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I need to know, he pressed. Do Vallahan, Montesere, or Rask already possess a Made object?

If their enemies, hell-bent on invading the human lands to the south and amassing a unified army to do so, got their hands on a Made weapon, if Koschei was somehow involved in—

They have stopped speaking of the matter, the shadow supplied. But they now speak of different objects: an ancient book of etched gold . . . and a six-sided box.

They are treacherous, though, his shadow advised. They have come at the behest of the Deathless One, and yet they also seek a way to control him. They know of the legends regarding a hexagonal onyx box that belongs to Koschei, more valuable now that he stirs, malcontent. The box contains his death, woven and bound within his sacred life-thread, and if they find it, they will get all they desire out of him. But they are fools, one of the males warns, all of them fools to even seek it, to risk betraying the Deathless One—

A snap of invisible, dagger-sharp teeth, and his shadow went silent.

His shadow had been found. Which meant he was about to be found—

A howl blasted around him, off the rocks, through his bones. So close it would be a matter of seconds before the pack descended and tore him to shreds. The loss of one shadow wouldn’t hurt him; no, part of him considered that a small blessing, but those phantom teeth and claws on the wind would rip his flesh apart with ease.

Az gathered his power in a swift, brutal surge. He could not win this fight. Not even with all his training, his strength. He might have tried—had he not now possessed information his family badly needed.

A lupine snarl sliced through the air to his right, the rain itself parting as his enemy lunged.

But Az was already gone, weaving through shadows, dripping water and shivering with more than cold, all the way back to Velaris.

CHAPTER

2

Feyre

I hated Storr. I didn’t know how it was possible to hate a place I’d only just seen for the first time, but from the moment I’d winnowed onto this wave-blasted shard of granite in the middle of the Northern Sea, its freezing emptiness had sunk into my very bones.

No grass grew here. No seaweed clung to the oddly geometric boulders along the shore. No trees, no birds. Not even gulls sailing high above. Only salty spray carried on the biting wind. And the round stone building squatting in the center of the rock.

Storr provided only one use: neutral territory. Not for any of us in the seven courts, but between Prythian and the continent.

The stone building—more of an oversized chamber—was an ancient meeting spot, empty save for a circular table made of rock in its center and matching chairs, all so rarely used that orange lichen coated them like old blood splatters.

Lighting the oxidized braziers along the walls hadn’t added much cheer. Nor had the large fire in the roaring hearth, the stone fashioned into a gaping sea serpent’s mouth. A few of its carved fangs had cracked off and now lay in rubble on the mossy hearthstones. No one had ever bothered to sweep them up. Or perhaps no one had set foot in this chamber since they’d fallen long ago.

But we weren’t on Storr for a merry assembly, in any case—and lighting the fire was about as much effort as I was willing to put in to cheer up the room. There were to be nine of us negotiating today: Rhys and Mor and me, and three apiece from the two territories we’d worked so hard to get here, Vallahan and Montesere.

Rask hadn’t deigned to reply to our invitations these past months. But we’d gladly taken a meeting with two out of three potential enemies.

They knew why we’d gathered them here. Mor had been in Vallahan often enough since the Hybern War that they’d be fools not to have some inkling of what we wanted. And what Vallahan knew, Montesere knew. Their network of spies rivaled anything Azriel could send their way.

It was Az’s experience with those spies a few days ago that had prompted this meeting. The sliver of information he’d obtained that made us send out this latest round of invitations.

So here we all were: the King and Queen and Prince of Vallahan, and from Montesere, the grand vizier, the Duke of Bernion, and the Mistress of the Unseen—their version of a High Priestess. A mighty, royal group, and already the haughtiest of any I’d encountered.

So at least I didn’t need to look pleasant.

Granted, on the outside, I appeared every bit the imperious High Lady of the Night Court: my night-black, shimmering gown cut to reveal swaths of pale skin, my favorite moon-phase crown atop my head, bloodred stain on my lips, and swoops of kohl around my eyes.

I had to give Rhys’s tailor credit: she’d discreetly outfitted the slats over my chest with absorbent swatches of cloth. So when my tender, swollen breasts inevitably began to leak—which would be soon now, given the rising pressure in them—the milk would be sopped up before soaked spots appeared.

A month after Nyx’s arrival, I’d been needed in the Court of Nightmares, and had donned one of my usual gowns. It somewhat lessened the Get in line or there will be hell to pay speech I was delivering when breast milk had begun darkening the front of my gown.

Only Keir’s mocking smile had kept me from excusing myself. I had continued talking, daring him to mention the growing stain. I was absolutely fine with breast milk dribbling down my front—if he had a problem with it, that was his to deal with. I let it become his discomfort, not mine.

But I did have problems of my own with meeting the demands of both a High Lady and a new mother. I didn’t want my son anywhere near Keir or the Hewn City. Didn’t want him with anyone beyond our loved ones in Velaris. But Nyx needed to eat every few hours. Sometimes every hour, depending on the day.

It was easier now that he was almost six months old and not feeding as frequently, and we were even going so far as to introduce him to mashed foods. On days like today, though, when Rhys and I had traveled far . . . it would have been a great deal easier to bring Nyx with us.