A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses 4)

So strange, to speak polite, normal words. Strange to wish to offer them, and to a stranger no less.

Males and females, children darting amongst them, gawked at Nesta as she exited onto the street. A few hurried their children along. She met their stares with cool indifference.

You’re right to hide your children from me, she wanted to say. I am the monster you fear.

“Same task as yesterday?” Nesta asked Clotho by way of greeting, still half-chilled from the camp she’d departed only ten minutes earlier.

Cassian had barely spoken upon returning to Rhysand’s mother’s house, his face taut with whatever he’d dealt with at the other Illyrian villages, and Morrigan had been just as sour-faced when she’d appeared to winnow them back to the House of Wind. Cassian had dumped Nesta on the landing veranda without so much as a farewell before he pivoted to where Mor dusted herself off. Within seconds, he was carrying the blond beauty into the brisk wind.

It shouldn’t have bothered her—seeing him flying away with another female in his arms. Some small part of her knew it wasn’t remotely fair to feel that body-tightening irritation at the sight. She had pushed him away again and again, and he had no reason to believe she’d wish it differently. And she knew he had a history with Morrigan, that they’d been lovers long ago.

She’d turned from the sight, entering the House through its dining room, where she found a bowl of some sort of pork-and-bean soup waiting. A silent, thoughtful offering.

She’d just said to the House, “I’m not hungry,” before striding down to the library.

Now she waited as Clotho wrote out an answer and handed over a piece of paper.

Nesta read, There are books to be shelved on Level Five.

Nesta peered over the railing beside Clotho’s desk, silently counting. Five was … very far down. Not within the first ring of true darkness, but hovering in the dimness above it. “Nothing lives down there anymore, right? Bryaxis hasn’t come back?”

Clotho’s enchanted pen moved. The second note read, Bryaxis never harmed any of us.

“Why?”

The pen scratched along the paper. I think Bryaxis took pity on us. We saw our nightmares come true before we came here.

It was an effort not to look at Clotho’s gnarled hands or try to pierce the shadows beneath her hood.

The priestess added to the note, I can reassign you to a higher level.

“No,” Nesta said hoarsely. “I’ll manage.”

And that was that. An hour later, her leathers covered in dust, Nesta slumped at an empty wooden table, in need of a pause.

That same bowl of pork-and-bean soup appeared on the table.

She peered at the distant ceiling. “I said I’m not hungry.”

A spoon appeared alongside the bowl. And a napkin.

“This is absolutely none of your business.”

A glass of water thudded down next to the soup.

Nesta crossed her arms, leaning back in the chair.

“Who are you talking to?”

The light female voice had Nesta twisting around, stiffening as she found a priestess in the robes of an acolyte standing between the two nearest shelves. Her hood was thrown back, and faelight danced in the rich coppery chestnut of her pin-straight hair. Her large teal eyes were as clear and depthless as the stone usually atop a priestess’s hood, and a scattering of freckles lay across her nose and cheeks, as if someone had tossed them with a careless hand. She was young—almost coltish, with her slender, elegant limbs. High Fae, and yet … Nesta couldn’t explain the way she sensed that there was something else mixed into her. Some secret beneath the pretty face.

Nesta gestured to the soup and water, but they were gone. She scowled at the ceiling, at the House that had the nerve to pester her and then make her look like a lunatic. But she said to the priestess, “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”

The priestess hefted the five tomes in her arms. “Are you finished for today?”

Nesta glanced at the cart of books she’d left unsorted. “No. I was taking a break.”

“You’ve only been working for an hour.”

“I didn’t realize anyone was timing me.” Nesta allowed every bit of unpleasantness to show in her face. She’d already conversed with one stranger today, fulfilling her quota of basic decency. Being kind to a second one was beyond her.

The acolyte remained unimpressed. “It’s not every day we have someone new in our library.” She dumped the books onto Nesta’s cart. “These can be shelved.”

“I don’t answer to acolytes.”

The priestess drew up to her full height, which was slightly taller than average for Fae females. A crackling sort of energy buzzed around her, and Nesta’s power grumbled in answer. “You’re here to work,” the acolyte said, her voice unruffled. “And not only for Clotho.”

“You speak rather informally of your high priestess.”

“Clotho does not enforce rank. She encourages us to use her name.”

“And what is your name?” She would certainly be complaining to Clotho about this impertinent acolyte’s attitude.

The priestess’s eyes glittered with amusement, as if aware of Nesta’s plan. “Gwyneth Berdara.” Unusual, for these Fae to use family names. Even Rhys didn’t use one, as far as Nesta knew. “But most call me Gwyn.”

A level above, two priestesses walked by the railing in silence, hooded heads bowed and books in their arms. Nesta could have sworn one of them watched, though.

Gwyn tracked the focus of her attention. “That’s Roslin and Deirdre.”

“How can you tell?” With their hoods on, they appeared nearly identical save for their hands.

“Their scents,” Gwyn said simply, and turned to the books she’d left on the cart. “Do you plan to shelve these, or do I need to take them elsewhere?”

Nesta leveled a flat look at her. Living down here, there was a good chance the priestesses didn’t know who she was. What she’d done. What power she bore. “I’ll do it,” Nesta said through clenched teeth.

Gwyn hooked her hair behind her arched ears. Freckles dotted her hands, too, like splattered bits of rust. If marks of trauma lingered, any evidence was hidden by her robe.

But Nesta knew well how invisible wounds could be. How they could scar as deeply and badly as any physical breaking.

And it was for that reminder alone that Nesta said more gently, “I’ll do it right now.” Perhaps she had a little bit of her decency quota left.

Gwyn marked the change. “I don’t need your pity.” The words were sharp, as clear as her teal eyes.

“It wasn’t pity.”

“I’ve been here for nearly two years, but I haven’t become so disconnected from others that I can’t tell when someone remembers why I am here and alters their behavior.” Gwyn’s mouth flattened to a line. “I don’t need to be coddled. Only spoken to like a person.”

“I doubt you’ll enjoy the way I speak to most people,” Nesta said.

Gwyn snorted. “Try me.”

Nesta looked at her from under lowered brows again. “Get out of my sight.”

Gwyn grinned, a broad, bright thing that showed most of her teeth and made her eyes sparkle in a way Nesta knew her own never had. “Oh, you’re good.” Gwyn turned back to the stacks. “Really good.” She vanished into the gloom.