2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

time?
“Give it a try.” He jerked his chin toward me. “See if you can summon darkness. I
won’t ask you to try to winnow,” he added with a grin.
“I don’t know how I did it to begin with.”
“Will it into being.”
I gave him a flat stare.
He shrugged. “Try thinking of me—how good-looking I am. How talented—”
“How arrogant.”
“That, too.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest, the movement making the muscles
in his stomach flicker.
“Put a shirt on while you’re at it,” I quipped.
A feline smile. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“I’m surprised there aren’t more mirrors in this house, since you seem to love looking at
yourself so much.”
Azriel launched into a coughing fit. Cassian just turned away, a hand clamped over his
mouth.
Rhys’s lips twitched. “There’s the Feyre I adore.”
I scowled, but closed my eyes and tried to look inward—toward any dark corner of
myself I could find. There were too many.
Far too many.
And right now—right now they each contained that letter I’d written yesterday.
A good-bye.
For my own sanity, my own safety …
“There are different kinds of darkness,” Rhys said. I kept my eyes shut. “There is the
darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful.” I pictured
each. “There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the
bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good.”
I only saw the darkness of that dungeon cell; the darkness of the Bone Carver’s lair.
Cassian swore, but Azriel murmured a soft challenge that had their blades striking
again.
“Open your eyes.” I did.
And found darkness all around me. Not from me—but from Rhys. As if the sparring
ring had been wiped away, as if the world had yet to begin.
Quiet.