Chapter 11
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A new fork had appeared beside my te, and I picked it up, only to spear a piece of melon. “You two look
nothing alike,” I said atst.
“Mor is my cousin in the loosest definition,” he said. She grinned at him, devouring slices of tomato and pale
cheese. “But we were raised together. She’s my only surviving family.”
I didn’t have the nerve to ask what happened to everyone else. Or remind myself whose father was responsible
for theck of family at my own court.
“And as my only remaining rtive,” Rhys went on, “Mor believes she is entitled to breeze in and out of my life as
she sees fit.”
“So grumpy this morning,” Mor said, plopping two muffins onto her te.
“I didn’t see you Under the Mountain,” I found myself saying, hating thosest three words more than anything.
“Oh, I wasn’t there,” she said. “I was in—”
“Enough, Mor,” he said, his voiceced with quiet thunder.
It was a trial in itself not to sit up at the interruption, not to study them too closely.
Rhysand set his napkin on the table and rose. “Mor will be here for the rest of the week, but by all means, do not
feel that you have to oblige her with your presence.” Mor stuck out her tongue at him. He rolled his eyes, the most
human gesture I’d ever seen him make. He examined my te. “Did you eat enough?” I nodded. “Good. Then
let’s go.” He inclined his head toward the pirs and swaying curtains behind him. “Your first lesson awaits.”
Mor sliced one of the muffins in two in a steady sweep of her knife. The angle of her fingers, her wrist, indeed
confirmed my suspicions that weapons weren’t at all foreign to her. “If he pisses you off, Feyre, feel free to shove
him over the rail of the nearest balcony.”
Rhys gave her a smooth, filthy gesture as he strode down the hall.
I eased to my feet when he was a good distance ahead. “Enjoy your breakfast.”
“Whenever you wantpany,” she said as I edged around the table, “give a shout.” She probably meant that
literally.
I merely nodded and trailed after the High Lord.
I agreed to sit at the long, wooden table in a curtained-off alcove only because he had a point. Not being able to
read had almost cost me my life Under the Mountain. I’d be damned if I let it be a weakness again, his
personal agenda or no. And as for shielding … I’d be a damned fool not to take up the offer to learn from him. The
thought of anyone, especially Rhys, sifting through the mess in my mind, taking information about the Spring
Court, about the people I loved … I’d never allow it. Not willingly.
But it didn’t make it any easier to endure Rhysand’s presence at the wooden table. Or the stack of books piled
atop it.
“I know my alphabet,” I said sharply as heid a piece of paper in front of me. “I’m not that stupid.” I twisted my
fingers in myp, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs.
“I didn’t say you were stupid,” he said. “I’m just trying to determine where we should begin.” I leaned back in the
cushioned seat. “Since you’ve refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.”
My face warmed. “Can’t you hire a tutor?”
He lifted a brow. “Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?”
“You’re a High Lord—don’t you have better things to do?”
“Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.”
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?”
Rhys huffed augh. “I’ve been called worse. In fact, I think you’ve called me worse.” He tapped the paper in front
of him. “Read that.”
A blur of letters. My throat tightened. “I can’t.”
“Try.”
The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. His writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my
spine locked up. “What, exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you’d tell me if I worked with you.”
“I didn’t specify when I’d tell you.” I peeled back from him as my lip curled. He shrugged. “Maybe I resent the idea
of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I
indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe—”
“I get it.”
Rhys snorted. “Try to read it, Feyre.”
Prick. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out
in my head. “Y-you … ” The next I figured out with abination of my silent pronunciation and logic. “Look … ”
“Good,” he murmured.
“I didn’t ask for your approval.”
Rhys chuckled.
“Ab … Absolutely.” It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. “De
… Del … ”
I deigned to nce at him, brows raised.
“Delicious,” he purred.
My brows now knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward him. “You look absolutely
delicious today, Feyre?! That’s what you wrote?”
He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp ws caressed my mind and his voice whispered inside my
head: It’s true, isn’t it?
I jolted back, my chair groaning. “Stop that!”
But those ws now dug in—and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to his grip, utterly at his
I couldn’t move in my seat, couldn’t even blink.
This is what happens when you leave your mental shields down. Someone with my sort of powers could slip
inside, see what they want, and take your mind for themselves. Or they could shatter it. I’m currently standing on
the threshold of your mind … but if I were to go deeper, all it would take would be half a thought from me and who
you are, your very self, would
be wiped away.
Distantly, sweat slid down my temple.
You should be afraid. You should be afraid of this, and you should be thanking the gods-damned Cauldron that in
the past three months, no one with my sorts of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out.
I couldn’t. Those ws were everywhere—digging into every thought, every piece of self. He pushed a little
harder.
Shove. Me. Out.
I didn’t know where to begin. I blindly pushed and mmed myself into him, into those ws that were
everywhere, as if I were a top loosed in a circle of mirrors.
Hisughter, low and soft, filled my mind, my ears. That way, Feyre.
In answer, a little open path gleamed inside my mind. The road out.
It’d take me forever to unhook each w and shove the mass of his presence out that narrow opening. If I could
wash it away—
A wave. A wave of self, of me, to sweep all of him out—
I didn’t let him see the n take form as I rallied myself into a cresting wave and struck.
The ws loosened—reluctantly. As if letting me win this round. He merely said, “Good.”
My bones, my breath and blood, they were mine again. I slumped in my seat.
“Not yet,” he said. “Shield. Block me out so I can’t get back in.”
I already wanted to go somewhere quiet and sleep for a while—
ws at that outeryer of my mind, stroking—
I imagined a wall of adamant snapping down, ck as night and a foot thick. The ws retracted a breath before
the wall sliced them in two.
Rhys was grinning. “Very nice. Blunt, but nice.”
I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the piece of paper and shredded it in two, then four. “You’re a pig.”
“Oh, most definitely. But look at you—you read that whole sentence, kicked me out of your mind, and shielded.
Excellent work.”
“Don’t condescend to me.”
“I’m not. You’re reading at a level far higher than I anticipated.”
That burning returned to my cheeks. “But mostly illiterate.”
“At this point, it’s about practice, spelling, and more practice. You could be reading novels by Nynsar. And if you
keep adding to those shields, you might very well keep me out entirely by then, too.”
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