A Court of Mist and Fury

Chapter 1

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PART ONE

THE HOUSE OF BEASTS

CHAPTER

1

I vomited into the toilet, hugging the cool sides, trying to contain the sounds of my retching.

Moonlight leaked into the massive marble bathing room, providing the only illumination as I was quietly, thoroughly sick.

Tamlin hadn’t stirred as I’d jolted awake. And when I hadn’t been able to tell the darkness of my chamber from the endless night of Amarantha’s dungeons, when the cold sweat coating me felt like the blood of those faeries, I’d hurtled for the bathing room.

I’d been here for fifteen minutes now, waiting for the retching to subside, for the lingering tremors to spread apart and fade, like ripples in a pool.

Panting, I braced myself over the bowl, counting each breath.

Only a nightmare. One of many, asleep and waking, that haunted me these days.

It had been three months since Under the Mountain. Three months of adjusting to my immortal body, to a world struggling to piece itself together after Amarantha had fractured it apart.

I focused on my breathing—in through my nose, out through my mouth. Over and over.

When it seemed like I was done heaving, I eased from the toilet—but didn’t go far. Just to the adjacent wall, near the cracked window, where I could see the night sky, where the breeze could caress my sticky face. I leaned my head against the wall, flattening my hands against the chill marble floor. Real.

This was real. I had survived; I’d made it out.

Unless it was a dream—just a fever-dream in Amarantha’s dungeons, and I’d awaken back in that cell, and—

I curled my knees to my chest. Real. Real.

I mouthed the words.

I kept mouthing them until I could loosen my grip on my legs and lift my head. Pain splintered through my hands—

I’d somehow curled them into fists so tight my nails were close to puncturing my skin.

Immortal strength—more a curse than a gift. I’d dented and folded every piece of silverware I’d touched for three days upon returning here, had tripped over my longer, faster legs so often that Alis had removed any irreplaceable valuables from my rooms (she’d been particularly grumpy about me knocking over a table with an eight-hundred-year-old vase), and had shattered not one, not two, but five glass doors merely by accidentally closing them too hard.

Sighing through my nose, I unfolded my fingers.

was plain,

way to the elbow, soaking up the darkness of the room. The eye etched into the center of my palm seemed to watch me, calm and cunning as a cat, its

I scowled at it.

be watching through that

Not a whisper. I hadn’t dared ask Tamlin, or Lucien, or anyone—lest it’d somehow summon the High Lord of the Night Court, somehow remind him of the fool’s bargain I’d struck Under the Mountain: one week with him every

Rhys had miraculously forgotten, I never could. Nor could Tamlin, Lucien,

at the end … even if he

over the borders of the Night Court and lived to tell. No one really knew what existed in the northernmost

darkness and

time I’d spoken to him, in the hours after Amarantha’s defeat. I’d

human heart, Feyre. Pity those who

blocking out that eye, the tattoo. I uncoiled to my feet, and flushed the toilet before padding to the

I felt

heart had been changed with the rest of me, made into immortal marble. Instead of the shredded bit

remained asleep as I crept back into my darkened bedroom, his naked body sprawled across the mattress. For a moment, I just admired the powerful muscles of his back, so lovingly traced by the moonlight, his golden hair, mussed with sleep and the fingers I’d run through it while

had done this—for him, I’d gladly wrecked

I had eternity to live with

continued to the bed, each step heavier, harder. The sheets were now cool and dry, and I slipped in, curling my back to him, wrapping my arms around myself. His breathing was deep—even. But with my Fae ears … sometimes I wondered if I heard his breath catch, only for a heartbeat.

I vomited my guts up

speak to him. But he’d shaken off my touch, his skin clammy, and had shifted into

since spent many

I pulled the blanket higher, craving its warmth against the chill night. It had become our unspoken agreement—not to let Amarantha win by acknowledging that she still tormented us in our dreams and waking

to explain, anyway. To not have to tell him that though I’d freed him, saved his

think even eternity would

CHAPTER

2

“I want to go.”

“No.”

slightly further apart on the

the bandolier of daggers across his chest. His face—ruggedly handsome, exactly as I’d dreamed it during those long months he’d worn a mask—was

Fae lord-sentries, Lucien silently shook his head in warning, his metal eye narrowing. Don’t push him, he seemed

as Tamlin strode toward where his black stallion had already been saddled, I gritted my teeth and stormed after him. “The

horse in one fluid motion. Sometimes, I wondered if the horses were just to maintain an appearance of civility—of normalcy. To pretend that he couldn’t run faster than them, didn’t live with one foot in the forest.

lunged for the bridle. “I don’t need an escort.” My grip tightened on the leather as I tugged the horse to a stop, and the

had proposed—two months of enduring presentations about flowers and clothes and seating arrangements and food. I’d had a small reprieve a week ago, thanks to

rather odious ceremony atop the foothills on the longest night to escort us from one year to another as the sun died and was born anew. Or something like that. Celebrating a winter

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