Rhys and the others were gone that night—where, no one told me. But after the events of the day, I barely finished devouring the food Nuala and Cerridwen brought to my room before I tumbled into sleep.
I dreamed of a long, white bone, carved with horrifying accuracy: my face, twisted in agony and despair; the ash knife in my hand; a pool of blood leaking away from two corpses—
But I awoke to the watery light of winter dawn—my stomach full from the night before.
A mere minute after I’d risen to consciousness, Rhys knocked on my door. I’d barely granted him permission to enter before he stalked inside like a midnight wind, and chucked a belt hung with knives onto the foot of the bed.
“Hurry,” he said, flinging open the doors of the armoire and yanking out my fighting leathers. He tossed them onto the bed, too. “I want to be gone before the sun is fully up.”
“Why?” I said, pushing back the covers. No wings today.
“Because time is of the essence.” He dug out my socks and boots. “Once the King of Hybern realizes that someone is searching for the Book of Breathings to nullify the powers of the Cauldron, then his agents will begin hunting for it, too.”
“You suspected this for a while, though.” I hadn’t had the chance to discuss it with him last night. “The Cauldron, the king, the Book … You wanted it confirmed, but you were waiting for me.”
“Had you agreed to work with me two months ago, I would have taken you right to the Bone Carver to see if he confirmed my suspicions about your talents. But things didn’t go as planned.”
No, they most certainly hadn’t.
“The reading,” I said, sliding my feet into fleece-lined, thick-soled slippers. “That’s why you insisted on the lessons. So if your suspicions were true and I could harness the Book … I could actually read it—or any translation of whatever is inside.” A book that old might very well be written in an entirely different language. A different alphabet.
“Again,” he said, now striding for the dresser, “had you started to work with me, I would have told you why. I couldn’t risk discovery otherwise.” He paused with a hand on the knob. “You should have learned to read no matter what. But yes, when I told you it served my own purposes—it was because of this. Do you blame me for it?”
“No,” I said, and meant it. “But I’d prefer to be notified of any future schemes.”
“Duly noted.” Rhys yanked open the drawers and pulled out my undergarments. He dangled the bits of midnight lace and chuckled. “I’m surprised you didn’t demand Nuala and Cerridwen buy you something else.”
I stalked to him, snatching the lace away. “You’re drooling on the carpet.” I slammed the bathing room door before he could respond.
He was waiting as I emerged, already warm within the fur-lined leather. He held up the belt of knives, and I studied the loops and straps. “No swords, no bow or arrows,” he said. He’d worn his own Illyrian fighting leathers—that simple, brutal sword strapped down his spine.
“But knives are fine?”
Rhys knelt and spread wide the web of leather and steel, beckoning for me to stick a leg through one loop.
I did as instructed, ignoring the brush of his steady hands on my thighs as I stepped through the other loop, and he began tightening and buckling things. “She will not notice a knife, as she has knives in her cottage for eating and her work. But things that are out of place—objects that have not been there … A sword, a bow and arrow … She might sense those things.”
“What about me?”
He tightened a strap. Strong, capable hands—so at odds with the finery he usually wore to dazzle the rest of the world into thinking he was something else entirely. “Do not make a sound, do not touch anything but the object she took from me.”
Rhys looked up, hands braced on my thighs.
Bow, he’d once ordered Tamlin. And now here he was, on his knees before me. His eyes glinted as if he remembered it, too. Had that been a part of his game—that façade? Or had it been vengeance for the horrible blood feud between them?
“If we’re correct about your powers,” he said, “if the Bone Carver wasn’t lying to us, then you and the object will have the same … imprint, thanks to the preserving spells I placed on it long ago. You are one and the same. She will not notice your presence so long as you touch only it. You will be invisible to her.”
“She’s blind?”
A nod. “But her other senses are lethal. So be quick, and quiet. Find the object and run out, Feyre.” His hands lingered on my legs, wrapping around the back of them.
“And if she notices me?”
His hands tightened slightly. “Then we’ll learn precisely how skilled you are.”
Cruel, conniving bastard. I glared at him.
Rhys shrugged. “Would you rather I locked you in the House of Wind and stuffed you with food and made you wear fine clothes and plan my parties?”
“Go to hell. Why not get this object yourself, if it’s so important?”
“Because the Weaver knows me—and if I am caught, there would be a steep price. High Lords are not to interfere with her, no matter the direness of the situation. There are many treasures in her hoard, some she has kept for millennia. Most will never be retrieved—because the High Lords do not dare be caught, thanks to the laws that protect her, thanks to her wrath. Any thieves on their behalf … Either they do not return, or they are never sent, for fear of it leading back to their High Lord. But you … She does not know you. You belong to every court.”
“So I’m your huntress and thief?”
His hands slid down to cup the backs of my knees as he said with a roguish grin, “You are my salvation, Feyre.”
CHAPTER
20
Rhysand winnowed us into a wood that was older, more aware, than any place I’d been.
The gnarled beech trees were tightly woven together, splattered and draped so thoroughly with moss and lichen that it was nearly impossible to see the bark beneath.
“Where are we?” I breathed, hardly daring to whisper.
Rhys kept his hands within casual reach of his weapons. “In the heart of Prythian, there is a large, empty territory that divides the North and South. At the center of it is our sacred mountain.”
My
heart stumbled, and I focused on my steps through the ferns and moss and roots. “This forest,” Rhys went on, “is on the eastern edge of that neutral territory. Here, there is no High Lord. Here, the law is made by who is strongest, meanest, most cunning. And the Weaver of the Wood is at the top of their food chain.”
The trees groaned—though there was no breeze to shift them. No, the air here was tight and stale. “Amarantha didn’t wipe them out?”
“Amarantha was no fool,” Rhys said, his face dark. “She did not touch these creatures or disturb the wood. For years, I tried to find ways to manipulate her to make that foolish mistake, but she never bought it.”
“And now we’re disturbing her—for a mere test.”
He chuckled, the sound bouncing off the gray stones strewn across the forest floor like scattered marbles. “Cassian tried to convince me last night not to take you. I thought he might even punch me.”
“Why?” I barely knew him.
“Who knows? With Cassian, he’s probably more interested in fucking you than protecting you.”
“You’re a pig.”
“You could, you know,” Rhys said, holding up the branch of a scrawny beech for me to slip under. “If you needed to move on in a physical sense, I’m sure Cassian would be more than happy to oblige.”
It felt like a test in itself. And it pissed me off enough that I crooned, “Then tell him to come to my room tonight.”
“If you survive this test.”
I paused atop a little lichen-crusted rock. “You seem pleased by the idea that I won’t.”
“Quite the opposite, Feyre.” He prowled to where I stood on the stone. I was almost eye level with him. The forest went even quieter—the trees seeming to lean closer, as if to catch every word. “I’ll let Cassian know you’re … open to his advances.”
“Good,” I said. A bit of hollowed-out air pushed against me, like a flicker of night. That power along my bones and blood stirred in answer.
I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect. His words were a lethal caress as he said, “Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before you?”