“I was curious who wanted to snatch you the first moment you were alone.”
I didn’t know where to start. So Tamlin was right—about my safety. To some degree. It didn’t excuse anything. “So you never planned to stay with me while I trained. You used me as bait—”
“Yes, and I’d do it again. You were safe the entire time.”
“You should have told me! ”
“Maybe next time.”
“There will be no next time! ” I slammed a hand into his chest, and he staggered back a step from the strength of the blow. I blinked. I’d forgotten—forgotten that strength in my panic. Just like with the Weaver. I’d forgotten how strong I was.
“Yes, you did,” Rhysand snarled, reading the surprise on my face, that icy calm shattering. “You forgot that strength, and that you can burn and become darkness, and grow claws. You forgot. You stopped fighting.”
He didn’t just mean the Attor. Or the Weaver.
And the rage rose up in me in such a mighty wave that I had no thought in my head but wrath: at myself, what I’d been forced to do, what had been done to me, to him.
“So what if I did?” I hissed, and shoved him again. “So what if I did?”
I went to shove him again, but Rhys winnowed away a few feet.
I stormed for him, snow crunching underfoot. “It’s not easy.” The rage ran me over, obliterated me. I lifted my arms to slam my palms into his chest—
And he vanished again.
He appeared behind me, so close that his breath tickled my ear as he said, “You have no idea how not easy it is.”
I whirled, grappling for him. He vanished before I could strike him, pound him.
Rhys appeared across the clearing, chuckling. “Try harder.”
I couldn’t fold myself into darkness and pockets. And if I could—if I could turn myself into smoke, into air and night and stars, I’d use it to appear right in front of him and smack that smile off his face.
I moved, even if it was futile, even as he rippled into darkness, and I hated him for it—for the wings and ability to move like mist on the wind. He appeared a step away, and I pounced, hands out—talons out—
And slammed into a tree.
He laughed as I bounced back, teeth singing, talons barking as they shredded through wood. But I was already lunging as he vanished, lunging like I could disappear into the folds of the world as well, track him across eternity—
And so I did.
Time slowed and curled, and I could see the darkness of him turn to smoke and veer, as if it were running for another spot in the clearing. I hurtled for that spot, even as I felt my own lightness, folding my very self into wind and shadow and dust, the looseness of it radiating out of me, all while I aimed for where he was headed—
Rhysand appeared, a solid figure in my world of smoke and stars.
And his eyes were wide, his mouth split in a grin of wicked delight, as I winnowed in front of him and tackled him into the snow.
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I panted, sprawled on top of Rhys in the snow while he laughed hoarsely. “Don’t,” I snarled into his face, “ever,” I pushed his rock-hard shoulders, talons curving at my fingertips, “use me as bait again.”
He stopped laughing.
I pushed harder, those nails digging in through his leather. “You said I could be a weapon—teach me to become one. Don’t use me like a pawn. And if being one is part of my work for you, then I’m done. Done.”
Despite the snow, his body was warm beneath me, and I wasn’t sure I’d realized just how much bigger he was until our bodies were flush—too close. Much, much too close.
Rhys cocked his head, loosening a chunk of snow clinging to his hair. “Fair enough.”
I shoved off him, snow crunching as I backed away. My talons were gone.
He hoisted himself up onto his elbows. “Do it again. Show me how you did it.”
“No.” The candle he’d brought now lay in pieces, half-buried under the snow. “I want to go back to the chateau.” I was cold, and tired, and he’d …
His face turned grave. “I’m sorry.”
I wondered how often he said those two words. I didn’t care.
I waited while he uncoiled to his feet, brushing the snow off him, and held out a hand.
It wasn’t just an offer.
You forgot, he’d said. I had.
“Why does the King of Hybern want me? Because he knows I can nullify the Cauldron’s power with the Book?”
Darkness flickered, the only sign of the temper Rhysand had once again leashed. “That’s what I’m going to find out.”
You stopped fighting.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, hand still outstretched. “Let’s eat breakfast, then go home.”
“Velaris isn’t my home.”
I could have sworn hurt flashed in his eyes before he spirited us back to my family’s house.
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