A.N.: Just a quickie: I changed Nesta's face-claim to Camila Morrone. She fits better with Nesta's description – especially her lips and figure – and with the other two face-claims. I keep having to remind myself that Nesta is barely twenty-five in Silver Flames yet I always imagine her as older, perhaps because of her nature. But she's actually so young!

In terms of human culture, it's a blend of our contemporary music/film/book culture fuelled by magic instead of electricity, slightly antiquated fashions – think post-World War One, which had some truly beautiful silhouettes – and a really rich culture built on humans all being descended from slaves, sharing the slave-cultures of wherever they had originally lived throughout the different parts of Prythian and the Continent. They shared their dances, their music, their food, their traditional dress, their stories, their skills and knowledge – let's face it, the human slaves were doing all the hard labour, they had to know how to do everything that Fae took for granted – so human culture is incredibly rich and vibrant and multifaceted. It's not "all about money" as Feyre, who had never been beyond her own village since childhood, claims.

Oh, and I like to imagine that Azriel is more of an Aaron Hotchner from Criminal Minds in terms of how he gets information out of people; he uses psychological profiling, never torture. But he allows the others to think he's a master torturer because that's all they expect of him.

And in my head-canon, Rhysand's father was an exceptional male.


Shadow and Flame

07

Hope


Sunlight caressed his face, tenderly, like a lover.

The searing pains and exhaustion that had plagued his battered body now seemed to have lifted. He could still feel the sharp sting and itchiness of healing skin pulling taut as he squirmed on his bed but the marrow-deep heaviness had eased. The haziness and delirium that had dominated his thoughts had lifted like a veil, leaving him clear-sighted and almost refreshed.

He could smell the familiar oils he used to treat the wooden furnishings in his room, the whisper of soap he used to scrub the floors, the lavender in his cupboards and dresser drawers and the dried herbs in a glass vase on the bedside table. His room. He had been sleeping in his bed for several days now and though this was his bedroom, and his scent permeated everything, as it only could after centuries of occupancy, he could still smell her. Nesta. Bergamot and a whisper of honeysuckle electrified by a sudden bolt of lightning. He opened his eyes, half expecting her to be perched on the end of the bed, as he knew she had been for hours, monitoring his recovery. The shadows had whispered to him in his waking moments, coaxing and reassuring him.

But she wasn't there. The scent was fresh: she had been here, barely an hour ago. Checking on him.

The shadows curled lovingly around the curve of his ear to whisper to him.

The rising sun already shone brightly, dappling shadows beneath the fruit trees where they gambolled about and played and watched. Sat amidst the wildflowers in the meadow beyond his cultivated flowerbeds, Nesta sat alone.

She had ceased using the walking-stick he had provided her: he had had it for decades, using it occasionally, and now reclaimed it. His thigh twinged and his wings protested as he raised them to prevent them dragging, and it was because of his wings and his lingering limp that he reached for the walking-stick. He had no memory of climbing the stairs to his bedroom but knew he must have: Nesta did not have the strength to heft his weight up the stairs. Unless she had conquered her dread of whatever latent powers simmered deep within her to coax them into helping her get him up the stairs and into his bed?

He made his way downstairs, past the scrupulously-clean table in the kitchen and outside, across the sun-warmed patio and through the lush, fragrant lawn, past his favourite, constantly-evolving flowerbeds toward the little lake glittering at the foot of a gentle hill, surrounded by small trees and low shrubs and a bank of flowers, which Nesta sat overlooking. Her hair was bound up, off the nape of her neck, burnished by the rising sun, and her shoulders were draped with a delicate crochet-lace shawl he had gifted her when he had noticed her shivering in the evenings when it was cool compared to the sunny days but too hot to light a fire in the hearth. It was always cool here at night: he had always liked the reprieve, being able to enjoy blistering sunshine during the day and then be able to sleep comfortably at night.

Beside her was nestled a box with shining brass handles and keyholes and a beautiful patina to the polished mahogany. Curious about the box, he grunted softly as he made his way down the hill to Nesta, managing to manoeuvre himself to the ground without embarrassing himself.

He noticed that Nesta was rubbing her fingertips together gently, almost unconsciously.

"You needed my help," she murmured, and Azriel stilled, watching her. She was gazing at the water, glittering and rippling, her fingertips still rubbing against each other. "It is as if I forgot that I was still hurt, too. My mind and my body knew what I had to do. Perhaps because I had done it so many times before…"

She gazed down at her fingers.

Azriel knew she had struggled with rehabilitating herself after her injury, frustrated by her lack of progress when it came to her fine motor reflexes. Her mind knew what she wanted to do, what she was capable of doing: her body was still slow to read the messages her mind was sending.

Something about him needing her had overwhelmed whatever had formed that block.

It was curious. He wondered if Nesta herself had anything to do it. A moment later, he knew she had, though likely subconsciously.

"How long before you return me to the House of Wind?" she murmured. There was no heat to her words, only a dejected, weary acceptance that was so much worse than her ferocity. If she was healed and could hold her own – hold a weapon – she could be returned to her imprisonment, to the routine that had been dictated for her, including the brutal training with weapons designed to break her, as it had broken so many young Estoc boys before her. Estoc training was designed to kill those too weak to contribute to the strength of the collective war-band, to eradicate any liability before it could affect the legions. That Nesta had lasted as long as she had was a testament to her self-discipline – and defiance.

"Who shall nurse me, were I to return you?" Azriel replied, chancing a smile to coax her. Nesta did not smile. The box gleamed between them.

Nesta glanced at him. In the sunrise, her eyes glowed brilliantly, the familiar steel-grey giving way to vibrant icy blue. She surprised him, saying, "You don't wish anyone to learn you were injured."

"No, I don't," Azriel admitted. After a moment, he prompted, "Aren't you going to ask how I was injured?"

"I don't think it would do either of us any good for me to probe into your business," Nesta said, and he was reminded again that, though she was barely an infant in terms of the High Fae, in her human life she had been considered an adult. Comparatively, they were of a similar age in terms of emotional development and life experiences – and often, Azriel thought that Nesta was more mature than any of them. He should not have been surprised by her wisdom. She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye, "Especially as I am quite sure you do not wish anyone else to now you were injured." She sighed and gazed back out over the little lake. "I have no desire to know what you're hiding from the others."

"I would have thought you would consider using it as a weapon against me," Azriel said, wondering how she would respond.

"To earn favour with your friends, to let you be the object of their vilification instead of me?" Nesta said, raising her eyebrows. "I would never do such a thing. And even if I was tempted, they would never believe it."

"Never underestimate the power of paranoia," Azriel said quietly. Rhysand would rage and condemn the accuser and fervently, violently defend Azriel, viewing any attack on Azriel's integrity as an attack on him personally…until that little voice in his head started to wheedle and niggle, chewing away at his insecurities, undoing him.

"You once told me that Rhysand is unravelling," Nesta said quietly, carefully.

"I did." Nesta nodded to herself.

Her mind took a turn Azriel had not anticipated. "Do you think…the disappearances in Velaris… Could a threat that undermines his authority be causing him to unravel, or is his unravelling an indication of his involvement?"

He sighed heavily. "It is far too early to discuss such a complicated topic."

"I've been awake for hours."

"Have you had no rest?" Azriel asked gently. Nesta shook her head, gazing unseeingly at the water.

"I have had a lot to think about," she murmured.

"Would you like to share some of it with me?" Azriel asked, then waited. It did not do to press Nesta when she was introspective like this: it was more likely to end with Nesta lashing out at the infringement upon her boundaries. He had learned when to press, when to coax, when to divert and when to leave well enough alone. It was not hard to gauge how to approach her. He just paid attention.

Nesta did not answer but Azriel saw her gaze dip to the mahogany box between them. She looked at it warily, as if it was a living thing that might bite her if she startled it. He reached out and touched the polished lid.

"Where did this come from?" he asked, genuinely curious. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. The sun was so bright that the shadows balked, curling up behind him: they told him nothing. Nesta's chest rose and fell quickly. He could hear her heartbeat thrumming faster. Nervous. He could taste her uncertainty in the air.

"I don't know," she admitted hoarsely, and her bright eyes darted to his face. She was unsettled. "I… I was thinking about it – when I found you, so hurt… And it appeared. Azriel… Did I summon it here, from wherever it happened to find itself after my home was raided… Or is this a…a copy that I dreamed into existence from my own memory? Is it possible that I could even do such a thing? I remember Lord Helion duplicating Lord Tamlin's information at the summit in Dawn… Did I do that, without even a conscious thought? Merely a yearning? What am I capable of – what if I was to yearn for… What atrocities could I commit through sheer ignorance?"

"Nesta," Azriel said firmly, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder and stroke his hand up and down her back, the way he knew she liked, because it grounded her and soothed her. And she almost preened like a cat under the weight of his palm. "I do not believe that you could ever commit atrocities, even by accident."

"But I have wanted to."

Azriel sighed heavily. "I believe I know what they could entail. And there are many who would not consider them atrocities. The fact that you do, after all you have endured, speaks volumes as to your truest nature."

Wearily, Nesta rubbed her face. Her shoulders slumped. Despondently, she murmured, "I think I've been alone with my thoughts for far too long."

She gave him a subdued smile, a brief flicker of humour that eased the tension around his heart.

"So do I," Azriel agreed sombrely. "I am sorry, Nesta. I should not have left you alone."

Nesta gazed at him steadily for a moment then sighed. "You're the only who has given me exactly what I needed," she said. "You may have been unconscious, but you gave it – your trust. You've allowed me to be who I am and never punished me for it."

"I would never," Azriel vowed. He glanced from her to the box between them and asked gently, "Are you afraid?"

After a long moment, Nesta sighed. She gazed down at the box. "I am confused and out of my depth. All of this…is beyond my frame of reference. But whatever else I am capable of, my magic provided me all I needed to save your life." She raised her eyes and held his gaze. There were few who could meet his eye unflinchingly for any duration yet Nesta was one of those people. She knew the worst of him but did not balk. "My magic can be a good thing as long as I use it to do good things. I don't have to be afraid of my magic. I do have to be wary of my own ignorance, though… I know what my path forward is – in very, very vague terms."

That surprised Azriel. "You know what you want?"

"What I want? As to that, no," Nesta said, and Azriel's heart sank. He was certain that Nesta had struggled so badly after the war because she had lacked purpose, direction – identity. They had stolen all that she had once been, ripped it from her, and offered nothing in return but abuse. "But I've been reminded of who I am. And I believe that I, perhaps, can adapt that to…this. With time. I have a starting-point, at least – thanks to you, though you had to suffer for it. I am sorry that I could not use my magic to heal you. I am afraid that you will be scarred."

Her gaze dipped from his face and she seemed startled to realise he was clad only in his underwear and bandages; he lapped up the heat and strength of the sun, already warming his skin.

Azriel gave her a soft smile. "I am not vain, Nesta. I will not be alone in bearing the scars of your sutures. I shall be as proud to bear them as any other you've treated. I know from experience that there are many," he said kindly, and Nesta flushed, as if embarrassed to have her goodness pointed out. "You saved so many lives, Nesta. I am ashamed that your goodness is wilfully disregarded."

She was quiet for a long moment – touched by his words, he thought. She finally cleared her throat and brushed her fingertips over the lid of the mahogany box. "Had I this kit, I could have saved so many more. The conditions… The conditions in the war-camps after the battle were abominable – truly shameful…"

Her eyes gleamed with anger, the set of her jaw mutinous. She was appalled – and furious.

"Do all human medics have such kits?" Azriel asked. From simply speaking with Elain, he guessed that the distinction between a Fae healer and a human medic would be important to Nesta. To call her a healer would diminish the importance of what she had once been; it would rewrite Nesta's past and remove any links to her human origins.

Feyre was perfectly excited to leave her human life behind and use her past only as a weapon against her sisters, to get vengeance for perceived wrongs and to encourage her newly-found family to spoil her in compensation.

And as he gained more experience with Feyre and her sisters individually, Azriel had noticed that Nesta and Elain were resolutely, almost defiantly, human in their outlooks. Feyre had adopted Rhysand's world-view in everything without hesitation. While her sisters were defiantly human despite their pointed ears, Feyre was stubbornly pro-Fae in her every outlook. She preferred to pretend she had never been anything else – until she needed to use the emotional weight of her trauma to her advantage.

Nesta and Elain had paid the price for the Inner Circle's arrogance. They had had everything that they were and ever could be ruthlessly stripped from them. And Feyre expected them to be grateful for it. Azriel would not deny Nesta anything else. Even this smallest thing, using the human terminology to describe the discipline she had studied and the vocation she had embraced with all that she was.

So he used the human vocabulary he had picked up from Nesta and Elain. Because he knew the distinction would be important to Nesta.

"Or similar," Nesta said softly. "This box once contained my mother's sewing-kit; I adapted it for a new purpose."

She opened the lid and Azriel peered inside: Nesta went through all of the equipment, explaining their uses to him in detail. He had to suppress a shiver, pushing aside the thought that Nesta had used those surgical-steel tools to root inside him, to keep his wounds open and clamp things…

He was a spymaster. In spite of what the Inner Circle believed, Azriel had never had to resort to physical torture to get what he needed out of people.

Lord Namid had been an excellent teacher: Azriel was his best student.

Rhysand was the Daemati but it was Azriel who could get inside people's heads.

Nesta repacked her equipment into the top compartment of the box then pulled open the drawer beneath. There was a stack of flimsy notebooks with a small oak box wedging them in place and beside them, a carved tray lined with felt and inlaid with what looked like marbles, all uniform in size but different colours – some vivid and colourful, others glittering as if they contained swirling galaxies in their depths.

"What are these?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"Audiorbs and flickstones," Nesta said softly, her expression sad as she gazed at them.

"My shadows have whispered to me of them, sometimes, but I don't understand what they tell me," Azriel admitted. That was one thing he was not afraid to do: admit when he was confused. When he needed help understanding something. "They contain information?"

"Some. Others contain someone's imagination brought into reality." She ran her fingertip over two lines of orbs that were more subdued in colours, shining a dull silver-blue with occasional flashes of scarlet. "These are all lectures and demonstrations and recordings of procedures from my medical training correspondence course. I kept them for reference. I tried to obtain as many updated ones as I could afford; techniques and equipment are constantly evolving…" She sighed, and her eyes brightened as she indicated the more vibrant, colourful, mesmerising orbs. They were works of art in themselves, he thought. "But these ones, these are flicks. Think of them as deeply-immersive plays. And audiorbs record music – popular songs, scores to flicks and classical compositions for grand orchestras." She picked up one orb that gleamed like old gold. "This one contains the entire collection of The Iron Throne book series, read aloud by one of the actors with richly immersive soundscapes and soundtracks from the serial shows that were released while we were… Well, I never got a chance to obtain the serials in flickstones. But I was gifted the book on audiorb…"

Nesta saw that he was still frowning. He had picked up one of the orbs and was peering curiously at it. How could a 'deeply-immersive play' be contained within this small marble-like crystal orb? And what kind of a play? How was it 'immersive'?

"It's all rather abstract. Even though I enjoy flicks, I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start in creating one – I'll leave that to people far more creative and visionary than myself," she said. She gave him a slightly apologetic smile. "Perhaps it's better to show you than to try to explain… Here. This audiorb contains a playlist of some of the most famous and most beautiful pieces of classical music."

She retrieved the palm-sized oak box from the drawer and Azriel saw that the front panel had four tiny brass dials on one side and a hinged circular lens on the other, glinting and glowing with a rainbow of colours as the sun caught it. Surrounding the brass frame of the lens was a border of what looked like soft dark-brown felt. Like the mahogany box, whatever this was, it was beautifully constructed.

Nesta carefully lifted the hinged lens, revealing a small concave brass disc set into the wood beneath. Into the disc, she pressed the audiorb. It fit perfectly. She closed the lens over it then fiddled with the brass dials.

Azriel jumped.

Music started playing, and his gaze darted around, expecting a full orchestra to materialise out of thin-air because the quality of the sound was extraordinary.

His lips parted, about to ask Nesta a question, but was struck by the beauty of the music itself, the composition and the skill and emotion imparted into every note by the musicians.

The little oak box, while beautiful, had seemed utterly ordinary.

He would never have imagined that it could create something so mesmerising.

Nesta was familiar with the music. He knew it by the way her heartbeat calmed, even before she lay back against the grass, closing her eyes, just listening, letting the music absorb her.

He followed suit, allowing the music to wash over him, just as the sunshine did: they basked in the warmth and the light and Azriel enjoyed his first human symphonies.

They were extraordinarily beautiful, and powerful. They were mesmerising. Very different to the music of the Fae, which he often found unsettling.

They lay out in the sunshine for hours, just listening to one long audiorb playlist of the humans' finest, most famous and most beautiful symphonies, operas and ballets. Occasionally, Nesta would murmur context to him, explaining the cultural significance of particular pieces of music, the stories told in ballets and translating the operas.

Nesta, Elain and Feyre all spoke the language of the High Fae fluently. According to Nesta, every child was taught the Slavers' Language: ignorance was a weapon the Fae could use against them. While five centuries had passed, and throughout the human realms they had developed their own languages and dialects, humans all learned the language of the High Fae.

This was not news to him: Lord Namid had sent him beyond the Wall years ago – he had wanted to expose Azriel to as many cultures as possible and that had included the humans. In that first century after the Slaves' War, Azriel had been amazed by the swiftness with which humans had recovered and started to build. He had reported everything to Lord Namid, who had smiled, nodded, and destroyed any reports Azriel had made that documented the lives, cultures, practises and vulnerabilities of the newly-established human societies. He had told Azriel that he hadn't sent him beyond the Wall to spy for information to use for any particular purpose but so that Azriel could observe, could appreciate possibility.

The humans had created their own world from the foundations up.

Lord Namid had wanted Azriel to see it for himself. To see a world created by and for its people. He had wanted Azriel to see it for himself, so that he could keep reminding Lord Namid that it was possible, that no matter the obstacles and struggles, a better world was possible.

Like the slaves had been, they needed only to be brave enough to fight for it.

In the post-war disruption, with their societies turned upside-down, it had been the perfect moment to revolutionise things, to rebuild their culture into what Lord Namid had envisioned his kingdom could be.

It went against everything Rhysand had been taught by the Estocs.

Lord Namid had been relentlessly hard-working, a visionary devoted to his people.

Within a decade of taking the throne of Night, Rhysand had undone everything his father had spent a lifetime building.

There were still people in the Night Court who remembered.

Azriel's heart seized, emotion overwhelming him as he listened to a tenor's immensely powerful voice, rising and swelling over a grand composition.

He missed Namid.

He had not allowed himself to linger on thoughts of his former High Lord in ages.

Sniffling, he heard Nesta sigh hoarsely and turned his head, squinting in the sunlight: he saw tears trickling from her eyes as she lay listening. The music had moved her, too.

"That music has power," he said hoarsely, and Nesta nodded, raising her hand to wipe her eyes. He had to do the same. He sighed as Nesta sat up, reaching for the drawer of audiorbs. That magnificent opera sung by the tenor had been the last song in the playlist. He propped himself up on his elbows, his shoulder aching slightly. He watched Nesta switch out one audiorb for another. "If these were Fae, I'd suspect you had imprisoned an orchestra within the orbs to play at your whim."

"Fae wield magic as a weapon to control and oppress; humans learned how to use it to create extraordinary things," Nesta said, smiling tenderly. She gazed down at Azriel, shielding her eyes from the sun.

She licked her lips, realising how thirsty she was. It had nothing to do with Azriel sprawled out on the grass in only his underwear and his bandages, glowing brightly against his olive skin, which seemed to get darker with each passing moment as he absorbed the sunlight, his skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat as the sun beat down on them. The intricate tattoos covering half of his body gleamed purplish-black, intriguing, and she had to fight the urge to peer closer and investigate every detail. She couldn't help wonder what each of the tiny symbols meant – for surely they each had meaning. She remembered his slight disappointment that a rare bare patch of his torso had been taken up by his oath to her. She wondered which of the tattoos were oaths and which were purely aesthetic, and why he had chosen them if they were indeed purely for their art. Or were they rites of passage in Illyrian culture? Likely they were – proving their maleness by exposing themselves to as much pain as possible. The largest tattoos indicated those with the highest tolerance, thus, in their opinion, the strongest – the ultimate male.

Somehow, Nesta didn't think Azriel had gotten his tattoos to prove his masculinity.

He was not a male who found it necessary to prove himself to anyone.

He wasn't storming around measuring wingspans, throwing his weight around, degrading and abusing others to build himself up.

He was not like his friends.

The more time she spent with Azriel in this place, the less she could imagine how he had ever remained friends with the others.

He was quiet and understated, self-controlled, intuitive, kind and shrewd.

He was superior to them in every conceivable way.

If not for the company he kept, Nesta would have liked him far more than she allowed herself to.

And she liked him a lot.

But she knew better than to trust him completely.

His loyalties were to the Inner Circle first and foremost.

She swallowed, flushing with sudden urgency at the realisation… "Please don't tell anyone about these." She indicated the mahogany box. Azriel's muscles rippled as he shifted onto his side, frowning. The sun shining down on the fresh grass made it glow vividly and his eyes caught the colour, glowing like emeralds.

"They are precious to you," he said softly, and Nesta swallowed. They were incredibly precious to her, he understood immediately.

And something precious to her could be used to manipulate her. To punish her.

"I won't tell anyone," he promised gently. He sighed, "But you will have to learn how to conceal it; it is too large to go unnoticed. And you can be sure that it will be noted as odd in any residence in Velaris. It is beautiful…but its make is…"

"Human," Nesta said, and Azriel nodded. Feyre favoured fussy, intricate things that seemed too fragile to handle, expensive things that served no purpose besides looking beautiful – in the eye of the beholder. The simple, beautiful mahogany box was more to Azriel's taste: he favoured exquisite craftsmanship and beautiful materials combined with functionality. Something incredibly plain by design could be extraordinarily beautiful in execution, depending on the materials and the one using them. Nesta sighed. "I wouldn't know where to begin to conceal things."

Azriel sighed, then glanced over his shoulder, back up the gentle slope, to the flowerbeds and the lawn dotted with fruit trees. He remembered the apple seedling, now flourishing on the windowsill in the kitchen in a terracotta pot.

"Go to the potting-shed," he said quietly, "and pick a pot that you like."

"Why?" Nesta asked curiously, frowning. He raised an eyebrow and she huffed but climbed to her feet. She left her shawl behind on the grass; she had tucked the little cap-sleeves of her nightdress into little straps over her shoulders, her linen nightdress billowing around her – keeping her cool by remaining free of her skin. Her skin glistened with a fine sheen of sweat and she had lost her pallor, instead glowing with a rich, healthy tan.

His home had helped her get healthy in a way she had never been a single day at the House of Wind.

His heart swooped, and he smiled: he was glad this place had helped her, as it always did him.

Nesta returned, carrying a medium-sized terracotta pot with two bands entwined together decorating the rim and two handles. She sat down beside him and Azriel nodded. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm not going to do anything," Azriel said, "you are. You're going to practise."

"Practise what?!"

"You're going to use your magic to make the pot grow and shrink at your whim," Azriel told her.

"Am I?" Nesta pulled a face at him.

He grinned. "Yes. You are. Perhaps if you can make the medic kit smaller, you can carry it around in a pocket."

The gleam of determination in Nesta's eyes made him smile but he just turned to his back and lay back on the grass. Nesta was determined and self-disciplined but she hated to struggle in front of those she did not trust; and he knew she still did not trust him. She was wise not to, no matter how much it stung. No matter how much he wished things could be different.

He was not willing to take that risk, for either of them.

Azriel rolled onto his back, his wings twitching before flaring out; he was sunning his wings. Arms folded beneath his head, he turned his face away from her with a sigh. In no time at all, his breathing was deep and even. He had fallen asleep.

Nesta turned to the terracotta pot nestled on the grass in front of her.

You're going to use your magic to make the pot grow and shrink at your whim, he had declared.

Am I?

Yes. You are. No hesitation or doubt whatsoever. He knew she could do it.

I procured my kit when I believed it lost.

She focused on the pot and allowed herself to reach for the magic that ebbed and swirled within her, twinkling and shimmering with light, its glow deepening, strengthening, as she reached for it, embracing it.

She had been afraid of it. Before, it had felt jagged, prickly, unnatural, an intruder inside her own body. Reaching out for it now, it was as if she was greeting an old friend. Warmth and familiarity flowed through her, contentment. Just the faintest touch of it and she felt rejuvenated, energised – secure. Not powerful but reassured.

It was part of her.

Fae wield magic as a weapon to control and oppress; humans learned how to use it to create extraordinary things.

Her mahogany box gleamed beside her. It was a physical manifestation of all that she had once been: it symbolised everything she was desperate to reclaim. Her purpose, her agency. She had wondered about creating a door to escape the prison Rhysand had confined her to in his paranoia. Why shouldn't her kit be the vehicle of her escape? Why couldn't the mahogany box be her way of fighting back, without them even knowing it?

She yearned for a safe space. A place like this – a place like Azriel had created for himself, where he could be free to be himself without judgement, where he was kind to himself and allowed himself to be vulnerable, to embrace the illusion of safety, to heal and grow and draw strength from.

Nesta knew she would never be allowed to find it for herself. She had to create it.

Azriel wanted her to make the terracotta pot shrink and grow at her whim. What couldn't she do, if she set her mind to it?

She thought of the accursed subterranean library and the endless hours of shelving books. She was familiar with its layout and its content. An idea was beginning to form, vague but promising, and it made her heart sing.

Nesta had to make a safe space for herself.

She had to create an escape, both from the House of Wind and from her jailors. She had to create her safe space.

It would begin with a box.

They had tried to shove her in one: she would use hers to escape it.

She watched the terracotta pot shrink, becoming tiny, no larger than the fingernail on her pinkie-finger. She smiled as she willed it to grow, as tall as Azriel. His shadows danced across his back as the giant terracotta pot cast him in shade.

Nesta practised over and over again, developing her skill from slowly shrinking the pot then making it grow larger to envisioning the size she wanted it to be and the change occurring instantly. She did it over and over again. And then she found other things to work on: a fallen apple. A rosebud. The delicate shawl Azriel had gifted her.

And then she noticed that Azriel was starting to burn as he slept.

She remembered Lord Helion duplicating Lord Tamlin's notes.

In a heartbeat, she duplicated her thin linen nightdress and made it grow, then draped it over Azriel to shield him from the sun. Better to let him sleep. He still needed it.

She smiled down at him fondly as he sighed in his sleep, wriggling contentedly as she draped the linen over him.

He had told her she could do it, and she had.

She had brought her kit to her through magic. But she had healed Azriel through skill. What possibilities were open to her, if she combined the two? Her skill, dedication and creative problem-solving combined with magic?

With magic, the possibilities were endless. No – they ended only with her imagination. And what she was imagining…

With access to the library, to study magic in-depth, and the idea that was starting to form itself in her mind… What was stopping her, except herself?

She was the only thing standing in her way.

She raised her chin. Her gaze rested on the glittering water of the little lake.

She set the terracotta pot aside and stood, her bare toes tickled by the fresh green grass as she walked to the edge of the water.

Fear had stopped her bathing, her memories triggered every time she approached a tub.

She refused to let what they had done to her – what they had allowed her to endure – dictate her life.

She refused to be their victim.

She was going swimming.

Stripping off her nightdress, glad for the gentle breeze against her bare skin, Nesta gazed out over the shimmering water, took a deep breath, and dived in.

It was pleasantly cool and fresh, the water clear. The light blinded her as it glittered and refracted off the water, but she smiled, and treated water. It had been a long time since she had gone swimming – not since before they had lost their fortune and the lifestyle that had come with it. She had grown up on the water, though, with her little dinghy and her body-board; she had been swimming before she could walk properly, so said her mother.

It would take her some time to get back to where she once was. Even a few gentle laps of the lake were tiring: it strained her lungs and her limbs, making them ache. But it was a good ache.

She felt stronger and happier in her defiance.

Fear had dictated her life: she refused to let it.

She swam…and she enjoyed herself. It made her happy. Thinking about her childhood, and the life she had once had, thinking of the life she was starting to imagine for herself, made her happy. Her memories and her dreams filled her with joy and she yearned to embrace the future she wanted to design for herself.

Woe betide anyone who tried to take it from her.

She swam and she focused on her breathing and on the strokes of her arms and the strength of her kicks. She swam and she forgot to brace herself against memories lashing through her, reminding her: they did not come. Because she swam and she embraced the water and her place in it. She embraced it and her mind gentled. She swam and she daydreamed, thinking of everything she wanted her safe space to be, everything she wanted to create…and how to go about building it. She could not do it all with magic. Surely even magic itself had rules. She needed materials, resources. She needed to be able to conceal her medic kit from discovery: she needed it to be secure. Once it was secure, she could begin developing it into something…

She had to return to the House of Wind. She needed access to the library lurking beneath it.

What had Azriel told her, the first day she woke here?

It's about knowing exactly what they want of you and learning to use it as a weapon against them.

They wanted her imprisoned in the House of Wind. So be it. She would use and abuse her position there – in the House, with access to the library – to get exactly what she needed.

And then…

She didn't know yet. But it was exciting to think of the possibilities open to her.

For the first time in a long time, she had hope.


A.N.: The song that brought both Azriel and Nesta to tears was 'Nessun Dorma' sung by Pavarotti. It remains my ultimate favourite song ever. And Nesta's developing an idea to turn her mahogany medic kit into something inspired by Newt Scamander's suitcase.