Lucien squeezed our linked arms as we rounded a hedge, the house rising up before us. “You are a better friend to me, Feyre,” he said quietly, “than I ever was to you.”
Alis frowned at the two dresses hanging from the armoire door, her long brown fingers smoothing over the chiffon and silk.
“I don’t know if the waist can be taken out,” she said without peering back at where I sat on the edge of the bed. “We took so much of it in that there’s not much fabric left to play with … You might very well need to order new ones.”
She faced me then, running an eye over my robed body.
I knew what she saw—what lies and poisoned smiles couldn’t hide: I had become wraith-thin while living here after Amarantha. Yet for all Rhys had done to harm me, I’d gained back the weight I’d lost, put on muscle, and discarded the sickly pallor in favor of sun-kissed skin.
For a woman who had been tortured and tormented for months, I looked remarkably well.
Our eyes held across the room, the silence hewn only by the humming of the few remaining servants in the hallway, busy with preparations for the solstice tomorrow morning.
I’d spent the past two days playing the pretty pet, allowed into meetings with the Hybern royals mostly because I remained quiet. They were as cautious as we were, hedging Tamlin and Lucien’s questions about the movements of their armies, their foreign allies—and other allies within Prythian. The meetings went nowhere, as all they wanted to know was information about our own forces.
And about the Night Court.
I fed Dagdan and Brannagh details both true and false, mixing them together seamlessly. I laid out the Illyrian host amongst the mountains and steppes, but selected the strongest clan as their weakest; I mentioned the efficiency of those blue stones from Hybern against Cassian’s and Azriel’s power but failed to mention how easily they’d worked around them. Any questions I couldn’t evade, I feigned memory loss or trauma too great to bear recalling.
But for all my lying and maneuvering, the royals were too guarded to reveal much of their own information. And for all my careful expressions, Alis seemed the only one who noted the tiny tells that even I couldn’t control.
“Do you think there are any gowns that will fit for solstice?” I said casually as her silence continued. “The pink and green ones fit, but I’ve worn them thrice already.”
“You never cared for such things,” Alis said, clicking her tongue.
“Am I not allowed to change my mind?”
Those dark eyes narrowed slightly. But Alis yanked open the armoire doors, the dresses swaying with it, and riffled through its dark interior. “You could wear this.” She held up an outfit.
A set of turquoise Night Court clothes, cut so similarly to Amren’s preferred fashion, dangled from her spindly fingers. My heart lurched.
“That—why—” Words stumbled out of me, bulky and slippery, and I silenced myself with a sharp yank on my inner leash. I straightened. “I have never known you to be cruel, Alis.”
A snort. She chucked the clothes back into the armoire. “Tamlin shredded the two other sets—missed this one because it was in the wrong drawer.”
I wove a mental thread into the hallway to ensure no one was listening. “He was upset. I wish he’d destroyed that pair, too.”
“I was there that day, you know,” Alis said, folding her spindly arms across her chest. “I saw the Morrigan arrive. Saw her reach into that cocoon of power and pick you up like a child. I begged her to take you out.”
My swallow wasn’t feigned.
“I never told him that. Never told any of them. I let them think you’d been abducted. But you clung to her, and she was willing to slaughter all of us for what had happened.”
“I don’t know why you’d assume that.” I tugged the edges of my silk robe tighter around me.
“Servants talk. And Under the Mountain, I never heard of or saw Rhysand laying a hand on a servant. Guards, Amarantha’s cronies, the people he was ordered to kill, yes. But never the meek. Never those unable to defend themselves.”
“He’s a monster.”
“They say you came back different. Came back wrong.” A crow’s laugh. “I never bother to tell them I think you came back right. Came back right at last.”
A precipice yawned open before me. Lines—there were lines here, and my survival and that of Prythian depended upon navigating them. I rose from the bed, hands shaking slightly.
But then Alis said, “My cousin works in the palace at Adriata.”
Summer Court. Alis had originally been from the Summer Court, and had fled here with her two nephews after her sister had been brutally murdered during Amarantha’s reign.
“Servants in that palace are not meant to be seen or heard, but they see and hear plenty when no one believes they’re present.”
She was my friend. She had helped me at great risk Under the Mountain. Had stood by me in the months after. But if she jeopardized everything—
“She said you visited. And that you were healthy, and laughing, and happy.”
“It was a lie. He made me act that way.” The wobble in my voice didn’t take much to summon.
A knowing, crooked smile. “If you say so.”
“I do say so.”
Alis pulled out a dress of creamy white. “You never got to wear this one. I had it ordered for after your wedding day.”
It wasn’t exactly bride-like, but rather pure. Clean. The kind of gown I’d have resented when I returned from Under the Mountain, desperate to avoid any comparison to my ruined soul. But now … I held Alis’s stare, and wondered which of my plans she’d deciphered.
Alis whispered, “I will only say this once. Whatever you plan to do, I beg you leave my boys out of it. Take whatever retribution you desire, but please spare them.”
I would never—I almost began. But I only shook my head, knotting my brows, utterly confused and distressed. “All I want is to settle back into life here. To heal.”
Heal the land of the corruption and darkness spreading across it.
Alis seemed to understand it, too. She set the dress on the armoire door, airing out the loose, shining skirts.
“Wear this on solstice,” she said quietly.
So I did.
CHAPTER
4
Summer Solstice was exactly as I had remembered: streamers and ribbons and garlands of flowers everywhere, casks of ale and wine hauled out to the foothills surrounding the estate, High Fae and lesser faeries alike flocking to the celebrations.
But what had not existed here a year ago was Ianthe.
The celebrating would be sacrilege, she intoned, if we did not give thanks first.
So we all were up two hours before the dawn, bleary-eyed and none of us too keen to endure her ceremony as the sun crested the horizon on the longest day of the year. I wondered if Tarquin had to weather such tedious rituals in his shining palace by the sea. Wondered what sort of celebrations would occur in Adriata today, with the High Lord of Summer who had come so very close to being a friend.
As far as I knew, despite the murmurings between servants, Tarquin still had never sent word to Tamlin about the visit Rhys, Amren, and I had made. What did the Summer lord now think of my changed circumstances? I had little doubt Tarquin had heard. And I prayed he stayed out of it until my work here was finished.
Alis had found me a luxurious white velvet cloak for the brisk ride into the hills, and Tamlin had lifted me onto a moon-pale mare with wildflowers woven into her silver mane. If I had wanted to paint a picture of serene purity, it would have been the image I cast that morning, my hair braided above my head, a crown of white hawthorn blossoms upon it. I’d dabbed rouge onto my cheeks and lips—a slight hint of color. Like the first blush of spring across a winter landscape.