Chap­ter Fifty-Two fol­lows Mil­lie as she endures a har­row­ing expe­ri­ence devised by Andrew, who has left her locked in an attic with a pecu­liar task. Ini­tial­ly occu­pied with basic needs like using a buck­et for relief and com­bat­ing hunger with scant water sup­plies from an emp­tied mini-fridge, her sit­u­a­tion quick­ly esca­lates into a psy­cho­log­i­cal test. Andrew instructs her to bal­ance three heavy books on her abdomen for three hours as a con­di­tion for her release. Despite the con­fu­sion and dis­com­fort, Mil­lie ini­tial­ly attempts to com­ply, dri­ven by the hope of escape and the press­ing lack of alter­na­tives in the iso­lat­ed attic.

Strug­gling against the dis­com­fort and the real­iza­tion that Andrew is play­ing a cru­el game, Mil­lie con­sid­ers ways to escape, though her efforts are inter­rupt­ed by Andrew’s voice, reassert­ing his con­trol and dis­miss­ing her pleas for release. As des­per­a­tion takes hold, exac­er­bat­ed by dwin­dling water and the onset of hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry fan­tasies spurred by thirst, Mil­lie reeval­u­ates her resis­tance and decides to endure the book-bal­anc­ing task in a bid for free­dom. This deci­sion is a poignant reflec­tion of her dwin­dling options and the psy­cho­log­i­cal toll of her con­fine­ment.

After reluc­tant­ly com­plet­ing the task, believ­ing she has met Andrew’s demands, Mil­lie faces fur­ther manip­u­la­tion when he claims she failed to adhere strict­ly to his rules, spark­ing a mix­ture of fury, dis­be­lief, and resigned com­pli­ance in her. This cycle of hope and despair under­scores the themes of con­trol, resilience, and the human will to endure under duress. The chap­ter con­cludes with Mil­lie final­ly meet­ing Andrew’s arbi­trary require­ments, mark­ing a grim vic­to­ry marred by phys­i­cal pain and the bit­ter real­iza­tion of her vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty at Andrew’s whims, encap­su­lat­ing the dis­tress­ing dynam­ics of their inter­ac­tion and set­ting a tense stage for sub­se­quent devel­op­ments.

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
52
There was a deep, sunken tub in the floor of the moun­tain cabin—large
enough to accom­mo­date Illyr­i­an wings. I filled it with water near-scald­ing,
not car­ing how the mag­ic of this house oper­at­ed, only that it worked.
Hiss­ing and winc­ing, I climbed in.
Three days with­out a bath and I could have wept at the warmth and
clean­li­ness of it.
No mat­ter that I’d once gone weeks with­out one—not when draw­ing hot
water for it in my family’s cot­tage had been more trou­ble than it was worth.
Not when we didn’t even have a bath­tub and it required buck­ets and
buck­ets to get clean.
I washed with dark soap that smelled of smoke and pine, and when I was
done, I sat there, watch­ing the steam slith­er amongst the few can­dles.
Mate.
The word chased me from the bath soon­er than I want­ed, and hound­ed
me as I pulled on the clothes I’d found in a draw­er of the bed­room: dark
leg­gings, a large, cream-col­ored sweater that hung to mid-thigh, and thick
socks. My stom­ach grum­bled, and I real­ized I hadn’t eat­en since the day
before, because—
Because he’d been injured, and I’d gone out of my mind—absolutely
insane—when he’d been tak­en from me, shot out of the sky like a bird.
I’d act­ed on instinct, on a dri­ve to pro­tect him that had come from so
deep in me …
So deep in me—
I found a con­tain­er of soup on the wood counter that Mor must have
brought in, and scrounged up a cast iron pot to heat it. Fresh, crusty bread
sat near the stove, and I ate half of it while wait­ing for the soup to warm.
He’d sus­pect­ed it before I’d even freed us from Ama­ran­tha.
My wed­ding day … Had he inter­rupt­ed to spare me from a hor­ri­ble
mis­take or for his own ends? Because I was his mate, and let­ting me bind
myself to some­one else was unac­cept­able?
I ate my din­ner in silence, with only the mur­mur­ing fire for com­pa­ny.
And beneath the bar­rage of my thoughts, a throb of relief.
My rela­tion­ship with Tam­lin had been doomed from the start. I had left—
only to find my mate. To go to my mate.
If I were look­ing to spare us both from embar­rass­ment, from rumor, only
that—only that I had found my true mate—would do the trick.
I was not a lying piece of trai­tor­ous filth. Not even close. Even if Rhys …
Rhys had known I was his mate.
While I’d shared a bed with Tam­lin. For months and months. He’d
known I was shar­ing a bed with him, and hadn’t let it show. Or maybe he
didn’t care.
Maybe he didn’t want the bond. Had hoped it’d van­ish.
I’d owed noth­ing to Rhys then—had noth­ing to apol­o­gize for.
But he’d known I’d react bad­ly. That it’d hurt me more than help me.
And what if I had known?
What if I had known that Rhys was my mate while I’d loved Tam­lin?
It didn’t excuse his not telling me. Didn’t excuse the recent weeks, when
I’d hat­ed myself so much for want­i­ng him so badly—when he should have
told me. But … I under­stood.
I washed the dish­es, swept the crumbs off the small din­ing table between
the kitchen and liv­ing area, and climbed into one of the beds.
Just last night, I’d been curled beside him, count­ing his breaths to make
sure he didn’t stop mak­ing them. The night before, I’d been in his arms, his
fin­gers between my legs, his tongue in my mouth. And now … though the
cab­in was warm, the sheets were cold. The bed was large—empty.
Through the small glass win­dow, the snow-blast­ed land around me
glowed blue in the moon­light. The wind was a hol­low moan, brush­ing
great, sparkling drifts of snow past the cab­in.
I won­dered if Mor had told him where I was.
Won­dered if he’d indeed come look­ing for me.
Mate.
My mate.
Sun­light on snow awoke me, and I squint­ed at the bright­ness, curs­ing
myself for not clos­ing the cur­tains. It took me a moment to remem­ber
where I was; why I was in this iso­lat­ed cab­in, deep in the moun­tains of—I
did’t know what moun­tains these were.
Rhys had once men­tioned a favorite retreat that Mor and Amren had
burned to cin­ders in a fight. I won­dered if this was it; if it had been rebuilt.
Every­thing was com­fort­able, worn, but in rel­a­tive­ly good shape.
Mor and Amren had known.
I couldn’t decide if I hat­ed them for it.
No doubt, Rhys had ordered them to keep qui­et, and they’d respect­ed his
wish­es, but …
I made the bed, fixed break­fast, washed the dish­es, and then stood in the
cen­ter of the main liv­ing space.
I’d run away.
Pre­cise­ly how Rhys expect­ed me to run—how I’d told him any­one in
their right mind would run from him. Like a cow­ard, like a fool, I’d left him
injured in the freez­ing mud.
I’d walked away from him—a day after I’d told him he was the only
thing I’d nev­er walk away from.
I’d demand­ed hon­esty, and at the first true test, I hadn’t even let him give
it to me. I hadn’t grant­ed him the con­sid­er­a­tion of hear­ing him out.
You see me.
Well, I’d refused to see him. Maybe I’d refused to see what was right in
front of me.
I’d walked away.
And maybe … maybe I shouldn’t have.
Bore­dom hit me halfway through the day.
Supreme, unre­lent­ing bore­dom, thanks to being trapped inside while the
snow slow­ly melt­ed under the mild spring day, lis­ten­ing to it drip-drip-
drip­ping off the roof.
It made me nosy—and once I’d fin­ished going through the draw­ers and
clos­ets of both bed­rooms (clothes, old bits of rib­bon, knives and weapons
tucked between as if one of them had chucked them in and just for­got­ten),
the kitchen cab­i­nets (food, pre­served goods, pots and pans, a stained
cook­book), and the liv­ing area (blan­kets, some books, more weapons
hid­den every­where), I ven­tured into the sup­ply clos­et.
For a High Lord’s retreat, the cab­in was … not com­mon, because
every­thing had been made and appoint­ed with care, but … casu­al. As if this
were the sole place where they might all come, and pile into beds and on
the couch, and not be any­one but them­selves, tak­ing turns with who cooked
that night and who hunt­ed and who cleaned and—
A fam­i­ly.
It felt like a family—the one I’d nev­er quite had, had nev­er dared real­ly
hope for. Had stopped expect­ing when I’d grown used to the space and
for­mal­i­ty of liv­ing in a manor. To being a sym­bol for a bro­ken peo­ple, a
High Priestess’s gold­en idol and pup­pet.
I opened the store­room door, a blast of cold greet­ing me, but can­dles
sput­tered to life, thanks to the mag­ic that kept the place hos­pitable. Shelves
free of dust (anoth­er mag­i­cal perk, no doubt) gleamed with more food
stores. Books, sport­ing equip­ment, packs and ropes and, big sur­prise, more
weapons. I sort­ed through it all, these rem­nants of adven­tures past and
future, and almost missed them as I walked past.
Half a dozen cans of paint.
Paper, and a few can­vas­es. Brush­es, old and flecked with paint from lazy
hands.
There were oth­er art supplies—pastels and water­col­ors, what looked to
be char­coal for sketch­ing, but … I stared at the paint, the brush­es.
Which of them had tried to paint while stuck here—or enjoy­ing a hol­i­day
with them all?
I told myself my hands were trem­bling with the cold as I reached for the
paint and pried open the lid.
Still fresh. Prob­a­bly from the mag­ic pre­serv­ing this place.
I peered into the dark, gleam­ing inte­ri­or of the can I’d opened: blue.
And then I start­ed gath­er­ing sup­plies.
I paint­ed all day.
And when the sun van­ished, I paint­ed all through the night.
The moon had set by the time I washed my hands and face and neck and
stum­bled into bed, not even both­er­ing to undress before uncon­scious­ness
swept me away.
I was up, brush in hand, before the spring sun could resume its work
thaw­ing the moun­tains around me.
I paused only long enough to eat. The sun was set­ting again, exhaust­ed
from the dent it’d made in the lay­er of snow out­side, when a knock sound­ed
on the front door.
Splat­tered in paint—the cream-col­ored sweater utter­ly wrecked—I froze.
Anoth­er knock, light, but insis­tent. Then—“Please don’t be dead.”
I didn’t know whether it was relief or dis­ap­point­ment that sank in my
chest as I opened the door and found Mor huff­ing hot air into her cupped
hands.
She looked at the paint on my skin, in my hair. At the brush in my hand.
And then at what I had done.
Mor stepped in from the brisk spring night and let out a low whis­tle as
she shut the door. “Well, you’ve cer­tain­ly been busy.”
Indeed.
I’d paint­ed near­ly every sur­face in the main room.
And not with just broad swaths of col­or, but with decorations—little
images. Some were basic: clus­ters of ici­cles droop­ing down the sides of the
thresh­old. They melt­ed into the first shoots of spring, then burst into full
blooms of sum­mer, before bright­en­ing and deep­en­ing into fall leaves. I’d
paint­ed a ring of flow­ers round the card table by the win­dow; leaves and
crack­ling flames around the din­ing table.
But in between the intri­cate dec­o­ra­tions, I’d paint­ed them. Bits and
pieces of Mor, and Cass­ian, and Azriel, and Amren … and Rhys.
Mor went up to the large hearth, where I’d paint­ed the man­tel in black
shim­mer­ing with veins of gold and red. Up close, it was a sol­id, pret­ty bit of
paint. But from the couch … “Illyr­i­an wings,” she said. “Ugh, they’ll nev­er
stop gloat­ing about it.”
But she went to the win­dow, which I’d framed in tum­bling strands of
gold and brass and bronze. Mor fin­gered her hair, cock­ing her head. “Nice,”
she said, sur­vey­ing the room again.
Her eyes fell on the open thresh­old to the bed­room hall­way, and she
gri­maced. “Why,” she said, “are Amren’s eyes there?”
Indeed, right above the door, in the cen­ter of the arch­way, I’d paint­ed a
pair of glow­ing sil­ver eyes. “Because she’s always watch­ing.”
Mor snort­ed. “That sim­ply won’t do. Paint my eyes next to hers. So the
males of this fam­i­ly will know we’re both watch­ing them the next time they
come up here to get drunk for a week straight.”
“They do that?”
“They used to.” Before Ama­ran­tha. “Every autumn, the three of them
would lock them­selves in this house for five days and drink and drink and
hunt and hunt, and they’d come back to Velaris look­ing halfway to death
but grin­ning like fools. It warms my heart to know that from now on, they’ll
have to do it with me and Amren star­ing at them.”
A smile tugged on my lips. “Who does this paint belong to?”
“Amren,” Mor said, rolling her eyes. “We were all here one sum­mer, and
she want­ed to teach her­self to paint. She did it for about two days before
she got bored and decid­ed to start hunt­ing poor crea­tures instead.”
A qui­et chuck­le rasped out of me. I strode to the table, which I’d used as
my main sur­face for blend­ing and orga­niz­ing paints. And maybe I was a
cow­ard, but I kept my back to her as I said, “Any news from my sis­ters?”
Mor start­ed rifling through the cab­i­nets, either to look for food or assess
what I need­ed. She said over a shoul­der, “No. Not yet.”
“Is he … hurt?” I’d left him in the freez­ing mud, injured and work­ing the
poi­son out of his sys­tem. I’d tried not to dwell on it while I’d paint­ed.
“Still recov­er­ing, but fine. Pissed at me, of course, but he can shove it.”
I com­bined Mor’s yel­low gold with the red I’d used for the Illyr­i­an
wings, and blend­ed until vibrant orange emerged. “Thank you—for not
telling him I was here.”
A shrug. Food began pop­ping onto the counter: fresh bread, fruit,
con­tain­ers of some­thing that I could smell from across the kitchen and
made me near­ly groan with hunger. “You should talk to him, though. Make
him stew over it, of course, but … hear him out.” She didn’t look at me as
she spoke. “Rhys always has his rea­sons, and he might be arro­gant as all
hell, but he’s usu­al­ly right about his instincts. He makes mis­takes, but …
You should hear him out.”
I’d already decid­ed that I would, but I said, “How was your vis­it to the
Court of Night­mares?”
She paused, her face going unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly pale. “Fine. It’s always a
delight to see my par­ents. As you might guess.”
“Is your father heal­ing?” I added the cobalt of Azriel’s Siphons to the
orange and mixed until a rich brown appeared.
A small, grim smile. “Slow­ly. I might have snapped some more bones
when I vis­it­ed. My moth­er has since ban­ished me from their pri­vate
quar­ters. Such a shame.”
Some fer­al part of me beamed in sav­age delight at that. “A pity indeed,” I
said. I added a bit of frost white to light­en the brown, checked it against the
gaze she slid to me, and grabbed a stool to stand on as I began paint­ing the
thresh­old. “Rhys real­ly makes you do this often? Endure vis­it­ing them?”
Mor leaned against the counter. “Rhys gave me per­mis­sion the day he
became High Lord to kill them all when­ev­er I pleased. I attend these
meet­ings, go to the Court of Night­mares, to … remind them of that
some­times. And to keep com­mu­ni­ca­tion between our two courts flow­ing,
how­ev­er strained it might be. If I were to march in there tomor­row and
slaugh­ter my par­ents, he wouldn’t blink. Per­haps be incon­ve­nienced by it,
but … he would be pleased.”
I focused on the speck of caramel brown I paint­ed beside Amren’s eyes.
“I’m sorry—for all that you endured.”
“Thank you,” she said, com­ing over to watch me. “Vis­it­ing them always
leaves me raw.”
“Cass­ian seemed con­cerned.” Anoth­er pry­ing ques­tion.
She shrugged. “Cass­ian, I think, would also savor the oppor­tu­ni­ty to
shred that entire court to pieces. Start­ing with my par­ents. Maybe I’ll let
him do it one year as a present. Him and Azriel both. It’d make a per­fect
sol­stice gift.”
I asked per­haps a bit too casu­al­ly. “You told me about the time with
Cass­ian, but did you and Azriel ever … ?”
A sharp laugh. “No. Azriel? After that time with Cass­ian, I swore off any
of Rhys’s friends. Azriel’s got no short­age of lovers, though, don’t wor­ry.
He’s bet­ter at keep­ing them secret than we are, but … he has them.”
“So if he were ever inter­est­ed would you … ?”

Eve­lyn Hugo and Max’s wed­ding in Joshua Tree was a depar­ture from the tra­di­tion­al, with close friends and Max’s broth­er Luc as their only guests. Reject­ing the con­ven­tion­al white dress, Eve­lyn chose an ocean-blue maxi dress, sig­nal­ing her break from past pre­tens­es. Their inti­mate cer­e­mo­ny con­trast­ed with their glob­al lifestyle, sug­gest­ing a more ground­ed expe­ri­ence despite their pub­lic per­sonas. The sim­plis­tic joy of their night, sur­round­ed by the desert’s vast­ness, encap­su­lat­ed a moment of pure, unaf­fect­ed love. Yet, the com­plex­i­ties of real­i­ty and iden­ti­ty began to sur­face the next day. Max’s dis­com­fort with their sim­plis­tic sur­round­ings and Eve­lyn’s reflec­tion on the pub­lic’s per­cep­tion high­light­ed the ten­sion between their pub­lic images and pri­vate selves. This jux­ta­po­si­tion under­lined the tran­sient nature of their con­nec­tion, root­ed in the ide­al rather than the real. Their depar­ture from Joshua Tree sym­bol­ized not just a phys­i­cal return to their city lives but a metaphor­ic return to the com­plex­i­ties and expec­ta­tions teth­ered to their pub­lic iden­ti­ties. The mag­a­zine arti­cle and Max’s reac­tion to it fur­ther exas­per­at­ed Eve­lyn’s fears of being loved not for who she is but for the icon she rep­re­sents. This chap­ter, set against the back­drop of the desert and Hol­ly­wood’s glare, delves into themes of iden­ti­ty, love, and the dichoto­my between the authen­tic self and pub­lic per­sona, encap­su­lat­ing the tran­sient bliss of their union and the inevitable con­fronta­tion with real­i­ty.

Suit­able to her idea of mat­ri­mo­ni­al felic­i­ty, but, like­wise, with the laud­able deter­mi­na­tion of ren­der­ing him­self more wor­thy of her­re­gard. The wed­ding was a sim­ple affair; for Helen, with all her­noble qual­i­ties, had no ambi­tion to fig­ure as a lady of fash­ion. It was a qui­et cer­e­mo­ny, con­duct­ed in the old church in the val­ley, among a few of our near­est and dear­est friends. After­wards, there was a small recep­tion at Wild­fell Hall, which our ven­er­a­ble aunt had tak­en great pains to pre­pare; the old house had nev­er seen such fes­tiv­i­ty since the days of its depart­ed glo­ry.

Our life togeth­er began in the sweet­est har­mo­ny. Helen was to me all that my heart could desire, and I strove by every means in my pow­er to make her hap­pi­ness com­plete. We decid­ed to reside at Stan­ing­ley, as it was Helen’s wish and as it afford­ed me oppor­tu­ni­ties for the man­age­ment of the exten­sive estates, which could now be con­sid­ered part­ly mine, in right of my dear­est wife.

Our days were filled with a qui­et but intense hap­pi­ness that I had nev­er imag­ined pos­si­ble. Helen showed her­self to be not only a lov­ing wife and moth­er but also a strong and capa­ble woman, man­ag­ing her domains with a keen under­stand­ing and a gen­tle hand. The trau­ma of her first mar­riage had left scars, but togeth­er, we worked towards heal­ing them, find­ing solace in each oth­er and the new life we were build­ing.

As for Aunt Maxwell, she became an indis­pens­able mem­ber of our fam­i­ly. Her wis­dom, kind­ness, and occa­sion­al firm­ness brought anoth­er lay­er of depth to our home life. She devot­ed her­self to the edu­ca­tion of young Arthur, who thrived under her guid­ance and grew into a man that both his moth­er and I could be proud of.

In essence, the con­clu­sion of our sto­ry is one of redemp­tion, hope, and renewed faith in the pow­er of love to heal and trans­form. Helen’s jour­ney from the depths of despair to a life filled with joy and pur­pose is a tes­ta­ment to her strength and resilience. And as for me, I learned the true mean­ing of part­ner­ship, of sup­port­ing and being sup­port­ed, and of lov­ing uncon­di­tion­al­ly. It is a knowl­edge I hold more pre­cious than any estate, any world­ly suc­cess.

Thus ends the tale of the Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall, a sto­ry not only of strug­gle and endurance but more impor­tant­ly, of the tri­umph of love, the warmth of fam­i­ly, and the beau­ty of sec­ond chances.