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Chapter Text

The rushing gale of dark wind parted to reveal the night court. Rhysand was already turning to her as the shadows faded away. “What the hell have they been doing to you?”

Feyre dropped his hand and tried to find her footing on the smooth moonstone floor. “Nothing.” He caught her arm as she stumbled, still dizzy from winnowing.

“And it hasn’t occurred to anyone that perhaps they might need to do more than that?”

“About what?”

“About you.”

“I’m fine.”

Rhysand raised his eyebrows. “If you’re going to lie to me, at least try to make it convincing.”

“What would the point in that be? You can just look inside my head anyway.” Her retort sounded half hearted even to her. She didn’t want to argue. She wanted to go back to sleep.

“You haven’t even eaten yet,” he said, gently tugging her towards the table with the arm he still hadn’t let go of. “Have breakfast with me.”

She belatedly realized he had heard her thought but couldn’t bring herself to care. He looked… relieved as she gave in and shuffled towards the table, already laden with far more food than two people could possibly need. Did she really look that terrible?

Rhysand opened his mouth but before he could speak Feyre mumbled, “You don’t need to answer that.” Sliding into a chair facing the view, she took a moment to snap her mental shields back into place.

Rhysand’s smile reached his eyes for the first time that morning as he filled his plate seemingly at random. “You’ve been practicing.”

She nodded.

“Does this mean you’ve decided to work with me?”

“No.”

She felt his eyes on her as she surveyed the dishes scattered across the glass tabletop. “Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

“When war breaks out–”

“ If war breaks out, Prythian can solve its own problems this time. Whatever powers I may or may not have, I’m not training them just to be turned into a pawn.”

“If you don’t learn to control your own power, someone else will,” he said, leaning towards her intently. “I can help you.”

“Like you helped me Under the Mountain?” Rhys’ fork clattered against his plate but she didn’t give him time to reply. “I don’t care how useful I might be. I don’t want to be used.”

“I wouldn’t–”

“Find someone else to be your weapon.”

“There is no one else like you, Feyre,” He spoke quietly but his eye contact was too intense, as if he could see straight through her without even using his powers. She felt like glass. Precarious. Transparent. Filled with invisible cracks everyone wanted to pretend weren’t there. 

“I’ve barely even been fae long enough to use cutlery without breaking it,” she said, spearing a slice of melon with a fork. “Tamlin says training will just stir up trouble. It’s safer not to.”

“And what of your family in the human lands? Do you think doing nothing will keep them safe?”

She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t. She needed to think about anything else. “I think… I think you just find peace boring.” Rhysand flinched. “I think freedom hasn’t been entertaining enough for you. Maybe you decided three trials weren't enough so you called in the bargain to–”

“I called in the bargain because you asked for–”

“You took me because hurting Tamlin is fun for you.”

Rhysand stopped eating and poured himself a cup of something that didn’t look like tea. She was being unfair and she knew it, but she was so tired of being nice. Of pretending to be good, as if her soul wasn’t rotting from the inside, as if her skin didn’t feel like a lace curtain thrown over a pool of blood no one wanted to acknowledge, even as it seeped through the edges. Seeing Rhysand’s drink shake ever so slightly in his hand as he raised it to his lips only confirmed it. She wanted to laugh at the absurdity of being so fucked up she could ruin a meal for someone who presided over the Court of Nightmares.

“Tamlin is nothing to me. I would be delighted to never see him again if he wasn’t entangled with… I like to annoy Tamlin; I need to… I need you to fight, Feyre. I don’t expect you to fight for me, but fight for yourself at least. Fight whatever… this is,” he said, gesturing towards her too-thin face and sunken eyes.

“I’m tired of fighting.”

“We’re all tired of fighting. The world doesn’t stop moving because you want to sit down.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I was under that mountain too,” he said softly. 

It unnerved her, seeing his usual arrogant facade falter. He seemed to realize it, his face smoothing back into a complacent mask almost instantly. He was sitting strangely still though, as if afraid his control would slide away at the slightest motion, or perhaps afraid hers would. 

That was all she did now. Make people around her uncomfortable and angry. The cursebreaker who cursed everything she came near. At least Rhysand didn’t pretend to be ok with it. She looked down at her plate where she’d torn a pastry into pieces without eating any of it.

“If it’s so important why don’t you just break into my mind and make me then? You could do that, right?”

“I want you to choose.”

“Until I make a choice you don’t like, then you won’t leave me alone.”

“Well someone has to not leave you alone, since apparently Tamlin has no idea what to do with you.”

“And you do?”

“I have a few ideas,” he smirked, “For starters–”

“Why can’t we just forget about each other?” she blurted out. “You’re free now. You have a court to rule, a whole world to play with. You’ve made your point to Tamlin. Why do you want me to hate you so badly?”

For a split second he looked…broken. Then he flashed her an alarmingly convincing grin. “Wouldn’t want you getting bored. The Night Court has a reputation to maintain. And it certainly isn’t for lounging about in abject tedium while sleeping twenty hours a day.”

She sighed and looked out the window at the swirls of icy wind trailing snow about the jagged peaks. “What is the Night Court known for then?”

“Handsome High Lords, unmatchable warriors, and general debauchery, I assume.”

“Why do you need me to fight then? You already have warriors.”

“Not like you, Feyre darling. Not like what you could become.”

“And what is that?”

“A shining beacon of hope for all of Prythian, in these times of tribulation and uncertainty, of course,” he said, smiling mockingly as he took another sip from his glass.

“Now you sound just like Tamlin.”

"I am nothing like Tamlin!" Rhysand snarled, slamming his drink down with an audible crack.

Without thinking, Feyre dropped to the ground, arms flying up to cover her head.

"What are you–" Rhysand rose to his feet incredulously. 

Curled on the cold stone of the floor, Feyre could feel her heart pressing against her ribcage as if she'd been sprinting. What just happened? She gasped out a ragged breath as she slowly took in the room. The curtains gently billowing in the warm air. Flowers curling around the smooth white pillars. Not a single cushion out of place. 

"Feyre…?” Rhysand's voice sounded far away, muffled, as he stared down at her though the clear tabletop. Her eyes fixed on the bottom of his cup resting above her. She could see a tiny chip in the glass catching the light, but not a drop was spilled. Rhysand had come to a stop halfway around the table, looking at her intently with an expression she couldn't place, his hands held out towards her like a peace offering.

Her face flushed to have shown this weakness – this brokenness – in front of him of all people. It took her a moment to register that he was speaking again, but the words of his question blurred together. It wasn't until she felt the soft scrape of a claw against her mind that she realized she had dropped her mental shield. 

"Get the fuck out of my head.”

"Then answer my question."

His hot flash of rage from a moment ago had turned into a dangerous stillness. He was standing too close, looming over her. Feyre wanted to stand up or shuffle further back but her legs felt numb. She fought against the instinct to cover her eyes with her shaking hands, the light suddenly too bright.

"What?" She snapped, finally.

In answer, Feyre felt the claw gently pull an image back to the surface of her thoughts: Tamlin's face, furious, as the study exploded around her.

"Stop," Feyre gasped out, struggling to pull the walls back up around her thoughts.

"Make me stop" Rhysand said, his eyes fixed on hers, "or tell me what happened."

"What do you mean what happened?” She squeezed her hands into fists, trying to shove the panic down. She clung to anger like a tether. “I was tortured under a fucking mountain for three months and now my heads all fucked up, asshole. And you – you startled me. Your stupid Night Lord powers can't tell you that?"

"No." Rhysand still hadn't moved, his expression carefully blank. "His face. You got 'startled' and thought of his face. You put up a physical shield – which you neglected to mention you were capable of by the way – because you were scared of Tamlin . So tell me before I rip it out of your fucked up head. What did he do?"

Feyre looked away. Her face felt too hot. "Nothing. Mind your own business and stop creeping around my thoughts."

"Stop blasting your thoughts in my direction every time you're scared, " he snapped back, "I lack Tamlin's special skill in ignoring your distress.” 

"He doesn't – he's not…He's been through enough himself."

Rhys laughed darkly. "Oh yes, he spent a grueling three whole months sitting on a chair doing nothing. He couldn't possibly be expected to notice his beloved fiancee is – drowning, was that how you phrased it?" Feyre glared up at him as she shakily reinforced her mental shield. "Or were you referring to the 50 years he spent not trapped under the mountain with the rest of us, sulking at home while he let Prythian go to shit?"

"That isn't fair."

"No. It isn't."

They both let the silence fester in the air until Feyre broke it with a shuddering inhale, pushing her hair back from her face and getting up. "It was nothing. Just an argument. I didn't even know I was making a shield."

"Why did you need a shield for an argument?" Rhysand asked, too quickly.

Feyre didn't reply, leaning slightly on the table.

"Feyre…"

She turned to go back to her room. She needed a nap.

"Fine. We can talk about it later," he breathed,  "Put your shield up again."

"It is up."

"Your other shield."

"I..." she debated coming up with an excuse but her head felt foggy and slow as the panic subsided. "I don't know how."

"I know you don't know how," Rhysand said with exaggerated patience, "That's why you need to practice."

"Tamlin doesn't want me to." she hesitated before muttering, "It would send a bad message."

"Tamlin isn't high lord here," Rhysand said coldly. "If he wants to keep you a helpless little ornament he can do it on his own time. And if you don't learn to put that shield up reliably he isn't getting any more time."

"What – you can't – the bargain is one week," Feyre stuttered.

"One week here," Rysand said, hands sliding into his pockets," is the only mandatory part of the arrangement. Where you spend the rest of your time is open for debate. If he can't manage his mood swings and you can't protect yourself, there is no way in hell I'm dropping you back in Spring to get shredded to pieces over a temper tantrum."

"As if you haven't done worse to me."

"I did what was necessary," he said stiffly.

"And what was necessary conveniently involved tormenting Tamlin and using me for entertainment," she spat back.

"There was nothing entertaining about watching you die," he seethed, "and I have no intention of doing it again. So. Put. Your. Shield. Up.”

Feyre’s eyes flicked to the table as she considered throwing his drink in his face. His mouth twitched as if holding himself back from smiling. As if daring her to. 

But she was so tired. 

“Just leave me alone,” she muttered, walking away. 

She could feel his eyes following her until she passed through the doorway that led to her room, but couldn’t bring herself to care. She should want to train. She should want to understand her magic, unravel the secrets of her new body before they burst out on their own. But what good would power be to her? She couldn’t even get through a meal without collapsing on the floor in panic. She would only be a liability in war, even if it did come.

Chapter Text

The sun was already high over the mountains, streaming through the glassless windows onto her bed when Feyre woke up. Despite her exhaustion yesterday, she hadn’t been able to fall asleep properly until the sky had already started to lighten over the peaks, stars fading out into a deep, clear blue. Pulling the soft blankets up over her head, she closed her eyes, trying to go back to sleep. Minutes later, her drowsy haze was interrupted by a gentle tug on her mind. 

Rhysand.

She delayed in bed as long as possible, pressing a pillow over her head as if she could muffle the outside world. The pull only became more insistent until she rolled out of bed, cursing. It seemed he would not be leaving her alone this week.

He was waiting in his usual spot at the breakfast table. Feyre didn’t even bother to glare at him as she shuffled across the room, electing instead to pretend he wasn’t there and give all her attention to the steaming teapot. She wondered idly if it was kept warm by magic just as the palace was. It was clear from the abandoned dishes on the table that Rhysand and whoever else had been accompanying him had finished eating hours ago.

“Good morning Feyre,” he said as she piled fruit onto a plate. “Well, almost morning. I think you just missed it.”

She remained silent, staring out the window at the shifting snow that slid across a nearby mountain, picked up and scattered by a wind she couldn’t feel from here. It must be freezing outside. 

Rhysand continued to watch her, sipping his tea quietly as if he had nothing better to do than observe her picking apart the flaking layers of a pastry. He put his empty mug down at the same time as she finished the last bite of fruit on her plate. 

“So. Will we be training today? Or is your schedule fully booked up with lying in bed?” He pressed on when she didn’t respond, “I know life as a high fae is relatively new to you, but I fear you may have been misinformed about your new body’s rest needs.” His fingers tapped a rhythm idly against the side of his mug, waiting for her to engage. “I can see how a certain high lord’s natural lethargy may have confused you, but hibernation isn’t typically required for our species, even in courts where we have the decency to observe actual seasons.” 

Feyre blew on her tea to cool it. “Are you done?”

“Breakfast?”

“Trying to be funny.”

“Would you rather I try to be disagreeable?

“You don’t need to try at that. It must come naturally as part of your powers.”

He smiled in a way that looked almost genuine for once. “And what of your powers, Feyre? Other than involuntary nocturnalism, have there been any interesting developments?”

She thought of the moment she had slid into Lucien’s thoughts. The strange vibration deep within her like magma building up below the surface, waiting to burst out into…something. She didn’t want to talk to him about any of this. But gods, she wanted to talk to someone . And for some inscrutable reason, no doubt a complicated game of his own, Rhysand seemed to genuinely want to help her. He couldn’t be trusted, but neither could she, and he had let her roam relatively freely through his home despite surely being aware she would pass information back to the Spring Court. She didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know anything . That was the problem.

“Who does the shield come from?” she said at last.

“All of us are able to shield ourselves in some way, but from the look of it perhaps Dawn or Day. Could be Spring. There is some overlap between courts and air magic isn’t tied down to one specific season or solar phase.”

Feyre waited for his laughter at her ignorance of what no doubt was common knowledge to fae children, but it didn’t come. And he hadn’t brushed aside her question. Who knew if he was telling the truth, but at least he was telling her something.

“What else? If I had powers from all the high lords… What else would that entail?”

“I could help you find out.”

Feyre stared out the window for a moment in indecision before turning back to him.

"First promise."

"Promise what?" He asked, eyes sliding up the ink of their bargain along her arm.

"Promise you'll take me back. If I try. Even if I can't… even if it doesn't work right away."

What would Tamlin think if she didn't come back? What would he do? She didn't know the details of laws between courts but she'd been surprised when he let Rhysand take her in the first place, even with a promise to return her. How binding was that promise? Was there some kind of penalty if Tamlin didn't get her back on time?

"You aren't a library book, Feyre," Rhysand snapped, startling her out of the thought spiral.

"What?" She asked distractedly, scrambling to reform her lapsed mental shields.

"I didn't borrow you from Tamlin. You don't belong to Tamlin."

"He is my high lord. And my…" Not husband, thanks to her stupid panic at the wedding. Fiancee? Did he even still want to marry her now? She needed to get back. The last three weeks with him had gone past in a blur before she could figure anything out, not helped by her one disastrous attempt at a real conversation. 

Rhys was watching her intently, as if trying to read her thoughts without breaking down the trembling shield she now held in place. As if he was afraid to let her realize how weak it really was. She was. 

He was the one to end the silence this time, maybe tired of waiting for her lagging brain to catch up to the conversation, although there was something alarmingly like pity in his eyes for a moment before he said, "You are here because you agreed to a bargain. And after our lovely week together is done, you are free to go wherever you wish. You can walk back to the pathetic little hut you used to live in for all I care," he said nonchalantly. "Although of course you may have to restart a few times if the hike takes you more than a month."

"You prick, you can't change the terms now!"

"I don't recall making any particular promises about transportation," Rhysand mused, tracing a finger along one of the swirling lines inked into Feyre's arm, "Although of course I'm always at your disposal to bring you here should you get bored embroidering tablecloths or whatever it is you do in Spring," he said, bending into a mockingly gallant bow.

"But the magic – the bargain – aren't there… consequences? Won't you –”

"Get a fine if your pages are rumpled when I return you?" He grinned, reaching out and twirling a strand of her hair between his fingers as she swatted his hand away. "So kind of you to worry. There would certainly be consequences if someone attempted to meddle with anything in my library, but I doubt our dear Tamlin has the guts to do more than hiss at me if you showed up late."

"Do you even have libraries here?” Feyre blurted, trying to sort through her stumbling thoughts. 

"Of course we have libraries. Did you think humans invented books? You've been in the library here, Feyre darling." He leaned in again, perched on the edge of his chair, and murmured in her ear, "Although of course it's perfectly understandable if you were too stunned by my presence to notice your surroundings."

Feyre shoved his shoulder away. "I meant borrowing libraries, you prick. Last I heard there aren't any cities left standing in Prythian."

He straightened up, smoothing out his already unrumpled jacket and smiling slightly. "Well I'm familiar with the concept," he said airily. "I'm also familiar with stalling. He lounged back in his chair and plucked a single grape from one of the overflowing dishes, pondering it in his fingers for a moment before throwing it at her. 

"Are you a child?" Feyre sputtered. 

"On the contrary, I'm far too old to be sidetracked by your fascinating observations about the public infrastructure of Prythian. My conditions stand: if you can't defend yourself against a piece of fruit, I'm not dropping you anywhere near that flowery cesspit of a court. Tamlin can come fetch you himself. If he can manage it," he smirked.

"Of course he can manage it; he's just as much a high lord as you are."

"Are you sure?" Rhysand mused, rising to sit on the table next to her, "Based on how easy it was for me to borrow you he seems to only have the most rudimentary sense of how wards work."

“At least he understands what personal space means,” Feyre retorted, shoving her chair backwards to put more room between them. “Did your mother never teach you how to sit in a chair like a normal person?”

“Alas, she was preoccupied teaching me to control my extraordinary powers and devastating charm.”

“You are insufferable.”

His mouth curved into a half smile. “Why don't you try distracting me with your impressive shielding capabilities?” He threw another grape at her. 

“Stop wasting food.”

“I assure you I can afford more food. Why, are you still hungry?”

“No, I just find it particularly disgusting when rich lords live in ridiculous extravagant palaces while everyone else starves.”

“Your concern for my people is touching,” he drawled, splaying a hand over his heart. “Now, let's pretend for a moment that you are also a person you care about, and put the slightest modicum of effort towards shielding yourself.”

"You aren't distracting me either. Promise you'll take me back first."

"Anything for you, Feyre darling."

"Say it properly."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, Feyre, oh great cursebreaker, savior of Prythian, jewel of my court, and renowned nitpicker of bargains; if you can protect yourself from errant breakfast leftovers by the end of the week, I will personally winnow you anywhere you like. Even if your choice of destination leaves something to be desired in the way of imagination.”

“Including Spring.”

“Including inadvisably boring choices such as Spring.”

Feyre eyed him, poised with some kind of berry she'd never seen before aimed at her face. He had returned to his usual mask of sardonic boredom, but from something in his eyes, she could have sworn he was having fun.

Chapter Text

Feyre flopped down onto her bed, noting with relief that dinner was already waiting for her on a steaming tray. She was tired but… the good kind of tired. Like the soreness of muscles after a workout had replaced the ache of disuse.

After finishing her tea, they had moved from the breakfast room to the library, where Feyre tried to use gusts of air to redirect darts made of folded paper that Rhysand threw at her. She was completely unsuccessful at it, no doubt thanks to his infuriatingly vague instructions like ‘hold the current but don’t hold it still’ and ‘breathe with your mind.’ They had persisted for nearly an hour until in a moment of frustration she managed to set one on fire. Thankfully he smothered it midair in a blanket of shadow before it could set the books alight.

She had braced herself for the fear she had come to expect with loss of control, but the bastard actually laughed.

“It isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“I could have burned your house down.”

“Maybe with a bit more practice.”

“Do you want me to cause problems?”

“There’s nothing I yearn for more, Feyre darling. Come.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to another, less flammable room, where he tried to get her to shape the flames in the fireplace. She got as far as maybe being able to feel where the fire was with her eyes closed before her head started to ache. “I can’t do it.”

“Keep trying.”

“I'm hungry.”

She had expected him to argue, but he simply smiled and offered her his arm. “Lunch break?”

*

By the time they reached the table, already overflowing with a new assortment of food, the twinge in Feyre’s head had turned into a throbbing ache.

“Is it… normally this hard? To learn magic? Or do fae younglings just know what to do from instinct?”

“Most high fae children do not have any high lord powers to master, let alone all of them at once.”

“But what we were doing… trying to do… that’s pretty basic, right? Like kind of faerie toddler shit?”

“You’ve been fae for less than a year, so technically ‘toddler shit’ is too advanced for you. But I skipped you ahead because you’re my star pupil,” he grinned at her. “You might even learn to read one day.”

“I’m your only pupil,” she said, ignoring the bait. “As far as I know. And I couldn’t even blow a piece of paper off course.”

“You’ll get there. I’m an excellent teacher.”

“I’ve met Bogges who are better teachers than you.”

“Not as nice to look at though.”

“Do you know, I think you are actually the most annoying person I've ever met.”

“He really is, isn't he?”

Feyre’s eyes snapped towards the doorway. But instead of some terrifying nightmare creature she had almost stopped expecting to crawl up from the mountain under them, Mor was leaning casually against the archway, her face lit up in a smile. She was wearing a deep blue dress of fabric so light it billowed around her like a living thing in the gentle breeze, held in place only by wirelike golden bands twining around the bodice. Feyre could only stare at her for a moment, struck again by the thought that she was the most beautiful person she’d ever seen.

“I thought I was the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen,” Rhyand said.

“For gods’ sake Rhys,” Mor said, rolling her eyes and she walked towards them.

Feyre glared at him. “I never said that.”

“Not out loud.” Rhysand grinned. “And it’s not my fault you drop your shield every time you’re hungry.” He tossed some kind of braided bread roll across the table onto her plate.

“Stop throwing food Rhys. Our guest will think we don’t have any manners in the Night Court.” 

“The guest figured that out a long time ago,” Feyre said. “Not that– I mean I’m sure you aren’t–” she stuttered, but Mor just laughed.

“Oh I learned centuries ago how to avoid the less desirable traits of my family rubbing off on my reputation.”

“And how is that, cousin dearest?” Rhysand asked around a mouthful of fruit.

“By being so clearly above all of you that people don’t believe we’re actually related.”

Feyre almost spilt the juice she was pouring, but Rhysand didn’t seem bothered at all by the lack of deference from one of his subjects. Apparently the mocking informality he showed to her extended to other members of the court too. Was he like this with everyone? She couldn’t reconcile the High Lord of the Court of Nightmares with this version of him that seemed to be coming out more and more the longer she was here.

And Morrigan was… not what she had expected to find in a court known for darkness. Even with the pounding in her head that hadn’t abated with food, Feyre found it easy to flow in and out of the conversation. She didn’t say much, mostly listening as they discussed plans for people and places she either hadn’t heard of or that they avoided naming out loud, but Mor seemed determined to treat her like a friend she had known for years.

The rest of lunch passed quickly, eating, laughing, occasionally ganging up on Rhysand in a way that made Feyre vaguely wonder if that was what it would have been like to grow up with sisters she actually got along with. By the time they were done eating she was exhausted from following the quick back and forth chatter, but not so much that she put up more than a token resistance when Rhysand announced it was time for lessons to resume (in an insufferably pompous tone of voice that made Mor dump a plate of crumbs on his immaculate suit.)

He had left her in the library for the afternoon, winnowing away with Mor to deal with some unnamed annoyance who was apparently ‘up to his usual shit’ somewhere to the north. 

Feyre had spent almost four hours working through the ridiculous sentences he had left her to copy out and grinding her way through the first few pages of a book she could mostly understand. It seemed to be a series of stories for children, but was at least interesting, as they were completely different from the ones she had grown up with in the human lands. 

She had given up when she almost fell asleep on the table and trudged towards her room, thankfully not getting lost in the twisting corridors. 

So here she was now. Fighting to stay awake long enough to eat, as the sun set in a ridiculously dramatic manner over the mountains.

Feyre felt almost angry at how beautiful it was: the clouds glowing pink with gold rimmed edges against the cool purple of silhouetted peaks, the warm orange of the horizon fading seamlessly up into a blue so deep that the first scattering of stars looked like they were sinking into a bottomless pool of water. 

She picked up the dinner tray and carried it over to the bed, squishing a pillow onto her lap as a table. It smelled delicious. A kind of grain she’d never seen before freckled with peas and lentils and cubes of something reddish purple. Roasted vegetables that tasted faintly of honey. A creamy white pudding full of tiny red berries that burst sour then sweet in her mouth. The main dish was spicier than the food she was used to in Spring, but not hot enough to burn. 

With a jolt, Feyre realized she hadn’t thought about Tamlin or anyone back in Spring all day. She hadn't even missed them. 

Tamlin was worried sick about her being trapped here and working himself to exhaustion trying to find a way out of the mess she had gotten herself into with the bargain and she was… playing. She was drinking wine in bed after a day spent sitting around a library laughing with his worst enemy. 

A wave of despair washed over her. She didn’t deserve him. She would never deserve him. She would keep hurting everyone she cared about just by existing and they would wait and wait for her to get better but she never would. Her soul was stained with blood. Tamlin was in love with someone who had died Under the Mountain, and all that bringing her back had done was make it impossible for him to finish grieving and move on. 

Feyre looked at the expanse of cold mountains between the moonstone pillars. No glass or railings to stop her from stepping through them. She wondered what the fall would be like. If she would feel anything besides cold wind on the way down.

She set the tray haphazardly on a side table and walked towards the open arches. The ornately carved marble jutted out in a frame around the view so she couldn’t see if light spilled from any of the other windows or balconies. She wondered if anyone else was here. She still hadn’t run into any servants. She could be the only living thing for miles. Not even trees reached this high into the jagged snow laden cliffs.

She stretched her hand out, wondering where the warmth of the palace would give way to the frigid air around them. The reality everyone was avoiding. She wanted to feel it. The bite of cold that never fully materialized in Spring. The truth no one wanted to talk about. She stepped onto the ledge and leaned out further, reaching into the open air.

Chapter Text

The magic-warmed air extended further out than she expected. Gripping the smoothly polished marble of the window frame with one hand, Feyre stretched her other arm out. She needed to feel it now. She had to touch something real. Bracing as much of her weight as she could on one side, she rose onto her toes to give herself a few more inches of extension.

Just as she reached the tipping point of how far she could lean without letting go, she felt the slightest pinprick of cold, like a single snowflake landing on her fingertip. 

Startled into a smile, she barely noticed the sudden flicker of shadow out of the corner of her eye. Before she had time to turn, she was falling backwards into the room.

Feyre screamed, fighting against the vice-like grip pinning her arms to the side as she crashed onto the ground. Images and memories flooded her mind: being thrown delirious with pain onto the damp floor of a dungeon cell, her face crashing against the red stone of the throne room, the feel of the Attor’s claws closing around her arms. She had almost forgotten about the nightmares buried in the rock under the palace, the court Amarantha had modeled hers on. What new horror had crawled up to find her? Had something seen her through the window? Smelled her on the cold wind?

She slammed her head back, yielding a soft crunch and gush of warm liquid against her neck along with a muffled curse. She writhed against the momentarily loosened grip, trying to free herself. Something slammed against her mind like a battering ram. 

FEYRE

Breath coming in ragged gasps, she twisted around. Dark hair. Violet eyes, wide with shock and watering as he held a hand to his nose, red seeping out from between the fingers. 

Rhysand. She staggered away from him across the floor as he let her go.

“What the fuck! Why would you–” tears started streaming down her face, breath coming in spasms. “What is wrong with you? You know what I’ve been through, you know –”

He just stared at her, chest heaving, the blood from his nose already slowed to a drip but making an even darker stain on his black shirt.

Oh gods. The blood. 

A single drop of bright red stood out on the white marble floor like a pomegranate seed. She could feel the warm wetness soaking into the back of her shirt. The heat of it burning against her skin as the rest of her body suddenly felt ice cold. Blood. Blood she had spilled. Again.

She lurched to her feet and ran to the bathroom, barely making it before vomiting. 

Rhysand followed her, kneeling on the floor next to her, one hand half raised towards her like a question.

“Feyre…”

“Leave me alone. That was not funny.”

“Funny? I thought– ”

“I don’t care what kind of pranks your stupid ‘inner circle’ tolerates. I am not your entertainment. I am not your friend. Stop playing games with me.”

His hand fell from his face to hang limp at his side. His nose was distinctly bent in the middle, but looked like it had already started healing, along with the slightly swollen pinkness of a fresh black eye that struggled to form against his magic. Two streaks of red ran down his infuriatingly beautiful face, trailing over his mouth and down his neck.

“You were… your shields were up and I felt–”

“You told me to keep my shields up!”

“The wards triggered outside your window… I thought– Do you know how far that drop is?”

“There are wards?”

“Of course there are wards! Did you think I would leave you alone in an unwarded house?”

Her brain felt so slow. Thoughts oozing like honey. “Then why were you worried about me falling?”

“They don’t stop you going out, they just stop anything else from getting in. Do I need to change that? What were you doing? What–” his voice broke slightly, “I couldn’t feel you.”

She turned away. She couldn’t stop shaking, chills running down her arms and legs. “I was just watching the sunset.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me right now. I can’t help you if–”

“Why not? Everyone lies to me all the time.”

“I don’t–”

“Not telling the truth is the same as lying. I don’t care how clever you get about technicalities. You keep plenty of secrets from me. I don’t owe you anything .”

“I am aware of that,” he said quietly. 

She couldn’t focus on anything but the feeling of her damp shirt sticking to the back of her neck, the warmth already seeping away into a bone numbing cold. “I need to get changed.” She rose to her feet, but he ignored the obvious hint to leave and followed her. “And you need to wash your face.”

Rhysand snapped his fingers, the blood instantly disappearing from both their clothes. His usual bored smile slid back into place at the same time, as if his emotions could be wiped clean as easily as his skin. The faint smudge of an already half-healed bruise beneath one eye and a slight paleness that could easily have been the lighting were the only remaining traces he’d had anything but a pleasant evening. Feyre was grateful not to have to rinse the red stain from her clothes. She didn’t feel any cleaner though.

Distracted by trying to decide if she wanted a bath or nap more, she lurched to a stop in the doorway. The floor of her bedroom was… glittering. She crouched down to touch it. The crystals melted under her finger. Ice? A shimmering trail of frost spread from the window, almost invisible against the white floor. Her breath misted in the air.

“Did you break the wards? When you winnowed in, that took down the temperature barrier thing?”

“This is all you, Feyre darling.” She stared at him. “Winter Court. Apparently breaking my nose wasn’t enough so you had to throw frostbite into the mix.”

She looked down at her hands as if they could give her answers. “I didn’t even feel it.”

“Mmhm. And you will continue to not know when you’re using magic until you gain control.”

“Why is it still cold?”

“I would guess because you’re still mad at me. That seems to be a running theme in the appearance of your powers. But if spite is what gets you training, I’m more than happy to continue providing motivation.”

“Not necessary, thank you. Just turn the… whatever makes it warm back on and leave. I want to go to sleep.”

“The wards keep the heat in, and they are still perfectly intact. You would be able to feel them if you were paying attention.”

“It’s a little hard to pay attention with someone constantly distracting me.”

“I do tend to have that effect on people. No need to be embarrassed.”

“I’m not–  I’m too tired for this, Rhysand. Do I need to find somewhere else to spend the night or are you going to fix it?”

“You’re the one controlling the temperature in here.”

“And you’re the one who tackled me just for standing too close to a window.”

“True. I would love to help, but sadly I don’t have fire magic.”

“We don’t even know if I do either.”

“You don’t know if you do. I have been perfectly aware of your potential since the moment you were made. And if someone wasn’t so busy trying to turn you into piece of decorative furniture, you would have been well on your way to kindling more flames than Calanmai by now.”

“Stop being a fucking asshole.”

“But it’s working so well,” he said, gesturing to the floor. A thin puddle spilled across the marble. “Should I keep going until we have a steam room?”

Feyre pulled a pile of neatly folded towels from the dresser and threw them across the slowly spreading water. “Get out before I break your nose again.”

Rhysand grinned over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the room. “Sleep well, Feyre darling.”

Chapter Text

Feyre stumbled into the breakfast room the next morning, squinting against the blinding light of the cloudless day. She’d been left blissfully free of intrusive mind tugging this morning and made a valiant effort to sleep in after a night of fitful rest and blood soaked dreams, but an unusually bright sunrise shining directly on her face had won out.

The usual assortment of food, tea, and brooding high lord waited for her at the table. Next to it, another table had appeared, set with a line of delicate crystal glasses catching the light, each filled halfway with clear water. An equally beautiful cut glass pitcher rested next to them. 

Rhysand was sitting on the edge of his chair, leg bouncing with the barely contained impatience of a pet waiting to be let out into the garden to play.

“What’s this?” Feyre said, gesturing towards the drink table.

“Today’s lesson. Eat first.”

She wandered over to inspect the line of four identical cups. “Are you going to poison me for messing up your pretty face yesterday?”

“So you do think I’m pretty.”

Feyre rolled her eyes as she sank into a chair. Rhysand was already handing over her usual mug. She wondered if memorizing how she took her tea was another subtle step in a game or just a general habit of observation. “Do people not get tired of how much validation you need on a daily basis?”

“Most of them I either pay well enough or scare badly enough to humour me. You are, as ever, the exception.”

Feyre squinted at his face while filling her plate but couldn’t detect any traces of yesterday's events. “Will I heal that fast now too?”

“As fae you will certainly heal faster than a human. With a spark of Dawn’s power you may heal even faster than me.”

“I haven’t had anything worse than a papercut to test it on. We could compare–”

“We will not be testing that.”

“You wanted me to be interested in my powers.”

“No.”

“You're just scared I would win.”

“I'm scared of many things, but you becoming more powerful than me is not one of them.”

“So much for having confidence in my abilities.”

Rhysand smiled into his drink as if suppressing a laugh. “That is not what I meant.”

“Sure it isn’t. So what am I learning today then?”

“Shielding. Warding. Detecting both. Telling the difference. Identifying their directionality. And if you’re extra good, breaking them down.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“I figured we could have extra fun today in honour of you getting out of bed before noon.”

“It was too sunny.”

“You don’t like sun?”

“I don’t like being blinded first thing in the morning. Was whoever designed this place allergic to curtains?”

Rhysand grinned. “They get caught on the wings.”

“Maybe you should practice your flying skills for a few more hundred years. If I had wings I’m sure I could manage to avoid a bit of drapery.”

He tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at her in a way that made her blush. “I’m sure you could manage a lot of things.”

Feyre gulped down the last of her tea and stood up, instinctively moving to clear her plate away before realizing she didn’t know where to put it and setting it back down on the table awkwardly. The flirting was nothing new, but it somehow felt different when it came in the middle of him being…friendly. Trying to track the myriad of shifting personalities he layered and overlapped like clothing from one moment to the next was getting harder and harder. 

She started to wonder if this is what it felt like for Tamlin to watch the person she used to be crumble and flake away into whatever fractured mess she was turning into. Never knowing what to expect. Never being sure what was real. No wonder he didn’t know what to do with her. She didn’t know what to do with herself.

Rhysand cleared his throat, bringing her back to the present. “Shall we begin?” he asked, waving towards the other table.

“Oh–um… yeah. What… I’m supposed to shield the glasses? While you try to break them?” she asked, stepping towards the other table.

“I will not be breaking anything. Not after the way you–” He glanced at her quickly then looked away. “Cleaning up glass off this floor is a nightmare. We’ll start with just detection. Yesterday you said you couldn’t tell there were wards on your room?”

“Well, I’ve never really tried.”

“You’ve never had a sense of… energy around the borders of the manor in Spring? A weird feeling when you pass over thresholds?”

“Everything feels weird all the time. It has ever since I crossed the wall.”

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

“It hadn’t occurred to me the problem could be that you’re too sensitive.”

“Excuse me?”

“I assumed that growing up with no exposure to magic left your natural senses underdeveloped. But all living things have an innate ability to detect magic, even if they don’t know what they’re sensing. Perhaps the real issue is that you never learned to tune anything out. It’s all white noise, everywhere you– Gods, that must be infuriating. How do you sleep?”

“I don’t. Most of the time.”

“You sleep all the time.”

“Well I just wait until I'm too tired to think and then I pass out, I guess.”

“Hmm. Can I try something?”

“Try what?”

“No need to look so suspicious, I'm not going to dissect you in a lab. I just want to see if I can lower the volume a bit. I want to try putting a… filter around your mind. I won’t have to go into your mind,” he added quickly, “I can wrap around it without you granting me access. You don’t even have to lower your mental shields. It will just be like… curtains. Maybe if you aren’t being deafened by all the ambient energy of the land and the palace and the echoes of past spells it will be easier to focus on individual power sources.”

Feyre paused for a moment. She still didn’t understand the scope of what Rhysand could do with his magic. But she did know enough to be certain that if he wanted to break into her head he wouldn’t need her permission. Was he trying to gain her trust to get an advantage over Tamlin somehow? Or was an ex-human brain just enough of an anomaly to be interesting to him without ulterior motives? Did it actually matter why he was helping her?

“Ok. Do I need to… do anything?”

“No, just pay attention to how it feels. It's an experiment so I don't know if it will actually work but–”

“Just get on with it.” Feyre closed her eyes. For a moment nothing happened. She tried to focus on the feeling of… something. It felt pointless, like trying to hear silence or taste air. “Are you going to tell me when–”

Feyre cut herself off in a gasp as all the noise rushed out of the room. Or… not noise… it was like silence or darkness or emptiness for a sense she didn’t even know she had. It felt like falling into the pure calm of underwater but at the same time like suddenly being able to breathe.

She kept her eyes closed, sinking into the pure peace of it. It reminded her of the abrupt quiet that sometimes cut through winter storms back home, when the howling died down between flurries as if the wind was catching its breath.

Tears started streaming down her face. Even in the human lands she had never felt this level of internal stillness. Distantly she could hear Rhysand asking something but she was too caught up in feeling out the almost imperceptibly soft currents flowing through the room. Every time she almost managed to focus on one it slipped away from her, like mirages vanishing as soon as she looked directly at them. 

Suddenly everything came rushing back in with the pressure and roar of standing under a waterfall. She staggered backwards, breath knocked out of her chest. Gray static burst across her vision as her eyes snapped open just in time to see the ceiling reeling over her before she slammed into the ground with a crash that seemed to echo inside her whole body. Shattered glass and water drops scattered across the moonstone floor fracturing the sunlight in a dizzying prism as she blinked in the brightness, trying to reorient herself.

Before she had time to take a full breath, Rhyand was kneeling in front of her. “What happened? Did it hurt you? I– are you– your hand–” He reached towards her just as she became aware of a mild sting in the hand she had clumsily broken her fall with. The ache from the impact on her wrist was already dissipating.

“I...fell?” she muttered, staring perplexed at a shard of glass barely bigger than her thumbnail embedded in the palm of her hand.

“Don’t–” Rhysand lurched forward as she yanked it out and dropped it among the others, a faint pink tinge of blood outlining the edges against the white stone. She moved to push herself up but couldn’t find anywhere clear to place her hands.

Rhysand snapped his fingers and the broken glass vanished from the floor as he took her arm and pulled her upright.

“You said that was difficult.”

“What? I– never mind. Are you alright?”

“It’s just a cut. I’m sorry about the glasses.”

“That doesn’t matter, did– you were crying. I didn’t–” He inhaled sharply as Feyre suddenly burst into a smile.

“Can you do it again?”

*

They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to teach Feyre to replicate the filtering effect on her own mind. By the time she fell asleep in the middle of meditating for the third time, the sun was dipping towards the mountain peaks, bathing the room in a rose gold glow, and he finally conceded to stopping for the day and having dinner. Feyre had a strong suspicion it was because he didn’t like meditating either and was getting bored, but didn’t mention it in case he defensively assigned her more sitting and breathing practice to maintain his dignity.

Feyre was too exhausted to stay awake for longer than it took to get changed when she went back to her room. She felt like she had just sunk into bed, mentally preparing for another evening of insomnia, when she found herself blinking awake to another morning. Late morning, by the angle of the light filtering through the cloud cover.

She took her time getting out of bed, wrapping herself in blankets and watching the low gray clouds drag themselves across the sky, occasionally catching on the ragged peaks like thick wool sweaters getting snagged on thorns and tearing loose in slow motion. 

The excitement of yesterday’s experiment had worn off quickly when she realized it was just another new skill to slog through being terrible at in pursuit of the vague possibility of improving one day. She was in no hurry to go back to quietly sitting cross legged on soft cushions on the floor next to someone who clearly also didn’t want to be sitting still but was much better at hiding it. 

If it wasn’t for the quiet trickle of fidgety impatience leaking down the bargain bond she might have even believed Rhysand liked meditating. Feyre hadn’t even realized at first that it wasn’t her own emotions she was feeling. She had wondered if something about the training was making the bond feel slightly more tangible than usual or if she just hadn't paid attention to it before, but for some reason didn’t want to ask. 

When her stomach started to audibly protest against the delay in breakfast she finally got herself dressed in another set of comfortable night court attire and wandered down the hall. The breakfast room was empty, other than the perpetually stocked table of fresh food. A crisp sheet of folded paper waited for her tucked underneath the teapot.

Called away on urgent but tiresome High Lord business. Darkness & nightmares to unleash, etc. – most of the few minutes it took to decipher the hasty yet somehow still elegant writing scrawled across the note was dedicated to trying to guess what word “e–t–c” was possibly supposed to sound like before cussing him out to the empty room for using short forms when she eventually  figured it out from context –  Lessons in the library. Back tomorrow. Try not to break anything sharp. 

The lessons in the library turned out not to be instructions to continue trying to sense magic on her own as she’d feared, but the reading and writing practice was hardly an improvement. She put a token amount of time towards copying out the sentences he had left for her (Rhysand is the best teacher. Rhysand provides enthralling learning materials. Rhysand is sorely missed in his absence.) But quickly decided if he wasn’t around to supervise he could hardly stop her from choosing her own activities for the day. 

She wandered the library trying to make out the titles of various books. More than half of them included words she wasn’t sure she would recognize even if she could sound them out properly. None of them filled her with a sudden inspiration to read so she left the stacks of paper and ink behind to explore. After almost an hour of listlessly wandering the hallways looking at various views – all beautiful and cloudy and cold looking – and trying to decide if she had the energy to deal with any surprises that might come from opening closed doors, she ended up back at her room. 

It was already dark outside when she woke from a nap she couldn’t remember deciding to take. A lukewarm tray of food waited for her on a side table, although she couldn’t guess if it had gotten there by magic alone or at the hands of some magically stealthy servant. 

Rather than light any of the extravagant number of candles and lanterns scattered about the room, she took her dinner to the window seat and ate by the light of a thin but shockingly bright crescent of moon. The clouds had cleared while she slept and the sky was so thoroughly dusted with stars it looked like someone had shattered a mirror into dust across it. 

She supposed these must be the same stars visible from Spring, or even her old village, but there were so many pinpricks of light you could paint a picture through them far too detailed and lifelike to compare with any of the primitive connect the dots constellations she had grown up recognizing. 

She had a vague memory of her father explaining how ships navigated with the stars. Perhaps if her father’s fleet had been given this detailed of a map things would have turned out differently. Would that have been better? It would have been easier. But had she ever actually fit into that world? Any more than what was left of her fit into the blossoming idyllic landscape of Spring? Anymore than the almost–lady of Spring fit into the glittering darkness of the tiny corner of the Night Court she had seen?

Pushing her half eaten dinner to the side, she slumped down onto the soft velvet cushions and dragged a blanket off the back of the seat to curl up in. At least the clothes here were comfortable enough she didn’t have to change into pajamas when she was too tired to get up. 

Feyre lay on her side trying to count the stars one by one until they blurred together into a shimmering mist that followed her into her dreams, wrapping around her mind like a cloak.

Chapter Text

“I did give you a bed, you know.”

Feyre startled awake. “Wh… what?” Her eyelids felt heavy and swollen, as if she had been sleeping so long they had forgotten how to open all the way.

“It's over there,” Rhysand added, pointing helpfully towards her bedroom.

“What are you doing here?”

“In my palace? Where I live? Yes, what a strange place for me to be. Unfathomable.”

“In my room.”

“Looking for you. And finding you. Still asleep.”

Feyre blinked up at him. “I’m tired.”

“It’s two in the afternoon.”

“Can you go live somewhere else for a while so I can go back to sleep?”

“I usually do live somewhere else. But you are here. And you expressed a rather insistent, if misguided, interest in not being here at some point in the future. Which you will not be doing unless you learn to shield yourself. Which will not be happening if you never get out of bed.”

“I’m not in bed, technically.”

“Well I’m not the one who wants you to leave in three days, technically ,” he said with an undercurrent of bitterness she had almost gotten used to not hearing. Had she really already been here for more than half of the week?

“Where do you usually live?” Feyre asked through a yawn as she sat up.

“Elsewhere.”

“How informative. Maybe you should teach geography too.”

“Maybe you should be less invested in sarcasm and more invested in… anything.”

“I could get very emotionally invested in you leaving me alone. I’m deeply passionate about it, actually,” Feyre said, standing up to push him towards the door.

“How do you manage to be so difficult when you can’t even manage walking in a straight line?” Rhysand asked, catching her as she tripped over the blanket tangled around her feet.

“I thought being difficult was the power I inherited from the Night Court,” Feyre said, smiling innocently. 

He coughed, as if a laugh had gotten tangled in his annoyance before it could make it out of his mouth. “Well I suppose that's proof you've mastered at least one of your powers then. Come.”

“I'm not a dog,” Feyre muttered as she followed him out of the room.

“Then why do you look like you're going to bite me?” he shot back. 

“You wish.”

He smiled infuriatingly smugly and started striding down the hallway. “I certainly wouldn't object.”

*

Feyre spread butter onto her third piece of bread as Rhysand stared at her across the table, eyes slightly unfocused. 

“What?” Feyre asked.

He paused for a moment before saying, “Have you… ‘inherited’ anything from me?”

“Have I– powers you mean?” Feyre’s thoughts flickered to the unnerving moment she had stumbled into Lucien’s mind. She hadn't even told Tamlin. Was it wrong that she wanted to tell Rhysand? She didn't know what he would do with the information. But he might be the only person she could tell who wouldn’t be afraid of her. He raised his eyebrows in question at her too-long pause and she blurted out, “I haven't summoned any shadows. Yet.”

He looked oddly disappointed, but didn’t ask anything else, returning to gazing out the window and absent mindedly tapping a complicated rhythm on the table with his fingers as he waited for her to finish eating. 

Feyre more than made up for her lax day of training yesterday over the course of the afternoon. Rhysand had replaced the crystal glasses with wooden ones, as if she was a child who couldn’t be trusted with the good dishes, she noted with annoyance. Their purpose turned out to be props for demonstrating and detecting different types of shields. The demonstration was interesting at least, when she could keep Rhysand from getting bogged down in unnecessarily complicated magical theory which he seemed to find fascinating and had no practical application to her training at all as far as Feyre could make out. 

They covered impermeable shields first, which were apparently strong enough that Feyre could turn the first cup completely upside down without any water spilling out, like a kind of invisible lid. She laughed aloud watching water roll off the top and trickle down the sides when she tried to pour it in. When she looked up, Rhysand was watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite place, but he didn’t admonish her for getting off task at least. When she asked if an impermeable shield could keep bread fresh forever, he looked confused and asked why he would shield a loaf of bread, cementing her suspicion that he had spent far too much time on academics and would deeply benefit from a few days working in a kitchen. 

The next two cups were used to demonstrate one-way shields in both directions. This resulted in Feyre pouring a lot more water on the floor, while Rhysand periodically reminded her she was supposed to be sensing the ‘presence and essence’ of the different shields, not bouncing things off them, but doing absolutely nothing to stop her. 

“It’s like a children’s story,” she said, gently swirling water as she tried to sense if it was an inward or outward shield. “A cup you can fill but not drink from, and a cup you can drink from but never fill. It’s like something out of a faerietale.”

“We are faeries, Feyre darling,” Rhysand said, smiling amusedly, “Everything you do could be part of a faerietale.”

“You know what I mean. Surely you’ve heard human stories before.”

“I don’t make a particular study of it, but from what I remember, they’re woefully inaccurate.”

“Accuracy isn’t the point.”

“Not the ideal sentiment to hear from someone you’re trying to teach potentially life saving information to.”

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“Dramatic?”

“Casting a shield could be life or death. Identifying which particular party trick you’re doing on a cup of water is just you showing off.”

“If you think this is me showing off, you are sorely underestimating… everything. Has little Lord Tammikins forgotten he has his full powers back or does he just keep you so out of the loop you still have no idea what a High Lord is after living with one for months?”

“Ok, Rhysand, Lord of Darkness, show me something impressive then.”

“And what would impress the famed curse breaker of Prythian? Toppling mountains? Eclipsing the sun? Dissolving an army into mist before your eyes?” 

His tone was amused, but Feyre couldn’t quite tell if he was joking, and didn’t entirely want to know. He seemed so… human today. It almost made her feel normal. Like there was no looming possibility of war. No complicated politics between courts she hadn’t even heard of a year ago. No magic slowly awakening in her body with the potential to make her so powerful she would always be hunted. 

“Teaching me something actually useful would be a start.”

“Well not to be dramatic, but have you considered that it might be useful to know whether or not the shield you’re casting is going to let other people’s arrows in or your arrows out?”

“I have no interest in shooting arrows at anything or anyone, so I might as well just learn the doesn’t-let-anything-through kind and be done with it.”

“Mhm, and when you cast an impermeable shield for more than five minutes and start suffocating to death inside your bubble you'd better hope I’m available to make a dramatic entrance and fix it for you.”

“Oh. Well how do you let air in without letting everything else in?”

He pointed to the last cup. “Selectively permeable. It’s the most difficult to cast and even more difficult to maintain over time, but with the amount of power you’ll be working with when you start… actually working with it, in theory it could keep you untouchable indefinitely.”

“Why would I need a shield for that long anyway? I’m not going into battle.”

Rhysand didn’t reply for a moment. He picked up a glass cup from the lunch table and gently blew across the surface, sending ripples through the water, then plucked a single grape from a bowl on the table and dropped it over the opening. They both watched in silence as it bounced off the invisible barrier and rolled across the floor, coming to rest under a chair.

 “Do you usually have much warning about when you might potentially need a shield?” he asked quietly. Feyre said nothing. “If not, I would… prefer if you were able to keep one in place as frequently as your current abilities allow. Your mental shields are consistent enough now I may not be immediately aware if…" He turned away from her and set the cup down. "Selectively permeable shields are less all or nothing than the other types. They are built more like fabric; the cleaner the casting the tighter the weave, but even an improperly constructed one offers some level of protection.”

Feyre nodded and wordlessly picked up the last wooden cup, trying to focus on the feeling of the energy woven over the top. They spent the rest of the afternoon practicing. She managed to intentionally call up a shield for the first time near the end of the day, after hours of only being able to summon magic when startled – a training method which stopped being effective as soon as she grew used to Rhysand flicking his hands to suddenly plunge the room into darkness or send cracks of thunder echoing off the mountains outside – but none of it felt quite as fun as it had earlier. It felt like a betrayal, to be thinking of defending herself against someone who only cared about her safety. And Rhysand had drifted off into another of his moods, a kind of listless boredom laced with an undercurrent of something dark smoldering below the surface.

*

“Does Tamlin actually not use his powers?” Rhysand asked out of nowhere, as they sat down to breakfast the next morning. He hadn’t shown up in her room again, but she had dragged herself out of bed some time before the sun reached its apex, acutely aware that tomorrow would be her last full day here if she managed to master her shield.

“Of course he does.”

“I mean for things other than lighting candles and conjuring unwilting flower crowns, or whatever day to day amusements you get up to in Spring.”

“What else would he need to do? We aren’t at war. Amarantha is gone. The only thing he’s really worried about now is…” Feyre trailed off awkwardly, glancing at the tattoo on her arm. “He is away a lot, trying to… figure some things out,” she said, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know what he’s doing or where he is most of the time.”

Rhysand looked thoughtful. “He should… do you think you would be able to sense it if he was doing any greater magics, now that you’ve practiced?”

Feyre was suddenly hit with a wave of guilt. Tamlin would be furious if he knew she was talking about any of this. “I'm not a traitor. I'm not going to spy on him for you.”

“But you’ll happily spy on me for him.”

Feyre winced. 

“I’m sorry,” Rhysand said immediately, “That isn’t fair; I wouldn't expect you not to. I assumed he would demand to know everything that happens while you’re here. I would too, in his position. It… limits our options somewhat, but nothing you've seen here would compromise our position.”

“Is that why we aren’t staying in the Court of Nightmares?” Feyre asked curiously, “So I don’t see anything your– people outside the Night Court aren’t allowed to know about?” She had almost referred to her friends in Spring as Rhysand’s enemies, and wasn’t sure she wanted to know whether he would disagree. 

“I would not be taking you there regardless of security concerns. But yes, our visits will most likely be confined to the moonstone palace as things stand. Few people have been here, but it’s hardly a military target.”

“Tamlin wouldn’t target you. I know you don’t get along, but he wouldn’t attack you. Not after everything Prythian has been through in the last fifty years. He wouldn’t try to hurt you just for being from a rival court.”

Rhysand said nothing, his face blank in a way Feyre had begun to suspect correlated with him feeling anything but indifferent. He didn’t really know Tamlin though. It was probably just hard for him to trust anyone after what he’d been through Under the Mountain. 

Feyre was caught off guard for a moment, remembering how long Rhysand had actually been there. She was a wreck after three months. Granted, she had spent that time being tortured. She had died. But given the choice, would she trade that for a slower form of torment? Could she honestly claim she would be better off if she had spent… two hundred times as long in that place, doing whatever she had to to survive? Did he even know how much it had changed him? Feyre had been stumbling through their every interaction desperately trying to figure out which version of him was real, but maybe he didn’t know either.

“I don’t… I don’t have to tell him everything, ” she said, grasping for something to break the silence. “I won’t lie to him if he asks but… I already know what he thinks about me training. It would only worry him if I brought it up, and he hides things from me so I don’t worry all the time.”

“And does it work?”

“What?”

“Does keeping you in the dark about the world, about your own powers, stop you from worrying?”

Feyre looked down. “I’m done eating. We should get started.”

Rhysand wordlessly stood and offered her a hand up. They worked through the day, stopping only to eat. Feyre’s shielding abilities were improving rapidly. Her power seemed to come to the surface more readily every time she called it now, as if debris were clearing from a blocked river with every gallon of water that poured through. It was a little frightening at times, how natural it was starting to feel. Like her body had finally started to accept that it wasn’t human. She was scared to know what else might come through once the dam burst. But for once, Rhysand didn’t seem at all inclined to push her into finding out. He made no further mention of summoning fire or shadows, or even reading. He didn’t even stray off topic enough to tease or flirt with her, drawing her focus back to training whenever her concentration faltered.

By nightfall she was too exhausted to even stay up to eat dinner. Her legs shook beneath her as he walked her to her room, barely able to keep her eyes open. Tomorrow was her last full day here. 

From the curt encouragements he had been giving her through the afternoon, her shield would likely be consistent enough by tomorrow to satisfy the conditions of their bargain. Feyre felt no doubt that Rhysand would be true to his word and take her back to Spring the next morning. Tamlin would never even need to know there had been a possibility of her not showing up. She would never have to find out how he would react. She would be back at the manor for the next month, as planned. No training to worry about. No one to drag her out of bed or pester her if she skipped meals.

Home, she reminded herself. She was going home. Feyre collapsed onto the bed without changing, finding herself grateful that she was too tired to think about whether that felt true.

Chapter Text

Despite the exhaustion, for the first time all week, Feyre didn’t manage to sleep through the night. She crawled back into bed afterwards, her knees cold from kneeling on the bathroom floor. The moon wasn’t out tonight. Or the stars. Just an endless canvas of gray, too dark to make out the outlines of the peaks, but not clear enough to call black. Like even the night couldn’t bear to be near her.

She woke, what felt like minutes later, to the sound of her stomach grumbling. Her last day here. She was a bit surprised Rhysand hadn’t woken her for breakfast. Or lunch, judging by the angle of the sunbeams finding their way through sparse gaps in the deep slate cloud cover. 

She almost thought she could feel him, waiting, somewhere in the palace. A distant turbulence of anticipation and patience and dread swirling together into an oppressive expectancy like the storm clouds brewing outside the window, heavy with rain. But she was probably just projecting her own feelings into the air. Blaming it on the bond was easier than facing the question of why her own heart was constricting inside her chest with anxiety. 

Feyre groaned as she rolled out of bed, tossing aside the clothes she had slept in for fresh ones. Her body ached as if she’d spent the previous day hauling boulders up a mountain. Or maybe falling down one. Was magic supposed to be this much work? Or was this just her body’s last protest against its transformation? 

She was startled – and maybe a little proud – to realize she could feel her own power thrumming in the background of her consciousness now, without having to claw away distractions or fumble blindly through the fog of not knowing what she was looking for. It was just there. As if it had always been there. It wasn’t a physical sensation, like the sore muscles. More like the reverberation of a note, suspended in the air after an orchestra stops playing. An instrument at rest, waiting for her to breathe life into it.

She tried not to think too hard about what might happen when she did.

*

Rhysand was leaning against a stone pillar, staring out at the mountains in silence when Feyre walked in. The combination of casual elegance and unnatural stillness reminded her of a statue – polished onyx, stark against the gleaming marble. He didn’t turn around, though she knew better than to think he hadn’t heard her arrive.  Or sensed her. 

Now that she was closer, Feyre was even more sure that she could somehow feel his mood, as if his mind cast a shadow across the floor that came to rest at her feet. Was it the bargain? Or had his own unsettling power started to unfurl inside her along with the rest of her abilities? Whatever the cause, she didn’t need to see his face to know he was not in the mood for idle chatter.

Feyre had almost finished her second cup of tea when he finally shifted. Not to join her at the table, but to refill the glass she hadn’t even noticed he was drinking from. He sidestepped the decadent variety of juice pitchers and steaming tea to grab a half empty bottle of deep amber liquid from a side table.

Feyre raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

“Isn’t it a bit late for waking up?” he retorted, a little too slowly.

“Are you…”

“Am I what, Feyre darling? Drunk? No. Drinking? Yes.” Nevertheless he left the full glass next to the bottle and slid into a chair across from her.

“I was going to ask if you were ok.”

He looked at her as if she had just spoken a completely different language. 

“...Nevermind then. Should I leave you to your brooding? I can go back to my room if you need space to… read sad poetry to a flock of ravens or something.” He opened his mouth as if to reply then closed it again. After an awkwardly long pause, Feyre ate the last bite of the spiced muffin on her plate and pushed her chair back. “I’ll be in the library if you–”

“You can stay.”

“Ok.” She sat back down and waited as Rhysand pulled a bowl of fruit across the table and took a bite out of a strawberry.

“And are we just going to stare at each other all afternoon or–”

Feyre squeaked in indignation as a grape hit her in the face. Gods, why did fae have to move so quickly?

“You didn’t shield.”

“I wasn’t ready.”

“Be ready.”

He threw another grape. Feyre flinched out of the way, pushing up out of her chair, and it rolled across the floor. At least she was fast now too. “I only learned to shield yesterd–”  

The next grape hit her on the chin and she growled in frustration, trying to drag her mind into focus. Rhysand stood too, picking up an apple and tossing it in the air once before lobbing it across the table. It wasn’t a hard throw; she easily could have just caught it. But fuck him. 

The apple bounced off an invisible wall in front of her, landing with a satisfying thump on the floor at her feet.

Rhysand smiled. She snatched a fork from the table and flung it towards his head. 

Or she tried to. It didn’t hit him. It didn’t bounce either. It just… vanished, inches in front of his face. An almost invisible sheen of silver mist fell slowly and dissipated into the air.

“Be ready,” he repeated, emotionlessly.

Feyre gaped at him as he picked up another piece of fruit without breaking eye contact. “Wait, what did you just – you never showed me that kind of shield.”

“Not a shield. And I'm showing you now.”

“You can… you can just… dissolve things? Just make them… not exist anymore?”

“Yes.”

Feyre’s head was reeling. She wasn't sure if she was more disoriented by the new information or by the way Rhysand was talking. Deadpan. Detached. Like every new version of him she had been getting glimpses of this week had crawled back behind the mask while she slept. Or while he hadn’t slept, judging by the dim smudges of darkness under his eyes. It was strange to think of someone like him feeling something as human as tiredness.

“Do you have questions, Feyre?” He tilted his head in a hollow imitation of polite curiosity. “Any thoughts to share?”

“Does that work on… anything?”

“On people, you mean?”

“I didn't say that.”

“Well I said it. And yes. It does.”

Feyre blanched. “I’m not learning to do that. I can't.”

“Most fae can't. You might be able to, eventually.”

“I don't want to be able to.”

“You don't have to want power to have it. The cauldron doesn't take our preferences into account when doling out gifts.”

“Why are you showing me this? Why now?”

“Not a fan of openness and honesty when it reveals something you find distasteful?”

“I’m not a fan of you trying to turn me into a weapon. The conditions were that I learn to shield, you take me back. I didn’t agree to learn fucking battle magic!”

“And do you think I agreed , Feyre, to be who I am? Do you think closing your eyes and pretending you’re like everyone else makes it true? Makes it safe? To not learn control because you don’t want to know what you’re capable of? Do you think people care whether or not you chose to be dangerous?”

Reality came crashing back in. Hunted. That’s what Tamlin had said. By every High Lord in Prythian. Would they be able to tell somehow, now that she had stopped snuffing out every trace of magic that flickered inside her as if she was stomping out the embers of a campfire? Would it just keep spreading, catching more and more of her alight until there was no way to contain it? No way to hide?

“I didn’t… I don’t…” She couldn’t breathe. It felt like there was a first clenched around her lungs. “Is that what I am now?  I’m just… I’m just always going to hurt everyone. Anyone who cares about me. Because of what I am.”

Rhysand’s face faltered and for a second he looked utterly lost. 

“Because I shouldn’t exist,” Feyre gasped out, gripping the back of the chair in front of her to stop from stumbling over.

“No. No, Feyre. I wasn't talking about you. Please, don’t–”

“I should never have agreed to this. That was so stupid. I promised him I wouldn’t train. He said everything would be fine if I just stopped trying to get involved. He told me it wasn’t safe to learn magic and I didn’t–”

“By the cauldron, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Rhysand pressed his hands to his face as if trying and failing to collect his thoughts. “I’m sorry, I can’t– How in the mother’s name is keeping you defenseless supposed to make you safer?”

“I don’t care what happens to me; I just want to stop hurting everyone else.”

Rhysand ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Learning to shield yourself isn’t hurting anyone.”

“It’s hurting Tamlin. If anyone finds out, I would be putting him in danger trying to protect me from other courts, and if he finds out he’ll think I don’t trust him and–”

“You want to protect Tamlin? Perhaps keep in mind that if his next lapse in control kills you, he will shortly find himself in the same condition,” Rhysand snapped.

"Why?”

"Why?”

“Why do you even care?” She was yelling now and couldn’t bring herself to stop. She didn’t know if she was angry or scared or broken in a way beyond naming as a human emotion, but her insides felt like they were burning and freezing and collapsing into a void. “You only brought me here to annoy Tamlin! And you only kept me alive Under the Mountain so I could break the curse! You don't need me for anything anymore. Why would you care what happens to me now? And don't tell me it's to catch a fucking Suriel.”

He just looked at her for a moment before quietly saying, "Are you asking why I care, or why you should care?”

To her embarrassment, Feyre felt tears suddenly welling in her eyes.

“I’ve told you what I need your help with,” he continued. “I've told you… as much as I can for now. And–”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Is it that hard for you to believe someone gives a shit if you survive? Or is it just hard to believe anything good about me?”

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“Doesn’t it? I’m the one who broke you, aren’t I? I’m the one whose face is in your nightmares.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Are you sure you don't? You're the one who brought it up. Do you think I can’t handle being hated? Do you think five hundred years hasn’t been enough time to get used to being feared?”

“Are you some kind of masochist? Everyone assumes you brought me here to torture me but–”

‘I don’t care what everyone thinks. Everyone isn’t important.”

“–But the way you're acting, you’d think you want me to attack you.”

Something flashed across his face, strangely like pain, or vulnerability. Feyre narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want me to hurt you? Are you just looking for an excuse to retaliate? Are you bored?”

“Never with you, Feyre darling,” he said tightly.

“Well, find someone else to play with. I don’t want to be part of any more games.”

“It isn’t a game. I – we need your help. With the war.”

“I don’t care what you need.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. But I care what you need. And maybe you need to hurt someone.”

Images flooded her brain – blood, red stone, an ash dagger, lifeless eyes – followed by a wave of rage and revulsion. “That is the last thing I need. You think after murdering innocent faeries I would ever want to –”

“Maybe you need to hurt someone who deserves it.”

Silence hung in the air like humidity. Rhysand stared straight at her, as if afraid to move.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of apology?”

“No.”

“Good, because it would be a terrible one.”

“I’m not sorry for helping you. I’m not sorry for risking everything –”

“Risking what?” she scoffed.

“I got you through the trials, didn’t I?”

“I got me through the trials.”

“Yes,” he said, almost urgently, “You did. You got yourself through all of it, Feyre. So get yourself through this.”

“You don't know what you're talking about. I'm going home. I'm happy.” The last word came out half choked with a sob, her own body betraying her. Feyre squeezed her eyes shut as if she could block the whole world out. She heard him step around the table and turning to face him realized with horror she couldn't open them. “What did you do?” She gasped out. “What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t – oh…”

Something gently brushed against her cheek and she lurched backwards. “Don’t touch me!”

She felt, rather than saw, the shockwave of air blast out of her hands. In the blind chaos of sound and impact, she couldn’t tell if her head collided with the table or if some fragment of the shattering furniture and dishes hit her as shrapnel. Before she could make sense of what was happening, she was on the floor, the noise dying out into the faint tinkle of falling glass, and then silence, as quickly as it had started.

“Feyre?” He sounded winded. And on the other side of the room. 

Something warm was trickling down her forehead. Bursts of static colour sparking behind her eyelids like dizzying fireflies. “Why can’t I see?” She whispered.

“You froze your tears, darling,” he said softly.  He sounded closer now, but still waiting at a distance. “Can I help you?”

Feyre forced herself to breathe through her nose, trying to gain some control over the panic and disorientation. “No. Leave me alone.” She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids, wincing at the unnatural cold. 

“Are you hurt?”

Her head throbbed and her hands couldn't stop shaking. She didn’t want to face him. To see what she had done. She shouldn’t be allowed near anyone. If he had been so mad about Tamlin losing control in his own study, what must he think of her destroying his home? Gods, she had thrown him across the room. Why hadn't he hit her back? Her head was spinning too fast to think. Why hadn't he defended himself?

“I don’t need your help and I don’t need your magic,” she mumbled, fighting back nausea.

She didn’t hear him move, but when her eyes finally opened, burning in the brightness of day, there were no traces of the broken table or splintered chairs. No spilled bottles or crushed fruit. The moonstone floor gleamed in the gray light of the rumbling sky, and he was already gone.

Chapter Text

Feyre didn’t remember coming back to her room. She must have walked here at some point, after sitting on the floor of the empty breakfast room for what felt like hours, but could have been minutes, waiting for her vision to clear. She must have changed into night clothes and washed the blood off her face. Gotten into bed. Fallen asleep, somehow. Slept through the arrival of whoever, or whatever, had set the tray of food she now stared at on her bedside table.

It was morning. Actual morning, not long past dawn, if she had to guess. Feyre supposed that made sense. How much sleep could a person need after waking up, having a single meal, smashing the entire contents of a room, and yelling at the one person in the world who was actually trying to help them, before immediately passing out again?

She felt almost disappointed that her head didn’t really hurt anymore. Healing was hardly at the top of the list of most dangerous powers she may or may not have – and may or may not have any semblance control over – but it didn’t seem fair for her body to be so out of sync with her mind. Why could her bones and bruises mend themselves overnight while her soul was still bleeding out over damage from months ago. Some of it years ago, if she was honest with herself. Which she had very little desire to be at the moment. 

She pulled the tray onto her lap, more for a distraction than anything. She wasn’t hungry. The scent of cinnamon and strawberries and something unfamiliar that she could only describe as warm-smelling wafted up from the plate as soon as she took the cover off. Maybe she was a little hungry.

Feyre had eaten almost all of her breakfast before she noticed the neatly folded piece of paper tucked under a glass of pale pink fruit juice. At first glance she had mistaken it for a napkin. This was only the second time in her life anyone had ever left her a note. What would have been the point before? She tried to keep her breathing even as she unfolded it. The handwriting was easy to decipher. It was the script she had learned to read on, afterall. 

I can bring you back to Spring whenever you wake up. I will be in the library. If you would prefer not to see me before you leave, Mor can winnow you. Her room is left at the end of your corridor, third door past the fountain. She will be expecting you. 

Feyre flipped the page over. That’s it? She didn’t know what she had expected. Not that she had expected a note at all. Was he angry at her? Giving up? Somehow satisfied enough with her shielding that he was going to just let her leave despite her obvious inability to control her powers? Maybe he was just happy to be rid of her for the rest of the month.

Before she had time to overthink it, Feyre got dressed and walked out the door.

*

Feyre stood outside the library door, trying to decide if she should knock. He had said he would be here, but he surely wouldn’t be expecting her this early. The soft sound of a page turning sliced through her indecision and she reached for the handle before she could let the impulse to run back to her room and hide under the covers take over.

It's fine, she told herself. Just go in. Apologize like a grown up . Her knuckles were white as she gripped the doorknob. She was probably going to leave dents in it, just to add to her trail of destruction. She took a deep breath. Come on. Stop being a baby. It's just Rhysand.  

“I am not just anything,” a muffled voice protested through the wooden door. “What happened to your mental shields?”

He sounded… normal. Slightly indignant. Chastising her with the same tone he always used when she didn't keep her thoughts properly contained. Which was fair enough, given that she would prefer not to hear her own thoughts either most of the time.  

She pushed the door open. Rhysand was lounged across a window seat like some kind of large sleek cat, looking far too poised to pull off the casual air he was obviously going for. He didn't look up from the book in his lap as she walked in.

“Well?”

“Well…?”

“Shields, Feyre darling. Where are they?”

“I thought it would be better if I didn't do any magic until…for now.”

“It would not. And mental shields aren't magic any more than putting on shoes to go outside is.”

“Oh.” She took a deep breath. “I'm sorry for–”

“And stop fretting about breaking highly replaceable furniture. Mor will be delighted to have an opportunity to redecorate. Which potentially is something to fret about, come to think of it.”

“Was she here yesterday? When I… um…I hope I didn't – I don't want anyone to feel unsafe because of me.” 

Rhysand’s laugh was jarringly natural sounding. “Mor’s main duty is to preside over the Court of Nightmares. I assure you, any afternoon where unusually strong indoor winds were the worst thing she had to deal with would seem like a delightful vacation to her. She was not here though. I asked her to be available this morning in case you wanted… alternative travel arrangements.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Didn't seem fair to make you choose between avoiding me and leaving.”

“Oh.” 

Rhysand was looking at her as if he could read her thoughts if he focused hard enough. Which he definitely could. And yet kept insisting she not allow to happen. Gods, he was impossible to understand.

“What are you reading?” Feyre asked, to fill the silence.

He seemed genuinely caught off guard by the question. 

“Ah, I don't know.” He flipped the book back to the cover and frowned in confusion before closing it and tossing it onto a nearby desk. “Did you want to go now, or was there anything else you needed to…uh... we don't have to rush, if you have any more questions about… anything. Or want more tea…?” 

Feyre felt the odd impulse to reassure him. About what, she didn't know. Had he hit his head too? He seemed even more lost than she was. 

“Why are you letting me leave?”

“What?” He glanced around the room as if one of the books could answer for him. “You don't have to leave.”

“You said if I wanted to leave, I had to be able to control my magic well enough to shield consistently. Not learn to blow up a room back at him.” 

The light flickered for a split second, as if all the shadows in the room had flinched. 

“You did learn. You learned remarkably quickly actually.”

“But I wasn't in control.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly in control either, yesterday, so that's hardly a fair metric to be judging you by.” 

Feyre didn't know what to say. 

“I was always going to let you leave,” he said, turning from her to look out the window. “I just wasn't going to take you back to… him. There are other courts. Other kingdoms. A continent full of fae who owe you their freedom. You aren't anyone's prisoner Feyre. Not anymore.”

“Spring is my – it's as close as I’ve ever had to a home.”

Rhysand nodded, looking lost in thought for a moment, then suddenly stood and walked towards her, offering his hand.

“Keep your shields up. Both kinds, as often as you can. Weak but consistent is better than burning yourself out and dropping them altogether. Do the meditation we practiced before sleep and check how it held up first thing in the morning. Or afternoon. Whenever you wake up,” he said smiling half-heartedly. “Ready?”

Feyre nodded, taking his hand, then a thought suddenly occurring to her, blurted out “Wait!” 

Rhysand froze, his grip on her hand almost imperceptibly tightening.

“Will he be able to tell if I have a shield up?”

He exhaled. “If he is paying any kind of attention to you, he will be able to sense you using magic.”

“He never noticed when I practiced the mental shields.”

“Tamlin is not a daemati. That's different. It's like a sense almost everyone else is blind in.”

“There are others like you?”

“There are a handful of other daemati in the world, with varying degrees of power. But no one is like me, Feyre darling,” he said, winking at her. He was acting more like his usual self than he had since two days ago, but Feyre had the odd sense it was more for her benefit than his.

“I don't want him to think I don't trust him. That I don't feel safe with him. He worries…”

“Anyone who genuinely cares about your safety would want you to be shielded. If he–” Rhysand cut himself off at Feyre's expression and took a breath. “What you tell him is up to you, but if you keep a low level permeable shield active consistently, he won't necessarily recognize it as an intentional casting. Especially if he isn't expecting it. The more organic shaping of the spell could easily be mistaken for poor containment.”

“Containment?”

“He’ll probably just assume you’re leaking magic. Which you were already doing when you got here.”

“He never said anything about that.”

Rhysand didn't reply. 

“What if he notices it’s different now?”

“Would he even tell you if he did?”

“I…”

Rhysand sighed. “If he gets too worked up about it, just pretend to be as clueless as he seems to have somehow convinced himself you are. You’ve just spent a week in my court. Unless evidence otherwise punches him in the face, he’ll just assume anything wrong with you is my fault, so you might as well use it to your advantage. Let him think I put some kind of nefariously subtle curse on you, if it makes things easier.”

“I don’t want him to hate you.”

He let out a breathy laugh. “That ship sailed long before anyone even dreamed of you. He can be as mad at me as he likes as long as you aren’t caught in the crossfire.”

“I’m sorry. I wish it wasn't all so complicated.” She looked down and mumbled, “I don't know why I'm nervous. I'm just going home.”

He placed his other hand under her chin, gently tilting her face up to meet his eyes, filled with some emotion she couldn't decipher.

“It’s ok. You’ll be ok. It’s warm there, right? You can go outside. If you… like doing that. And sleep as much as you want. And you like… Lucien… for some reason..?” He trailed off awkwardly and Feyre choked out a laugh as she held back the tears threatening to form against her will.

“Are you going to tell me about how cute the baby animals are next?”

His posture relaxed slightly, as if tension she hadn’t even noticed before was melting away along with her own anxiety.

“I can’t say I'm especially well informed about the non-lethal fauna of other courts. Perhaps you could take notes and report back to me.”

“Perhaps.”

“I expect illustrations too. Accuracy optional.”

Feyre took a slow breath in and out and squeezed the hand he still hadn't let go of. “Ok. Let's go.”

Almost before she finished speaking, the Night Court vanished. A swirl of shadows curled around both of them like a blanket before melting away into the soft, dewy light of Spring.

Chapter Text

Feyre blinked in the dappled light filtering through the gently swaying oak leaves above them. The air tasted green. Tiny brightly feathered birds chased each other overhead, their songs jarringly loud after the stark silence of the mountains. 

Rhysand spoke without looking at her, his voice so quiet it was almost inaudible.  “Feyre, if anything…if you ever need to, for any reason, just drop your mental shields.”

“But you said–”

“Unless another daemati is right next to you, I'll sense you before–”

“FEYRE!”

It was almost as if she could see a physical mask sliding over Rhysand’s face at the sound of Tamlin’s voice. His mouth curled into a smile like a scrap of paper thrown on a fire. “What an enthusiastic welcome,” he drawled at normal volume, “They must have been so terribly bored here without you to entertain them, Feyre darling.”

She stayed silent, dampness from the morning dew soaking into her light shoes as Tamlin approached, claws already sprouting from his clenched fists.

“Let her go and get out,” he growled. 

Rhysand grinned, but she almost thought she felt his hand shake as he dropped hers. “Try to remember to feed her this time. It is important to look after one’s pets, you know.”

Before Feyre could even open her mouth to protest, he was already vanishing, a shadow burned away by the rising sun. 

Tamlin didn’t say anything as he took her arm and started towards the manor, walking slightly too fast but holding onto her tightly enough she couldn’t have fallen even if she did stumble. Lucien came bursting out of the doors before they were halfway there.

“Feyre!” His smile didn’t quite cover the stress etched into his face, but was refreshingly genuine. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks, Lucien,” she replied, glancing up at Tamlin who was still half dragging her across the lawn. “How have things been here?”

He darted up the stairs ahead of them to open the door before he could answer. Feyre flinched as it slammed shut behind them and felt Tamlin draw her closer in response. 

“You look… well,” Lucien said, his voice a strange mix of relief and calculation. 

“Make sure he’s gone,” Tamlin said, turning to his friend for the first time. Lucien just nodded and spared Feyre another quick smile before disappearing back out the door. 

“I’m sure Rhysand has better things to do with his time than lurk around the gardens. I know he acts like–”

“Did he seem unusually busy?”

“Well, I mean, some days he was gone. When Mor was there–”

“You saw The Morrigan again?”

“She ate lunch with us one day.”

“Lunch.”

“Yeah. She’s… I like her.  It was nice to have someone else to talk to.”

“Feyre…” Tamlin cupped a hand around her face, running a thumb along her cheekbone. “I know it must be… I understand why you would want a friend while you're… in a place like that. But you have to remember, everything he does is calculated. Every person you meet there, every sentence you overhear is because he wanted you to. The Morrigan has a reputation and it is not for friendship. That she’s capable of concealing her true nature behind charm and beauty just makes her all the more dangerous.”

“She said almost the exact same thing about Ianthe.”

Tamlin frowned. “This is exactly what I mean. She’s already trying to turn you against the people who care about you. Isolate you even further to get closer to you. Get you to confide in her.”

“I’m not stupid. And I don’t even know anything important enough for her to bother trying to wheedle information out of me anyway.”

“I know you aren’t stupid, love, but you’re… still so new to this world. You don’t know how dangerous it can be.”

Feyre almost laughed. “I’m pretty sure I’m aware that Prythian is dangerous. I think something about dying might have tipped me off.” She was surprised how angry she sounded. And based on Tamlin’s face, so was he. This was not going well. She was supposed to be laying low so he didn’t notice anything different about her. Acting normal. Whatever passed for normal these days. 

“I’m sorry. I’ve spent all week arguing with Rhysand. I guess it’s just strange adjusting to being back here.”

“I’ll find a way to end the bargain. I promise. You won’t have to deal with him much longer.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t ended it himself, based on how irritating he seems to find me,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “He’s a lot less tolerant of my sleep schedule than you.”

“You can rest as much as you need now. We just need to go over what happened this week, then you–”

“Does it have to be right now? Nothing interesting happened.” She hated how whiny she sounded, but hated the idea of trying to gloss over an entire week of magic training as if it wasn’t a lie even more.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. We can’t risk you forgetting anything.”

Feyre looked down, trying to steel herself for the interrogation. Tamlin tilted her chin up and softly said, “It’s to keep you safe, Feyre. The more we know, the faster I can find a way to get you out of this.” He brushed aside her hair to kiss her and froze. “What is that?”

“What?”

Tamlin spun her around to face an ornately gilded mirror hanging on the wall of the entryway, hand clenched so tight on her shoulder it almost hurt. 

Her eyes shot to the faintest pink line, barely raised, on her forehead, already so far healed she had forgotten it was there. 

“Oh. I fell over.”

She could feel him shaking through her whole body just from the hand gripping her shoulder. 

“The truth, Feyre.”

“I swear, that's all, I tripped over a chair and hit my head on the table at breakfast yesterday.”

“If he threatened you, you can tell me. Whatever he did, whatever he said–”

“He didn't do anything. I did more damage to his furniture than it did to me.”

“This isn't funny, Feyre. I need to know what happened. Everything .”

She sighed. “I know. But can’t it wait for tomorrow? I just got back. I’m tired. I promise I won't forget anything important, I just want to–”

“If he hurt you I'm not waiting to find out while he prepares his armies for–”

“ Armies?” Feyre spun to look at Tamlin in shock. “You are not going to war over a bruise the size of a toothpick! Nothing even– you wouldn't– I’m not worth–” Her chest felt tight, breath constricted under the rising panic. 

“I told him if he hurt you–

“He didn't hurt me!” Her voice cracked as panic stabbed through her chest. “I promise. Tamlin, look at me.” She laid a trembling hand on his cheek and turned his face down to her, looking into his eyes as calmly as she could. “I'm fine. I'm safe. I'm here. The worst he did was throw a piece of fruit at me and that was just to be annoying.” Feyre forced a smile onto her face, breathing deeply as if she could slow down time through willpower alone before everything spiraled out of control. “You can't hold him accountable for me being clumsy.”

“I can hold him accountable for any damn thing that happens to you in that godsforsaken hell hole of a court he dragged you into.”

“Please,” she whispered, “Please just be happy I'm back. We're together. Everything is fine.” She pulled him closer and leaned into his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his heart thundering where her head rested against his chest. “Everything is fine,” Feyre repeated softly, wishing she meant it. 

*

Feyre barely remembered how she got through the hours in Tamlin’s study, recounting everything from what she ate for breakfast to how many doors were in the hallway to her room (The same number as there had been last week. Yes, she was sure. No, she hadn’t noticed anything different about the palace. Yes, she could draw the layout again just in case. No, she hadn’t looked in any of the closed rooms. No, she hadn’t checked if they were locked. Yes, she remembered where the war room was. No, she hadn’t gone there. Maybe, how was she supposed to know if someone was secretly watching her if it was a secret? No, she hadn’t seen any servants. Probably, because Rhysand definitely wasn’t cooking their meals. Seriously? Does he look like he’s ever peeled a potato?)

At some point Lucien reappeared, adding his own, less demanding but just as detailed, questioning to the mix. For once, she was grateful for the brain fog that had dulled her memory and motivation for the last few months. It was easier than she expected to mumble vague outlines of days lost to sleep and cloud gazing and nothingness. The idea of her drifting through an entire week without really doing anything was hardly surprising to either of them. Neither pushed her to account for the hours spent meditating and studying and shattering glass across that gleaming white floor which was already starting to feel like it was part of some distant dream, dissolving away into familiar reality. 

It bothered her a bit, that they both expected so little of her. It bothered her more that they weren’t really wrong. If Rhysand hadn’t showed up to pester her every time she started to sink back into the fog, she probably would have given up on training after a day. 

By the time they finally ran out of questions to ask – or rather when Lucien pointed out that Tamlin had already asked that. And that. And shouldn’t Feyre probably eat something soon – the afternoon sun was slanting in through the study window. It was golden and warm and hazy, making her want to find a window seat and sleep the rest of the evening away like a cat curled up in a sunbeam. That reminded her of Rhysand calling her a pet, which made her itch with irritation. 

Lucien had the good grace not to look wounded when she snapped at him for the third time over the dinner table, while he politely tried to construct a conversation around everyone else’s bad moods. She felt bad, realizing how delicately he navigated the social atmosphere of his own home. Even living in a dilapidated shed with Nesta had been less tense than this. At least then she had been able to escape to the forest. It had never been safe, or enjoyable, or hers, but there had been a strange kind of freedom in no one wanting to know what she did there.

Based on the little she knew of his family, Lucien probably didn’t even consider one brooding high lord and one broken ex-human to be a particularly difficult social dynamic to manage. But she wondered if it bothered him, that every twig and blade of grass he stepped on belonged to Tamlin. That they were friends, but would never be equals. No decisions made without permission. No word spoken without considering someone else’s temper. 

Unbidden, an image floated to the surface of her mind: Mor’s bright glittering laugh as Rhysand cussed her out for spilling crumbs on his suit. Crumbs Feyre now knew he could have easily vaporized along with everything else in the room, including his cousin. At the time she had been thrown off by the informality of it all. But it hadn’t really been the lack of deference that confused her; it had been the lack of fear. 

Mor must know what Rhysand was capable of; they had grown up together. She wasn’t stupid or naive. She wasn’t self destructive. She was just born into a world of darkness and power and danger and chose not to be broken by it. Because what other choice was there?

Maybe that was why Feyre liked her so much. She wanted that back: the only thing she missed about the half feral girl who had hunted alone in the woods. Who had stumbled closer to the wall with each snap of winter against her heels. Who had shot down a wolf with an ash arrow, not out of hatred for faeries or a need to prove anything to anyone, but just because getting mauled to death in a forest wasn’t really any worse than slowly starving in a freezing cabin where no one would look death in the eye.

For so many years, risking her life had been the price of a chance to keep it. It wasn’t a fair price, but there were no gods left in the world to argue with, so it was the price she had paid. 

She looked at Tamlin across the table. Head down. Mechanically eating dinner like it was just another task to get over with so he could move on to the next. He was a warrior. A protector of his people. A survivor of a war and an occupation and a hundred other things she might never know about. But he had never been mortal. 

He had known loss. His family. His freedom. Her. 

But perhaps death haunted people differently without the weight and the peace of inevitability to temper it. The reckless bravery of having everything to lose, but knowing you’re going to lose it all anyway. 

Had that been taken from her, when she was made?

Was that why she had spent the last four months floating somewhere outside of her life as her body and mind both starved? Why everyone was just watching and waiting for healing to come to her, like a tame bird fluttering home? Why she wasn’t hunting it? 

She set her fork down beside her empty plate. Thought of the useless knife she had once stolen from this table. The doomed escape attempts before she could see through glamours. The words that would have broken the curse catching in her throat as she was sent away. The empty manor when she returned too late. The door she had taken into the mountain, with no plan and no information and nothing to bargain with but her life. 

Failure after failure, mistake after mistake. Why hadn’t she stopped?

It wasn’t hope. She had never really had hope. It was because no one was going to save her unless she did it herself, so it didn’t matter if she didn’t know how.

She didn’t know what she needed now, to survive this. But apparently no one else knew either. So why should any of them get to decide what was worth trying?

“I’m going to go for a ride tomorrow.”

Tamlin exchanged a look with Lucien before replying, “Alright, I can arrange for–”

“Alone.”

Chapter Text

Feyre knew better than to think that simply making a declaration and walking out of the room would secure her sudden complete autonomy mere hours after being dropped back onto Tamlin’s doorstep by his worst enemy. She also knew better than to argue with him when his face looked like that . But fuck it. She had just spent a week being the world's worst house guest to someone who could vaporize people. What was a little more recklessness?

She could almost hear the tension in the room, like a droning hum that increased in pitch every time she refused to back down. Every measured caution she dismissed. Every plea for patience she denied. She didn’t try to reason with him this time. Or beg. Or explain. Afterall, how could she expect to convince anyone that she could look after herself while actively avoiding any suspicion that she actually could ? 

She wanted to blast Tamlin and Lucien–who wasn’t so much helping as helping smooth things over–clear across the room just to prove she wasn’t defenseless. But gods knew what kind of reaction that would get out of Tamlin. So she just repeated what she had said as calmly as she could, steeling herself against the hurt in his eyes. The fear. The love. 

Love me the way I need , she wanted to scream. Love me like a person. Like a huma– not like a human. Like an equal.

But she would never be an equal in his eyes. She would never be a High Lord. And even if she was, she would still be able to die. A hostage to possibility, forever, unaging, but not truly immortal. 

Nothing would ever be enough.

What if he can’t heal from this? She thought, eyes suddenly stinging as she fought against the realization. She couldn’t cry. Not now. Not when she was close to gaining her first step towards freedom. Towards her own recovery. But she couldn’t fight him forever. 

“Tamlin–”

“No.”

Her head ached with the strain of keeping her composure while holding a shield in place. She felt it stutter and flare around her like a bonfire collapsing in on itself and slammed a fresh wave of power into it before the whole thing came down. Lucien’s eye flicked towards her for a moment then away again as if it couldn’t focus. That had been overkill, even for her own feeble sense of control. How hadn’t he noticed?

“Tam,” he started, reaching towards his friend as if trying to soothe a wild animal, “Rein it in.”

A low guttural snarl rumbled from deep in Tamlin’s chest. With a start, Feyre realized why Lucien’s spellsight was blinded. The whole room was full of magic. Not ambiently, like the currents and echoes she had sensed in the Night Court. The buzzing vibration she had mistaken for anxiety was now palpable. It felt like the moment before a lightning strike. 

Feyre’s breath caught in her throat as she noticed his talons gouged deep into the surface of the wooden table, knuckles white and shaking as if trying to physically grip onto control.

“Tam, please. Last time–”

A deafening crack resounded through the room. Feyre jolted backwards, tripping over her own feet as her arms flew up instinctively to cover her face. She landed hard on the floor, breath knocked out of her. For a moment she was frozen, staring up at the gleaming chandelier as her body inventoried for damage. The candles were still lit. Crystals intact, swaying gently in the breeze from the open window. 

It was oddly silent. She hadn’t hit her head, but everything felt muffled, as if her thoughts were outside, knocking at the edges of her consciousness trying to get in. Trying to tell her to get up or duck or run away or scream or fight. But a deep exhausted blankness was settling over everything like snow. What if she just never moved again? What if she just lay right here until moss grew over her body, turning her into part of the soft green carpet?

She inhaled sharply, brought back to the present by a sudden twinge in her chest. Her shield had somehow remained in place, drifting as flimsily as one of her gauze petticoats over her skin. Around it, she sensed something else, like a thin shell of invisible heat and light. Impermeable, she thought hazily, stumbling to her feet as it dissipated.

For the most part, the dining room looked exactly as it had a moment ago: the last gasps of evening light filtering pink through fluttering rose petals, the sawtooth leaves and thorns of the briar outside softened into dappled brush strokes of shadow across the velvet carpet, golden candlelight catching on the glistening decanters and bottles that lined the sideboard like rows of soldiers.

But the table, solid wood half a foot thick and dark with age, was split clean down the middle. It hadn’t even fallen over, held in place by its own weight. The unfinished wine in Feyre’s glass was already settling back into stillness as the oppressive crush of magic sank back into the earth beneath them, like a broken wave vanishing into sand as it rejoined the sea.

Tamlin’s chair was empty. Lucien stood alone next to the table, a thin line of red across his cheek where a stray splinter had caught his face. He had shielded her instead of himself. He glanced her over quickly then nodded, satisfied she wasn’t injured, sparing both of them the pointlessness of asking if she was alright. Were any of them alright? Was anyone in this godsforsaken continent ever going to be alright again? Lucien just looked tired. 

“I’ll walk you to your room.”

“Where…”

“I don't know. He winnowed away as soon as he saw you weren’t…” He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I’m sure he’ll be back by morning. Probably out in the forest settling down. Which is progress, I suppose.”

Feyre wordlessly followed him out of the room. She couldn’t thank him for shielding her. She wasn’t supposed to know that he had. How many times had he done that before?

She felt hollow. A faint echo of the fear and relief she should be feeling ricocheting around her head. The emotions felt distant, as if not her own. As if the heavy numbness seeping back into her mind and body was smothering the tiny spark of purpose she had breathed life into for a moment.

She said goodnight quietly to Lucien without looking up when they reached her bedroom.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he replied.

Feyre paused for a moment before closing the door. “So am I.” Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. “It’s good to be home.”

*

Feyre changed into the nightclothes Alis had laid out on her bed just for something to do, tugging at laces  and peeling off layers of silk mechanically. She already knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Her body felt wired and exhausted at the same time, fingers cold and face too hot. An itch in her head, like the maddeningly subtle sensation of a stray thread brushing against skin somewhere that can’t be scratched.

She dimly noted the presence of at least three different layers of wards just outside her window, but didn’t bother to examine them. She almost laughed, imagining the chaos it would cause, after everything Tamlin had done to protect her from the other courts, if she broke her neck falling out a window while studying spells just to alleviate her boredom.

She thought back to the night Rhysand had winnowed back from whatever miserable, volatile part of his territory he was supposed to be attending to just to tackle her off the ledge. And gotten nothing but a bloody nose as thanks. Perhaps he had just been preempting the undoubtedly arduous political ramifications of showing up empty handed at the end of the week. Sorry your would-be bride is missing; in my defense, she's an idiot and can't fly.

But there had been a moment, before his usual mocking flirtation slid back into place, when he had seemed genuinely afraid. Of Tamlin? Of her? Of what was wrong with her?

She had almost convinced herself she could fix it, whatever this aching chasm that had ripped open inside her heart was. Or at least muster up enough energy to care about it being there. To try. She hadn’t been sure she had anything left inside to fight with. Just a broken once-human heart and a body full of untamed magics at war with each other, facing off against the void.

But now she wasn’t even sure what she would be fighting for.

She was supposed to be Tamlin’s bride. But she couldn’t even have a conversation with him. She couldn’t even keep the peace for one night, too caught up in her selfish desires to ride around the countryside accomplishing nothing but her own entertainment.

She was supposed to care for her people. But her only real friend had just gotten hurt because she was lying to him about her magic. If Tamlin hadn’t winnowed away before he lost control completely, Lucien could have died giving her a shield she didn’t even need. Protecting someone who didn’t even like being alive.

She was supposed to be The Cursebreaker. She was cursed with an eternal bargain that was driving her lover mad with stress. Hands stained with blood that would never rinse away and ink she couldn’t even bring herself to regret properly, because it gave her an escape from everyone she was failing. 

She was supposed to be the Lady of Spring. But she was nothing like spring. She was not soft flowers or bright dewy mornings or new beginnings. She was the frost that killed fresh buds before they could bloom. Sleepless nights and bad dreams and not letting go of the past. 

The emerald on her finger glinted in the dim light like it was taunting her. Feyre blew out the candle so she didn’t have to look at it. In the darkness, she could see the faint pinpricks of stars emerging through the window. They had once seemed so bright here. So magical.

She curled into bed, wrapping blankets over her head as if she could smother the whispering restlessness of her brain. A tear traced its way across the bridge of her nose and down her other cheek. She was never going to be that person again. Someone with hope. Someone fit to be loved.

Something brushed softly against the borders of her mind. Her eyes snapped open. 

There it was again. Not intruding, but flowing around the edges of her awareness. Like a cat following silently behind each spiralling thought. Like a shadow.

Fucking hell. 

Her mental shield was still strong, now such a habit she didn’t have to think of it any more than breathing, be she drew more power into it anyway, at a loss for how else to communicate leave me alone I’m trying to sleep half way across a continent.

The feeling stilled but somehow didn’t feel gone. Like a hand resting on her shoulder rather than tapping. An unanswered question.

Cauldron boil him; was he going to watch over her the entire time she was away? She knew damn well he had plenty of better things to do. A court to rule. A war to prevent. An infinitesimal dust mote to pick off a jacket. 

It was a pity she couldn’t send him some kind of letter outlining why he was being stupid, but there was no way in hell she was explaining to Tamlin why she needed to send a messenger to the Night Court. Oh don’t worry, I just need to tell Rhysand to stop lurking around my mind like I promised you he wasn’t doing. Nothing to be concerned about. 

Three weeks of ignoring him and tiptoeing around Tamlin was going to drive her insane. And she couldn’t do anything about it until she saw him again.

Or could she?

He could send thoughts to her. He had said once she ‘blasted her thoughts in his direction’ when she was upset.  Was that just a figure of speech? Could she do it on purpose?

Feyre felt inside for the familiar glowing thread of the bargain bond. There. Deep in her chest, like a violin string attached to her heart, vibrating at a frequency no one else could hear. She took three deep breaths, one after the other, begrudgingly using the meditation he had taught her to focus. Then held the words gingerly in her mind and imagined throwing them along that invisible tether:

STOP HOVERING

Nothing. She felt stupid. Like a child arguing with an imaginary friend. She rolled over in bed, resigning herself to a sleepless night. 

A breath later she sat bolt upright, punched in the head with a glittering burst of emotion: shock, relief, something like panic, and unmistakable delight.

Before she could recover enough to realize it had worked, his voice was in her head.

Baby fae’s first words! Congratulations, Feyre darling, you've officially surpassed ‘toddler faerie’ levels of magic, as you so charmingly put it once. 

She could feel the distance, as if his words were ricocheting their way down stony canyons and reaching her half weathered away on a gust of wind.

Get. Out. Of. My. Head.

She already felt drained, as if picking up boulders and hurling them in his direction with every word.

I’m not in your head. Anymore than I’m inside your ear when you hear me. Or inside your eyes when you think about how much prettier I am than Tamlin.

You’re. An. Asshole.

And you’re a daemati.

Chapter Text

Tamlin wasn’t at breakfast the next morning. Or lunch. But she could feel him nearby, stalking through the grounds of the manor when he returned later that afternoon. Even her sharpened fae senses wouldn’t have been able to hear a single person’s footsteps all the way across the gardens from inside her room with the windows closed, but somehow she knew.

Ever since Rhysand had done that weird mind-filtering trick to help her focus, the subtle shifts and sparks of ambient magic flickered on the periphery of her awareness everywhere she went. Of course, he had blatantly refused to keep doing it after the first demonstration, insisting she develop the ability herself. Which she was trying to do. Sometimes. Around every other fascinating yet also infuriatingly boring task he had set her to practice. 

It wasn’t like he could actually make her do any of it while she was in Spring. But what else did she have to do? So Feyre had been sitting cross legged on her bed, begrudgingly meditating, when she noticed it. 

The ambient magic of Spring felt different than the Night Court, but just as elusive. Natural currents of power flowed through the air and earth and plants, even into the wooden beams of the walls and cool depths of the stone foundations beneath the manor. She could just barely make out their dim movements. It was like trying to look at a breeze. The magic had no form, just something like… direction maybe? 

She had spent nearly an hour trying to follow invisible paths, half sure she was just imaging all of it, before she noticed a pattern. Every slippery thread of power seemed to converge on one point. Not emanating from it, or being consumed by it, but drawn into and through it, transformed or focused somehow. Like raw wool running through a spinning wheel. Light through a curved lens of glass.

How she knew it was Tamlin, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was something to do with being a Daemati. She still didn’t really understand what that meant. Mentally yelling at Rhysand the night before had exhausted her so quickly she had fallen asleep almost immediately after making contact. 

Would it always be that difficult, speaking mind to mind? She couldn’t exactly test it out on anyone here to check how distance factored in. There was still so much she didn’t know about magic. Everyone spoke about powers as if they were innate– something you were either born with or not born with. What you could do seemed to be tied to the courts, albeit with a confusing amount of overlap. How well you could do it… was that inherited? Learned? A matter of willpower or dedication? Something to grow into like height or something to train like a muscle? Tamlin certainly wasn’t going to tell her. Or Ianthe. And she couldn’t risk getting Lucien or Alis in trouble by asking either of them.

She supposed she could ask Rhysand, if she was ever in the mood for a lecture about obscure magical theory that didn’t answer her question at all. Or to be flippantly told to start with exercising her real muscles first and get out of bed.

She still didn't understand him well enough to predict how he would react to anything. Interacting with the High Lord of the Night Court was like rolling dice that might bite you. Every time she thought she was getting closer to knowing him he turned into someone else. Did she want to understand him? She wasn’t even sure she wanted to understand herself. 

Feyre was hesitating on the verge of trying to reach for his mind again when a gentle knock jolted her back to the present. 

“Yes?” She called out after a little too long of a pause. “Come in.” 

Alis opened the door as Feyre tugged the wrinkles out of her dress, for some reason sure that the guilt of the stupid risk she had almost just taken must be visible on her body somehow. It was one thing to hurl demands about leaving her alone into the void, expecting nothing to happen. Quite another to use the bond on purpose now she knew it was possible. What was wrong with her?

If Alis noted anything about Feyre’s flustered demeanor, she had the good grace not to mention it. 

“Dinner will be served shortly, if you’ll be eating downstairs tonight.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Is he…?”

“The High Lord will be in attendance, should you choose to join him.”

Feyre hesitated. She should go talk to him. Apologize. Or smooth over yesterday’s catastrophe of a meal by pretending all was well. Or something. 

Alis looked her up and down. “You don't have to join him.”

Feyre tried to force a smile. “You're usually so much more enthusiastic about getting me out of my room. Getting tired of cleaning wine stains off my evening gowns?” Alis raised her eyebrows at the poor attempt at humour. Feyre sighed. “I should probably at least go see him. I’m sure he’s in a better temper today without having to talk to Rhysand.”

“You should do whatever is best for you , my lady. If you wish me to inform Lord Tamlin that you’re in need of rest this evening, I will do so regardless of what temper he is or isn't in.”

To her embarrassment, Feyre felt a tear prickle in her eye. Alis gave her a moment, fussing about the room with unnecessary tidying. 

“I don’t want to put you in the middle of anything," Feyre mumbled, fidgeting with the lace trim of her dress.

“I'm perfectly capable of putting myself in the middle of whatever I like. I've survived plenty worse than being messenger on the sidelines of a lovers’ quarrel.” Alis slid the drawer she had been pretending to organize shut and made towards the door. “I’ll have a tray sent up. They’ve done minted lamb pie tonight. You used to be fond of that one.”

“Thank you, Alis. I… I’m sorry.”

Alis opened her mouth as if to reply, but then just shook her head, hair rustling like the leaves of a tree, and closed the door softly behind her.

* * * *

Lying in the dark later that night, trying to summon sleep, Feyre found herself once again feeling for the faint traces of magic around her. The vibrating layers of wards just outside the window. Soft prickle of briar stems weaving in and out of the protective shell. A slow unfurling that might be new flowers in the garden. The swirling nexus of power a few rooms away that was her lover. He was awake, she thought. Or maybe just dreaming vividly.

Not wanting to infringe on his privacy, or see anything she would prefer not to, Feyre retracted back from the chiseled edges of Tamlin’s mental barriers. She set her senses wandering around the bedroom, dipping into the cool movement of water in the basin, flicking against the latent fervor of an ember smoldering in the hearth, and snagging on the familiar thread of the bond.

It was easier to grasp onto than the others, perhaps because she had been aware of it for longer. Before she ever tried to feel magic, when she thought about it. Strange that it was so much stronger than other spells. New, yet familiar somehow, like her own power. She ran a finger along a seam line in her bedspread as she followed it absentmindedly. It was oddly soothing, tracing a path all the way across Prythian with her pinkie finger as she waited for sleep to settle over her.

Hello, Feyre darling.

Fuck. 

Go. Away.

I am away. You came to me. 

Accident.

I’m sure. Bored of Spring so soon? Yearning for more scintillating conversation?

No.

What were you trying to do then, that resulted in such a delightful accident?

Sleep.

That would explain your uncharacteristically monosyllabic nature. I don’t think we’ve ever gotten this far into an interaction without you battering me with uncharitable witticisms. 

Her head was already starting to throb. 

Hard. Far?

I'd forgotten how new you are to this. And that you're using your own powers. Quite impressively, I might add. I’m sure even Tamlin would be proud, if he could stop regarding you as some kind of decorative vase long enough to notice you doing something.

Feyre attempted to send an image of herself punching him in the face and was rewarded with a burst of pain that left spots on her vision.

Struggling with the distance, darling? Allow me to ease the burden. 

There was a sudden dizzying twist along that bond. Half relieved, half frustrated, she thought she’d lost the connection for a split second. But his voice returned almost immediately, somehow crisper and less echoey.

Is that better? We can’t have you getting a headache every time you have something horrifyingly rude to say to me.

She tentatively sent an image of herself flipping him off and received in reply what she could only describe as the feeling of a grin.

If you knew how to make it easier, why didn't you do it last night?

You disappeared. I thought you didn't want to talk to me.

I don’t.

Then why are you talking to me?

How do you manage to sound so smug when I can’t even hear your voice?

I think charming is the word you're looking for, and it’s a talent I've been cultivating for centuries. You should try it out some time. Give your face a break from all that glowering.

Rolling her eyes, Feyre decided if she was going to put up with talking to Rhysand she might as well get some information out of him.

Will I get better at diamantifying or whatever this is once I’ve practiced more?

Power hungry already?

I just want to– 

Hey, no complaints from me; at least that’s one kind of hungry. Just try to keep up with the eating-breakfast-before-noon kind of hungry as well. Remember: immortal but still corporeal. You need fuel for the fire if you want to burn the world down.

Can you just answer a question like a normal person for once?

I have no idea if you’re going to get better at it. You’re already terrifyingly good at it compared to most high fae with centuries of experience.

I could barely get five words through without passing out before you started helping.

Oh no. You could barely even locate the most well shielded mind ever to exist amidst tens of thousands of other loudly thinking faeries and transmit recognizable verbal messages to it across five courts. I can think of at least… four other people in the world who could do better than that. Pathetic.

I didn’t track down your mind, I just followed the bargain bond.

There was a pause, as if he was genuinely caught off guard.

Interesting.

Why?

Another disorienting whirl ricocheted down the bond. Feyre blinked as spots of colour danced across the darkness in front of her face. It was even easier to reach him now, but the exertion of using her newfound abilities was making sweat bead on her forehead as if she was sprinting uphill rather than lying in bed. 

Stop doing that; it makes me feel sick.

That’s probably the pollen. 

It’s definitely you. 

Well, I’m available if you need a ride out of the most floraly congested place in Prythian.

What I need is sleep. My head hurts. And it’s late.

Late is right on time for the Night Court.

That sounds like the tagline of a terrible novel.

Look at you, an expert on books now. Judgemental even. Hardly surprising. Not much else to do in Spring except read about the rest of the world, I suppose. 

There’s just as much to do here as there is in your stupid shiny moon palace.

Really? Your return to Too Sunny But Never Actually Warm Land is going well then, I take it?

It's going fantastic , thanks to you. He isn't bothered by our stupid bargain at all. Hardly exploded anything. 

There was a surge of…something, quickly suppressed, which Feyre didn't stop to identify over her own immediate rush of guilt. It was too easy to get caught up in talking to him. Gods, what would Tamlin do if he found out? She didn’t even know how this mental connection worked.

When you make it easier to talk, are you amplifying my diamante powers or just using your own more to help?

Neither. I just came closer so you didn’t have to shout.

Are you IN the manor right now?!

Of course not. 

Feyre sighed in relief. 

I’m almost a mile above it.

ARE YOU INSANE, RHYSAND? WHAT THE HELL?

Why, did you want to go somewhere? 

No! I want you to not start an inter-court war by getting caught spying for no better reason than to satisfy your academic curiosity about my powers.

Oh my curiosity is much more than just academic. 

Go. Home.

Fine. I suppose you do have a busy day of doing absolutely nothing ahead of you.

Actually, I have a busy day of having to sneak out of my own home because someone made Tamlin distrust his own wards so much he won’t let me walk around the garden alone. So maybe that someone could let me rest.

I have a garden. And I’d let you walk around it whenever you want. Do whatever unsupervised garden activities you like. Make yourself a flower crown. Set fire to the shrubs. Scowl at birds.

I don’t want to be let out into your yard like a pet. I’m going to the forest and I’m blocking both of you out so I can have some fucking peace.

Well I’ll be on standby in case I get a last minute invite. I’m a very good sneaking accomplice and I hate being left out of devious plans.

If I find any Bogges I’ll send them your way to keep you company.

Hilarious. Just be careful.

No. You aren’t being careful, why should I?

Tamlin may be a paranoid idiot, but he isn’t lying about the state of the wilds in Prythian. She may be gone but the creatures she brought here are alive and well.

I can take care of myself.

Oh I know you can. Convince me you want to.

I can't believe you're taking his side.

A sharp spasm of emotion split through her head: disgust, pain, and uncertainty, gone again almost as soon as she registered them.

I am taking your side, Feyre. Because I understand your side. I understand how recklessness can feel like the only thing that gives you any sense of control over your own pain. How badly you want to be able to hurt yourself into being better. 

Stop fucking analyzing me. You don’t know how I feel. You don’t know anything about me.

She had stopped sweating finally, but her whole body felt painfully hot, like her blood was singeing the inside of her veins, nausea rippling through her like heat rising off sunbaked rock.

I know how I feel. How I've always felt after–

I don’t give a fuck about your feelings, Rhysand.

Feyre’s bones ached with heat and pressure, like riverstones about to shatter in a bonfire. Distantly, she knew she wasn't actually mad at Rhysand. Not right now at least.  But she was mad, and for some gods forsaken reason, he was the only person it felt safe to be mad at. The only person she wasn’t scared of breaking if she lost control. 

Do you think you're the only one who's ever had to make impossible choices? 

Like the “choices” you made Under the Mountain?

Yes. Exactly like that. 

She was shaking so badly that the dim shapes of her bedroom had started to blur, but she just squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to be the one to give in first and break the connection.

Well you don’t get to choose for me now. I'm sick of everyone wanting me to be someone else. Do something else.

Feyre, you–

You want me to fight but you don’t want me to provoke him. You want me to ask questions but you don’t want to tell me anything. Do something. Stop doing anything. Risk everything when– 

FEYRE, YOUR MAGIC

Someone was banging on the door. Or on her mind. Or both. Her head felt like it was melting.

I’m not– I don’t…

The taste of smoke seared her throat as she gasped in a breath. She tried to feel for the bond, reaching for anything to hold onto in the haze, but her powers shuddered and flared out of her grasp.

Wood splintered across the floor as her bedroom door slammed open. For an instant, she could just make out Tamlin and Lucien’s faces, lit in flickering red light, before cool darkness rushed into her mind like a flood of black water, extinguishing her magic and consciousness as one.

Chapter Text

Feyre woke to the muffled sound of someone arguing in the hallway outside her room. No, not her room. The bedspread was the same soft linen, but in a creamy lilac colour. The wallpaper a gentle periwinkle scattered with silvery birds. She must be in one of the guest rooms. 

Every muscle of her body ached. She rolled over, trying to burrow back into the haven of sleep before it evaporated under the sunlight streaming through the window. Gods she was tired. A strand of hair fell across her face, bringing a whiff of smoke with it.

Her eyes flew open. Sitting upright, she stretched her hands out in front of her. No marks. Her skin felt a little prickly, lips slightly chapped. Dry, like they used to get in the harsh winters on the other side of the wall. But not burnt. 

She pressed her hands to her forehead as she sifted through the remnants of the night before, sorting images into piles: dream, memory, nightmare, nightmarish reality. As the pieces of her evening settled into some kind of comprehensible order, she realized she wasn’t sure if the pounding in her head was actually from a headache. She thumped back. It stopped. 

That answered the question, she supposed, although it didn’t clarify how she should feel about the answer. Well, he couldn’t spend all day pestering her for updates. He had to go run his own court eventually, and no doubt had more important things to do than check in on his disaster of a side project that she was turning out to be.

She tried to clear her throat and coughed, the acrid taste of smoke sharp on her tongue. A moment later, hurried footsteps echoed down the hall and the door cracked open.

“Feyre?”

“I’m awake.” Her voice was slightly hoarse.

Lucien stepped inside, waiting on the threshold as if asking for permission to approach her.

“I’m not a wild animal, you can come in.”

He half smiled and took a couple strides into the room, leaning casually against an expensive looking wardrobe.

“What happened?” Feyre asked.

“You don't remember anything?”

“I…” She realized most of what she did remember couldn't be said out loud. “There was a fire. Did I knock over a candle?”

Lucien hesitated. Feyre saw in his face, or maybe in a flicker of his mind, the moment he chose to tell the truth. “You lost control of your powers.”

“I did that? I set myself on fire?”

“Yes. Well, the bed caught fire, because you were in contact with it. Heat resistance tends to go hand in hand with flame summoning, although they don’t always manifest concurrently. Which can be a problem. You are…a little ahead of schedule for both in terms of typical development.”

She nearly made a joke about him talking about magic almost as pedantically as Rhysand but caught herself just in time.  

“Flame summoning. Autumn?”

He nodded. “One of my brothers was such a prodigy of destruction that my mother had a pool made to float his crib in so he didn’t set the nursery ablaze.”

“An infant could do that?”

“The child of a High Lord could. Pity he didn't, really, considering how he turned out.”

Feyre reached for a pitcher of water on the bedside table, splashing the bed as she fumbled the awkwardly ornate jug. Lucien stooped forward smoothly to take it from her, filling a glass. After handing it to her, he passed his hand slowly across the damp patch on the mattress, steam rising through his fingers. It was dry when he pulled back and took a seat on the end of her bed.

“It will take time, but it is possible to control. I can help you with that part, at least.”

“He’ll let you teach me?”

Lucien grimaced. “I’m working on it. He knows we need to do something, he just…has other ideas.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s taking some time to compose himself,” He said lightly. “We agreed it’s important that you aren’t exposed to any unnecessary stress until we have better safety measures in place.”

“He’s upset.”

“Of course he’s upset, Feyre. You almost burnt out right in front of him.”

“But you said I’m nonflammable or something. Resistant.”

“Right. Well, true, walking in on you roasting yourself like a potato wasn’t exactly a soothing visual, but I meant magical burnout.” Feyre looked at him questioningly. “Younglings usually develop their powers over decades. The offspring of High Lords typically have at least a century of training under their belt before signs of succession start to manifest. It takes time to build up the strength to manage that level of power.”

“So you think I’m too weak to be this strong.”

“How do I explain this?” His golden eye swiveled around the room as if the right words might be hidden somewhere in the pattern of the wallpaper. “The part of you where magic comes from, the part that is magic, it can… break.”

“Well isn’t that exactly what he wants?” Feyre asked, a bit more spitefully than she meant to. 

“No, Feyre. No one wants that. And it isn’t an option, however much he might wish it was. You are fae now. Magic is inherent to your existence. If you ceased to be magic you would cease to be–”

“–Alive?”

“Yes.”

She should feel something about that. Fear, or relief, or acceptance. But she didn’t.

“So last night, the actual fire wasn’t the problem. You all thought– you and Tamlin thought I was going to incinerate my own soul or something.”

Lucien half shrugged, his practiced air of nonchalance never breaking. “We can’t ignore the risk of you physically harming yourself, but that kind of accident is a bit easier for us to intervene in. We can put out sparks. Thaw ice. Mend broken bones. But if you hadn’t fainted when you did…We can’t just throw water on your mind.”

And yet that’s exactly what had happened, she realized. 

The last moments of the previous evening were hazy, but she remembered the heat and vibration, the feeling of everything she was shaking into pieces under the pressure. And then suddenly nothing. Or… not nothing, but darkness. A shadow settling like a cupped hand over a candle, snuffing out her consciousness before it could burn itself away.

* * * * *

Three weeks. It would be three more weeks before she was back at the moon palace. Rhysand obviously couldn’t spend the rest of the month hovering above the manor like some kind of childminding falcon, ready to swoop in and knock her out at a minute's notice if she started to lose it. And gods know she wouldn’t ask him to even if he could. So she would have to figure things out on her own until then.

She just had to stay calm. Not get frustrated. Not lose her temper. Not use her magic beyond the bare minimum of shielding. She couldn't risk trying to talk to him again. It took too much power. And what would she even say? Please send homework? But also please be less annoying than usual–I might die if you piss me off again?

A nagging part of her brain tried to say there was no guarantee he could teach her how to fix this even if she did make it that long, but she needed something to hold onto. And she could already picture his smug face, sauntering in through the front door to tell her she looked terrible or beautiful or breathtakingly mediocre, depending on which one of his personalities he had put on that morning along with his stupid fancy jacket. She imagined the condescending admonishments about her getting carried away slowly devolving into esoteric ramblings about magic theory. He would say a jumble of words that sounded half nonsense but somehow made her feel like one person in the world thought her mess of an existence was more interesting than disturbing.

Tamlin was trying. He really was. He had come to see her that evening, after Lucien left her to nap away the afternoon. He hadn’t tried to make her get up or make her stay in bed. Hadn’t lost his temper when she brought up the idea of Lucien training her in fire magic. Hadn’t panicked at the delicate slivers of frost she accidentally sent lancing across the window pane when he refused. Everything was all “just be patient a little longer” and “I’m here for you” and “I’ll sort it all out, no need to concern yourself.”

She wished she could put the same effort into repairing their relationship. But she was so tired of it all. The lying. The telling the truth just to be ignored or placated. The terrified gentleness. Everyone was treating her like some kind of precious artifact filled with explosives. And the worst part was that everyone was right.

Despite all the best intentions to keep her cool, it was less than two days before she snapped at him. “What arrangements, Tamlin? Why will it be ok? I’m not a child. If you want me to be patient while you get all your plans in place then TELL ME WHAT THEY ARE!”

He didn’t even answer, just softly stroked her hair and said, “I think you need to rest, love. This isn’t like you.”

“Well maybe I’m not like me, Tamlin. Have you ever considered that? You can’t keep waiting for me to turn back into the person I was before we went Under the Mountain. That person doesn’t exist anymore. Do you understand? She died. The girl you fell in love with is dead. This is who I am now. You don’t have to–” Her voice was embarrassingly shaky but she forced herself to continue. “You don’t have to love me anymore, but you do have to accept it.”

“Feyre, don’t say that.” His voice was so gentle she wanted to punch him. He would do anything except listen. “You’re distressing yourself.”

“I’m distressing you. That isn’t the same thing.”

She felt the ambient magic in the room twist slightly, then unwind as Tamlin exhaled slowly. “I know this is stressful for you, love. Being taken away to that horrible place was already bad enough without whatever he did to you to draw this power out so violently, but–”

“That’s ridiculous, Tamlin. He didn’t ‘do’ anything to me. We already knew this could happen before I even went to the Night Court. It was just a matter of time.”

“I know it’s frightening to think of someone tampering with the magic trapped in your body–”

“My magic. They gave it to me. It isn’t stuck in me like some kind of enchanted splinter.”

“Of course. And I’m sure you’ll find a way to live with it peacefully once this has all calmed down. Try to focus on the positives: we’re so fortunate it happened while you were safe here with me. No one else saw; no one ever needs to know. Whatever cruel trick Rhysand concocted to test his theories, he now thinks it failed to trigger anything.”

“For the last time, Rhysand didn’t make me do anything, it was just an accident. He might be an asshole sometimes but even you have to admit he wouldn’t act directly against his own interests, and right now he’s interested in unifying Prythian to prevent a war with Hybern.”

“Rhysand would choose evil even if it hurt him to do so just for the sake of causing more suffering.”

“He isn’t evil Tamlin, stop being so dramatic. Just because you’ve been enemies in the past–”

“We are enemies now. We will always be enemies, until I kill him or am killed myself.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Tamlin took a step closer and she was abruptly reminded of how much taller he was; towering over her even in her new fae body. “He stole you from me, Feyre. He took the only thing I care about, again.”

“And he brought me back.”

“Why are you defending him? What did he–” Tamlin suddenly cupped his hands around Feyre’s face, tilting it up to stare into her eyes. “He’s in your head.”

“No, he–”

“You wouldn’t know if he was, Feyre. I’ve seen what he can do. You’ve seen it.” Tamlin was still examining her face as if he would see Rhysand staring back at him if he looked deeply enough into the darkness of her irises.

“He can’t have been doing anything,” She said as patiently as she could manage, “I’ve had a mental shield up the whole time. Even when I passed out I–”

“Mental shield? Who taught you to do that? Was it Lucien?”

She didn't answer, stunned by the stupidity of her slip.

Tamlin's claws shot out from his clenched fist.  “I told him not to–”

“It wasn’t Lucien! I swear it wasn't him.”

“Of course it was him, who else could have– Feyre?”

Something in her face must have given her away. The room felt suddenly cold and still, like the life had drained out of the very air they breathed.

“Please tell me you didn't let him teach you mind magic.”

Silence thudded over the room. She couldn’t think, her mind stumbling from one flimsy explanation to another. 

“Mental shields aren’t really magic,” she said weakly. “They’re just like… putting shoes or a coat on…for… to...” Fuck. That had made so much more sense when Rhysand said it. Had it made sense? Or had he just made her think it was reasonable somehow? “I can tell when he’s near my mind.”

“When he wants you to be able to tell.”

The door swung open and Lucien came in, breathless. Feyre wasn’t sure if Tamlin had summoned him somehow, or if Lucien could sense the way magic was twining around the room, snarling into a tangle of power like wool caught around a spinning wheel, pulling tighter and tighter until she could hear the whine of tension in the air. Tamlin’s claws had retracted, but for some reason that made her more nervous. She knew how to shield herself from the fallout of his temper. She didn’t know what to expect from the look on his face now. 

“What happened?” Lucien looked back and forth between them as if waiting for one of them to burst apart into shrapnel.

“Tamlin, I’m ok, I promise. Rhysand isn’t trying to hurt any of us. I know he’s difficult to understand, and he’s done so many things that can’t be justified, but he’s trying to help now. He’s… he’s my friend. 

Tamlin inhaled sharply and Lucien tensed beside him. 

“You're confused,” Tamlin said in a monotone of forced calm. “It's not your fault; I know how easily he manipulates people; I never should have–” He ran a shaking hand over his face.

“I'm not confused, Tamlin. Not about this.”

He turned to Lucien. “We need to go. Today.”

“Tam, let’s think this through.”

“Go where?” Feyre asked, looking between them.

“I have… allies who might be able to help.”

Lucien spoke quietly, ever attempting to preserve a peace he wasn’t even pretending to feel now. “This has nothing to do with her powers, Tam. I can help her with the fire, now that we know. Work on control. But he doesn’t need her magic to reach her. Blocking it won’t do anything but make her even more defenseless.”

“I’m not talking about faebane. We’re past that now. There are people who can help us.”

Lucien’s golden eye swiveled sharply towards Feyre as his real one remained fixed on Tamlin. “No. You are not putting her anywhere near them,” he said vehemently, “We have no reason to trust them any more than we trust Rhysand.”

“I'm well aware of your opinion on our alliance, but this only proves that it is necessary. He is inside her head, Lucien. We can't fix this on our own—I’m not—I can't protect her from this.” His voice cracked with how much it cost him to admit, but Lucien only spoke more urgently. 

“And letting someone else inside her head is better? You've seen the healing ward in Dawn, what's left of them after forcibly cleaving a diamante's control.”

“What does that mean?” Feyre’s voice wavered. They both glanced at her as if they had forgotten she was there.

“This is not up for discussion,” Tamlin said, not looking at either of them. “We leave tonight.”