The one in the center said, “Our sister’s debt is paid.”
And then they were gone.
Amren was already swimming for the distant mainland shore.
Praying they didn’t come back and make a meal of us, I hurried after her, trying to keep my movements small to avoid detection.
We both reached a quiet, sandy cove and collapsed.
A shadow blocked out the sun, and a boot toed my calf. “What,” said Rhysand, still in battle-black, “are you two doing?”
I opened my eyes to find Amren hoisting herself up on her elbows. “Where the hell were you?” she demanded.
“You two set off every damned trigger in the place. I was hunting down each guard who went to sound the alarm.” My throat was ravaged—and sand tickled my cheeks, my bare hands. “I thought you had it covered,” he said to her.
Amren hissed, “That place, or that damned book, nearly nullified my powers. We almost drowned.”
His gaze shot to me. “I didn’t feel it through the bond—”
“It probably nullified that, too, you stupid bastard,” Amren snapped.
His eyes flickered. “Did you get it?” Not at all concerned that we were half-drowned and had very nearly been dead.
I touched my jacket—the heavy metal lump within.
“Good,” Rhys said, and I looked behind him at the sudden urgency in his tone.
Sure enough, in the castle across the bay, people were darting about.
“I missed some guards,” he gritted out, grabbed both our arms, and we vanished.
The dark wind was cold and roaring, and I had barely enough strength to cling to him.
It gave out entirely, along with Amren’s, as we landed in the town house foyer—and we both collapsed to the wood floor, spraying sand and water on the carpet.
Cassian shouted from the dining room behind us, “What the hell?”
I glared up at Rhysand, who merely stepped toward the breakfast table. “I’m waiting for an explanation, too,” he merely said to wide-eyed Cassian, Azriel, and Mor.
But I turned to Amren, who was still hissing on the floor. Her red-rimmed eyes narrowed. “How?”
“During the Tithe, the water-wraith emissary said they had no gold, no food to pay. They were starving.” Every word ached, and I thought I might vomit again. He’d deserve it, if I puked all over the carpet. Though he’d probably take it from my wages. “So I gave her some of my jewelry to pay her dues. She swore that she and her sisters would never forget the kindness.”
“Can someone explain, please?” Mor called from the room beyond.
We remained on the floor as Amren began quietly laughing, her small body shaking.
“What?” I demanded.
“Only an immortal with a mortal heart would have given one of those horrible beasts the money. It’s so … ” Amren laughed again, her dark hair plastered with sand and seaweed. For a moment, she even looked human. “Whatever luck you live by, girl … thank the Cauldron for it.”
The others were all watching, but I felt a chuckle whisper out of me.
Followed by a laugh, as rasping and raw as my lungs. But a real laugh, perhaps edged by hysteria—and profound relief.
We looked at each other, and laughed again.
“Ladies,” Rhysand purred—a silent order.
I groaned as I got to my feet, sand falling everywhere, and offered a hand to Amren to rise. Her grip was firm, but her quicksilver eyes were surprisingly tender as she squeezed it before snapping her fingers.
We were both instantly clean and warm, our clothes dry. Save for a wet patch around my breast—where that box waited.
My companions were solemn-faced as I approached and reached inside that pocket. The metal bit into my fingers, so cold it burned.
I dropped it onto the table.
It thudded, and they all recoiled, swearing.
Rhys crooked a finger at me. “One last task, Feyre. Unlock it, please.”
My knees were buckling—my head spinning and mouth bone-dry and full of salt and grit, but … I wanted to be rid of it.
So I slid into a chair, tugging that hateful box to me, and placed a hand on top.
Hello, liar, it purred.
“Hello,” I said softly.
Will you read me?
“No.”
The others didn’t say a word—though I felt their confusion shimmering in the room. Only Rhys and Amren watched me closely.
Open, I said silently.
Say please.
“Please,” I said.
The box—the Book—was silent. Then it said, Like calls to like.
“Open,” I gritted out.
Unmade and Made; Made and Unmade—that is the cycle. Like calls to like.
I pushed my hand harder, so tired I didn’t care about the thoughts tumbling out, the bits and pieces that were a part of and not part of me: heat and water and ice and light and shadow.
Cursebreaker, it called to me, and the box clicked open.
I sagged back in my chair, grateful for the roaring fire in the nearby fireplace.
Cassian’s hazel eyes were dark. “I never want to hear that voice again.”
“Well, you will,” Rhysand said blandly, lifting the lid. “Because you’re coming with us to see those mortal queens as soon as they deign to visit.”
I was too tired to think about that—about what we had left to do. I peered into the box.
It was not a book—not with paper and leather.
It had been formed of dark metal plates bound on three rings of gold, silver, and bronze, each word carved with painstaking precision, in an alphabet I could not recognize. Yes, it indeed turned out my reading lessons were unnecessary.
Rhys left it inside the box as we all peered in—then recoiled.
Only Amren remained staring at it. The blood drained from her face entirely.
“What language is that?” Mor asked.
I thought Amren’s hands might have been shaking, but she shoved them into her pockets. “It is no language of this world.”
Only Rhys was unfazed by the shock on her face. As if he’d suspected what the language might be. Why he had picked her to be a part of this hunt.
“What is it, then?” Azriel asked.
She stared and stared at the Book—as if it were a ghost, as if it were a miracle—and said, “It is the Leshon Hakodesh. The Holy Tongue.” Those quicksilver eyes shifted to Rhysand, and I realized she’d understood, too, why she’d gone.
Rhysand said, “I heard a legend that it was written in a tongue of mighty beings who feared the Cauldron’s power and made the Book to combat it. Mighty beings who were here … and then vanished. You are the only one who can uncode it.”
It was Mor who warned, “Don’t play those sorts of games, Rhysand.”
But he shook his head. “Not a game. It was a gamble that Amren would be able to read it—and a lucky one.”
Amren’s nostrils flared delicately, and for a moment, I wondered if she might throttle him for not telling her his suspicions, that the Book might indeed be more than the key to our own salvation.
Rhys smiled at her in a way that said he’d be willing to let her try.
Even Cassian slid a hand toward his fighting knife.
But then Rhysand said, “I thought, too, that the Book might also contain the spell to free you—and send you home. If they were the ones who wrote it in the first place.”
Amren’s throat bobbed—slightly.
Cassian said, “Shit.”
Rhys went on, “I did not tell you my suspicions, because I did not want to get your hopes up. But if the legends about the language were indeed right … Perhaps you might find what you’ve been looking for, Amren.”
“I need the other piece before I can begin decoding it.” Her voice was raw.
“Hopefully our request to the mortal queens will be answered soon,” he said, frowning at the sand and water staining the foyer. “And hopefully the next encounter will g