If—if Tamlin went to war to get me back. No. No, that wouldn’t be an option.
I’d written to him, told him to stay away. And he wasn’t foolish enough to start a war he could not win. Not when he wouldn’t be fighting other High Fae, but Illyrian warriors, led by Cassian and Azriel. It would be slaughter.
So I said, bored and flat and dull, “Try not to look too excited, princess. The High Lord of Spring has no plans to go to war with the Night Court.”
“And are you in contact with Tamlin, then?” A saccharine smile.
My next words were quiet, slow, and I decided I did not mind stealing from them, not one bit. “There are things that are public knowledge, and things that are not. My relationship with him is well known. Its current standing, however, is none of your concern. Or anyone else’s. But I do know Tamlin, and I know that there will be no internal war between courts—at least not over me, or my decisions.”
“What a relief, then,” Cresseida said, sipping from her white wine before cracking a large crab claw, pink and white and orange. “To know we are not harboring a stolen bride—and that we need not bother returning her to her master, as the law demands. And as any wise person might do, to keep trouble from their doorstep.”
Amren had gone utterly still.
“I left of my own free will,” I said. “And no one is my master.”
Cresseida shrugged. “Think that all you want, lady, but the law is the law. You are—were his bride. Swearing fealty to another High Lord does not change that. So it is a very good thing that he respects your decisions. Otherwise, all it would take would be one letter from him to Tarquin, requesting your return, and we would have to obey. Or risk war ourselves.”
Rhysand sighed. “You are always a joy, Cresseida.”
Varian said, “Careful, High Lord. My sister speaks the truth.”
Tarquin laid a hand on the pale table. “Rhysand is our guest—
his courtiers are our guests. And we will treat them as such. We will treat them, Cresseida, as we treat people who saved our necks when all it would have taken was one word from them for us to be very, very dead.”
Tarquin studied me and Rhysand—whose face was gloriously disinterested. The High Lord of Summer shook his head and said to Rhys, “We have more to discuss later, you and I. Tonight, I’m throwing a party for you all on my pleasure barge in the bay. After that, you’re free to roam in this city wherever you wish. You will forgive its princess if she is protective of her people. Rebuilding these months has been long and hard. We do not wish to do it again any time soon.”
Cresseida’s eyes grew dark, haunted.
“Cresseida made many sacrifices on behalf of her people,”
Tarquin offered gently—to me. “Do not take her caution personally.”
“We all made sacrifices,” Rhysand said, the icy boredom now shifting into something razor-sharp. “And you now sit at this table with your family because of the ones Feyre made. So you will forgive me, Tarquin, if I tell your princess that if she sends word to Tamlin, or if any of your people try to bring her to him, their lives will be forfeit.”
Even the sea breeze died.
“Do not threaten me in my own home, Rhysand,” Tarquin said.
“My gratitude goes only so far.”
“It’s not a threat,” Rhys countered, the crab claws on his plate cracking open beneath invisible hands. “It’s a promise.”
They all looked at me, waiting for any response.
So I lifted my glass of wine, looked them each in the eye, holding Tarquin’s gaze the longest, and said, “No wonder immortality never gets dull.”
Tarquin chuckled—and I wondered if his loosed breath was one of profound relief.
And through that bond between us, I felt Rhysand’s flicker of approval.
We were given a suite of connecting rooms, all centered on a large, lavish lounge that was open to the sea and city below. My bedroom was appointed in seafoam and softest blue with pops of gold—like the gilded clamshell atop my pale wood dresser. I had just set it down when the white door behind me clicked open and Rhys slid in.
He leaned against the door once he shut it, the top of his black tunic unbuttoned to reveal the upper whorls of the tattoo spanning his chest.
“The problem, I’ve realized, will be that I like Tarquin,” he said by way of greeting. “I even like Cresseida. Varian, I could live without, but I bet a few weeks with Cassian and Azriel, and he’d be thick as thieves with them and I’d have to learn to like him. Or he’d be wrapped around Amren’s finger, and I’d have to leave him alone entirely or risk her wrath.”
“And?” I took up a spot against the dresser, where clothes that I had not packed but were clearly of Night Court origin had been already waiting for me.
The space of the room—the large bed, the windows, the sunlight—filled the silence between us.
“And,” Rhys said, “I want you to find a way to do what you have to do without making enemies of them.”
“So you’re telling me don’t get caught.”
A nod. Then, “Do you like that Tarquin can’t stop looking at you?
I can’t tell if it’s because he wants you, or because he knows you have his power and wants to see how much.”
“Can’t it be both?”
“Of course. But having a High Lord lusting after you is a dangerous game.”
“First you taunt me with Cassian, now Tarquin? Can’t you find other ways to annoy me?”
Rhys prowled closer, and I steadied myself for his scent, his warmth, the impact of his power. He braced a hand on either side of me, gripping the dresser. I refused to shrink away. “You have one task here, Feyre. One task that no one can know about. So do anything you have to in order to accomplish it. But get that book. And do not get caught.”
I wasn’t some simpering fool. I knew the risks. And that tone, that look he always gave me … “Anything?” His brows rose. I breathed, “If I fucked him for it, what would you do?”
His pupils flared, and his gaze dropped to my mouth. The wood dresser groaned beneath his hands. “You say such atrocious things.” I waited, my heart an uneven beat. He at last met my eyes again. “You are always free to do what you want, with whomever you want. So if you want to ride him, go ahead.”
“Maybe I will.” Though a part of me wanted to retort, Liar.
“Fine.” His breath caressed my mouth.
“Fine,” I said, aware of every inch between us, the distance smaller and smaller, the challenge heightening with each second neither of us moved.
“Do not,” he said softly, his eyes like stars, “jeopardize this mission.”
“I know the cost.” The sheer power of him enveloped me, shaking me awake.
The salt and the sea and the breeze tugged on me, sang to me.
And as if Rhys heard them, too, he inclined his head toward the unlit candle on the dresser. “Light it.”
I debated arguing, but looked at the candle, summoning fire, summoning that hot anger he managed to rile—
The candle was knocked off the dresser by a violent splash of water, as if someone had chucked a bucketful.
I gaped at the water drenching the dresser, its dripping on the marble floor the only sound.
Rhys, hands still braced on either side of me, laughed quietly.
“Can’t you ever follow orders?”
But whatever it was—being here, close to Tarquin and his power … I could feel that water answering me. Feel it coating the floor, feel the sea churning and idling in the bay, taste the salt on the breeze. I held Rhys’s gaze.
No one was my master—but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared.
Like a strange rain, the water rose from the floor as I willed it to become like those stars Rhys had summoned in his blanket of darkness. I willed the droplets to separate until they hung around us, catching the light and sparkling like crystals on a chandelier.
Rhys broke my stare to study them. “I suggest,” he murmured,
“you not show Tarquin that little trick in the bedroom.”
I sent each and every one of those droplets shooting for the High Lord’s face.
Too fast, too swiftly for him to shield. Some of them sprayed me as they ricocheted off him.
Both of us now soaking, Rhys gaped a bit—then smiled. “Good work,” he said, at last pushing off the dresser. He didn’t bother to wipe away the water gleaming on his skin. “Keep practicing.”
But I said, “Will he go to war? Over me?”
He knew who I meant. The hot temper that had been on Rhys’s face moments before turned to lethal calm. “I don’t know.”
“I—I would go back. If it came to that, Rhysand. I’d go back, rather than make you fight.”
He slid a still-wet hand into his pocket. “Would you want to go back? Would going to war on your behalf make you love him again? Would that be a grand gesture to win you?”
I swallowed hard. “I’m tired of death. I wouldn’t want to see anyone else die—least of all for me.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No. I wouldn’t want to go back. But I would. Pain and killing wouldn’t win me.”
Rhys stared at me for a moment longer, his face unreadable, before he strode to the door. He stopped with his fingers on the sea urchin–shaped handle. “He locked you up because he knew
—the bastard knew what a treasure you are. That you are worth more than land or gold or jewels. He knew, and wanted to keep you all to himself.”
The words hit me, even as they soothed some jagged piece in my soul. “He did—does love me, Rhysand.”
“The issue isn’t whether he loved you, it’s how much. Too much.
Love can be a poison.”
And then he was gone.
The bay was calm enough—perhaps willed to flatness by its lord and master—that the pleasure barge hardly rocked throughout the hours we dined and drank aboard it.
Crafted of richest wood and gold, the enormous boat was amply sized for the hundred or so High Fae trying their best not to observe every movement Rhys, Amren, and I made.
The main deck was full of low tables and couches for eating and relaxing, and on the upper level, beneath a canopy of tiles set with mother-of-pearl, our long table had been set. Tarquin was summer incarnate in turquoise and gold, bits of emerald shining at his buttons and fingers. A crown of sapphire and white gold fashioned like cresting waves sat atop his seafoam-colored hair—so exquisite that I often caught myself staring at it.
As I was now, when he turned to where I sat on his right and noticed my stare.
“You’d think with our skilled jewelers, they could make a crown a bit more comfortable. This one digs in horribly.”
A pleasant enough attempt at conversation, when I’d stayed quiet throughout the first hour, instead watching the island-city, the water, the mainland—casting a net of awareness, of blind power, toward it, to see if anything answered. If the Book slumbered somewhere out there.
Nothing had answered my silent call. So I figured it was as good a time as any as I said, “How did you keep it out of her hands?”
Saying Amarantha’s name here, amongst such happy, celebrating people, felt like inviting in a rain cloud.
Seated at his left, deep in conversation with Cresseida, Rhys didn’t so much as look over at me. Indeed, he’d barely spoken to me earlier, not even noting my clothes.
Unusual, given that even I had been pleased with how I looked, and had again selected it for myself: my hair unbound and swept
off my face with a headband of braided rose gold, my sleeveless, dusk-pink chiffon gown—tight in the chest and waist—the near-twin to the purple one I’d worn that morning. Feminine, soft, pretty.
I hadn’t felt like those things in a long, long while. Hadn’t wanted to.
But here, being those things wouldn’t earn me a ticket to a life of party planning. Here, I could be soft and lovely at sunset, and awaken in the morning to slide into Illyrian fighting leathers.
Tarquin said, “We managed to smuggle out most of our treasure when the territory fell. Nostrus—my predecessor—was my cousin.
I served as prince of another city. So I got the order to hide the trove in the dead of night, fast as we could.”
Amarantha had killed Nostrus when he’d rebelled—and executed his entire family for spite. Tarquin must have been one of the few surviving members, if the power had passed to him.
“I didn’t know the Summer Court valued treasure so much,” I said.
Tarquin huffed a laugh. “The earliest High Lords did. We do now out of tradition, mostly.”
I said carefully, casually, “So is it gold and jewels you value, then?”
“Among other things.”
I sipped my wine to buy time to think of a way to ask without raising suspicions. But maybe being direct about it would be better. “Are outsiders allowed to see the collection? My father was a merchant—I spent most of my childhood in his office, helping him with his goods. It would be interesting to compare mortal riches to those made by Fae hands.”
Rhys kept talking to Cresseida, not even a hint of approval or amusement going through our bond.
Tarquin cocked his head, the jewels in his crown glinting. “Of course. Tomorrow—after lunch, perhaps?”
He wasn’t stupid, and he might have been aware of the game, but … the offer was genuine. I smiled a bit, nodding. I looked toward the crowd milling about on the deck below, the lantern-lit water beyond, even as I felt Tarquin’s gaze linger.
He said, “What was it like? The mortal world?”
I picked at the strawberry salad on my plate. “I only saw a very small slice of it. My father was called the Prince of Merchants—
but I was too young to be taken on his voyages to other parts of the mortal world. When I was eleven, he lost our fortune on a shipment to Bharat. We spent the next eight years in poverty, in a backwater village near the wall. So I can’t speak for the entirety of the mortal world when I say that what I saw there was … hard.
Brutal. Here, class lines are far more blurred, it seems. There, it’s defined by money. Either you have it and you don’t share it, or you are left to starve and fight for your survival. My father … He regained his wealth once I went to Prythian.” My heart tightened, then dropped into my stomach. “And the very people who had been content to let us starve were once again our friends. I would rather face every creature in Prythian than the monsters on the other side of the wall. Without magic, without power, money has become the only thing that matters.”
Tarquin’s lips were pursed, but his eyes were considering.
“Would you spare them if war came?”
Such a dangerous, loaded question. I wouldn’t tell him what we were doing over the wall—not until Rhys had indicated we should.
“My sisters dwell with my father on his estate. For them, I would fight. But for those sycophants and peacocks … I would not mind to see their order disrupted.” Like the hate-mongering family of Elain’s betrothed.
Tarquin said very quietly, “There are some in Prythian who would think the same of the courts.”
“What—get rid of the High Lords?”
“Perhaps. But mostly eliminate the inherent privileges of High Fae over the lesser faeries. Even the terms imply a level of unfairness. Maybe it is more like the human realm than you realize, not as blurred as it might seem. In some courts, the lowest of High Fae servants has more rights than the wealthiest of lesser faeries.”
I became aware that we were not the only people on the barge, at this table. And that we were surrounded by High Fae with animal-keen hearing. “Do you agree with them? That it should change?”
“I am a young High Lord,” he said. “Barely eighty years old.” So he’d been thirty when Amarantha took over. “Perhaps others might call me inexperienced or foolish, but I have seen those cruelties firsthand, and known many good lesser faeries who suffered for merely being born on the wrong side of power. Even within my own residences, the confines of tradition pressure me to enforce the rules of my predecessors: the lesser faeries are neither to be seen nor heard as they work. I would like to one day see a Prythian in which they have a voice, both in my home and in the world beyond it.”
I scanned him for any deceit, manipulation. I found none.
Steal from him—I would steal from him. But what if I asked instead? Would he give it to me, or would the traditions of his ancestors run too deep?
“Tell me what that look means,” Tarquin said, bracing his muscled arms on the gold tablecloth.
I said baldly, “I’m thinking it would be very easy to love you. And easier to call you my friend.”
He smiled at me—broad and without restraint. “I would not object to either.”
Easy—very easy to fall in love with a kind, considerate male.
But I glanced over at Cresseida, who was now almost in Rhysand’s lap. And Rhysand was smiling like a cat, one finger tracing circles on the back of her hand while she bit her lip and beamed. I faced Tarquin, my brows high in silent question.
He made a face and shook his head.
I hoped they went to her room.
Because if I had to listen to Rhys bed her … I didn’t let myself finish the thought.
Tarquin mused, “It has been many years since I saw her look like that.”
My cheeks heated—shame. Shame for what? Wanting to throttle her for no good reason? Rhysand teased and taunted me
—he never … seduced me, with those long, intent stares, the half smiles that were pure Illyrian arrogance.
I supposed I’d been granted that gift once—and had used it up and fought for it and broken it. And I supposed that Rhysand, for
all he had sacrificed and done … He deserved it as much as Cresseida.
Even if … even if for a moment, I wanted it.
I wanted to feel like that again.
And … I was lonely.
I had been lonely, I realized, for a very, very long time.
Rhys leaned in to hear something Cresseida was saying, her lips brushing his ear, her hand now entwining with his.
And it wasn’t sorrow, or despair, or terror that hit me, but …
unhappiness. Such bleak, sharp unhappiness that I got to my feet.
Rhys’s eyes shifted toward me, at last remembering I existed, and there was nothing on his face—no hint that he felt any of what I did through our bond. I didn’t care if I had no shield, if my thoughts were wide open and he read them like a book. He didn’t seem to care, either. He went back to chuckling at whatever Cresseida was telling him, sliding closer.
Tarquin had risen to his feet, scanning me and Rhys.
I was unhappy—not just broken. But unhappy.
An emotion, I realized. It was an emotion, rather than the unending emptiness or survival-driven terror.
“I need some fresh air,” I said, even though we were in the open. But with the golden lights, the people up and down the table
… I needed to find a spot on this barge where I could be alone, just for a moment, mission or no.
“Would you like me to join you?”
I looked at the High Lord of Summer. I hadn’t lied. It would be easy to fall in love with a male like him. But I wasn’t entirely sure that even with the hardships he’d encountered Under the Mountain, Tarquin could understand the darkness that might always be in me. Not only from Amarantha, but from years spent being hungry, and desperate.
That I might always be a little bit vicious or restless. That I might crave peace, but never a cage of comfort.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, and headed for the sweeping staircase that led down onto the stern of the ship—brightly lit, but quieter than the main areas at the prow. Rhys didn’t so much as look in my direction as I walked away. Good riddance.
I was halfway down the wood steps when I spotted Amren and Varian—both leaning against adjacent pillars, both drinking wine, both ignoring each other. Even as they spoke to no one else.
Perhaps that was another reason why she’d come: to distract Tarquin’s watchdog.
I reached the main deck, found a spot by the wooden railing that was a bit more shadowed than the rest, and leaned against it.
Magic propelled the boat—no oars, no sails. So we moved through the bay, silent and smooth, hardly a ripple in our wake.
I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for him until the barge docked at the base of the island-city, and I’d somehow spent the entire final hour alone.
When I filed onto land with the rest of the crowd, Amren, Varian, and Tarquin were waiting for me at the docks, all a bit stiff-backed.
Rhysand and Cresseida were nowhere to be seen.
Mercifully, there was no sound from his closed bedroom. And no sounds came out of it during that night, when I jolted awake from a nightmare of being turned over a spit, and couldn’t remember where I was.
Moonlight danced on the sea beyond my open windows, and there was silence—such silence.
A weapon. I was a weapon to find that book, to stop the king from breaking the wall, to stop whatever he had planned for Jurian and the war that might destroy my world. That might destroy this place—and a High Lord who might very well overturn the order of things.
For a heartbeat, I missed Velaris, missed the lights and the music and the Rainbow. I missed the cozy warmth of the town house to welcome me in from the crisp winter, missed … what it had been like to be a part of their little unit.
Maybe wrapping his wings around me, writing me notes, had been Rhys’s way of ensuring his weapon didn’t break beyond repair.
That was fine—fair enough. We owed each other nothing beyond our promises to work and fight together.
He could still be my friend. Companion—whatever this thing was between us. His taking someone to his bed didn’t change those things.
It’d just been a relief to think that for a moment, he might have been as lonely as me.
I didn’t have the nerve to come out of my room for breakfast, to see if Rhys had returned.
To see whom he came to breakfast with.
I had nothing else to do, I told myself as I lay in bed, until my lunchtime visit with Tarquin. So I stayed there until the servants came in, apologized for disturbing me, and started to leave. I stopped them, saying I’d bathe while they cleaned the room. They were polite—if nervous—and merely nodded as I did as I’d claimed.
I took my time in the bath. And behind the locked door, I let that kernel of Tarquin’s power come out, first making the water rise from the tub, then shaping little animals and creatures out of it.
It was about as close to transformation as I’d let myself go.
Contemplating how I might give myself animalistic features only made me shaky, sick. I could ignore it, ignore that occasional scrape of claws in my blood for a while yet.
I was on to water-butterflies flitting through the room when I realized I’d been in the tub long enough that the bath had gone cold.
Like the night before, Nuala walked through the walls from wherever she was staying in the palace, and dressed me, somehow attuned to when I’d be ready. Cerridwen, she told me, had drawn the short stick and was seeing to Amren. I didn’t have the nerve to ask about Rhys, either.
Nuala selected seafoam green accented with rose gold, curling and then braiding back my hair in a thick, loose plait glimmering with bits of pearl. Whether Nuala knew why I was there, what I’d be doing, she didn’t say. But she took extra care of my face, brightening my lips with raspberry pink, dusting my cheeks with the faintest blush. I might have looked innocent, charming—were it not for my gray-blue eyes. More hollow than they’d been last night, when I’d admired myself in the mirror.
I’d seen enough of the palace to navigate to where Tarquin had said to meet before we bid good night. The main hall was situated on a level about halfway up—the perfect meeting place for those who dwelled in the spires above and those who worked unseen and unheard below.
This level held all the various council rooms, ballrooms, dining rooms, and whatever other rooms might be needed for visitors, events, gatherings. Access to the residential levels from which I’d come was guarded by four soldiers at each stairwell—all of whom watched me carefully as I waited against a seashell pillar for their High Lord. I wondered if he could sense that I’d been playing with his power in the bathtub, that the piece of him he’d yielded was now here and answering to me.
Tarquin emerged from one of the adjacent rooms as the clock struck two—followed by my own companions.
Rhysand’s gaze swept over me, noting the clothes that were obviously in honor of my host and his people. Noting the way I did not meet his eyes, or Cresseida’s, as I looked solely at Tarquin and Amren beside him—Varian now striding off to the soldiers at the stairs—and gave them both a bland, close-lipped smile.
“You’re looking well today,” Tarquin said, inclining his head.
Nuala, it seemed, was a spectacularly good spy. Tarquin’s pewter tunic was accented with the same shade of seafoam green as my clothes. We might as well have been a matching set. I supposed with my brown-gold hair and pale skin, I was his mirror opposite.
I could feel Rhys still assessing me.
I shut him out. Maybe I’d send a water-dog barking after him later—let it bite him in the ass.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” I said to Amren.
Amren shrugged her slim shoulders, clad in flagstone gray today. “We were finishing up a rather lively debate about armadas and who might be in charge of a unified front. Did you know,” she said, “that before they became so big and powerful, Tarquin and Varian led Nostrus’s fleet?”
Varian, several feet away, stiffened, but did not turn.
I met Tarquin’s eye. “You didn’t mention you were a sailor.” It was an effort to sound intrigued, like I had nothing at all bothering me.
Tarquin rubbed his neck. “I had planned to tell you during our tour.” He held out an arm. “Shall we?”
Not one word—I had not uttered one word to Rhysand. And I wasn’t about to start as I looped my arm through Tarquin’s, and
said to none of them in particular, “See you later.”
Something brushed against my mental shield, a rumble of something dark—powerful.
Perhaps a warning to be careful.
Though it felt an awful lot like the dark, flickering emotion that had haunted me—so much like it that I stepped a bit closer to Tarquin. And then I gave the High Lord of Summer a pretty, mindless smile that I had not given to anyone in a long, long time.
That brush of emotion went silent on the other side of my shields.
Good.
Tarquin brought me to a hall of jewels and treasure so vast that I gawked for a good minute. A minute that I used to scan the shelves for any twinkle of feeling—anything that felt like the male at my side, like the power I’d summoned in the bathtub.
“And this is—this is just one of the troves?” The room had been carved deep beneath the castle, behind a heavy lead door that had only opened when Tarquin placed his hand on it. I didn’t dare get close enough to the lock to see if it might work under my touch
— his feigned signature.
A fox in the chicken coop. That’s what I was.
Tarquin loosed a chuckle. “My ancestors were greedy bastards.”
I shook my head, striding to the shelves built into the wall. Solid stone—no way to break in, unless I tunneled through the mountain itself. Or if someone winnowed me. Though there were likely wards similar to those on the town house and the House of Wind.
Boxes overflowed with jewels and pearls and uncut gems, gold heaped in trunks so high it spilled onto the cobblestone floor. Suits of ornate armor stood guard against one wall; dresses woven of cobwebs and starlight leaned against another. There were swords and daggers of every sort. But no books. Not one.
“Do you know the history behind each piece?”
“Some,” he said. “I haven’t had much time to learn about it all.”
Good—maybe he wouldn’t know about the Book, wouldn’t miss it.
I turned in a circle. “What’s the most valuable thing in here?”
“Thinking of stealing?”
I choked on a laugh. “Wouldn’t asking that question make me a lousy thief?”
Lying, two-faced wretch—that’s what asking that question made me.
Tarquin studied me. “I’d say I’m looking at the most valuable thing in here.”
I didn’t fake the blush. “You’re—very kind.”
His smile was soft. As if his position had not yet broken the compassion in him. I hoped it never did. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s the most valuable thing. These are all priceless heirlooms of my house.”
I walked up to a shelf, scanning. A necklace of rubies was splayed on a velvet pillow—each of them the size of a robin’s egg.
It’d take a tremendous female to wear that necklace, to dominate the gems and not the other way around.
On another shelf, a necklace of pearls. Then sapphires.
And on another … a necklace of black diamonds.
Each of the dark stones was a mystery—and an answer. Each of them slumbered.
Tarquin came up behind me, peering over my shoulder at what had snagged my interest. His gaze drifted to my face. “Take it.”
“What?” I whirled to him.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “As a thank-you. For Under the Mountain.”
Ask it now—ask him for the Book instead.
But that would require trust, and … kind as he was, he was a High Lord.
He pulled the box from its resting spot and shut the lid before handing it to me. “You were the first person who didn’t laugh at my idea to break down class barriers. Even Cresseida snickered when I told her. If you won’t accept the necklace for saving us, then take it for that.”
“It is a good idea, Tarquin. Appreciating it doesn’t mean you have to reward me.”
He shook his head. “Just take it.”
It would insult him if I refused—so I closed my hands around the box.
Tarquin said, “It will suit you in the Night Court.”
“Perhaps I’ll stay here and help you revolutionize the world.”
His mouth twisted to the side. “I could use an ally in the North.”
Was that why he had brought me? Why he’d given me the gift? I hadn’t realized how alone we were down here, that I was beneath ground, in a place that could be easily sealed—
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said, and I wondered if my scent was that readable. “But I meant it—you have … sway with Rhysand. And he is notoriously difficult to deal with. He gets what he wants, has plans he does not tell anyone about until after he’s completed them, and does not apologize for any of it. Be his emissary to the human realm—but also be ours. You’ve seen my city. I have three others like it. Amarantha wrecked them almost immediately after she took over. All my people want now is peace, and safety, and to never have to look over their shoulders again.
Other High Lords have told me about Rhys—and warned me about him. But he spared me Under the Mountain. Brutius was my cousin, and we had forces gathering in all of our cities to storm Under the Mountain. They caught him sneaking out through the tunnels to meet with them. Rhys saw that in Brutius’s mind—I know he did. And yet he lied to her face, and defied her when she gave the order to turn him into a living ghost. Maybe it was for his own schemes, but I know it was a mercy. He knows that I am young—and inexperienced, and he spared me.” Tarquin shook his head, mostly at himself. “Sometimes, I think Rhysand … I think he might have been her whore to spare us all from her full attention.”
I would betray nothing of what I knew. But I suspected he could see it in my eyes—the sorrow at the thought.
“I know I’m supposed to look at you,” Tarquin said, “and see that he’s made you into a pet, into a monster. But I see the kindness in you. And I think that reflects more on him than anything. I think it shows that you and he might have many secrets—”
“Stop,” I blurted. “Just—stop. You know I can’t tell you anything.
And I can’t promise you anything. Rhysand is High Lord. I only serve in his court.”
Tarquin glanced at the ground. “Forgive me if I’ve been forward.
I’m still learning how to play the games of these courts—to my advisers’ chagrin.”
“I hope you never learn how to play the games of these courts.”
Tarquin held my gaze, face wary, but a bit bleak. “Then allow me to ask you a blunt question. Is it true you left Tamlin because he locked you up in his house?”
I tried to block out the memory, the terror and agony of my heart breaking apart. But I nodded.
“And is it true that you were saved from confinement by the Night Court?”
I nodded again.
Tarquin said, “The Spring Court is my southern neighbor. I have tenuous ties with them. But unless asked, I will not mention that you were here.”
Thief, liar, manipulator. I didn’t deserve his alliance.
But I bowed my head in thanks. “Any other treasure troves to show me?”
“Are gold and jewels not impressive enough? What of your merchant’s eye?”
I tapped the box. “Oh, I got what I wanted. Now I’m curious to see how much your alliance is worth.”
Tarquin laughed, the sound bouncing off the stone and wealth around us. “I didn’t feel like going to my meetings this afternoon, anyway.”
“What a reckless, wild young High Lord.”
Tarquin linked elbows with me again, patting my arm as he led me from the chamber. “You know, I think it might be very easy to love you, too, Feyre. Easier to be your friend.”
I made myself look away shyly as he sealed the door shut behind us, placing a palm flat on the space above the handle. I listened to the click of locks sliding into place.
He took me to other rooms beneath his palace, some full of jewels, others weapons, others clothes from eras long since past.
He showed me one full of books, and my heart leaped—but there was nothing in there. Nothing but leather and dust and quiet. No trickle of power that felt like the male beside me—no hint of the book I needed.
Tarquin brought me to one last room, full of crates and stacks covered in sheets. And as I beheld all the artwork looming beyond the open door I said, “I think I’ve seen enough for today.”
He asked no questions as he resealed the chamber and escorted me back to the busy, sunny upper levels.
There had to be other places where it might be stored. Unless it was in another city.
I had to find it. Soon. There was only so long Rhys and Amren could draw out their political debates before we had to go home. I just prayed I’d find it fast enough—and not hate myself any more than I currently did.
Rhysand was lounging on my bed as if he owned it.
I took one look at the hands crossed behind his head, the long legs draped over the edge of the mattress, and ground my teeth.
“What do you want?” I shut the door loud enough to emphasize the bite in my words.
“Flirting and giggling with Tarquin did you no good, I take it?”
I chucked the box onto the bed beside him. “You tell me.”
The smile faltered as he sat up, flipping open the lid. “This isn’t the Book.”
“No, but it’s a beautiful gift.”
“You want me to buy you jewelry, Feyre, then say the word.
Though given your wardrobe, I thought you were aware that it was all bought for you.”
I hadn’t realized, but I said, “Tarquin is a good male—a good High Lord. You should just ask him for the damned Book.”
Rhys snapped shut the lid. “So he plies you with jewels and pours honey in your ear, and now you feel bad?”
“He wants your alliance—desperately. He wants to trust you, rely on you.”
“Well, Cresseida is under the impression that her cousin is rather ambitious, so I’d be careful to read between his words.”
“Oh? Did she tell you that before, during, or after you took her to bed?”
Rhys stood in a graceful, slow movement. “Is that why you wouldn’t look at me? Because you think I fucked her for
“Information or your own pleasure, I don’t care.”
He came around the bed, and I stood my ground, even as he stopped with hardly a hand’s breadth between us. “Jealous, Feyre?”
“If I’m jealous, then you’re jealous about Tarquin and his honey pouring.”
Rhysand’s teeth flashed. “Do you think I particularly like having to flirt with a lonely female to get information about her court, her High Lord? Do you think I feel good about myself, doing that? Do you think I enjoy doing it just so you have the space to ply Tarquin with your smiles and pretty eyes, so we can get the Book and go home?”
“You seemed to enjoy yourself plenty last night.”
His snarl was soft—vicious. “I didn’t take her to bed. She wanted to, but I didn’t so much as kiss her. I took her out for a drink in the city, let her talk about her life, her pressures, and brought her back to her room, and went no farther than the door. I waited for you at breakfast, but you slept in. Or avoided me, apparently. And I tried to catch your eye this afternoon, but you were so good at shutting me out completely.”
“Is that what got under your skin? That I shut you out, or that it was so easy for Tarquin to get in?”
“What got under my skin,” Rhys said, his breathing a bit uneven, “is that you smiled at him.”
The rest of the world faded to mist as the words sank in. “You are jealous.”
He shook his head, stalking to the little table against the far wall and knocking back a glass of amber liquid. He braced his hands on the table, the powerful muscles of his back quivering beneath his shirt as the shadow of those wings struggled to take form.
“I heard what you told him,” he said. “That you thought it would be easy to fall in love with him. You meant it, too.”
“So?” It was the only thing I could think of to say.
“I was jealous—of that. That I’m not … that sort of person. For anyone. The Summer Court has always been neutral; they only showed backbone during those years Under the Mountain. I spared Tarquin’s life because I’d heard how he wanted to even out
the playing field between High Fae and lesser faeries. I’ve been trying to do that for years. Unsuccessfully, but … I spared him for that alone. And Tarquin, with his neutral court … he will never have to worry about someone walking away because the threat against their life, their children’s lives, will always be there. So, yes, I was jealous of him—because it will always be easy for him.
And he will never know what it is to look up at the night sky and wish.”
The Court of Dreams.
The people who knew that there was a price, and one worth paying, for that dream. The bastard-born warriors, the Illyrian half-breed, the monster trapped in a beautiful body, the dreamer born into a court of nightmares … And the huntress with an artist’s soul.
And perhaps because it was the most vulnerable thing he’d said to me, perhaps it was the burning in my eyes, but I walked to where he stood over the little bar. I didn’t look at him as I took the decanter of amber liquid and poured myself a knuckle’s length, then refilled his.
But I met his stare as I clinked my glass against his, the crystal ringing clear and bright over the crashing sea far below, and said,
“To the people who look at the stars and wish, Rhys.”
He picked up his glass, his gaze so piercing that I wondered why I had bothered blushing at all for Tarquin.
Rhys clinked his glass against mine. “To the stars who listen—
and the dreams that are answered.”
Two days passed. Every moment of it was a balancing act of truth and lies. Rhys saw to it that I was not invited to the meetings he and Amren held to distract my kind host, granting me time to scour the city for any hint of the Book.
But not too eagerly; not too intently. I could not look too intrigued as I wandered the streets and docks, could not ask too many leading questions of the people I encountered about the treasures and legends of Adriata. Even when I awoke at dawn, I made myself wait until a reasonable hour before setting out into the city, made myself take an extended bath to secretly practice that water-magic. And while crafting water-animals grew tedious after an hour … it came to me easily. Perhaps because of my proximity to Tarquin, perhaps because of whatever affinity for water was already in my blood, my soul—though I certainly was in no position to ask.
Once breakfast had finally been served and consumed, I made sure to look a bit bored and aimless when I finally strode through the shining halls of the palace on my way out into the awakening city.
Hardly anyone recognized me as I casually examined shops and houses and bridges for any glimmer of a spell that felt like Tarquin, though I doubted they had reason to. It had been the High Fae—the nobility—that had been kept Under the Mountain.
These people had been left here … to be tormented.
Scars littered the buildings, the streets, from what had been done in retaliation for their rebellion: burn marks, gouged bits of stone, entire buildings turned to rubble. The back of the castle, as Tarquin had claimed, was indeed in the middle of being repaired.
Three turrets were half shattered, the tan stone charred and crumbling. No sign of the Book. Workers toiled there—and throughout the city—to fix those broken areas.
Just as the people I saw—High Fae and faeries with scales and gills and long, spindly webbed fingers—all seemed to be slowly healing. There were scars and missing limbs on more than I could count. But in their eyes … in their eyes, light gleamed.
I had saved them, too.
Freed them from whatever horrors had occurred during those five decades.
I had done a terrible thing to save them … but I had saved them.
And it would never be enough to atone, but … I did not feel quite so heavy, despite not finding a glimmer of the Book’s presence, when I returned to the palace atop the hill on the third night to await Rhysand’s report on the day’s meetings—and learn if he’d managed to discover anything, too.
As I strode up the steps of the palace, cursing myself for remaining so out of shape even with Cassian’s lessons, I spied Amren perched on the ledge of a turret balcony, cleaning her nails.
Varian leaned against the threshold of another tower balcony within jumping range—and I wondered if he was debating if he could clear the distance fast enough to push her off.
A cat playing with a dog—that’s what it was. Amren was practically washing herself, silently daring him to get close enough to sniff. I doubted Varian would like her claws.
Unless that was why he hounded her day and night.
I shook my head, continuing up the steps—watching as the tide swept out.
The sunset-stained sky caught on the water and tidal muck. A little night breeze whispered past, and I leaned into it, letting it cool the sweat on me. There had once been a time when I’d dreaded the end of summer, had prayed it would hold out for as long as possible. Now the thought of endless warmth and sun made me … bored. Restless.
I was about to turn back to the stairs when I beheld the bit of land that had been revealed near the tidal causeway. The small
building.
No wonder I hadn’t seen it, as I’d never been up this high in the day when the tide was out … And during the rest of the day, from the muck and seaweed now gleaming on it, it would have been utterly covered.
Even now, it was half submerged. But I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.
Like it was a little piece of home, wet and miserable-looking as it was, and I need only hurry along the muddy causeway between the quieter part of the city and the mainland—fast, fast, fast, so I might catch it before it vanished beneath the waves again.
But the site was too visible, and from the distance, I couldn’t definitively tell if it was the Book contained within.
We’d have to be absolutely certain before we went in—to warrant the risks in searching. Absolutely certain.
I wished I didn’t, but I realized I already had a plan for that, too.
We dined with Tarquin, Cresseida, and Varian in their family dining room—a sure sign that the High Lord did indeed want that alliance, ambition or no.
Varian was studying Amren as if he was trying to solve a riddle she’d posed to him, and she paid him no heed whatsoever as she debated with Cresseida about the various translations of some ancient text. I’d been leading up to my question, telling Tarquin of the things I’d seen in his city that day—the fresh fish I’d bought for myself on the docks.
“You ate it right there,” Tarquin said, lifting his brows.
Rhys had propped his head on a fist as I said, “They fried it with the other fishermen’s lunches. Didn’t charge me extra for it.”
Tarquin let out an impressed laugh. “I can’t say I’ve ever done that—sailor or no.”
“You should,” I said, meaning every word. “It was delicious.”
I’d worn the necklace he’d given me, and Nuala and I planned my clothes around it. We’d decided on gray—a soft, dove shade—
to show off the glittering black. I had worn nothing else—no earrings, no bracelets, no rings. Tarquin had seemed pleased by it, even though Varian had choked when he beheld me in an
heirloom of his household. Cresseida, surprisingly, had told me it suited me and it didn’t fit in here, anyway. A backhanded compliment—but praise enough.
“Well, maybe I’ll go tomorrow. If you’ll join me.”
I grinned at Tarquin—aware of every one I offered him, now that Rhys had mentioned it. Beyond his giving me brief, nightly updates on their lack of progress with discovering anything about the Book, we hadn’t really spoken since that evening I’d filled his glass—though it had been because of our own full days, not awkwardness.
“I’d like that,” I said. “Perhaps we could go for a walk in the morning down the causeway when the tide is out. There’s that little building along the way—it looks fascinating.”
Cresseida stopped speaking, but I went on, sipping from my wine. “I figure since I’ve seen most of the city now, I could see it on my way to visit some of the mainland, too.”
Tarquin’s glance at Cresseida was all the confirmation I needed.
That stone building indeed guarded what we sought.
“It’s a temple ruin,” Tarquin said blandly—the lie smooth as silk.
“Just mud and seaweed at this point. We’ve been meaning to repair it for years.”
“Maybe we’ll take the bridge then. I’ve had enough of mud for a while.”
Remember that I saved you, that I fought the Middengard Wyrm
—forget the threat …
Tarquin’s eyes held mine—for a moment too long.
In the span of a blink, I hurled my silent, hidden power toward him, a spear aimed toward his mind, those wary eyes.
There was a shield in place—a shield of sea glass and coral and the undulating sea.
I became that sea, became the whisper of waves against stone, the glimmer of sunlight on a gull’s white wings. I became him—
became that mental shield.
And then I was through it, a clear, dark tether showing me the way back should I need it. I let instinct, no doubt granted from Rhys, guide me forward. To what I needed to see.
Tarquin’s thoughts hit me like pebbles. Why does she ask about the temple? Of all the things to bring up … Around me, they
continued eating. I continued eating. I willed my own face, in a different body, a different world, to smile pleasantly.
Why did they want to come here so badly? Why ask about my trove?
Like lapping waves, I sent my thoughts washing over his.
She is harmless. She is kind, and sad, and broken. You saw her with your people—you saw how she treated them. How she treats you. Amarantha did not break that kindness.
I poured my thoughts into him, tinting them with brine and the cries of terns—wrapping them in the essence that was Tarquin, the essence he’d given to me.
Take her to the mainland tomorrow. That’ll keep her from asking about the temple. She saved Prythian. She is your friend.
My thoughts settled in him like a stone dropped into a pool. And as the wariness faded in his eyes, I knew my work was done.
I hauled myself back, back, back, slipping through that ocean-and-pearl wall, reeling inward until my body was a cage around me.
Tarquin smiled. “We’ll meet after breakfast. Unless Rhysand wants me for more meetings.” Neither Cresseida nor Varian so much as glanced at him. Had Rhys taken care of their own suspicions?
Lightning shot through my blood, even as my blood chilled to realize what I’d done—
Rhys waved a lazy hand. “By all means, Tarquin, spend the day with my lady.”
My lady. I ignored the two words. But I shut out my own marveling at what I’d accomplished, the slow-building horror at the invisible violation Tarquin would never know about.
I leaned forward, bracing my bare forearms on the cool wood table. “Tell me what there is to see on the mainland,” I asked Tarquin, and steered him away from the temple on the tidal causeway.
Rhys and Amren waited until the household lights dimmed before coming into my room.
I’d been sitting in bed, counting down the minutes, forming my plan. None of the guest rooms looked out on the causeway—as if they wanted no one to notice it.
Rhys arrived first, leaning against the closed door. “What a fast learner you are. It takes most daemati years to master that sort of infiltration.”
My nails bit into my palms. “You knew—that I did it?” Speaking the words aloud felt too much, too … real.
A shallow nod. “And what expert work you did, using the essence of him to trick his shields, to get past them … Clever lady.”
“He’ll never forgive me,” I breathed.
“He’ll never know.” Rhys angled his head, silky dark hair sliding over his brow. “You get used to it. The sense that you’re crossing a boundary, that you’re violating them. For what it’s worth, I didn’t particularly enjoy convincing Varian and Cresseida to find other matters more interesting.”
I dropped my gaze to the pale marble floor.
“If you hadn’t taken care of Tarquin,” he went on, “the odds are we’d be knee-deep in shit right now.”
“It was my fault, anyway—I was the one who asked about the temple. I was only cleaning up my own mess.” I shook my head.
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“It never does. Or it shouldn’t. Far too many daemati lose that sense. But here—tonight … the benefits outweighed the costs.”
“Is that also what you told yourself when you went into my mind? What was the benefit then?”
Rhys pushed off the door, crossing to where I sat on the bed.
“There are parts of your mind I left undisturbed, things that belong solely to you, and always will. And as for the rest … ” His jaw clenched. “You scared the shit out of me for a long while, Feyre.
Checking in that way … I couldn’t very well stroll into the Spring Court and ask how you were doing, could I?” Light footsteps sounded in the hall—Amren. Rhys held my gaze though as he said, “I’ll explain the rest some other time.”
The door opened. “It seems like a stupid place to hide a book,”
Amren said by way of greeting as she entered, plopping onto the bed.
“And the last place one would look,” Rhys said, prowling away from me to take a seat on the vanity stool before the window.
“They could spell it easily enough against wet and decay. A place only visible for brief moments throughout the day—when the land around it is exposed for all to see? You could not ask for a better place. We have the eyes of thousands watching us.”
“So how do we get in?” I said.
“It’s likely warded against winnowing,” Rhys said, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “I won’t risk tripping any alarms by trying.
So we go in at night, the old-fashioned way. I can carry you both, then keep watch,” he added when I lifted my brows.
“Such gallantry,” Amren said, “to do the easy part, then leave us helpless females to dig through mud and seaweed.”
“Someone needs to be circling high enough to see anyone approaching—or sounding the alarm. And masking you from sight.”
I frowned. “The locks respond to his touch; let’s hope they respond to mine.”
Amren said, “When do we move?”
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “We note the guard’s rotations tonight at low tide—figure out where the watchers are. Who we might need to take out before we make our move.”
“You think like an Illyrian,” Rhys murmured.
“I believe that’s supposed to be a compliment,” Amren confided.
Rhys snorted, and shadows gathered around him as he loosened his grip on his power. “Nuala and Cerridwen are already on the move inside the castle. I’ll take to the skies. The two of you should go for a midnight walk—considering how hot it is.” Then he was gone with a rustle of invisible wings and a warm, dark breeze.
Amren’s lips were bloodred in the moonlight. I knew who would have the task of taking out any spying eyes—and wind up with a meal. My mouth dried out a bit. “Care for a stroll?”
The following day was torture. Slow, unending, hot-as-hell torture.
Feigning interest in the mainland as I walked with Tarquin, met his people, smiled at them, grew harder as the sun meandered across the sky, then finally began inching toward the sea. Liar, thief, deceiver—that’s what they’d call me soon.
I hoped they’d know—that Tarquin would know—that we’d done it for their sake.
Supreme arrogance, perhaps, to think that way, but … it was true. Given how quickly Tarquin and Cresseida had glanced at each other, guided me away from that temple … I’d bet that they wouldn’t have handed over that book. For whatever reasons of their own, they wanted it.
Maybe this new world of Tarquin’s could only be built on trust …
But he wouldn’t get a chance to build it if it was all wiped away beneath the King of Hybern’s armies.
That’s what I told myself over and over as we walked through his city—as I endured the greetings of his people. Perhaps not as joyous as those in Velaris, but … a tentative hard-won warmth.
People who had endured the worst and tried now to move beyond it.
As I should be moving beyond my own darkness.
When the sun was at last sliding into the horizon, I confessed to Tarquin that I was tired and hungry—and, being kind and accommodating, he took me back, buying me a baked fish pie on the way home. He’d even eaten a fried fish at the docks that afternoon.
Dinner was worse.
We’d be gone before breakfast—but they didn’t know that. Rhys mentioned returning to the Night Court tomorrow afternoon, so perhaps an early departure wouldn’t be so suspicious. He’d leave a note about urgent business, thanking Tarquin for his hospitality, and then we’d vanish home—to Velaris. If it went according to plan.
We’d learned where the guards were stationed, how their rotations operated, and where their posts were on the mainland, too.
And when Tarquin kissed my cheek good night, saying he wished that it was not my last evening and perhaps he would see about visiting the Night Court soon … I almost fell to my knees to beg his forgiveness.
Rhysand’s hand on my back was a solid warning to keep it together—even as his face held nothing but that cool amusement.
I went to my room. And found Illyrian fighting leathers waiting for me. Along with that belt of Illyrian knives.
So I dressed for battle once again.
Rhys flew us in close to low tide, dropping us off before taking to the skies, where he’d circle, monitoring the guards on the island and mainland, while we hunted.
The muck reeked, squelching and squeezing us with every step from the narrow causeway road to the little temple ruin. Barnacles, seaweed, and limpets clung to the dark gray stones—and every step into the sole interior chamber had that thing in my chest saying where are you, where are you, where are you?
Rhys and Amren had checked for wards around the site—but found none. Odd, but fortunate. Thanks to the open doorway, we didn’t dare risk a light, but with the cracks in the stone overhead, the moonlight provided enough illumination.
Knee-deep in muck, the tidal water slinking out over the stones, Amren and I surveyed the chamber, barely more than forty feet wide.
“I can feel it,” I breathed. “Like a clawed hand running down my spine.” Indeed, my skin tingled, hair standing on end beneath my warm leathers. “It’s—sleeping.”
“No wonder they hid it beneath stone and mud and sea,” Amren muttered, the muck squelching as she turned in place.
I shivered, the Illyrian knives on me now feeling as useful as toothpicks, and again turned in place. “I don’t feel anything in the walls. But it’s here.”
Indeed, we both looked down at the same moment and cringed.
“We should have brought a shovel,” she said.
“No time to get one.” The tide was fully out now. Every minute counted. Not just for the returning water—but the sunrise that was not too far off.
Every step an effort through the firm grip of the mud, I honed in on that feeling, that call. I stopped in the center of the room—dead center. Here, here, here, it whispered.
I leaned down, shuddering at the icy muck, at the bits of shell and debris that scraped my bare hands as I began hauling it away. “Hurry.”
Amren hissed, but stooped to claw at the heavy, dense mud.
Crabs and skittering things tickled my fingers. I refused to think about them.
So we dug, and dug, until we were covered in salty mud that burned our countless little cuts as we panted at a stone floor. And a lead door.
Amren swore. “Lead to keep its full force in, to preserve it. They used to line the sarcophagi of the great rulers with it—because they thought they’d one day awaken.”
“If the King of Hybern goes unchecked with that Cauldron, they might very well.”
Amren shuddered, and pointed. “The door is sealed.”
I wiped my hand on the only clean part of me—my neck—and used the other to scrape away the last bit of mud from the round door. Every brush against the lead sent pangs of cold through me.
But there—a carved whorl in the center of the door. “This has been here for a very long time,” I murmured.
Amren nodded. “I would not be surprised if, despite the imprint of the High Lord’s power, Tarquin and his predecessors had never set foot here—if the blood-spell to ward this place instantly transferred to them once they assumed power.”
“Why covet the Book, then?”
“Wouldn’t you want to lock away an object of terrible power? So no one could use it for evil—or their own gain? Or perhaps they locked it away for their own bargaining chip if it ever became necessary. I had no idea why they, of all courts, was granted the half of the Book in the first place.”
I shook my head and laid my hand flat on the whorl in the lead.
A jolt went through me like lightning, and I grunted, bearing down on the door.
My fingers froze to it, as if the power were leeching my essence, drinking as Amren drank, and I felt it hesitate, question—
I am Tarquin. I am summer; I am warmth; I am sea and sky and planted field.
I became every smile he’d given me, became the crystalline blue of his eyes, the brown of his skin. I felt my own skin shift, felt my bones stretch and change. Until I was him, and it was a set of male hands I now possessed, now pushed against the door. Until the essence of me became what I had tasted in that inner, mental shield of his—sea and sun and brine. I did not give myself a moment to think of what power I might have just used. Did not allow any part of me that wasn’t Tarquin to shine through.
I am your master, and you will let me pass.
The lock pulled harder and harder, and I could barely breathe—
Then a click and groan.
I shifted back into my own skin, and scrambled into the piled mud right as the door sank and swung away, tucking beneath the stones to reveal a spiral staircase drifting into a primordial gloom.
And on a wet, salty breeze from below came the tendrils of power.
Across the open stair, Amren’s face had gone paler than usual, her silver eyes glowing bright. “I never saw the Cauldron,” she said, “but it must be terrible indeed if even a grain of its power feels … like this.”
Indeed, that power was filling the chamber, my head, my lungs
—smothering and drowning and seducing—
“Quickly,” I said, and a small ball of faelight shot down the curve of the stairs, illuminating gray, worn steps slick with slime.
I drew my hunting knife and descended, one hand braced on the freezing stone wall to keep from slipping.
I made it one rotation down, Amren close behind, before faelight danced on waist-deep, putrid water. I scanned the passage at the foot of the stairs. “There’s a hall, and a chamber beyond that. All clear.”
“Then hurry the hell up,” Amren said.
Bracing myself, I stepped into the dark water, biting down my yelp at the near-freezing temperature, the oiliness of it. Amren gagged, the water nearly up to her chest.
“This place no doubt fills up swiftly once the tide comes back in,” she observed as we sloshed through the water, frowning at the many drainage holes in the walls.
We went only slow enough for her to detect any sort of ward or trap, but—there was none. Nothing at all. Though who would ever come down here, to such a place?
Fools—desperate fools, that’s who.
The long stone hall ended in a second lead door. Behind it, that power coiled, overlaying Tarquin’s imprint. “It’s in there.”
“Obviously.”
I scowled at her, both of us shivering. The cold was deep enough that I wondered if I might have already been dead in my human body. Or well on my way to it.
I laid my palm flat on the door. The sucking and questioning and draining were worse this time. So much worse, and I had to brace my tattooed hand on the door to keep from falling to my knees and crying out as it ransacked me.
I am summer, I am summer, I am summer.
I didn’t shift into Tarquin this time—didn’t need to. A click and groan, and the lead door rolled into the wall, water merging and splashing as I stumbled back into Amren’s waiting arms. “Nasty, nasty lock,” she hissed, shuddering not just from the water.
My head was spinning. Another lock and I might very well pass out.
But the faelight bobbed into the chamber beyond us, and we both halted.
The water had not merged with another source—but rather halted against an invisible threshold. The dry chamber beyond was empty save for a round dais and pedestal.
And a small, lead box atop it.
Amren waved a tentative hand over the air where the water just
—stopped. Then, satisfied there were no waiting wards or tricks, she stepped beyond, dripping onto the gray stones as she stood in the chamber, wincing a bit, and beckoned.
Wading as fast as I could, I followed her, half falling onto the floor as my body adjusted to sudden air. I turned—and sure enough, the water was a black wall, as if there were a pane of glass keeping it in place.
“Let’s be quick about it,” she said, and I didn’t disagree.
We both carefully surveyed the chamber: floors, walls, ceilings.
No signs of hidden mechanisms or triggers.
Though no larger than an ordinary book, the lead box seemed to gobble up the faelight—and inside it, whispering … The seal of Tarquin’s power, and the Book.
And now I heard, clear as if Amren herself whispered it: Who are you—what are you? Come closer—let me smell you, let me see you …
We paused on opposite sides of the pedestal, the faelight hovering over the lid. “No wards,” Amren said, her voice barely more than the scrape of her boots on the stone. “No spells. You have to remove it—carry it out.” The thought of touching that box, getting close to that thing inside it— “The tide is coming back in,”
Amren added, surveying the ceiling.
“That soon?”
“Perhaps the sea knows. Perhaps the sea is the High Lord’s servant.”
And if we were caught down here when the water came in—
I did not think my little water-animals would help. Panic writhed in my gut, but I pushed it away and steeled myself, lifting my chin.
The box would be heavy—and cold.
Who are you, who are you, who are you—
I flexed my fingers and cracked my neck. I am summer; I am sea and sun and green things.
“Come on, come on,” Amren murmured. Above, water trickled over the stones.
Who are you, who are you, who are you—
I am Tarquin; I am High Lord; I am your master.
The box quieted. As if that were answer enough.
I snatched the box off the pedestal, the metal biting into my hands, the power an oily smear through my blood.
An ancient, cruel voice hissed:
Liar.
And the door slammed shut.
“NO! ” Amren screamed, at the door in an instant, her fist a radiant forge as she slammed it into the lead—once, twice.
And above—the rush and gargle of water tumbling downstairs, filling the chamber—
No, no, no—
I reached the door, sliding the box into the wide inside pocket of my leather jacket while Amren’s blazing palm flattened against the door, burning, heating the metal, swirls and whorls radiating out through it as if they were a language all her own, and then—
The door burst open.
Only for a flood to come crashing in.
I grappled for the threshold, but missed as the water slammed me back, sweeping me under the dark, icy surface. The cold stole the breath from my lungs. Find the floor, find the floor—
My feet connected and I pushed up, gulping down air, scanning the dim chamber for Amren. She was clutching the threshold, eyes on me, hand out—glowing bright.
The water already flowed up to my breasts, and I rushed to her, fighting the onslaught flooding the chamber, willing that new strength into my body, my arms—
The water became easier, as if that kernel of power soothed its current, its wrath, but Amren was now climbing up the threshold.
“You have it?” she shouted over the roaring water.
I nodded, and I realized her outstretched hand wasn’t for me—
but for the door she’d forced back into the wall. Holding it away until I could get out.
I shoved through the archway, Amren slipping around the threshold—just as the door rolled shut again, so violently that I
wondered at the power she’d used to push it back.
The only downside was that the water in the hall now had much less space to fill.
“Go,” she said, but I didn’t wait for her approval before I grabbed her, hooking her feet around my stomach as I hoisted her onto my back.
“Just—do what you have to,” I gritted out, neck craned above the rising water. Not too much farther to the stairs—the stairs that were now a cascade. Where the hell was Rhysand?
But Amren held out a palm in front of us, and the water buckled and trembled. Not a clear path, but a break in the current. I directed that kernel of Tarquin’s power— my power now—toward it.
The water calmed further, straining to obey my command.
I ran, gripping her thighs probably hard enough to bruise. Step by step, water now raging down, now at my jaw, now at my mouth
—
But I hit the stairs, almost slipping on the slick step, and Amren’s gasp stopped me cold.
Not a gasp of shock, but a gasp for air as a wall of water poured down the stairs. As if a mighty wave had swept over the entire site. Even my own mastery over the element could do nothing against it.
I had enough time to gulp down air, to grab Amren’s legs and brace myself—
And watch as that door atop the stairs slid shut, sealing us in a watery tomb.
I was dead. I knew I was dead, and there was no way out of it.
I had consumed my last breath, and I would be aware for every second until my lungs gave out and my body betrayed me and I swallowed that fatal mouthful of water.
Amren beat at my hands until I let go, until I swam after her, trying to calm my panicking heart, my lungs, trying to convince them to make each second count as Amren reached the door and slammed her palm into it. Symbols flared—again and again. But the door held.
I reached her, shoving my body into the door, over and over, and the lead dented beneath my shoulders. Then I had talons, talons not claws, and I was slicing and punching at the metal—
My lungs were on fire. My lungs were seizing—
Amren pounded on the door, that bit of faelight guttering, as if it were counting down her heartbeats—
I had to take a breath, had to open my mouth and take a breath, had to ease the burning—
Then the door was ripped away.
And the faelight remained bright enough for me to see the three beautiful, ethereal faces hissing through fish’s teeth as their spindly webbed fingers snatched us out of the stairs, and into their frogskin arms.
Water-wraiths.
But I couldn’t stand it.
And as those spiny hands grabbed my arm, I opened my mouth, water shoving in, cutting off thought and sound and breath.
My body seized, those talons vanishing—
Debris and seaweed and water shot past me, and I had the vague sense of being hurtled through the water, so fast the water burned beneath my eyelids.
And then hot air—air, air, air, but my lungs were full of water as
—
A fist slammed into my stomach and I vomited water across the waves. I gulped down air, blinking at the bruised purple and blushing pink of the morning sky.
A sputter and gasp not too far from me, and I treaded water as I turned in the bay to see Amren vomiting as well—but alive.
And in the waves between us, onyx hair plastered to their strange heads like helmets, the water-wraiths floated, staring with dark, large eyes.
The sun was rising beyond them—the city encircling us stirring.
The one in the center said, “Our sister’s debt is paid.”
And then they were gone.
Amren was already swimming for the distant mainland shore.
Praying they didn’t come back and make a meal of us, I hurried after her, trying to keep my movements small to avoid detection.
We both reached a quiet, sandy cove and collapsed.
A shadow blocked out the sun, and a boot toed my calf. “What,”
said Rhysand, still in battle-black, “are you two doing?”
I opened my eyes to find Amren hoisting herself up on her elbows. “Where the hell were you?” she demanded.
“You two set off every damned trigger in the place. I was hunting down each guard who went to sound the alarm.” My throat was ravaged—and sand tickled my cheeks, my bare hands. “I thought you had it covered,” he said to her.
Amren hissed, “That place, or that damned book, nearly nullified my powers. We almost drowned.”
His gaze shot to me. “I didn’t feel it through the bond—”
“It probably nullified that, too, you stupid bastard,” Amren snapped.
His eyes flickered. “Did you get it?” Not at all concerned that we were half-drowned and had very nearly been dead.
I touched my jacket—the heavy metal lump within.
“Good,” Rhys said, and I looked behind him at the sudden urgency in his tone.
Sure enough, in the castle across the bay, people were darting about.
“I missed some guards,” he gritted out, grabbed both our arms, and we vanished.
The dark wind was cold and roaring, and I had barely enough strength to cling to him.
It gave out entirely, along with Amren’s, as we landed in the town house foyer—and we both collapsed to the wood floor, spraying sand and water on the carpet.
Cassian shouted from the dining room behind us, “What the hell?”
I glared up at Rhysand, who merely stepped toward the breakfast table. “I’m waiting for an explanation, too,” he merely said to wide-eyed Cassian, Azriel, and Mor.
But I turned to Amren, who was still hissing on the floor. Her red-rimmed eyes narrowed. “How?”
“During the Tithe, the water-wraith emissary said they had no gold, no food to pay. They were starving.” Every word ached, and I thought I might vomit again. He’d deserve it, if I puked all over the carpet. Though he’d probably take it from my wages. “So I gave
her some of my jewelry to pay her dues. She swore that she and her sisters would never forget the kindness.”
“Can someone explain, please?” Mor called from the room beyond.
We remained on the floor as Amren began quietly laughing, her small body shaking.
“What?” I demanded.
“Only an immortal with a mortal heart would have given one of those horrible beasts the money. It’s so … ” Amren laughed again, her dark hair plastered with sand and seaweed. For a moment, she even looked human. “Whatever luck you live by, girl … thank the Cauldron for it.”
The others were all watching, but I felt a chuckle whisper out of me.
Followed by a laugh, as rasping and raw as my lungs. But a real laugh, perhaps edged by hysteria—and profound relief.
We looked at each other, and laughed again.
“Ladies,” Rhysand purred—a silent order.
I groaned as I got to my feet, sand falling everywhere, and offered a hand to Amren to rise. Her grip was firm, but her quicksilver eyes were surprisingly tender as she squeezed it before snapping her fingers.
We were both instantly clean and warm, our clothes dry. Save for a wet patch around my breast—where that box waited.
My companions were solemn-faced as I approached and reached inside that pocket. The metal bit into my fingers, so cold it burned.
I dropped it onto the table.
It thudded, and they all recoiled, swearing.
Rhys crooked a finger at me. “One last task, Feyre. Unlock it, please.”
My knees were buckling—my head spinning and mouth bone-dry and full of salt and grit, but … I wanted to be rid of it.
So I slid into a chair, tugging that hateful box to me, and placed a hand on top.
Hello, liar, it purred.
“Hello,” I said softly.
Will you read me?
The others didn’t say a word—though I felt their confusion shimmering in the room. Only Rhys and Amren watched me closely.
Open, I said silently.
Say please.
“Please,” I said.
The box—the Book—was silent. Then it said, Like calls to like.
“Open,” I gritted out.
Unmade and Made; Made and Unmade—that is the cycle. Like calls to like.
I pushed my hand harder, so tired I didn’t care about the thoughts tumbling out, the bits and pieces that were a part of and not part of me: heat and water and ice and light and shadow.
Cursebreaker, it called to me, and the box clicked open.
I sagged back in my chair, grateful for the roaring fire in the nearby fireplace.
Cassian’s hazel eyes were dark. “I never want to hear that voice again.”
“Well, you will,” Rhysand said blandly, lifting the lid. “Because you’re coming with us to see those mortal queens as soon as they deign to visit.”
I was too tired to think about that—about what we had left to do.
I peered into the box.
It was not a book—not with paper and leather.
It had been formed of dark metal plates bound on three rings of gold, silver, and bronze, each word carved with painstaking precision, in an alphabet I could not recognize. Yes, it indeed turned out my reading lessons were unnecessary.
Rhys left it inside the box as we all peered in—then recoiled.
Only Amren remained staring at it. The blood drained from her face entirely.
“What language is that?” Mor asked.
I thought Amren’s hands might have been shaking, but she shoved them into her pockets. “It is no language of this world.”
Only Rhys was unfazed by the shock on her face. As if he’d suspected what the language might be. Why he had picked her to be a part of this hunt.
“What is it, then?” Azriel asked.
She stared and stared at the Book—as if it were a ghost, as if it were a miracle—and said, “It is the Leshon Hakodesh. The Holy Tongue.” Those quicksilver eyes shifted to Rhysand, and I realized she’d understood, too, why she’d gone.
Rhysand said, “I heard a legend that it was written in a tongue of mighty beings who feared the Cauldron’s power and made the Book to combat it. Mighty beings who were here … and then vanished. You are the only one who can uncode it.”
It was Mor who warned, “Don’t play those sorts of games, Rhysand.”
But he shook his head. “Not a game. It was a gamble that Amren would be able to read it—and a lucky one.”
Amren’s nostrils flared delicately, and for a moment, I wondered if she might throttle him for not telling her his suspicions, that the Book might indeed be more than the key to our own salvation.
Rhys smiled at her in a way that said he’d be willing to let her try.
Even Cassian slid a hand toward his fighting knife.
But then Rhysand said, “I thought, too, that the Book might also contain the spell to free you—and send you home. If they were the ones who wrote it in the first place.”
Amren’s throat bobbed—slightly.
Cassian said, “Shit.”
Rhys went on, “I did not tell you my suspicions, because I did not want to get your hopes up. But if the legends about the language were indeed right … Perhaps you might find what you’ve been looking for, Amren.”
“I need the other piece before I can begin decoding it.” Her voice was raw.
“Hopefully our request to the mortal queens will be answered soon,” he said, frowning at the sand and water staining the foyer.
“And hopefully the next encounter will go better than this one.”
Her mouth tightened, yet her eyes were blazing bright. “Thank you.”
Ten thousand years in exile—alone.
Mor sighed—a loud, dramatic sound no doubt meant to break the heavy silence—and complained about wanting the full story of
But Azriel said, “Even if the book can nullify the Cauldron …
there’s Jurian to contend with.”
We all looked at him. “That’s the piece that doesn’t fit,” Azriel clarified, tapping a scarred finger on the table. “Why resurrect him in the first place? And how does the king keep him bound? What does the king have over Jurian to keep him loyal?”
“I’d considered that,” Rhys said, taking a seat across from me at the table, right between his two brothers. Of course he had considered it. Rhys shrugged. “Jurian was … obsessive in his pursuits of things. He died with many of those goals left unfinished.”
Mor’s face paled a bit. “If he suspects Miryam is alive—”
“Odds are, Jurian believes Miryam is gone,” Rhys said. “And who better to raise his former lover than a king with a Cauldron able to resurrect the dead?”
“Would Jurian ally with Hybern just because he thinks Miryam is dead and wants her back?” Cassian said, bracing his arms on the table.
“He’d do it to get revenge on Drakon for winning her heart,”
Rhys said. He shook his head. “We’ll discuss this later.” And I made a note to ask him who these people were, what their history was—to ask Rhys why he’d never hinted Under the Mountain that he knew the man behind the eye on Amarantha’s ring. After I’d had a bath. And water. And a nap.
But they all looked to me and Amren again—still waiting for the story. Brushing a few grains of sand off, I let Amren launch into the tale, each word more unbelievable than the last.
Across the table, I lifted my gaze from my clothes and found Rhys’s eyes already on me.
I inclined my head slightly, and lowered my shield only long enough to say down the bond: To the dreams that are answered.
A heartbeat later, a sensual caress trailed along my mental shields—a polite request. I let it drop, let him in, and his voice filled my head. To the huntresses who remember to reach back for those less fortunate—and water-wraiths who swim very, very fast.
Amren took the Book to wherever it was she lived in Velaris, leaving the five of us to eat. While Rhys told them of our visit to the Summer Court, I managed to scarf down breakfast before the exhaustion of staying up all night, unlocking those doors, and very nearly dying hit me. When I awoke, the house was empty, the afternoon sunlight warm and golden, and the day so unusually warm and lovely that I brought a book down to the small garden in the back.
The sun eventually shifted, shading the garden to the point of frigidness again. Not quite willing to give up the sun yet, I trudged the three levels to the rooftop patio to watch it set.
Of course— of course—Rhysand was already lounging in one of the white-painted iron chairs, an arm slung over the back while his other hand idly gripped a glass of some sort of liquor, a crystal decanter full of it set on the table before him.
His wings were draped behind him on the tile floor, and I wondered if he was also taking advantage of the unusually mild day to sun them as I cleared my throat.
“I know you’re there,” he said without turning from the view of the Sidra and the red-gold sea beyond.
I scowled. “If you want to be alone, I can go.”
He jerked his chin toward the empty seat at the iron table. Not a glowing invitation, but … I sat down.
There was a wood box beside the decanter—and I might have thought it was something for whatever he was drinking had I not noticed the dagger fashioned of mother-of-pearl in the lid.
Had I not sworn I could smell the sea and heat and soil that was Tarquin. “What is that?”
Rhys drained his glass, held up a hand—the decanter floating to him on a phantom wind—and poured himself another knuckle’s length before he spoke.
“I debated it for a good while, you know,” he said, staring out at his city. “Whether I should just ask Tarquin for the Book. But I thought that he might very well say no, then sell the information to the highest bidder. I thought he might say yes, and it’d still wind up with too many people knowing our plans and the potential for that information to get out. And at the end of the day, I needed the why of our mission to remain secret for as long as possible.” He drank again, and dragged a hand through his blue-black hair. “I didn’t like stealing from him. I didn’t like hurting his guards. I didn’t like vanishing without a word, when, ambition or no, he did truly want an alliance. Maybe even friendship. No other High Lords have ever bothered—or dared. But I think Tarquin wanted to be my friend.”
I glanced between him and the box and repeated, “What is that?”
“Open it.”
I gingerly flipped back the lid.
Inside, nestled on a bed of white velvet, three rubies glimmered, each the size of a chicken egg. Each so pure and richly colored that they seemed crafted of—
“Blood rubies,” he said.
I pulled back the fingers that had been inching toward the stones.
“In the Summer Court, when a grave insult has been committed, they send a blood ruby to the offender. An official declaration that there is a price on their head—that they are now hunted, and will soon be dead. The box arrived at the Court of Nightmares an hour ago.”
Mother above. “I take it one of these has my name on it. And yours. And Amren’s.”
The lid flipped shut on a dark wind. “I made a mistake,” he said.
I opened my mouth, but he went on, “I should have wiped the minds of the guards and let them continue on. Instead, I knocked them out. It’s been a while since I had to do any sort of physical …
defending like that, and I was so focused on my Illyrian training
that I forgot the other arsenal at my disposal. They probably awoke and went right to him.”
“He would have noticed the Book was missing soon enough.”
“We could have denied that we stole it and chalked it up to coincidence.” He drained his glass. “I made a mistake.”
“It’s not the end of the world if you do that every now and then.”
“You’ve been told you are now public enemy number one of the Summer Court and you’re fine with it?”
“No. But I don’t blame you.”
He loosed a breath, staring out at his city as the warmth of the day succumbed to winter’s bite once more. It didn’t matter to him.
“Perhaps you could return the Book once we’ve neutralized the Cauldron—apologize.”
Rhys snorted. “No. Amren will get that book for as long as she needs it.”
“Then make it up to him in some way. Clearly, you wanted to be his friend as much as he wanted to be yours. You wouldn’t be so upset otherwise.”
“I’m not upset. I’m pissed off.”
“Semantics.”
He gave me a half smile. “Feuds like the one we just started can last centuries—millennia. If that’s the cost of stopping this war, helping Amren … I’ll pay it.”
He’d pay with everything he had, I realized. Any hopes for himself, his own happiness.
“Do the others know—about the blood rubies?”
“Azriel was the one who brought them to me. I’m debating how I’ll tell Amren.”
“Why?”
Darkness filled those remarkable eyes. “Because her answer would be to go to Adriata and wipe the city off the map.”
I shuddered.
“Exactly,” he said.
I stared out at Velaris with him, listening to the sounds of the day wrapping up—and the night unfolding. Adriata felt rudimentary by comparison.
“I understand,” I said, rubbing some warmth into my now-chilled hands, “why you did what you had to in order to protect this city.”
Imagining the destruction that had been wreaked upon Adriata here in Velaris made my blood run cold. His eyes slid to me, wary and dull. I swallowed. “And I understand why you will do anything to keep it safe during the times ahead.”
“And your point is?”
A bad day—this was a bad day, I realized, for him. I didn’t scowl at the bite in his words. “Get through this war, Rhysand, and then worry about Tarquin and the blood rubies. Nullify the Cauldron, stop the king from shattering the wall and enslaving the human realm again, and then we’ll figure out the rest after.”
“You sound as if you plan to stay here for a while.” A bland, but edged question.
“I can find my own lodging, if that’s what you’re referring to.
Maybe I’ll use that generous paycheck to get myself something lavish.”
Come on. Wink at me. Play with me. Just—stop looking like that.
He only said, “Spare your paycheck. Your name has already been added to the list of those approved to use my household credit. Buy whatever you wish. Buy yourself a whole damn house if you want.”
I ground my teeth, and maybe it was panic or desperation, but I said sweetly, “I saw a pretty shop across the Sidra the other day. It sold what looked to be lots of lacy little things. Am I allowed to buy that on your credit, too, or does that come out of my personal funds?”
Those violet eyes again drifted to me. “I’m not in the mood.”
There was no humor, no mischief. I could go warm myself by a fire inside, but …
He had stayed. And fought for me.
Week after week, he’d fought for me, even when I had no reaction, even when I had barely been able to speak or bring myself to care if I lived or died or ate or starved. I couldn’t leave him to his own dark thoughts, his own guilt. He’d shouldered them alone long enough.
So I held his gaze. “I never knew Illyrians were such morose drunks.”
“I’m not drunk—I’m drinking,” he said, his teeth flashing a bit.
“Again, semantics.” I leaned back in my seat, wishing I’d brought my coat. “Maybe you should have slept with Cresseida after all—so you could both be sad and lonely together.”
“So you’re entitled to have as many bad days as you want, but I can’t get a few hours?”
“Oh, take however long you want to mope. I was going to invite you to come shopping with me for said lacy little unmentionables, but … sit up here forever, if you have to.”
He didn’t respond.
I went on, “Maybe I’ll send a few to Tarquin—with an offer to wear them for him if he forgives us. Maybe he’ll take those blood rubies right back.”
His mouth barely, barely tugged up at the corners. “He’d see that as a taunt.”
“I gave him a few smiles and he handed over a family heirloom.
I bet he’d give me the keys to his territory if I showed up wearing those undergarments.”
“Someone thinks mighty highly of herself.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You seem to have difficulty not staring at me day and night.”
There it was—a kernel of truth and a question.
“Am I supposed to deny,” he drawled, but something sparked in those eyes, “that I find you attractive?”
“You’ve never said it.”
“I’ve told you many times, and quite frequently, how attractive I find you.”
I shrugged, even as I thought of all those times—when I’d dismissed them as teasing compliments, nothing more. “Well, maybe you should do a better job of it.”
The gleam in his eyes turned into something predatory. A thrill went through me as he braced his powerful arms on the table and purred, “Is that a challenge, Feyre?”
I held that predator’s gaze—the gaze of the most powerful male in Prythian. “Is it?”
His pupils flared. Gone was the quiet sadness, the isolated guilt.
Only that lethal focus—on me. On my mouth. On the bob of my throat as I tried to keep my breathing even. He said, slow and soft,
“Why don’t we go down to that store right now, Feyre, so you can
try on those lacy little things—so I can help you pick which one to send to Tarquin.”
My toes curled inside my fleece-lined slippers. Such a dangerous line we walked together. The ice-kissed night wind rustled our hair.
But Rhys’s gaze cut skyward—and a heartbeat later, Azriel shot from the clouds like a spear of darkness.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be relieved or not, but I left before Azriel could land, giving the High Lord and his spymaster some privacy.
As soon as I entered the dimness of the stairwell, the heat rushed from me, leaving a sick, cold feeling in my stomach.
There was flirting, and then there was … this.
I had loved Tamlin. Loved him so much I had not minded destroying myself for it—for him. And then everything had happened, and now I was here, and … and I might have very well gone to that pretty shop with Rhysand.
I could almost see what would have happened:
The shop ladies would have been polite—a bit nervous—and given us privacy as Rhys sat on the settee in the back of the shop while I went behind the curtained-off chamber to try on the red lace set I’d eyed thrice now. And when I emerged, mustering up more bravado than I felt, Rhys would have looked me up and down. Twice.
And he would have kept staring at me as he informed the shop ladies that the store was closed and they should all come back tomorrow, and we’d leave the tab on the counter.
I would have stood there, naked save for scraps of red lace, while we listened to the quick, discreet sounds of them closing up and leaving.
And he would have looked at me the entire time—at my breasts, visible through the lace; at the plane of my stomach, now finally looking less starved and taut. At the sweep of my hips and thighs—between them. Then he would have met my gaze again, and crooked a finger with a single murmured, “Come here.”
And I would have walked to him, aware of every step, as I at last stopped in front of where he sat. Between his legs.
His hands would have slid to my waist, the calluses scraping my skin. Then he’d have tugged me a bit closer before leaning in to brush a kiss to my navel, his tongue—
I swore as I slammed into the post of the stairwell landing.
And I blinked—blinked as the world returned and I realized …
I glared at the eye tattooed in my hand and hissed both with my tongue and that silent voice within the bond itself, “Prick.”
In the back of my mind, a sensual male voice chuckled with midnight laughter.
My face burning, cursing him for the vision he’d slipped past my mental shields, I reinforced them as I entered my room. And took a very, very cold bath.
I ate with Mor that night beside the crackling fire in the town house dining room, Rhys and the others off somewhere, and when she finally asked why I kept scowling every time Rhysand’s name was mentioned, I told her about the vision he’d sent into my mind.
She’d laughed until wine came out of her nose, and when I scowled at her, she told me I should be proud: when Rhys was prepared to brood, it took nothing short of a miracle to get him out of it.
I tried to ignore the slight sense of triumph—even as I climbed into bed.
I was just starting to drift off, well past two in the morning thanks to chatting with Mor on the couch in the living room for hours and hours about all the great and terrible places she’d seen, when the house let out a groan.
Like the wood itself was being warped, the house began to moan and shudder—the colored glass lights in my room tinkling.
I jolted upright, twisting to the open window. Clear skies, nothing
—
Nothing but the darkness leaking into my room from the hall door.
I knew that darkness. A kernel of it lived in me.
It rushed in from the cracks of the door like a flood. The house shuddered again.
I vaulted from bed, yanked the door open, and darkness swept past me on a phantom wind, full of stars and flapping wings and—
pain.
So much pain, and despair, and guilt and fear.
I hurtled into the hall, utterly blind in the impenetrable dark. But there was a thread between us, and I followed it—to where I knew his room was. I fumbled for the handle, then—
More night and stars and wind poured out, my hair whipping around me, and I lifted an arm to shield my face as I edged into the room. “Rhysand.”
No response. But I could feel him there—feel that lifeline between us.
I followed it until my shins banged into what had to be his bed.
“Rhysand,” I said over the wind and dark. The house shook, the floorboards clattering under my feet. I patted the bed, feeling sheets and blankets and down, and then—
Then a hard, taut male body. But the bed was enormous, and I couldn’t get a grip on him. “Rhysand! ”
Around and around the darkness swirled, the beginning and end of the world.
I scrambled onto the bed, lunging for him, feeling what was his arm, then his stomach, then his shoulders. His skin was freezing as I gripped his shoulders and shouted his name.
No response, and I slid a hand up his neck, to his mouth—to make sure he was still breathing, that this wasn’t his power floating away from him—
Icy breath hit my palm. And, bracing myself, I rose up on my knees, aiming blindly, and slapped him.
My palm stung—but he didn’t move. I hit him again, pulling on that bond between us, shouting his name down it like it was a tunnel, banging on that wall of ebony adamant within his mind, roaring at it.
A crack in the dark.
And then his hands were on me, flipping me, pinning me with expert skill to the mattress, a taloned hand at my throat.
I went still. “Rhysand.” I breathed. Rhys, I said through the bond, putting a hand against that inner shield.
The dark shuddered.
I threw my own power out—black to black, soothing his darkness, the rough edges, willing it to calm, to soften. My darkness sang his own a lullaby, a song my wet nurse had hummed when my mother had shoved me into her arms to go back to attending parties.
“It was a dream,” I said. His hand was so cold. “It was a dream.”
Again, the dark paused. I sent my own veils of night brushing up against it, running star-flecked hands down it.
And for a heartbeat, the inky blackness cleared enough that I saw his face above me: drawn, lips pale, violet eyes wide—
scanning.
“Feyre,” I said. “I’m Feyre.” His breathing was jagged, uneven. I gripped the wrist that held my throat—held, but didn’t hurt. “You were dreaming.”
I willed that darkness inside myself to echo it, to sing those raging fears to sleep, to brush up against that ebony wall within his mind, gentle and soft …
Then, like snow shaken from a tree, his darkness fell away, taking mine with it.
Moonlight poured in—and the sounds of the city.
His room was similar to mine, the bed so big it must have been built to accommodate wings, but all tastefully, comfortably appointed. And he was naked above me—utterly naked. I didn’t dare look lower than the tattooed panes of his chest.
“Feyre,” he said, his voice hoarse. As if he’d been screaming.
“Yes,” I said. He studied my face—the taloned hand at my throat. And released me immediately.
I lay there, staring up at where he now knelt on the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. My traitorous eyes indeed dared to look lower than his chest—but my attention snagged on the twin tattoos on each of his knees: a towering mountain crowned by three stars. Beautiful—but brutal, somehow.
“You were having a nightmare,” I said, easing into a sitting position. Like some dam had been cracked open inside me, I glanced at my hand—and willed it to vanish into shadow. It did.
Half a thought scattered the darkness again.
His hands, however, still ended in long, black talons—and his feet … they ended in claws, too. The wings were out, slumped
down behind him. And I wondered how close he’d been to fully shifting into that beast he’d once told me he hated.
He lowered his hands, talons fading into fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s why you’re staying here, not at the House. You don’t want the others seeing this.”
“I normally keep it contained to my room. I’m sorry it woke you.”
I fisted my hands in my lap to keep from touching him. “How often does it happen?”
Rhys’s violet eyes met mine, and I knew the answer before he said, “As often as you.”
I swallowed hard. “What did you dream of tonight?”
He shook his head, looking toward the window—to where snow had dusted the nearby rooftops. “There are memories from Under the Mountain, Feyre, that are best left unshared. Even with you.”
He’d shared enough horrific things with me that they had to be
… beyond nightmares, then. But I put a hand on his elbow, naked body and all. “When you want to talk, let me know. I won’t tell the others.”
I made to slither off the bed, but he grabbed my hand, keeping it against his arm. “Thank you.”
I studied the hand, the ravaged face. Such pain lingered there—
and exhaustion. The face he never let anyone see.
I pushed up onto my knees and kissed his cheek, his skin warm and soft beneath my mouth. It was over before it started, but—but how many nights had I wanted someone to do the same for me?
His eyes were a bit wide as I pulled away, and he didn’t stop me as I eased off the bed. I was almost out the door when I turned back to him.
Rhys still knelt, wings drooping across the white sheets, head bowed, his tattoos stark against his golden skin. A dark, fallen prince.
The painting flashed into my mind.
Flashed—and stayed there, glimmering, before it faded.
But it remained, shining faintly, in that hole inside my chest.
The hole that was slowly starting to heal over.
“Do you think you can decode it once we get the other half?” I said to Amren, lingering by the front door of her apartment the next afternoon.
She owned the top floor of a three-story building, the sloped ceiling ending on either side in a massive window. One looked out on the Sidra; the other on a tree-lined city square. The entire apartment consisted of one giant room: the faded oak floors were covered in equally worn carpets, furniture was scattered about as if she constantly moved it for whatever purpose.
Only her bed, a large, four-poster monstrosity canopied in gossamer, seemed set in a permanent place against the wall.
There was no kitchen—only a long table and a hearth burning hot enough to make the room near-stifling. The dusting of snow from the night before had vanished in the dry winter sun by midmorning, the temperature crisp but mild enough that the walk here had been invigorating.
Seated on the floor before a low-lying table scattered with papers, Amren looked up from the gleaming metal of the book.
Her face was paler than usual, her lips wan. “It’s been a long while since I used this language—I want to master it again before tackling the Book. Hopefully by then, those haughty queens will have given us their share.”
“And how long will relearning the language take?”
“Didn’t His Darkness fill you in?” She went back to the Book.
I strode for the long wooden table and set the package I’d brought on the scratched surface. A few pints of hot blood—
straight from the butcher. I’d nearly run here to keep them from going cold. “No,” I said, taking out the containers. “He didn’t.”
Rhys had already been gone by breakfast, though one of his notes had been on a bedside table.
Thank you—for last night, was all it had said. No pen to write a response.
But I’d hunted down one anyway, and had written back, What do the tattooed stars and mountain on your knees mean?
The paper had vanished a heartbeat later. When it hadn’t returned, I’d dressed and gone to breakfast. I was halfway through my eggs and toast when the paper appeared beside my plate, neatly folded.
That I will bow before no one and nothing but my crown.
This time, a pen had appeared. I’d merely written back, So dramatic. And through our bond, on the other side of my mental shields, I could have sworn I heard his laugh.
Smiling at the memory, I unscrewed the lid on the first jar, the tang of blood filling my nostrils. Amren sniffed, then whipped her head to the glass pints. “You—oh, I like you.”
“It’s lamb, if that makes a difference. Do you want me to heat it up?”
She rushed from the Book, and I just watched as she clutched the jar in both hands and gulped it down like water.
Well, at least I wouldn’t have to bother finding a pot in this place.
Amren drank half in one go. A trickle of blood ran down her chin, and she let it drip onto her gray shirt—rumpled in a way I’d never seen. Smacking her lips, she set the jar on the table with a great sigh. Blood gleamed on her teeth. “Thank you.”
“Do you have a favorite?”
She jerked her bloody chin, then wiped it with a napkin as she realized she’d made a mess. “Lamb has always been my favorite.
Horrible as it is.”
“Not—human?”
She made a face. “Watery, and often tastes like what they last ate. And since most humans have piss-poor palates, it’s too much of a gamble. But lamb … I’ll take goat, too. The blood’s purer.
Richer. Reminds me of—another time. And place.”
“Interesting,” I said, and meant it. I wondered what world, exactly, she meant.
She drained the rest, color already blooming on her face, and placed the jar in the small sink along the wall.
“I thought you’d live somewhere more … ornate,” I admitted.
Indeed, all her fine clothes were hanging on racks near the bed, her jewelry scattered on a few armoires and tables. There was enough of the latter to provide an emperor’s ransom.
She shrugged, plopping down beside the Book once more. “I tried that once. It bored me. And I didn’t like having servants. Too nosy. I’ve lived in palaces and cottages and in the mountains and on the beach, but I somehow like this apartment by the river the best.” She frowned at the skylights that dotted the ceiling. “It also means I never have to host parties or guests. Both of which I abhor.”
I chuckled. “Then I’ll keep my visit short.”
She let out an amused huff, crossing her legs beneath her.
“Why are you here?”
“Cassian said you’d been holed up in here night and day since we got back, and I thought you might be hungry. And—I had nothing else to do.”
“Cassian is a busybody.”
“He cares about you. All of you. You’re the only family he has.”
They were all the only family they each had.
“Ach,” she said, studying a piece of paper. But it seemed to please her nonetheless. A gleam of color caught my attention on the floor near her.
She was using her blood ruby as a paperweight.
“Rhys convinced you not to destroy Adriata for the blood ruby?”
Amren’s eyes flicked up, full of storms and violent seas. “He did no such thing. That convinced me not to destroy Adriata.” She pointed to her dresser.
Sprawled across the top like a snake lay a familiar necklace of diamonds and rubies. I’d seen it before—in Tarquin’s trove. “How
… what?”
Amren smiled to herself. “Varian sent it to me. To soften Tarquin’s declaration of our blood feud.”
I’d thought the rubies would need to be worn by a mighty female
—and could think of no mightier female than the one before me.
“Did you and Varian … ?”
“Tempting, but no. The prick can’t decide if he hates or wants me.”
“Why can’t it be both?”
A low chuckle. “Indeed.”
Thus began weeks of waiting. Waiting for Amren to relearn a language spoken by no other in our world. Waiting for the mortal queens to answer our request to meet.
Azriel continued his attempt to infiltrate their courts—still to no avail. I heard about it mostly from Mor, who always knew when he’d return to the House of Wind, and always made a point to be there the moment he touched down.
She told me little of the specifics—even less about how the frustration of not being able to get his spies or himself into those courts took a toll on him. The standards to which he held himself, she confided in me, bordered on sadistic.
Getting Azriel to take any time for himself that didn’t involve work or training was nearly impossible. And when I pointed out that he did go to Rita’s with her whenever she asked, Mor simply informed me that it had taken her four centuries to get him to do that. I sometimes wondered what went on up at the House of Wind while Rhys and I stayed at the town house.
I only really visited in the mornings, when I filled the first half of my day training with Cassian—who, along with Mor, had decided to point out what foods I should be eating to gain back the weight I’d lost, to become strong and swift again. And as the days passed, I went from physical defense to learning to wield an Illyrian blade, the weapon so fine, I’d nearly taken Cassian’s arm off.
But I was learning to use it—slowly. Painfully. I’d had one break from Cassian’s brutal training—just one morning, when he’d flown to the human realm to see if my sisters had heard from the queens and deliver another letter from Rhys to be sent to them.
I assumed seeing Nesta went about as poorly as could be imagined, because my lesson the following morning was longer and harder than it’d been in previous days. I’d asked what, exactly, Nesta had said to him to get under his skin so easily. But
Cassian had only snarled and told me to mind my own business, and that my family was full of bossy, know-it-all females.
Part of me had wondered if Cassian and Varian might need to compare notes.
Most afternoons … if Rhys was around, I’d train with him. Mind to mind, power to power. We slowly worked through the gifts I’d been given—flame and water, ice and darkness. There were others, we knew, that had gone undiscovered, undelved.
Winnowing still remained impossible. I hadn’t been able to do it since that snowy morning with the Attor.
It’d take time, Rhys told me each day, when I’d inevitably snap at him—time, to learn and master each one.
He infused each lesson with information about the High Lords whose power I’d stolen: about Beron, the cruel and vain High Lord of the Autumn Court; about Kallias, the quiet and cunning High Lord of Winter; about Helion Spell-Cleaver, the High Lord of Day, whose one thousand libraries had been personally looted by Amarantha, and whose clever people excelled at spell work and archived the knowledge of Prythian.
Knowing who my power had come from, Rhys said, was as important as learning the nature of the power itself. We never spoke of shape-shifting—of the talons I could sometimes summon. The threads that went along with us looking at that gift were too tangled, the unspoken history too violent and bloody.
So I learned the other courts’ politics and histories, and learned their masters’ powers, until my waking and sleeping hours were spent with flame singeing my mouth and hoarfrost cracking between my fingers. And each night, exhausted from a day of training my body and powers, I tumbled into a heavy sleep, laced with jasmine-scented darkness.
Even my nightmares were too tired to hound me.
On the days when Rhys was called elsewhere, to deal with the inner workings of his own court, to remind them who ruled them or mete out judgment, to prepare for our inevitable visit to Hybern, I would read, or sit with Amren while she worked on the Book, or stroll through Velaris with Mor. The latter was perhaps my favorite, and the female certainly excelled at finding ways to spend money.
I’d peeked only once at the account Rhys had set up for me—just once, and realized he was grossly, grossly overpaying me.
I tried not to be disappointed on those afternoons that he was gone, tried not to admit that I’d begun looking forward to it—
mastering my powers, and … bantering with him. But even when he was gone, he would talk to me, in the notes that had become our own strange secret.
One day, he’d written to me from Cesere, a small city in the northeast where he was meeting with the few surviving priestesses to discuss rebuilding after their temple had been wrecked by Hybern’s forces. None of the priestesses were like Ianthe, he’d promised.
Tell me about the painting.
I’d written back from my seat in the garden, the fountain finally revived with the return of milder weather, There’s not much to say.
Tell me about it anyway.
It had taken me a while to craft the response, to think through that little hole in me and what it had once meant and felt like. But then I said, There was a time when all I wanted was enough money to keep me and my family fed so that I could spend my days painting. That was all I wanted. Ever.
A pause. Then he’d written, And now?
Now, I’d replied, I don’t know what I want. I can’t paint anymore.
Why?
Because that part of me is empty. Though maybe that night I’d seen him kneeling in the bed … maybe that had changed a bit. I had contemplated the next sentence, then written, Did you always want to be High Lord?
A lengthy pause again. Yes. And no. I saw how my father ruled and knew from a young age that I did not want to be like him. So I decided to be a different sort of High Lord; I wanted to protect my people, change the perceptions of the Illyrians, and eliminate the corruption that plagued the land.
For a moment, I hadn’t been able to stop myself from comparing: Tamlin hadn’t wanted to be High Lord. He resented being High Lord—and maybe … maybe that was part of why the court had become what it was. But Rhysand, with a vision, with the will and desire and passion to do it … He’d built something.
And then gone to the mat to defend it.
It was what he’d seen in Tarquin, why those blood rubies had hit him so hard. Another High Lord with vision—a radical vision for the future of Prythian.
So I wrote back, At least you make up for your shameless flirting by being one hell of a High Lord.
He’d returned that evening, smirking like a cat, and had merely said “One hell of a High Lord?” by way of greeting.
I’d sent a bucket’s worth of water splashing into his face.
Rhys hadn’t bothered to shield against it. And instead shook his wet hair like a dog, spraying me until I yelped and darted away.
His laughter had chased me up the stairs.
Winter was slowly loosening its grip when I awoke one morning and found another letter from Rhys beside my bed. No pen.
No training with your second-favorite Illyrian this morning. The queens finally deigned to write back. They’re coming to your family’s estate tomorrow.
I didn’t have time for nerves. We left after dinner, soaring into the thawing human lands under cover of darkness, the brisk wind screaming as Rhys held me tightly.
My sisters were ready the following morning, both dressed in finery fit for any queen, Fae or mortal.
I supposed I was, too.
I wore a white gown of chiffon and silk, cut in typical Night Court fashion to reveal my skin, the gold accents on the dress glittering in the midmorning light streaming through the sitting room windows. My father, thankfully, would remain on the continent for another two months—due to whatever vital trade he’d been seeking across the kingdoms.
Near the fireplace, I stood beside Rhys, who was clad in his usual black, his wings gone, his face a calm mask. Only the dark crown atop his head—the metal shaped like raven’s feathers—
was different. The crown that was the sibling to my gold diadem.
Cassian and Azriel monitored everything from the far wall, no weapons in sight.
But their Siphons gleamed, and I wondered what manner of weapon, exactly, they could craft with it, if the need demanded it.
For that had been one of the demands the queens had issued for this meeting: no weapons. No matter that the Illyrian warriors themselves were weapons enough.
Mor, in a red gown similar to mine, frowned at the clock atop the white mantel, her foot tapping on the ornate carpet. Despite my wishes for her to get to know my sisters, Nesta and Elain had been so tense and pale when we’d arrived that I’d immediately decided now was not the time for such an encounter.
One day—one day, I’d bring them all together. If we didn’t die in this war first. If these queens chose to help us.
Eleven o’clock struck.
There had been two other demands.
The meeting was to begin at eleven. No earlier. No later.
And they had wanted the exact geographical location of the house. The layout and size of each room. Where the furniture was. Where the windows and doors were. What room, likely, we would greet them in.
Azriel had provided it all, with my sisters’ help.
The chiming of the clock atop the mantel was the only sound.
And I realized, as it finished its last strike, that the third demand wasn’t just for security.
No, as a wind brushed through the room, and five figures appeared, flanked by two guards apiece, I realized it was because the queens could winnow.
The mortal queens were a mixture of age, coloring, height, and temperament. The eldest of them, clad in an embroidered wool dress of deepest blue, was brown-skinned, her eyes sharp and cold, and unbent despite the heavy wrinkles carved into her face.
The two who appeared middle-aged were opposites: one dark, one light; one sweet-faced, one hewn from granite; one smiling and one frowning. They even wore gowns of black and white—
and seemed to move in question and answer to each other. I wondered what their kingdoms were like, what relations they had.
If the matching silver rings they each wore bound them in other ways.
And the youngest two queens … One was perhaps a few years older than me, black-haired and black-eyed, careful cunning oozing from every pore as she surveyed us.
And the final queen, the one who spoke first, was the most beautiful—the only beautiful one of them. These were women who, despite their finery, did not care if they were young or old, fat or thin, short or tall. Those things were secondary; those things were a sleight of hand.
But this one, this beautiful queen, perhaps no older than thirty
…
Her riotously curly hair was as golden as Mor’s, her eyes of purest amber. Even her brown, freckled skin seemed dusted with gold. Her body was supple where she’d probably learned men found it distracting, lithe where it showed grace. A lion in human flesh.
“Well met,” Rhysand said, remaining still as their stone-faced guards scanned us, the room. As the queens now took our
The sitting room was enormous enough that one nod from the golden queen had the guards peeling off to hold positions by the walls, the doors. My sisters, silent before the bay window, shuffled aside to make room.
Rhys stepped forward. The queens all sucked in a little breath, as if bracing themselves. Their guards casually, perhaps foolishly, rested a hand on the hilt of their broadswords—so large and clunky compared to Illyrian blades. As if they stood a chance—
against any of us. Myself included, I realized with a bit of a start.
But it was Cassian and Azriel who would play the role of mere guards today—distractions.
But Rhys bowed his head slightly and said to the assembled queens, “We are grateful you accepted our invitation.” He lifted a brow. “Where is the sixth?”
The ancient queen, her blue gown heavy and rich, merely said,
“She is unwell, and could not make the journey.” She surveyed me. “You are the emissary.”
My back stiffened. Beneath her gaze, my crown felt like a joke, like a bauble, but—“Yes,” I said. “I am Feyre.”
A cutting glance toward Rhysand. “And you are the High Lord who wrote us such an interesting letter after your first few were dispatched.”
I didn’t dare look at him. He’d sent many letters through my sisters by now.
You didn’t ask what was inside them, he said mind to mind with me, laughter dancing along the bond. I’d left my mental shields down—just in case we needed to silently communicate.
“I am,” Rhysand said with a hint of a nod. “And this is my cousin, Morrigan.”
Mor stalked toward us, her crimson gown floating on a phantom wind. The golden queen sized her up with each step, each breath.
A threat—for beauty and power and dominance. Mor bowed at my side. “It has been a long time since I met with a mortal queen.”
The black-clad queen placed a moon-white hand on her lower bodice. “Morrigan— the Morrigan from the War.”
They all paused as if in surprise. And a bit of awe and fear.
Mor bowed again. “Please—sit.” She gestured to the chairs we’d laid out a comfortable distance from each other, all far enough apart that the guards could flank their queens as they saw fit.
Almost as one, the queens sat. Their guards, however, remained at their posts around the room.
The golden-haired queen smoothed her voluminous skirts and said, “I assume those are our hosts.” A cutting look at my sisters.
Nesta had gone straight-backed, but Elain bobbed a curtsy, flushing rose pink.
“My sisters,” I clarified.
Amber eyes slid to me. To my crown. Then Rhys’s. “An emissary wears a golden crown. Is that a tradition in Prythian?”
“No,” Rhysand said smoothly, “but she certainly looks good enough in one that I can’t resist.”
The golden queen didn’t smile as she mused, “A human turned into a High Fae … and who is now standing beside a High Lord at the place of honor. Interesting.”
I kept my shoulders back, chin high. Cassian had been teaching me these weeks about how to feel out an opponent—what were her words but the opening movements in another sort of battle?
The eldest declared to Rhys, “You have an hour of our time.
Make it count.”
“How is it that you can winnow?” Mor asked from her seat beside me.
The golden queen now gave a smile—a small, mocking one—
and replied, “It is our secret, and our gift from your kind.”
Fine. Rhys looked to me, and I swallowed as I inched forward on my seat. “War is coming. We called you here to warn you—and to beg a boon.”
There would be no tricks, no stealing, no seduction. Rhys could not even risk looking inside their heads for fear of triggering the inherent wards around the Book and destroying it.
“We know war is coming,” the oldest said, her voice like crackling leaves. “We have been preparing for it for many years.”
It seemed the three others were positioned as observers while the eldest and the golden-haired one led the charge.
I said as calmly and clearly as I could, “The humans in this territory seem unaware of the larger threat. We’ve seen no signs of preparation.” Indeed, Azriel had gleaned as much these weeks, to my dismay.
“This territory,” the golden one explained coolly, “is a slip of land compared to the vastness of the continent. It is not in our interests to defend it. It would be a waste of resources.”
No. No, that—
Rhys drawled, “Surely the loss of even one innocent life would be abhorrent.”
The eldest queen folded her withered hands in her lap. “Yes. To lose one life is always a horror. But war is war. If we must sacrifice this tiny territory to save the majority, then we shall do it.”
I didn’t dare look at my sisters. Look at this house, that might very well be turned to rubble. I rasped, “There are good people here.”
The golden queen sweetly parried with, “Then let the High Fae of Prythian defend them.”
Silence.
And it was Nesta who hissed from behind us, “We have servants here. With families. There are children in these lands.
And you mean to leave us all in the hands of the Fae?”
The eldest one’s face softened. “It is no easy choice, girl—”
“It is the choice of cowards,” Nesta snapped.
I interrupted before Nesta could dig us a deeper grave, “For all that your kind hate ours … You’d leave the Fae to defend your people?”
“Shouldn’t they?” the golden one asked, sending that cascade of curls sliding over a shoulder as she angled her head to the side. “Shouldn’t they defend against a threat of their own making?” A snort. “Should Fae blood not be spilled for their crimes over the years?”
“Neither side is innocent,” Rhys countered calmly. “But we might protect those who are. Together.”
“Oh?” said the eldest, her wrinkles seeming to harden, deepen.
“The High Lord of the Night Court asks us to join with him, save lives with him. To fight for peace. And what of the lives you have taken during your long, hideous existence? What of the High Lord
who walks with darkness in his wake, and shatters minds as he sees fit?” A crow’s laugh. “We have heard of you, even on the continent, Rhysand. We have heard what the Night Court does, what you do to your enemies. Peace? For a male who melts minds and tortures for sport, I did not think you knew the word.”
Wrath began simmering in my blood; embers crackled in my ears. But I cooled that fire I’d slowly been stoking these past weeks and tried, “If you will not send forces here to defend your people, then the artifact we requested—”
“Our half of the Book, child,” the crone cut me off, “does not leave our sacred palace. It has not left those white walls since the day it was gifted as part of the Treaty. It will never leave those walls, not while we stand against the terrors in the North.”
“Please,” was all I said.
Silence again.
“Please,” I repeated. Emissary—I was their emissary, and Rhys had chosen me for this. To be the voice of both worlds. “I was turned into this—into a faerie—because one of the commanders from Hybern killed me.”
Through our bond, I could have sworn I felt Rhys flinch.
“For fifty years,” I pushed on, “she terrorized Prythian, and when I defeated her, when I freed its people, she killed me. And before she did, I witnessed the horrors that she unleashed on human and faerie alike. One of them—just one of them was able to cause such destruction and suffering. Imagine what an army like her might do. And now their king plans to use a weapon to shatter the wall, to destroy all of you. The war will be swift, and brutal. And you will not win. We will not win. Survivors will be slaves, and their children’s children will be slaves. Please … Please, give us the other half of the Book.”
The eldest queen swapped a glance with the golden one before saying gently, placatingly, “You are young, child. You have much to learn about the ways of the world—”
“Do not,” Rhys said with deadly quiet, “condescend to her.” The eldest queen—who was but a child to him, to his centuries of existence — had the good sense to look nervous at that tone.
Rhys’s eyes were glazed, his face as unforgiving as his voice as he went on, “Do not insult Feyre for speaking with her heart, with
compassion for those who cannot defend themselves, when you speak from only selfishness and cowardice.”
The eldest stiffened. “For the greater good—”
“Many atrocities,” Rhys purred, “have been done in the name of the greater good.”
No small part of me was impressed that she held his gaze. She said simply, “The Book will remain with us. We will weather this storm—”
“That’s enough,” Mor interrupted.
She got to her feet.
And Mor looked each and every one of those queens in the eye as she said, “I am the Morrigan. You know me. What I am. You know that my gift is truth. So you will hear my words now, and know them as truth—as your ancestors once did.”
Not a word.
Mor gestured behind her—to me. “Do you think it is any simple coincidence that a human has been made immortal again, at the very moment when our old enemy resurfaces? I fought side by side with Miryam in the War, fought beside her as Jurian’s ambition and bloodlust drove him mad, and drove them apart.
Drove him to torture Clythia to death, then battle Amarantha until his own.” She took a sharp breath, and I could have sworn Azriel inched closer at the sound. But Mor blazed on, “I marched back into the Black Land with Miryam to free the slaves left in that burning sand, the slavery she had herself escaped. The slaves Miryam had promised to return to free. I marched with her—my friend. Along with Prince Drakon’s legion. Miryam was my friend, as Feyre is now. And your ancestors, those queens who signed that Treaty … They were my friends, too. And when I look at you
… ” She bared her teeth. “I see nothing of those women in you.
When I look at you, I know that your ancestors would be ashamed.
“You laugh at the idea of peace? That we can have it between our peoples?” Mor’s voice cracked, and again Azriel subtly shifted nearer to her, though his face revealed nothing. “There is an island in a forgotten, stormy part of the sea. A vast, lush island, shielded from time and spying eyes. And on that island, Miryam and Drakon still live. With their children. With both of their
peoples. Fae and human and those in between. Side by side. For five hundred years, they have prospered on that island, letting the world believe them dead—”
“Mor,” Rhys said—a quiet reprimand.
A secret, I realized, that perhaps had remained hidden for five centuries.
A secret that had fueled the dreams of Rhysand, of his court.
A land where two dreamers had found peace between their peoples.
Where there was no wall. No iron wards. No ash arrows.
The golden queen and ancient queen looked to each other again.
The ancient one’s eyes were bright as she declared, “Give us proof. If you are not the High Lord that rumor claims, give us one shred of proof that you are as you say—a male of peace.”
There was one way. Only one way to show them, prove it to them.
Velaris.
My very bones cried out at the thought of revealing that gem to these … spiders.
Rhys rose in a fluid motion. The queens did the same. His voice was like a moonless night as he said, “You desire proof?” I held my breath, praying … praying he wouldn’t tell them. He shrugged, the silver thread in his jacket catching the sunlight. “I shall get it for you. Await my word, and return when we summon you.”
“We are summoned by no one, human or faerie,” the golden queen simpered.
Perhaps that was why they’d taken so long to reply. To play some power game.
“Then come at your leisure,” Rhys said, with enough of a bite that the queens’ guards stepped forward. Cassian only grinned at them—and the wisest among them instantly paled.
Rhys barely inclined his head as he added, “Perhaps then you’ll comprehend how vital the Book is to both our efforts.”
“We will consider it once we have your proof.” The ancient one nearly spat the word. Some part of me reminded myself that she was old, and royal, and smacking that sneer off her face would not be in our best interests. “That book has been ours to protect for
five hundred years. We will not hand it over without due consideration.”
The guards flanked them—as if the words had been some predetermined signal. The golden queen smirked at me, and said,
“Good luck.”
Then they were gone. The sitting room was suddenly too big, too quiet.
And it was Elain— Elain—who sighed and murmured, “I hope they all burn in hell.”
We were mostly silent during the flight and winnowing to Velaris.
Amren was already waiting in the town house, her clothes rumpled, face unnervingly pale. I made a note to get her more blood immediately.
But rather than gather in the dining or sitting room, Rhys strolled down the hall, hands in his pockets, past the kitchen, and out into the courtyard garden in the back.
The rest of us lingered in the foyer, staring after him—the silence radiating from him. Like the calm before a storm.
“It went well, I take it,” Amren said. Cassian gave her a look, and trailed after his friend.
The sun and arid day had warmed the garden, bits of green now poking their heads out here and there in the countless beds and pots. Rhys sat on the rim of the fountain, forearms braced on his knees, staring at the moss-flecked flagstone between his feet.
We all found our seats in the white-painted iron chairs throughout. If only humans could see them: faeries, sitting on iron.
They’d throw away those ridiculous baubles and jewelry. Perhaps even Elain would receive an engagement ring that hadn’t been forged with hate and fear.
“If you’re out here to brood, Rhys,” Amren said from her perch on a little bench, “then just say so and let me go back to my work.”
Violet eyes lifted to hers. Cold, humorless. “The humans wish for proof of our good intentions. That we can be trusted.”
Amren’s attention cut to me. “Feyre was not enough?”
I tried not to let the words sting. No, I had not been enough; perhaps I’d even failed in my role as emissary—
“She is more than enough,” Rhys said with that deadly calm, and I wondered if I’d sent my own pathetic thoughts down the bond. I snapped my shield up once more. “They’re fools. Worse—
frightened fools.” He studied the ground again, as if the dried moss and stone made up some pattern no one but him could see.
Cassian said, “We could … depose them. Get newer, smarter queens on their thrones. Who might be willing to bargain.”
Rhys shook his head. “One, it’d take too long. We don’t have that time.” I thought of the past few wasted weeks, how hard Azriel had tried to get into those courts. If even his shadows and spies could not breach their inner workings, then I doubted an assassin would. The confirming shake of the head Azriel gave Cassian said as much. “Two,” Rhys continued, “who knows if that would somehow impact the magic of their half of the Book. It must be given freely. It’s possible the magic is strong enough to see our scheming.” He sucked on his teeth. “We are stuck with them.”
“We could try again,” Mor said. “Let me speak to them, let me go to their palace—”
“No,” Azriel said. Mor raised her brows, and a faint color stained Azriel’s tan face. But his features were set, his hazel eyes solid.
“You’re not setting foot in that human realm.”
“I fought in the War, you will do well to remember—”
“No,” Azriel said again, refusing to break her stare. His shifting wings rasped against the back of his chair. “They would string you up and make an example of you.”
“They’d have to catch me first.”
“That palace is a death trap for our kind,” Azriel countered, his voice low and rough. “Built by Fae hands to protect the humans from us. You set foot inside it, Mor, and you won’t walk out again.
Why do you think we’ve had such trouble getting a foothold in there?”
“If going into their territory isn’t an option,” I cut in before Mor could say whatever the temper limning her features hissed at her to retort and surely wound the shadowsinger more than she intended, “and deceit or any mental manipulation might make the magic wreck the Book … What proof can be offered?” Rhys lifted his head. “Who is—who is this Miryam? Who was she to Jurian,
and who was that prince you spoke of—Drakon? Perhaps we …
perhaps they could be used as proof. If only to vouch for you.”