2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

That midnight voice said with quiet cold that licked down my spine, “As do I.”
Then the cocky one drawled to her, “We were here first. Wait your turn, Tiny Ancient
One.”
On either side of me, Nuala and Cerridwen flinched, either from holding in laughter or
some vestige of fear, or perhaps both. Definitely both as a feminine snarl sliced through
the house—albeit a bit halfheartedly.
The upstairs hall was punctuated with chandeliers of swirled, colored glass, illuminating
the few polished doors on either side. I wondered which belonged to Rhysand—and then
wondered which one belonged to Mor as I heard her yawn amid the fray below:
“Why is everyone here so early? I thought we were meeting tonight at the House.”
Below, Rhysand grumbled—grumbled—“Trust me, there’s no party. Only a massacre, if
Cassian doesn’t shut his mouth.”
“We’re hungry,” that first male—Cassian—complained. “Feed us. Someone told me
there’d be breakfast.”
“Pathetic,” that strange female voice quipped. “You idiots are pathetic.”
Mor said, “We know that’s true. But is there food?”
I heard the words—heard and processed them. And then they floated into the blackness
of my mind.
Nuala and Cerridwen opened a door, leading to a fire-warmed, sunlit room. It faced a
walled, winter-kissed garden in the back of the town house, the large windows peering
over the sleeping stone fountain in its center, drained for the season. Everything in the
bedroom itself was of rich wood and soft white, with touches of subtle sage. It felt,
strangely enough, almost human.
And the bed—massive, plush, adorned in quilts and duvets of cream and ivory to keep
out the winter chill—that looked the most welcoming of all.
But I wasn’t so far gone that I couldn’t ask a few basic questions—to at least give
myself the illusion of caring a bit about my own welfare.
“Who was that?” I managed to say as they shut the door behind us.
Nuala headed for the small attached bathing room—white marble, a claw-foot tub, more
sunny windows that overlooked the garden wall and the thick line of cypress trees that
stood watch behind it. Cerridwen, already stalking for the armoire, cringed a bit and said
over a shoulder, “They’re Rhysand’s Inner Circle.”
The ones I’d heard mentioned that day at the Night Court—who Rhys kept going to
meet. “I wasn’t aware that High Lords kept things so casual,” I admitted.
“They don’t,” Nuala said, returning from the bathing room with a brush. “But Rhysand
does.”
Apparently, my hair was a mess, because Nuala brushed it as Cerridwen pulled out