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

Nesta rolled her eyes. She might have been caught practicing her waltzes in the stacks once or twice. Or ten times.

Nesta nodded to Emerie, drawing the female’s gaze away from Mor’s animated hand gestures. “Come on.”

But Gwyn said, “Actually, before you two go, I wanted to give you something. Since it’s probably the last time we’ll see each other until Winter Solstice is over.”

Nesta and Emerie swapped confused looks. The latter asked, “You got us presents?”

Gwyn only said, “I’ll meet you down at your cart.” With that, she dashed into the gloom.

Emerie and Nesta aimed for Level Five, where Nesta had left her cart. It had been replenished with books needing to be shelved. She explained what she did, but Emerie seemed to be half-listening. Her face had gone pale.

“What?” Nesta asked.

Emerie’s brows bunched. “I … I must not have drunk enough water during training.” They’d tried out two new Valkyrie techniques that Gwyn had found the night before, and both had been particularly brutal, ordering them to use shields as springboards for launching a fellow Valkyrie into the skies, and to do their abdominal curls bearing the weights of those shields.

No one had managed to cut the ribbon, though Emerie had nicked an edge two days ago.

“What’s wrong?” Nesta pressed.

Emerie’s eyes turned bleak. “It’s … I swear, I can hear my father yelling down here.” Her hands trembled as she lifted one to brush a strand of hair behind an ear. “I can hear him screaming at me, can hear the furniture breaking …”

Nesta’s blood went cold. She whipped her head to the downward slope to their right. No darkness lurked there, but they were low enough … “This place is ancient and strange,” she said, even as she processed what Emerie had admitted. She had never spoken of her father beyond the wing clipping. But Nesta had gathered enough: the man had been a beast like Tomas Mandray’s father.

“Let’s go up a level, where the darkness doesn’t whisper so loudly. I’m sure Gwyn will find us easily enough.” She linked her arm with Emerie’s, pressing her body close, letting some of her warmth leak into her friend.

Emerie nodded, though she remained wan.

Nesta wondered if Emerie heard her father’s bellowing every step of the way.

Gwyn did find them, the priestess panting and flushed as she handed out two rectangular parcels, each roughly the size of a large, thin book. “One for each of you.”

Nesta opened the brown paper and beheld a stack of pages filled with writing. At the top of the first page, it merely said, Chapter Twenty-One. She read the first few lines beneath it, then nearly dropped the pages. “This—this is about us.”

Gwyn beamed. “I convinced Merrill to add us into the penultimate chapter. She even let me write it—with her own annotations, of course. But it’s about the rebirth of the Valkyries. About what we’re doing.”

Nesta had no words. Emerie’s hands were once more shaking as she leafed through the pages. “You had this much to say about us?” Emerie said, choking on a laugh.

Gwyn rubbed her hands together. “With more to come.”

Nesta read a line at random on the fifth page. Whether the sun beat hot on their brows or freezing rain turned their bones to ice, Nesta, Emerie, and Gwyneth arrived at practice each morning, ready to …

The back of her throat ached; her eyes stung. “We’re in a book.”

Gwyn’s fingers slid into hers, squeezing tight. Nesta looked up to find her holding Emerie’s free hand as well. Gwyn smiled again, her eyes bright. “Our stories are worth telling.”



Nesta was still reeling from the generosity of Gwyn’s gift that evening when she found a note from Cassian, telling her he needed to stay overnight in one of the Illyrian outposts to deal with some petty squabble between war-bands. With the Blood Rite mere months away, he’d said, tensions were always high, but this year seemed particularly bad. New feuds popping up every few days, old grudges resurfacing … Nesta, despite the note’s contents, had smiled to herself, picturing Cassian’s take-no-bullshit face as he laid down the law.

But her amusement had soon faded, and though she tried Mind-Stilling twice after dinner, she couldn’t get herself to settle. Kept thinking of Gwyn’s gift, of Emerie’s terrified face as she sensed whatever was in the darkness.

Sitting at her desk, staring at nothing, Nesta cupped her forehead in her palm.

A mug of hot chocolate appeared beside her, along with a handful of shortbread. Nesta chuckled. “Thank you.”

She sipped from her drink, nearly sighing at the richness of the cocoa. “I’d like to try a fire,” she said quietly. “A small one.”

Instantly, the House had a tiny blaze going in the fireplace. A log popped, and Nesta straightened, stomach twisting.

It was a fire. Not her father’s neck. Her gaze shifted to the carved wooden rose she’d placed upon the mantel, half-hidden in the shadows beside a figurine of a supple-bodied female, her upraised arms clasping a full moon between them. Some sort of primal goddess—perhaps even the Mother herself. Nesta hadn’t let herself dwell on why she’d felt the need to set the rose there. Why she hadn’t just thrown it in a drawer.

Another log cracked, and Nesta flinched. But she remained sitting there. Staring at that carved rose.