2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

He made strings to his viol thereto.”
I scanned the room, trying not to listen to the lyrics.
Nothing. I felt … nothing that might pull me toward one object in particular. Perhaps it
would be a blessing if I were indeed not the one to track the Book—if today was not the
start of what was sure to be a slew of miseries.
The Weaver perched there, working.
I scanned the shelves, the ceiling. Borrowed time. I was on borrowed time, and I was
almost out of it.
Had Rhys sent me on a fool’s errand? Maybe there was nothing here. Maybe this object
had been taken. It would be just like him to do that. To tease me in the woods, to see what
sort of things might make my body react.
And maybe I resented Tamlin enough in that moment to enjoy that deadly bit of
flirtation. Maybe I was as much a monster as the female spinning before me.
But if I was a monster, then I supposed Rhys was as well.
Rhys and I were one in the same—beyond the power that he’d given me. It’d be fitting
if Tamlin hated me, too, once he realized I’d truly left.
I felt it, then—like a tap on my shoulder.
I pivoted, keeping one eye on the Weaver and the other on the room as I wove through
the maze of tables and junk. Like a beacon, a bit of light laced with his half smile, it
tugged me.
Hello, it seemed to say. Have you come to claim me at last?
Yes—yes, I wanted to say. Even as part of me wished it were otherwise.
The Weaver sang behind me,
“What did he do with her eyes so bright?
On his viol he set at first light.
What did he do with her tongue so rough?
’Twas the new till and it spoke enough.”
I followed that pulse—toward the shelf lining the wall beside the hearth. Nothing. And
nothing on the second. But the third, right above my eyeline … There.
I could almost smell his salt-and-citrus scent. The Bone Carver had been correct.
I rose on my toes to examine the shelf. An old letter knife, books in leather that I did not
want to touch or smell; a handful of acorns, a tarnished crown of ruby and jasper, and—
A ring.
A ring of twisted strands of gold and silver, flecked with pearl, and set with a stone of
deepest, solid blue. Sapphire—but different. I’d never seen a sapphire like that, even at my