She dashed for the flames, as if she’d put them out with those flawless white hands, her mouth of rotted teeth open and screaming like there was nothing but black hell inside her.
I hurtled for the darkened hearth. For the fireplace and chimney above.
A tight squeeze, but wide—wide enough for me.
I didn’t hesitate as I grabbed onto the ledge and hauled myself up, arms buckling. Immortal strength—it got me only so far, and I’d become so weak, so malnourished.
I had let them make me weak. Bent to it like some wild horse broken to the bit.
The soot-stained bricks were loose, uneven. Perfect for climbing.
Faster—I had to go faster.
But my shoulders scraped against the brick, and it reeked in here, like carrion and burned hair, and there was an oily sheen on the stone, like cooked fat—
The Weaver’s screaming was cut short as I was halfway up her chimney, sunlight and trees almost visible, every breath a near-sob.
I reached for the next brick, fingernails breaking as I hauled myself up so violently that my arms barked in protest against the squeezing of the stone around me, and—
And I was stuck.
Stuck, as the Weaver hissed from within her house, “What little mouse is climbing about in my chimney?”
I had just enough room to look down as the Weaver’s rotted face appeared below.
She put that milk-white hand on the ledge, and I realized how little room there was between us.
My head emptied out.
I pushed against the grip of the chimney, but couldn’t budge.
I was going to die here. I was going to be dragged down by those beautiful hands and ripped apart and eaten. Maybe while I was still alive, she’d set that hideous mouth on my flesh and gnaw and tear and bite and—
Black panic crushed in, and I was again trapped under a nearby mountain, in a muddy trench, the Middengard Wyrm barreling for me. I’d barely escaped, barely—
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe—
The Weaver’s nails scratched against the brick as she took a step up.
No, no, no, no, no—
I kicked and kicked against the bricks.
“Did you think you could steal and flee, thief?”
I would have preferred the Middengard Wyrm. Would have preferred those massive, sharp teeth to her jagged stumps—
Stop.
The word came out of the darkness of my mind.
And the voice was my own.
Stop, it said—I said.
Breathe.
Think.
The Weaver came closer, brick crumbling under her hands. She’d climb up like a spider—like I was a fly in her web—
Stop.
And that word quieted everything.
I mouthed it.
Stop, stop, stop.
Think.
I had survived the Wyrm—survived Amarantha. And I had been granted gifts. Considerable gifts.
Like strength.
I was strong.
I slammed a hand against the chimney wall, as low as I could get. The Weaver hissed at the debris that rained down. I smashed my fist again, rallying that strength.
I was not a pet, not a doll, not an animal.
I was a survivor, and I was strong.
I would not be weak, or helpless again. I would not, could not be broken. Tamed.
I pounded my fist into the bricks over and over, and the Weaver paused.
Paused long enough for the brick I’d loosened to slide free into my waiting palm.
And for me to hurl it at her hideous, horrible face as hard as I could.
Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spraying. But I rammed my shoulders into the sides of the chimney, skin tearing beneath my leather. I kept going, going, going, until I was stone breaking stone, until nothing and no one held me back and I was scaling the chimney.
I didn’t dare stop, not as I reached the lip and hauled myself out, tumbling onto the thatched roof. Which was not thatched with hay at all.
But hair.
And with all that fat lining the chimney—all that fat now gleaming on my skin … the hair clung to me. In clumps and strands and tufts. Bile rose, but the front door banged open—a shriek following it.
No—not that way. Not to the ground.
Up, up, up.
A tree branch hung low and close by, and I scrambled across that heinous roof, trying not to think about who and what I was stepping on, what clung to my skin, my clothes. A heartbeat later, I’d jumped onto the waiting branch, scrambling into the leaves and moss as the Weaver screamed, “WHERE ARE YOU?”
But I was running through the tree—running toward another one nearby. I leaped from branch to branch, bare hands tearing on the wood. Where was Rhysand?
Farther and farther I fled, her screams chasing me, though they grew ever-distant.
Where are you, where are you, where are you—
And then, lounging on a branch in a tree before me, one arm draped over the edge, Rhysand drawled, “What the hell did you do?”
I skidded to a stop, breathing raw. I thought my lungs might actually be bleeding.
“You,” I hissed.
But he raised a finger to his lips and winnowed to me—grabbing my waist with one hand and cupping the back of my neck with his other as he spirited us away—
To Velaris. To just above the House of Wind.
We free-fell, and I didn’t have breath to scream as his wings appeared, spreading wide, and he curved us into a steady glide … right through the open windows of what had to be a war room. Cassian was there—in the middle of arguing with Amren about something.
Both froze as we landed on the red floor.
There was a mirror on the wall behind them, and I glimpsed myself long enough to know why they were gaping.
My face was scratched and bloody, and I was covered in dirt and grease—boiled fat—and mortar dust, the hair stuck to me, and I smelled—
“You smell like barbecue,” Amren said, cringing a bit.
Cassian loosened the hand he’d wrapped around the fighting knife at his thigh.
I was still panting, still trying to gobble down breath. The hair clinging to me scratched and tickled, and—
“You kill her?” Cassian said.
“No,” Rhys answered for me, loosely folding his wings. “But given how much the Weaver was screaming, I’m dying to know what Feyre darling did.”
Grease—I had the grease and hair of people on me—
I vomited all over the floor.
Cassian swore, but Amren waved a hand and it was instantly gone—along with the mess on me. But I could feel the ghost of it there, the remnants of people, the mortar of those bricks …
“She … detected me somehow,” I managed to say, slumping against the large black table and wiping my mouth against the shoulder of my leathers. “And locked the doors and windows. So I had to climb out through the chimney. I got stuck,” I added as Cassian’s brows rose, “and when she tried to climb up, I threw a brick at her face.”
Silence.
Amren looked to Rhysand. “And where were you?”
“Waiting, far enough away that she couldn’t detect me.”
I snarled at him, “I could have used some help.”
“You survived,” he said. “And found a way to help yourself.” From the hard glimmer in his eye, I knew he was aware of the panic that had almost gotten me killed, either through mental shields I’d forgotten to raise or whatever anomaly in our bond. He’d been aware of it—and let me endure it.
Because it had almost gotten me killed, and I’d be no use to him if it happened when it mattered—with the Book. Exactly like he’d said.
“That’s what this was also about,” I spat. “Not just this stupid ring,” I reached into my pocket, slamming the ring down on the table, “or my abilities, but if I can master my panic.”
Cassian swore again, his eyes on that ring.
Amren shook her head, sheet of dark hair swaying. “Brutal, but effective.”
Rhys only said, “Now you know. That you can use your abilities to hunt our objects, and thus track the Book at the Summer Court, and master yourself.”
“You’re a prick, Rhysand,” Cassian said quietly.
Rhys merely tucked his wings in with a graceful snap. “You’d do the same.”
Cassian shrugged, as if to say fine, he would.
I looked at my hands, my nails bloody and cracked. And I said to Cassian, “I want you to teach me—how to fight. To get strong. If the offer to train still stands.”
Cassian’s brows rose, and he didn’t bother looking to Rhys for approval. “You’ll be calling me a prick pretty damn fast if we train. And I don’t know anything about training humans—how breakable your bodies are. Were, I mean,” he added with a wince. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t want my only option to be running,” I said.
“Running,” Amren cut in, “kept you alive today.”
I ignored her. “I want to know how to fight my way out. I don’t want to have to wait on anyone to rescue me.” I faced Rhys, crossing my arms. “Well? Have I proved myself?”
But he merely picked up the ring and gave me a nod of thanks. “It was my mother’s ring.” As if that were all the explanation and answers owed.
“How’d you lose it?” I demanded.
“I didn’t. My mother gave it to me as a keepsake, then took it back when I reached maturity—and gave it to the Weaver for safekeeping.”
“Why?”
“So I wouldn’t waste it.”
Nonsense and idiocy and—I wanted a bath. I wanted quiet and a bath. The need for those things hit me strong enough that my knees buckled.
I’d barely looked at Rhys before he grabbed my hand, flared his wings, and had us soaring back through the windows. We free-fell for five thunderous, wild heartbeats before he winnowed to my bedroom in the town house. A hot bath was already running. I staggered to it, exhaustion hitting me like a physical blow, when Rhys said, “And what about training your other … gifts?”
Through the rising steam from the tub, I said, “I think you and I would shred each other to bits.”
“Oh, we most definitely will.” He leaned against the bathing room threshold. “But it wouldn’t be fun otherwise. Consider our training now officially part of your work requirements with me.” A jerk of the chin. “Go ahead—try to get past my shields.”
I knew which ones he was talking about. “I’m tired. The bath will go cold.”
“I promise it’ll be just as hot in a few moments. Or, if you mastered your gifts, you might be able to take care of that yourself.”