A Court of Wings and Ruin

To the stars who listen—and the dreams that are answered.

Rhys pinched my behind, and I clamped down on my lip to keep from yelping.

“Why should I be scared of an oversized bat who likes to throw temper tantrums?”

about to nod, but only backed away. “I think I was dreaming,” she murmured. “I think I’m always dreaming these days.”

I am forgotten, that’s what I am. And that’s how I prefer to be

She looked away—toward the windows. “I can hear your heart,” she said quietly.

He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he said nothing, and drained his tea, even as it burned his mouth.

“When I sleep,” she murmured, “I can hear your heart beating through the stone.” She angled her head, as if the city view held some answer. “Can you hear mine?”

He wasn’t sure if she truly meant to address him, but he said, “No, lady. I cannot.”

Her too-thin shoulders seemed to curve inward. “No one ever does. No one ever looked—not really.” A bramble of words. Her voice strained to a whisper. “He did. He saw me. He will not now.”

Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light.

Perhaps that was why she now kept all the curtains open. To fill the void that existed where all of that light had once been.

And now nothing remained.

“I hadn’t realized I was a villain in your narrative

I told you that day in the woods: you abandoned me long before I ever physically left

The words wrapped a fist around my heart, and I forced them from my mind