2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

his seat to round the desk. He kissed my brow, the tip of my nose, my mouth. “So much
paperwork,” he grumbled onto my lips. I chuckled, but he pressed his mouth to the bare
spot between my neck and shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and my spine tingled. He
kissed my neck again. “I’m sorry.”
I ran a hand down his arm. “Tamlin,” I started.
“I shouldn’t have said those things,” he breathed onto my skin. “To you or Lucien. I
didn’t mean any of them.”
“I know,” I said, and his body relaxed against mine. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“You had every right,” he said, though I technically didn’t. “I was wrong.”
What he said had been true—if he made exceptions, then other faeries would demand
the same treatment. And what I had done could be construed as undermining. “Maybe I
was—”
“No. You were right. I don’t understand what it’s like to be starving—or any of it.”
I pulled back a bit to incline my head toward the present waiting there, more than
willing to let this be the last of it. I gave a small, wry smile. “For you?”
He nipped at my ear in answer. “For you. From me.” An apology.
Feeling lighter than I had in days, I tugged the ribbon loose, and examined the pale
wood box beneath. It was perhaps two feet high and three feet wide, a solid iron handle
anchored in the top—no crest or lettering to indicate what might be within. Certainly not a
dress, but …
Please not a crown.
Though surely, a crown or diadem would be in something less … rudimentary.
I unlatched the small brass lock and flipped open the broad lid.
It was worse than a crown, actually.
Built into the box were compartments and sleeves and holders, all full of brushes and
paints and charcoal and sheets of paper. A traveling painting kit.
Red—the red paint inside the glass vial was so bright, the blue as stunning as the eyes
of that faerie woman I’d slaughtered—
“I thought you might want it to take around the grounds with you. Rather than lug all
those bags like you always do.”
The brushes were fresh, gleaming—the bristles soft and clean.
Looking at that box, at what was inside, felt like examining a crow-picked corpse.
I tried to smile. Tried to will some brightness to my eyes.
He said, “You don’t like it.”
“No,” I managed to say. “No—it’s wonderful.” And it was. It really was.