Your kind.
“So there will be no meeting here,” Nesta said, shoulders stiff. “There will be no Fae in this house.”
“Do you include me in that declaration?” I said quietly.
Nesta’s silence was answer enough.
But Elain said, “Nesta.”
Slowly, my eldest sister looked at her.
“Nesta,” Elain said again, twisting her hands. “If … if we do not help Feyre, there won’t be a wedding. Even Lord Nolan’s battlements and all his men, couldn’t save me from … from them.” Nesta didn’t so much as flinch. Elain pushed, “We keep it secret—we send the servants away. With the spring approaching, they’ll be glad to go home. And if Feyre needs to be in and out for meetings, she’ll send word ahead, and we’ll clear them out. Make up excuses to send them on holidays. Father won’t be back until the summer, anyway. No one will know.” She put a hand on Nesta’s knee, the purple of my sister’s gown nearly swallowing up the ivory hand. “Feyre gave and gave—for years. Let us now help her. Help … others.”
My throat was tight, and my eyes burned.
Nesta studied the dark ring on Elain’s finger, the way she still seemed to cradle it. A lady—that’s what Elain would become. What she was risking for this.
I met Nesta’s gaze. “There is no other way.”
Her chin lifted slightly. “We’ll send the servants away tomorrow.”
“Today,” I pushed. “We don’t have any time to lose. Order them to leave now.”
“I’ll do it,” Elain said, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. She didn’t wait for either of us before she strode out, graceful as a doe.
Alone with Nesta, I said, “Is he good—the lord’s son she’s to marry?”
“She thinks he is. She loves him like he is.”
“And what do you think?”
Nesta’s eyes—my eyes, our mother’s eyes—met mine. “His father built a wall of stone around their estate so high even the trees can’t reach over it. I think it looks like a prison.”
“Have you said anything to her?”
“No. The son, Graysen, is kind enough. As smitten with Elain as she is with him. It’s the father I don’t like. He sees the money she has to offer their estate—and his crusade against the Fae. But the man is old. He’ll die soon enough.”
“Hopefully.”
A shrug. Then Nesta asked, “Your High Lord … You went through all that”—she waved a hand at me, my ears, my body—“and it still did not end well?”
I was heavy in my veins again. “That lord built a wall to keep the Fae out. My High Lord wanted to keep me caged in.”
“Why? He let you come back here all those months ago.”
“To save me—protect me. And I think … I think what happened to him, to us, Under the Mountain broke him.” Perhaps more than it had broken me. “The drive to protect at all costs, even my own well-being … I think he wanted to stifle it, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t let go of it.” There was … there was much I still had to do, I realized. To settle things. Settle myself.
“And now you are at a new court.”
Not quite a question, but I said, “Would you like to meet them?”
CHAPTER
24
It took hours for Elain to work her charm on the staff to swiftly pack their bags and leave, each with a purse of money to hasten the process. Mrs. Laurent, though the last to depart, promised to keep what she’d seen to herself.
I didn’t know where Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel had been waiting, but when Mrs. Laurent had hauled herself into the carriage crammed with the last of the staff, heading down to the village to catch transportation to wherever they all had family, there was a knock on the door.
The light was already fading, and the world outside was thick with shades of blue and white and gray, stained golden as I opened the front door and found them waiting.
Nesta and Elain were in the large dining room—the most open space in the house.
Looking at Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel, I knew I’d been right to select it as the meeting spot.
They were enormous—wild and rough and ancient.
Rhys’s brows lifted. “You’d think they’d been told plague had befallen the house.”
I pulled the door open wide enough to let them in, then quickly shut it against the bitter cold. “My sister Elain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles.”
Cassian let out a low whistle as he turned in place, surveying the grand entry hall, the ornate furniture, the paintings. All of it paid for by Tamlin—initially. He’d taken such care of my family, yet his own … I didn’t want to think about his family, murdered by a rival court for whatever reason no one had ever explained to me. Not now that I was living amongst them—
He’d been good—there was a part of Tamlin that was good—
Yes. He’d given me everything I needed to become myself, to feel safe. And when he got what he wanted … He’d stopped. Had tried, but not really. He’d let himself remain blind to what I needed after Amarantha.