Entering the dining room to find breakfast waiting, but none of our companions present, Rhys helped me into my usual seat midway down the table, then slid into the chair beside me.

“I’m assuming Mor’s still asleep upstairs.” I plopped a chocolate pastry onto my plate, then another onto his.

Rhys sliced into the leek-and-ham quiche and set a chunk on my plate. “She drank even more than you, so I’m guessing we won’t see her until sundown.”

I snorted, and held out my cup to receive the tea he now offered, steam curling from the pot’s spout.

But two massive figures filled the archway of the dining room, and Rhys paused.

Azriel and Cassian, having crept up on cat-soft feet, were also wearing their Illyrian leathers.

And from their shit-eating grins, I knew this would not end well.

They moved before Rhys could, and only a flare of his power kept the teapot from falling onto the table before they hauled him out of his seat. And aimed right for the front door.

I only bit into my pastry. “Please bring him back in one piece.”

“We’ll take good care of him,” Cassian promised, wicked humor in his eyes.

Even Azriel was still grinning as he said, “If he can keep up.”

I lifted a brow, and just as they vanished out the front door, still dragging Rhys along, my mate said to me, “Tradition.”

As if that was an explanation.

And then they were gone, off to the Mother knew where.

But at least neither of the Illyrians had remembered my birthday—thank the Cauldron.

So with Mor asleep and Elain likely in the kitchen helping to prepare that delicious food whose aroma now filled the house, I indulged in a rare, quiet meal. Helped myself to the pastry I’d put on Rhys’s plate, along with his portion of the quiche. And another after that.

Tradition indeed.

With little to do beyond resting until the festivities began the hour before sundown, I settled in at the desk in our bedroom to do some paperwork.

Very festive, Rhys purred down the bond.

I could practically see his smirk.

And where, exactly, are you?

Don’t worry about it.

I scowled at the eye on my palm, though I knew Rhys no longer used it. That makes it sound like I should be worried.

A dark laugh. Cassian says you can pummel him when we get home.

Which will be when?

A too-long pause. Before dinner?

I chuckled. I really don’t want to know, do I?

You really don’t.

Still smiling, I let the thread between us drop, and sighed at the papers staring up at me. Bills and letters and budgets …

I lifted a brow at the last, hauling a leather-bound tome toward me. A list of household expenses—just for Rhys and me. A drop of water compared with the wealth contained across his various assets. Our assets. Pulling out a piece of paper, I began counting the expenses so far, working through a tangle of mathematics.

The money was there—if I wanted to use it. To buy that studio. There was money in the “miscellaneous purchases” funds to do it.

Yes, I could buy that studio in a heartbeat with the fortune now in my name. But using that money so lavishly, even for a studio that wouldn’t be just for me …

I shut the ledger, sliding my calculations into the pages, and rose. Paperwork could wait. Decisions like that could wait. Solstice, Rhys had told me, was for family. And since he was currently spending it with his brothers, I supposed I should find at least one of my sisters.

Elain met me halfway to the kitchen, bearing a tray of jam tarts toward the table in the dining room. Where an assortment of baked goods had already begun to take form, tiered cakes and iced cookies. Sugar-frosted buns and caramel-drizzled fruit pies. “Those look pretty,” I told her by way of greeting, nodding toward the heart-shaped cookies on her tray. All of it looked pretty.

Elain smiled, her braid swishing with each step toward the growing mound of food. “They taste as good as they look.” She set down the tray and wiped her flour-coated hands on the apron she wore over her dusty-pink gown. Even in the middle of winter, she was a bloom of color and sunshine.

She handed me one of the tarts, sugar sparkling. I bit in without hesitation and let out a hum of pleasure. Elain beamed.

I surveyed the food she was assembling and asked between bites, “How long have you been working on this?”

A one-shouldered shrug. “Since dawn.” She added, “Nuala and Cerridwen were up hours earlier.”

I’d seen the Solstice bonus Rhys had given each of them. It was more than most families made in a year. They deserved every damned copper mark.

Especially for what they’d done for my sister. The companionship, the purpose, the small sense of normalcy in that kitchen. She’d bought them those cozy, fuzzy blankets from the weaver, one raspberry pink and the other lilac.

Elain surveyed me in turn as I finished off the tart and reached for another. “Have you had any word from her?”

I knew who she meant. Just as I opened my mouth to tell her no, a knock thudded on the front door.

Elain moved fast enough that I could barely keep up, flinging open the fogged glass antechamber door in the foyer, then unlatching the heavy oak front door.

But it wasn’t Nesta who stood on the front step, cheeks flushed with cold.

No, as Elain took a step back, hand falling away from the doorknob, she revealed Lucien smiling tightly at us both.

“Happy Solstice,” was all he said.

CHAPTER

18

Feyre

“You look well,” I said to Lucien when we’d settled in the armchairs before the fire, Elain perched silently on the couch nearby.

Lucien warmed his hands in the glow of the birch fire, the light casting his face in reds and golds—golds that matched his mechanical eye. “You as well.” A sidelong glance toward Elain, swift and fleeting. “Both of you.”

Elain said nothing, but at least she bowed her head in thanks. In the dining room, Nuala and Cerridwen continued to add food to the table, their presence now little more than twin shadows as they walked through the walls.

“You brought presents,” I said uselessly, nodding toward the small stack he’d set by the window.

“It’s Solstice tradition here, isn’t it?”

I stifled my wince. The last Solstice I’d experienced had been at the Spring Court. With Ianthe. And Tamlin.

“You’re welcome to stay for the night,” I said, since Elain certainly wasn’t going to.

Lucien lowered his hands into his lap and leaned back in the armchair. “Thank you, but I have other plans.”

I prayed he didn’t catch the slightly relieved glimmer on Elain’s face.

“Where are you going?” I asked instead, hoping to keep his focus on me. Knowing it was an impossible task.

“I …” Lucien fumbled for the words. Not out of some lie or excuse, I realized a moment later. Realized when he said, “I’ve been at the Spring Court every now and then. But if I’m not here in Velaris, I’ve mostly been staying with Jurian. And Vassa.”

I straightened. “Really? Where?”

“There’s an old manor house in the southeast, in the humans’ territory. Jurian and Vassa were … gifted it.”

From the lines that bracketed his mouth, I knew who had likely arranged for the manor to fall into their hands. Graysen—or his father. I didn’t dare glance at Elain.