I peered inside, to that place where I now felt like quicksand, and said, “Hard. I want to limp out of here.” I peeled off the leather jacket and rolled up the sleeves of my white shirt.
Cassian swept an assessing stare over me. He murmured, “It helps me, too—the physical activity, the training.” He rolled his shoulders as I began to stretch. “It’s always helped me focus and center myself. And after last night …” He tied back his dark hair. “I definitely need it—this.”
I held my leg folded behind me, my muscles protesting at the stretch. “I suppose there are worse methods of coping.”
A lopsided grin. “Indeed there are.”
Azriel’s lesson afterward consisted of standing in a breeze and trying to memorize his instructions on currents and downdrafts, on how heat and cold could shape wind and speed. Throughout it, he was quiet—removed. Even by his standards.
I made the mistake of asking if he’d spoken to Mor since he’d left last night.
No, he had not. And that was that.
Even if he kept flexing his scarred hand at his side. As if recalling the sensation of the hand she’d whipped free of his touch during that meeting. Over and over. I didn’t dare tell him that he’d made the right call—that perhaps he should talk to Mor, rather than let the guilt eat at him. The two of them had enough between them without me shoving myself into it.
I was indeed limping by the time I returned to the town house hours later, finding Mor at the dining table, munching on a giant pastry she’d grabbed from a bakery on her way in.
“You look like a team of horses trampled you,” she said around her food.
“Good,” I said, taking the pastry out of her hand and finishing it off. She squawked in outrage, but snapped her fingers, and a plate of carved melon from the kitchen down the hall appeared on the polished table before her.
Right atop the pile of what looked to be letters on various pieces of stationery. “What’s that?” I said, wiping the crumbs from my mouth.
“The first of the High Lords’ responses,” she said sweetly, plucking up a slice of the green fruit and biting off a chunk. No hint of last night’s rage and fear.
“That pleasant, hmm?”
“Helion’s came first this morning. Between all the innuendo, I think he said he’d be willing to … join us.”
I lifted my brows. “That’s good—isn’t it?”
A shrug. “Helion, we weren’t worried about. The other two …” She finished off the melon, chewing wetly. “Thesan says he’ll come, but won’t do it unless it’s in a truly neutral and safe location. Kallias … he doesn’t trust any of us after … Under the Mountain. He wants to bring armed guards.”
Day, Dawn, and Winter. Our closest allies. “No word from anyone else?” My gut tightened.
“No. Spring, Autumn, and Summer haven’t sent a reply.”
“We don’t have much time until the meeting. What if they refuse to reply at all?” I didn’t have the nerve to wonder aloud if Eris would be good to his word and make sure his father attended—and joined our cause. Not with the light back in her face.
Mor picked up another slice of melon. “Then we’ll have to decide if Rhys and I will go drag them by their necks to this meeting, or if we’ll have it without them.”
“I’d suggest the second option.” Mor furrowed her brows. “The first,” I clarified, “doesn’t sound conducive to actually forming an alliance.”
Though I was surprised that Tarquin hadn’t responded. Even with his blood feud with us … The male I’d met, whom I still admired so much … Surely he’d want to ally against Hybern. Unless he now wanted to ally with them to ensure Rhys and I were wiped off the map forever.
“We’ll see,” was all Mor said.
I blew out a breath through my nose. “About last night—”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing.” The swiftness with which she spoke suggested anything but.
“It’s not nothing. You’re allowed to feel that way.”
Mor fluffed her hair. “Well, it won’t help us win this war.”
“No. But … I’m not sure what to say.”
Mor stared toward the window for a long moment. “I understand why Rhys did it. The position we were in. Eris is … You know what he is like. And if he was indeed threatening to sell information about your gifts to his father … Mother above, I would have made the same bargain with Eris to keep Beron from hunting you.” Something in my chest eased at that. “It’s just … My father knew—the second he heard of this place, he probably knew what it meant to me. There would have been no other asking price for my father’s help in this war. None. Rhys knew that as well. Tried to bring Eris into it to sweeten the deal for my father—to possibly avoid this outcome with Velaris altogether.”
I raised my brows in silent question.
“We talked—Rhys and I. This morning. While Cassian was kicking your ass.”
I snorted. “What about Azriel?” So much for my decision to stay out of it.
Mor resumed picking at the melon. “Az … He had a tough call to make, when Eris found him. He …” She chewed on her lip. “I don’t know why I expected him to side with me, why it caught me so off guard.” I refrained from suggesting she tell him that. Mor shrugged. “It just … it all took me by surprise. And I will never be happy about any of these terms, but … My father wins, Eris wins, all the males like them win if I let it get to me. If I let it impact my joy, my life. My relationships with all of you.” She sighed at the ceiling. “I hate war.”
“Likewise.”
“Not just for the death and awfulness,” Mor went on. “But because of what it does to us. These decisions.”
I nodded, even if I was only starting to understand. The choices and the costs.
I opened my mouth, but a knock on the front door sounded. I glanced to the clock in the sitting room across the foyer. Right. The healer.
I’d mentioned to Elain this morning that Madja was coming to see her at eleven, and I’d gotten a noncommittal response. Better than outright refusal, I supposed.
“Are you going to answer the door, or should I?”
I made a vulgar gesture at the sheer sass in Mor’s question, but my friend gripped my hand as I rose from my chair.
“If you need anything … I’ll be right here.”
I gave Mor a small, grateful smile. “As will I.”
She was still smiling at me as I took a deep breath before heading for the entry.
The healer found nothing.
I believed her—if only because Madja was one of the few High Fae I’d seen whose dark skin was etched with wrinkles, her hair spindrift fine with age. Her brown eyes were still clear and kindled with an inner warmth, and her knobby hands remained steady as she passed them over Elain’s body while my sister lay patiently, silently, on the bed.
Magic, sweet and cooling, had thrummed from the female, filling Elain’s bedroom. And when she had gently laid her hands on either side of Elain’s head and I’d started, Madja had only smiled wryly over her thin shoulder and told me to relax.
Nesta, sharp-eyed in the corner, had kept quiet.
After a long minute, Madja asked us to join her in fetching Elain a cup of tea—with a pointed glance to the door. We both took the invitation and left our sister in her sunlit room.
“What do you mean, nothing is wrong with her?” Nesta hissed under her breath as the ancient female braced a hand on the stair railing to help herself down. I kept beside the healer, a hand in easy reach of her elbow, should she need it.
Madja, I reminded myself, had healed Cassian and Azriel—and countless injuries beyond that. She’d healed Rhys’s wings during the War. She looked ancient, but I had no doubt of her stamina—or sheer will to help her patients.
Madja didn’t deign to answer Nesta until we were at the bottom of the steps. Lucien was already waiting in the sitting room, Mor still lingering in the dining room. Both of them rose to their feet, but remained in their respective r
ooms, flanking the foyer.
“What I mean,” Madja said at last, sizing up Nesta, then me, “is that I can find nothing wrong with her. Her body is fine—too thin and in need of more food and fresh air, but nothing amiss. And as for her mind … I cannot enter it.”
I blinked. “She has a shield?”
“She is Cauldron-Made,” the healer said, again looking over Nesta. “You are not like the rest of us. I cannot pierce the places it left its mark most deeply.” The mind. The soul. She shot me a warning glance. “And I would not try if I were you, Lady.”
“But do you think there’s something wrong, even if there are no signs?” Nesta pushed.
“I have seen the victims of trauma before. Her symptoms match well with many of those invisible wounds. But … she was also Made by something I do not understand. Is there something wrong with her?” Madja chewed over the words. “I do not like that word—wrong. Different, perhaps. Changed.”
“Does she need further help?” Nesta said through her teeth.
The ancient healer jerked her chin toward Lucien. “See what he can do. If anyone can sense if something is amiss, it’s a mate.”
“How.” The word was barely more than a barked command.
I braced myself to warn Nesta to be polite, but Madja said to my sister, as if she were a small child, “The mating bond. It is a bridge between souls.”
The healer’s tone made my sister stiffen, but Madja was already hobbling for the front door. She pointed at Lucien as she saw herself out. “Try sitting down with her. Just talking—sensing. See what you pick up. But don’t push.” Then she was gone.
I whirled on Nesta. “A little respect, Nesta—”
“Call another healer.”
“Not if you’re going to bark them out of the house.”
“Call another healer.”
Mor strode for us with deceptive calm, and Nesta gave her a withering glare.
I caught Lucien’s eye. “Would you try it?”
Nesta snarled, “Don’t you even attempt—”
“Be quiet,” I snapped.
Nesta blinked.
I bared my teeth at her. “He will try. And if he doesn’t find anything amiss, we’ll consider bringing another healer.”
“You’re just going to drag her down here?”
“I’m going to invite her.”
Nesta faced Mor, still watching from the archway. “And what will you be doing?”
Mor gave my sister a half smile. “I’ll be sitting with Feyre. Keeping an eye on things.”
Lucien muttered something about not needing to be monitored, and we all looked at him with raised brows.
He just lifted his hands, claimed he wanted to freshen up, and headed down the hall.
CHAPTER
29
It was the most uncomfortable thirty minutes I could recall.
Mor and I sipped chilled mint tea by the bay window, the replies of the three High Lords piled on the little table between our twin chairs, pretending to be watching the summer-kissed street beyond us, the children, High Fae and faerie, darting about with kites and streamers and all manner of toys.
Pretending, while Lucien and Elain sat in stilted silence by the dim fireplace, an untouched tea service between them. I didn’t dare ask if he was trying to get into her head, or if he was feeling a bond similar to that black adamant bridge between Rhys’s mind and my own. If a normal mating bond felt wholly different.
A teacup rattled and rasped against a saucer, and Mor and I glanced over.
Elain had picked up the teacup, and now sipped from it without so much as looking toward him.
In the dining room across the hall, I knew Nesta was craning her neck to look.
Knew, because Amren snapped at my sister to pay attention.
They were building walls—in their minds, Amren had told me as she ordered Nesta to sit at the dining room table, directly across from her.
Walls that Amren was teaching her to sense—to find the holes she’d laid throughout. And repair them. If the fell objects at the Court of Nightmares had not allowed my sister to grasp what must be done, then this was their next attempt—a different, invisible route. Not all magic was flash and glittering, Amren had declared, and then shooed me out.
But any sign of that power within my sister … I did not hear it or see it or feel it. And neither offered any explanation for what it was, exactly, that they were trying to coax from within her.
Outside the house, movement again caught our eye, and we found Rhys and Cassian strolling in through the low front gate, returning from their first meeting with Keir’s Darkbringer army commanders—already rallying and preparing. At least that much had gone right yesterday.
Both of them spotted us in the window within a heartbeat. Stopped cold.
Don’t come in, I warned him through the bond. Lucien is trying to sense what’s wrong with Elain. Through the bond.
Rhys murmured what I’d said to Cassian, who now angled his head, much in the way I had no doubt Nesta had done, to peer beyond us.
Rhys said wryly, Does Elain know this?
She was invited down for tea. So we’re having it.
Rhys muttered again to Cassian, who choked on a laugh and turned right around, heading into the street. Rhys lingered, sliding his hands into his pockets. He’s getting a drink. I’m inclined to join him. When can I return without fearing for my life?
I gave him a vulgar gesture through the window. Such a big, strong Illyrian warrior.
Illyrian warriors know when to pick their battles. And with Nesta watching everything like a hawk and you two circling like vultures … I know who will walk away from that fight.
I made the gesture again, and Mor figured out enough of what was being said that she echoed the movement. Rhys laughed quietly and sketched a bow.
The High Lords sent replies, I said as he strolled away. Day, Dawn, and Winter will come.
I know, he said. And I just received word from Cresseida that Tarquin is contemplating it.
Better than nothing. I said as much.
Rhys smiled at me over his shoulder. Enjoy your tea, you overbearing chaperone.
I could have used a chaperone around you, you realize.
You had four of them in this house.
I smiled as he finally reached the low front gate where Cassian waited, apparently using the momentary delay to stretch out his wings, to the delight of the half-dozen children now gawking at them.
Amren hissed from the other room, “Focus.” The dining table rattled.
The sound seemed to startle Elain, who swiftly set down her teacup. She rose to her feet, and Lucien shot to his.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted.
“What—what was that?”
Mor put a hand on my knee to keep me from rising, too.
“It—it was a tug. On the bond.”
Amren snapped, “Don’t you—wicked girl.”
Then Nesta was standing in the threshold. “What did you do.” The words were as sharp as a blade.
Lucien looked to her, then over to me. A muscle feathered in his jaw. “Nothing,” he said, and again faced his mate. “I’m sorry—if that unsettled you.”
Elain sidled toward Nesta, who seemed to be at a near-simmer. “It felt … strange,” Elain breathed. “Like you pulled on a thread tied to a rib.”
Lucien exposed his palms to her. “I’m sorry.”
Elain only stared at him for a long moment. And any lucidity faded away as she shook her head, blinking twice, and said to Nesta, “Twin ravens are coming, one white and one black.”
Nesta hid the devastation well. The frustration. “What can I get you, Elain?”
Only with Elain did she use that voice.
But Elain shook her head once more. “Sunshine.”
Nesta cut me a furious stare before guiding our sister down the hall—to the sunny garden in the back.
Lucien waited until the glass door had opened and closed before he loosed a lon
g breath.
“There’s a bond—it’s a real thread,” he said, more to himself than us.
“And?” Mor asked.
Lucien ran both hands through his long red hair. His skin was darker—a deep golden-brown, compared to the paleness of Eris’s coloring. “And I got to Elain’s end of it when she ran off.”
“Did you sense anything?”
“No—I didn’t have time. I felt her, but …” A blush stained his cheek. Whatever he’d felt, it wasn’t what we were looking for. Even if we had no idea what, precisely, that was.
“We can try again—another day,” I offered.
Lucien nodded, but looked unconvinced.
Amren snapped from the dining room, “Someone go retrieve your sister. Her lesson isn’t over.”
I sighed. “Yes, Amren.”
Lucien’s attention slid behind me, to the various letters on different styles and makes of paper. That golden eye narrowed. As Tamlin’s emissary, he no doubt recognized them. “Let me guess: they said yes, but picking the location is now going to be the headache.”
Mor frowned. “Any suggestions?”
Lucien tied back his hair with a strap of brown leather. “Do you have a map?”
I supposed that left me to retrieve Nesta.
“That pine tree wasn’t there a moment ago.”
Azriel let out a quiet laugh from where he sat atop a boulder two days later, watching me pluck pine needles out of my hair and jacket. “Judging by its size, I’d say it’s been there for … two hundred years at least.”
I scowled, brushing off the shards of bark and my bruised pride.
That coldness, that aloofness that had been there in the wake of Mor’s anger and rejection … It’d warmed. Either from Mor choosing to sit next to him at dinner last night—a silent offer of forgiveness—or simply needing time to recover from it. Even if I could have sworn some kernel of guilt had flickered every time Azriel had looked at Mor. What Cassian had thought of it, of his own anger toward Azriel … he’d been all smiles and lewd comments. Glad all was back to normal—for now at least.
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