Hello one and all! Chapter 10! I feel like this is a milestone, even though in comparison with my other stories, if you look at workcounts, this is like chapter 4 or 5. Sorry. As always, drop a review, and, you should know by now… Enjoy!

Feyre:

Two days after the encounter with Tamlin, we were all lazing around in different parts of the townhouse when another letter came, this one from the summer court.

At this point, so soon after that letter from Tamlin had sent things into a downwards spiral, no one was thrilled to receive this one, but Tarquin and his court were one of our closest allies, and the bonds between us had been healing since we stole the half of the book from them before the war, so we had no choice but to respond.

The situation was worse than we had thought.

With the masks returning to the Spring Court, things were already bad, we knew that much. But now… with what we had learned from the Summer court, things had hit a new level of bad.

And now we were on a clock to figure out what the heck has been happening.

The letter from Tarquin was very disturbing. It read:

My friends,

I regret to be delivering this news, as by this point I am sure you have all heard the news from Tamlin and the Spring Court, but you all seem to have a track record for coming out as the victors with problems like this, and it seems we will need your help here in Adriata, and I fear, in much of Prythian. I do not feel safe divulging details of what is happening in this letter, but tell Amren to under no circumstances wear her blood ruby. Put them in an iron box with lead lining and bring them to me personally in Adriata. We will talk more then.

-Tarquin

It was enough that he hadn't signed it officially, but rather as our friend. It showed how desperate he was.

But all the same, we had done as he told us, and put the blood rubies we still had from the incident months ago in an iron box lined with lead, even though it had been difficult to convince Amren to part with hers, and made our way to Adriata.

And when we had all winnowed there, with the exception of Azriel, who was off finding more about the situation in the Spring Court, things had been so much worse than we could have imagined.

And now, the sand was falling down to the bottom of the hourglass as we rushed to figure out who or what was behind these problems in the courts.

Because now it wasn't just the Spring Court that had been attacked. It was the Summer Court too. And all of Prythian because of that.

The blood rubies had begun killing those who had them.

Nothing like this had ever happened in the hundreds and hundreds of years of the Summer Court sending blood rubies to their enemies, so they had never stopped. But Tarquin had found out this morning that the rubies were actually killing those who they had been sent to, as long as the person still had them in their possession.

We still had no idea how, but it was happening, and we also had no idea how to stop it. Which was the reason for the meeting we were in right now with the highly ranked members of Tarquin's court.

"How many blood rubies have been sent out since the beginning of the tradition?" I asked finally, dreading the answer. Everyone had been skirting around this question the entire meeting, but it was time we knew the scope of this.

Tarquin was the one who answered me, "We reserve the rubies for those who do something truly terrible to us, so thankfully not as many as there could be… but the numbers still range in the hundreds unfortunately, being held everywhere from Day Court to Hybern, to the other continent," he revealed, clenching his jaw in frustration.

Even though no one is his court or lands held any blood rubies, since anyone who was given one was exiled, I could tell Tarquin felt responsible for every one of the death that his courts tradition had already caused.

Which was why we were going to resolve this and end the murders as quickly as possible.

Then my Mate spoke up, pointing out something that I hadn't noticed. "You specifically said from Day court to other places. But in Prythian, the Night Court is above them. Are there any blood rubies in my lands?" Rhys asks, and I could feel the instinctual desire to immediately protect his court barreling down the bond we shared.

Tarquin got a pained expression on his face. "No. As the Night Court has always been so secretive, no one ever really came here to the Summer Court, so no blood rubies were sent there until you stole our half of the book," Tarquin explained, wincing at the memory.

I could feel the tension seep out of my husband though, and out of the rest of my family.

"Well, we do like being the firsts," Rhys jokes lightly, trying to relieve some of the tension in the room, and failing.

I don't think any of would be laughing until we figured this situation out though, so we dove back in to trying to find a solution.

Hours later, I was halfway asleep as Rhys and I walked back to our room, where we would be staying until we came up with some kind of solution to this problem. So far, all we had come up with was to message everyone who might have a blood ruby and tell them to get it far away from them, or if they could, to get it here so we could figure out what was wrong with them.

The only problem with that was, when you are sent a blood ruby, the Summer Court cuts all ties with you, so Tarquin had no idea where most of the people who had been sent rubies in the past were.

"Let's hope this doesn't begin a pattern in the courts," Rhysand had remarked as the meeting was ending, and those words kept coming back to me now.

We had just ended the war with Hybern, and we were enjoying relative peace and happiness, and then this happened, sending everything into a mess again.

I walked closer to Rhys and took his hand, just wanting to feel his warmth.

"And to think things were going to well," I mutter, leaning into him for support.

My Mate chuckled, the closest thing to a laugh I had heard from anyone in days, and responded, "And to think."

And we've gotten into the thick of it! Sorry I haven't been updating regularly, and taking a long time in between updates, but school is coming to a close for me and summer is kind of just taking over. Till next time! Bye!