2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

An unusually polite reminder that I probably looked like the dead. I felt like it. But I
said, “Where are we going?”
Rhys’s smile widened into a grin. “To Velaris—the City of Starlight.”
The moment I entered my room, the hollow quiet returned, washing away with it any
questions I might have had about—about a city.
Everything had been destroyed by Amarantha. If there were a city in Prythian, I would
no doubt be visiting a ruin.
I jumped into the bath, scrubbing down as swiftly as I could, then hurried into the Night
Court clothes that had been left for me. My motions were mindless, each one some feeble
attempt to keep from thinking about what had happened, what—what Tamlin had tried to
do and had done, what I had done—
By the time I returned to the main atrium, Rhys was leaning against a moonstone pillar,
picking at his nails. He merely said, “That was fifteen minutes,” before extending his
hand.
I had no glimmering ember to even try to look like I cared about his taunting before we
were swallowed by the roaring darkness.
Wind and night and stars wheeled by as he winnowed us through the world, and the
calluses of his hand scratched against my own fading ones before—
Before sunlight, not starlight, greeted me. Squinting at the brightness, I found myself
standing in what was unmistakably a foyer of someone’s house.
The ornate red carpet cushioned the one step I staggered away from him as I surveyed
the warm, wood-paneled walls, the artwork, the straight, wide oak staircase ahead.
Flanking us were two rooms: on my left, a sitting room with a black marble fireplace,
lots of comfortable, elegant, but worn furniture, and bookshelves built into every wall. On
my right: a dining room with a long, cherrywood table big enough for ten people—small,
compared to the dining room at the manor. Down the slender hallway ahead were a few
more doors, ending in one that I assumed would lead to a kitchen. A town house.
I’d visited one once, when I was a child and my father had brought me along to the
largest town in our territory: it’d belonged to a fantastically wealthy client, and had
smelled like coffee and mothballs. A pretty place, but stuffy—formal.
This house … this house was a home that had been lived in and enjoyed and cherished.
And it was in a city.