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And Azriel . . . I didn’t know what to think. What to do. Knowing Az, he likely wanted space for a few days. Weeks.

Nyx reached a plump hand for the rabbit, and his uncle sweetly obliged. It went right into Nyx’s mouth, where he gummed it with a ferocity that made me wince for my nipples. No wonder they were chafed all the time.

“Did Azriel end up staying at the House of Wind or the town house?” Nesta asked Rhys, as if her own thoughts had drifted in the same direction as mine.

“Does it matter?” Rhys stared out the window at the near-cloudless autumn day.

“Rhys,” I chided. My mate turned toward me, pure thunder in his expression. I rolled my eyes. “We’re not kicking Az out of this house. Especially not after Bryaxis’s return.”

Rhys’s jaw tightened. “I warned Az at Solstice last year not to get involved with Elain. I told him there would be consequences if he crossed that line. He crossed it anyway. I’ve had it.”

“Az has always done whatever he’s wanted,” Cassian reminded him. “You had to know he wasn’t going to listen. Not if he was set on something.”

“Am I not his High Lord?” A soft, deadly question.

I groaned. “Oh, please. Let’s not start that nonsense.” Rhys threw me an incredulous look, but I slid to the ground beside Nyx, unable to stop myself from tickling the round belly peeking from under the hem of his shirt. Nyx burbled with delight, chewing harder on his rabbit. “Maybe if you tried talking to Az as his brother and not ordering him about as his High Lord, this wouldn’t have gone so far.”

Rhys gaped at me. I didn’t take it back.

Cassian added, “I’d also like to know why I wasn’t told of any of this, when it’s clear you three knew a good deal.”

“Because you have the biggest mouth of anyone,” Nesta said smartly.

Cassian chuckled, inclining his head. “Fair.”

Despite everything, my heart lightened at their teasing. Something had changed between the mates—something vital had been repaired in the midst of all this fear.

I tucked away the cheerful thought as I advised Rhys, “Give it a few days. Az pretends he’s cold as ice, but he’s got a temper worse than you two combined.” I nodded to him and Cassian, who shrugged, not denying it.

“And what about Lucien?” Nesta asked. “Does one of us go after him?”

“Not yet,” Cassian countered. “We need to figure out how we’ll approach him after this.”

“Should Elain approach him?” I wondered. “Try to talk to him?” Perhaps it was worth a shot.

Nesta stiffened. “We can’t ask that of her. I don’t think she would, even if she could. Let Elain have some peace.”

I nodded. I couldn’t argue with that.

“Do you think,” Cassian asked Rhys, “that Lucien will invoke the Blood Duel?” I’d never seen a Blood Duel, but I knew of the Autumn Court ritual, a formal fight to the death when one’s honor was impugned. I hoped I would never see one.

Rhys slid onto the carpet as well, crossing his powerful legs beneath him, and pulled Nyx onto his lap. Nyx gurgled, beaming up at Rhys. And despite his next words, Rhys smiled at our son, kissing his dark hair. “I think Lucien is smarter than most people give him credit for. And I think he knows that in a Blood Duel against Azriel, one-on-one, he would stand no chance of surviving.” He kissed the top of Nyx’s head again while our son picked at the silver thread along Rhys’s jacket, entranced by the embossed, shiny buttons. “If Lucien is to retaliate, it would be from a position of strength.”

“What could he do?” Cassian asked, incredulous. “Send Vassa after us?”

“Maybe,” Rhys said gravely.

I winced, remembering the fiery hell she’d unleashed on Hybern’s armada during the war.

“But I don’t think Vassa would agree to it,” Rhys said, gently prying a button out of Nyx’s mouth before he could gnaw it off and choke on it. Nyx’s little wings twitched in annoyance, and he tried again. Rhys offered him the rabbit instead while he went on, “Vassa, wild as she seems, wouldn’t attack us, or risk hurting innocents. But the Autumn Court . . . Beron would love the excuse to attack us. Especially on behalf of his estranged son, newly returned to the fold.”

“You know Lucien best,” Nesta said to me, and they all turned my way. “Would he do that?”

I thought through all I knew about Lucien, all I remembered from my days at the Spring Court, and our time since. How the day I’d slipped into his mind, I’d felt such sadness, such pain and loneliness—

“I don’t think Lucien’s going to return to his father,” I said. “As furious as he is . . . he’s not that sort of male. He hates his father more than we do.” Even if Beron wasn’t Lucien’s true father. Helion had that honor, whether Lucien knew it or not.

When that particular truth came out, perhaps at a time when Rhys chose to wield it to our maximum advantage . . . Gods, I didn’t want to think about the explosive consequences across courts.