“We brought a blanket,” Tamlin said, and I looked over my shoulder to see him jerk his chin to the purple blanket they’d laid out a few feet away. Lucien plopped down onto it and stretched his legs. Tamlin remained standing, waiting for my response.
I shook my head and faced forward, tracing my hand through the feather-soft grass, cataloging its color and texture. I’d never felt grass like it, and I certainly wasn’t going to ruin the experience by sitting on a blanket.
Rushed whispers were exchanged behind me, and before I could turn around to investigate, Tamlin took a seat at my side. His jaw was clenched tight enough that I stared ahead. “What is this place?” I said, still running my fingers through the grass.
Out of the corner of my eye, Tamlin was no more than a glittering golden figure. “Just a glen.” Behind us, Lucien snorted. “Do you like it?” Tamlin asked quickly. The green of his eyes matched the grass between my fingers, and the amber flecks were like the shafts of sunlight that streamed through the trees. Even his mask, odd and foreign, seemed to fit into the glen—as if this place had been fashioned for him alone. I could picture him here in his beast form, curled up in the grass, dozing.
“What?” I said. I’d forgotten his question.
“Do you like it?” he repeated, and his lips tugged into a smile.
I took an uneven breath and stared at the glen again. “Yes.”
He chuckled. “That’s it? ‘Yes’?”
“Would you like me to grovel with gratitude for bringing me here, High Lord?”
“Ah. The Suriel told you nothing important, did it?”
That smile of his sparked something bold in my chest. “He also said that you like being brushed, and if I’m a clever girl, I might train you with treats.”
Tamlin tipped his head to the sky and roared with laughter. Despite myself, I let out a soft laugh.
“I might die of surprise,” Lucien said behind me. “You made a joke, Feyre.”
I turned to look at him with a cool smile. “You don’t want to know what the Suriel said about you.” I flicked my brows up, and Lucien lifted his hands in defeat.
“I’d pay good money to hear what the Suriel thinks of Lucien,” Tamlin said.
A cork popped, followed by the sounds of Lucien chugging the bottle’s contents and chuckling with a muttered “Brushed.”
Tamlin’s eyes were still bright with laughter as he put a hand at my elbow, pulling me to my feet. “Come on,” he said, jerking his head down the hill to the little stream that ran along its base. “I want to show you something.”
I got to my feet, but Lucien remained sitting on the blanket and lifted the bottle of wine in salute. He took a slug from it as he sprawled on his back and gazed at the green canopy.
Each of Tamlin’s movements was precise and efficient, his powerfully muscled legs eating up the earth as we wove between the towering trees, hopped over tiny brooks, and clambered up steep knolls. We stopped atop a mound, and my hands slackened at my sides. There, in a clearing surrounded by towering trees, lay a sparkling silver pool. Even from a distance, I could tell that it wasn’t water, but something more rare and infinitely more precious.
Tamlin grasped my wrist and tugged me down the hill, his callused fingers gently scraping against my skin. He let go of me to leap over the root of the tree in a single maneuver and prowled to the water’s edge. I could only grind my teeth as I stumbled after him, heaving myself over the root.
He crouched by the pool and cupped his hand to fill it. He tilted his hand, letting the water fall. “Have a look.”
The silvery sparkling water that dribbled from his hand set ripples dancing across the pool, each glimmering with various colors, and—“That looks like starlight,” I breathed.
He huffed a laugh, filling and emptying his hand again. I gaped at the glittering water. “It is starlight.”
“That’s impossible,” I said, fighting the urge to take a step toward the water.
“This is Prythian. According to your legends, nothing is impossible.”
“How?” I asked, unable to take my eyes from the pool—the silver, but also the blue and red and pink and yellow glinting beneath, the lightness of it …
“I don’t know—I never asked, and no one ever explained.”
When I continued gaping at the pool, he laughed, drawing away my attention—only for me to find him unbuttoning his tunic. “Jump in,” he said, the invitation dancing in his eyes.
A swim—unclothed, alone. With a High Lord. I shook my head, falling back a step. His fingers paused at the second button from his collar.
“Don’t you want to know what it’s like?”
I didn’t know what he meant: swimming in starlight, or swimming with him. “I—no.”
“All right.” He left his tunic unbuttoned. There was only bare, muscled, golden skin beneath.
“Why this place?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from his chest.
“This was my favorite haunt as a boy.”
“Which was when?” I couldn’t stop the question from coming out.