More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
July 9 - July 15, 2025
I now wondered if the lullaby of death was not a lovely song, but the droning of flies.
If flies and maggots were all Death’s handmaidens.
I reined in the urge to roll my eyes, and returned his smile, brushing my hand over his shoulder as I passed.
And at last decide how I was going to shred her into pieces.
My rage had become a living thing inside my chest, an echoing heartbeat that soothed me to sleep and stirred me to waking.
“Perhaps if you’d bothered going to war over Miryam, she wouldn’t have left you for Prince Drakon.”
“Careful what you say, girl.” I smiled, breezing past. “Or what? You’ll throw me in the Cauldron?”
When I looked to Ianthe and smiled again, I let a little bit of the wolf show.
I wish I could spend today with you, too.
A nightmare, I’d told Tamlin. I was the nightmare.
You think you’re playing the game, I itched to tell her, but you have no idea that every choice you made last night and this morning were only steps I nudged you toward.
“If you pursue them, then you and I will have a problem.”
I’d used up my allotted tolerance for the day.
“Perhaps that’s because Rhysand has not lost you at all. But rather unleashed you upon us.”
“Then we send another sort of message.”
“Don’t you talk to him like that,”
“You might be willing to get on your knees for Hybern, but I certainly am not.”
I know better than to tell you to be careful, or to come home. But I want you home. Soon. And I want him dead for putting a hand on you.
If I had asked them, they would have handed me their own knives to slit their throats.
Alis squeezed my hand. “Blood rubies or no, you will always have one friend in the Summer Court.” My throat bobbed. “And you will always have one in mine,” I promised her. She knew which court I meant. And did not look afraid.
Lying beside Ianthe without slitting her throat was an exercise in patience and control.
“You can’t be too careful while sharing a camp with enemies,” I
“My father will hunt you for taking his power if he finds out,” he said into the frigid dark. “And kill you for learning how to wield it.” “He can get in line,” was all I said.
For a long moment, we only breathed in each other’s air.
I missed having you in my bed, but missed having you as my friend even more.”
Nesta had been beautiful as a human woman. As High Fae, she was devastating.
“Shut your mouth,” she snapped, every inch the conquering empress.
“I’m not entirely sure Velaris is prepared for Nesta Archeron.”
“When you erupt, girl, make sure it is felt across worlds.”
“I won’t undermine you in public. And you won’t undermine me.” He remained quiet, letting me think, speak.
“Because you’re my equal,” he said. “And as much as that means having each other’s backs in public, it also means that we grant each other the gift of honesty. Of truth.”
“Why should I be scared of an oversized bat who likes to throw temper tantrums?”
“I’m very proud of you.”
“The Bone Carver,”
That was my mouth.
“How lovely she is—new as a fawn and yet ancient as the sea. How she calls to you. A queen, as my sister once was. Terrible and proud; beautiful as a winter sunrise.”
“Only Nesta would not just conquer Death—but pillage it.”
They outright gasped as Rhys simply perched on the arm of the throne, smirked at me, and said to the Court of Nightmares, “Bow.”
“Consider this meeting a trial basis. And I’ll make you pay through the teeth for my services.”
You bow to no one, was all he replied.
The sun personified. Powerful, lazy with grace, capable of kindness and wrath. Nearly as beautiful as Rhysand. And somehow—somehow colder than Kallias.
I said quietly, “The sun was shining when I left you.”
“Be careful how you speak about my High Lady.”
A female of pride and hard work.
“I don’t care,” Nesta said with a snap of her wrist,
“I suppose that war makes wanting things like that unimportant.” Mor was quiet for a heartbeat. “Perhaps. But you should not let war steal it from you regardless.”
“Dinner,” I said to the Weaver,
Would you have let me go if I had? I do not let you do anything. He tilted my face up, Mor and Azriel looking away. You are your own person, you make your own choices. But we are mates—I am yours, and you are mine. We do not let each other do things, as if we dictate the movements of each other. But … I might have insisted I go with you. More for my own mental well-being, just to know you were safe
Rhys growled. “They took what is ours. And we do not allow those crimes to go unpunished.” His power rippled and swirled around me. “You do not fear,” Rhys breathed. “You do not falter. You do not yield. You go in, you get her, and you come out again.” I nodded again, holding his stare. “Remember that you are a wolf. And you cannot be caged.”
My gift is truth—and yet I have been living a lie my entire existence.”
