I hid the smile that tugged on my lips. “It’s—nice to meet you.”
“Liar,” Mor said, pouring herself some tea and loading her plate. “You want nothing to do with us, do you? And wicked Rhys is making you sit here.”
“You’re … perky today, Mor,” Rhys said.
Mor’s stunning eyes lifted to her cousin’s face. “Forgive me for being excited about having company for once.”
“You could be attending your own duties,” he said testily. I clamped my lips tighter together. I’d never seen Rhys … irked.
“I needed a break, and you told me to come here whenever I liked, so what better time than now, when you brought my new friend to finally meet me?”
I blinked, realizing two things at once: one, she actually meant what she said; two, hers was the female voice I’d heard speak last night, mocking Rhys for our squabble. So, that went well, she’d teased. As if there were any other alternative, any chance of pleasantness, where he and I were concerned.
A new fork had appeared beside my plate, and I picked it up, only to spear a piece of melon. “You two look nothing alike,” I said at last.
“Mor is my cousin in the loosest definition,” he said. She grinned at him, devouring slices of tomato and pale cheese. “But we were raised together. She’s my only surviving family.”
I didn’t have the nerve to ask what happened to everyone else. Or remind myself whose father was responsible for the lack of family at my own court.
“And as my only remaining relative,” Rhys went on, “Mor believes she is entitled to breeze in and out of my life as she sees fit.”
“So grumpy this morning,” Mor said, plopping two muffins onto her plate.
“I didn’t see you Under the Mountain,” I found myself saying, hating those last three words more than anything.
“Oh, I wasn’t there,” she said. “I was in—”
“Enough, Mor,” he said, his voice laced with quiet thunder.
It was a trial in itself not to sit up at the interruption, not to study them too closely.
Rhysand set his napkin on the table and rose. “Mor will be here for the rest of the week, but by all means, do not feel that you have to oblige her with your presence.” Mor stuck out her tongue at him. He rolled his eyes, the most human gesture I’d ever seen him make. He examined my plate. “Did you eat enough?” I nodded. “Good. Then let’s go.” He inclined his head toward the pillars and swaying curtains behind him. “Your first lesson awaits.”
Mor sliced one of the muffins in two in a steady sweep of her knife. The angle of her fingers, her wrist, indeed confirmed my suspicions that weapons weren’t at all foreign to her. “If he pisses you off, Feyre, feel free to shove him over the rail of the nearest balcony.”
Rhys gave her a smooth, filthy gesture as he strode down the hall.
I eased to my feet when he was a good distance ahead. “Enjoy your breakfast.”
“Whenever you want company,” she said as I edged around the table, “give a shout.” She probably meant that literally.
I merely nodded and trailed after the High Lord.
I agreed to sit at the long, wooden table in a curtained-off alcove only because he had a point. Not being able to read had almost cost me my life Under the Mountain. I’d be damned if I let it become a weakness again, his personal agenda or no. And as for shielding … I’d be a damned fool not to take up the offer to learn from him. The thought of anyone, especially Rhys, sifting through the mess in my mind, taking information about the Spring Court, about the people I loved … I’d never allow it. Not willingly.
But it didn’t make it any easier to endure Rhysand’s presence at the wooden table. Or the stack of books piled atop it.
“I know my alphabet,” I said sharply as he laid a piece of paper in front of me. “I’m not that stupid.” I twisted my fingers in my lap, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs.
“I didn’t say you were stupid,” he said. “I’m just trying to determine where we should begin.” I leaned back in the cushioned seat. “Since you’ve refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.”
My face warmed. “Can’t you hire a tutor?”
He lifted a brow. “Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?”
“You’re a High Lord—don’t you have better things to do?”
“Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.”
“You’re a real bastard, you know that?”
Rhys huffed a laugh. “I’ve been called worse. In fact, I think you’ve called me worse.” He tapped the paper in front of him. “Read that.”
A blur of letters. My throat tightened. “I can’t.”
“Try.”
The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. His writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked up. “What, exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you’d tell me if I worked with you.”
“I didn’t specify when I’d tell you.” I peeled back from him as my lip curled. He shrugged. “Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe—”
“I get it.”
Rhys snorted. “Try to read it, Feyre.”
Prick. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out in my head. “Y-you … ” The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic. “Look … ”
“Good,” he murmured.
“I didn’t ask for your approval.”
Rhys chuckled.
“Ab … Absolutely.” It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. “De … Del … ”
I deigned to glance at him, brows raised.
“Delicious,” he purred.
My brows now knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward him. “You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That’s what you wrote?”
He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my mind and his voice whispered inside my head: It’s true, isn’t it?
I jolted back, my chair groaning. “Stop that!”
But those claws now dug in—and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to his grip, utterly at his command as he said, The fashion of the Night Court suits you.
I couldn’t move in my seat, couldn’t even blink.
This is what happens when you leave your mental shields down. Someone with my sort of powers could slip inside, see what they want, and take your mind for themselves. Or they could shatter it. I’m currently standing on the threshold of your mind … but if I were to go deeper, all it would take would be half a thought from me and who you are, your very self, would be wiped away.
Distantly, sweat slid down my temple.
You should be afraid. You should be afraid of this, and you should be thanking the gods-damned Cauldron that in the past three months, no one with my sorts of gifts has run into you. Now shove me out.