**BACK TO PRESENT TIME...

PART 8

The night sky was as beautiful as ever-- the stars shining and the city below teeming with life-- almost as vibrant as before the attack. The High Lord of the Night court stood above it all, a single figure outlined in glowing light from a fireplace in the room behind him. His body was absolutely still, except for the brief expansion of his chest breathing in the crisp night air. Though he usually found the action clarifying, tonight, his brain was too preoccupied to register the effect.

The stillness of the scene was broken when the figure's hand moved behind his back and reappeared with a single piece of paper. He shifted his weight and unfolded the sheet with an extreme gentleness uncharacteristic to regular paper folding. He glanced down at the paper and recited the words without reading them. He had memorized the note by the third read-through. He clenched his eyes and took in another breath, her bold slanted scrawl appearing across his inner eyelid.

Rhysand sent a small tug down their bond, and was relieved to receive one in immediate response. He longed to hear her voice, to hold her in his arms and speak to her directly-- but unless the other person was practically screaming down the line, the distance between the two courts made it hard to decipher anything besides emotions. Therefore, they relied on winnowed notes. After almost two months of inactivity-- or, undetectable activity-- something had finally happened. Feyre was finally in a position to gather intel-- and all he could think about was how badly he wanted to winnow over there, bring Tamlin and his frivolous court to their knees, and scoop up Feyre to bring her home-- among other things.

Rhysand opened his eyes and continued to examine the skyline. Whatever was about to go down at the Spring Court was big-- mystical objects he'd never encountered and lands he'd never heard of.

Immediately after reading her note, he'd called upon Amren. Being much older than everyone in his court, maybe she knew something about this stone. Or maybe, the Book of Breathings knew something. The book. It'd been two months since the night court--most of the night court-- escaped from the encounter in Hybern. It'd been two months since Rhysand stole the two halves of the book from the king, when he thought he had them in his possession.

Two months for the king of Hybern to make a move-- and nothing had happened. Azriel's spies had yet to find anything, and as time passed, the shadowsinger had begun to push even harder. Rhysand was lucky if he saw his shadowy friend once every two weeks, and even then, it was only for a brief period of time, during which the spymaster coldly informed him that there were no new developments. Rhysand could see the frustration building in his eyes and knew that soon, he'd have to put some limits on Azriel's activities. The Illyrian was beginning to approach a line of sorts-- they all were.

Mor had been spending more and more time in the Court of Nightmares, overseeing the nobles, and listening for information. Rhysand knew how much she hated it there, and his heart ached a little bit whenever she left. Afterall, it was he who had pushed her into becoming more involved there. After he informed them that they would not be immediately extracting their High Lady, it had taken her two weeks to speak to him. She spent much of those weeks in the Court of Nightmares, subjecting herself to her family's cruelty; during which time, she developed the notion that her presence there might lead to a new informant, or some intel-- any intel was welcome at this point.

For one of the first times in history, especially since his reign, the Night Court was in the dark. Subject to chance and the approaching unknown, Rhysand was no longer in control, and it pissed him off. It also scared the hell out of him.

He sensed someone enter the room behind him, and turned away from the balcony. Standing by the long dining table, her arms crossed against her chest, was Amren. Tonight, her accessory of choice was a large necklace of glowing rubies, all the size of her eyeballs, and a pair of matching dangling earrings. The ensemble would have looked gaudy on anyone else. Her silver eyes followed Rhysand with her typical canny observation as he walked across the room.

"I contacted Morrigan and Cassian, but Cassian said he had things to attend to and would not be coming."

Rhysand raised an eyebrow, but Amren glared at him as if willing him to contradict her statement.

It was no surprise that Cassian wouldn't be coming. Azriel and Morrigan weren't the only ones to throw themselves into their work. Cassian had spent the last two months travelling between Illyrian camps; overseeing the training of the ranks-- specifically the training of the girls.

After they escaped from Hybern, both Cassian and Az had reached a healer almost immediately. Az's wings had recovered almost perfectly, but Cassian's wounds were much worse. He'd worn bandages for over three weeks, an entire week longer than was typically necessary. Afterwards, the healer had instructed Cassian to rest his wings often and exercise them sparingly to slowly build up strength. As far as the high lord knew, he had yet to try them out. Rhysand suspected that the delay was due not to the inability to test them, but rather, the fear that they might not work properly. Any Illyrian fighter would rather die than lose his wings, and once again, Rhys's heart ached for his friend.

Because Cassian was not using his wings, he relied completely on transportation from others. But the proud male refused to ask for it. Of course he wouldn't be coming.

Rhysand gestured to the parlor-portion of the room, and he sat down in a large arm-chair as Amren perched on the armrest of the couch.

"I'll reiterate when Mor gets here, but for now, I'm going to start." He waited for Amren to nod her consent before continuing.

"Feyre sent word from the Spring Court. Among other things, she's stumbled across a magical object that I've never heard of." He made a circle with his fingers, completely engrossed in his visualization.

"She described it as a small black stone-- made of some type of obsidian, but possessing other strange attributes such as--"

"Such as a cold, other-worldy presence that radiates power?" She interjected. Rhys stopped and met her eyes.

"Yes. How--" But before he could finish, Amren had reached into her pocket and tossed him a piece of jewelry. Rhysand caught the round object; his body jerked upright from the wave of power that followed. A moment later, his stiffened muscles relaxed, and he was able to better examine the amulet. One side of the disk was cerulean with a horn setting of a white stag wearing a burning crown of gold. The other side of the disk was etched with symbols in a language that Rhysand didn't recognize. The entire amulet was a mystery.

"What--" He started.

"It fell out of the sky yesterday," she stated with her usual bluntness.

Rhysand looked up and met her eyes.

She continued, as if reading his mind. "I've never encountered anything like it-- it's not from my world. I've spent the past two days researching in the Book of Breathings, and there's nothing mentioned that resembles it either."

She spoke as if leading up to a point, and a moment of silence later she stated, as if it were obvious, "I think it's from another dimension."

Rhysand leaned back in his chair and lifted his hand in the air, considering the strange amulet. "Two objects mysteriously appear out of nowhere" he mused.

At that moment, Morrigan walked into the room, having recently winnowed onto the outside steep. She was dressed in her finery, but Rhysand knew she would never enter the Court of Nightmares without a dagger strapped to her body somewhere. Wherever it was, it was invisible to his eye as she approached the parlor area.

"I managed to get ahold of Azriel," she opened. "He should be here any minute."

She slid into the seat across from Rhysand, adjacent to where Amren perched. Rhysand couldn't help but notice the grim set to her mouth.

"How are things in Hewn City?" He asked.

Her shoulders appeared to curve slightly inward. "We might have a problem, but it's in its early stages." She seemed eager to continue, but hesitated when she looked at Amren.

"Any news on Feyre's end?" she asked.

Rhysand ran his hand through his hair. "Actually, on both our ends."

Her interest was clearly piqued. She narrowed her eyes slightly and opened her mouth to start the questions, but true to her word, not a minute after she arrived, Azriel strode purposefully into the room. The spymaster walked right past the cushioned seats and took residency by the hearth, leaning against the mantle where he remained shrouded in shadow.

Mor followed his movements until he stopped, still not completely relaxed. Ready to leave at a moment's notice thought Rhys when he looked at his friend. Once Az had settled, everyone seemed to look towards the empty seat by Morrigan, and Rhysand knew that they were all thinking of Cassian. He expelled a small breath.

"All right, now that everyone's here..." They all turned to him, and he flinched at the wrongness of the words.

Picking an invisible piece of lint off his shirt, the high lord moved to the edge of his chair, so he could sit taller. He held the amulet in the air for everyone to see. The light from the fireplace cast shadows across the room, and the amulet seemed to reflect and absorb the light at the same time. Once again, Rhysand was in slight awe of its other-worldliness.

He quickly paraphrased Feyre's note (which meant excluding a lot of not-so-innocent post-scripts) and passed the amulet around the circle.

"Feyre thinks that the stone she found may have come from the same land" he looked to Amren. "-- or dimension, as this Queen who is apparently coming to visit the Spring Court. She also said that this Queen's delegates appear to be high fae, but possess slightly different attributes than us. As far as she can tell, the differences are only external, but she isn't certain. From the information she's already extracted, we can infer that their queen's magic may resemble that of the night courts'. On that note, so may the soldiers'... if they possess any."

Rhysand paused for any dissent, but everyone remained quiet, lost somewhere in his or her own contemplation.

He cleared his throat and turned to Azriel. "I'm not going to ask you to endanger your operatives by forcing a way back into Tamlin's territory " He paused for a moment. "--However, I want increased vigilance in the surrounding territories. I have no doubt that Beron, Tarquin, and probably Kallias will be hearing of this very shortly. Just because we have Feyre on the inside, doesn't mean that other courts might not have their own sources of information as well."

He made eye contact with his friend. The spymaster merely nodded in acknowledgement.

Rhys turned back to address the general group. "We've had two months of silence from Hybern, and now that something is finally happening at the Spring Court (everyone was already aware that Tamlin conducted his business outside of their High Lady's accessibility), things are about to get very busy, or very dangerous for Feyre... probably both." The entire room suddenly felt heavier, and it showed on everyone's face.

"-- so we have to stay vigilant. We need to be prepared to face new, unpredictable forces, and to not depend completely on Feyre's intel."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and Rhysand decided that the silence from his inner-circle was beginning to bother him. Her turned to Morrigan.

"You said you had news from Hewn City." It was both a statement and a question.

She cleared her throat and crossed her legs, leaning into the back of the sofa. "There's been some building unrest in the court. Many of the courtier families are pushing for support for Hybern."

They watched her intently, waiting for her to elaborate. "They miss the old ways," she continued. "Before you became high lord, and the noble families had more power..." She hesitated. "Specifically when they had power over humans."

Something dark unfurled in Rhysand's stomach, but Azriel was the first to respond. "You mean when they had human slaves." he retorted. His voice sounded just as disgusted as Rhysand felt.

Mor merely nodded. Amren looked impassive. He'd never heard her express any particular opinion on slavery-- human or faery, but part of him thought that she secretly despised it. He didn't think that anyone could spend any amount of time in prison, especially not the number of lifetimes she had, without finding the idea of owning and controlling a slave revolting.

"Who is heading this campaign?" he asked. Mor gave him a pointed look, and the darkness inside him grew a little. He cursed under his breath. "Keir" Of course her father would be in the lead of such a sickening movement.

"It hasn't reached fruition yet?" He continued.

"No," she replied. "But I suspect it won't be long. He's gained quite the following." Her face had paled almost imperceptibly since the conversation started, and Rhysand clenched his fists in anger towards the rat-bastards who still had such an effect on her.

All she had to do was give him the word, and he'd be down there in a heartbeat to slaughter them all, no matter the message it sent. Though he had offered many times, she had yet to express any desire, and he had begun to wonder if it was just the compassion in her heart or some unrelinquished hope that kept her from consenting.

Slowly unclenching his hands, he sighed and stood up from his chair. Everyone else followed suit.

"We'll take care of it soon. Right now, our main priority is the Spring Court and finding out as much as we can about this queen and this amulet and Feyre's stone." His gaze flicked between his inner-circle.

He turned to Amren, but she took his words right from his mouth. "There's nothing in The Book, so we might begin to consider other ancient sources." She was referring to The Prison. "I'll make a list of possible informants."

Rhysand nodded his consent, and his second had already begun to walk away when he turned to the rest of the circle.

"I want everyone back here in two days." He looked back at the empty seat and made eye contact with Azriel. "And I mean everyone. I don't care if you have to drag him by his ankles, make sure he's here."

The high lord met their eyes once more before turning away to go about his own work. "What about Feyre's sisters?" Mor quickly interjected.

Rhysand didn't bother to turn his head or change the momentum of his walking to answer the question. "I'm working on it," he replied.

And with that, the High Lord of the Night Court jumped off the balcony; free-falling in the cool night air for a few seconds, before winnowing away.