2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

CHAPTER
19
“Amren’s right,” Rhys drawled, leaning against the threshold of the town house sitting
room. “You are like dogs, waiting for me to come home. Maybe I should buy treats.”
Cassian gave him a vulgar gesture from where he lounged on the couch before the
hearth, an arm slung over the back behind Mor. Though everything about his powerful,
muscled body suggested someone at ease, there was a tightness in his jaw, a coiled-up
energy that told me they’d been waiting here for a while.
Azriel lingered by the window, comfortably ensconced in shadows, a light flurry of
snow dusting the lawn and street behind him. And Amren …
Nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or not. I’d have to hunt her down to
give her back the necklace soon—if Rhys’s warnings and her own words were to be
believed.
Damp and cold from the mist and wind that chased us down from the Prison, I strode
for the armchair across from the couch, which had been shaped, like so much of the
furniture here, to accommodate Illyrian wings. I stretched my stiff limbs toward the fire,
and stifled a groan at the delicious heat.
“How’d it go?” Mor said, straightening beside Cassian. No gown today—just practical
black pants and a thick blue sweater.
“The Bone Carver,” Rhys said, “is a busybody gossip who likes to pry into other
people’s business far too much.”
“But?” Cassian demanded, bracing his arms on his knees, wings tucked in tight.
“But,” Rhys said, “he can also be helpful, when he chooses. And it seems we need to
start doing what we do best.”
I flexed my numbed fingers, content to let them discuss, needing a moment to reel
myself back in, to shut out what I’d revealed to the Bone Carver.
And what the Bone Carver suggested I might actually be asked to do with that book.
The abilities I might have.
So Rhys told them of the Cauldron, and the reason behind the temple pillagings, to no
shortage of swearing and questions—and revealed nothing of what I had admitted in
exchange for the information. Azriel emerged from his wreathing shadows to ask the most
questions; his face and voice remained unreadable. Cassian, surprisingly, kept quiet—as if
the general understood that the shadowsinger would know what information was
necessary, and was busy assessing it for his own forces.
When Rhys was done, his spymaster said, “I’ll contact my sources in the Summer Court