A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses #2) by Sarah J. Maas

The touch was light—gentle. And I suddenly had no strength to even grip it back.

The carver picked up the bone Rhysand had brought him and weighed it in those child’s hands. “I shall carve your death in here, Feyre.”

Up and up into the darkness we walked, through the sleeping stone and the monsters who dwelled within it. At last I said to Rhys, “What did you see?”

“You first.”

“A boy—around eight; dark-haired and blue-eyed.”

Rhys shuddered—the most human gesture I’d seen him make.

“What did you see?” I pushed.

“Jurian,” Rhys said. “He appeared exactly as Jurian looked the last time I saw him: facing Amarantha when they fought to the death.”

I didn’t want to learn how the Bone Carver knew who we’d come to ask about.





CHAPTER

19

“Amren’s right,” Rhys drawled, leaning against the threshold of the town house sitting room. “You are like dogs, waiting for me to come home. Maybe I should buy treats.”

Cassian gave him a vulgar gesture from where he lounged on the couch before the hearth, an arm slung over the back behind Mor. Though everything about his powerful, muscled body suggested someone at ease, there was a tightness in his jaw, a coiled-up energy that told me they’d been waiting here for a while.

Azriel lingered by the window, comfortably ensconced in shadows, a light flurry of snow dusting the lawn and street behind him. And Amren …

Nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or not. I’d have to hunt her down to give her back the necklace soon—if Rhys’s warnings and her own words were to be believed.

Damp and cold from the mist and wind that chased us down from the Prison, I strode for the armchair across from the couch, which had been shaped, like so much of the furniture here, to accommodate Illyrian wings. I stretched my stiff limbs toward the fire, and stifled a groan at the delicious heat.

“How’d it go?” Mor said, straightening beside Cassian. No gown today—just practical black pants and a thick blue sweater.

“The Bone Carver,” Rhys said, “is a busybody gossip who likes to pry into other people’s business far too much.”

“But?” Cassian demanded, bracing his arms on his knees, wings tucked in tight.

“But,” Rhys said, “he can also be helpful, when he chooses. And it seems we need to start doing what we do best.”

I flexed my numbed fingers, content to let them discuss, needing a moment to reel myself back in, to shut out what I’d revealed to the Bone Carver.

And what the Bone Carver suggested I might actually be asked to do with that book. The abilities I might have.

So Rhys told them of the Cauldron, and the reason behind the temple pillagings, to no shortage of swearing and questions—and revealed nothing of what I had admitted in exchange for the information. Azriel emerged from his wreathing shadows to ask the most questions; his face and voice remained unreadable. Cassian, surprisingly, kept quiet—as if the general understood that the shadowsinger would know what information was necessary, and was busy assessing it for his own forces.

When Rhys was done, his spymaster said, “I’ll contact my sources in the Summer Court about where the half of the Book of Breathings is hidden. I can fly into the human world myself to figure out where they’re keeping their part of the Book before we ask them for it.”

“No need,” Rhys said. “And I don’t trust this information, even with your sources, with anyone outside of this room. Save for Amren.”

“They can be trusted,” Azriel said with quiet steel, his scarred hands clenching at his leather-clad sides.

“We’re not taking risks where this is concerned,” Rhys merely said. He held Azriel’s stare, and I could almost hear the silent words Rhys added, It is no judgment or reflection on you, Az. Not at all.

But Azriel yielded no tinge of emotion as he nodded, his hands unfurling.

“So what do you have planned?” Mor cut in—perhaps for Az’s sake.

Rhys picked an invisible piece of dirt off his fighting leathers. When he lifted his head, those violet eyes were glacial. “The King of Hybern sacked one of our temples to get a missing piece of the Cauldron. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an act of war—an indication that His Majesty has no interest in wooing me.”

“He likely remembers our allegiance to the humans in the War, anyway,” Cassian said. “He wouldn’t jeopardize revealing his plans while trying to sway you, and I bet some of Amarantha’s cronies reported to him about Under the Mountain. About how it all ended, I mean.” Cassian’s throat bobbed.

When Rhys had tried to kill her. I lowered my hands from the fire.

Rhys said, “Indeed. But this means Hybern’s forces have already successfully infiltrated our lands—without detection. I plan to return the favor.”

Mother above. Cassian and Mor just grinned with feral delight. “How?” Mor asked.

Rhys crossed his arms. “It will require careful planning. But if the Cauldron is in Hybern, then to Hybern we must go. Either to take it back … or use the Book to nullify it.”

Some cowardly, pathetic part of me was already trembling.

“Hybern likely has as many wards and shields around it as we have here,” Azriel countered. “We’d need to find a way to get through them undetected first.”