House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

“I promise I’ll return the Mask—and Truth-Teller. After I’ve done what I need to do here.”

Not to mention that few people can use the Mask and live. You put it on, and you might very well die.”

I brought collateral—to prove that my intentions are good. That I will give it back.” And with that, Bryce ushered her parents forward. Ember and Randall gave her wary glances, but edged closer to the portal.

“And if you die in the process?” “Then my parents will be safer stuck in your world than in mine.”

She could have sworn the very world—all worlds—shuddered as Nesta’s hand crossed into Midgard and passed the Mask to Bryce.

The Rift was shut. And her parents were on the other side of it.

She had the Mask. And the Horn. And Theia’s star. And the blades. It would have to be enough to take on living gods.

There was nothing alive there, nothing remotely aware. She was a husk. A host. With one mission: kill

“There are imperial battleships in this river! Asphodel Meadows is a smoldering ruin, with the bodies of children strewn in the streets!”

“And all you care about is who one stupid fucking male is married to? There are babies in that rubble! And you cry only for yourself

“Bryce sent me to beg you to help, but I’m asking you personally, too. Not as mer, not as someone in the Blue Court, but as a living being who loves this city. There is nowhere else on Valbara that might weather the storm. This place, Beneath … it can withstand at least the initial brunt. Give the children of Crescent City a safe harbor. A chance. If you won’t let all the people come, then at least take the children.”

“I am sorry that I misled you, and slept with you, and realized too late that I had gone too far. I’m sorry I strung you along for years—I didn’t know how to talk to you, or be an adult, and I’m sorry. It wasn’t right of me, and it was immature, and I hate that I did that to you, to anyone.”

“I no longer wish my daughter to be tied to the likes of you, in truth or in promise. As far as marriage between you is concerned, it shall never happen.”

“Our people are ancient,” the River Queen said. “My sisters and I remember a world before the Asteri arrived and caused the land’s magic to wither. Entire islands vanished into the sea, our civilizations with them. And though we were limited in our power to stop them … we have tried, each in our own way.”

“It might not have made a difference in the greater sense, but keeping them safe was my attempt, however small, at thwarting the Asteri’s plans.”

“Who sees a female in trouble and does not think of the consequences to his own life before helping.”

“Then the Blue Court shall help. Any who we can bring down here before the warships catch wind of it … any person, from any House: I shall harbor them.”

The Harpy was a horror. Hunt could feel her lack of presence. The emptiness leaking from her. The Asteri had raised her from the dead, but left her soul by the wayside.

Wearing the Mask was like being underwater, or at a very high altitude. Her head was full of its power, her blood thrumming, pulsing in time with the presence in her head, her bones.

“Your work is done,” Bryce said, her voice reverberating through the frozen landscape. “Be at rest.”

When the Harpy lay desiccated in the snow, Bryce finally peeled the Mask off—only to find Naomi, Isaiah, and Celestina staring at her, awash in shock and dread.

“Pollux,” Lidia breathed, and Ruhn stilled. Her eyes lifted to his, and pure panic filled them as she whispered, “He’s taken my sons.”

Hunt closed his eyes, and saw it there—the black band of the halo, imprinted across his very soul. Its scrolling vine of thorns. The spell to contain him.

Hunt reached a mental hand toward the black thorns of the halo. Wreathed his fingers in lightning, in Helfire, in the power that was his and only his. And sliced through it. The thorns of the halo shivered and bled. Black ink dripped down, dissolving into nothing, gobbled up by the power that was now surging in him, rising up

“We need a distraction for the Asteri. Hel won’t be enough. But an army of the dead, an army of the Fallen, will work nicely.

Dec can hack into their computer system and block imperial access while the souls of the Fallen fuse with the mech-suits and pilot them under Naomi and Isaiah’s command.”

“She’s going to Ephraim’s fortress.” At Hunt’s surprised look, echoed by Celestina, Bryce explained, “He’s the closest Archangel to the Eternal City. We need him occupied. If Ephraim joins the fight, it will complicate everything.”

Beyond Hunt and the others, stretching into the distance, marched the armies of Hel. They covered all twenty-four and a half miles from the wall to the still-open Rift.

“So you couldn’t, uh, raise your mom with your necromancy?” “No,” Hypaxia said gravely. “She took steps to ensure that her soul did not fall into the clutches of the Under-King. And even if I could, she would resent me for using it for something so … selfish.”

He’d gladly give Sabine the indignity of letting everyone see her boat tip. He’d also be glad to let her soul live on in the Bone Quarter until it was time to be turned into mystery meat for the Asteri, but he’d have to decide whether she deserved a Sailing in the first place.

“I was birthed by the Void, but my people …” He smiled cruelly at Ithan. “They were not unknown to your own ancestors, wolf. I crept through when they charged so blindly into Midgard. This place is much better suited to my needs than the caves and barrows I was confined to.”

“And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.”

for Ithan to follow. But robes rustled on stone, and Ithan grabbed the black bullet before the Under-King appeared

Enemy, his blood sang, and it spoke of caves beneath hills, of plundered graves and musty darkness. Enemy

Let this male see what a ruthless fucking murderer he was, let him see that he wouldn’t tolerate this shit for his brother, for his parents, for anyone he loved.

With a face like stone, Hypaxia swung the dark metal. And the Under-King exploded into sparkling shards of ice.

“You kill it, you become it,” Jesiba said to Hypaxia. “You are now, for all intents and purposes, Head of the House of Flame and Shadow. And this place.”

“That bullet,” Connor said, nodding to where Ithan held it, “was made by us—the dead. For Bryce.” A soft, pained smile crossed his face at her name. “To use with the Godslayer Rifle.”

But it was crafted to hold us. Our secondlight.

“All of our secondlight, from every soul here,” Connor said quietly. “It’s yours to put in that bullet. Use it well.”

“Maybe they got the Rift open,” Hypaxia mused. “Magic pouring into Midgard from Hel could be disrupting the connection. Demons cause power outages sometimes with their presence. Imagine what a lot of them all at once might do.”

Ithan buried the Prime in the heart of the meadow, so his soul might feel the romping joy of pups for generations to come.

“Plan’s simple: keep the Asteri distracted by unleashing Hel and the Fallen … while Athalar and I sneak into the palace and destroy that firstlight core.”

“rescue Lidia’s sons, destroy Pollux, get close enough to the Asteri to eliminate them from the planet

“The moment we leave this truck, we have two minutes until the street cameras alert the Asteri’s techs that we’re in the city if they identify us,” Lidia said.

Lidia knew every entrance, but even with her unrivaled knowledge, it was too easy for them to get in through the service doors that led to the extensive garbage-processing dock. Too easy to slip down one of the reeking chutes and land in a trash room a level below.

Bryce lifted the Mask to her face, and closed her eyes as she slid it on. The metal adhered to her skin. It sucked at her face, her soul— The world diluted again. Alive, not-alive. Breathing, not-breathing. Dead … undead. The star inside her flared brightly, as if to say, Hello, old friend. Yes, the ancient magic knew the Mask. It understood its deepest secrets.

Bryce turned to the wings. And in the shadow-vision of the Mask, where the wings were pinned, most held a twinkling light. The kernel of a soul. The last scraps of their existences, shining like a wall of stars.

These souls, left to wander for centuries, were now hers to claim.

Dead and undead—Rigelus’s nature confused the Mask. Alive and not-alive. Breathing and not-breathing.