2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

CHAPTER
28
My sisters ate breakfast with Rhys and me, Azriel gone to wherever he’d taken the Attor.
Cassian had flown off to join him the moment we returned. He’d given Nesta a mocking
bow, and she’d given him a vulgar gesture I hadn’t realized she knew how to make.
Cassian had merely laughed, his eyes snaking over Nesta’s ice-blue gown with a
predatory intent that, given her hiss of rage, he knew would set her spitting. Then he was
gone, leaving my sister on the broad doorstep, her brown-gold hair ruffled by the chill
wind stirred by his mighty wings.
We brought my sisters to the village to mail our letter, Rhys glamouring us so we were
invisible while they went into the little shop to post them. After we returned home, our
good-byes were quick. I knew Rhys wanted to return to Velaris—if only to learn what the
Attor was up to.
I’d said as much to Rhys while he flew us through the wall, into the warmth of Prythian,
then winnowed us to Velaris.
Morning mist still twined through the city and the mountains around it. The chill also
remained—but not nearly as unforgiving as the cold of the mortal world. Rhys left me in
the foyer, huffing hot air into my frozen palms, without so much as a good-bye.
Hungry again, I found Nuala and Cerridwen, and I gobbled down cheese-and-chive
scones while thinking through what I’d seen, what I’d done.
Not an hour later, Rhys found me in the living room, my feet propped on the couch
before the fire, a book in my lap, a cup of rose tea steaming on the low table before me. I
stood as he entered, scanning him for any sign of injury. Something tight in my chest
eased when I found nothing amiss.
“It’s done,” he said, dragging a hand through his blue-black hair. “We learned what we
needed to.” I braced myself to be shut out, to be told it’d be taken care of, but Rhys added,
“It’s up to you, Feyre, to decide how much of our methods you want to know about. What
you can handle. What we did to the Attor wasn’t pretty.”
“I want to know everything,” I said. “Take me there.”
“The Attor isn’t in Velaris. He was in the Hewn City, in the Court of Nightmares—
where it took Azriel less than an hour to break him.” I waited for more, and as if deciding
I wasn’t about to crumple, Rhys stalked closer, until less than a foot of the ornate red
carpet lay between us. His boots, usually impeccably polished … that was silver blood
speckled on them. Only when I met his gaze did he say, “I’ll show you.”
I knew what he meant, and steadied myself, blocking out the murmuring fire and the