The Night Court were giving a suite of connecting rooms, all centered on a large, lavish lounge that was open to the sea and city below. Nala's bedroom was appointed in dark grey and some gold sparks here and there.

Nala sat herself crossed leg on her bed and closed her eyes. Reaching out though her shadows she saw everything. She saw Rhys and her sister in Feyre's room, talking and teasing each other. She saw Amren in her own room with a book in her lap, her silver eyes shifted to the shadows like she knew Nala was there and smiled. She saw Tarquin in his study, sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. Cresseida was standing in front of him with her hands at her hips.

"Are you just going to do nothing?" Her voice was tight and high, the shadow making her voice sound far away, but Nala could still hear it.

"And what do you want me to do, Cresseida?" Tarquin asked, frowning his brows. "Nala is under Rhysand' protection."

"She attacked me, in our own home, and you are just going to let her get away with it?" Her voice rose in tone, clear disbelief in her face.

"And what do you propose I do, Cresseida? Kill her?" Tarquin got up from his spot and walked up to her. "We can't risk a war with Night Court. You brought that upon yourself. You talked bad about her sister; you kept poking her. I'm not risking war because your pride is hurt."

"You are just going to let her walk all over me?" Cresseida spat, looking at her cousin with disbelief.

"No, but you provoked her by going after her sister, Varian would do the same for you," Tarquin sighed, crossing his arms around his chest with a raised brow.

Nala shifted her focus from the shadow back to her room as Rhys walked in. "Anything of interest to report?" He asked, and Nala told him all of her observations. 

***

The bay was calm enough – perhaps willed to flatness by its lord and master – that the pleasure barge hardly rocked throughout the hours they dined and drank aboard it.

Crafted of richest wood and gold, the enormous boat was amply sizes for the hundred or so High Fae trying their best not to observe every movement Rhys, Amren, Feyre and Nala made.

The main deck was full of low tables and couches for eating and relaxing, and on the upper level, beneath a canopy of tiles set with mother-of-pearl, their long had been sat. Tarquin was summer incarnate in turquoise and gold, bits of emerald shinning at his buttons and fingers. A crown of sapphire and white gold fashioned like cresting waves sat atop his seafoam-colored hair. Feyre was sitting on the High Lords right. And she was staring at him once more. The man turned to her and noticed her stare.

"You'd think with our skilled jewelers, they could make a crown a bit more comfortable. This one digs in horribly." He smiled prettily at her.

A pleasant enough attempt at conversation, when Feyre had stayed quiet throughout the first hour, instead watching the island-city, the water, the mainland – casting a net of awareness, of blind power, toward it, to see if anything answered. If the Book slumbered somewhere out there.

But nothing had answered her silent call all night. So, she turned towards the High Lord, concluding that he was her best change to get near the Book. "How did you keep it out of her hands?"

Nala was the only on that looked up. She looked up at Feyre, her hair was unbound and swept off her face with a headband of braided rose gold, her sleeveless, dusk-pink chiffon gown – tight in the chest and waist – the near-twin to the purple one she had worn that morning. Feminine, soft, pretty. Completely opposite from Nala who was dressed in a tight of-the-shoulder dark green corset dress with a slit up her right leg.

Tarquin said, "We managed to smuggle out most of our treasure when the territory fell. Nostrus – my predecessor – was my cousin. I served as a prince of another city. So, I got the order to hide the trove in the dead of night, fast as we could."

Amarantha had killed the former High Lord – Nostrus – when he'd rebelled and executed his entire family in spite.

"I didn't know the Summer Court valued treasure so much," Feyre said.

Tarquin huffed a laugh. "The earliest High Lords did. We do now out of tradition, mostly."

"So, is it golf and jewels you value, then?" Feyre asked, making sure to smile at the man, giving him the image of her just being a pretty innocent lady.

"Among other things."

Feyre sipped her wine to but time to think of a way to ask without raising suspicions. But maybe being direct about it would be better. "Are outsiders allowed to see the collection? My father was a merchant – I spent most of my childhood in his office, helping him with his goods. It would be interesting to compare mortal riches to those made by Fae hands. Of course, Nala would have to go to, Rhys wants her to be with me all the time."

Tarquin cocked his head, the jewels in his crown glinting. "Of course. Tomorrow – after lunch, perhaps?"

Feyre smiled a bit, nodding. She looked toward the crowd milling about on the deck below, the lantern-lit water beyond, she watched as her sister made her way through the crowd, her hand leading a grim looking Varian, even as Feyre felt Tarquin's gaze linger.

He said, "What was it like? The mortal world?"

Feyre picked at the strawberry salad on her plate. "I only saw a very small slice of it. My father was called the Prince of Merchants – but I was too young to be taken on his voyages to other parts of the mortal world. When I was eleven, he lost our fortune on a shipment to Bharat. We spent the next eight years in poverty, in a backwater village near the wall. So, I can't speak for the entirety of the mortal world when I say that what I saw was... hard. Brutal. Here class lines are far more blurred, it seems. There, it's defined by money. Either you have it, and you don't share it, or you are left to starve and fight for your survival. My father... He regained his wealth once I went to Prythian." Her heart tightened, then dropped into her stomach. Nala locked eyes with her though the crowd. Feyre sent her a small smile to show she was okay. "And the very people who had been content to let us starve were once again our friends. I would rather face every creature in Prythian than the monsters on the other side of the wall. Without magic, without power, money has become the only thing that matters."

Tarquin's lips were pushed, but his eyes were considering. "Would you spare them if war came?"

"My sisters' dwell with my father on his estate. For them, I would fight. But for those sycophants and peacocks... I would not mind seeing their order disrupted." Feyre said, her voice still bored and dull, even though her heart burned with hate to those families.

Tarquin said vey quietly, "There are some in Prythian who would think the same of the courts."

"What – get rid of the High Lords?" Feyre's voice were just as quiet as the High Lord'.

"Perhaps. But mostly eliminate the inherent privileges of the High Fae over the lesser faeries. Even the terms imply a level of unfairness. Maybe it is more like the human realm then you realize, not as blurred as it might seem. In some courts, the lowest of High Fae servants has more rights than the wealthiest of lesser faeries."

"Do you agree with them? That it should change?" Feyre asked. Keeping her voice calm and quiet, even though the everyone could hear the two if they wanted to. And Nala wanted to. She listened to every word her sister and the High Lord said, as she danced with Varian around the deck.

"I'm a young High Lord," he said. "Barely eighty years old." He had only been thirty when Amarantha took over. "Perhaps others might call me inexperienced or foolish, but I have seen those cruelties firsthand and known many good lesser faeries who suffered for merely being born on the wrong side of power. Even within my own residences, the confines of tradition pressure me to enforce the rules of my predecessors: the lesser faeries are neither to be seen nor heard as they work. I would like to one day see a Prythian in which they have a voice, both in my home and in the world beyond it."

Feyre scanned him for any deceit, manipulation. She found none.

"Tell me what that look means," Tarquin said, bracing his muscled arms on the gold tablecloth.

"It means that my sister is being boring," Nala teased as she walked past the High table. She was pulling Varian behind her and winked at Amren as she walked past. The other short female smirked and got up to follow them. The three placed themselves at some pillars half hidden away by darkness. Each of them with a cup of wine. Nala watched as her sister walked past them and looked up to see Cresseida and Rhys all over each other.