2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

you’re going to pick a fight with him, do it after breakfast.” That voice—like shadows
given form, dark and smooth and … cold.
“I wasn’t the one who hauled me out of bed just now to fly down here,” the first one
said. Then added, “Busybody.”
I could have sworn a smile tugged on Rhys’s lips as he went on, “One, no one—no one
—but Mor and I are able to winnow directly inside this house. It is warded, shielded, and
then warded some more. Only those I wish—and you wish—may enter. You are safe here;
and safe anywhere in this city, for that matter. Velaris’s walls are well protected and have
not been breached in five thousand years. No one with ill intent enters this city unless I
allow it. So go where you wish, do what you wish, and see who you wish. Those two in
the antechamber,” he added, eyes sparkling, “might not be on that list of people you
should bother knowing, if they keep banging on the door like children.”
Another pound, emphasized by the first male voice saying, “You know we can hear
you, prick.”
“Secondly,” Rhys went on, “in regard to the two bastards at my door, it’s up to you
whether you want to meet them now, or head upstairs like a wise person, take a nap since
you’re still looking a little peaky, and then change into city-appropriate clothing while I
beat the hell out of one of them for talking to his High Lord like that.”
There was such light in his eyes. It made him look … younger, somehow. More mortal.
So at odds with the icy rage I’d seen earlier when I’d awoken …
Awoken on that couch, and then decided I wasn’t returning home.
Decided that, perhaps, the Spring Court might not be my home.
I was drowning in that old heaviness, clawing my way up to a surface that might not
ever exist. I’d slept for the Mother knew how long, and yet … “Just come get me when
they’re gone.”
That joy dimmed, and Rhys looked like he might say something else, but a female voice
—crisp and edged—now sounded behind the two males in the antechamber. “You Illyrians
are worse than cats yowling to be let in the back door.” The knob jangled. She sighed
sharply. “Really, Rhysand? You locked us out?”
Fighting to keep that immense heaviness at bay a bit longer, I made for the stairs—at
the top of which now stood Nuala and Cerridwen, wincing at the front door. I could have
sworn Cerridwen subtly gestured me to hurry up. And I might have kissed both twins for
that bit of normalcy.
I might have kissed Rhys, too, for waiting to open the front door until I was halfway
down the cerulean-blue hallway on the second level.
All I heard was that first male voice declare, “Welcome home, bastard,” followed by the
shadowy male voice saying, “I sensed you were back. Mor filled me in, but I—”
That strange female voice cut him off. “Send your dogs out in the yard to play,
Rhysand. You and I have matters to discuss.”