A Court of Thorns and Roses
by Sarah J Maas
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In this series by Sarah J Maas, we see mortals living on the same continent of faeries of all kinds, but separated by a wall. The High Fae used to keep mortals as slaves until the mortals rose against them, a war was raged, and a treaty was put in place that keeps mortals safe, separated from the world of faerie.
In Prythian, the faerie lands are separated into seven courts. The Spring Court, Summer Court, Autumn Court, Winter Court, Dawn Court, Day Court, and Night Court. Each court has its own High Lord, a High Fae of immense power in charge of the court, as well as its own very distinct denizens.
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Proceed with extreme caution! We meet Feyre, a young human woman who is hunting to feed herself and her family, as she has been doing since her family fell on hard times. The animals are getting scarce, forcing Feyre to go further into the woods to find food. As much as she does not want to go deeper, she has no choice. There’s nothing left to eat at home. It’s getting dark and she thinks of the warnings she’s heard recently that several giant wolves have been seen in the area. She figures that as long as the giant wolves aren’t really faeries in disguise, she will be okay. Feyre only lives two days away from the border of the immortal, faerie lands of Prythian, and though there hasn’t been an attack on her village in the eight years she’s lived there, they’ve received reports of faerie attacks from travelers passing through. Feyre sees a small doe ahead, then she sees the wolf near it. The wolf is huge and unnaturally silent, but it doesn’t appear to have noticed Feyre. She tries convincing herself that it’s nothing more than a really big wolf, there’s nothing otherworldly about it at all, but when she pulls an arrow from her quiver, she still pulls one made of ash with an iron head. Ash will make a faerie susceptible to injury… and everyone knows that faeries hate iron. As the wolf kills the deer, Feyre lets her arrow fly. It hits the wolf in the side, and it looks at her, almost as if it was surprised. She lets a second arrow loose, this one goes into the wolf’s eye, and he dies, although much more slowly than he should have. There’s no way she can carry home the bodies of both the wolf and the deer, so she skins the wolf and carries the deer. Satisfied that her family will have something to eat for a few weeks and the pelts to sell for extra money. When Feyre arrives home, we meet her two older sisters. Nesta, the oldest, and Elain, the middle sister. They all live together in a cottage outside of town with their father. After their father’s creditors came calling, breaking their father’s leg when he could not pay them, the family had needed to flee their manor house and sell most of their belongings. Their mother had already died at this point, but only after making Feyre promise to keep the family together and to look after them all. Ridiculous thing to ask your child to do, let alone your youngest child. Their father no longer works, either because his injury or his shame will not allow him to do so (it depends on who you ask). It seems that none of them do much for the family except for Feyre, they all rely on Feyre to keep them alive. Nesta is haughty and condescending while Elain is innocent and naïve and loves to garden. Feyre loves to paint, although she is not often able to. Feyre tells her family that they will dry half of the meat for when it’s needed, and she will go to town to sell both pelts. It’s clear that none of her family members really understand what Feyre does to keep them alive, and none of them really appreciate her either. But she does it anyway and is haunted by the promise she made to her mother. The next day, Feyre heads to town with the hides, Nesta and Elain joining her, they want to purchase something with the money. The three of them run into a group of fanatics called the Children of the Blessed who worship the High Fae while they are hated and feared by the rest of the humans. The High Fae are faeries that look like but are most definitely not human and once enslaved the mortals. When the humans finally rebelled against the High Fae, the war was bloody and destructive and eventually six mortal queens created a treaty that stopped the killing but gave the faeries all of the lands to the North. When the High Fae left the mortal lands, they took their magic with them. Feyre takes the pelts to a new person in town, not one of her usual buyers. A mercenary. The mercenary gives the pelts a look, asks Feyre how she came by the pelts, and says she agrees with Feyre that the wolf pelt does not seem like it was a faerie disguised. She offers Feyre a price well above what’s fair. She also gives Feyre a warning: do not go that deep into the woods again. She’s heard of faeries slipping through the wall that separates the two lands. Feyre and her family are at home that night when a huge, growling creature breaks down the door. A creature as big as a horse with horns like an elk and the body of a lion, black claws as sharp as daggers and yellow fangs. As if the humans are not already surprised and terrified, the giant beast screams that they’re all murderers. I guess the wolf was a faerie after all. Feyre throws her hunting knife at the creature’s neck, but he bats it out of the air. The creature asks who killed the wolf. Feyre doesn’t fess up right away but asks what they should have do if they had killed the wolf accidently, hypothetically speaking, of course. The creature demands the payment that is specified in the Treaty between the two lands: a life for a life. Feyre tells him that she killed the wolf, but he doesn’t believe her. She insists that it was her, but she wouldn’t have done it if she’d known the wolf was a faerie. She asks the beast to kill her outside where her family will not have to watch or clean up afterward. The creature tells Feyre that she has a choice: she can either die in exchange for the life she took… or she can live the rest of her life in Prythian. The creature tells her that he has lands and will give her permission to live on them, he seems to be impressed by her bravery and moxie despite himself. Feyre decides to take her chances in Prythian, and she is told that she and the beast will leave immediately. Feyre tells her family where to hunt for food in the future and whom in town to turn to for help, if they need it. She says one last thing, imploring Nesta not to marry Tomas Mandray, before going outside. There, her father tells Feyre that she was always too good for this village anyway and instructs her not to come back. If she ever gets free of the Fae, go make a name for herself somewhere else. Feyre leaves with the creature to go to Prythian. The faeries control all of the northern parts of the world. The land is a large island, the Fae has the vast majority of it (called Prythian), but there is also a smaller island to the West and a larger continent to the East. The wall dissects Prythian also dissects all the land in the world. Some of the faerie lands are ruled by kings and queens, but the faerie lands of Prythian are divided into seven areas. Each area is ruled by its own High Lord, a High Fae with enormous power. When they arrive in Prythian two days later, Feyre is overcome by the beauty of the lands. Although it is currently winter in her village, it is spring where they have arrived. The creature takes Feyre to a grand estate and into a room with a long table filled with food. As he sits, he transforms into a golden-haired man, a High Fae whose face from the nose up is covered by a beautiful golden mask. He invites Feyre to eat. He has no interest in imprisoning her, she’s welcome to leave at any time and go elsewhere in Prythian and he assures her that the food on the table is safe to eat. She refuses to eat anyway, so he decides to have some himself, as he does another High Fae enters the room. This Fae is red-haired with a scar on his face and a golden orb that replaces the eye he’s missing but also wearing a mask. The red-haired faerie asks if Andras is dead, the golden-haired faerie confirms it and explains what happened, gesturing to Feyre. The red-haired faerie, Lucien, is very upset at this information. The golden-haired male instructs Alis, a faerie maid (also wearing a mask) to take Feyre to her rooms and get her fresh clothes and a bath. As Feyre follows Alis out, she hears Lucien complain that Andras’ death was in vain, that none of the faeries should be out there on this fool’s mission. Alis gets Feyre cleaned up and gives her a warning. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open. Andras was a good sentinel, and people are going to be upset about his death. But if Feyre keeps her wits about her and her head down, she should be fine. Feyre returns to the dining room to find both faeries still there, Lucien calls the golden-haired faerie Tamlin. Tamlin explains that she’s to live here in the manor, but she can do whatever she wants to, he doesn’t keep slaves and he’s not going to start now. Feyre is worried about her family, thinking that they will starve without her, but Tamlin tells her that he has made sure they’re cared for. He swears to her that they will be okay. But he gives her one caveat: if she flees and crosses back across the wall he will care for her family no longer. She finally gives in and has something to eat. Before she returns to her room, Lucien asks Feyre why she’s in such a hurry to return home anyway. Surely their company can’t be that bad and they’ve got to be better to look at than the men in her village. After some prompting, she says that while she was close with someone in the village, she was not in love with anyone – she wonders why the faeries even care. Tamlin tells her that they are just trying to get to know her since they’ll be living together from now on. The next morning, Feyre starts to explore the house and runs into Tamlin. He takes her on a tour of the gardens and explains to her that while there is a Treaty, it does not really protect humans from anything except being enslaved by the faeries. While Tamlin is not interested in the mortal lands, he can’t speak for all faeries. She asks him what Andras was doing south of the wall if Tamlin has no interest in the mortals. He tells her that for the last fifty years, the lands all across Prythian have been sick. The sickness weakens him and because of it, none of them can remove the masks they wear. It’s not a disease, but a sickness that focuses on magic, but there is a chance of it affecting mortals if it were to cross the wall. Andras was looking for a cure. Then Tamlin leaves Feyre to explore the gardens alone. As she sits on a bench, she feels herself being watched. She turns to see two small figures watching her, but before she can confront them, Alis calls out for her and the figures vanish, giggling to themselves. That night at dinner, Feyre steals a knife from the table. Just in case she needs it. The next day, Feyre is on a mission to find Lucien and feel him out, hoping she can convince him to ask Tamlin to let her go. Luckily, before she finds a way to ask, he invites her to go into the woods with him so he can witness her “abilities” and see how she managed to kill his friend. He gives her a bow and a quiver of arrows. On their ride he guesses, correctly, at her motivations and tells her that unfortunately there is no other recourse. She can either stay in Prythian or die, the treaty does not have a convenient loophole for her to take advantage of. Disappointed, she takes this chance to ask questions about Tamlin’s court. Where are all the people? Lucien is Tamlin’s emissary, do all estates have an emissary? What happened that made them unable to remove their masks? Lucien answers her questions with vague answers that really tell Feyre nothing, but he does mention a “her” that he does NOT want to overhear their conversation. He won’t tell Feyre more about “her”, saying it’s better that Feyre doesn’t know. He does admit that he's very old and no, he cannot shape shift. Only Tamlin can do that, although he can also shift others into shapes if needed, which he does for his sentries (such as Andras). Lucien tells her about a faerie called the Suriel who will answer a question if trapped, but it’s very dangerous and not worth trying to find. And if Lucien suspects she’s thinking about it, he will advise that Tamlin put Feyre under house arrest. Suddenly, Lucien gets very nervous and tells Feyre to look straight down. Do not react, no matter what. Something ancient and cold passes them, the Bogge, making threats and entreating them to look at it. By looking at it, you give it power, make it real, and it can – and will – kill you. When they get to dinner, Lucien lets Tamlin know that the Bogge was loose and passed near them. Although most faeries cannot kill the Bogge, Tamlin can. He leaves to hunt the Bogge. Feyre can’t sleep that night, worried about Tamlin against her will. When she looks out the window, she sees something move in the garden. It’s her father, he’s come to save her. When she goes out to meet him, Tamlin stops her. He tells her to look again. Her father is no longer there, instead there is a bow and quiver that ripples and changes shape as she watches. A puca, intending to lure Feyre somewhere remote to eat her. Tamlin is angry that she would be so foolish as to rush out and he asks her if life with her family was so much better than with them. Feyre tells him about the vow she made to her mother but Tamlin counters that she is fulfilling that vow just by staying in Prythian. Her family is better cared for now than they had been for years. It starts to sink in that since faeries can’t lie, Tamlin can’t lie about this, so maybe he’s right. Tamlin continues to hunt the Bogge and Feyre continues to go out with Lucien, but she doesn’t shoot anything. Lucien is worried about Tamlin, saying that when something dangerous gets into his lands, Tamlin gets into a mood and broods, knowing that he may not be able to keep his people safe. But Lucien won’t help him to hunt the Bogge, Tamlin would rather do it alone. That night, Feyre is woken by a nightmare and leaves her room to explore the manor and look at the art. She runs into Tamlin in his beast form, he’s limping. When he transforms back from the beast, his clothes are covered in slashes and cuts. He’s killed the Bogge, but his hand is hurt, which caused his limp. He shows her a small infirmary and she proceeds to care for his injury. He discovers that she can’t write and asks how she learned to hunt. Feyre tells him that you do what you have to do when you are responsible for the lives of others, something he can understand. After all, these estates should not have come to Tamlin. In the back of her mind, Feyre keeps wondering if Tamlin is this powerful, if he is so much more powerful than the people he protects, what kind of power would the High Lords wield? Feyre goes down to join Lucien and Tamlin for breakfast the next morning, the three of them have made a habit of sharing their meals together, and she overhears the two of them talking before she enters. Or she hears them arguing, to be more accurate. She hears Lucien chastise Tamlin for sulking and wasting time, sealing their fates as their magic wanes. The blight is making them, and their lands, weaker, which is why things like the Bogge or even lesser faeries such as the puca can sneak in. Tamlin tells Lucien to back off, he will become like his father. The two faeries realize that their conversation is no longer private and turn toward Feyre, who asks if Lucien is going riding today. He says no, offering to have Tamlin ride with her instead. But they don’t go for a ride, Tamlin takes her to the study instead. After that, Feyre uses books in the study to teach herself to write now that she has ample time. During a break in her studies, she sees a massive mural stretching the length of a wall telling the story of Prythian. At the beginning there’s a big, black cauldron held by glowing, female hands, tipping it over so that golden liquid flows out. The liquid is poured onto the land to create the world they have now and the peoples that once ruled those lands. The mural continues to show the war between the faeries and the humans, leading to a world with a space carved out for the humans specifically. She sees the area representing where she is now, the Spring Court, as well as the other Prythian courts: Autumn, Summer, Winter, Dawn, Day, and Night. And in the center of the land, a small mountain range with one tall peak standing alone. When Feyre goes back to her studies, Tamlin appears behind her with an armful of books and offers to help her learn to write. Instead, they get into a spat and Feyre leaves, but when she returns, she finds her materials disturbed. She hopes no one noticed that she had been trying to write to her family, trying to warn them that the blight could cross the wall and into the mortal lands. That night, Feyre goes looking for Lucien. She asks him again about the Suriel and he tells her how she may hypothetically find it, hypothetically lure it out, and hypothetically trap it, and what precautions she should hypothetically take. And how, should she find herself in trouble, how she could find her way to safety, hypothetically of course. And perhaps, if he were in the woods already and just happened to hear someone in trouble with his excellent hearing, he may offer that person assistance. Obviously, all of this is hypothetical and none of it will come to pass but it just so happens that Tamlin will be out today, dealing with an issue at the border, and Lucien was planning on going hunting even before he had this conversation. Feyre heads out to a not hypothetical grove of young birch trees in the western woods with a slaughtered chicken. She walks until she knows where the nearest stream is and then she lays her trap, a double-looped snare to catch the Suriel. All she has to do now is wait with her bow strung and her arrow ready. She hears one of her snares snap and something screams in frustration, then Feyre goes out to talk to the Suriel. The Suriel is terrifying and horrific, although you shouldn’t say it to their face (that would be so rude!). Feyre asks the Suriel if there’s any way for her to go home and the Suriel answers no, to do so is to be killed herself and get her family killed as well. Then Feyre asks about Tamlin, who the Suriel calls the High Lord of the Spring Court, shocking Feyre. The Suriel advises Feyre to stay with the High Lord and she will be safe, all will be set to right. Do not interfere, do not go looking for answers, or the shadow over Prythian will devour her. The Suriel continues that there is a kingdom called Hybern across the sea and the Hybernian King is wicked. He’s killed all the Hybernian humans and made a throne of their bones. He hates the Treaty that he was forced to sign, hates that he had to relinquish his mortal slaves, and so sent one of his most trusted commanders and fiercest warrior out in order to infiltrate the courts and kingdoms and empires around the world. But that commander disobeyed the king fifty years ago. The Suriel stops, unable to go on. It commands Feyre to free it and run back to the manor and stay with the High Lord. The naga are coming, drawn by the Suriel’s scream, and they will cage the Suriel if they find it. Just as Feyre grabs her bow, she sees the naga appear. Knowing that Lucien said he would be close, Feyre screams as loudly as she can. The naga look toward her, no longer focusing on the Suriel as they were before, and Feyre shoots the tether that holds the Suriel in place. Once freed, the Suriel runs off and disappears. Feyre starts shooting her arrows, she knows the arrows won’t kill the naga but she’s hoping they will delay them long enough for her to get to safety. She runs for the stream. Luck is not with her, three of the naga quickly surround her. Feyre manages to kill one of the naga with her knife but the other two catch her and pin her to the ground, taunting her with how they plan to kill her. Then suddenly, Tamlin is there. He kills the remaining naga, afterward explaining that he’d been tracking the naga already when he heard her scream. She thanks him for saving her and Tamlin warns her to stay near the manor if he’s away, for her own safety. Feyre asks Alis some questions about Hybern and a coming war, but Alis tells her to mind her own business and doesn’t give her any answers. She does reveal that her sister and brother-in-law were killed fifty years ago, and she now takes care of their two sons, although her nephews live far away from the Spring Court. It seems like Feyre’s started winning Alis over. At dinner, Feyre learns that a lot of what she knows about faeries is incorrect. Iron doesn’t hurt them, and they are absolutely able to lie. Tamlin asks what she was doing out on her own today and she admits that she trapped the Suriel. He’s surprised she managed to do so. He offers to help her write to her family, but she tells him no. He pushes back a little, asking if they may be able to become friends. He tells Feyre that five hundred years ago, not all faeries and mortals hated each other. In fact, some faeries went to war on behalf of the humans. He was a child at the time, but if he had been grown, he would have fought with the mortals to end their enslavement. He reveals that her family knows that she’s alive and fed, they believe that a wealthy, long-lost aunt has called for Feyre’s help, they have no memory of what really happened. But they’ve also been warned that they should be ready to run if the wall no longer kept the faeries out. Feyre does not need to stress about warning them. Now she’s free to spend her time as she wishes, and she wishes to paint. He agrees to supply her with what she needs to get started and offers to show her the gallery in the meantime. That night Feyre wakes up feeling strange and leaves her room to see Tamlin bring in a mutilated, bleeding faerie from the Summer Court. Tamlin tells Lucien that the faerie was dumped just over the border and the nameless Summer faerie screams that “she” cut off their wings. Feyre hurries to help with the faerie but there’s nothing any of them can do. The bleeding won’t stop and the faerie dies as they comfort him. Before Tamlin carries the body out, Feyre really apologizes - for the first time - for killing Andras. She goes for a horseback ride with Tamlin and Lucien. They ride to a magical glen, the most beautiful place that Feyre has ever seen, and Tamlin shows Feyre a pool made of starlight. Tamlin tells her that he loved visiting this place as a child. He explains that Lucien is the son of the High Lord of the Autumn Court, the youngest of his seven sons. The Autumn Court is a cutthroat place where the brothers constantly fight since the strongest of them, not the eldest, will eventually inherit their father’s title. Lucien rebelled against all of it and fell in love with someone that his father considered “grossly inappropriate”. In response, his father had the female Lucien loved executed in front of him. Lucien made his way to the Spring Court and Tamlin claimed him as his emissary, together he and Tamlin killed two of his three brothers who had followed Lucien in order to kill him. Feyre and Tamlin go for a swim in the starlight pond and Tamlin asks about how her family lost their fortune. Feyre tells him that her father had inherited the debts of his father and his grandfather. When he found a way to pay all of those debts off, he gambled everything and lost it all. The debtors came for Feyre when she was eleven years old, and they had lived off of the little that was left for three years before she had to start hunting to provide for them. It seems Feyre is starting to trust, maybe even like, these faeries she lives with. Or at least they’re beginning to understand each other. Tamlin shows Feyre the gallery, he gives her paints, and several days later, they run into each other in the rose garden and have a moment together. He tells her that her human joy fascinates him, he finds it entrancing. A couple days later, he writes some poems for her. Even later, he tells her about his own family. His father was just as bad as Lucien’s (maybe worse) and his two elder brothers were cast from the same mold. His mother was not as bad, but she would never say anything bad about his father. They’re the reason Tamlin is the faerie he is today; he works hard to not become like them. Tamlin’s brothers would have killed him if they’d thought he had any interest in inheriting their father’s title, so instead Tamlin joined his father’s war-band and became very good at fighting. And very good at killing. Then one day, the High Lord of an enemy court killed the rest of his family and somehow, Tamlin was spared. Tamlin became what he never coveted, the High Lord of the Spring Court. Then Tamlin hears another voice as they’re walking, he tells Feyre to hide and to stay hidden regardless of what she may hear. She hides behind a large hedge where she hears Lucien and Tamlin approach. They are speaking to someone that Feyre can’t see, but she can hear. The voice tells them that they’re recent behavior has been gaining a lot of attention, that “she” is wondering why they haven’t given up yet. “She” knows that four naga were killed recently on Tamlin’s land, naga that were her warriors. The voice mentions that “she” can destroy their estate with just one word, that “she” holds their fate in her hands, that “she” is not pleased with them. Lucien angrily tells the voice that Tamlin is not breaking the terms of their agreement and demands that the voice leaves. The voice does leave, but only after a veiled threat to Tamlin. Once the voice is gone, Tamlin and Lucien call Feyre out and explain that the voice belonged to the Attor, who works as a messenger for whomever “she” is. Two days later, the faeries celebrate Fire Night, or Calanmai. Feyre is warned that there will be more faeries around than normal (some will be coming from other courts) and that the ritual itself is very faerie. She is not invited to attend and on the day of the event, she doesn’t see Lucien or Tamlin all day. When dusk arrives, the house is empty except for Feyre. She goes into the garden, and she can hear the drums, drums which call to her to attend the festival, but Tamlin arrives (shirtless) and gives her instructions. 1. Go back to her room. 2. Lock herself in. 3. Do not come out until morning. He’s on his way to Calanmai, he has to take part in the rituals as High Lord. Feyre does not listen and is on her way to Calanmai before midnight. When she arrives, all of the faeries are focused on a cave and the path that leads to it. While she’s watching, three unmasked faeries grab hold of her arm. They try to take her into the woods, but a fourth faerie saves her, pretending that he’d been looking for her all along. When the three faeries see him, they leave immediately. Once Feyre and the faerie are alone, the new faerie (High Fae with short black hair and blue eyes, no mask) asks what she’s doing at Calanmai. She makes up some excuse, but he knows that she’s lying. He asks if he can escort her somewhere and when she says no, he leaves her by herself without introducing himself. She’s found shortly afterward by Lucien, who is not pleased to see her and does not ask for permission before “escorting” her back to the manor. He explains to her that Calanmai marks the start of spring, and their crops depend on the magic that the faeries generate together on Calanmai. Each of the High Lords performs the Great Rite every year, a ritual where great magic enters them and controls them completely, turning them into the Hunter who must find the Maiden and take her to bed in order to release the magic and regenerate life for the coming year. Tamlin will hunt down and sacrifice the white stag, go to the sacred cave where all of the female faeries are lined up hoping to be chosen, and he will choose his Maiden. After the High Lord has chosen his maiden and finished “regenerating the magic”, the rest of the faeries are free to find their own partners. The night has only just started and Lucien plans to return to Calanmai, but he entreats her to lock herself in her room and not come back out. She tries but still can’t listen to instructions, so she leaves her room to eat. She runs into Tamlin, who is just returning from the ritual, and he tells her that he smelled her at Calanmai. He looked for her, was driven mad for her, but when he couldn’t find her, he had to choose another. Feyre realizes that she’s jealous of the female that he chose. Then Tamlin leaves her in the hallway. The next day Feyre puts on a dress and gives Tamlin a gift, a painting of his starlight pond, and he sees all of the other paintings she’s done depicting her life. Instead of the pond, he requests a painting of the snowy woods that she grew up with. She asks him if there’s anything she can do to help with the blight, but he says that it is his burden alone, she cannot help. The next day Tamlin takes Feyre to another beautiful spot in the woods, just the two of them this time. There, he tells her he could allow her to experience the world as he does if she wanted to, it would only take a kiss. She agrees and he kisses both of her eyelids. Now that she has the senses of a faerie, she can hear the willow singing near them. It lulls her to sleep, but before she succumbs, she hears Tamlin tell her that she’s just as he dreamed that she’d be. When she wakes up in her own bed, a bunch of the faeries look different than they did before, and there are a lot more than she realized. Tamlin has taken the glamour off and now she can see everything as it is. The next day, the decapitated head of a male faerie shows up in their garden, branded behind his ear with the symbol of the Night Court. The Night Court, Tamlin tells her, is corrupt and lives by its own codes. Lucien tells her that they are sadistic killers that delight in torture, sending a decapitated head would be amusing to them. It’s very clear Tamlin and Lucien do not like the High Lord of the Night Court. Tamlin gets called to the border that evening and even though he doesn’t say it, Feyre knows that the blight is steadily creeping towards the Spring Court. The Spring Court prepares for the Summer Solstice celebration. Not a ritual like Calanmai, just a fun party that Feyre is allowed to attend. At the celebration, Feyre drinks some faerie wine, even though Lucien recommends that she abstain. She dances while Tamlin plays music for her, then the two of them dance together, then Tamlin takes her to a meadow to see will-o’-the-wisps sing. He asks her to dance again to the song of the will-o’-the-wisps and then they kiss. The next morning, Lucien ruins all the happy feelings with some sobering information, telling Tamlin that two dozen younglings in the Winter Court were killed by the blight. Suddenly, Tamlin transforms into his beast and tells Lucien to hide Feyre. Lucien does so, blocking Feyre’s body with his own and glamouring her body to keep her hidden. The same dark-haired stranger she met the night of Calanmai appears, Tamlin calls him Rhysand, which Lucien shortens to Rhys. Rhysand says that he is here to check on Tamlin and he mentions disdainfully that Tamlin no longer even attempts to save himself or his lands. That it is pathetic how resigned Tamlin is to his fate. When Lucien counters that Rhys is Amarantha’s whore, Rhys says he has his reasons to do the things that he does. Feyre doesn’t know who this Amarantha is, or who Rhysand is, or what is happening at all, until Rhys calls himself a High Lord and Lucien tells him to go back to the Night Court. This is the Lord that sent the decapitated head. Before he leaves, Rhys tells Tamlin that “she” is preparing for him. But then he notices that the table is set for three, Rhys quickly breaks Lucien’s glamour and finds Feyre. He is amazed that she’s still there, she must not know everything or else she’d be gone. Feyre realizes that Tamlin and Lucien are keeping something from her still… something very big. Rhys comments that Amarantha will enjoy breaking Feyre. When Tamlin asks Rhys not to tell Amarantha, Rhys forces him and Lucien both to beg him on their knees to keep Feyre’s existence a secret. When Rhysand asks for her name, Feyre tells him that it’s Clare Beddor. Then Rhys leaves and Feyre runs to her room. That night, Tamlin visits her in her room, which she has not left since seeing Rhys. He tells her that he’s sending her home, he has taken on her life-debt himself and will take responsibility for Andras’ death should anyone ask. There are people who want to hurt her, and he realized today that he cannot protect her from them. He instructs Feyre to go home and not to tell anyone the truth about where she was, spies who will be looking for her. Feyre doesn’t want to leave but Tamlin doesn’t give her a choice. They comfort each other by finally having sex, then Tamlin tells her that she has to leave the next morning (talk about hit it and quit it). In the morning, Feyre says goodbye to Alis and Lucien, and it’s clear to Feyre that Lucien is not happy about the decision to send Feyre home. She says goodbye to Tamlin and leaves him all of her paintings. He seals her into an enchanted carriage – which I think is a bit overkill. He tells her that he loves her just before her carriage leaves and she’s unable to say it back to him. The carriage takes her to her family’s new mansion. Her sisters tell Feyre how their father made a killing investing for a man who just appeared one day, about a week after Feyre had left. How lucky! Elain is delighted to see Feyre, assuming the “aunt” she’s been staying with had died and left her a bunch of money, but Nesta seems suspicious. When Feyre sees her father and sisters, she knows that she fulfilled the promise she made to her mother and it makes her sad, knowing that she’s now free but cannot go where she wants to anyway. While speaking with Elain, Feyre is told that Elain may skip the social season this year (essentially Elain’s chance to find a husband). The last season was strange, nobody acknowledged that their family had been on the outskirts of town starving, they skirted the issue completely. And Nesta has been acting weird, too. She didn’t even finish the last season, but Elain doesn’t know why. Nesta hardly talks and refuses all of the invitations she receives. Elain lets it slip that Nesta tried to come see Feyre at their “aunts” but didn’t make it far before being forced to turn around and how Feyre never seemed to receive any of their letters. But when Feyre speaks to Nesta alone a few days later, Nesta reveals that she knows Feyre was not with any Aunt Ripleigh. Tamlin’s glamour did not work on Nesta, not completely. She would see the claw marks at the cabin, the broken door, the painted table, and she would remember what happened. Nesta even went after Feyre, but she couldn’t find a way over the wall into Prythian. And she’s broken off things with Tomas Mandray, for which Feyre is grateful (he didn’t deserve her). Nesta demands that Feyre tell her everything that happened after Tamlin took her from the cabin, and Feyre does. As she grows closer to her sisters, Nesta reveals that she hated Feyre, for taking care of their family when Nesta couldn’t. But she hates their father more - and she has hated their father for a long time. For letting their mother die without trying to find a cure for her and then later, for allowing them to starve while he did nothing but whittle wood. She points out that Feyre would go to the end of the world to save Tamlin if she needed to! So why didn’t their father try harder to find a cure for their mom. That strikes Feyre, she realizes that she has stopped looking for answers, she hasn’t even tried to find a way back to Tamlin. Her father has a gala in honor of Feyre’s return and afterward, her father mentions that he may buy the Beddor estate. He heard it will be up for sale soon since none of the family survived. The day before Feyre returned to her family, there was a disaster. The Beddor house burned down, killing all of the family and servants, no one survived although Clare’s body hasn’t been found. Clare Beddor, whose name Feyre gave Rhysand when he asked. Feyre realizes that faeries came over the wall and done this to the Beddors. She is in grave danger, as is everyone that she loves. Feyre tells her family that everything she has said so far must remain a secret. Do not come looking for her. Do not even speak her name again. Nesta listens to Feyre intently. Feyre encourages them to leave but if they don’t, at least hire guards. If they hear of anything strange, anything at all, just leave. She doesn’t know what’s happening, but Feyre knows something is happening and it isn’t good. Nesta helps Feyre get ready to go back to Prythia, she’s going to try to save Tamlin. Nesta tells Feyre not to come back and worries about what Feyre can do to help Tamlin at all, but Feyre has to try. She lets Nesta know not to trust what the faeries say, turns out that faeries can lie. She says if she has the chance, if things are safer, she will find Nesta again. Feyre leaves Nesta and goes downstairs, where Elain has a horse ready for her with food and supplies. Now that Feyre has broken the glamour, Elain remembers everything. Feyre says goodbye to Elain, their father is nowhere to be found, and she rides for the wall. Since Feyre knows what she’s looking for, she’s able to find the opening in the wall into Prythian. She rides to the Spring Court, but Tamlin is not there and the manor is in shambles. But there is no blood, and Feyre takes heart from that. She finds a trail with two sets of footprints, possibly Tamlin and Lucien. As she’s investigating the manor, a cloaked figure enters and when it turns, Feyre realizes it’s Alis. Alis tells Feyre that Lucien and Tamlin are both alive, but they’ve been taken to Amarantha’s court Under the Mountain. Amarantha has been the High Queen of Prythian for the last hundred years and she placed a curse on Tamlin decades ago. Amarantha had arrived as an emissary from the King of Hybern on the other continent. She charmed all of the High Lords and stayed in Prythia for fifty years, supposedly to make amends on behalf of herself and the King of Hybern, for the actions taken during the War against humans. She had been the king’s most terrible general, her sister Clythia (who was almost as bad) by her side. Until Clythia fell in love with Jurian, a human warrior. Jurian used Clythia for information, but Clythia would not leave him, until Jurian betrayed her. He killed her and crucified her, leaving her remains for Amarantha to find. Since then, Amarantha has hated humans even more than she had before, and when the Treaty between Faeries and humans was signed, she killed her slaves rather than free them. She brought her own forces to Prythia and conquered the seven High Lords using a potion that allowed her to steal their powers. She has had that power for forty-nine years and now she wants to expand and take the human lands as well. She is the blight. Tamlin could have broken the curse, or rather, Feyre could have broken it for him. Tamlin’s father had been close to the King of Hybern so knew Amarantha before the war. Amarantha wanted him, but Tamlin was not interested. He refused her, sending Lucien as an emissary to sue for peace between them, it’s how Lucien lost his eye, Amarantha took it (she didn’t take his refusal gracefully). Afterward, Amarantha hosted a masquerade for all the courts, to make amends for the lost eye. The entire Spring Court was asked to attend. But when they arrived, she said peace was only available if Tamlin became her consort and lover, but he still refused. He said he’d rather marry a human than touch Amarantha. So, Amarantha gave him forty-nine years to find a human and convince that human to marry him, but he couldn’t tell her about the curse. And it couldn’t be just any girl. A human who had to killed one of his men in an unprovoked attack. Tamlin had lied to Feyre when he said she must come to the Spring Court as a provision of the treaty. For two years, he sent his men over the wall to try to find a woman he could marry, but all it did was get his soldiers killed. Then Tamlin all but gave up. Forty years ago, three of the other High Lords (Day court, Summer Court, and Winter Court) banded together and tried to fight Amarantha. She killed them and most of their families too. They had created The Children of the Blessed and used the humans as messengers to try to call for help from other Fae territories, but Amarantha caught the mortals and had them killed. Now Amarantha keeps all of the High Lords (except Tamlin, until now) at the court Under the Mountain. She has a court of wicked creatures, and she holds the High Lords hostage (and although she is on bad terms with the King of Hybern, he has not tried to punish her so far). Feyre asks Alis if Tamlin could beat Amarantha if he had his full powers, but Alis isn’t certain. Amarantha is cunning, she has her own power, and she holds the power of the High Lords as well, but it’s unclear if she can use the power that was not originally hers. And if Feyre had just told Tamlin that she loved him, the curse would be broken now! Feyre asks Alis how you get Under the Mountain. After fighting for a minute, Alis agrees to take Feyre to the entrance. She takes Feyre to a special tunnel that will lead her Under the Mountain and gives Feyre some rules before she goes. 1. Do not drink the wine. 2. Don’t make deals unless your life absolutely depends on it. 3. Don’t trust anyone, not even Tamlin. And one last thing, there is still something that Feyre doesn’t know about the curse and the curse will not allow Alis to tell her. But Alis advises Feyre to keep her ears open and listen! Feyre tells Alis if she or her nephews need a place to stay, go to Nesta, then she takes her bow and quiver of arrows and walks into the tunnel… right into the grasp of the Attor. The Attor takes Feyre directly to the throne room, not even bothering to take her bow or arrows away, and Feyre sees Amarantha for the first time. Lovely, but with terrible resting bitch face that detracts from the beauty of her features. On a black rock throne next to Amarantha sits Tamlin, who seems disinterested in Feyre. Amarantha is confused about why the Attor brought Feyre here until the Attor points out that she came from the Spring Court, and it insists that Feyre tell Amarantha why she’s come. Feyre is here to claim Tamlin, High Lord of the Spring Court, whom she loves. Tamlin does not react to her pronouncement and Feyre fears she’s too late, but Amarantha is delighted, realizing that Tamlin allowed her to torture Clare Beddor in order to keep Feyre safe. She points behind Feyre to the body of Clare, which has been nailed to the wall. All because Feyre gave Clare’s name to Rhysand. Tamlin tries to protect Feyre by claiming he’s never seen her before and that she’s likely been glamoured by someone as a joke, but Amarantha doesn’t buy it and she’s looking for a bit of fun. She decides not to kill Feyre outright. Instead, she offers Feyre a bargain. Complete three tasks that will be dictated by Amarantha that will prove Feyre’s love and loyalty, and Tamlin is hers. Tasks to prove to Amarantha, and to Jurian (whose eye Amarantha wears in a ring), that mortals are actually capable of love. Feyre demands that Tamlin’s curse also be broken when the tasks are completed and that his whole court can leave, including Tamlin and herself. Amarantha agrees and does Feyre one better, when Feyre reaches the point where she can stand the tasks no longer and she wants to give up, all she has to do is answer one riddle and Tamlin’s curse will be immediately broken, but if Feyre answers wrong, she will be killed. And obviously, the tasks will kill her if she can’t complete them. She will have one task a month at the full moon, but she won’t know what the task is ahead of time. And in between tasks, Feyre will be kept in a cell or do additional work as required, nothing more strenuous than basic housework, Amarantha agrees. Tamlin looks at her and his eyes widen a tiny amount, imploring her not to make the deal, but now Feyre knows he’s still in there and he loves her still. Feyre agrees and Amarantha asks the court to give Feyre a proper welcome, so the Attor and a couple of others beat Feyre until she loses consciousness. Feyre wakes up in a cell, and she is in rough shape. Broken nose, black eyes, concussion. She can hear someone else being tortured from her cell. She sees someone slip quietly in through the door, Lucien. He’s able to see her since the guards outside are drunk but they will be relieved soon by fresh guards, so Lucien has to hurry. He sets her nose, and she faints again from the pain. While she’s out, he heals her face somewhat, but he doesn’t heal it completely, so that Amarantha won’t realize that someone helped Feyre. He explains that all of the High Lords are trapped Under the Mountain, including the ones who have already sworn obedience to Amarantha and would normally enjoy some freedom, until Feyre’s trials are over. Feyre asks if Amarantha’s ring is really Jurian’s eye, and Lucien confirms that it is. Jurian’s soul and consciousness are bound to his eye, so he is now forced to watch everything Amarantha does. Lucien slips away before the new guards come to Feyre’s cell. Feyre has no way to track the passing of time. At some point, she’s brought back to Amarantha’s throne room. Amarantha asks for her name and when Feyre refuses to give it, she calls Rhysand forth. She asks him what her name is but he claims not to know, after all, he thought she was Clare Beddor. Amarantha calls for Lucien instead, who is dragged forward by the Attor. She commands Rhysand to find Feyre’s name in Lucien’s mind but Lucien fights against him. He’s struggling and finally, Feyre gives in and gives Amarantha her real name, to save Lucien. Amarantha gives Feyre her riddle: “There are those who seek me a lifetime, but we never meet, and those I kiss but who trample me beneath ungrateful feet. At times I seem to favor the clever and the fair, but I bless all those who are brave enough to dare. By large, my ministrations are soft-handed and sweet, but scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat. For though each of my strikes lands a powerful blow, when I kill, I do it slow…” The next time Feyre’s door opens, it’s time for her first trial. She is brought to a wooden platform where Amarantha and Tamlin sit, raised above the rest of the crowd. Feyre can see below the platform a maze of tunnels and trenches that can be observed by the crowd. Also on the platform, Feyre sees the other High Lords of Prythian, six of them including Rhysand, standing off to the side. Amarantha commands Feyre to look into the trenches. As she looks, the Attor grabs her from behind and flies her into the labyrinth. Since Feyre enjoys hunting so much, Amarantha has given her something to hunt. A giant worm that is intent on eating Feyre with its rows of sharp teeth in its huge mouth. The worm made these trenches, Feyre is in its home. Feyre runs from the worm, barely able to stay ahead of it. She squeezes through a tiny gap that the worm can’t fit through although that’s unlikely to stop the worm for long. Too late, Feyre realizes she’s too big for the opening and she is stuck halfway. She can smell the worm coming closer (it reeks), she’s trying to pull herself the rest of the way through, but the mud is too slippery. Feyre finally finds purchase and gets through the gap. She hears that the worm has passed her, and she keeps running, unsure if the worm is just taking a longer route to get back to her. She looks at the crowd and sees their disappointment that she is still alive, and that they’re looking at the other end of the maze where the worm is now. It hadn’t seen her as she pulled herself into the crack. She would have been impossible to mess unless… its blind! She’s so excited by the revelation that she doesn’t see the giant pit in front of her until she’s falling into it, although she does manage to keep quiet as she falls and doesn’t give her location away. The walls of the pit are too steep to climb out and there is only a small, dark tunnel at the back that goes nowhere, Feyre realizes that she’s trapped. She feels around and finds bones at the base of the pit, including one in the shape of a skull. She grabs the biggest, strongest bones she can find and jams them into the wall. She keeps putting bones into the wall and is able to make a sort of ladder to climb out, but she doesn’t climb out. Not yet. She has an idea. She snaps one of the bones in half over her knee, which gives her two sharp spikes. She puts those two bones, spikes up, in the middle of the pit. She continues breaking bones and making spikes, filling the whole area except for one small spot. She only has one chance to make this work. She climbs out of the pit; she has three more bones in her belt. She goes to the wall of the tunnel and covers herself with mud, which also reeks, and hopefully the smell will camouflage her own scent. As he watches, Rhysand realizes what she’s doing, and he seems impressed. The three bones she has in her belt she places in corners that are particularly tight to help her maintain her speed as she runs. Now for the worm. She finds it feasting on a snack that one of the faeries is serving it and Feyre hides again for a moment to prepare herself for what she’s about to do. She still has a spiky bone, which she uses to cut the skin on her hand. She looks again around the corner, but sees the worm is gone. Lucien screams at her “to your left!” and Feyre starts running just before the worm explodes from the wall behind her. Feyre runs, staying close enough to the worm to entice it but far enough ahead that it cannot reach her. She runs and runs until she reaches the pit, jumping in and aiming for the small area that she left empty of bone spikes. She still hits her arm on one of the bone spikes as she lands, but she quickly moves into the small tunnel at the back. The worm throws itself into the pit and she hears a loud crunching noise, and then the worm stops moving. It’s dead. She climbs out of the pit and back through the labyrinth. She still has her bone sword. When she sees Amarantha, she takes a few running steps and throws the bone directly at her, it lands in the ground at Amarantha’s feet. Amarantha lets Feyre know that most of the court had banked on her dying in the first minute. Had bet on it, in fact. Only one of the spectators thought that she would make it out. Amarantha commands the guards to take Feyre back to her cell, still covered in mud with her injured arm bleeding, the bone shard still embedded. No one comes to help Feyre this time and she worries. She can’t pull the bone shard out of her arm herself. Now it is always throbbing, and it hasn’t stopped bleeding yet. She starts to get a fever; her arm is becoming infected. She thinks that she sees some sort of ripple at the door to her cell and suddenly, a shadow appears. Rhysand. He’s come to help although she doesn’t want to accept his help. He informs her that he was the one that bet on her living through her first trial. He asks to see her arm, but when she won’t give it to him, he grabs it and pulls it into the light anyway. He says he’ll heal her arm for her, for a trade. For two weeks out of every month that he chooses, she will live with him at the Night Court. Once these trials are done. She says no. He tells her to reconsider, he knows that Lucien healed her the first time but there’s no guarantee that he, or anyone else, will be able to come again. Lucien has already been punished for helping her during her trial. Tamlin had to beg for Lucien’s life, so Lucien only received twenty lashes for yelling to Feyre. Rhysand tells her that if he leaves her cell, he won’t be back again. Feyre knows she has an infection; she knows she’s dying, but she doesn’t know if she will get help from anyone else. She changes his deal; she will give him five days. He counters with ten, but they agree to one week, every month. When he heals her, she passes out again. A lot of that happening these days. But he’s done more than that when she wakes up. Her fever is now gone, her head is clear, her arm is healed, she’s clean of the mud, and her left forearm and hand are covered in a tattoo. He tells her it’s customary for the Night Court’s bargains to be marked…permanently. At some point, guards come to force Feyre to scrub hallway floors. Part of the menial labor that she agreed to, and it better be shining by the time they come back. Easy peasy. Lucky for Feyre, they gave her dirty water. If anything, the more she scrubs, the dirtier the floor gets. A trick so that the guards can punish Feyre later. Somewhere down the hall, a door opens. At first, Feyre thinks that it is Lucien because the person has red hair, but in fact, it is Lucien’s mother. She replaces the water in the bucket with clean water as a thank you to Feyre for giving her name to Amarantha and saving Lucien’s life, then she leaves considering her debt repaid. Now Feyre can actually clean the floor. The next day the guards force her to separate lentils from ash in the fireplace with the light of a few candles. She is still finding lentils when the occupant of the room (Rhysand) returns, who is confused about what exactly she is doing. Or how lentils came to be in his fireplace in the first place. She wonders to Rhysand if Amarantha isn’t using her to test him. She wasn’t pleased that he bet on Feyre in the first task, she suspects that he lied to her about knowing Clare was not actually Feyre, about not knowing what Feyre looked like. He retorts that both he and Amarantha have their games, that the night he put the head in Tamlin’s garden he was able to do so because Amarantha wanted it done. And when he came to Fire Night, he had his own reasons, but getting there cost him. She wonders how he is so powerful when Amarantha took the powers of the others and he points out that she DID take his power, this is just what is left. Imagine how powerful he really is. He verifies that all the High Lords can shift into a beast, but Rhysand prefers wings to Tamlin’s fur. He does a partial shift, and Feyre sees huge wings like a bat’s behind him. She asks if he knows the answer to the riddle but he tells her that even if he wanted to help her, he can’t. Amarantha ordered everyone at the court not to. They have no choice but to obey the command. But he does clean her of the dirt and soot from the fireplace and cleans the fireplace for her, separating the lentils into her bucket. When the guards come to collect her, he makes sure to tell them there is to be no more “household chores”, to stay out of Feyre’s cell, and not to touch her. She doesn’t like Rhysand, but she’s grateful to him just the same. She now gets hot meals sometimes and she’s left alone to ponder the riddle and listen to the screams of those being tortured. When the screams are too much for her, she stares at the eye on her hand, part of Rhysand’s tattoo, and sometimes she talks to it a bit. Finally, after several days, two High Fae come to collect her. They say nothing but take her arms. They are all just shadows as they escort Feyre through the door, through the dungeon, down hallways and up stairs, to a room where she is bathed and they proceed to paint her body. They use cosmetics on her face and place a diadem on her head, on her body they paint whorls and swirls to match her tattoo before dressing her in a white, gauzy, very provocative dress. Then Rhysand arrives to escort her to the party celebrating midsummer. The paint will make sure no one touches her, since it will smear if they do. And this is how Rhysand reveals to Amarantha, and to Tamlin, the deal that he and Feyre have made. He gives Feyre a glass of wine, telling her that she is going to need it, and she wakes up in her cell super hungover. She can’t remember anything from the night before but Lucien visits later that day and he tells her that’s it’s probably better that way. That she danced with Rhysand for most of the night and sat in his lap when she wasn’t dancing. Lucien tells her that she should have waited for him to come to her instead of dealing with Rhysand, but she asks why she would do that after everything that he said at the manor and how he admitted that he hesitated to help her when she was running from the naga. Lucien points out that he helped her during her task, and she gave her name to Amarantha to protect him. Did Feyre not realize that he would help her after that, regardless of what he’d said before? Feyre insists that she had no choice, she was dying from an infection, to be fair. Feyre tells Lucien that he doesn’t need to stick to any oath he made with Tamlin to save her or protect her, he doesn’t owe her anything. She would have saved him from Amarantha just to piss off his brothers, she saw their smug faces when she approached Amarantha, and it infuriated him on his behalf. Night after night there is party after party, night after night she is painted and paraded around. Night after night, she drinks the wine and wakes up with very few memories of the night before. Until one night, Rhysand enters just after she’s dressed and tells her that her second trial will be the next night. They get into a bit of a tiff; she asks him if he swore allegiance to Amarantha to be able to roam free, but he retorts that what he has done for the good of his Court is none of her business. But when they get to the party that night, Feyre notices that everyone is watching Rhysand. Amarantha calls to him and he brings Feyre to the throne with him, partly to keep Feyre safe from Lucien’s brothers who have been eyeing her. When they arrive before Amarantha, they see a High Fae male crying on the floor, a young summer Fae that tried to escape. Amarantha wants Rhysand to search his mind and find out why he tried to leave. The male begs Rhysand, saying please repeatedly but Rhysand does as he is asked. Rhysand tells Amarantha that the young male wanted to escape to human territory. He had no accomplices, no motive except cowardice. Feyre notices that the male and the Summer Lord both seem relieved. Amarantha tells Rhysand to shatter the male and do what he wishes with the body. Quickly, Rhysand shatters his brain and kills him, but Amarantha is angry, she didn’t want him dead, just broken! Shatter his mind, not his whole brain! Rhysand just apologizes before walking away as onlookers sneer at him, or some of them do. Some congratulate him. Rhysand ignores them all. But Feyre knows that the High Fae was relieved, that Rhysand killed him out of mercy, and she’s pretty sure that there was more to the plan than just escape. Plans that Rhysand did not reveal to Amarantha. Plans that possibly included the High Lord of the Summer Court. Rhysand just hands Feyre another glass of wine. It's time for the second task. Feyre is again brought before Amarantha and her court. When Amarantha says “begin”, the floor beneath Feyre begins to shake. It lowers her into a large pit. There are no doors, and three of the walls are made of smooth, polished stone. The last wall is actually an iron grate that cuts the pit in half and Feyre can see Lucien on the other side of the grate. He’s chained to the floor and he’s clearly terrified. Amarantha, who now stands at the edge of the pit, points out levers set into the wall. She explains to Feyre that there are three levers, just pull the right one to win. Just then, Feyre realizes that two more spiked grates are lowering towards the chambers. Feyre looks at the wall and at the three levers labeled I, II, and III with an inscription written above them. She has to answer the question inscribed on the wall, but she’s not good at reading yet. She was only just teaching herself when she had to leave the Spring Court. She looks at Lucien but he’s too far away to read it. As the spikes lower, the pit gets hotter and hotter from the heat of the metal grates. It’s almost too late and Lucien screams at her just to pick one. She likes the number two, for absolutely no reason at all. When she reaches for the second lever, she feels a blinding pain in her hand. When she reaches for the third lever, there is no pain at all. The spiked grate is only a few feet away from her now. She reaches for the first lever and again feels the pain. She believes the tattoo is guiding her, but she still doesn’t quite trust Rhysand. But she chooses to trust him in this, and she pulls the third lever, the spikes stop lowering only a few inches away from her head. She sinks down and starts to cry but she hears someone speak into her mind. Do not let Amarantha see you cry. Stand up and do not let her see you break. It forces Feyre to stand up so that when the floor of the pit finishes rising, Amarantha sees her standing tall. Rhysand speaks in her head again; he tells her to count to ten before turning and walking away from Amarantha. She walks back to her cell where she finally breaks down, two tasks down. Soon after, Rhysand comes to her in her cell as Feyre cries alone. He pulls her hands away from her face and then licks away a few of her tears. Weird, but it gets her to stop crying. He tells Feyre that she doesn’t need to escort him to the party the next night, but he will still expect her the day after. He teases her a little bit before leaving, preventing her from sinking deeper into her self-sabotaging mental thoughts. She stops thinking about the riddle, believing it too difficult for an illiterate person to understand. That she doesn’t believe that Amarantha will ever let her leave the mountain alive, the third task will kill her. The next night that Feyre is expected to go with Rhysand, she and the handmaidens that dress her hear the Attor speaking to someone in the hall. The handmaidens pull their shadows closer to them to conceal their presence and the group overhears the Attor and its companion speaking. There is something that Amarantha has been waiting for that is now ready, something that the High Lords will need to contribute forces to. They overhear that the King of Hybern is not pleased about the bargain Amarantha made with Feyre. If Amarantha had not been so focused on Jurian during the war, the king’s forces may have won. This is just another of her obsessions with a human. She’s already on thin ice with him, having stolen his spells and taking Prythian as her own, she had better help him in his current cause. There’s only one thing that Feyre knows of that the King of Hybern wants – all of the mortal lands and the mortals enslaved again. The night before her third trial, Feyre is painted and taken to the party. She waits for Rhysand to give her a goblet of wine but he’s currently distracted, she feels Tamlin come up beside her. He beckons her to come with him, and she follows him to a small door hidden somewhat by a tapestry. They kiss and touch each other but are interrupted by Rhysand. He wonders aloud how Amarantha would punish Tamlin if she knew what he was doing with Feyre, or perhaps she would punish Lucien again instead. Tamlin puts himself in order and gets ready to leave the tiny hidden space. Before he goes, he tells Feyre that he loves her. Once Tamlin is gone, Rhysand comes over to the very exposed Feyre and whisper yells at her. Does she have any idea what Amarantha would do if she and Tamlin had been caught! Feyre asks why he cares, and he doesn’t answer her, he kisses her instead, it’s the first time he’s touched her anywhere except her arms or waist even while she’s been under the influence of the wine. As he kisses her, Amarantha flings open the door and sees the two of them canoodling. Amarantha laughs, believing that Feyre is betraying Tamlin, who she claims to love. She believes that this proves how fickle humans really are. Rhys sends Feyre back to her cell and Feyre realizes that her painted body (that has clearly been touched) has now been explained away. Too bad Tamlin can’t bear to look at her anymore. Hours later, Rhys visits Feyre in her cell. He needs a moment of peace: Amarantha won’t leave him alone. He hates her but he is forced to cater to her and serve her in bed. The others call him Amarantha’s whore. He tells Feyre that they’re all doomed if she makes one wrong move in the next trial. This is their only chance. If it doesn’t work, Amarantha will rule forever. She can already control the High Lords through her power, but she cannot access their power completely. Amarantha’s biggest weapon is that she can limit their power. The moment Tamlin’s curse is broken, he will have so much power (and anger) that he will kill Amarantha immediately and free the rest of them. Rhysand tells Feyre that working Tamlin into a frenzy is the best weapon they have right now. And yes, part of that fury is towards Rhysand as well, especially when he saw Feyre’s tattoo for the first time, but Rhysand is betting that Tamlin goes for Amarantha first. Feyre knows that Rhysand has been working hard to keep her alive. And he’s not demanding almost anything in return. It's time for the third task. Feyre is allowed to wear the tunic and pants that she arrived in. Before the task starts, Feyre is allowed to say a few words. She tells Tamlin again that she loves him, but he doesn’t react. Amarantha starts the trial, and three hooded figures are brought in. Her final task is to stab each one of the hooded figures in the heart with a dagger made with an ash blade. Amarantha tells her that each of the figures is innocent, although that didn’t matter to Feyre when she killed Tamlin’s sentinel, so why should she care now. The freedom of Tamlin, of herself, and potentially of the whole of Prythian, for three innocent lives. Feyre reaches for the first dagger, but Amarantha has the hood taken off the innocent High Fae boy. She wants Feyre to look him in the eye. He begs Feyre not to kill him. She apologizes to him and then Feyre hears someone in the crowd start to cry. Someone who loves this youth as much as Feyre loves Tamlin, but Feyre stabs the boy anyway, crying as she kills him. They reveal the next faerie, a female this time, and Feyre picks up the second dagger. Three daggers for three victims. The female begins to pray. Feyre again apologizes and they meet eyes, holding each other’s gaze. The faerie nods her head slightly, giving Feyre permission to proceed, and Feyre kills her with a dagger through the heart. Feyre looks at Amarantha, who is still smiling despite Feyre already killing two of the three faeries in her last trial. Feyre looks at Rhysand, who is watching Amarantha and looking concerned. The guards unmask the last faerie, and it is none other than Tamlin. How can that be when Tamlin is sitting next to Amarantha? Feyre looks to the dais and the Tamlin there changes shape into the Attor. Which means that Rhysand’s plan is completely shot, he was relying on Feyre breaking Tamlin’s curse and Tamlin killing Amarantha, freeing the rest of them. She should have listened to Alis, Alis told Feyre not to trust her own senses. Then, Feyre remembers that Alis told her something else. There is a final part of the curse, a part that Feyre couldn’t be told outright, even after the curse’s time had run out. That Feyre needed to listen. As if Feyre already knew the information she needed. She remembers when she first learned about the Attor. Tamlin knew she was in danger; he hid her and told her to stay hidden but had led the Attor close to her so she could overhear them. She runs over the conversation again. The Attor had said that Amarantha makes no bargains that are not advantageous to her, and there was one thing she wanted more than anything else: Tamlin. Amarantha would never really kill Tamlin. Then Feyre remembers something that Lucien had said, and everything falls into place. “For someone with a heart of stone, yours is certainly soft these days.” She remembers the Attor telling Tamlin that even though he had a heart of stone, it held a lot of fear inside of it. Feyre can’t kill Tamlin, at least not by stabbing him in the heart with her dagger. Tamlin lifts his chin just a bit and Feyre picks up the dagger, she tells him that she loves him, and then she stabs him with it. As she pushes the dagger in, it hits something hard. She has finished her task, but Tamlin’s mask does not fall off. His wound is healing but not as quickly as it should if he were at full strength. The curse has not been lifted! As the faeries in the court tell Amarantha to free Tamlin, she yells that she doesn’t have to free him right away. Feyre never specified when Tamlin was to be freed if she passed the trials, only if she solved the riddle. Then, Amarantha attacks Feyre and Feyre is in terrible pain. Rhysand calls out Feyre’s name, as Amarantha taunts her. The faeries nearby start to demand that Tamlin be released and Feyre sees Rhysand kneel near Tamlin and grab the dagger that Feyre used to stab Tamlin. Rhysand runs at Amarantha, trying to cut her throat, but she throws him into a wall. He goes for Amarantha again, but she has him held with her magic, throwing him into the wall repeatedly, until the wall starts to fracture. Feyre tells Amarantha to stop, and Amarantha turns back to Feyre. Rhysand is forced to watch as Amarantha breaks Feyre’s body. Amarantha insists that Feyre say she does not love Tamlin but Feyre will not give in. Tamlin begs Amarantha to stop. He apologizes for what he once said about her sister. And as Feyre realizes that she is going to die, that Amarantha was never going to let her live, that Tamlin caused her all this pain, but Amarantha could never stop Feyre from loving him, Feyre realizes what the solution to the riddle is. It’s love. She yells to Amarantha that the answer to the riddle is love just before Amarantha breaks her back. Feyre sees everything from a distance, as if she is no longer in her body. She sees her own broken body on the floor, her neck broken. She sees Lucien in the crowd as he removes his fox mask – the curse is now broken. She sees Amarantha watching Tamlin as he looks at Feyre’s body and then turns to Amarantha. As he turns into a beast. Tamlin in beast form attacks Amarantha. Several of Amarantha’s cronies, including the Attor, try to help but they are stopped by other members of the court. Lucien throws Tamlin a sword and Tamlin catches it, stabbing Amarantha through the head with it. Then he rips out her throat. You can never be too sure about these things. Tamlin goes to Feyre and picks up her body, and Feyre realizes she’s watching everything through Rhysand’s eyes. Lucien and many of the other High Fae and faeries grieve for her, seeing that Feyre is dead, or she should be. Lucien’s father, the High Lord of the Autumn Court, comes and extends a head to Tamlin, allowing a spark of his magic to fall on Feyre. Then the High Lords of the Summer and Winter Courts do the same. Then the Dawn Court, Day Court, and Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court. Tamlin, the last High Lord, holds magic in his palm and he puts his hand against Feyre’s heart as he tells her that he loves her. Feyre wakes up lying on the cold floor, but she is no longer broken, she is completely healed. She sees her own skin, glowing radiantly. She feels different. She realizes that she’s become High Fae. Tamlin, standing behind her, explains that it was the only way they could save her life. Afterward, Feyre is still recovering physically but she will never be okay with the fact that she killed two innocent High Fae. She is told that Rhysand has left the mountain, so have all of Amarantha’s closest faeries and Lucien’s brothers. Tamlin has meetings with the remaining High Lords to decide how they are to proceed now that they are free. Finally, Tamlin notices that Feyre is not okay; that the world is too bright, too loud in her new High Fae body, that her guilt is without end. He looks at the tattoo Rhysand gave her and thinks that the tattoo is what is worrying her. He promises that they will find a way out of her agreement, but she doesn’t want to talk about any of it, so she distracts him by kissing him and more. That night as they sleep, she is woken by a pull deep inside of her. She follows it to a small balcony on the side of the mountain where Rhysand is waiting for her. He wanted to say goodbye to her. At least, goodbye until his first week with her when he will see her again. She asks him why he helped her as Amarantha tried to kill her and he responds that he didn’t want to be remembered in the legends as just standing by. He wants them to know that he fought against Amarantha in the end, even if it did nothing. He didn’t want Feyre to fight alone. He didn’t want her to die alone. He asks how it feels now that she’s High Fae and she tells him about her struggle to deal with the guilt of killing the two innocent High Fae. Rhysand tells her to be happy that she can feel, that her heart is still human. He tells her to pity those that don’t feel anything at all. He says goodbye and bows to her, but then he goes very still. He looks up at Feyre, shocked, and he stumbles away from her before disappearing completely. Tamlin and Feyre return to the Spring Court. The court Under the Mountain has been destroyed and sealed, they’re the last to leave it, destroying the entrance in the Spring Court as they go. Amarantha’s body has been taken to be burned, although Jurian’s eye suspiciously went missing before then. They arrive at the manor and Feyre sees Alis with her nephews, no longer in hiding. Lucien is already there, waiting for them. They’re home.
Click reveal if you think you can handle it. Three months after leaving Under the Mountain, Feyre is slowly getting used to being High Fae and she has yet to hear from Rhys. She is living in the Spring Court, engaged to Tamlin, and having regular nightmares of what she went through…and what she did while she was there. She sleeps next to Tamlin every night, yet it seems that he’s never aware of when the nightmares startle her awake or when she’s throwing up from the dreams. He also won’t let Feyre go far - they’re still getting rid of some of Amarantha’s monsters, and he’d be afraid for her safety if she went out, but Feyre feels the need to DO something. To rebuild what Amarantha ruined. But Tamlin would be too worried for her, it would distract him and tells her no. Feyre is doing what Tamlin expects of her, wearing the jewelry and the dresses, being a figurehead for the court, but she is unhappy. She’s even stopped painting. And there is a new addition to the Spring Court, Ianthe. A childhood friend of Tamlin’s, the youngest of Prythian’s twelve High Priestesses, and their wedding planner. Ianthe and her family had sailed to Vallahan across the ocean at the first sign of trouble with Amarantha and only came back after Amarantha was dead. Now Ianthe has her eyes on Lucien, who is very much not interested. One day after a discussion with Tamlin about how High Lords take consorts and wives but they are not called High Ladies (the title doesn’t exist) she is allowed to travel to a nearby village with Lucien - Tamlin must be feeling guilty about the nonexistent High Lady position. Feyre and Lucien discuss several things on their way: Feyre’s new role in the court, their changing dynamic now that Lucien (and the rest of the faerie realm) is no longer desperate and Lucien must follow Tamlin’s orders, and that the Tithe is coming soon. Emissaries from everywhere in the Spring Court will show up to pay their Tithe, which is dependent on their circumstances. Basically, paying taxes. It’s the first Tithe since Amarantha’s curse was broken. It’s only been three months, but Ianthe is assuring Tamlin that his people are ready for the Tithe. Feyre will be expected to sit with Tamlin as the Tithes come in, and as punishment is meted out for those unable to pay up. Lucien asks Feyre not to push Tamlin on her freedom until after the Tithe and the wedding. Tamlin watched her die, and he needs to protect her, the way that Lucien could not protect the female he loved. They arrive in the village and Feyre hears herself called “Feyre Cursebreaker”. But no one will allow Feyre to help them rebuild, they tell her time and time again that she has already helped them by breaking the curse and releasing them from the camps that Amarantha put them in. Feyre’s world gets that much smaller. It is the day before the wedding and Tamlin and Feyre will spend the night apart, as is traditional. Feyre sees Tamlin and Lucien with some other friends, who she has already forgotten the names of. She sees him laughing with them and wonders when was the last time she really laughed. She just keeps telling herself that things will be fine. A little bit longer, just pass the next big milestone, and everything will be fine. The next morning, Feyre puts on her wedding dress (she hates it) and silk gloves to cover the tattoos on her arm. She starts to walk down the aisle. She stops only a few steps away and she can’t go any further. Tamlin holds out his hand for her, but her heart is pounding, and she starts to panic. She starts to beg inside her head to be saved, please somebody save her. She steps back once - she does not deserve to get marry or be happy, she’s damned, she’s murdered the innocent. She cannot go further and suddenly everything gets dark, thunder peals, and Rhysand is there. He’s calling in his bargain and Feyre will be spending the next week with him. Tamlin tries to make another bargain with him to allow the wedding to go forward first, but Ianthe has already left the alter and Rhysand is not interested in a bargain anyway. He will bring Feyre back in a week. He tells Feyre to hold on and wraps an arm around her waist, then the wind whips around them and they arrive at the Night Court, the most beautiful place that Feyre has ever seen. It is not what Feyre expected. She can’t even hear any screaming of all the beings they are assuredly torturing. But Rhys is no different than before, still cocky and self-assured. He tells her that she’s welcome - since he just saved her when she asked for it. He heard her cry out. He tells her the dress is hideous; she looks just like what Tamlin and Ianthe want her to: a “doe-eyed damsel”. He asks her if Tamlin wonders why she’s been vomiting every night or why she can’t look at the color red (like Amarantha’s hair or the blood that Feyre spilled). She’s been sending all her emotions down their bond. Rhys tells her to rest for the night and directs her to her room. He tells her that she is not a prisoner, but a guest, and will be treated as a member of his household. No one here will hurt her. He explains that the Night Court does dwell within the mountain below them, Amarantha used his court as the template for her own, but he lives on the mountain and his home life and work life do not often overlap so she will not need to go below the mountain. But within his home she is free to go where she pleases. Alone in her room later, as Feyre prepares to sleep, she recognizes that Rhys did save her from having to explain to Tamlin that she couldn’t go forward with the wedding, but she’s still furious about it. The next morning her handmaidens from Under the Mountain arrive to escort her to breakfast. She bathes first but can feel the bond that she and Rhys share pulling her to breakfast. She dresses (loose pants and a delicate shirt) and goes to join him. He explains to her that although they are the Night Court, the three Solar Courts still have all times of the day. It is not always dark, but the nights here are incredible. The Seasonal Courts, however, are eternally in their particular season. He gives her more information about their bond and how she essentially has no door at her end of the bond, no shield. She sends information down the bond to him constantly, but he does not go looking unless he thinks she may be in danger. She asks what he wants from her, and he surprises her. This week he wants her to learn how to read, but he thinks they should throw in shielding as well. He is strong enough to be able to bypass her shields but there’s no reason she shouldn’t be able to block out everyone else. He’s also interested in what she can do with her new powers. She’s strong, even for a High Fae, and he wonders if the High Lords transferred anything to her when they resurrected her. But Feyre refuses to work on anything with him. Then he introduces her to his cousin Morrigan, also known as Mor. His only living relative who will be here for the rest of the week. Feyre realizes that she would be a fool not to take Rhys upon his offer to train, so they begin their reading/shielding lessons. He starts with the alphabet, which irritates Feyre, but Rhys assures her that he doesn’t think she’s stupid and he doesn’t like her feeling inadequate, but he’s not sure what she knows and what she doesn’t. He gives her a flirty message for her to read about how great she looks, and he simultaneously teaches her how important shielding is. He demands that she shove him out of her head, and he shows her how to do it. It’s exhausting but she manages it. He’s impressed, both with the shielding and the fact that she’s already able to read better than he expected. It’s mostly about practice now. He impresses on her that he is not her enemy, regardless of what others may say, that includes Ianthe (who he does not have a favorable opinion of). He gives her homework: copy the alphabet until her letters are perfect and whenever she completes one round of the alphabet, lower and raise her shield so that it also becomes habit. She’s made good progress by the end of the day. Rhys takes her up to the top of his home where there is a circular table showing a map of the world. Every court is shown except the Night Court, which appears as a blank space. He tells her that war is coming, she immediately thinks that he means to invade the mortal lands himself, and he’s disappointed that after everything he did Under the Mountain that she still thinks he’s a monster. He’s not talking about him, but the King of Hybern, the king wants to conquer everything south of the wall. He will try to take Prythian first, and he will destroy the wall after. During the last war, Rhys fought beside the mortals. He hopes to never see anything like that War again and he wants to know who Hybern’s allies may be. Hybern won’t come in hard this time, he will try stealth and tricks first. There are a few things that Rhys is looking for from Feyre. Tamlin has long had ties to Hybern, but would he be willing to fight with those prepared to go against Hybern. Perhaps Tamlin can use those ties to their advantage. Rhys needs Feyre to hunt and trap for him, she has captured a Suriel and Rhys has never managed it. There are other hunters capable of the task, but he trusts her. Not to mention the strength and speed she’s exhibiting are a big deal. For the Fae, they would be the first indications that someone may become the next High Lord. What if Feyre could be a High Lady in her own right. She points out that there are no High Ladies and Rhys disagrees, there CAN be High Ladies, even if there aren’t any currently. And even if Feyre is not a High Lady exactly… what if she’s something similar. Besides, she needs to master her power before it destroys her. She points out that Tamlin won’t allow her to work with Rhys and Rhys snaps, Feyre is not a trophy, someone to sit pretty beside their High Lord, unless she chooses that path for herself. She could be so much more than that. She could play an important role in the war that’s coming. Because one day, she may be the only thing standing between the King of Hybern and her mortal family. But Rhys won’t force her decision - whichever way she goes; it is her choice to make, no one else’s. Feyre doesn’t see Rhys or Mor for several days. She still has nightmares but her room being so open allows her to settle more quickly and she’s stopped vomiting altogether. The day before she returns to the Spring Court, Feyre overhears Mor telling Rhys that there was an attack at a temple in Cesere, most of the priestesses there were killed and everything stolen. They don’t know who the perpetrators were. Rhys is so angry he loses control and his wings appear briefly. As Feyre watches, Mor just disappears. Rhys explains that it’s called winnowing. A rare gift that only strong Fae can manage. The stronger they are the further they can go when they winnow. Feyre asks about the priestesses, and he tells her they may have been killed by Illyrian war bands. A warrior-race within the Night Court, some of which supported Amarantha (those bands have been being killed by Rhys and his associates the past few months). Then Rhys leaves Feyre alone for the night. The next morning, Feyre demands to be taken back to Tamlin. Rhys points out how much stronger and healthier she looks after the past week. How much she has already learned. He points out that Mor would have spent time with her here, but she didn’t want to pester Feyre, and Feyre certainly didn’t ask for company. He reiterates that he is not her enemy, but FEyre points out that if he is Tamlin’s enemy, then he’s her enemy too. Rhys takes her back to the Spring Court. Before he leaves, Rhys tells Feyre that he will see her next month. She sees Tamlin in his study. He’s destroyed it, there are claw marks all over the walls. Even though Feyre reassures Tamlin that Rhys didn’t touch her, he can’t believe that Rhys didn’t hurt Feyre, even if it wasn’t physically. When she insists that he mostly left her alone, Tamlin retorts that it is only so that she will let her guard down around him. He decides that she won’t be going with Rhys again – bargain or not. He calls Lucien into the study and asks Feyre to tell them everything that she learned about the Night Court. The layout, the people, their weapons and powers, anything she can remember about what Rhys did or said. It is best to know your enemy. Feyre spills everything. She tells them about the map she saw, the conversations Rhys had with her and Mor, about the people they had mentioned (Cassian and Azriel). She asks if Tamlin thinks she may have abilities like Rhys does - it's possibly but the High Lords would kill her to have their power back if she gained anything from them. Tamlin worries about what Rhys will do with this information, and he believes that training would draw too much attention to Feyre. Plus, she doesn’t need to train, he can protect her. Except he couldn’t protect her against Amarantha, even when Feyre was being tortured. Even when Feyre was being murdered. Lucien points out that they could train her in secret, but Tamlin still refuses. There is no room for debate. It's time for the Tithe. Feyre sees Ianthe again, but Ianthe does not bring up the massacred priestesses from the Night Court and neither does Feyre. Feyre sits next to Tamlin on a dais during the Tithe. It takes so long that Feyre begins to zone out. After five hours, a water-wraith approaches the dais. She is here empty handed; she tells Tamlin that the wraiths cannot pay the Tithe because there are no fish left in the lake. Tamlin responds that she is still expected to pay. She has three days to find the payment, or the next Tithe will cost double. The water-wraith becomes distraught. They do not have anything left in the lake to offer, and they have no gold. He repeats his instructions and the wraith is dismissed. She leaves, shaking and hopeless. Feyre is outraged - if the people have nothing to eat how can they be expected to pay Tamlin, and why should they have to when Tamlin does not need the fish. Tamlin explains that he cannot make exceptions. Feyre pushes, they don’t need the things that are being given during the Tithe. Why not help the people to replenish the pond instead? Because that’s just not how things are done. Tamlin’s grandfather and father did it this way, as will his son one day. Giving handouts does not help anyone, not in the long run. Feyre leaves the dais, even though Ianthe tries to grab her. She catches up to the wraith. Feyre gives the wraith the ruby bracelet that she is wearing on her wrist, then she thinks better of it and gives her the necklace and earrings too. She tells the wraith to pay her Tithe with it and buy herself some food. It’s not a bargain; Feyre doesn’t want anything in return. The wraith says that neither she nor her sisters will forget this kindness. At dinner that night, Tamlin is angry with Feyre. He gave her that jewelry! He says that Feyre mocks his laws and the traditions of his court when she disrespects the rules, it makes them look weak. Lucien sticks up for her, which also does not go over well with Tamlin. Feyre hopes that Lucien will stand against Tamlin, knowing that they’re in the right, but Lucien backs down. She pushes against Lucien, entreating him silently to be strong, and she suddenly sees inside his mind! Magic from the Night Court. She leaves dinner and goes to her room - against Tamlin’s wishes. That night, Tamlin comes to apologize and present her with a gift. A traveling painting kit. Maybe she could start painting again. But how can she paint when she’s being suffocated? Feyre tells him that she cannot live like this, guarded all the time. She presses on Tamlin that she cannot go on like this and suddenly power explodes from him, destroying the room. He fixes the room and tries to approach her, but she’s created a protective bubble around herself. He tells her that he will try to be better. He apologizes for several days, and he even reduces the number of guards surrounding her. But he doesn’t get rid of the guards or allow her out, and he also leaves for days at a time and won’t tell her anything about what he’s doing. She continues to practice reading and writing as well as shielding while in the Spring Court. She even practices her protection bubble. Things feel relatively normal between her and Tamlin, until Rhys arrives for her again. Tamlin demands that Rhys leave, but Rhys is not leaving without Feyre. Feyre goes to get dressed and asks Tamlin how Rhys got in, pointing out that if Tamlin doesn’t know then maybe they should figure it out and fix it. She pulls away from Tamlin and goes with Rhys. He asks her to have breakfast with him. He’s worried about her. She’s lost weight. Feyre asks if he has something he should be dealing with instead of bugging her, and he confirms that he does, but he will always make time for her. So, she joins him for breakfast. Rhys tells her he felt her fear through the bond earlier this month and asks why, revealing that he can’t hear her through the bond now that she’s shielding herself. Even with the shields up, he should still be able to feel her, but he couldn’t. He only felt nothingness, until the spike of fear and he wants to know why she was scared. It was during her argument with Tamlin when she created the bubble. Feyre asks where Mor is (away working), he asks if the wedding is on hold for now (yes), did Feyre consider his offer of working with him (she’s not going to do it). In fact, Feyre doesn’t want to be a part of this war at all. He insists he wants her help, not to control her, and she retorts that he only wants her help to piss off Tamlin. He quietly reveals that he doesn’t just want it, he needs her help. He was held prisoner by Amarantha for fifty years - tortured, beaten, and assaulted, until he almost wanted to end everything, to end his life. He cannot allow that to happen to Prythian. Feyre does not respond. She barely sees him that week, he’s gone from the house for several days. When he comes back, she’s reading a novel. He brings her food, and he worries more, saying that she does not have her normal spark, her usual sass. He needs to know how to help her. Why doesn’t anyone in the Spring Court care as they watch her wither to nothing? Why doesn’t Tamlin care? Rhys points out that Amarantha wins if Feyre disappears. He continues to push until Feyre gets angry; she throws ice at him, then lights a fire, and Rhys is relieved to see some emotion. The realization comes to Feyre that she will soon have to return to the emptiness in Tamlin’s Court. But Rhys tells her that he will always be there to wind her up, even if it’s not their week together. The next day, he takes Feyre back to the Spring Court. Tamlin orders Feyre inside the manor as soon as she arrives. He increases the sentries guarding her again and she isn’t allowed away from the house, Ianthe returns to keep Feyre company – she’s been away on priestess business. When Tamlin returns to the house after more than a week away, he sequesters himself in the study to hear information from Ianthe, information that Feyre is not allowed to hear. But when Lucien arrives and startles Feyre (the red hair reminds her of Amarantha) she starts to grow claws like Tamlin’s when he’s in beast mode. Lucien meets with Feyre quietly and asks how long that’s been happening. He tells her he will again ask Tamlin to train her, but Feyre is not optimistic. At dinner that night, Ianthe points out that if news of Feyre’s powers gets out, she will be hunted, as will her children. Ianthe points to Rhysand in particular, he could steal Feyre away. Ianthe offers to contact some allies across the ocean to deal with Rhys discreetly, but her offer is not taken… at least not yet. Lucien just keeps asking Tamlin to let Feyre train, but Tamlin’s answer does not change. No one speaks to Feyre, the presence of the sentries start to make her feel claustrophobic. She’s not allowed to train. She’s enveloped in silence, in loneliness. When Tamlin and Lucien leave to take care of a threat on the coast, Feyre begs to come with them, but Tamlin refuses her. He tells her that her untrained powers are a liability, even if she were to come. Ironic since she’s also not allowed to train those powers. When she tries to follow anyway, against his wishes, Feyre finds that she can’t move. He’s locked her in a bubble just like her protection bubble, but a cage Tamlin has created for her. Lucien is upset; Feyre is distraught. After Tamlin winnows away, Lucien reveals to Feyre that the entire house is now shielded. She cannot leave until Tamlin lowers the shield. He will try to convince Tamlin to loosen her reins, then Lucien follows Tamlin. Feyre starts to have a panic attack. She can’t breathe, she can’t think, she just needs to get out. She loses control; fire, and ice and wind fly around her, melting the engagement ring off her finger, until she wears herself out. Then Mor arrives. Alis sees Mor lift Feyre and asks Mor to take care of her. As Mor carries Feyre out, she tells Feyre that she’s free now. Tamlin’s shield couldn’t keep Rhys from her. When they get to the Night Court, Mor tells Rhys that she did everything in accordance with the laws as she passes Feyre’s body to Rhys, who lulls her to sleep. Feyre wakes up on a couch - being watched by Rhys. He explains that she had been screaming, but she did not hurt any of Tamlin’s servants or guards; just scared the crap out of them. However, Rhys could not walk into Tamlin’s house and take her no matter how much he wanted to, which is why he broke the shield - so that Mor could do it instead. Feyre is currently in the Night Court outside of the parameters of their deal and as such, she does not have to return to the Spring Court if she does not wish to. Feyre is welcome to stay here forever if she wants to, but he will take her back if that is what she wants. Rhys offers her a job. Work for him, help him, and receive everything she needs in compensation. Feyre decides she’s not going back to the Spring Court - at least not for a while. She asks where the powers she has come from. The darkness is from him, the ice from Winter, wind is likely from the Day Court, winnowing is only based on her power and is not dedicated to a court, but if she can grow claws like Tamlin then she may be able to conjure wings as well. He tells Feyre to rest, he will be back by the end of the week, but she asks him to take her with him. He agrees but gives her conditions. She will not be allowed to speak of what she sees in his court because it could get his people killed if she does. If Feyre comes, she will have to lie forever about the people she meets and what she sees here. If that’s agreeable, then she can come with him. Otherwise, she will be required to stay. She makes her decision: she’s going to Velaris, the City of Starlight. When Rhys winnows her to the city, she is amazed to see that it is an actual city and that it’s still standing. Not destroyed by Amarantha. Rhysand invites her into his home, the one just for him and his family. For now, it is just the two of them staying in the house, plus Nuala and Cerridwen, the handmaidens that dressed her Under the Mountain. Rhys gives Feyre some details. No one except for him and Mor are allowed to winnow directly into the house - it is warded and shielded well. Feyre is safe in the house as only people that she or Rhysand want there may enter, and Feyre’s safe in the city as well. He tells her that there are two males at the door that she can choose to meet now, or she can retreat and meet them later. She watches Rhys for a moment before she decides and for the first time, Feyre sees Rhys in a fun mood, teasing his friends… and it looks good on him. Far from the way he looked when she first woke up - full of cold rage. Feyre decides not to meet anyone new right now, but she listens from the hallway upstairs. Rhys and the two males are joined by Mor and another female voice. Nuala and Cerridwen reveal that the people downstairs are Rhys’ inner circle. They explain that most High Lords are not so familiar with their people, but Rhys has always done things a little differently. When Feyre asks how the city still exists and has not been breached in five thousand years, she’s told that Rhys is very powerful and was devoted to his people even before he became High Lord, but they won’t tell her how the city is still standing. That’s Rhys’ story to tell. Feyre takes a little nap and when she wakes up, Rhys takes her into the city. Nuala and Cerridwen have a coat and assorted accoutrement ready and waiting for her, they enjoy having someone to fuss over. Outside, Feyre sees a mountain range. Rhys points out the middle peak where he has another house, The House of Wind, which is less homey and the one he uses for business. She asks Rhys how the city was kept safe from Amarantha, and he tells her it was mostly luck. She is angry that luck wasn’t offered to the rest of the world, and he explains that everyone was aware of the other cities already, while Velaris had always been hidden. Amarantha didn’t touch it because neither she nor anyone else at her court knew about it. Rhys shows her the city: markets they call Palaces that are separated by the type of wares they sell, the artists’ quarter called the Rainbow, the river called the Sidra, the ocean the Sidra spills into. Feyre sees all this knowing that elsewhere the people have suffered. Rhys tells her not to be angry at the citizens, his people are blameless. That night they have dinner with his inner circle in the House of Wind. Amren, Rhys’ second in command, who is not High Fae but something much more ancient, Mor, his cousin and third, and two Illyrian warriors. At one point before dinner, Feyre slips past Rhys’ shields and into his mind, seeing herself through his eyes - which is startling. She looks sickly. He asks how many times she’s done that, and he sees that is has only happened with Lucien. Those that have that particular rare skill are called daemati. Rhys explains how to get to the House of Wind, which is on top of a mountain peak and warded again winnowing, not even Rhys can winnow into it. Feyre can either walk the ten thousand steps to the top… or Rhys can carry her while he flies. After some debate, she agrees to fly with him. During the flight, they’re both thinking deep thoughts and agree to share one thought each. He tells her that he would dream of Velaris when he was Under the Mountain, but he never really believed he would see it again, and that if war comes it may be a long time before he will see it again. He wishes that he had been the one to kill Amarantha. Feyre says that she was a fool not to have seen more of the Spring Court. That there must have been so much of it that she wasn’t allowed to see or know about. That she was a lonely person who fell in love with the first thing that showed her kindness, but that will no longer work for her. When they arrive at the house, there’s a welcoming party waiting for them. Two winged Illyrian warriors wearing leather and long swords down their backs. Cassian, the larger of the two and Commander of Rhys’ armies, and Azriel, Rhys’ spymaster (the shadowsinger) who can control shadows. The three of them call each other brothers, but it is not by blood. They met in an Illyrian training camp, and they hated each other at first. Mor arrives to save Feyre from the males and to have a moment for just the two of them, but then Amren walks in and it is clear to Feyre that she is… more. Even if Rhys hadn’t already told her, Feyre would have known. Amren greets Feyre by saying they are similar – born something else but now trapped in a new, strange body. There is a third like them, Miryam, but they haven’t heard from her in centuries. Rhys confirms to Amren that Miryam and Drakon are doing well - from what he knows. Miryam was also a human made immortal but not with a High Fae body to match like Feyre received. They all sit down to what Rhys calls “family dinner” and Feyre sees that both Cassian and Azriel are wearing stones imbedded into their leathers, Cassian wears red while Azriel wears blue. She’s told that the stones are Siphons, which help them concentrate and focus their power during battle. Illyrians can have strong power, but it is raw and hard to focus, the Siphons allow them to use their power in more subtle ways. The only High Fae in the room are her, Mor, and Rhys, but Rhys is also half Illyrian and is looked down upon by the rest of the High Fae. None of the others were Under the Mountain with Rhys, somehow Rhys kept them and the rest of Velaris hidden and safe. But Mor points out that although none of them were there, everyone in the city is aware of what happened Under the Mountain and the price that was to keep them safe. They change the subject, and Feyre learns more about Illyrians. They live in camps in the mountains and are great warriors, but they are also brutal - especially to their females, who they cripple when they come of age so that the females can no longer fly. Rhys’ mother could still fly even though she was an Illyrian, because she had done everything that she could to hide her monthly bleeding and keep her wings healthy until she could hide it no longer. The warriors in her camp caught her and were about to clip her wings when Rhys’ father arrived for a meeting and the mating bond between them sprung into place. Rhys’ father killed the warriors holding his mother and then he married her as soon as he could. She tried to convince her husband to ban clipping the wings of the females, but he did not want to risk driving off the support of the Illyrians when he believed that war was imminent. Rhys explains that his father was cold, calculating, and vicious at times, while his mother was soft and loved by everyone. Although the two had a mating bond, they should not have been together. But his mother loved her people and took Rhys to one of the Illyrian camps to train (while she stayed there as well). Az had been sent to the camp by his father (a local lord who had him illegitimately) when they discovered he was a shadowsinger, and Cassian had been born in the camp, both of his parents were Illyrian, a laundress and an unknown warrior. Cassian’s mother abandoned him when he was old enough to walk, to see if he would survive or die alone. As a bastard, Cassian was given nothing – not food, not shelter, not clothing. Feyre realizes that maybe she has found a kindred spirit in Cassian, someone who also knows what it feels like to be desperate. Rhys’ mother took both Cassian and Azriel in - in different ways - but the boys still hated each other. But they were all set apart by being stronger and faster than the others and eventually they became as close as brothers. When Rhys became High Lord, he appointed the four at the table to his inner circle and told his father’s old court that they could leave if they didn’t like it. They all left, there’s nothing worse than a half breed High Lord who appoints two Illyrian bastards and two females as his closest confidantes. Some of those who left joined Amarantha and ended up dead. Some of them tried to overthrow Rhys, which did not end well for them. And the remainder of them still hate Rhys but tolerate his rule. They live in the Hewn City below the mountain. Rhys allows them to essentially rule themselves, just to leave him alone. They call their court in the Hewn City the Court of Nightmares, while Rhys’ is called the Court of Dreams. Mor had been born into the Court of Nightmares, but she was able to get out. Feyre gives them her own story, short but honest. They’re impressed, but Cassian notes that she doesn’t really know how to fight and offers to teach her. Remembering what Tamlin told her, Feyre asks if they think it’s a mistake for people to see her learning to fight or to use weapons. This does not sit well with the others. Mor tells Feyre two things. One: she has left the Spring Court, which will send its own message. Two: Mor once lived where other’s opinions mattered, and it almost broke her. Do what you love, regardless of your reputation. Feyre realizes that she wants to be a part of a group like this one, willing to laugh and tease and fight together, to make each other stronger. Feyre tells Cassian that she’ll think about his offer, but she takes Rhys up on his to work with them and fight against Hybern in any way she can. Rhys reveals that he believes the King of Hybern wants to resurrect Jurian, which is news even to his inner circle. Rhys doesn’t know how or why, that’s what they need to figure out. The king will have heard about Feyre’s Making and now know that there are ways to bring the dead back. He thinks the killings at the temples has something to do with this plan - and he believes that the Attor stole Jurian’s eye from Under the Mountain when Amarantha was killed. The Attor, who was never captured. They need to go to the Prison and speak to the Bone Carver. Azriel offers to go but Rhys says no, it needs to be him and Feyre since they’re interesting enough to entice the Bone Carver to talk. He leaves the choice of whether to go up to Feyre, it’s not going to be a fun trip, she agrees anyway. That night when they’re alone, Feyre tells Rhys that she felt him through their bond again. He admits that he is still learning about the parameters of their bond that was shaped when they made their bargain Under the Mountain, made when she needed to not feel alone. She realizes that perhaps he also needed not to feel alone, but had been for fifty years, allowing everyone to think he delighted in the Court of Nightmares just to ensure the safety of the rest of his court. He reveals that he used what small amount of power he had left after Amarantha had taken most of it and tracked down everyone there who had been in the Night Court - who might know the truth - and weaved a web around their minds so that he could control them, to make them forget about Velaris and about the people he needed to keep secret. He used the remainder of his power to shield Velaris. There were other cities that he could not protect, he had to make an awful choice since he could only protect one and he chose to shield the city that was already a secret. He became Amarantha’s whore because he had no way to protect himself since all his power was being used, plus Amarantha didn’t ask questions when she was otherwise occupied. The rest of Prythian still believe the worst of him but Rhys doesn’t care, the people that matter know the truth. That night, Feyre has a nightmare and is woken by Rhys, who reassures her that it was only a dream. She looks around her and realizes that she released some of her power while she dreamt. The realization makes her physically sick, but Rhys follows her and continues to comfort her as she vomits. He tells her about his own dreams, where he must watch Amarantha torture his friends. Rhys carries her back to her bed once she falls back to sleep, which he has remade with clean linens. Feyre and Rhys travel together to an island in the Western Isles which houses the Prison, containing the worst creatures and criminals imaginable. He tells her that Amren refuses to step foot inside, she was once taken prisoner and placed in the Prison, but she somehow escaped. They will have to walk to the Prison, and it is located inside a giant rock. Feyre starts to panic, remembering her time Under the Mountain. She has a hard time with enclosed spaces. But Rhys is there with her and he doesn’t force her to go any further, he takes her back to Velaris until she’s ready to go further. Amren visits Feyre while she refuses to get out of bed and loans her a gold amulet of blue stones and pearl. Amren tells her that as long as she wears it, they cannot contain her in the Prison. She can wear it, but she must return it to Amren when she’s done. Feyre tries again to go to the Prison. Rhys advises her not to say anything that she doesn’t want overheard, the prisoners here will sell any information they can get their hands on, and they have nothing better to do but listen. While they walk, she asks about his friends. Cassian is the best warrior that Rhys has ever seen - in any court. Azriel was held captive by his father’s family for the eleven years he was with them. His two older legitimate brothers and their mother were cruel, keeping Azriel in a cell without light. He was only allowed to see his mother for one hour a week. He could not train or fly, and when he was eight his brothers set his hands on fire. Others put the fire out, but his hands have been scarred ever since. Mor is Rhys’ court overseer; she serves as an envoy between Rhys’ two courts, and she runs both Velaris and the Hewn City. Mor is who he will call in when his armies start to fail. Amren works as a political advisor and encyclopedia. They’ve been friends and allies longer than Rhys has been High Lord, and she doesn’t mind doing his dirty work. Should all the others fail (including Mor), Rhys would find a way to end the spell that limits Amren and release her at the end of the world, as long as she kills him first. He doesn’t know how long Amren was kept in the Prison; it was a long time. He thinks she may have come to this world from another when the fabric that keeps the worlds separated was ripped. When those rips closed, Amren was trapped here. And she’s not the only one, there are others in the Prison like her. By then, Rhys and Feyre are at the doors of the Prison. They must go deep into the Prison to get to the Bone Carver, who is a shape shifter of sorts. He will appear to both of them as something different, even as they stand right next to each other. He has carved the doors for every prisoner out of bone, including his own - which shows flowers and animals and celestial bodies, every sort of creature imaginable. Rhys gives the Carver the calf bone that Feyre used in the pit, the very bone that killed the Middengard Wyrm that hunted her. The Bone Carver is intrigued, by both the bone and by Feyre. He appears to Feyre as a child, a boy with dark hair and blue eyes around eight years old. He asks her questions, but she only agrees to answer one for each answer she gets in return. He asks her where she went and what she saw when she was killed. She reveals that she heard the crack of her neck when she was killed, but she was dead before the pain of it started. It was dark, but she was tethered to Rhys and could see through his eyes. She knew she was dead, and she saw nothing else but their bond. When she was Made, she followed that bond back to herself. All she wanted was to come back and she was no longer afraid, the worst had already happened. She followed their bond home; it was like swimming and breaking through the surface of the water. She did not see any other world or light while she was dead, just peace and darkness. Now she gets six answers from him. One: if there were no remnants other than a bit of bone, could you resurrect a person with a new body and place their soul inside? He answers that there is no way to do that, even if the soul was preserved, unless the Cauldron was being used. So many things were forged with the Cauldron. Rhysand asks where the Cauldron was hidden but the Bone Carver asks for a secret from Rhys that no one knows, otherwise he won’t tell. But Rhys is prepared, telling him that his knee still hurts when it rains from an injury he received in the War. This amuses the Bone Carver, a real secret but one that reveals next to nothing, and he tells them that the Cauldron was hidden at the bottom of a lake in Lapplund but vanished long ago, he doesn’t know to where. The Cauldron was once sheared from the feet that it stood on. The feet were hidden in temples in Cesere, Sangravah, and Itica. If those feet have gone missing, then it’s likely that someone has found the Cauldron and wants the feet returned so that the Cauldron is at full strength again. Rhys asks who has the Cauldron now, but the Bone Carver requests Feyre’s bones after her death in exchange for the answer, but it’s a promise that Feyre won’t make. Instead, Feyre tells him one more think about her death: that she had a choice. To drift off or to hold on and fight. She didn’t see anything, she wasn’t ready to go, but she knows that there was something waiting for her. Something good. This is good enough; the Carver tells her that the King of Hybern has the Cauldron. Looking for more information, Feyre gives him another truth. She would have killed herself after killing the third faerie, had the third faerie not been Tamlin. She would have broken the curse on the Spring Court and then killed herself. The Bone Carver tells her that the Cauldron could shatter the wall. She asks if there is a way to stop the Cauldron and he answers without demanding anything in return. After creating the Cauldon, its maker had a little ore left over which they used to make the Book of Breathings. The Book contains the words to negate the Cauldron - or to control it. The Book was split into two pieces: half of which went to the Fae and half to the six human queens, as part of the Treaty after the War. The High Lord of Summer has the Fae half while the mortal half is in the queens’ palace by the sea. If the mortal half of the Book were ever stolen, it would melt and be lost forever. The queens’ half must be freely given without any tricks or magic. If they reunited the halves of the Book, they may be able to nullify the Cauldron’s powers. Rhys guides Feyre away, taking her hand as they walk. As they leave, they tell each other what façade the Bone Carver presented to them as they spoke. Feyre saw the boy, Rhys saw Jurian as he looked when he faced Amarantha for the first time. Rhys’ friends are waiting for them when they return, and Rhys tells them everything they learned from the Bone Carver. Azriel offers to contact his sources in the Summer Court to learn about where the Book of Breathings is hidden but Rhys tells him no, he doesn’t want to trust anyone else outside of this circle with this information. Mor asks what Rhys is thinking, and he tells them that he believes the King of Hybern has already infiltrated their lands, and he is not interested in courting Rhys if he has already sacked their temple to steal a piece of the Cauldron. He wants to infiltrate Hybern, which is going to take some planning. They will go into Hybern and either nullify the Cauldron or steal it away. They will start planning now, so they can go in as soon as they have the Book. As for the Book, since Feyre contains a small portion of the Summer Court’s High Lord’s power, maybe she can find it. The Bone Carver had said Feyre may be able to track things - and there is a way to test that skill. They will take Feyre to the Weaver (another ancient creature) and see if Feyre can find the object in the Weaver’s trove that belongs to Rhys. In addition, Rhys wants Feyre to become the High Fae’s emissary to the mortal world. They’re going to need one if they are to convince the queens to give them their half of the Book. They’ll find a neutral place where she can meet the queens, Feyre offers to do it at her family’s estate. Since the Spring Court runs along the wall and they don’t want to enter Tamlin’s lands, they will fly to the mortal land over the sea. Feyre agrees to do become the emissary, and she will convince her sisters to help her. That night Feyre has nightmares, but she does not vomit. When the sun first starts to appear, Rhys hurries in and tosses Feyre flying leathers and a belt of knives. They don’t have time to waste, he wants to set out for the Weaver before dawn. Rhys explains that she can only bring knives with her since any other weapon would be out of place in the Weaver’s cottage and may be noticed, while the Weaver already has so many knives, so Feyre’s won’t draw attention. He helps Feyre get dressed in her leathers and warns her that while she is in the Weaver’s cottage, she cannot make any noise, and don’t touch anything except what the Weaver took from Rhys. Feyre should have the same imprint as the object, since Rhys had placed preserving spells on it. The Weaver is blind, so if Feyre follows these rules, she will be invisible. Be quick and be quiet. Get in and get out. They go to the large empty space in the center of Prythian that separates the North from the South. The Fae’s sacred mountain sits in this territory and the Weaver lives in the forest on its eastern edge. The woods here are only governed by the strongest creature that live in it, even Amarantha did not bother these woods. Rhys shows Feyre to the Weaver’s cottage and wishes her good luck. Feyre creeps into the cottage and hears the Weaver singing about two sisters playing along the coast of the sea, one sister pushes the other into the water. Nothing like a song about casual murder. Feyre sees the main room of the cottage with a small, closed door in the back, every inch of the room covered in knickknacks. In the same room sitting at a spinning wheel, Feyre sees the Weaver. The Weaver looks young and elegant as she continues to sing about how the miller found the drowned sister’s body and used it to make himself a musical instrument. Feyre concentrates but she feels nothing pull her. Finally, she feels something that feels slightly like Rhys. She examines the shelf that holds the item and finally locates a ring of gold and silver, pearl and blue stone. The murdered girl turned instrument in the Weaver’s song starts to talk to the miller. Feyre grabs the ring, and the Weaver immediately stops singing. The door to the room closes by itself. The Weaver knows someone is there. She looks toward where Feyre tries to open the cottage window. Feyre grabs the candle that is burning in the room and throws it against a wall of fabric, the cottage catches on fire and the Weaver runs to put the flames out. Feyre goes to the fireplace and climbs up the chimney until it gets too tight, and she gets stuck. The Weaver knows where she is, and she starts to come after Feyre. Feyre needs to think! She hits the bricks of the chimney until one comes free. Feyre lets the brick go, flinging it toward the Weaver. While the Weaver is injured, Feyre breaks her way through the chimney wall and climbs onto the cottage roof. She climbs from the roof to a tree and runs through the treetops back to Rhys as she hears the Weaver screaming behind her, growing ever quieter. When she reaches Rhys, he winnows them back to Velaris, above the House of Wind so that he can fly them inside. Cassian and Amren are there waiting for them, Feyre tells them that the Weaver detected her somehow. But she got the ring, and she got out, and she now realizes that this test wasn’t just about her abilities or the ring, but also about her ability to still act under pressure. She was at a real disadvantage there and she asks Cassian to teach her how to fight. Feyre asks Rhys about the ring – his mother gave it to him as a keepsake but took it back from him when he was older and gave it to the Weaver for “safekeeping”. She didn’t want him to waste it. They go back to Rhys’ house in the city and decide they will train her powers together; he’s surprised Ianthe wasn’t more curious about them. He tells Feyre that he believes the High Priestesses are a corruption of what they once were that have now ensconced themselves in some of the courts. They have spies everywhere, yet not one of the High Priestesses were around to be tortured by Amarantha. He thinks Ianthe wants to get her claws into the Spring Court. He shows her with his memories how Ianthe tried to seduce him in the Court of Nightmares once a century ago. Rhys refused her but Ianthe would not stop, and it wasn’t just with him. She had pursued Azriel and Cassian too. Ianthe wanted a child with Rhys, a child that could rule all of Prythian. She had tried to assault him until he finally kicked her out. Feyre says that Ianthe didn’t act that way in the Spring Court, but then she remembers how much Lucien had hated her and wonders if maybe she’s wrong. Rhys tells Feyre that as a daemati she needs to be prepared to see things she doesn’t like and she needs to hold an escape route open herself, someone may leave their mind open for her to enter to trap her inside it. They prepare to talk to Feyre’s sisters in the human lands, Feyre packs as she talks to Mor. While they talk, Mor tells her more about the Court of Nightmares. How the virginity of the females is well guarded until it can be auctioned off. Mor was born stronger than even the males in her family, and she was viewed as a great prize because of it. Everyone wanted her power to be bred into their family tree, which delighted her family. Cassian and Rhys helped her to escape the Court of Nightmares before either of them had any real power, something that was incredibly risky for Cassian to do. Mor tells Feyre that she will be there later, when Feyre meets with the queens, but she will not be joining them on this trip. Amren also chooses to stay, leaving Feyre to go with Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel. Rhys will winnow all of them to the wall that extends into the ocean, then Feyre will fly with Azriel from there to her family’s estate. When they arrive, she approaches the house alone, the three others hidden by Rhys’ glamour. She’s told by the housekeeper that her father is away on business. Elain sees Feyre next, and Elain starts to cry when she realizes who it is. She invites Feyre inside while the others wait, unseen. Feyre has tea with her sisters and reveals to them what she has become. She tells them her story and of the threat Hybern poses. She asks them to let her use the house to meet with the mortal queens, but Nesta says no. They can’t have the Fae in their house; they can’t be seen as sympathizers, especially since Elain is about to be married to a man whose father hunts down faeries. But Elain disagrees. They must help Feyre, if Hybern wins then none of them will be safe, but they will do it in secret. Feyre did so much for them, it’s time for them to pay her back. They send the servants away that day. Feyre asks Nesta about Elain’s fiancée, Graysen. Nesta tells her that Elain loves him, that Graysen is kind and smitten with Elain, but Nesta does not like Graysen’s father. She asks Feyre about Tamlin and Feyre tells her that Tamlin tried to imprison her in order to keep her safe. Once the staff has left, they invite Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel inside to meet Feyre’s sisters. It’s awkward to say the least. When Nesta insults Feyre, Cassian doesn’t stand for it. He tells her that Feyre died to save his people, and she is willing to do so again to protect her sisters. He won’t stand for someone who allowed her fourteen-year-old sister to risk her life so close to the wall, as she herself did nothing, to insult that sister as well as the rest of the Fae. But Nesta just looks away from him, completely dismissive. It’s Elain who tries to explain. She says that she and Nesta both failed Feyre, even if it was because they were scared and had no training. Feyre asks to wipe the slate clean between them and Nesta begrudgingly agrees. She tells Feyre to write to the queens and they will post her letter the next day. Feyre and the others decide to stay with Feyre’s family that night, asking for two rooms next to each other with two beds each. Rhys explains that he will stay in Feyre’s room, because below the wall their magic works differently, and he will not take any chances with Feyre’s safety. Az and Cassian take one room, Feyre and Rhys the other. They argue a little bit (Rhys tells Feyre that Elain should not marry her fiancée, and Feyre points out that Azriel and Mor seem more than a little interested in each other, but he never says anything about that) but once they settle down and the lights are off, Rhys tells Feyre that dinner was harder for him than he expected. He didn’t realize how much it would affect him to be across from her two sisters, who did not protect her. He is thankful that they are letting them use their house, but he will not be at peace with them for a long while. Feyre feels the same way sometimes but points out that he would still be enslaved if things had not happened the way they did. He asks her who she thinks would be left standing if they fought: Cassian or Nesta. They both pick Nesta. The next morning, Rhys and Feyre start her training. Rhys hands Feyre a candle and asks her to light it, use water to put it out, and then dry the wick. She asks him to leave - she can’t concentrate with him there - and he eventually agrees, telling her to call for him down their bond if she manages to get anything done. When she gets hungry, she finds bread and warm stew in her pack, and a magic note from Rhys that transfers whatever is written to the other person’s note. He tells her that Nesta and Cassian are fighting again. He charms her through the note, she calls him a flirt, and she is still waiting for his answer when she is abducted. She recognizes the voice that has her, it’s the Attor. The Attor doesn’t get very far before Rhys is there, pulling her away and holding the Attor against a tree with his power. The Attor tells Rhys that he was sent to retrieve Feyre, the king wants her, but it doesn’t know why. The king is still in Hybern, but his armies are coming soon to meet with their allies, who are waiting. Azriel arrives then, Cassian staying at the house to protect Elain and Nesta. After a warning from Rhys, Azriel grabs the Attor and they both disappear. They will use the Attor to send a message to the king. Feyre realizes that Rhys had used her as bait, he knew someone was hunting her. In her anger she lashes out at Rhys, and he says that she has forgotten how strong she is. She has stopped fighting. He taunts her as she tries to hit him again, pushing her and pushing her until she finally throws herself into the air, willing herself to be in a different spot so that she can catch him, and she winnows to where Rhys is and tackles him. She threatens him - telling him to teach her how to be a weapon or she will stop working with him. She will not be used as a pawn again. He apologizes to her; he wanted to remind her to fight. They return to the manor, and they post their letter to the queens before returning to Velaris. This time Feyre flies with Rhys. He tells her that Azriel has interrogated the Attor, and they now have some answers. When she says she wants to know everything, he gives her access to his memories. While in his memories, Feyre can hear what he was thinking. The Attor tells them that the king already knew where they were, but the Attor doesn’t know how, he was told to fly to the wall as quickly as possible. He tells Rhys that it’s common knowledge that he took Feyre from Tamlin - good luck keeping her without the king’s help. Rhys tells Azriel when it’s clear that the Attor has no more information to break the Attor’s legs and shred its wings before dumping it off the coast of Hybern. She sees in his thoughts that there is some situation brewing with the Spring Court, but Feyre doesn’t understand what it is. When she leaves his mind, he apologizes again for deceiving her in the woods. Feyre has a letter to write to Tamlin, explaining how she is safe and cared for, and grateful to him for everything he did for her, but that she left on her own accord, and she is not coming back. After she gives the letter to Rhysand to send, she asks him to show her Velaris at night. He decides to take her to dinner, accompanied by the rest of his circle. Before dinner, Amren comes to Feyre’s room. Cerridwen and Nuala immediately report this to Azriel. It turns out they are half Fae - wraiths who are loyal to Rhysand, but also to Azriel, who trained them first. While they do not spy on Feyre, they do report on Amren. Amren tells Feyre that the Court of Dreams is founded on three tenets: to defend, to honor, and to cherish. Even when his people disobey him, Rhys does not punish them harshly if they were acting in the best interest of the court. The rules are flexible that way, since Rhys values loyalty, cunning, and compassion. She also reveals that while the people in the city pay taxes, there is no Tithe in the Night Court. To Amren’s surprise, Feyre returns Amren’s pendant, but Amren tells her to keep it - there’s no magic in it anyway. Feyre just needed something to make her believe. They all have a lovely dinner and afterward, Rhys and Feyre walk back alone while the others go off on their own pursuits. He takes her to see his favorite view of the city and tells her it was also his sister’s favorite view. She asks why he’s not married, and he responds that although he’s had lovers in the past, he’s never proposed, nor does he think that any of them would have accepted him. It would mean they would become a target, and so would their children, because the Night Court is hated. He explains that at one point, the Court of Nightmares WAS the Night Court, until a High Lord long ago sealed his borders and eliminated most of the courtiers and predators to create a better city. He kept the new Night Court secret to protect the court and his children - and their children did the same. Even so, the darkness did grow back. Though it is not as bad as it once was, it was bad enough to create two courts in the Night Court. They allow everyone to see the Court of Nightmares and to fear their people so that others never want to invade and find what they’ve been protecting. FEyre hears music playing and realizes that she’s heard it before, playing in her cell while she was held Under the Mountain. She understands then that Rhys sent the music to her and asks him why. He tells her that she was breaking, and it was the only way he could think of to save her. He flies her back to the house. She goes to bed and reads for a while, and finds the enchanted note from Rhys, which tells her that he’s wounded from when she winnowed into him, and he needs her to care for those wounds. It quickly turns to flirting, and this time it’s not so innocent. That night she has nightmares, but they are not bad enough to wake her. The next day, Azriel flies to the mortal realm to see what he can find out and returns before midday, there is some sort of barrier around the queens’ palace that he could not penetrate. Feyre starts to train with Cassian. It’s harder than she expected. Rhys and Az spar nearby and Feyre sees the tattoos they received when they were initiated as Illyrian warriors, tattoos that are like the one she received when she agreed to Rhys’ bargain. Cass asks her about the letter she wrote to Tamlin but Feyre hits back, asking why he teases Mor so much but hides what he really feels for her. He laughs it off but tells her to get into the ring and show him if her bite is just as bad as her bark. She asks who told him about the letter and he explains that Rhys had told Azriel so that Azriel could make sure Tamlin didn’t retaliate. Really, Cassian is impressed and just wants to know if Feyre needs to talk about it. What she did could not have been easy, and Feyre realizes he’s a big old sweetheart in a big, very muscled body. She tells him that she’s fine, but he has her practice punching until the emotions within her finally break through and she’s sobbing. Cassian stays with her until Rhys joins them and holds her as she grieves, comforting her. Rhys tells her she will never get over the guilt of killing the Fae Under the Mountain, just like he has never gotten over the deaths of his mother and sister. He’s sorry he couldn’t save her from dying there, or from wanting to die. He has nightmares too, sometimes he sees his friends tortured and cannot help them, and others make him relive watching Feyre die. Rhys tells them all that he’s been invited to the Summer Court. Feyre, Amren, and Rhys will leave the next day. Cassian wants to join them… but he’s been banned from the Summer Court for the rest of eternity. Amren reminds them that Rhys saved the High Lord of the Summer Court’s life Under the Mountain by not exposing his secrets, and he likely wants to know where they stand if there is a war with Hybern on the horizon. Rhys winnows them directly into Adriata, the castle-city of the Summer Court where they will stay until they can steal that half of the Book. They are met by the High Lord himself, Tarquin. Rhys introduces Tarquin to Feyre, she’s to play the role of his Rhys’ pet. Tarquin introduces Cresseida, Princess of Adriata, as well as his advisors and Cresseida’s younger brother Varian. Tarquin tells them that their city and castle are still being repaired since it was sacked by Amarantha, but luckily their most valuable items were not lost. They had been smuggled out by the last High Lord, Tarquin’s cousin Nostrus. Tarquin asks how Feyre is fitting into Rhys’ court and Rhys explains that she is now their emissary to the Mortal Lands and part of his inner circle, although they do not have much contact with the humans at the moment. It appears that Rhys has already written to Tarquin about a brewing war with Hybern, which Tarquin and his people will fight in, but Tarquin will not take part in any other wars… namely over Feyre. Feyre assures them that there will be no war over her or her decisions. Cresseida points out that the law is the law and Feyre was Tamlin’s bride. Should Tamlin request her return from Tarquin, the law would demand that he send her back to the Spring Court, there’s nothing Feyre can do about it. But Tarquin responds that all of them are guests if the Summer Court and will be treated as such, especially since they saved their lives. Even so, Rhys makes it very clear that he will not tolerate any of them notifying Tamlin of where Feyre is currently. That night, Rhys visits Feyre in her room and tells her he actually likes Tarquin and Cresseida, although Varian, maybe not so much. So, he needs her to find a way to steal the Book without making them into enemies. While in the Summer Court, Feyre realizes that she can feel Tarquin’s power within her, and it is easier to control water. She asks Rhys if Tamlin will go to war, but he doesn’t know. She tells him that she won’t make Rhys fight for her, she would go back instead to avoid a war. But he asks if she would want to go back. If declaring war, or a big gesture like that, would make her love Tamlin again. No, but she’s tired of death and would go back anyway. Rhys tells her that Tamlin knew what a treasure she was, and he locked her up to keep her all to himself. He may have loved her, but love is not always a good thing. At dinner the next night, Feyre asks if the treasures in the Summer Court can be viewed. Tarquin agrees to take her the next day to see them and asks her what it was like in the mortal world. She gives him an abridged version of her past. That money has become the most important thing in the mortal world since they do not have magic, but Feyre would still fight to save them, even if she would like to see some things change. Tarquin says the same of Prythian, he’d like to eliminate the privileges inherently given to the High Fae over other faeries. He is young for a High Lord, and some may call him foolish, but he would like to see a world in which the lesser faeries have representation. Feyre can see that it would be easy to love Tarquin, and even easier to be his friend. She looks at Rhysand, who has Cresseida on his lap, and realizes how unhappy she is. She walks away to get some air; she can’t go far (they’re on a boat) but she wants to be alone. It’s only when Rhys does not join her that she realizes that she was waiting for him. The next day she meets with Tarquin, and they go to the room that houses their treasures. Or rather, one of the rooms. She sees jewels, gold, armor, weapons, but no books. She sees a necklace of black diamonds on a shelf, and it catches her attention. Tarquin gifts it to her as a thank you for breaking the curse, but also for not laughing at his idea of breaking down the class barriers in Prythian - plus he could use an ally in the Night Court. The other High Lords have warned him about Rhys, but Rhys saved them when he killed Tarquin’s cousin Under the Mountain, who’d been caught sneaking out of Amarantha’s court to meet with their forces. They’d been preparing to storm Under the Mountain. He wonders if Rhys acted as Amarantha’s whore to spare the rest of them from Amarantha’s full attention. He sees kindness in Feyre, and she wouldn’t align herself with Rhys if there weren’t a reason. Feyre watches as Tarquin seals the vault behind them. He takes her to another vault full of books, but she doesn’t feel any power that would indicate the Book she’s looking for. Then the last room, full of artwork. The Book is being stored somewhere else. When Feyre gets back to her room, Rhys is waiting for her. He sees the necklace she’s been gifted with and points out that he can buy her jewelry too. She tells him that Tarquin is a good male and wants to trust Rhys, but he reveals that Cresseida thinks that Tarquin is ambitious. Feyre asks if Cresseida told him that while they were in bed. They’re both feeling jealous – Rhys of Tarquin and Feyre of Cresseida - but Rhys didn’t take Cresseida to bed. In fact, all he did was let her talk to him and then took Cresseida back to her room, then he waited for Feyre this morning. But she shut him out and it bothered him that while she did it, she smiled at Tarquin. He is jealous. He’s jealous that it WOULD be easy to love Tarquin – and it would not be dangerous like loving him. For two days, Feyre scours the city as the others are in meetings. She sees the damage done by Amarantha that is slowly being repaired. She sees the faeries doing the repairs. The people that she saved, even if she had to do terrible things to save them. She sees a small building built slightly outside of the city. At dinner, she asks Tarquin if she may be able to visit the fascinating building. Tarquin explains that it is only a temple ruin that is slowly being taken over by the sea, although they really should get around to repairing it soon, but Feyre does not miss the look that passes between him and Cresseida. That building houses the Book. She looks at Tarquin and tries to read what he’s thinking but he’s shielding against her with a wall make of coral and the sea. Feyre manages to pass that shield by using his power. He is wondering why Feyre wanted to see their trove, why she’s asking about the temple, but he reminds himself that Feyre is kind. Even after what Amarantha did to her. And she is his friend. She helps him to calm down and stop being suspicious before slipping out of his mind again. He offers to take Feyre to the mainland the next day, and they discuss doing that instead. That night, she meets with Amren and Rhys, and they make a plan. The next night, after visiting the mainland with Tarquin, Rhys will fly Feyre and Amren to the temple. He will drop them off to find the Book as he shields them and keeps watch from above. Hopefully the locks will respond to Feyre like they respond to Tarquin. Rhys drops them off near low tide and flies above them to stand guard. They’d already checked for wards around the temple but found none. Amren and Feyre look at a small chamber that is filled with mud up to their knees, but Feyre can feel the Book. She follows the feeling to the center of the room and begins to dig. They find a stone floor with a lead door - which is sealed. There’s a whorl carved into the door. When Feyre lays her hand on the whorl, she can’t tear her fingers away. As if the door is drinking her in. She imagines being Tarquin, of being summer itself. She even shifts into Tarquin, physically becoming the High Lord. The door finally opens to a spiral staircase. When they go down the stairs, the water is already at Amren’s chest. They will drown if the tide begins to come back in. There is a hallway that leads to another sealed door, which houses the Book. Again, Feyre imagines herself as Tarquin and the door opens, but she is quickly wearing out. Inside the room is a small dais with a pedestal holding a small, lead box. They scan for any traps and find none, now that she’s closer, Feyre can hear the Book. Amren tells Feyre to get the box, the tide is coming back in. Perhaps the sea knows what they are doing and is working against them. The box is also sealed but Feyre tells it that she is Tarquin, the High Lord and master of the Book, but the Book knows she’s lying. The door to the room closes and water starts to fill the chamber. Feyre takes the whole box and puts it in her pocket before going back to the door that Amren is already trying to open. Amren is able to open it but water rushes into the chamber when she does, sweeping Feyre back inside. She fights her way back to Amren, who is holding onto the doorframe, holding the door open until Feyre can get through. Feyre’s head is barely above water. She grabs Amren, who is several inches shorter than her, and carries her to the stairway - which has turned into a waterfall of pouring water. As they get to the stairway, the water completely covers them. The door at the top of the stairs slides shut, they are now trapped and about to drown. Amren cannot open the door, neither can Feyre, and her lungs are burning. Just then, the door is ripped open by three water-wraiths who pull Feyre and Amren out of the stairwell and into the open air. The wraiths punch Feyre in the stomach, forcing the water out of her lungs so that she can breathe again. Payment for Feyre helping their sister in the Spring Court. After Amren and Feyre are safely on the beach, Rhys tracks them down. He couldn’t help them because he was busy tracking down every guard that tried to sound the alarm, Feyre and Amren managed to trip a bunch of triggers. Plus, he didn’t feel any danger through his bond with Feyre, Amren tells him the bond was probably nullified like her power was. But they got the Book and now it’s time to leave, they can see people in the castle rushing around. He might have missed a guard or two. Rhys winnows them back to the town house in the Night Court where Mor, Cassian, and Azriel are waiting for them. She explains to them all why the water-wraiths saved them. Feyre pulls the box out and lays it on the table for everyone to see. She will have to unlock it. When she lays her hand on it, the voice greets her “hello, liar”. The Book asks if she will read it, which she says no. When she asks politely for the box to open, it responds “like calls to like”. Made and Unmade. It calls her Cursebreaker and opens. They see a book made of metal plates bound with three rings: one of gold, one of silver, and one of bronze. The words written on it are in an unrecognizable language - unrecognizable to everyone but Amren, who calls it Leshon Hakodesh: the Holy Tongue. Rhys reveals that part of the reason that he sent Amren with Feyre is that he heard a rumor that the Book was written in a different tongue, and he thought Amren may be able to read it. He hopes there may be a spell inside that can free Amren and send her home. But he didn’t tell Amren ahead of time because he didn’t want to get her hopes up. Hopefully the mortal queens will answer their letter soon, she needs the other half before she can begin to translate the Book. Az points out that even if they can nullify the Cauldron, they still have to deal with Jurian, although he still doesn’t understand why the king would resurrect him. Rhys has been thinking about this too. Rhys knew Jurian personally from the War and points out that Jurian pursued his goals to the point of obsession but died with many of those goals unfulfilled. Jurian probably believes that Miryam is dead and wants the king to resurrect her as well, she was his former lover. Not necessarily because he wants Miryam still, but to spite Drakon - who won Miryam’s heart. Feyre doesn’t understand most of this conversation, she makes a note to ask Rhys about these people later. The next day, Feyre finds Rhys in a foul mood. He’s just received three blood rubies – one for him, one for Amren, and one for Feyre. Symbols from the Summer Court that they are enemies and will be seeking vengeance, blood enemies. Feyre tries to coax Rhys out of his bad mood (he really wanted to be allies, and maybe even friends with Tarquin, but he couldn’t chance telling him about the Book and now it’s too late) but she bites off more than she can chew when he sends her a steamy fantasy that ends before it really gets started. She spends the rest of the day with Mor but that night she wakes up to darkness filling her room. Rhys is having a nightmare, reliving something from Under the Mountain. Feyre is able to wake him up and give him a little comfort with a kiss on the cheek and a lullaby before she leaves him to go back to her own room. She visits Amren in her apartment, she’s been locked there trying unsuccessfully to decipher the Book, and Feyre sees that Amren received more than just a blood ruby: a diamond and ruby necklace from the Summer Court vaults, a gift from Varian. Feyre spends her day training with Cassian, graduating from defense to learning to use weapons. Afterward, she trains with Rhys, learning about her powers and about the High Lords who gifted them, and learning more about each other. Then spending time with Amren as she translates the Book or with Mor as they explore Velaris. Until the queens finally respond to their letter and they all (except Amren) travel back to her family’s estate. There they get quite a surprise when the mortal queens are able winnow into the manor. Five of the six queens are there, each with two bodyguards. The oldest with brown skin, heavy wrinkles, and cold eyes. One middle aged and dark, one middle aged and light, they seem to be opposites of each other: one sweet and one hard but they’re wearing matching silver rings. The two youngest – one cunning with black hair and eyes and the other the most beautiful of them all with curly blonde hair. Rhys greets them all and asks where the final queen is, she is not well and could not come today. The queens are introduced to Feyre, which they recognize as the emissary, and to Morrigan, whose name they know from the War. They are both in awe of her and afraid of her. Mor asks how they can winnow but the queens only say it is a gift from the High Fae and a secret of theirs. Rhys reveals to them that war is coming again, but they’ve already been preparing for it… for years. Perhaps the humans on this small patch of land near the wall are not aware, but that is a small strip based on the rest of the mortal lands, and they don’t believe it is not worth defending. Sacrifices must be made. Nesta is not pleased, calling this a coward’s choice, pointing out that there are children and families on this land. Rhys believes the queens and the Fae could fight together to protect those that are innocent but the eldest queen laughs. She’s heard of the Night Court, of its High Lord. And she wouldn’t trust him to protect anything. Feyre asks if they may still have their half of the Book, even if they aren’t willing to ally, but the eldest cuts her off and tells her the Book will stay in their palace where it has stayed since the Treaty was signed. No matter what Feyre or Rhys say, they will not be swayed. Finally, Mor stands and makes a pronouncement: the queens know her, she is the Morrigan. They know her gift is truth. And she has something to tell them. It is no coincidence that a mortal has been Made immortal just as Hybern reawakens. She fought with Miryam, she freed the slaves from the Black Land with Miryam, she saw what Jurian’s ambition lead him to. Miryam was her friend then, as Feyre is her friend now. And she sees nothing of the bravery of her friends when she looks at these queens. She reveals to them that Drakon and Miryam still live, on a forgotten island with their family and with their people: both High Fae and human. A secret that has been kept for five hundred years, but Rhys stops Mor from saying anything else. Still, the queens demand proof that Rhys wants peace. Rhys tells him he will get them proof and perhaps then they will finally realize that he needs the Book to save both of their peoples. The queens leave and Elain - of all people - points out that they should all burn in hell. Then they return to Velaris to fill Amren in on the meeting. They plan their next steps. It would take too long to depose or get rid of the queens, it’s not worth the threat to try to speak to them again on their turf (Azriel is sure whoever goes in will not come back out), lying or manipulating the with magic will likely cause the Book to be unusable, so the only option is to get them their proof. Rhys has an idea. Just before the War started, there was a Fae kingdom in the southern part of the continent where the mortal lands are now, the Black Land that Mor had mentioned. The queen who ruled there was terrible, worse than Amarantha, and any humans there were born slaves. There was no escape for the humans. That is where Miryam was born, half-Fae half-human and born enslaved. Given to a foreign Fae prince named Drakon as a wedding gift from his betrothed, Drakon allowed her to escape, after which Miryam found Jurian and his rebel armies. She became Jurian’s lover and a healer for his warriors and allies, including Prince Drakon. Realizing the queen that he was going to marry was a monster, Drakon had called off their wedding and allied with the humans, and he’d never stopped looking for Miryam after she’d escaped. Drakon and Miryam slowly fell in love, right in front of Jurian - who was too distracted to notice. Before Amarantha destroyed Jurian, she revealed to him that Miryam had taken Drakon as a lover although at that point, they all believed both Miryam and Drakon had already died. But really, they had taken refuge together. But Rhys can’t reveal their location and break the trust of their friends, he will show the queens Velaris instead. But he’s going to play by the queens’ own rules this time, which means he will need to make a visit to the Court of Nightmares. They’re looking for the Veritas, an orb that has belonged to Mor’s family for thousands of years. One of their most valuable and prized possessions. It has truth-magic and is an item the queens are familiar with. Rhys and Cassian are to act as a distraction in the Court of Nightmares while Azriel steals the orb from Mor’s father’s rooms. Rhys doesn’t want Feyre to come, he doesn’t want her to see the Court of Nightmares or how he needs to act while he’s there, but he won’t ask her to stay. Feyre tells him she trusts him, regardless of how he acts while they’re there, and that she will be coming with them. She asks why Mor looks so upset at the idea of going to the Court of Nightmares. Rhys gives Feyre some of Mor’s story. Her father had sold her in marriage to Eris, Lucien’s eldest brother who is reportedly very cruel. Mor asked Rhys to save her, so he took her to the Illyrian camp, where she slept with Cassian - knowing that her virginity was the most important thing to her father. Eris then refused to marry her, she’d been ruined and by a bastard, no less. Her family beat her nearly to death and dumped her body on the border to the Autumn Court for Eris to deal with. Eris left her dead and Azriel didn’t find Mor until the next day. Now Feyre is definitely going, and she is going to make Mor’s father pay. She will play her part to perfection. Before they go to the Court of Nightmares, they do a little flying - with Rhys carrying Feyre. They’re flirting (like normal) when suddenly they are attacked with a volley of ash arrows, designed to kill faeries. They land quickly. Rhys sends Cassian to put patrols on the coast and on the mountains and tells Azriel to let his spies know they may be compromised and will be evacuated. If anyone inside the Court of Nightmares asks, they just performed a training exercise. They’ve got one hour before they’re expected to be there, Cassian and Rhys search from the sky as Azriel and Feyre track the attackers on the ground, but they find nothing in the time that they have and proceed to the Court. Feyre sees a huge city carved into the mountain: the Hewn City. Feyre walks with Mor to the castle set inside the city within the mountain. They walk toward the throne and are interrupted by Mor’s father, Keir. They’ve come ahead of time to announce Rhys’ impending arrival and when he enters, Feyre feels the mountain shudder as Rhys walks, Azriel and Cassian follow just behind him. All four of the others are already wearing their armor, more mental than physical, taking on the roles they play while in the Hewn City. Rhys brings Feyre to the throne where she sits on his lap, dismissing their friends as he receives a report from Keir (who hates them all). Cassian and Mor melt into the crowd as Azriel vanishes completely. Feyre and Rhys serve as a distraction for the others - seemingly unable to keep their hands to themselves in front of the crowd, who can’t help but watch - all the while Keir continues his report. When Feyre sees Azriel reappear, she leaves Rhys alone on the dais. As she passes him, Keir whispers to Feyre, telling her that she will get what’s coming to her and calling her a whore. Too bad for him, Rhys heard too. He plunges the whole room into darkness and when it lightens, Keir is already on his knees. Rhys demands an apology for Feyre and breaks Keir’s arm when it is not immediately forthcoming. He breaks it multiple times. Once Keir apologizes, Rhys has new instructions. He’s not to see a healer, if he does the punishment will be even worse and not something that Keir will live through. He breaks a few more bones before having Keir taken to his room. They stay for another hour, which Feyre uses to think about how Rhys’ touching her had made her feel alive, and his retribution had not scared her. Even when Rhys apologizes to her about his reaction, she tells him she understands and pleads that he not lock her up to protect her. He points out that he is not Tamlin. They get into an argument, both confused. Feyre about the fact that she wants Rhys, and she doesn’t know yet how to come to terms with that, and Rhys because he will always be painted as the bad guy – even in this story it will be him versus Tamlin, the golden faerie of Spring. Shadows versus flowers. It’s not hard to see who will be regarded better. That night, Feyre decides to tell Rhys that she has made a choice - that she wants him as he is without any mask, but he doesn’t come to her. Nor does she see him the next morning or afternoon and he doesn’t respond to the magic note she sends him. She’s told that he’s off looking for their attackers again. Amren tells her that it appears the attackers can tell when Rhys winnows or uses his powers and is using that to track them. She gives some other information to Feyre, too. They’re about to celebrate Starfall, but Rhys will be taking Feyre to the Illyrian camps after. The rest of Prythian celebrates Nynsar at the same time, but only in the Night Court do you get Starfall, and Amren thinks it will be a long time before they return to Velaris. This may be their last Starfall. Amren reveals that they are so lucky to have Rhys, never has Amren met another High Lord like him, and Feyre was the one that brought him back to life after he returned from Under the Mountain as a husk of his former self. Feyre tries reaching him again and he finally reads the magic note, but he does not respond to her. Not after she teases him, and not after she yells at him. She gets dressed for Starfall but it’s Cassian that meets Feyre and takes her to the House of Wind for the celebration. While they wait, Feyre talks to Mor. Mor explains a little more about her relationship with Cassian. Yes, she’d lost her virginity to him, but they’ve never slept together since. She didn’t want it to cause any issues between Cassian and Rhys or Cassian and Azriel. They’ve both had lovers since and sure, Cassian sometimes pines after her but it’s only because Mor walked away from him without a second thought. Finally, Rhys comes to Feyre, he explains that he wasn’t avoiding her really - he just needed some time. And then he shows her what Starfall means. She looks up in the sky and sees a shower of stars fall across the sky, brighter and closer than she’s ever seen before. They celebrate as the stars fall around them, drinking and dancing with joy. Rhys asks her to come with him, he knows where they can get an even better view. They go to a private balcony higher in the house. She apologizes for all the nasty things she said during their argument after the Court of Shadows. They both apologize. He tells her the stars falling are not really stars at all, but spirits who migrate on this day every year (no one knows why). He reveals that he lied. He had been hiding from her, he thought Feyre may tell him to leave if he came to see her after their argument. He tells her that he wishes he could take back their kiss Under the Mountain because he didn’t care if she enjoyed it then. He was jealous and angry and he knew that she hated him. She asks him to go back to the party and dance with her, and that’s what they do. That night he takes her back to her room and kisses her brow before going to his own room. She waits for him to come back but he doesn’t. They travel to the Illyrian war-camp. Amren stays in the city to continue working on the Book and Azriel is going to see his spies planted in the other courts, and attempt to get into the human one, so it’s just the other four at the camp. Feyre sees that it is all simple tents and fire pits, rocks and mud. She sees males of all ages training in rings with sticks, swords, and spears. They’re greeted by six Illyrian males, all wearing Siphons of different colors. The leader, Lord Devlon, is angry. Cassian just came to inspect the camp last week and told them they had to let the females train too, but he doesn’t see any females in the rings. Devlon tells them that the females do chores first, but that is not the way it’s going to work. Rhys tells Devlon to call the girls, they train before anything else. And no, this is not an inspection. They’ll be staying here for a while in Rhys’ mother’s old house. Rhys leaves Mor and Cassian in the camp - asking them to play nice. Devlon is somehow the most accepting of the war-lords and Rhys would like to keep him on good terms but also make sure the girls are allowed to practice. He and Feyre are going to train. He explains on the way that he banned wing clipping a long time ago, although he thinks they still do it at some of the camps deeper in the mountains and that some other camps started again when he was Under the Mountain. But for the past century, Cassian has been trying to build a female flying unit. Devlon allows the females to train without to much of a hissy fit. In fact, he’s the most amenable of the war-lords, he even let him, Cassian, and Azriel take the Blood Rite when they were young (where Illyrians go into the mountains with no weapons, no magic, no Siphons, no clothes, no supplies, and wings bound. Hundreds attempt it, but not everybody makes it out of the mountains) and he did not deny them the victory when they won. Feyre and Rhys start to train. Every time she manages to do what he asks, he will answer one of her questions. He tells her that Tamlin is younger than him, but they’d gotten to know each other once Tamlin had matured and Rhys thought that Tamlin seemed decent enough, better than his brothers for sure. He befriended Tamlin and even taught him some Illyrian fighting techniques. Tamlin’s father didn’t like them becoming friends, especially since he was weaker than both Tamlin and Rhys. He felt the need to prove that he wasn’t weak. Rhys was supposed to meet his mother and sister in an Illyrian war-camp but decided to train a new unit instead. Tamlin’s family knew where they were supposed to be, and that Rhys had plans to meet them. All of them, including Tamlin, found Rhys’ family. They were disappointed that Rhys was not also there to die, but they killed his mother and sister. Tamlin’s father even kept their wings as trophies, and they sent their heads down the river to the nearest camp in boxes. Rhys and his father set out for revenge. They winnowed to the Spring Court where Rhys killed Tamlin’s brothers as soon as he saw them. His father killed both of Tamlin’s parents, even though he had promised Rhys that he would not touch Tamlin’s mother. Then Rhys’ father went to Tamlin’s room, intent on killing him as well, but Rhys tried to stop him – he no longer cared that Tamlin had been there, he just wanted the killing to stop. But when Tamlin opened the door, he killed Rhys’ father first. Then Rhys ran. Tamlin had only told Feyre that Rhys had killed his family. She asks why Rhys didn’t tell her this sooner, but he didn’t want her to think he was trying to poison her memories of Tamlin and turn her against him. She decides she wants to paint again. They go back to the camp and hear that there are ten girls training and three of them are actually quite good. They’ve got instinct. That night when they go to bed, Feyre shares a room with Mor. The next day, Feyre and Rhys head deep into the forest steppes. She asks Rhys to stay well behind her, she doesn’t want to burn him as she trains (they had a close call the day before). She positions herself next to a stream (in case the fire gets out of hand), and she doesn’t hear the Spring Court sentinels until they are right behind her, with Lucien standing in the middle of them. He tells her they’ve been searching for her for over two months. Someone told them that she’d be out here, and they caught her scent on the wind. Lucien tells her that Tamlin hasn’t been himself since she left. He finally notices that Feyre notched an arrow when she heard them and she hasn’t dropped it yet, as if she may shoot them. He notices that she looks healthy again. He tells her that Tamlin is sorry – we all make mistakes! They need her at home in the Spring Court… now. When Feyre looks away for a second, Lucien lunges at her and catches the edge of her jacket. Suddenly, Lucien is moving very slowly. Feyre steps around him and time returns to normal. Those from the Spring Court look around for Feyre and find her standing behind them - next to Rhys. She tells Lucien not to look for her again and Lucien asks her what Rhys has done to her mind. He still tries to convince her to come back, but she finally gives him a reason that he accepts: Lucien gave up… on her. They were friends but he picked Tamlin over her, even when he saw what it was doing to her, how it was destroying her. Even when she begged him, Lucien followed Tamlin. The human he once knew has died and Feyre has no interest in being a High Lord’s pet for all of eternity. She instructs him to tell Tamlin that if he sends anyone else after her, she will kill them herself. Lucien leaves, but not before he threatens Rhys and the entire Night Court. Feyre realizes that she has sprouted wings of her own. A gift from Tamlin, shape-shifting. Feyre and Rhys don’t want to chance using their powers in case they are tracked, and they had already planned to stay at an inn that night because they’re so far into the Steppes. But when they arrive at the inn, it’s packed and they have to share a tiny room together, oh no! When they get to the room, there is one bed, oh no! Rhys insists that he asked for two. There’s not enough room for him to sleep on the floor, they’ll have to share the bed, oh no! And it’s freezing! Oh no! Rhys goes downstairs to get them food while Feyre changes into dry clothes and thinks about the differences between the Night Court and the Spring Court. About how much better her life is now. That had the Courts been switched, her friends in the Night Court would have protected her from Rhys. That they wouldn’t have needed to, because Rhys would have given her some autonomy. Rhys even would have let her go if she asked him to. In fact, when he returns, Rhys confirms that for her. If she had gone with Lucien today, he would have found a way to live with it. But if Lucien had taken her against her will, he would have torn the world apart to get Feyre back. He tells her that when he looks at her, he can’t breathe. He can’t concentrate when she’s around him because she’s all he thinks about. She retorts that she can’t stop thinking about him, and that started even before she left the Spring Court. Even if that makes her a traitor. They snuggle for warmth (no expectations) but of course, things get a little out of hand. But that night Feyre sleeps with Rhys curled around her, in the cocoon of his wings, and she doesn’t have a single nightmare. In the morning, she asks Rhys why he made the bargain with her Under the Mountain, demanding one week a month. There’s a variety of reasons: piss off Tamlin, irritate Amarantha, but mostly to keep Feyre alive without being seen as merciful. They don’t talk about what happened between them the night before, instead they go back to the Steppes and train. When they’re done, Rhys flies her back to the war-camp and prepares to tell her one last story. But before he can start, he screams in pain, and they start to fall to the ground. He grabs her and tries to winnow, but he’s been shot with an ash arrow and cannot use his power. Somehow Lucien and the others had tracked them, even with the minimal power Rhys had used. They continue to rain arrows, poisoned also, from the green tint on them. Rhys throws Feyre away from where the arrows are shooting, and she throws out a shield of protection like the one she used in the Spring Court, she finally stops falling thirty feet away from the ground. Low enough for her to climb into a tree – not trusting her shield to keep her up – she cannot hear Rhys or the archers. She tries to speak to Rhys’ mind but there is nothing… no wall, no Rhys, just shadows. It’s getting dark and Feyre hears howling. She sees something crawling below her on the ground. Now she knows why they don’t stay out after dark, there are beasts here. She hears screaming nearby, but not by Rhys. She pulls her own bow and arrow. She winnows toward the last place she saw Rhys. She changes her eyes to an animal’s eyes to better see in the dark. She continues to winnow until she finds Rhys’ scent, which she follows to where he’d fallen, and where they’d dragged him away from. To where they’d tried to conceal the trail of blood. But as long as his blood flows, Rhys is still alive. At some point the group split into two, one had taken Rhys, one had taken Rhys’ clothes, to try to trick her. They knew she’d come… and Feyre knows she’s probably walking into a trap, but she continues anyway. She doesn’t track Rhys’ scent anymore; she tracks her own - clinging to his body even after he’d changed his clothes in the morning. She finds a narrow cave and she can hear a whip being cracked repeatedly from inside. She takes her arrows and binds two of them together so that there is a point at both ends and then she winnows inside. The guards don’t even see her as she winnows past them, and a set of scouts, and two more guards. She sees the four that hold Rhys. He’s chained up and his wings are full of ash arrows, but he’s alive. And Feyre goes to work. She kills them all and she doesn’t even feel bad. She unchains Rhys and tries to winnow them home, but she can’t. She settles on winnowing them to a different cave where they will be sheltered and safe. She removes the arrows from his wings, the other arrows had already been removed from his body. As she works, she tells Rhys about the summer that she was seventeen when Elain bought her some paint – she only had enough money for red, blue, and yellow. Feyre used them to decorate the cottage. She painted the drawers on their dresser. Flames for Nesta, flowers for Elain, and for herself she painted the night sky filled with stars. She didn’t know why at the time, but now she wonders if she knew deep down what was waiting for her. That Rhys was waiting for her. He tells her that it was an ambush by Hybern soldiers, the chains nullified his powers. Before he passes out, he tells her that he’s always been looking for her. He sleeps but he doesn’t get better, the poison causes him to spring a high fever. When Feyre tries to wake him, he can’t be roused. She doesn’t have time to wait for help to come, she must go find it. She leaves Rhys in the cave and finds a stream nearby. She sets up a snare and places a lovely new cloak in the center. She waits for two hours before she traps a Suriel. It happens to be the same one as last time! It tells Feyre that the poison used by Hybern was Bloodbane and she can find the cure in the forest. Feyre begs her not to be cryptic. The Suriel tells Feyre that her blood has the healing properties of the High Lord of the Dawn Court, a few mouthfuls will save him. And if she wants to speed it along, make him chew a weed that grows near the river with pink-flowers. The Suriel calls Rhys Feyre’s mate, which sends a shock through Feyre. She didn’t know, but the Suriel can’t lie. The Suriel continues, saying that Rhys has known for a while. This is a problem for later. Feyre finds the flower and goes back to the cave to find Rhys partly awake. She is not pleased. She throws the flower at him and tells him to chew on it. She wonders if the others also know. She cuts her arm and tells Rhys to drink. She remembers when he promised not to lie to her again. Rhys follows her orders without talking, confused about how she’s acting. She tells him she has questions, and he only gets to answer them not ask any of his own. How long has she known? He had suspected for a while but knew for certain when Amarantha killed her. When they stood together on the balcony, he felt the bond snap into place. He wanted to tell her yesterday, but he thought she might realize it on her own. Amren and Mor already know, Cassian and Azriel suspect but don’t know for certain. What was he supposed to do? She was prepared to marry Tamlin. Then afterward, she was already going through enough, he didn’t want to pile more on. And last night she told him that she wanted a fun distraction, not a mating bond with a mess. Does she think that he liked hearing he was just an amusement for her? He was shot because he was too busy worrying about when to tell her! Or if he should tell her at all and just live off the pieces of herself that she was willing to give him. Or let her go so she wouldn’t be hunted down. She demands to be taken back to the camp, she doesn’t want to hear him explain why he knew that it was better for her to be kept in the dark about something so important. Her heart that had just healed, in part because of Rhys, breaks all over again. Rhys winnows them back. Mor and Cassian see them return and then they see that Rhys can barely stand. They rush to them, but Feyre tells Mor that she needs to go somewhere far away, right now. Mor winnows Feyre away as Cassian takes care of Rhys. She takes Feyre to a house that is warded, no one can winnow in and no one can enter without permission. Mor tells her that she and Rhys used to be sent here to reflect on whatever bad thing they had recently done. Feyre explains what happened with the Suriel. Mor leaves her there, Feyre needs space. As she leaves, Feyre asks her not to tell him where she is, but Mor says he will try to find her. She explains that Rhys wanted to tell her, and that she has never seen him so happy as when he’s with Feyre. And Mor doesn’t think that’s because they’re mates, she thinks that’s because of Feyre. She’ll come back to check on Feyre in three days. After one day of thinking, Feyre understands why Rhys didn’t tell her - even if she doesn’t like it. After two days, she starts painting again. And on the third day when Mor comes to check on her, Feyre has painted the entire main room which little pieces of them all. Wings and flames and flowers… and eyes. She ask Mor about the last time she had to go to the Court of Shadows and apologizes that she must continue to deal with her family, but Mor reveals that Rhys gave her permission to kill them all whenever she wants. An open invitation. That gets her by. They talk about Mor and Azriel, Mor tells her that the problem is actually Azriel. He doesn’t see himself as worthy of Mor and she isn’t sure he ever will. Mor asks if the thought of being Rhys’ mate, of being a member of their little family, is so bad and Feyre says no. It’s not bad at all. Mor leaves on the fourth day and Feyre paints the rest of the cabin. On day five, she pictures her future with Rhysand. It’s a future that she will fight for. That night, Rhys shows up at the cabin. She invites him in and asks if he wants anything to eat. He explains that the first time a female offers her mate food, it’s a big deal. It means the female accepts the mating bond. He tells her the story he wanted to tell her before they got shot down. He had been captured by Amarantha’s armies during the war. He was tortured for weeks and his friends, in different units, didn’t even know he’d been taken. Rhys planned to kill Amarantha after weeks of being tortured but he didn’t get to do it. His father came and rescued him but ordered the ash arrows to be left in his wings as punishment for being caught. The war was over, the treaty was signed, and his father ordered Rhys to get over it. But he never forgave Amarantha for what she did to his people. Decades later, Amarantha had convinced all the High Lords that she just wanted peace… except for Tamlin. And Tamlin had known Amarantha personally before the War, so Rhys decided not to trust Amarantha either, and he decided that he would kill her. At the party being held Under the Mountain to celebrate the trade agreement with Hybern, Rhys would wait for Amarantha to get drunk and then he’d slip into her mind. He’d force her to reveal all the atrocities she’d ever committed and then he would kill her. Of course, she had a plan of her own. Rhys was too busy trying to get through her wards to realize the drink he had was tampered with, until it was too late, and he could feel his magic being taken from him. When he realized, he shielded his city and told his friends what was happening, before he had so little power that he couldn’t even do that. He gave Amarantha what she wanted from him to protect those he loved… and to get her to trust him, all while he dreamed of killing her. At least for the first decade. After that, he stopped dreaming altogether. He stopped hoping. Then three years ago, Rhys started to have dreams again, like he was seeing through someone else’s eyes, just flickers at first. He saw a hand painting flowers and he pushed through a vision of the night sky to that person. He treasured those dreams. At one point, the dreams got much clearer. He thinks that’s when Feyre arrived in Prythian. He saw Feyre as she thought about Calanmai, and he recognized the hills in the Spring Court. He convinced Amarantha to let him go spy on Tamlin - just to see Feyre. When he saw her, and saw that she was human, he convinced himself to walk away without even learning her name so that it couldn’t be used against him. So that Amarantha couldn’t hurt her. When he realized that Tamlin was in love with her - when he visited the manor - he was cruel to try to convince Tamlin to send her away. Again, for her safety, but he was too selfish and wanted her name. When Amarantha found Clare, Rhys broke into her head and took away all the pain as she was tortured and eventually killed, it was all he could do. After Clare died, Rhys believed it was over, that Feyre was safe. Amarantha thought she was dead. Then then she walked into Amarantha’s throne room, and he felt nothing but fear. But by then he thought that maybe the dreams were to show him who would save them all. It wasn’t until Amarantha tortured Feyre at the end that Rhys realized what exactly she was to him. It broke him, and he could not save her. He decided if Feyre died, so would he. He watched her die. He felt her die. And she was gone. But when he searched for their bond, he felt the tiniest whisper and he grabbed it and held on, willing Feyre to hold on too. He wrapped his power around their mating bond. Once Amarantha was dead, he spoke secretly to each High Lord in their minds and convinced them to offer their power to her. And yet, Tamlin got to hold her when Feyre was brought back. He tried to convince himself for months that Feyre was better off and happy, until she begged for someone to save her on her wedding day. He winnowed to her; he barely remembers it. Yet he sent her back to the Spring Court, so Feyre could make her own choice, even if it killed him. Because by that point he was in love with her. He broke some very important rules when he had Feyre taken from Tamlin’s manor. Admitting that they were mates would have made all the trouble go away. But he still didn’t tell her. He wanted her to find the bond herself, and to make her choice. He tells Feyre that he loves her. She gives him some food and invites him to eat, accepting their mating bond. He eats every bite. She tells him that she loves him back, and that she is honored to be his mate. After a few days, they pick Mor and Cassian up at the war-camp and travel back to the House of Wind, where all their friends are waiting for them. After dinner everyone but Amren leaves for the mortal lands, Mor carrying the orb. This time, they are met only by the oldest queen and the golden-haired queen. The golden queen is quite vitriolic this time and lashes out at Feyre, then at Nesta. The older queen wants to see their proof from the orb, and it feels very wrong to Feyre, but Rhys tells her that all war is a risk and if they do not do this, they could lose Velaris altogether. Mor shows them the hidden city through the orb. The queens are shocked, but they still will not decide whether to help, saying they must confer with the others. Nesta snaps and demands that the queens give Rhys their portion of the book. The elder queen refuses outright. Nesta tells her that the people there will be slaughtered; the queen tells them to evacuate. Nesta retorts that they would need an armada, and the queens won’t even let them use their armada to evacuate. The queen recommends that Nesta have one of the Illyrians fly her away. Cassian steps forward and tells the eldest queen that he fought for humans and faeries, with humans and faeries, five-hundred years ago. And he will do it again. He can think of no death more honorable than protecting those who need it most. He wipes away Nesta’s tears, and she lets him. The queens say they appreciate Rhys’ trust in them, but they leave without giving the book. But there, under the chair of the golden queen, sits a box that was hidden by her skirts. Inside the box is the Book, with a letter to Rhys. She read the letter that he wrote about loving a woman who was once a human and wanting a better world where they could have been together even before Feyre was Made. And the queen believed what he wrote, and she believes in peace and a better world. But if anyone asks, she will say that he stole this Book. She also gives him a warning: do not trust the other queens. The sixth queen was never ill. Before they leave, Rhys offers for Feyre’s sisters to come with them. It’s their choice of course, and they choose to stay. He tells them the sentries will remain to protect them and will alert him if they change their minds. They fly to Velaris immediately, where Amren starts to work on translating the Book. Rhys and Mor make sure that Keir is readying his forces as he’s been ordered to do (and return the orb before anyone notices that it’s missing) while Cassian verifies that Illyrian warriors are ready, they’re just waiting for the time and the place. While Rhys and Mor are gone, Cassian takes Feyre into the city to see a performance and they stop near the river on their way back to the town house. Feyre tells Cassian how much it meant to her, and to Nesta, what he said during their visit with the queens. While they’re talking, they see a bunch of black winged creatures flying: an invading force. They need to alert the citizens! Cassian asks Feyre to go back to the house, but she won’t leave. They see the creatures, all like the Attor, throw something down. The golden queen – still alive but not for long. The queens have betrayed them, they have shown Hybern the location of Velaris. Feyre takes one of Cassian’s blades while Cassian puts a shield above the city (red, matching his Siphons) and it is soon joined by a blue shield (Azriel) as they both fight in the sky. Feyre can see Amren across the river, causing thunderous booms. The creatures are not here to take the city, they are here to eliminate the city. They are systematically going through houses and killing everyone inside. Feyre runs to the artists’ quarter. Feyre uses the river to fight the soldiers. She sees the Attor leave a building and take to the sky, trying to get away. Feyre grabs some of the poisoned arrows that the Hybern soldiers have been using, now lying in the street, and she winnows into the air to meet the Attor. She stabs him with the arrows and falls with him until it’s too late for the Attor to save himself, then she winnows away. In the city, Rhys’ shadows are seeking out and dispatching every soldier. He finds Feyre and carries her home. Rhys makes sure that the wards that protect the city are remade (the Cauldron had broken them). Feyre’s friends regroup, all exhausted. The plan had been for all of them to go to Hybern and destroy the Cauldron, but now that Velaris’ location is known, someone will have to stay. The only person other than Rhys that is strong enough to hold forces off alone until help arrives is Amren. For now, they sleep, they eat, and then they make Hybern pay. The next day Amren is finally able to translate the Book. She hasn’t reassembled the Book, keeping the halves separated, and she encourages everyone else to keep it that way. If the halves are joined, worse things than the King of Hybern will come looking for it. Amren gives a spell and tells Feyre to touch the Cauldron and say the words to nullify it. Before they leave for Hybern, Rhys gives Feyre his mother’s ring. It’s special because it was meant for the woman he meant to spend his life with. Rhysand, Feyre, Mor, Azriel, and Cassian deck themselves in as much armor as they can carry and meet in the foyer. Amren warns them – the Cauldron is even more powerful than the Book. If her spell fails and they cannot steal the Cauldron, do not waste time - just leave. Rhys cannot winnow without being detected, so Mor winnows Feyre to the Hybern coast where Cassian takes Feyre and flies her toward the castle. They arrive while the guards are switching shifts. They go in through a sea door at the base of the cliffs that the castle sits on, since they believe the Cauldron is on one of the lower levels. Rhys is not going into the castle; he will meet them on their way out. If Rhys goes inside, the King will feel his presence. Mor is already at the sea door holding a sword, the door is now open. Azriel goes in first, urging Feyre to hurry - she can already feel the Cauldron calling to her – Made item to Made person. She guides them all down the stairway, straight to the Cauldron sitting in the middle of a room. Feyre has the Book with her, still separated. She lays one hand on half the Book, one hand on the Cauldron. She can hear the Book asking her to join it together. She realizes that Amren was wrong, the Book needs to be reunited. If she puts it together, she can master both the Cauldron and the Book. She puts it together. Feyre tries to get the words of Amren’s spell out, but she is overwhelmed by the Cauldron’s power… and now she’s out of time. Azriel shakes Feyre until she comes back into herself and hides her behind his own body. Jurian walks into the room. Rhys walks in too, not far behind him, as casual as can be. Jurian asks where Miryam is, but when Mor tells him that she’s dead, Jurian calls her a liar. They try to winnow away, but they can’t. Jurian was just a distraction, the king has trapped them now. He arrives at the top of the stairs before they can run. Just as the king tells them how disappointingly easy it was to capture them, Jurian shoots Az with an ash arrow – right through the chest. The king calls forward his accomplices: Tamlin and Lucien. The king has upheld his end of the bargain, now it’s time for them to uphold theirs. Tamlin has agreed to allow Hybern’s forces into Prythian through the Spring Court. Tamlin commands Feyre to come with him, to come home. Rhys on the other hand, is barely even breathing, trying to mask their mating bond as much as possible. Feyre agrees to come with Tamlin if they promise to let the others go. Tamlin stalks forward and grabs Feyre by the arm, but by that point she has sweet talked the Cauldron to relinquish her magic (it had been holding it captive) and she winnows away from Tamlin, then Rhys punches Tamlin in the face. You don’t need magic for that! Feyre tells Tamlin she won’t be going anywhere with him as soldiers stream into the room behind them. The four remaining queens walk into the room, their guards drag Nesta and Elain in after them. The king reveals that Jurian acted as an emissary to the queens and convinced them to ally with him. He warned the queens that Rhys would try to take the Book, that he would do anything to get it, and he has offered the queens something for their alliance: eternal youth. But the eldest queen wants a demonstration first. The king tells her that’s what Nesta and Elain are here for. Of course, Tamlin and Lucien did not offer Feyre’s sisters up to Hybern, even they would not do such a thing. But Ianthe had no problem doing it. Tamlin is astounded, he never thought she would do such a thing! In fact, Ianthe suggested that the king use Nesta and Feyre. The king releases his power. Rhys covers Feyre to protect her, Cassian covers Azriel, and his wings get shredded in the process. His power brings Rhys to his knees. Tamlin lunges for Feyre – he’s so persistent – but she throws a knife at him, and he’s forced to jump out of the way. She shows him the second knife that she’s already pulled. Mor runs at the king, but Azriel calls out to her, Mor stops and goes back to him. Guards drag Elain to the Cauldron, even Tamlin and Lucien ask the king to stop but he just fills the Cauldron with liquid and his guards throw Elain in. The king stops Tamlin’s and Lucien’s efforts to stop him by leashing them with his power. Elain goes under the water completely, Cassian tries to reach her and pull her out, fighting through his own pain, but he can’t get far. The king dumps the Cauldron and Elain is washed out. Nesta is next. Lucien walks toward Elain to shield her from the guards who are ogling her in her wet, practically transparent nightgown and covers her with his jacket. Nesta fights every step of the way and yet, none of them can save her. Cassian is nearly passed out on the floor but still tries to reach Nesta, to protect her, but she is shoved into the water. As she goes under, she points one finger directly at the King, making him a silent promise. As the Cauldron is overturned again, Lucien picks Elain up and out of the way of the water. Elain had been Made but as Nesta is revealed, Feyre can see that she is different. As if she demanded more from the Cauldron if it was going to have the audacity to Make her. Nesta rushes to Elain and takes her from Lucien, Elain finally looks Lucien in the face, and he realizes that she is his mate. Rhys asks the King of Hybern to make a bargain with him, but Feyre can’t handle the thought of that. She breaks and in doing so, she finally gets her shit together somehow. She sees inside herself the power to break spells – compliments of the High Lord of the Day Court – and she uses it to break the Hybern wards. She whispers to Rhys’ mind to get her sisters to safety, then she starts to play an act. She screams that Rhys trapped her, that he made her stay with him, but she finally sees the truth. Feyre goes to Tamlin and asks him to take her home but please, no more killing. Rhys catches on and asks Feyre how she broke his spell. It’s not until Feyre asks the king to break their bond that Rhys really reacts, begging her no. But the king does as she asked and their mating bond is broken, as well as their bargain. Feyre faints. When she wakes up, Rhys is not faring much better as Mor drags him away. The king clears Azriel’s blood of the poison and tells Rhys that he and his friends are free to go. Mor winnows to Feyre’s sisters and escapes with them before anyone can stop her, Tamlin thought they were going to take Feyre’s sisters too. Rhys then winnows out with Cassian and Azriel. Lucien turns to Tamlin and demands that he GET ELAIN BACK, but he is completely ignored by Tamlin. The queens begin to line up for the Cauldron. Lucien realizes that Feyre is not panicking about her sisters being gone and he starts to suspect that she’s up to something, she whispers to him that they will get Elain back. Feyre asks Tamlin to take her home. It’s only then that the king realizes that Feyre no longer has the Book, and he is mad. He tells Tamlin that he will be expected to return once the Book is retrieved again, but Feyre makes the king a promise before she leaves. To him and Jurian both, she will light the funeral pyres herself for what he did to her sisters. Rhys lands in his house in town and Amren is waiting for them. She sees Cassian… and Azriel… but she does not see Feyre. Rhys gives her the Book, torn again, and tells her to hide it. Mor tells Amren that the king broke the bond between Rhys and Feyre, but Amren tells her that it CAN’T be broken. Rhys confirms. The king broke their bargain, which was hard enough, but he couldn’t tell the difference between that and their mating bond. Now his mate is with the enemy, but Rhys won’t go to her. Feyre is going to destroy Tamlin from within. She will know everything that happens in that house, what the king’s plans are, and she can report those directly to Rhys. She is his mate and his spy... and the High Lady of the Night Court. The king may have removed their bargain and the tattoo on her left arm with it, but he didn’t remove the glove on her right. The night before they left for Hybern, Rhys and Feyre had snuck out to see a priestess and Feyre was made High Lady, she’s got the tattoo on her right arm to prove it. Rhys’ equal. He feels her send love to him down their bond, now hidden deep within them. Now Mor is angry – that’s her High Lady in enemy territory! But they’ll move when it’s time, and they’ll get Feyre out. In the Spring Court, Feyre tells Tamlin she’s not sure how she broke free of Rhys, just that she saw him and clawed her way out of whatever fugue she was in. And she’s so glad that she did! Tamlin laps it up. She tells him that she doesn’t want to be shut away again and he agrees, he’s realized the mistakes he made before. But Lucien doesn’t believe her, but he will keep his mouth shut if he ever wants to see Elain again. It’s time to go to war.
If you're ready, click reveal. Two years before the wall was built, before the treaty was signed, Rhys stares at the miles of dead bodies on the field of battle. For three days, Prythian’s rebels have fought against Ravennia’s legions, but they held them off. The enemy forces did not break through. At some point, Rhys had called for his father to send reinforcements, which had arrived at the beginning of day three. An Illyrian unit, but Rhys had not been able to see which one or who it included. Although Azriel is probably safe since he is primarily used to spy, could Cassian be among the dead? Rhys searches through every inch of that field, uncovering every Illyrian, losing his breath in relief every time it is not Cassian that he uncovers. In present day, Feyre continues to play the role of Tamlin’s love, living in and spying on the Spring Court with the tattoo indicating her status as High Lady of the Night Court glamoured into invisibility. She has convinced Tamlin that her sisters will be unhurt by Rhys, at least for the time being, but that she was not so lucky – causing her to have all these convenient gaps in her memory. Lucien is not quite sure what to believe yet, he mentions how calm Feyre has been acting - considering she threatened to kill Jurian and the King of Hybern before they returned to Tamlin’s estate. Considering that her sisters are with Rhys, her supposed enemy and former captor. Lucien asks where Rhys would keep Elain, but Feyre tells him that there’s hundreds of places Rhys could be keeping Elain. Lucien wants a list of them all. Tamlin invites Feyre to join him and Lucien as they meet with Ianthe. Feyre looks at Ianthe for the first time since coming back to the Spring Court, the first time since Ianthe sold her sisters to the King of Hybern. She notices that the jewel on the circlet that Ianthe wears looks much like the Siphons of the Illyrian warriors. Ianthe expresses how sorry she is, that she thought Feyre might like it if her sisters were Fae like her (even if Feyre would never say it). Ianthe’s not looking for forgiveness, just a little understanding. Hybern’s force is too strong and can’t be stopped, they needed to make an alliance with the king. Feyre pretends to be able to move on, just telling Ianthe never to do anything like that again. Tamlin reveals that part of his agreement with Hybern provides that his people, at least, will not be touched or disturbed by Hybern’s forces. Feyre discovers that Hybern will be coming from the West. The first delegation arrives at the Spring Court the next day, led by Jurian. She sends this information to Rhys that night, down their mating bond. They use the bond as little as possible. Currently, having Rhys’ scent on her is expected since she has only recently left him, their bond only recently broken by the King of Hybern. Feyre only has a small amount of time before the others realize that the scent of the bond is not fading, because the bond is still intact. Jurian arrives in the Spring Court with two commanders: Prince Dagdan and Princess Brannagh, twin niece and nephew of the King of Hybern that Feyre suspects are daemati. They’ll all be staying in Tamlin’s manor, and the princess informs Tamlin that she and her brother will stay in the same room… okay Cersei. Feyre makes a quick verbal jab at Jurian, making it clear that she has not forgotten what he’s done to her sisters. But other than that, she plays nice, even offering to help them locate the holes in the wall. Jurian, however, is just awful to both Feyre and Lucien, and sometimes gets under Tamlin’s skin as well. The Cauldron told Jurian that Miryam is still alive, and he will do whatever it takes to find her. As they argue at the table, Feyre reaches out with her mind and finds that while her own mind is shielded, Lucien’s and Tamlin’s are not, and the twins are probing them. She stops the twins and shields Lucien and Tamlin herself, without Tamlin even noticing. She stays up the rest of the night, making sure the twins behave themselves. The next day they inspect the wall. Lucien tells them they are aware of three holes along the Spring Court’s border and one off the coast, but Brannagh tells them they’ll need to break the wall on land. Feyre is playing meek again, pretending that she’s afraid of the twins. She tells them to inspect the first hole – the hole she originally came through – and they’ll plan a trip to see the other two even though they are much further away (since Brannagh cannot winnow). When they leave the Hybernians to their task, Lucien points out that whatever Feyre’s planning is going to get them in big trouble, but she plays innocent as if she has no plans at all. She asks which side Lucien would have fought on if he’d been alive during the last war – he would’ve fought for the human-Fae alliance. And yet… here they are, showing Hybern the best spots to break the wall. He tells her he went to Hybern to save her, it did not turn out the way he thought it would – it was a trap. Ianthe is at the manor when they return. She wants to speak to Feyre about planning a party for the Summer Solstice and to honor their guests. Lucien is reacting even worse to Ianthe than he did before Feyre left for the Night Court and she asks what happened between them. Tamlin refused to participate in Calanmai since Feyre was gone so Lucien took his place. Ianthe insisted Lucien choose her so he did, even though he didn’t want to (he thought it might get Ianthe off his back), and he did not enjoy it. They try to find a dress for Feyre to wear for the Solstice but she’s much healthier now than when she left the Spring Court and none of her dresses fit. Alis reveals that she’s not fooled by Feyre’s act either. She was there when Mor rescued Feyre, she saw Mor’s anger on Feyre’s behalf and how Feyre clung to Mor. Alis also never heard a peep about Rhys hurting any of the servants Under the Mountain. Never heard anything about him ever hurting someone who could not defend themselves, yet Feyre calls him a monster. Alis goes on to say she has a cousin that works in the Adriata palace – Tarquin’s palace. That cousin said that when Feyre visited, she was happy. She was laughing. Feyre admits nothing but Alis asks her please, whatever Feyre is planning, leave Alis’ nephews out of it. Spare them when she takes her vengeance. At the Solstice Festival, Feyre allows Ianthe to conduct the rituals as normal, but she positions herself so that when the sun rises and shines its light, it lands directly on her first. At that moment, Feyre allows her inner incandescent power to make her sparkle and show the people of the Spring Court exactly who she is: Feyre Cursebreaker, and she holds her hand out to Lucien, asking him to join her in the sun. She’s not playing around. For most of the day, Feyre sticks close to Lucien, but she does dance with Tamlin. That night, Feyre cries out as if she’s had a nightmare. Lucien hears her cry out and checks on her, they go to his room to talk for a moment. She tells him that she still dreams of Under the Mountain. He comforts her and they are interrupted by Tamlin, who is suspicious of what is going on… in Lucien’s room… in the middle of the night… while Feyre is wearing a lacy nightgown. She admits that she had a nightmare and goes back to her own room, wondering if Lucien has figured out that she knew Tamlin would try to come to her tonight. The Summer Solstice was the night they had their first kiss. The whole scene was staged, Feyre is going to tear them apart. They prepare to go see the second hole the next day, and they receive news that a set of keys to the estate’s gates is missing – although Tamlin is too distracted by his jealousy and suspicions to care. Ianthe interrupts their breakfast (Feyre, Tamlin, Lucien, Jurian, and the twins are all there) to tell them that the land around the temple is dying from a blight that she blames on the naga. Feyre tells Ianthe they’re about to go to the wall, but she can help Ianthe investigate this problem in a few days… if it is even still a problem. Ianthe urges Tamlin to go with them to look at the wall, but Feyre convinces him that it’s not necessary, not to get overprotective again. Tamlin pins Lucien with a glare and tells Feyre to be careful, but he does not come with them. Feyre has shown Ianthe who’s in charge and pulls Lucien and Tamlin a little further apart, all before breakfast is over. They decide to winnow to the wall, Dagdan carrying both Brannagh and Jurian, so it takes all day. They’ll have to spend the night camping; Feyre brought a tent to share with Lucien, but Lucien is (understandably) hesitant to use it. Feyre asks if there’s a way to break Tamlin’s agreement with Hybern since she’s back now, but Lucien tells her it was sealed with magic and Tamlin will be struck by that magic if he reneges on his end of the bargain. It may even kill him, or it may turn and kill someone he cares about instead. But that doesn’t mean Lucien doesn’t hate Hybern too. The next morning, they go to see the hole in the wall and find three young Children of the Blessed on the other side. They have come as tribute to Prythian and are delighted they’ve been found! Brannagh and Dagdan are similarly delighted, but Jurian is not. Feyre orders them to get back to their villages and families. They don’t look like they’re going to listen, so she attacks their minds and shows them the truth of what could happen to them in Prythian, they get wise and run away. Later, Jurian quietly thanks her. Whatever the Hybern delegation is doing with the wall takes all day and they spend another night in the tents. There’s a moment when she and Jurian are left alone before they go to bed - Jurian asks what would have happened if the Children of the Blessed had made it through the wall. She’s not sure, but she knows that when she was human, once they left, they were never seen again. Jurian reveals that he has his reasons for working with Hybern – everything he did during the War was for him and Miryam, yet she left him for Drakon. But he doesn’t want to win her back, he wants to make her regret leaving him. He reminds Feyre that he knew Rhys during the War, so he knows that Rhys is not the male she is making him out to be. Here Rhys is, living in a world in which he has lost his mate, and he has not yet come to claim her. He suspects that Rhysand hasn’t lost his mate at all – just unleashed her on the rest of them. They go to sleep and the next morning, Feyre is woken by Lucien’s hand covering her mouth. She can smell blood in the air. The twins hunted down the Children of the Blessed and had their “fun”, pieces of their bodies now litter the ground. Lucien thinks it’s a message to them since Feyre gave them orders to leave the humans alone, and a bit of a royal temper tantrum for being denied. Feyre decides to send one of her own. Lucien tracks down the Bogge and lures it toward their camp, right to the twins. When she and Lucien are back at the manor and get reprimanded by Tamlin, she makes sure the sentries hear exactly what happened. That the twins had hunted the humans, terrorized them, butchered them after being given the order to stand down. Proof that Hybern will walk all over this Court if they’re allowed to. Tamlin orders Lucien out and eventually explodes with rage, hurting Feyre (she purposefully doesn’t shield herself). Lucien barges back in and he and the sentries see Feyre bleeding on the floor. Due to her injuries, Feyre delays seeing the last hole with the Hybern delegation. She tells everyone how lucky the Spring Court is to have both Tamlin and Ianthe there to protect them. Ironic that a group of naga breaks onto the estate grounds that night, they are found with the lost keys. Tamlin finds the sentry that lost the keys and punishes him, Ianthe declaring that it will take twenty lashes for the sentry to earn forgiveness. But Feyre releases the memory she’s hidden from the sentry, and he blurts out that Ianthe had taken the keys. He saw her at the barracks the night they went missing. Ianthe discounts his story, but Feyre asks to hear it - she’s winning the hearts of all the sentries now. Ianthe protests several times until Tamlin realizes that maybe she’s protesting too much and realizes that Ianthe did, in fact, plan the attack with the naga. Feyre asks Tamlin to hear the guard’s story and not to punish his body or his honor, but Tamlin decides to back Ianthe instead and gives the guard twenty-one lashes, for losing the keys and for accusing Ianthe. Tamlin had always fought for the sentries, until now. Once the lashes are done, Feyre alone stays with the sentries and ensures that the one punished has a healer to see him. And she apologizes that she could not stop Tamlin. They apologize too, for not protecting her. The next day they prepare to go to the last hole in the wall, this time Tamlin and Ianthe will join them. Feyre packs two bags before bed the night before, but Alis gives her one more “since it’s a longer trip.” She brushes Feyre’s hair and tells her that she is going to leave too, when Feyre leaves tomorrow. She and her nephews are already packed, they’re going back to the Summer Court. On the way to the hole, Feyre asks to share a tent with Ianthe. When they get to the hole, Feyre stays close to the twins as they spend hours looking the hole and the land over. She hears them debate about which hole would be preferable. Feyre says she thinks they should use this one, unless Hybern wants to chance the other Courts intercepting them before they can cross the strait to get to the continent. She goads them into telling them how big their army is (two hundred thousand strong) and part of their plan (their force will take Prythian before joining any other forces). They need a spot in the hole where something strong has already broken through, so that the Cauldron can learn and break the wall entirely. Feyre repacks her bags, putting everything she needs in one, and reassesses her progress. Hybern’s numbers, part of their plan, the location where they’ll break the wall, and the territories they are allied with (Vallahan, Montesere, and Rask), check. A High Priestess who has lost the faith of the people, check. Sentries starting to rebel against their High Lord, check. Hybern doubting the strength of their Prythian allies, check. Now to disappear and make Tamlin and Ianthe deal with the fallout: the memory she’s planted in the mind of one of the sentries. That the twins nearly kill Feyre, and she fled, afraid for her life. While Tamlin is off hunting, she walks into the woods… where she hears something unexpected. Lucien fighting off Ianthe’s advances. Or rather, he is unable to fight them off since Ianthe has him shackled to a tree with shackles that nullify power. Feyre breaks into Ianthe’s mind and forces her to release Lucien and break her own hand with a rock. Feyre commands that Ianthe will not remember what happened here, and furthermore, she will never again touch another person unless they initiate contact. Lucien looks at Feyre with wide eyes. Brannagh and Dagdan saw the whole thing too and step out of the trees to reveal to Lucien that Feyre is a daemati. They have noticed her careful plotting, but they’ve been plotting too. They gave Ianthe a powder, crushed faebane stone, to slip into Feyre’s food, poisoning Feyre a little at a time. That’s what was causing her frequent headaches recently. Then the twins fed her a poisoned apple, grown with water laced with faebane. It should kick in soon and render her powerless for several days. Feyre’s still got a little time before her power is gone; Lucien tells her to go. But she doesn’t leave. She winnows to Dagdan, then winnows with Dagdan as they fight. But Dagdan is only trying to wear Feyre down, so she strikes Brannagh instead. By the time the fire she hits Brannagh with is put out, Lucien is ready and cuts Brannagh’s head off with his sword. While Dagdan is distracted by the murder of his twin, Feyre stabs Dagdan right in his head. She orders Ianthe to tell everyone that Feyre killed them in self-defense, that they hurt her while Ianthe and Tamlin did nothing to stop it. Lucien tells Feyre that he wants to go with her to the Night Court. He wants his mate back, - and Feyre’s not going to make it without him anyway. They winnow away. They don’t make it far before the realize that the twins must’ve poisoned them all, because Lucien’s power also disappears. Feyre goes toward a door - pockets that fold the spaces of Prythian, allowing you to travel great distances quickly. They must go into the Autumn Court (as much as they want to avoid it) since Summer will kill Feyre on sight. They’ll hide until their powers are back and get out of Autumn as quickly as possible. This is the land that Lucien grew up on, he knows a place. Once they get to a cave that Lucien used to use while hunting, he tells Feyre than he’s known she was lying ever since Hybern. He didn’t tell Tamlin for a couple of reasons. He didn’t want to kick Tamlin while he was down, and he didn’t want Feyre to keep Elain from him if he exposed her. The next morning, they start walking due north - straight toward Lucien’s father’s court. Feyre learns a little bit more about the cruelty of Beron’s rule, toward his people and his own son. She learns about the name of Lucien’s beloved that was killed, Jesminda. That the people blame Lucien for her death, and he understands why. They walk for five days without incident, but their power is returning very slowly. As they get closer to the border with the Winter Court, Lucien thanks her for having his back with the delegation from Hybern… and with Ianthe. That night, Lucien’s brothers find them. Beron knew they were in the area and wants to meet Feyre, Eris and the other two have been sent to collect her and Lucien. But Feyre can feel her power slowly returning so as soon as Eris lowers the dagger that he has at her neck, she shoots fire at him. She knows the fire won’t stop them for long, but she’s aiming for something else anyway. The flames weaken the cave ceiling, and it caves in, she and Lucien make a run for the Winter Court with almost no supplies and one cloak between them. But even once they cross the border, they aren’t safe. They must keep going until they’re physically unable to. They find a cave but there is no way to start a fire, so they huddle in the back with their one cloak and Lucien asks Feyre to tell him about Elain. She tells him how Elain likes to garden, and that Elain was engaged to a human man when she was Made. She may not be transitioning to High Fae easily. He says he wants to meet Elain at least once, to know if she’s worth fighting for. And to ask Rhys how he managed to survive when Feyre was with Tamlin. Lucien is still angry, saying that Feyre abandoned not just Tamlin but him too. She retorts that she’d been abandoned months prior, and that he never fit in with the Spring Court anyway. They survive the night and start walking the next day, the faebane slowly exiting their systems but not fast enough. She still can’t call to Rhys, they can’t winnow. While they walk, Lucien’s brothers catch up to them. Lucien and Feyre run, but they’re stuck on an unending field of ice which Eris is melting in front of their feet. Feyre is able to refreeze it as they run, but soon Eris winnows and catches up with Feyre as Lucien’s two other brothers detain him. They are about to take Feyre and Lucien back to Beron when Cassian lands on the ice in front of them. And Cassian hates Eris for what he did to Mor. Then Azriel lands behind them, it is not a good day for Eris. Azriel and Lucien fight the other two (less important) brothers, while Feyre is able to give Cassian enough room to engage Eris. They all fight, and though the Vanserra brothers fight well it’s not well enough and they will soon lose. But Feyre knows that Beron still needs to pick a side in the war that’s coming, killing his sons will not endear the Night Court to him. She commands them all to stop, and tells Eris and his brothers to go, announcing herself as High Lady of the Night Court. Then Cassian grabs her and flies her away, Azriel follows with Lucien. They fly to the border, where Mor waits for them, having winnowed the Illyrians but not daring to enter the Court herself, where Eris might see her. It might have made issues worse. Rhys is not there (Mor was closer when he felt the bond again), but he will meet them at the town house. Mor looks at Lucien and decides to bring him too. When they get there, Rhys is not yet there but Amren is. Lucien bows deeply to her. He is shocked to see children in the street… laughing. When Rhys arrives, Feyre grows weak. He holds her. He tells her that when he couldn’t feel her bond, he went to the Spring Court, but he couldn’t find her scent, she was already gone. She explains about the faebane and using the door to the Autumn Court. Rhys tells her that Tamlin’s sentries have abandoned him, that half of his people refused to participate in the Tithe, and some have left the Court altogether. Some have even been talking about rebellion. Ianthe won’t leave her temple, and Jurian has returned to Hybern for the moment. She asks about her sisters, and Rhys tells her they are at the House of Wind and safe. She asked where he was, he was flying above the queens’ palace. It has been quiet there and that worries him. They were all so worried about Feyre, Rhys wanted to be there when she called to be brought home. He wanted to be the one to collect her. But the important thing is that she’s back now. When Rhys and Feyre go back to noticing the others, Rhys addresses Lucien, giving him a lot of information at once. Rhys understands how hard it must be to come to terms with the Night Court that Lucien has heard of versus what it is actually like. Rest assured, Elain has been safe and cared for. Feyre did not dishonor Tamlin in any way, Rhys had been in love with her – and suspected they were mates – for months before she returned the feeling. It may take a while to accept that, but in the meantime, Lucien needs to keep his mouth shut about it and school his features. Feyre invites Lucien to see Elain and Nesta with her. When they get to the House of Wind, she and Rhys give Lucien the long version of Rhys’ past and their story together. Feyre explains afterward that Elain doesn’t know anything about Lucien other than the bare minimum. She will see Elain first and call him in when, and if, Elain is ready. She goes to find her sisters. Feyre and Cassian find Nesta first and Nesta is bitter about being Made, about having the choice made for her, but she is not the one Feyre should be worrying about. Elain won’t stop crying, not even to eat or to sleep. As they leave Nesta, Feyre notices how Cassian watches Nesta: with sorrow and longing. Elain is worse than Feyre expected – pale, too thin, bereft. She just keeps saying she wants to go home. It’s clear she won’t be able to see Lucien today, but he has already come closer and heard everything from the hallway. Lucien will be staying at the House of Wind as well, but well away from Feyre’s sisters. When Rhys and Feyre get to Amren’s loft to meet with the others, Amren recommends killing Beron and Lucien’s brothers to make Lucien High Lord. I’m down for that. They discuss the information that Feyre sent them, which matches what they’ve garnered themselves. It will not be good for them if Hybern allies with the other territories. As Azriel says: Vallahan has the numbers, Montesere has the money, and Rask has… both. They’ve also reached out to Miryam and Drakon, but they didn’t find them on Creta where they were expected to be. The place was abandoned, and though it didn’t look like they’d been attacked, they have no idea where they went. Rhys explains more about what happened to them - Miryam bled out from a spear wound in her chest and died during the War, but Drakon was able to take her to a hidden island containing a great and terrible object: the Cauldron. Drakon used the Cauldron to revive Miryam and make her immortal. They need to find a way to prevent the continental territories from joining with Hybern. Rhys has been to Hybern and reveals that its people are hungry for change, but not in the way you may hope. They consider the time before the War when they had mortal slaves as a golden era. The King of Hybern has not expanded their trade, has no allowed other territories to come in, and has encouraged a xenophobic society – his people want this war. Hybern wants to take Prythian partly because their island stands between the island of Hybern and the continent, but also to make a statement about what happens to the people who go against him. To those who defend the Treaty and the mortals. To try to dissuade the territories from an alliance with Hybern, Rhys and friends have planted information – some true, some false, and some a bit of both. They’ve been playing the territories against each other, making sure they’re too busy fighting each other to take on Hybern’s war as well. As for the mortal queens, no one can get into their palace and everything there has been quiet. They’ve no idea the promises that Hybern has made to queens, but Amren points out something very interesting – the Cauldron may not be working as intended. It should be able to break the wall without needing to learn first. If they can fix the wall before Hybern comes with the Cauldron, there may be nothing for it to learn. Amren wants to use Feyre’s sisters to possibly fix the wall, but also to convince others of the risk that Hybern poses. At first Feyre does not want her sisters involved, but after a moment’s thought, she realizes the wisdom of asking them for their help. They also will need allies. Rhys plans to send out an invitation to every Prythian High Lord for a meeting in two weeks’ time. Cassian flies Feyre to the House of Wind for dinner and they discuss her sisters. He doesn’t think Nesta will ever forgive him for what happened, especially for allowing it to happen to Elain. He broke his promise, even if he was close to death at the time. At dinner, Elain doesn’t join them but Lucien and Nesta do. The Fae tiptoe around Nesta, but Amren gives it to Nesta straight and tells her she’s being a real ass, and Nesta is not afraid of her. She asks why Amren’s eyes glow; it’s the only part of her that shows what lies underneath because the containment spell did not work quite right on Amren’s eyes. Nesta asks what lies beneath, but Amren tells her that’s not a polite question. Deep down, she and Nesta are the same. They did not fit in the mold they were given and the path changed to accommodate them. Nesta and Lucien watch the camaraderie among the others, then the meetings of the High Lords comes up. Lucien asks if all the High Lords will be invited (yes) and if they plan to mask Feyre’s powers (to be determined). He advises that his father may join Hybern just to regain the power that he gave to Feyre, if he knew that she had any of it. He recommends finding out what exactly his brothers told to Beron and plan the meeting accordingly. In fact, if Beron knows about Feyre’s powers, he may take the information from the meeting straight to the King of Hybern instead of waiting to be approached first. This is helpful, Rhys asks Lucien to speak with Azriel the next day. But that’s not all. There’s another meeting they will need to have soon. They need to meet with Keir about his Darkbringer Legion. Part of the agreement that keeps the Night Court separate includes a provision that the Hewn City (home to the Court of Nightmares) is not bound to aid the High Lord’s armies. They’ve refused twice before, although not during the War. Mor believes Keir will refuse Rhys this time, so Rhys will need to find a way to convince him. Mor is incredibly upset at this turn of events, but she insists that she will be at the meeting. Feyre and Cassian agree to continue her training the next morning, she invites Nesta, but Nesta refuses (Cassian has been trying to convince Nesta to train both her body and her power but has had no luck). Feyre announces that she wants to learn how to fly, now that she can grow wings. Azriel offers to teach her, he was also taught to fly at an older age and remembers how difficult it is to overcome the fear of falling. She will train with Cass first, then she will start with Az, who will meet with Lucien after lunch. Finally, Feyre turns to Nesta. She explains that the King of Hybern is trying to break the wall completely. She asks Nesta if she would try to patch the holes, Amren can start training her how. Nesta doesn’t answer right away but asks if the king Made the mortal queens too, but Rhys isn’t sure. Nesta wants them all dead by the end of the war: the king and the queens. Promise her that, and she will fix the wall, but she refuses to tell anyone about what was done to her. That night, Feyre and Rhys discuss their roles as High Lord and High Lady. Feyre wants to show the world a united front and use their bond if they need to question each other, at least for the first few years, but Rhys clarifies that they’ll do that only in public. In their family: Mor, Cass, Az, and Amren, and Feyre’s sisters, they do not hold back. The leave things out in the open, even when they disagree. They are equals, and he won’t pretend otherwise. Feyre wonders which of the High Lords will ally with them – this meeting will have Beron and Tamlin… and Tarquin. Rhys thinks they can count on Helias from the Day Court and maybe Kallias from the Winter Court as well, although relations with the Winter Court have been strained since Amarantha killed the younglings while the High Lords were Under the Mountain. They talk about Lucien. They aren’t sure yet if they can trust him. They decide to wait two weeks and speak to Azriel about his opinion about Lucien, then reassess. Feyre starts training with Cass, and he reveals that he is angry that she hid her role as High Lady when they went into Hybern – it would have changed everything! As Rhys’ mate, Feyre was Rhys’ to protect and vice versa. As her friend, Cassian still would have died for her, but she wasn’t his responsibility. As High Lady, she is. She is his and she is Azriel’s and Mor’s and even Amren’s. She didn’t think she was essential walking in there, but she was. And then she went to the SPRING COURT, where ANYTHING could have happened to her! They were all terrified for her, Rhys was in a panic all the time - as much as he tried not to let it show, as much as they knew she could take care of herself. It was just like when Rhys was trapped Under the Mountain and none of them could save him. Nesta comes to the roof to meet Amren for their training, but she’s early and she and Cassian start jibing at each other, so Azriel saves his High Lady by starting flying practice early. He takes her to a lake because it doesn’t hurt as much when you fall into water, but all they do is fine tune the wings that she summons and practice opening them and closing them back up. Then Feyre goes to the library with Rhys to do some research for Amren. Rhys introduces her to Clotho, one of the priestesses that work at the library. Clotho doesn’t speak and her hands are gnarled. She was hurt by a group of males long ago, who cut out her tongue. The males healed her as they hurt her, which made Clotho’s injuries permanent. Mor found her and brought Clotho to Rhys, then Mor hunted down the males. All the priestesses that work in this library have similar backgrounds, Rhys has turned the space into a sort of refuge for them. Some of the priestesses stay forever, some of them choose to leave, and no one is allowed to use the library without their consent. The library is a gigantic space filled with spiraling levels of books and reading areas. In the center of the room is a dark pit. Rhys tells Feyre that he doesn’t know what’s at the bottom of the pit, but he dared Cassian to fly down once, and Cassian still won’t tell him what he saw down there. They separate to do their research because they can’t control themselves otherwise, and they find that the wall had not been constructed to last. It had only been built as a temporary solution when the Treaty was signed, but they don’t find much more information about the wall at all. Feyre has had an idea. She discusses it with Rhys when they leave the library. Amren said that combining the halves of the Book would awaken and call forth ancient things better left to sleep. If Prythian can’t beat Hybern with their numbers alone, what if they called those ancient things to their cause. The Bone Carver and Amren have both been looking for a way back to their own worlds, would the Carver fight with them if they could give him a way back? Cassian will go with Feyre to the Prison to ask, but they decide to wait to tell Amren about their potential plans. Rhys tells Feyre that while they’re inside the Prison, she won’t be able to reach him through their bond. On the way, Cassian explains that before the High Lords took Prythian, there had already been life there. Old gods that ruled the land, but they faded after the High Fae arrived and the magic shifted. The legend says that the Bone Carver is one of those old gods, and that with one breath he can kill hundreds, should he desire it. So, they better find a way to control him while he’s “helping” them, if he agrees to do so. When Feyre sees the Bone Carver, he again presents himself as the young, dark-haired boy she had seen last time, but she now realizes that this is a child of hers and Rhys’ - with Rhys’ face but her mouth. Their son. She brought the Bone Carver a gift: what was left of the Attor after she’d killed him. The Carver can tell she visited the Weaver since they’d last met, he can smell her on Feyre. He turns to Cassian and ask what Cassian would give to hear what was whispered to him when Nesta was Made. How she took something precious with her when she came out of the Cauldron. Feyre brings the Carver’s attention to the task at hand: does he want to go home? Now she’s got his attention. But he doesn’t wish to go back to where he came from. In fact, his cell is where he wants to be, that’s why he allowed himself to be trapped. He gives them a story. His sister Stryga (the Weaver), and their brother Koschei were eventually bound and confined by an ancient Fae warrior that has since been forgotten, long before even the High Lords came about. Before they were bound, the Carver came here to hide from his siblings. They are death-gods, and his siblings were much stronger than he ever was. Now he is forgotten, and that’s how he intends to stay – inside this Prison safe from his siblings. He doesn’t change his answer, even when Feyre tells him the Prison could be destroyed if Hybern brings war, leaving him vulnerable. But when Cassian reminds Feyre that they need to prepare to go to the Hewn City that evening, the Carver perks up. The Weaver once had a collection of mirrors, including one called the Ouroboros that is now possessed by Keir. Bring him the Ouroboros and they’ll talk. Amren trains Nesta to shield since the two of them will be joining the others in the Court of Nightmares, but Cassian will stay behind to watch over Elain. Feyre sees Elain before they leave, she’s left her room, and Feyre finds her in the small library. Elain talks about more than just going home this time. She says she can hear Feyre’s heartbeat; she can see and hear the sea, even in her dreams. And the screams of a bird made of fire. Feyre asks Elain to come look after the garden in the town house. Nesta tells Feyre privately that Elain’s been speaking in riddles all day. Nesta asks if Elain has powers like hers, but Feyre doesn’t know. Unless this is those powers manifesting. While Feyre speaks to Nesta, Lucien breaks the rules and makes his way to the library. He stumbles when he sees Elain there, not expecting her, but he’s incredibly polite and not at all pushy. Feyre reads his thoughts; she can see that he’s lonely here. Elain tells Lucien that she can hear his heart, but he cannot hear hers. No one has ever heard hers except for him (her mortal fiancée). No one ever saw her, or even looked, except for him - but he will not see her now. Feyre decides they’re all moving into the town house starting immediately, this solitude cannot be good for any of them. Azriel flies Elain to the town house, which she doesn’t seem to mind. He shows her the garden. Rhys flies Nesta and makes her vomit. When she comes out of the bathroom, her eyes are burning in an uncanny way. Lucien asks what Nesta is, and she explains that she forced the Cauldron to give her something back. Feyre thinks that Nesta’s power is death, which is why the Bone Carver had heard about her. When they get to the Court of Nightmares, Amren and Nesta go off to practice using Nesta’s power. Rhys, Feyre, Azriel, and Mor join Keir for a meeting. Keir knows that Rhys wants the Darkbringer Legion, but Keir’s not sure he will fight with them. He agrees with Hybern on several topics. Rhys thought Keir might say that. He brings in Eris, to Mor’s shock and upset. Keir once wanted an alliance with the Autumn Court; now is his chance, but Keir says that Eris is not enough. He wants access to Velaris too, which he has only just learned of. Rhys agrees, but it’s not open access. They will agree on terms later. Feyre asks for the Ouroboros and Keir tells her she’s welcome to it, if she can claim it. To do so, she would need to look into it – and everyone who has tried has either come out of it irreparably broken or outright mad. Keir walks out of the meeting. Eris taunts Mor and Azriel a bit; he knew that Azriel would come around to see what he’d told his father, and he knows that Rhys has already made his other brothers forget about Feyre’s powers. Eris won’t tell his dad about Feyre, and he will convince his dad to ally with Rhys, if they support his claim as the next High Lord. When Feyre brings up what happened to Mor, he says he understands why Mor did what she did with Cassian. He regrets how the whole thing played out, but he did end their engagement, and in a way that could not be repaired. There were forces at play that none of the Night Court are aware of, and maybe one day – now that they’re allies - Eris will tell them what those forces were, and what it cost him. And as for Lucien’s girlfriend, Eris had no hand in it. He was punished for it, but Eris did not follow his father’s orders that day - for maybe the first time. And Eris made sure that Lucien could escape, and even anonymously alerted Tamlin so he would be there when Lucien crossed the border. Could it be that yet another High Fae is hiding who they truly are? It’s too early to tell. They leave the meeting, collect Amren and Nesta, and winnow away to the town house where Mor turns on Rhys, irate and deeply hurt. She’s mad that Eris was at the meeting, but it’s worse that Rhys didn’t warn her. And she wants to discuss Keir now having access to Velaris, the town she considered hers. The town that she has protected from Keir all this time. Rhys has already spoken with the governors of the Palaces (the sectors of Velaris) and they have agreed never to serve, entertain, or shelter anyone from the Court of Nightmares, and the governors have alerted the shopkeepers of the order. But Mor, and Cassian too, are angry; this could hurt their family in a way that will not be easily repaired. Amren steps in. After the war is done, Mor can do what she wants to Keir but for now, Amren will not allow Keir to hurt Velaris. Amren turns to Rhys and tells him that he played his hand poorly (he knows). Cassian asks Feyre about the Ouroboros and now, Amren realizes that something else is being kept secret. She guesses what they’re trying to do and tells them it’s impossible – she will not reveal how she herself escaped from the Prison. Rhys tells her it’s not a request. The truth comes out. Amren has always said she was bound into the body she wears, but really, she did it herself to become something that the Prison would not recognize which facilitated her escape. She’s now in a High Fae body, but it’s still mortal to compared to the immortality she once had. We learn that Amren was always considered too curious, and she was sent with others like her to demolish two cities when a rip appeared in the sky. The others fled but Amren wanted to investigate, she went through the rip and ended up here. When she finally gave that body up, she had been in the Prison so long that she could not even remember sunlight. To free the Bone Carver, they will need to bind him to a body and make him Fae too. Rhys asks what would happen if Amren were unbound – she would not remember any of them. She would either kill them or abandon them and the Fae body they recognize would cease to exist. Elain comes downstairs, she thought she heard something. She mentions that it was probably a dream - it seems like she’s always dreaming these days. She says she can hear someone crying, someone who everyone thinks is dead but is really just different now. Azriel asks what she saw: “young hands wither with age. I saw a box of black stone. I saw a feather of fire land on snow and melt it.” She goes on to say that it was angry that something was taken, so it took something as punishment. Feyre decides to have Elain looked at by a healer. Later, Feyre asks Nesta how it went in the Hewn City for her and Amren. Amren had Nesta look at a bunch of Keir’s treasures and find their weaknesses. And Nesta failed…every single time. The responses from the High Lords start to roll in. Dawn is coming, Helion from Day will come if the location is truly neutral, Kallias in Winter wants to bring armed guards. Spring, Autumn, and Summer have yet to reply. Feyre and Mor talk about what happened at the Court of Nightmares: Mor understands why Rhys did it, and it still hurts, but she and Rhys have since talked and are okay for now. The healer visits Elain and finds nothing wrong with Elain’s body. Her mind, however, the healer cannot access. And she doesn’t recommend that Feyre try to get in there either. She recommends letting Lucien talk to Elain, a mate can usually tell if something is wrong – the mating bond is a bridge between two souls. She encourages having Lucien just sit with Elain and talk, see what he can sense from her. He does, and it is suuuuper uncomfortable, then Lucien gives their bond a little tug and startles Elain. He apologizes for it, but it didn’t hurt. She says it felt strange. She goes on to say twin ravens are coming: one white and one black. So that’s cool. When Elain goes to get some sun, Lucien tells Feyre that he couldn’t sense anything and they decide to try again some other time, but no one is optimistic. Feyre wants to take Nesta to the library to do some research on the wall, she asks Cassian to fly Nesta to the House of Wind (the library is beneath it). When Cassian walks in on Elain and Nesta having breakfast, Elain mentions that the king “snapped your wings, broke your bones”. Cassian retorts that it will take more than that to kill him, Elain responds that no, it won’t. She is a delight. After they fly to the House of Wind and Nesta and Feyre descend to the library, they’re just sitting down to their research when they feel a ripple in the air. The faelights begin to die one by one, creeping ever closer to where they are. Something is wrong. They run, but Nesta is slow – she is still refusing any sort of physical training. Two High Fae males step out of the darkness: one dark haired, one light haired, (“twin ravens…one white and one black”) both with the Hybern coat of arms on their jacket. They blow faebane dust at the sisters and their magic stops working. They introduce themselves as the king’s Ravens, they’re here to bring Nesta back to the king. They want what she took from the Cauldron. Nesta and Feyre have very few options. 1) Try to take them hand to hand. But the ravens are likely well trained and Nesta is absolutely not, plus Feyre only has one knife. 2) Run. Which would put the priestesses at risk and Nesta is not likely to outrun the ravens anyway. So, it will need to be option 3) Feyre grabs Nesta and they run into the pit, toward whatever monster lives down there. It’s so dark the sisters cannot see anything and are feeling their way around, but they continue to run as the Ravens pursue them. Taunting them. Telling them that the youngest queen went into the Cauldron first, she did come out immortal but as an old lady (“young hands wither with age”). Now the other queens refuse to go in. In the dark, Feyre encourages Nesta to keep running toward the light at the center of the pit. Feyre forces Nesta to keep going, but without her. Feyre pushes one of the stacks of books until it topples over into the next one and so on, effectively blocking Nesta from the Ravens, and blocking Feyre’s escape. She whispers into the darkness, asking for something to help her… and she gets a reply. It asks if she is the High Lady. It asks what she will give it for its assistance. It says it heard on the wind that she wants to use the Bone Carver; it knew him once. It wants someone to keep it company, to tell it about life. Feyre agrees, she can make that happen. It asks if it should kill the Ravens, then tells Feyre to close her eyes when Feyre says yes, please. When her eyes are closed, all Feyre hears is the Ravens screaming. Then she feels Cassian’s hands, hears him reminding her to keep her eyes closed. Rhys arrives seconds later and commands Cassian to get Nesta and Feyre out, they hear screaming start again as they leave. The sisters are relatively unharmed, but Feyre now has a new tattoo – her bargain with the beast. When they gets back to the town house, Rhys sends out a missive to have everyone in the city stay indoors tonight - Amren is going hunting for intruders. Rhys asks Nesta what she took from the Cauldron – but she doesn’t know. What they do know is that the Cauldron is not working properly and fixing it is a bigger priority for the King of Hybern than breaking the wall. They’re all together, including Lucien and Feyre’s sisters. They decide to keep what happened with the Ravens secret; they’ve already shown that they’re vulnerable when Velaris was attacked. Especially before the meeting takes place, they need to appear prepared and strong. Elain points out that the queen might come – the queen who was cursed. Not the one that Feyre is thinking about (the one who turned old), the other one with the “feathers of flame”. Azriel realizes it first, the Cauldron made Elain what they needed: a seer. She is talking about the sixth queen, the one who wasn’t ill but did not come to their initial meeting. Elain tells them that she was sold to some sort of sorcerer-lord that she can’t see. He has an onyx box that is more important to him than anything else, other than the girls – he keeps several. The queen transforms into a firebird during the day, but a woman at night. She’s deep within the continent near a lake hidden by mountains. Azriel reveals that this would be Vassa, queen of the mortal realm of Scythia. And a potential ally for them. Mor wants to go find her but none of the males seem willing to let Mor go. She’s needed where she is. Lucien volunteers instead. His metal eye can see things that others cannot, like glamours and spells. It may help him find Vassa and it could help to break her curse. Lucien cannot just sit here and do nothing while the others work to win this war. Rhys agrees to winnow Lucien as close as he can to where Lucien should begin his search. Cassian volunteers to get him an Illyrian sword. He will leave tomorrow after breakfast and search for Vassa. Rhys sends Mor and Cassian to the Hewn City to see if they were also attacked. He goes to reassure the priestesses that they are safe, now behind additional wards. He also visits the priestess who allowed the Ravens access (believing they were scholars) and she gives him access to her memory. The Ravens had forced her to believe their story without vetting them first. Lucien leaves the next morning. Nesta makes some progress with Amren. When Rhys returns from winnowing Lucien, Amren storms into the room and announces that Hybern is attacking Adriata. She does not know if Tarquin has called for aid, but Rhys knows that Tarquin’s armada was scattered along the coast when they were last there and they’re going to need help. Azriel knows that only half of Summer’s armada is in Adriata, and his land forces were moved to the border with the Spring Court. Rhys asks Cassian how quickly the Illyrian legions can be ready to fly. He winnows Cassian to the war-camps as Azriel leaves to reconnoiter Adriata with his spies, first putting on all seven of their Siphons. Rhys will have to winnow all the Illyrians in, it’s too far for them to quickly fly to Adriata. Mor and Feyre dress in armor but both wait for the signal to leave. Amren will stay in the town house with Nesta and Feyre, for as long as the others are gone. Mor winnows with Feyre to Adriata, to see that none of the other Courts have come to help and that Hybern is using faebane in some way, Rhys’ power is nearly depleted between the faebane and the winnowing. Mor and Feyre need to get to the palace, where soldiers have gathered on the northern side. Mor gives Feyre ground rules: don’t leave Mor’s sight, assess before you go into a hall, don’t stop, don’t linger, leave the wounded for the healers, keep moving forward until they need to retreat. They secure the palace and move on; Feyre tries to reach out to Rhys but comes up against a stone wall. He lets her in, and she sees through his eyes as he lands on one of the Hybern ships, looking for what is stifling his power. The King of Hybern comes up from the deck below. But when Rhys hits the king with his power, it goes right through the king’s body. He’s just an illusion and quickly disappears. Rhys destroys the boat he’s on as well as all the ships nearby. Mor shakes Feyre back into herself and after the battle is done, they make their way to where the wounded are being tended, they meet the others there. They speak to Tarquin, who blames Feyre for this. She broke the Spring Court, allowing Hybern to dock there and come directly to Summer, the Court next door. Feyre tells him that she and Rhys have the same dream as he does in which all people have rights, Rhys further explains that they had no other choice. They were trying to avoid war. Tarquin tosses them out, and their army with them. Rhys says he hopes to see Tarquin at the meeting – they, and Prythian, need him. They go back to the camp and tend to their own wounded. They move the meeting of the High Lords up and discuss how they will approach it. Feyre thinks it’s time for the Night Court to stop wearing their masks. Velaris is no longer a secret, let the world see who they really are. Rhys agrees, they will show them the Court of Dreams, but they will not reveal Feyre’s powers other than those from the Night Court. But before that, Feyre wants to visit the Prison again. She tells the Bone Carver to pick something else that he wants, anything else, but there is nothing else that he desires but the Ouroboros. The High Lords debate on where to meet. Amren finds a passage in the Book that may let them fix the wall. Nesta and Feyre continue to train. Elain learns how to bake bread. The day of the meeting comes (it will be held in the Dawn Court) and Rhys, Feyre, Cassian, Azriel, and Mor prepare to attend. At the last minute, Nesta decides to join them. Now that she has experienced battle, not the actual fight but the waiting while those she cared about were in danger, it feels much more dangerous. Now it feels real. Careful Nesta – you almost admitted that you care about people. Rhys offers Nesta the job of emissary to the mortal world, she’s going to make him pay her an exorbitant amount. Before they leave, Cassian and Nesta have a cute little moment. When they arrive, we meet Thesan, High Lord of the Dawn Court as well as their host, with his lover and general; Kallias, High Lord of the Winter Court with his wife and mate (and Mor’s longtime friend) Viviane; and Helion, High Lord of the Day Court with a small entourage. Introductions are made and they sit, waiting to see if the other High Lords will show. Tarquin arrives an hour later with Varian and Cresseida, then Beron arrives with his wife and the four sons they speak to, including Eris. To her credit, Lucien’s mother does look for him when she first walks in. Even though they start the meeting late, it’s only the start that Tamlin bursts through the door and immediately starts throwing shade. Even Beron is surprised to see him, saying there’s a rumor going around that Tamlin is working with Hybern. Tamlin says that the whole thing was a ploy, he only worked with Hybern to get Feyre back (totally reasonable) and to find a way to save Prythian from Hybern, but the real reason he is at the meeting is to get the others NOT to work with Rhysand and to further tarnish Rhys’ image. He continually points out that Rhys slept with Amarantha. Tries to make the others think less of Feyre by insinuating that she is only with Rhys because Tamlin would not make her High Lady and Rhys would. He asks how only Rhys knew that Summer was being attacked, but Varian interrupts, admitting that he reached out to them – Tarquin did not know. Tamlin brings up how the younglings in Winter were slaughtered by Amarantha and Rhys did not stop it, but Rhys admits that he tried and failed. He convinced Amarantha not to kill Kallias and thought he had changed her mind about punishing Winter further, but she went and killed the children without telling him. He thinks that she had become suspicious of him by then. When the others ask for proof, he has none, but he swears it on Feyre’s life. Beron is just stoking the flames, but to his credit, Eris tries to keep his father and his brothers in line. Kallias turns to Tamlin and wants to know why exactly he came to this meeting. Tamlin says that he’s here to work against Hybern and he has even brought information on what Hybern has been doing. But what is to say that he is not planting this information for Hybern? Tamlin retorts that Rhys could be doing the same – even Nesta balks at this, saying that this whole situation is Tamlin’s doing. Tamlin insults Feyre one time too many and Rhys reminds all the High Lords of which of them is the strongest. Spoiler alert: it’s Rhys, and he proves it by taking Tamlin’s voice away from him. Rhys says that if he wanted to defeat the High Lords, it would have been much easier to just force them to do his bidding by controlling their minds, but he is here to work with them for the good of Prythian. And he, for one, believes Tamlin is too. Tarquin points out that the Night Court was the only Court to help when Adriata was attacked and they asked for nothing in return (Rhys points out that’s what friends do), Tarquin rescinds the blood rubies. Eris makes a few sharp remarks and insults Mor, which makes Azriel fly off the handle. He is choking Eris and has blocked everyone else with a shield of his power, he only releases Eris when Feyre comes and asks him to return to the table. Make no mistakes, the next time Feyre won’t stop him. Eris actually apologizes to Mor. They go through the reports that Tamlin has brought and Helion recommends they destroy Hybern’s faebane first. Tarquin says the Summer Court will take care of it, but Thesan has a surprise. He introduces them to a High Fae tinkerer in his Court with a golden, mechanical right hand, Nuan, who made Lucien’s golden eye. Thesan heard about how Hybern used faebane when they attacked Velaris. Nuan excels in many fields, she’s also an alchemist and she believes she’s found a solution to the faebane problem. She reached out to Lucien, and he sent her some samples of the faebane which Nuan has used to create an antidote. They’re already manufacturing as much as possible, but it will only work against ingested faebane, not against weapons imbued with it. Beron fights against it, not trusting Thesan or Nuan – who looks different from the other High Fae (her parents were from Xian on the continent, although they had moved to Prythian before she was born), he refuses to take it or give it to his Court. Feyre, however, says she will take it and so does Eris, who has seen the effect of faebane firsthand. Tamlin whines that he doesn’t have any soldiers to give it to anymore since Feyre destroyed his Court from the inside and that brings Helion to his second recommendation: that the Spring Court be evacuated. The two closest Courts are Summer and Autumn; no surprise Autumn refuses to take any of the refugees. But Tarquin will welcome members of the Spring Court, it’s not their fault that Tamlin sold them all out. Which makes this a nice time for Nesta to segue, Hybern is going into Prythian through the southernmost Courts to give him easiest access to the mortal lands, and the mortals have nowhere else to run to. Beron obviously doesn’t care about the mortals, which causes an argument between him and Feyre, which causes him to bring up (yet again) that Rhys was forced to sleep with Amarantha Under the Mountain… but when he wonders if Rhys will whore himself to Hybern should this war go poorly, it’s one step too far and Feyre loses her cool. Quite literally, she explodes with fire directly at Beron. She manages to use the magic of at least three of the High Lord’s in her rage. So much for keeping that a secret. Helion asks Tamlin if he already knew she was able to access their power and to his credit, Tamlin responds that it was none of Helion’s business. Then Beron throws another fit and causes Rhys to lose his temper, and then Beron declares the meeting over and it looks very unlikely that he will be allying with Rhys. But Nesta tells Beron no, it is not over. She points out that the people in this room are all that stand between Hybern and his goals. Why does Beron refuse to fight against Hybern this time when he did so in the last War? When she went into the Cauldron, it showed Nesta the king’s heart. He is intent on bringing the wall down but killing everyone, regardless of what side of the wall they were on. What happened in the past between the humans and the Fae is just that, in the past. They need to find a way to move forward and protect all of them. She points out that Beron and the other High Lords have been put in their positions to protect this land, and she implores them to actually do so. This speech stops Beron from leaving, and he says he will consider it. But even so, the other High Lords are struggling with the fact that Feyre has even a drop off their power. Tarquin decides the power was worth being released from Under the Mountain, Thesan points out there’s nothing they can do about it anyway – short of killing her. Feyre declares that she will use the powers that they willingly gifted her to fight Hybern and if they think that missing that tiny bit of power is their biggest problem, they need to take a look at their priorities. Viviane and Cresseida announce that they will fight with Feyre, encouraging their High Lords to do the same. Tarquin and Kallias rise, joining the alliance, followed by Helion and Rhys and finally by Thesan and Tamlin. It's going to be rough going – no one wants to give any specifics about their own forces with Tamlin in the room. When it grows late, Thesan offers to let them all stay and return to the table the next day. Everyone decides to stay. When only Kallias, Viviane, and those from the Night Court remain in the meeting room, Mor points out that Beron will join them eventually. He’s not dumb enough to join Hybern when all the others are allied against them, in case Hybern loses. Rhys asks how many troops Kallias has, but Kallias responds that they don’t have enough. His forces were nearly decimated by Amarantha. They separate and Rhys’ family is winding down in Rhys and Feyre’s suite - Nesta went to her own rooms - when there is a knock on the door and Rhys finds Helion waiting in the hall. They whole asshole thing is an act! It appears that he and Rhys are quite friendly and also, Helion is quite a flirt. Helion reveals that his forces are ready to meet Rhys’ in the Myrmidon mountains. They will press south to eventually meet up with Thesan’s forces and make camp along Winter’s southwestern border near the Summer Court. They discuss Beron again, Helion says that he played games in the last War, and it cost him dearly. His wife had been sent to stay with her sisters for her own protection, while their children were sent to other relatives. Hybern attacked the estate where Beron’s wife was, her sisters bought her enough time to escape out of love and loyalty to her (and they paid for it with their own lives) and yet Hybern still caught up to her. Helion is the one that found her and saved her. Feyre asks why he did it and Helion gives her some answer about the Lady being young, but Mor points out that she once heard that while Beron’s wife was young when she was wed, she had held out for some time because she had met someone else the year before and she was hoping that person might ask for her hand instead. But Helion says he had heard that the Lady’s family didn’t give her any choice at all before selling her to Beron. Feyre accurately guesses that Helion and Beron’s wife had an affair, Helion confirms that it occurred on and off for decades until Beron found out and put a stop to it - and turned his wife into a shell of what she once was with his insults and abuse that is an open secret. Feyre realizes what Helion does not even know, that Lucien is his son. Beron must have found out about the affair when the Lady became pregnant with Lucien, it could be the reason for the unnatural level of hate and animosity that Beron and his other sons have for Lucien, and why Eris does not really consider him a threat – Lucien is not the High Lord of Autumn’s son. But Beron must not know for an absolute certainty, he must have enough doubt not to kill Lucien out right, in case he really was his son. And when Feyre shares her epiphany with Rhys, Rhys points out that it changes nothing right now, other than the fact that Helion has no other heir. At that moment, Nesta comes in and outright ignores Helion and his flirtations (he’s stunned), pulling Feyre to the side. She tells Feyre that they need to leave – something feels wrong. No, something is wrong, she knows it. Cassian approaches them and asks what feels wrong and Nesta can only describe it as a sense of dread. Cassian tells Rhys and they both take Nesta seriously, Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel leave within minutes. But they return half an hour later saying that nothing was out of place, not on land, in the sky, or underground and they checked for miles. But they’re still on edge, Nesta must sense something. At the end of the night, Helion’s flirting gets him somewhere and he does share his bed with somebody (Mor), and Rhys tells Feyre that he stays out of whatever is going on between Mor and Azriel, but he explains that the violence Azriel showed today scares Mor – especially since it was due to his feelings for her. One day Azriel will have to decide whether he is going to fight for Mor or let her go, and as for Cassian, the decisions he needs to make are likely going to come up quicker. In the morning, they all go back to the meeting room and plan for war. They’re only in the meeting room for a few moments before Nesta quickly stands from her chair. She grabs her chest and stumbles backward. She can’t explain what’s happening, something is wrong but it’s not with her. Azriel and Cassian prepare to take flight but then they all feel a ripple through the earth. The King of Hybern has used the Cauldron, the wall has been shattered. Not just on Prythian, but on the continent as well. They are too late. They all leave the Dawn Court, Thesan promising to send the faebane antidote to all the High Lords within the next two days and promising that his own winged warriors, the Peregryns, will be ready to fly with the Illyrians. Back at the Night Court, they think of the humans that are now even more vulnerable without the wall. Elain points out that if the humans on their estate won’t come to the Night Court (Rhys offered to winnow them), they could go to Graysen’s estate, her ex-fiancée. His father has been planning for years to fight the Fae and has made as many provisions as possible, including escape tunnels and hounds trained to scent the Fae. It would be better than nothing. Elain wants Rhys to glamour her so that she can speak to Graysen herself about offering sanctuary to other humans. Everyone leaves to make their own preparations for what is about to happen, which leaves Feyre alone with Nesta. The only purpose Nesta had, to fix the wall, is now just dust. She needs to find something else to do. Feyre points out that Nesta felt what was happening with the Cauldron, she can help by telling them if it is being used again. Cassian comes in and gives Nesta a dagger, reminding her that ash can now hurt her. If one of the mortal men tries to hurt her at Graysen’s estate, make them pay with their life. Feyre visits Amren and asks if she knows of the creature that lives in the library’s pit, Amren tells her its name is Bryaxis. Feyre wants to ask for another bargain and asks Amren to look at the wards that keep it in place while she speaks to it. When they get there, Feyre calls into the darkness that she’d like to talk, to give it company as apart of their bargain. She tells Bryaxis that there is a war about to break out and asks if it were freed, would it fight for them? It says that the pit is its home, instead of being free it wants sunlight and moonlight and stars, but Feyre is confused – Amren whispers that it wants a window. Feyre clarifies that it may only feed from Hybern and only until the war is over. It will fight for them when it is needed, Amren will disable the wards at that time, and it will only fight until it is no longer needed. They will give it a window in exchange. Bryaxis agrees. Amren will stay in Velaris until she is needed so she may continue to peruse the book for a way to nullify the Cauldron or stop the king, and (unbeknownst to Rhys and the others) work on the wards keeping Bryaxis contained. Rhys, Feyre, Mor, Cassian, Nesta, Azriel, and Elain travel to the war-camps of the Illyrians. When they’re alone, Feyre tells Rhys of her new bargain. When they see Devlon again, the most amenable of the Illyrian War-Lords, he calls Nesta a witch. Once the women are alone, Feyre asks Mor for some clarification. Witches use spells and tools to harness more power than was given to them and use it for whatever they desire. Mor glamours Elain to look like a human again. Rhys and Cassian give a rousing speech to the Illyrians (I presume, we don’t hear it) while giving them ground rules. Then they leave Cassian in the camp while the rest winnow to the estate of Elain’s former fiancée. Elain tells the guards to pass on a message: Elain Archeron begs for sanctuary. Lord Graysen comes with his father, Lord Nolan, to see Elain, along with two dozen guards. When she sees them, Elain can’t speak. Nesta reveals to them that the wall has been destroyed. She explains that she looks different than she did because of what happened at the Cauldron and the others are introduced as their actual titles. Nesta tells Graysen that Elain is with them because she is their sister, and she is safest with them during this war. Elain asks Graysen and Nolan to open their gates to any human that can get there. They do not have time to evacuate, and they will get no help from the queens, this estate is their best shot. But Nolan already knows about Elain. In fact, he even knows that Elain went into the Cauldron first. When they ask who gave him this information, Jurian steps out of the guardhouse. He tells the others what they already know: that the queens are snakes. Feyre looks in Jurian’s eyes and no longer sees madness, it was an act that he had put on for the sake of the King of Hybern, who believed he’d gone mad while Amarantha had his soul trapped. Jurian turns to Mor, asking how she could believe that he would be turned after fighting by his side for so long during the last War. He asks why Rhys did not try to look in Jurian’s mind to find the truth - Rhys did not look because he didn’t want to see Amarantha there. Jurian doesn’t want to find Miryam and Drakon to kill them, although he has been looking for them. He wants to ask for their forgiveness, plus Drakon likely still has a legion capable of turning the tides of this war against Hybern. Now that the wall is down, Jurian can move freely. Mor reveals that they really don’t know where Miryam and Drakon are, Jurian implores Rhys to do everything he can to find them because they’re going to need all the help they can get. Tamlin went right back to Hybern after leaving the High Lords’ meeting this morning. Jurian gives them more information on Vassa, the sixth queen. When he first approached the queens, Vassa warned them to rally their armies before Hybern grew any larger, believing Hybern to be a threat. The other queens found a death-lord who cursed Vassa and stole her for himself, the queens have been hiding this by saying Vassa is sick. Elain speaks to Graysen, who also knows about Lucien, and she tells Graysen that her heart still belongs to him. But Graysen doesn’t want it. What an ass. Feyre tells Nolan that he is going to take in any people who come to him, this is no longer a request. But Nolan doesn’t agree until Jurian points out that he knows where the estate is, he can either recommend that Hybern steer clear of it, or he can make sure that Hybern comes for a visit. Graysen officially calls off his engagement with Elain, crushing her. They prepare to leave, and Jurian asks them to tell Azriel that he’s sorry for almost killing him in Hybern. He is going to go back to camp and throw a fit about not yet finding Miryam and Drakon, then go to the queens’ courts and sow some more discord amongst them. Then he may join them on the battlefield, only time will tell. Jurian also has a message for Cassian: hit the left flank hard. That’s where Hybern is putting his untrained nobles. Lastly, he turns to Feyre and congratulates her for killing Brannagh and Dagdan. Jurian knows that she did it for what they did to the Children of the Blessed, it’s why he decided to trust her. When Rhys and the others leave, they warn Tarquin of the attack that Hybern is planning for the next day and ask Winter and Day to get to Summer as soon as they can. They camp among the Illyrians, who will fly to battle the next morning. Hybern’s armies show up right where Jurian said they would. The Illyrians and Keir’s Darkbringer Legion are both there and ready to fight, having been hidden by Rhys. The war starts in earnest. Cassian takes Jurian’s advice and breaks Hybern’s left flank, which makes them flee and head for the river - right into Tarquin’s waiting army. The battle doesn’t last long, for a battle. Mor winnows Feyre back to camp as they move to the border of the Winter Court. Feyre tells her sisters that everyone is fine; Elain is still in a fugue state from her jerk ex discarding her, but Nesta listens to the awestruck stories the Illyrians tell of Cassian and how he fought that day. When Rhys and Cass finally arrive back at camp, Nesta notices that Cass has hurt his wrist and tends to it herself. She, Feyre, and Mor help tend to the other wounded late into the night. Azriel tries to find out what Hybern’s next move is, but he has no luck. Nesta feels nothing happening with the Cauldron. Rhys and Feyre agree that they will only release Bryaxis when they knew where the rest of Hybern’s army waits. Best to keep it a surprise until the can get the most bang for their buck. Five days later, Azriel shows back up and tells them that Hybern has a force marching between the Autumn and Summer Courts, heading for Winter. He’s already warned Kallias but none of them can figure out why Hybern is moving this way. They and Tarquin debate what to do next: abandon their position and march to help Kallias, possibly playing right into Hybern’s plans; or hold where they are and allow the possibility of Hybern marching as far north as they want unhindered. Until Varian comes up with a clever plan. Make a really good glamour that shows the army still in this position, so good that any person passing by can hear and smell the army as well as see it, but place spells that will repel anyone from actually approaching. Let them think they chose to stay where they are but march north under a shield so they can’t be seen. It’s going to be a lot of work, and they’re going to need Feyre’s help. Cresseida helps to make the Summer soldiers in the glamour more realistic. When they arrive in their new position and the shield is removed, Hybern is already waiting for them, and they’ve spun a little glamour of their own. They looked like a tired army resting but they were ready and waiting for Prythian’s forces. Prythian fights hard, but the Darkbringer Legion buckles to Hybern, leaving a hole for Hybern to come through as they split the Darkbringer Legion in half. But Cassian isn’t having that, and he flies directly there, holding the line himself as Rhys’ power tries to push Hybern back, but Cass has been fighting for too long and is depleted. Azriel joins, fighting his way to where Cassian is surrounded. They are being overwhelmed; Feyre decides that she needs to find the Suriel. Feyre tells Mor to get down there and fight with the others, but Mor has orders to stay with Feyre. Feyre encourages her to push back the front lines - Cassian is running low on power, and Mor finally goes. She winnows directly to Azriel’s side, and they start cutting a path to Cassian, but they’re quickly surrounded by Hybern soldiers again. Feyre needs to move quickly. She visits Elain first and shows Elain in her mind what the Suriel looks like. Elain can see the Suriel’s movements in her head and tells Feyre that it’s going to the Middle, where no High Lord rules. Where the Weaver lives. Feyre winnows five times to get there. The Suriel finds her before she even lays her trap. It tells Feyre that even it can’t see where Hybern is hiding its army, the king is using magic even older than the Suriel. He’s using the Cauldron to hide his forces. It tells Feyre that Nesta can track Hybern by tracking the Cauldron. It suggests that Nesta try scrying. Feyre asks if the Bone Carver would make a difference in the war, but the Suriel can’t see that either since he was not born of this earth but came from elsewhere. Feyre tells the Suriel that the Carver wanted the Ouroboros to fight with Prythian, the Suriel accurately guesses that Feyre is afraid to look into the mirror. But it gives her some wise advice: only Feyre can decide what breaks her. The Suriel gives Feyre a message for Amren: the answer lies in the second page and the second to last page of the book. Together, they hold the answer. The key to beating Hybern. An ash arrow bursts through the Suriel’s throat, hitting it from behind. Ianthe and two Hybern soldiers – Ianthe had also wanted to speak with the Suriel, but it refused her, so Ianthe decided to follow Feyre until Feyre trapped one. Feyre hides behind a tree, but she can see the Suriel as it lays dying. It mouths to Feyre to run, but she can’t. Not yet. She won’t allow the Suriel to be taken to Hybern alive and used by the king. Feyre steps out in front of Ianthe and the soldiers, and she leads them on a chase - right to the Weaver’s cottage. She doesn’t stop there; she runs straight into the cottage where the Weaver recognizes Feyre immediately as the thief who got away. Ianthe is outside taunting Feyre; she clearly doesn’t know who (or what) lives in this cottage. Feyre tells the Weaver that she brought her dinner as Ianthe and the others enter the cottage, Feyre cloaks herself in shadows and slips through the open door unseen, closing it behind Ianthe as the Weaver begins to feast on the beautiful priestess. Feyre goes back to the Suriel and offers to heal it, but the Suriel tells her to save her magic, just stay with it until it dies. The Suriel knew what would happen if it met Feyre, but it came anyway, because Feyre was kind to it. Feyre tells the Suriel that it was also kind, helping her when no one else would. The Suriel reminds Feyre to stay with the High Lord (it meant Rhys, no Tamlin, this whole time) and live to see everything righted. Feyre asks for the Suriel’s name, but it doesn’t tell her. It tells her to go, worse things are coming, but it asks Feyre to leave the world a better place before it takes its last breath. Helion finds Feyre there, crying over the Suriel’s body. Helion gives Feyre his fancy cloak to wrap around the Suriel and he burns its body before taking Feyre back to camp. Rhys is there, pale but alive, waiting for Feyre. Mor and Azriel are in the healers’ tent watching as they try to heal Cassian, who has been cut from his bellybutton to his sternum. They’d won the battle, but barely. The healer tells them all that Cassian will survive. Feyre apologizes for leaving the camp without telling them her plans, and for making them worry about her. Cassian wakes up to a stern talking to from Rhys, who is furious at Cassian. Mor is also furious - at Feyre for leaving, and for lying to her – and at Nesta for not telling anyone where Feyre went or when she left. Mor yells at Feyre, telling her that sneaking off implies that she doesn’t trust the rest of them to help her, or to respect her wishes. Feyre yells back that she’s not the only one lying – Mor lies to all of them every day, most of all to herself. That does not go over well. Then Amren arrives. She tells Feyre to be careful with Mor, there are things that Mor hasn’t faced within herself yet and encourages them to cool off for a bit. Then they get down to business, Amren brought the Book. First, she brings out a scrying set for Nesta. Three stones for the faces of the mother, four bones for… no one can remember. Amren instructs Nesta to hold the set while searching for the bond that ties her to the Cauldron, but do not touch that bond. Cassian is brought in, and he sits next to Nesta, repeating to her that nothing can hurt her where they are. It takes Nesta a couple tries but she finds the bond, Amren then instructs her to open her hand, but Nesta can’t. She can’t hear them, she’s gone too deep to find the bond, Feyre enters Nesta’s mind to help her. She sees Nesta, standing inside a tent watching the king as he looks over a war map, the Cauldron behind him. Feyre starts to lead her away, but the Cauldron notices them. They run from it and Feyre orders Nesta to open her fist now so that they can leave her mind before the Cauldron enters. They get out and the stones and bones that Nesta released land in a perfect circle on the western edge of the human lands. Feyre shows Rhys the forces that they saw while spying on Hybern and he shows Tarquin and Helion. They’ve been idiots; driven to the exact position that Hybern wanted them, between the Middle and his massive army. They decide to rest for the night and make decisions in the morning, but before they break apart, Varian runs into the tent and right to Amren. He kisses her in front of everyone. They all break for the night. Feyre wakes up in the middle of the night and she wakes Rhys, telling him that something is wrong. She dreamed that the Cauldron was watching. She thinks that they opened a door to the Cauldron with Nesta and it wasn’t closed properly. Nesta rushes into their tent, she can hear it. Amren arrives; she can feel its power looking. Nesta tells Feyre to listen and suddenly Feyre hears it too. Rhys hears nothing but Azriel can feel the shadows recoil from it. It’s only after the Cauldron starts to retreat that they think of checking on Elain and find her tent empty. The Cauldron lured her away with a vision of Graysen. Rhys, Amren, and Mor meet with the other High Lords as the rest of them console Feyre and Nesta. Nesta doesn’t think they’ll be able to get her back, not even Cassian at full strength could do it. Azriel stands and declares that he will get Elain back. But he won’t go alone, Feyre is going with him. Feyre changes her features, using the shape shifting she got from Tamlin, and changes into Ianthe. She borrows one of Azriel’s blue siphons for Ianthe’s jewel that she always wore, having a blacksmith in the camp place it into a circlet. Azriel gets Feyre an extra set of priestess robes. Rhys shows up, done with his meeting and coming up with nothing good, and tells Feyre they will need to walk into the camp. The wards will not allow them to winnow. They will also have to walk out once they have Elain. He tells her that Hybern took what is theirs, that cannot go unpunished, but do not get distracted and do not linger – be the warrior he knows that she is. Do not fear, do not falter, do not yield. Go in, get Elain, and come back out. Come. Back. Out. Rhys tells Azriel that it doesn’t matter how many die but both Feyre and Elain will come back out. They winnow as close as they can to Hybern’s camp and they walk right in, Azriel hidden by his shadows. They make their way toward the king’s tent in the center of the camp, passing soldiers sleeping, soldiers celebrating, soldiers torturing Children of the Blessed. Jurian comes up and tells “Ianthe” that the king has been looking for her. At first, he is fooled but quickly he realizes who Feyre is. He tells her that Ianthe has been trying to get into his pants for weeks, she needs to act like it. Jurian tells Feyre that Elain showing up was a shock to the king, she’s currently safe but chained in his tent while he figures out what to do with her. Jurian invites “Ianthe” to his tent for the night. Feyre wants to save the girl being tortured too, she asks Jurian to find a way to bring the girl to her and she will get both the girl and Elain out. He gives her instructions, telling Feyre to say she’d like to pray before the Cauldron before going to the tent, a show for the other soldiers that will get her into the king’s tent. Jurian slips her in to “pray to the Cauldron” and tells her that she has five minutes to get Elain to the western edge – to a cliff overlooking the river where Jurian will meet them. And don’t let the king catch her alive. Feyre and Azriel quickly find Elain but can’t break her chains. Luckily, they are only binding her limbs together, so Azriel picks up Elain, chains and all, and makes them all invisible in the shadow before they sneak out the back of the tent. They need to hurry; the shadows won’t last for long. Feyre grabs a bow and ash arrows that she passes. Hybern’s hounds (weird naga-hound hybrids) start to come after them, Feyre shoots at them. Hybern’s commanders are coming too, following the hounds since Azriel’s shadows are still holding up. Feyre can see the cliff, and she can see the girl standing there waiting for them, Jurian rescued her but left before Feyre arrived. They can hear the king. Feyre commands Azriel to get Elain out, she will get the human girl and follow them but then Feyre is shot with an ash arrow through the shoulder. She can see the king coming toward them. One of the hounds springs at Feyre but a beast attacks it and saves her – Tamlin in his beast form. Feyre pulls the arrow out of her shoulder and Azriel grabs her by the collar, forcing her to keep up as they run. He tells her she needs to fly, placing a blue magic web over her wound to help until she can get to a healer. Tamlin is still fighting the hounds, holding them off while they escape. Feyre only needs to fly far enough for them to winnow, she’s never managed a running take off, but she doesn’t have a choice this time. Azriel catches the human girl as they pass her and Elain holds on to the girl tightly as they fly, but they’re not fast enough. A hound gets free of Tamlin and tackles Azriel, trying to bring him down. But Elain kicks the hound in the face repeatedly until it lets go and falls off the cliff. Azriel is badly injured, but he is still airborne. Feyre doesn’t look behind her as she tries to get airborne as well. Another hound breaks free, this one coming for Feyre. She takes off and Azriel screams for her to bank hard just as the hound leaps, the hound just misses her and Feyre flies toward the edge of the wards. Hybern shoots ash arrows, but Azriel continues to shield them, and they are not hit. As they fly toward the end of the wards, Feyre looks back to see Tamlin surrounded by hounds. She breaks a hole in Hybern’s wards for him to escape through and Tamlin leaps off the edge of the cliff, still as a beast. He makes it to Feyre’s hole and winnows away, just before Azriel and Feyre do the same. When they get back to their own camp, Feyre asks for Helion to release Elain’s chains. Nesta hugs Feyre, thanking her for saving Elain, and Elain kisses Azriel’s cheek before also embracing Feyre. They take Azriel to Thesan to be healed right away, his back tore up from the hounds’ claws. Kallias’ army shows up the next day. Azriel is healing slowly, Thesan is not used to healing Illyrian wings and so Rhys has called their best healer from Velaris, Madja. Feyre sees Mor and they both apologize for the things they said before - things they didn’t really mean. Mor leads Feyre to the edge of the camp and tells her there should be no more secrets between them. She then tells Feyre that she doesn’t love Azriel. At least, not the way that he loves her. In fact, Mor can’t love him that way because she prefers females. Not that she can’t get her kicks with males, but she prefers females. She finds them more attractive and connects with them on a deeper level. She’s never told anyone. If she had told her father, he would have forced Mor to marry Eris anyway, so she chose to have Cassian “ruin” her since she knew it wouldn’t mean much to him either. But then Azriel thought that Mor chose Cassian over him because she believed Azriel unsuitable, and when Azriel found Mor after she was left for dead, she tried to explain but he was too busy telling her how he felt. She wanted to make him stop before he told her that he loved her, so she turned her back on him and left while he laid his heart bare. Since then, she’s never been able to tell any of their family the truth - she especially can’t bear to tell Az. She can’t tell anyone because it’s the one part of her life that her father hasn’t ruined yet, and she won’t let him destroy this too. She took her first female lover during the War, a human queen named Andromache. Andromache needed to continue her familial line so Mor left her, and by the time Mor had realized her mistake, the wall had gone up and she could not reach Andromache. She searched for a way through the wall, but when Mor had finally found a hole, Andromache had married and had a small child with another on the way. She eventually had five in total, and the golden queen that Hybern killed was her descendant. Mor sleeps with males to keep people from looking too closely, to keep them from discovering her secret, but she’s never slept with Azriel. It would make him think there could be a future with her, when Mor knows that there is not. Feyre tells Mor that she is honored to know Mor’s truth and she will be right next to her when Mor decides to tell the others. Helion tells them that Hybern’s army is moving again, due east this time. There’s a river there, too wide for their forces to cross without being winnowed (the High Lords are trying to preserve their remaining power and that would exhaust them), they would have to go west and south before following Hybern’s army. They realize this is what Hybern wanted, them to drain themselves so that they would be too depleted to cross the river where crossing would be quickest. The king is traveling east so that he can cut south and massacre the human lands – punishment and retaliation against the Archeron sisters. They have embarrassed him, by taking from the Cauldron, by killing Ianthe, by rescuing Elain. He will make them pay. Hybern is counting on them coming to save the humans, and of course Rhys will go. Outnumbered, exhausted, his people will go anyway – to protect the humans as well as they can and try to create a better world going forward. The others High Lords agree. They come up with a plan: anyone who can winnow will go to the human towns and offer sanctuary from the coming slaughter. They will winnow anyone willing to flee to Adriata, where Cresseida will oversee them. Amren comes in, she’s been closed up in her tent since getting the Suriel’s message, warded against any interruptions. She’s happy to hear that they’re going to engage Hybern’s army because she and the Archeron sisters will need the distraction while they get to the Cauldron. Amren has found a way to stop the Hybern army. Alone, the Cauldron would likely kill them, but together, those that were Made can withstand its power. The winnowing starts, they transport as many humans to Adriata as they can before being too exhausted to continue. While the rest sleep, Feyre goes to the Court of Nightmares. They need all the help they can get if they’re going to survive this war, she’s come for the Ouroboros. A giant mirror, taller than she is with the frame depicting a huge snake devouring its own tail. She approaches the mirror and looks in and sees something crawling down the wall behind her– a beast of claws and fur and teeth and scales. The beast pounces and Feyre spins around, ready to defend herself, but there is nothing there. When she looks back at the mirror Feyre realizes… the beast is her. She sits in front of the mirror, raging, crying, cowering as she faces every nasty or cruel or selfish thing she’s ever done. When that’s finished, Feyre takes the mirror to the Bone Carver and he asks what she saw, but she won’t tell him. He tells her he doesn’t need the mirror. When you look into it, the mirror shows you who you truly are. He wanted to know if Feyre was worth helping. If she could see what she is deep down and not have it break her – because not many can. He’ll be happy to assist such a rare creature as she. Feyre grabs his hand and leads him out. Amren and the sisters prepare to leave. They dress in armor and arm themselves; Elain refuses a dagger from Cassian but agrees to take Azriel’s dagger Truth-Teller since he won’t be using it himself. Rhys whispers to Feyre that he’s never seen Azriel let anyone touch that dagger until now. Rhys gives a heartfelt speech to his family and they all, Nesta and Elain included link together. I cried (it was beautiful). He tells them to make sure that if Death wants to take them today, they make it fight for them. Make it fight tooth and nail to drag them away. They prepare to fight, staring down the Hybern army, knowing that even if each of the five High Lords shield the army, they will likely only last a few hours. Feyre tells Rhys that she has been struggling about what to get him as a gift for their mating – but she thinks she’s finally figured it out. She drops the glamour that she’s been holding in place for hours and a cloud of darkness appears in front of the Prythian army, the Bone Carver and Bryaxis come to feast. But Rhys has a gift of his own: Stryga the Weaver wearing Ianthe’s jewel atop her head. Feyre, Amren, Nesta, and Elain watch as the armies engage each other, waiting for the right moment to strike - when Rhys joins the armies. They hear an unexpected horn to the north and Rhys tells them to go now, thinking it is additional Hybern forces. But no! Beron and Tamlin have arrived, bringing an army of mortals with them – Graysen’s, lead by Jurian. Eris winnows to where Feyre and her sisters are standing with Rhys, saying that he thought they might need some help. Eris tells them that Beron still had not decided on whether to fight with Prythian, so Tamlin came and took the choice away, and dragged Beron out by the neck. Tamlin and Jurian need orders, but Eris’ brothers are taking care of the faebane, so they’re currently occupied. They know exactly where it’s being located, as if they’ve been told – Tamlin or Jurian earning their keep. This is the best distraction they could’ve asked for, Hybern realizing that Jurian has turned against him and wondering exactly how bad that is, exactly what Jurian knows. The four Made prepare to weave a path into the melee as the Weaver clears them a path, but then Nesta shudders. The king is using the Cauldron. Amren screams at them all to shield. Nesta starts screaming for Cassian, who hears her and starts flying toward them but only makes it halfway before the Cauldron’s blast hits the Illyrians. It shreds Azriel’s shield, and Rhysand’s, and it turns a thousand Illyrian soldiers to dust. If Nesta had not called Cassian back, he would have been in the center of that blast and he would not have survived. The king continues to unleash the Cauldron, even on his own soldiers, he doesn’t care. He turns it on the Bone Carver who is just wiped away, finally knowing Death’s secrets. Cassian finally makes it to Nesta, and she tells them that the Cauldron has gone quiet again. Rhys commands Cassian back to the battle, Azriel states that he’s going too – even though he’s been told no by both Rhys and the healer (his wings are not ready). And worse, out at sea, they can see an armada of ships carrying the rest of Hybern’s army. Azriel leaves to lead the northern flank, Cassian the southern flank – telling them that he will see them on the other side, he does not expect to survive. They’re being overwhelmed by the army Hybern has here, let alone having the armada join them. But then they hear it, horns from the east sailing toward them. Cassian takes Nesta as Rhys takes Feyre and they fly high into the sky to see thousands of winged soldiers flying to their aid, with an armada far larger than Hybern’s. The Seraphim – Drakon’s people. Drakon leads them and comes straight to Rhys. He explains that three hundred years ago, there was some trouble on the border of their land, and they’d set up a glamour to shield the island. They were still there when Rhys came looking, but no one could see them. Luckily, they heard about Hybern and came to help them anyway. Some of the armada is Miryam’s forces but not all - they met more ships crossing the channel heading toward Prythian and joined them. Ships led by a queen named Vassa – the mortal queen that Lucien found. But Drakon tells that Vassa was already on her way when Lucien found her and instructed her where to go. The Prince of Merchants had found out that the mortal queens were traitors months ago, he’s been gathering a human army to face Hybern, independent of the queens. He found Vassa and they rallied the army together. He did it for his three daughters who he has failed too many times before, who now live in Prythian. His ships are named for those daughters: the Feyre, the Elain, and the Nesta. No wonder their dad has been gone for so long. Drakon explains that Vassa’s curse is not yet broken – they see her flying as a firebird. Rhys reveals to Drakon that Jurian is also on the battlefield - fighting with them. Drakon seems unconvinced that Jurian can be trusted but he goes with it anyway, giving Cassian command of the Seraphim. The Made need to go NOW but Nesta tells them that the king is probably waiting for them at the Cauldron. She wants them to use her as bait to draw him out, giving them access to the Cauldron. But Nesta will need Cassian for protection. Rhys doesn’t want to agree but Cassian points out that Az is controlling the Illyrian lines, and this is their only chance. Cassian tells Rhys to let his family help him, Rhys doesn’t have to do everything himself. Cassian goes with Nesta without Rhys’ blessing, Rhys can’t bring himself to give it knowing he may be signing his brother’s death certificate. Cassian flies off with Nesta, who will act like she is about to use the Cauldron’s power that she took and draw the king out to her, hoping that he will be able to take that power back. Rhys takes Elain to the farthest edge of camp to keep her safe, Amren and Feyre will go to the Cauldron alone. Feyre shields the two of them and they run as fast as they can. They don’t kill anything (it may give away their location) and they don’t look back. Stryga leads them right to the mountain where the king has the Cauldron, Amren and Feyre start to climb. Nesta starts to draw power on the other side of the field, which catches the king’s attention. When he steps out, he sees Stryga and he greets her, right before he snaps her neck and throws her body to his naga hounds. Another death-god sent to finally greet Death. Then the king leaves to face Nesta. Feyre and Amren make it to the Cauldron. Amren tells Feyre to place a hand on the Cauldron – the idea is to share the power of the Cauldron between them so that neither is overwhelmed by it and killed. When Feyre tried to destroy the Cauldron alone, it almost destroyed her instead. Feyre places her hand on the Cauldron and waits for Amren to do the same. But instead, Amren pulls out the Book and kicks it behind her. She lied, and now Feyre can’t let go of the Cauldron. Feyre can feel the Cauldron searching for the power that Nesta stole. She can see the battle as the Cauldron searches, she can see that they are losing. She can see Rhys unleash his beast form, which he hates. She sees Helion shift as well, and the two High Lords release their power upon Hybern’s army. She sees one of Hybern’s commanders step forward to challenge Helion. But then the Cauldron finds Nesta, followed closely by the king – who is holding Father Archeron with a sword to his throat. Nesta begs the king to let their father go, but the king snaps his neck. Feyre watches his body crumble, she watches as Nesta’s power gutters, she watches as Cassian fights the king and protects Nesta. Nesta leans down and kisses their father’s forehead, and when she stands again, she is pure power unleashed. Which is good, cause Cassian is not doing well. The king has snapped his wings and his siphons are dull, drained of power. Nesta announces that she is going to kill the king. She walks over to Cassian, who the king has left alone on the ground, and she picks up Cassian’s blade. She baits the king, leading him away from Cassian before he disarms her (not hard, she has zero training) and smacks her across the face hard enough to throw her to the ground. Nesta toys with the king, but he doesn’t realize. She goads him into lowering his guard, into coming closer to her. She throws the king into the trees with her power and tries to get Cassian up, to get him out before the king returns, but Cassian just tells her he wishes they had more time together and kisses her. He promises he will find her in the next life. As the king approaches them, death already spinning in his hands, Nesta covers Cassian’s body with her own. Feyre can see that the king is going to kill both of them, and she offers a bargain to the Cauldron, but she doesn’t need to. The king stops and a blade – Truth-Teller - comes through his neck as Elain screams at him not to touch her sister. Nesta rises back up makes sure the blade takes the king’s head completely off. Then Feyre is pulled back to the Cauldron. As she flies back over the battlefield, she sees Helion still fighting – already bloodied while the Hybern commander looks untouched. She sees Bryaxis fighting with the mortals of Graysen’s forces. She sees Drakon and Miryam fighting Jurian, making him pay for old hurts. She sees them being overwhelmed by Hybern even though the king is dead. Hybern continues to fight and will continue to fight. She hears Rhys in pain. And when she comes back to Amren, she tells her that the king is dead – and Amren will follow him soon. Amren already knows, the message Feyre gave from the Suriel was only for Amren, she needs Feyre to be a conduit. The Suriel gave Amren access to the unbinding spell that will set her free. After Feyre faced the Ouroboros, Amren knew she’d be able to handle the Cauldron alone and would not need her sisters’ help. As soon as Feyre sets Amren free, Amren will kill every one of Hybern’s soldiers. But in a shocking turn, Varian appears and asks Amren not to go. Amren tells both Feyre and Varian that the time that she has had with them has been a gift. She asks Feyre to give a message to Rhys: leave out a cup for her. She turns to Varian and tells him that she never understood why humans loved, or how love came about. She thinks maybe he helped her learn how. She tells them not to run when she is unleashed, it will draw her attention. Amren goes into the Cauldron as Feyre says the spell, as soon as Amren is fully submerged, Feyre is released from the Cauldron’s hold and caught by Varian as she falls. They feel a rip peel through the ground, heading directly for the Cauldron. When it hits, the Cauldron is torn into three pieces and Amren is free. She looks at Feyre and Varian, looks at the battlefield as if she might remember, then she goes down and decimates the Hybern armies. Rhys sends a message out to their own – warning them not to run. When she’s done with Hybern’s land forces, Amren turns toward the sea where the ships of Hybern soldiers battle the ships of Miryam, Vassa, and daddy Archeron. She destroys them and when she gets to the last ship and it is also destroyed, she is gone - her own life ended as well. Rhys finds Feyre and Varian, and Feyre shows him what happened with her memories. Varian points out that the fissure that Amren created when she broke the Cauldron is getting bigger. Feyre and Rhys remember that the Cauldron IS their world, if the Cauldron is destroyed, the world they live in will be too. From the frying pan into the fire, this is a much bigger problem than Hybern. Feyre runs to the Book, hoping to find a way to repair the Cauldron, and remembers that she can’t read it. The only person who could was Amren. In her frustration, Feyre throws the book into the fissure. Rhys reminds Feyre that she is a conduit, just as Amren realized. So be a conduit now and remake the Cauldron anew. Rhys tells her to use his power, but she points out that they’re both drained. He asks her to try anyway, and she puts her hand on the broken Cauldron as Rhys stands right behind her. Feyre starts to mend the Cauldron with Rhys’ power, his power begins to sputter and she’s not sure there will be enough, but they both put everything they have into it, and she is able to finish mending the Cauldron just as they are drained completely. She turns around to see Rhys lying on the rock behind her. He really gave everything he had to fix the Cauldron. The mating bond is now gone, as is his heartbeat. He’s dead. He had kept his shields up so that she wouldn’t know how close he was to dying and he whispered to her that he loved her as he died. Their friends arrive as Feyre realizes what has happened. Thesan comes and sees if Rhys can be revived, but there’s nothing he can do. Feyre remembers what the Suriel said: “Stay with the High Lord. Stay and live to see everything righted.” She screams at the other High Lords to bring him back and they all do what they can (Beron is a little hesitant), giving Rhys a drop of their power as they once did for her. She is the High Lady of the Night Court and can give Rhys her power, but Thesan must walk her through the process and show her how. The only one left is Tamlin, and he doesn’t look like he’s interested in bringing Rhys back. She begs him, she will give him anything he wants. Tamlin gives a drop of power to Rhys and only asks for Feyre to be happy. She holds on to Rhys’ body and tells him about the first night she ever saw him on Calanmai. She’d heard someone beckoning her to the celebration, someone she couldn’t say no to, and she wonders if the voice that brought her out of the manor was him. She tells him how she fell in love with him, how much their life together meant to her, and she hears his heart start to beat. He wakes up (joking somehow) and reassures the High Lords that he only retained his own power, he did not gain any of theirs. But the surprises don’t stop there, he points to the Cauldron and asks for someone to get Amren. He explains that as he died, he saw Amren and he reached out a hand to her, thinking that maybe she’d like to return too. She’s back, and she’s just High Fae this time, nothing extra. Varian is elated. The sisters gather to burn their father’s body and honor the sacrifice that he made. They sit together after it’s done and Lucien comes up behind them looking terrible, as if he ran all the way from the shore. He asks if Elain is hurt, she says she’s fine and asks about him – he reassures her that he is also in one piece. He says he was sorry to hear about their father. He tells Feyre that he has quite a tale to tell, and that she should expect to see Vassa soon. Dad Archeron brokered some deal with Vassa’s “keeper” that allowed her to come here temporarily. Feyre points out that the mortal queens are still out there, but Lucien said it won’t be long if Vassa has anything to say about it. Lucien tells the sisters that their father loved them very much, then Feyre takes him back to the camp followed by Elain. Feyre asks what he will do now but he’s not sure – Elain blurts out that he could come to Velaris. He thinks that would be nice. Lucien tells them about his search for Vassa and after, Feyre goes to her tent to find Rhys there with Drakon and Miryam. After some small talk, she asks about Jurian. Miryam tells her that Mor convinced them not to kill Jurian after all, he’s currently tending to the wounded in Graysen’s camp. Feyre asks if they plan to keep their island, Cretea, glamoured still - and they do. She and Rhys have a secret conversation through the bond and then Feyre asks Miryam and Drakon to take the Cauldron with them when they leave, to hide it before anyone else can lay claim to it. They agree but they won’t leave for a few days – which is good because Feyre needs to call a meeting before they go. In the half-ruined Archeron family estate, they all meet. High Lords, princes, generals, commanders, humans and Fae alike. Feyre, Rhys, Lucien, Beron, Eris, Mor, Tamlin (who sees that Lucien is wearing Illyrian leathers and decides to hate him), Drakon and Miryam with some of their people (including Nephelle), Azriel, Kallias, Viviane, Tarquin, Varian, Thesan with his captain and lover (one person), Helion, Elain, Nesta, Cassian, Jurian, and Graysen with a small group of humans. Lastly, Vassa arrives. She tells them that she doesn’t have much time before she must return to her keeper and asks if Feyre can break her spell. Feyre isn’t sure, but she agrees to try. They’ll discuss it later – when they discuss what to do with the other mortal queens. When Feyre finally enters the meeting room - where she sees so many different groups of people gathered, she tells them she’d like to discuss renegotiating the terms of the Treaty. She tells them all about her life – in detail. The one she lived before Prythian as she and her family barely had enough to eat, of the trials she went through Under the Mountain, the love she had with Tamlin, the love that saved her that she now has with Rhys, what she saw in the Ouroboros. When she is done, Miryam and Drakon tell their story too, a story of humans and Fae living together, working together, becoming an integrated community. But some others step up and tell stories of hurt and crimes perpetrated against them. They all stay and talk and argue until the early morning. Nothing is decided except that another meeting will need to happen, but everyone stayed until the end, and that makes Feyre hopeful. Everyone was willing to listen. That’s the first step, but it will be a long road. As everyone leaves (Miryam and Drakon make a quick exit to hide the Cauldron on one of their ships), Jurian comes in and reveals that Vassa has offered him a place in her court. Feyre asks if he thinks they can find peace between them all and Jurian admits that yes, he does. They go home to Velaris. Elain even makes a small joke, but Nesta is not doing well. She did not visit Cassian while he healed at the camp (he’s still healing, but now in Velaris), and she barely speaks. When Nesta arrives in Velaris, she just goes to her room and closes herself up inside. Elain and Feyre agree that it’s the loss of her father that is confusing Nesta, she needs to sort through a lot of emotions right now. They will help her when Nesta is ready to be helped, but not just yet. Lucien did not make the trip back to Velaris with them, he plans to help any wounded humans that still need healing and will accept his help before coming back, too. But Feyre knows that he will stop to see Tamlin before making his way to Velaris and she gives Lucien a note for the High Lord, telling Tamlin thank you and that she hopes he also finds happiness. And not just for helping to save Rhys. Rhys stands in the kitchen as Feyre joins the others in the drawing room - they break out the good liquor. His brothers join them as they listen to the females laugh and they celebrate the fact that they are all still alive. That night, Rhys tells Feyre that Bryaxis has conveniently disappeared – she will need to go hunt it down and put it back in the library where it belongs. Rhys tells Feyre that he could hear her talking to him when he died. It made him hold on. They make a deal that when they die, they go together. Their new bargain gives them sweet matching tats.
Continue on for all the spoilers. The Night Court is slowly rebuilding after the war with Hybern. Lucien returned from helping the wounded humans, although he made a pitstop in the Spring Court and came back with a black eye, he now lives in an apartment in Velaris. Nesta also has her own place, a rundown apartment, while Elain still lives in the town house with Feyre and Rhys. They’re visiting other courts and strengthening ties, helping the people that were affected by the war, and planning for the upcoming Winter solstice. Cass and Rhys take a visit to Devlon’s Illyrian camp. Cassian is still trying to make a group for the females who want to fight, but Devlon is again not letting them fight - since solstice is coming and they need to make preparations. After some arguing, Rhys announces that the females who choose to train will do so for 90 minutes first thing in the day, other tasks will come afterward. And the males will help with the preparations. After they leave Devlon, Cass tells Rhys that there’s some talk among the Illyrian camps. Talk that Illyrians were on the front lines, commanded there by Cassian and Rhys, because of the abuse that the two of them had been subjected to when they were younger. That it was some kind of payback. Yet another thing they’ll need to deal with, but it can wait until after the Solstice. Rhys tells Cass that they’ll all be celebrating together, and Cass had better be there. Two nights before and one night after. Cass asks if Nesta will also be there - they haven’t spoken since he almost died - and Rhys confirms that she will be there, he will make sure of it, and she will be enjoying herself… or else. Elain and Lucien are also not talking, but Lucien has been invited to the Spring Court for the Solstice. Rhys leaves Cassian in the war-camp until then. Cassian takes flight and soars near Ramiel - the sacred mountain of the Night Court. Not to be confused with the mountain in the middle of the country that all the Fae consider sacred. No one is allowed on Ramiel except Illyrians, and only then during the Blood Rite, when Illyrian novices fight their way to the top, without clothes, weapons, or magic, to touch the onyx monolith that stands there. Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel all made it to the top, finding each other on the mountain and fighting together to the top. It’s rare for anyone to make it to the summit, let alone three underdogs. After a silent salute to the mountain, Cassian travels to the camp where he was born. Where his mother had him, alone, and was tossed out into the cold days later. A few years later, Cassian was taken to fend for himself in Devlon’s war-camp. By the time Cassian returned, was old enough and powerful enough to return, his mother was already dead. He burned that camp to the ground, but he still doesn’t know where his mother is buried. Cassian fights for the females for his mother, and the little snippets of her that he can remember. Feyre walks through the Rainbow, the artist’s quarter of Velaris, and sees a familiar face. A faerie that defended some of the people in the Rainbow during Hybern’s attack on Velaris named Ressina. It’s the first time they’ve spoken, Ressina tells Feyre that there is a gallery for sale. Its owner didn’t survive, and their family doesn’t live in the city. She alludes to the idea of Feyre buying it, but Feyre backs away for now. Ressina tells Feyre that everyone in the Rainbow remembers how Feyre fought to protect them. She points out where she works and invites Feyre to come visit, telling her that several painters meet once a week and Feyre would be welcome to join them. When Feyre leaves the Rainbow, she stops by a jewelry shop and picks up a gift for Amren. She runs into Mor there, who tells her they need to make their yearly Solstice visit to the Hewn City to wish everyone there well in the coming year. Plus, Eris is visiting, and Mor wants to see how cozy he’s gotten with Keir. As Mor sees Keir with Eris, she remembers what was done to her in retaliation for her sleeping with Cassian and destroying her betrothment to Eris. How Keir had commanded three long iron nails driven into her abdomen. How he had dumped her body in the Autumn Court and left her for dead. How Eris and his men had found her but would not touch her, knowing that it would make him responsible for her. Eris had clarified with Mor that she did not want to live in the Autumn Court, then left her there alone, announcing to the others that he would not have Illyrian leftovers. Thankfully, Mor had been found by Azriel and taken to the healer Madja. Mor zones out a little but comes back to hear Rhys ask that Eris remind his father that none of the courts are to think of expanding into the human lands. Eris retorts that perhaps someone should mention that to Tamlin. As the High Lord of the Spring Court, his court spans the entire border with the human lands so if one were to desire expansion, they’d have to go through him. Az brings Rhys information about the Illyrian discontent – which they decide to tell Cassian about after the holiday. They also discuss that the remaining four Mortal Queens (I guess they can’t really be called that anymore now that one is an immortal crone) have not returned to their own territories but are staying together in their shared palace instead. That does not bode well. There is a lot of unrest to deal with still. Among the Illyrians, and the people of Hybern who are not pleased to have lost the war and still wish to return to the old ways. And with the wall gone, the human lands are as vulnerable as ever. South of Prythian, where there is no queen, Jurian is leading a council of lords and merchants from Lord Graysen’s family estate. And Vassa is still there, not yet required to return to her keeper, although Lucien visits regularly and relates that she is still cursed and will need to return at some point. Both Helion and Rhys have looked at Vassa’s curse but neither has found a way to break it. Rhys tells Azriel that he’s planning to visit the Spring Court soon, Azriel reports that there has been no sign of Bryaxis, at least not yet. Cassian is preparing to leave the war-camp for Velaris before a storm hits but he has a stop to make first. He stops in a shop in the camp and buys all their winter gear, the shop used to be owned by Proteus and now belongs to Emerie, Proteus’ daughter, since Proteus didn’t return from the war. Emerie, who is fierce but who has clipped wings. He asks Emerie to distribute the goods to the people in the camp who need them most but Emerie interrupts, a lot of the people don’t like her. Cassian retorts that she’s in good company, they don’t like him either, so tell them it’s a gift from the High Lord. Emerie says she’ll get it done by nightfall. Feyre goes to the painters’ meeting in the Rainbow, and she’s very nervous. She’s never painted in front of anybody and doesn’t even like to share her finished paintings much of the time. She chickens out before she gets to the meeting and winnows into the empty gallery instead, where she begins to paint. She paints for hours, paints the stories that she needs to get out of her, and she comes away with a finished painting of a beast. The beast that she saw within the Ouroboros. She leaves it there to dry overnight. Rhys makes his visit to Tamlin and sees the Spring Court in disarray. Roses are now ratted nests of thorns, the fountains not flowing, the manor desolate and dark. Tamlin answers the door himself, since he has no staff. He points out that he has no sentries to patrol the border so it’s difficult to keep the others in check, and he refuses to allow any of the Night Court on his lands to assist with the patrol. When he calls the Illyrians “brutes”, Rhys loses his cool. He tells Tamlin that his situation was wrought himself. He has no sentries, no staff, no friends, no Feyre, because of how he acted. Because of what he did. He deserves every bit of it. Rhys realizes as he leaves that Tamlin is utterly broken. Cassian arrives for the festivities. They all get together at the town house where Amren tells them that Varian will be there for the Solstice. Nesta doesn’t come. Feyre inquires about her whereabouts but it’s a sore subject for Elain, who saw her earlier in the day and points out that Nesta doesn’t act like she even wants to be a part of their family anymore. After dinner, Feyre decides to put an end to this. Rhys flies her to Nesta’s apartment, but it seems to be empty. They find her in the dirtiest, seediest tavern in the city: the Wolf’s Den. She’s sitting at a table with three males and beating them at cards as she drinks. Feyre already knows that Nesta comes to get drunk and occasionally takes one of the males home with her for the night. She’s really spiraling. Feyre doesn’t try to stop her from doing the same thing tonight but asks what it will take for her to come to the Solstice celebration. Nesta says she won’t come; she is keeping her life separate from that of her sisters but reminds Feyre that her rent is due in a week. Feyre retorts that if she wants her rent paid, then she will come to Solstice. Rhys and Mor take a walk, things are okay between them since he agreed to allow Keir and the Court of Nightmares to visit Velaris, but they still have a lot of repairs to make in their relationship. He tells her that he may need her help coming up. Treaty negotiations have stalled and Azriel has a list of kingdoms most likely to test boundaries. He needs Mor to go to those places for a casual visit, but make sure those kingdoms know what will happen if they don’t keep their hands to themselves. While she’s gone, he will handle the Court of Nightmares. Elain and Feyre go shopping and they find a weaver’s shop with a beautiful black tapestry shot through with iridescent silver thread, and they stop to speak to the weaver. She explains that she calls the black fabric “the void”, which she created when her husband died in the war. The silver thread is called “hope”, created only after she mastered the void, although the loss is still hard. Feyre asks her how she keeps creating and the weaver explains that she must, it’s the only way she can get the feelings out. Feyre buys the tapestry for herself, leaves Elain to do her shopping alone, and winnows to the gallery in the Rainbow. Ressina comes in while Feyre is working and again encourages Feyre to buy the gallery, but Feyre thinks that’s unlikely to happen. When she speaks to Rhys that night, Feyre asks if it would be stupid to think that painting could help some of the other people, that perhaps Feyre could teach them how to paint. Rhys doesn’t think it’s stupid at all. Feyre visits Amren and asks about Nesta. Amren reveals that Nesta visits her every few days, even though Nesta won’t come to the town house. Amren also says that she likes Nesta – because Nesta is not easy to understand or to be around, and as such, Amren is not interested in gossiping about her. She will not betray Nesta’s confidence, even if Feyre is asking because she’s concerned about her sister. Feyre asks Amren to give Nesta a message if she stops by again, that it would mean a lot if she came to Solstice. Solstice comes, which also happens to be Feyre’s birthday – although she hopes no one will remember. Cassian and Azriel drag Rhys away for a holiday tradition (a no holds barred snowball fight) and later, when the doorbell rings, it’s Lucien arriving from the Spring Court. He’s only bringing presents; he won’t be staying for dinner. He explains that when he is not in Velaris or in the Spring Court, he is with Jurian and Vassa in the human lands. They’ve been gifted a manor that was abandoned, and they’ve all become friends. Lucien is technically working for the Night Court and reports to Azriel, but Feyre would like him to spend more time with them. But Lucien has a hard time being rejected by Elain, who doesn’t want to be around him at all. Feyre points out that he prefers to spend his time with two people who also don’t have places of their own and he retorts that they’ve named their little group. The Band of Exiles. They get in an argument and Lucien leaves in a huff. Then Feyre approaches Elain and asks why she couldn’t at least greet Lucien, be civil, but Elain doesn’t want to be Fae. She was engaged to a human she was very in love with and was Made without her consent, Lucien being her mate does not necessitate her affections. Afterward, Feyre sees Mor, who recommends that Feyre keep out of Elain’s business. Elain is not ready, and neither is Lucien, as much as he thinks he is. She tells Feyre that Lucien needs time to figure out where… and who… he wants to be. That night they celebrate Feyre’s birthday with a huge cake and a mountain of presents for the Solstice. As they’re opening the gifts, they hear a knock on the door. Nesta has come. Elain gives her a gift: five novels of Nesta’s favorite genre (romance). It’s the only gift she receives but she stays anyway, slightly on the outside of the rest of the group, almost but not quite one of them. When Nesta prepares to leave, she kisses Elain on the head and Feyre meets her at the door – no one else moves from the couch. Feyre slips money to Nesta for her rent and Nesta leaves without saying anything, Cassian storms out after Nesta, surprising Feyre. He tells Nesta that he will walk her home, but she doesn’t want him to. He has a Solstice gift for her, but she doesn’t want it. She yells at him to stop trying to get her to be a part of their happy little group and he retorts that her sisters love her – although no one understand why. Nesta could try for them at least. She tries to walk away but he grabs her hand to stop her. She rips her hand out of his and then looks at him as if she’s disgusted by him before she walks away. Cassian throws her gift into the Sidra, the river that runs through the Velaris. Even so, when Nesta locks the locks on her apartment door (all four of them, so you know it’s in a good area) she knows that Cassian followed her from the air to make sure she made it home safely. She feels nothing anymore, other than anger occasionally. She can’t even light a fire since it sounds like the snapping of breaking bones, like the sound of her father’s neck snapping when he was killed. She’s struggling and she doesn’t care enough to fix it. Feyre and Rhys go to the cabin that night and spend the night alone there. She asks him to give her tattoos on her hands, a mountain and stars to match the tattoos on his knees and replacing the eyes that he placed there before. She also tells him she wants to have a child, and they start trying right away. In the morning, he takes her to an estate he’s purchased for the two of them in Velaris, one that she will be able to design the way she wants and that is large enough to house their ever-growing family – the town house has been getting a bit cramped. Rhys goes back to Tamlin’s manor and gets worried when Tamlin does not answer the door. But when Rhys goes in, he finds him in the basement dressing a deer. Or, sitting next to a deer that needs to be dressed. His hair matted now; Tamlin looks worse than ever. Rhys explains that Tarquin has agreed to send Summer soldiers to patrol Tamlin’s borders. Tamlin asks if Rhys thinks Feyre will ever forgive him, but Rhys doesn’t know. He also doesn’t really think that Tamin deserves forgiveness from Feyre. Then Tamlin asks if Rhys will ever forgive him for what was done to his mother and sister, but Rhys reminds Tamlin that he’s never received an apology. Tamlin retorts that he doubts an apology would make any difference. Rhys dresses the deer and starts to cook the meat over the fire, telling Tamlin to eat. He can waste away after the world is back in order. Mor told Feyre she’d be going to visit Viviane and Kallias in the Winter Court after the Solstice, and she will! But first she visits her own estate of Athelwood, which no one knows about. Mor has kept it secret for the three hundred years since she bought it. She keeps horses there, horses that came with the estate but that she has come to love. As she rides, she thinks about the offer that Rhys made her and how she wants to accept it. She wants to see the world. She comes across some creature of darkness and shadows. Something that watches Mor as she watches it. Mor decides it’s better left undisturbed and goes back home. Feyre buys the gallery. Or more accurately, she tried to buy the gallery, but the owners gave it to her instead, encouraging her to donate the money she would have spent to a charity that provides for struggling artists. She asks Ressina to go into business with her. A month later and they’ve become good friends, Ressina even helps to design the river-house. They begin to hold classes in the gallery, classes for children to learn to paint and release the visions they have inside them, to help them heal. But not just painting. Artists throughout the Rainbow have agreed to teach the classes from all different disciplines, free of charge. A few days after Solstice, Rhys and Azriel tell Cassian about how widespread the dissent is among the camps and how it is being stirred up in large part by Kallon, son of the lord of the Ironcrest camp. But when they go to Devlon’s camp, there are six females training in the ring with daggers. Not as many as they want, and not as consistent, but a step in the right direction.
