A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)

by Sarah J. Maas

each a story and an experience, each a voice shouting or whispering or singing about what that moment, that feeling, had been like, each a cry into the void of time that they had been here, had existed.

A portal into the mind of a creature so unlike me,

And though my dreams continued to be plagued by the deaths I’d witnessed, the deaths I’d caused, and that horrible pale woman ripping me to shreds—all watched over by a shadow I could never quite glimpse—I slowly stopped being so afraid. Stay with the High Lord. You will be safe.

The Spring Court was a land of rolling green hills and lush forests and clear, bottomless lakes. Magic didn’t just abound in the bumps and the hollows—it grew there.

And Tamlin had let me forget them.

After a while, I paused in the rose garden. The moonlight stained the red petals a deep purple and cast a silvery sheen on the white blooms.

I’d been … erased from their lives. Forgotten. I’d let him erase me. He’d offered me paints and the space and time to practice; he’d shown me pools of starlight; he’d saved my life like some kind of feral knight in a legend, and I’d gulped it down like faerie wine. I was no better than those zealot Children of the Blessed.

I stalked to the nearest rosebush and ripped off a rose, my fingers tearing on the thorns.

A family that would have offered to go in his place if someone had come to steal him away.

he lifted my bleeding hand to his mouth and kissed my palm.

he lifted my other hand to his mouth and kissed it, too. Kissed it carefully

When he withdrew, my blood shone on his mouth.

“Because your human joy fascinates me—the way you experience things, in your life span, so wildly and deeply and all at once, is … entrancing. I’m drawn to it, even when I know I shouldn’t be, even when I try not to be.”

what had … changed between us

sunshine shattering age-hardened ice.

Slaves—there had been slaves here. I didn’t want to know—had never looked for traces of them, even five hundred years later.

they were all killed by the High Lord of an enemy court. I was spared for whatever reason or Cauldron-granted luck.

darkness flickered in Tamlin’s eyes, and his shoulders seemed to curve inward ever so slightly.

“We don’t celebrate holidays in the human realm. Not after you—your people left. In some places, it’s forbidden. We don’t even remember the names of your gods.

the magic that we create helps regenerate the land for the year ahead.” “How do you create the magic?”

Tamlin went rigid the moment we entered the gardens.

it was quiet with that horrible stillness that usually meant one of the nastier faeries was around.

the two of them faced … nothing. Someone who wasn’t there. Someone invisible.

deep and sibilant.

We have enough of your ilk swarming on the borders—we don’t need you defiling our home, too.

stay the hell out of the cave.

“Burn in Hell,”

flap of leathery wings

Something about that voice had ripped away the warmth from me.

the screaming of human victims, the pleading of young maidens whose chests had been split open on sacrificial altars.

The spring breeze whispered that I didn’t want to know.

was a tall, skeletally thin gray creature with bat ears and giant, membranous wings. Its snout was open in a roar, revealing row after row of fangs as it leaped into flight. As I painted it, I could have sworn that I could smell breath that reeked of carrion, that the air beneath its wings whispered promises of death.

As the afternoon shifted into dusk, I found myself again at the main crossroads of the house.

the sky became awash in hues of orange and red.

Though I’d grown accustomed to the smell of magic, my nose pricked with the rising tang of metal, stronger than I’d yet sensed it. I took a step forward, then halted on the threshold.

There was a string—a string tied to my gut that pulled me toward those hills, commanding me to go, to hear the faerie drums …

he leaped down the short flight of stairs and bounded into the garden, as spry and swift as a stag.

a wild, wicked voice weaving in between the drumbeats whispered otherwise. Go, that voice said, tugging at me. Go see.

It was magic—some kind of glamour put on me, meant to prevent my viewing them properly, just as my family had been glamoured.

had the drums not echoed through my bones and that wild voice not beckoned to me.

I left my horse tied to a solitary sycamore

I beheld their sharp-featured faces—free of masks. They looked like High Fae, but there was something slightly different about them, something taller and leaner than Tamlin or Lucien—something crueler in their pitch-black, depthless eyes.

revealing slightly pointed teeth. “Human woman,” he murmured, running an eye over me. “We’ve not seen one of you for a while.”

3rd mention of this exact line

The three faeries chuckled, a low hissing noise

The fires didn’t reflect in his eyes. It was as if they gobbled up the light.

Somehow, these beautiful, ethereal faeries were far worse.

the three faeries who went utterly still as whoever caught me gently set me upright.

The three lesser faeries paled, their dark eyes wide. “Thank you for finding her for me,” my savior said to them,

the way he stood with absolute stillness,

me. I could have sworn tendrils of star-kissed night trailed in his wake.