Previously: Feyre's mom never told her stories about faerie hobbies :(
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The next morning, Feyre is still planning on asking Lucien to ask Tamlin to ignore the Contrivance Treaty. You know. The one he's already explained he can't ignore. Feyre, being the genius mastermind that she is, decides that step one of her plan is to find Lucien.

The following morning, as Alis and the other servant woman prepared my bath, I contemplated my plan. Tamlin had mentioned that he and Lucien had various duties, and aside from running into him in the house yesterday, I’d seen neither of them around. So, locating Lucien—alone—would be the first order of business.

A casual question tossed in Alis's direction had her revealing that she believed Lucien was on border patrol today—and would be at the stables, preparing to leave.

It's funny that she doesn't specify what the casual question is. Like, I can't imagine what question would both be casual and also tell her exactly where to find Lucien. Part of me thinks she just asked "where is Lucien?" and SJM means that she tried to deliver it casually. And the other part of me wonders about the things that I get caught on in this god-awful book.

Anyway, Lucien is at the stables preparing to leave for border patrol duty. She heads there, but Tamlin finds her first. Every time she's stepped out of her room, he's materialized behind her, so, idk, but all signs point to him always lurking in the hall like a creeper. Tamlin points out that she didn't have any tripwires in her room today. Feyre says that he said that she was safe, so she believed him.

"His eyes narrowed slightly, but he put on what I supposed was his attempt at a pleasant smile."

I'm very curious what makes it an unpleasant smile? Why is he failing at a pleasant smile? Like is he grimacing at her? Is it an evil smile? And why would he be reacting this way to her if all she said was "I decided to believe I'm safe here?" Feyre's descriptions of Tamlin are always slightly off to me.

Here's another example:

"“My morning work was postponed,” he said. Indeed, his usual tunic was off, the baldric gone, and the sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled up to the elbows to reveal tanned forearms corded with muscle. “If you want a ride across the grounds—if you’re interested in your new … residence, I can take you.”  Again, that effort to be accommodating, even when every word seemed to pain him."

It's telling and not showing. We don't hear Feyre tell us he's gritting his teeth, or furrowing his brow, or shifting nervously, or anything. He just says something perfectly pleasant, and Feyre is like "every word seemed to pain him." Okay, girlie pop. I guess we'll just have to take your word for it.

Feyre blows Tamlin off because instead of warming up to Tamlin himself, she is super-duper convinced that she has to warm up to Lucien, who will talk to Tamlin for her, thus freeing her from the Contrivance Treaty. Just checking in here that this still makes absolutely no sense.

Tamlin doesn't say anything, just clenches his fists and stalks off back into the house.

Soon enough, if I was lucky, Tamlin wouldn’t be my problem anymore. I hurried for the stables, tucking away the information. Maybe one day, if I was ever released, if there was an ocean and years between us, I would think back and wonder why he’d bothered.

That sound you hear? That's SJM hammering you over the head with fortyshadowing.

All the stableboys have horse masks super-glued to their faces. Does this mean they all were at the fancy masquerade with horse masks on? They did it as a bit? Or did the curse extend to the High Fae's household and pick masks for them to wear based on occupation? What's happening here?

Feyre finds Lucien already astride a horse. He asks if she's going for a ride or if she's reconsidering living with them. Feyre forgets her planned speech (she's useless), and Lucien just laughs at her. He invites her to come with him to the southern border and show off her fae-killing skills.

"Lucien smiled in a way that didn’t meet that metal eye—or the russet one."

The use of the em dash here is as confusing as it usually is. Because what's wrong with "didn't reach his eyes?" Feyre's insistence on mentioning the metal eye every other line feels vaguely ableist, if you ask me, but perhaps that's only because this book has already been ableist.

Feyre is nervous Tamlin's gonna show up before they leave, but soon enough, they've got a horse prepared for her and she and Lucien head out. The grounds are pretty, but—no! Feyre can't think about that because she has to do hunting things like... pay attention to her surroundings? But that's how you realize things are pret... You know what, never mind. WHATEVER. No time to notice her surroundings are pretty when she's busy noticing her surroundings. FINE.

Lucien asks why she's not killing any animals. Feyre says they have plenty of food on their table, so she doesn't need to. She smells a lilac tree and then berates herself because smelling things isn't useful. I'm not making this up.

Lucien snorted but didn’t say anything else as we passed beneath a flowering lilac, its purple cones drooping low enough to graze my cheek like cool, velvety fingers. The sweet, crisp scent lingered in my nose even as we rode on. Not useful, I told myself. Although … the thick brush beyond it would be a good hiding spot, if I needed one.

She's self-policing her own nose, help.

Feyre asks Lucien if emissaries usually have patrol duty. Lucien says this was actually Andras's shift, but since he was murdered, Lucien has to help. Feyre acknowledges for the first time that she killed a person, with friends and a place. She finally apologizes about the whole murder thing and means it. She said she didn't know what he meant to them. Tamlin told Lucien as much, which is also part of why Tamlin brought Feyre here. Either that or he took pity on her in her rags. Feyre snaps that she wouldn't have come on this ride if she knew Lucien would use it as an excuse to insult her.

"Lucien smirked. “Apologies, Feyre.” I might have called him a liar for that apology had I not known he couldn’t lie. Which made the apology … sincere? I couldn’t sort it out."

This isn't quite a "Feyre calls herself stupid" shot, but it's pretty close. I totally get being suspicious of how far fae can push the lying thing, but the framing here of "if it's not a lie... is it the truth?" makes me giggle. Don't hurt yourself trying to figure it out, Fey-fey.

Lucien asks Feyre when she's going to ask him to plead her case to Tamlin. Feyre tries not to be surprised. Lucien says he's impressed and flattered that she thinks he has that much sway over Tamlin. Feyre tries to play stupid, like this totally was not her plan. Lucien cuts her off and tells her not to waste her breath, because, anyway, there is no loophole to the Treaty. She either gets killed, stays with Tamlin, or risks it out in Prythian.

We've established this so many times now that you HAVE to be hearing the fortyshadowing anvils falling, surely. Though, it's a fun little game to play wondering if what you are reading is because Feyre is stupid or because SJM sucks at writing.

Feyre fights back her panic at being told for a 947th time that she has to live with Tamlin and instead asks where Tamlin's court is. Lucien asks how she knew about the court, which is a very strange thing to ask. Are courts for Lords a big secret???

Feyre replies that the servants chatter and wonders if that's why they all have bird masks.

Lucien scowled, that scar stretching.

Not only is this more evidence that SJM and Feyre are constantly describing Lucien's eye and scar, and that these masks they are supposedly wearing do sure allow Feyre to see a lot of expression, but also, I sat here for no less than 10 minutes trying to scowl in such a way that would make an eye scar stretch.

Anyway. Lucien is scowling because the servants picked their own animal masks, thank you very much. The household staff all attended the masquerade party and were wearing job-specific masks to "honor" Tamlin's shapeshifting abilities. This answer to my earlier question feels like an incredibly dubious "honor."

Feyre wants to know what happened to the magic to make it act like super-glue that glued people's masks to their faces. Lucien calls it "something from the shit-holes of Hell." He then panics a little at having said that out loud, less word get back to "her." Feyre asks who "her" is, but Lucien says the less she knows, the better, primarily because he doesn't trust Feyre. She bristles at this and gives 0 thoughts to the fact that she was just plotting to murder him and/or use him like two hot seconds ago, so he's right not to trust her.

Feyre tries to puzzle things out with the scant information she has.

"Prythian was ruled by seven High Lords—perhaps this she was whoever governed this territory; if not a High Lord, then a High Lady. If that was even possible."

Look, I know because of spoilers gleaned through TikTok that the High Lady thing is going to become a BFD, but why would Feyre think it wouldn't be possible to be a High Lady? What exactly would the difference be between a woman who ruled as a High Lord and a woman who ruled as a High Lady? There is no context for us as readers, and it makes no sense that Feyre is even thinking this, unless you know that it's terrible foreshadowing.

Feyre asks how old Lucien is. He says he's old.

Feyre asks if Lucien can shapeshift. Her questions exasperate him, but he answers anyway: he cannot. Tamlin is the only one who can, and he can also shapeshift others? He can just be like "you there! Be a wolf!" and that fae becomes a wolf. Weird.

"“Anyway,” Lucien went on, “the High Fae don’t have specific powers the way the lesser faeries do. I don’t have a natural-born affinity, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t clean everything in sight or lure mortals to a watery death or grant you answers to whatever questions you might have if you trap me. We just exist—to rule.”

My kingdom to anyone who can explain that em dash.

Feyre asks about Lucien's scar, which he says he got for not keeping his mouth shut. Feyre asks if Tamlin did it, but he did not. He did, however, get Lucien his replacement eye. Feyre goes back to what he said earlier and asks if there are really fae who have to answer any question you ask, because she caught that very plot-relevant detail. Which, good for her!

Lucien says there are, but they are dangerous and not worth hunting down. He notices that Feyre still looks interested, calls that stupid, and says he'll tell Tamlin to put her under house arrest.

Of course, all Feyre thinks is "a-ha, these fae must be nearby then" because if someone says something would be stupid to do, Feyre is like "did someone summon me?"

Lucien senses something and whips his head around. Feyre draws her bow and points it in the same direction. Lucien tells her to lower her bow and just look straight ahead. Lucien's scared, Feyre's scared, the horse is scared, everyone is scared, and then Feyre feels it.

What is "it"? Oh, sorry friends, you'll have to wait to find out. How will you survive the suspense?

That was 8 Kindle pages and 35 em dashes.

Next time: A complete and utter waste of time. I'm sorry in advance for Chapter 10.

♥️

Mari