2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

I lifted my gaze to him, my breath tight, aching.
As if he hadn’t just knocked the world from beneath my feet, Rhysand said, “Think it
over. Take the week. Ask Tamlin, if it’ll make you sleep better. See what charming Ianthe
says about it. But it’s your choice to make—no one else’s.”
I didn’t see Rhysand for the rest of the week. Or Mor.
The only people I encountered were Nuala and Cerridwen, who delivered my meals,
made my bed, and occasionally asked how I was faring.
The only evidence I had at all that Rhys remained on the premises were the blank
copies of the alphabet, along with several sentences I was to write every day, swapping out
words, each one more obnoxious than the last:
Rhysand is the most handsome High Lord.
Rhysand is the most delightful High Lord.
Rhysand is the most cunning High Lord.
Every day, one miserable sentence—with one changing word of varying arrogance and
vanity. And every day, another simple set of instructions: shield up, shield down; shield
up, shield down. Over and over and over.
How he knew if I obeyed or not, I didn’t care—but I threw myself into my lessons, I
raised and lowered and thickened those mental shields. If only because it was all I had to
do.
My nightmares left me groggy, sweaty—but the room was so open, the starlight so
bright that when I’d jerk awake, I didn’t rush to the toilet. No walls pushing in around me,
no inky darkness. I knew where I was. Even if I resented being there.
The day before our week finally finished, I was trudging to my usual little table, already
grimacing at what delightful sentences I’d find waiting and all the mental acrobatics
ahead, when Rhys’s and Mor’s voices floated toward me.
It was a public space, so I didn’t bother masking my footsteps as I neared where they
spoke in one of the sitting areas, Rhys pacing before the open plunge off the mountain,
Mor lounging in a cream-colored armchair.
“Azriel would want to know that,” Mor was saying.
“Azriel can go to hell,” Rhys sniped back. “He likely already knows, anyway.”
“We played games the last time,” Mor said with a seriousness that made me pause a
healthy distance away, “and we lost. Badly. We’re not going to do that again.”
“You should be working,” was Rhysand’s only response. “I gave you control for a
reason, you know.”
Mor’s jaw tightened, and she at last faced me. She gave me a smile that was more of a
cringe.