I heard the words—heard and processed them. And then they floated into the blackness of my mind.
Nuala and Cerridwen opened a door, leading to a fire-warmed, sunlit room. It faced a walled, winter-kissed garden in the back of the town house, the large windows peering over the sleeping stone fountain in its center, drained for the season. Everything in the bedroom itself was of rich wood and soft white, with touches of subtle sage. It felt, strangely enough, almost human.
And the bed—massive, plush, adorned in quilts and duvets of cream and ivory to keep out the winter chill—that looked the most welcoming of all.
But I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t ask a few basic questions—to at least give myself the illusion of caring a bit about my own welfare.
“Who was that?” I managed to say as they shut the door behind us.
Nuala headed for the small attached bathing room—white marble, a claw-foot tub, more sunny windows that overlooked the garden wall and the thick line of cypress trees that stood watch behind it. Cerridwen, already stalking for the armoire, cringed a bit and said over a shoulder, “They’re Rhysand’s Inner Circle.”
The ones I’d heard mentioned that day at the Night Court—who Rhys kept going to meet. “I wasn’t aware that High Lords kept things so casual,” I admitted.
“They don’t,” Nuala said, returning from the bathing room with a brush. “But Rhysand does.”
Apparently, my hair was a mess, because Nuala brushed it as Cerridwen pulled out some ivory sleeping clothes—a warm and soft lace-trimmed top and pants.
I took in the clothes, then the room, then the winter garden and the slumbering fountain beyond, and Rhysand’s earlier words clicked into place.
The walls of this city have not been breached for five thousand years.
Meaning Amarantha …
“How is this city here?” I met Nuala’s gaze in the mirror. “How—how did it survive?”
Nuala’s face tightened, and her dark eyes flicked to her twin, who slowly rose from a dresser drawer, fleece-lined slippers for me in hand. Cerridwen’s throat bobbed as she swallowed.
“The High Lord is very powerful,” Cerridwen said—carefully. “And was devoted to his people long before his father’s mantle passed to him.”
“How did it survive?” I pushed. A city—a lovely one, if the sounds from my window, the garden beyond it, were any indication—lay all around me. Untouched, whole. Safe. While the rest of the world had been left to ruin.
The twins exchanged looks again, some silent language they’d learned in the womb passing between them. Nuala set down the brush on the vanity. “It is not for us to tell.”
“He asked you not to—”
“No,” Cerridwen interrupted, folding back the covers of the bed. “The High Lord made no such demand. But what he did to shield this city is his story to tell, not ours. We would be more comfortable if he told you, lest we get any of it wrong.”
I glared between them. Fine. Fair enough.
Cerridwen moved to shut the curtains, sealing the room in darkness.
My heart stumbled, taking my anger with it, and I blurted, “Leave them open.”
I couldn’t be sealed up and shut in darkness—not yet.
Cerridwen nodded and left the curtains open, both of the twins telling me to send word if I needed anything before they departed.
Alone, I slid into the bed, hardly feeling the softness, the smoothness of the sheets.
I listened to the crackling fire, the chirp of birds in the garden’s potted evergreens—so different from the spring-sweet melodies I was used to. That I might never hear or be able to endure again.
Maybe Amarantha had won after all.
And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me.
Sleep claimed me, swift and brutal and deep.
CHAPTER
15
I awoke four hours later.
It took me minutes to remember where I was, what had happened. And each tick of the little clock on the rosewood writing desk was a shove back-back-back into that heavy dark. But at least I wasn’t tired. Weary, but no longer on the cusp of feeling like sleeping forever.
I’d think about what happened at the Spring Court later. Tomorrow. Never.
Mercifully, Rhysand’s Inner Circle left before I’d finished dressing.
Rhys was waiting at the front door—which was open to the small wood-and-marble antechamber, which in turn was open to the street beyond. He ran an eye over me, from the suede navy shoes—practical and comfortably made—to the knee-length sky-blue overcoat, to the braid that began on one side of my head and curved around the back. Beneath the coat, my usual flimsy attire had been replaced by thicker, warmer brown pants, and a pretty cream sweater that was so soft I could have slept in it. Knitted gloves that matched my shoes had already been stuffed into the coat’s deep pockets.
“Those two certainly like to fuss,” Rhysand said, though something about it was strained as we headed out the front door.
Each step toward that bright threshold was both an eternity and an invitation.
For a moment, the weight in me vanished as I gobbled down the details of the emerging city:
Buttery sunlight that softened the already mild winter day, a small, manicured front lawn—its dried grass near-white—bordered with a waist-high wrought iron fence and empty flower beds, all leading toward a clean street of pale cobblestones. High Fae in various forms of dress meandered by: some in coats like mine to ward against the crisp air, some wearing mortal fashions with layers and poofy skirts and lace, some in riding leathers—all unhurried as they breathed in the salt-and-lemon-verbena breeze that even winter couldn’t chase away. Not one of them looked toward the house. As if they either didn’t know or weren’t worried that their own High Lord dwelled in one of the many marble town houses lining either side of the street, each capped with a green copper roof and pale chimneys that puffed tendrils of smoke into the brisk sky.
