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

His eyes shuttered in a way she had not witnessed before. “I was taken away from her when I was three. Thrown out into the snow. And in her so-called disgraced state, she became prey to other monsters.” Nesta’s stomach twisted with each word. “She did their backbreaking labor until she died, alone and …” His throat worked. “I was at Windhaven by then. I wasn’t strong enough to return to help her. To bring her somewhere safe. Rhys wasn’t yet High Lord, and none of us could do anything.”

Nesta wasn’t entirely certain how they’d wound up speaking of this.

Apparently, Cassian realized it as well. “It’s a story for another time. But what I meant to try to explain is that through it all, through every awful thing, the training centered me. Guided me. When I had a shit day, when I was spat on or pummeled or shunned, when I led armies and lost good warriors, when Rhys was taken by Amarantha—through all of that, the training remained. You said the other day the breathing helped you. It helps me, too. It helped Feyre.” She watched the wall rise in his eyes, word after word. As if he waited for her to rip it down. Rip him down. “Make of that what you will, but it’s true.”

Oily shame slithered through her. She’d done that—brought this level of defensiveness to him.

Heaviness weighed on her. Started gnawing on her insides.

So Nesta said, “Show me another set of movements.”

Cassian scanned her face for a heartbeat, his gaze still shuttered, and began his next demonstration.



The House had a taste for romance novels. Nesta stayed up later than she should have to finish the one it had left the day before, and when she returned to her room that evening, another was waiting.

“Don’t tell me you somehow read these.” She leafed through the volume on her nightstand.

In answer, two more books thumped on the surface. Each one utterly filthy.

Nesta let out a small chuckle. “It must get awfully dull up here.”

A third book plopped atop the others.

Nesta laughed again, a rusty, hoarse sound. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed. A true, belly-deep laugh.

Maybe before her mother had died. She’d certainly had nothing to laugh about once they’d fallen into poverty.

Nesta nodded toward the desk. “No dinner tonight?”

Her bedroom door only swung open to reveal the dimly lit hallway.

“I’ve had enough of him for one day.” She’d barely been able to speak to Cassian for the rest of their lesson, unable to stop thinking of how he’d put up a wall without her so much as saying a word, anticipating that she would go after him, assuming that she was so awful she couldn’t have a normal conversation. That she’d mock him about his mother and their pain.

“I’d rather stay here.”

The door opened wider.

Nesta sighed. Her stomach ached with hunger. “You’re as much a busybody as the rest of them,” she muttered, and aimed for the dining room.

Cassian sat alone at the table, the setting sun gilding his black hair in golds and reds, shining through his beautiful wings. For a heartbeat, she understood Feyre’s urge to paint things—to capture sights like this, preserve them forever.

“How was the library?” he asked as she claimed the seat across from him.

“Nothing tried to eat me today, so it was fine.”

A plate of roast pork and green beans appeared with a glass of water before her.

He’d gone still, though. “Something tried to eat you on another day?”

“Well, it didn’t get close enough to try, but that was the general impression I received.”

He blinked, his Siphons glowing. “Tell me.”

Nesta wondered if she’d said something wrong, but she related the incident with the darkness and finished with Gwyn’s assistance. She hadn’t seen the priestess after that, but at the end of the day there had been a note on her cart that said, Just a friendly reminder to stay away from the lowest levels!

Nesta had snorted, balling up the note, but she’d kept it in her pocket.

Across from her, Cassian’s face was pale.

“You saw Bryaxis once,” Nesta said into the silence.

“A few times,” he breathed. His skin had turned greenish. “I know we should keep hunting for Bryaxis. It’s not a good thing that it’s out in the world. But I don’t think I could endure encountering it again.”

“What was it like?”

His eyes met hers. “My worst nightmares. And I’m not talking about petty phobias. I mean my deepest, most primal fears. I’ve put some of the worst, most vile monsters into the Prison, but these were monsters in every sense of the word. It’s … I don’t think anyone can understand unless they’ve seen it.”

He glanced at her again, and she could tell he was bracing for her venom.

Monster—she was a monster. The knowledge cut and sliced deep. But she said, hoping to let him see she wouldn’t pry into his business just to hurt him, “What manner of creatures did you put in the Prison?”

Cassian took a bite of food. A good sign that this, at least, was acceptable territory. “When you lived in the human world, you had legends of the dread beasts and faeries who would slaughter you if they ever breached the wall, didn’t you? Things that slithered through open windows to drink the blood of children? Things that were so wicked, so cruel there was no hope against their evil?”