The chap­ter vivid­ly por­trays the cli­mac­tic con­fronta­tion in a fan­tas­ti­cal set­ting, embod­ied by a fero­cious and deci­sive bat­tle. Through the per­spec­tive of an unknown observ­er, we are trans­port­ed to a scene where the pro­tag­o­nist’s life­less body lies on a cracked and blood-drenched floor, set­ting the stage for a pow­er­ful show­down. The ten­sion quick­ly esca­lates with the appear­ance of Lucien, whose sor­row is pal­pa­ble as he dis­cards his fox mask, reveal­ing a face marked by scars yet retain­ing its ele­gance. The nar­ra­tive’s focus shifts to Tam­lin, who faces the life­less pro­tag­o­nist, his reac­tion inter­twin­ing grief with a brew­ing storm of vengeance.

Ama­ran­tha, the antag­o­nist, retreats in fear, her plea for mer­cy futile against Tam­lin’s unleashed fury, which is described with vis­cer­al inten­si­ty. Tam­lin’s trans­for­ma­tion into a beast, a flur­ry of fur, claws, and unstop­pable strength, high­lights the super­nat­ur­al stakes of their con­fronta­tion. Despite Ama­ran­tha’s des­per­ate attempts to defend her­self with dark mag­ic, Tam­lin’s pow­er, aug­ment­ed by a shield­ing gold­en aura, proves indomitable. The result­ing chaos ensues, allies and ene­mies clash­ing, until Tam­lin, with a dis­play of raw pow­er and pri­mal rage, anni­hi­lates Ama­ran­tha, cul­mi­nat­ing in a moment of deaf­en­ing silence.

The after­math of the bat­tle brings a poignant shift back to the pro­tag­o­nist’s per­spec­tive, reveal­ing Rhysand as the observ­er. As the sur­round­ings set­tle and par­tic­i­pants grap­ple with the out­come, Tam­lin’s emo­tion­al col­lapse while cradling the pro­tag­o­nist’s body, inter­spersed with Lucien’s stunned grief and the shared sor­row of onlook­ers, under­scores the chap­ter’s the­mat­ic essence of loss, loy­al­ty, and the unyield­ing bonds that tie char­ac­ters togeth­er in the face of despair. Amidst the dev­as­ta­tion, the pro­tag­o­nist’s yearn­ing for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and the pres­ence of a mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure beside Lucien hint at unre­solved nar­ra­tives and the endur­ing com­plex­i­ty of rela­tion­ships forged in bat­tle. Through rich imagery and terse dia­logue, the chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly con­veys the cli­max’s inten­si­ty, the char­ac­ters’ depth, and the bit­ter­sweet after­math of a piv­otal moment in their saga.

In Chap­ter Forty-Five, we dive deep into Nina’s har­row­ing expe­ri­ence, encap­su­lat­ed in a haunt­ing encounter that blends psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion with stark ter­ror. As the chap­ter unfolds in a dim­ly lit attic room, we are intro­duced to a crit­i­cal moment between Nina and Andy, her part­ner, who ini­ti­ates what appears to be a ther­a­peu­tic exer­cise aimed at con­fronting Nina’s fears. Andy assures Nina that fac­ing the attic will prove her fears unfound­ed, sym­bol­iz­ing a final step towards heal­ing their strained rela­tion­ship, tar­nished by past tur­moil and Nina’s psy­cho­log­i­cal break­down.

Their jour­ney up the creaky stair­case sym­bol­izes a grad­ual approach to con­fronting dark­ness, both lit­er­al and metaphor­i­cal. Upon enter­ing the attic room, the absence of light, save for an over­pow­er­ing arti­fi­cial bright­ness, sets the stage for a twist­ed rev­e­la­tion. The chap­ter mas­ter­ful­ly por­trays Nina’s ini­tial relief at Andy’s com­fort­ing pres­ence, which quick­ly dis­in­te­grates into hor­ror as she dis­cov­ers the room’s trans­for­ma­tion into a prison, equipped with harsh light­ing designed to dis­ori­ent and con­trol.

Andy’s manip­u­la­tion deep­ens as the chap­ter explores themes of con­trol, iso­la­tion, and the blur­ring of real­i­ty with mad­ness. He sub­jects Nina to a cru­el ulti­ma­tum between oppres­sive light and com­plete dark­ness, reveal­ing a sin­is­ter plot to dis­ci­pline her, jus­ti­fied by triv­ial griev­ances mag­ni­fied into acts of defi­ance. This manip­u­la­tion extends beyond phys­i­cal con­fine­ment, impli­cat­ing Nina in a fab­ri­cat­ed nar­ra­tive of self-harm and neglect, there­by iso­lat­ing her fur­ther from real­i­ty and any poten­tial escape.

Nina’s real­iza­tion of her situation—trapped both phys­i­cal­ly and with­in a web of Andy’s construction—evokes a pow­er­ful sense of déjà vu, hint­ing at a cycli­cal pat­tern of abuse and manip­u­la­tion. The chap­ter poignant­ly cap­tures her deter­mi­na­tion to endure, sig­ni­fied by her strate­gic con­ser­va­tion of resources and attempt to mit­i­gate her harsh con­di­tions, under­scor­ing her will to sur­vive for her daugh­ter’s sake, despite dwin­dling hope.

The clos­ing moments of the chap­ter, fraught with a min­gled sense of des­per­a­tion and res­ig­na­tion, high­light Nina’s acute aware­ness of the pre­car­i­ous­ness of her sit­u­a­tion. Andy’s return and the impo­si­tion of ‘ground rules’ rein­force the pow­er dynam­ics at play, leav­ing Nina ensnared in a real­i­ty dic­tat­ed by Andy’s whims—a poignant reflec­tion on the theme of cap­tiv­i­ty, both phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal. This chap­ter, rich in the­mat­ic depth and emo­tion­al res­o­nance, sets a com­pelling stage for Nina’s fraught jour­ney towards lib­er­a­tion, under­scored by the omi­nous silence that fol­lows Andy’s chill­ing con­di­tions for her release.

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
45
The Illyr­i­an war-camp deep in the north­ern moun­tains was freez­ing.
Appar­ent­ly, spring was still lit­tle more than a whis­per in the region.
Mor win­nowed us all in, Rhysand and Cass­ian flank­ing us.
We had danced. All of us togeth­er. And I had nev­er seen Rhys so hap­py,
laugh­ing with Azriel, drink­ing with Mor, bick­er­ing with Cass­ian. I’d
danced with each of them, and when the night had shift­ed toward dawn and
the music became soft and hon­eyed, I had let Rhys take me in his arms and
dance with me, slow­ly, until the oth­er guests had left, until Mor was asleep
on a set­tee in the din­ing room, until the gold disc of the sun gild­ed Velaris.
He’d flown me back to the town house through the pink and pur­ple and
gray of the dawn, both of us silent, and had kissed my brow once before
walk­ing down the hall to his own room.
I didn’t lie to myself about why I wait­ed for thir­ty min­utes to see if my
door would open. Or to at least hear a knock. But noth­ing.
We were bleary-eyed but polite at the lunch table hours lat­er, Mor and
Cass­ian unusu­al­ly qui­et, talk­ing most­ly to Amren and Azriel, who had
come to bid us farewell. Amren would con­tin­ue work­ing on the Book until
we received the sec­ond half—if we received it; the shad­owsinger was
head­ing out to gath­er infor­ma­tion and man­age his spies sta­tioned at the
oth­er courts and attempt­ing to break into the human one. I man­aged to
speak to them, but most of my ener­gy went into not look­ing at Rhysand, or
think­ing about the feel­ing of his body pressed to mine as we’d danced for
hours, that brush of his mouth on my skin.
I’d bare­ly been able to fall asleep because of it.
Trai­tor. Even if I’d left Tam­lin, I was a trai­tor. I’d been gone for two
months—just two. In faerie terms, it was prob­a­bly con­sid­ered less than a
day.
Tam­lin had giv­en me so much, done so many kind things for me and my
fam­i­ly. And here I was, want­i­ng anoth­er male, even as I hat­ed Tam­lin for
what he’d done, how he’d failed me. Trai­tor.
The word con­tin­ued echo­ing in my head as I stood at Mor’s side, Rhys
and Cass­ian a few steps ahead, and peered out at the wind-blown camp.
Mor had bare­ly giv­en Azriel more than a brief embrace before bid­ding him
good-bye. And for all the world, the spy­mas­ter looked like he didn’t care—
until he gave me a swift, warn­ing look. I was still torn between amuse­ment
and out­rage at the assump­tion I’d stick my nose into his busi­ness. Indeed.
Built near the top of a forest­ed moun­tain, the Illyr­i­an camp was all bare
rock and mud, inter­rupt­ed only by crude, easy-to-pack tents cen­tered
around large fire pits. Near the tree line, a dozen per­ma­nent build­ings had
been erect­ed of the gray moun­tain stone. Smoke puffed from their chim­neys
against the brisk cloudy morn­ing, occa­sion­al­ly swirled by the pass­ing wings
over­head.
So many winged males soar­ing past on their way to oth­er camps or in
train­ing.
Indeed, on the oppo­site end of the camp, in a rocky area that end­ed in a
sheer plunge off the moun­tain, were the spar­ring and train­ing rings. Racks
of weapons were left out to the ele­ments; in the chalk-paint­ed rings males
of all ages now trained with sticks and swords and shields and spears. Fast,
lethal, bru­tal. No com­plaints, no shouts of pain.
There was no warmth here, no joy. Even the hous­es at the oth­er end of
the camp had no per­son­al touch­es, as if they were used only for shel­ter or
stor­age.
And this was where Rhys, Azriel, and Cass­ian had grown up—where
Cass­ian had been cast out to sur­vive on his own. It was so cold that even
bun­dled in my fur-lined leather, I was shiv­er­ing. I couldn’t imag­ine a child
going with­out ade­quate clothing—or shelter—for a night, much less eight
years.
Mor’s face was pale, tight. “I hate this place,” she said under her breath,
the heat of it cloud­ing the air in front of us. “It should be burned to the
ground.”
Cass­ian and Rhys were silent as a tall, broad-shoul­dered old­er male
approached, flanked by five oth­er Illyr­i­an war­riors, wings all tucked in,
hands with­in casu­al reach of their weapons.
No mat­ter that Rhys could rip their minds apart with­out lift­ing a fin­ger.
They each wore Siphons of vary­ing col­ors on the backs of their hands,
the stones small­er than Azriel and Cassian’s. And only one. Not like the
sev­en apiece that my two friends wore to man­age their tremen­dous pow­er.
The male in front said, “Anoth­er camp inspec­tion? Your dog,” he jerked
his chin at Cass­ian, “was here just the oth­er week. The girls are train­ing.”
Cass­ian crossed his arms. “I don’t see them in the ring.”
“They do chores first,” the male said, shoul­ders push­ing back and wings
flar­ing slight­ly, “then when they’ve fin­ished, they get to train.”
A low snarl slipped past Mor’s mouth, and the male turned our way. He
stiff­ened. Mor flashed him a wicked smile. “Hel­lo, Lord Devlon.”
The leader of the camp, then.
He gave her a dis­mis­sive once-over and looked back to Rhys. Cassian’s
warn­ing growl rum­bled in my stom­ach.
Rhys said at last, “Pleas­ant as it always is to see you, Devlon, there are
two mat­ters at hand: First, the girls, as you were clear­ly told by Cass­ian, are
to train before chores, not after. Get them out on the pitch. Now.” I
shud­dered at the pure com­mand in that tone. He con­tin­ued, “Sec­ond, we’ll
be stay­ing here for the time being. Clear out my mother’s old house. No
need for a house­keep­er. We’ll look after our­selves.”
“The house is occu­pied by my top war­riors.”
“Then un-occu­py it,” Rhysand said sim­ply. “And have them clean it
before they do.”
The voice of the High Lord of the Night Court—who delight­ed in pain,
and made his ene­mies trem­ble.
Devlon sniffed at me. I poured every bit of cranky exhaus­tion into
hold­ing his nar­rowed gaze. “Anoth­er like that … crea­ture you bring here? I
thought she was the only one of her ilk.”
“Amren,” Rhys drawled, “sends her regards. And as for this one … ” I
tried not to flinch away from meet­ing his stare. “She’s mine,” he said
qui­et­ly, but vicious­ly enough that Devlon and his war­riors near­by heard.
“And if any of you lay a hand on her, you lose that hand. And then you lose
your head.” I tried not to shiv­er, as Cass­ian and Mor showed no reac­tion at
all. “And once Feyre is done killing you,” Rhys smirked, “then I’ll grind
your bones to dust.”
I almost laughed. But the war­riors were now assess­ing the threat Rhys
had estab­lished me as—and com­ing up short with answers. I gave them all
a small smile, any­way, one I’d seen Amren make a hun­dred times. Let them
won­der what I could do if pro­voked.
“We’re head­ing out,” Rhys said to Cass­ian and Mor, not even both­er­ing
to dis­miss Devlon before walk­ing toward the tree line. “We’ll be back at
night­fall.” He gave his cousin a look. “Try to stay out of trou­ble, please.
Devlon hates us the least of the war-lords and I don’t feel like find­ing
anoth­er camp.”
Moth­er above, the oth­ers must be … unpleas­ant, if Devlon was the
mildest of them.
Mor winked at us both. “I’ll try.”
Rhys just shook his head and said to Cass­ian, “Check on the forces, then
make sure those girls are prac­tic­ing like they should be. If Devlon or the
oth­ers object, do what you have to.”
Cass­ian grinned in a way that showed he’d be more than hap­py to do
exact­ly that. He was the High Lord’s gen­er­al … and yet Devlon called him
a dog. I didn’t want to imag­ine what it had been like for Cass­ian with­out
that title grow­ing up.
Then final­ly Rhys looked at me again, his eyes shut­tered. “Let’s go.”
“You heard from my sis­ters?”
A shake of the head. “No. Azriel is check­ing today if they received a
response. You and I … ” The wind rus­tled his hair as he smirked. “We’re
going to train.”
“Where?”
He ges­tured to the sweep­ing land beyond—to the forest­ed steppes he’d
once men­tioned. “Away from any poten­tial casu­al­ties.” He offered his hand
as his wings flared, his body prepar­ing for flight.
But all I heard were those two words he’d said, echo­ing against the
steady beat of trai­tor, trai­tor:
She’s mine.
Being in Rhys’s arms again, against his body, was a test of stub­born­ness.
For both of us. To see who’d speak about it first.
We’d been fly­ing over the most beau­ti­ful moun­tains I’d ever seen—
snowy and flecked with pines—heading toward rolling steppes beyond
them when I said, “You’re train­ing female Illyr­i­an war­riors?”
“Try­ing to.” Rhys gazed across the bru­tal land­scape. “I banned wing-
clip­ping a long, long time ago, but … at the more zeal­ous camps, deep
with­in the moun­tains, they do it. And when Ama­ran­tha took over, even the
milder camps start­ed doing it again. To keep their women safe, they
claimed. For the past hun­dred years, Cass­ian has been try­ing to build an
aer­i­al fight­ing unit amongst the females, try­ing to prove that they have a
place on the bat­tle­field. So far, he’s man­aged to train a few ded­i­cat­ed
war­riors, but the males make life so mis­er­able that many of them left. And
for the girls in train­ing … ” A hiss of breath. “It’s a long road. But Devlon
is one of the few who even lets the girls train with­out a tantrum.”
“I’d hard­ly call dis­obey­ing orders ‘with­out a tantrum.’ ”
“Some camps issued decrees that if a female was caught train­ing, she was
to be deemed unmar­riage­able. I can’t fight against things like that, not
with­out slaugh­ter­ing the lead­ers of each camp and per­son­al­ly rais­ing each
and every one of their off­spring.”
“And yet your moth­er loved them—and you three wear their tat­toos.”
“I got the tat­toos in part for my moth­er, in part to hon­or my broth­ers, who
fought every day of their lives for the right to wear them.”
“Why do you let Devlon speak to Cass­ian like that?”
“Because I know when to pick my fights with Devlon, and I know
Cass­ian would be pissed if I stepped in to crush Devlon’s mind like a grape
when he could han­dle it him­self.”
A whis­per of cold went through me. “Have you thought about doing it?”
“I did just now. But most camp-lords nev­er would have giv­en the three of
us a shot at the Blood Rite. Devlon let a half-breed and two bas­tards take it
—and did not deny us our vic­to­ry.”
Pines dust­ed with fresh snow blurred beneath us.
“What’s the Blood Rite?”
“So many ques­tions today.” I squeezed his shoul­der hard enough to hurt,
and he chuck­led. “You go unarmed into the moun­tains, mag­ic banned, no
Siphons, wings bound, with no sup­plies or clothes beyond what you have
on you. You, and every oth­er Illyr­i­an male who wants to move from novice
to true war­rior. A few hun­dred head into the moun­tains at the start of the
week—not all come out at the end.”
The frost-kissed land­scape rolled on for­ev­er, unyield­ing as the war­riors
who ruled over it. “Do you—kill each oth­er?”
“Most try to. For food and clothes, for vengeance, for glo­ry between
feud­ing clans. Devlon allowed us to take the Rite—but also made sure
Cass­ian, Azriel, and I were dumped in dif­fer­ent loca­tions.”
“What hap­pened?”
“We found each oth­er. Killed our way across the moun­tains to get to each
oth­er. Turns out, a good num­ber of Illyr­i­an males want­ed to prove they
were stronger, smarter than us. Turns out they were wrong.”
I dared a look at his face. For a heart­beat, I could see it: blood-splat­tered,
sav­age, fight­ing and slaugh­ter­ing to get to his friends, to pro­tect and save
them.
Rhys set us down in a clear­ing, the pine trees tow­er­ing so high they
seemed to caress the under­side of the heavy, gray clouds pass­ing on the
swift wind.
“So, you’re not using magic—but I am?” I said, tak­ing a few steps from
him.
“Our ene­my is keyed in on my pow­ers. You, how­ev­er, remain invis­i­ble.”
He waved his hand. “Let’s see what all your prac­tic­ing has amount­ed to.”
I didn’t feel like it. I just said, “When—when did you meet Tam­lin?”
I knew what Rhysand’s father had done. I hadn’t let myself think too
much about it.
About how he’d killed Tamlin’s father and broth­ers. And moth­er.
But now, after last night, after the Court of Night­mares … I had to know.
Rhys’s face was a mask of patience. “Show me some­thing impres­sive,
and I’ll tell you. Magic—for answers.”
“I know what sort of game you’re play­ing—” I cut myself off at the hint
of a smirk. “Very well.”
I held out my hand before me, palm cupped, and willed silence into my
veins, my mind.
Silence and calm and weight, like being under­wa­ter.
In my hand, a but­ter­fly of water flapped and danced.
Rhys smiled a bit, but the amuse­ment died as he said, “Tam­lin was
younger than me—born when the War start­ed. But after the War, when he’d
matured, we got to know each oth­er at var­i­ous court func­tions. He … ”
Rhys clenched his jaw. “He seemed decent for a High Lord’s son. Bet­ter
than Beron’s brood at the Autumn Court. Tamlin’s broth­ers were equal­ly as
bad, though. Worse. And they knew Tam­lin would take the title one day.
And to a half-breed Illyr­i­an who’d had to prove him­self, defend his pow­er, I
saw what Tam­lin went through … I befriend­ed him. Sought him out
when­ev­er I was able to get away from the war-camps or court. Maybe it
was pity, but … I taught him some Illyr­i­an tech­niques.”
“Did any­one know?”
He raised his brows—giving a point­ed look to my hand.
I scowled at him and sum­moned song­birds of water, let­ting them flap
around the clear­ing as they’d flown around my bathing room at the Sum­mer
Court.
“Cass­ian and Azriel knew,” Rhys went on. “My fam­i­ly knew. And
dis­ap­proved.” His eyes were chips of ice. “But Tamlin’s father was
threat­ened by it. By me. And because he was weak­er than both me and
Tam­lin, he want­ed to prove to the world that he wasn’t. My moth­er and
sis­ter were to trav­el to the Illyr­i­an war-camp to see me. I was sup­posed to
meet them halfway, but I was busy train­ing a new unit and decid­ed to stay.”
My stom­ach turned over and over and over, and I wished I had some­thing
to lean against as Rhys said, “Tamlin’s father, broth­ers, and Tam­lin him­self
set out into the Illyr­i­an wilder­ness, hav­ing heard from Tamlin—from me—
where my moth­er and sis­ter would be, that I had plans to see them. I was
sup­posed to be there. I wasn’t. And they slaugh­tered my moth­er and sis­ter
any­way.”
I began shak­ing my head, eyes burn­ing. I didn’t know what I was try­ing
to deny, or erase, or con­demn.
“It should have been me,” he said, and I understood—understood what
he’d said that day I’d wept before Cass­ian in the train­ing pit. “They put
their heads in box­es and sent them down the river—to the near­est camp.
Tamlin’s father kept their wings as tro­phies. I’m sur­prised you didn’t see
them pinned in the study.”
I was going to vom­it; I was going to fall to my knees and weep.
But Rhys looked at the menagerie of water-ani­mals I’d craft­ed and said,
“What else?”
Per­haps it was the cold, per­haps it was his sto­ry, but hoar­frost cracked in
my veins, and the wild song of a win­ter wind howled in my heart. I felt it
then—how easy it would be to jump between them, join them togeth­er, my
pow­ers.
Each one of my ani­mals halt­ed mid-air … and froze into per­fect­ly carved
bits of ice.
One by one, they dropped to the earth. And shat­tered.
They were one. They had come from the same, dark ori­gin, the same
eter­nal well of pow­er. Once, long ago—before lan­guage was invent­ed and
the world was new.
Rhys mere­ly con­tin­ued, “When I heard, when my father heard … I
wasn’t whol­ly truth­ful to you when I told you Under the Moun­tain that my
father killed Tamlin’s father and broth­ers. I went with him. Helped him. We
win­nowed to the edge of the Spring Court that night, then went the rest of
the way on foot—to the manor. I slew Tamlin’s broth­ers on sight. I held
their minds, and ren­dered them help­less while I cut them into pieces, then
melt­ed their brains inside their skulls. And when I got to the High Lord’s
bedroom—he was dead. And my father … my father had killed Tamlin’s
moth­er as well.”
I couldn’t stop shak­ing my head.
“My father had promised not to touch her. That we weren’t the kind of
males who would do that. But he lied to me, and he did it, any­way. And
then he went for Tamlin’s room.”
I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t breathe as Rhys said, “I tried to stop him.
He didn’t lis­ten. He was going to kill him, too. And I couldn’t … After all
the death, I was done. I didn’t care that Tam­lin had been there, had allowed
them to kill my moth­er and sis­ter, that he’d come to kill me because he
didn’t want to risk stand­ing against them. I was done with death. So I
stopped my father before the door. He tried to go through me. Tam­lin
opened the door, saw us—smelled the blood already leak­ing into the
hall­way. And I didn’t even get to say a word before Tam­lin killed my father
in one blow.
“I felt the pow­er shift to me, even as I saw it shift to him. And we just
looked at each oth­er, as we were both sud­den­ly crowned High Lord—and
then I ran.”
He’d mur­dered Rhysand’s fam­i­ly. The High Lord I’d loved—he’d
mur­dered his friend’s fam­i­ly, and when I’d asked how his fam­i­ly died, he’d
mere­ly told me a rival court had done it. Rhysand had done it, and—
“He didn’t tell you any of that.”
“I—I’m sor­ry,” I breathed, my voice hoarse.
“What do you pos­si­bly have to be sor­ry for?”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know that he’d done that—”
And Rhys thought I’d been com­par­ing him—comparing him against
Tam­lin, as if I held him to be some paragon …
“Why did you stop?” he said, motion­ing to the ice shards on the pine-
nee­dle car­pet.
The peo­ple he’d loved most—gone. Slaugh­tered in cold blood.
Slaugh­tered by Tam­lin.
The clear­ing explod­ed in flame.
The pine nee­dles van­ished, the trees groaned, and even Rhys swore as
fire swept through the clear­ing, my heart, and devoured every­thing in its
path.
No won­der he’d made Tam­lin beg that day I’d been for­mal­ly intro­duced
to him. No won­der he’d rel­ished every chance to taunt Tam­lin. Maybe my
pres­ence here was just to—
No. I knew that wasn’t true. I knew my being here had noth­ing to do with
what was between him and Tam­lin, though he no doubt enjoyed inter­rupt­ing
our wed­ding day. Saved me from that wed­ding day, actu­al­ly.
“Feyre,” Rhys said as the fire died.
But there it was—crackling inside my veins. Crack­ling beside veins of
ice, and water.
And dark­ness.
Embers flared around us, float­ing in the air, and I sent out a breath of
sooth­ing dark, a breath of ice and water, as if it were a wind—a wind at
dawn, sweep­ing clean the world.
The pow­er did not belong to the High Lords. Not any longer.
It belonged to me—as I belonged only to me, as my future was mine to
decide, to forge.
Once I dis­cov­ered and mas­tered what the oth­ers had giv­en me, I could
weave them together—into some­thing new, some­thing of every court and

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.

D ON AND I WERE IN the mid­dle of shoot­ing Three A.M. in New York.
Luisa, Celia, and Har­ry were trad­ing off watch­ing Con­nor while I was
at work. The days were longer than we antic­i­pat­ed, and the shoot ran
long.
I played Patri­cia, a woman in love with a drug addict, Mark, played
by Don. And every day, I could see that he was not the old Don I knew,
show­ing up to set and say­ing some lines with charm. This was
strik­ing, superla­tive, raw act­ing. He was pulling from his life, and he
was putting it on film.
On set, you real­ly hope that it’s all com­ing togeth­er into some­thing
mag­i­cal in the cam­era lens. But there’s nev­er any way to know for
sure.
Even when Har­ry and I were pro­duc­ing work our­selves, when we
were watch­ing the dailies so often that my eyes felt dry and I was
los­ing track of real­i­ty ver­sus film, we were nev­er one hun­dred per­cent
sure that all the parts were com­ing togeth­er per­fect­ly until we saw the
first cut.
But on the set of Three A.M., I just knew. I knew it was a movie that
would change how peo­ple saw me, how peo­ple saw Don. I thought it
might just be good enough to change lives, to get peo­ple clean. It
might just be good enough to change the way movies were made.
So I sac­ri­ficed.
When Max want­ed more days, I gave up time with Con­nor to be
there. When Max want­ed more nights, I gave up din­ners and evenings
with Celia. I must have called Celia almost every day from the set,
apol­o­giz­ing for some­thing. Apol­o­giz­ing that I couldn’t meet her at the
restau­rant in time. Apol­o­giz­ing that I need­ed her to stay home and
watch Con­nor for me.
I could tell that part of her regret­ted push­ing me to do the movie. I
don’t think she liked me work­ing with my ex-hus­band every day. I
don’t think she liked me work­ing with Max Girard every day. I don’t
think she liked my long hours. And I got the impres­sion that while she
loved my baby girl, babysit­ting wasn’t exact­ly her idea of a good time.
But she kept it to her­self and sup­port­ed me. When I called to say I’d
be late for the mil­lionth time, she would say, “It’s OK, hon­ey. Don’t
wor­ry. Just be great.” She was an excel­lent part­ner in that regard,
putting me first, putting my work first.
And then, toward the end of shoot­ing, after a long day of emo­tion­al
scene work, I was in my dress­ing room get­ting ready to go home when
Max knocked on my door.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s on your mind?”
He looked at me with con­sid­er­a­tion and then took a seat. I
remained stand­ing, com­mit­ted to leav­ing. “I think, Eve­lyn, we have
some­thing to think about.”
“We do?”
“The love scene is next week.”
“I’m aware.”
“This movie, it is almost done.”
“Yes.”
“And I think it is miss­ing some­thing.”
“Like what?”
“I think that the view­er needs to under­stand the raw mag­net­ism of
Patri­cia and Mark’s attrac­tion.”
“I agree. That’s why I agreed to real­ly show my breasts. You’re
get­ting what no oth­er film­mak­er, includ­ing your­self, has ever got­ten
from me before. I’d think you’d be thrilled.”
“Yes, of course, I am, but I think we need to show that Patri­cia is a
woman who takes what she wants, who delights in the sins of the
flesh. She is, right now, such a mar­tyr. She is a saint, help­ing Mark all
through the film, stand­ing by him.”
“Right, because of how much she loves him.”
“Yes, but we also need to see why she loves him. What does he give
to her, what does she get from him?”
“What are you get­ting at?”
“I want us to shoot some­thing almost no one does.”
“Which is?”
“I want to show you screw­ing because you love it.” His eyes were
wide and excit­ed. He was cre­ative­ly enthralled. I always knew Max
was a lit­tle las­civ­i­ous, but this was dif­fer­ent. This was a rebel­lious act.
“Think about it. Sex scenes are about love. Or pow­er.”
“Sure. And the pur­pose of the love scene next week is to show how
much Patri­cia loves Mark. How much she believes in him. How strong
their con­nec­tion is.”
Max shakes his head. “I want it to show the audi­ence that part of
the rea­son Patri­cia loves Mark is because he makes her orgasm.”
I felt myself pulling back, try­ing to take it all in. It shouldn’t have felt
so scan­dalous, and yet it absolute­ly was. Women have sex for inti­ma­cy.
Men have sex for plea­sure. That’s what cul­ture tells us.
The idea that I’d be shown to enjoy my body, to desire the male
form just as strong­ly as I was desired, to show a woman putting her
own phys­i­cal plea­sure at the fore­front . . . it felt dar­ing.
What Max was talk­ing about was a graph­ic por­tray­al of female
desire. And my gut instinct was that I loved the idea. I mean, the
thought of film­ing a graph­ic sex scene with Don was about as arous­ing
to me as a bowl of bran flakes. But I want­ed to push the enve­lope. I
want­ed to show a woman get­ting off. I liked the idea of show­ing a
woman hav­ing sex because she want­ed to be pleased instead of being
des­per­ate to please. So in a moment of excite­ment, I grabbed my coat,
put out my hand, and said, “I’m in.”
Max laughed and hopped out of his chair, tak­ing my hand and
shak­ing it. “Fan­tas­tique, ma belle!”
What I should have done was tell him I had to think about it. What I
should have done was tell Celia about it the moment I got home. What
I should have done was give her a say.
I should have giv­en her the oppor­tu­ni­ty to express any mis­giv­ings. I
should have respect­ed that while she had no place to tell me what I
could and could not do with my body, I did have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to
inquire about how my actions might affect her. I should have tak­en her
out to din­ner and told her what I want­ed to do and explained why I
want­ed to do it. I should have made love to her that night, to show her
that the only body I was tru­ly inter­est­ed in deriv­ing plea­sure from was
hers.
These are sim­ply things you do. These are kind­ness­es you extend
to the per­son you love when you know that your job will entail the
world see­ing images of you hav­ing sex with anoth­er per­son.
I did none of that for Celia.
Instead, I avoid­ed her.
I went home and checked on Con­nor. I went into the kitchen and
ate a chick­en sal­ad Luisa had left in the fridge.
Celia came in and hugged me. “How was shoot­ing?”
“Good,” I said. “Com­plete­ly fine.”
And because she didn’t say, How was your day? or Any­thing
inter­est­ing hap­pen with Max? or even How’s next week look­ing? I didn’t
bring it up.
  *  *  *  
I HAD TWO shots of bour­bon before Max yelled “Action!” The set was
closed. Just me, Don, Max, the cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er, and a cou­ple of guys
work­ing light­ing and sound.
I closed my eyes and told myself to remem­ber how good it felt to
want Don all those years ago. I thought of how sub­lime it was to
awak­en my own desire, to real­ize I liked sex, that it wasn’t just about
what men want­ed, that it was about me, too. I thought of how I want­ed
to put that seed of a thought into oth­er women’s brains. I thought of
how there might be oth­er women out there scared of their own
plea­sure, of their own pow­er. I thought of what it would mean to have
just one woman go home to her hus­band and say, “Give me what he
gave her.”
I put myself in that place of des­per­ate want­i­ng, the ache of need­ing
some­thing only some­one else can give you. I used to have that with
Don. I had it then with Celia. So I closed my eyes, I focused in on
myself, and I went there.
Lat­er on, peo­ple would say that Don and I were real­ly hav­ing sex in
the movie. There were all sorts of rumors that the sex was
unsim­u­lat­ed. But those rumors were com­plete and utter bull­shit.
Peo­ple just thought they saw real sex because the ener­gy was
sear­ing, because I con­vinced myself in that moment that I was a
woman in urgent need of him, because Don was able to remem­ber
how it felt to want me before he ever had me.
That day on set, I tru­ly let go. I was present and wild and
unre­strained. More than I ever had been on film before, more than I
ever have been since. It was a moment of pure­ly imag­ined reck­less
eupho­ria.
When Max yelled “Cut!” I snapped out of it. I stood up and rushed
to my robe. I blushed. Me. Eve­lyn Hugo. Blush­ing.
Don asked if I was all right, and I turned away from him, not
want­i­ng him to touch me.
“I’m fine,” I said, and then I went to my dress­ing room, closed the
door, and bawled my eyes out.
I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. I wasn’t ner­vous for audi­ences to
see it. The tears that fell down my face were because I real­ized what I
had done to Celia.
I had been a per­son who believed she stuck by a cer­tain code. It
may not have been a code that oth­ers sub­scribed to, but it was one that
made sense to me. And part of that code was being hon­est with Celia,
being good to her.
And this was not good to Celia.
Doing what I had just done, with­out her bless­ing, was not good for
the woman I loved.
When we wrapped for the day, I walked the fifty blocks home
instead of grab­bing a car. I need­ed the time to myself.
I stopped on the way and bought flow­ers. I called Har­ry from a pay
phone and asked him to take Con­nor for the night.
Celia was in the bed­room when I got home, dry­ing her hair.
“I got you these,” I said, hand­ing her the bou­quet of white lilies. I
did not men­tion that the florist had said that white lilies mean My love
is pure.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “They are gor­geous. Thank you.”
She smelled them and then grabbed a water glass, filled it from the
tap, and put the flow­ers in it. “Just for a moment,” she said. “Until I
have a chance to choose a vase.”
“I want­ed to ask you some­thing,” I said.
“Oh, boy,” she said. “Are these flow­ers just to but­ter me up?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “The flow­ers are because I love you.
Because I want you to know how often I think of you, how impor­tant
you are to me. I don’t tell you that enough. I want­ed to tell you this
way. With those.”
Guilt is a feel­ing I’ve nev­er made much peace with. I find that when
it rears its head, it brings an army. When I feel guilty for one thing, I
start to see all the oth­er things I should feel guilty for.
I sat on the foot of our bed. “I just . . . I want­ed to let you know that
Max and I have dis­cussed it, and I think the love scene in the movie
will be more graph­ic than you and I were think­ing.”
“How graph­ic?”
“Some­thing a bit more intense. Some­thing that con­veys Patricia’s
des­per­ate need to be plea­sured.”
I was lying out­right to hide a lie of omis­sion. I was craft­ing a new
nar­ra­tive, in which Celia would believe that I had asked for her
bless­ing before doing what I had already done.
“Her need to be plea­sured?”
“We need to see what Patri­cia gets out of her rela­tion­ship with
Mark. It’s not just love. It has to be more than that.”
“That makes sense,” Celia said. “You’re say­ing it answers the
ques­tion Why does she stay with him?”
“Yeah,” I said, excit­ed that maybe she would under­stand, maybe I
could fix this retroac­tive­ly. “Exact­ly. So we are going to shoot an
explic­it scene between Don and me. I’ll be most­ly nude. For the heart
of the movie to real­ly sink in, we need to see the two main char­ac­ters
tru­ly vul­ner­a­ble togeth­er, con­nect­ing . . . sex­u­al­ly.”
Celia lis­tened as I spoke, let­ting the words sink in. I could see her
grap­pling with what I was say­ing, try­ing to make it fit for her. “I want
you to do the movie as you want to do it,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“I just  .  .  .” She looked down and start­ed shak­ing her head. “I’m
feel­ing very  .  .  . I don’t know. I’m not sure I can do this. Know­ing
you’re with Don all day, with these long nights, and I nev­er see you,
and  .  .  . sex. Sex is sacred between us. I’m not sure I can stand to
watch that.”
“You won’t need to watch it.”
“But I’ll know it hap­pened. I’ll know it’s out there. And every­one will
see it. I want to be OK with this. I real­ly do.”
“So be OK with it.”
“I’m going to try.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m real­ly going to try.”
“Great.”
“But Eve­lyn, I don’t think I can. Just know­ing that you were  .  .  .
when you slept with Mick, I was sick for years after­ward, think­ing
about the two of you togeth­er.”
“I know.”
“And you slept with Har­ry, God knows how many times,” she said.
“I know, hon­ey. I know. But I’m not sleep­ing with Don.”
“But you have slept with him. You have. When peo­ple watch the two
of you on-screen, they will be watch­ing some­thing the two of you have
already done.”
“It’s not real,” I said.
“I know, but what you’re say­ing to me is that you are pre­pared to
make it look real. You’re say­ing you’re going to make it look more real
than any­thing else any of us have done so far.”
“Yes,” I said. “I guess I am say­ing that.”
She start­ed cry­ing. She put her head in her hands. “I feel like I’m
fail­ing you,” she said. “But I can’t do it. I can’t. I know myself, and I
know this is too much for me. I’ll be too sick over it. I’ll make myself ill
think­ing of you with him.” She shook her head, resolved. “I’m sor­ry. I
don’t have it in me. I can’t han­dle it. I want to be stronger for you, I do.
I know that if the tables were turned, you could han­dle it. I feel like I’m
dis­ap­point­ing you. And I’m so sor­ry, Eve­lyn. I will work for­ev­er to
make it up to you. I’ll help you get any part you want. For the rest of
our lives. And I’ll work on get­ting there so that the next time this
hap­pens, I can be stronger. But . . . please, Eve­lyn, I can’t live through
you sleep­ing with anoth­er man. Even if this time it only looks real. I
can’t do it. Please,” she said. “Please don’t do this.”
My heart sank. I near­ly vom­it­ed.
I looked down at the floor. I stud­ied the way two planks of wood met
just under my feet, how the nail­heads were just the lit­tlest bit sunken
in.
And then I looked up at her and said, “I already did it.”
I sobbed.
And I plead­ed.
And I grov­eled, des­per­ate­ly, on my knees, hav­ing long ago learned
the les­son that you have to throw your­self at the mer­cy of the things
you tru­ly want.
But before I was done, Celia said, “All I’ve ever want­ed was for you
to be tru­ly mine. But you’ve nev­er been mine. Not real­ly. I’ve always
had to set­tle for one piece of you. While the world gets the oth­er half. I
don’t blame you. It doesn’t make me stop lov­ing you. But I can’t do it. I
can’t do it, Eve­lyn. I can’t live with my heart half-bro­ken all the time.”
And she walked out the door and left me.
With­in a week, Celia had packed up all her things, at my apart­ment
and hers, and moved back to L.A.
She would not answer the phone when I called. I couldn’t get hold
of her.
Then, weeks after she left, she filed for divorce from John. When he
got the papers, I swear, it was as if she had served them to me direct­ly.
It was clear, in no uncer­tain terms, that by divorc­ing him, she was
divorc­ing me.
I got John to make some calls to her agent, her man­ag­er. He
tracked her down at the Bev­er­ly Wilshire. I flew to Los Ange­les, and I
pound­ed on her door.
I was wear­ing my favorite Diane von Fursten­berg, because Celia
had once said I was irre­sistible in it. There were a man and a woman
com­ing out of their hotel room, and as they walked down the hall, they
couldn’t stop look­ing at me. They knew who I was. But I refused to
hide. I just kept knock­ing on the door.
When Celia final­ly opened it, I looked her in the eye and didn’t say a
word. She stared back at me, silent. And then, with tears in my eyes, I
said, sim­ply, “Please.”
She turned away from me.

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.

45
The �rst step toward secur­ing my free­dom was for peo­ple to begin to
under­stand that I was still a real person—and I knew that I could do that by
shar­ing more of my life on social media. I start­ed try­ing on new clothes and
mod­el­ing them on Insta­gram. I found it incred­i­bly fun. Even though some
peo­ple online thought it was odd, I didn’t care. When you’ve been sex­u­al­ized
your whole life, it feels good to be in com­plete con­trol of the wardrobe and the
cam­era.
I tried to get back in touch with my cre­ativ­i­ty and to fol­low visu­al and music
artists on Insta­gram. I came across a guy mak­ing trip­py videos—one was just a
baby-pink screen with a white tiger with pink stripes walk­ing across it. See­ing
that, I felt a nat­ur­al urge to cre­ate some­thing myself, and I start­ed play­ing
around with a song. At the begin­ning of it, I added the sound of a baby
laugh­ing. I thought it was di�erent.
Hesam said, “Don’t put a baby laugh­ing in it!”
I lis­tened to his advice and took it out, but a while lat­er anoth­er account I
fol­low post­ed a video with a baby laugh­ing, and I was jeal­ous. I should’ve done
that! I thought. That creepy laugh­ing baby should’ve been my thing!
Artists are weird, you know?
There were so many peo­ple in the indus­try at that time think­ing that I was
out of my mind. At a cer­tain point, I’d rather be “crazy” and able to make what I
want than “a good sport” and doing what every­one tells me to do with­out being
able to actu­al­ly express myself. And on Insta­gram, I want­ed to show that I
exist­ed.
I also found myself laugh­ing more—transported by come­di­ans like Amy
Schumer, Kevin Hart, Sebas­t­ian Man­is­cal­co, and Jo Koy. I devel­oped such
respect for their wit and their clev­er­ness, how they use lan­guage to get under
people’s skin and to make them laugh. That’s a gift. Hear­ing them use their
voices—being so dis­tinc­tive­ly themselves—reminded me that that was
some­thing I could do, too, when I made videos on social media or even just in a
cap­tion. Humor made it pos­si­ble for me not to get con­sumed by bit­ter­ness.
I have always admired peo­ple in the enter­tain­ment indus­try who have a sharp
wit. Laugh­ter is the cure for every­thing.
Peo­ple might laugh because things I post are inno­cent or strange, or because I
can get mean when I’m talk­ing about peo­ple who’ve hurt me. Maybe this has
been a fem­i­nist awak­en­ing. I guess what I’m say­ing is that the mys­tery of who
the real me is, is to my advantage—because nobody knows!
My kids laugh at me some­times, and when they do it, I don’t mind so much.
They’ve always helped change my per­spec­tive on the world. Since they were
lit­tle, they’ve always seen things di�erently, and they’re both so cre­ative. Sean
Pre­ston is a genius at school—he’s real­ly, real­ly bright. Jay­den has such an
incred­i­ble gift with the piano; it gives me chills.
Before the pan­dem­ic, they were with me for deli­cious din­ners two or three
nights a week. They were always shar­ing amaz­ing things they’d made and
explain­ing to me what they were excit­ed about.
“Mom, check out this paint­ing I made!” one of them would say. I’d tell them
what I saw and they’d say, “Yeah, but now, Mom, look at it like this.” And I’d see
even more in what they’d made. I love them for their depth and their char­ac­ter,
their tal­ent and their good­ness.
As we entered a new decade, every­thing was just start­ing to make sense again.
Then COVID hit.
For the �rst months of lock­down, I became even more of a home­body than I
already had been. I spent days, weeks, sit­ting in my room, lis­ten­ing to self-help
audio­books, star­ing at the wall or mak­ing jew­el­ry, bored out of my mind. When
I’d run through a ton of self-help audio­books, I moved on to sto­ry­telling ones,
any­thing that turned up under the head­ing of “Imagination”—especially any
book that had a nar­ra­tor with a British accent.

Chap­ter 45 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të opens with the nar­ra­tor, reflect­ing on the nar­ra­tive’s impact on his emo­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly the sat­is­fac­tion he felt watch­ing Mr. Hunt­ing­don’s decline in his wife, Helen’s, graces jux­ta­posed with his empa­thy for her suf­fer­ings. One morn­ing, after a night of intense read­ing and con­tem­pla­tion, he expe­ri­ences a myr­i­ad of emo­tions and resolves to seek rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with Helen.

Upon vis­it­ing Wild­fell Hall, the nar­ra­tor is ini­tial­ly barred entry by Rachel, the house­keep­er, but is even­tu­al­ly allowed inside by Helen’s son, Arthur. The ensu­ing dia­logue between Helen and the nar­ra­tor is charged with emo­tion­al strug­gle as they con­front their feel­ings for each oth­er and the impos­si­bil­i­ty of their rela­tion­ship. Helen, while acknowl­edg­ing their love, insists on their per­ma­nent sep­a­ra­tion due to social con­straints and the inevitable mis­ery their con­tin­ued inter­ac­tion would bring. She sug­gests that any com­mu­ni­ca­tion cease, propos­ing that true peace and under­stand­ing can only be achieved in heav­en. Despite the nar­ra­tor’s protests, Helen remains firm in her con­vic­tion that it is bet­ter for them both to part ways, sug­gest­ing they might only write to each oth­er after a six-month peri­od to ensure their cor­re­spon­dence is pure­ly pla­ton­ic.

Lat­er, the nar­ra­tor seeks out Mr. Lawrence to apol­o­gize for a pre­vi­ous mis­un­der­stand­ing and assault, think­ing him a rival for Helen’s affec­tions, not know­ing he was her broth­er. The meet­ing is tense, but ulti­mate­ly Lawrence accepts the nar­ra­tor’s apol­o­gy, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of the sev­er­ance between Helen and the nar­ra­tor for the sake of pro­pri­ety and Helen’s rep­u­ta­tion.

The chap­ter ends with Lawrence, though sick and weak, express­ing con­cern for his sis­ter’s well­be­ing and rep­u­ta­tion, decid­ing to write her a note to pre­vent her from wor­ry­ing about him unnec­es­sar­i­ly.

This chap­ter is marked by intense emo­tion­al con­flict and moral con­tem­pla­tion, demon­strat­ing the com­plex inter­play of soci­etal expec­ta­tions, per­son­al hon­or, and true affec­tion. It under­scores the trag­ic real­i­ty that true love does not always lead to hap­pi­ness in a world gov­erned by rigid social con­ven­tions.