A Court of Mist and Fury

Chapter 40

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I knew he could hear my heart as it ratcheted into a thunderous beat. I gave him a hateful little smirk, anyway, yanking my chin out of his touch and leaping off the stone. I might have aimed for his feet. And he might have shifted out of the way just enough to avoid it. “Isn’t that all you males are good for, anyway?” But the words were tight, near-breathless.

His answering smile evoked silken sheets and jasmine-scented breezes at midnight.

A dangerous line—one Rhys was forcing me to walk to keep me from thinking about what I was about to face, about what a wreck I was inside.

Anger, this … flirtation, annoyance … He knew those were my crutches.

What I was about to encounter, then, must be truly harrowing if he wanted me going in there mad—thinking about sex, about anything but the Weaver of the Wood.

“Nice try,” I said hoarsely. Rhysand just shrugged and swaggered off into the trees ahead.

Bastard. Yes, it had been to distract me, but—

I stormed after him as silently as I could, intent on tackling him and slamming my fist into his spine, but he held up a hand as he stopped before a clearing.

A small, whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof and half-crumbling chimney sat in the center. Ordinary—almost mortal. There was even a well, its bucket perched on the stone lip, and a wood pile beneath one of the round windows of the cottage. No sound or light within—not even smoke puffed from the chimney.

The few birds in the forest fell quiet. Not entirely, but to keep their chatter to a minimum. And—there.

Faint, coming from inside the cottage, was a pretty, steady humming.

It might have been the sort of place I would have stopped if I were thirsty, or hungry, or in need of shelter for the night.

Maybe that was the trap.

The trees around the clearing, so close that their branches nearly clawed at the thatched roof, might very well have been the bars of a cage.

Rhys inclined his head toward the cottage, bowing with dramatic grace.

In, out—don’t make a sound. Find whatever object it was and snatch it from beneath a blind person’s nose.

And then run like hell.

Mossy earth paved the way to the front door, already cracked slightly. A bit of cheese. And I was the foolish mouse about to fall for it.

Eyes twinkling, Rhys mouthed, Good luck.

I gave him a vulgar gesture and slowly, silently made my way toward the front door.

The woods seemed to monitor each of my steps. When I glanced behind, Rhys was gone.

He hadn’t said if he’d interfere if I were in mortal peril. I probably should have asked.

I avoided any leaves and stones, falling into a pattern of movement that some part of my body—some part that was not born of the High Lords—remembered.

Like waking up. That’s what it felt like.

I passed the well. Not a speck of dirt, not a stone out of place. A perfect, pretty trap, that mortal part of me warned. A trap designed from a time when humans were prey; now laid for a smarter, immortal sort of game.

longer, I decided as I eased

was not a

I was a wolf.

perhaps never passed back over again. The words of her song became

two sisters, they went

father’s

when they came unto the

did push the younger

but sung

to hear anyone else. But there was only a clatter and thrum of some sort of device, and

sank, and

came

in my chest, but I kept it even—directing it through my

practically inviting thieves

walls, crammed with bric-a-brac: books, shells, dolls, herbs, pottery, shoes, crystals, more books, jewels … From the ceiling and wood rafters hung all manner

junk shop—of some

And that hoarder …

the cottage, there sat a large spinning wheel, cracked and dulled

before that ancient spinning wheel, her back to

richest onyx, tumbling down to her slender waist as she worked

but elegant, sparkling faintly in the dim forest light through the windows as

did he do with her

him a viol to play

do with her fingers

pegs to his viol

Like wool, but … I knew, in that lingering human part of me, it was not wool. I knew that I did not want to learn what creature it

on the shelf directly beyond her were cones upon cones of threads—of every color and texture. And on the shelf adjacent to her were swaths and yards of that woven thread—woven, I realized, on the massive loom nearly hidden in

instead? From the strange, fear-drenched scent that came from

wolf. I

earthen floor. She kept working, the wheel clattering so merrily, so

he do with her

he made a

with

strings to

not to listen to

blessing if I were indeed not

Weaver perched there,

scanned the shelves, the ceiling. Borrowed time. I was on borrowed time, and

just like him to do that. To tease me in the woods, to see what

in that moment to enjoy that deadly bit of flirtation. Maybe I was as much a monster as

I was a monster, then

same—beyond the power that he’d given me. It’d be

then—like a tap on

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