Chapter One #3
She ignored that, too, but breezed by him, careful to avoid touching him, and found her dark blue overcoat exactly where he’d claimed it was. She opened the front door, pointing for him to leave first.
Cassian held her gaze as he stalked for her, then reached out an arm—
And plucked the cerulean-and-cream scarf Elain had given her for her birthday this spring off the hook on the wall. He gripped it in his fist, dangling it like a strangled snake as he brushed past her.
Something was eating at him. Usually, Cassian held out a bit longer before yielding to his temper. Perhaps it had to do with whatever Feyre wanted to say up at the house.
Nesta’s gut twisted as she set each lock.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew there had been unrest since the war had ended, both in these lands and on the continent.
Knew that without the barrier of the wall, some Fae territories were pushing the limits on what they could get away with in terms of border claims and how they treated humans.
And she knew that those four human queens still squatted in their shared palace, their armies unused and intact.
They were monsters, all of them. They’d killed the golden-haired queen who’d betrayed them and sold another—Vassa—to a sorcerer-lord.
It seemed only fitting that the youngest of the four remaining queens had been transformed into a crone by the Cauldron.
Made into a long-lived Fae, yes, but aged into a withered shell as punishment for the power Nesta had taken from the Cauldron.
How she’d ripped it apart while it had torn her mortal body into something new.
That wizened queen blamed her. Had wanted to kill her, if Hybern’s Ravens had been correct before Bryaxis and Rhysand had destroyed them for infiltrating the House of Wind’s library.
There had been no whisper of that queen in the fourteen months since the war.
But if some new threat had arisen …
The four locks seemed to laugh at her before Nesta followed Cassian out of the building and into the bustling city beyond.
The riverfront “house” was actually an estate, and so new and clean and beautiful that Nesta remembered her shoes were covered in stale wine precisely as she strode through the towering marble archway and into the shining front hall, tastefully decorated in shades of ivory and sand.
A mighty staircase bisected the enormous space, a chandelier of handblown glass—made by Velaris artisans—drooping from the carved ceiling above it.
The faelights in each nest-shaped orb cast shimmering reflections on the polished pale wood floors, interrupted only by potted ferns, wood furniture also made in Velaris, and an outrageous array of art.
She didn’t bother to remark on any of it.
Plush blue rugs broke up the pristine floors, a long runner flowing along the cavernous halls on either side, and one ran beneath the arch of the stairs, straight to a wall of windows on its other side, which looked out onto the sloping lawn and gleaming river at its feet.
Cassian headed to the left—toward the formal rooms for business, Feyre had informed Nesta during that first and only tour two months ago. Nesta had been half-drunk at the time, and had hated every second of it, each perfect room.
Most males bought their wives and mates jewelry for an outrageous Winter Solstice present.
Rhys had bought Feyre a palace.
No—he’d purchased the war-decimated land, and then given his mate free rein to design the residence of their dreams.
And somehow, Nesta thought as she silently followed an unnaturally quiet Cassian down the hall toward one of the studies whose doors were cracked open, Feyre and Rhys had managed to make this place seem cozy, welcoming.
A behemoth of a building, but still a home.
Even the formal furniture seemed designed for comfort and lounging, for long conversations over hearty food.
Every piece of art had been picked by Feyre herself, or painted by her, many of them portraits and depictions of them—her friends, her … new family.
There were none of Nesta, naturally.
Even their gods-damned father had a portrait on the wall along one side of the grand staircase: him and Elain, smiling and happy, as they’d been before the world went to shit.
Sitting on a stone bench amid bushes bursting with pink and blue hydrangea.
The formal gardens of their first home, that lovely manor near the sea.
Nesta and their mother were nowhere in sight.
That was how it had been, after all: Elain and Feyre doted on by their father. Nesta prized and trained by their mother.
During that first tour, Nesta had noted the lack of herself here. The lack of their mother. She said nothing, of course, but it was a pointed absence.
It was enough to now set her teeth on edge, to make her grab the invisible, internal leash that kept the horrible power within her at bay and pull tight, as Cassian slipped into the study and said to whoever awaited them, “She’s here.”
Nesta braced herself, but Feyre merely chuckled. “You’re five minutes early. I’m impressed.”
“Seems like a good omen for gambling. We should head to Rita’s,” Cassian drawled just as Nesta stepped into the wood-paneled room.
The study opened into a lush garden courtyard. The space was warm and rich, and she might have admitted she liked the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the sapphire velvet furniture before the black marble hearth, had she not seen who was sitting inside.
Feyre perched on the rolled arm of the couch, clad in a heavy white sweater and dark leggings.
Rhys, in his usual black, leaned against the mantel, arms crossed. No wings today.
And Amren, in her preferred gray, sat cross-legged in the leather armchair by the roaring hearth, those muted silver eyes sweeping over Nesta with distaste.
So much had changed between her and the female.
Nesta had seen to that—the destruction. She didn’t let herself think about that argument at the end-of-summer party on the river barge. Or the silence between herself and Amren since then.
No more visits to Amren’s apartment. No more chats over jigsaw puzzles. Certainly no more lessons in magic. She’d made sure of that last part, too.
Feyre, at least, smiled at her. “I heard you had quite the night.”
Nesta glanced between where Cassian had claimed the armchair across from Amren, the empty spot on the couch beside Feyre, and where Rhys stood by the hearth.
She kept her spine straight, her chin high, hating that they all eyed her as she opted to sit on the couch beside her sister. Hating that Rhys and Amren noted her filthy shoes, and probably still smelled that male on her despite the bath.
“You look atrocious,” Amren said.
Nesta wasn’t stupid enough to glare at the … whatever Amren was. She was High Fae now, yes, but she’d once been something different. Not of this world. Her tongue was still sharp enough to wound.
Like Nesta, Amren did not possess court-specific magic related to the High Fae.
It didn’t make her influence in this court any less mighty.
Nesta’s own High Fae powers had never materialized—she had only what she’d taken from the Cauldron, rather than letting it deign to gift her with power, as it had with Elain.
She had no idea what she’d ripped from the Cauldron while it had stolen her humanity from her—but she knew they were things she did not and would never wish to understand, to master.
The very thought had her stomach churning.
“Though I bet it’s hard to look good,” Amren went on, “when you’re out until the darkest hours of the night, drinking yourself stupid and fucking anything that comes your way.”
Feyre whipped her head to the High Lord’s Second. Rhys seemed inclined to agree with Amren. Cassian kept his mouth shut. Nesta said smoothly, “I wasn’t aware that my activities were under your jurisdiction.”
Cassian loosed a murmur that sounded like a warning. To which one of them, she didn’t know. Or care.
Amren’s eyes glowed, a remnant of the power that had once burned inside her.
All that was left now. Nesta knew her own power could shine like that, too—but while Amren’s had revealed itself to be light and heat, Nesta knew that her silver flame came from a colder, darker place.
A place that was old—and yet wholly new.
Amren challenged, “They are when you spend that much of our gold on wine.”
Perhaps she had pushed them too far with last night’s tab.
Nesta looked to Feyre, who winced. “So you really did make me come all the way here for a scolding?”
Feyre’s eyes—mirror images of her own—softened slightly. “No, it’s not a scolding.” She cut a sharp glance at Rhys, still icily silent against the mantel, and then to Amren, seething in her chair. “Think of this as a discussion.”
Nesta shot to her feet. “My life is not your concern, or up for any sort of discussion.”
“Sit down,” Rhys snarled.
The raw command in that voice, the utter dominance and power …
Nesta froze, fighting it, hating that Fae part of her that bowed to such things. Cassian leaned forward in his chair, as if he’d leap between them. She could have sworn something like pain had etched itself across his face.
But Nesta held Rhysand’s gaze. Threw every ounce of defiance she could into it, even as his order made her knees want to bend, to sit.
Rhys said, “You are going to stay. You are going to listen.”
She let out a low laugh. “You’re not my High Lord. You don’t give me orders.” But she knew how powerful he was. Had seen it, felt it. Still trembled to be near him.
Rhys scented that fear. One side of his mouth curled up in a cruel smile. “You want to go head-to-head, Nesta Archeron?” he purred. The High Lord of the Night Court gestured to the sloping lawn beyond the windows. “We’ve got plenty of space out there for a brawl.”
Nesta bared her teeth, silently roaring at her body to obey her orders. She’d sooner die than bow to him. To any of them.
Rhys’s smile grew, well aware of that fact.
“That’s enough,” Feyre snapped at Rhys. “I told you to keep out of it.”
He dragged his star-flecked eyes to his mate, and it was all Nesta could do to keep from collapsing onto the couch as her knees gave out at last. Feyre angled her head, nostrils flaring, and said to Rhysand, “You can either leave, or you can stay and keep your mouth shut.”
Rhys again crossed his arms, but said nothing.
“You too,” Feyre spat to Amren. The female harrumphed and nestled into her chair.
Nesta didn’t bother to look pleasant as Feyre twisted to face her, taking a proper seat on the couch, the velvet cushions sighing beneath her. Her sister swallowed. “We need to make some changes, Nesta,” Feyre said hoarsely. “You do—and we do.”
Where the hell was Elain?
“I’ll take the blame,” Feyre went on, “for allowing things to get this far, and this bad. After the war with Hybern, with everything else that was going on, it … You … I should have been there to help you, but I wasn’t, and I am ready to admit that this is partially my fault.”
“That what is your fault?” Nesta hissed.
“You,” Cassian said. “This bullshit behavior.”
He’d said that at the Winter Solstice. And just as it had then, her spine locked at the insult, the arrogance—
“Look,” Cassian went on, holding up his hands, “it’s not some moral failing, but—”
“I understand how you’re feeling,” Feyre cut in.
“You know nothing about how I’m feeling.”
Feyre plowed ahead. “It’s time for some changes. Starting now.”
“Keep your self-righteous do-gooder nonsense out of my life.”
“You don’t have a life,” Feyre retorted. “And I’m not going to sit by for another moment and watch you destroy yourself.” She put a tattooed hand on her heart, like it meant something. “I decided after the war to give you time, but it seems that was wrong. I was wrong.”
“Oh?” The word was a dagger thrown between them.
Rhys tensed at the sneer, but still said nothing.
“You’re done,” Feyre breathed, voice shaking. “This behavior, that apartment, all of it—you are done, Nesta.”
“And where,” Nesta said, her tone mercifully icy, “am I supposed to go?”
Feyre looked to Cassian.
For once, Cassian wasn’t grinning. “You’re coming with me,” he said. “To train.”