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

“I think you might be my only friend,” Nesta said, then groaned her way into the tub’s welcoming warmth.

The House was apparently so pleased by her words that as soon as she lay back, a tray appeared across the width of the tub. Laden with a massive piece of chocolate cake.

CHAPTER

15

The seventh level of the library was unnerving.

Standing at the stone railing on Level Six, clutching a book to be shelved, Nesta stared into the darkness mere feet from her, so thick that it hovered like a layer of fog, veiling the levels below.

Books dwelled down there. She knew that, but she’d never been sent down to those dark levels. Had never seen one of the priestesses venture past the spot where she now stood, peering over the railing. Ahead of her, the darkness beckoned down the ramp. Like it was an entry into some dark pit of hell.

Hybern’s twin Ravens were dead. Did their blood still stain the ground far below? Or had Rhysand and Bryaxis wiped even that trace of them away?

The darkness seemed to rise and fall. Like it was breathing.

The hair on her arms rose.

Bryaxis was gone. Set loose into the world. Even Feyre and Rhysand’s hunting hadn’t retrieved the thing that was Fear itself.

And yet the darkness remained. It pulsed, tendrils of shadow drifting upward.

She’d stared too long into its depths. It might gaze back.

But she didn’t move from the rail. Couldn’t remember how she’d come down this far, or which book she still held in her hands.

There was night, and there was the darkness of extinguishing a candle, and then there was this. Not only the true absence of light, but … a womb. The womb from which all life had come and would return, neither good nor evil, only dark, dark, dark.

Nesta.

Her name drifted to her as if rising from the depths of some black ocean.

Nesta.

It slid along her bones, her blood. She had to pull back. Pull away.

The darkness pulsed, beckoning.

“Nesta.”

She whirled, nearly dropping the book over the edge.

Gwyn was standing there, eyeing her. “What are you doing?”

Heart thundering, Nesta twisted toward the darkness, but—it was only that. Murky darkness, through which she could now barely make out the sublevels beneath. As if the thick, impenetrable black had vanished. “It … I …”

Gwyn, arms laden with books, strode to her side and surveyed the dark. Nesta waited for the chiding, the ridicule and disbelief, but Gwyn only asked gravely, “What did you see?”

“Why?” Nesta asked. “Do you see things in that darkness?” Her voice was thin.

“No, but some of the others do. They say the dark has trailed them. Right to their doors.” Gwyn shivered.

“I saw darkness,” Nesta managed to say. Her heart would not calm. “Pure darkness.”

The likes of which she had not seen since she’d been inside the Cauldron.

Gwyn glanced between Nesta and the chasm below. “We should go higher.”

Nesta lifted the book still in her shaking arms. “I need to shelve this.”

“Leave it,” Gwyn said, enough authority lacing her words that Nesta dropped the book onto a dark wood table. The priestess put a hand to Nesta’s back, escorting her up the sloping ramp. “Don’t look behind,” Gwyn muttered out of the corner of her mouth. “What level is your cart on?”

“Four.” She began to twist her head to gaze over her shoulder, but Gwyn pinched her.

“Don’t look behind,” Gwyn murmured again.

“Is it following?”

“No, but …” Gwyn’s swallow was audible. “I can feel something. Like a cat. Small and clever and curious. It’s watching.”

“If you’re joking—”

Gwyn reached into the pocket of her pale robe and pulled out the blue stone of the priestesses. It fluttered with light, like the sun on a shallow sea. “Hurry now,” she whispered, and they increased their pace, reaching the fifth level. No other priestesses approached, and there was no one to witness Gwyn urging, “Keep going.”

The stone in her hand glimmered.

They made another loop upward, and just as they reached the fourth level, that presence—that sensation of something at their backs—eased.

They waited until they’d reached Nesta’s cart before Gwyn dumped her books on the ground and flung herself into the nearest tufted armchair. Her hands trembled, but the blue stone had gone dormant again.

Nesta had to swallow twice before she could say, “What is that?”

“It’s an Invoking Stone.” Gwyn unfurled her fingers, revealing the gem within her hand. “Similar to the Siphons of the Illyrians, except that the power of the Mother flows through it. We cannot use it for harm, only healing and protection. It was shielding us.”

“No—I mean, that darkness.”

Gwyn’s eyes matched her stone almost perfectly, right down to the shadows that now veiled her expression. “They say the being that dwelled down there is gone. But I believe some piece of it might have lingered. Or at the very least altered the darkness itself.”

“It didn’t feel like that. It felt … older.”

Gwyn’s brows rose. “Are you an adept in such things?” There was no condescension in the words, only curiosity.

“I …” Nesta blinked. “Do you not know who I am?”

“I know you are the High Lady’s sister. That you slew the King of Hybern.” Gwyn’s face grew solemn, haunted. “That you, like Lady Feyre, were once mortal. Human.”

“I was Made by the Cauldron. At the King of Hybern’s order.”

Gwyn traced her fingers over the smooth dome of the Invoking Stone. It rippled with light at the touch. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

“My other sister, Elain—we were forced into the Cauldron and turned High Fae.” Nesta swallowed again. “It … imparted some of itself to me.”

Gwyn considered the railing, the open drop into the darkness beyond it. “Like calls to like.”

“Yes.”

Gwyn shook her head, hair swaying. “Well, perhaps don’t go down to Level Six again.”

“It’s my job to shelve the books.”

“Make it known to Clotho and she’ll ensure those books are given to others.”

“It seems cowardly.”

“I don’t wish to learn what might come crawling out of that darkness if you, Cauldron-Made, fear it. Especially if it’s … drawn to you.”

Nesta sank into the chair beside Gwyn’s. “I’m not a warrior.”

“You slew the King of Hybern,” Gwyn repeated. “With the shadowsinger’s knife.”

“Luck and rage,” Nesta admitted. “And I had made a promise to kill him for what he did to me and my sister.”

A priestess walked by, beheld them lounging there, and scurried off. Her fear left a tang in the air like burned food.

Gwyn sighed after her. “That’s Riven. She’s still uncomfortable with any manner of contact with strangers.”

“When did she arrive?”

“Eighty years ago.”

Nesta started. But sorrow filled Gwyn’s eyes as she explained, “We do not gossip about each other here. Our stories remain our own to tell or to keep. Only Riven, Clotho, and the High Lord know what happened to her. She will not speak of it.”