"You agreed to this without me?"

Azriel stayed in his position, his stare infuriatingly unreadable. "Yes. You should get dressed quickly. Meet me at the veranda." Before I could retort with a suitably foul-mouthed response, he was gone in a whisper of shadows. I had forgotten about that little trick, not exactly winnowing and more of a manifestation of the shadows around him. As a child, I had found it incredibly amusing. Now, I just wanted to bash his head in.

"Did you know about this?" I turned accusing eyes towards Elain. She shrugged, still clearly uncomfortable. "We all decided it would be best."

"We? Who is 'we'?"

Another uncomfortable silence.

"The Inner Circle."

I let a dry laugh out. "You mean my brother? Five hundred years and he still can't let go of me." I wound the blanket beneath me with bruised fingers, frustrated at my new situation. All I wanted was to be rid of him, of this whole goddamn place so I could go on. But it seemed at every opportunity for escape, I was thwarted and connived into yet another untenable situation.

"I'm so sorry, but you really should go. I know it's not the best situation-"

Understatement of the year.

"But it would be best for everyone, including you." She smiled at me. "If it's truly unbearable, Azriel will take you home."

"If you wish for me to like you, I wouldn't get in the habit of lies." I settled back in my bed, my head aching for the blissful numbness of a sigara. "There is no other choice for me."

That was partly true. I couldn't run, not in any way that was helpful. Despite my fast healing and the strawberry muffin, I could still feel the pain biting into my leg and hunger clawing at my belly like some kind of rabid beast that had captured me ever since I had landed in Prythian. Even if I managed to evade Rhysand and his cabal, there wasn't anywhere I could go. This may have been my home, but it had been hundreds of years since I was last here. I was a stranger, lost in a land that was no longer mine.

Just thinking of the implications of that tugged at my heart, but I knew that there was little time for sentimentality. All there was was survival, both for me and my wretched brother.

Distantly, I could hear Elain happily prattle on about dinner and dresses, all things that seemed inconsequential in the moment as I considered my options. The girl seemed relieved that I had yielded to Rhysand's plans relatively easily; no doubt she had been geared for trouble as soon as I had fallen into their hands.

Trouble, and mistakes, you fool.

I was an idiot to get drunk, to antagonize my brother the first time I laid my eyes on him. Most of all, I was an idiot for trusting Azriel, and making a deal with him. It seemed all my actions had resigned me to yet another night knelt at my brother's mercy. But I would do everything I could to make sure this was my last one.

"-You should fit in one of my dresses, I think, and I've already got an idea for your hair." The girl beside me still seemed to be lost in her incessant chatter. "Of course if you can't, I'm sure this house will have something stashed away. Really, you should see the things I find here, it's as if every moment of history has been captured into some small nook. Just last week I found-"

"Elain?"

"Hmm?"

"I already have a dress."

I turned my eyes toward the door, already trying to map the route from my room to the dressing room. My mother's dressing room.

I wasn't sure if this would placate Rhysand or further infuriate him, but as I passed down the hallway, it didn't matter. I could hear Elain trailing behind me with uncertain steps, as if she was worried I was seeking a weapon rather than a gown. We passed the weapon room, and I could feel her heart race as I trailed my fingers on the door. She obviously didn't know the door needed a High Lord's touch to open it.

Damn you, Father.

I looked up and down the solid stone blocking me from all the swords and daggers I would ever fish for. Even though the door refused to unlock, I could feel the steel singing for my touch. Not just yet my darlings, I thought with a furtive smile hiding behind my lips, you'll have to wait. I'd open this door somehow. Not now, but I would.

"If it's a dress you are looking for, that is definitely not the place." Elain spoke from behind me, her voice whisking me away from my inner thoughts. I could smell the hyacinth that weaved through her hair, and it almost masked the tinge of fear her scent betrayed.

I turned and smiled, with the exact sort of blandness I used to use on unwitting men who didn't realize my fingers had slipped into their purses. "Oh of course. I'm just remembering." I turned once again, striding toward the door at the end of the hallway. "But I know where I'm going."

This time, the door had no trouble opening under my touch. Just how he liked it my father, for the men to hold the weapons and the women to drape the cloth. An archaic idea, but as my mother used to say, beauty could often be as dangerous as a dagger, and twice as insidious. I heard those words as I was sitting in this room, over five hundred years ago. But the memory of it was as clear as the day it had been formed which each step I took into the room. The walls were just as I remembered them, a whispering mural of flowers snaking across the lilac plaster that curved into the ceiling like two hands clasped. A dressing table, a mirror, armoiries all crafted by the finest of Velaris in bleached maple. And the rows of clothing, lining the walls, the slight breeze from the open air window rippling through the gowns nearest. Behind me, I could hear Elain's breath catch in amazement.

"Gods upon me, this place is beautiful." She murmured, voice hushed as if she was looking at some revered piece of art.

"That was her intention."

"Your mother?" Elain's whisper became even quieter. She had obviously heard little about her before.

"Yes." I let my hands trail against the silken fabrics, watching as they rippled beneath my touch. There was no dust picked up beneath my fingers. The house remembered. The house understood. And somehow, the house had expected me. Just as it always had.

I beckoned Elain, who was still cemented in her spot at the door. She tentatively stepped toward me, her doe eyes now living up to her name. "Are we allowed in here?"

"The door opened, did it not?"

"I…" Again, she looked around. "This is amazing."

"My mother was amazing, girl. Each of these were by her own hand."

I stopped at the end of row, my fingers playing with the rich emerald green fabric beneath my fingers. I slipped my fingers up the dress, between the leg slit and across the golden belt, resting my hand on the low neckline that connected to the long tightly fitted sleeves. This was the last dress my mother ever wore to a meeting of the Courts. The High Lord of the Spring Court had complemented the graceful way my mother carried herself. "Little lady Diana," he had said to me, "See your destiny. That is to be your fair and wise head atop those shoulders." I had smiled at my mother upon hearing these words, but she did not smile back. She only brought me closer. I did not understand what he had whispered into my mothers ear then, but I understood now.

"Unless your filthy little half-breed doesn't live past the next year, Illyrian whore."

My fingers gripped the dress.

Lord Conell hacked her head off with his sword less than a month later. I had felt the cold of metal beneath the warmth of my mother's blood when he pressed the edge against the back of my own neck.

I closed my eyes.

I wish he had swung. I wish I had followed my mother's fate.

"Diana?"

I opened my eyes.

"Perhaps you could wear this lilac one. It would be striking with your eyes. I like the green, but-"

"No green. Not yet."

"Not yet, Father."