An unusually polite reminder that I probably looked like the dead. I felt like it. But I said, “Where are we going?”
Rhys’s smile widened into a grin. “To Velaris—the City of Starlight.”
The moment I entered my room, the hollow quiet returned, washing away with it any questions I might have had about—about a city.
Everything had been destroyed by Amarantha. If there were a city in Prythian, I would no doubt be visiting a ruin.
I jumped into the bath, scrubbing down as swiftly as I could, then hurried into the Night Court clothes that had been left for me. My motions were mindless, each one some feeble attempt to keep from thinking about what had happened, what—what Tamlin had tried to do and had done, what I had done—
By the time I returned to the main atrium, Rhys was leaning against a moonstone pillar, picking at his nails. He merely said, “That was fifteen minutes,” before extending his hand.
I had no glimmering ember to even try to look like I cared about his taunting before we were swallowed by the roaring darkness.
Wind and night and stars wheeled by as he winnowed us through the world, and the calluses of his hand scratched against my own fading ones before—
Before sunlight, not starlight, greeted me. Squinting at the brightness, I found myself standing in what was unmistakably a foyer of someone’s house.
The ornate red carpet cushioned the one step I staggered away from him as I surveyed the warm, wood-paneled walls, the artwork, the straight, wide oak staircase ahead.
Flanking us were two rooms: on my left, a sitting room with a black marble fireplace, lots of comfortable, elegant, but worn furniture, and bookshelves built into every wall. On my right: a dining room with a long, cherrywood table big enough for ten people—small, compared to the dining room at the manor. Down the slender hallway ahead were a few more doors, ending in one that I assumed would lead to a kitchen. A town house.
I’d visited one once, when I was a child and my father had brought me along to the largest town in our territory: it’d belonged to a fantastically wealthy client, and had smelled like coffee and mothballs. A pretty place, but stuffy—formal.
This house … this house was a home that had been lived in and enjoyed and cherished.
And it was in a city.
PART TWO
THE HOUSE OF WIND
CHAPTER
14
“Welcome to my home,” Rhysand said.
A city—a world lay out there.
Morning sunlight streamed through the windows lining the front of the town house. The ornately carved wood door before me was inset with fogged glass that peeked into a small antechamber and the actual front door beyond it, shut and solid against whatever city lurked beyond.
And the thought of setting foot out into it, into the leering crowds, seeing the destruction Amarantha had likely wreaked upon them … A heavy weight pressed into my chest.
I hadn’t dredged up the focus to ask until now, hadn’t given an ounce of room to consider that this might be a mistake, but … “What is this place?”
Rhys leaned a broad shoulder against the carved oak threshold that led into the sitting room and crossed his arms. “This is my house. Well, I have two homes in the city. One is for more … official business, but this is only for me and my family.”
I listened for any servants but heard none. Good—maybe that was good, rather than have people weeping and gawking.
“Nuala and Cerridwen are here,” he said, reading my glance down the hall behind us. “But other than that, it’ll just be the two of us.”
I tensed. It wasn’t that things had been any different at the Night Court itself, but—this house was much, much smaller. There would be no escaping him. Save for the city outside.
There were no cities left in our mortal territory. Though some had sprung up on the main continent, full of art and learning and trade. Elain had once wanted to go with me. I didn’t suppose I’d ever get that chance now.
Rhysand opened his mouth, but then the silhouettes of two tall, powerful bodies appeared on the other side of the front door’s fogged glass. One of them banged on it with a fist.
“Hurry up, you lazy ass,” a deep male voice drawled from the antechamber beyond. Exhaustion drugged me so heavily that I didn’t particularly care that there were wings peeking over their two shadowy forms.
Rhys didn’t so much as blink toward the door. “Two things, Feyre darling.”
The pounding continued, followed by the second male murmuring to his companion, “If you’re going to pick a fight with him, do it after breakfast.” That voice—like shadows given form, dark and smooth and … cold.
“I wasn’t the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here,” the first one said. Then added, “Busybody.”
I could have sworn a smile tugged on Rhys’s lips as he went on, “One, no one—no one—but Mor and I are able to winnow directly inside this house. It is warded, shielded, and then warded some more. Only those I wish—and you wish—may enter. You are safe here; and safe anywhere in this city, for that matter. Velaris’s walls are well protected and have not been breached in five thousand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I allow it. So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish. Those two in the antechamber,” he added, eyes sparkling, “might not be on that list of people you should bother knowing, if they keep banging on the door like children.”
Another pound, emphasized by the first male voice saying, “You know we can hear you, prick.”
“Secondly,” Rhys went on, “in regard to the two bastards at my door, it’s up to you whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise person, take a nap since you’re still looking a little peaky, and then change into city-appropriate clothing while I beat the hell out of one of them for talking to his High Lord like that.”
There was such light in his eyes. It made him look … younger, somehow. More mortal. So at odds with the icy rage I’d seen earlier when I’d awoken …
Awoken on that couch, and then decided I wasn’t returning home.
Decided that, perhaps, the Spring Court might not be my home.
I was drowning in that old heaviness, clawing my way up to a surface that might not ever exist. I’d slept for the Mother knew how long, and yet … “Just come get me when they’re gone.”
That joy dimmed, and Rhys looked like he might say something else, but a female voice—crisp and edged—now sounded behind the two males in the antechamber. “You Illyrians are worse than cats yowling to be let in the back door.” The knob jangled. She sighed sharply. “Really, Rhysand? You locked us out?”
Fighting to keep that immense heaviness at bay a bit longer, I made for the stairs—at the top of which now stood Nuala and Cerridwen, wincing at the front door. I could have sworn Cerridwen subtly gestured me to hurry up. And I might have kissed both twins for that bit of normalcy.
I might have kissed Rhys, too, for waiting to open the front door until I was halfway down the cerulean-blue hallway on the second level.
All I heard was that first male voice declare, “Welcome home, bastard,” followed by the shadowy male voice saying, “I sensed you were back. Mor filled me in, but I—”
That strange female voice cut him off. “Send your dogs out in the yard to play, Rhysand. You and I have matters to discuss.”
That midnight voice said with quiet cold that licked down my spine, “As do I.”
Then the cocky one drawled to her, “We were here first. Wait your turn, Tiny Ancient One.”
On either side of me, Nuala and Cerridwen flinched, either from holding in laughter or some vestige of fear, or perhaps both. Definitely both as a feminine snarl sliced through the house—albeit a bit halfheartedly.
The upstairs hall was punctuated with chandeliers of swirled, colored glass, illuminating the few polished doors on either side. I wondered which belonged to Rhysand—and then wondered which one belonged to Mor as I heard h
er yawn amid the fray below:
“Why is everyone here so early? I thought we were meeting tonight at the House.”
Below, Rhysand grumbled—grumbled—“Trust me, there’s no party. Only a massacre, if Cassian doesn’t shut his mouth.”
“We’re hungry,” that first male—Cassian—complained. “Feed us. Someone told me there’d be breakfast.”
“Pathetic,” that strange female voice quipped. “You idiots are pathetic.”
Mor said, “We know that’s true. But is there food?”
I heard the words—heard and processed them. And then they floated into the blackness of my mind.
Nuala and Cerridwen opened a door, leading to a fire-warmed, sunlit room. It faced a walled, winter-kissed garden in the back of the town house, the large windows peering over the sleeping stone fountain in its center, drained for the season. Everything in the bedroom itself was of rich wood and soft white, with touches of subtle sage. It felt, strangely enough, almost human.
And the bed—massive, plush, adorned in quilts and duvets of cream and ivory to keep out the winter chill—that looked the most welcoming of all.
But I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t ask a few basic questions—to at least give myself the illusion of caring a bit about my own welfare.
“Who was that?” I managed to say as they shut the door behind us.
Nuala headed for the small attached bathing room—white marble, a claw-foot tub, more sunny windows that overlooked the garden wall and the thick line of cypress trees that stood watch behind it. Cerridwen, already stalking for the armoire, cringed a bit and said over a shoulder, “They’re Rhysand’s Inner Circle.”
The ones I’d heard mentioned that day at the Night Court—who Rhys kept going to meet. “I wasn’t aware that High Lords kept things so casual,” I admitted.
“They don’t,” Nuala said, returning from the bathing room with a brush. “But Rhysand does.”
Apparently, my hair was a mess, because Nuala brushed it as Cerridwen pulled out some ivory sleeping clothes—a warm and soft lace-trimmed top and pants.
I took in the clothes, then the room, then the winter garden and the slumbering fountain beyond, and Rhysand’s earlier words clicked into place.
The walls of this city have not been breached for five thousand years.
Meaning Amarantha …
“How is this city here?” I met Nuala’s gaze in the mirror. “How—how did it survive?”
Nuala’s face tightened, and her dark eyes flicked to her twin, who slowly rose from a dresser drawer, fleece-lined slippers for me in hand. Cerridwen’s throat bobbed as she swallowed.
“The High Lord is very powerful,” Cerridwen said—carefully. “And was devoted to his people long before his father’s mantle passed to him.”
“How did it survive?” I pushed. A city—a lovely one, if the sounds from my window, the garden beyond it, were any indication—lay all around me. Untouched, whole. Safe. While the rest of the world had been left to ruin.
The twins exchanged looks again, some silent language they’d learned in the womb passing between them. Nuala set down the brush on the vanity. “It is not for us to tell.”
“He asked you not to—”
“No,” Cerridwen interrupted, folding back the covers of the bed. “The High Lord made no such demand. But what he did to shield this city is his story to tell, not ours. We would be more comfortable if he told you, lest we get any of it wrong.”
I glared between them. Fine. Fair enough.
Cerridwen moved to shut the curtains, sealing the room in darkness.
My heart stumbled, taking my anger with it, and I blurted, “Leave them open.”
I couldn’t be sealed up and shut in darkness—not yet.
Cerridwen nodded and left the curtains open, both of the twins telling me to send word if I needed anything before they departed.
Alone, I slid into the bed, hardly feeling the softness, the smoothness of the sheets.
I listened to the crackling fire, the chirp of birds in the garden’s potted evergreens—so different from the spring-sweet melodies I was used to. That I might never hear or be able to endure again.
Maybe Amarantha had won after all.
And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me.
Sleep claimed me, swift and brutal and deep.
CHAPTER
15
I awoke four hours later.
It took me minutes to remember where I was, what had happened. And each tick of the little clock on the rosewood writing desk was a shove back-back-back into that heavy dark. But at least I wasn’t tired. Weary, but no longer on the cusp of feeling like sleeping forever.
I’d think about what happened at the Spring Court later. Tomorrow. Never.
Mercifully, Rhysand’s Inner Circle left before I’d finished dressing.
Rhys was waiting at the front door—which was open to the small wood-and-marble antechamber, which in turn was open to the street beyond. He ran an eye over me, from the suede navy shoes—practical and comfortably made—to the knee-length sky-blue overcoat, to the braid that began on one side of my head and curved around the back. Beneath the coat, my usual flimsy attire had been replaced by thicker, warmer brown pants, and a pretty cream sweater that was so soft I could have slept in it. Knitted gloves that matched my shoes had already been stuffed into the coat’s deep pockets.
“Those two certainly like to fuss,” Rhysand said, though something about it was strained as we headed out the front door.
Each step toward that bright threshold was both an eternity and an invitation.
For a moment, the weight in me vanished as I gobbled down the details of the emerging city:
Buttery sunlight that softened the already mild winter day, a small, manicured front lawn—its dried grass near-white—bordered with a waist-high wrought iron fence and empty flower beds, all leading toward a clean street of pale cobblestones. High Fae in various forms of dress meandered by: some in coats like mine to ward against the crisp air, some wearing mortal fashions with layers and poofy skirts and lace, some in riding leathers—all unhurried as they breathed in the salt-and-lemon-verbena breeze that even winter couldn’t chase away. Not one of them looked toward the house. As if they either didn’t know or weren’t worried that their own High Lord dwelled in one of the many marble town houses lining either side of the street, each capped with a green copper roof and pale chimneys that puffed tendrils of smoke into the brisk sky.
In the distance, children shrieked with laughter.
I staggered to the front gate, unlatching it with fumbling fingers that hardly registered the ice-cold metal, and took all of three steps into the street before I halted at the sight at the other end.
The street sloped down, revealing more pretty town houses and puffing chimneys, more well-fed, unconcerned people. And at the very bottom of the hill curved a broad, winding river, sparkling like deepest sapphire, snaking toward a vast expanse of water beyond.
The sea.
The city had been built like a crust atop the rolling, steep hills that flanked the river, the buildings crafted from white marble or warm sandstone. Ships with sails of varying shapes loitered in the river, the white wings of birds shining brightly above them in the midday sun.
No monsters. No darkness. Not a hint of fear, of despair.
Untouched.
The city has not been breached in five thousand years.
Even during the height of her dominance over Prythian, whatever Rhys had done, whatever he’d sold or bartered … Amarantha truly had not touched this place.
The rest of Prythian had been shredded, then left to bleed out over the course of fifty years, yet Velaris … My fingers curled into fists.
I sensed something looming and gazed down the other end of the street.
There, like eternal guardians of the city, towered a wall of flat-topped mountains of re
d stone—the same stone that had been used to build some of the structures. They curved around the northern edge of Velaris, to where the river bent toward them and flowed into their shadow. To the north, different mountains surrounded the city across the river—a range of sharp peaks like fish’s teeth cleaved the city’s merry hills from the sea beyond. But these mountains behind me … They were sleeping giants. Somehow alive, awake.
As if in answer, that undulating, slithering power slid along my bones, like a cat brushing against my legs for attention. I ignored it.
“The middle peak,” Rhys said from behind me, and I whirled, remembering he was there. He just pointed toward the largest of the plateaus. Holes and—windows seemed to have been built into the uppermost part of it. And flying toward it, borne on large, dark wings, were two figures. “That’s my other home in this city. The House of Wind.”
Sure enough, the flying figures swerved on what looked to be a wicked, fast current.
“We’ll be dining there tonight,” he added, and I couldn’t tell if he sounded irritated or resigned about it.
And I didn’t quite care. I turned toward the city again and said, “How?”
He understood what I meant. “Luck.”
“Luck? Yes, how lucky for you,” I said quietly, but not weakly, “that the rest of Prythian was ravaged while your people, your city, remained safe.”
The wind ruffled Rhys’s dark hair, his face unreadable.
“Did you even think for one moment,” I said, my voice like gravel, “to extend that luck to anywhere else? Anyone else?”
“Other cities,” he said calmly, “are known to the world. Velaris has remained secret beyond the borders of these lands for millennia. Amarantha did not touch it, because she did not know it existed. None of her beasts did. No one in the other courts knows of its existence, either.”
“How?”
“Spells and wards and my ruthless, ruthless ancestors, who were willing to do anything to preserve a piece of goodness in our wretched world.”