In Chap­ter Six­ty, Nina Win­ches­ter finds her­self in a dis­tress­ing sit­u­a­tion, con­fined with­in the walls of her home, pon­der­ing the grim pos­si­bil­i­ty of her depar­ture being marred by her arrest. As she sits on her leather sofa, the air heavy with antic­i­pa­tion of the detec­tive’s return, she reach­es out to Enzo, seek­ing a sliv­er of com­fort amidst chaos. Enzo’s readi­ness to stand by her, despite the dubi­ous­ness of his involve­ment, under­scores the com­plex­i­ty of their rela­tion­ship. Their con­ver­sa­tion is inter­rupt­ed by the inno­cence of Cece, Nina’s daugh­ter, whose sim­ple request to be picked up by her moth­er adds a lay­er of poignan­cy to the sit­u­a­tion.

Detec­tive Con­nors’ re-entry into the room shifts the focus to the inves­ti­ga­tion of Andy’s death, specif­i­cal­ly the mys­te­ri­ous bruis­es found on his body. The inter­ro­ga­tion that fol­lows peels away at the lay­ers of Nina and Andy’s strained rela­tion­ship, bring­ing to light Nina’s uneasy posi­tion and the pecu­liar cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing Andy’s demise in the attic. Con­nors’ prob­ing ques­tions about Wil­helmi­na Cal­loway and the baf­fling sit­u­a­tion in the attic under­score the com­plex­i­ty of the case and Nina’s pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion.

A sur­pris­ing twist unfolds as Detec­tive Con­nors reveals a per­son­al con­nec­tion to the case—his daugh­ter, Kath­leen, was once engaged to Andy. This rev­e­la­tion not only adds a per­son­al stake to Con­nors’ involve­ment in the inves­ti­ga­tion but also rein­tro­duces Kath­leen, a ghost from the past whose own expe­ri­ences with Andy cast him in a new, pos­si­bly dark­er, light. This chap­ter intri­cate­ly weaves sus­pense and emo­tion, focus­ing on Nina’s bat­tle against the encroach­ing shad­ows of accu­sa­tion, the weight of her past deci­sions, and the loom­ing specter of a failed jus­tice sys­tem. Through Nina’s eyes, we see the unfold­ing of a nar­ra­tive that chal­lenges the bound­aries of loy­al­ty, guilt, and the search for truth amidst the ruins of a life once cher­ished.

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
60
“Velaris is secure,” Rhys said in the black hours of the night. “The wards
the Caul­dron took out have been remade.”
We had not stopped to rest until now. For hours we’d worked, along with
the rest of the city, to heal, to patch up, to hunt down answers any way we
could. And now we were all again gath­ered, the clock chim­ing three in the
morn­ing.
I didn’t know how Rhys was stand­ing as he leaned against the man­tel in
the sit­ting room. I was near-limp on the couch beside Mor, both of us
coat­ed in dirt and blood. Like the rest of them.
Sprawled in an arm­chair built for Illyr­i­an wings, Cassian’s face was
bat­tered and heal­ing slow­ly enough that I knew he’d drained his pow­er
dur­ing those long min­utes when he’d defend­ed the city alone. But his hazel
eyes still glowed with the embers of rage.
Amren was hard­ly bet­ter off. The tiny female’s gray clothes hung most­ly
in strips, her skin beneath pale as snow. Half-asleep on the couch across
from mine, she leaned against Azriel, who kept cast­ing alarmed glances at
her, even as his own wounds leaked a bit. Atop his scarred hands, Azriel’s
blue Siphons were dull, mut­ed. Utter­ly emp­ty.
As I had helped the sur­vivors in the Rain­bow tend to their wound­ed,
count their dead, and begin repairs, Rhys had checked in every now and
then while he’d rebuilt the wards with what­ev­er pow­er lin­gered in his
arse­nal. Dur­ing one of our brief breaks, he’d told me what Amren had done
on her side of the riv­er.
With her dark pow­er, she had spun illu­sions straight into the sol­diers’
minds. They believed they had fall­en into the Sidra and were drown­ing;
they believed they were fly­ing a thou­sand feet above and had dived, fast
and swift, for the city—only to find the street mere feet away, and the
crunch of their skulls. The cru­el­er ones, the wickedest ones, she had
unleashed their own night­mares upon them—until they died from ter­ror,
their hearts giv­ing out.
Some had fall­en into the riv­er, drink­ing their own spread­ing blood as
they drowned. Some had dis­ap­peared whol­ly.
“Velaris might be secure,” Cass­ian replied, not even both­er­ing to lift his
head from where it rest­ed against the back of the chair, “but for how long?
Hybern knows about this place, thanks to those wyrm-queens. Who else
will they sell the infor­ma­tion to? How long until the oth­er courts come
sniff­ing? Or Hybern uses that Caul­dron again to take down our defens­es?”
Rhys closed his eyes, his shoul­ders tight. I could already see the weight
push­ing down on that dark head.
I hat­ed to add to that bur­den, but I said, “If we all go to Hybern to destroy
the Caul­dron … who will defend the city?”
Silence. Rhys’s throat bobbed.
Amren said, “I’ll stay.” Cass­ian opened his mouth to object, but Rhys
slow­ly looked at his Sec­ond. Amren held his gaze as she added, “If Rhys
must go to Hybern, then I am the only one of you who might hold the city
until help arrives. Today was a sur­prise. A bad one. When you leave, we
will be bet­ter pre­pared. The new wards we built today will not fall so
eas­i­ly.”
Mor loosed a sigh. “So what do we do now?”
Amren sim­ply said, “We sleep. We eat.”
And it was Azriel who added, his voice raw with the after­math of bat­tle-
rage, “And then we retal­i­ate.”
Rhys did not come to bed.
And when I emerged from the bath, the water cloud­ed with dirt and
blood, he was nowhere to be found.
But I felt for the bond between us and trudged upstairs, my stiff legs
bark­ing in pain. He was sit­ting on the roof—in the dark. His great wings
were spread behind him, draped over the tiles.
I slid into his lap, loop­ing my arms around his neck.
He stared at the city around us. “So few lights. So few lights left tonight.”
I did not look. I only traced the lines of his face, then brushed my thumb
over his mouth. “It is not your fault,” I said qui­et­ly.
His eyes shift­ed to mine, bare­ly vis­i­ble in the dark. “Isn’t it? I hand­ed this
city over to them. I said I would be will­ing to risk it, but … I don’t know
who I hate more: the king, those queens, or myself.”
I brushed the hair out of his face. He gripped my hand, halt­ing my
fin­gers. “You shut me out,” he breathed. “You—shielded against me.
Com­plete­ly. I couldn’t find a way in.”
“I’m sor­ry.”
Rhys let out a bit­ter laugh. “Sor­ry? Be impressed. That shield … What
you did to the Attor … ” He shook his head. “You could have been killed.”
“Are you going to scold me for it?”
His brows fur­rowed. Then he buried his face in my shoul­der. “How could
I scold you for defend­ing my peo­ple? I want to throt­tle you, yes, for not
going back to the town house, but … You chose to fight for them. For
Velaris.” He kissed my neck. “I don’t deserve you.”
My heart strained. He meant it—truly felt that way. I stroked his hair
again. And I said to him, the words the only sounds in the silent, dark city,
“We deserve each oth­er. And we deserve to be hap­py.”
Rhys shud­dered against me. And when his lips found mine, I let him lay
me down upon the roof tiles and make love to me under the stars.
Amren cracked the code the next after­noon. The news was not good.
“To nul­li­fy the Cauldron’s pow­er,” she said by way of greet­ing as we
crowd­ed around the din­ing table in the town house, hav­ing rushed in from
the repairs we’d all been mak­ing on very lit­tle sleep, “you must touch the
Cauldron—and speak these words.” She had writ­ten them all down for me
on a piece of paper.
“You know this for cer­tain?” Rhys said. He was still bleak-eyed from the
attack, from heal­ing and help­ing his peo­ple all day.
Amren hissed. “I’m try­ing not to be insult­ed, Rhysand.”
Mor elbowed her way between them, star­ing at the two assem­bled pieces
of the Book of Breath­ings. “What hap­pens if we put both halves togeth­er?”
“Don’t put them togeth­er,” Amren sim­ply said.
With either piece laid out, their voic­es blend­ed and sang and hissed—evil
and good and mad­ness; dark and light and chaos.
“You put the pieces togeth­er,” she clar­i­fied when Rhys gave her a
ques­tion­ing look, “and the blast of pow­er will be felt in every cor­ner and
hole in the earth. You won’t just attract the King of Hybern. You’ll draw
ene­mies far old­er and more wretched. Things that have long been asleep—
and should remain so.”
I cringed a bit. Rhys put a hand on my back.
“Then we move in now,” Cass­ian said. His face had healed, but he
limped a bit from an injury I couldn’t see beneath his fight­ing leathers. He
jerked his chin to Rhys. “Since you can’t win­now with­out being tracked,
Mor and Az will win­now us all in, Feyre breaks the Caul­dron, and we get
out. We’ll be there and gone before any­one notices and the King of Hybern
will have a new piece of cook­ware.”
I swal­lowed. “It could be any­where in his cas­tle.”
“We know where it is,” Cass­ian coun­tered.
I blinked. Azriel said to me, “We’ve been able to nar­row it down to the
low­er lev­els.” Through his spy­ing, their plan­ning for this trip all these
months. “Every inch of the cas­tle and sur­round­ing lands is heav­i­ly guard­ed,
but not impos­si­ble to get through. We’ve worked out the tim­ing of it—for a
small group of us to get in and out, quick and silent, and be gone before
they know what’s hap­pen­ing.”
Mor said to him, “But the King of Hybern could notice Rhys’s pres­ence
the moment he arrives. And if Feyre needs time to nul­li­fy the Caul­dron, and
we don’t know how much time, that’s a risky vari­able.”
Cass­ian said, “We’ve con­sid­ered that. So you and Rhys will win­now us
in off the coast; we fly in while he stays.” They’d have to win­now me, I
real­ized, since I still had not yet mas­tered doing it over long dis­tances. At
least, not with many stops in between. “As for the spell,” Cass­ian
con­tin­ued, “it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
Silence fell as they wait­ed for Rhys’s answer. My mate scanned my face,
eyes wide.
Azriel pushed, “It’s a sol­id plan. The king doesn’t know our scents. We
wreck the Caul­dron and van­ish before he notices … It’ll be a graver insult
than the blood­i­er, direct route we’d been con­sid­er­ing, Rhys. We beat them
yes­ter­day, so when we go into that cas­tle … ” Vengeance indeed danced in
that nor­mal­ly placid face. “We’ll leave a few reminders that we won the last
damn war for a rea­son.”
Cass­ian nod­ded grim­ly. Even Mor smiled a bit.
“Are you ask­ing me,” Rhys final­ly said, far too calm­ly, “to stay out­side
while my mate goes into his strong­hold?”
“Yes,” Azriel said with equal calm, Cass­ian shift­ing him­self slight­ly
between them. “If Feyre can’t nul­li­fy the Caul­dron eas­i­ly or quick­ly, we
steal it—send the pieces back to the bas­tard when we’re done break­ing it
apart. Either way, Feyre calls you through the bond when we’re done—you
and Mor win­now us out. They won’t be able to track you fast enough if you
only come to retrieve us.”
Rhysand dropped onto the couch beside me at last, loos­ing a breath. His
eyes slid to me. “If you want to go, then you go, Feyre.”
If I hadn’t been already in love with him, I might have loved him for that
—for not insist­ing I stay, even if it drove his instincts mad, for not lock­ing
me away in the after­math of what had hap­pened yes­ter­day.
And I realized—I real­ized how bad­ly I’d been treat­ed before, if my
stan­dards had become so low. If the free­dom I’d been grant­ed felt like a
priv­i­lege and not an inher­ent right.
Rhys’s eyes dark­ened, and I knew he read what I thought, felt. “You
might be my mate,” he said, “but you remain your own per­son. You decide
your fate—your choic­es. Not me. You chose yes­ter­day. You choose every
day. For­ev­er.”
And maybe he only under­stood because he, too, had been help­less and
with­out choic­es, had been forced to do such hor­ri­ble things, and locked up.
I thread­ed my fin­gers through his and squeezed. Together—together we’d
find our peace, our future. Togeth­er we’d fight for it.
“Let’s go to Hybern,” I said.
I was halfway up the stairs an hour lat­er when I real­ized that I still had no
idea what room to go to. I’d gone to my bed­room since we’d returned from
the cab­in, but … what of his?
With Tam­lin, he’d kept his own rooms and slept in mine. And I sup­posed
—I sup­posed it’d be the same.
I was almost to my bed­room door when Rhysand drawled from behind
me, “We can use your room if you like, but … ” He was lean­ing against his
open bed­room door. “Either your room or mine—but we’re shar­ing one
from now on. Just tell me whether I should move my clothes or yours. If
that’s all right with you.”
“Don’t you—you don’t want your own space?”
“No,” he said bald­ly. “Unless you do. I need you pro­tect­ing me from our
ene­mies with your water-wolves.”
I snort­ed. He’d made me tell him that part of my tale over and over. I
jerked my chin toward his bed­room. “Your bed is big­ger.”
And that was that.
I walked in to find my clothes already there, a sec­ond armoire now
beside his. I stared at the mas­sive bed, then at all the open space around us.
Rhys shut the door and went to a small box on the desk—then silent­ly
hand­ed it to me.
My heart thun­dered as I opened the lid. The star sap­phire gleamed in the
can­dle­light, as if it were one of the Star­fall spir­its trapped in stone. “Your
mother’s ring?”
“My moth­er gave me that ring to remind me she was always with me,
even dur­ing the worst of my train­ing. And when I reached my major­i­ty, she
took it away. It was an heir­loom of her family—had been hand­ed down
from female to female over many, many years. My sis­ter wasn’t yet born, so
she wouldn’t have known to give it to her, but … My moth­er gave it to the
Weaver. And then she told me that if I were to mar­ry or mate, then the
female would either have to be smart or strong enough to get it back. And if
the female wasn’t either of those things, then she wouldn’t sur­vive the
mar­riage. I promised my moth­er that any poten­tial bride or mate would
have the test … And so it sat there for cen­turies.”
My face heat­ed. “You said this was some­thing of val­ue—”
“It is. To me, and my fam­i­ly.”
“So my trip to the Weaver—”