A Court of Mist and Fury

Maybe he’d avoid me the entire party.

Someone called Cassian’s name from down the patio, and he clapped me on the shoulder before striding off. A tall male, his face in shadow, clasped forearms with Cassian, his white teeth gleaming in the darkness. Azriel stood with the stranger already, his wings tucked in tight to keep revelers from knocking into them. He, Cassian, and Mor had all been quiet today—understandably so. I scanned for signs of my other—

Friends.

The word sounded in my head. Was that what they were?

Amren was nowhere in sight, but I spotted a golden head at the same moment she spied me, and Mor breezed to my side. She wore a gown of pure white, little more than a slip of silk that showed off her generous curves. Indeed, a glance over her shoulder revealed Azriel staring blatantly at the back view of it, Cassian and the stranger already too deep in conversation to notice what had drawn the spymaster’s attention. For a moment, the ravenous hunger on Azriel’s face made my stomach tighten.

I’d remembered feeling like that. Remembered how it felt to yield to it. How I’d come close to doing that the other night.

Mor said, “It won’t be long now.”

“Until what?” No one had told me what to expect, as they hadn’t wanted to ruin the surprise of Starfall.

“Until the fun.”

I surveyed the party around us—“This isn’t the fun?”

Mor lifted an eyebrow. “None of us really care about this part. Once it starts, you’ll see.” She took a sip of her sparkling wine. “That’s some dress. You’re lucky Amren is hiding in her little attic, or she’d probably steal it right off you. The vain drake.”

“She won’t take time off from decoding?”

“Yes, and no. Something about Starfall disturbs her, she claims. Who knows? She probably does it to be contrary.”

Even as she spoke, her words were distant—her face a bit tight. I said quietly, “Are you … ready for tomorrow?” Tomorrow, when we’d leave Velaris to keep anyone from noticing our movements in this area. Mor, Azriel had told me tightly over breakfast that morning, would return to the Court of Nightmares. To check in on her father’s … recovery.

Probably not the best place to discuss our plans, but Mor shrugged. “I don’t have any choice but to be ready. I’ll come with you to the camp, then go my way afterward.”

“Cassian will be happy about that,” I said. Even if Azriel was the one trying his best not to stare at her.

Mor snorted. “Maybe.”

I lifted a brow. “So you two … ?”

Another shrug. “Once. Well, not even. I was seventeen, he wasn’t even a year older.”

When everything had happened.

But there was no darkness on her face as she sighed. “Cauldron, that was a long time ago. I visited Rhys for two weeks when he was training in the war-camp, and Cassian, Azriel, and I became friends. One night, Rhys and his mother had to go back to the Night Court, and Azriel went with them, so Cassian and I were left alone. And that night, one thing led to another, and … I wanted Cassian to be the one who did it. I wanted to choose.” A third shrug. I wondered if Azriel had wished to be the one she chose instead. If he’d ever admitted to it to Mor—or Rhys. If he resented that he’d been away that night, that Mor hadn’t considered him.

“Rhys came back the next morning, and when he learned what had happened … ” She laughed under her breath. “We try not to talk about the Incident. He and Cassian … I’ve never seen them fight like that. Hopefully I never will again. I know Rhys wasn’t pissed about my virginity, but rather the danger that losing it had put me in. Azriel was even angrier about it—though he let Rhys do the walloping. They knew what my family would do for debasing myself with a bastard-born lesser faerie.” She brushed a hand over her abdomen, as if she could feel that nail they’d spiked through it. “They were right.”

“So you and Cassian,” I said, wanting to move on from it, that darkness, “you were never together again after that?”

“No,” Mor said, laughing quietly. “I was desperate, reckless that night. I’d picked him not just for his kindness, but also because I wanted my first time to be with one of the legendary Illyrian warriors. I wanted to lie with the greatest of Illyrian warriors, actually. And I’d taken one look at Cassian and known. After I got what I wanted, after … everything, I didn’t like that it caused a rift with him and Rhys, or even him and Az, so … never again.”

“And you were never with anyone after it?” Not the cold, beautiful shadowsinger who tried so hard not to watch her with longing on his face?

“I’ve had lovers,” Mor clarified, “but … I get bored. And Cassian has had them, too, so don’t get that unrequited-love, moony-woo-woo look. He just wants what he can’t have, and it’s irritated him for centuries that I walked away and never looked back.”

“Oh, it drives him insane,” Rhys said from behind me, and I jumped. But the High Lord was circling me. I crossed my arms as he paused and smirked. “You look like a woman again.”

“You really know how to compliment females, cousin,” Mor said, and patted him on the shoulder as she spotted an acquaintance and went to say hello.

I tried not to look at Rhys, who was in a black jacket, casually unbuttoned at the top so that the white shirt beneath—also unbuttoned at the neck—showed the tattoos on his chest peeking through. Tried not to look—and failed.