A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses #3) by Sarah J. Maas

Blank, vacant eyes were my only answer.

“Feyre.”

Lucien’s voice was a hoarse rasp.

I merely wiped my two knives on Dagdan’s back before going to reclaim my fallen pack.

“You’re going back. To the Night Court.”

I shouldered my heavy pack and finally looked at him. “Yes.”

His tan face had paled. But he surveyed Ianthe, the two dead royals. “I’m going with you.”

“No,” was all I said, heading for the trees.

A cramp formed deep in my belly. I had to get away—had to use the last of my power to winnow to the hills.

“You won’t make it without magic,” he warned me.

I just gritted my teeth against the sharp pain in my abdomen as I rallied my strength to winnow to those distant foothills. But Lucien gripped my arm, halting me.

“I’m going with you,” he said again, face splattered with blood as bright as his hair. “I’m getting my mate back.”

There was no time for this argument. For the truth and debate and the answers I saw he desperately wanted.

Tamlin and the others would have heard the shouting by now.

“Don’t make me regret this,” I told him.



Blood coated the inside of my mouth by the time we reached the foothills hours later.

I was panting, my head throbbing, my stomach a twisting knot of aching.

Lucien was barely better off, his winnowing as shaky as my own before we halted amongst the rolling green and he doubled over, hands braced on his knees. “It’s—gone,” he said, gasping for breath. “My magic—not an ember. They must have dosed all of us today.”

And given me a poisoned apple just to make sure it kept me down.

My power pulled away from me like a wave reeling back from the shore. Only there was no return. It just went farther and farther out into a sea of nothing.

I peered at the sun, now a hand’s width above the horizon, shadows already thick and heavy between the hills. I took my bearings, sorting through the knowledge I’d compiled these weeks.

I stepped northward, swaying. Lucien gripped my arm. “You’re taking a door?”

I slid aching eyes toward him. “Yes.” The caves—doors, they called them—in those hollows led to other pockets of Prythian. I’d taken one straight Under the Mountain. I would now take one to get me home. Or as close to it as I could get. No door to the Night Court existed, here or anywhere.

And I would not risk my friends by bringing them here to retrieve me. No matter that the bond between Rhys and me … I couldn’t so much as feel it.

A numbness had spread through me. I needed to get out—now.

“The Autumn Court portal is that way.” Warning and reproach.

“I can’t go into Summer. They’ll kill me on sight.”

Silence. He released my arm. I swallowed, my throat so dry I could barely do so. “The only other door here leads Under the Mountain. We sealed off all the other entrances. If we go there, we could wind up trapped—or have to return.”

“Then we go to Autumn. And from there …” I trailed off before I finished. Home. But Lucien gleaned it anyway. And seemed to realize then—that’s what the Night Court was. Home.

I could almost see the word in his russet eye as he shook his head. Later.

I gave him a silent nod. Yes—later, we’d have it all out. “The Autumn Court will be as dangerous as Summer,” he warned.

“I just need somewhere to hide—to lie low until … until we can winnow again.”

A faint buzzing and ringing filled my ears. And I felt my magic vanish entirely.

“I know a place,” Lucien said, walking toward the cave that would take us to his home.

To the lands of the family who’d betrayed him as badly as this court had betrayed mine.

We hurried through the hills, swift and silent as shadows.

The cave to the Autumn Court had been left unguarded. Lucien looked at me over his shoulder as if to ask if I, too, had been responsible for the lack of guards who were always stationed here.

I gave him another nod. I’d slid into their minds before we’d left, making sure this door would be left open. Cassian had taught me to always have a second escape route. Always.

Lucien paused before the swirling gloom of the cave mouth, the blackness like a wyrm poised to devour us both. A muscle feathered in his jaw.

I said, “Stay, if you want. What’s done is done.”

For Hybern was coming—already here. I had debated it for weeks: whether it was better to claim the Spring Court for ourselves, or to let it fall to our enemies.

But it could not remain neutral—a barrier between our forces in the North and the humans in the South. It would have been easy to call in Rhys and Cassian, to have the latter bring in an Illyrian legion to claim the territory when it was weakest after my own maneuverings. Depending on how much mobility Cassian had retained—if he was still healing.

Yet then we’d hold one territory—with five other courts between us. Sympathy might have swayed for the Spring Court; others might have joined Hybern against us, considering our conquest here proof of our wickedness. But if Spring fell to Hybern … We could rally the other courts to us. Charge as one from the North, drawing Hybern in close.

“You were right,” Lucien declared at last. “That girl I knew did die Under the Mountain.”