A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses #4) by Sarah J. Maas

“That’s what you have to find out.”

Cassian tapped his booted foot on the stones of the walkway. “No pressure.”

Mor drained her tea. “Playing courtier isn’t all nice clothes and fancy parties.”

He scowled. Long moments passed in amiable silence, though Cassian half-heard the wind whispering over the Sidra, the merry chatter of the people around them, the clink of silverware against plates. Content to let him think, Mor returned to her sunning.

Cassian straightened. “There’s one person who knows those queens inside and out. Who can offer some insight.”

Mor opened an eye, then slowly sat forward, hair falling around her like a rippling golden river. “Oh?”

“Vassa.” Cassian hadn’t dealt much with the ousted human queen—the only good one out of the surviving group, who had been betrayed by her fellow queens when they’d sold her to a sorcerer-lord who’d cursed her to be a firebird by day, woman by night. She’d been lucky: they’d given the other rebellious queen in their midst to the Attor. Who had then impaled her on a lamppost a few bridges away from where Cassian and Mor now sat.

Mor nodded. “She might be able to help.”

He leaned his arms on the table. “Lucien is living with Vassa. And Jurian. He’s supposed to be our emissary to the human lands. Let him deal with it.”

Mor took another bite from her pastry. “Lucien can’t be entirely trusted anymore.”

Cassian started. “What?”

“Even with Elain here, he’s become close with Jurian and Vassa. He’s voluntarily living with them these days, and not just as an emissary. As their friend.”

Cassian went over all he’d heard and observed from his encounters with Lucien since the war, trying to contemplate it like Rhys and Mor would. “He’s spent months helping them sort out the politics of who rules Prythian’s slice of the human lands,” Cassian said slowly. “So Lucien can’t be unbiased in reporting to us on Vassa.”

Mor nodded gravely. “Lucien might mean well, but any reports would be skewed—even if he isn’t aware of it—in their favor. We need someone outside of their little bubble to collect information and report.” She finished off her pastry. “Which would be you.”

Fine. That made sense. “Why haven’t we already contacted Vassa about this?”

Mor waved a hand, though her shadowed eyes belied her casual gesture. “Because we’re just now piecing it all together. But you should definitely speak with her, when you can. As soon as you can, actually.”

Cassian nodded. He didn’t dislike Vassa, though meeting her would also entail talking with Lucien and Jurian. The former he’d learned to live with, but the latter … It didn’t matter that it turned out that Jurian had been fighting on their side. That the human general who’d been Amarantha’s tortured prisoner for five centuries had played Hybern after being rebirthed by the Cauldron, and had helped Cassian and his family win the war. Cassian still didn’t like the man.

He rose, leaning to ruffle Mor’s shining hair. “I miss you these days.” She’d been away frequently lately, and each time she returned, a shadow he couldn’t place dimmed her eyes. “You know we’d warn you if Keir ever came here.” Her asshole of a father still hadn’t called in his favor with Rhys: to visit Velaris.

“Eris bought me time.” Her words were laced with acid.

Cassian had tried not to believe it, but he knew Eris had done it as a gesture of good faith. He’d invited Rhysand into his mind to see exactly why he’d convinced Keir to indefinitely delay his visit to Velaris. Only Eris had that sort of sway with the power-hungry Keir, and whatever Eris had offered Keir in exchange for not coming here was still a mystery. At least to Cassian. Rhys probably knew. From Mor’s pale face, he wondered if she knew, too. Eris must have sacrificed something big to spare Mor from her father’s visit, which would have likely been timed for a moment that would maximize tormenting her.

“It doesn’t matter to me.” Mor waved off the conversation with a flip of her hand. He could tell something else was eating at her. But she’d let him in when she was ready.

Cassian walked around the table and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Get some rest.” He shot skyward before she could answer.



Nesta woke to pure darkness.

Darkness that she had not witnessed in years now. Since that ramshackle cottage that had become a prison and a hell.

Jolting upright, hands clutching at her chest, she gasped for air. Had it been some fever dream on a winter’s night? She was still in that cottage, still starving and poor and desperate—

No. The air in the room was toasty, and she was the lone person in the bed, not clinging to her sisters for warmth, always squabbling over who got the coveted middle place in the bed on the coldest nights, or the edges on the hottest summer ones.

And though she’d become as bony as she’d been during those long winters … this body was new, too. Fae. Powerful. Or it had once been.

Scrubbing at her face, Nesta slid from the bed. The floors were warmed. Not the icy wooden planks in the cottage.

Padding to the window, she drew back the drapes and peered out at the darkened city below. Golden lights shone along the streets, dancing on the twining band of the Sidra. Beyond that, only starlight silvered the lowlands before the cold and empty sea.