Thanks to wavingthroughawindow, Fire Breathing Queen and franklyherondale for reviewing!
wavingthroughawindow: Thank you so, so much! And don't worry, you get your answer about Amarantha beingdead/alive this chapter!
Fire Breathing Queen: It was one of them who kidnapped Rhys - that much was obvious. But I hope you like what happens next. :)
franklyherondale: Thank you! I hope you like this chapter!
If you haven't already, I highly recommend going back and reading the last chapter. I changed it slightly, because I changed my entire chapter plan, and while the changes aren't really noticeable I'd recommend you have a look at them anyway.
I'm very sorry it took me so long to update, and I wish I could promise there won't be anymore interludes like that, but. . . I can't. I just sort of had a brief lack of passion for this story, and while I've got it back now, passion's a fleeting thing.
Disclaimer: I don't own the A Court of Thorns and Roses series. It belongs to Sarah J. Maas.
Feyre rapped on the door to Azriel's flat so hard the skin split. She didn't feel it. Her heart was thundering, her breath dry in her throat. The moment Azriel opened the door, eyebrows cocked and expectant, she shoved the scrap of paper in her hand at him.
"Read it."
He did.
It was a short note, only a handful of words long. But time seemed to slow as she watched him stare at the page, colour draining from his tan face until it was the same shade as the sheet he held in shaking hands. After an agonisingly long moment, his gaze flicked back up to hers. "Is this real?"
Noticing the shadows darting around his face - she could've sworn they hadn't been there two seconds ago - Feyre thought he might already know the answer. But she said it anyway. "Nothing tells me it's not." A breath. A deep, deep breath. "And Rhys didn't turn up to class this morning."
Azriel swore under his breath, low and vicious. "Come inside," he said, handing the paper back and glancing up and down the street behind her. "We can talk there."
She followed him through to the kitchen, where a bleary-eyed Cassian was stirring a mug of coffee. Feyre wasn't sure why he seemed so tired, considering it was nearly noon, but she didn't comment. Just nodded hello.
Fortunately, neither she nor Azriel had to get him to wake up any further, because he seemed to pick up on her frantic mood and blinked himself awake. "What is it?" His eyes landed on the paper in his hands. "What's that?"
She handed it to him. A pail of freezing water couldn't have woken him up as thoroughly as the contents of that letter did. "What? Where did you-"
"I found it tucked under the windscreen wipers of my car this morning." The words gushed out all in a rush - they were extremely panicked. She was extremely panicked. "It wasn't wet or anything with dew, so it couldn't have been left overnight-"
"What is it?" Cassian demanded to know. There was panic in his face.
Feyre met his look head on. "A ransom note."
Rhys came to his senses slowly, like a diver resurfacing from the depths of the ocean painstakingly gradually to avoid the bends. One moment he knew nothing but thick suffocating darkness, then there was a cold, hard surface under his back, then he was swimming up and up and up and there was the heavy breathing of someone nearby, and then there was a groan being wrenched from his throat and light pierced his eyes as they fluttered open.
There was a rope chafing his wrists; his arms were tied slightly above and behind him, his shoulders thrown back against rigid wood. He was half leaning back on that wooden surface, half sitting on his bottom on a rough, brownish carpet. Ahead of him was a door flecked in white paint, firmly closed and, he would guess, locked. He couldn't turn his head very far without his neck twinging, but there seemed to be some sort of wardrobe to his right, and a door that might lead into a bathroom on his left.
Overall, his location came across as a cheaply comfortable bedroom, but a bedroom nonetheless.
Why was he here? And tied up?
"What. . ." The word was a rasp, more than a little slurred; he winced at the scraping inside his dry throat. But it still caught the attention of the other occupant of the room - the source of the breathing he'd heard earlier.
He felt the mattress - because that was the foot of a bed he was tied to, that made sense now - shift against his back as they stood up from their undoubtably reclining position on it. Then he was aware of bare feet stepping into the corner of his eye, and the occupant crouched down beside him, frowning, catching his chin in one hand so she could study him better.
He craned his neck to get a good look at her. Ivory hair, cut short and ragged; dark eyes, narrow and calculating and bitter; brows that seemed to naturally compress into a frown. His eyes widened.
He mouthed a word, and the hand released his chin as it induced a coughing fit. Eventually his shoulders stopped shaking; when they did he looked up at her again.
"Cresseida Summers?"
"Are you sure this is from her?" Nesta's scepticism was making another appearance, and Feyre understood that, Cauldron she understood it so well but why was she just sitting there arguing when Rhys was in danger- "I thought we'd settled that Amarantha was dead." She sat back, challenge in her eyes. Feyre was severely regretting demanding she come by Azriel's flat as soon as possible.
She was just about ready to shout at her sister, but she wasn't the one who did so in the end. Nor was it Cassian, who seemed the most prone to emotional outbursts.
It was Azriel.
"Rhys is gone." Feyre flinched at the venom in his voice, and she saw that Nesta had to suppress one too. "Rhys is gone, he isn't picking up his phone, we've received a ransom note from a person calling themselves Amarantha, and you're faffing about wondering if she's dead or not?"
"How do we even know Rhysand is in any danger-"
"Is that even being disputed? We know he's in danger - and you know it too, Nesta Archeron. So who gives a shit whether it's really Amarantha or not? I'm more interested in knowing whether or not my brother in all but blood is going to die - and whether the city council will lift a finger to help us."
He sat back, breathing heavily. Nesta had to look away.
"So what do we do now?" Her voice was quiet.
Feyre took a calming breath. "We do exactly as Azriel suggested - we report this to the city council. Maybe they'll stir themselves to help."
"If Amarantha hasn't paid them off already." Cassian sounded grim.
"They will." Feyre took a deep breath - she would not give up hope now. "They have to."
Cresseida's eyes narrowed. "Who are you? And how-"
"I met your brother, Tarquin," he explained hastily. "He has a picture of you in the hallway. And I'm Rhysand Night. I'd offer you my hand to shake, but. . ." He wriggled his bound wrists.
She didn't crack a smile. "Why are you here." It didn't sound like a question - it was more of a demand.
He blinked. When he realised she was serious, he said slowly, "Well, I was walking. Then someone knocked me out. And now I'm here."
He wriggled his wrists again to emphasise the point. After a moment of blankness, Cresseida gave him a pitiful look and untied him. The ropes sagged round his shoulders; he brushed them off as he rubbed at his wrists.
Cresseida twisted her lips into a thin line. "You must know why you're here. Amarantha wouldn't have kidnapped you for no reason."
"Oh, it probably has something to do with the fact that my sister is currently a ghost haunting her and in general making a nuisance of herself," he admitted candidly. "But really, it could be any number of things. I've not been the most cooperative citizen to her dastardly plans."
"Don't joke about this."
"I'm not." He watched hard face harden into scepticism. "I'm telling the truth. Lyra Night is a ghost, and I think there's a chance Amarantha's trying to resurrect someone. At least that's what Feyre mentioned." He frowned for a moment, then, "What are you doing here?"
She raised her eyebrows, and for a moment the motion reminded him of Feyre. "I've been here for years. I'm a hostage."
"For whom?"
"My brother." The words were clipped; Cresseida didn't seem to reveal any more about this than she had to.
Rhys was the one who raised his eyebrows this time. He should probably stop pushing, should probably not alienate his apparent cellmate, but. . . There was something important here. Something he had to understand. "And why does Amarantha require a hostage for Tarquin?"
"Because he's a doctor!" she snapped. "He's the doctor who examined her 'dead body'!"
Rhys's breath hissed out of him. Oh. Oh. "She wasn't actually dead." No reaction. "Nesta didn't manage to kill her."
Cresseida's face was irritated. "Nesta who?" He opened his mouth; she shook her head. "Never mind. And yes," she ground out the word, "she was still alive. But Tarquin had to lie about it, or. . ." She couldn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to.
Silence fell for a moment. "So Amarantha is really back?" he asked mournfully.
She pressed her lips together, then the pinched expression collapsed. She looked tired. "Yes," she said. "Without a doubt."
Rhys closed his eyes for a moment. He'd been right. He needed to tell Feyre.
But how? There was no way out of here, presumably, since Cresseida had been imprisoned for years. Standing up, a cursory glance at the only window in the room showed it was heavily barred and padlocked. There was no way to reach her. . .
. . .unless he used magic.
More specifically, his magic.
He took a deep breath. It had been a long while since he actively tried to contact someone else with his mind when he didn't even know if they were nearby. But he'd connected with Feyre recently, if not entirely by his initiation - it was more of an accident really - but maybe. . .
He closed his eyes again, and forced himself to breathe. In, out. In, out.
Then he dived into his own mind and reached.
The path he'd taken to visit Feyre's mind last time glowed faintly, like she'd left some sort of effervescent fairy dust in her wake. He followed it for a few paces, then he was aware of a pulsing, spherical awareness, just close enough for him to brush his mental fingers against it, then it leapt under the touch like a bird's wings and-
Rhys? A questioning tone, hopeful, desperate. Rhys!
Yup.
Thank the Cauldron. There was more to those frank words, more emotion behind it, swelling and writhing and threatening to flood like a discontented sea, but she kept it back. He was only aware of one thing: relief. Where are you?
I. Don't. Know. He ground his teeth together, ignoring Cresseida's questioning glance. I just woke up somewhere, and there's. . . Tarquin's sister's here. Cresseida. She's a hostage, Tarquin was forced to lie about Amarantha being dead, she's still alive and kicking-
Okay. Her mental 'voice' was deceptively calm. That makes sense. I'll just have to use the bond to track you, I suppose.
Please do.
I'll be right back.
He opened his eyes, forced himself to breathe again. In, out. He'd done it. In, out. Feyre was coming. In, out. He was saved.
Then came the sound of footsteps.
Cresseida instantly tensed up, bringing her knees up to her chest like a startled armadillo. Rhys gritted his teeth again at her alarm. Please don't be coming to us, please don't be coming to us, please don't be coming to us-
The door swung open. Rhys swore.
Because there stood Amarantha. In the flesh. She was carrying a shotgun.
Hurry, Feyre!
She smiled when he met her eye.
Please!
"No need to worry," she chirped, deceptively cheerful. "I'm not going to kill you, Rhysand. You've not been a particularly great threat so far, and I can't kill you anyway, can I? Not with that tattoo. But your lives are spent."
She raised the gun; he tensed every muscle, every tendon, everything in him striving to run.
"So, we both know the magic needs a source. And young Feyre Archeron will die if I shoot you, won't she?" She cocked her head. "Really, I don't know why anyone bothers with this sort of thing. It seems needlessly dramatic."
She lowered the gun; he relaxed slightly. He closed his eyes for an instant.
"But Feyre is being such a nuisance." He opened them again in horror. No. No. "And her sister appears to need some further. . . incentive."
He didn't even have time to think before she fired.
