Chapter 4

I could smell the paint on the walls in the hallway and on the doors. The walls were bare of any art. The flowers in vases, scattered on small tables here and there were freshly picked—or maybe flowers kept particularly well here, in Fae lands, and they were actually old.    I wanted to go home; I nearly gagged as I passed a vase, my fingers skimming the wall. The smell—the taste of flower—    "You're ready?"    I jumped, and screeched, spinning around to find the woman had snuck up on me in silence. I watched as her throat bobbed, her eyes wide and searching mine, dark like chocolate.    "No," I whispered, fighting another surge of nausea as another scent of the flowers rolled around me and I pinched my nose. She glanced at them, terribly keen, and moved forward to grab the vase.    "I'll take these outside—"    "No need. I want to go home," I glanced down the hall, at all the double doors, at the gleam of fresh paint on some of them. "Now."    She too glanced down the hall, and to my relief, gave a curt nod and set the vase back on the table. "I'll find the High Lord."    "Why can't you just take me?" I swallowed.    "I told you I cannot. It's a long way—and the High Lord can winnow you in a second."    I'm sure the High Lord of those kinds of sentries would winnow me straight back home and not to a secluded place in order to show me just who those sentries took after. The human girl he fell in love with, Feyre, had left him—had to be rescued from him because he had locked her away. Feyre, Elain's sister. They were human—now Fae. They thrived now, away from the Spring Court. I always dreamed of seeing the Night Court that they dwelled in. It's been romanticised among the people.    But I never wanted to meet Elain. She managed to steal from my Ma every livelihood Ma deserved, because Father still loved Elain, the Fae woman he swore to hate but never could.    But I always wanted to meet Feyre.    Was she brutalised, too? Had she been subject to the Spring Court's sentires? I knew now that she was powerful, and if she could help it, she wouldn't let herself live in a place like that.    But I wanted to go home—it was the safest place I could think of. Father wouldn't find out what happened now; in fact, I don't think I would ever speak of it again. I had the convenience of being completely, magically healed.    They healed me.    They had magical healers.    Magic could work incredible wonders.    Healed.    "Miss?"    I gasped, and realised the Fae servant's face had blurred. I swiped at my tears, banishing that hope that their magic had made me whole again.    "I'll come with you," She stepped forward, and through my tears, I did not see her reach out, but her fingers touched my arm. I felt warmth, and tenderness before I yanked my arm away. "What happened to you—it's not our way."    I curled my lip, another tear rolling down my cheek, but I looked away. I did want her to come along. It would be a small assurance.    "Can I not just take a horse, and ride back to my Fathers place?"    She shook her head. "It would take many hours, in which time you are completely exposed and—well, the High Lord has told you about Hybern?"    "I don't believe him. About them coming to my Father's place. I have lived my entire life protected there, in a war-torn surrounding country. We have been rebuilding and in all my years, not a whisper of Hybern, or what once was."    Her look of pity made me want to seethe.    "I promise it is safest, and fastest, to travel with the High Lord. He is... he's good."    Father taught me to never believe the Fae. They were terrible, cunning, vicious things. No matter how genuine her eyes were, how their look made one want to melt—that was a reason to be warned, if anything.    I felt a sob rise in my throat and I gasped. "I just want to go home. Please. Please, I don't want to be here—"    "Come."    I whipped around at the sound of his voice. He stood at the end of the hall, a silhouette in the doorway, his hand outstretched. In a moment, the Fae woman was beside me, nodding her head. I couldn't take that first step. I let her take my arm, and lead me to him.    I froze three feet away, unable to look him in the eyes—that green, like the grass, the stems of flowers, the leaves of the overhead trees as the sun flickered through them—    "Have you decided?" His voice was low, like the velvet of flower petals—    "I want to go home."    The click of his throat rang in my ears. "About the sentry—"    "I want to go home," I gasped through a raspy breath. "I want to go home! Get me out of your sight! I want to go home!!" I screamed, began to thrash, the smell of flowers in the vase to the side wafting under my nose and then—    His arms were around my shoulders, pressing me against his chest and he smelt like horses, and sweat, and the long-dead husks of hay as the light, the flowers, and spring were swept away into the darkness of the in-between.