Mor, or Morrigan as she was also referred to as, was a kind but flamboyant persona. Her character was filled with colour and it made my own look as dull as an oncoming rain cloud. She kept my company for the rest of the night and I hadn't the courage to tell her that it was quite alright to leave me be. I also met the healer the High Lord promised, Madja, who tended to me. She was the oldest woman I had ever seen but tended to me with skilful and nimble hands.

I asked Mor questions when they came to me. I was in the House of Wind, situated on one of the red mountains of Velaris. I spent a good half an hour just standing near the window, looking down on the city as the lights were lit under the veil of night. I longed, however quiet I kept that desire, to go down there and see it for myself. See the people.

I wanted to go down with Rhysand most of all. I wanted to watch how the people reacted to his presence, I wanted to see if they moved out of his path in fear or respect. It was one thing to see him in his own place of home, surrounded by people that knew him intimately, but it was another to see how his subjects perceived him.

I could not see a way down from my view, but I had a few ways come into mind.

Once I was truly and finally alone for the night, I carefully pulled all the clothes off my skin and stood in front of a floor-length mirror. It has a golden trim with vine-like carvings wrapping around the frame. I had lost a bit of weight under the strict feeding I was given but I knew that within a few weeks of eating the meals that I was offered here, I would replace and probably gain more than I ever had. I smiled at the thought, imagining more to my figure. The most well-treated woman always had that weight.

I glanced to the door, expecting at any moment that someone would come through, but there was no knock and no footsteps, so I turned my eyes back to the mirror. Cautiously, I lifted my wings, wincing at the ache but kept stretching them until they were flared out behind my back as though I was about to take flight. Closing my eyes and tilting my head back, I imagined it – I let my powers fill me and I saw the mountains and the clouds that drifted over their peaks.

It was the one promise that Rhysand gave me that I clung to. Keeping my wings. I knew it to be true, even if the upper levels of my mind cautioned me. I heard to gritty ferocity in Cassian's voice when he pointed out my shredded wings. It was under Rhysand's order that women were to not have them shorn and though it had not been held to in most camps, it was still a signifier of his beliefs.

They would take time to heal, but I was patient if it meant that I would fly again. And flying would be my saving grace, if this place turned out to be the hell of the Court of Nightmares in disguise.

"Have you been seen to?"

The voice penetrated my mind and did not belong to any conjuration of thought of my own. It was only on the recognition of the voice that I did not believe myself insane. I settled down from my jumpy shock and nodded though he could not see it.

"Yes," I thought loudly. "It is late. I thought you would have retired to bed by now."

A strange thing for me to note, but I had indeed thought that it was late enough that nobody would truly be awake here.

"I have had things to attend to."

My eyes flashed white and I scanned all the rooms of the building that I had come to know of in the few short hours that I have been awake. I didn't have to have personally been inside them, but I had to be aware of where I was and where I intended to go. I could not find Rhysand in any of them.

"You are not here," I mused. A pang of concern erupted inside of me. Though I knew Mor to have her own chambers here, and I saw her inside of them, it was Rhysand that held the authority here. People have a tendency to act on their own accords when their image of control disappears. "Where are you?"

"I am at my own private dwelling for the night. I do not stay in the House of Wind often." There was a moment of silence before he added, "Cassian and Azriel reside in the House. You will be safe with them there, and even if they were not, you are in Velaris."

You are in Velaris. He said it as though that was a promise of safety itself. And he had directly alluded to that before. I glanced towards the window then strode towards it, opening the glass pane.

"Can I see you from my window?" I called, unsure of whether the tether between us had ended on his account.

Another pause came and I almost went to pull the window close with a sigh, but his voice returned. "I think I can just make you out," he said into my mind with a soft chuckle to follow it. I was flung with an image that was not of my own doing, and I saw the red mountain and the golden halo that House of Wind casted from a lowered point of view. Rhysand's view. He was showing me what he could see. Yet I could still see everything in front of me as well.

I searched for a window in the tiny buildings that would be similar to the edges of the one in the view he was sending me but it was difficult to see everything from so far away. I pushed his image out of my head and replaced it with my own, searching through the streets and comparing the engrained memory with my own.

I found it after a few moments of searching and I knew by another one of the High Lord's chuckles that he was watching me through his own powers. I didn't berate him for wandering my mind this time. He was leaning against his window sill as I was, dressed in the same clothes that he wore when I met with him earlier in the gallery. He waved, and I knew he could see me watching him.

"That is where you live?"

"It is. We call it the townhouse. It is private, but you may come here if you need to find me."

My eyes morphed back to their normal brown and I pinched the connection between us. Rhysand's presence evaporated. I sunk down onto the mattress and ran my hands over the soft fabric again.

Xx

I crept down the corridor, my shoulder brushing constantly against the wall. I heard their voices coming from the small room that I had eaten with Mor in the previous night. It was early in the morning and I hoped that there would be fewer people around, but my morning habits appeared to be shared by the other occupants.

Riling up the splinters of my courage, I turned the corner and strode through the open door. The eyes of Mor, Cassian and Rhysand rose to me and I gave them a feeble smile. "Morning," I murmured. The spymaster still had not shown himself since I last saw him in the camp.

"Good morning," Cassian said slowly but with a broad pull on his cheeks. I flashed him a peculiar squint of my eyes and pulled myself into a seat on the side of the table that was only occupied by Rhysand. "Sleep well?"

"No," I answered, folding my hands on the wood. Cassian cocked his chin forward, displaced by my frank answer. "I think I slept too much beforehand and I wasn't tired at all."

Cassian snorted at my answer. "Not surprised," he said to the other two seated at the table. "She snored all the way back here." I heavily flushed and shot my leg out under the table and he jumped when my booted toe dug into the soft cavity under his knee cap. Mor rolled her eyes but Rhysand chuckled until I gave him a warning with my eyes.

"How would you know if snored?" Nevermind the fact that I don't.

Cassian gestured to the air around him. "You cannot winnow in or out of this place. I had to carry your lumpy arse all the way up here. Most people would fawn over the chance." He puffed out his chest and exposed his large muscle through his shirt. I turned my head away, but not to hide a blush that never rose. There were too many men who threatened me with their size.

I had trained, both physically and with my power, but my training was strictly kept under control. I knew that I would never be trained the way the males in the camp were but I didn't dare complain. It kept me under their control, and they had succeeded until now. And now I was under the watchful gaze of the most powerful Illyrian of them all, the general of the army and of the Night Court. Even the greatest warriors in my camp would have kept their senses around him.

Mor leaned forward and broke the remnants of the previous conversation. "So you're a visionary," she noted. "What exactly do they do?"

"I can see things," I answered, having no simpler explanation on hand.

Mor pinched her brows and twisted her head around. "Alright. So you're like Azriel, in a way?"

I shrugged, for I did not know the extent of the shadowsingers' capabilities. But I did know they were different. "A shadowsinger uses shadows to see and they whisper things to him, I actually see things. I cannot see two things at once and I have to be able to visualise where I intend to send my eyes, but I can see it like I am standing there."

Rhysand nodded. "A visionary can see things as they are happening in the present. As Annika pointed out, she needs to be able to visualise where she needs to be which limits the power to places that she has been or at least passed."

"Ah," Cassian sang. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

I frowned and peered at his arms which dived below the wood of the table. I almost gave him a smile, remembering how the other children were once too, fascinated by my abilities and would ask me to perform the silliest of requests. And I was about to do so, even so I could just see him laugh as the image of that pierced me with momentary comfort, but a shadow crept over my shoulder and I froze at its touch.

I couldn't.

I couldn't make myself so vulnerable with these people, and especially in the presence of the spymaster. Cassian's eyes drifted from me to the newest presence in the room. "Morn'n Az," he greeted. "Where'd you flap off to yesterday?"

Azriel slid into the chair of the table to my left, leaving me seated between him and Rhysand.

"I asked him to survey some things in the camps," Rhysand answered. "We can speak about it later in my office."

"Shh," Mor hushed, holding a finger to an invisible lip in the middle of the table. "No business talk in the morning."

The three men huffed and hummed. I kept my head straight and took my meal as it came.

"It was one, by the way." I lifted my head at Cassian's voice. He held up his hand from underneath the table and directed his middle finger in the High Lord's direction in a vulgar manner. "One finger."

I glanced at the High Lord who gave him the same gesture back. I wanted to smile at the exchange, never having been so close to people like him that spoke so easily to one another but it felt too much of an exposure so I kept my mouth occupied with porridge.