Chap­ter Forty-Sev­en Sum­ma­ry:

Nina finds her­self trapped in the attic for over twen­ty hours, a pun­ish­ment dealt by her hus­band, Andy, for using too much air fresh­en­er. This type of impris­on­ment has become a recur­ring tac­tic for Andy to exert con­trol over Nina, lever­ag­ing her love for their daugh­ter, Cecelia, to enforce com­pli­ance. Fear­ing for her future and that of any future chil­dren, Nina secret­ly gets an IUD to pre­vent preg­nan­cy, a deci­sion sparked by Andy’s desire for more chil­dren. Her cur­rent predica­ment involves a self-inflict­ed pep­per spray inci­dent as a penal­ty for her sup­posed trans­gres­sion.

Dur­ing her con­fine­ment, Nina spots Enzo, a work­er in their back­yard, and inad­ver­tent­ly alerts him to her dis­tress. After an exchange, Enzo attempts to inter­vene, offer­ing Nina a chance at escape. Nina, how­ev­er, refus­es, fear­ing fur­ther reper­cus­sions from Andy, includ­ing harm to Cecelia or Enzo’s poten­tial depor­ta­tion. Despite this, Enzo promis­es to break down the door if Nina’s sit­u­a­tion does­n’t improve by the next morn­ing.

Andy even­tu­al­ly releas­es Nina from the attic, main­tain­ing a facade of kind­ness post-pun­ish­ment, which includes bring­ing gifts as if to com­pen­sate for his abus­es. Mean­while, Nina and Enzo share a sig­nif­i­cant con­ver­sa­tion, dur­ing which Nina con­fides the extent of Andy’s tor­ment. Enzo, incensed, vows to kill Andy, but Nina, fear­ing the con­se­quences, dis­suades him. Instead, Enzo sug­gests help­ing Nina leave Andy, mark­ing the begin­ning of a poten­tial plan to escape her abu­sive sit­u­a­tion. This chap­ter sheds light on the dynam­ics of domes­tic abuse, the com­plex­i­ties of escape, and the fleet­ing moments of sol­i­dar­i­ty and hope pre­sent­ed through Enzo’s sup­port.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

CHAPTER
47
If I want­ed to escape, I could either face the stream or face them. But
Lucien …
His red hair was tied back, and there wasn’t a hint of fin­ery on him: just
armored leather, swords, knives … His met­al eye roamed over me, his
gold­en skin pale. “We’ve been hunt­ing for you for over two months,” he
breathed, now scan­ning the woods, the stream, the sky.
Rhys. Caul­dron save me. Rhys was too far back, and—
“How did you find me?” My steady, cold voice wasn’t one I rec­og­nized.
But—hunting for me. As if I were indeed prey.
If Tam­lin was here … My blood went ici­er than the freez­ing rain now
sluic­ing down my face, into my clothes.
“Some­one tipped us off you’d been out here, but it was luck that we
caught your scent on the wind, and—” Lucien took a step toward me.
I stepped back. Only three feet between me and the stream.
Lucien’s eye widened slight­ly. “We need to get out of here. Tamlin’s been
—he hasn’t been him­self. I’ll take you right to—”
“No,” I breathed.
The word rasped through the rain, the stream, the pine for­est.
The four sen­tinels glanced between each oth­er, then to the arrow I kept
aimed.
Lucien took me in again.
And I could see what he was now glean­ing: the Illyr­i­an fight­ing leathers.
The col­or and full­ness that had returned to my face, my body.
And the silent steel of my eyes.
“Feyre,” he said, hold­ing out a hand. “Let’s go home.”
I didn’t move. “That stopped being my home the day you let him lock me
up inside of it.”
Lucien’s mouth tight­ened. “It was a mis­take. We all made mis­takes. He’s
sorry—more sor­ry than you real­ize. So am I.” He stepped toward me, and I
backed up anoth­er few inch­es.
Not much space remained between me and the gush­ing waters below.
Cassian’s train­ing crashed into me, as if all the lessons he’d been drilling
into me each morn­ing were a net that caught me as I free-fell into my ris­ing
pan­ic. Once Lucien touched me, he’d win­now us out. Not far—he wasn’t
that powerful—but he was fast. He’d jump miles away, then far­ther, and
far­ther, until Rhys couldn’t reach me. He knew Rhys was here.
“Feyre,” Lucien plead­ed, and dared anoth­er step, his hand out­raised.
My arrow angled toward him, my bow­string groan­ing.
I’d nev­er real­ized that while Lucien had been trained as a war­rior,
Cass­ian, Azriel, Mor, and Rhys were War­riors. Cass­ian could wipe Lucien
off the face of the earth in a sin­gle blow.
“Put the arrow down,” Lucien mur­mured, like he was sooth­ing a wild
ani­mal.
Behind him, the four sen­tinels closed in. Herd­ing me.
The High Lord’s pet and pos­ses­sion.
“Don’t,” I breathed. “Touch. Me.”
“You don’t under­stand the mess we’re in, Feyre. We—I need you home.
Now.”
I didn’t want to hear it. Peer­ing at the stream below, I cal­cu­lat­ed my
odds.
The look cost me. Lucien lunged, hand out. One touch, that was all it’d
take—
I was not the High Lord’s pet any longer.
And maybe the world should learn that I did indeed have fangs.
Lucien’s fin­ger grazed the sleeve of my leather jack­et.
And I became smoke and ash and night.
The world stilled and bent, and there was Lucien, lung­ing so slow­ly for
what was now blank space as I stepped around him, as I hur­tled for the trees
behind the sen­tinels.
I stopped, and time resumed its nat­ur­al flow. Lucien stag­gered, catch­ing
him­self before he went over the cliff—and whirled, eye wide to dis­cov­er
me now stand­ing behind his sen­tinels. Bron and Hart flinched and backed
away. From me.
And from Rhysand at my side.
Lucien froze. I made my face a mir­ror of ice; the unfeel­ing twin to the
cru­el amuse­ment on Rhysand’s fea­tures as he picked at a fleck of lint on his
dark tunic.
Dark, ele­gant clothes—no wings, no fight­ing leathers.
The unruf­fled, fine clothes … Anoth­er weapon. To hide just how skilled
and pow­er­ful he was; to hide where he came from and what he loved. A
weapon worth the cost of the mag­ic he’d used to hide it—even if it put us at
risk of being tracked.
“Lit­tle Lucien,” Rhys purred. “Didn’t the Lady of the Autumn Court ever
tell you that when a woman says no, she means it?”
“Prick,” Lucien snarled, storm­ing past his sen­tinels, but not dar­ing to
touch his weapons. “You filthy, whor­ing prick.”
I loosed a growl.
Lucien’s eyes sliced to me and he said with qui­et hor­ror, “What have you
done, Feyre?”
“Don’t come look­ing for me again,” I said with equal soft­ness.
“He’ll nev­er stop look­ing for you; nev­er stop wait­ing for you to come
home.”
The words hit me in the gut—like they were meant to. It must have
shown in my face because Lucien pressed, “What did he do to you? Did he
take your mind and—”
“Enough,” Rhys said, angling his head with that casu­al grace. “Feyre and
I are busy. Go back to your lands before I send your heads as a reminder to
my old friend about what hap­pens when Spring Court flunkies set foot in
my ter­ri­to­ry.”
The freez­ing rain slid down the neck of my clothes, down my back.
Lucien’s face was death­ly pale. “You made your point, Feyre—now come
home.”
“I’m not a child play­ing games,” I said through my teeth. That’s how
they’d seen me: in need of cod­dling, explain­ing, defend­ing …
“Care­ful, Lucien,” Rhysand drawled. “Or Feyre dar­ling will send you
back in pieces, too.”
“We are not your ene­mies, Feyre,” Lucien plead­ed. “Things got bad,
Ianthe got out of hand, but it doesn’t mean you give up—”
“You gave up,” I breathed.
I felt even Rhys go still.
“You gave up on me,” I said a bit more loud­ly. “You were my friend. And
you picked him—picked obey­ing him, even when you saw what his orders
and his rules did to me. Even when you saw me wast­ing away day by day.”
“You have no idea how volatile those first few months were,” Lucien
snapped. “We need­ed to present a uni­fied, obe­di­ent front, and I was
sup­posed to be the exam­ple to which all oth­ers in our court were held.”
“You saw what was hap­pen­ing to me. But you were too afraid of him to
tru­ly do any­thing about it.”
It was fear. Lucien had pushed Tam­lin, but to a point. He’d always
yield­ed at the end.
“I begged you,” I said, the words sharp and breath­less. “I begged you so
many times to help me, to get me out of the house, even for an hour. And
you left me alone, or shoved me into a room with Ianthe, or told me to stick
it out.”
Lucien said too qui­et­ly, “And I sup­pose the Night Court is so much
bet­ter?”
I remembered—remembered what I was sup­posed to know, to have
expe­ri­enced. What Lucien and the oth­ers could nev­er know, not even if it
meant for­feit­ing my own life.
And I would. To keep Velaris safe, to keep Mor and Amren and Cass­ian
and Azriel and … Rhys safe.
I said to Lucien, low and qui­et and as vicious as the talons that formed at
the tips of my fin­gers, as vicious as the won­drous weight between my
shoul­der blades, “When you spend so long trapped in dark­ness, Lucien, you
find that the dark­ness begins to stare back.”
A pulse of sur­prise, of wicked delight against my men­tal shields, at the
dark, mem­bra­nous wings I knew were now pok­ing over my shoul­ders.
Every icy kiss of rain sent jolts of cold through me. Sensitive—so sen­si­tive,
these Ill­ryian wings.
Lucien backed up a step. “What did you do to your­self?”
I gave him a lit­tle smile. “The human girl you knew died Under the
Moun­tain. I have no inter­est in spend­ing immor­tal­i­ty as a High Lord’s pet.”
Lucien start­ed shak­ing his head. “Feyre—”
“Tell Tam­lin,” I said, chok­ing on his name, on the thought of what he’d
done to Rhys, to his fam­i­ly, “if he sends any­one else into these lands, I will
hunt each and every one of you down. And I will demon­strate exact­ly what
the dark­ness taught me.”
There was some­thing like gen­uine pain on his face.
I didn’t care. I just watched him, unyield­ing and cold and dark. The
crea­ture I might one day have become if I had stayed at the Spring Court, if
I had remained bro­ken for decades, cen­turies … until I learned to qui­et­ly
direct those shards of pain out­ward, learned to savor the pain of oth­ers.
Lucien nod­ded to his sen­tinels. Bron and Hart, wide-eyed and shak­ing,
van­ished with the oth­er two.
Lucien lin­gered for a moment, noth­ing but air and rain between us. He
said soft­ly to Rhysand, “You’re dead. You, and your entire cursed court.”
Then he was gone. I stared at the emp­ty space where he’d been, wait­ing,
wait­ing, not let­ting that expres­sion off my face until a warm, strong fin­ger
traced a line down the edge of my right wing.
It felt like—like hav­ing my ear breathed into.
I shud­dered, arch­ing as a gasp came out of me.
And then Rhys was in front of me, scan­ning my face, the wings behind
me. “How?”
“Shape-shift­ing,” I man­aged to say, watch­ing the rain slide down his
gold­en-tan face. And it was dis­tract­ing enough that the talons, the wings,
the rip­pling dark­ness fad­ed, and I was left light and cold in my own skin.
Shape-shift­ing … at the sight of part of the his­to­ry, the male I had not
real­ly let myself remem­ber. Shape-shifting—a gift from Tam­lin that I had
not want­ed, or need­ed … until now.
Rhys’s eyes soft­ened. “That was a very con­vinc­ing per­for­mance.”
“I gave him what he want­ed to see,” I mur­mured. “We should find
anoth­er spot.”
He nod­ded, and his tunic and pants van­ished, replaced by those famil­iar
fight­ing leathers, the wings, the sword. My war­rior—
Not my any­thing.
“Are you all right?” he said as he scooped me into his arms to fly us to
anoth­er loca­tion.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

J OHN DIED OF A HEAR T attack in 1980. He was just shy of fifty. It
didn’t make any sense. The most ath­let­ic and fit of us, the one who
didn’t smoke, the one who exer­cised every day, he shouldn’t have
been the one whose heart stopped. But things don’t make sense. And
when he left us, he left a giant-sized hole in our lives.
Con­nor was five. It was hard to explain to her where Uncle John
went. It was even hard­er to explain to her why her father was so
heart­bro­ken. For weeks, Har­ry could bare­ly get out of bed. When he
did, it was to drink bour­bon. He was rarely sober, always somber, and
often unkind.
Celia was pho­tographed in tears, her eyes blood­shot, walk­ing into
her trail­er on loca­tion in Ari­zona. I want­ed to hold her. I want­ed us all
to see one anoth­er through it. But I knew that wasn’t in the cards.
But I could help Har­ry. So Con­nor and I stayed with him at his
apart­ment every day. She slept in her room there. I slept on the sofa in
his bed­room. I made sure he ate. I made sure he bathed. I made sure
he played make-believe with his daugh­ter.
One morn­ing, I woke up to find Har­ry and Con­nor both in the
kitchen. Con­nor was pour­ing her­self a bowl of cere­al while Har­ry
stood in his paja­ma bot­toms, look­ing out the win­dow.
He had an emp­ty glass in his hand. When he turned away from the
view and back toward Con­nor, I said, “Good morn­ing.”
And Con­nor said, “Dad­dy, why do your eyes look wet?”
I wasn’t sure if he’d been cry­ing or if he was already a few drinks
into the day that ear­ly in the morn­ing.
At the funer­al, I wore a black vin­tage Hal­ston. Har­ry wore a black
suit with a black shirt, black tie, black belt, and black socks. Grief
nev­er left his face.

You are being pro­vid­ed with a book chap­ter by chap­ter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chap­ter. After read­ing the chap­ter, 1. short­en the chap­ter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any impor­tant nouns in the chap­ter. 3. Do not trans­late the orig­i­nal lan­guage. 4. Keep the same style as the orig­i­nal chap­ter, keep it con­sis­tent through­out the chap­ter. Your reply must com­ply with all four require­ments, or it’s invalid.
I will pro­vide the chap­ter now.

47
“Ms. Spears? You may feel free to address me.”
The voice crack­led through the phone. I was in my liv­ing room. It was an
ordi­nary sum­mer after­noon in Los Ange­les.
On June 23, 2021, I was �nal­ly due to address a Los Ange­les pro­bate court
on the sub­ject of the con­ser­va­tor­ship. And I knew the world was lis­ten­ing. I had
been prac­tic­ing this for days, but now that the moment was here, the stakes felt
over­whelm­ing. Not least because I knew, since I’d asked for this hear­ing to be
open to the pub­lic, that mil­lions of peo­ple would be lis­ten­ing to my voice as
soon as I was done speak­ing.
My voice. It was every­where, all over the world—on the radio, on tele­vi­sion, on
the internet—but there were so many parts of me that had been sup­pressed. My
voice had been used for me, and against me, so many times that I was afraid
nobody would rec­og­nize it now if I spoke freely. What if they called me crazy?
What if they said I was lying? What if I said the wrong thing and it all went
side­ways? I had writ­ten so many ver­sions of this state­ment. I’d tried a mil­lion
ways to get it right, to say what I need­ed to say, but now, in the moment, I was so
ner­vous.
And then, through the fear, I remem­bered that there were still things I could
hold on to: My desire for peo­ple to under­stand what I’d been through. My faith
that all this could change. My belief that I had a right to expe­ri­ence joy. My
knowl­edge that I deserved my free­dom.
This sense, deeply felt and pro­found, that the woman in me was still strong
enough to �ght for what was right.
I looked up at Hesam, who was seat­ed on the couch next to me. He squeezed
my hand.
And so, for the �rst time in what felt like for­ev­er, I began to tell my sto­ry.
I said to the judge, “I’ve lied and told the whole world I’m okay and I’m
hap­py. It’s a lie. I thought that maybe if I just said that enough, maybe I might
become hap­py, because I’ve been in denial… But now I’m telling you the truth,
okay? I’m not hap­py. I can’t sleep. I’m so angry it’s insane. And I’m depressed. I
cry every day.”
I went on to say, “I don’t even drink alco­hol. I should drink alco­hol,
con­sid­er­ing what they put my heart through.”
I said, “I wish I could stay with you on the phone for­ev­er, because when I get
o� the phone with you, all of a sud­den all I hear are these nos. And then all of a
sud­den I feel ganged up on and I feel bul­lied, and I feel left out, and alone. And
I’m tired of feel­ing alone. I deserve to have the same rights as any­body does, by
hav­ing a child, a fam­i­ly, any of those things, and more so. And that’s all I want­ed
to say to you. And thank you so much for let­ting me speak to you today.”
I bare­ly breathed. It was the �rst chance I’d got­ten to speak pub­licly in so
long and a mil­lion things had come pour­ing out. I wait­ed to hear how the judge
would respond. I hoped I’d get some indi­ca­tion of where her head was at.
“I just want to tell you that I cer­tain­ly am sen­si­tive to every­thing that you said
and how you’re feel­ing,” she said. “I know that it took a lot of courage for you to
say every­thing you have to say today, and I want to let you know that the court
does appre­ci­ate your com­ing on the line and shar­ing how you’re feel­ing.”
That made me feel a sense of relief, like I’d �nal­ly been lis­tened to after
thir­teen years.
I have always worked so hard. I put up with being held down for a long time.
But when my fam­i­ly put me in that facil­i­ty, they took it too far.
I was treat­ed like a crim­i­nal. And they made me think I deserved that. They
made me for­get my self-worth and my val­ue.
Of all the things they did, I will say that the worst was to make me ques­tion
my faith. I nev­er had strict ideas about reli­gion. I just knew there was some­thing
big­ger than me. Under their con­trol, I stopped believ­ing in God for a while. But
then, when it came time to end the con­ser­va­tor­ship, I real­ized one thing: You

Chap­ter 47 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të begins with a dis­rup­tive vis­it from Eliza Mill­ward to Gilbert Markham’s house, where she shares unset­tling news about Helen Gra­ham, sug­gest­ing a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with her estranged hus­band. Gilbert, deeply trou­bled by these rumors, decides to seek the truth by vis­it­ing Helen’s broth­er, Fred­er­ick Lawrence.

Upon his arrival, Gilbert learns that Helen has indeed returned to her hus­band, but not out of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion; she has gone back to care for him dur­ing his ill­ness. Lawrence pro­vides Gilbert with a let­ter from Helen, which reveals her rea­sons and details of her cur­rent life at Grass­dale Manor. Helen has tak­en on the ardu­ous task of nurs­ing her hus­band, Arthur Hunt­ing­don, who suf­fers from injuries and ill­ness exac­er­bat­ed by his dis­solute lifestyle. Through­out her let­ter, she describes her efforts to man­age the house­hold, the chal­lenges of attend­ing to her hus­band whose health has dete­ri­o­rat­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, and her strug­gles with his fluc­tu­at­ing accep­tance of her pres­ence.

Helen’s nar­ra­tive in the let­ter reveals her inner con­flict and her strong sense of duty towards her hus­band, despite his past cru­el­ty and neglect. She painstak­ing­ly describes her dai­ly encoun­ters with Arthur, who fluc­tu­ates between delir­i­um and clar­i­ty, some­times mis­tak­ing her for oth­er women and at oth­er times rec­og­niz­ing her with ambiva­lence or out­right hos­til­i­ty. Yet, she per­se­veres, moti­vat­ed by a com­bi­na­tion of duty, mater­nal pro­tec­tive­ness, and per­haps a hope­ful glimpse of his ref­or­ma­tion.

Despite the emo­tion­al toll, Helen remains deter­mined to ful­fill her respon­si­bil­i­ties, simul­ta­ne­ous­ly ensur­ing the well­be­ing of their son, lit­tle Arthur, by keep­ing him close­ly guard­ed from the neg­a­tive influ­ences with­in the house­hold. She con­sid­ers request­ing help from Esther Har­grave to care for her son should Arthur’s con­di­tion wors­en.

Gilbert is moved by Helen’s com­mit­ment and sac­ri­fices, refram­ing his per­spec­tive on her actions. The chap­ter clos­es with him ask­ing Lawrence if he can keep Helen’s let­ter, not­ing that she has made no men­tion of him, which reflects her com­plete immer­sion in her imme­di­ate respon­si­bil­i­ties and her efforts to shield her per­son­al life from oth­ers, includ­ing Gilbert, whom she once con­sid­ered close.