I assumed that it was no coincidence that Feyre waited until everyone had left before she tip-toed down the stairs to meet me some fifteen minutes after the fact. I hadn’t really done much other than stand there waiting restlessly for her anyway trying to get the blood in my ears to stop from hollering at me as I counted the number of priestesses who were likely now dead in Sangravah.

Priestesses were a fickle, questionable breed throughout Prythian, especially now that Amarantha had fallen. But every drop of fae blood was a waste when slain. Our numbers, despite vast cities and territories, were few compared to the Mortal Realms, which bred like mice.

And besides, those priestesses had been innocent. As innocent as Feyre who approached me now with quiet feet and the same undeserved punishment in her eyes.

I looked her over and swallowed tightly before she could catch my eyes. The cream sweater she wore complimented her pale skin, but it hung low enough on her chest that I could see how sharp her collarbones had become. And while the blue coat she wore, the same color as the crisp clear sky I’d seen outside while talking to Azriel, should have brought out the blue in her eyes, they remained dull - lifeless.

And yet, she was still stunning somehow with her hair artfully braided around her head and a rich brown hue in her pants that reminded me of the dirt and forests I’d first glimpsed her in, where she was home and in her element.

Alive or half-dead, Feyre was perfect. Seeing her look so comfortable in regular clothes my own court had provided even if she didn’t feel okay in her own skin... Cauldron, I just wanted to touch her, to bring her close and hold her until it was okay or less not okay, if such a thing existed anymore.

“Those two certainly like to fuss,” I said instead.

Feyre didn’t react much as she followed me out the door and I couldn’t blame her, not when all of Velaris stood before her to steal her inquisitive attention.

Just as she had when she’d first entered my townhouse, she took in every detail. It was a time before I joined her just outside the little gate running the perimeter of the yard.

Fae - lesser and high alike - strode casually up and down the lanes. Spices wafted richly through the air attracting Feyre with closed eyes as she followed the various scents, until the shouts of children laughing as they played games begged her open her eyes back up and pay attention.

But the sea, stretched out of that snaking river the Sidra that wound through the city, was what really caught her attention, made her see the city as one collective tableau beyond the brushstrokes she initially spotted.

Velaris was such a dynamic, varied city. It was one reason I adored it and thanked the Mother every day my predecessors had seen fit to keep this city secret and safe above all others. There were just as many stretches of even, flat land to roam as there were mountains to climb, and the sea offered a never ending adventure to escape to. I grew up inhaling the salty, fresh scent of it deep into my lungs every morning until it was just as ingrained into my being as the wind and air were at my wings.

Feyre followed the wind as it took her over the many rooftops that clustered the city’s hillsides until she spotted the massive cliff side carved of red stone and her breath hitched.

Her mental shields were shut as I approached, clamped down tightly, so I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or curious or something else entirely.

“The middle peak,” I said softly, trying not to scare her, but she still jumped to face me, “that’s my other home in this city. The House of Wind.” I spotted Cassian and Azriel over Feyre’s shoulder flying toward the topmost reaches of the House, two blurs of black and danger carried on the wind to remind me of what was at stake. “We’ll be dining there tonight.”

Feyre cut away and took one more sweep of the city. We had barely stepped outside my townhouse and I already felt this horrible sense of dread that she would be displeased, would find it taxing and tiresome to be here as the city raged with life.

A city - this city. This damned city I never thought I’d see again, never thought I’d get to show her.

“How?” Feyre asked.

And I knew she was really asking how it even existed.

“Luck,” I replied.

“Luck?” she said quietly, too quiet. But with enough steely force behind it to knock the wind from the skies and render me silent. “Yes, how lucky for you that the rest of Prythian was ravaged while your people, your city, remained safe.” She paused to survey me, a glint of malice in her eyes that was quickly lost in the sea of rage and emotion she was slave to these days. “Did you even think for one moment to extend that luck to anywhere else? Anyone else?”

Every damn day for fifty years , I wanted to say. Not at her - but at me. At my own stupid inability to act.

“Other cities,” I said, trying to explain as much to myself as to her, “are known to the world. Velaris has remained secret beyond the borders of these lands for millennia. Amarantha did not touch it, because she did not know it existed. None of her beasts did. No one in the other courts knows of its existence, either.”

“How?”

“Spells and wards and my ruthless, ruthless ancestors, who were willing to do anything to preserve a piece of goodness in our wretched world.”

A piece of goodness that I was willing to preserve - by whatever means. It was an argument I had given myself daily under that cursed rock while I remained there, trying forever to convince myself that sealing this city up to keep it safe while the rest of Prythian went to hell was worth it.

And if Feyre didn’t eventually see that, it would be failure in bringing her here and would mean that I was wrong, had lied to myself for fifty years in vain. I didn’t think there was any coming back from that, to fail my court...

When Feyre replied, it felt like the hot venom hissing from her was directed as much at me as it was for the demon who had enslaved us to her rule. “And when Amarantha came, you didn’t think to open this place as a refuge?”

For a moment, I went blind. Blind with panic and anger at how difficult Amarantha had made this, to even be here in this situation. I had made the choice that would keep my court safest as every other High Lord had done to their own abilities and I would not be sorry for it.

“When Amarantha came,” I said, gritting on the words, “I had to make some very hard choices, very quickly.”

Feyre shoved away from me, her eyes dragging with disgust towards the sea, something I assumed was far more pleasant to look at just then than my unyielding face. “I’m assuming you won’t tell me about it.”

Dinner. Just a few more hours and then we would be at dinner with my brothers - with Mor. And then maybe we could...

“Now’s not the time for that conversation.”

It wasn’t likely what she wanted to hear, and I hated myself a little bit for shutting her out the same way Tamlin had at every turn. But right now... she needed to see the city, need to see and feel and live it to understand just what was at stake.

As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Feyre stared at the Sidra and asked, “So what is there that was worth saving at the cost of everyone else?”

I met her eyes with relentless dedication and loyalty, the idealogies that bound me blood and soul to my court.

“Everything.”

---

I tried to explain as much of the city as I could, but it was... difficult doing so. Feyre rarely replied to my commentary and her gaze was bland as she took in details at every turn.

We reached the Palace of Thread and Jewels - the first of our four main market squares - and I found myself taking trips into the various jewelry shops just for a reprieve from my one-sided conversation with Feyre. I had needed a gift for Amren, anyway.

A gift I honestly could have purchased in the first shop, had Feyre not decided to stay outside and the time alone provided me with space just to think of what to say to her. But the first shop was full of rings, all beautiful and glimmering with golds and silver and every kind of gem imaginable, that reminded me too much of the one ring I was most anxious to retrieve. With any luck, I’d have it soon.

I glanced from the display out the shop window to where Feyre stood, her head constantly turning, and walked out the shop with a quick word of goodbye to the shop keep. By the time I had bought something for Amren, I was content to shove the small bag into my pockets and leave my hands there to cut some of the tension riding my nerves.

Feyre we so, so silent. I’m not sure what I had expected the first time I showed her my city, but it wasn’t quite this.

We wandered for a long while and I said less and less as we went, keeping a few steps from Feyre who didn’t seem to want be near me regardless. Occasionally, someone would stop to say hello, maybe shake my hand, but for the most part, passerby kept to silent nods and waves.

We’d made it through the Palace of Bone and Salt - a spice and meats market - when the first flecks of color cut my vision in the distance and I knew the test we were nearing. A jolt of adrenaline crashed through my stomach like lightning in the middle of a still and peaceful dessert.

Feyre stopped dead in her tracks the moment she spotted the first shop and realized what it was, realized that before her lay a minefield of memories.

“This is what Velaris is known for,” I said keeping a low voice as she stared into the art shop as though it were a torture chamber she might find my spymaster working in. “The artists’ quarter. You’ll find a hundred galleries, supply stores, potters’ compounds, sculpture gardens, and anything in between. They call it the Rainbow of Velaris. The performing artists - the musicians, the dancers, the actors - dwell on that hill right across the Sidra. You see the bit of gold glinting near the top?” I pointed and barely, she followed my direction and I wondered if this was a mistake. “That’s one of the main theaters. There are five notable ones in the city, but that’s the most famous. And then there are the smaller theaters, and the amphitheater on the sea cliffs...”

Feyre’s eyes glossed over as they trailed away uncaring or - something. My explanation died. All life inside of me seemed to die. Her shield dropped for the first time that day and I was once more standing before the ghost who had visited me for two weeks out of obligation.

I knew she hadn’t wanted to paint, knew that color and creation sometimes rotted the very bones she stood on. But I had not thought - had not realized that her passion had been so deteriorated, so tainted by what had happened that even the very core of who she was had become dead inside.

Through her now opening mind, there wasn’t even a faint glimmer of that desire and it was crushing to feel the hollow ache that now took up occupancy inside that human heart of hers. Cauldron, even on my darkest nights under that mountain, I’d still wanted to fly ...

“I’m tired,” Feyre said. It was barely audible.

“We can come back another day,” I said, because of course I wasn’t going to give up on this, nor let her give up on herself. She deserved these passions, these pursuits. We’d just have to wait. “It’s almost time for dinner, anyway.”

I took our walk back up and Feyre moved with me, but each step seemed to crack her walls open ever wider as her anger, insatiable and roaring and gutted beyond comprehension, drowned her out and took me with it.

It wasn’t just the sight of her former love sitting at every window behind us as we strode away. It was every single person she saw smile, heard sing, or laugh, or chatter merrily on that burned her.

And I understood because I wanted it too. Wanted a life that was carefree so damned badly that I sometimes thought I would burn the world to ash just to have it, even if it meant being alone with the darkness crackling in my blood from when my powers had first awoken. That roaring had never stopped since despite dimming somewhat over time.

And now I felt it roaring inside of Feyre, ascending towards a breaking point. The last time I’d felt that snap inside her, she’d -

“Easy,” I said gently and felt her turn to look at me hotly. I wondered what would come out of her this time if she broke. Ice? Fire? More darkness, perhaps. Nothing she would want to expose so publicly and nothing my court deserved the ire of. “My people are blameless.”

Without any pause whatsoever, Feyre drained of all emotion and I staggered a bit to look at her. The rage - it was gone, blinked out of existence as if it were never there in the first place.

A harsh numbness fell over her that I hated to feel. That favorite sentiment of the ghost that so loved to inhabit her mind and steal her away from the world as she reiterated with the most defeated look, “I’m tired.”

I felt like I’d failed her. I’d shown her Velaris. Shown her the jewel of my court and what I’d most hope might inspire her in all the ways I couldn’t and she felt... empty again.

It was an effort not to cry as my throat went raw. “Tomorrow night, we’ll go for a walk. Velaris is lovely in the day, but it was built to be viewed after dark.”

Like Feyre. Like myself.

Desperate. I was so fucking desperate. A miserable fool right back in that sitting room trying to pull something - anything, out of her.

The effort of walking up the hills back towards the townhouse grated on Feyre as she mustered some energy to hold the conversation. “Who, exactly, is going to be at this dinner?”

“My Inner Circle. I want you to meet them before you decide if this is a place you’d like to stay. If you’d like to work with me, and thus work with them. Mor, you’ve met, but the three others-”

“The ones who came this afternoon.”

I nodded. “Cassian, Azriel, and Amren.”

Cauldron, would they be enough? After our tour through Velaris, I wasn’t so sure anything would be anymore. That momentary giddiness I’d felt this morning at having Feyre so close to meeting them vanished.

“Who are they?” she asked and I puzzled over how to best explain my court.

“There are tiers,” I said, “within our circle. Amren is my Second in command.” Feyre’s eyes widened incredulously. That she had not been expecting. “Yes. And Mor is my Third. Only a fool would think my Illyrian warriors were the apex predators in our circle.”

Feyre mused trying to make sense of the cheery, sunny woman she knew with the powerful warrior Mor had to be to have earned her keep as my Third. The thought made me smile inwardly, but Mor wasn’t who I was so concerned with Feyre meeting, not after the brief flare up we’d just gone through...

“You’ll see what I mean when you meet Amren,” I continued. “She looks High Fae, but something different prowls beneath her skin. She might be older than this city, but she’s vain, and likes to hoard her baubles and belongings like a firedrake in a cave. So... be on your guard. You both have tempers when provoked, and I don’t want you to have any surprises tonight.”

“So if we get into a brawl and I rip off her necklace, she’ll roast and eat me?” Feyre asked, and she was actually a little genuinely curious about my Second and her mysterious nature. The scene that sprang to mind of Feyre trying to steal from Amren was comical.

“No,” I laughed, “Amren would do far, far worse things than that. The last time Amren and Mor got into it, they left my favorite mountain retreat in cinders. For what it’s worth, I’m the most powerful High Lord in Prythian’s history, and merely interrupting Amren is something I’ve only done once in the past century.”

I meant it to come out offhandedly, a simple way of explaining the depth of Amren’s power. But the gates to Feyre’s mind burst full and free, latching on to that one phrase: the most powerful High Lord in history ...

And Amren, with her seeming ageless existence.

The city went very quiet then. Everything narrowed down to Feyre as my every thought disintegrated into the empty, empty starving void that was her mind, a mind that looked at my friends - looked at me - and decided it didn’t even have an impulse to want to try anymore, that death might be better.

My hand snatched her chin and I willed myself not to dig in to her skin lest I hurt her. But I pulled her towards me, unable to go any longer without touching her and affirming that she was still real, was not this ghost haunting her skin, was still here alive and breathing even if she didn’t want to be.

Fuck, she had to be.

She wins. That bitch wins if you let yourself fall apart...

“Don’t you ever think that,” I said. “ Not for one damned moment.”

And I yanked hard on her mind. I hadn’t quite meant to, but I was so worn down from watching her not care, watching her waste away and gladly do it that I felt compelled to do something . I couldn’t - fuck, I couldn’t lose her. Not again. Screaming for her on the floors of that mountain had been enough to last me lifetimes.

But tugging on her mind was like hitting a reset between us. One moment, we were standing in the middle of the Velaris with the Sidra on one side and pleasant shops on the other. And the next...

The next, I was on that balcony Under the Mountain, feeling the bond snap into place with tautness between us before Feyre dragged me even deeper, back to the moment she had died and the only way to save her was to fold her into myself. She saw through my eyes - saw herself standing there under the glittering sun of Velaris, how hollow her eyes were, how sharp her cheek bones stood out, how loosely her clothes hung from her body.

And she was broken. We both were. Crying out in mourning for how far we’d fallen. At how much she had lost. Her humanity gone right along side her passion, her drive, her fierce courageous spirit. All of it seemed lost in those moments of staring at herself for what she’d become. It broke her to the point that she released the bond and fell into the chasm of that incredible despair while I scrambled for purchase on the bond itself, clinging to it if it meant it would keep her alive.

And if it didn’t. Fuck, if it didn’t...

I pushed my desperate screaming out of my ears from when Amarantha had hurled herself at Feyre and I’d heard her neck snap, heard my heart die alongside her. “Was that a trick?” Feyre said, dripping with contempt.

“No,” I rasped, my head tilting to one side to study her. “How did you get through it? My shield.”

Bond or no bond, it shouldn’t have been easy to get inside my head to the point of co-habitation like that. Shit, this meant that was -

Feyre blazed past me, no longer content to stand about sluggishly, though she remained dejected. She was running away.

Carefully, I grabbed her elbow and held her back. “How many other minds have you accidentally slipped into.” The answer flashed through her mind faster than her brain could put words together to articulate thought. “ Lucien?” I snorted at that, no love lost for the Fox of Spring. “What a miserable place to be.”

Feyre returned my short laugh with a vicious snarl. “ Do not go into my head.”

“Your shield is down,” I said, watching proudly as she hauled it right back up, cared enough to do it. “You might as well have been shouting his name at me. Perhaps you having my power...” I stared at her, chewing my lip.

It was too perfect. Everything I’d been hoping for in terms of her abilities, assuming she agreed to use them with me, was staring me in the face. All of the evidence that this crazy plan could actually work was appearing like wildfire. If she said yes tonight...

A cottage some hundreds of miles away deep in the forests of Prythian flashed briefly through my mind.

It was a dream, my turn of luck. I couldn’t believe it, to the point that I snorted a laugh. “It’d make sense, of course, if the power came from me - if my own shield sometimes mistook you for me and let you slip past. Fascinating.”

I’d tell her why that was fascinating later. After she had decided whether or not to work for me.

Feyre glared at me and some of the old fire returned to her features, the fire that danced and played and bantered with me for sport, not hate. “Take your power back. I don’t want it.”

Mother above, thank you.

I smiled cooly. “It doesn’t work that way. The power is bound to your life. The only way to get it back would be to kill you. And since I like your company, I’ll pass on the offer.”

We resumed walking and I gave her a few paces before I brought the conversation back to less savory details to her.

“You need to be vigilant about keeping your mental wards up. Especially now that you’ve seen Velaris. If you ever go somewhere else, beyond these lands, and someone slipped into your mind and saw this place...” The impact of that happening never failed to distress me as I repressed a shudder. “We’re called daemati - those of us who can walk into another person’s mind as if we were going from one room to another. We’re rare, and the trait appears as the Mother wills it, but there are enough of us scattered throughout the world that many - mostly those in positions of influence - extensively train against our skill set. If you were ever to encounter a daemati without those shields up, Feyre, they’d take whatever they wanted. A more powerful one could make you their unwitting slave, make you do whatever they wanted and you’d never know it. My lands remain mystery enough to outsiders that some would find you, among other things, a highly valuable source of information.”

Feyre snapped. It seemed her newfound abilities were just one more thing to hate about herself or me - maybe both of us.

“I take it that in a potential war with Hybern, the king’s armies wouldn’t even know to strike here?” She waved generally at Velaris all around us, her voice cold and sharp. I didn’t want to argue again, not when I’d just gotten her back, not when - “So, what - your pampered people... those who can’t shield their minds - they get your protection and don’t have to fight while the rest of us bleed?”

She was out of my reach and storming up the street before I could even blink at her. But she needn’t have bothered. Her words were so clipped, so chaotic, I knew they were shallow attempts at angering me, pushing me away. But beneath them stretched that dark wasteland where I had spent fifty years convincing myself everything was worth it.

I stayed well behind Feyre as we made it back to the townhouse. I didn’t need her shields to drop - which they didn’t - to tell me what kind of empty void she’d fallen back into where colors had faded and life itself stopped existing.

My own life felt colorless. Felt bleak. How long had I been pushing Cassian’s blunt attempts to call me back away? How long had been avoiding Azriel and curtly rushing out on Amren when the conversation didn’t call for my attention? How long had Mor been watching me wake up and pretend I wasn’t still sleeping all through breakfast?

We were both lost, Feyre and I. I just hoped by the end we could find our way back to whatever life was calling us home.

---

The remainder of the afternoon was quiet.

Feyre went upstairs to get ready for dinner, though I imagined she was stewing just as much as I was. I made quick work of the brooch I’d purchased, wrapping it in a plain white box adorned with a thick silk ribbon and sending it off to its recipient. I had a feeling I wouldn’t have to wait long to see it worn.

Dinner.

My stomach churned in response. Not at the thought of food, but... the conversations and the people to come. And - Feyre.

What she would think.

After how turbulent her emotions were today, I had no idea what to expect she’d make of this evening.

I took a steadying breath as I searched my closet for the right tunic to wear, something simple - black, with silver threading, carrying that note of elegance that I enjoyed indulging in. Not all of my High Lord’s mask was a lie. The fabric was soft and cool along my skin.

It didn’t take long to dress. I was outside waiting for Feyre on the balcony minutes later as the sun went down. Lights winked into existence over the stretch of Velaris all the way down to the Sidra, across it, and beyond. A city that slept in the day and waged life in the night.

A city I never thought I would see again.

A city, I might lose in a matter of weeks and months.

That vicious chain of nerves rattled in my bones shackling me to the earth. My wings burst free in gentle reprimand, strong and independent and yearning for the skies. For home. For that wildness that belonged solely to me.

I wanted to free again. Of everything.

There was music growing steadily louder like a heartbeat in the throws of fear except that the music was happy, was jubilant as it carried its notes to me and grounded me in this place.

Always torn in two - two feet on the ground and one head in the skies content to remain that way if it meant another night like this, teaming with possibility. Feyre might agree to stay tonight, might choose to spend her days with me even if only in a political capacity. She would choose whether to be a part of my court.

She would meet my friends .

A smile blossomed on my face. My eyes closed as I scented her approach. Somehow the idea of taking her up there wasn’t so terrifying as it had been. Or at least, where it was worrisome before and still was, now it was also somewhat hopeful.

Feyre cleared her throat and I turned, my breath hitching at the sight of the spectacular dress she’d selected. The length of the skirt and sleeves complimented her thin frame and the color - a swirling midnight blue like the depths of a pool of starlight and the dust of the heavens that one might fall into, sparked a soft glow in her blue-grey eyes. My eyes followed the deep plunging vee of her neckline, falling into that pool down, down, down...

“Rhys?” Feyre quirked her brow up at me and I realized I was still smiling like a lost fool at her. I brushed it away, but the sentiment behind it remained locked in my core.

She was lovely.

Feyre was lovely.

Feyre was hope and wonder and the future. The only person who made me feel normal anymore.

She straightened and let out a breath of air glancing up at the night sky, perhaps seeking some similar brand of comfort.

“Shall we?” I asked.

Feyre nodded and half turned for the door when I held my arms out and her body stiffened, registering what I intended. Her eyes went wide and I didn’t know it was possible for her skin to grow even paler, but it did.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “No.” Her tone was perfectly clear.

I crossed my arms and let my wings convey the bulk of my meaning as they rustled behind me, stretching and flexing with the moonlight around us in that courtyard.

“The House of Wind is warded against people winnowing inside - exactly like this house,” I explained. “Even against High Lords. Don’t ask me why, or who did it. But the option is either walk up the ten thousand steps, which I really do not feel like doing, Feyre, or fly in.” I didn’t bother adding that I didn’t feel like walking up all those damned steps just as much out of a desire to hold her again - properly - as a desire to be lazy.

Feyre seemed to realize something similar about the position this would put us in as she glanced over me, over the wings that would carry her high into the skies, and swallowed hard. That grin slowly stretched back across my lips like a cat prowling out to play.

“I promise I won’t drop you,” I said, a luxurious purr.

Feyre was near to dancing on her toes as she dropped down to examine her dress, her fingers fidgeting with the thin fabric at either side. She looked up and stared at me hard. “The wind will rip the gown right off.”

And then she’d be -

The hard, agitated feeling that had been rolling in my gut all afternoon went loose becoming a warm, delectable energy I hadn’t been sure I could still enjoy. But clearly, it was there as Feyre took one look at the feral grin I’d let slip and bolted for the door.

“I’ll take the stairs,” she said with an edge of annoyance. My wing snapped out and blocked her path, forceful enough that she couldn’t get away, but smoothly, without anger, for her to not feel threatened.

Feyre stared at the membrane of my wing for a long time almost as if she could see through it to the safety and comfort her room inside the townhouse provided. I wanted her to feel that way with me so near. Her shoulders rose and fell with her breath as she considered... something.

“Nuala spent an hour on my hair,” she said. I wondered what that hesitation really translated to. If it was me, our proximity, or the same nervous weight I carried for the meeting she would have in the next five minutes with a host of new information that might easily overwhelm her, even if I didn’t doubt for one minute she could deal with it if she really wanted to.

Gently, I brought the wing towards Feyre and she turned to face me, one step closer. A light breeze pushed at those delicate curls resting against her face and neck, one annoyingly skirting her cheek. “I promise I won’t let the wind destroy your hair,” I promised, staring at that lone rebellious curl. The desire to reach out and just touch it rose so suddenly in me that I was paralyzed to go through with it.

“If I’m to decide whether I want to work against Hybern with you - with your Inner Circle, can’t we just... meet here?”

“They’re all up there already. And besides, the House of Wind has enough space that I won’t feel like chucking them all off the mountain.”

Feyre swallowed and stared at the stretch of space - of hollow distance - between us and the House. “You mean,” she said quietly, nervous, “that this town house is too small, and their personalities are too big, and you’re worried I might lose it again.”

I brought my wings in a little closer, not sure how she’d react, but then... she took another step toward me and she didn’t brush off my wings at her shoulders.

Cold. She was so cold. But standing so close to me near enough that we could share breath now, that it felt like she might trust me for two damned seconds, I felt inexplicably warm. And suddenly, so too did she.

“So what if I am?” I asked. I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of her power, if I were truthful.

“I’m not some broken doll,” she said, but she wouldn’t quite look at me when she said it.

“I know you’re not.” And I meant it. She was strong and fierce, a storm that commanded the skies and tossed the seas about in their scurrying. “But that doesn’t mean I’ll throw you to the wolves. If you meant what you said about wanting to work with me to keep Hybern from these lands, keep the wall intact, I want you to meet my friends first. Decide on your own if it’s something you can handle. And I want this meeting to be on my terms, not whenever they decide to ambush this house again.”

“I didn’t know you even had friends.” She was suddenly sharp, but I didn’t quite mind. The moment felt too intimate, too honest to bite out a retort.

“You didn’t ask.”

We stood close enough now that I slid my arm around her waist, enjoyed the feel of her weight leaning into me. We shared too few precious heartbeats before her eyes locked on to my wings and I felt her back stiffen beneath my hold.

Friends.

Flight.

A cage .

My wings snapped back, but my arm stayed true, wrapping more tightly around her. To hold her. To keep her safe. To live when she lived and die when she died.

I will not let you fall, Feyre. I will not let you go it alone.

Feyre knew what was coming. Knew there were no ten thousand steps to take tonight. Her fingers clutched nimbly at my tunic searching for somewhere to stop the shaking from coming on.

“You say the word tonight,” I breathed, “and we come back here, no questions asked. And if you can’t stomach working with me, with them, then no questions asked on that, either. We can find some other way for you to live here, be fulfilled, regardless of what I need. It’s your choice, Feyre.”

Her body went still, but for once it wasn’t with paralyzing fear that crippled her into the shadows. It was the stillness that readies for war, that stands tall and proud and marches into the shadows willingly to cast them down before they can swallow a person whole.

Feyre’s eyes slid around me, looked at my wings with something like readiness, and a jolt of adrenaline went through me. To touch her, to hold her... to fly with her, with my mate. Every ounce of instinct the Illyrian man I was made of threatened to burst out of me waiting for her to say the word. And then -

“Please don’t drop me,” Feyre whispered. “And please don’t-”

Those instincts exploded.

Up, up, up we went into the deep waters of the velvet night sky about us surrounded by stars and music and laughter. Wind whipped by our faces in a glorious triumph, drowning out the small yelp Feyre gave as we ascended into speed and a blur of color. I tucked my arms securely around her torso and legs.

And Velaris.

Velaris was a paradise below us of diamonds and onyx sparkling, dancing, moving through the night. Feyre could hardly take her eyes off it as we flew higher towards the House, the wind settling into a gentle breeze upon our skin giving us the space to think and hear once more.

And it was heaven. We had only a few minutes before we would land and this would all have been some lovely dream, but it was a few minutes with her that I could have lived in for eternity.

We shot up into an updraft and Feyre coiled into my chest, fisting herself in my tunic with chilled fingers. Her head was tucked just below my neck so that when I leaned down to murmur in her ear, I could smell the fresh scents coming off her hair of grass and sun and even now some of those old familiar notes of paint that might not ever leave her no matter how long she resisted the practice.

“I expected more screaming from you. I must not be trying hard enough.”

“ Do not ,” she hissed at me, but there was a lightness in her eyes as she watched the city, a lightness I had been waiting for since I first took her from the Spring Court. The lightness that only flying and freedom could bring.

Feyre was too captivated by the city to notice the soft smile I bore as I watched her.

“When I was a boy,” I said, “I’d sneak out of the House of Wind by leaping out of my window - and I’d fly and fly all night, just making loops around the city, the river, the sea. Sometimes I still do.”

“Your parents must have been thrilled.”

“My father never knew - and my mother...”

My mother would have loved to see this, to have met you...

“She was Illyrian.” And she loved to fly. “Some nights, when she caught me right as I leaped out the window, she’d scold me... and then jump out herself to fly with me until dawn.”

“She sounds lovely,” Feyre said and my heart wrenched that she would never get to find out for herself.

“She was.”

We flew the rest of the way in silence and I may have let an imagined pocket or two of turbulence in the air force into a few maneuvers that took extra time in getting us to that great stone balcony at the House. But finally, we landed and Feyre spared the interior dining room through the great glass doors half a thought before she was once more at the balcony railing staring out at the city, at the night.

I held her for a moment until she had her balance and then stepped away as she shook me off. Her face was blank, but not that empty void that wasted away. Just silent, contemplative as she considered my court, had been doing all night and all day.

“Out with it,” I finally burst, leaning against the railing next to her. She lifted a brow at me. “You say what’s on your mind - one thing. And I’ll say one, too.”

Instantly, for whatever reason, Feyre shook her head and turned back away. And the not knowing was what snapped the words out of me. Her shields were up and I wasn’t going to pry anyway, not anymore, but I was so desperate to know if she approved or if she was hating this whole affair or if she was okay.

Mother above, just tell me she was okay.

“I’m thinking,” I said, feeling Feyre’s focus on me even as she stayed staring in the other direction, “that I spent fifty years locked Under the Mountain, and I’d sometimes let myself dream of this place, but I never expected to see it again. I’m thinking that I wish I had been the one who slaughtered her. I’m thinking that if war comes, it might be a long while yet before I get to have a night like this.”

I looked to her, glad to see her looking back, and waited. But Feyre only said, “Do you think war will be here that soon?”

“This was a no-questions-asked invitation. I told you... three things. Tell me one.”

Just tell me one thing - one piece of yourself that is real, that is honest, that isn’t just to spite me. Tell me one piece of your soul, Feyre, and you can have all of mine...

Feyre took a breath in which she seemed to inhale the entirety of Velaris and breathe it back out with her words.

“I’m thinking that I must have been a fool in love to allow myself to be shown so little of the Spring Court,” she said quiet, raw. “I’m thinking there’s a great deal of that territory I was never allowed to see or hear about and maybe I would have lived in ignorance forever like some pet. I’m thinking...” Her voice broke. I thought she might cry and I was one second from finally brushing that damned curl away from her cheek when she shook and pressed on. “I’m thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I’m thinking maybe he knew that - maybe not actively, but maybe he wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn’t work for who - what I am now.”

I wanted to tell her how proud of her I was.

I wanted to tell her that I understood all of those things and more and that they were perfectly valid.

I wanted to tell her how beautiful she looked standing there with her head held high, speaking her truths that pained her to her very core even if they were necessary now in order to think and feel again.

Most of all, I wanted to smack the stupid grins on Cassian and Azriel’s faces as they paused in the glass doorway and snickered at me.

So close...

“That was five,” I told Feyre, stepping back so that she was alerted to my brother’s appearance. “Looks like I owe you two thoughts - later.”

Feyre turned and caught sight of the males smirking at her and for a moment the world stopped.

We were finally here.