2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

some ivory sleeping clothes—a warm and soft lace-trimmed top and pants.
I took in the clothes, then the room, then the winter garden and the slumbering fountain
beyond, and Rhysand’s earlier words clicked into place.
The walls of this city have not been breached for five thousand years.
Meaning Amarantha …
“How is this city here?” I met Nuala’s gaze in the mirror. “How—how did it survive?”
Nuala’s face tightened, and her dark eyes flicked to her twin, who slowly rose from a
dresser drawer, fleece-lined slippers for me in hand. Cerridwen’s throat bobbed as she
swallowed.
“The High Lord is very powerful,” Cerridwen said—carefully. “And was devoted to his
people long before his father’s mantle passed to him.”
“How did it survive?” I pushed. A city—a lovely one, if the sounds from my window,
the garden beyond it, were any indication—lay all around me. Untouched, whole. Safe.
While the rest of the world had been left to ruin.
The twins exchanged looks again, some silent language they’d learned in the womb
passing between them. Nuala set down the brush on the vanity. “It is not for us to tell.”
“He asked you not to—”
“No,” Cerridwen interrupted, folding back the covers of the bed. “The High Lord made
no such demand. But what he did to shield this city is his story to tell, not ours. We would
be more comfortable if he told you, lest we get any of it wrong.”
I glared between them. Fine. Fair enough.
Cerridwen moved to shut the curtains, sealing the room in darkness.
My heart stumbled, taking my anger with it, and I blurted, “Leave them open.”
I couldn’t be sealed up and shut in darkness—not yet.
Cerridwen nodded and left the curtains open, both of the twins telling me to send word
if I needed anything before they departed.
Alone, I slid into the bed, hardly feeling the softness, the smoothness of the sheets.
I listened to the crackling fire, the chirp of birds in the garden’s potted evergreens—so
different from the spring-sweet melodies I was used to. That I might never hear or be able
to endure again.
Maybe Amarantha had won after all.
And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting
punishment for him. For what he had done to me.
Sleep claimed me, swift and brutal and deep.