Chapter 39
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Rhys and the others were gone that night—where, no one told me. But after the events of the day, I barely
finished devouring the food Nu and Cerridwen brought to my room before I tumbled into sleep.
I dreamed of a long, white bone, carved with horrifying uracy: my face, twisted in agony and despair; the ash
knife in my hand; a pool of blood leaking away from two corpses—
But I awoke to the watery light of winter dawn—my stomach full from the night before.
A mere minute after I’d risen to consciousness, Rhys knocked on my door. I’d barely granted him permission to
enter before he stalked inside like a midnight wind, and chucked a belt hung with knives onto the foot of the bed.
“Hurry,” he said, flinging open the doors of the armoire and yanking out my fighting leathers. He tossed them onto
the bed, too. “I want to be gone before the sun is fully up.”
“Why?” I said, pushing back the covers. No wings today.
“Because time is of the essence.” He dug out my socks and boots. “Once the King of Hybern realizes that
someone is searching for the Book of Breathings to nullify the powers of the Cauldron, then his agents will begin
hunting for it, too.”
“You suspected this for a while, though.” I hadn’t had the chance to discuss it with himst night. “The Cauldron,
the king, the Book … You wanted it confirmed, but you were waiting for me.”
“Had you agreed to work with me two months ago, I would have taken you right to the Bone Carver to see if he
confirmed my suspicions about your talents. But things didn’t go as nned.”
No, they most certainly hadn’t.
“The reading,” I said, sliding my feet into fleece-lined, thick-soled slippers. “That’s why you insisted on the lessons.
So if your suspicions were true and I could harness the Book … I could actually read it—or any trantion of
whatever is inside.” A book that old might very well be written in an entirely differentnguage. A different
alphabet.
“Again,” he said, now striding for the dresser, “had you started to work with me, I would have told you why. I
couldn’t risk discovery otherwise.” He paused with a hand on the knob. “You should have learned to read no
matter what. But yes, when I told you it served my own purposes—it was because of this. Do you me me for
it?”
“No,” I said, and meant it. “But I’d prefer to be notified of any future schemes.”
“Duly noted.” Rhys yanked open the drawers and pulled out my undergarments. He dangled the bits of midnight
I stalked to him, snatching thece away. “You’re drooling on the carpet.” I mmed the bathing room door before
he could respond.
He was waiting as I emerged, already warm within the fur-lined leather. He held up the belt of knives, and I
studied the loops and straps. “No swords, no bow or arrows,” he said. He’d worn his own Illyrian fighting leathers
—that simple, brutal sword strapped down his spine.
“But knives are fine?”
Rhys knelt and spread wide the web of leather and steel, beckoning for me to stick a leg through one loop.
I did as instructed, ignoring the brush of his steady hands on my thighs as I stepped through the other loop, and
he began tightening and buckling things. “She will not notice a knife, as she has knives in her cottage for eating
and her work. But things that are out of ce—objects that have not been there … A sword, a bow and arrow …
She might sense those things.”
“What about me?”
He tightened a strap. Strong, capable hands—so at odds with the finery he usually wore to dazzle the rest of the
world into thinking he was something else entirely. “Do not make a sound, do not touch anything but the object
she took from me.”
Rhys looked up, hands braced on my thighs.
Bow, he’d once ordered Tamlin. And now here he was, on his knees before me. His eyes glinted as if he
remembered it, too. Had that been a part of his game—that fa?ade? Or had it been vengeance for the horrible
blood feud between them?
“If we’re correct about your powers,” he said, “if the Bone Carver wasn’t lying to us, then you and the object will
have the same … imprint, thanks to the preserving spells I ced on it long ago. You are one and the same. She
will not notice your presence so long as you touch only it. You will be invisible to her.”
“She’s blind?”
A nod. “But her other senses are lethal. So be quick, and quiet. Find the object and run out, Feyre.” His hands
lingered on my legs, wrapping around the back of them.
“And if she notices me?”
His hands tightened slightly. “Then we’ll learn precisely how skilled you are.”
Cruel, conniving bastard. I red at him.
Rhys shrugged. “Would you rather I locked you in the House of Wind and stuffed you with food and made you
wear fine clothes and n my parties?”
“Go to hell. Why not get this object yourself, if it’s so important?”
“Because the Weaver knows me—and if I am caught, there would be a steep price. High Lords are not to interfere
with her, no matter the direness of the situation. There are many treasures in her hoard, some she has kept for
millennia. Most will never be retrieved—because the High Lords do not dare be caught, thanks to thews that
protect her, thanks to her wrath. Any thieves on their behalf … Either they do not return, or they are never sent, for
fear of it leading back to their High Lord. But you … She does not know you. You belong to every court.”
“So I’m your huntress and thief?”
His hands slid down to cup the backs of my knees as he said with a roguish grin, “You are my salvation, Feyre.”
CHAPTER
20
Rhysand winnowed us into a wood that was older, more aware, than any ce I’d been.
The gnarled beech trees were tightly woven together, sttered and draped so thoroughly with moss and lichen
that it was nearly impossible to see the bark beneath.
“Where are we?” I breathed, hardly daring to whisper.
Rhys kept his hands within casual reach of his weapons. “In the heart of Prythian, there is arge, empty territory
that divides the North and South. At the center of it is our sacred mountain.”
My
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heart stumbled, and I focused on my steps through the ferns and moss and roots. “This forest,” Rhys went on, “is
on the eastern edge of that neutral territory. Here, there is no High Lord. Here, thew is made by who is
strongest, meanest, most cunning. And the Weaver of the Wood is at the top of their food chain.”
The trees groaned—though there was no breeze to shift them. No, the air here was tight and stale. “Amarantha
didn’t wipe them out?”
“Amarantha was no fool,” Rhys said, his face dark. “She did not touch these creatures or disturb the wood. For
years, I tried to find ways to manipte her to make that foolish mistake, but she never bought it.”
“And now we’re disturbing her—for a mere test.”
He chuckled, the sound bouncing off the gray stones strewn across the forest floor like scattered marbles.
“Cassian tried to convince mest night not to take you. I thought he might even punch me.”
“Why?” I barely knew him.
“Who knows? With Cassian, he’s probably more interested in fucking you than protecting you.”
“You’re a pig.”
“You could, you know,” Rhys said, holding up the branch of a scrawny beech for me to slip under. “If you needed
to move on in a physical sense, I’m sure Cassian would be more than happy to oblige.”
It felt like a test in itself. And it pissed me off enough that I crooned, “Then tell him toe to my room tonight.”
“If you survive this test.”
I paused atop a little lichen-crusted rock. “You seem pleased by the idea that I won’t.”
“Quite the opposite, Feyre.” He prowled to where I stood on the stone. I was almost eye level with him. The forest
went even quieter—the trees seeming to lean closer, as if to catch every word. “I’ll let Cassian know you’re …
open to his advances.”
“Good,” I said. A bit of hollowed-out air pushed against me, like a flicker of night. That power along my bones and
blood stirred in answer.
I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect. His words were a lethal
caress as he said, “Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before you?”
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