“Walk home with me,” she said, looping her arm through mine and pressing close.

I obeyed, taking the bags from her other hand. As the blocks passed and we crossed over the icy Sidra, then up the steep hills, I told her. Everything I’d said to Tamlin.

“Having heard you rip into Cassian, I’d say you were fairly mild,” she observed when I’d finished.

I snorted. “Profanity wasn’t necessary here.”

She contemplated my words. “Did you go because you were concerned about the wall, or just because you wanted to say those things to him?”

“Both.” I couldn’t bring myself to lie to her about it. “And perhaps slaughter him.”

Alarm flared in her eyes. “Where is this coming from?”

I didn’t know. “I just …” Words failed me.

Her arm tightened around mine, and I turned to study her face. Open, understanding. “The things you said … they weren’t wrong,” she offered. No judgment, no anger.

Something still a bit hollow inside me filled slightly. “I should have been the bigger male.”

“You’re the bigger male most days. You’re entitled to a slipup.” She smiled broadly. Bright as the full moon, lovelier than any star.

I still had not gotten her a Solstice gift. And birthday present.

She angled her head at my frown, her braid slipping over a shoulder. I ran my hand along it, savoring the silken strands against my frozen fingers. “I’ll meet you at home,” I said, handing her the bags once more.

It was her turn to frown. “Where are you going?”

I kissed her cheek, breathing in her lilac-and-pear scent. “I have some errands that need tending to.” And looking at her, walking beside her, did little to cool the rage that still roiled in me. Not when that beautiful smile made me want to winnow back to the Spring Court and punch my Illyrian blade through Tamlin’s gut.

Bigger male indeed.

“Go paint my nude portrait,” I told her, winking, and shot into the bitterly cold sky.

The sound of her laughter danced with me all the way to the Palace of Thread and Jewels.

I surveyed the spread my preferred jeweler had laid out on black velvet atop the glass counter. In the lights of her cozy shop bordering the Palace, they flickered with an inner fire, beckoning.

Sapphires, emeralds, rubies … Feyre had them all. Well, in moderate amounts. Save for those cuffs of solid diamond I’d given her for Starfall.

She’d worn them only twice:

That night I had danced with her until dawn, barely daring to hope that she might be starting to return a fraction of what I felt for her.

And the night we’d returned to Velaris, after that final battle with Hybern. When she had worn only those cuffs.

I shook my head, and said to the slim, ethereal faerie behind the counter, “Beautiful as they are, Neve, I don’t think milady wants jewels for Solstice.”

A shrug that wasn’t at all disappointed. I was a frequent enough customer that Neve knew she’d make a sale at some point.

She slid the tray beneath the counter and pulled out another, her night-veiled hands moving smoothly.

Not a wraith, but something similar, her tall, lean frame wrapped in permanent shadows, only her eyes—like glowing coals—visible. The rest tended to come in and out of view, as if the shadows parted to reveal a dark hand, a shoulder, a foot. Her people all master jewel smiths, dwelling in the deepest mountain mines in our court. Most of the heirlooms of our house had been Tartera-made, Feyre’s cuffs and crowns included.

Neve waved a shadowed hand over the tray she’d laid out. “I had selected these earlier, if it’s not too presumptuous, to consider for Lady Amren.”

Indeed, these all sang Amren’s name. Large stones, delicate settings. Mighty jewelry, for my mighty friend. Who had done so much for me, my mate—our people. The world.

I surveyed the three pieces. Sighed. “I’ll take all of them.”

Neve’s eyes glowed like a living forge.

CHAPTER

12

Feyre

“What the hell is that?”

Cassian was grinning the next evening as he waved a hand toward the pile of pine boughs dumped on the ornate red rug in the center of the foyer. “Solstice decorations. Straight from the market.”

Snow clung to his broad shoulders and dark hair, and his tan cheeks were flushed with cold. “You call that a decoration?”

He smirked. “A heap of pine in the middle of the floor is Night Court tradition.”

I crossed my arms. “Funny.”

“I’m serious.” I glared, and he laughed. “It’s for the mantels, the banister, and whatever else, smartass. Want to help?” He shrugged off his heavy coat, revealing a black jacket and shirt beneath, and hung it in the hall closet. I remained where I was and tapped my foot.

“What?” he said, brows rising. It was rare to see Cassian in anything but his Illyrian leathers, but the clothes, while not as fine as anything Rhys or Mor usually favored, suited him.

“Dumping a bunch of trees at my feet is really how you say hello these days? A little time in that Illyrian camp and you forget all your manners.”

Cassian was on me in a second, hoisting me off the ground to twirl me until I was going to be sick. I beat at his chest, cursing at him.

Cassian set me down at last. “What’d you get me for Solstice?”

I smacked his arm. “A heaping pile of shut the hell up.” He laughed again, and I winked at him. “Hot cocoa or wine?”

Cassian curved a wing around me, turning us toward the cellar door. “How many good bottles does little Rhysie have left?”

We drank two of them before Azriel arrived, took one look at our drunken attempts at decorating, and set about fixing it before anyone else could see the mess we’d made.

Lounging on a couch before the birch fire in the living room, we grinned like devils as the shadowsinger straightened the wreaths and garlands we’d chucked over things, swept up pine needles we’d scattered over the carpets, and generally shook his head at everything.

“Az, relax for a minute,” Cassian drawled, waving a hand. “Have some wine. Cookies.”

“Take off your coat,” I added, pointing the bottle toward the shadowsinger, who hadn’t even bothered to do so before fixing our mess.

Azriel straightened a sagging section of garland over the windowsill. “It’s almost like you two tried to make it as ugly as possible.”

Cassian clutched at his heart. “We take offense to that.”

Azriel sighed at the ceiling.

“Poor Az,” I said, pouring myself another glass. “Wine will make you feel better.”

He glared at me, then the bottle, then Cassian … and finally stormed across the room, took the bottle from my hand, and chugged the rest. Cassian grinned with delight.

Mostly because Rhys drawled from the doorway, “Well, at least now I know who’s drinking all my good wine. Want another one, Az?”

Azriel nearly spewed the wine into the fire, but made himself swallow and turn, red-faced, to Rhys. “I would like to explain—”

Rhys laughed, the rich sound bouncing off the carved oak moldings of the room. “Five centuries, and you think I don’t know that if my wine’s gone, Cassian’s usually behind it?”