I twisted, my loose clothes sliding over my shoulders, my waist. I hadn’t realized how much weight I’d lost. Despite things creeping back to normal.
I said, “Don’t you have other things to deal with?”
“Of course I do,” he said, shrugging. “I have so many things to deal with that I’m sometimes tempted to unleash my power across the world and wipe the board clean. Just to buy me some damned peace.” He grinned, bowing at the waist. Even that casual mention of his power failed to chill me, awe me. “But I’ll always make time for you.”
I was hungry—I hadn’t yet eaten. And that was indeed worry glimmering behind the cocky, insufferable grin.
So I motioned him to lead the way to that familiar glass table at the end of the hall.
We walked a casual distance apart. Tired. I was so—tired.
When we were almost to the table, Rhys said, “I felt a spike of fear this month through our lovely bond. Anything exciting happen at the wondrous Spring Court?”
“It was nothing,” I said. Because it was. And it was none of his business.
I glanced sidelong at him—and rage, not worry—flickered in those eyes.
I could have sworn the mountain beneath us trembled in response.
“If you know,” I said coldly, “why even ask about it?” I dropped into my chair as he slid into his.
He said quietly, “Because these days, all I hear through that bond is nothing. Silence. Even with your shields up rather impressively most of the time, I should be able to feel you. And yet I don’t. Sometimes I’ll tug on the bond only to make sure you’re still alive.” Darkness guttered. “And then one day, I’m in the middle of an important meeting when terror blasts through the bond. All I get are glimpses of you and him—and then nothing. Back to silence. I’d like to know what caused such a disruption.”
I served myself from the platters of food, barely caring what had been laid on the table. “It was an argument, and the rest is none of your concern.”
“Is it why you look like your grief and guilt and rage are eating you alive, bit by bit?”
I didn’t want to talk about it. “Get out of my head.”
“Make me. Push me out. You dropped your shield this morning—anyone could have walked right in.”
I held his stare. Another challenge. And I just … I didn’t care. I didn’t care about whatever smoldered in my body, about how I’d slipped into Lucien’s head as easily as Rhys could slip into mine, shield or no shield. “Where’s Mor?” I asked instead.
He tensed, and I braced myself for him to push, to provoke, but he said, “Away. She has duties to attend to.” Shadows swirled around him again and I dug into my food. “Is the wedding on hold, then?”
I paused eating barely long enough to mumble, “Yes.”
“I expected an answer more along the lines of, ‘Don’t ask stupid questions you already know the answer to,’ or my timeless favorite, ‘Go to hell.’ ”
I only reached for a platter of tartlets. His hands were flat on the table—and a whisper of black smoke curled over his fingers. Like talons.
He said, “Did you give my offer any thought?”
I didn’t answer until my plate was empty and I was heaping more food onto it. “I’m not going to work with you.”
I almost felt the dark calm that settled over him. “And why, Feyre, are you refusing me?”
I pushed around the fruit on my plate. “I’m not going to be a part of this war you think is coming. You say I should be a weapon, not a pawn—they seem like the same to me. The only difference is who’s wielding it.”
“I want your help, not to manipulate you,” he snapped.
His flare of temper made me at last lift my head. “You want my help because it’ll piss off Tamlin.”
Shadows danced around his shoulders—as if the wings were trying to take form.
“Fine,” he breathed. “I dug that grave myself, with all I did Under the Mountain. But I need your help.”
Again, I could feel the other unspoken words: Ask me why; push me about it.
And again, I didn’t want to. Didn’t have the energy to.
Rhys said quietly, “I was a prisoner in her court for nearly fifty years. I was tortured and beaten and fucked until only telling myself who I was, what I had to protect, kept me from trying to find a way to end it. Please—help me keep that from happening again. To Prythian.”
Some distant part of my heart ached and bled at the words, at what he’d laid bare.
But Tamlin had made exceptions—he’d lightened the guards’ presence, allowed me to roam a bit more freely. He was trying. We were trying. I wouldn’t jeopardize that.
So I went back to eating.
Rhys didn’t say another word.
I didn’t join him for dinner.
I didn’t rise in time for breakfast, either.
But when I emerged at noon, he was waiting upstairs, that faint, amused smile on his face. He nudged me toward the table he’d arranged with books and paper and ink.
“Copy these sentences,” he drawled from across the table, handing me a piece of paper.
I looked at them and read perfectly:
“Rhysand is a spectacular person. Rhysand is the center of my world. Rhysand is the best lover a female can ever dream of.” I set down the paper, wrote out the three sentences, and handed it to him.
The claws slammed into my mind a moment later.
And bounced harmlessly off a black, glimmering shield of adamant.