“Did you think you could steal and flee, thief?”
I would have preferred the Middengard Wyrm. Would have preferred those massive, sharp teeth to her jagged stumps—
Stop.
The word came out of the darkness of my mind.
And the voice was my own.
Stop, it said—I said.
Breathe.
Think.
The Weaver came closer, brick crumbling under her hands. She’d climb up like a spider—like I was a fly in her web—
Stop.
And that word quieted everything.
I mouthed it.
Stop, stop, stop.
Think.
I had survived the Wyrm—survived Amarantha. And I had been granted gifts. Considerable gifts.
Like strength.
I was strong.
I slammed a hand against the chimney wall, as low as I could get. The Weaver hissed at the debris that rained down. I smashed my fist again, rallying that strength.
I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.
I was a survivor, and I was strong.
I would not be weak, or helpless again. I would not, could not be broken. Tamed.
I pounded my fist into the bricks over and over, and the Weaver paused.
Paused long enough for the brick I’d loosened to slide free into my waiting palm.
And for me to hurl it at her hideous, horrible face as hard as I could.
Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spraying. But I rammed my shoulders into the sides of the chimney, skin tearing beneath my leather. I kept going, going, going, until I was stone breaking stone, until nothing and no one held me back and I was scaling the chimney.
I didn’t dare stop, not as I reached the lip and hauled myself out, tumbling onto the thatched roof. Which was not thatched with hay at all.
But hair.
And with all that fat lining the chimney—all that fat now gleaming on my skin … the hair clung to me. In clumps and strands and tufts. Bile rose, but the front door banged open—a shriek following it.
No—not that way. Not to the ground.
Up, up, up.
A tree branch hung low and close by, and I scrambled across that heinous roof, trying not to think about who and what I was stepping on, what clung to my skin, my clothes. A heartbeat later, I’d jumped onto the waiting branch, scrambling into the leaves and moss as the Weaver screamed, “WHERE ARE YOU?”
But I was running through the tree—running toward another one nearby. I leaped from branch to branch, bare hands tearing on the wood. Where was Rhysand?
Farther and farther I fled, her screams chasing me, though they grew ever-distant.
Where are you, where are you, where are you—
And then, lounging on a branch in a tree before me, one arm draped over the edge, Rhysand drawled, “What the hell did you do?”
I skidded to a stop, breathing raw. I thought my lungs might actually be bleeding.
“You,” I hissed.
But he raised a finger to his lips and winnowed to me—grabbing my waist with one hand and cupping the back of my neck with his other as he spirited us away—
To Velaris. To just above the House of Wind.
We free-fell, and I didn’t have breath to scream as his wings appeared, spreading wide, and he curved us into a steady glide … right through the open windows of what had to be a war room. Cassian was there—in the middle of arguing with Amren about something.
