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Vassa’s eyes heated with blue flame. “So what do we tell them to do? Sit and wait to be killed?”

“I wish I knew.” I pointed to the lower half of the map, where the wall had once stood. “They could flee farther south, perhaps, but the Fae will find them there, too, eventually.”

Rhys added to Jurian and Vassa, “You two are perhaps the most qualified to figure out a path for the humans. You occupy a space between the Fae and human worlds. We will, of course, offer any resources you need.”

“The humans won’t take them,” Vassa declared. “Not from Fae.”

But it was Jurian who countered darkly, “They will when their children are poised to be enslaved or killed.”

Vassa curled her lip in disgust. At the situation or at what she’d have to do, I didn’t know. She rolled up our map without further word and shoved it into Rhys’s arms.

There wasn’t much left to say after that, and Lucien showed us to the front door. He’d put up wards around the house, not that they’d be effective against Rhys or me. We could have winnowed right out of that study if we’d wanted to. It seemed polite, however, to use the front door.

On the threshold, the chill night ahead looming like a wave, I turned to Lucien. “Are you really up for it?”

He’d left the Veritas orb on the table—he hadn’t touched it, but also hadn’t given it back.

Lucien’s russet eye was weary. Resigned. “Do I have a choice?”

“Yes,” I said. A few steps into the night, barely more than a shadow, Rhys paused to watch us. “You’ve helped us so much already. What we’re asking of you is . . . beyond dangerous.”

A shallow, noncommittal nod. “And yet,” Lucien murmured, “it won’t really change anything, will it?”

I knew exactly what he meant. With Elain.

“You never know,” I offered.

He gave a small, sad smile at my half-assed attempt at positivity, golden eye whirring. And it was so horrible to even consider how he might be feeling that I blurted, “Come to Nyx’s Naming Day party on the Autumn Equinox. It’s not really a party, just a ceremony and then a luncheon with a few of us, and we’re not even really celebrating the Equinox, but . . . you should come.”

Rhys’s surprise sparked down the mating bond, but he kept silent.

Lucien considered us both warily. “You’ll allow me near your son?”

We hadn’t until now—we hadn’t allowed almost anyone, especially Fae males, around Nyx. Reason told me I was being utterly irrational, but every Fae instinct roared at me to keep him tucked away for as long as possible. Bringing him to my art classes was as much as I was willing to do. And I’d learned enough about motherhood so far to listen to my instincts.

“I mean, I might not let you hold Nyx,” I admitted, “but yes. You should come. You can stay the night at our house.”

Rhys’s shock only increased. But I wasn’t about to let him talk me out of it, which I could feel his eagerness to do.

Lucien was risking everything for us, and to just take and take from him and not offer anything in return, not to show him any sort of gratitude or welcome . . . it didn’t sit right. And there was really only one thing that Lucien desired: a chance to see Elain. Nothing more.

That, at least, I could offer him.

So I said, “The ceremony begins at ten at the city temple. But come over to the river house any time before that to get settled in.”

CHAPTER

10

Nesta

“You really think Tarquin won’t ally with us in this conflict?” Standing in the river house foyer, Nesta frowned at her sister, then at Rhys. Feyre was clad in a sea-green gossamer gown much like the ones Mor favored—likely in anticipation of the Summer Court heat. Rhys, however, was in his usual head-to-toe black. “He backed us against Hybern.”

Feyre fiddled with the gold-and-pearl headband atop her unbound hair. She’d been teary-eyed when she’d come downstairs moments ago, having just said goodbye to Nyx in the nursery before his morning nap.

“It’s worth confirming—and formalizing,” Feyre said, mouth twisting to one side. An understatement. That they were squeezing this visit in so close to the party, leaving right when all the decorations were going up—vases overflowing with autumnal blooms on every surface; sparkling silver streamers hanging from the walls and archways—told Nesta how urgent securing Tarquin’s alliance was to their efforts.

Nesta couldn’t help but see how young her sister was, despite being a mother, High Lady, and savior of these lands. Young and beautiful and bearing so much on her slim shoulders.