“No, thank you.”

Feyre’s incredulous expression as she gripped her fork with far too much intensity for what breakfast food deserved was enough to rile me into a bit of mockery.

“You’re going to be a High Lord’s wife,” I said casually. “You’ll be expected to maintain your own correspondences, perhaps even give a speech or two. And the Cauldron knows what else he and Ianthe will deem appropriate for you. Make menus for dinner parties, write thank-you letters for all those wedding gifts, embroider sweet phrases on pillows... It’s a necessary skill. And, you know what? Why don’t we throw in shielding while we’re at it. Reading and shielding - fortunately, you can practice them together.”

I could practically feel the steam rolling off of Feyre, her irritation was quite palatable.

This, I could work with. This, I knew.

“They are both necessary skills,” she said, jaw clenching with every word, “but you are not going to teach me.”

Of course I wasn’t. Should I ever have expected any other objection but this?

“What else are you going to do with yourself? Paint? How’s that going these days, Feyre?”

How do you like it?

“What the hell does it even matter to you?”

“it serves various purposes of mine, of course.”

“What. Purposes.”

“You’ll have to agree to work with me to find out, I’m afraid.”

The letter sitting on my desk in my study flashed through my mind. I still hadn’t had the nerve to send it since writing it shortly after waking. Feyre was still too unhinged, too much of a wild gamble to take on sending that letter prematurely. If she wasn’t the person I thought she was, I’d have to find another way of infiltrating my neighbors to the deep south.

Feyre nearly asked my own question for me when her fork snapped between her fingers, the prongs jabbing into her skin to draw out a pain I only seemed to agitate in her.

Such a special bond, this mate thing between us, was becoming.

“Interesting,” i said with a chuckle, noting how easily the metal bent around her slender fingers, those fingers I once watched paint to keep myself alive.

“You said that last night.”

“Am I not allowed to say it twice?”

“That’s not what I was implying and you know it.”

Carefully, my eyes slid over her considering and she watched me with a pained, tense regard, waiting for me to render some hidden verdict I must be mulling over.

How much did Feyre know? How much power had she shown, if any? How far would Tamlin have gone to hide it from her if he knew?

How far dare I pry?

My eyes rested on the fork next to Feyre’s plate, a perfect opposite to the pristine one resting in front of me.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re rather strong for a High Fae?”

“Am I?”

“I’ll take that as a no.” I sucked on a piece of melon and debated. At least Feyre was forthcoming about her ignorance of the fae world, I would haven’t to fight her pride on it to solve every mystery. And I knew then she would tell me the truth if I asked. “Have you tested yourself against anyone?”

“Why would I?”

“Because you were resurrected and reborn by the combined powers of the seven High Lords. If I were you, I’d be curious to see if anything else transferred to me during that process.”

And it was true. Her lack of curiosity about her own potential was... unsettling given how much she craved knowledge of the rest of Prythian, even as I had spent considerable time hesitating at my own powers when I first came in to them. Still, I had wanted to know...

But I also hadn’t been nearly as distracted as a child learning to be the High Lord’s heir as Feyre now was by the consequences of her time Under the Mountain.

“Nothing else transferred to me,” Feyre said. Her horror spun right down the bond, shocked I would even think she had power. Her modesty and downright outrage that she could be such was absurdly endearing to watch.

“It’d just be rather... interesting if it did.” I threw in a smirk for good measure.

“It didn’t,” Feyre insisted, “and I’m not going to learn to read or shield with you.”

“Why? From spite? I thought you and I got past that Under the Mountain.”

“Don’t get me started on what you did to me Under the Mountain.”

Now it was my turn for my blood to chill.

I felt every ounce of my body still, the muscles pulling taut with the sensation of feeling the knife Feyre would rip across them.

It was one thing to feel her endless hatred rippling across that bond. Part of me was able to stomach the implications of it - the name calling, the crude gestures, the outright venom in her voice every time she spoke and her eyes glared at me sharp and full of reproach.

But to hear her say it? To hear her speak of the memory that haunted her day and night to the point that her own thoughts ran away from it so she wouldn’t have to suffer in the daylight, just to spite me... was another new hell entirely.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. I could hardly sit in the chair and share bread with her lest she see the devastating mess I’d become at her tongue, her stare.

I leaned forward, my breath coming in pants as the muscles at my back let loose looking for a release I only ever found in the skies. Just something to quiet the turbulent violence in my mind while I tried to find a way to apologize, to erase the past with some kind of sincerity that would let us go on, but-

I choked on the words, not knowing what to say.

Don’t get me started on what you did to me Under the Mountain.

A sharp pain split in two running parallel lines down my back and I felt a weight escape, a weight that I masked in smoke and ash behind me. I was on the verge of unraveling completely as I opened my mouth to speak, terrified of what might come out or what she might say, when I heard the faint clicking of heels across the marble floor approaching.

My body released and with it went the wings that had almost manifested. I felt my mask slip back in place as the relief allowed my lazy, cool smile to reappear that seemed to confuse Feyre before she heard the footsteps too.

“We have company. We’ll discuss this later.”

“No we won’t,” Feyre said, but then Morrigan was breezing into the room like a cool summer breeze, grinning ear to ear. Feyre’s eyes widened.

“Hello, hello,” Mor practically sang into every crevice of the room.

“Feyre,” I said, “meet my cousin, Morrigan. Mor, meet the lovely, charming, and open-minded Feyre.”

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Mor said and my stomach instantly tensed. She walked straight up to Feyre, who held out her hand and found Mor swiping it away so she could crush her in a body binding hug instead. If I thought Feyre’s eyes had widened earlier, they were a pair of moons now as she sank into my cousin’s embrace.

Mor released her and took a spot between us at the table, but that red lipped mouth of hers kept on running, much to my chagrin.

“You look like you were getting under Rhys’s skin,” she said with no reservations whatsoever, ever the fiend at my back. “Good thing I came along. Though I’d enjoy seeing Rhys’s balls nailed to the wall.”

Mor shot me a wild, vicious look that I returned with equal fervor, brows near up to my forehead.

You’re supposed to be on my side , I seemed to say. In truth, she was supposed to be working, but that seemed to be the least of her concerns.

My eyes slid back to Feyre and caught her straightening herself up, the first I’d seen her give any indication of caring. “It’s - nice to meet you,” she said.

“Liar,” Mor said. “You want nothing to do with us, do you? And wicked Rhys is making you sit here.”

She was all brutal honesty today and likely just to spite me for going against her wishes to tell Feyre the truth about the mate bond - about everything.

And it drove me batty that she might just decide to one up me and do the job in my stead.

“You’re... perky today, Mor,” I said. Her eyes flashed at me again.

I’m on her side, dear cousin , the look said and I wanted to scream.

“Forgive me for being excited about having company for once .”

“You could be attending your own duties...” Like I’d asked you too. The strain in my voice started to crack me all over again, but Feyre seemed to be enjoying the back and forth. Either she was upset and I was a flirtatious pig, or I was irked and she was happy.

So be it.

“I needed a break,” Mor said, surveying the spread of foods and seeing what her never ending stomach felt like having for a mid-morning snack. “And you told me to come here whenever I liked, so what better time than now, when you brought my new friend to finally meet me?”

I am working, charming the socks right off your mate where your sorry ass failed to.

She wouldn’t even look at me, but it was written all over that smile, that bright glowing skin Feyre couldn’t stop staring at.

Feyre’s attention idled between the two of us and I wished for just one moment it would stop on me long enough to linger in quiet ease the way she did for Mor. However much my cousin loved digging thorns in my side, I had to admit she had a way of pulling a brightness out of the darkest people.

A brightness I saw spark for a moment in Feyre that felt warm and comfortable.

“You two look nothing alike,” Feyre suddenly announced.

She wasn’t wrong.

It wasn’t just the way Morrigan’s bright turquoise clothes fashioned in the same style as the ones Feyre wore contrasted so sharply against the dark fabric of my tunic; it was everything else. From the bright sunshine gold of Mor’s hair to my near black strands flecked with blue, the sun-kissed hue of her skin against the deepening tan of my own, her slender build framed with muscles that shaped her against the larger build I held.

And that wasn’t to mention the differing ways we carried ourselves, our personas, even if we shared a common interest in fine wine and orchestrated music.

We were different in just about every way excepting all the ones that mattered. I supposed it made her my third for a reason.

“Mor is my cousin in the loosest definition,” I explained. Mor’s smile blazed fiercely across the table even through a mouthful of tomato and cheese. “But we were raised together. She’s my only surviving family. And as my only remaining relative, Mor believes she is entitled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit.”

Somehow in the span of four sentences, Mor had inhaled her plate and added two good sized muffins to the mix before ignoring me plainly as she cut them and said, “So grumpy this morning.”

I was ready to bite at that when Feyre jumped in with a question I wasn’t ready for. “I didn’t see you Under the Mountain.”

And Mor, as casually as stating the weather outside, was more than willing to answer - honestly.

“Oh, I wasn’t there,” she said, “I was in-”

“Enough, Mor,” and I hated to admit even to myself how dark my tone went with her in that moment. Mor didn’t protest further, seeming to know there was a line we were too near crossing and Mother above, she let me have this one.

I still felt shivers down my spine tracing fear and anxiety along the bones. The truth could main like that when killing wasn’t an option.

I set my napkin aside and stood, signaling an end to our breakfast and deciding to let Feyre in on a kernel of truth surrounding Morrigan’s appearance, that she hadn’t just appeared out of thin air quite so magically.

“Mor will be here for the rest of the week,” I said, “but by all means, do not feel that you have to oblige her with your presence.”

And to that, my dear cousin stuck her tongue out at me in blatant disregard. I rolled her eyes and felt another flicker of amusement from Feyre, this time directed at me . It was enough that my tongue sharpened in defense.

I was so backwards, constantly craving her affection or at least her attention and then stumbling over myself in idiocy when she gave it to me.

“Did you eat enough?” Feyre inclined her head. “Good. Then let’s go. Your first lesson awaits.”

“If he pisses you off, Feyre,” Mor said behind me as I strode from the table, “feel free to shove him over the rail of the nearest balcony.”

I flipped her off over my shoulder and could feel the grin burn onto my back.

See, you’re on her side too , it said.

“Enjoy your breakfast,” Feyre said and was up out of her seat trailing me.

“Whenever you want company, give a shout.”

Ah, Morrigan. Ever the dutiful friend.

To the very end.

---

Feyre sat at the wooden table tucked inside the cozy alcove of the study with little resistance, having come around to the sensibility of the tasks at hand rather quickly after our quick morning chat with Mor.

But while Feyre was every bit the pragmatist, it was the stubborn iron-willed fighter that had cleaved bones in two to hurl at her enemies and made me fall in love with her who sat down to study.

Relief sank into my chest.

Feyre - my Feyre - was still there, somewhere.

“I know my alphabet,” she said. “I’m not that stupid.”

She eyed every book and piece of paper I set before her with hot disdain, her tongue cutting me like a razor with the way she spat the words out.

“I didn’t say you were stupid,” I replied. “I’m just trying to determine where we should begin. Since you’ve refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.”

“Can’t you hire a tutor?”

But for Feyre, even this level of discomfort felt a bit excessive given what she’d endured in front of me before. Reading compared to drunken parties spent half naked and many a night bathed in blood seemed like nothing.

And sitting there, itching to claw my eyes out in that vibrant set of clothes that added so much color back to her cheeks the way her Spring Court attire never did... it was kind of hot.

This woman could have eaten me alive if she had wanted to and she wasn’t the least bit aware.

“Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?” I asked.

“You’re a High Lord - don’t you have better things to do?”

What do you think I’m doing, darling?

“Of course,” I said instead. “But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.”

And certainly nothing of my real job was as pleasurable as her company, even if her fingers didn’t twitch to pull her shoes from her feet and hurl them with that considerable fae strength of hers right at my head again.

“You’re a real bastard, you know that?”

I laughed dryly, happy to hear some of the snark returning. It suited her. “I’ve been called worse. In fact, I think you’ve called me worse.” I tapped the paper I’d set in front of her on the table, the one I’d written privately out of sight as soon as I’d left the breakfast table, just before she’d caught up with me. “Read that,” I instructed.

All at once, Feyre’s head swam. The letters on the page blurred before her, but I sensed it was more from the fear that made her reluctant to even try than any failings of actual effort.

“I can’t,” she said and her voice came out strained. But she was wrong.

“Try.”

Feyre stared longer and harder at the paper the second time around, but still she deflected. And it was just enough to chip away at some of the flirtation I’d managed to build between us and redirect the energy towards our earlier frustrations.

My earlier frustrations. At everything at stake for us both if she pushed herself back too far.

“What exactly , is your stake in all this?” she asked. “You said you’d tell me if I worked with you.”

“I didn’t specify when I’d tell you,” I said as she scooted away from on her seat. I shrugged. I wasn’t going to let her quit on herself no matter how terrified she was.

No matter how dispensable she found herself.

To me, Feyre was worth the effort. In every way.

She just didn’t see it.

“Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe-”

“I get it,” she said by way of cutting me off, and I snorted, half amused and half proud.

“Try to read it, Feyre.”

Her hand snatched so violently at the paper it almost ripped in two between her fingers. She studied the first word for a long time and then finally - “Y-You... look..”

“Good,” I said gently, but even that was too much for her.

“I didn’t ask for you approval.”

So much pride in that busy little head of hers. I couldn’t stop the stupid grin from eating up my features nor the chuckle that toppled out of me.

“Ab... Absolutely... De... Del...” She paused considering the word and my insides danced, anticipating her reaction when she looked at me for help - the first she’d asked of me - and I purred the answer low against her face.

“Delicious,” I said.

Feyre’s face burned. Her head whipped to the paper, worked out the rest of the sentence and sent a stream of curse filled emotion down the bond towards me.

“ You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That’s what you wrote?”

Time for the second half of the day’s lesson to begin, now that she was good and riled up for it. Hopefully, the emotion would help.

Without warning or word, my mental claws sank right into the wide open doorways of Feyre’s mind and took hold. I leaned back in my chair, making it look easy, showing her the proof she needed to realize what was at stake if she didn’t put the effort in to learning these skills. Without them, she could very well die and that wasn’t a chance I was willing to take even if she was.

It’s true, isn’t it?

I spoke directly into her mind. And even if it made me a filthy prick to her, I meant it. Despite how unhealthy she’d grown since I’d seen her last, I couldn’t get the image of her in those bright shades of fabric out of my mind, an image that would haunt me weeks after she’d left for the week.

Feyre jumped, her chair sliding beneath her, and she screamed back at me, “Stop that!”

The fashion of the Night Court suits you , I said as I dug my claws in deeper, paralyzed her body with unyielding confusion she couldn’t possibly escape.

This is what happens when you leave your mental shields down. Someone with my sort of powers could slip inside, see what they want, and take your mind for themselves. Or they could shatter it. I’m currently standing on the threshold of your mind... but if I were to go deeper, all it would take would be half a thought from me and who you are, your very self, would be wiped away.

Feyre’s skin grew slick with fear, but still she didn’t move - didn’t try, and still I pressed her.

You should be afraid. You should be afraid of this, and you should be thanking the gods-damned Cauldron that in the past three months, no one with my sorts of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out.

She did nothing. Did not move with her mind nor her body, didn’t even think herself capable of it and that alone pissed me off to no end.

My Feyre was more than capable. I just had to find her.

Shove. Me. Out.

I ground the words into her skull until she felt me closing in on her when in reality, I was at a reasonably safe distance. In time, with enough practice, she’d see that. But until then...

Feyre’s mind ran - in too many directions and all at once.

She slammed into her own mental barriers and I hummed a laugh across the bridge connecting us, guiding her towards it. That way, Feyre .

Just as she had when she’d birthed her plan for the Middengard Wyrm, Feyre’s eyes sparked and she ran, not just as the open path to escape, but at some hidden agenda gaining traction in her mind. And then before I even saw it coming, that cunning little warrior girl hurtled her entire essence at me and my claws retracted, even if I still had to half force them to.

“Good,” I said. But even while Feyre slumped in her chair, content to just quit, that demon inside of me reared again to spur her on to finish it. “Not yet. Shield. Block me out so I can’t get back in.”

Feyre’s mind gave half a lean towards sleep and the quiet comfort of her bed before my claws traced the outskirts of her mind and she started at once. A wall of thick, black adamant slammed against the tips of my nails and I retracted them, this time out of necessity instead of force or willing defeat.

Even half dazed for sleep, she hadn’t given up. Not entirely.

I had never been prouder yet.

“Very nice,” I said grinning ear to ear. “Blunt, but nice.”

Feyre, it seemed, felt differently even if there was no doubting her quick progress. She snatched my delicious paper up and tore it to shreds.

“You’re a pig,” she said, a little less testily due to her fatigue.

“Oh, most definitely. But look at you - you read that whole sentence, kicked me out of your mind, and shielded. Excellent work.”

“Don’t condescend to me.”

“I’m not. You’re reading at a level far higher than I anticipated.”

Feyre’s cheeks burned bright as the sun. I counted my lucky stars Cassian wasn’t hear to witness this. “But mostly illiterate,” she said.

At that, I settled myself for her. “At this point, it’s about practice, spelling, and more practice. You could be reading novels by Nynsar. And if you keep adding to those shields, you might very well keep me out entirely by then, too.”

I had meant it lightly, another flirtation meant to spur her into our games, our banter that kept her awake - kept her alive it seemed, or at least going until the next.

But Feyre’s mind quieted more than I expected, her thoughts shifting elsewhere.

“Is it even possible - to truly keep you out?”

“Not likely,” I said, sensing something else brewing behind the question. “But who knows how deep that power goes? Keep practicing and we’ll see what happens.”

“And will I still be bound by this bargain at Nynsar, too?”

Blank. My mind went utterly blank. Lifeless, even.

Feyre turned to stare at me when I failed to answer her.

Don’t get me started on what you did to me Under the Mountain.

She sat up a little straighter and leaned towards me, the most intent and focused I’d seen her since she arrived. I couldn’t look away for anything, not when she deigned to look at me so.

“After - after what happened, I think we can agree that I owe you nothing, and you owe me nothing. Isn’t it enough that we’re all free?” Her hand fell to the table rattling my bones, the tattoo upturned to stare daggers at me in a way she meant for me not to escape. “By the end, I thought you were different, thought that it was all a mask, but taking me away, keeping me here...”

I swallowed as her mind poured over Cauldron knew what words to torment me with next, but she’d done enough.

Isn’t it enough that we’re all free?

I owe you nothing.

I thought you were different...

I was different. Fuck - I am different. I just needed her to let me have a shot in hell at proving it to her.

“I’m not your enemy, Feyre.”

“Tamlin says you are. Everyone else says you are.”

On the table, her tattooed hand fisted, covering that eye right up.

But I didn’t give a shit about Tamlin anymore.

“And what do you think?”

I leaned away, craving a little bit of space just to think, but there was no going back from the turn the conversation had taken now.

“You’re doing a damned good job of making me agree with them.”

“Liar,” I said and it wasn’t even hard to say it. “Did you even tell your friends about what I did to you Under the Mountain ?”

Feyre almost flinched and stopped me at once. “I don’t want to talk about anything related to that. With you or them.”

At last, we were getting somewhere.

“No, because it’s so much easier to pretend it never happened and let them coddle you.”

“I don’t let them coddle me-”

“They had you wrapped up like a present yesterday. Like you were his reward.”

“So?”

“So?” My insides felt ready to explode - to peel and shred and melt until I was disintegrating from the inside out. She had no idea - no, she had an idea. She knew exactly what they were doing to her and even if it would have been okay to admit she wasn’t ready to face it, she wouldn’t go anywhere near even admitting the problem was there in the first place.

And suddenly, I didn’t care if Feyre owed me nothing - and truly, at the end of the day, she didn’t. I didn’t care if I became a monster to her or if she thought this week a prison sentence. And really, I knew she didn’t feel it was.

The home she longed for was the real prison and I would keep her out of it as long as I could if it meant the chance for her to realize what that bastard beast was doing to her day in and day out.

If it would give her a chance... to get better. To breathe and live and understand that being here could be a freedom more infinite than any prison.

“I’m ready to be taken home.”

She said it with some degree of ease, not unlike the masks I’d worn for years on end.

“Where you’ll be cloistered for the rest of your life, especially once you start punching out heirs. I can’t wait to see what Ianthe does when she gets her hands on them .”

“You don’t seem to have a particularly high opinion of her.”

“I heard you like to play games. I think you’ll find me a diverting playmate...”

A flash of bare skin, a seductive smile, and the vile, violated feeling she’d once given me swept over me in a wave of icy wrath.

“No, I can’t say that I do.” I tapped the fresh sheet of paper in front of her. “Start copying the alphabet. Until your letters are perfect. And every time you get through a round, lower and raise your shield. Until that is second nature. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“What?” Feyre stared at me, perhaps slightly in surprise that Ianthe of all things had done the trick.

“Copy. The. Alphabet. Until-”

“I heard what you said.”

Prick. Prick, prick, prick.

For the first time, her curses burned at me rather than amused and I snapped.

“Then get to work,” I said, springing to my feet with a sleekness I didn’t think I possessed in that heat. “And at least have the decency to only call me a prick when your shields are back up.”

And without another word from her or me, I winnowed into thin air.

---

In the hour I disappeared from Feyre’s side, I found Morrigan still at the breakfast table eating merrily away while rifling through papers she’d brought with her.

Papers I recognized.

“Did you really have to be such an ass about my joining you this morning?” she asked without looking up. “Or did you actually mind that I interfered?”

My eyes fluttered shut briefly before i walked across the room to one of the open airways and inhaled the scent of fresh air and snow capped mountains deep into my lungs.

“No,” I said, with a heavy sigh. The sound of papers shuffling behind me ceased, replaced by the crisp crunch of an apple being freshly bitten. “I just wasn’t expecting it, though I certainly should have. I am... glad you were there. Feyre seems to like you.”

“Of course she did.” No modesty whatsoever. “It’s only you and dear Cassian I can’t seem to charm.”

That wasn’t entirely true and it didn’t escape my notice she quietly left Azriel’s name off that list.

“Tell me about the Hewn City,” I said.

“Talk about grumpy...”

Mor proceeded to fill me in as flustered thoughts I had shoved to the back of my mind in the last week of magical objects and enemies I’d long thought dead consumed me for the proceeding hour.

---

Feyre was hunched over the wooden table when I returned. Her face scrunched and crinkled unpleasantly every so often, but she was trying and doing remarkably well from what I could sense. Her innate curiosity about the world and determination to learn, to be practical, made her a quick study.

It was nothing short of impressive.

I approached slowly, allowing her to note my presence in a way she sometimes did not have the luxury of doing with others, until I was standing over her shoulder. The letters she scripted on the pages in front of her were neater and clearer than the ones born on the pages she had shoved aside from the start.

“Not bad,” I said, allowing a simple trace of pride to lace my voice, lest she roar at me again.

Even better than her letters was her mind. My claws scraped along the perimeter of that beautiful black adamant she’d locked in place, pushing and testing and continually coming up short. Feyre’s face scrunched at each push in the same way it did when she wrote a particularly difficult word or letter and it made my chest relax.

“Well, well,” I purred when I’d finished perusing her progress, “hopefully I’ll be getting a good night’s rest at last, if you can manage to keep the wall up while you sleep.”

Prick!

The word blasted through my mind like lightning between folds of wind, so fast and vicious and gone in a wink that Feyre had her mental shields back in place before I even blinked at her. Behind my own shields, an electrifying pulse I wanted to feel again and again if it meant seeing this kind of life pour out of her swept over my being.

“Prick I might be, but look at you. Maybe we’ll get to have some fun with our lessons after all.”

I shouldn’t have been at all surprised she would insist on walking so far behind me as I led her up one of the tallest towers in the palace and on towards the room that held the first answers I had promised her.

The answers that could save or damn us both.

The room we entered was circular and carved from stone, maps of our world hanging about with markings and pins denoting cities and territories both known and unknown to those outside my circle.

And at the center sat a large black stone with the most important map of all. A simple map of Prythian and Hybern. Feyre’s eyes glanced over both but didn’t seem to note any particular distinctions between the territories. But I knew she was looking - really looking . I wouldn’t bring her here for nothing and she knew it.

When Feyre looked up, I raised my brows waiting.

“Nothing to ask?“

“No.”

She it so casually, with such feigned innocence, that feral teasing smirk of mine slipped out. “What do you see?”

“Is this some sort of way of convincing me to embrace my reading lessons?”

It was then that I felt a wave of her exhaustion slip over her. We had not even made it to noontime.

“Tell me what you see.”

Feyre looked at the map again and promptly answered with the easiest, most obvious reply. And it just so happened to be the right one.

“A world divided in two.”

“And do you think it should remain that way?”

Her head snapped up, eyes glaring - a snake ready to strike lest I do harm.

“My family-”

“Your human family,” I corrected, “would be deeply impacted if the wall came down, wouldn’t they? So close to its border... If they’re lucky, they’ll flee across the ocean before it happens.”

“ Will it happen?”

Every nerve in her body pulsed with fear, the first real, incredible fear she’d felt since being here with me.

Since leaving that Mountain.

I held her gaze. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Because war is coming, Feyre.”