only a few times. "She was staying at the camp as well. But it is considered an embarrassment for a mother to coddle her child when they go to train."

     My brows lifted and Cassian laughed. "Backward, like she said," the warrior told me.

"I was scared out of my mind," Rhys admitted. "I'd been learning to wield my powers, but Illyrian magic was a mere fraction of it. And it's rare amongst them—usually possessed only by the most powerful, pure-bred warriors. I tried to use a Siphon during those years. And shattered about a dozen before I realized it wasn't compatible—the stones couldn't hold it. My power flows and is honed in other ways."

"So difficult, being such a powerful High Lady," Mor teased.

      Rhys rolled her eyes. "The camp-lord banned me from using my magic. For all our sakes. But I had no idea how to fight when I set foot into that training ring that day. The boys in my age group knew it, too. Especially one in particular, who took a look at me, and beat me into a bloody mess."

"You were so clean," Cassian said, shaking his head. "The pretty half-breed princess—how fancy you were in your new training clothes."

"I was just a little girl," Rhys defended herself, shooting him a playful glare.

"You sure held your own for being just a little girl," Cassian teased, then turned his attention back to me. "I'd beaten every boy in our age group twice over already. But then Rhys arrived, in her clean clothes, and she smelled ... different. Like a true opponent. So I attacked. We both got three lashings apiece for the fight."

      I flinched. Hitting children—

"They do worse, girl," Amren cut in, "in those camps. Three lashings is practically an encouragement to fight again. When they do something truly bad, bones are broken. Repeatedly. Over weeks."

      I said to Rhys, "Your mother willingly sent you into that?"

"My mother didn't want me to rely on my power," Rhysand said. "She knew from the moment she conceived me that I'd be hunted my entire life. Where one strength failed, she wanted others to save me. My education was another weapon—which was why she went with me: to tutor me after lessons were done for the day. And when she took me home that first night to our new house at the edge of the camp, she made me read by the window. It was there that I saw Cassian trudging through the mud—toward the few ramshackle tents outside of the camp. I asked her where he was going, and she told me that bastards are given nothing: they find their own shelter, own food. If they survive and get picked to be in a warband, they'll be bottom-ranking forever, but receive their own tents and supplies. But until then, he'd stay in the cold."

"Those mountains," Azriel added, "offer some of the harshest conditions you can imagine."

"After my lessons," Rhys went on, "my mother cleaned my lashings, and as she did, I realized for the first time what it was to be warm, and safe, and cared for. And it didn't sit well."

"Apparently not," Cassian said. "Because in the dead of night, that little shit woke me up in my piss-poor tent and told me to keep my mouth shut and come with her. And maybe the cold made me stupid, but I did. Her mother was livid. But I'll never forget the look on her beautiful face when she saw me and said, 'There is a bathtub with hot running water. Get in it or you can go back into the cold.' Being a smart lad, I obeyed. When I got out, she had clean nightclothes and ordered me into bed. I'd spent my life sleeping on the ground—and when I balked, she said she understood because she had felt the same once, and that it would feel as if I was being swallowed up, but the bed was mine for as long as I wanted it."

"And you were friends after that?"

"No—Cauldron no," Rhysand said. "We hated each other, and only behaved because if one of us got into trouble or provoked the other, then neither of us ate that night. My mother started tutoring Cassian, but it wasn't until Azriel arrived a year later that we decided to be allies."

     Cassian's grin grew as he reached around Amren to clap his friend on the shoulder. Azriel sighed—the sound of the long-suffering. The warmest expression I'd seen him make.

"A new bastard in the camp—and an untrained shadowsinger to boot. Not to mention he couldn't even fly thanks to—"

     Mor cut in lazily, "Stay on track, Cassian."

     Cassian went on, "Rhys and I made his life a living hell, shadowsinger or no. But Rhys's mother had known Az's mother, and took him in. As we grew older, and the other males around us did, too, we realized everyone else hated us enough that we had better odds of survival sticking together."

"Do you have any gifts?" I asked him. "Like—them?" I jerked my chin to Azriel and Rhys.

"A volatile temper doesn't count," Mor said as Cassian opened his mouth.

     He gave her that grin I realized likely meant trouble was coming, but said to me, "No. I don't—not beyond a heaping pile of the killing power. Bastard-born nobody, through and through." Rhys sat forward like she'd object, but Cassian forged ahead, "Even so, the other males knew that we were different. And not because we were two bastards and a female half-breed. We were stronger, faster—like the Cauldron knew we'd been set apart and wanted us to find each other. Rhys's mother saw it, too. Especially as we reached the age of maturity, and all we wanted to do was fuck and fight."

"Males are horrible creatures, aren't they?" Amren said.

"Repulsive," Mor said, clicking her tongue.

"Don't drag me into their mess," Rhys grumbled to her cousin.

"Oh please, you were just as bad as they were," Mor teased. Rhys rolled her violet eyes.

"Rhys's power grew every day—and everyone, even the camp lords, knew she could mist everyone if she felt like it," Cassian went on. "And the two of us ... we weren't far behind."

     He tapped his crimson Siphon with a finger. "A bastard Illyrian had never received one of these. Ever. For Az and me to both be appointed them, albeit begrudgingly, had every warrior in every camp across those mountains sizing us up. Only pure-blood pricks get Siphons—born and bred for the killing power. It still keeps them up at night, puzzling over where the hell we got it from."

"Then the War came," Azriel took over. "And Rhys's father visited our camp to see how his daughter had fared after twenty years."

"My father," Rhys said, swirling her wine once—twice, "saw that his daughter had not only started to rival him for power, but had allied herself with perhaps the two deadliest Illyrians in history. He got it into his head that if we were given a legion in the War, we might very well turn it against him when we returned."

     Cassian snickered. "So the prick separated us. He gave Rhys command of a legion of Illyrians who hated her for being a female half-breed, and threw me into a different legion to be a common foot soldier, even when my power outranked any of the war-leaders. Az, he kept for himself as his personal shadowsinger—mostly for spying and his dirty work. We only saw each other on battlefields for the seven years the War raged. They'd send around casualty lists amongst the Illyrians, and I read each one, wondering if I'd see their names on it. But then Rhys was captured—"

"That is a story for another time," Rhys said, sharply enough that Cassian lifted his brows, but nodded. "Once I became High Lady, I appointed these four to my Inner Circle, and told the rest of my father's old court that if they had a problem with my friends, they could leave. They all did. Turns out, having a half-breed High Lady was made worse by her appointment of two more females and two Illyrian bastards."

"What—what happened to them, then?"

"The nobility of the Night Court fall into one of three categories: those who hated me enough that when Amaros took over, they joined his court and later found themselves dead; those who hated me enough to try to overthrow me and faced the consequences; and those who hated me, but not enough to be stupid and have since tolerated a female half-breed's rule, especially when it so rarely interferes with their miserable lives."

"Are they—are they the ones who live beneath the mountain?"

"In the Hewn City, yes. I gave it to them, for not being fools. They're happy to stay there, rarely leaving, ruling themselves and being as wicked as they please, for all eternity."

      That was the court she must have shown Amaros when he first arrived—and its wickedness must have pleased him enough that he modeled his own after it.

"The Court of Nightmares," Mor said.

"And what is this court?" I asked, gesturing to them.

"The Court of Dreams."

     The Court of Dreams—the dreams of a half-breed High Lady, two bastard warriors, and ... the two females.

"And you?" I said to Mor and Amren.

     Amren merely said, "Rhys offered to make me her Second. No one had ever asked me before, so I said yes, to see what it might be like. I found I enjoyed it."

"I was a dreamer born into the Court of Nightmares," Mor said.

     She twirled a curl around a finger, and I wondered if her story might be the worst of all of them as she said simply, "So I got out."

"What's your story, then?" Cassian said to me with a jerk of his chin.

     I straightened. "I was born to a wealthy merchant family, with two older sisters and parents who only cared about their money and social standing. My mother died when I was eight; my father lost his fortune three years later. He sold everything to pay off his debts, moved us into a hovel, and didn't bother to find work while he let us slowly starve for years. I was fourteen when the last of the money ran out, along with the food. He wouldn't work—couldn't, because the debtors came and shattered his leg in front of us. So I went into the forest and taught myself to hunt. And I kept us all alive, if not near starvation at times, for five years. Until ... everything happened."

     They fell quiet again, Azriel's gaze now considering. He hadn't told his story. Did it ever come up? Or did they never discuss those burns on his hands? And what did the shadows whisper to him—did they speak in a language at all?

     But Cassian said, "You taught yourself to hunt. What about to fight?" I shook my head. Cassian braced his arms on the table. "Lucky for you, you've just found yourself a teacher."

     I opened my mouth, protesting, but— Rhysand's mother had given her an arsenal of weapons to use if the other failed. What did I have in my own beyond a good shot with a bow and brute stubbornness? And if I had this new power—these other powers ...

     I would not be weak again. I would not be dependent on anyone else. I would never have to endure the touch of the Attor as it dragged me because I was too helpless to know where and how to hit. Never again.

     But what Ianthe and Tamlin had said ... "You don't think it sends a bad message if people see me learning to fight—using weapons?"

     The moment the words were out, I realized the stupidity of them. The stupidity of— of what had been shoved down my throat these past few months.

     Silence. Then Mor said with a soft venom that made me understand the High Lady's Third had received training of her own in that Court of Nightmares, "Let me tell you two things. As someone who has perhaps been in your shoes before."

     Again, that shared bond of anger, of pain throbbed between them all, save for Amren, who was giving me a look dripping with distaste.

"One," Mor said, "you have left the Spring Court. If that does not send a message, for good or bad, then your training will not, either. Two, I once lived in a place where the opinion of others mattered. It suffocated me, nearly broke me. So you'll understand me, Feyre, when I say that I know what you feel, and I know what they tried to do to you, and that with enough courage, you can say to hell with a reputation."

     Her voice gentled, and the tension between them all faded with it. "You do what you love, what you need."

     Mor would not tell me what to wear or not wear. She would not allow me to step aside while she spoke for me. She would not ... would not do any of the things that I had so willingly, desperately, allowed Ianthe to do.

     I met Cassian's gaze. And though his eyes danced, there was nothing amused in them. "I'll think about it."

     Through the bond in my hand, I could have sworn I felt a glimmer of pleased surprise. I checked my mental shields—but they were intact. And Rhysand's calm face revealed no hint of its origin.

     So I said clearly, steadily to her, "I accept your offer—to work with you. To earn my keep. And help with Hybern in whatever way I can."

"Good," Rhys merely replied.

     Even as the others raised their brows. Yes, they'd obviously not been told this was an interview of sorts.

"Because we start tomorrow."

"Where? And what?" I sputtered.

"Because the King of Hybern is indeed about to launch a war, and he wants to resurrect Jurian to do it."

     Jurian—the ancient warrior whose soul Amaros had imprisoned within that hideous ring as punishment for killing his sister. The ring that contained his eye ...

"Bullshit," Cassian spat. "There's no way to do that."

"Why would the king want to resurrect Jurian?" Mor groaned. "He was so odious. All he liked to do was talk about himself."

"That's what I want to find out," Rhysand said. "And how the king plans to do it."

     Amren at last said, "Word will have reached him about Feyre's Making. He knows it's possible for the dead to be remade."

"All seven rulers would have to agree to that," Mor countered. "There's not a chance it happens. He'll take another route. All the slaughtering—the massacres at temples. You think it's tied to this?"

"I know it's tied to this. I didn't want to tell you until I knew for certain. But Azriel confirmed that they'd raided the memorial in Sangravah three days ago. They're looking for something—or found it."

     Azriel nodded in confirmation, even as Mor cast a surprised look in his direction. Azriel gave her an apologetic shrug back.

     I breathed, "That—that's why the ring and the finger bone vanished after Amaros died. For this. But who ..." My mouth went dry. "They never caught the Attor, did they?"

     Rhys said too quietly, "No. No, they didn't." The food in my stomach turned leaden. She said to Amren, "How does one take an eye and a finger bone and make it into a man again? And how do we stop it?"

     Amren frowned at her untouched wine. "You already know how to find the answer. Go to the Prison. Talk to the Bone Carver."

"Shit," Mor and Cassian both said.

     Rhys said calmly, "Perhaps you would be more effective, Amren."

     I was grateful for the table separating us as Amren hissed, "I will not set foot in the Prison, Rhysand, and you know it. So go yourself, or send one of these dogs to do it for you."

"I'll go," Azriel offered. "The Prison sentries know me—what I am."

"If anyone's going to the Prison," Rhys said, "it's me. And Feyre."

"What?" Mor demanded.

"He won't talk to Rhys," Amren said to the others, "or to Azriel. Or to any of us. We've got nothing to offer him. But an immortal with a mortal soul. The Bone Carver might be willing indeed to talk to her."

"Your choice, Feyre," Rhys said casually.

     To shirk and mourn or face some unknown horror—the choice was easy. "How bad can it be?" was my response.

"Bad," Cassian said.

     None of them bothered to contradict him.