In Chap­ter 7 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” the nar­ra­tive shifts between sig­nif­i­cant char­ac­ter inter­ac­tions and the inter­nal con­flicts of Lis­beth Salan­der. The chap­ter starts with a huge, blond man arriv­ing in Svavel­sjö to meet with Carl-Mag­nus Lundin, the pres­i­dent of the Svavel­sjö Motor­cy­cle Club. Their con­ver­sa­tion revolves around a large drug deal involv­ing 3,060 grams of metham­phet­a­mine, with both rec­og­niz­ing the high stakes and lucra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ty. Lundin shows a clear inter­est in the drug dis­tri­b­u­tion, know­ing the prof­itabil­i­ty and lim­it­ed risk involved due to their estab­lished rela­tion­ship. While Lundin is aware of the under­bel­ly of their busi­ness, there’s an explic­it under­stand­ing of mutu­al ben­e­fit and trust in their deal­ings, which is notable in the often chaot­ic drug trade.

The encounter takes a sin­is­ter turn as the giant requests Lundin to par­tic­i­pate in a dif­fer­ent type of task involv­ing Lis­beth Salan­der. He hands over a pho­to­graph of her and out­lines a chill­ing pro­pos­al: they want her tak­en alive and for her to dis­ap­pear with­out a trace. Lundin agrees to the job, sig­nal­ing a path­way toward impend­ing dan­ger for Salan­der.

Switch­ing gears, Salan­der vis­its her old apart­ment on Lunda­gatan, con­tem­plat­ing whether to keep or sell it. With a com­pli­cat­ed his­to­ry tied to her fam­i­ly, the space has rep­re­sent­ed secu­ri­ty, albeit an unsat­is­fac­to­ry one. Unable to shake off feel­ings of para­noia about her safe­ty and with the bur­den of her address being tied to pub­lic data­bas­es, she con­sid­ers the impli­ca­tions of her liv­ing sit­u­a­tion.

The chap­ter also delves into Salan­der’s rela­tion­ship with Mim­mi Wu, where Salan­der pro­pos­es Mim­mi take over her apart­ment. Mim­mi is ini­tial­ly skep­ti­cal but intrigued by the idea, lead­ing to a bud­ding rela­tion­ship that inter­twines friend­ship and sex­u­al ten­sion. As they nav­i­gate their rela­tion­ship, they share a moment of inti­ma­cy, empha­siz­ing Salander’s return­ing sense of com­fort and desire.

Through­out the chap­ter, themes of trust, betray­al, dan­ger, and human con­nec­tions are intri­cate­ly woven togeth­er, show­cas­ing the dual­i­ty of Salan­der’s life—her entan­gle­ments with crime ver­sus her per­son­al rela­tion­ships, reflect­ing the com­plex­i­ties she faces as she nav­i­gates her world.

In this chap­ter of “Their Eyes Were Watch­ing God,” Janie is depict­ed as a woman increas­ing­ly bur­dened by the pas­sage of time and the lim­i­ta­tions imposed by her mar­riage to Jody Starks. The years have drained the vital­i­ty from her spir­it, and while she sup­press­es her true emo­tions, a pro­found lone­li­ness fes­ters beneath the sur­face. Despite her rou­tines, she occa­sion­al­ly enter­tains fleet­ing dreams of escape, grap­pling with the real­iza­tion that time changes things; at thir­ty-five, she feels her life com­press into a mun­dane exis­tence filled with bro­ken dreams.

Unex­pect­ed­ly, Janie finds her­self in a moment of self-reflec­tion, observ­ing her own shad­ow engaged in the labor of the store, con­trast­ing it with her long­ing for free­dom beneath a tree. This jux­ta­po­si­tion becomes a recur­ring theme, sym­bol­iz­ing her inter­nal strug­gle. As Jody’s health dete­ri­o­rates, his demeanor shifts, and his inse­cu­ri­ty man­i­fests in crit­i­cal remarks direct­ed at Janie, often belit­tling her age and capa­bil­i­ties. His jeal­ousy explodes into ridicule, espe­cial­ly in pub­lic set­tings, where he attempts to divert atten­tion from his own fail­ing mas­culin­i­ty.

Ten­sions reach a peak in the store when Janie’s clum­si­ness with a tobac­co knife becomes a tar­get for Jody’s scorn, ignit­ing laugh­ter from oth­ers at her expense. Yet, instead of cow­er­ing, Janie con­fronts Jody, plac­ing her­self on equal foot­ing as she asserts her iden­ti­ty and chal­lenges his insults. Their argu­ment reveals lay­ers of dis­dain and acknowl­edg­ment of their ages, as she insists on rec­og­niz­ing both their real­i­ties. Jody’s reac­tion morphs into des­per­a­tion as he real­izes Janie’s chal­lenge erodes his illu­sion of mas­cu­line pow­er; he feels pub­licly humil­i­at­ed among the towns­folk.

The con­fronta­tion cul­mi­nates in a pow­er­ful moment where Jody’s sense of self-worth crum­bles, lead­ing him to strike Janie out of frus­tra­tion. This act sig­ni­fies not only his dom­i­nance but also the hol­low­ness of his author­i­ty and ambi­tion, leav­ing Janie to nav­i­gate her com­plex emo­tions in a world dom­i­nat­ed by male pow­er dynam­ics. Ulti­mate­ly, this chap­ter explores themes of iden­ti­ty, the pas­sage of time, and the com­plex­i­ties of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships with­in the con­fines of soci­etal expec­ta­tions.

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.

In Chap­ter 7 of *1984*, Win­ston reflects on the poten­tial for hope in the pro­les, the mas­sive under­class mak­ing up 85 per­cent of Ocea­ni­a’s pop­u­la­tion. He feels that true rebel­lion against the Par­ty could come from them, as they had the sheer num­bers nec­es­sary to rise up and over­throw the regime with­out the need for con­spir­a­to­r­i­al meet­ings. Win­ston is remind­ed of a moment when he wit­nessed a crowd of women in dis­tress over a short­age of cook­ing pots in a mar­ket, ini­tial­ly thrilling to the thought that they might be riot­ing against their oppres­sion. How­ev­er, he soon real­izes their anger is focused on pet­ty griev­ances rather than any broad­er rev­o­lu­tion­ary awak­en­ing.

Win­ston notes a para­dox: the pro­les are both aware of their hard­ships but lack polit­i­cal con­scious­ness to unite against their oppres­sors. The Par­ty exploits this, keep­ing the pro­les une­d­u­cat­ed and more con­cerned with day-to-day sur­vival, rather than polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy. Pro­les are believed to be nat­ur­al infe­ri­ors, and the Par­ty delib­er­ate­ly refrains from indoc­tri­nat­ing them. Agents of the Thought Police mon­i­tor them, but they are large­ly left to their own devices as long as they pro­duce and breed.

In an intro­spec­tive moment, Win­ston recalls the erad­i­cat­ed his­to­ry of the world before the Rev­o­lu­tion. He quotes a children’s text­book he had tak­en, which describes the bleak­ness of pre-Rev­o­lu­tion life full of pover­ty and cap­i­tal­ist oppression—images of “cru­el mas­ters” and “shame­less exploita­tion.” Yet, he ques­tions the truth of this his­to­ry, sus­pect­ing that much of it could be lies. He pon­ders on the stark real­i­ty he expe­ri­ences dai­ly, which stark­ly con­trasts with the Party’s claims of pros­per­i­ty and improve­ment.

As Win­ston exam­ines the social changes and purges from the past, he delves into mem­o­ries of men like Jones, Aaron­son, and Ruther­ford, who had been exe­cut­ed after hav­ing con­fessed under duress. He recalls see­ing them at the Chest­nut Tree Cafe, their spir­its bro­ken, and the insid­i­ous­ness of the tele­screen that con­stant­ly brain­washed cit­i­zens with fab­ri­cat­ed sta­tis­tics about their liv­ing con­di­tions.

Win­ston’s inter­nal bat­tle cul­mi­nates in the recog­ni­tion that the Par­ty’s manip­u­la­tion of truth extends to his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives. He grap­ples with the ter­ri­fy­ing pow­er the Par­ty holds over real­i­ty and the fear that even basic truths could evap­o­rate under its influ­ence. In a moment of clar­i­ty, he asserts that “Free­dom is the free­dom to say that two plus two make four,” acknowl­edg­ing the impor­tance of objec­tive real­i­ty in a world oth­er­wise dom­i­nat­ed by the Par­ty’s decep­tive pow­er .

In ear­ly March 1995, still rid­ing the high of their pre­vi­ous cross­bow theft, Bre­itwieser and his com­pan­ion Anne-Cather­ine embark on a ski­ing get­away, fund­ed by his grand­par­ents. Along their jour­ney, they stop at Gruyères Cas­tle, a his­toric fortress trans­formed into a muse­um, where they casu­al­ly pay for entry, con­ceal­ing their true intent. Though Bre­itwieser claims they are mere­ly sight­seers, this is a psy­cho­log­i­cal strat­e­gy to ease their anx­i­ety and avoid rais­ing sus­pi­cion.

Bre­itwieser, an art enthu­si­ast, habit­u­al­ly col­lects muse­um brochures, immers­ing him­self in art lit­er­a­ture and often remem­ber­ing com­pelling pieces from his child­hood vis­its. His trip plan­ning revolves around visu­al cues and spon­ta­neous dis­cov­ery rather than metic­u­lous coor­di­na­tion, lead­ing to impromp­tu muse­um vis­its based on curios­i­ty and the thrill of poten­tial theft. Despite his infa­mous rep­u­ta­tion for steal­ing, he admits that many vis­its yield noth­ing sub­stan­tial due to the pres­ence of guards or lack­lus­ter art­work.

In the cas­tle, he becomes enthralled by a small oil por­trait of an elder­ly woman by Chris­t­ian Wil­helm Ernst Diet­rich, feel­ing a rush akin to Stend­hal syndrome—where view­ers expe­ri­ence over­whelm­ing emo­tions in front of art. He has stud­ied this phe­nom­e­non, iden­ti­fy­ing it in him­self and feel­ing less iso­lat­ed because of it. While art serves as his drug of choice, crit­ics dis­miss his claims, label­ing him mere­ly a thief rather than rec­og­niz­ing his deep appre­ci­a­tion for art.

Fol­low­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal assess­ment by Michel Schmidt, who sees Bre­itwieser as a men­ace but acknowl­edges his selec­tive nature regard­ing stolen items, it becomes clear that Bre­itwieser believes his actions stem from a gen­uine love for art, not klep­to­ma­nia. Defi­ant­ly, he argues that the author­i­ties don’t com­pre­hend the emo­tion­al weight of art as he does.

In the tur­ret of the cas­tle, a lone Diet­rich por­trait cap­ti­vates him. Real­iz­ing the secu­ri­ty is lax, he shares a know­ing glance with Anne-Cather­ine, who sup­ports his deci­sion to steal. Using a car key along­side his Swiss Army knife, he deft­ly extracts the art­work, con­ceal­ing it beneath his jack­et. After a brief, tri­umphant exit, the cou­ple trans­ports their prize in a suit­case before head­ing off to ski, mark­ing their first art theft togeth­er and deep­en­ing their bond through shared illic­it thrills.

Frank arrives at Super­cuts after hours, des­per­ate to see Vicky, despite know­ing it’s closed. With his Jeep on fumes and feel­ing the pres­sure of the moment, he runs into a strip mall. Out­side, kids skate­board while he fran­ti­cal­ly knocks on the locked door. Vicky ini­tial­ly ignores him, sug­gest­ing he return in the morn­ing. Frank insists he needs to speak with her—there’s some­thing seri­ous regard­ing Mag­gie that he must explain. Despite her cor­po­rate pol­i­cy adher­ence, Frank reveals urgency, admit­ting he can’t go home and needs help, which final­ly grabs her atten­tion.

As skate­board­ers start to pay atten­tion to the com­mo­tion, Frank reas­sures them he isn’t in need of police involve­ment, hav­ing already spo­ken to his sis­ter who is safe with Abi­gail at a hotel. He appeals to Vicky by show­ing her a hard dri­ve, promis­ing that once she hears what’s on it, things will make sense. Intrigued, Vicky unwinds from her aloof­ness, using her keys to let him in while secur­ing the salon behind him. Their vin­tage com­put­er is slow, but he con­nects the hard dri­ve and opens a file filled with cryp­tic names lead­ing to an audio con­ver­sa­tion.

The first record­ing that plays reveals a dis­cus­sion between Aidan, Mag­gie, and oth­ers regard­ing a struc­tured rela­tion­ship plan. Con­fu­sion quick­ly sets in as Vicky real­izes the impli­ca­tions of the con­tent they are lis­ten­ing to, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing Aidan’s con­nec­tion to Mag­gie. As they sift through the record­ings, Frank reveals a com­plex web of inter­per­son­al rela­tion­ships and emo­tion­al strug­gle inter­twined with secre­cy. Vicky push­es Frank for expla­na­tions, urg­ing him to pro­vide con­text, par­tic­u­lar­ly about the tumul­tuous dynam­ics hint­ed with­in the tapes.

Their ses­sion is tense, leav­ing both char­ac­ters on edge, with Frank promis­ing to divulge every­thing soon. The chap­ter high­lights intense emo­tions and the weight of the com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ships as they dig deep­er into the hid­den con­ver­sa­tions that threat­en to unrav­el mul­ti­ple lives.

In this chap­ter, the pro­tag­o­nist reflects on the after­math of a trag­ic event that occurred dur­ing what was sup­posed to be a joy­ous wed­ding. He recounts how two police offi­cers took his state­ment, their dis­in­ter­est appar­ent as they rushed through the process and showed more inter­est in align­ing his account with oth­ers than in his feel­ings. Leav­ing the once-bustling scene of the recep­tion, he returns to an emp­ty cot­tage, a stark con­trast to the live­ly cel­e­bra­tions that had filled the area just hours before.

Upon chang­ing out of his tuxe­do and into more com­fort­able clothes for the long dri­ve ahead, he dis­cov­ers a mani­la enve­lope con­tain­ing ten one-hun­dred-dol­lar bills. This mys­te­ri­ous gift from Aidan sur­pris­es him; he doubts its effec­tive­ness as a form of pro­tec­tion, feel­ing angered and con­fused about its pur­pose, espe­cial­ly giv­en that all of the bills are old, hint­ing at a secre­tive ori­gin.

As he makes his way to Osprey Lodge, he encoun­ters police offi­cers tak­ing left­over food home, their embar­rass­ment evi­dent in their demeanor. In the liv­ing room, he finds Tam­my and Mag­gie, who abrupt­ly stop their con­ver­sa­tion upon his arrival. The once-promis­ing wed­ding is now over­shad­owed by death and loss; the pro­tag­o­nist tries to con­vince Mag­gie to leave, empha­siz­ing the stark real­i­ty that with­out the mar­riage, she has no claim to any­thing, not even the prenup. This truth seems hard for her to accept.

After an emo­tion­al­ly charged exchange, Mag­gie insists on stay­ing longer to dis­cuss mat­ters with Errol, prompt­ing con­cern in the pro­tag­o­nist that Maggie’s ties to the Gard­ner fam­i­ly might keep her trapped. Despite his emo­tion­al exhaus­tion, he must ensure the safe­ty of his daugh­ter, Abi­gail. He learns Abi­gail has gone miss­ing and search­es des­per­ate­ly for her.

Even­tu­al­ly, he finds her alone in the Globe, where the final rem­nants of the wed­ding linger. Abi­gail, adorned with a daisy crown, is deeply affect­ed by the events, embody­ing the grief of loss and dis­ap­point­ment in her child­like way. They sit togeth­er, shar­ing in their sad­ness, and despite his own strug­gles, he com­forts her, affirm­ing that leav­ing will help them heal.

As the sun sets, he encour­ages her to leave with him, promis­ing that each sub­se­quent day will feel a bit less painful. Abi­gail’s reluc­tance to leave is over­come as he car­ries her, fos­ter­ing a bond of reas­sur­ance while they walk back to camp, nav­i­gat­ing their shared loss amidst the fad­ing echoes of the wed­ding.

When I left the trail­er, Brody noticed my limp and sug­gest­ed I take the access road to the high­way instead of climb­ing out of the gorge, which I appre­ci­at­ed. The longer route delayed my arrival at my par­ents’ restau­rant until near­ly two o’clock. As I was back­ing out, my friend the bar­tender waved at me. I was relieved not to have to explain my pres­ence there.

Upon arriv­ing at Osprey Cove, I encoun­tered a line of vehi­cles as guests arrived for the wed­ding. The secu­ri­ty team was check­ing IDs, but for­tu­nate­ly, Hugo rec­og­nized me and urged me out of my Jeep, men­tion­ing that Mar­garet had been look­ing for me. I felt guilty, real­iz­ing I had­n’t brought any­thing, and Hugo seemed to sense my lie about what I found in town. Our con­ver­sa­tion turned seri­ous when I inquired about Gwendolyn—a girl asso­ci­at­ed with a recent death. Hugo shared that the police dis­cov­ered xylazine, a dan­ger­ous ani­mal tran­quil­iz­er, in her belong­ings, indi­cat­ing some­thing trou­bling hap­pened.

Despite the fes­tive atmos­phere with guests rev­el­ing and cel­e­brat­ing, I could­n’t for­get the under­ly­ing tragedy. As I walked to the lodge, I ran into Minh from Bab­son Col­lege, Mag­gie’s old room­mate. Their friend­ship had me rem­i­nisc­ing about Mag­gie’s col­lege years and the dif­fi­cul­ties she faced dur­ing a scan­dal. Minh was opti­mistic about Mag­gie’s future, but I was filled with concern—an unset­tling feel­ing that some­thing was awry.

My sis­ter Tam­my shared their enjoy­able after­noon activ­i­ties, includ­ing water­ski­ing with Errol Gard­ner. She also revealed the sur­pris­ing news that Errol gift­ed her a sub­stan­tial amount of stock as a wed­ding present. Just as the excite­ment was build­ing, I spot­ted Mag­gie emerg­ing from the cot­tage with lemon­ade. I asked for a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion, stress­ing its impor­tance.

When I shared that I had met Dawn’s fam­i­ly, Mag­gie’s reac­tion was imme­di­ate; she seemed tak­en aback. I noticed how emo­tions esca­lat­ed as I expressed my belief in their ver­sion of events. I paint­ed a pic­ture of hid­den dan­gers around her fiancé, Aidan, and the ongo­ing mys­ter­ies sur­round­ing Gwendolyn’s death. Despite my con­cerns, Mag­gie held her ground, insist­ing every­thing was fine, and I pushed back, sug­gest­ing she recon­sid­er her sit­u­a­tion.

In a moment of ten­sion, Mag­gie remem­bered the pho­to she had, explain­ing how an intern noticed an anom­aly in it—Aidan’s thumb appeared on the wrong side, cast­ing doubt on his inno­cence. The dis­cov­ery added weight to my sus­pi­cions, lead­ing to a com­pli­cat­ed fam­i­ly dynam­ic where trust and pro­tec­tion clashed.

In the chap­ter titled “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the unset­tling atmos­phere begins with Abi­gail’s ter­ri­fied screams echo­ing through the cot­tage. Frank and Tam­my rush to her room, where they find Abi­gail cor­nered in fear, point­ing at an unseen threat. Her hys­te­ria presents an unnerv­ing chal­lenge, leav­ing Frank con­cerned about her behav­ior and poten­tial out­bursts dur­ing the upcom­ing wed­ding.

Tam­my attempts to calm Abi­gail, but the child remains incon­solable, lead­ing Frank to exam­ine the room. Upon notic­ing an unex­plored clos­et door, Frank opens it, trig­ger­ing more pan­ic from Abi­gail. He dis­cov­ers what ini­tial­ly appears to be a wig but soon real­izes it is a nest of dad­dy lon­glegs, which mul­ti­ply in the dim light. A mix of fas­ci­na­tion and revul­sion fills Frank as he inad­ver­tent­ly becomes the tar­get of these flee­ing spi­ders. He snaps into action, seal­ing the clos­et and attempt­ing to reas­sure the fright­ened child while deflect­ing Tam­my’s con­cerns about the infes­ta­tion.

Deter­mined to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion with­out call­ing for pro­fes­sion­al help, Frank resorts to using his shoe to com­bat the spi­der over­load, with vivid imagery cap­tur­ing the grue­some task at hand. Once he sub­dues the creepy crawlies, he cleans the space, though the impact is far from refresh­ing. When he sug­gests that Abi­gail might still be con­vinced to return indoors, her anx­i­ety remains high, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing mat­ters.

As they dis­cuss Abi­gail’s options, Tam­my pro­pos­es that Frank and Abi­gail switch rooms to spare the lat­ter from lin­ger­ing fears. Ini­tial­ly resis­tant, Frank’s objec­tions stem from a feel­ing of enti­tle­ment to his lux­u­ri­ous accom­mo­da­tions, jux­ta­posed with Abi­gail’s trau­mat­ic past of liv­ing out­doors. Despite his insis­tence on retain­ing his room, Frank ulti­mate­ly real­izes that log­ic and com­pas­sion must pre­vail for Abigail’s sake.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Frank reluc­tant­ly acknowl­edg­ing Tammy’s view­point, cul­mi­nat­ing in his frus­trat­ed accep­tance of the room swap as a nec­es­sary com­pro­mise that pri­or­i­tizes Abi­gail’s com­fort over his own pref­er­ences. The sce­nario not only high­lights the ten­sion between the char­ac­ters but also address­es deep­er themes of care, child­hood trau­ma, and the sac­ri­fices nec­es­sary in rela­tion­ships.

On a Sun­day morn­ing, the pro­tag­o­nist, Frankie, returns home to Penn­syl­va­nia and finds an ele­gant wed­ding invi­ta­tion from the Gard­ners, invit­ing him to the wed­ding of their son Aidan to Mag­gie, Frank’s daugh­ter. Imme­di­ate­ly, he receives a call from his sis­ter, Tam­my, who excit­ed­ly sings about the wed­ding and wants to know if things have improved between Frank and Mag­gie. Although she wants to hear about Frank’s recent din­ner with Aidan, he is pre­oc­cu­pied with a mys­te­ri­ous black bag he dis­cov­ered in Aidan’s toi­let tank, sus­pect­ing it might con­tain cash.

As they dis­cuss Aidan, Frank shares his uncer­tain­ty about the young man, describ­ing him as polite but qui­et, while Tam­my insists he’s a good match for Mag­gie, even com­par­ing him favor­ably to her past rela­tion­ships. Although Frank hopes to learn more about Aidan, he admits to being intim­i­dat­ed by Aidan’s suc­cess and the Gard­ners’ sta­tus, which makes him feel like an out­sider.

Tam­my reveals that she asked Mag­gie about a prenup­tial agree­ment and learns that they have one, which ensures an equal divi­sion of assets in the event of divorce. This dis­cov­ery sur­pris­es Frank, as he feels unpre­pared for such a seri­ous com­mit­ment so soon in their rela­tion­ship. Still, Tam­my insists he should sup­port his daughter’s deci­sion whole­heart­ed­ly.

Con­cerned about mak­ing a con­tri­bu­tion to the wed­ding, Frank decides he wants to cov­er the alco­hol expens­es, esti­mat­ing it to be between $5,600 to $8,000. Mag­gie is resis­tant, believ­ing Errol Gard­ner, Aidan’s father, wouldn’t accept such help because of Frank’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. Deter­mined, Frank asks for Errol’s num­ber, and despite Mag­gie’s hes­i­ta­tion, she even­tu­al­ly agrees.

When Errol calls Frank, they bond over base­ball, bol­ster­ing Frank’s con­fi­dence. The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to the wed­ding, and Frank express­es his desire to cov­er the bar tab. They engage in a play­ful nego­ti­a­tion, ulti­mate­ly set­tling on an $8,000 con­tri­bu­tion. Feel­ing a sense of pride, Frank under­stands that this finan­cial ges­ture is not just about mon­ey but a sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment in his daughter’s future .

In Chap­ter 7, the pro­tag­o­nist endures a tor­tur­ous four days marked by the oppres­sive atmos­phere of forced labor, while a pro­found anguish gnaws at him regard­ing his fam­i­ly’s fate. The island where he is con­fined feels des­o­late, with lit­tle to occu­py his thoughts beyond fish­ing, sleep­ing, and writ­ing as a means to grap­ple with his own nar­ra­tive sur­round­ed by the haunt­ing mem­o­ry of vio­lence suf­fered by his wife, Katie, and the per­pet­u­al threat to his daugh­ter. His anger sim­mers, par­tic­u­lar­ly direct­ed at the over­seer, Hop­kins, who rep­re­sents the cru­el­ty inflict­ed upon them.

One fate­ful morn­ing, the pro­tag­o­nist seizes an unex­pect­ed oppor­tu­ni­ty when he observes Hop­kins, left behind by a group of white men, drunk­en­ly singing by a fire. Draw­ing upon a qui­et deter­mi­na­tion, he approach­es the over­seer, whose vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is enhanced by intox­i­ca­tion. Engag­ing him in dia­logue, he clev­er­ly manip­u­lates Hop­kins’ fear and attempts to regain some pow­er, reveal­ing the under­ly­ing dynam­ics of their rela­tion­ship as he takes the over­seer’s pis­tol and bran­dish­es it as a means of con­trol.

As he encir­cles Hop­kins in a threat­en­ing embrace, the pro­tag­o­nist unleash­es a tor­rent of pent-up rage, forc­ing the over­seer to con­front the bru­tal real­i­ty of his actions towards women like Katie. The inten­si­ty esca­lates as he squeezes tight­ly, plung­ing Hop­kins deep­er into fear and sub­mis­sion. The dynam­ic shifts as the pro­tag­o­nist rev­els in the notion of agency over his oppres­sor, rel­ish­ing the moment of vio­lent ret­ri­bu­tion that he feels is long over­due.

Dur­ing this vio­lent con­fronta­tion, Hop­kins strug­gles and ulti­mate­ly suc­cumbs to the over­whelm­ing pres­sure. The pro­tag­o­nist inter­spers­es ques­tions about the overseer’s heinous acts against women, invok­ing the fear and suf­fer­ing he inflict­ed upon Katie. As the ten­sion reach­es a fever pitch, the over­seer’s con­di­tion dete­ri­o­rates, cul­mi­nat­ing in a silent defeat. The pro­tag­o­nist, indif­fer­ent to the overseer’s fate, drags him to a canoe, where he des­e­crates it fur­ther before send­ing it adrift into the riv­er, sym­bol­iz­ing a final act of defi­ance against his tor­men­tor and a small reclaim­ing of agency amidst a trans­for­ma­tive real­iza­tion of his own pow­er.

In Chap­ter 7, the mood is somber as Sam­my is buried at night, amidst the rain. The nar­ra­tor reflects on the weight of loss as they pat the grave just as the rain ceas­es, reveal­ing a cres­cent moon. Cold­ness sets in, prompt­ing a con­cern over their wet clothes and a search for shel­ter from the wind. Nor­man reveals he has Daniel Emmett’s leather note­book, which has sur­vived the rain but is soaked. As they pon­der their next move, the grave of the deceased girl remains a haunt­ing reminder of their grim sit­u­a­tion.

Deter­mined to escape, the nar­ra­tor pro­pos­es mov­ing south to find an unat­tend­ed canoe to steal, despite Nor­man’s hes­i­ta­tion regard­ing the con­se­quences of theft. The plan is to head in the direc­tion oppo­site to where they believe the hunters are search­ing for them. They con­fi­dent­ly believe that stolen boats can be found left by care­less own­ers along the riv­er. As mid­day approach­es, they cau­tious­ly approach the river­bank, where they spot a trot­line and a tied skiff, which the nar­ra­tor clev­er­ly decides to steal under the cov­er of dark­ness after suc­cess­ful­ly catch­ing fish for sus­te­nance.

As dusk falls, they pre­pare to take the boat and craft pad­dles with lim­it­ed resources. When they final­ly set off in the skiff, the ten­sion height­ens due to the dark water and Nor­man’s fear of drown­ing, as he can­not swim. Just as they nav­i­gate the riv­er, they spot lights from an upriv­er boat, ignit­ing a risky plan to pad­dle toward it in hopes of stow­ing away.

As the river­boat approach­es, the inten­si­ty of the moment cul­mi­nates in fran­tic action. The nar­ra­tor, nav­i­gat­ing the cur­rent, man­ages to tie their skiff to the stern-wheel­er and urges Nor­man to climb aboard amid the tumult. Chaos ensues as they face the force of the river­boat’s wake, and the skiff is ulti­mate­ly destroyed. They make it to the deck of the ves­sel, phys­i­cal­ly exhaust­ed and ter­ri­fied, sur­round­ed by an obliv­i­ous crowd above. The pal­pa­ble ten­sion peaks as they con­tem­plate their hid­den fate against the back­drop of their chaot­ic escape. The chap­ter con­cludes with them find­ing a place to hide as oth­ers inves­ti­gate the wreck­age of their boat, empha­siz­ing their pre­car­i­ous new real­i­ty.

In Chap­ter 7 of the nar­ra­tive, Jim dis­cuss­es his recent ill­ness, which kept him bedrid­den for a cou­ple of days. As he recov­ers, his appetite returns, aid­ed by a sparse diet of cat­fish and berries. With a new­found strength, he sets out with Huck to catch a rab­bit, and suc­cess­ful­ly does so, cel­e­brat­ing what Jim calls a “real feast.” Their con­ver­sa­tion high­lights their bond, as Huck express­es grat­i­tude for Jim’s sur­vival, while Jim reveals his con­cern for his fam­i­ly. He wor­ries that they might be in dis­tress due to his absence and urges Huck to check on them. How­ev­er, Huck feels con­strained by the belief that he must remain hid­den, as he is believed to be dead.

Jim pro­pos­es a plan for Huck to dis­guise him­self as a girl, sug­gest­ing he wear a dress from the washed-away house to help with the ruse. Despite Huck­’s reluc­tance and doubts about his abil­i­ty to pass as a girl, Jim insists that it is nec­es­sary to ascer­tain the well­be­ing of their loved ones. They choose a sim­ple name—Mary Williams—for Huck­’s dis­guise, prompt­ing Huck to try on the dress. Although he man­ages to look some­what con­vinc­ing, his dis­com­fort and awk­ward­ness in the fem­i­nine attire leads to comedic exchanges regard­ing his pos­ture and speech.

As the chap­ter unfolds, Jim helps Huck maneu­ver a canoe to the riv­er, empha­siz­ing the changes wrought by the recent flood. Jim reflects on his new­found acqui­si­tion of paper and ink, eager to express him­self through writ­ing. This act of writ­ing becomes a sig­nif­i­cant moment for him. He care­ful­ly records his name and mus­es on his iden­ti­ty, grap­pling with the impli­ca­tions of his treat­ment as a Black man in a soci­ety steeped in racism. He crit­i­cizes the jus­ti­fi­ca­tions offered by his white cap­tors, indi­cat­ing his desire to define his own exis­tence beyond the oppres­sive nar­ra­tives imposed on him. Through his writ­ing, Jim seeks to reclaim agency, believ­ing that if his words can car­ry mean­ing, then so can his life.

Over­all, this chap­ter inter­twines themes of iden­ti­ty, free­dom, and the urgent need for con­nec­tion, as Jim and Huck nav­i­gate their com­plex real­i­ties.

In Chap­ter 7, titled “We Solve Mur­ders,” Steve Wheel­er con­tin­ues to read about mur­ders, main­tain­ing a pro­fes­sion­al inter­est despite his retire­ment. He occa­sion­al­ly spots a case that intrigues him, such as the recent mur­der of Andrew Fair­banks in South Car­oli­na, espe­cial­ly since it con­nects to his acquain­tance, Amy. Fair­banks was bru­tal­ly killed in mul­ti­ple ways, and while it piques Steve’s inter­est, he real­izes he has his own press­ing mat­ters to deal with.

Steve is inves­ti­gat­ing Mol­lie Bright, who has been steal­ing from her moth­er’s shop. Despite her tears and denials, he shows her video evi­dence of the theft, catch­ing her in a lie. As they con­verse, he learns Mol­lie is under pres­sure from a school bul­ly, Lau­ren Gough, who threat­ens her regard­ing money—a sit­u­a­tion that trou­bles Steve. He sym­pa­thizes with Mol­lie, whose hon­esty is hin­dered by intim­i­da­tion.

Their dis­cus­sion reveals Mol­lie’s strug­gles, includ­ing the sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence of social media and bul­ly­ing, mak­ing Steve reflect on parental rela­tion­ships and the pro­tec­tive instincts of a par­ent. He dis­cov­ers that Mol­lie stole the mon­ey out of fear for her well­be­ing, not mere greed.

Lat­er, Jen­ny Bright, Mol­lie’s moth­er, enters the scene, seek­ing updates on the theft. Steve informs her that there is no incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence against her staff, which brings relief to Jen­ny. He shares that he received an enve­lope of mon­ey from a client, find­ing it a mys­tery who slipped it through his let­ter­box. The sit­u­a­tion lifts the mood some­what, show­ing cama­raderie even amidst the ten­sion.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Steve’s thoughts diverge back to the unre­solved mur­der of Fair­banks, pon­der­ing the medi­a’s por­tray­al and the police’s reluc­tance to pro­vide infor­ma­tion. He recalls the sher­iff, Justin Scrog­gie, whose over­ly pol­ished demeanor makes Steve skep­ti­cal of his inves­tiga­tive abil­i­ties, sus­pect­ing that the case may not be resolved quick­ly.

Amid all this, Steve offers to let Mol­lie walk the dog he found while encour­ag­ing her. Their exchange reveals lay­ers of con­cern and com­pas­sion, as well as Steve’s intrin­sic oppo­si­tion to bul­ly­ing, leav­ing read­ers to con­tem­plate both per­son­al and soci­etal issues illus­trat­ed in this chap­ter.

In Chap­ter 7 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds in a serene yet eerie nat­ur­al set­ting, where Saint nav­i­gates through a grove filled with sway­ing trees, specif­i­cal­ly wil­lows and aspens. The imagery is vivid, as she parts the wil­low branch­es, reveal­ing roots that seem to reach out like hands urg­ing her to pro­ceed with cau­tion. The atmos­phere is filled with nos­tal­gic scents that evoke mem­o­ries, espe­cial­ly of rain-soaked after­noons spent with her friend Patch, where they would sail paper boats at a near­by con­flu­ence.

As Saint jour­neys deep­er, her mind wan­ders to Patch—reflecting on his fre­quent smiles that obscure the strug­gle beneath, stem­ming from a drawl that marks him as dif­fer­ent. His mother’s tales of pirates served to uplift his spir­its, fram­ing his unique­ness not as a bur­den but as some­thing extra­or­di­nary. How­ev­er, despite the warm mem­o­ries, the ten­sion builds with­in her as her breath quick­ens with appre­hen­sion.

Mov­ing swift­ly past the fall­en trees that mark the edge of a clear­ing, she remains vig­i­lant, her head held high as she scouts the sur­round­ings. It is only when she reach­es the foot of the val­ley that the grim real­i­ty of her search becomes appar­ent. There, she spots the T‑shirt—a stark sym­bol amidst the serene land­scape, stained with blood. This dis­cov­ery marks a piv­otal moment in the chap­ter, hint­ing at dark­er events that have tran­spired, shift­ing the tone from a nos­tal­gic remem­brance to a grim con­fronta­tion with real­i­ty.

The chap­ter jux­ta­pos­es the tran­quil­i­ty of nature with the fore­bod­ing sense of unease that sur­rounds Saint, lead­ing to a pow­er­ful cli­max that encour­ages read­ers to grap­ple with the unfold­ing mys­tery and the deep­er themes of child­hood inno­cence, friend­ship, and the inter­sec­tion of joy and sor­row.

In Chap­ter 7, the sto­ry con­tin­ues to unfold the devel­op­ing rela­tion­ship between Phoebe and Matt as they nav­i­gate the pres­sures of grad­u­ate school and their dis­ser­ta­tions. Ini­tial­ly, Phoebe and Matt, both ded­i­cat­ed to com­plet­ing their dis­ser­ta­tions, remain silent near each oth­er for two months in the grad­u­ate com­put­er lab. This tense focus is dis­rupt­ed when the pow­er goes out, leav­ing them in an unex­pect­ed moment of shared con­cern. Phoebe real­izes she may have lost her work, prompt­ing Matt to reas­sure her that every­thing would be fine, dis­play­ing his abil­i­ty to main­tain calm­ness in stress­ful sit­u­a­tions.

The atmos­phere light­ens as they engage in play­ful con­ver­sa­tion about his­tor­i­cal fig­ures and their attrac­tive­ness. Their shared laugh­ter fos­ters a con­nec­tion, reveal­ing their sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences of being mis­un­der­stood by fam­i­ly about their aca­d­e­m­ic pur­suits. Phoebe reflects on her father’s con­cerns regard­ing her ded­i­ca­tion to read­ing over social activ­i­ties, a sen­ti­ment that res­onates with her feel­ing of con­nec­tion to Matt’s per­spec­tive.

As the pow­er returns and Phoebe dis­cov­ers her work is indeed lost, she grap­ples with the pan­ic of her impend­ing dead­lines, con­trast­ing her sit­u­a­tion with Matt’s seem­ing ease and con­fi­dence in the depart­ment. She admires his stand­ing, appre­ci­at­ing how well-liked he is, while she feels less favored with­in her own depart­ment. Despite this set­back, Phoebe finds solace in Mat­t’s com­pa­ny, con­sid­er­ing the loss of her work a worth­while exchange for their bud­ding rela­tion­ship.

Their cama­raderie deep­ens over the sum­mer after fin­ish­ing their dis­ser­ta­tions, filled with fun activ­i­ties like bowl­ing nights and dri­ves along the Mis­sis­sip­pi. Phoebe’s read­ing of *Mrs. Dal­loway* draws par­al­lels between her feel­ings and the themes of love and indif­fer­ence dis­played in the book. How­ev­er, when the fall semes­ter begins, both face new chal­lenges: Phoebe with her adjunct posi­tion and Matt with his new job. As her dreams of a tenure-track posi­tion in Wis­con­sin sur­face, Phoebe finds her­self at a cross­roads, wish­ing for Matt to take charge instead of being left with the heavy weight of deci­sion-mak­ing. The chap­ter con­cludes on a hope­ful note as they share a sig­nif­i­cant moment dur­ing a solar eclipse, with Matt casu­al­ly propos­ing they get mar­ried there, sym­bol­iz­ing the nat­ur­al growth of their love.

Wait­ing ai

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Wait­ing ai

Upon descend­ing to the kitchen, the scene is one of utter chaos. Nina, in the throes of hav­oc, has dis­as­sem­bled the con­tents of the kitchen, scat­ter­ing pots, pans, and bro­ken dish­es across the floor. Amidst her fren­zied search through the refrig­er­a­tor, she launch­es a con­tain­er of milk onto the floor, cre­at­ing a milky mael­strom amidst the kitchen­ware ruins.

Her agi­ta­tion peaks upon spot­ting me, as she des­per­ate­ly inquires about the where­abouts of her miss­ing notes for the evening’s PTA meet­ing. Con­vinced they van­ished from the kitchen counter, her dis­tress is pal­pa­ble. Despite my uncer­tain­ty regard­ing their fate, I deny any knowl­edge of their dis­ap­pear­ance. My sug­ges­tions of alter­na­tive loca­tions for the notes only fuel her frus­tra­tion.

The com­mo­tion sum­mons Andrew Win­ches­ter, Nina’s hus­band, whose entrance in a suave suit con­trasts sharply with the tur­moil. Observ­ing the destruc­tion, his con­cern turns towards Nina, who accus­es me of dis­card­ing her cru­cial notes. Although I attempt to defend myself, Nina’s con­vic­tion and Andrew’s pres­ence ren­der my efforts futile.

Andrew, try­ing to mit­i­gate the dis­tress, hints at a par­tial dig­i­tal sal­va­tion of the notes, yet Nina’s dis­sat­is­fac­tion redi­rects towards me, assign­ing me the task of clean­ing the kitchen’s dev­as­ta­tion as resti­tu­tion. Seiz­ing the moment, she departs, leav­ing me to pon­der the daunt­ing cleanup ahead, a mosa­ic of kitchen­ware and dairy under­foot.

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
7
War.
The word clanged through me, freez­ing my veins.
“Don’t invade,” I breathed. I’d get on my knees for this. I’d crawl if I had
to. “Don’t invade—please.”
Rhys cocked his head, his mouth tight­en­ing. “You tru­ly think I’m a
mon­ster, even after every­thing.”
“Please,” I gasped out. “They’re defense­less, they won’t stand a chance
—”
“I’m not going to invade the mor­tal lands,” he said too qui­et­ly.
I wait­ed for him to go on, glad for the spa­cious room, the bright air, as
the ground start­ed to slide out from beneath me.
“Put your damn shield up,” he growled.
I looked inward, find­ing that invis­i­ble wall had dropped again. But I was
so tired, and if war was com­ing, if my fam­i­ly—
“Shield. Now.”
The raw com­mand in his voice—the voice of the High Lord of the Night
Court—had me act­ing on instinct, my exhaust­ed mind build­ing the wall
brick by brick. Only when it’d ensconced my mind once more did he speak,
his eyes soft­en­ing almost imper­cep­ti­bly. “Did you think it would end with
Ama­ran­tha?”
“Tam­lin hasn’t said … ” And why would he tell me? But there were so
many patrols, so many meet­ings I wasn’t allowed to attend, such … ten­sion.
He had to know. I need­ed to ask him—demand why he hadn’t told me—
“The King of Hybern has been plan­ning his cam­paign to reclaim the
world south of the wall for over a hun­dred years,” Rhys said. “Ama­ran­tha
was an experiment—a forty-nine-year test, to see how eas­i­ly and how long
a ter­ri­to­ry might fall and be con­trolled by one of his com­man­ders.”
For an immor­tal, forty-nine years was noth­ing. I wouldn’t have been
sur­prised to hear he’d been plan­ning this for far longer than a cen­tu­ry. “Will
he attack Pry­thi­an first?”
“Pry­thi­an,” Rhys said, point­ing to the map of our mas­sive island on the
table, “is all that stands between the King of Hybern and the con­ti­nent. He
wants to reclaim the human lands there—perhaps seize the faerie lands, too.
If any­one is to inter­cept his con­quer­ing fleet before it reach­es the con­ti­nent,
it would be us.”
I slid into one of the chairs, my knees wob­bling so bad­ly I could hard­ly
keep upright.
“He will seek to remove Pry­thi­an from his way swift­ly and thor­ough­ly,”
Rhys con­tin­ued. “And shat­ter the wall at some point in the process. There
are already holes in it, though mer­ci­ful­ly small enough to make it dif­fi­cult
to swift­ly pass his armies through. He’ll want to bring the whole thing
down—and like­ly use the ensu­ing pan­ic to his advan­tage.”
Each breath was like swal­low­ing glass. “When—when is he going to
attack?” The wall had held steady for five cen­turies, and even then, those
damned holes had allowed the foulest, hun­gri­est Fae beasts to sneak
through and prey on humans. With­out that wall, if Hybern was indeed to
launch an assult on the human world … I wished I hadn’t eat­en such a large
break­fast.
“That is the ques­tion,” he said. “And why I brought you here.”
I lift­ed my head to meet his stare. His face was drawn, but calm.
“I don’t know when or where he plans to attack Pry­thi­an,” Rhys went on.
“I don’t know who his allies here might be.”
“He’d have allies here?”
A slow nod. “Cow­ards who would bow and join him, rather than fight his
armies again.”
I could have sworn a whis­per of dark­ness spread along the floor behind
him. “Did … did you fight in the War?”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. But then Rhys nod­ded. “I
was young—by our stan­dards, at least. But my father had sent aid to the
mor­tal-faerie alliance on the con­ti­nent, and I con­vinced him to let me take a
legion of our sol­diers.” He sat in the chair beside mine, gaz­ing vacant­ly at
the map. “I was sta­tioned in the south, right where the fight­ing was thick­est.
The slaugh­ter was … ” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I have no
inter­est in ever see­ing full-scale slaugh­ter like that again.”
He blinked, as if clear­ing the hor­rors from his mind. “But I don’t think
the King of Hybern will strike that way—not at first. He’s too smart to
waste his forces here, to give the con­ti­nent time to ral­ly while we fight him.
If he makes his move to destroy Pry­thi­an and the wall, it’ll be through
stealth and trick­ery. To weak­en us. Ama­ran­tha was the first part of that plan.
We now have sev­er­al untest­ed High Lords, bro­ken courts with High
Priest­esses angling for con­trol like wolves around a car­cass, and a peo­ple
who have real­ized how pow­er­less they might tru­ly be.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I said, my voice thin, scratchy. It made no
sense—none—that he would reveal his sus­pi­cions, his fears.
And Ianthe—she might be ambi­tious, but she was Tamlin’s friend. My
friend, of sorts. Per­haps the only ally we’d have against the oth­er High
Priest­esses, Rhys’s per­son­al dis­like for her or no …
“I am telling you for two rea­sons,” he said, his face so cold, so calm, that
it unnerved me as much as the news he was deliv­er­ing. “One, you’re …
close to Tam­lin. He has men—but he also has long-exist­ing ties to Hybern
—”
“He’d nev­er help the king—”
Rhys held up a hand. “I want to know if Tam­lin is will­ing to fight with
us. If he can use those con­nec­tions to our advan­tage. As he and I have
strained rela­tions, you have the plea­sure of being the go-between.”
“He doesn’t inform me of those things.”
“Per­haps it’s time he did. Per­haps it’s time you insist­ed.” He exam­ined
the map, and I fol­lowed where his gaze land­ed. On the wall with­in Pry­thi­an
—on the small, vul­ner­a­ble mor­tal ter­ri­to­ry. My mouth went dry.
“What is your oth­er rea­son?”
Rhys looked me up and down, assess­ing, weigh­ing. “You have a skill set
that I need. Rumor has it you caught a Suriel.”
“It wasn’t that hard.”
“I’ve tried and failed. Twice. But that’s a dis­cus­sion for anoth­er day. I
saw you trap the Mid­den­gard Wyrm like a rab­bit.” His eyes twin­kled. “I
need you to help me. To use those skills of yours to track down what I
need.”
“What do you need? What­ev­er was tied to my read­ing and shield­ing, I’m
guess­ing?”
“You’ll learn of that lat­er.”
I didn’t know why I’d even both­ered to ask. “There have to be at least a
dozen oth­er hunters more expe­ri­enced and skilled—”
“Maybe there are. But you’re the only one I trust.”
I blinked. “I could betray you when­ev­er I feel like it.”
“You could. But you won’t.” I grit­ted my teeth, and was about to say
some­thing vicious when he added, “And then there’s the mat­ter of your
pow­ers.”
“I don’t have any pow­ers.” It came out so fast that there was no chance of
it sound­ing like any­thing but denial.
Rhys crossed his legs. “Don’t you? The strength, the speed … If I didn’t
know bet­ter, I’d say you and Tam­lin were doing a very good job of
pre­tend­ing you’re nor­mal. That the pow­ers you’re dis­play­ing aren’t usu­al­ly
the first indi­ca­tions among our kind that a High Lord’s son might become
his Heir.”
“I’m not a High Lord.”
“No, but you were giv­en life by all sev­en of us. Your very essence is tied
to us, born of us. What if we gave you more than we expect­ed?” Again, that
gaze raked over me. “What if you could stand against us—hold your own, a
High Lady?”
“There are no High Ladies.”
His brows fur­rowed, but he shook his head. “We’ll talk about that lat­er,
too. But yes, Feyre—there can be High Ladies. And per­haps you aren’t one
of them, but … what if you were some­thing sim­i­lar? What if you were able
to wield the pow­er of sev­en High Lords at once? What if you could blend
into dark­ness, or shape-shift, or freeze over an entire room—an entire
army?”
The win­ter wind on the near­by peaks seemed to howl in answer. That
thing I’d felt under my skin …
“Do you under­stand what that might mean in an oncom­ing war? Do you
under­stand how it might destroy you if you don’t learn to con­trol it?”
“One, stop ask­ing so many rhetor­i­cal ques­tions. Two, we don’t know if I
do have these pow­ers—”
“You do. But you need to start mas­ter­ing them. To learn what you
inher­it­ed from us.”
“And I sup­pose you’re the one to teach me, too? Read­ing and shield­ing
aren’t enough?”
“While you hunt with me for what I need, yes.”
I began shak­ing my head. “Tam­lin won’t allow it.”
“Tam­lin isn’t your keep­er, and you know it.”
“I’m his sub­ject, and he is my High Lord—”
“You are no one’s sub­ject.”
I went rigid at the flash of teeth, the smoke-like wings that flared out.
“I will say this once—and only once,” Rhysand purred, stalk­ing to the
map on the wall. “You can be a pawn, be someone’s reward, and spend the
rest of your immor­tal life bow­ing and scrap­ing and pre­tend­ing you’re less
than him, than Ianthe, than any of us. If you want to pick that road, then
fine. A shame, but it’s your choice.” The shad­ow of wings rip­pled again.
“But I know you—more than you real­ize, I think—and I don’t believe for
one damn minute that you’re remote­ly fine with being a pret­ty tro­phy for
some­one who sat on his ass for near­ly fifty years, then sat on his ass while
you were shred­ded apart—”
“Stop it—”
“Or,” he plowed ahead, “you’ve got anoth­er choice. You can mas­ter
what­ev­er pow­ers we gave to you, and make it count. You can play a role in
this war. Because war is com­ing one way or anoth­er, and do not try to
delude your­self that any of the Fae will give a shit about your fam­i­ly across
the wall when our whole ter­ri­to­ry is like­ly to become a char­nel house.”
I stared at the map—at Pry­thi­an, and that sliv­er of land at its south­ern
base.
“You want to save the mor­tal realm?” he asked. “Then become some­one
Pry­thi­an lis­tens to. Become vital. Become a weapon. Because there might
be a day, Feyre, when only you stand between the King of Hybern and your
human fam­i­ly. And you do not want to be unpre­pared.”
I lift­ed my gaze to him, my breath tight, aching.
As if he hadn’t just knocked the world from beneath my feet, Rhysand
said, “Think it over. Take the week. Ask Tam­lin, if it’ll make you sleep
bet­ter. See what charm­ing Ianthe says about it. But it’s your choice to make
—no one else’s.”
I didn’t see Rhysand for the rest of the week. Or Mor.
The only peo­ple I encoun­tered were Nuala and Cer­rid­wen, who deliv­ered
my meals, made my bed, and occa­sion­al­ly asked how I was far­ing.
The only evi­dence I had at all that Rhys remained on the premis­es were
the blank copies of the alpha­bet, along with sev­er­al sen­tences I was to write
every day, swap­ping out words, each one more obnox­ious than the last:
Rhysand is the most hand­some High Lord.
Rhysand is the most delight­ful High Lord.
Rhysand is the most cun­ning High Lord.
Every day, one mis­er­able sentence—with one chang­ing word of vary­ing
arro­gance and van­i­ty. And every day, anoth­er sim­ple set of instruc­tions:
shield up, shield down; shield up, shield down. Over and over and over.
How he knew if I obeyed or not, I didn’t care—but I threw myself into
my lessons, I raised and low­ered and thick­ened those men­tal shields. If only
because it was all I had to do.
My night­mares left me grog­gy, sweaty—but the room was so open, the
starlight so bright that when I’d jerk awake, I didn’t rush to the toi­let. No
walls push­ing in around me, no inky dark­ness. I knew where I was. Even if
I resent­ed being there.
The day before our week final­ly fin­ished, I was trudg­ing to my usu­al
lit­tle table, already gri­mac­ing at what delight­ful sen­tences I’d find wait­ing
and all the men­tal acro­bat­ics ahead, when Rhys’s and Mor’s voic­es float­ed
toward me.
It was a pub­lic space, so I didn’t both­er mask­ing my foot­steps as I neared
where they spoke in one of the sit­ting areas, Rhys pac­ing before the open
plunge off the moun­tain, Mor loung­ing in a cream-col­ored arm­chair.
“Azriel would want to know that,” Mor was say­ing.
“Azriel can go to hell,” Rhys sniped back. “He like­ly already knows,
any­way.”
“We played games the last time,” Mor said with a seri­ous­ness that made
me pause a healthy dis­tance away, “and we lost. Bad­ly. We’re not going to
do that again.”
“You should be work­ing,” was Rhysand’s only response. “I gave you
con­trol for a rea­son, you know.”
Mor’s jaw tight­ened, and she at last faced me. She gave me a smile that
was more of a cringe.
Rhys turned, frown­ing at me. “Say what it is you came here to say, Mor,”
he said tight­ly, resum­ing his pac­ing.
Mor rolled her eyes for my ben­e­fit, but her face turned solemn as she
said, “There was anoth­er attack—at a tem­ple in Cesere. Almost every
priest­ess slain, the trove loot­ed.”
Rhys halt­ed. And I didn’t know what to process: her news, or the utter
rage con­veyed in one word as Rhys said, “Who.”
“We don’t know,” Mor said. “Same tracks as last time: small group,
bod­ies that showed signs of wounds from large blades, and no trace of
where they came from and how they dis­ap­peared. No sur­vivors. The bod­ies
weren’t even found until a day lat­er, when a group of pil­grims came by.”
By the Caul­dron. I must have made some tiny noise, because Mor gave
me a strained, but sym­pa­thet­ic look.
Rhys, though … First the shad­ows started—plumes of them from his
back.
And then, as if his rage had loos­ened his grip on that beast he’d once told
me he hat­ed to yield to, those wings became flesh.
Great, beau­ti­ful, bru­tal wings, mem­bra­nous and clawed like a bat’s, dark
as night and strong as hell. Even the way he stood seemed altered—steadier,
ground­ed. Like some final piece of him had clicked into place. But
Rhysand’s voice was still mid­night-soft and he said, “What did Azriel have
to say about it?”
Again, that glance from Mor, as if unsure I should be present for
what­ev­er this con­ver­sa­tion was. “He’s pissed. Cass­ian even more so—he’s
con­vinced it must be one of the rogue Illyr­i­an war-bands, intent on win­ning
new ter­ri­to­ry.”
“It’s some­thing to con­sid­er,” Rhys mused. “Some of the Illyr­i­an clans
glee­ful­ly bowed to Ama­ran­tha dur­ing those years. Try­ing to expand their
bor­ders could be their way of see­ing how far they can push me and get
away with it.” I hat­ed the sound of her name, focused on it more than the
infor­ma­tion he was allow­ing me to glean.
“Cass­ian and Az are wait­ing—” She cut her­self off and gave me an
apolo­getic wince. “They’re wait­ing in the usu­al spot for your orders.”
Fine—that was fine. I’d seen that blank map on the wall. I was an
enemy’s bride. Even men­tion­ing where his forces were sta­tioned, what they
were up to, might be dan­ger­ous. I had no idea where Cesere even was—
what it was, actu­al­ly.
Rhys stud­ied the open air again, the howl­ing wind that shoved dark,
roil­ing clouds over the dis­tant peaks. Good weath­er, I real­ized, for fly­ing.
“Win­now­ing in would be eas­i­er,” Mor said, fol­low­ing the High Lord’s
gaze.
“Tell the pricks I’ll be there in a few hours,” he mere­ly said.
Mor gave me a wary grin, and van­ished.
I stud­ied the emp­ty space where she’d been, not a trace of her left behind.
“How does that … van­ish­ing work?” I said soft­ly. I’d seen only a few
High Fae do it—and no one had ever explained.
Rhys didn’t look at me, but he said, “Win­now­ing? Think of it as … two
dif­fer­ent points on a piece of cloth. One point is your cur­rent place in the
world. The oth­er one across the cloth is where you want to go. Win­now­ing
… it’s like fold­ing that cloth so the two spots align. The mag­ic does the
folding—and all we do is take a step to get from one place to anoth­er.
Some­times it’s a long step, and you can feel the dark fab­ric of the world as
you pass through it. A short­er step, let’s say from one end of the room to the
oth­er, would bare­ly reg­is­ter. It’s a rare gift, and a help­ful one. Though only
the stronger Fae can do it. The more pow­er­ful you are, the far­ther you can
jump between places in one go.”
I knew the expla­na­tion was as much for my ben­e­fit as it was to dis­tract
him­self. But I found myself say­ing, “I’m sor­ry about the temple—and the
priest­esses.”
The wrath still glim­mered in those eyes as he at last turned to me. “Plen­ty
more peo­ple are going to die soon enough, any­way.”
Maybe that was why he’d allowed me to get close, to over­hear this
con­ver­sa­tion. To remind me of what might very well hap­pen with Hybern.
“What are … ‚” I tried. “What are Illyr­i­an war-bands?”
“Arro­gant bas­tards, that’s what,” he mut­tered.
I crossed my arms, wait­ing.
Rhys stretched his wings, the sun­light set­ting the leath­ery tex­ture
glow­ing with sub­tle col­or. “They’re a war­rior-race with­in my lands. And
gen­er­al pains in my ass.”
“Some of them sup­port­ed Ama­ran­tha?”
Dark­ness danced in the hall as that dis­tant storm grew close enough to
smoth­er the sun. “Some. But me and mine have enjoyed our­selves hunt­ing
them down these past few months. And end­ing them.”
Slow­ly was the word he didn’t need to add.
“That’s why you stayed away—you were busy with that?”
“I was busy with many things.”
Not an answer. But it seemed he was done talk­ing to me, and who­ev­er
Cass­ian and Azriel were, meet­ing with them was far more impor­tant.
So Rhys didn’t as much as say good-bye before he sim­ply walked off the
edge of the veranda—into thin air.
My heart stopped dead, but before I could cry out, he swept past, swift as
the wicked wind between the peaks. A few boom­ing wing beats had him
van­ish­ing into the storm clouds.
“Good-bye to you, too,” I grum­bled, giv­ing him a vul­gar ges­ture, and
start­ed my work for the day, with only the storm rag­ing beyond the house’s
shield for com­pa­ny.
Even as snow lashed the pro­tec­tive mag­ic of the hall, even as I toiled
over the sentences—Rhysand is inter­est­ing; Rhysand is gor­geous; Rhysand
is flawless—and raised and low­ered my men­tal shield until my mind was
limp­ing, I thought of what I’d heard, what they’d said.
I won­dered what Ianthe would know about the mur­ders, if she knew any
of the vic­tims. Knew what Cesere was. If tem­ples were being tar­get­ed, she
should know. Tam­lin should know.
That final night, I could bare­ly sleep—half from relief, half from ter­ror
that per­haps Rhysand real­ly did have some final, nasty sur­prise in store. But
the night and the storm passed, and when dawn broke, I was dressed before
the sun had ful­ly risen.
I’d tak­en to eat­ing in my rooms, but I swept up the stairs, head­ing across
that mas­sive open area, to the table at the far veran­da.
Sprawled in his usu­al chair, Rhys was in the same clothes as yes­ter­day,
the col­lar of his black jack­et unbut­toned, the shirt as rum­pled as his hair. No
wings, for­tu­nate­ly. I won­dered if he’d just returned from wher­ev­er he’d met
Mor and the oth­ers. Won­dered what he’d learned.
“It’s been a week,” I said by way of greet­ing. “Take me home.”
Rhys took a long sip of what­ev­er was in his cup. It didn’t look like tea.
“Good morn­ing, Feyre.”
“Take me home.”
He stud­ied my teal and gold clothes, a vari­a­tion of my dai­ly attire. If I
had to admit, I didn’t mind them. “That col­or suits you.”
“Do you want me to say please? Is that it?”
“I want you to talk to me like a per­son. Start with ‘good morn­ing’ and
let’s see where it gets us.”
“Good morn­ing.”
A faint smile. Bas­tard. “Are you ready to face the con­se­quences of your
depar­ture?”
I straight­ened. I hadn’t thought about the wed­ding. All week, yes, but
today … today I’d only thought of Tam­lin, of want­i­ng to see him, hold him,
ask him about every­thing Rhys had claimed. Dur­ing the past sev­er­al days, I
hadn’t shown any signs of the pow­er Rhysand believed I had, hadn’t felt
any­thing stir­ring beneath my skin—and thank the Caul­dron.
“It’s none of your busi­ness.”
“Right. You’ll prob­a­bly ignore it, any­way. Sweep it under the rug, like
every­thing else.”
“No one asked for your opin­ion, Rhysand.”
“Rhysand?” He chuck­led, low and soft. “I give you a week of lux­u­ry and
you call me Rhysand?”
“I didn’t ask to be here, or be giv­en that week.”
“And yet look at you. Your face has some color—and those marks under
your eyes are almost gone. Your men­tal shield is stel­lar, by the way.”
“Please take me home.”
He shrugged and rose. “I’ll tell Mor you said good-bye.”
“I bare­ly saw her all week.” Just that first meeting—then that
con­ver­sa­tion yes­ter­day. When we hadn’t exchanged two words.
“She was wait­ing for an invitation—she didn’t want to pester you. I wish
she extend­ed me the same cour­tesy.”
“No one told me.” I didn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly care. No doubt she had bet­ter
things to do, any­way.
“You didn’t ask. And why both­er? Bet­ter to be mis­er­able and alone.” He
approached, each step smooth, grace­ful. His hair was def­i­nite­ly ruf­fled, as if
he’d been drag­ging his hands through it. Or just fly­ing for hours to
what­ev­er secret spot. “Have you thought about my offer?”
“I’ll let you know next month.”
He stopped a hand’s breadth away, his gold­en face tight. “I told you once,
and I’ll tell you again,” he said. “I am not your ene­my.”
“And I told you once, so I’ll tell you again. You’re Tamlin’s ene­my. So I
sup­pose that makes you mine.”
“Does it?”
“Free me from my bar­gain and let’s find out.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Can’t, or won’t?”
He just extend­ed his hand. “Shall we go?”
I near­ly lunged for it. His fin­gers were cool, sturdy—callused from
weapons I’d nev­er seen on him.
Dark­ness gob­bled us up, and it was instinct to grab him as the world
van­ished from beneath my feet. Win­now­ing indeed. Wind tore at me, and
his arm was a warm, heavy weight across my back while we tum­bled
through realms, Rhys snick­er­ing at my ter­ror.
But then sol­id ground—flagstones—were under me, then blind­ing
sun­shine above, green­ery, lit­tle birds chirp­ing—
I shoved away from him, blink­ing at the bright­ness, at the mas­sive oak
hunched over us. An oak at the edge of the for­mal gardens—of home.
I made to bolt for the manor house, but Rhys gripped my wrist. His eyes
flashed between me and the manor. “Good luck,” he crooned.
“Get your hand off me.”
He chuck­led, let­ting go.
“I’ll see you next month,” he said, and before I could spit on him, he
van­ished.
I found Tam­lin in his study, Lucien and two oth­er sen­tries stand­ing around
the map-cov­ered work­table.
Lucien was the first to turn to where I lurked in the door­way, falling
silent mid-sen­tence. But then Tamlin’s head snapped up, and he was rac­ing
across the room, so fast that I hard­ly had time to draw breath before he was
crush­ing me against him.
I mur­mured his name as my throat burned, and then—
Then he was hold­ing me at arm’s length, scan­ning me from head to toe.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I said, notic­ing the exact moment when he real­ized the Night
Court clothes I was wear­ing, the strip of bare skin exposed at my midriff.
“No one touched me.”
But he kept scour­ing my face, my neck. And then he rotat­ed me,
exam­in­ing my back, as if he could dis­cern through the clothes. I tore out of
his grip. “I said no one touched me.”
He was breath­ing hard, his eyes wild. “You’re all right,” he said. And
then said it again. And again.
My heart cracked, and I reached to cup his cheek. “Tam­lin,” I mur­mured.
Lucien and the oth­er sen­tries, wise­ly, made their exit. My friend caught my
gaze as he left, giv­ing me a relieved smile.
“He can harm you in oth­er ways,” Tam­lin croaked, clos­ing his eyes
against my touch.
“I know—but I’m all right. I tru­ly am,” I said as gen­tly as I could. And
then noticed the study walls—the claw marks raked down them. All over
them. And the table they’d been using … that was new. “You trashed the
study.”
“I trashed half the house,” he said, lean­ing for­ward to press his brow to
mine. “He took you away, he stole you—”
“And left me alone.”
Tam­lin pulled back, growl­ing. “Prob­a­bly to get you to drop your guard.
You have no idea what games he plays, what he’s capa­ble of doing—”
“I know,” I said, even as it tast­ed like ash on my tongue. “And the next
time, I’ll be care­ful—”
“There won’t be a next time.”
I blinked. “You found a way out?” Or per­haps Ianthe had.
“I’m not let­ting you go.”
“He said there were con­se­quences for break­ing a mag­i­cal bar­gain.”
“Damn the con­se­quences.” But I heard it for the emp­ty threat it was—
and how much it destroyed him. That was who he was, what he was:
pro­tec­tor, defend­er. I couldn’t ask him to stop being that way—to stop
wor­ry­ing about me.
I rose onto my toes and kissed him. There was so much I want­ed to ask
him, but—later. “Let’s go upstairs,” I said onto his lips, and he slid his arms
around me.
“I missed you,” he said between kiss­es. “I went out of my mind.”
That was all I need­ed to hear. Until—
“I need to ask you some ques­tions.”
I let out a low sound of affir­ma­tion, but angled my head fur­ther. “Lat­er.”
His body was so warm, so hard against mine, his scent so famil­iar—
Tam­lin gripped my waist, press­ing his brow to my own. “No—now,” he
said, but groaned soft­ly as I slid my tongue against his teeth. “While … ”
He pulled back, rip­ping his mouth from mine. “While it’s all fresh in your
mind.”
I froze, one hand tan­gled in his hair, the oth­er grip­ping the back of his
tunic. “What?”
Tam­lin stepped back, shak­ing his head as if to clear the desire addling his
sens­es. We hadn’t been apart for so long since Ama­ran­tha, and he want­ed to
press me for infor­ma­tion about the Night Court? “Tam­lin.”
But he held up a hand, his eyes locked on mine as he called for Lucien.
In the moments that it took for his emis­sary to appear, I straight­ened my
clothes—the top that had rid­den up my torso—and fin­ger-combed my hair.
Tam­lin just strode to his desk and plopped down, motion­ing for me to take a
seat in front of it. “I’m sor­ry,” he said qui­et­ly, as Lucien’s strolling foot­steps
neared again. “This is for our own good. Our safe­ty.”
I took in the shred­ded walls, the scuffed and chipped fur­ni­ture. What
night­mares had he suf­fered, wak­ing and asleep, while I was away? What
had it been like, to imag­ine me in his enemy’s hands, after see­ing what
Ama­ran­tha had done to me?
“I know,” I mur­mured at last. “I know, Tam­lin.” Or I was try­ing to know.
I’d just slid into the low-backed chair when Lucien strode in, shut­ting the
door behind him. “Glad to see you in one piece, Feyre,” he said, claim­ing
the seat beside me. “I could do with­out the Night Court attire, though.”
Tam­lin gave a low growl of agree­ment. I said noth­ing. Yet I under­stood
—I real­ly did—why it’d be an affront to them.
Tam­lin and Lucien exchanged glances, speak­ing with­out utter­ing a word
in that way only peo­ple who had been part­ners for cen­turies could do.
Lucien gave a slight nod and leaned back in his chair—to lis­ten, to observe.
“We need you to tell us every­thing,” Tam­lin said. “The lay­out of the
Night Court, who you saw, what weapons and pow­ers they bore, what Rhys
did, who he spoke to, any and every detail you can recall.”
“I didn’t real­ize I was a spy.”
Lucien shift­ed in his seat, but Tam­lin said, “As much as I hate your
bar­gain, you’ve been grant­ed access into the Night Court. Out­siders rarely
get to go in—and if they do, they rarely come out in one piece. And if they
can func­tion, their mem­o­ries are usu­al­ly … scram­bled. What­ev­er Rhysand
is hid­ing in there, he doesn’t want us know­ing about it.”
A chill slith­ered down my spine. “Why do you want to know? What are
you going to do?”
“Know­ing my enemy’s plans, his lifestyle, is vital. As for what we’re
going to do … That’s nei­ther here nor there.” His green eyes pinned me.
“Start with the lay­out of the court. Is it true it’s under a moun­tain?”
“This feels an awful lot like an inter­ro­ga­tion.”
Lucien sucked in a breath, but remained silent.
Tam­lin spread his hands on the desk. “We need to know these things,
Feyre. Or—or can you not remem­ber?” Claws glint­ed at his knuck­les.
“I can remem­ber every­thing,” I said. “He didn’t dam­age my mind.” And
before he could ques­tion me fur­ther, I began to speak of all that I had seen.
Because I trust you, Rhysand had said. And maybe—maybe he had
scram­bled my mind, even with the lessons in shield­ing, because describ­ing
the lay­out of his home, his court, the moun­tains around them, felt like
bathing in oil and mud. He was my ene­my, he was hold­ing me to a bar­gain
I’d made from pure des­per­a­tion—
I kept talk­ing, describ­ing that tow­er room. Tam­lin grilled me on the
fig­ures on the maps, mak­ing me turn over every word Rhysand had uttered,
until I men­tioned what had weighed on me the most this past week: the
pow­ers Rhys believed I now pos­sessed … and Hybern’s plans. I told him
about that con­ver­sa­tion with Mor—about that tem­ple being sacked (Cesere,
Tam­lin explained, was a north­ern out­post in the Night Court, and one of the
few known towns), and Rhysand men­tion­ing two peo­ple named Cass­ian
and Azriel. Both of their faces had tight­ened at that, but they didn’t men­tion
if they knew them, or of them. So I told him about what­ev­er the Illyr­i­ans
were—and how Rhys had hunt­ed down and killed the trai­tors amongst
them. When I fin­ished, Tam­lin was silent, Lucien prac­ti­cal­ly buzzing with
what­ev­er repressed words he was dying to spew.
“Do you think I might have those abil­i­ties?” I said, will­ing myself to hold
his gaze.
“It’s pos­si­ble,” Tam­lin said with equal qui­et. “And if it’s true … ”
Lucien said at last, “It’s a pow­er oth­er High Lords might kill for.” It was
an effort not to fid­get while his met­al eye whirred, as if detect­ing what­ev­er
pow­er ran through my blood. “My father, for one, would not be pleased to
learn a drop of his pow­er is missing—or that Tamlin’s bride now has it.
He’d do any­thing to make sure you don’t pos­sess it—including kill you.
There are oth­er High Lords who would agree.”
That thing beneath my skin began roil­ing. “I’d nev­er use it against
any­one—”
“It’s not about using it against them; it’s about hav­ing an edge when you
shouldn’t,” Tam­lin said. “And the moment word gets out about it, you will
have a tar­get on your back.”
“Did you know?” I demand­ed. Lucien wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Did you
sus­pect?”
“I’d hoped it wasn’t true,” Tam­lin said care­ful­ly. “And now that Rhys
sus­pects, there’s no telling what he’ll do with the infor­ma­tion—”
“He wants me to train.” I wasn’t stu­pid enough to men­tion the men­tal
shield training—not right now.
“Train­ing would draw too much atten­tion,” Tam­lin said. “You don’t need
to train. I can guard you from what­ev­er comes our way.”
For there had been a time when he could not. When he had been
vul­ner­a­ble, and when he had watched me be tor­tured to death. And could do
noth­ing to stop Ama­ran­tha from—
I would not allow anoth­er Ama­ran­tha. I would not allow the King of
Hybern to bring his beasts and min­ions here to hurt more peo­ple. To hurt
me and mine. And bring down that wall to hurt count­less oth­ers across it. “I
could use my pow­ers against Hybern.”
“That’s out of the ques­tion,” Tam­lin said, “espe­cial­ly as there will be no
war against Hybern.”
“Rhys says war is inevitable, and we’ll be hit hard.”
Lucien said dri­ly, “And Rhys knows every­thing?”
“No—but … He was con­cerned. He thinks I can make a dif­fer­ence in any
upcom­ing con­flict.”
Tam­lin flexed his fingers—keeping those claws con­tained. “You have no
train­ing in bat­tle or weapon­ry. And even if I start­ed train­ing you today, it’d
be years before you could hold your own on an immor­tal bat­tle­field.” He
took a tight breath. “So despite what he thinks you might be able to do,
Feyre, I’m not going to have you any­where near a bat­tle­field. Espe­cial­ly if
it means reveal­ing what­ev­er pow­ers you have to our ene­mies. You’d be
fight­ing Hybern at your front, and have foes with friend­ly faces at your
back.”
“I don’t care—”
“I care,” Tam­lin snarled. Lucien whooshed out a breath. “I care if you
die, if you’re hurt, if you will be in dan­ger every moment for the rest of our
lives. So there will be no train­ing, and we’re going to keep this between
us.”
“But Hybern—”
Lucien inter­vened calm­ly, “I already have my sources look­ing into it.”
I gave him a beseech­ing look.
Lucien sighed a bit and said to Tam­lin, “If we per­haps trained her in
secret—”
“Too many risks, too many vari­ables,” Tam­lin coun­tered. “And there will
be no con­flict with Hybern, no war.”
I snapped, “That’s wish­ful think­ing.”
Lucien mut­tered some­thing that sound­ed like a plea to the Caul­dron.
Tam­lin stiff­ened. “Describe his map room for me again,” was his only
response.
End of dis­cus­sion. No room for debate.
We stared each oth­er down for a moment, and my stom­ach twist­ed
fur­ther.
He was the High Lord—my High Lord. He was the shield and defend­er
of his peo­ple. Of me. And if keep­ing me safe meant that his peo­ple could

In the open­ing of this chap­ter, we meet Eve­lyn, who is prepar­ing for a din­ner with Ron­nie Beel­man and sug­gests pick­ing up their cur­rent activ­i­ty tomor­row. The nar­ra­tor, who is in the process of gath­er­ing their things, engages in a brief exchange with Eve­lyn about the progress of their work togeth­er, with Eve­lyn show­ing con­fi­dence in the nar­ra­tor’s abil­i­ties.

The scene shifts to a phone con­ver­sa­tion between the nar­ra­tor and their mom, who imme­di­ate­ly inquires about the nar­ra­tor’s life post-David, indi­cat­ing a his­to­ry of dis­ap­proval or con­cern regard­ing the nar­ra­tor’s rela­tion­ship with David. The moth­er’s ear­ly cau­tion and her ques­tion­ing the depth of the nar­ra­tor and David’s con­nec­tion are revealed, along with the nar­ra­tor’s defi­ance and the lin­ger­ing doubts about her deci­sion to get engaged to David – doubts that seem to have been val­i­dat­ed by the cur­rent state of the nar­ra­tor’s life.

The con­ver­sa­tion with the moth­er takes a lighter turn as she men­tions a plan to vis­it, which prompts a mix of appre­hen­sive and com­fort­ing thoughts in the nar­ra­tor, weigh­ing the pros and cons of her moth­er’s vis­it. Despite the ini­tial reluc­tance, the nar­ra­tor agrees to the vis­it, acknowl­edg­ing it might be good despite not nec­es­sar­i­ly being fun.

The dis­cus­sion moves to the pack­age sent by the moth­er that has not been received yet and then tran­si­tions into the moth­er’s eager curios­i­ty about how things are going with Eve­lyn Hugo. The nar­ra­tor reveals Eve­lyn’s inten­tion for the nar­ra­tor to write a book instead of a piece for Vivant, indi­cat­ing Eve­lyn might have been strate­gic in her approach to get what she wants. The nar­ra­tor express­es a sense of intrigue and sus­pi­cion towards Eve­lyn’s motives, sug­gest­ing a com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship between what is being pre­sent­ed and the under­ly­ing inten­tions.

This chap­ter sets up a com­plex nar­ra­tive involv­ing per­son­al strug­gles, intri­cate rela­tion­ships, and the intrigu­ing pro­fes­sion­al oppor­tu­ni­ty with a fig­ure as com­pelling and enig­mat­ic as Eve­lyn Hugo, hint­ing at poten­tial con­flicts and rev­e­la­tions to come.

From the moment I land­ed the role on *The Mick­ey Mouse Club*, life became a whirl­wind of dance rehearsals, singing lessons, act­ing class­es, and record­ing ses­sions, squeezed in between school­ing. The cast quick­ly formed cliques based on our shared dress­ing rooms, with Christi­na Aguil­era and Nik­ki DeLoach among my clos­est com­pan­ions, and I looked up to old­er mem­bers like Keri Rus­sell, Ryan Gosling, and the heart­throb Tony Luc­ca. Amidst this, I devel­oped a spe­cial con­nec­tion with Justin Tim­ber­lake.

Our days on set in Orlan­do’s Dis­ney World were an amal­ga­ma­tion of hard work and exhil­a­rat­ing play, a true kid’s par­adise. How­ev­er, the joy was momen­tar­i­ly dimmed when we received news of my grand­moth­er Lily’s trag­ic pass­ing. Unable to afford the jour­ney back home, Justin Timberlake’s moth­er gen­er­ous­ly cov­ered our trav­el costs, embody­ing the famil­ial bond that had formed among us.

Amidst these pro­found expe­ri­ences, my youth­ful crush­es and first roman­tic encoun­ters unfold­ed, mark­ing moments of inno­cent excite­ment and dis­cov­ery, includ­ing a mem­o­rable kiss from Justin to the tune of Janet Jack­son, rem­i­nis­cent of my first roman­tic thrill in third grade.

The year and a half on the show con­clud­ed, leav­ing me at a cross­roads between pur­su­ing my bud­ding career in enter­tain­ment and return­ing to a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy in Kent­wood, Louisiana. I chose the lat­ter, crav­ing the ordi­nary teenage expe­ri­ences I had missed, from school activ­i­ties to sneak­ing cig­a­rettes and the occa­sion­al drink with my mom—a stark con­trast to the hid­den hedo­nism I found with friends.

These for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences paved the way for my even­tu­al return to per­for­mance, spurred on by my mother’s guid­ance and con­nec­tions. Through a mix of defi­ant inde­pen­dence, youth­ful indis­cre­tions, and a deep-seat­ed love for the stage, my jour­ney was marked by a con­tin­u­al oscil­la­tion between the desire for a nor­mal life and the allure of the lime­light.

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 7
All the way home Patri­cia tast­ed Ann Savage’s nephew on her lips:
dusty spices, leather, unfa­mil­iar skin. It made the blood fizz in her
veins, and then, over­come with guilt, she brushed her teeth twice,
found half of an old bot­tle of Lis­ter­ine in the hall clos­et, and gar­gled
it until her lips tast­ed like arti­fi­cial pep­per­mint fla­vor­ing.
For the rest of the day, she lived in fear that some­one would drop
by and ask what she’d been doing in Ann Savage’s house. She was
ter­ri­fied she’d run into Mrs. Francine when she went to the Pig­gly
Wig­gly. She jumped every time the phone rang, think­ing it would be
Grace say­ing she’d heard Patri­cia tried to per­form CPR on a sleep­ing
man.
But night came and no one said any­thing, and even though she
couldn’t meet Carter’s eyes at sup­per, by the time she went to bed
she’d for­got­ten the way the nephew’s lips had tast­ed. The next
morn­ing she for­got about Francine some­where between fig­ur­ing out
where Korey need­ed to be dropped off and picked up all week, and
mak­ing sure Blue was study­ing for his State and Local His­to­ry exam
instead of read­ing about Adolf Hitler.
She made sure Korey and Blue were enrolled in sum­mer camp
(soc­cer for Korey and sci­ence day camp for Blue), she called Grace to
get the phone num­ber of some­one who could look at their air
con­di­tion­er, and she picked up gro­ceries, and packed lunch­es, and
dropped off library books, and signed report cards (no sum­mer
school this year, thank­ful­ly), and bare­ly saw Carter every morn­ing as
he dashed out the door (“I promise,” he told her, “as soon as this is
over we’ll go to the beach”), and sud­den­ly a week had passed and she
sat at din­ner, half lis­ten­ing to Korey com­plain about some­thing she
wasn’t very inter­est­ed in at all.
“Are you even lis­ten­ing to me?” Korey asked.
“Par­don?” Patri­cia asked, tun­ing back in.
“I don’t under­stand how we can almost be out of cof­fee again,”
Carter said from the oth­er end of the table. “Are the kids eat­ing it?”
“Hitler said caf­feine was poi­son,” Blue said.
“I said,” Korey repeat­ed, “Blue’s room faces the water and he can
open his win­dows and get a breeze. And he’s got a ceil­ing fan. It’s not
fair. Why can’t I get a fan in my room? Or stay at Laurie’s house until
you get the air fixed?”
“You’re not stay­ing at Laurie’s house,” Patri­cia said.
“Why on earth would you want to live with the Gib­sons?” Carter
asked.
At least when their chil­dren said com­plete­ly irra­tional things they
were on the same page.
“Because the air con­di­tion­ing is bro­ken,” Korey said, push­ing her
chick­en breast around her plate with her fork.
“It’s not bro­ken,” Patri­cia said. “It’s just not work­ing very well.”
“Did you call the air-con­di­tion­er man?” Carter asked.
Patri­cia shot him a look in the secret lan­guage of par­ent­ing that
said, Stay on the same page with me in front of the chil­dren and
we’ll dis­cuss this lat­er.
“You didn’t call him, did you?” Carter said. “Korey’s right, it’s too
hot.”
Clear­ly, Carter didn’t speak the same secret lan­guage of par­ent­ing.
“I’ve got a pho­to­graph,” Miss Mary said.
“What’s that, Mom?” Carter asked.
Carter thought it was impor­tant his moth­er eat with them as often
as pos­si­ble even though it was a strug­gle to get Blue to the table
when she did. Miss Mary dropped as much food in her lap as made it
into her mouth, and her water glass was cloudy with food she for­got
to swal­low before tak­ing a sip.
“You can see in the pho­to­graph that the man…,” Miss Mary said,
“he’s a man.”
“That’s right, Mom,” Carter said.
That was when a roach fell off the ceil­ing and land­ed in Miss
Mary’s water glass.
“Mom!” Korey screamed, jump­ing back­ward out of her seat.
“Roach!” Blue shout­ed, redun­dant­ly, scan­ning the ceil­ing for more.
“Got it!” Carter said, spot­ting anoth­er one on the chan­de­lier, and
reach­ing for it with one of Patricia’s good linen nap­kins.
Patricia’s heart sank. She could already see this becom­ing a fam­i­ly
sto­ry about what a ter­ri­ble house she kept. “Remem­ber?” they would
ask each oth­er when they were old­er. “Remem­ber how Mom’s house
was so dirty a roach fell off the ceil­ing into Granny Mary’s glass?
Remem­ber that?”
“Mom, that is dis­gust­ing!” Korey said. “Mom! Don’t let her drink
it!”
Patri­cia snapped out of it and saw Miss Mary pick­ing up her water
glass, about to take a sip, the roach strug­gling in the cloudy water.
Launch­ing her­self out of her seat, she plucked the glass from Miss
Mary’s hand and dumped it down the sink. She ran the water and
washed the roach and the sludge of dis­in­te­grat­ing food frag­ments
down the drain, then turned on the garbage dis­pos­al.
That was when the door­bell rang.
She could still hear Korey giv­ing a per­for­mance in the din­ing room
and she want­ed to make sure she missed that, so she shout­ed, “I’ll
get it,” and walked through the den to the qui­et, dark front hall. Even
from there she could hear Korey car­ry­ing on. She opened the front
door and shame flood­ed her veins: Ann Savage’s nephew stood
beneath the porch light.
“I hope I’m not inter­rupt­ing,” he said. “I’ve come to return your
casse­role dish.”
She could not believe this was the same man. He was still pale, but
his skin looked soft and unlined. His hair was part­ed on the left and
looked thick and full. He wore a kha­ki work shirt tucked into new
blue jeans, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, expos­ing thick
fore­arms. A faint smile played at the cor­ners of his thin lips, like they
shared a pri­vate joke. She felt her mouth twitch­ing into a smile in
return. In one large hand he held the glass casse­role dish. It was
spot­less.
“I am so sor­ry for barg­ing into your home,” she said, rais­ing her
hand to cov­er her mouth.
“Patri­cia Camp­bell,” he said. “I remem­bered your name and
looked you up in the book. I know how peo­ple get about drop­ping off
food and nev­er get­ting their plates back.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, reach­ing for the dish. He
held onto it.
“I’d like to apol­o­gize for my behav­ior,” he said.
“No, I’m sor­ry,” Patri­cia said, won­der­ing how hard she could try to
pull the dish out of his hands before she start­ed to seem rude. “You
must think I’m a fool, I inter­rupt­ed your nap, I…I real­ly did think
you were…I used to be a nurse. I don’t know how I made such a
stu­pid mis­take. I’m so sor­ry.”
He fur­rowed his fore­head, raised his eye­brows in the mid­dle, and
looked sin­cere­ly con­cerned.
“You apol­o­gize a lot,” he said.
“I’m sor­ry,” she said quick­ly.
She instant­ly real­ized what she’d done and froze, flus­tered, not
sure where to go next, so she blun­dered ahead. “The only peo­ple who
don’t apol­o­gize are psy­chopaths.”
The moment it came out of her mouth she wished she hadn’t said
any­thing. He stud­ied her for a moment, then said, “I’m sor­ry to hear
that.”
They stood for a moment, face to face, as she processed what he’d
said, and then she burst out laugh­ing. After a sec­ond, he did, too. He
let go of the casse­role dish and she pulled it to her body, hold­ing it
across her stom­ach like a shield.
“I’m not even going to say I’m sor­ry again,” she told him. “Can we
start over?”
He held out one big hand, “James Har­ris,” he said.
She shook it. It felt cool and strong.
“Patri­cia Camp­bell.”
“I am gen­uine­ly sor­ry about that,” he said, indi­cat­ing his left ear.
Remind­ed of her muti­lat­ed ear, Patri­cia turned slight­ly to the left
and quick­ly brushed her hair over her stitch­es.
“Well,” she said, “I sup­pose that’s why I’ve got two.”
This time, his laugh was short and sud­den.
“Not many peo­ple would be so gen­er­ous with their ears.”
“I don’t remem­ber being giv­en a choice,” she said, then smiled to
let him know she was kid­ding.
He smiled back.
“Were the two of you close?” she asked. “You and Mrs. Sav­age?”
“None of our fam­i­ly are close,” he said. “But when fam­i­ly needs,
you go.”
She want­ed to close the door and stand on the porch and have an
actu­al adult con­ver­sa­tion with this man. She had been so ter­ri­fied of
him, but he was warm, and fun­ny, and he looked at her in a way that
made her feel seen. Shrill voic­es drift­ed from the house. She smiled,
embar­rassed, and real­ized there was one way to get him to stay.
“Would you like to meet my fam­i­ly?” she asked.
“I don’t want to inter­rupt your meal,” he said.
“I’d con­sid­er it a per­son­al favor if you did.”
He regard­ed her for a split sec­ond, expres­sion­less, siz­ing her up,
and then he matched her smile.
“Only if it’s a real invi­ta­tion,” he said.
“Con­sid­er your­self invit­ed,” she said, stand­ing aside. After a
moment he stepped over her thresh­old and into the dark front hall.
“Mr. Har­ris?” she said. “You won’t say any­thing about”—she
ges­tured with the casse­role dish she held in both hands—“about this,
will you?”
His expres­sion got seri­ous.
“It’ll be our secret.”
“Thank you,” she said.
When she led him into the bright­ly lit din­ing room, every­one
stopped talk­ing.
“Carter,” she said. “This is James Har­ris, Ann Savage’s
grand­nephew. James, this is my hus­band, Dr. Carter Camp­bell.”
Carter stood up and shook hands auto­mat­i­cal­ly, as if he met the
nephew of the woman who’d bit­ten off his wife’s ear every day. Blue
and Korey, on the oth­er hand, looked from their moth­er to this
enor­mous stranger in hor­ror, won­der­ing why she’d let him into their
house.
“This is our son, Carter Jr., although we call him Blue, and our
daugh­ter, Korey,” Patri­cia said.
As James shook Blue’s hand and walked around the table to shake
Korey’s, Patri­cia saw her fam­i­ly through his eyes: Blue star­ing at him
rude­ly. Korey stand­ing behind her chair in her Baja hood­ie and
soc­cer shorts, gaw­ping at him like he was a zoo ani­mal. Miss Mary
chew­ing and chew­ing even though her mouth was emp­ty.
“This is Miss Mary Camp­bell, my moth­er-in-law, who’s stay­ing
with us.”
James Har­ris held out a hand to Miss Mary, who kept suck­ing her
lips while star­ing hard at the salt and pep­per shak­ers.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said.
Miss Mary raised her watery eyes to his face and stud­ied him for a
moment, chin trem­bling, then looked back down at the salt and
pep­per.
“I’ve got a pho­to­graph,” she said.
“I don’t want to inter­rupt your meal,” James Har­ris said, pulling
his hand back. “I was just return­ing a dish.”
“Won’t you join us for dessert?” Patri­cia asked.
“I couldn’t…,” James Har­ris began.
“Blue, clear the table,” Patri­cia said. “Korey, get the bowls.”
“I do have a sweet tooth,” James Har­ris said as Blue passed him
car­ry­ing a stack of dirty plates.
“You can sit here,” Patri­cia said, nod­ding to the emp­ty chair on her
left. It creaked alarm­ing­ly as James Har­ris eased him­self into it.
Bowls appeared and the half gal­lon of Brey­ers found its place in front
of Carter. He began to hack at the sur­face of the freez­er-burned ice
cream with a large spoon.
“What do you do for a liv­ing?” Carter asked.
“All kinds of things,” James said as Korey placed a stack of ice
cream bowls in front of her father. “But right now, I’ve got a lit­tle
mon­ey put aside to invest.”
Patri­cia recon­sid­ered. Was he rich?
“In what?” Carter asked, scrap­ing long white curls of ice cream
into everyone’s bowls and pass­ing them around the table. “Stocks
and bonds? Small busi­ness? Microchips?”
“I was think­ing some­thing more local,” James Har­ris said. “Maybe
real estate.”
Carter reached across the table and put a bowl of ice cream in front
of James, then fit­ted a thick-han­dled spoon into his mother’s hand
and led it to the bowl of vanil­la in front of her.
“Not my area,” he said, los­ing inter­est.
“You know,” Patri­cia said. “My friend Slick Paley at book club? Her
hus­band, Leland, they’re into real estate. They might be able to tell
you some­thing about the sit­u­a­tion here.”
“You’re in a book club?” James asked. “I love to read.”
“Who do you read?” Patri­cia asked as Carter ignored them and fed
his moth­er, and Blue and Korey con­tin­ued to stare.
“I’m a big Ayn Rand fan,” James Har­ris said. “Kesey, Gins­burg,
Ker­ouac. Have you read Zen and the Art of Motor­cy­cle
Main­te­nance?”
“Are you a hip­pie?” Korey asked.
Patri­cia felt pathet­i­cal­ly grate­ful that James Har­ris ignored her
daugh­ter.
“Are you look­ing for new mem­bers?” he con­tin­ued.
“Ugh,” Korey said. “They’re a bunch of old ladies sit­ting around
drink­ing wine. They don’t even actu­al­ly read the books.”
Patri­cia didn’t know where these things came from. She’d chalk it
up to Korey becom­ing a teenag­er, but Maryellen had said they
became teenagers when you stopped lik­ing them, and she still liked
her daugh­ter.
“What kind of books do you read?” James asked, still ignor­ing
Korey.
“All kinds,” Patri­cia said. “We just read a won­der­ful book about life
in a small Guyanese town in the 1970s.”
She didn’t men­tion that it was Raven: The Untold Sto­ry of the
Rev. Jim Jones and His Peo­ple.
“They rent the movies,” Korey said. “And pre­tend to read the
books.”
“There wasn’t a movie for this book,” Patri­cia said, forc­ing her­self
to smile.
James Har­ris wasn’t lis­ten­ing. He had his eyes on Korey.
“Is there a rea­son you’re being fresh to your moth­er?” he asked.
“She’s not usu­al­ly like this,” Patri­cia said. “It’s all right.”
“Some peo­ple use lit­er­a­ture to under­stand their lives,” James
Har­ris said, con­tin­u­ing to stare at Korey, who squirmed beneath the
inten­si­ty of his gaze. “What are you read­ing?”
“Ham­let,” Korey said. “That’s by Shake­speare.”
“Assigned read­ing,” James Har­ris said. “I meant, what are you
read­ing that oth­er peo­ple didn’t pick out for you?”
“I don’t have time to sit around read­ing books,” Korey said. “I
actu­al­ly go to school and I’m cap­tain of the soc­cer team and the
vol­ley­ball team.”
“A read­er lives many lives,” James Har­ris said. “The per­son who
doesn’t read lives but one. But if you’re hap­py just doing what you’re
told and read­ing what oth­er peo­ple think you should read, then don’t
let me stop you. I just find it sad.”
“I…,” Korey began, work­ing her mouth. Then stopped. No one had
ever called her sad before. “What­ev­er,” she said, and slumped back in
her chair.
Patri­cia won­dered if she should be upset. This was new ter­ri­to­ry
for her.
“What book are y’all talk­ing about?” Carter asked, tuck­ing more ice
cream into his mother’s mouth.
“Your wife’s book club,” James Har­ris said. “I guess I’m par­tial to
read­ers. I grew up a mil­i­tary brat, and wher­ev­er I went, books were
my friends.”
“Because you don’t have any real ones,” Korey mum­bled.
Miss Mary looked up, right at James Har­ris, and Patri­cia could
almost hear her eyes zoom in on him.
“I want my mon­ey,” Miss Mary said angri­ly. “That’s Daddy’s
mon­ey you owe.”
There was silence at the table.
“What’s that, Mom?” Carter asked.
“You came creep­ing back, you,” Miss Mary said. “But I see you.”
Miss Mary glared at James Har­ris, fuzzy gray eye­brows fur­rowed,
the slack skin around her mouth pulled into an angry knot. Patri­cia
turned to James Har­ris and saw him think­ing, gen­uine­ly try­ing to
puz­zle some­thing out.
“She thinks you’re some­one from her past,” Carter explained. “She
comes and goes.”
Miss Mary’s chair scraped back­ward with an ear-grind­ing shriek.
“Mom,” Carter said, tak­ing her arm. “Are you fin­ished? Let me
help you.”
She jerked her arm out of Carter’s grip and rose, eyes fixed on
James Har­ris.
“You’re the sev­enth son of a salt­less moth­er,” Miss Mary said, and
took a step toward him. The wat­tles of fat beneath her chin quiv­ered.
“When the Dog Days come we’ll put nails through your eyes.”
She reached out and pressed her hand against the table, hold­ing
her­self up. She swayed over James Har­ris.
“Mom,” Carter said. “Calm down.”
“You thought no one would rec­og­nize you,” Miss Mary said. “But
I’ve got your pho­to­graph, Hoyt.”
James Har­ris stared up at Miss Mary, not mov­ing. He didn’t even
blink.
“Hoyt Pick­ens,” Miss Mary said. Then she spat. She meant for it to
be a coun­try hawk­er, some­thing sharp that would slap the dirt, but
instead a wad of white sali­va thick­ened with vanil­la ice cream and
speck­led with chick­en oozed over her low­er lip, then rolled down her
chin and plopped onto the front of her dress.
“Mom!” Carter said.
Patri­cia saw Blue gag and clap his nap­kin over the low­er half of his
face. Korey leaned back in her chair, away from her grand­moth­er,
and Carter reached for his moth­er, nap­kin out­stretched.
“I’m so sor­ry,” Patri­cia said to James Har­ris as she got up.
“I know who you are,” Miss Mary shout­ed at James Har­ris. “In
your ice cream suit.”
Patri­cia hat­ed Miss Mary at that moment. Some­one inter­est­ing
had come into their home to talk about books, and Miss Mary
wouldn’t even let her have that.
She hus­tled Miss Mary out of the din­ing room, pulling her beneath
the armpits, not car­ing if she was a lit­tle rough. Behind her, she was
aware of James Har­ris ris­ing as Carter and Korey both start­ed
talk­ing at once, and she hoped he was still there when she got back.
She hauled Miss Mary to the garage room and got her seat­ed in her
chair with the plas­tic bowl of water and her tooth­brush and came
back to the din­ing room. The only per­son left was Carter, suck­ing on
his ice cream, hunched over his bowl.
“Is he still here?” Patri­cia asked.
“He left,” Carter said, through a mouth­ful of vanil­la. “Mom seemed
weird tonight, don’t you think?”

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.

7
I don’t let him pick me up.
I’d be insane to let Eddie see where I real­ly live, and the thought of him and John cross­ing paths
is enough to make me shud­der. No, I want to exist only in Eddie’s world, like I’d sprung from
some­where else, ful­ly formed, unknow­able.
It’s true enough, real­ly.
So, I meet him in Eng­lish Vil­lage, a part of Moun­tain Brook I’ve nev­er been to, although I’d heard
Emi­ly men­tion it. There are lots of “vil­lages” in Moun­tain Brook: Caha­ba Vil­lage, Over­ton Vil­lage,
and Moun­tain Brook Vil­lage itself. It seemed sil­ly to me, using a word like vil­lage to mean dif­fer­ent
part of the same community—just use neigh­bor­hood, you pre­ten­tious ass­holes, we don’t live in the
Eng­lish countryside—but what did I know?
I park far away from the French bistro where Eddie made a reser­va­tion, pray­ing he won’t ask to
walk me to my car lat­er, and meet him under the gold-and-black-striped awning of the restau­rant.
He’s wear­ing char­coal slacks and a white shirt, a nice com­ple­ment to the deep egg­plant of my
dress, and his hand is warm on my low­er back when the maître d’ shows us to our table.
Low lights, white table­cloths, a bot­tle of wine. That’s the part that stands out to me most, how
casu­al­ly he orders an entire bot­tle of wine while I was still look­ing at the by-the-glass prices,
won­der­ing what would sound sophis­ti­cat­ed, but wouldn’t be too expen­sive.
The bot­tle he selects is over a hun­dred dol­lars, and my cheeks flush at know­ing I’m worth an
expen­sive bot­tle of wine to him. After that, I put the menu away entire­ly, hap­py to let him order for
me.
“What if I pick some­thing you don’t like?” he asks, but he’s smil­ing, His skin doesn’t seem as pale
as it did that first day. His blue eyes are no longer rimmed with red, and I won­der if I’ve made him
hap­py. It’s a heady thought, even more intox­i­cat­ing than the wine.
“I like every­thing,” I reply. I don’t mean for the words to sound sexy, but they do, and when the
dim­ple in his cheek deep­ens, I won­der what else I can say that will make him look at me like that.
Then his eyes drop low­er.
At first, I think he’s look­ing at the low neck­line of my dress, but then he says, “That neck­lace.”
Fuck.
It had been stu­pid to wear it. Reck­less, some­thing I very rarely was, but when I’d looked in the
mir­ror before leav­ing, I’d looked so plain with no jew­el­ry. The chain I’d tak­en from Mrs. McLaren
wasn’t any­thing fan­cy, no dia­monds or jew­els, just a sim­ple sil­ver chain with a lit­tle gold-and-sil­ver
charm on it.
A bee, I now real­ize, and my stom­ach sinks, fin­gers twist­ing in my nap­kin.
“A friend gave it to me,” I say, striv­ing for light­ness, but I’m already touch­ing the charm, feel­ing it
warm against my chest.
“It’s pret­ty,” he says, then glances down. “My late wife’s com­pa­ny makes one sim­i­lar, so…”
Eddie trails off, and his fin­gers start that drum­ming on the table again.
“I’m sor­ry,” I say. “I … I heard about South­ern Manors, and it’s—”
“Let’s not talk about it. Her.” His head shoots up, his smile fixed in place, but it’s not real, and I
want to reach across the table and take his hands, but we’re not there yet, are we? I want to ask him
every­thing about Bea, and for­get she exist­ed, all at the same time.
I want.
I want.
As the wait­er approach­es with our expen­sive wine, I smile at Eddie. “Then let’s talk about you.”
He rais­es his eye­brows, lean­ing back in his seat. “What do you want to know?” he asks.
I wait until the serv­er has fin­ished pour­ing a sam­ple of the wine into Eddie’s glass, then wait for
Eddie to take a sip, nod, and ges­ture for our glass­es to be filled, a thing I’ve only ever seen hap­pen in
movies or on real­i­ty shows about rich house­wives. And now it’s hap­pen­ing to me. Now I’m one of
the peo­ple who has those kinds of din­ners.
Once we have full glass­es, I mim­ic Eddie’s pos­ture, sit­ting back. “Where did you grow up?”
“Maine,” he answers eas­i­ly, “lit­tle town called Sear­sport. My mom still lives there; so does my
broth­er. I got out as soon as I could, though. Went to col­lege in Ban­gor.” Eddie sips his wine, look­ing
at me. “Have you ever been to Maine?”
I shake my head. “No. But I read a lot of Stephen King as a teenag­er, so I feel like I have a good
idea of what it’s like.”
That makes him laugh, like I’d hoped it would. “Well, few­er pet ceme­ter­ies and killer clowns, but
yeah, basi­cal­ly.”
Lean­ing for­ward, I fold my arms on the table, not miss­ing the way his gaze drifts from my face to
the neck­line of my dress. It’s a fleet­ing glance, one I’m used to get­ting from men, but com­ing from him,
it doesn’t feel creepy or unwant­ed. I actu­al­ly like him look­ing at me.
Anoth­er nov­el­ty. “Liv­ing here must be a big change,” I say, and he shrugs.
“I moved around a lot after col­lege. Worked with a friend flip­ping hous­es all over the Mid­west.
Set­tled in Cal­i­for­nia for a bit. That’s where I first got my contractor’s license. Thought I’d stay there
for­ev­er, but then I went on vaca­tion, and…”
He trails off, and I jump in, not want­i­ng anoth­er loaded silence.
“Have you ever thought of going back?”
Sur­prised, he pours him­self a lit­tle more wine. “To Maine?”
I shrug. “Or Cal­i­for­nia.” I won­der why he stays in a place that must have so many bad mem­o­ries
for him, a place in which he seems to stick out, just the slight­est bit, to be set apart, even with all his
mon­ey and nice clothes.
“Well, South­ern Manors is based here,” he replies. “I could run the con­tract­ing busi­ness from
some­where else, but Bea was real­ly set on South­ern Manors being an Alaba­ma com­pa­ny. It would
feel … I don’t know. Like a betray­al, I guess. Mov­ing it some­where else. Or sell­ing it.”
His expres­sion soft­ens a lit­tle. “It’s her lega­cy, and I feel a respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect it.”
I nod, glad our food arrives just at that moment so that this con­ver­sa­tion can die a nat­ur­al death. I
already know how impor­tant South­ern Manors is to him. In my Google stalk­ing, I found sev­er­al
arti­cles about how just a few months after Bea went miss­ing, Eddie fought for a court order to have
her declared legal­ly dead. It had some­thing to do with South­ern Manors, and there was a lot of
busi­ness and legal jar­gon in it I hadn’t under­stood, but I’d got­ten the gist—Bea had to be dead on
paper for Eddie to take over and run the com­pa­ny the way she would’ve want­ed it to be run.
I won­dered how that had made him feel, declar­ing his wife’s death in such a for­mal, final way.
As he cuts into his steak, he looks up at me, smil­ing a lit­tle. “Enough about me. I want to hear
about you.”
I pro­vide a few charm­ing anec­dotes, paint­ing Jane’s life in a flat­ter­ing light. Some of the sto­ries
are real (high school in Ari­zona), some are half-truths, and some are stolen from friends.
But he seems to enjoy them, smil­ing and nod­ding through­out the meal, and by the time the check
comes, I’m more relaxed and con­fi­dent than I’d ever thought I’d be on this date.
And when we leave, he takes my hand, slip­ping it into the crook of his elbow as we exit the
restau­rant.
It’s ridicu­lous, I know that. Me, here with him. Me, with my arm linked through his.
Me, in his life.
But here I am, and as we make our way to the side­walk, I hold my head up high­er, step­ping clos­er
to him, the edge of my skirt brush­ing his thighs.
The night is warm and damp, my hair curl­ing around my face, street­lights reflect­ing in pud­dles and
pot­holes, and I won­der if he’ll kiss me.
If he’ll ask me to stay the night.
I’m going to.
He’d ordered a piece of pie to go, and I think about eat­ing it with him in his gor­geous kitchen. Or
in his bed. Is that why he’d ordered it?
I think about walk­ing into that house at night, how pret­ty the recessed light­ing will be in the
dark­ness. What the back­yard will look like when the sun comes up. What his sheets feel and smell
like, what it’s like to wake up in that house.
“You’re qui­et,” Eddie says, tuck­ing me clos­er to his side as we wan­der, and I tilt my head up to
smile at him.
“Can I be hon­est?”
“Can I stop you?”
I nudge him slight­ly at that, feel­ing how sol­id and warm he is beside me. “I was think­ing that it’s
been a long time since I’ve been on a date.”
“Me, too,” he replies.
In the street­lights, he’s so hand­some it makes my chest ache, and my fin­gers rub against the
soft­ness of his jack­et, the mate­r­i­al expen­sive and well-made. Nicer than any­thing I own.
“I’m—” I start, and he turns his head. I think he might kiss me there, right there on the street in
Eng­lish Vil­lage where any­one might see us, but before he can, there’s a voice.
“Eddie!”
We turn at almost the same time, fac­ing a man on the side­walk who looks like Tripp Ingra­ham or
Matt McLaren or Saul Clark or any of the oth­er pas­tel guys in Thorn­field Estates.
He’s got his face screwed up, that expres­sion of sym­pa­thy that twists mouths down and eye­brows
togeth­er. His thin­ning blond hair looks orange in the street­lights, and when he lifts a hand to shake

In Chap­ter 7 of “The Beasts of Tarzan,” titled “Betrayed,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds with Kaviri and Mugam­bi, two indige­nous lead­ers, anx­ious­ly dis­cussing the alarm­ing approach of Tarzan and his fear­some jun­gle com­pan­ions towards Kavir­i’s vil­lage. The alarm­ing dis­cord ema­nat­ing from the jun­gle as Tarzan, togeth­er with Shee­ta (a pan­ther) and Akut’s men­ac­ing apes, dri­ve the vil­lagers back to their homes, reflects a strate­gic move by Tarzan to gath­er forces for an expe­di­tion on the riv­er. Under Tarzan’s unwa­ver­ing com­mand, the ter­ri­fied vil­lagers, with no alter­na­tive, resign them­selves to accom­pa­ny him, reveal­ing Tarzan’s for­mi­da­ble influ­ence over both man and beast.

The expe­di­tion pro­ceeds deep­er into the untamed heart­lands bor­der­ing the Ugam­bi Riv­er, with Tarzan’s group encoun­ter­ing desert­ed vil­lages, a tes­ta­ment to the pall of fear his ensem­ble casts among the tribes. Despite his over­tures for inter­ac­tion with the local tribes prov­ing futile due to their with­draw­al at his approach, Tarzan’s relent­less pur­suit of the nefar­i­ous Rokoff under­scores his ded­i­ca­tion to jus­tice.

By inge­nious­ly imper­son­at­ing a pan­ther to gain the con­fi­dence of a vil­lage’s inhab­i­tants, Tarzan’s adapt­abil­i­ty and wit are show­cased, allow­ing him to secure shel­ter and poten­tial allies. His quest reveals inter­sect­ing paths with Rokoff and an unknown par­ty which includes a woman, a man, and a child, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing his jour­ney with per­son­al stakes.

Tarzan’s deci­sion to momen­tar­i­ly secede from his fol­low­ers to track Rokoff alone, using his unpar­al­leled jun­gle prowess, offers a deep dive into his strate­gic mind and unpar­al­leled sur­vival skills. His inter­ac­tions with var­i­ous trib­al com­mu­ni­ties under­score the blend of respect and fear he com­mands in the wild, nav­i­gat­ing through cul­tur­al and com­mu­ni­ca­tion bar­ri­ers with ease.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with Tarzan’s cal­cu­lat­ed move to rest with­in a seem­ing­ly hos­pitable vil­lage, only to be unwit­ting­ly ensnared into a trap orches­trat­ed by the vil­lage chief and Rokoff. This twist not only speaks to the per­ils that beset Tarzan in his relent­less pur­suit but also sets the stage for a con­fronta­tion fraught with dan­ger and deceit.

Amidst the lush, treach­er­ous ter­rains of the Ugam­bi, Tarzan’s sin­gu­lar devo­tion to thwart­ing Rokof­f’s schem­ing plots unfolds with an astute blend of brute force, keen intel­li­gence, and an indomitable will, fur­ther enrich­ing the saga of this time­less jun­gle hero.