A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas

“I haven’t seen you around,” I said, shutting the door and leaning against it.

“I had to go sort out some hotheads on the northern border—official emissary business,” he said, setting down the hunting knife he’d been cleaning, a long, vicious blade. “I got back in time to hear your little spat with Tam, and decided I was safer up here. I’m glad to hear your human heart has warmed to me, though. At least I’m not on the top of your killing list.”

I gave him a long look.

“Well,” he went on, shrugging, “it seems that you managed to get under Tam’s fur enough that he sought me out and nearly bit my head off. So I suppose I can thank you for ruining what should have been a peaceful lunch. Thankfully for me, there’s been a disturbance out in the western forest, and my poor friend had to go deal with it in that way only he can. I’m surprised you didn’t run into him on the stairs.”

Thank the forgotten gods for some small mercies. “What sort of disturbance?”

Lucien shrugged, but the movement was too tense to be careless. “The usual sort: unwanted, nasty creatures raising hell.”

Good—good that Tamlin was away and wouldn’t be here to catch me in what I planned to do. Another bit of luck. “I’m impressed you answered me that much,” I said as casually as I could, thinking through my words. “But it’s too bad you’re not like the Suriel, spouting any information I want if I’m clever enough to snare you.”

For a moment, he blinked at me. Then his mouth twisted to the side, and that metal eye whizzed and narrowed on me. “I suppose you won’t tell me what you want to know.”

“You have your secrets, and I have mine,” I said carefully. I couldn’t tell whether he would try to convince me otherwise if I told him the truth. “But if you were a Suriel,” I added with deliberate slowness, in case he hadn’t caught my meaning, “how, exactly, would I trap you?”

Lucien set down the knife and picked at his nails. For a moment, I wondered if he would tell me anything at all. Wondered if he would go right to Tamlin and tattle.

But then he said, “I’d probably have a weakness for groves of young birch trees in the western woods, and freshly slaughtered chickens, and would probably be so greedy that I wouldn’t notice the double-loop snare rigged around the grove to pin my legs in place.”

“Hmm.” I didn’t dare ask why he had decided to be accommodating. There was still a good chance he wouldn’t mind seeing me dead, but I would risk it. “I somehow prefer you as a High Fae.”

He smirked, but the amusement was short-lived. “If I were insane and stupid enough to go after a Suriel, I’d also take a bow and quiver, and maybe a knife just like this one.” He sheathed the knife he’d cleaned and set it down at the edge of the table—an offering. “And I’d be prepared to run like hell when I freed it—to the nearest running water, which they hate crossing.”

“But you’re not insane, so you’ll be here, safe and sound?”

“I’ll be conveniently hunting on the grounds, and with my superior hearing, I might be feeling generous enough to listen if someone screams from the western woods. But it’s a good thing I had no role in telling you to go out today, since Tam would eviscerate anyone who told you how to trap a Suriel; and it’s a good thing I had planned to hunt anyway, because if anyone caught me helping you, there would be trouble of a whole other hell awaiting us. I hope your secrets are worth it.” He said it with his usual grin, but there was an edge to it—a warning I didn’t miss.

Another riddle—and another bit of information. I said, “It’s a good thing that while you have superior hearing, I possess superior abilities to keep my mouth shut.”

He snorted as I took the knife from the table and turned to procure the bow from my room. “I think I’m starting to like you—for a murdering human.”





Chapter 14


Western woods. Grove of young birch trees. Slaughtered chicken. Double-loop snare. Close to running water.

I repeated Lucien’s instructions as I walked out of the manor, through the cultivated gardens, across the wild, rolling grassy hills beyond them, over clear streams, and into the spring woods beyond. No one had stopped me—no one had even been around to see me leave, bow and quiver across my back, Lucien’s knife at my side. I lugged along a satchel stuffed with a freshly dead chicken courtesy of the baffled kitchen staff, and had tucked an extra blade into my boot.

The lands were as empty as the manor itself, though I occasionally glimpsed something shining in the corner of my eye. Every time I turned to look, the shimmering transformed into the sunlight dancing on a nearby stream, or the wind fluttering the leaves of a lone sycamore atop a knoll. As I passed a large pond nestled at the foot of a towering hill, I could have sworn I saw four shining female heads poking up from the bright water, watching me. I hurried my steps.

Only birds and the chittering and rustling of small animals sounded as I entered the still green western forest. I’d never ridden through these woods on my hunts with Lucien. There was no path here, nothing tame about it. Oaks, elms, and beeches intertwined in a thick weave, almost strangling the trickle of sunlight that crept in through the dense canopy. The moss-covered earth swallowed any sound I made.