2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

are. Together.”
“Oh?” said the eldest, her wrinkles seeming to harden, deepen. “The High Lord of the
Night Court asks us to join with him, save lives with him. To fight for peace. And what of
the lives you have taken during your long, hideous existence? What of the High Lord who
walks with darkness in his wake, and shatters minds as he sees fit?” A crow’s laugh. “We
have heard of you, even on the continent, Rhysand. We have heard what the Night Court
does, what you do to your enemies. Peace? For a male who melts minds and tortures for
sport, I did not think you knew the word.”
Wrath began simmering in my blood; embers crackled in my ears. But I cooled that fire
I’d slowly been stoking these past weeks and tried, “If you will not send forces here to
defend your people, then the artifact we requested—”
“Our half of the Book, child,” the crone cut me off, “does not leave our sacred palace. It
has not left those white walls since the day it was gifted as part of the Treaty. It will never
leave those walls, not while we stand against the terrors in the North.”
“Please,” was all I said.
Silence again.
“Please,” I repeated. Emissary—I was their emissary, and Rhys had chosen me for this.
To be the voice of both worlds. “I was turned into this—into a faerie—because one of the
commanders from Hybern killed me.”
Through our bond, I could have sworn I felt Rhys flinch.
“For fifty years,” I pushed on, “she terrorized Prythian, and when I defeated her, when I
freed its people, she killed me. And before she did, I witnessed the horrors that she
unleashed on human and faerie alike. One of them—just one of them was able to cause
such destruction and suffering. Imagine what an army like her might do. And now their
king plans to use a weapon to shatter the wall, to destroy all of you. The war will be swift,
and brutal. And you will not win. We will not win. Survivors will be slaves, and their
children’s children will be slaves. Please … Please, give us the other half of the Book.”
The eldest queen swapped a glance with the golden one before saying gently,
placatingly, “You are young, child. You have much to learn about the ways of the world
—”
“Do not,” Rhys said with deadly quiet, “condescend to her.” The eldest queen—who
was but a child to him, to his centuries of existence—had the good sense to look nervous at
that tone. Rhys’s eyes were glazed, his face as unforgiving as his voice as he went on, “Do
not insult Feyre for speaking with her heart, with compassion for those who cannot defend
themselves, when you speak from only selfishness and cowardice.”
The eldest stiffened. “For the greater good—”
“Many atrocities,” Rhys purred, “have been done in the name of the greater good.”
No small part of me was impressed that she held his gaze. She said simply, “The Book
will remain with us. We will weather this storm—”