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The same dismay had swept through him when Rhys had given them the order. To stand down from acting against their enemies and go to Windhaven instead . . . it chafed against every instinct.

“Quick meeting,” Cassian assured her, jumping to his feet. “Expanding the patrol routes. Stupid, but necessary. Az is providing the eye candy, of course.”

Az’s shadows whispered, He’s glad for the excuse to do something—to avoid thinking of his mate.

He blocked them out as Mor smirked at him. “Did you give Cassian the real time for the meeting or the fake time?”

“Don’t start that again, please,” Cassian grumbled, tossing the stole into the trunk. “I thought we hadn’t done that in a century or two.”

It had been an experiment once, after Azriel and Rhys had grown sick of Cassian and Mor always showing up late. Az had started telling them a different time for meetings and events—one that was thirty minutes earlier.

And for one blissful month, neither Mor nor Cassian noticed that all the clocks in their rooms and residences had also been moved ahead. And neither of them had been late for anything.

Azriel learned that Cassian had become aware of his subtle nudging when his brother had left the pieces of a two-hundred-year-old grandfather clock under the covers of his bed. Mor had merely thrown her mantel clock at Azriel’s head at the next meeting. After showing up twenty minutes early.

“All the clocks are set to their normal times,” Azriel assured them, striding into the hall. Better to get this absurd visit over with. His shadows flowed to him, gathering at his shoulders as a phantom cape. “But the winds heading out there are nasty today—we should give ourselves a cushion.”

Neither of them blinked at his statement. They were used to him knowing about the weather not because of a report but because he’d awoken to information from his shadows. Roaring blasts off the eastern peaks, his shadows had murmured this morning, slicing dangerously through the valleys.

Maybe he’d get lucky and those winds would be so swift they’d rip his shadows from him for good.

“Be careful,” Mor advised. Cassian waved her off, but Azriel didn’t bother to reply as he stalked for the stairs, the Siphons on his hands radiating a glacial blue.

Be careful.

It was hard to be careful when so much of his heart had stopped caring at all.

Feyre

“Remind me why this Naming Day celebration was a good idea?” I asked Elain as I stepped into the dining room, half of which had been converted into gift storage.

My sister, standing in front of the ever-growing pile of presents at the far end of the room, shook her head. “Because it’s a part of Fae culture, and you are now, too.”

I grimaced at the veritable mountain before me. “These gifts feel an awful lot like . . . tribute.” They’d come in from nearly every corner of Prythian. The one closest to me—a night-black rocking horse carved to resemble Helion’s prized flying stallion, Meallan—was perhaps the most subdued of them all. Magic pulsed around the pile, likely from delightfully enchanted toys. I’d still had Amren check each one as they had arrived.

And after all that talk on Storr about cursed Naming Day gifts, I planned to have Amren check them again before the party. The Mistress of the Unseen and the Queen of Vallahan had clearly wanted to spoil my joy, add some fear to what should have been a treasured, peaceful moment. They’d succeeded.

But considering my argument with Amren earlier, I’d ask Rhys to inspect the gifts instead. I had little interest in speaking to the female, and was certain she had little interest in speaking with me, let alone helping me with anything, even for Nyx’s sake. The way she’d spoken to me, the way she’d decided there was one way to go about this—her way—had irritated me. It had nothing to do with me being High Lady. I hadn’t been thinking of the title or my crown beside me when I’d gone toe to toe with her.

And yes, perhaps I had leveled a low blow with that question about what advice Amren had given when Amarantha had appeared on these shores decades ago, but Amren did make mistakes. Not often, but she had made them before. I trusted, respected her wisdom, but for her to grow angry when it wouldn’t be blindly followed . . . it had put my temper on edge. And it remained that way, even though I tried to release it from my body with a few long breaths as I surveyed the presents.

At least there were some gifts here that didn’t need to be checked by Amren or Rhys—perhaps already my favorite of the bunch: the array of painted cards. All from children in the painting classes I still carved out six hours a week to teach. All of them saying in some form or another: Congratulations! Welcome, Nyx!

The children loved the days when Nyx came with me to class. Loved to show him their paintings, talking to him as if he could understand every nuance and brushstroke.

Seeing those proud faces—no longer the shy, frightened children they’d been in the aftermath of the war—made an extra task I perhaps should have let go utterly worth it. And beholding these cards now, created under the guidance of my business partner and friend, Ressina, lit a star-bright, unextinguishable kernel of joy in my chest. I already knew I would treasure those cards more than any expensive, magical gift we received.

“You are High Lord and Lady of the Night Court,” Elain said, turning from the presents that she’d been arranging into some semblance of order. “It’s only natural that other courts and influential people would want to send these, to remain in your good favor.”

I rocked the toy horse with one finger. “I don’t like that my son’s Naming Day celebration is being treated more for political gain than actual enjoyment of his existence.”

Elain nodded her agreement, but glanced behind me. “Where is he, by the way?”

“Napping,” I said, grinning. “He guzzled so much milk down during the meeting earlier that he might sleep for the next year.”

Elain smiled faintly. “Meeting?”

Meeting—and an ugly argument with Amren. But I waved a hand. “Just about the ordeal on Storr today.”