In Chap­ter 24 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds with Per-Åke Sand­ström, a mid­dle-aged jour­nal­ist, grap­pling with feel­ings of pan­ic and dread fol­low­ing the mur­der of Dag Svens­son. Hav­ing been com­plic­it in dark deal­ings involv­ing sex traf­fick­ing, he ini­tial­ly feels a sense of relief at Svensson’s death, believ­ing it might elim­i­nate the threats from an exposé. Yet, soon his anx­i­ety esca­lates as he real­izes the police may uncov­er incrim­i­nat­ing evi­dence against him.

While his fears momen­tar­i­ly dis­si­pate as atten­tion shifts to Lis­beth Salan­der, sus­pect­ed in the mur­ders, Sand­ström finds him­self in a pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion. He becomes acute­ly aware of his pre­car­i­ous posi­tion when he returns home only to be assault­ed by Salan­der, who cap­tures him in a hor­ri­fy­ing man­ner. Bound and help­less, he faces her wrath as she ques­tions his past heinous acts, includ­ing his exploita­tion of 17-year-old Ines Ham­mu­järvi.

Salan­der inter­ro­gates Sand­ström with chill­ing com­po­sure, using a Taser as a threat to enforce obe­di­ence. As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, he reveals shock­ing admis­sions about his involve­ment with the Ranta broth­ers and the abus­es he inflict­ed on Ines, con­fess­ing to rape and detail­ing how he got entan­gled with the Ranta crime fam­i­ly.

Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Mikael Blomkvist is deeply unset­tled by the grow­ing com­plex­i­ties of the mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion, puz­zling over the con­nec­tions among all par­ties involved and grap­pling with the impli­ca­tions of Lisbeth’s actions. He reflects on inter­twined motives, fueled by a grow­ing appre­hen­sion regard­ing Salander’s role in the unfold­ing events.

As the chap­ter cul­mi­nates, Sand­ström is left trem­bling, bur­dened by guilt and fear, real­iz­ing he may be trapped between the destruc­tive past and the loom­ing threat posed by Salan­der and the Ranta broth­ers. The ten­sion esca­lates as Salan­der, hav­ing extract­ed vital infor­ma­tion, departs, leav­ing Sand­ström to face the con­se­quences of his actions.

In Chap­ter 24 of “The Art Thief,” Anne-Cather­ine earns her driver’s license and buys a rasp­ber­ry-red Ford Ka, allow­ing her to com­mute to work after mov­ing out from her par­ents’ home to a stu­dio apart­ment on the out­skirts of Mul­house. Mean­while, Bre­itwieser strug­gles with his life after Anne-Cather­ine leaves him; for four months, he refrains from steal­ing, feel­ing aim­less with­out her. He occu­pies him­self with tem­po­rary jobs and broods alone, lead­ing him to even­tu­al­ly con­tact Anne-Cather­ine.

When they speak, Bre­itwieser express­es remorse for how he treat­ed her, acknowl­edg­ing his obses­sion and volatil­i­ty while promis­ing to let go of his past anger about their rela­tion­ship, includ­ing the abor­tion. He con­veys his love for her, claim­ing she is the only woman for him and admits that her absence has quelled his addic­tion to art theft. Con­verse­ly, Anne-Cather­ine, now with a sta­ble life, can­not shake her addic­tion to the excite­ment she shared with Bre­itwieser, which involved clan­des­tine art heists. Although she warns him against vio­lence, she does not explic­it­ly for­bid him from steal­ing, pre­fer­ring to main­tain her own space free from art while rejoin­ing him in the attic.

As their rela­tion­ship rekin­dles, Bre­itwieser feels inspired again, retreat­ing to local muse­ums to steal art­works. By late 1999, he has amassed around 250 stolen items, pri­mar­i­ly avoid­ing church­es, hav­ing rec­og­nized Anne-Cather­ine’s dis­com­fort with those thefts. How­ev­er, he even­tu­al­ly returns to them as they pro­vide easy tar­gets with valu­able art. His col­lec­tion grows, mak­ing their attic space increas­ing­ly clut­tered.

In the new year, Bre­itwieser secures a well-pay­ing job in Switzer­land, which he jug­gles with his art theft. Deter­mined to appease Anne-Cather­ine’s crav­ing for excite­ment through legal means, he orga­nizes a roman­tic get­away to the Domini­can Repub­lic, where he refrains from steal­ing entire­ly. After this trip, he plans future vaca­tions with her, yet Anne-Cather­ine remains cau­tious about his work in Switzer­land, fear­ing the con­se­quences of anoth­er arrest fol­low­ing their pre­vi­ous luck. Though the­o­ret­i­cal­ly agree­ing to her cau­tion, Bre­itwieser strug­gles with temp­ta­tion as he dri­ves past muse­ums on his way to work .

In Chap­ter 24, Huck and Jim find them­selves in a pre­car­i­ous sit­u­a­tion, caught under the influ­ence of the Duke and the King. After doz­ing off, Huck is pinned down by Jim’s head on his shoul­der, but a sense of urgency push­es him to want to flee. Their cap­tors emerge from a saloon, their drunk­en arro­gance evi­dent in their mock­ing ban­ter. The Duke sug­gests tak­ing them to the liv­ery, where they meet an elder­ly black­smith named East­er.

The King and the Duke share a laugh at East­er’s name, fur­ther demon­strat­ing their insen­si­tiv­i­ty. They order chains for Jim, assert­ing their author­i­ty while Jim reluc­tant­ly allows him­self to be shack­led. The atmos­phere is charged; Huck is vis­i­bly dis­tressed, plead­ing with them not to chain Jim, who he asserts won’t run away. Despite this, the Duke insists on immo­bi­liz­ing him and receives a key for the shack­les before depart­ing.

Once they leave, East­er shows a flick­er of com­pas­sion, offer­ing Jim a spare key, allow­ing him to sleep unchained. Huck is ini­tial­ly incred­u­lous but grate­ful for East­er’s kind­ness. They bond over their shared expe­ri­ence and the bur­den of liv­ing in a soci­ety that dehu­man­izes them.

East­er ques­tions Jim about Huck, unaware of their true friend­ship and mutu­al trust. Jim explains that Huck is try­ing to help him escape. How­ev­er, East­er sens­es the impor­tance of the soci­etal bound­aries in their rela­tion­ship, remark­ing on the ways of see­ing the world that dif­fer between races. As night falls, Huck wakes to ques­tion Jim’s demeanor dur­ing their ear­li­er con­ver­sa­tion. Jim reas­sures him of his unwa­ver­ing trust, lead­ing Huck to con­fess his under­stand­ing of Jim’s cau­tious behav­ior. Their exchange high­lights the deep­en­ing trust between them, as they nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of their world and the bonds of friend­ship. The chap­ter con­cludes with Huck and Jim find­ing solace in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny, reaf­firm­ing their friend­ship as they pre­pare for the chal­lenges ahead.

In the oppres­sive heat of a South Car­oli­na after­noon, Amy insists to Rosie that they need to steal a fast car. Despite Rosie point­ing out that they are being shot at, Amy argues that the gun­fire is not direct­ed at them and will like­ly cease soon. This sense of urgency fol­lows a stark mes­sage from Jeff, who informed her that they must remain off the radar and can­not return to Lon­don. Under­stand­ing the grav­i­ty of their sit­u­a­tion, Amy acknowl­edges they are alone now and need to avoid any­thing trace­able, includ­ing cred­it cards, which makes Rosie despair.

As they hide beneath a pool cov­er in a neighbor’s gar­den, the bul­let shots near­by illus­trate the dan­ger they are in. They had just dis­cov­ered that Sher­iff Scrog­gie’s house con­tained scan­dalous emails indi­cat­ing he might be involved in more than just law enforcement—he is the killer of Andrew Fair­banks. Among their find­ings, a gro­cery bag with a hun­dred thou­sand dol­lars rein­forces Scrog­gie’s reck­less deci­sions. The mon­ey is now an emer­gency fund for their plight.

As they evade the shoot­er, Amy deduces that there might be police involved, poten­tial­ly tied to Scrog­gie. In a tense moment filled with dark humor, Rosie men­tions her friend Barb as a poten­tial ally. Still, Amy knows they must act quick­ly, with the intent to regroup and under­stand the revolt­ing con­nec­tion between var­i­ous play­ers in this per­ilous game, includ­ing François Lou­bet and the threats lin­ger­ing over them.

The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to trust; Amy’s thoughts drift to her hus­band, Adam, who is not reli­able in crises, while Jeff, whom she trusts com­plete­ly, is now also in dan­ger. Rosie’s light­heart­ed atti­tude about reap­ply­ing lip­stick under stress con­trasts sharply with the seri­ous­ness of their sit­u­a­tion. The real­iza­tion hits Amy that there is only one per­son she can tru­ly rely on for help right now—Steve. Yet, reach­ing out to him would come with its chal­lenges.

Ulti­mate­ly, Rosie con­firms humor­ous­ly that she pos­sess­es a pri­vate plane, prompt­ing Amy to set her plan in motion: steal a car and call for help, know­ing that involv­ing Steve won’t sit well with him. The chap­ter ends on a note of uncer­tain­ty, under­scor­ing the stakes involved and the need for deci­sive action amidst chaos.

In Chap­ter 24 of *All the Col­ors of the Dark,* the sto­ry unfolds on a cold Thurs­day amidst the Super Out­break of 1974, with severe storms shak­ing the home of Nor­ma and her grand­daugh­ter, Saint. As thun­der rat­tles the win­dows, Nor­ma seeks com­fort out­side on the porch while Saint attends to a soaked Patch, who arrives shiv­er­ing and wet. Intrigued by his grand­moth­er’s storm-stay­ing habit, Saint reveals the emo­tion­al weight of the storms tied to her grand­fa­ther’s death.

Once the storm pass­es, the chil­dren engage in play with a sling­shot Patch brought, as he teach­es Saint the mechan­ics of shoot­ing. They set up Pro­gres­so cans as tar­gets, and with each hit, their con­nec­tion deep­ens. Though unaware of Patch’s wor­ries regard­ing their finan­cial strug­gles, Sain­t’s youth­ful spir­it shines as she focus­es on the fun of prac­tic­ing. After mas­ter­ing her aim, their con­ver­sa­tion takes a seri­ous turn when Patch admits he could kill ani­mals if need­ed, while Saint rec­og­nizes her own inabil­i­ty to do so, sug­gest­ing the chil­dren grap­ple with big­ger ques­tions of sur­vival and iden­ti­ty.

Inter­nal cur­rents flow between them as they tran­si­tion from the yard to the piano, where Saint plays with pas­sion despite her fears of judg­ment. As she sings about “Mona Lisas and Mad Hat­ters,” Patch unex­pect­ed­ly appre­ci­ates her music, admit­ting it’s the most beau­ti­ful he has ever heard. He grad­u­al­ly con­fides in her about his moth­er’s job loss—a painful moment that trig­gers an emo­tion­al response from Patch, lead­ing him to cry.

Feel­ing the weight of his feel­ings, Saint offers him com­fort and a dream—the notion of vis­it­ing North Carolina’s Coastal Plain, famous for its pur­ple hon­ey. Their promise of a shared escape serves as a refuge from their cur­rent lives, sym­bol­iz­ing hope and pos­si­bil­i­ty. This promise cul­mi­nates in their first kiss, mark­ing a turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship.

The next day at school, ten­sions rise when a bul­ly named Chuck Bradley breaks Sain­t’s sling­shot, pro­vok­ing Patch to fight back. Despite suf­fer­ing from the con­fronta­tion, Patch insists he cares fierce­ly for Saint, mak­ing it clear she is his anchor amidst strug­gles. Their bond, under­scored by promise and pro­tec­tion, grows in the face of adver­si­ty, encap­su­lat­ing the strug­gles and inno­cence of child­hood against a back­drop of tur­moil.

In the morn­ing, Mar­la insists on stay­ing in the con­ser­va­to­ry until she sees Gary while enjoy­ing the wed­ding brunch. Con­ver­sa­tions reveal mixed feel­ings about the day’s events as they eat, with Mar­la call­ing atten­tion to the food and whis­pers about it feel­ing like some­one has died. Despite the absence of the groom, the fam­i­ly mem­bers share humor­ous yet poignant sto­ries about Gary’s child­hood, hint­ing at their fond mem­o­ries but also miss­ing him deeply.

As the day unfolds, Jim tries to con­tact Gary, stress­ing the impor­tance of his pres­ence while the fam­i­ly offers mixed com­fort­ing remarks about his recent breakup. Phoebe, feel­ing con­cern for Gary, texts him about the ongo­ing fam­i­ly sto­ry­telling. Mean­while, she reflects on her ex-hus­band, pon­der­ing the emo­tion­al echoes of a mar­riage long past and how it affects her present.

In the lob­by, new­ly arriv­ing wed­ding guests enliv­en the space, prompt­ing con­ver­sa­tions with Pauline about shop­ping that dis­tract Phoebe from her wor­ries. She is remind­ed of Lila’s absence and feels the para­dox of wed­dings, where one bride’s joy con­trasts with anoth­er’s aban­don­ment.

Lat­er, while shop­ping at Mar­shalls, Phoebe receives a text from Gary con­cern­ing the humor­ous sto­ries being told about him. Through their exchang­ing mes­sages, Gary reveals that he’s strug­gling with feel­ings of inad­e­qua­cy post-breakup and is men­tal­ly pro­cess­ing his recent past and rela­tion­ships. He con­fess­es to spend­ing the night by his deceased wife’s grave, acknowl­edg­ing pro­found changes in him­self com­pared to his past rela­tion­ship with Wendy.

Their con­ver­sa­tion evolves into a deep­er under­stand­ing of how rela­tion­ships require courage to nav­i­gate per­son­al feel­ings, lead­ing to rev­e­la­tions about Lila’s true inter­ests, includ­ing her avoid­ance of dis­cus­sions cen­tered around art. Gary express­es regret for not call­ing off his wed­ding when he sensed some­thing was wrong, shed­ding light on a shared strug­gle to trust one’s instincts.

As Phoebe and Gary find cama­raderie in their dis­course, their com­fort­able exchanges hint at poten­tial new begin­nings. They share can­did thoughts, laugh­ter, and the trans­for­ma­tive con­nec­tion they are forg­ing, real­iz­ing that the jour­ney to becom­ing who they wish to be takes prac­tice and resolve. As the chap­ter con­cludes, Phoebe pre­pares her­self for a new phase of her life, con­tem­plat­ing the future while acknowl­edg­ing the beau­ty and trou­bles of her past expe­ri­ences.

Wait­ing ai

Wait­ing ai

Chap­ter 24 opens with the pro­tag­o­nist being wok­en not by dawn, but by a buzzing noise. The char­ac­ter finds them­selves in a room, tend­ed to by a faerie named Alis, whose appear­ance has dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed due to the removal of glam­ours that masked the true forms of the faerie occu­pants and their sur­round­ings. This rev­e­la­tion leads to an under­stand­ing that the pro­tag­o­nist had been pro­tect­ed from the true appear­ance of the faerie world through illu­sions cast by Tam­lin to ease their human fears.

As the pro­tag­o­nist ven­tures down­stairs, they’re met with a bustling of pre­vi­ous­ly unseen faeries, trig­ger­ing a mix­ture of curios­i­ty and fear. This inter­ac­tion with the faerie world’s true nature con­tin­ues as they con­verse with Tam­lin and Lucien, learn­ing that their igno­rance was by design to keep them safe and unaware, a mea­sure deemed nec­es­sary by the faeries sur­round­ing them.

The appear­ance of new faeries and the pro­tag­o­nist’s con­fronta­tion with the unvar­nished real­i­ty serve as a turn­ing point, reveal­ing the exis­tence of a care­ful­ly main­tained bal­ance between show­ing the pro­tag­o­nist the truth and pro­tect­ing them from it. Tam­lin and Lucien dis­cuss the impli­ca­tions of the pro­tag­o­nist’s pre­vi­ous actions, hint­ing at a com­plex web of pol­i­tics, glam­our, and safe­ty mea­sures enact­ed to shield the pro­tag­o­nist from the dark­er sides of the faerie realm and its inhab­i­tants.

The chap­ter takes a dark­er turn with the dis­cov­ery of a sev­ered head in the gar­den, indi­cat­ing a threat from the Night Court, a pow­er­ful and malig­nant force with­in the faerie world. This dis­cov­ery prompts a con­ver­sa­tion about the polit­i­cal and per­son­al impli­ca­tions of such an act, hint­ing at deep­er con­flicts with­in the faerie realms and between its courts.

The pro­tag­o­nist is con­front­ed with the harsh real­i­ties of the faerie world, from the exis­tence of the blight—a malev­o­lent force wreak­ing havoc—to the cru­el pol­i­tics of the Night Court. Through con­ver­sa­tions with Tam­lin and Lucien, they nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties and dan­gers inher­ent to their sit­u­a­tion, all the while grap­pling with the con­se­quences of their pres­ence in a world gov­erned by ancient, unfath­omable rules and con­flicts.

This chap­ter lay­ers the pro­tag­o­nist’s per­son­al jour­ney with the broad­er polit­i­cal and mys­ti­cal con­flicts of the faerie world, blend­ing their quest for under­stand­ing and safe­ty with the over­ar­ch­ing nar­ra­tive of pow­er strug­gles and sur­vival in a realm far removed from human norms.

On the day of Margery O’Hare’s tri­al, the entire com­mu­ni­ty of Bai­leyville, Ken­tucky, came to a stand­still, under­scor­ing the grav­i­ty of the event. As the accused “mur­der­ing librar­i­an,” Margery’s fate drew mas­sive atten­tion, clos­ing down sig­nif­i­cant parts of the town and attract­ing a cir­cus of media, refresh­ment stands, and even a snake charmer out­side the cour­t­house. Amid this sur­re­al atmos­phere, Alice and her fel­low librar­i­ans faced an emo­tion­al day, torn between their reg­u­lar duties and their unwa­ver­ing sup­port for Margery.

Margery’s tri­al unfold­ed against a back­drop of local spec­ta­cle and deep com­mu­nal divi­sions. The court pro­ceed­ings revealed a stark bias against Margery, empha­siz­ing her role as an unmar­ried, sharp-tongued woman, and the impli­ca­tions of her man­ag­ing the so-called sub­ver­sive Pack­horse Library. The court­room atmos­phere was charged with ten­sion, from the gen­dered bias­es of a male-dom­i­nat­ed jury to the vis­i­ble phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al toll on Margery, who appeared as a shad­ow of her for­mer self, taint­ed by the accu­sa­tions and the weight of soci­etal judge­ment.

Alice’s per­son­al tur­moil mir­rored the broad­er con­flict, as she grap­pled with the impli­ca­tions of Margery’s poten­tial con­vic­tion, her fleet­ing moments of sup­port and alien­ation with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, and her own impend­ing depar­ture from Bai­leyville. Amidst the tri­al’s dra­mat­ics, includ­ing an out­burst from a wit­ness defend­ing Margery’s char­ac­ter and con­tri­bu­tions, Alice and her friends nav­i­gat­ed their con­flict­ing emo­tions and the pal­pa­ble sense of injus­tice per­vad­ing the pro­ceed­ings.

As the tri­al pro­gressed, the defense’s and pros­e­cu­tion’s nar­ra­tives inten­si­fied, focus­ing on the night of Clem McCullough’s death, with the pros­e­cu­tion paint­ing Margery as a mur­der­ess dri­ven by famil­ial vendet­tas. Despite efforts to dis­cred­it this por­tray­al, the cloud of sus­pi­cion hung heav­i­ly over Margery, exac­er­bat­ed by the town’s gos­sipy and judg­men­tal ten­den­cies.

Alice’s inter­ac­tions with Ben­nett, her estranged hus­band, under­scored her com­plex emo­tion­al jour­ney, reveal­ing lin­ger­ing ties and shared moments of under­stand­ing amidst their frac­tured rela­tion­ship. Bennett’s cryp­tic hints about his daugh­ters’ unheard tes­ti­monies offered a poten­tial new avenue for Margery’s defense, pro­pelling Alice and her allies to con­sid­er a dar­ing move to con­front the McCul­lough sis­ters in search of the elu­sive truth.

As Alice decid­ed to ven­ture into the heart of the McCul­lough family’s seclud­ed life, the nar­ra­tive reached a piv­otal turn­ing point, reflect­ing the des­per­ate lengths to which those fight­ing for Margery were will­ing to go. This deci­sion demon­strat­ed the pow­er­ful bond and sense of duty that con­nect­ed the librar­i­ans, will­ing to face the unknown for the sake of jus­tice and friend­ship in a world where soci­etal bias­es and pre­con­ceived notions threat­ened to over­shad­ow the truth.

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.

TWENTY-FOUR
I can’t go to a Broad­way show in jeans and a T‑shirt—that’s for sure. I
checked online, and offi­cial­ly there’s no dress code, but it just feels wrong.
Any­way, Andrew said he was going to change, so I need to wear some­thing
nice.
The prob­lem is, I don’t own any­thing nice.
Well, tech­ni­cal­ly I do. I have that bag of cloth­ing Nina gave me. I hung
up the out­fits so they wouldn’t get dam­aged but I have yet to wear any of
them. For the most part, they’re all fan­cy dress­es, and it’s not like I’ve had
many occa­sions to dress up while clean­ing the Win­ches­ter house. I don’t
real­ly want to put on a ball­go­wn to do my vac­u­um­ing.
But tonight is an occa­sion to dress up for. Maybe the only such occa­sion
I’ll have for a long time.
The biggest prob­lem is that all of the dress­es are so blind­ing­ly white.
Obvi­ous­ly, it’s Nina’s favorite col­or. White is not my favorite col­or. I don’t
even think I have a favorite col­or (any­thing but orange). But I nev­er liked
wear­ing white because it gets dirty so eas­i­ly. I’ll have to be espe­cial­ly
care­ful tonight. And I won’t be wear­ing all white, because I don’t have any
white shoes. All I’ve got are some black pumps, so that’s what I’m wear­ing.
I look through the dress­es, try­ing to fig­ure out which one would be most
appro­pri­ate for tonight. They’re all beau­ti­ful, and also extreme­ly sexy. I
select a form-fit­ting cock­tail dress that falls just above my knees with a lace
hal­ter neck­line. I had assumed since Nina is quite a bit heav­ier than I am, it
would be loose on me. But she must have pur­chased it many years ago—it
fits me so per­fect­ly, I couldn’t have found some­thing bet­ter if I’d bought it
specif­i­cal­ly for myself.
I take it easy with the make­up. Just a few dabs of lip­stick, a tiny bit of
eye­lin­er, and that’s it. What­ev­er else hap­pens tonight, I’m going to behave
myself. The last thing I want is any trou­ble.
And I have no doubt that if Nina sus­pects a whiff of any­thing between
me and her hus­band, she’ll make it her mis­sion to destroy me.
Andrew is already in the liv­ing room when I descend the stairs. He’s
wear­ing a gray suit jack­et and a match­ing tie, and he’s tak­en the time to
show­er and shave off that stub­ble on his chin. He looks… God, he looks
incred­i­ble. Dev­as­tat­ing­ly hand­some. So hand­some, I want to grab him by
the lapels. But the most amaz­ing thing is the way his eyes fly open when he
catch­es sight of me, and he inhales audi­bly.
And then for a few moments, the two of us are just star­ing at each oth­er.
“Jesus, Mil­lie.” His hand is shak­ing a bit as he adjusts his tie. “You
look…”
He doesn’t com­plete his thought, which is prob­a­bly a good thing.
Because he’s not look­ing at me in a way you’re sup­posed to be look­ing at a
woman who is not your wife.
I open my mouth, won­der­ing if I should ask him if this is a bad idea. If
maybe we should call off the whole thing. But I can’t quite make myself
say that.
Andrew man­ages to rip his eyes away from me and looks down at his
watch. “We bet­ter get going. Park­ing can be a pain around Broad­way.”
“Yes, of course. Let’s go.”
There’s no turn­ing back now.
I feel almost like a celebri­ty when I’m slid­ing into the cool leather seat
of Andrew’s BMW. This car is noth­ing like my Nis­san. Andrew climbs into
the dri­ver seat and that’s when I notice my skirt is rid­ing up my thighs.
When I put on the dress, it came near­ly down to my knees, but sit­ting down,
it’s some­how mid-thigh. I tug at it but the sec­ond I let go, it rides back up.
For­tu­nate­ly, Andrew’s eyes are on the road as we exit the gate
sur­round­ing the prop­er­ty. He is a good, faith­ful hus­band. Just because he
looked like he was near­ly going to pass out when he saw me in this dress,
that doesn’t mean he’s not going to be able to con­trol him­self.
“I’m so excit­ed about this,” I com­ment as he makes his way to the Long
Island Express­way. “I can’t believe I’m going to see Show­down.”
He nods. “I’ve heard it’s incred­i­ble.”

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
24
It took hours for Elain to work her charm on the staff to swift­ly pack their
bags and leave, each with a purse of mon­ey to has­ten the process. Mrs.
Lau­rent, though the last to depart, promised to keep what she’d seen to
her­self.
I didn’t know where Rhys, Cass­ian, and Azriel had been wait­ing, but
when Mrs. Lau­rent had hauled her­self into the car­riage crammed with the
last of the staff, head­ing down to the vil­lage to catch trans­porta­tion to
wher­ev­er they all had fam­i­ly, there was a knock on the door.
The light was already fad­ing, and the world out­side was thick with
shades of blue and white and gray, stained gold­en as I opened the front door
and found them wait­ing.
Nes­ta and Elain were in the large din­ing room—the most open space in
the house.
Look­ing at Rhys, Cass­ian, and Azriel, I knew I’d been right to select it as
the meet­ing spot.
They were enormous—wild and rough and ancient.
Rhys’s brows lift­ed. “You’d think they’d been told plague had befall­en
the house.”
I pulled the door open wide enough to let them in, then quick­ly shut it
against the bit­ter cold. “My sis­ter Elain can con­vince any­one to do any­thing
with a few smiles.”
Cass­ian let out a low whis­tle as he turned in place, sur­vey­ing the grand
entry hall, the ornate fur­ni­ture, the paint­ings. All of it paid for by Tam­lin—
ini­tial­ly. He’d tak­en such care of my fam­i­ly, yet his own … I didn’t want to
think about his fam­i­ly, mur­dered by a rival court for what­ev­er rea­son no
one had ever explained to me. Not now that I was liv­ing amongst them—
He’d been good—there was a part of Tam­lin that was good—
Yes. He’d giv­en me every­thing I need­ed to become myself, to feel safe.
And when he got what he want­ed … He’d stopped. Had tried, but not real­ly.
He’d let him­self remain blind to what I need­ed after Ama­ran­tha.
“Your father must be a fine mer­chant,” Cass­ian said. “I’ve seen cas­tles
with less wealth.”
I found Rhys study­ing me, a silent ques­tion writ­ten across his face. I
answered, “My father is away on business—and attend­ing a meet­ing in
Neva about the threat of Pry­thi­an.”
“Pry­thi­an?” Cass­ian said, twist­ing toward us. “Not Hybern?”
“It’s pos­si­ble my sis­ters were mistaken—your lands are for­eign to them.
They mere­ly said ‘above the wall.’ I assumed they thought it was Pry­thi­an.”
Azriel came for­ward on feet as silent as a cat’s. “If humans are aware of
the threat, ral­ly­ing against it, then that might give us an advan­tage when
con­tact­ing the queens.”
Rhys was still watch­ing me, as if he could see the weight that had pressed
into me since arriv­ing here. The last time I’d been in this house, I’d been a
woman in love—such fran­tic, des­per­ate love that I went back into Pry­thi­an,
I went Under the Moun­tain, as a mere human. As frag­ile as my sis­ters now
seemed to me.
“Come,” Rhys said, offer­ing me a sub­tle, under­stand­ing nod before
motion­ing to lead the way. “Let’s make this intro­duc­tion.”
My sis­ters were stand­ing by the win­dow, the light of the chan­de­liers
coax­ing the gold in their hair to glis­ten. So beau­ti­ful, and young, and alive
—but when would that change? How would it be to speak to them when I
remained this way while their skin had grown paper-thin and wrin­kled, their
backs curved with the weight of years, their white hands speck­led?
I would be bare­ly into my immor­tal exis­tence when theirs was wiped out
like a can­dle before a cold breath.
But I could give them a few good years—safe years—until then.
I crossed the room, the three males a step behind, the wood­en floors as
shin­ing and pol­ished as a mir­ror beneath us. I had removed my cloak now
that the ser­vants were gone, and it was to me—not the Illyrians—that my
sis­ters first looked. At the Fae clothes, the crown, the jew­el­ry.
A stranger—this part of me was now a stranger to them.
Then they took in the winged males—or two of them. Rhys’s wings had
van­ished, his leathers replaced with his fine black jack­et and pants.
My sis­ters both stiff­ened at Cass­ian and Azriel, at those mighty wings
tucked in tight to pow­er­ful bod­ies, at the weapons, and then at the
dev­as­tat­ing­ly beau­ti­ful faces of all three males.
Elain, to her cred­it, did not faint.
And Nes­ta, to hers, did not hiss at them. She just took a not-so-sub­tle step
in front of Elain, and ducked her fist­ed hand behind her sim­ple, ele­gant
amethyst gown. The move­ment did not go unno­ticed by my com­pan­ions.
I halt­ed a good four feet away, giv­ing my sis­ters breath­ing space in a
room that had sud­den­ly been deprived of all air. I said to the males, “My
sis­ters, Nes­ta and Elain Archeron.”
I had not thought of my fam­i­ly name, had not used it, for years and years.
Because even when I had sac­ri­ficed and hunt­ed for them, I had not want­ed
my father’s name—not when he sat before that lit­tle fire and let us starve.
Let me walk into the woods alone. I’d stopped using it the day I’d killed
that rab­bit, and felt its blood stain my hands, the same way the blood of
those faeries had marred it years lat­er like an invis­i­ble tat­too.
My sis­ters did not curt­sy. Their hearts wild­ly pound­ed, even Nesta’s, and
the tang of their ter­ror coat­ed my tongue—
“Cass­ian,” I said, inclin­ing my head to the left. Then I shift­ed to the right,
grate­ful those shad­ows were nowhere to be found as I said, “Azriel.” I half
turned. “And Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court.”
Rhys had dimmed it, too, I real­ized. The night rip­pling off him, the
oth­er­world­ly grace and thrum of pow­er. But look­ing in those star-flecked
vio­let eyes, no one would ever mis­take him for any­thing but extra­or­di­nary.
He bowed to my sis­ters. “Thank you for your hospitality—and
gen­eros­i­ty,” he said with a warm smile. But there was some­thing strained in
it.
Elain tried to return the smile but failed.
And Nes­ta just looked at the three of them, then at me, and said, “The
cook left din­ner on the table. We should eat before it goes cold.” She didn’t
wait for my agree­ment before strid­ing off—right to the head of the pol­ished
cher­ry table.
Elain rasped, “Nice to meet you,” before hus­tling after her, the silk skirts
of her cobalt dress whis­per­ing over the par­quet floor.
Cass­ian was gri­mac­ing as we trailed them, Rhys’s brows were raised, and
Azriel looked more inclined to blend into the near­est shad­ow and avoid this
con­ver­sa­tion all togeth­er.
Nes­ta was wait­ing at the head of the table, a queen ready to hold court.
Elain trem­bled in the uphol­stered, carved wood chair to her left.
I did them all a favor and took the one to Nesta’s right. Cass­ian claimed
the spot beside Elain, who clenched her fork as if she might wield it against
him, and Rhys slid into the seat beside me, Azriel on his oth­er side. A faint
smile bloomed upon Azriel’s mouth as he noticed Elain’s fin­gers white-
knuck­led on that fork, but he kept silent, focus­ing instead, as Cass­ian was
sub­tly try­ing to do, on adjust­ing his wings around a human chair. Caul­dron
damn me. I should have remem­bered. Though I doubt­ed either would
appre­ci­ate it if I now brought in two stools.
I sighed through my nose and yanked the lids off the var­i­ous dish­es and
casseroles. Poached salmon with dill and lemon from the hot­house,
whipped pota­toes, roast chick­en with beets and turnips from the root cel­lar,
and some casse­role of egg, game meat, and leeks. Sea­son­al food—whatever
they had left at the end of the win­ter.
I scooped food onto my plate, the sounds of my sis­ters and com­pan­ions
doing the same fill­ing the silence. I took a bite and fought my cringe.
Once, this food would have been rich and fla­vor­ful.
Now it was ash in my mouth.
Rhys was dig­ging into his chick­en with­out hes­i­ta­tion. Cass­ian and Azriel
ate as if they hadn’t had a meal in months. Per­haps being war­riors, fight­ing
in wars, had giv­en them the abil­i­ty to see food as strength—and put taste
aside.
I found Nes­ta watch­ing me. “Is there some­thing wrong with our food?”
she said flat­ly.
I made myself take anoth­er bite, each move­ment of my jaw an effort.
“No.” I swal­lowed and gulped down a healthy drink of water.
“So you can’t eat nor­mal food anymore—or are you too good for it?” A
ques­tion and a chal­lenge.
Rhys’s fork clanked on his plate. Elain made a small, dis­tressed noise.
And though Nes­ta had let me use this house, though she’d tried to cross
the wall for me and we’d worked out a ten­ta­tive truce, the tone, the dis­gust
and dis­ap­proval …
I laid my hand flat on the table. “I can eat, drink, fuck, and fight just as
well as I did before. Bet­ter, even.”
Cass­ian choked on his water. Azriel shift­ed on his seat, angling to spring
between us if need be.
Nes­ta let out a low laugh.
But I could taste fire in my mouth, hear it roar­ing in my veins, and—
A blind, sol­id tug on the bond, cool­ing dark­ness sweep­ing into me, my
tem­per, my sens­es, calm­ing that fire—
I scram­bled to throw my men­tal shields up. But they were intact.
Rhys didn’t so much as blink at me before he said even­ly to Nes­ta, “If
you ever come to Pry­thi­an, you will dis­cov­er why your food tastes so
dif­fer­ent.”
Nes­ta looked down her nose at him. “I have lit­tle inter­est in ever set­ting
foot in your land, so I’ll have to take your word on it.”
“Nes­ta, please,” Elain mur­mured.
Cass­ian was siz­ing up Nes­ta, a gleam in his eyes that I could only
inter­pret as a war­rior find­ing him­self faced with a new, inter­est­ing
oppo­nent.
Then, Moth­er above, Nes­ta shift­ed her atten­tion to Cass­ian, notic­ing that
gleam—what it meant. She snarled soft­ly, “What are you look­ing at?”
Cassian’s brows rose—little amuse­ment to be found now. “Some­one who
let her youngest sis­ter risk her life every day in the woods while she did
noth­ing. Some­one who let a four­teen-year-old child go out into that for­est,
so close to the wall.” My face began heat­ing, and I opened my mouth. To
say what, I didn’t know. “Your sis­ter died—died to save my peo­ple. She is
will­ing to do so again to pro­tect you from war. So don’t expect me to sit
here with my mouth shut while you sneer at her for a choice she did not get
to make—and insult my peo­ple in the process.”
Nes­ta didn’t bat an eye­lash as she stud­ied the hand­some fea­tures, the
mus­cled tor­so. Then turned to me. Dis­miss­ing him entire­ly.
Cassian’s face went almost fer­al. A wolf who had been cir­cling a doe …
only to find a moun­tain cat wear­ing its hide instead.
Elain’s voice wob­bled as she not­ed the same thing and quick­ly said to
him, “It … it is very hard, you under­stand, to … accept it.” I real­ized the
dark met­al of her ring … it was iron. Even though I had told them about
iron being use­less, there it was. The gift from her Fae-hat­ing soon-to-be-
husband’s fam­i­ly. Elain cast plead­ing eyes on Rhys, then Azriel, such
mor­tal fear coat­ing her fea­tures, her scent. “We are raised this way. We hear
sto­ries of your kind cross­ing the wall to hurt us. Our own neigh­bor, Clare
Bed­dor, was tak­en, her fam­i­ly mur­dered …”
A naked body spiked to a wall. Bro­ken. Dead. Nailed there for months.
Rhys was star­ing at his plate. Unmov­ing. Unblink­ing.
He had giv­en Ama­ran­tha Clare’s name—given it, despite know­ing I’d
lied to him about it.
Elain said, “It’s all very dis­ori­ent­ing.”
“I can imag­ine,” Azriel said. Cass­ian flashed him a glare. But Azriel’s
atten­tion was on my sis­ter, a polite, bland smile on his face. Her shoul­ders
loos­ened a bit. I won­dered if Rhys’s spy­mas­ter often got his infor­ma­tion
through stone-cold man­ners as much as stealth and shad­ows.
Elain sat a lit­tle high­er as she said to Cass­ian, “And as for Feyre’s
hunt­ing dur­ing those years, it was not Nesta’s neglect alone that is to blame.
We were scared, and had received no train­ing, and every­thing had been
tak­en, and we failed her. Both of us.”
Nes­ta said noth­ing, her back rigid.
Rhys gave me a warn­ing look. I gripped Nesta’s arm, draw­ing her
atten­tion to me. “Can we just … start over?”
I could almost taste her pride roil­ing in her veins, bark­ing to not back
down.
Cass­ian, damn him, gave her a taunt­ing grin.
But Nes­ta mere­ly hissed, “Fine.” And went back to eat­ing.
Cass­ian watched every bite she took, every bob of her throat as she
swal­lowed.
I forced myself to clean my plate, aware of Nesta’s own atten­tion on my
eat­ing.
Elain said to Azriel, per­haps the only two civ­i­lized ones here, “Can you
tru­ly fly?”
He set down his fork, blink­ing. I might have even called him self-
con­scious. He said, “Yes. Cass­ian and I hail from a race of faeries called
Illyr­i­ans. We’re born hear­ing the song of the wind.”
“That’s very beau­ti­ful,” she said. “Is it not—frightening, though? To fly
so high?”
“It is some­times,” Azriel said. Cass­ian tore his relent­less atten­tion from
Nes­ta long enough to nod his agree­ment. “If you are caught in a storm, if
the cur­rent drops away. But we are trained so thor­ough­ly that the fear is
gone before we’re out of swad­dling.” And yet, Azriel had not been trained
until long after that. You get used to the word­ing, he’d told me ear­li­er. How
often did he have to remind him­self to use such words? Did “we” and “our”
and “us” taste as for­eign on his tongue as they did on mine?
“You look like High Fae,” Nes­ta cut in, her voice like a honed blade.
“But you are not?”
“Only the High Fae who look like them,” Cass­ian drawled, wav­ing a
hand to me and Rhys, “are High Fae. Every­one else, any oth­er dif­fer­ences,
mark you as what they like to call ‘less­er’ faeries.”
Rhysand at last said, “It’s become a term used for ease, but masks a long,
bloody his­to­ry of injus­tices. Many less­er faeries resent the term—and wish
for us all to be called one thing.”
“Right­ly so,” Cass­ian said, drink­ing from his water.
Nes­ta sur­veyed me. “But you were not High Fae—not to begin. So what
do they call you?” I couldn’t tell if it was a jab or not.
Rhys said, “Feyre is who­ev­er she choos­es to be.”
Nes­ta now exam­ined us all, rais­ing her eyes to that crown. But she said,
“Write your let­ter to the queens tonight. Tomor­row, Elain and I will go to
the vil­lage to dis­patch it. If the queens do come here,” she added, cast­ing a
frozen glare at Cass­ian, “I’d sug­gest brac­ing your­selves for prej­u­dices far
deep­er than ours. And con­tem­plat­ing how you plan to get us all out of this
mess should things go sour.”
“We’ll take that into account,” Rhys said smooth­ly.
Nes­ta went on, utter­ly unim­pressed by any of us, “I assume you’ll want
to stay the night.”
Rhys glanced at me in silent ques­tion. We could eas­i­ly leave, the males
find­ing the way home in the dark, but … Too soon, per­haps, the world
would go to hell. I said, “If it’s not too much trou­ble, then yes. We’ll leave
after break­fast tomor­row.”
Nes­ta didn’t smile, but Elain beamed. “Good. I think there are a few
bed­rooms ready—”
“We’ll need two,” Rhys inter­rupt­ed qui­et­ly. “Next to each oth­er, with two
beds each.”
I nar­rowed my brows at him.
Rhys explained to me, “Mag­ic is dif­fer­ent across the wall. So our shields,
our sens­es, might not work right. I’m tak­ing no chances. Espe­cial­ly in a
house with a woman betrothed to a man who gave her an iron engage­ment
ring.”
Elain flushed a bit. “The—the bed­rooms that have two beds aren’t next to
each oth­er,” she mur­mured.
I sighed. “We’ll move things around. It’s fine. This one,” I added with a
glare in Rhys’s direc­tion, “is only cranky because he’s old and it’s past his
bed­time.”
Rhys chuck­led, Cassian’s wrath slip­ping enough that he grinned, and
Elain, notic­ing Azriel’s ease as proof that things weren’t indeed about to go
bad­ly, offered one of her own as well.
Nes­ta just rose to her feet, a slim pil­lar of steel, and said to no one in
par­tic­u­lar, “If we’re done eat­ing, then this meal is over.”
And that was that.
Rhys wrote the let­ter for me, Cass­ian and Azriel chim­ing in with
cor­rec­tions, and it took us until mid­night before we had a draft we all
thought sound­ed impres­sive, wel­com­ing, and threat­en­ing enough.
My sis­ters cleaned the dish­es while we worked, and had excused
them­selves to bed hours before, men­tion­ing where to find our rooms.
Cass­ian and Azriel were to share one, Rhys and I the oth­er.
I frowned at the large guest bed­room as Rhys shut the door behind us.
The bed was large enough for two, but I wasn’t shar­ing it. I whirled to him,
“I’m not—”
Wood thumped on car­pet, and a small bed appeared by the door. Rhys
plopped onto it, tug­ging off his boots. “Nes­ta is a delight, by the way.”
“She’s … her own crea­ture,” I said. It was per­haps the kind­est thing I
could say about her.
“It’s been a few cen­turies since some­one got under Cassian’s skin that
eas­i­ly. Too bad they’re both inclined to kill the oth­er.”
Part of me shud­dered at the hav­oc the two would wreak if they decid­ed to
stop fight­ing.
“And Elain,” Rhys said, sigh­ing as he removed his oth­er boot, “should
not be mar­ry­ing that lord’s son, not for about a dozen rea­sons, the least of
which being the fact that you won’t be invit­ed to the wed­ding. Though
maybe that’s a good thing.”
I hissed. “That’s not fun­ny.”
“At least you won’t have to send a gift, either. I doubt her father-in-law
would deign to accept it.”
“You have a lot of nerve mock­ing my sis­ters when your own friends have
equal­ly as much melo­dra­ma.” His brows lift­ed in silent ques­tion. I snort­ed.
“Oh, so you haven’t noticed the way Azriel looks at Mor? Or how she
some­times watch­es him, defends him? And how both of them do such a
good job let­ting Cass­ian be a buffer between them most of the time?”
Rhys lev­eled a look at me. “I’d sug­gest keep­ing those obser­va­tions to
your­self.”
“You think I’m some busy­body gos­sip? My life is mis­er­able enough as it
is—why would I want to spread that mis­ery to those around me as well?”
“Is it mis­er­able? Your life, I mean.” A care­ful ques­tion.
“I don’t know. Every­thing is hap­pen­ing so quick­ly that I don’t know what
to feel.” It was more hon­est than I’d been in a while.
“Hmmm. Per­haps once we return home, I should give you the day off.”
“How con­sid­er­ate of you, my lord.”
He snort­ed, unbut­ton­ing his jack­et. I real­ized I stood in all my fin­ery—
with noth­ing to wear to sleep.
A snap of Rhys’s fin­gers, and my nightclothes—and some flim­sy
underthings—appeared on the bed. “I couldn’t decide which scrap of lace I
want­ed you to wear, so I brought you a few to choose from.”
“Pig,” I barked, snatch­ing the clothes and head­ing to the adjoin­ing
bathing room.
The room was toasty when I emerged, Rhys in the bed he’d sum­moned
from wher­ev­er, all light gone save for the mur­mur­ing embers in the hearth.
Even the sheets were warm as I slid between them.
“Thank you for warm­ing the bed,” I said into the dim­ness.
His back was to me, but I heard him clear­ly as he said, “Ama­ran­tha nev­er
once thanked me for that.”
Any warmth leeched away. “She didn’t suf­fer enough.”
Not even close, for what she had done. To me, to him, to Clare, to so
many oth­ers.
Rhys didn’t answer. Instead he said, “I didn’t think I could get through
that din­ner.”
“What do you mean?” He’d been rather … calm. Con­tained.
“Your sis­ters mean well, or one of them does. But see­ing them, sit­ting at
that table … I hadn’t real­ized it would hit me as strong­ly. How young you
were. How they didn’t pro­tect you.”
“I man­aged just fine.”
“We owe them our grat­i­tude for let­ting us use this house,” he said qui­et­ly,
“but it will be a long while yet before I can look at your sis­ters with­out
want­i­ng to roar at them.”
“A part of me feels the same way,” I admit­ted, nestling down into the
blan­kets. “But if I hadn’t gone into those woods, if they hadn’t let me go
out there alone … You would still be enslaved. And per­haps Ama­ran­tha
would now be ready­ing her forces to wipe out these lands.”
Silence. Then, “I am pay­ing you a wage, you know. For all of this.”
“You don’t need to.” Even if … even if I had no mon­ey of my own.
“Every mem­ber of my court receives one. There’s already a bank account
in Velaris for you, where your wages will be deposit­ed. And you have lines
of cred­it at most stores. So if you don’t have enough on you when you’re
shop­ping, you can have the bill sent to the House.”
“I—you didn’t have to do that.” I swal­lowed hard. “And how much,
exact­ly, am I get­ting paid each month?”
“The same amount the oth­ers receive.” No doubt a generous—likely too
generous—salary. But he sud­den­ly asked, “When is your birth­day?”
“Do I even need to count them any­more?” He mere­ly wait­ed. I sighed.
“It’s the Win­ter Sol­stice.”
He paused. “That was months ago.”
“Mmmh­mm.”
“You didn’t … I don’t remem­ber see­ing you cel­e­brate it.”

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.

A RI DROPPED ME FROM ANY pro­duc­tions with­in Sun­set and start­ed
offer­ing to loan me out to Colum­bia. After being forced to do two
for­get­table roman­tic comedies—both of them so bad that it was a
fore­gone con­clu­sion they would fail spectacularly—the oth­er stu­dios
didn’t want much of me, either.
Don was on the cov­er of Life, grace­ful­ly com­ing out of the ocean
onto the shore, smil­ing as if it was the best day of his life.
When the 1960 Acad­e­my Awards came around, I was offi­cial­ly
per­sona non gra­ta.
“You know that I would take you,” Har­ry said when he called that
after­noon to check in on me. “You just say the word, and I’ll come pick
you up. I’m sure you have a stun­ning dress you can slip on, and I’ll be
the envy of every­body with you on my arm.”
I was at Celia’s apart­ment, get­ting ready to leave before her hair
and make­up peo­ple came over. She was in the kitchen, drink­ing lemon
water, avoid­ing eat­ing any­thing so she could fit into her dress.
“I know you would,” I said into the phone. “But you and I both know
it would only hurt your rep­u­ta­tion to be aligned with me right now.”
“I do mean it, though,” Har­ry said.
“I know you do,” I said. “But you also know I’m too smart to take
you up on it.”
Har­ry laughed.
“Do my eyes look puffy?” Celia asked when I got off the phone with
Har­ry. She opened them big­ger and stared at me, as if this would help
me answer the ques­tion.
I saw bare­ly any­thing out of the ordi­nary. “They look gor­geous. And
any­way, you know Gwen will make you look fab­u­lous. What are you
wor­ried about?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Eve­lyn,” Celia said, teas­ing me. “I think we
all know what I’m wor­ried about.”
I took her by the waist. She was wear­ing a thin satin slip, edged in
lace. I was wear­ing a short-sleeved sweater and shorts. Her hair was
wet. When Celia’s hair was wet, she didn’t smell like sham­poo. She
smelled like clay.
“You’re going to win,” I said, pulling her toward me. “It isn’t even a
con­test.”
“I might not. They might give it to Joy or to Ellen Matt­son.”
“They would no soon­er give it to Ellen Matt­son than throw it in the
L.A. Riv­er. And Joy, bless her heart, is no you.”
Celia blushed, put her head in her hands briefly, and then looked
back at me. “Am I intol­er­a­ble?” she said. “Obsess­ing over this? Mak­ing
you talk to me about it? When you’re . . .”
“On the skids?”
“I was going to say black­balled.”
“If you are intol­er­a­ble, let me be the one to tol­er­ate you,” I said, and
then I kissed her and tast­ed the lemon juice on her lips.
I checked my watch, know­ing that hair and make­up would be there
any moment, and grabbed my keys.
She and I had been tak­ing great pains not to be seen togeth­er. It
was one thing when we real­ly were just friends, but now that we had
some­thing to hide, we had to start hid­ing it.
“I love you,” I said. “I believe in you. Break a leg.”
When my hand turned the door­knob, she called to me. “If I don’t
win,” she said, her wet hair drip­ping onto the spaghet­ti straps of her
slip, “will you still love me?”
I thought she was jok­ing until I looked direct­ly into her eyes.
“You could be a nobody liv­ing in a card­board box, and I’d still love
you,” I said. I’d nev­er said that before. I’d nev­er meant it before.
Celia smiled wide. “Me too. The card­board box and all of it.”
  *  *  *  
HOURS LATER, BACK at the home I used to share with Don but now
could say was entire­ly my own, I made myself a Cape Cod­der, sat on
the couch, and tuned the TV to NBC, watch­ing all my friends and the
woman I loved walk the red car­pet at the Pan­tages The­atre.
It all seems much more glam­orous on-screen. I hate to break it to
you, but in per­son, the the­ater is small­er, the peo­ple are paler, and the
stage is less impos­ing.
It’s all curat­ed to make the audi­ence at home feel like out­siders, to
make you feel like a fly on the wall of a club you aren’t good enough to
get into. And I was sur­prised by how effec­tive it was on me, how easy
it was to fall for, even for a per­son who had just recent­ly been at the
very cen­ter of it.
I was two cock­tails in and drown­ing in self-pity by the time they
announced Best Sup­port­ing Actress. But the minute the cam­era
panned to Celia, I swear I sobered up and clasped my hands togeth­er
as tight­ly as pos­si­ble for her, as if the hard­er I pressed them togeth­er,
the high­er her chances of win­ning.
“And the award goes to . . . Celia St. James for Lit­tle Women.”
I jumped up out of my seat and shout­ed for her. And then my eyes
got teary as she walked up to the stage.
As she stood there, behind the micro­phone, hold­ing the stat­uette, I
was mes­mer­ized by her. By her fab­u­lous boat­neck dress, her sparkling
dia­mond and sap­phire ear­rings, and that absolute­ly flaw­less face of
hers.
“Thank you to Ari Sul­li­van and Har­ry Cameron. Thank you to my
agent, Roger Colton. To my fam­i­ly. And to the amaz­ing cast of women
that I felt so lucky to be a part of, to Joy and Ruby. And to Eve­lyn
Hugo. Thank you.”
When she said my name, I swelled with pride and joy and love. I
was so god­damn hap­py for her. And then I did some­thing mor­ti­fy­ing­ly
inane. I kissed the tele­vi­sion set.
I kissed her right on her grayscale face.
The clink I heard reg­is­tered before the pain. And as Celia waved to
the crowd and then stepped away from the podi­um, I real­ized I’d
chipped my tooth.
But I didn’t care. I was too hap­py. Too excit­ed to con­grat­u­late her
and tell her how proud I was.
I made anoth­er cock­tail and forced myself to watch the rest of the
spec­ta­cle. They announced Best Pic­ture, and as the cred­its rolled, I
turned off the TV.
I knew that Har­ry and Celia would be out all night. So I shut off the
lights and went upstairs to bed. I took off my make­up. I put on cold
cream. I turned down the cov­ers. I was lone­ly, liv­ing all alone.
Celia and I had dis­cussed it and come to the con­clu­sion that we
could not move in togeth­er. She was less con­vinced of this than I was,
but I was stead­fast in my resolve. Even though my career was in the
gut­ter, hers was thriv­ing. I couldn’t let her risk it. Not for me.
My head was on the pil­low, but my eyes were wide open when I
heard some­one pull into the dri­ve­way. I looked out the win­dow to see
Celia slip­ping out of a car and wav­ing good night to her dri­ver. She had
an Oscar in her hand.
“You look com­fort­able,” Celia said, once she’d made her way to me
in the bed­room.
“Come here,” I said to her.
She’d had a glass or three. I loved her drunk. She was her­self but
hap­pi­er, so bub­bly I some­times wor­ried she’d float away.
She took a run­ning start and hopped into the bed. I kissed her.
“I’m so proud of you, dar­ling.”
“I missed you all night,” she said. The Oscar was still in her hand,
and I could tell it was heavy; she kept allow­ing it to tip over onto the
mat­tress. The space for her name was blank.
“I don’t know if I was sup­posed to take this one,” she said, smil­ing.
“But I didn’t want to give it back.”
“Why aren’t you out cel­e­brat­ing? You should be at the Sun­set
par­ty.”
“I only want­ed to cel­e­brate with you.”
I pulled her clos­er to me. She kicked off her shoes.
“Noth­ing means any­thing with­out you,” she said. “Every­thing that
isn’t you is a pile of dog shit.”
I tossed my head back and laughed.
“What hap­pened to your tooth?” Celia asked.
“Is it that notice­able?”

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.

24
One of the peo­ple who was kind­est to me when I real­ly need­ed kind­ness was
Paris Hilton. So much of Amer­i­ca dis­missed her as a par­ty girl, but I found her
elegant—the way she posed on the red car­pet and always had an arched eye­brow
when any­one was mean about her.
She saw that I had babies and that I was su�ering from the breakup, and I
think she felt sor­ry for me. She came over to my house, and she helped me out so
much. She was just so sweet to me. Aside from that night in Vegas with Jason
Traw­ick, it felt like no one had been sweet like that to me in ages. We start­ed
hang­ing out. She encour­aged me to try to have fun for the �rst time in a long
time.
With Paris, I went through my par­ty stage. But let’s be clear: it was nev­er as
wild as the press made it out to be. There was a time when I nev­er went out at
all. Final­ly, when—with the kids prop­er­ly super­vised at home by capa­ble
caregivers—I did leave home for a few hours, stayed out late, and drank like any
oth­er twen­tysome­thing, I heard noth­ing but that I was the worst moth­er who’d
ever lived and a ter­ri­ble per­son, too. The tabloids were full of accu­sa­tions: She’s a
slut! She’s on drugs!
I nev­er had a drink­ing prob­lem. I liked to drink, but it was nev­er out of
con­trol. Do you want to know my drug of choice? The only thing I real­ly did
except for drink­ing? Adder­all, the amphet­a­mine that’s giv­en to kids for ADHD.
Adder­all made me high, yes, but what I found far more appeal­ing was that it
gave me a few hours of feel­ing less depressed. It was the only thing that worked
for me as an anti­de­pres­sant, and I real­ly felt like I need­ed one of those.
I have nev­er had any inter­est in hard drugs. I saw plen­ty of peo­ple in the
music world doing all that, but it wasn’t for me. Where I grew up, what we did

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 24
It made Patri­cia ner­vous when Carter used his cel­lu­lar phone while
dri­ving, but he was the bet­ter dri­ver and they were already run­ning
late for book club, which meant it was going to be hard to find
park­ing.
“And you’ll upgrade me to a king,” Carter said, let­ting go of the
wheel with one hand to put on his turn sig­nal.
Their dark red BMW took the turn into Creek­side smooth and
easy. Patri­cia didn’t like it when he drove like this, but on the oth­er
hand this was one of the few times he didn’t have Rush Lim­baugh on
the radio, so she took her bless­ings where she could.
“You can make the check out to Camp­bell Clin­i­cal Con­sult­ing,”
Carter said. “The address is on the invoice I faxed.”
He snapped his phone shut and hummed a lit­tle tune.
“That’s the sixth talk,” he said. “It’s going to be busy this fall.
You’re sure you’re all right with me being gone so much?”
“I’ll miss you,” she said. “But col­lege isn’t free.”
He steered them down the cool tun­nels formed by Creekside’s
trees, dying sun­light flick­er­ing between the leaves, strob­ing over the
wind­shield and hood.
“If you still want to remod­el the kitchen, you can,” Carter said. “We
have enough.”
Up ahead, Patri­cia saw the back of Horse’s Chevy Blaz­er parked at
the end of a long line of Saabs, Aud­is, and Infini­tis. They were still a
block from Slick and Leland’s house, but the parked cars stretched all
the way back here.
“Are you sure?” Patri­cia asked. “We still don’t know where Korey’s
think­ing of going.”
“Or if she’s even think­ing,” Carter said, pulling up behind Horse’s
Chevy but leav­ing a big buffer zone between their cars. It didn’t pay
to park too close to Horse these days.
“What if she picks some­where like NYU or Welles­ley?” Patri­cia
said, undo­ing her seat belt.
“The chances of Korey get­ting into NYU or Welles­ley, I’ll take
those odds,” Carter said, giv­ing her a peck on the cheek. “Quit
wor­ry­ing. You’ll make your­self sick.”
They got out of the car. Patri­cia hat­ed get­ting out of cars.
Accord­ing to the bath­room scale, she’d gained eleven pounds and she
felt them hang­ing from her hips and stom­ach, and they made her feel
unsteady on her feet. She didn’t think she looked bad with a fuller
face as long as she sprayed her hair a lit­tle big­ger, but get­ting in and
out of cars made her feel grace­less.
She waddled—walked—up the street with Carter, the Octo­ber chill
prick­ling her arms with goose bumps. She read­just­ed her grip on this
month’s book—why did Tom Clan­cy need more pages than the Bible
to tell a story?—and Carter opened the gate in the lit­er­al white pick­et
fence around Slick and Leland’s front yard. Togeth­er, they went up
the path of the Paleys’ large, barn-red Cape Cod that looked like it
belonged in New Eng­land, right down to the dec­o­ra­tive mill­stone in
the front yard.
Carter rang the bell and the door instant­ly swung open to reveal
Slick. She was gelled and moussed and her mouth was too small for
her lip­stick, but she looked gen­uine­ly hap­py to see them.
“Carter! Patri­cia!” she cried, beam­ing. “You look fab­u­lous.”
Recent­ly, Patri­cia had sur­prised her­self when she real­ized that the
main rea­son she kept com­ing to book club was to see Slick.
“You look won­der­ful, too,” Patri­cia said, with a gen­uine smile.
“Isn’t this vest adorable?” Slick spread her arms. “Leland bought it
for me at Kerrison’s for almost noth­ing.”
It didn’t mat­ter how many Paley Real­ty signs sprang up all over
Mt. Pleas­ant, or how much Slick talked about mon­ey, or showed off
things Leland bought for her, or tried to gos­sip about Albe­mar­le
Acad­e­my now that Tiger had final­ly got­ten in. To Patri­cia she was a
per­son of sub­stance.
“Come on back!” Slick said, lead­ing them into the claus­tro­pho­bic,
over­stuffed roar of book club.
Peo­ple spilled out of Slick’s din­ing room, and Patri­cia twist­ed her
hips to avoid bump­ing into any­one as Slick led them past the stairs,
past all the dis­play cas­es for her collections—the Lenox Gar­den bird
fig­urines, lit­tle ceram­ic cot­tages, minia­ture ster­ling sil­ver fur­ni­ture—
past new wall plaques bear­ing even more devo­tion­al quo­ta­tions, past
the col­lectible wrist­watch­es mount­ed in shad­ow box­es.
“Hel­lo, hel­lo!” Patri­cia said to Louise Gibbes as they went by.
“You look fab­u­lous, Loret­ta,” Patri­cia said to Loret­ta Jones.
“Your Game­cocks took a whup­ping Sat­ur­day,” Carter said to
Arthur Rivers, clap­ping him on one shoul­der, nev­er slow­ing down.
They emerged from the hall into the new addi­tion at the back of
the house and the ceil­ing sud­den­ly shot up over their heads, soar­ing
to a series of sky­lights. The addi­tion stretched almost to the Paleys’
prop­er­ty line, a mas­sive barn for enter­tain­ing, and every inch was
crammed with peo­ple. There must be forty mem­bers these days, and
Slick was just about the only per­son with enough house for all of
them.
“Help your­selves,” Slick said over the roar of con­ver­sa­tion
bounc­ing off the high ceil­ings and the far walls, which were hung
with pic­turesque farm imple­ments. “I have to find Leland. Did you
see this? He gave me a Mick­ey Mouse watch. Isn’t it fun?”
She waved her spark­ly wrist at Patri­cia, then slipped away into a
for­est of backs and arms hold­ing rental glass­es and hands hold­ing
rental plates and every­one with copies of Clear and Present Dan­ger
tucked beneath their elbows, or rest­ing on the backs of chairs.
Patri­cia looked for some­one she knew, and saw Mar­jorie Fretwell
over by the buf­fet. They kissed on both cheeks, the way peo­ple did
these days.
“You look won­der­ful,” Mar­jorie said.
“Have you lost weight?” Patri­cia asked.
“Are you doing some­thing dif­fer­ent with your hair?” Mar­jorie
asked back. “I love it.”
Some­times it both­ered Patri­cia how much time they spent telling
each oth­er how good they looked, how won­der­ful they seemed, how
fan­tas­tic they were. Three years ago she would have sus­pect­ed Carter
had called ahead and told every­one to make sure they kept Patricia’s
spir­its up, but now she real­ized that all of them did it, all the time.
But what was wrong with enjoy­ing their bless­ings? They had so
many good things in their lives. Why not cel­e­brate?
“Hey, man!” a loud voice said, and Patri­cia saw Horse’s red face
ris­ing up over Marjorie’s shoul­der. “Is that hus­band of yours
around?”
He leaned in unsteadi­ly to peck Patri­cia on the cheek. He hadn’t
shaved, and a yeasty cloud of beer hov­ered around his head.
“A horse is a horse, of course, of course,” Carter said, com­ing up
behind Patri­cia.
“You won’t believe it, but we’re rich again,” Horse said, putting one
hand on Carter’s shoul­der to steady him­self. “Next time we go to the
club, drinks are on me.”
“Don’t for­get, we’ve got four more who want to go to col­lege,” Kit­ty
said, step­ping into the cir­cle and giv­ing Patri­cia a one-armed hug.
“Don’t be cheap, woman!” Horse bel­lowed.
“We signed the papers today,” Kit­ty explained.
“When I see Jim­my H. I’m gonna kiss him,” Horse said. “Right on
the lips!”
Patri­cia smiled. James Har­ris had total­ly trans­formed Kit­ty and
Horse’s lives. He’d straight­ened out the man­age­ment of See­wee
Farms, hired them a young man to run things, and con­vinced Horse
to sell 110 acres to a devel­op­er. That was what had final­ly come
through today.
It wasn’t just them. All of them, includ­ing Patri­cia and Carter, had
invest­ed more and more mon­ey in Gra­cious Cay, and as out­side
investors kept com­ing in they’d all tak­en out cred­it lines against their
shares. It felt like mon­ey just kept falling out of the sky.
“You got to come with me Sat­ur­day,” Horse told Carter. “Do some
boat shop­ping.”
“How are the chil­dren?” Patri­cia asked Kit­ty, because that was the
kind of thing you said.
“We final­ly con­vinced Pony to look at the Citadel,” Kit­ty said. “I
can’t stand the idea of him up at Car­oli­na or Wake For­est. He’d be so
far away.”
“It’s bet­ter when they stay local,” Mar­jorie nod­ded.
“And Horse wants anoth­er Citadel man in the fam­i­ly,” Kit­ty said.
“That class ring opens doors,” Mar­jorie said. “It real­ly does.”
As Mar­jorie and Kit­ty talked, the room began to close in around
Patri­cia. She didn’t know why everyone’s voic­es sound­ed so loud, or
why the small of her back felt cold and greasy with sweat, or why her
under­arms itched. Then she smelled the Swedish meat­balls bub­bling
away in the sil­ver chaf­ing dish on the buf­fet table beside her.
Carter and Horse laughed uproar­i­ous­ly over some­thing and Horse
put his beer down on the buf­fet table and he already had anoth­er one
in his hand and Kit­ty said some­thing about Korey, and the famil­iar
reek of boil­ing ketchup filled Patricia’s skull and coat­ed her throat.
She forced her­self to stop think­ing about it. It was bet­ter not to
think about it. Her life was back to nor­mal now. Her life was bet­ter
than nor­mal.
“Did you see on the news about that school in New York?” Kit­ty
asked. “The chil­dren have to get there at five a.m. because it takes
them two and a half hours to go through the met­al detec­tors.”
“But you can’t put a price on safe­ty,” Mar­jorie said.
“Excuse me,” Patri­cia said.
She pushed her way past shoul­ders and backs, need­ing to get away
from that smell, twist­ing her hips to the side, ter­ri­fied she’d knock
someone’s drink out of their hands, forc­ing her way through scraps
of con­ver­sa­tion.
“…tak­ing him up to tour the cam­pus…”
“…have you lost weight…”
“…divest into Netscape…”
“…the president’s just a Bub­ba, it’s his wife…”
Kit­ty hadn’t vis­it­ed her in the hos­pi­tal.
She didn’t want to keep score like this but for the first time in years
it just popped into her mind.
“You were in and out so quick­ly,” Kit­ty had told Patri­cia over the
phone. “I was going to come just as soon as I got orga­nized but by the
time that hap­pened, you were already home.”
She remem­bered Kit­ty beg­ging for reas­sur­ance. “With all those
pills, you just mixed up your pre­scrip­tion, didn’t you?”
That was what had hap­pened, she agreed, and Kit­ty had been so
grate­ful it didn’t have to go any fur­ther or get any messier and she
had been so grate­ful that every­one had let it drop and nev­er talked
about it again that she hadn’t real­ized how much it hurt that none of
them came by the hos­pi­tal. At the time, she was just grate­ful. She
was grate­ful no one called her a sui­cide and treat­ed her dif­fer­ent. She
was grate­ful it had been so easy to slip back into her old life. She was
grate­ful for the new dock and the trip to Lon­don and the surgery to
fix her ear and the back­yard cook­outs and the new car. She was
grate­ful for so many things.
“Ice water, please,” she said to the black man in white gloves
behind the bar.
The only one who came to the hos­pi­tal had been Slick. She showed
up at sev­en in the morn­ing and knocked gen­tly on the open door and
came in and sat down next to Patri­cia. She didn’t say much. She
didn’t have any advice or insight, no ideas or opin­ions. She didn’t
need to be con­vinced it had all been an acci­dent. She just sat there,
hold­ing Patricia’s hand in a kind of silent prayer, and around sev­en
forty-five she said, “We all need you to get bet­ter,” and left.
She was the only one of them Patri­cia cared about any­more. She
didn’t hold any­thing too much against Kit­ty and Maryellen and they
saw each oth­er social­ly, but the only time she came near Grace now
was at book club. When she saw Grace she thought about things
she’d said that she didn’t want to remem­ber.
She turned, cold glass in one hand, grate­ful she couldn’t smell the
meat­balls any­more, and saw Grace and Ben­nett stand­ing behind her.
“Hel­lo, Grace,” she said. “Ben­nett.”
Grace didn’t move; Ben­nett stood motion­less. No one leaned
for­ward for a hug. Ben­nett had an iced tea in his hand instead of a
beer. Grace had lost weight.
“It’s quite a turnout,” Grace said, sur­vey­ing the room.
“Did you enjoy this month’s book?” Patri­cia asked.
“I’ve cer­tain­ly learned a lot about the war on drugs,” Grace said.
I hat­ed it, Patri­cia want­ed to say. Every­one talked in the same
terse, man­ly sen­tences you’d expect from an insur­ance sales­man
fan­ta­siz­ing about war. Every sen­tence dripped with DDOs and DDIs
and LPIs and E‑2s and F‑15s and MH-53Js and C‑141s. She didn’t
under­stand half of what she read, there were no women in it except
fools and pros­ti­tutes, it had noth­ing to say about their lives, and it
felt like a recruit­ment ad for the army.
“It was very illu­mi­nat­ing,” she agreed.
James Har­ris had turned their book club into this. He’d start­ed
get­ting the hus­bands to attend, and they’d start­ed read­ing more and
more books by Pat Con­roy (“He’s a local author”) and Michael
Crich­ton (“Fas­ci­nat­ing con­cepts”), and The Horse Whis­per­er and All
the Pret­ty Hors­es and Bra­vo Two Zero, and some­times Patri­cia
despaired over what were they going to read next—The Celes­tine
Prophe­cy? Chick­en Soup for the Soul?—but most­ly she mar­veled at
how many peo­ple came.
It was bet­ter not to dwell on it. Every­thing changes, and was it
real­ly so bad that more peo­ple want­ed to dis­cuss books?
“We need to find seats,” Grace said. “Excuse us.”
Patri­cia watched them retreat into the crowd. The track light­ing
got brighter as the sky out­side got dark­er, and she made her way
back to her group. As she got near­er she smelled san­dal­wood and
leather. Peo­ple part­ed and she saw Carter talk­ing excit­ed­ly to
some­one, and then she passed the last per­son block­ing her view and
saw James Har­ris, dressed in a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves
rolled up just so, and his khakis pressed exact­ly right, his hair
tou­sled by experts, and his skin glow­ing with health.
“You wouldn’t believe the sched­ule they have me on this fall,”
Carter was telling him. “Six talks before Jan­u­ary. You’ll have to keep
an eye on the old home­stead.”
“You know you love it,” James Har­ris said, and they both laughed.
Patricia’s steps fal­tered and she cursed her­self for not want­i­ng to
see James Har­ris, who had done so much for all of them, and she
forced her­self to walk toward him with a big smile. James Har­ris was
Leland’s busi­ness advi­sor these days. He called him­self a con­sul­tant.
He made up for not being able to go out­side dur­ing the day by
work­ing through the night. He pored over the plans for Gra­cious Cay,
he wooed out­side investors at catered din­ners he host­ed at his home,
and some­times when Patri­cia walked down Mid­dle Street ear­ly in the
morn­ing she could still smell cig­ar smoke lin­ger­ing in the street
out­side his house. He worked the phones, he encour­aged peo­ple to
get out­side their com­fort zones, he con­vinced Leland to grow a
pony­tail. He car­ried them into the future.
“We’re going to have to get you mar­ried so you can know what it’s
like to be tied down,” Carter said to James Har­ris.
“I still haven’t met some­one worth giv­ing up my free­dom for,”
James said.
He and Carter were almost like broth­ers these days. He was the
one who’d con­vinced Carter to go into pri­vate prac­tice. He was the
one who’d talked Carter into get­ting on the lec­ture cir­cuit, where he
extolled the virtues of Prozac and Rital­in to doc­tors on paid vaca­tions
in Hilton Head, and Myr­tle Beach, and Atlanta, cour­tesy of Eli Lil­ly
and Novar­tis. He was the one respon­si­ble for all the mon­ey pil­ing up
in their bank account that would let them send Korey to col­lege, and

are you okay?”
The chap­ter from July 24 delves into the pro­tag­o­nist’s life, show­cas­ing a mix­ture of mun­dane and omi­nous events. The pro­tag­o­nist is ful­ly com­mit­ted to her rela­tion­ship with Eddie, pur­chas­ing a wed­ding dress and engag­ing in dis­cus­sions about their upcom­ing small wed­ding. Despite the oppres­sive sum­mer heat, she finds solace in ear­ly morn­ing jogs, enjoy­ing the soli­tude and the cool­ing sweat. Her encoun­ters with Emi­ly and Camp­bell dur­ing these runs hint at under­ly­ing ten­sions, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Camp­bel­l’s forced smile.

The nar­ra­tive takes a dark­er turn with the pro­tag­o­nist’s thoughts on Tripp, a rich white man charged with first-degree mur­der but still enjoy­ing the com­fort of his home. This dis­par­i­ty in treat­ment high­lights soci­etal inequal­i­ties and the pro­tag­o­nist’s own fears stem­ming from a past inci­dent involv­ing some­one named Mr. Brock. Her reflec­tions on the priv­i­lege that allows Tripp to remain at home while await­ing tri­al con­trast sharply with her imag­ined imme­di­ate incar­cer­a­tion had she been caught in a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion.

Trip­p’s case is cen­tral to the chap­ter, with rev­e­la­tions about the death of Blanche, who had a mas­sive frac­ture in her skull. Sus­pi­cion falls heav­i­ly on Tripp, espe­cial­ly since he had bought a ham­mer short­ly before Blanche’s demise. Despite the absence of con­crete evi­dence, espe­cial­ly con­cern­ing anoth­er poten­tial vic­tim named Bea, the case against Tripp hinges on cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence. The pro­tag­o­nist’s obses­sion with fol­low­ing the case, cou­pled with Eddie’s cyn­i­cal view of the jus­tice sys­tem’s lenien­cy towards wealthy defen­dants, adds a lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to their dai­ly lives.

The chap­ter crescen­dos with the pro­tag­o­nist expe­ri­enc­ing a fright­en­ing moment alone in her house, hear­ing thumps rem­i­nis­cent of the night they learned about Blanche’s death. This inci­dent, though seem­ing­ly minor, esca­lates her anx­i­ety, mak­ing a sim­ple phone call from Eddie a nec­es­sary com­fort to assuage her fears. The blend of per­son­al com­mit­ment, soci­etal cri­tique, and moments of sus­pense cap­tures a day in the life of the pro­tag­o­nist, filled with love, antic­i­pa­tion, and a loom­ing sense of dread.

Chap­ter 24 of “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” by Anne Bron­të begins with Helen doc­u­ment­ing her wor­ry over her hus­band Arthur’s increas­ing dis­in­ter­est in their qui­et life togeth­er and his pref­er­ence for talk­ing about his past amorous adven­tures, which dis­tress­es her great­ly. Helen tries to main­tain a calm demeanor in response to Arthur’s sto­ries that boast of his exploits at the expense of oth­er women, despite ini­tial­ly react­ing with anger and tears. These inter­ac­tions deep­en her inner tur­moil and doubts about her mar­riage deci­sion but solid­i­fy her resolve to not com­plain or show signs of jeal­ousy, which Arthur often teas­es her for.

The nar­ra­tive takes a turn when Arthur shares the detailed sto­ry of his past involve­ment with Lady F—, mak­ing Helen ques­tion her deci­sion to mar­ry him more than ever before. A sub­se­quent argu­ment ensues over Arthur’s past behav­ior and his rea­sons for mar­ry­ing Helen, which leads to Helen ques­tion­ing whether she would have mar­ried him had she known about these escapades before­hand. Their dis­agree­ments esca­late, result­ing in Helen iso­lat­ing her­self from Arthur.

They main­tain a cold dis­tance from each oth­er, filled with silent treat­ments and pas­sive-aggres­sive behav­ior. Arthur’s bore­dom and rest­less­ness due to bad weath­er and lack of enter­tain­ment options are evi­dent. Helen, try­ing to assert some lev­el of inde­pen­dence and dis­dain for Arthur’s atti­tudes, pays him lit­tle atten­tion, push­ing Arthur to ten­ta­tive attempts at rec­on­cil­i­a­tion which Helen rebuffs, seek­ing a clear sign of Arthur’s remorse.

Arthur’s sud­den plan to depart for Lon­don alarms Helen, fear­ing the con­se­quences of his escape from their dire sit­u­a­tion. A mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion about the depar­ture, pre­cip­i­tat­ed by a prob­lem with the hors­es, opens a dia­logue between them. The chap­ter con­cludes on a some­what hope­ful note, with Arthur express­ing a desire to stay on the con­di­tion of Helen’s for­give­ness and a poten­tial for rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, hint­ing at an unre­solved yet slight­ly more opti­mistic future for their rela­tion­ship. This encap­su­lat­ed ten­sion between Helen’s hope for a lov­ing mar­riage and the real­i­ty of Arthur’s unchang­ing char­ac­ter dri­ves the nar­ra­tive towards an antic­i­pa­tion of whether true change is pos­si­ble in Arthur.