No—no, I didn’t want to do it, not this time, not again, not—
But I had no control over my fingers, absolutely none, and he was still staring as I fired.
One shot—one shot straight through that golden eye.
A plume of blood splattering the snow, a thud of a heavy body, a sigh of wind. No.
It wasn’t a wolf that hit the snow—no, it was a man, tall and well formed.
No—not a man. A High Fae, with those pointed ears.
I blinked, and then—then my hands were warm and sticky with blood, then his body was red and skinless, steaming in the cold, and it was his skin— his skin —that I held in my hands, and—
I threw myself awake, sweat slipping down my back, and forced myself to breathe, to open my eyes and note each detail of the night-dark bedroom. Real—this was real.
But I could still see that High Fae male facedown in the snow, my arrow through his eye, red and bloody all over from where I’d cut and peeled off his skin.
Bile stung my throat.
Not real. Just a dream. Even if what I’d done to Andras, even as a wolf, was … was …
I scrubbed at my face. Perhaps it was the quiet, the hollowness, of the past few days—perhaps it was only that I no longer had to think hour to hour about how to keep my family alive, but … It was regret, and maybe shame, that coated my tongue, my bones.
I shuddered as if I could fling it off, and kicked back the sheets to rise from the bed.
I couldn’t entirely shake the horror, the gore of my dream as I walked down the dark halls of the manor, the servants and Lucien long since asleep. But I had to do something— anything—after that nightmare. If only to avoid sleeping. A bit of paper in one hand and a pen gripped in the other, I carefully traced my steps, noting the windows and doors and exits, occasionally jotting down vague sketches and X s on the parchment.
It was the best I could do, and to any literate human, my markings would have made no sense. But I couldn’t write or read more than my basic letters, and my makeshift map was better than nothing. If I were to remain here, it was essential to know the best hiding places, the easiest way out, should things ever go badly for me. I couldn’t entirely let go of the instinct.
It was too dim to admire any of the paintings lining the walls, and I didn’t dare risk a candle. These past three days, there had been servants in the halls when I’d worked up the nerve to look at the art—and the part of me that spoke with Nesta’s voice had laughed at the idea of an ignorant human trying to admire faerie art. Some other time, then, I’d told myself. I would find another day, a quiet hour when no one was around, to look at them. I had plenty of hours now—a whole lifetime in front of me. Perhaps …
perhaps I’d figure out what I wished to do with it.
I crept down the main staircase, moonlight flooding the black-and-white tiles of the entrance hall. I reached the bottom, my bare feet silent on the cold tiles, and listened. Nothing—no one.
I set my little map on the foyer table and drew a few X s and circles to signify the doors, the windows, the marble stairs of the front hall. I would become so familiar with the house that I could navigate it even if someone blinded me.
A breeze announced his arrival—and I turned from the table toward the long hall, to the open glass doors to the garden.
I’d forgotten how huge he was in this form—forgotten the curled horns and lupine face, the bearlike body that moved with a feline fluidity. His green eyes glowed in the darkness, fixing on me, and as the doors snicked shut behind him, the clicking of claws on marble filled the hall. I stood still—not daring to flinch, to move a muscle.
He limped slightly. And in the moonlight, dark, shining stains were left in his wake.
He continued toward me, stealing the air from the entire hall.
He was so big that the space felt cramped, like a cage. The scrape of claw, a huff of uneven breathing, the dripping of blood.
Between one step and the next, he changed forms, and I squeezed my eyes shut at the blinding flash. When at last my eyes adjusted to the returning darkness, he was standing in front of me.
Standing, but—not quite there. No sign of the baldric, or his knives. His clothes were in shreds—long, vicious slashes that made me wonder how he wasn’t gutted and dead. But the muscled skin peering out beneath his shirt was smooth, unharmed.
“Did you kill the Bogge?” My voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“Yes.” A dull, empty answer. As if he couldn’t be bothered to remember to be pleasant. As if I were at the very, very bottom of a long list of priorities.
“You’re hurt,” I said even more quietly.
Indeed, his hand was covered in blood, even more splattering on the floor beneath him. He looked at it blankly—as if it took some monumental effort to remember that he even had a hand, and that it was injured. What effort of will and strength had it taken to kill the Bogge, to face that wretched menace? How deep had he had to dig inside himself—to whatever immortal power and animal that lived there—to kill it?
He glanced down at the map on the table, and his voice was void of anything—any emotion, any anger or amusement—as he said, “What is that?”
I snatched up the map. “I thought I should learn my surroundings.”
Drip, drip, drip.
I opened my mouth to point out his hand again, but he said,
“You can’t write, can you.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. Ignorant, insignificant human.
“No wonder you became so adept at other things.”
I supposed he was so far gone in thinking about his encounter with the Bogge that he hadn’t realized the compliment he’d given me. If it was a compliment.
Another splatter of blood on the marble. “Where can we clean up your hand?”
He lifted his head to look at me again. Still and silent and weary. Then he said, “There’s a small infirmary.”
I wanted to tell myself that it was probably the most useful thing I’d learned all night. But as I followed him there, avoiding the blood he trailed, I thought of what Lucien had told me about his isolation, that burden, thought of what Tamlin had mentioned about how these estates should not have been his, and felt …
sorry for him.
The infirmary was well stocked, but was more of a supply closet with a worktable than an actual place to host sick faeries. I supposed that was all they needed when they could heal themselves with their immortal powers. But this wound—this wound wasn’t healing.
Tamlin slumped against the edge of the table, gripping his injured hand at the wrist as he watched me sort through the supplies in the cabinets and drawers. When I’d gathered what I needed, I tried not to balk at the thought of touching him, but … I didn’t let myself give in to my dread as I took his hand, the heat of his skin like an inferno against my cool fingers.
I cleaned off his bloody, dirty hand, bracing for the first flash of those claws. But his claws remained retracted, and he kept silent as I bound and wrapped his hand—surprisingly enough, there were no more than a few vicious cuts, none of them requiring stitching.
I secured the bandage in place and stepped away, bringing the bowl of bloody water to the deep sink in the back of the room. His
eyes were a brand upon me as I finished cleaning, and the room became too small, too hot. He’d killed the Bogge and walked away relatively unscathed. If Tamlin was that powerful, then the High Lords of Prythian must be near-gods. Every mortal instinct in my body bleated in panic at the thought.
I was almost at the open door, stifling the urge to bolt back to my room, when he said, “You can’t write, yet you learned to hunt, to survive. How?”
I paused with my foot on the threshold. “That’s what happens when you’re responsible for lives other than your own, isn’t it? You do what you have to do.”
He was still sitting on the table, still straddling that inner line between the here and now and wherever he’d had to go in his mind to endure the fight with the Bogge. I met his feral and glowing stare.
“You aren’t what I expected—for a human,” he said.
I didn’t reply. And he didn’t say good-bye as I walked out.
The next morning, as I made my way down the grand staircase, I tried not to think too much about the clean-washed marble tiles on the floor below—no sign of the blood Tamlin had lost. I tried not to think too much at all about our encounter, actually.
When I found the front hall empty, I almost smiled—felt a ripple in that hollow emptiness that had been hounding me. Perhaps now, perhaps in this moment of quiet, I could at last look through the art on the walls, take time to observe it, learn it, admire it.
Heart racing at the thought, I was about to head toward a hall I had noted was nearly covered in painting after painting when low male voices floated out from the dining room.
I paused. The voices were tense enough that I made my steps silent as I slid into the shadows behind the open door. A cowardly, wretched thing to do—but what they were saying had me shoving aside any guilt.
“I just want to know what you think you’re doing.” It was Lucien
—that familiar lazy viciousness coating each word.
“What are you doing?” Tamlin snapped. Through the space between the hinge and the door I could glimpse the two of them
standing almost face-to-face. On Tamlin’s nonbandaged hand, his claws shone in the morning light.
“Me?” Lucien put a hand on his chest. “By the Cauldron, Tam
—there isn’t much time, and you’re just sulking and glowering.
You’re not even trying to fake it anymore.”
My brows rose. Tamlin turned away but whirled back a moment later, his teeth bared. “It was a mistake from the start. I can’t stomach it, not after what my father did to their kind, to their lands.
I won’t follow in his footsteps—won’t be that sort of person. So back off.”
“Back off? Back off while you seal our fates and ruin everything? I stayed with you out of hope, not to watch you stumble. For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days. The Bogge was on our lands—the Bogge, Tamlin! The barriers between courts have vanished, and even our woods are teeming with filth like the puca. Are you just going to start living out there, slaughtering every bit of vermin that slinks in?”
“Watch your mouth,” Tamlin said.
Lucien stepped toward him, exposing his teeth as well. A pulsing kind of air hit me in the stomach, and a metallic stench filled my nose. But I couldn’t see any magic—only feel it. I couldn’t tell if that made it worse.
“Don’t push me, Lucien.” Tamlin’s tone became dangerously quiet, and the hair on the back of my neck stood as he emitted a growl that was pure animal. “You think I don’t know what’s happening on my own lands? What I’ve got to lose? What’s lost already?”
The blight. Perhaps it was contained, but it seemed it was still wreaking havoc—still a threat, and perhaps one they truly didn’t want me knowing about, either from lack of trust or because …
because I was no one and nothing to them. I leaned forward, but as I did, my finger slipped and softly thudded against the door. A human might not have heard, but both High Fae whirled. My heart stumbled.
I stepped toward the threshold, clearing my throat as I came up with a dozen excuses to shield myself. I looked at Lucien and forced myself to smile. His eyes widened, and I had to wonder if it was because of that smile, or because I looked truly guilty. “Are you going out for a ride?” I said, feeling a bit sick as I gestured
behind me with a thumb. I hadn’t planned on riding with him today, but it sounded like a decent excuse.
Lucien’s russet eye was bright, though the smile he gave me didn’t meet it. The face of Tamlin’s emissary—more court-trained and calculating than I’d seen him yet. “I’m unavailable today,” he said. He jerked his chin to Tamlin. “He’ll go with you.”
Tamlin shot his friend a look of disdain that he took few pains to hide. His usual baldric was armed with more knives than I’d seen before, and their ornate metal handles glinted as he turned to me, his shoulders tight. “Whenever you want to go, just say so.”
The claws of his free hand slipped back under his skin.
No. I almost said it aloud as I turned pleading eyes to Lucien.
Lucien merely patted my shoulder as he passed by. “Perhaps tomorrow, human.”
Alone with Tamlin, I swallowed hard.
He stood there, waiting.
“I don’t want to go for a hunt,” I finally said quietly. True. “I hate hunting.”
He cocked his head. “Then what do you want to do?”
Tamlin led me down the halls. A soft breeze laced with the scent of roses slipped in through the open windows to caress my face.
“You’ve been going for hunts,” Tamlin said at last, “but you really don’t have any interest in hunting.” He cast me a sidelong glance. “No wonder you two never catch anything.”
No trace of the hollow, cold warrior of the night before, or of the angry Fae noble of minutes before. Just Tamlin right now, it seemed.
I’d be a fool to let my guard down around Tamlin, to think that his acting naturally meant anything, especially when something was so clearly amiss at his estate. He’d taken down the Bogge—
and that made him the most dangerous creature I’d ever encountered. I didn’t quite know what to make of him, and said somewhat stiltedly, “How’s your hand?”
He flexed his bandaged hand, studying the white bindings, stark and clean against his sun-kissed skin. “I didn’t thank you.”
“You don’t need to.”
But he shook his head, and his golden hair caught and held the morning light as if it were spun from the sun itself. “The Bogge’s bite was crafted to slow the healing of High Fae long enough to kill us. You have my gratitude.” When I shrugged it off, he added, “How did you learn to bind wounds like this? I can still use the hand, even with the wrappings.”
“Trial and error. I had to be able to pull a bowstring the next day.”
He was quiet as we turned down another sun-drenched marble hallway, and I dared to look at him. I found him carefully studying me, his lips in a thin line. “Has anyone ever taken care of you?” he asked quietly.
“No.” I’d long since stopped feeling sorry for myself about it.
“Did you learn to hunt in a similar manner—trial and error?”
“I spied on hunters when I could get away with it, and then practiced until I hit something. When I missed, we didn’t eat. So learning how to aim was the first thing I figured out.”
“I’m curious,” he said casually. The amber in his green eyes was glowing. Perhaps not all traces of that beast-warrior were gone. “Are you ever going to use that knife you stole from my table?”
I stiffened. “How did you know?”
Beneath the mask, I could have sworn his brows were raised.
“I was trained to notice those things. But I could smell the fear on you, more than anything.”
I grumbled, “I thought no one noticed.”
He gave me a crooked smile, more genuine than all the faked smiles and flattery he’d given me before. “Regardless of the Treaty, if you want to stand a chance at escaping my kind, you’ll need to think more creatively than stealing dinner knives. But with your affinity for eavesdropping, maybe you’ll someday learn something valuable.”
My ears flared with heat. “I—I wasn’t … Sorry,” I mumbled. But I ran through what I’d overheard. There was no point in pretending I hadn’t eavesdropped. “Lucien said you didn’t have much time.
What did he mean? Are more creatures like the Bogge going to come here thanks to the blight?”
Tamlin went rigid, scanning the hall around us, taking in every sight and sound and scent. Then he shrugged, too stiff to be
genuine. “I’m an immortal. I have nothing but time, Feyre.”
He said my name with such … intimacy. As if he weren’t a creature capable of killing monsters made from nightmares. I opened my mouth to demand more of an answer, but he cut me off. “The force plaguing our lands and powers—that, too, will pass someday, if we’re Cauldron-blessed. But yes—now that the Bogge entered these lands, I’d say it’s fair to assume others might follow it, especially if the puca was already so bold.”
If the borders between the courts were gone, though, as I’d heard Lucien say—if everything in Prythian was different, as Tamlin had claimed, thanks to this blight … Well, I didn’t want to be caught up in some brutal war or revolution. I doubted I’d survive very long.
Tamlin strode ahead and opened a set of double doors at the end of the hall. The powerful muscles of his back shifted beneath his clothes. I’d never forget what he was—what he was capable of. What he’d been trained to do, apparently.
“As requested,” he said, “the study.”
I saw what lay beyond him and my stomach twisted.
Tamlin waved his hand, and a hundred candles sprang to life.
Whatever Lucien had said about magic being drained and off-kilter thanks to the blight clearly hadn’t affected Tamlin as dramatically, or perhaps he’d been far more powerful to start with, if he could transform his sentries into wolves whenever he pleased. The tang of magic stung my senses, but I kept my chin high. That is, until I peered inside.
My palms began sweating as I took in the enormous, opulent study. Tomes lined each wall like the soldiers of a silent army, and couches, desks, and rich rugs were scattered throughout the room. But … it had been over a week since I left my family.
Though my father had said never to return, though my vow to my mother was fulfilled, I could at least let them know I was safe—
relatively safe. And warn them about the sickness sweeping across Prythian that might someday soon cross the wall.
There was only one method to convey it.
“Do you need anything else?” Tamlin asked, and I jerked. He still stood behind me.
“No,” I said, striding into the study. I couldn’t think about the casual power he’d just shown—the graceful carelessness with which he’d brought so many flames to life. I had to focus on the task at hand.
It wasn’t entirely my fault that I was scarcely able to read.
Before our downfall, my mother had sorely neglected our education, not bothering to hire a governess. And after poverty struck and my elder sisters, who could read and write, deemed the village school beneath us, they didn’t bother to teach me. I could read enough to function—enough to form my letters, but so poorly that even signing my name was mortifying.
It was bad enough that Tamlin knew. I would think about how to get the letter to them once it was finished; perhaps I could beg
a favor of him, or Lucien.
Asking them to write it would be too humiliating. I could hear their words: typical ignorant human. And since Lucien seemed convinced that I would turn spy the moment I could, he would no doubt burn the letter, and any I tried to write after. So I’d have to learn myself.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Tamlin said as our silence became too prolonged, too tense.
I didn’t move until he’d closed the doors, shutting me inside.
My heartbeat pulsed throughout my body as I approached a shelf.
I had to take a break for dinner and to sleep, but I was back in the study before the dawn had fully risen. I’d found a small writing desk in a corner and gathered papers and ink. My finger traced a line of text, and I whispered the words.
“ ‘ She grab-bed … grabbed her shoe, sta … nd … standing from her pos … po …’ ” I sat back in my chair and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. When I felt less near to ripping out my hair, I took the quill and underlined the word: position.
With a shaking hand, I did my best to copy letter after letter onto the ever-growing list I kept beside the book. There were at least forty words on it, their letters malformed and barely legible. I would look up their pronunciations later.
I rose from the chair, needing to stretch my legs, my spine—or just to get away from that lengthy list of words I didn’t know how to pronounce and the permanent heat that now warmed my face and neck.
I suppose the study was more of a library, as I couldn’t see any of the walls thanks to the small labyrinths of stacks flanking the main area and a mezzanine dangling above, covered wall to wall in books. But study sounded less intimidating. I meandered through some of the stacks, following a trickle of sunlight to a bank of windows on the far side. I found myself overlooking a rose garden, filled with dozens of hues of crimson and pink and white and yellow.
I might have allowed myself a moment to take in the colors, gleaming with dew under the morning sun, had I not glimpsed the
painting that stretched along the wall beside the windows.
Not a painting, I thought, blinking as I stepped back to view its massive expanse. No, it was … I searched for the word in that half-forgotten part of my mind. Mural. That’s what it was.
At first I could do nothing but stare at its size, at the ambition of it, at the fact that this masterpiece was tucked back here for no one to ever see, as if it was nothing—absolutely nothing—to create something like this.
It told a story with the way colors and shapes and light flowed, the way the tone shifted across the mural. The story of … of Prythian.
It began with a cauldron.
A mighty black cauldron held by glowing, slender female hands in a starry, endless night. Those hands tipped it over, golden sparkling liquid pouring out over the lip. No—not sparkling, but …
effervescent with small symbols, perhaps of some ancient faerie language. Whatever was written there, whatever it was, the contents of the cauldron were dumped into the void below, pooling on the earth to form our world …
The map spanned the entirety of our world—not just the land on which we stood, but also the seas and the larger continents beyond. Each territory was marked and colored, some with intricate, ornate depictions of the beings who had once ruled over lands that now belonged to humans. All of it, I remembered with a shudder, all of the world had once been theirs—at least as far as they believed, crafted for them by the bearer of the cauldron.
There was no mention of humans—no sign of us here. I supposed we’d been as low as pigs to them.
It was hard to look at the next panel. It was so simple, yet so detailed that, for a moment, I stood there on that battlefield, feeling the texture of the bloodied mud beneath me, shoulder to shoulder with the thousands of other human soldiers lined up, facing the faerie hordes who charged at us. A moment of pause before the slaughter.
The humans’ arrows and swords seemed so pointless against the High Fae in their glimmering armor, or the faeries bristling with claws and fangs. I knew—knew without another panel to explicitly show me—the humans hadn’t survived that particular battle. The
smear of black on the panel beside it, tinged with glimmers of red, said enough.
Then another map, of a much-reduced faerie realm. Northern territories had been cut up and divided to make room for the High Fae, who had lost their lands to the south of the wall. Everything north of the wall went to them; everything south was left as a blur of nothing. A decimated, forgotten world—as if the painter couldn’t be bothered to render it.
I scanned the various lands and territories now given to the High Fae. Still so much territory—such monstrous power spread across the entire northern part of our world. I knew they were ruled by kings or queens or councils or empresses, but I’d never seen a representation of it, of how much they’d been forced to concede to the South, and how crammed their lands now were in comparison.
Our massive island had fared well for Prythian by comparison, with only the bottom tip given over to us miserable humans. The bulk of the sacrifice was borne by the southernmost of the seven territories: a territory painted with crocuses and lambs and roses.
Spring lands.
I took a step closer, until I could see the dark, ugly smear that acted as the wall—another spiteful touch by the painter. No markers in the human realm, nothing to indicate any of the larger towns or centers, but … I found the rough area where our village was, and the woods that separated it from the wall. Those two days’ journey seemed so small—too small—compared to the power lurking above us. I traced a line, my finger hovering over the paint, up over the wall, into these lands—the lands of the Spring Court. Again, no markers, but it was filled with touches of spring: trees in bloom, fickle storms, young animals … At least I was to live out my days in one of the more moderate courts, weather-wise. A small consolation.
I looked northward and stepped back again. The six other courts of Prythian occupied a patchwork of territories. Autumn, Summer, and Winter were easy enough to pick out. Then above them, two glowing courts: the southernmost one a softer, redder palate, the Dawn Court; above, in bright gold and yellow and blue, the Day Court. And above that, perched in a frozen mountainous
spread of darkness and stars, the sprawling, massive territory of the Night Court.
There were things in the shadows between those mountains—
little eyes, gleaming teeth. A land of lethal beauty. The hair on my arms rose.
I might have examined the other kingdoms across the seas that flanked our land, like the isolated faerie kingdom to the west that seemed to have gotten away with no territory loss and was still law unto itself, had I not looked to the heart of that beautiful, living map.
In the center of the land, as if it were the core around which everything else had spread, or perhaps the place where the cauldron’s liquid had first touched, was a small, snowy mountain range. From it arose a mammoth, solitary peak. Bald of snow, bald of life—as if the elements refused to touch it. There were no more clues about what it might be; nothing to indicate its importance, and I supposed that the viewers were already supposed to know. This was not a mural for human eyes.
With that thought, I went back to my little table. At least I’d learned the layout of their lands—and I knew to never, ever go north.
I eased into my seat and found my place in the book, my face warming as I glanced at the illustrations scattered throughout. A children’s book, and yet I could scarcely make it through its twenty or so pages. Why did Tamlin have children’s books in his library?
Were they from his own childhood, or in anticipation of children to come? It didn’t matter. I couldn’t even read them. I hated the smell of these books—the decaying rot of the pages, the mocking whisper of the paper, the rough skin of the binding. I looked at the piece of paper, at all those words I didn’t know.
I bunched my list in my hand, crumpling the paper into a ball, and chucked it into the rubbish bin.
“I could help you write to them, if that’s why you’re in here.”
I jerked back in my seat, almost knocking over the chair, and whirled to find Tamlin behind me, a stack of books in his arms. I pushed back against the heat rising in my cheeks and ears, the panic at the information he might be guessing I’d been trying to send. “Help? You mean a faerie is passing up the opportunity to mock an ignorant mortal?”
He set the books down on the table, his jaw tight. I couldn’t read the titles glinting on the leather spines. “Why should I mock you for a shortcoming that isn’t your fault? Let me help you. I owe you for the hand.”
Shortcoming. It was a shortcoming.
Yet it was one thing to bandage his hand, to talk to him as if he wasn’t a predator built to kill and destroy, but to reveal how little I truly knew, to let him see that part of me that was still a child, unfinished and raw … His face was unreadable. Though there had been no pity in his voice, I straightened. “I’m fine.”
“You think I’ve got nothing better to do with my time than come up with elaborate ways to humiliate you?”
I thought of that smear of nothing that the painter had used to render the human lands, and didn’t have an answer—at least, not one that was polite. I’d given enough already to them—to him.
Tamlin shook his head. “So you’ll let Lucien take you on hunts and—”
“Lucien,” I interrupted quietly but not softly, “doesn’t pretend to be anything but what he is.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled, but his claws stayed retracted, even as he clenched his hands into fists at his sides.
I was definitely walking a dangerous line, but I didn’t care.
Even if he’d offered me sanctuary, I didn’t have to fall at his feet.
“It means,” I said with that same cold quiet, “that I don’t know you.
I don’t know who you are, or what you really are, or what you want.”
“It means you don’t trust me.”
“How can I trust a faerie? Don’t you delight in killing and tricking us?”
His snarl set the flames of the candles guttering. “You aren’t what I had in mind for a human—believe me.”
I could almost feel the wound deep in my chest as it ripped open and all those awful, silent words came pouring out. Illiterate, ignorant, unremarkable, proud, cold—all spoken from Nesta’s mouth, all echoing in my head with her sneering voice.
I pinched my lips together.
He winced and lifted a hand slightly, as if about to reach for me. “Feyre,” he began—softly enough that I just shook my head
and left the room. He didn’t stop me.
But that afternoon, when I went to retrieve my crumpled list from the wastebasket, it was gone. And my pile of books had been disturbed—the titles out of order. It had probably been a servant, I assured myself, calming the tightness in my chest. Just Alis or some other bird-masked faerie cleaning up. I hadn’t written anything incriminating—there was no way he knew I’d been trying to warn my family. I doubted he would punish me for it, but … our conversation earlier had been bad enough.
Still, my hands were unsteady as I took my seat at the little desk and found my place in the book I’d used that morning. I knew it was shameful to mark the books with ink, but if Tamlin could afford gold plates, he could replace a book or two.
I stared at the book without seeing the jumble of letters.
Maybe I was a fool for not accepting his help, for not swallowing my pride and having him write the letter in a few moments. Not even a letter of warning, but just—just to let them know I was safe. If he had better things to do with his time than come up with ways to embarrass me, then surely he had better things to do than help me write letters to my family. And yet he’d offered.
A nearby clock chimed the hour.
Shortcoming—another one of my shortcomings. I rubbed my brows with my thumb and forefinger. I’d been equally foolish for feeling a shred of pity for him—for the lone, brooding faerie, for someone I had so stupidly thought would really care if he met someone who perhaps felt the same, perhaps understood—in my ignorant, insignificant human way—what it was like to bear the weight of caring for others. I should have let his hand bleed that night, should have known better than to think that maybe—maybe there would be someone, human or faerie or whatever, who could understand what my life—what I—had become these past few years.
A minute passed, then another.
Faeries might not be able to lie, but they could certainly withhold information; Tamlin, Lucien, and Alis had done their best not to answer my specific questions. Knowing more about the blight that threatened them—knowing anything about it, where it
had come from, what else it could do, and especially what it could do to a human—was worth my time to learn.
And if there was a chance that they might also possess some knowledge about a forgotten loophole of that damned Treaty, if they knew some way to pay the debt I owed and return me to my family so I might warn them about the blight myself … I had to risk it.
Twenty minutes later I had tracked down Lucien in his bedroom. I’d marked on my little map where it was—in a separate wing on the second level, far from mine—and after searching in his usual haunts, it was the last place to look. I knocked on the white-painted double doors.
“Come in, human.” He could probably detect me by my breathing patterns alone. Or maybe that eye of his could see through the door.
I eased open the door. The room was similar to mine in shape, but was bedecked in hues of orange and red and gold, with faint traces of green and brown. Like being in an autumn wood. But while my room was all softness and grace, his was marked with ruggedness. In lieu of a pretty breakfast table by the window, a worn worktable dominated the space, covered in various weapons. It was there he sat, wearing only a white shirt and trousers, his red hair unbound and gleaming like liquid fire.
Tamlin’s court-trained emissary, but a warrior in his own right.
“I haven’t seen you around,” I said, shutting the door and leaning against it.
“I had to go sort out some hotheads on the northern border—
official emissary business,” he said, setting down the hunting knife he’d been cleaning, a long, vicious blade. “I got back in time to hear your little spat with Tam, and decided I was safer up here. I’m glad to hear your human heart has warmed to me, though. At least I’m not on the top of your killing list.”
I gave him a long look.
“Well,” he went on, shrugging, “it seems that you managed to get under Tam’s fur enough that he sought me out and nearly bit my head off. So I suppose I can thank you for ruining what should have been a peaceful lunch. Thankfully for me, there’s been a disturbance out in the western forest, and my poor friend had to
go deal with it in that way only he can. I’m surprised you didn’t run into him on the stairs.”
Thank the forgotten gods for some small mercies. “What sort of disturbance?”
Lucien shrugged, but the movement was too tense to be careless. “The usual sort: unwanted, nasty creatures raising hell.”
Good—good that Tamlin was away and wouldn’t be here to catch me in what I planned to do. Another bit of luck. “I’m impressed you answered me that much,” I said as casually as I could, thinking through my words. “But it’s too bad you’re not like the Suriel, spouting any information I want if I’m clever enough to snare you.”
For a moment, he blinked at me. Then his mouth twisted to the side, and that metal eye whizzed and narrowed on me. “I suppose you won’t tell me what you want to know.”
“You have your secrets, and I have mine,” I said carefully. I couldn’t tell whether he would try to convince me otherwise if I told him the truth. “But if you were a Suriel,” I added with deliberate slowness, in case he hadn’t caught my meaning, “how, exactly, would I trap you?”
Lucien set down the knife and picked at his nails. For a moment, I wondered if he would tell me anything at all. Wondered if he would go right to Tamlin and tattle.
But then he said, “I’d probably have a weakness for groves of young birch trees in the western woods, and freshly slaughtered chickens, and would probably be so greedy that I wouldn’t notice the double-loop snare rigged around the grove to pin my legs in place.”
“Hmm.” I didn’t dare ask why he had decided to be accommodating. There was still a good chance he wouldn’t mind seeing me dead, but I would risk it. “I somehow prefer you as a High Fae.”
He smirked, but the amusement was short-lived. “If I were insane and stupid enough to go after a Suriel, I’d also take a bow and quiver, and maybe a knife just like this one.” He sheathed the knife he’d cleaned and set it down at the edge of the table—an offering. “And I’d be prepared to run like hell when I freed it—to the nearest running water, which they hate crossing.”
“But you’re not insane, so you’ll be here, safe and sound?”
“I’ll be conveniently hunting on the grounds, and with my superior hearing, I might be feeling generous enough to listen if someone screams from the western woods. But it’s a good thing I had no role in telling you to go out today, since Tam would eviscerate anyone who told you how to trap a Suriel; and it’s a good thing I had planned to hunt anyway, because if anyone caught me helping you, there would be trouble of a whole other hell awaiting us. I hope your secrets are worth it.” He said it with his usual grin, but there was an edge to it—a warning I didn’t miss.
Another riddle—and another bit of information. I said, “It’s a good thing that while you have superior hearing, I possess superior abilities to keep my mouth shut.”
He snorted as I took the knife from the table and turned to procure the bow from my room. “I think I’m starting to like you—for a murdering human.”
Western woods. Grove of young birch trees. Slaughtered chicken.
Double-loop snare. Close to running water.
I repeated Lucien’s instructions as I walked out of the manor, through the cultivated gardens, across the wild, rolling grassy hills beyond them, over clear streams, and into the spring woods beyond. No one had stopped me—no one had even been around to see me leave, bow and quiver across my back, Lucien’s knife at my side. I lugged along a satchel stuffed with a freshly dead chicken courtesy of the baffled kitchen staff, and had tucked an extra blade into my boot.
The lands were as empty as the manor itself, though I occasionally glimpsed something shining in the corner of my eye.
Every time I turned to look, the shimmering transformed into the sunlight dancing on a nearby stream, or the wind fluttering the leaves of a lone sycamore atop a knoll. As I passed a large pond nestled at the foot of a towering hill, I could have sworn I saw four shining female heads poking up from the bright water, watching me. I hurried my steps.
Only birds and the chittering and rustling of small animals sounded as I entered the still green western forest. I’d never ridden through these woods on my hunts with Lucien. There was no path here, nothing tame about it. Oaks, elms, and beeches intertwined in a thick weave, almost strangling the trickle of sunlight that crept in through the dense canopy. The moss-covered earth swallowed any sound I made.
Old—this forest was ancient. And alive, in a way that I couldn’t describe but could only feel, deep in the marrow of my bones.
Perhaps I was the first human in five hundred years to walk beneath those heavy, dark branches, to inhale the freshness of spring leaves masking the damp, thick rot.
Birch trees—running water. I made my way through the woods, breath tight in my throat. Night was the dangerous time, I reminded myself. I had only a few hours until sunset.
Even if the Bogge had stalked us in the daylight.
The Bogge was dead, and whatever horror Tamlin was now dealing with dwelled in another part of these lands. The Spring Court. I wondered in what ways Tamlin had to answer to its High Lord, or if it was his High Lord who had carved out Lucien’s eye.
Maybe it was the High Lord’s consort—the she whom Lucien had mentioned—that instilled such fear in them. I pushed away the thought.
I kept my steps light, my eyes and ears open, and my heartbeat steady. Shortcomings or no, I could still hunt. And the answers I needed were worth it.
I found a glen of young, skinny birch trees, then stalked in ever-widening circles until I encountered the nearest stream. Not deep, but so wide that I’d have to take a running leap to cross it.
Lucien had said to find running water, and this was close enough to make escape possible. If I needed to escape. Hopefully I wouldn’t.
I traced and then retraced several different routes to the stream. And a few alternate routes, should my access to it somehow be blocked. And when I was sure of every root and rock and hollow in the surrounding area, I returned to the small clearing encircled by those white trees and laid my snare.
From my spot up a nearby tree—a sturdy, dense oak whose vibrant leaves hid me entirely from anyone below—I waited. And waited. The afternoon sun crept overhead, hot enough even through the canopy that I had to shrug off my cloak and roll up the sleeves of my tunic. My stomach grumbled, and I pulled a hunk of cheese out of my rucksack. Eating it would be quieter than the apple I’d also swiped from the kitchen on my way out. When I finished it off, I swigged water from the canteen I’d brought, parched from the heat.
Did Tamlin or Lucien ever grow tired of day after day of eternal spring, or ever venture into the other territories, if only to experience a different season? I wouldn’t have minded endless,
mild spring while looking after my family—winter brought us dangerously close to death every year—but if I were immortal, I might want a little variation to pass the time. I’d probably want to do more than lurk about a manor house, too. Though I still hadn’t worked up the nerve to make the request that had crept into the back of my mind when I saw the mural.
I moved about as much as I dared on the branch, only to keep the blood flowing to my limbs. I’d just settled in again when a ripple of silence came toward me. As if the wood thrushes and squirrels and moths held their breath while something passed by.
My bow was already strung. Quietly, I loosely nocked an arrow.
Closer and closer the silence crept.
The trees seemed to lean in, their entwined branches locking tighter, a living cage keeping even the smallest of birds from soaring out of the canopy.
Maybe this had been a very bad idea. Maybe Lucien had overestimated my abilities. Or maybe he had been waiting for the chance to lead me to my doom.
My muscles strained from holding still atop the branch, but I kept my balance and listened. Then I heard it: a whisper, as if cloth were dragging over root and stone, a hungry, wheezing sniffing from the nearby clearing.
I’d laid my snares carefully, making the chicken look as if it had wandered too far and snapped its own neck as it sought to free itself from a fallen branch. I’d taken care to keep my own scent off the bird as much as possible. But these faeries had such keen senses, and even though I’d covered my tracks—
There was a snap, a whoosh, and a hollowed-out, wicked scream that made my bones and muscles and breath lock up.
Another enraged shriek pierced the forest, and my snares groaned as they held, and held, and held.
I climbed out of the tree and went to meet the Suriel.
Lucien, I decided as I crept up to the faerie in the birch glen, really, truly wanted me dead.
I hadn’t known what to expect as I entered the ring of white trees—tall and straight as pillars—but it was not the tall, thin
veiled figure in dark tattered robes. Its hunched back facing me, I could count the hard knobs of its spine poking through the thin fabric. Spindly, scabby gray arms clawed at the snare with yellowed, cracked fingernails.
Run, some primal, intrinsically human part of me whispered.
Begged. Run and run and never look back.
But I kept my arrow loosely nocked. I said quietly, “Are you one of the Suriel?”
The faerie went rigid. And sniffed. Once. Twice.
Then slowly, it turned to me, the dark veil draped over its bald head blowing in a phantom breeze.
A face that looked like it had been crafted from dried, weatherworn bone, its skin either forgotten or discarded, a lipless mouth and too-long teeth held by blackened gums, slitted holes for nostrils, and eyes … eyes that were nothing more than swirling pits of milky white—the white of death, the white of sickness, the white of clean-picked corpses.
Peeking above the ragged neck of its dark robes was a body of veins and bones, as dried and solid and horrific as the texture of its face. It let go of the snare, and its too-long fingers clicked against each other as it studied me.
“Human,” it said, and its voice was at once one and many, old and young, beautiful and grotesque. My bowels turned watery.
“Did you set this clever, wicked trap for me?”
“Are you one of the Suriel?” I asked again, my words scarcely more than a ragged breath.
“Indeed I am.” Click, click, click went its fingers against each other, one for each word.
“Then the trap was for you,” I managed. Run, run, run.
It remained sitting, its bare, gnarled feet caught in my snares.
“I have not seen a human woman for an age. Come closer so I might look upon my captor.”
I did no such thing.
It let out a huffing, awful laugh. “And which of my brethren betrayed my secrets to you?”
“None of them. My mother told me stories of you.”
“Lies—I can smell the lies on your breath.” It sniffed again, its fingers clacking together. It cocked its head to the side, an erratic,
sharp movement, the dark veil snapping with it. “What would a human woman want from the Suriel?”
“You tell me,” I said softly.
It let out another low laugh. “A test? A foolish and useless test, for if you dared to capture me, then you must want knowledge very badly.” I said nothing, and it smiled with that lipless mouth, its grayed teeth horrifically large. “Ask me your questions, human, and then free me.”
I swallowed hard. “Is there—is there truly no way for me to go home?”
“Not unless you seek to be killed, and your family with you.
You must remain here.”
Whatever last shred of hope I’d been clinging to, whatever foolish optimism, shriveled and died. This changed nothing.
Before my fight with Tamlin that morning, I hadn’t even entertained the idea, anyway. Perhaps I’d only come here out of spite. So, fine
—if I was here, facing sure death, then I might as well learn something. “What do you know about Tamlin?”
“More specific, human. Be more specific. For I know a good many things about the High Lord of the Spring Court.”
The earth tilted beneath me. “Tamlin is—Tamlin is a High Lord?”
Click, click, click. “You did not know. Interesting.”
Not just some petty faerie lord of a manor, but … but a High Lord of one of the seven territories. A High Lord of Prythian.
“Did you also not know that this is the Spring Court, little human?”
“Yes—yes, I knew about that.”
The Suriel settled on the ground. “Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, Dawn, Day, and Night,” it mused, as if I hadn’t even answered. “The seven Courts of Prythian, each ruled by a High Lord, all of them deadly in their own way. They are not merely powerful—they are Power.” That was why Tamlin had been able to face the Bogge and live. High Lord.
I tucked away my fear. “Everyone at the Spring Court is stuck wearing a mask, and yet you aren’t,” I said cautiously. “Are you not a member of the Court?”
“I am a member of no Court. I am older than the High Lords, older than Prythian, older than the bones of this world.”
Lucien had definitely overestimated my abilities. “And what can be done about this blight that has spread in Prythian, stealing and altering the magic? Where did it come from?”
“Stay with the High Lord, human,” the Suriel said. “That’s all you can do. You will be safe. Do not interfere; do not go looking for answers after today, or you will be devoured by the shadow over Prythian. He will shield you from it, so stay close to him, and all will be righted.”
That wasn’t exactly an answer. I repeated, “Where did the blight come from?”
Those milky eyes narrowed. “The High Lord does not know that you came here today, does he? He does not know that his human woman came to trap a Suriel, because he cannot give her the answers she seeks. But it is too late, human—for the High Lord, for you, perhaps for your realm as well …”
Despite all that it had said, despite its order to stop asking questions and stay with Tamlin, it was his human woman that echoed in my head. That made me clench my teeth.
But the Suriel went on. “Across the violent western sea, there is another faerie kingdom called Hybern, ruled by a wicked, powerful king. Yes, a king,” he said when I raised a brow. “Not a High Lord—there, his territory is not divided into courts. There, he is law unto himself. Humans no longer exist in that realm—though his throne is made of their bones.”
That large island I’d seen on the map, the one that hadn’t yielded any lands to humans after the Treaty. And—a throne of bones. The cheese I’d eaten turned leaden in my stomach.
“For some time now, the King of Hybern has found himself unhappy with the Treaty the other ruling High Fae of the world made with you humans long ago. He resents that he was forced to sign it, to let his mortal slaves go and to remain confined to his damp green isle at the edge of the world. And so, a hundred years ago, he dispatched his most-trusted and loyal commanders, his deadliest warriors, remnants of the ancient armies that he once sailed to the continent to wage such a brutal war against you humans, all of them as hungry and vile as he. As spies and courtiers and lovers, they infiltrated the various High Fae courts and kingdoms and empires around the world for fifty years, and when they had gathered enough information, he made his plan.
But nearly five decades ago, one of his commanders disobeyed him. The Deceiver. And—” The Suriel straightened. “We are not alone.”
I drew my bow farther but kept it pointed at the ground as I scanned the trees. But everything had already gone silent in the presence of the Suriel.
“Human, you must free me and run,” it said, those death-filled eyes widening. “Run for the High Lord’s manor. Do not forget what I told you— stay with the High Lord, and live to see everything righted.”
“What is it?” If I knew what came, I could stand a better chance of—
“The naga—faeries made of shadow and hate and rot. They heard my scream, and they smelled you. Free me, human. They will cage me if they catch me here. Free me and return to the High Lord’s side.”
Shit. Shit. I lunged for the snare, making to put away my bow and grab my knife.
But four shadowy figures slipped through the birch trees, so dark that they seemed made from a starless night.
The naga were sprung from a nightmare. Covered in dark scales and nothing more, they were a horrendous combination of serpentine features and male humanoid bodies whose powerful arms ended in polished black, flesh-shredding talons.
Here were the creatures of the blood-filled legends, the ones that slipped through the wall to torment and slaughter mortals.
The ones I would have been glad to kill that day in the snowy woods. Their huge, almond-shaped eyes greedily took in the Suriel and me.
The four of them paused across the clearing, the Suriel between us, and I trained my arrow toward the one in the center.
The creature smiled, a row of razor-sharp teeth greeting me as a silvery forked tongue darted out.
“The Dark Mother has sent us a gift today, brothers,” he said, gazing at the Suriel, who was clawing at the snare now. The naga’s amber eyes shifted toward me again. “And a meal.”
“Not much to eat,” another one said, flexing its claws.
I began backing away—toward the stream, toward the manor below, keeping my arrow pointed at them. One scream from me would notify Lucien—but my breath was thin. And he might not come at all, if he’d sent me here. I kept every sense fixed on my retreating steps.
“Human,” the Suriel begged.
I had ten arrows—nine, once I fired the one nocked in my bow.
None of them ash, but maybe they’d keep the naga down long enough for me to flee.
I backed away another step. The four naga crept closer, as if savoring the slowness of the hunt, as if they already knew how I tasted.
I had three heartbeats to make up my mind. Three heartbeats to execute my plan.
I drew my bowstring back farther, my arm trembling.
And then I screamed. Sharp and loud and with every bit of air in my too-tight lungs.
With the naga now focused entirely on me, I fired at the tether holding the Suriel in place.
The snare shattered. Like a shadow on the wind, the Suriel was off, a blast of dark that set the four naga staggering back.
The one closest to me surged toward the Suriel, the strong column of its scaly neck stretching out. No chance of my movements being considered an unprovoked attack anymore—
not now that they’d seen my aim. They still wanted to kill me.
So I let my arrow fly.
The tip glittered like a shooting star through the gloom of the forest. I had all of a blink before it struck home and blood sprayed.
The naga toppled back just as the remaining three whirled to me. I didn’t know if it was a killing shot. I was already gone.
I raced for the stream using the path I’d calculated earlier, not daring to look back. Lucien had said he’d be nearby—but I was deep in the woods, too far from the manor and help.
Branches and twigs snapped behind me—too close—and snarls that sounded like nothing I’d heard from Tamlin or Lucien or the wolf or any animal filled the still woods.
My only hope of getting away alive lay in outrunning them long enough to reach Lucien, and then only if he was there as he’d promised to be. I didn’t let myself think of all the hills I would have to climb once I cleared the forest itself. Or what I would do if Lucien had changed his mind.
The crashing through the brush became louder, closer, and I veered to the right, leaping over the stream. Running water might have stopped the Suriel, but a hiss and a thud close behind told me it did nothing to hold the naga at bay.
I careened through a thicket, and thorns ripped at my cheeks. I barely felt their stinging kisses or the warm blood sliding down my face. I didn’t even have time to wince, not as two dark figures flanked me, closing in to cut me off.
My knees groaned as I pushed myself harder, focusing on the growing brightness of the woods’ end. But the naga to my right rushed at me, so fast that I could only leap aside to avoid the slashing talons.
I stumbled but stayed upright just as the naga on my left pounced.
I hurled myself into a stop, swinging my bow up in a wide arc. I nearly lost my grip as it connected with that serpentine face, and bone crunched with a horrific screech. I hurdled over his enormous fallen body, not pausing to look for the others.
I made it three feet before the third naga stepped in front of me.
I swung my bow at his head. He dodged it. The other two hissed as they came up behind me, and I gripped the bow harder.
Surrounded.
I turned in a slow circle, bow ready to strike.
One of them sniffed at me, those slitted nostrils flaring.
“Scrawny human thing,” he spat to the others, whose smiles grew sharper. “Do you know what you’ve cost us?”
I wouldn’t go down without a fight, without taking some of them with me. “Go to Hell,” I said, but it came out in a gasp.
They laughed, stepping nearer. I swung the bow at the closest.
He dodged it, chuckling. “We’ll have our sport—though you might not find it as amusing.”
I gritted my teeth as I swung again. I would not be hunted down like a deer among wolves. I would find a way out of this; I would—
A black-clawed hand closed around the shaft of my bow, and a resounding snap echoed through the too-silent woods.
The air left my chest in a whoosh, and I only had time to half turn before one of them grabbed me by the throat and hurled me to the ground. He pounded my arm so hard against the earth that my bones groaned and my fingers splayed, dropping the remnants of my bow.
“When we’re done ripping off your skin, you’ll wish you hadn’t crossed into Prythian,” he breathed into my face, the reek of carrion shoving down my throat. I gagged. “We’ll cut you up so fine there won’t be much for the crows to pick at.”
A white-hot flame went through me. Rage or terror or wild instinct, I don’t know. I didn’t think. I grabbed the knife in my boot and slammed it into his leathery neck.
Blood rained down onto my face, into my mouth as I bellowed my fury, my terror.
The naga slumped back. I scrambled up before the remaining two could pin me, but something rock hard hit my face. I tasted blood and soil and grass as I hit the earth. Stars danced in my vision, and I stumbled to my feet again out of instinct, grabbing for Lucien’s hunting knife.
Not like this, not like this, not like this.
One of them lunged for me, and I dodged aside. His talons caught in my cloak and yanked, ripping it into ribbons just as his companion threw me to the ground, my arms tearing beneath those claws.
“You’ll bleed,” one of them panted, laughing under his breath at the knife I lifted. “We’ll bleed you nice and slow.” He wiggled his talons—perfect for deep, brutal cutting. He opened his mouth again, and a bone-shattering roar sounded through the clearing.
Only it hadn’t come from the creature’s throat.
The noise hadn’t finished echoing before the naga went flying off me, crashing into a tree so hard that the wood cracked. I made out the gleaming gold of his mask and hair and the long, deadly claws before Tamlin tore into the creature.
The naga holding me shrieked and released his grip, leaping to his feet as Tamlin’s claws shredded through his companion’s neck. Flesh and blood ripped away.
I kept low to the ground, knife at the ready, waiting.
Tamlin let out another roar that made the marrow of my bones go cold and revealed those lengthened canines.
The remaining creature darted for the woods.
He got only a few steps away before Tamlin tackled him, pinning him to the earth. And disemboweled the naga in one deep, long swipe.
I remained where I lay, my face half buried in leaves and twigs and moss. I didn’t try to raise myself. I was shaking so badly that I thought I would fall apart at the seams. It was all I could do to keep holding the knife.
Tamlin got to his feet, wrenching his claws out of the creature’s abdomen. Blood and gore dripped from them, staining the deep green moss.
High Lord. High Lord. High Lord.
Feral rage still smoldered in his gaze, and I flinched as he knelt beside me. He reached for me again, but I jerked back, away
from the bloody claws that were still out. I raised myself into a sitting position before the shaking resumed. I knew I couldn’t get to my feet.
“Feyre,” he said. The wrath faded from his eyes, and the claws slipped back under his skin, but the roar still sounded in my ears.
There had been nothing in that sound but primal fury.
“How?” It was all I could manage to say, but he understood me.
“I was tracking a pack of them—these four escaped, and must have followed your scent through the woods. I heard you scream.”
So he didn’t know about the Suriel. And he—he’d come to help me.
He reached a hand toward me, and I shuddered as he ran cool, wet fingers down my stinging, aching cheek. Blood—that was blood on them. And from the stickiness on my face, I knew there was already enough blood splattered on me that it wouldn’t make a difference.
The pain in my face and my arm faded, then vanished. His eyes darkened a bit at the bruise I knew was already blossoming on my cheekbone, but the throbbing quickly lessened. The metallic scent of magic wrapped around me, then floated away on a light breeze.
“I found one dead half a mile away,” he went on, his hands leaving my face as he unbuckled his baldric, then shucked off his tunic and handed it to me. The front of my own had been ripped and torn by the talons of the naga. “I saw one of my arrows in his throat, so I followed their tracks here.”
I pulled on Tamlin’s tunic over my own, ignoring how easily I could see the cut of his muscles beneath his white shirt, the way the blood soaking it made them stand out even more. A purebred predator, honed to kill without a second thought, without remorse.
I shivered again and savored the warmth that leaked from the cloth. High Lord. I should have known, should have guessed.
Maybe I hadn’t wanted to—maybe I’d been afraid.
“Here,” he said, rising to his feet and offering me a bloodstained hand. I didn’t dare look at the slaughtered naga as I gripped his extended hand and he pulled me to my feet. My knees buckled, but I stayed upright.
I stared at our linked hands, both coated in blood that wasn’t our own.
No, he hadn’t been the only one to spill blood just now. And it wasn’t just my blood that still coated my tongue. Perhaps that made me as much of a beast as him. But he’d saved me. Killed for me. I spat onto the grass, wishing I hadn’t lost my canteen.
“Do I want to know what you were doing out here?” he asked.
No. Definitely not. Not after he’d warned me plenty of times already. “I thought I wasn’t confined to the house and garden. I didn’t realize I’d come so far.”
He dropped my hand. “On the days that I’m called away to deal with … trouble, stay close to the house.”
I nodded a bit numbly. “Thank you,” I mumbled, fighting past the shaking racking my body, my mind. The naga’s blood on me became nearly unbearable. I spat again. “Not—not just for this.
For saving my life, I mean.” I wanted to tell him how much that meant—that the High Lord of the Spring Court thought I was worth saving—but couldn’t find the words.
His fangs vanished. “It was … the least I could do. They shouldn’t have gotten this far onto my lands.” He shook his head, more at himself, his shoulders slumping. “Let’s go home,” he said, sparing me the effort of explaining why I’d been out here in the first place. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that the manor wasn’t my home—that I might not even have a home at all anymore.
We walked back in silence, both of us blood-drenched and pale. I could still sense the carnage we’d left behind—the blood-soaked ground and trees. The pieces of the naga.
Well, I’d learned something from the Suriel, at least. Even if it wasn’t entirely what I’d wanted to hear—or know.
Stay with the High Lord. Fine—easy enough. But as for the history lesson it had been in the middle of giving me, about wicked kings and their commanders and however they tied into the High Lord at my side and the blight … I still didn’t have enough specifics to be able to thoroughly warn my family. But the Suriel had told me not to go looking for further answers.
I had a feeling I would surely be a fool to ignore his advice. My family would have to make do with the bare bones of my knowledge, then. Hopefully it would be enough.
I didn’t ask Tamlin anything more about the naga—about how many he’d killed before those four slipped away—didn’t ask him anything at all, because I didn’t detect a trace of triumph in him, but rather a deep, unending sort of shame and defeat.
After soaking in the bath for nearly an hour, I found myself sitting in a low-backed chair before my room’s roaring fireplace, savoring the feel of Alis brushing out my damp hair. Though dinner was to be served soon, Alis had a cup of molten chocolate brought up and refused to do anything until I’d had a few sips.
It was the best thing I’d ever tasted. I drank from the thick mug as she brushed my hair, nearly purring at the feel of her thin fingers along my scalp.
But when the other maids had gone downstairs to help with the evening meal, I lowered my mug into my lap. “If more faeries keep crossing the court borders and attacking, is there going to be a war?” Maybe we should just take a stand—maybe it’s time to say enough, Lucien had said to Tamlin that first night.
The brush stilled. “Don’t ask such questions. You’ll call down bad luck.”
I twisted in my seat, glaring up into her masked face. “Why aren’t the other High Lords keeping their subjects in line? Why are these awful creatures allowed to roam wherever they want?
Someone—someone began telling me a story about a king in Hybern—”
Alis grabbed my shoulder and pivoted me around. “It’s none of your concern.”
“Oh, I think it is.” I turned around again, gripping the back of the wooden chair. “If this spills into the human world—if there’s war, or this blight poisons our lands …” I pushed back against the crushing panic. I had to warn my family— had to write to them.
Soon.
“The less you know, the better. Let Lord Tamlin deal with it—
he’s the only one who can.” The Suriel had said as much. Alis’s brown eyes were hard, unforgiving. “You think no one would tell me what you asked the kitchen to give you today, or realize what
you went to trap? Foolish, stupid girl. Had the Suriel not been in a benevolent mood, you would have deserved the death it gave you. I don’t know what’s worse: this, or your idiocy with the puca.”
“Would you have done anything else? If you had a family—”
“I do have a family.”
I looked her up and down. There was no ring on her finger.
Alis noticed my stare and said, “My sister and her mate were murdered nigh on fifty years ago, leaving two younglings behind.
Everything I do, everything I work for, is for those boys. So you don’t get the right to give me that look and ask me if I would do anything different, girl.”
“Where are they? Do they live here?” Perhaps that was why there were children’s books in the study. Maybe those two small, shining figures in the garden … maybe that had been them.
“No, they don’t live here,” she said, too sharply. “They are somewhere else—far away.”
I considered what she said, then cocked my head. “Do faerie children age differently?” If their parents had been killed almost fifty years ago, they could hardly be boys.
“Ah, some age like you and can breed as often as rabbits, but there are kinds—like me, like the High Fae—who are rarely able to produce younglings. The ones who are born age quite a bit slower. We all had a shock when my sister conceived the second one only five years later—and the eldest won’t even reach adulthood until he’s seventy-five. But they’re so rare—all our young are—and more precious to us than jewels or gold.” She clenched her jaw tightly enough that I knew that was all I would likely get from her.
“I didn’t mean to question your dedication to them,” I said quietly. When she didn’t reply, I added, “I understand what you mean—about doing everything for them.”
Alis’s lips thinned, but she said, “The next time that fool Lucien gives you advice on how to trap the Suriel, you come to me. Dead chickens, my sagging ass. All you needed to do was offer it a new robe, and it would have groveled at your feet.”
By the time I entered the dining room I’d stopped shaking, and some semblance of warmth had returned to my veins. High Lord of Prythian or no, I wouldn’t cower—not after what I’d been through today.
Lucien and Tamlin were already waiting for me at the table.
“Good evening,” I said, moving to my usual seat. Lucien cocked his head in a silent inquiry, and I gave him a subtle nod as I sat.
His secret was still safe, though he deserved to be walloped for sending me so unprepared to the Suriel.
Lucien slouched a bit in his chair. “I heard you two had a rather exciting afternoon. I wish I could have been there to help.”
A hidden, perhaps halfhearted apology, but I gave him another little nod.
He said with forced lightness, “Well, you still look lovely, regardless of your Hell-sent afternoon.”
I snorted. I’d never looked lovely a day in my life. “I thought faeries couldn’t lie.”
Tamlin choked on his wine, but Lucien grinned, that scar stark and brutal. “Who told you that?”
“Everyone knows it,” I said, piling food on my plate even as I began wondering about everything they’d said to me so far, every statement I’d accepted as pure truth.
Lucien leaned back in his chair, smiling with feline delight. “Of course we can lie. We find lying to be an art. And we lied when we told those ancient mortals that we couldn’t speak an untruth. How else would we get them to trust us and do our bidding?”
My mouth became a thin, tight line. He was telling the truth—
because if he was lying … The logic of it made my head spin.
“Iron?” I managed to say.
“Doesn’t do us a lick of harm. Only ash, as you well know.”
My face warmed. I’d taken everything they said as truth.
Perhaps the Suriel had been lying today, too, with that long-winded explanation about the politics of the faerie realms. About staying with the High Lord, and everything being fixed in the end.
I looked to Tamlin. High Lord. That wasn’t a lie—I could feel its truth in my bones. Even though he didn’t act like the High Lords of legend who had sacrificed virgins and slaughtered humans at will.
No—Tamlin was … exactly as those fanatic, calf-eyed Children of the Blessed had depicted the bounties and comforts of Prythian.
“Even though Lucien revealed some of our closely guarded secrets,” Tamlin said, throwing the last word at his companion with a growl, “we’ve never used your misinformation against you.” His gaze met mine. “We never willingly lied to you.”
I managed a nod and took a long sip of water. I ate in silence, so busy trying to decipher every word I’d overheard since arriving that I didn’t realize when Lucien excused himself before dessert. I was left alone with the most dangerous being I’d ever encountered.
The walls of the room pressed in on me.
“Are you feeling … better?” Though he had his chin propped on a fist, concern—and perhaps surprise at that concern—shone in his eyes.
I swallowed hard. “If I never encounter a naga again, I’ll consider myself fortunate.”
“What were you doing out in the western woods?”
Truth or lie, lie or truth … both. “I heard a legend once about a creature who answers your questions, if you can catch it.”
Tamlin flinched as his claws shot out, slicing his face. But the wounds closed as soon as they opened, leaving only a smear of blood running down his golden skin—which he wiped away with the back of his sleeve. “You went to catch the Suriel.”
“I caught the Suriel,” I corrected.
“And did it tell you what you wanted to know?” I wasn’t sure he was breathing.
“We were interrupted by the naga before it could tell me anything worthwhile.”
His mouth tightened. “I’d start shouting, but I think today was punishment enough.” He shook his head. “You actually snared the Suriel. A human girl.”
Despite myself, despite the afternoon, my lips twitched upward. “Is it supposed to be hard?”
He chuckled, then fished something out of his pocket. “Well, if I’m lucky, I won’t have to trap the Suriel to learn what this is about.” He lifted my crumpled list of words.
My heart dropped to my stomach. “It’s …” I couldn’t think of a suitable lie—everything was absurd.
“Unusual? Queue? Slaying? Conflagration?” He read the list. I wanted to curl up and die. Words I couldn’t recognize from the
books—words that now seemed so simple, so absurdly easy as he was saying them aloud. “Is this a poem about murdering me and then burning my body?”
My throat closed up, and I had to clench my hands into fists to keep from hiding my face behind them. “Good night,” I said, barely more than a whisper, and stood on shaking knees.
I was nearly to the door when he spoke again. “You love them very much, don’t you?”
I half turned to him. His green eyes met mine as he rose from his chair to walk to me. He stopped a respectable distance away.
The list of malformed words was still clutched in his hand. “I wonder if your family realizes it,” he murmured. “That everything you’ve done wasn’t about that promise to your mother, or for your sake, but for theirs.” I said nothing, not trusting my voice to keep my shame hidden. “I know—I know that when I said it earlier, it didn’t come out well, but I could help you write—”
“Leave me alone,” I said. I was almost through the door when I ran into someone—into him. I stumbled back a step. I’d forgotten how fast he was.
“I’m not insulting you.” His quiet voice made it all the worse.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Clearly not,” he said with a half smile. But the smile faded. “A human who can take down a faerie in a wolf’s skin, who ensnared the Suriel and killed two naga on her own …” He choked on a laugh, and shook his head. The firelight danced along his mask.
“They’re fools. Fools for not seeing it.” He winced. But his eyes held no mischief. “Here,” he said, extending the list of words.
I shoved it into my pocket. I turned, but he gently grabbed my arm. “You gave up so much for them.” He lifted his other hand as if to brush my cheek. I braced myself for the touch, but he lowered it before making contact. “Do you even know how to laugh?”
I shook off his arm, unable to stop the angry words. High Lord be damned. “I don’t want your pity.”
His jade eyes were so bright I couldn’t look away. “What about a friend?”
“Can faeries be friends with mortals?”
“Five hundred years ago, enough faeries were friends with mortals that they went to war on their behalf.”
“What?” I’d never heard that before. And it hadn’t been in that mural in the study.
“How do you think the human armies survived as long as they did, and did such damage that my kind even came to agree to a treaty? With ash weapons alone? There were faeries who fought and died at the humans’ sides for their freedom, and who mourned when the only solution was to separate our peoples.”
“Were you one of them?”
“I was a child at the time, too young to understand what was happening—or even to be told,” he said. A child. Which meant he had to be over … “But had I been old enough, I would have.
Against slavery, against tyranny, I would gladly go to my death, no matter whose freedom I was defending.”
I wasn’t sure if I would do the same. My priority would be to protect my family—and I would have picked whatever side could keep them safest. I hadn’t thought of it as a weakness until now.
“For what it’s worth,” Tamlin said, “your family knows you’re safe. They have no memory of a beast bursting into their cottage, and think a long-lost, very wealthy aunt called you away to aid her on her deathbed. They know you’re alive, and fed, and cared for.
But they also know that there have been rumors of a … threat in Prythian, and are prepared to run should any of the warning signs about the wall faltering occur.”
“You—you altered their memories?” I took a step back. Faerie arrogance, such faerie arrogance to change our minds, to implant thoughts as if it wasn’t a violation—
“Glamoured their memories—like putting a veil over them. I was afraid your father might come after you, or persuade some villagers to cross the wall with him and further violate the Treaty.”
And they all would have died anyway, once they ran into things like the puca or the Bogge or the naga. A silence blanketed my mind, until I was so exhausted I could barely think, and couldn’t stop myself from saying, “You don’t know him. My father wouldn’t have bothered to do either.”
Tamlin looked at me for a long moment. “Yes, he would have.”
But he wouldn’t—not with that twisted knee. Not with it as an excuse. I’d realized that the moment the puca’s illusion had been ripped away.
Fed, comfortable, and safe—they’d even been warned about the blight, whether they understood that warning or not. His eyes were open, honest. He had gone farther than I would have ever guessed toward assuaging my every concern. “You truly warned them about—the possible threat?”
A grave nod. “Not an outright warning, but … it’s woven into the glamour on their memories—along with an order to run at the first sign of something being amiss.”
Faerie arrogance, but … but he had done more than I could.
My family might have ignored my letter entirely. Had I known he possessed those abilities, I might have even asked the High Lord to glamour their memories if he hadn’t done it himself.
I truly had nothing to fret about, save for the fact that they’d probably forget me sooner than expected. I couldn’t entirely blame them. My vow fulfilled, my task complete—what was left for me?
The firelight danced on his mask, warming the gold, setting the emeralds glinting. Such color and variation—colors I didn’t know the names of, colors I wanted to catalog and weave together.
Colors I had no reason not to explore now.
“Paint,” I said, barely more than a breath. He cocked his head and I swallowed, squaring my shoulders. “If—if it’s not too much to ask, I’d like some paint. And brushes.”
Tamlin blinked. “You like—art? You like to paint?”
His stumbling words weren’t unkind. It was enough for me to say, “Yes. I’m not—not any good, but if it’s not too much trouble …
I’ll paint outside, so I don’t make a mess, but—”
“Outside, inside, on the roof—paint wherever you want. I don’t care,” he said. “But if you need paint and brushes, you’ll also need paper and canvas.”
“I can work—help around the kitchen or in the gardens—to pay for it.”
“You’d be more of a hindrance. It might take a few days to track them down, but the paint, the brushes, the canvas, and the space are yours. Work wherever you want. This house is too clean, anyway.”
“Thank you—I mean it, truly. Thank you.”
“Of course.” I turned, but he spoke again. “Have you seen the gallery?”
I blurted, “There’s a gallery in this house?”
He grinned—actually grinned, the High Lord of the Spring Court. “I had it closed off when I inherited this place.” When he inherited a title he seemed to have little joy in holding. “It seemed like a waste of time to have the servants keep it cleaned.”
Of course it would, to a trained warrior.
He went on. “I’m busy tomorrow, and the gallery needs to be cleaned up, so … the next day—let me show it to you the next day.” He rubbed at his neck, faint color creeping into those cheeks of his—more alive and warm than I’d yet seen them. “Please—it would be my pleasure.” And I believed him that it would.
I nodded dumbly. If the paintings along the halls were exquisite, then the ones selected for the gallery had to be beyond my human imaginings. “I would like that—very much.”
He smiled at me still, broadly and without restraint or hesitation. Isaac had never smiled at me like that. Isaac had never made my breath catch, just a little bit.
The feeling was startling enough that I walked out, grasping the crumpled paper in my pocket as if doing so could somehow keep that answering smile from tugging on my lips.
I jerked awake in the middle of the night, panting. My dreams had been filled with the clicking of the Suriel’s bone-fingers, the grinning naga, and a pale, faceless woman dragging her bloodred nails across my throat, splitting me open bit by bit. She kept asking for my name, but every time I tried to speak, my blood bubbled out of the shallow wounds on my neck, choking me.
I ran my hands through my sweat-damp hair. As my panting eased, a different sound filled the air, creeping in from the front hall through the crack beneath the door. Shouts, and someone’s screams.
I was out of my bed in a heartbeat. The shouts weren’t aggressive, but rather commanding—organizing. But the screaming …
Every hair on my body stood upright as I flung open the door. I might have stayed and cowered, but I’d heard screams like that before, in the forest at home, when I didn’t make a clean kill and the animals suffered. I couldn’t stand it. And I had to know.
I reached the top of the grand staircase in time to see the front doors of the manor bang open and Tamlin rush in, a screaming faerie slung over his shoulder.
The faerie was almost as big as Tamlin, and yet the High Lord carried him as if he were no more than a sack of grain. Another species of the lesser faeries, with his blue skin, gangly limbs, pointed ears, and long onyx hair. But even from atop the stairs, I could see the blood gushing down the faerie’s back—blood from the black stumps protruding from his shoulder blades. Blood that now soaked into Tamlin’s green tunic in deep, shining splotches.
One of the knives from his baldric was missing.
Lucien rushed into the foyer below just as Tamlin shouted,
“The table—clear it off!” Lucien shoved the vase of flowers off the long table in the center of the hall. Either Tamlin wasn’t thinking
straight, or he’d been afraid to waste the extra minutes bringing the faerie to the infirmary. Shattering glass set my feet moving, and I was halfway down the stairs before Tamlin eased the shrieking faerie face-first onto the table. The faerie wasn’t wearing a mask; there was nothing to hide the agony contorting his long, unearthly features.
“Scouts found him dumped just over the borderline,” Tamlin explained to Lucien, but his eyes darted to me. They flashed with warning, but I took another step down. He said to Lucien, “He’s Summer Court.”
“By the Cauldron,” Lucien said, surveying the damage.
“My wings,” the faerie choked out, his glossy black eyes wide and staring at nothing. “She took my wings.”
Again, that nameless she who haunted their lives. If she wasn’t ruling the Spring Court, then perhaps she ruled another. Tamlin flicked a hand, and steaming water and bandages just appeared on the table. My mouth dried up, but I reached the bottom of the stairs and kept walking toward the table and the death that was surely hovering in this hall.
“She took my wings,” said the faerie. “She took my wings,” he repeated, clutching the edge of the table with spindly blue fingers.
Tamlin murmured a soft, wordless sound—gentle in a way I hadn’t heard before—and picked up a rag to dunk in the water. I took up a spot across the table from Tamlin, and the breath whooshed from my chest as I beheld the damage.
Whoever she was, she hadn’t just taken his wings. She’d ripped them off.
Blood oozed from the black velvety stumps on the faerie’s back. The wounds were jagged—cartilage and tissue severed in what looked like uneven cuts. As if she’d sawed off his wings bit by bit.
“She took my wings,” the faerie said again, his voice breaking.
As he trembled, shock taking over, his skin shimmered with veins of pure gold—iridescent, like a blue butterfly.
“Keep still,” Tamlin ordered, wringing the rag. “You’ll bleed out faster.”
“N-n-no,” the faerie started, and began to twist onto his back, away from Tamlin, from the pain that was surely coming when that rag touched those raw stumps.
It was instinct, or mercy, or desperation, perhaps, to grab the faerie’s upper arms and shove him down again, pinning him to the table as gently as I could. He thrashed, strong enough that I had to concentrate solely on holding him. His skin was velvet-smooth and slippery, a texture I would never be able to paint, not even if I had eternity to master it. But I pushed against him, gritting my teeth and willing him to stop. I looked to Lucien, but the color had blanched from his face, leaving a sickly white-green in its wake.
“Lucien,” Tamlin said—a quiet command. But Lucien kept gaping at the faerie’s ruined back, at the stumps, his metal eye narrowing and widening, narrowing and widening. He backed up a step. And another. And then vomited in a potted plant before sprinting from the room.
The faerie twisted again and I held tight, my arms shaking with the effort. His injuries must have weakened him greatly if I could keep him pinned. “Please,” I breathed. “Please hold still.”
“She took my wings,” the faerie sobbed. “She took them.”
“I know,” I murmured, my fingers aching. “I know.”
Tamlin touched the rag to one of the stumps, and the faerie screamed so loudly that my senses guttered, sending me staggering back. He tried to rise but his arms buckled, and he collapsed face-first onto the table again.
Blood gushed—so fast and bright that it took me a heartbeat to realize that a wound like this required a tourniquet—and that the faerie had lost far too much blood for it to even make a difference.
It poured down his back and onto the table, where it ran to the edge and drip-drip-drip ped to the floor near my feet.
I found Tamlin’s eyes on me. “The wounds aren’t clotting,” he said under his breath as the faerie panted.
“Can’t you use your magic?” I asked, wishing I could rip that mask off his face and see his full expression.
Tamlin swallowed hard. “No. Not for major damage. Once, but not any longer.”
The faerie on the table whimpered, his panting slowing. “She took my wings,” he whispered. Tamlin’s green eyes flickered, and I knew, right then, that the faerie was going to die. Death wasn’t just hovering in this hall; it was counting down the faerie’s remaining heartbeats.
I took one of the faerie’s hands in mine. The skin there was almost leathery, and, perhaps more out of reflex than anything, his long fingers wrapped around mine, covering them completely.
“She took my wings,” he said again, his shaking subsiding a bit.
I brushed the long, damp hair from the faerie’s half-turned face, revealing a pointed nose and a mouth full of sharp teeth. His dark eyes shifted to mine, beseeching, pleading.
“It will be all right,” I said, and hoped he couldn’t smell lies the way the Suriel was able to. I stroked his limp hair, its texture like liquid night—another I would never be able to paint but would try to, perhaps forever. “It will be all right.” The faerie closed his eyes, and I tightened my grip on his hand.
Something wet touched my feet, and I didn’t need to look down to see that his blood had pooled around me. “My wings,” the faerie whispered.
“You’ll get them back.”
The faerie struggled to open his eyes. “You swear?”
“Yes,” I breathed. The faerie managed a slight smile and closed his eyes again. My mouth trembled. I wished for something else to say, something more to offer him than my empty promises.
The first false vow I’d ever sworn. But Tamlin began speaking, and I glanced up to see him take the faerie’s other hand.
“Cauldron save you,” he said, reciting the words of a prayer that was probably older than the mortal realm. “Mother hold you.
Pass through the gates, and smell that immortal land of milk and honey. Fear no evil. Feel no pain.” Tamlin’s voice wavered, but he finished. “Go, and enter eternity.”
The faerie heaved one final sigh, and his hand went limp in mine. I didn’t let go, though, and kept stroking his hair, even when Tamlin released him and took a few steps from the table.
I could feel Tamlin’s eyes on me, but I wouldn’t let go. I didn’t know how long it took for a soul to fade from the body. I stood in the puddle of blood until it grew cold, holding the faerie’s spindly hand and stroking his hair, wondering if he knew I’d lied when I’d sworn he would get his wings back, wondering if, wherever he had now gone, he had gotten them back.
A clock chimed somewhere in the house, and Tamlin gripped my shoulder. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d become until the heat
of his hand warmed me through my nightgown. “He’s gone. Let him go.”
I studied the faerie’s face—so unearthly, so inhuman. Who could be so cruel to hurt him like that?
“Feyre,” Tamlin said, squeezing my shoulder. I brushed the faerie’s hair behind his long, pointed ear, wishing I’d known his name, and let go.
Tamlin led me up the stairs, neither of us caring about the bloody footprints I left behind or the freezing blood soaking the front of my nightgown. I paused at the top of the steps, though, twisting out of his grip, and gazed at the table in the foyer below.
“We can’t leave him there,” I said, making to step down. Tamlin caught my elbow.
“I know,” he said, the words so drained and weary. “I was going to walk you upstairs first.”
Before he buried him. “I want to go with you.”
“It’s too deadly at night for you to—”
“I can hold my—”
“No,” he said, his green eyes flashing. I straightened, but he sighed, his shoulders curving inward. “I must do this. Alone.”
His head was bowed. No claws, no fangs—there was nothing to be done against this enemy, this fate. No one for him to fight.
So I nodded, because I would have wanted to do it alone, too, and turned toward my bedroom. Tamlin remained at the top of the stairs.
“Feyre,” he said—softly enough that I faced him again. “Why?”
He tilted his head to the side. “You dislike our kind on a good day.
And after Andras …” Even in the darkened hallway, his usually bright eyes were shadowed. “So why?”
I took a step closer to him, my blood-covered feet sticking to the rug. I glanced down the stairs to where I could still see the prone form of the faerie and the stumps of his wings.
“Because I wouldn’t want to die alone,” I said, and my voice wobbled as I looked at Tamlin again, forcing myself to meet his stare. “Because I’d want someone to hold my hand until the end, and awhile after that. That’s something everyone deserves, human or faerie.” I swallowed hard, my throat painfully tight. “I regret what I did to Andras,” I said, the words so strangled they were no more than a whisper. “I regret that there was … such hate
in my heart. I wish I could undo it—and … I’m sorry. So very sorry.”
I couldn’t remember the last time—if ever—I’d spoken to anyone like that. But he just nodded and turned away, and I wondered if I should say more, if I should kneel and beg for his forgiveness. If he felt such grief, such guilt, over a stranger, then Andras … By the time I opened my mouth, he was already down the steps.
I watched him—watched every movement he made, the muscles of his body visible through that blood-soaked tunic, watched that invisible weight bearing down on his shoulders. He didn’t look at me as he scooped up the broken body and carried it to the garden doors beyond my line of sight. I went to the window at the top of the stairs, watching as Tamlin carried the faerie through the moonlit garden and into the rolling fields beyond. He never once glanced back.
The next day, the blood of the faerie had been cleaned up by the time I ate, washed, and dressed. I’d taken my time in the morning, and it was nearly noon as I stood atop the staircase, peering down at the entry hall below. Just to make sure it was gone.
I’d been set on finding Tamlin and explaining—truly explaining
—how sorry I was about Andras. If I was supposed to stay here, stay with him, then I could at least attempt to repair what I’d ruined. I glanced to the large window behind me, the view so sweeping that I could see all the way to the reflecting pool beyond the garden.
The water was still enough that the vibrant sky and fat, puffy clouds above were flawlessly reflected. Asking about them seemed vulgar after last night, but maybe—maybe once those paints and brushes did arrive, I could venture to the pool to capture it.
I might have remained staring out toward that smear of color and light and texture had Tamlin and Lucien not emerged from another wing of the manor, discussing some border patrol or another. They fell silent as I came down the stairs, and Lucien strode right out the front door without so much as a good morning
—just a casual wave. Not a vicious gesture, but he clearly had no intention of joining the conversation that Tamlin and I were about to have.
I glanced around, hoping for any sign of those paints, but Tam pointed to the open front doors through which Lucien had exited.
Beyond them, I could see both of our horses, already saddled and waiting. Lucien was already climbing into the saddle of a third horse. I turned to Tamlin.
Stay with him; he will keep me safe, and things will get better.
Fine. I could do that.
“Where are we going?” My words were half-mumbled.
“Your supplies won’t arrive until tomorrow, and the gallery’s being cleaned, and my … meeting was postponed.” Was he rambling? “I thought we’d go for a ride—no killing involved. Or naga to worry about.” Even as he finished with a half smile, sorrow flickered in his eyes. Indeed, I’d had enough death in the past two days. Enough of killing faeries. Killing anything. No weapons were sheathed at his side or on his baldric—but a knife hilt glinted at his boot.
Where had he buried that faerie? A High Lord digging a grave for a stranger. I might not have believed it if I’d been told, might not have believed it if he hadn’t offered me sanctuary rather than death.
“Where to?” I asked. He only smiled.
I couldn’t come up with any words when we arrived—and knew that even if I had been able to paint it, nothing would have done it justice. It wasn’t simply that it was the most beautiful place I’d ever been to, or that it filled me with both longing and mirth, but it just seemed … right. As if the colors and lights and patterns of the world had come together to form one perfect place—one true bit of beauty. After last night, it was exactly where I needed to be.
We sat atop a grassy knoll, overlooking a glade of oaks so wide and high they could have been the pillars and spires of an ancient castle. Shimmering tufts of dandelion fluff drifted by, and the floor of the clearing was carpeted with swaying crocuses and snowdrops and bluebells. It was an hour or two past noon by the time we arrived, but the light was thick and golden.
Though the three of us were alone, I could have sworn I heard singing. I hugged my knees and drank in the glen.
“We brought a blanket,” Tamlin said, and I looked over my shoulder to see him jerk his chin to the purple blanket they’d laid out a few feet away. Lucien plopped down onto it and stretched his legs. Tamlin remained standing, waiting for my response.
I shook my head and faced forward, tracing my hand through the feather-soft grass, cataloging its color and texture. I’d never felt grass like it, and I certainly wasn’t going to ruin the experience by sitting on a blanket.
Rushed whispers were exchanged behind me, and before I could turn around to investigate, Tamlin took a seat at my side.
His jaw was clenched tight enough that I stared ahead. “What is this place?” I said, still running my fingers through the grass.
Out of the corner of my eye, Tamlin was no more than a glittering golden figure. “Just a glen.” Behind us, Lucien snorted.
“Do you like it?” Tamlin asked quickly. The green of his eyes matched the grass between my fingers, and the amber flecks were like the shafts of sunlight that streamed through the trees.
Even his mask, odd and foreign, seemed to fit into the glen—as if this place had been fashioned for him alone. I could picture him here in his beast form, curled up in the grass, dozing.
“What?” I said. I’d forgotten his question.
“Do you like it?” he repeated, and his lips tugged into a smile.
I took an uneven breath and stared at the glen again. “Yes.”
He chuckled. “That’s it? ‘ Yes’?”
“Would you like me to grovel with gratitude for bringing me here, High Lord?”
“Ah. The Suriel told you nothing important, did it?”
That smile of his sparked something bold in my chest. “He also said that you like being brushed, and if I’m a clever girl, I might train you with treats.”
Tamlin tipped his head to the sky and roared with laughter.
Despite myself, I let out a soft laugh.
“I might die of surprise,” Lucien said behind me. “You made a joke, Feyre.”
I turned to look at him with a cool smile. “You don’t want to know what the Suriel said about you.” I flicked my brows up, and Lucien lifted his hands in defeat.
“I’d pay good money to hear what the Suriel thinks of Lucien,”
Tamlin said.
A cork popped, followed by the sounds of Lucien chugging the bottle’s contents and chuckling with a muttered “Brushed.”
Tamlin’s eyes were still bright with laughter as he put a hand at my elbow, pulling me to my feet. “Come on,” he said, jerking his head down the hill to the little stream that ran along its base. “I want to show you something.”
I got to my feet, but Lucien remained sitting on the blanket and lifted the bottle of wine in salute. He took a slug from it as he
sprawled on his back and gazed at the green canopy.
Each of Tamlin’s movements was precise and efficient, his powerfully muscled legs eating up the earth as we wove between the towering trees, hopped over tiny brooks, and clambered up steep knolls. We stopped atop a mound, and my hands slackened at my sides. There, in a clearing surrounded by towering trees, lay a sparkling silver pool. Even from a distance, I could tell that it wasn’t water, but something more rare and infinitely more precious.
Tamlin grasped my wrist and tugged me down the hill, his callused fingers gently scraping against my skin. He let go of me to leap over the root of the tree in a single maneuver and prowled to the water’s edge. I could only grind my teeth as I stumbled after him, heaving myself over the root.
He crouched by the pool and cupped his hand to fill it. He tilted his hand, letting the water fall. “Have a look.”
The silvery sparkling water that dribbled from his hand set ripples dancing across the pool, each glimmering with various colors, and—“That looks like starlight,” I breathed.
He huffed a laugh, filling and emptying his hand again. I gaped at the glittering water. “It is starlight.”
“That’s impossible,” I said, fighting the urge to take a step toward the water.
“This is Prythian. According to your legends, nothing is impossible.”
“How?” I asked, unable to take my eyes from the pool—the silver, but also the blue and red and pink and yellow glinting beneath, the lightness of it …
“I don’t know—I never asked, and no one ever explained.”
When I continued gaping at the pool, he laughed, drawing away my attention—only for me to find him unbuttoning his tunic.
“Jump in,” he said, the invitation dancing in his eyes.
A swim—unclothed, alone. With a High Lord. I shook my head, falling back a step. His fingers paused at the second button from his collar.
“Don’t you want to know what it’s like?”
I didn’t know what he meant: swimming in starlight, or swimming with him. “I—no.”
“All right.” He left his tunic unbuttoned. There was only bare, muscled, golden skin beneath.
“Why this place?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from his chest.
“This was my favorite haunt as a boy.”
“Which was when?” I couldn’t stop the question from coming out.
He cut a glance in my direction. “A very long time ago.” He said it so quietly that it made me shift on my feet. A very long time ago indeed, if he’d been a boy during the War.
Well, I’d started down that road, so I ventured to ask, “Is Lucien all right? After last night, I mean.” He seemed back to his usual snide, irreverent self, but he’d vomited at the sight of that dying faerie. “He … didn’t react well.”
Tamlin shrugged, but his words were soft as he said, “Lucien
… Lucien has endured things that make times like last night …
difficult. Not just the scar and the eye—though I bet last night brought back memories of that, too.”
Tamlin rubbed at his neck, then met my stare. Such an ancient heaviness in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. “Lucien is the youngest son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court.” I straightened. “The youngest of seven brothers. The Autumn Court is … cutthroat.
Beautiful, but his brothers see each other only as competition, since the strongest of them will inherit the title, not the eldest. It is the same throughout Prythian, at every court. Lucien never cared about it, never expected to be crowned High Lord, so he spent his youth doing everything a High Lord’s son probably shouldn’t: wandering the courts, making friends with the sons of other High Lords”—a faint gleam in Tamlin’s eyes at that—“and being with females who were a far cry from the nobility of the Autumn Court.”
Tamlin paused for a moment, and I could almost feel the sorrow before he said, “Lucien fell in love with a faerie whom his father considered to be grossly inappropriate for someone of his bloodline. Lucien said he didn’t care that she wasn’t one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap into place soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father’s court to his scheming brothers.” A tight sigh. “His father had her put down. Executed, in front of Lucien, as his two eldest brothers held him and made him watch.”
My stomach turned, and I pushed a hand against my chest. I couldn’t imagine, couldn’t comprehend that sort of loss.
“Lucien left. He cursed his father, abandoned his title and the Autumn Court, and walked out. And without his title protecting him, his brothers thought to eliminate one more contender to the High Lord’s crown. Three of them went out to kill him; one came back.”
“Lucien … killed them?”
“He killed one,” Tamlin said. “I killed the other, as they had crossed into my territory, and I was now High Lord and could do what I wanted with trespassers threatening the peace of my lands.” A cold, brutal statement. “I claimed Lucien as my own—
named him emissary, since he’d already made many friends across the courts and had always been good at talking to people, while I … can find it difficult. He’s been here ever since.”
“As emissary,” I began, “has he ever had dealings with his father? Or his brothers?”
“Yes. His father has never apologized, and his brothers are too frightened of me to risk harming him.” No arrogance in those words, just icy truth. “But he has never forgotten what they did to her, or what his brothers tried to do to him. Even if he pretends that he has.”
It didn’t quite excuse everything Lucien had said and done to me, but … I understood now. I could understand the walls and barriers he had no doubt constructed around himself. My chest was too tight, too small to fit the ache building in it. I looked at the pool of glittering starlight and let out a heavy breath. I needed to change the subject. “What would happen if I were to drink the water?”
Tamlin straightened a bit—then relaxed, as if glad to release that old sadness. “Legend claims you’d be happy until your last breath.” He added, “Perhaps we both need a glass.”
“I don’t think that entire pool would be enough for me,” I said, and he laughed.
“Two jokes in one day—a miracle sent from the Cauldron,” he said. I cracked a smile. He came a step closer, as if forcibly leaving behind the dark, sad stain of what had happened to Lucien, and the starlight danced in his eyes as he said, “What would be enough to make you happy?”
I blushed from my neck to the top of my head. “I—I don’t know.” It was true—I’d never given that sort of thing any thought beyond getting my sisters safely married off and having enough food for me and my father, and time to learn to paint.
“Hmm,” he said, not stepping away. “What about the ringing of bluebells? Or a ribbon of sunshine? Or a garland of moonlight?”
He grinned wickedly.
High Lord of Prythian indeed. High Lord of Foolery was more like it. And he knew—he knew I’d say no, that I’d squirm a bit from merely being alone with him.
No. I wouldn’t let him have the satisfaction of embarrassing me. I’d had enough of that lately, enough of … of that girl encased in ice and bitterness. So I gave him a sweet smile, doing my best to pretend that my stomach wasn’t flipping over itself. “A swim sounds delightful.”
I didn’t allow myself room for second-guessing. And I took no small amount of pride in the fact that my fingers didn’t tremble once as I removed my boots, then unbuttoned my tunic and pants and shucked them onto the grass. My undergarments were modest enough that I wasn’t showing much, but I still looked straight at him as I stood on the grassy bank. The air was warm and mild, and a soft breeze kissed its way across my bare stomach.
Slowly, so slowly, his eyes roved down, then up. As if he were studying every inch, every curve of me. And even though I wore my ivory underthings, that gaze alone stripped me bare.
His eyes met mine and he gave me a lazy smile before removing his clothes. Button by button. I could have sworn the gleam in his eyes turned hungry and feral—enough so that I had to look anywhere but at his face.
I let myself indulge in the glimpse of a broad chest, arms corded with muscle, and long, strong legs before I walked right into that pool. He wasn’t built like Isaac, whose body had very much still been in that gangly place between boy and man. No—
Tamlin’s glorious body was honed by centuries of fighting and brutality.
The liquid was delightfully warm, and I strode in until it was deep enough to swim out a few strokes and casually tread in place. Not water, but something smoother, thicker. Not oil, but
something purer, thinner. Like being wrapped in warm silk. I was so busy savoring the tug of my fingers through the silvery substance that I didn’t notice him until he was treading beside me.
“Who taught you to swim?” he asked, and dunked his head under the surface. When he came up, he was grinning, sparkling streams of starlight running along the contours of his mask.
I didn’t go under, didn’t quite know if he’d been joking about the water making me mirthful if I drank it. “When I was twelve, I watched the village children swimming at a pond and figured it out myself.”
It had been one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, and I’d swallowed half the pond in the process, but I’d gotten the gist of it, managed to conquer my blind panic and terror and trust myself. Knowing how to swim had seemed like a vital ability—one that might someday mean the difference between life and death.
I’d never expected it would lead to this, though.
He went under again, and when he emerged, he ran a hand through his golden hair. “How did your father lose his fortune?”
“How’d you know about that?”
Tamlin snorted. “I don’t think born peasants have your kind of diction.”
Some part of me wanted to come up with a comment about snobbery, but … well, he was right, and I couldn’t blame him for being a skilled observer.
“My father was called the Prince of Merchants,” I said plainly, treading that silky, strange water. I hardly had to put any effort into it—the water was so warm, so light, that it felt as if I were floating in air, every ache in my body oozing away into nothing. “But that title, which he’d inherited from his father, and his father before that, was a lie. We were just a good name that masked three generations of bad debts. My father had been trying to find a way to ease those debts for years, and when he found an opportunity to pay them off, he took it, regardless of the risks.” I swallowed.
“Eight years ago, he amassed our wealth on three ships to sail to Bharat for invaluable spices and cloth.”
Tamlin frowned. “Risky indeed. Those waters are a death trap, unless you go the long way.”
“Well, he didn’t go the long way. It would have taken too much time, and our creditors were breathing down his neck. So he
risked sending the ships directly to Bharat. They never reached Bharat’s shores.” I tipped my hair back in the water, clearing the memory of my father’s face the day that news arrived of the sinking. “When the ships sank, the creditors circled him like wolves. They ripped him apart until there was nothing left of him but a broken name and a few gold pieces to purchase that cottage. I was eleven. My father … he just stopped trying after that.” I couldn’t bring myself to mention that final, ugly moment when that other creditor had come with his cronies to wreck my father’s leg.
“That’s when you started hunting?”
“No; even though we moved to the cottage, it took almost three years for the money to entirely run out,” I said. “I started hunting when I was fourteen.”
His eyes twinkled—no trace of the warrior forced to accept a High Lord’s burden. “And here you are. What else did you figure out for yourself?”
Maybe it was the enchanted pool, or maybe it was the genuine interest behind the question, but I smiled and told him about those years in the woods.
Tired but surprisingly content from a few hours of swimming and eating and lounging in the glen, I eyed Lucien as we rode back to the manor that afternoon. We were crossing a broad meadow of new spring grass when he caught me glancing at him for the tenth time, and I braced myself as he fell back from Tamlin’s side.
The metal eye narrowed on me while the other remained wary, unimpressed. “Yes?”
That was enough to persuade me not to say anything about his past. I would hate pity, too. And he didn’t know me—not well enough to warrant anything but resentment if I brought it up, even if it weighed on me to know it, to grieve for him.
I waited until Tamlin was far enough ahead that even his High Fae hearing might not pick up on my words. “I never got to thank you for your advice with the Suriel.”
Lucien tensed. “Oh?”
I looked ahead at the easy way Tamlin rode, the horse utterly unbothered by his mighty rider. “If you still want me dead,” I said,
“you might have to try a bit harder.”
Lucien loosed a breath. “That’s not what I intended.” I gave him a long look. “I wouldn’t shed any tears,” he amended. I knew it was true. “But what happened to you—”
“I was joking,” I said, and gave him a little smile.
“You can’t possibly forgive me that easily for sending you into danger.”
“No. And part of me would like nothing more than to wallop you for your lack of warning about the Suriel. But I understand: I’m a human who killed your friend, who now lives in your house, and you have to deal with me. I understand,” I said again.
He was quiet for long enough that I thought he wouldn’t reply.
Just as I was about to move ahead, he spoke. “Tam told me that your first shot was to save the Suriel’s life. Not your own.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
The look he gave me was more contemplative than any he’d given me before. “I know far too many High Fae and lesser faeries who wouldn’t have seen it that way—or bothered.” He reached for something at his side and tossed it to me. I had to fight to stay in the saddle as I fumbled for it—a jeweled hunting knife.
“I heard you scream,” he said as I examined the blade in my hands. I’d never held one so finely crafted, so perfectly balanced.
“And I hesitated. Not long, but I hesitated before I came running.
Even though Tam got there in time, I still broke my word in those seconds I waited.” He jerked his chin at the knife. “It’s yours. Don’t bury it in my back, please.”
The next morning, my paint and supplies arrived from wherever Tamlin or the servants had dug them up, but before Tamlin let me see them, he brought me down hall after hall until we were in a wing of the house I’d never been to, even in my nocturnal exploring. I knew where we were going without his having to say.
The marble floors shone so brightly that they had to have been freshly mopped, and that rose-scented breeze floated in through the opened windows. All this—he’d done this for me. As if I would have cared about cobwebs or dust.
When he paused before a set of wooden doors, the slight smile he gave me was enough to make me blurt, “Why do anything—anything this kind?”
The smile faltered. “It’s been a long time since there was anyone here who appreciated these things. I like seeing them used again.” Especially when there was such blood and death in every other part of his life.
He opened the gallery doors, and the breath was knocked from me.
The pale wooden floors gleamed in the clean, bright light pouring in from the windows. The room was empty save for a few large chairs and benches for viewing the … the …
I barely registered moving into the long gallery, one hand absentmindedly wrapping around my throat as I looked up at the paintings.
So many, so different, yet all arranged to flow together seamlessly … Such different views and snippets and angles of the world. Pastorals, portraits, still lifes … each a story and an experience, each a voice shouting or whispering or singing about what that moment, that feeling, had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed. Some had been painted through eyes like mine, artists who saw in colors and
shapes I understood. Some showcased colors I had not considered; these had a bend to the world that told me a different set of eyes had painted them. A portal into the mind of a creature so unlike me, and yet … and yet I looked at its work and understood, and felt, and cared.
“I never knew,” Tamlin said from behind me, “that humans were capable of …” He trailed off as I turned, the hand I’d put on my throat sliding down to my chest, where my heart roared with a fierce sort of joy and grief and overwhelming humility—humility before that magnificent art.
He stood by the doors, head cocked in that animalistic way, the words still lost on his tongue.
I wiped at my damp cheeks. “It’s …” Perfect, wonderful, beyond my wildest imaginings didn’t cover it. I kept my hand over my heart. “Thank you,” I said. It was all I could find to show him what these paintings—to be allowed into this room—meant.
“Come here whenever you want.”
I smiled at him, hardly able to contain the brightness in my heart. His returning smile was tentative but shining, and then he left me to admire the gallery at my own leisure.
I stayed for hours—stayed until I was drunk on the art, until I was dizzy with hunger and wandered out to find food.
After lunch, Alis showed me to an empty room on the first floor with a table full of canvases of various sizes, brushes whose wooden handles gleamed in the perfect, clear light, and paints—
so, so many paints, beyond the four basic ones I’d hoped for, that the breath was knocked from me again.
And when Alis was gone and the room was quiet and waiting and utterly mine …
Then I began to paint.
Weeks passed, the days melting together. I painted and painted, most of it awful and useless.
I never let anyone see it, no matter how much Tamlin prodded and Lucien smirked at my paint-splattered clothes; I never felt satisfied that my work matched the images burning in my mind.
Often I painted from dawn until dusk, sometimes in that room,
sometimes out in the garden. Occasionally I’d take a break to explore the Spring lands with Tamlin as my guide, coming back with fresh ideas that had me leaping out of bed the next morning to sketch or scribble down the scenes or colors as I’d glimpsed them.
But there were the days when Tamlin was called away to face the latest threat to his borders, and even painting couldn’t distract me until he returned, covered in blood that wasn’t his own, sometimes in his beast form, sometimes as the High Lord. He never gave me details, and I didn’t presume to ask about them; his safe return was enough.
Around the manor itself, there was no sign of creatures like the naga or the Bogge, but I stayed well away from the western woods, even though I painted them often enough from memory.
And though my dreams continued to be plagued by the deaths I’d witnessed, the deaths I’d caused, and that horrible pale woman ripping me to shreds—all watched over by a shadow I could never quite glimpse—I slowly stopped being so afraid. Stay with the High Lord. You will be safe. So I did.
The Spring Court was a land of rolling green hills and lush forests and clear, bottomless lakes. Magic didn’t just abound in the bumps and the hollows—it grew there. Try as I might to paint it, I could never capture it—the feel of it. So sometimes I dared to paint the High Lord, who rode at my side when we wandered his grounds on lazy days—the High Lord, whom I was happy to talk to or spend hours in comfortable silence with.
It was probably the lulling of magic that clouded my thoughts, and I didn’t think of my family until I passed the outer hedge wall one morning, scouting for a new spot to paint. A breeze from the south ruffled my hair—fresh and warm. Spring was now dawning on the mortal world.
My family, glamoured, cared for, safe, still had no idea where I was. The mortal world … it had moved on without me, as if I had never existed. A whisper of a miserable life—gone, unremembered by anyone whom I’d known or cared for.
I didn’t paint, nor did I go riding with Tamlin that day. Instead, I sat before a blank canvas, no colors at all in my mind.
No one would remember me back home—I was as good as dead to them. And Tamlin had let me forget them. Maybe the
paints had even been a distraction—a way to get me to stop complaining, to stop being a pain in his ass about wanting to see my family. Or maybe they were a distraction from whatever was happening with the blight and Prythian. I’d stopped asking, just as the Suriel had ordered—like a stupid, useless, obedient human.
It was an effort of stubborn will to make it through dinner.
Tamlin and Lucien noticed my mood and kept conversation between themselves. It didn’t do much for my growing rage, and when I had eaten my fill, I stalked into the moonlit garden and lost myself in its labyrinth of hedges and flower beds.
I didn’t care where I was going. After a while, I paused in the rose garden. The moonlight stained the red petals a deep purple and cast a silvery sheen on the white blooms.
“My father had this garden planted for my mother,” Tamlin said from behind me. I didn’t bother to face him. I dug my nails into my palms as he stopped by my side. “It was a mating present.”
I stared at the flowers without seeing anything. The flowers I’d painted on the table at home were probably crumbling or gone by now. Nesta might have even scraped them off.
My nails pricked the skin of my palms. Tamlin providing for them or no, glamouring their memories or no, I’d been … erased from their lives. Forgotten. I’d let him erase me. He’d offered me paints and the space and time to practice; he’d shown me pools of starlight; he’d saved my life like some kind of feral knight in a legend, and I’d gulped it down like faerie wine. I was no better than those zealot Children of the Blessed.
His mask was bronze in the darkness, and the emeralds glittered. “You seem … upset.”
I stalked to the nearest rosebush and ripped off a rose, my fingers tearing on the thorns. I ignored the pain, the warmth of the blood that trickled down. I could never paint it accurately—never render it the way those artists had in the gallery pieces. I would never be able to paint Elain’s little garden outside the cottage the way I remembered it, even if my family didn’t remember me.
He didn’t reprimand me for taking one of his parents’ roses—
parents who were as absent as my own, but who had probably loved each other and loved him better than mine cared for me. A family that would have offered to go in his place if someone had come to steal him away.
My fingers stung and ached, but I still held on to the rose as I said, “I don’t know why I feel so tremendously ashamed of myself for leaving them. Why it feels so selfish and horrible to paint. I shouldn’t—shouldn’t feel that way, should I? I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.” The rose hung limply from my fingers. “All those years, what I did for them … And they didn’t try to stop you from taking me.” There it was, the giant pain that cracked me in two if I thought about it too long. “I don’t know why I expected them to—
why I believed that the puca’s illusion was real that night. I don’t know why I bother still thinking about it. Or still caring.” He was silent long enough that I added, “Compared to you—to your borders and magic being weakened—I suppose my self-pity is absurd.”
“If it grieves you,” he said, the words caressing my bones,
“then I don’t think it’s absurd at all.”
“Why?” A flat question, and I chucked the rose into the bushes.
He took my hands. His callused fingers, strong and sturdy, were gentle as he lifted my bleeding hand to his mouth and kissed my palm. As if that were answer enough.
His lips were smooth against my skin, his breath warm, and my knees buckled as he lifted my other hand to his mouth and kissed it, too. Kissed it carefully—in a way that made heat begin pounding in my core, between my legs.
When he withdrew, my blood shone on his mouth. I glanced at my hands, which he still held, and found the wounds gone. I looked at his face again, at his gilded mask, the tanness of his skin, the red of his blood-covered lips as he murmured, “Don’t feel bad for one moment about doing what brings you joy.” He stepped closer, releasing one of my hands to tuck the rose I’d plucked behind my ear. I didn’t know how it had gotten into his hand, or where the thorns had gone.
I couldn’t stop myself from pushing. “Why—why do any of this?”
He leaned in closer, so close that I had to tip my head back to see him. “Because your human joy fascinates me—the way you experience things, in your life span, so wildly and deeply and all at once, is … entrancing. I’m drawn to it, even when I know I shouldn’t be, even when I try not to be.”
Because I was human, and I would grow old and—I didn’t let myself get that far as he came closer still. Slowly, as if giving me time to pull away, he brushed his lips against my cheek. Soft and warm and heartbreakingly gentle. It was hardly more than a caress before he straightened. I hadn’t moved from the moment his mouth had met my skin.
“One day—one day there will be answers for everything,” he said, releasing my hand and stepping away. “But not until the time is right. Until it’s safe.” In the dark, his tone was enough to know that his eyes were flecked with bitterness.
He left me, and I took a gasping breath, not realizing I’d been holding it.
Not realizing that I craved his warmth, his nearness, until he was gone.
Lingering mortification over what I’d admitted, what had …
changed between us had me skulking out of the manor after breakfast, fleeing for the sanctuary of the woods for some fresh air
—and to study the light and colors. I brought my bow and arrows, along with the jeweled hunting knife that Lucien had given me.
Better to be armed than caught empty-handed.
I crept through the trees and brush for no more than an hour before I felt a presence behind me—coming ever closer, sending the animals running for cover. I smiled to myself, and twenty minutes later, I settled in the crook of a towering elm and waited.
Brush rustled—hardly more than a breeze’s passing, but I knew what to expect, knew the signs.
A snap and roar of fury echoed across the lands, scattering the birds.
When I climbed out of the tree and walked into the little clearing, I merely crossed my arms and looked up at the High Lord, dangling by his legs from the snare I’d laid.
Even upside down, he smiled lazily at me as I approached.
“Cruel human.”
“That’s what you get for stalking someone.”
He chuckled, and I came close enough to dare stroke a finger along the silken golden hair dangling just above my face, admiring
the many colors within it—the hues of yellow and brown and wheat. My heart thundered, and I knew he could probably hear it.
But he leaned his head toward me, a silent invitation, and I ran my fingers through his hair—gently, carefully. He purred, the sound rumbling through my fingers, arms, legs, and core. I wondered how that sound would feel if he were fully pressed up against me, skin-to-skin. I stepped back.
He curled upward in a smooth, powerful motion and swiped with a single claw at the creeping vine I’d used for rope. I took a breath to shout, but he flipped as he fell, landing smoothly on his feet. It would be impossible for me to ever forget what he was, and what he was capable of. He took a step closer to me, the laughter still dancing on his face. “Feeling better today?”
I mumbled some noncommittal response.
“Good,” he said, either ignoring or hiding his amusement. “But just in case, I wanted to give you this,” he added, pulling some papers from his tunic and extending them to me.
I bit the inside of my cheek as I stared down at the three pieces of paper. It was a series of five-lined … poems. There were five of them altogether, and I began sweating at words I didn’t recognize. It would take me an entire day just to figure out what these words meant.
“Before you bolt or start yelling …,” he said, coming around to peer over my shoulder. If I’d dared, I could have leaned back into his chest. His breath warmed my neck, the shell of my ear.
He cleared his throat and read the first poem.
There once was a lady most beautiful
Spirited, if a little unusual
Her friends were few
But how the men did queue
But to all she gave a refusal.
My brows rose so high I thought they’d touch my hairline, and I turned, blinking at him, our breath mingling as he finished the poem with a smile.
Without waiting for my response, Tamlin took the papers and stepped a pace away to read the second poem, which wasn’t nearly as polite as the first. By the time he read the third poem,
my face was burning. Tamlin paused before he read the fourth, then handed me back the papers.
“Final word in the second and fourth line of each poem,” he said, jerking his chin toward the papers in my hands.
Unusual. Queue. I looked at the second poem. Slaying.
Conflagration.
“These are—” I started.
“Your list of words was too interesting to pass up. And not good for love poems at all.” When I lifted my brow in silent inquiry, he said, “We had contests to see who could write the dirtiest limericks while I was living with my father’s war-band by the border. I don’t particularly enjoy losing, so I took it upon myself to become good at them.”
I didn’t know how he’d remembered that long list I’d compiled
—I didn’t want to. Sensing I wasn’t about to draw an arrow and shoot him, Tamlin took the papers and read the fifth poem, the dirtiest and foulest of them all.
When he finished, I tipped back my head and howled, my laughter like sunshine shattering age-hardened ice.
I was still smiling when we walked out of the park and toward the rolling hills, meandering back to the manor. “You said—that night in the rose garden …” I sucked on my teeth for a moment. “You said that your father had it planted for your parents upon their mating—not wedding?”
“High Fae mostly marry,” he said, his golden skin flushing a bit.
“But if they’re blessed, they’ll find their mate—their equal, their match in every way. High Fae wed without the mating bond, but if you find your mate, the bond is so deep that marriage is …
insignificant in comparison.”
I didn’t have the nerve to ask if faeries had ever had mating bonds with humans, but instead dared to say, “Where are your parents? What happened to them?”
A muscle feathered in his jaw, and I regretted the question, if only for the pain that flickered in his eyes. “My father …” His claws gleamed at his knuckles but didn’t go out any farther. I’d definitely asked the wrong question. “My father was as bad as Lucien’s.
Worse. My two older brothers were just like him. They kept slaves
—all of them. And my brothers … I was young when the Treaty was forged, but I still remember what my brothers used to …” He trailed off. “It left a mark—enough of a mark that when I saw you, your house, I couldn’t—wouldn’t let myself be like them. Wouldn’t bring harm to your family, or you, or subject you to faerie whims.”
Slaves—there had been slaves here. I didn’t want to know—
had never looked for traces of them, even five hundred years later. I was still little better than chattel to most of his people, his world. That was why—why he’d offered the loophole, why he’d offered me the freedom to live wherever I wished in Prythian.
“Thank you,” I said. He shrugged, as if that would dismiss his kindness, the weight of the guilt that still bore down on him. “What about your mother?”
Tamlin loosed a breath. “My mother—she loved my father deeply. Too deeply, but they were mated, and … Even if she saw what a tyrant he was, she wouldn’t say an ill word against him. I never expected—never wanted—my father’s title. My brothers would have never let me live to adolescence if they had suspected that I did. So the moment I was old enough, I joined my father’s war-band and trained so that I might someday serve my father, or whichever of my brothers inherited his title.” He flexed his hands, as if imagining the claws beneath. “I’d realized from an early age that fighting and killing were about the only things I was good at.”
“I doubt that,” I said.
He gave me a wry smile. “Oh, I can play a mean fiddle, but High Lords’ sons don’t become traveling minstrels. So I trained and fought for my father against whomever he told me to fight, and I would have been happy to leave the scheming to my brothers. But my power kept growing, and I couldn’t hide it—not among our kind.” He shook his head. “Fortunately or unfortunately, they were all killed by the High Lord of an enemy court. I was spared for whatever reason or Cauldron-granted luck.
My mother, I mourned. The others …” A too-tight shrug. “My brothers would not have tried to save me from a fate like yours.”
I looked up at him. Such a brutal, harsh world—with families killing each other for power, for revenge, for spite and control.
Perhaps his generosity, his kindness, was a reaction to that—
perhaps he’d seen me and found it to be like gazing into a mirror
of sorts. “I’m sorry about your mother,” I said, and it was all I could offer—all he’d once been able to offer me. He gave me a small smile. “So that’s how you became High Lord.”
“Most High Lords are trained from birth in manners and laws and court warfare. When the title fell to me, it was a … rough transition. Many of my father’s courtiers defected to other courts rather than have a warrior-beast snarling at them.”
A half-wild beast, Nesta had once called me. It was an effort to not take his hand, to not reach out to him and tell him that I understood. But I just said, “Then they’re idiots. You’ve kept these lands protected from the blight, when it seems that others haven’t fared so well. They’re idiots,” I said again.
But darkness flickered in Tamlin’s eyes, and his shoulders seemed to curve inward ever so slightly. Before I could ask about it, we cleared the little wood, a spread of hills and knolls laid out ahead. In the distance, there were masked faeries atop many of them, building what seemed to be unlit fires. “What are those?” I asked, halting.
“They’re setting up bonfires—for Calanmai. It’s in two days.”
“For what?”
“Fire Night?”
I shook my head. “We don’t celebrate holidays in the human realm. Not after you—your people left. In some places, it’s forbidden. We don’t even remember the names of your gods.
What does Cala—Fire Night celebrate?”
He rubbed his neck. “It’s just a spring ceremony. We light bonfires, and … the magic that we create helps regenerate the land for the year ahead.”
“How do you create the magic?”
“There’s a ritual. But it’s … very faerie.” He clenched his jaw and continued walking, away from the unlit fires. “You might see more faeries around than usual—faeries from this court, and from other territories, who are free to wander across the borders that night.”
“I thought the blight had scared many of them away.”
“It has—but there will be a number of them. Just … stay away from them all. You’ll be safe in the house, but if you run into one before we light the fires at sundown in two days, ignore them.”
“And I’m not invited to your ceremony?”
“No. You’re not.” He clenched and loosened his fingers, again and again, as if trying to keep the claws contained.
Though I tried to ignore it, my chest caved a bit.
We walked back in the sort of tense silence we hadn’t endured in weeks.
Tamlin went rigid the moment we entered the gardens. Not from me or our awkward conversation—it was quiet with that horrible stillness that usually meant one of the nastier faeries was around. Tamlin bared his teeth in a low snarl. “Stay hidden, and no matter what you overhear, don’t come out.”
Then he was gone.
Alone, I looked to either side of the gravel path, like some gawking idiot. If there was indeed something here, I’d be caught in the open. Perhaps it was shameful not to go to his aid, but—he was a High Lord. I would just get in the way.
I had just ducked behind a hedge when I heard Tamlin and Lucien approaching. I silently swore and froze. Maybe I could sneak across the fields to the stables. If there was something amiss, the stables not only had shelter but also a horse for me to flee on. I was about to make for the high grasses mere steps beyond the edge of the gardens when Tamlin’s snarl rippled through the air on the other side of the hedge.
I turned—just enough to spy them through the dense leaves.
Stay hidden, he’d said. If I moved now, I would surely be noticed.
“I know what day it is,” Tamlin said—but not to Lucien. Rather, the two of them faced … nothing. Someone who wasn’t there.
Someone invisible. I would have thought they were playing a prank on me had I not heard a low, disembodied voice reply.
“Your continued behavior is garnering a lot of interest at court,”
the voice said, deep and sibilant. I shivered, despite the warmth of the day. “She has begun wondering—wondering why you haven’t given up yet. And why four naga wound up dead not too long ago.”
“Tamlin’s not like the other fools,” Lucien snapped, his shoulders pushed back to raise himself to his full height, more warrior-like than I’d yet seen him. No wonder he had all those weapons in his room. “If she expected bowed heads, then she’s more of an idiot than I thought.”
The voice hissed, and my blood went cold at the noise. “Speak you so ill of she who holds your fate in her hands? With one word, she could destroy this pathetic estate. She wasn’t pleased when she heard of you dispatching your warriors.” The voice now seemed turned toward Tamlin. “But, as nothing has come of it, she has chosen to ignore it.”
There was a deep-throated growl from the High Lord, but his words were calm as he said, “Tell her I’m getting sick of cleaning up the trash she dumps on my borders.”
The voice chuckled, the sound like sand shifting. “She sets them loose as gifts—and reminders of what will happen if she catches you trying to break the terms of—”
“He’s not,” Lucien snarled. “Now, get out. We have enough of your ilk swarming on the borders—we don’t need you defiling our home, too. For that matter, stay the hell out of the cave. It’s not some common road for filth like you to travel through as they please.”
Tamlin loosed a growl of agreement.
The invisible thing laughed again, such a horrible, vicious sound. “Though you have a heart of stone, Tamlin,” it said, and Tamlin went rigid, “you certainly keep a host of fear inside it.” The voice sank into a croon. “Don’t worry, High Lord.” It spat the title like a joke. “All will be right as rain soon enough.”
“Burn in Hell,” Lucien replied for Tamlin, and the thing laughed again before a flap of leathery wings boomed, a foul wind bit my face, and everything went silent.
They breathed deeply after another moment. I closed my eyes, needing a steadying breath as well, but massive hands clamped onto my shoulders, and I yelped.
“It’s gone,” Tamlin said, releasing me. It was all I could do not to sag against the hedges.
“What did you hear?” Lucien demanded, coming around the corner and crossing his arms. I shifted my gaze to Tamlin’s face, but found it to be so white with anger—anger at that thing—that I had to look again at Lucien.
“Nothing—I … well, nothing I understood,” I said, and meant it.
None of it made any sense. I couldn’t stop shaking. Something about that voice had ripped away the warmth from me. “Who—
what was that?”
Tamlin began pacing, the gravel churning beneath his boots.
“There are certain faeries in Prythian who inspired the legends that you humans are so afraid of. Some, like that one, are myth given flesh.”
Inside that hissing voice I’d heard the screaming of human victims, the pleading of young maidens whose chests had been split open on sacrificial altars. Mentions of “court,” seemingly different from Tamlin’s own—was that she the one who had killed Tamlin’s parents? A High Lady, perhaps, in lieu of a Lord.
Considering how ruthless the High Fae were to their families, they had to be nightmarish to their enemies. And if there was to be warring between the courts, if the blight had left Tamlin already weakened …
“If the Attor saw her—” Lucien said, glancing around.
“It didn’t,” Tamlin said.
“Are you certain it—”
“It didn’t,” Tamlin growled over his shoulder, then looked at me, his face still pale with fury, lips tight. “I’ll see you at dinner.”
Understanding a dismissal, and craving the locked door of my bedroom, I trudged back to the house, contemplating who this she was to make Tamlin and Lucien so nervous and to command that thing as her messenger.
The spring breeze whispered that I didn’t want to know.
After a tense dinner during which Tamlin hardly spoke to Lucien or me, I lit all the candles in my room to chase away the shadows.
I didn’t go outside the following day, and when I sat down to paint, what emerged on my canvas was a tall, skeletally thin gray creature with bat ears and giant, membranous wings. Its snout was open in a roar, revealing row after row of fangs as it leaped into flight. As I painted it, I could have sworn that I could smell breath that reeked of carrion, that the air beneath its wings whispered promises of death.
The finished product was chilling enough that I had to set aside the painting in the back of the room and go try to persuade Alis to let me help with the Fire Night food preparations in the kitchen. Anything to avoid going into the garden, where the Attor might appear.
The day of Fire Night— Calanmai, Tamlin had called it—
dawned, and I didn’t see Tamlin or Lucien all day. As the afternoon shifted into dusk, I found myself again at the main crossroads of the house. None of the bird-faced servants were to be found. The kitchen was empty of staff and the food they’d been preparing for two days. The sound of drums issued.
The drumbeats came from far away—beyond the garden, past the game park, into the forest that lay beyond. They were deep, probing. A single beat, echoed by two responding calls.
Summoning.
I stood by the doors to the garden, staring out over the property as the sky became awash in hues of orange and red. In the distance, upon the sloping hills that led into the woods, a few fires flickered, plumes of dark smoke marring the ruby sky—the unlit bonfires I’d spotted two days ago. Not invited, I reminded myself. Not invited to whatever party had all the kitchen faeries tittering and laughing among one another.
The drums turned faster—louder. Though I’d grown accustomed to the smell of magic, my nose pricked with the rising tang of metal, stronger than I’d yet sensed it. I took a step forward, then halted on the threshold. I should go back in. Behind me, the setting sun stained the black-and-white tiles of the hall floor a shimmering shade of tangerine, and my long shadow seemed to pulse to the beat of the drums.
Even the garden, usually buzzing with the orchestra of its denizens, had quieted to hear the drums. There was a string—a string tied to my gut that pulled me toward those hills, commanding me to go, to hear the faerie drums …
I might have done just that had Tamlin not appeared from down the hall.
He was shirtless, with only the baldric across his muscled chest. The pommel of his sword glinted golden in the dying sunlight, and the feathered tops of arrows were stained red as they poked above his broad shoulder. I stared at him, and he watched me back. The warrior incarnate.
“Where are you going?” I managed to get out.
“It’s Calanmai,” he said flatly. “I have to go.” He jerked his chin to the fires and drums.
“To do what?” I asked, glancing at the bow in his hand. My heart echoed the drums outside, building into a wilder beat.
His green eyes were shadowed beneath the gilded mask. “As a High Lord, I have to partake in the Great Rite.”
“What’s the Great—”
“Go to your chamber,” he snarled, and glanced toward the fires. “Lock your doors, set up a snare, whatever you do.”
“Why?” I demanded. The Attor’s voice snaked through my memory. Tamlin had said something about a very faerie ritual—
what the hell was it? From the weapons, it had to be brutal and violent—especially if Tamlin’s beast form wasn’t weapon enough.
“Just do it.” His canines began to lengthen. My heart leaped into a gallop. “Don’t come out until morning.”
Stronger, faster, the drums beat, and the muscles in Tamlin’s neck quivered, as if standing still were somehow painful to him.
“Are you going into battle?” I whispered, and he let out a breathy laugh.
He lifted a hand as if to touch my arm. But he lowered it before his fingers could graze the fabric of my tunic. “Stay in your chamber, Feyre.”
“But I—”
“Please.” Before I could ask him to reconsider bringing me along, he took off running. The muscles in his back shifted as he leaped down the short flight of stairs and bounded into the garden, as spry and swift as a stag. Within seconds he was gone.
I did as he commanded, though I soon realized that I’d locked myself in my room without having eaten dinner. And with the incessant drumming and dozens of bonfires that popped up along the far hills, I couldn’t stop pacing up and down my room, gazing out toward the fires burning in the distance.
Stay in your chamber.
But a wild, wicked voice weaving in between the drumbeats whispered otherwise. Go, that voice said, tugging at me. Go see.
By ten o’clock, I could no longer stand it. I followed the drums.
The stables were empty, but Tamlin had taught me how to ride bareback these past few weeks, and my white mare was soon trotting along. I didn’t need to guide her—she, too, followed the lure of the drums, and ascended the first of the foothills.
Smoke and magic hung thick in the air. Concealed in my hooded cloak, I gaped as I approached the first giant bonfire atop the hill. There were hundreds of High Fae milling about, but I couldn’t discern any of their features beyond the various masks they wore. Where had they come from—where did they live, if they belonged to the Spring Court but did not dwell in the manor?
When I tried to focus on a specific feature of their faces, it became a blur of color. They were more solid when I viewed them from the side of my vision, but if I turned to face them, I was met with shadows and swirling colors.
It was magic—some kind of glamour put on me, meant to prevent my viewing them properly, just as my family had been glamoured. I would have been furious, would have considered going back to the manor had the drums not echoed through my bones and that wild voice not beckoned to me.
I dismounted my mare but kept close to her as I made my way through the crowd, my telltale human features hidden in the shadows of my hood. I prayed that the smoke and countless scents of various High Fae and faeries were enough to cover my human smell, but I checked to ensure that my two knives were still at my sides anyway as I moved deeper into the celebration.
Though a cluster of drummers played on one side of the fire, the faeries flocked to a trench between two nearby hills. I left my horse tied to a solitary sycamore crowning a knoll and followed them, savoring the pulsing beat of the drums as it resonated through the earth and into the soles of my feet. No one looked twice in my direction.
I almost slid down the steep bank as I entered the hollow. At one end, a cave mouth opened into a soft hillside. Its exterior had been adorned with flowers and branches and leaves, and I could make out the beginnings of a pelt-covered floor just past the cave mouth. What lay inside was hidden from view as the chamber veered away from the entrance, but firelight danced upon the walls.
Whatever was occurring inside the cave—or whatever was about to happen—was the focus of the shadowy faeries as they lined either side of a long path leading to it. The path wended between the trenches among the hills, and the High Fae swayed in place, moving to the rhythm of the drumming, whose beats sounded in my stomach.
I watched them sway, then shifted on my feet. I’d been banned from this? I scanned the firelit area, trying to peer through the veil of night and smoke. I found nothing of interest, and none of the masked faeries paid me any heed. They remained along the path, more and more of them coming each minute. Something was definitely going to happen—whatever this Great Rite was.
I made my way back up the hillside and stood along the edge of a bonfire near the trees, watching the faeries. I was about to work up the courage to ask a lesser faerie who passed by—a bird-masked servant, like Alis—what sort of ritual was going to happen when someone grasped my arm and whirled me around.
I blinked at the three strangers, dumbfounded as I beheld their sharp-featured faces—free of masks. They looked like High Fae, but there was something slightly different about them, something
taller and leaner than Tamlin or Lucien—something crueler in their pitch-black, depthless eyes. Faeries, then.
The one grasping my arm smiled down at me, revealing slightly pointed teeth. “Human woman,” he murmured, running an eye over me. “We’ve not seen one of you for a while.”
I tried yanking my arm back, but he held my elbow firm. “What do you want?” I demanded, keeping my voice steady and cold.
The two faeries who flanked him smiled at me, and one grabbed my other arm—just as I went for my knife. “Just some Fire Night fun,” one of them said, reaching out a pale, too-long hand to brush back a lock of my hair. I twisted my head away and tried to step out of his touch, but he held firm. None of the faeries near the bonfire reacted—no one bothered to look.
If I cried for help, would someone answer? Would Tamlin answer? I couldn’t be that lucky again; I’d probably used up my allotted portion of luck with the naga.
I yanked my arms in earnest. Their grip tightened until it hurt, and they kept my hands well away from my knives. The three of them stepped closer, sealing me off from the others. I glanced around, looking for any ally. There were more nonmasked faeries here now. The three faeries chuckled, a low hissing noise that ran along my body. I hadn’t realized how far I stood from everyone else—how close I’d come to the forest’s edge. “Leave me alone,” I said, louder and angrier than I’d expected, given the shaking that was starting in my knees.
“Bold statement from a human on Calanmai,” said the one holding my left arm. The fires didn’t reflect in his eyes. It was as if they gobbled up the light. I thought of the naga, whose horrible exteriors matched their rotten hearts. Somehow, these beautiful, ethereal faeries were far worse. “Once the Rite’s performed, we’ll have some fun, won’t we? A treat—such a treat—to find a human woman here.”
I bared my teeth at him. “Get your hands off me,” I said, loud enough for anyone to hear.
One of them ran a hand down my side, its bony fingers digging into my ribs, my hips. I jerked back, only to slam into the third one, who wove his long fingers through my hair and pressed close. No one looked; no one noticed.
“Stop it,” I said, but the words came out in a strangled gasp as they began herding me toward the line of trees, toward the darkness. I pushed and thrashed against them; they only hissed.
One of them shoved me and I staggered, falling out of their grasp.
The ground welled up beneath me, and I reached for my knives, but sturdy hands grasped me under the shoulders before I could draw them or hit the grass.
They were strong hands—warm and broad. Not at all like the prodding, bony fingers of the three faeries who went utterly still as whoever caught me gently set me upright.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you,” said a deep, sensual male voice I’d never heard. But I kept my eyes on the three faeries, bracing myself for flight as the male behind me stepped to my side and slipped a casual arm around my shoulders.
The three lesser faeries paled, their dark eyes wide.
“Thank you for finding her for me,” my savior said to them, smooth and polished. “Enjoy the Rite.” There was enough of a bite beneath his last words that the faeries stiffened. Without further comment, they scuttled back to the bonfires.
I stepped out of the shelter of my savior’s arm and turned to thank him.
Standing before me was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.
Everything about the stranger radiated sensual grace and ease.
High Fae, no doubt. His short black hair gleamed like a raven’s feathers, offsetting his pale skin and blue eyes so deep they were violet, even in the firelight. They twinkled with amusement as he beheld me.
For a moment, we said nothing. Thank you didn’t seem to cover what he’d done for me, but something about the way he stood with absolute stillness, the night seeming to press in closer around him, made me hesitate to speak—made me want to run in the other direction.
He, too, wasn’t wearing a mask. From another court, then.
A half smile played on his lips. “What’s a mortal woman doing here on Fire Night?” His voice was a lover’s purr that sent shivers through me, caressing every muscle and bone and nerve.
I took a step back. “My friends brought me.”
The drumming was increasing in tempo, building to a climax I didn’t understand. It had been so long since I’d seen a bare face that looked even vaguely human. His clothes—all black, all finely made—were cut close enough to his body that I could see how magnificent he was. As if he’d been molded from the night itself.
“And who are your friends?” He was still smiling at me—a predator sizing up prey.
“Two ladies,” I lied again.
“Their names?” He prowled closer, slipping his hands into his pockets. I retreated a little more and kept my mouth shut. Had I just traded three monsters for something far worse?
When it became apparent I wouldn’t answer, he chuckled.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “For saving you.”
I bristled at his arrogance but retreated another step. I was close enough to the bonfire, to that little hollow where the faeries were all gathered, that I could make it if I sprinted. Maybe
someone would take pity on me—maybe Lucien or Alis were there.
“Strange for a mortal to be friends with two faeries,” he mused, and began circling me. I could have sworn tendrils of star-kissed night trailed in his wake. “Aren’t humans usually terrified of us?
And aren’t you, for that matter, supposed to keep to your side of the wall?”
I was terrified of him, but I wasn’t about to let him know. “I’ve known them my whole life. I’ve never had anything to fear from them.”
He paused his circling. He now stood between me and the bonfire—and my escape route. “And yet they brought you to the Great Rite and abandoned you.”
“They went to get refreshments,” I said, and his smile grew.
Whatever I’d just said had given me away. I’d spotted the servants hauling off the food, but—maybe it wasn’t here.
He smiled for a heartbeat longer. I had never seen anyone so handsome—and never had so many warning bells pealed in my head because of it.
“I’m afraid the refreshments are a long way off,” he said, coming closer now. “It might be a while before they return. May I escort you somewhere in the meantime?” He removed a hand from his pocket to offer his arm.
He’d been able to scare off those faeries without lifting a finger.
“No,” I said, my tongue thick and heavy.
He waved his hand toward the hollow—toward the drums.
“Enjoy the Rite, then. Try to stay out of trouble.” His eyes gleamed in a way that suggested staying out of trouble meant staying far, far away from him.
Though it might have been the biggest risk I’d ever taken, I blurted, “So you’re not a part of the Spring Court?”
He returned to me, every movement exquisite and laced with lethal power, but I held my ground as he gave me a lazy smile.
“Do I look like I’m part of the Spring Court?” The words were tinged with an arrogance that only an immortal could achieve. He laughed under his breath. “No, I’m not a part of the noble Spring Court. And glad of it.” He gestured to his face, where a mask might go.
I should have walked away, should have shut my mouth. “Why are you here, then?”
The man’s remarkable eyes seemed to glow—with enough of a deadly edge that I backed up a step. “Because all the monsters have been let out of their cages tonight, no matter what court they belong to. So I may roam wherever I wish until the dawn.”
More riddles and questions to be answered. But I’d had enough—especially as his smile turned cold and cruel. “Enjoy the Rite,” I repeated as blandly as I could.
I hurried back to the hollow, too aware of the fact that I was putting my back to him. I was grateful to lose myself in the crowd milling along the path to the cave, still waiting for some moment to occur.
When I stopped shaking, I looked around at the gathered faeries. Most of them still wore masks, but there were some, like that lethal stranger and those three horrible faeries, who wore no masks at all—either faeries with no allegiance or members of other courts. I couldn’t tell them apart. As I scanned the crowd, my eyes met with those of a masked faerie across the path. One was russet and shone as brightly as his red hair. The other was—
metal. I blinked at the same moment he did, and then his eyes went wide. He vanished into nothing, and a second later, someone grabbed my elbow and yanked me out of the crowd.
“Have you lost your senses?” Lucien shouted above the drums. His face was ghostly pale. “What are you doing here?”
None of the faeries noticed us—they were all staring intensely down the path, away from the cave. “I wanted to—” I started, but Lucien cursed violently.
“Idiot!” he yelled at me, then glanced behind him toward where the other faeries stared. “Useless human fool.” Without further word, he slung me over his shoulder as if I were a sack of potatoes.
Despite my wriggling and shouts of protest, despite my demands that he get my horse, he held firm, and when I looked up, I found that he was running—fast. Faster than anything should be able to move. It made me so nauseated that I shut my eyes.
He didn’t stop until the air was cooler and calmer, and the drumming was distant.
Lucien dropped me on the floor of the manor hallway, and when I steadied myself, I found his face just as pale as before.
“You stupid mortal,” he snapped. “Didn’t he tell you to stay in your room?” Lucien looked over his shoulder, toward the hills, where the drumming became so loud and fast that it was like a rainstorm.
“That was hardly anything—”
“That wasn’t even the ceremony!” It was only then that I saw the sweat on his face and the panicked gleam in his eyes. “By the Cauldron, if Tam found you there …”
“So what?” I said, shouting as well. I hated feeling like a disobedient child.
“It’s the Great Rite, Cauldron boil me! Didn’t anyone tell you what it is?” My silence was answer enough. I could almost see the drumbeats pulsing against his skin, beckoning him to rejoin the crowd. “Fire Night signals the official start of spring—in Prythian, as well as in the mortal world,” Lucien said. While his words were calm, they trembled slightly. I leaned against the wall of the hallway, forcing myself into a casualness I didn’t feel. “Here, our crops depend upon the magic we regenerate on Calanmai—
tonight.”
I stuffed my hands into the pockets of my pants. Tamlin had said something similar two days ago. Lucien shuddered, as if shaking off an invisible touch. “We do this by conducting the Great Rite. Each of the seven High Lords of Prythian performs this every year, since their magic comes from the earth and returns to it at the end—it’s a give-and-take.”
“But what is it?” I asked, and he clicked his tongue.
“Tonight, Tam will allow … great and terrible magic to enter his body,” Lucien said, staring at the distant fires. “The magic will seize control of his mind, his body, his soul, and turn him into the Hunter. It will fill him with his sole purpose: to find the Maiden.
From their coupling, magic will be released and spread to the earth, where it will regenerate life for the year to come.”
My face became hot, and I fought the urge to fidget.
“Tonight, Tam won’t be the faerie you know,” Lucien said. “He won’t even know his name. The magic will consume everything in him but that one basic command—and need.”
“Who … who’s the Maiden?” I got out.
Lucien snorted. “No one knows until it’s time. After Tam hunts down the white stag and kills it for the sacrificial offering, he’ll make his way to that sacred cave, where he’ll find the path lined with faerie females waiting to be chosen as his mate for tonight.”
“What?”
Lucien laughed. “Yes—all those female faeries around you were females for Tamlin to pick. It’s an honor to be chosen, but it’s his instincts that select her.”
“But you were there—and other male faeries.” My face burned so hot that I began sweating. That was why those three horrible faeries had been there—and they’d thought that just by my presence, I was happy to comply with their plans.
“Ah.” Lucien chuckled. “Well, Tam’s not the only one who gets to perform the rite tonight. Once he makes his choice, we’re free to mingle. Though it’s not the Great Rite, our own dalliances tonight will help the land, too.” He shrugged off that invisible hand a second time, and his eyes fell upon the hills. “You’re lucky I found you when I did, though,” he said. “Because he would have smelled you, and claimed you, but it wouldn’t have been Tamlin who brought you into that cave.” His eyes met mine, and a chill went over me. “And I don’t think you would have liked it. Tonight is not for lovemaking.”
I swallowed my nausea.
“I should go,” Lucien said, gazing at the hills. “I need to return before he arrives at the cave—at least to try to control him when he smells you and can’t find you in the crowd.”
It made me sick—the thought of Tamlin forcing me, that magic could strip away any sense of self, of right or wrong. But hearing that … that some feral part of him wanted me … My breath was painful.
“Stay in your room tonight, Feyre,” Lucien said, walking to the garden doors. “No matter who comes knocking, keep the door locked. Don’t come out until morning.”
At some point, I dozed off while sitting at my vanity. I awoke the moment the drums stopped. A shuddering silence went through
the house, and the hair on my arms arose as magic swept past me, rippling outward.
Though I tried not to, I thought about the probable source and blushed, even as my chest tightened. I glanced at the clock. It was past two in the morning.
Well, he’d certainly taken his time with the ritual, which meant the girl was probably beautiful and charming, and appealed to his instincts.
I wondered whether she was glad to be chosen. Probably.
She’d come to the hill of her own free will. And after all, Tamlin was a High Lord, and it was a great honor. And I supposed Tamlin was handsome. Terribly handsome. Even though I couldn’t see the upper part of his face, his eyes were fine, and his mouth beautifully curved and full. And then there was his body, which was … was … I hissed and stood.
I stared at my door, at the snare I’d rigged. How utterly absurd
—as if bits of rope and wood could protect me from the demons in this land.
Needing to do something with my hands, I carefully disassembled the snare. Then I unlocked the door and strode into the hallway. What a ridiculous holiday. Absurd. It was good that humans had cast them aside.
I made it to the empty kitchen, gobbled down half a loaf of bread, an apple, and a lemon tart. I nibbled on a chocolate cookie as I walked to my little painting room. I needed to get some of the furious images out of my mind, even if I had to paint by candlelight.
I was about to turn down the hallway when a tall male figure appeared before me. The moonlight from the open window turned his mask silver, and his golden hair—unbound and crowned with laurel leaves—gleamed.
“Going somewhere?” Tamlin asked. His voice was not entirely of this world.
I suppressed a shudder. “Midnight snack,” I said, and I was keenly aware of every movement, every breath I took as I neared him.
His bare chest was painted with whorls of dark blue woad, and from the smudges in the paint, I knew exactly where he’d been
touched. I tried not to notice that they descended past his muscled midriff.
I was about to pass him when he grabbed me, so fast that I didn’t see anything until he had me pinned against the wall. The cookie dropped from my hand as he grasped my wrists. “I smelled you,” he breathed, his painted chest rising and falling so close to mine. “I searched for you, and you weren’t there.”
He reeked of magic. When I looked into his eyes, remnants of power flickered there. No kindness, none of the wry humor and gentle reprimands. The Tamlin I knew was gone.
“Let go,” I said as evenly as I could, but his claws punched out, imbedding in the wood above my hands. Still riding the magic, he was half-wild.
“You drove me mad,” he growled, and the sound trembled down my neck, along my breasts until they ached. “I searched for you, and you weren’t there. When I didn’t find you,” he said, bringing his face closer to mine, until we shared breath, “it made me pick another.”
I couldn’t escape. I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to.
“She asked me not to be gentle with her, either,” he snarled, his teeth bright in the moonlight. He brought his lips to my ear. “I would have been gentle with you, though.” I shuddered as I closed my eyes. Every inch of my body went taut as his words echoed through me. “I would have had you moaning my name throughout it all. And I would have taken a very, very long time, Feyre.” He said my name like a caress, and his hot breath tickled my ear. My back arched slightly.
He ripped his claws free from the wall, and my knees buckled as he let go. I grasped the wall to keep from sinking to the floor, to keep from grabbing him—to strike or caress, I didn’t know. I opened my eyes. He still smiled—smiled like an animal.
“Why should I want someone’s leftovers?” I said, making to push him away. He grabbed my hands again and bit my neck.
I cried out as his teeth clamped onto the tender spot where my neck met my shoulder. I couldn’t move—couldn’t think, and my world narrowed to the feeling of his lips and teeth against my skin.
He didn’t pierce my flesh, but rather bit to keep me pinned. The push of his body against mine, the hard and the soft, made me see red—see lightning, made me grind my hips against his. I
should hate him—hate him for his stupid ritual, for the female he’d been with tonight …
His bite lightened, and his tongue caressed the places his teeth had been. He didn’t move—he just remained in that spot, kissing my neck. Intently, territorially, lazily. Heat pounded between my legs, and as he ground his body against me, against every aching spot, a moan slipped past my lips.
He jerked away. The air was bitingly cold against my freed skin, and I panted as he stared at me. “Don’t ever disobey me again,” he said, his voice a deep purr that ricocheted through me, awakening everything and lulling it into complicity.
Then I reconsidered his words and straightened. He grinned at me in that wild way, and my hand connected with his face.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I breathed, my palm stinging. “And don’t bite me like some enraged beast.”
He chuckled bitterly. The moonlight turned his eyes to the color of leaves in shadow. More—I wanted the hardness of his body crushing against mine; I wanted his mouth and teeth and tongue on my bare skin, on my breasts, between my legs. Everywhere—I wanted him everywhere. I was drowning in that need.
His nostrils flared as he scented me—scented every burning, raging thought that was pounding through my body, my senses.
The breath rushed from him in a mighty whoosh.
He growled once, low and frustrated and vicious, before prowling away.
I awoke when the sun was high, after tossing and turning all night, empty and aching.
The servants were sleeping in after their night of celebrating, so I made myself a bath and took a good, long soak. Try as I might to forget the feel of Tamlin’s lips on my neck, I had an enormous bruise where he’d bitten me. After bathing, I dressed and sat at the vanity to braid my hair.
I opened the drawers of the vanity, searching for a scarf or something to cover the bruise peeking over the collar of my blue tunic, but then paused and glared at myself in the mirror. He’d acted like a brute and a savage, and if he’d come to his senses by this morning, then seeing what he’d done would be minimal punishment.
Sniffing, I opened the collar of my tunic farther and tucked stray strands of my golden-brown hair behind my ears so there would be no concealing it. I was beyond cowering.
Humming to myself and swinging my hands, I strode downstairs and followed my nose to the dining room, where I knew lunch was usually served for Tamlin and Lucien. When I flung open the doors, I found them both sprawled in their chairs. I could have sworn that Lucien was sleeping upright, fork in hand.
“Good afternoon,” I said cheerfully, with an especially saccharine smile for the High Lord. He blinked at me, and both of the faerie men murmured their greetings as I took a seat across from Lucien, not my usual place facing Tamlin.
I drank deeply from my goblet of water before piling food on my plate. I savored the tense silence as I consumed the meal before me.
“You look … refreshed,” Lucien observed with a glance at Tamlin. I shrugged. “Sleep well?”
“Like a babe.” I smiled at him and took another bite of food, and felt Lucien’s eyes travel inexorably to my neck.
“What is that bruise?” Lucien demanded.
I pointed with my fork to Tamlin. “Ask him. He did it.”
Lucien looked from Tamlin to me and then back again. “Why does Feyre have a bruise on her neck from you?” he asked with no small amount of amusement.
“I bit her,” Tamlin said, not pausing as he cut his steak. “We ran into each other in the hall after the Rite.”
I straightened in my chair.
“She seems to have a death wish,” he went on, cutting his meat. The claws stayed retracted but pushed against the skin above his knuckles. My throat closed up. Oh, he was mad—
furious at my foolishness for leaving my room—but somehow managed to keep his anger on a tight, tight leash. “So, if Feyre can’t be bothered to listen to orders, then I can’t be held accountable for the consequences.”
“Accountable?” I sputtered, placing my hands flat on the table.
“You cornered me in the hall like a wolf with a rabbit!”
Lucien propped an arm on the table and covered his mouth with his hand, his russet eye bright.
“While I might not have been myself, Lucien and I both told you to stay in your room,” Tamlin said, so calmly that I wanted to rip out my hair.
I couldn’t help it. Didn’t even try to fight the red-hot temper that razed my senses. “Faerie pig!” I yelled, and Lucien howled, almost tipping back in his chair. At the sight of Tamlin’s growing smile, I left.
It took me a couple of hours to stop painting little portraits of Tamlin and Lucien with pigs’ features. But as I finished the last one— Two faerie pigs wallowing in their own filth, I would call it—I smiled into the clear, bright light of my private painting room. The Tamlin I knew had returned.
And it made me … happy.
We apologized at dinner. He even brought me a bouquet of white roses from his parents’ garden, and while I dismissed them as
nothing, I made certain that Alis took good care of them when I returned to my room. She gave me only a wry nod before promising to set them in my painting room. I fell asleep with a smile still on my lips.
For the first time in a long, long while, I slept peacefully.
“Don’t know if I should be pleased or worried,” Alis said the next night as she slid the golden underdress over my upraised arms, then tugged it down.
I smiled a bit, marveling at the intricate metallic lace that clung to my arms and torso like a second skin before falling loosely to the rug. “It’s just a dress,” I said, lifting my arms again as she brought over the gossamer turquoise overgown. It was sheer enough to see the gleaming gold mesh beneath, and light and airy and full of movement, as if it flowed on an invisible current.
Alis just chuckled to herself and guided me over to the vanity to work on my hair. I didn’t have the courage to look at the mirror as she fussed over me.
“Does this mean you’ll be wearing gowns from now on?” she asked, separating sections of my hair for whatever wonders she was doing to it.
“No,” I said quickly. “I mean—I’ll be wearing my usual clothes during the day, but I thought it might be nice to … try it out, at least for tonight.”
“I see. Good that you aren’t losing your common sense entirely, then.”
I twisted my mouth to the side. “Who taught you how to do hair like this?”
Her fingers stilled, then continued their work. “My mother taught me and my sister, and her mother taught her before that.”
“Have you always been at the Spring Court?”
“No,” she said, pinning my hair in various, subtle places. “No, we were originally from the Summer Court—that’s where my kin still dwells.”
“How’d you wind up here?”
Alis met my eyes in the mirror, her lips a tight line. “I made a choice to come here—and my kin thought me mad. But my sister
and her mate had been killed, and for her boys …” She coughed, as if choking on the words. “I came here to do what I could.” She patted my shoulder. “Have a look.”
I dared a glimpse at my reflection.
I hurried from the room before I could lose my nerve.
I had to keep my hands clenched at my sides to avoid wiping my sweaty palms on the skirts of my gown as I reached the dining room, and immediately contemplated bolting upstairs and changing into a tunic and pants. But I knew they’d already heard me, or smelled me, or used whatever heightened senses they had to detect my presence, and since fleeing would only make it worse, I found it in myself to push open the double doors.
Whatever discussion Tamlin and Lucien had been having stopped, and I tried not to look at their wide eyes as I strode to my usual place at the end of the table.
“Well, I’m late for something incredibly important,” Lucien said, and before I could call him on his outright lie or beg him to stay, the fox-masked faerie vanished.
I could feel the full weight of Tamlin’s undivided attention on me—on every breath and movement I took. I studied the candelabras atop the mantel beside the table. I had nothing to say that didn’t sound absurd—yet for some reason, my mouth decided to start moving.
“You’re so far away.” I gestured to the expanse of table between us. “It’s like you’re in another room.”
The quarters of the table vanished, leaving Tamlin not two feet away, sitting at an infinitely more intimate table. I yelped and almost tipped over in my chair. He laughed as I gaped at the small table that now stood between us. “Better?” he asked.
I ignored the metallic tang of magic as I said, “How … how did you do that? Where did it go?”
He cocked his head. “Between. Think of it as … a broom closet tucked between pockets of the world.” He flexed his hands and rolled his neck, as if shaking off some pain.
“Does it tax you?” Sweat seemed to gleam on the strong column of his neck.
He stopped flexing his hands and set them flat on the table.
“Once, it was as easy as breathing. But now … it requires concentration.”
Because of the blight on Prythian and the toll it had taken on him. “You could have just taken a closer seat,” I said.
Tamlin gave me a lazy grin. “And miss a chance to show off to a beautiful woman? Never.” I smiled down at my plate.
“You do look beautiful,” he said quietly. “I mean it,” he added when my mouth twisted to the side. “Didn’t you look in the mirror?”
Though his bruise still marred my neck, I had looked pretty.
Feminine. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a beauty, but … I hadn’t cringed. A few months here had done wonders for the awkward sharpness and angles of my face. And I dared say that some kind of light had crept into my eyes— my eyes, not my mother’s eyes or Nesta’s eyes. Mine.
“Thank you,” I said, and was grateful to avoid saying anything else as he served me and then himself. When my stomach was full to bursting, I dared to look at him—really look at him—again.
Tamlin leaned back in his chair, yet his shoulders were tight, his mouth a thin line. He hadn’t been called to the border in a few days—hadn’t come back weary and covered in blood since before Fire Night. And yet … He’d grieved for that nameless Summer Court faerie with the hacked-off wings. What grief and burdens did he bear for whoever else had been lost in this conflict—lost to the blight, or to the attacks on the borders? High Lord—a position he hadn’t wanted or expected, yet he’d been forced to bear its weight as best he could.
“Come,” I said, rising from my chair and tugging on his hand.
The calluses scraped against mine, but his fingers tightened as he looked up at me. “I have something for you.”
“For me,” he repeated carefully, but rose. I led him out of the dining room. When I went to drop his hand, he didn’t let go. It was enough to keep me walking quickly, as if I could outrun my thundering heart or the sheer immortal presence of him at my side. I brought him down hall after hall until we got to my little painting room, and he finally released my hand as I reached for the key. Cold air bit into my skin without the warmth of his hand around mine.
“I knew you’d asked Alis for a key, but I didn’t think you actually locked the room,” he said behind me.
I gave him a narrowed glance over my shoulder as I pushed open the door. “Everyone snoops in this house. I didn’t want you or Lucien coming in here until I was ready.”
I stepped into the darkened room and cleared my throat, a silent request for him to light the candles. It took him longer than I’d seen him need before, and I wondered if shortening the table had somehow drained him more than he’d let on. The Suriel had said the High Lords were Power—and yet … yet something had to be truly, thoroughly wrong if this was all he could manage. The room gradually flared with light, and I pushed my worry aside as I stepped farther into the room. I took a deep breath and gestured to the easel and the painting I’d put there. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the paintings I’d leaned against the walls.
He turned in place, staring around him at the room.
“I know they’re strange,” I said, my hands sweating again. I tucked them behind my back. “And I know they’re not like—not as good as the ones you have here, but …” I walked to the painting on the easel. It was an impression, not a lifelike rendering. “I wanted you to see this one,” I said, pointing to the smear of green and gold and silver and blue. “It’s for you. A gift. For everything you’ve done.”
Heat flared in my cheeks, my neck, my ears, as he silently approached the painting.
“It’s the glen—with the pool of starlight,” I said quickly.
“I know what it is,” he murmured, studying the painting. I backed away a step, unable to bear watching him look at it, wishing I hadn’t brought him in here, blaming it on the wine I’d had at dinner, on the stupid dress. He examined the painting for a miserable eternity, then looked away—to the nearest painting leaning against the wall.
My gut tightened. A hazy landscape of snow and skeletal trees and nothing else. It looked like … like nothing, I supposed, to anyone but me. I opened my mouth to explain, wishing I’d turned the others away from view, but he spoke.
“That was your forest. Where you hunted.” He came closer to the painting, gazing at the bleak, empty cold, the white and gray and brown and black. “This was your life,” he clarified.
I was too mortified, too stunned, to reply. He walked to the next painting I’d left against the wall. Darkness and dense brown, flickers of ruby red and orange squeezing out between them.
“Your cottage at night.”
I tried to move, to tell him to stop looking at those ones and look at the others I’d laid out, but I couldn’t—couldn’t even breathe properly as he moved to the next painting. A tanned, sturdy male hand fisted in the hay, the pale pieces of it entwined among strands of brown coated with gold—my hair. My gut twisted. “The man you used to see—in your village.” He cocked his head again as he studied the picture, and a low growl slipped out. “While you made love.” He stepped back, looking at the row of pictures. “This is the only one with any brightness.”
Was that … jealousy? “It was the only escape I had.” Truth. I wouldn’t apologize for Isaac. Not when Tamlin had just been in the Great Rite. I didn’t hold that against him—but if he was going to be jealous of Isaac—
Tamlin must have realized it, too, for he loosed a long, controlled breath before moving to the next painting. Tall shadows of men, bright red dripping off their fists, off their wooden clubs, hovering and filling the edges of the painting as they towered over the curled figure on the floor, the blood leaking from him, the leg at a wrong angle.
Tamlin swore. “You were there when they wrecked your father’s leg.”
“Someone had to beg them to stop.”
Tamlin threw a too-knowing glance in my direction and turned to look at the rest of the paintings. There they were, all the wounds I’d slowly been leeching these few months. I blinked. A few months. Did my family believe that I would be forever away with this so-called dying aunt?
At last, Tamlin looked at the painting of the glen and the starlight. He nodded in appreciation. But he pointed to the painting of the snow-veiled woods. “That one. I want that one.”
“It’s cold and melancholy,” I said, hiding my wince. “It doesn’t suit this place at all.”
He went up to it, and the smile he gave me was more beautiful than any enchanted meadow or pool of stars. “I want it nonetheless,” he said softly.
I’d never yearned for anything more than to remove his mask and see the face beneath, to find out whether it matched how I’d dreamed he looked.
“Tell me there’s some way to help you,” I breathed. “With the masks, with whatever threat has taken so much of your power. Tell me—just tell me what I can do to help you.”
“A human wishes to help a faerie?”
“Don’t tease me,” I said. “Please—just … tell me.”
“There’s nothing I want you to do, nothing you can do—or anyone. It’s my burden to bear.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do. What I have to face, what I endure, Feyre … you would not survive.”
“So I’m to live here forever, in ignorance of the true scope of what’s happening? If you don’t want me to understand what’s going on … would you rather …” I swallowed hard. “Rather I found someplace else to live? Where I’m not a distraction?”
“Didn’t Calanmai teach you anything?”
“Only that magic makes you into a brute.”
He laughed, though not entirely with amusement. When I remained silent, he sighed. “No, I don’t want you to live somewhere else. I want you here, where I can look after you—
where I can come home and know you’re here, painting and safe.”
I couldn’t look away from him. “I thought about sending you away at first,” he murmured. “Part of me still thinks I should have found somewhere else for you to live. But maybe I was selfish.
Even when you made it so clear that you were more interested in ignoring the Treaty or finding a way out of it, I couldn’t bring myself to let you go—to find someplace in Prythian where you’d be comfortable enough to not attempt to flee.”
“Why?”
He picked up the small painting of the frozen forest and examined it again. “I’ve had many lovers,” he admitted. “Females of noble birth, warriors, princesses …” Rage hit me, low and deep in the gut at the thought of them—rage at their titles, their undoubtedly good looks, at their closeness to him. “But they never understood. What it was like, what it is like, for me to care for my people, my lands. What scars are still there, what the bad days
feel like.” That wrathful jealousy faded away like morning dew as he smiled at my painting. “This reminds me of it.”
“Of what?” I breathed.
He lowered the painting, looking right at me, right into me.
“That I’m not alone.”
I didn’t lock my bedroom door that night.
The next afternoon I lay on my back in the grass, savoring the warmth of the sunshine filtering through the canopy of leaves, noting how I might incorporate it into my next painting. Lucien, claiming that he had miserable emissary business to attend to, had left Tamlin and me to our own devices, and the High Lord had taken me to yet another beautiful spot in his enchanted forest.
But there were no enchantments here—no pools of starlight, no rainbow waterfalls. It was just a grassy glen watched over by a weeping willow, with a clear brook running through it. We lounged in comfortable silence, and I glanced at Tamlin, who dozed beside me. His golden hair and mask glistened bright against the emerald carpet. The delicate arch of his pointed ears made me pause.
He opened an eye and smiled lazily at me. “That willow’s singing always puts me to sleep.”
“The what of what?” I said, propping myself on my elbows to stare at the tree above us.
Tamlin pointed toward the willow. The branches sighed as they moved in the breeze. “It sings.”
“I suppose it sings war-camp limericks, too?”
He smiled and half sat up, twisting to look at me. “You’re human,” he said, and I rolled my eyes. “Your senses are still sealed off from everything.”
I made a face. “Just another of my many shortcomings.” But the word— shortcomings—had somehow stopped finding its mark.
He plucked a strand of grass from my hair. Heat radiated from my face as his fingers grazed my cheek. “I could make you able to see it,” he said. His fingers lingered at the end of my braid, twirling the curl of hair around. “See my world—hear it, smell it.” My breathing became shallow as he sat up. “Taste it.” His eyes flicked to the fading bruise on my neck.
“How?” I asked, heat blooming as he crouched before me.
“Every gift comes with a price.” I frowned, and he grinned. “A kiss.”
“Absolutely not!” But my blood raced, and I had to clench my hands in the grass to keep from touching him. “Don’t you think it puts me at a disadvantage to not be able to see all this?”
“I’m one of the High Fae—we don’t give anything without gaining something from it.”
To my own surprise, I said, “Fine.”
He blinked, probably expecting me to have fought a little harder. I hid my smile and sat up so that I faced him, our knees touching as we knelt in the grass. I licked my lips, my heart fluttering so quickly it felt as if I had a hummingbird inside my chest.
“Close your eyes,” he said, and I obeyed, my fingers grappling onto the grass. The birds chattered, and the willow branches sighed. The grass crunched as Tamlin rose up on his knees. I braced myself at the brush of his mouth on one of my eyelids, then on the other. He pulled away, and I was left breathless, the kisses still lingering on my skin.
The singing of birds became an orchestra—a symphony of gossip and mirth. I’d never heard so many layers of music, never heard the variations and themes that wove between their arpeggios. And beyond the birdsong, there was an ethereal melody—a woman, melancholy and weary … the willow. Gasping, I opened my eyes.
The world had become richer, clearer. The brook was a near-invisible rainbow of water that flowed over stones as invitingly smooth as silk. The trees were clothed in a faint shimmer that radiated from their centers and danced along the edges of their leaves. There was no tangy metallic stench—no, the smell of magic had become like jasmine, like lilac, like roses. I would never be able to paint it, the richness, the feel … Maybe fractions of it, but not the whole thing.
Magic— everything was magic, and it broke my heart.
I looked to Tamlin, and my heart cracked entirely.