In Chap­ter 31 of “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” Salan­der infil­trates an iso­lat­ed barn where she sus­pects her father, Zalachenko, is hid­ing. The barn is desert­ed, con­tain­ing a few vehi­cles and old farm­ing equip­ment. As dusk falls, she notes the lights flick­er­ing in the near­by house and hears the faint sound of music. Salan­der reflects on how Zalachenko has cho­sen this remote loca­tion, unusu­al for a man with so many ene­mies. Despite feel­ing uneasy about his appar­ent lack of defens­es, she knows he like­ly has weapons inside.

Salan­der’s appre­hen­sion grows as she pre­pares to con­front him. Her plan is to find him unarmed, but now she faces a dilem­ma: the house is dark except for one room, and when she attempts to enter, she is ambushed by Nie­der­mann, Zalachenko’s brute asso­ciate, who over­pow­ers her eas­i­ly. Despite her com­bat skills and attempts to defend her­self, includ­ing using a Taser against him, she finds him shock­ing­ly resilient.

Zalachenko enters, severe­ly altered since Salan­der last saw him, but their inter­ac­tion is laced with ten­sion as he taunts her about her past while dis­re­gard­ing the pain he has inflict­ed on her fam­i­ly. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals dis­turb­ing truths, includ­ing his con­nec­tion to Nie­der­mann as his son, a detail that shocks Salan­der. Zalachenko por­trays him­self as a pup­pet mas­ter, using Nie­der­mann in their crim­i­nal endeav­ors.

The atmos­phere esca­lates when Zalachenko reveals his readi­ness to dis­pose of Salan­der as he has his pre­vi­ous tar­gets. She tries to nego­ti­ate but ulti­mate­ly refus­es to back down. As she reveals her plan to broad­cast their con­ver­sa­tion, Salan­der makes a des­per­ate move.

How­ev­er, the con­fronta­tion turns fatal when Zalachenko shoots her after an intense strug­gle, and despite her fierce will, she suc­cumbs to the injuries. Zalachenko, apa­thet­ic to his daugh­ter’s demise, orders Nie­der­mann to dis­pose of her body, mark­ing a dark con­clu­sion to their twist­ed fam­i­ly lega­cy. The chap­ter ends as he reflects on his relief at her death, demon­strat­ing his ruth­less nature and the depths of his vil­lainy.

In Chap­ter 31 of “The Art Thief,” the nar­ra­tive revolves around the after­math of Bre­itwieser’s arrest fol­low­ing his moth­er, Sten­gel’s, chaot­ic response to dis­cov­er­ing his art thefts. Anne-Cather­ine, who wit­ness­es the arrest at the Wag­n­er Muse­um in Novem­ber 2001, has since avoid­ed cap­ture, but her con­nec­tion with the events unfolds slow­ly. In a May 2002 inter­ro­ga­tion, she denies involve­ment in the art’s dis­ap­pear­ance, main­tain­ing a brief account of the attic’s clean-out. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, Sten­gel faces police ques­tion­ing where she admits to act­ing inde­pen­dent­ly with­out her son’s knowl­edge, express­ing guilt over her actions dur­ing this “cri­sis.”

Bre­itwieser grap­ples with the impli­ca­tions of his eight years of thiev­ery, which result­ed in over two hun­dred heists and hun­dreds of art­works stored in an attic—a mon­u­men­tal col­lec­tion that now rep­re­sents his men­tal bur­den. After some time, he seeks clear details from his moth­er, but pri­va­cy is lim­it­ed due to his jail sur­round­ings. He learns that Anne-Cather­ine rushed to inform Sten­gel about his arrest, prompt­ing her to climb the attic stairs for the first time in years. Sten­gel is over­whelmed by the enor­mi­ty of the stolen art and fears the con­se­quences of har­bor­ing these items could lead to her impris­on­ment.

React­ing out of des­per­a­tion, Sten­gel exhibits a “destruc­tive fren­zy” where she dis­pos­es of the art, giv­ing in to anger and fear of legal reper­cus­sions. She packs the items into bags and dri­ves to a seclud­ed area of the Rhône-Rhine Canal at night to dis­pose of them. She toss­es many stolen items into the water, assert­ing that they mean noth­ing to her. As more of the art is dis­card­ed, includ­ing large pieces like a 150-pound Vir­gin Mary stat­ue, she lat­er claims she man­aged this feat alone—a state­ment doubt­ed by Bre­itwieser.

The nar­ra­tive indi­cates pos­si­ble com­plic­i­ty from Jean-Pierre Fritsch, Sten­gel’s new part­ner, as police divers even­tu­al­ly locate more stolen art on his prop­er­ty. Through­out the chap­ter, it becomes appar­ent that Sten­gel’s actions are twofold: while she arguably seeks to pro­tect her son, she also acknowl­edges want­i­ng to inflict pain on him for the dis­tress his actions caused her. In a dra­mat­ic turn, she ulti­mate­ly destroys what remains of the art col­lec­tion by set­ting it ablaze, a final act laden with sig­nif­i­cance, reveal­ing both her vio­lent grief and com­plex mater­nal instinct.

In Chap­ter 31, the nar­ra­tor, who lays down to sleep in a tent beside Nor­man and a clar­inet play­er named Big Mike, expe­ri­ences an unset­tling encounter. Big Mike, unaware of Nor­man’s race and more com­fort­able with the nar­ra­tor’s pres­ence, sets his clar­inet aside and pre­pares for rest. Sud­den­ly, the nar­ra­tor is awok­en by a hand brush­ing against his ear, mis­tak­ing it for an insect, lead­ing him to pan­ic and shout upon dis­cov­er­ing it belongs to Pol­ly’s father, a man in a white suit.

Emmett, alert­ed by the dis­tur­bance, enters with a lamp, bewil­dered to find the man in their midst. The father, insist­ing he mere­ly want­ed to touch the narrator’s wig, cre­ates an atmos­phere of con­fu­sion and fear. Emmett con­fronts him, sar­cas­ti­cal­ly sug­gest­ing that he might want to tell his daugh­ter about his behav­ior. The encounter esca­lates as Pol­ly’s father becomes defen­sive and con­fused, ulti­mate­ly flee­ing from the tent when pressed for his name.

After the encounter sub­sides, Emmett quick­ly instructs every­one to pack up, sens­ing dan­ger. Nor­man express­es con­cern, while the nar­ra­tor remains frozen, feel­ing the lin­ger­ing pres­sure of the man’s touch on his hair. They begin to pack, and despite the chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion, Emmett apol­o­gizes to the nar­ra­tor, caus­ing him to halt in dis­be­lief.

As they escape through a mud­dy path, Emmett assures the nar­ra­tor it is not his fault, and they engage in con­ver­sa­tion about Emmet­t’s new song, “Dix­ie’s Land.” The ban­ter light­ens the mood momen­tar­i­ly, with the nar­ra­tor express­ing appre­ci­a­tion for the song, albeit with under­cur­rents of racial dynam­ics.

The nar­ra­tor inquires about his sta­tus with Emmett, seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion about his bonds after hav­ing been pur­chased. Emmett explains the arrange­ment light­ly, set­ting a dai­ly wage of one dol­lar, which the nar­ra­tor real­izes ties him to a form of bond­ed labor rather than out­right slav­ery. The chap­ter con­cludes with a poignant reflec­tion on the dis­tinc­tions of slav­ery, high­light­ing the com­plex real­i­ties faced by the nar­ra­tor with­in the con­text of racial ten­sions and per­son­al free­dom.

In Chap­ter 31 of “We Solve Mur­ders,” Steve Wheel­er, hav­ing arrived in South Car­oli­na via pri­vate jet, is greet­ed by the oppres­sive heat and feels out of place in his casu­al attire com­pared to the pol­ished envi­ron­ment. The dis­par­i­ty between his famil­iar Eng­lish sur­round­ings and Amer­i­can cul­ture becomes evi­dent as he nav­i­gates the air­port, rec­ol­lect­ing the task ahead: to assist Amy, who he con­sid­ers a strong fig­ure, despite his own strug­gles with grief. Their con­ver­sa­tions rarely touch upon deep­er feel­ings, as they tend to stick to lighter top­ics.

As he steps onto the tar­mac, he reflects on Andrew Fair­banks, a man whose arrival at this very air­port marked a sig­nif­i­cant point in his inves­ti­ga­tion. Intrigued, Steve decides to inves­ti­gate fur­ther. Brad, the flight atten­dant, offers advice on sun pro­tec­tion, but Steve, self-dep­re­cat­ing­ly, declines. He is deter­mined to look into Fair­banks’ unex­pect­ed arrival and sub­se­quent dis­ap­pear­ance.

Steve clings to his ruck­sack, an unkempt item con­trast­ing sharply with the pris­tine air­port envi­ron­ment, and is direct­ed to cus­toms where he meets Car­los Moss. Their inter­ac­tion is pep­pered with Steve’s dry humor as he attempts to ensure he gains access to parts of the air­port where he might learn more about Fair­banks. How­ev­er, Car­los main­tains his author­i­ty, not­ing the bound­aries of their con­ver­sa­tion and imply­ing Steve’s ban­ter could lead to trou­ble.

Steve pro­pos­es look­ing at the airport’s CCTV footage, hop­ing it might reveal the iden­ti­ty of Fair­banks’ mys­te­ri­ous ride. Car­los, while ini­tial­ly resis­tant due to a forth­com­ing flight, finds his curios­i­ty piqued by Steve’s dis­cus­sions of Fair­banks. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a play­ful yet seri­ous nego­ti­a­tion over music pref­er­ences and the promise of a glimpse at the CCTV if Steve can get Car­los on board with his inves­tiga­tive intent.

Steve’s attempts to con­nect with Car­los reflect both his humor and deter­mi­na­tion, estab­lish­ing the ground­work of his inves­ti­ga­tion into Fair­banks’ last move­ments and fore­shad­ow­ing fur­ther entan­gle­ments ahead in this grip­ping nar­ra­tive .

In Chap­ter 31 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the nar­ra­tive focus­es on a young girl named Saint who con­fronts a sig­nif­i­cant and dire task. The chap­ter opens with the vivid descrip­tion of a high-pol­ish nick­el six-shot Colt Python gun, which weighs a lit­tle over two pounds. As Saint retrieves the firearm from a shoe­box in the garage, it feels heavy in her hands, both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. She is aware that it is loaded with two bul­lets, and there’s a hid­den box with more ammu­ni­tion, sug­gest­ing the grav­i­ty of her inten­tion. Saint is acute­ly aware that if her grand­moth­er dis­cov­ers her han­dling the gun, the con­se­quences could be severe.

Dressed in fad­ed over­alls and a white vest, Saint is por­trayed as deter­mined and per­haps des­per­ate, her phys­i­cal­i­ty hint­ing at readi­ness. A skull and cross­bones tat­tooed on her hand embod­ies her rebel­lious spir­it and fore­shad­ows her inten­tions. She finds an address for Eli Aaron on a poster, solid­i­fy­ing her goal.

The nar­ra­tive then shifts to the atmos­phere of ear­ly dawn as the night clouds begin to dis­perse. With a satchel slung over her shoul­der, she embarks on a wind­ing jour­ney toward Main Street, where the local police sta­tion remains shroud­ed in dark­ness. The only illu­mi­na­tion comes from a near­by church, prepar­ing for its morn­ing service—candles lit, ser­vice book­lets arranged, and bells ready to toll.

As she nav­i­gates her path, a famil­iar fig­ure named Jim­my Wal­ters appears at the church door, Bible in hand, ques­tion­ing her des­ti­na­tion. Saint, unphased, reveals her chill­ing intent: “To see a pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Eli Aaron.” When asked why, she bold­ly declares her pur­pose: “To shoot him dead. And bring my friend home.” This dec­la­ra­tion encap­su­lates the chapter’s ten­sion and sense of urgency, set­ting the stage for the forth­com­ing con­fronta­tion and reveal­ing the lengths to which Saint is will­ing to go for her friend.

Wait­ing ai

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.

THIRTY-ONE
As part of my new dai­ly reg­i­men of tor­ture, Nina has made it her goal to
make shop­ping as chal­leng­ing for me as she pos­si­bly can.
She has writ­ten out a list of items we need from the gro­cery store. But
they are all very spe­cif­ic. She doesn’t want milk. She wants organ­ic milk
from Queens­land Farm. And if they don’t have the exact item she wants, I
have to text her to let her know and send her pic­tures of oth­er pos­si­ble
replace­ments. And she takes her sweet time tex­ting me back, but I have to
stand there in the god­damn milk aisle wait­ing.
Right now, I’m in the bread aisle. I send Nina a text:
They are out of Nan­tuck­et sour­dough bread. Here are some pos­si­ble
replace­ments.
I send her pho­tographs of every sin­gle kind of sour­dough bread they
have in stock. And now I have to wait while she looks at them. After sev­er­al
min­utes, I receive a text back from her:
Do they have any brioche?
Now I have to send her pic­tures of every brioche bread they have. I
swear, I’m going to blow my brains out before I fin­ish this shop­ping trip.
She’s delib­er­ate­ly tor­ment­ing me. But to be fair, I did sleep with her
hus­band.
As I’m snap­ping pho­tographs of the bread, I notice a heavy­set man with
gray hair watch­ing me from the oth­er end of the aisle. He’s not even being
sub­tle about it. I shoot him a look, and he backs off, thank God. I can’t deal
with a stalk­er on top of every­thing else.
As I wait for Nina to con­tem­plate the bread a lit­tle fur­ther, I let my mind
wan­der. As usu­al, it wan­ders to Andrew Win­ches­ter. After Nina’s rev­e­la­tion
that I had been in prison, Andrew nev­er found me to “talk,” like he said he
would. He has been effec­tive­ly scared off. I can’t blame him.
I like Andrew. No, I don’t just like him. I’m in love with him. I think
about him all the time, and it’s painful to share a home with him and not be
able to act on my feel­ings for him. More­over, he deserves bet­ter than Nina.
I could make him hap­py. I could even give him a baby like he wants. And
let’s face it, any­thing is bet­ter than her.
But even though he knows we have a con­nec­tion, noth­ing will ever
hap­pen. He knows I went to prison. He doesn’t want an ex-con­vict. And
he’s going to keep on being mis­er­able with that witch, prob­a­bly for the rest
of his life.
My phone buzzes again.
Any French bread?
It takes anoth­er ten min­utes, but I man­age to find a loaf of bread that
meets Nina’s expec­ta­tions. As I roll my shop­ping cart to the check­out, I
notice that heavy­set guy again. He def­i­nite­ly is star­ing at me. And more
unset­tling­ly, he doesn’t have a shop­ping cart. So what exact­ly is he doing?
I check out as quick­ly as I pos­si­bly can. I load the paper bags filled with
gro­ceries back into my shop­ping cart, so I can push it out into the park­ing
lot to my Nis­san. It’s only as I’m get­ting close to the exit that a hand clos­es
around my shoul­der. I lift my head and that heavy­set man is stand­ing over
me.
“Excuse me!” I try to jerk away, but he holds tight to my arm. My right
hand balls into a fist. At least a bunch of peo­ple are watch­ing us, so I have
wit­ness­es. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He points to a small ID badge hang­ing from the col­lar of his blue dress
shirt, which I hadn’t noticed before. “I’m super­mar­ket secu­ri­ty. Can you
come with me, Miss?”
I’m going to be sick. It’s bad enough I spent almost nine­ty min­utes in
this place, shop­ping for a hand­ful of items, but now I’m being arrest­ed? For
what?
“What’s wrong?” I gulp.
We have attract­ed a crowd. I notice a cou­ple of women from the school
pick-up, who I’m sure will glee­ful­ly report back to Nina that they saw her
house­keep­er being appre­hend­ed by super­mar­ket secu­ri­ty.
“Please come with me,” the guy says again.
I push my cart with us because I’m scared to leave it behind. There are
over two hun­dred dol­lars’ worth of gro­ceries in there, and I’m sure Nina
would make me pay for all of them if they were lost or stolen. I fol­low the
man into a small office with a scratched-up wood­en desk and two plas­tic
chairs set up in front of it. The man ges­tures for me to sit down, so I set­tle
down in one of the chairs, which creaks threat­en­ing­ly under my weight.
“This has got to be a mis­take…” I look at the man’s ID badge. His name
is Paul Dorsey. “What’s this about, Mr. Dorsey?”
He frowns at me as his jowls hang down. “A cus­tomer alert­ed me that
you were steal­ing items from the super­mar­ket.”
I let out a gasp. “I would nev­er do that!”
“Maybe not.” He sticks his thumb into the loop of his belt. “But I have
to inves­ti­gate. Can I see your receipt, please, Miss…?”
“Cal­loway.” I dig around in my purse until I come up with the crum­pled
strip of paper. “Here.”
“Just a warn­ing,” he says. “We pros­e­cute all shoplifters.”
I sit in a plas­tic chair, my cheeks burn­ing, while the secu­ri­ty guard
painstak­ing­ly looks through all my pur­chas­es and match­es them up with
what’s in the cart. My stom­ach churns as I con­sid­er the hor­ri­ble pos­si­bil­i­ty
that maybe the clerk didn’t ring some­thing up prop­er­ly, and he’ll think I
stole it. And then what? They pros­e­cute all shoplifters. That means that
they’ll call the police. And that would be a vio­la­tion of my parole for sure.
It hits me that this would work out pret­ty well for Nina. She would get
rid of me with­out hav­ing to be the mean per­son who fired me. She would
also get some pret­ty sweet revenge on me for hav­ing slept with her
hus­band. Of course, it’s a lit­tle harsh to be sent to jail for adul­tery, but I get
the feel­ing Nina may look at it dif­fer­ent­ly.
But that can’t hap­pen. I didn’t steal any­thing from the gro­cery store.
He’s not going to find any­thing in that cart that isn’t on my receipt.

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
31
“Don’t dance so much on your toes,” Cass­ian said to me four days lat­er, as
we spent the unusu­al­ly warm after­noon in the spar­ring ring. “Feet plant­ed,
dag­gers up. Eyes on mine. If you were on a bat­tle­field, you would have
been dead with that maneu­ver.”
Amren snort­ed, pick­ing at her nails while she lounged in a chaise. “She
heard you the first ten times you said it, Cass­ian.”
“Keep talk­ing, Amren, and I’ll drag you into the ring and see how much
prac­tice you’ve actu­al­ly been doing.”
Amren just con­tin­ued clean­ing her nails—with a tiny bone, I real­ized.
“Touch me, Cass­ian, and I’ll remove your favorite part. Small as it might
be.”
He let out a low chuck­le. Stand­ing between them in the spar­ring ring atop
the House of Wind, a dag­ger in each hand, sweat slid­ing down my body, I
won­dered if I should find a way to slip out. Per­haps winnow—though I
hadn’t been able to do it again since that morn­ing in the mor­tal realm,
despite my qui­et efforts in the pri­va­cy of my own bed­room.
Four days of this—training with him, work­ing with Rhys after­ward on
try­ing to sum­mon flame or dark­ness. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, I made more progress
with the for­mer.
Word had not yet arrived from the Sum­mer Court. Or from the Spring
Court, regard­ing my let­ter. I hadn’t decid­ed if that was a good thing. Azriel
con­tin­ued his attempt to infil­trate the human queens’ courts, his net­work of
spies now seek­ing a foothold to get inside. That he hadn’t man­aged to do so
yet had made him qui­eter than usual—colder.
Amren’s sil­ver eyes flicked up from her nails. “Good. You can play with
her.”
“Play with who?” said Mor, step­ping from the stair­well shad­ows.
Cassian’s nos­trils flared. “Where’d you go the oth­er night?” he asked
Mor with­out so much as a nod of greet­ing. “I didn’t see you leave Rita’s.”
Their usu­al dance hall for drink­ing and rev­el­ry.
They’d dragged me out two nights ago—and I’d spent most of the time
sit­ting in their booth, nurs­ing my wine, talk­ing over the music with Azriel,
who had arrived con­tent to brood, but reluc­tant­ly joined me in observ­ing
Rhys hold­ing court at the bar. Females and males watched Rhysand
through­out the hall—and the shad­owsinger and I made a game of bet­ting on
who, exact­ly, would work up the nerve to invite the High Lord home.
Unsur­pris­ing­ly, Az won every round. But at least he was smil­ing by the
end of the night—to Mor’s delight when she’d stum­bled back to our table to
chug anoth­er drink before pranc­ing onto the dance floor again.
Rhys didn’t accept any offers that came his way, no mat­ter how beau­ti­ful
they were, no mat­ter how they smiled and laughed. And his refusals were
polite—firm, but polite.
Had he been with any­one since Ama­ran­tha? Did he want anoth­er per­son
in his bed after Ama­ran­tha? Even the wine hadn’t giv­en me the nerve to ask
Azriel about it.
Mor, it seemed, went to Rita’s more than any­one else—practically lived
there, actu­al­ly. She shrugged at Cassian’s demand and anoth­er chaise like
Amren’s appeared. “I just went … out,” she said, plop­ping down.
“With whom?” Cass­ian pushed.
“Last I was aware,” Mor said, lean­ing back in the chair, “I didn’t take
orders from you, Cass­ian. Or report to you. So where I was, and who I was
with, is none of your damn con­cern.”
“You didn’t tell Azriel, either.”
I paused, weigh­ing those words, Cassian’s stiff shoul­ders. Yes, there was
some ten­sion between him and Mor that result­ed in that bick­er­ing, but …
per­haps … per­haps Cass­ian accept­ed the role of buffer not to keep them
apart, but to keep the shad­owsinger from hurt. From being old news, as I’d
called him.
Cass­ian final­ly remem­bered I’d been stand­ing in front of him, not­ed the
look of under­stand­ing on my face, and gave me a warn­ing one in return.
Fair enough.
I shrugged and took a moment to set down the dag­gers and catch my
breath. For a heart­beat, I wished Nes­ta were there, if only to see them go
head to head. We hadn’t heard from my sisters—or the mor­tal queens. I
won­dered when we’d send anoth­er let­ter or try anoth­er route.
“Why, exact­ly,” Cass­ian said to Amren and Mor, not even both­er­ing to
try to sound pleas­ant, “are you two ladies here?”
Mor closed her eyes as she tipped back her head, sun­ning her gold­en face
with the same irrev­er­ence that Cass­ian per­haps sought to shield Azriel from
—and Mor her­self per­haps tried to shield Azriel from as well. “Rhys is
com­ing in a few moments to give us some news, appar­ent­ly. Didn’t Amren
tell you?”
“I for­got,” Amren said, still pick­ing at her nails. “I was hav­ing too much
fun watch­ing Feyre evade Cassian’s tried-and-true tech­niques to get peo­ple
to do what he wants.”
Cassian’s brows rose. “You’ve been here for an hour.”
“Oops,” Amren said.
Cass­ian threw up his hands. “Get off your ass and give me twen­ty lunges
—”
A vicious, unearth­ly snarl cut him off.
But Rhys strolled out of the stair­well, and I couldn’t decide if I should be
relieved or dis­ap­point­ed that Cass­ian ver­sus Amren was put to a sud­den
stop.
He was in his fine clothes, not fight­ing leathers, his wings nowhere in
sight. Rhys looked at them, at me, the dag­gers I’d left in the dirt, and then
said, “Sor­ry to inter­rupt while things were get­ting inter­est­ing.”
“For­tu­nate­ly for Cassian’s balls,” Amren said, nestling back in her
chaise, “you arrived at the right time.”
Cass­ian snarled half­heart­ed­ly at her.
Rhys laughed, and said to none of us in par­tic­u­lar, “Ready to go on a
sum­mer hol­i­day?”
Mor said, “The Sum­mer Court invit­ed you?”
“Of course they did. Feyre, Amren, and I are going tomor­row.”
Only the three of us? Cass­ian seemed to have the same thought, his
wings rustling as he crossed his arms and faced Rhys. “The Sum­mer Court
is full of hot­head­ed fools and arro­gant pricks,” he warned. “I should join
you.”
“You’d fit right in,” Amren crooned. “Too bad you still aren’t going.”
Cass­ian point­ed a fin­ger at her. “Watch it, Amren.”
She bared her teeth in a wicked smile. “Believe me, I’d pre­fer not to go,
either.”
I clamped my lips shut to keep from smil­ing or gri­mac­ing, I didn’t know.
Rhys rubbed his tem­ples. “Cass­ian, con­sid­er­ing the fact that the last time
you vis­it­ed, it didn’t end well—”
“I wrecked one build­ing—”
“And,” Rhys cut him off. “Con­sid­er­ing the fact that they are utter­ly
ter­ri­fied of sweet Amren, she is the wis­er choice.”
I didn’t know if there was any­one alive who wasn’t utter­ly ter­ri­fied of
her.
“It could eas­i­ly be a trap,” Cass­ian pushed. “Who’s to say the delay in
reply­ing wasn’t because they’re con­tact­ing our ene­mies to ambush you?”
“That is also why Amren is com­ing,” Rhys said sim­ply.
Amren was frowning—bored and annoyed.
Rhys said too casu­al­ly, “There is also a great deal of trea­sure to be found
in the Sum­mer Court. If the Book is hid­den, Amren, you might find oth­er
objects to your lik­ing.”
“Shit,” Cass­ian said, throw­ing up his hands again. “Real­ly, Rhys? It’s bad
enough we’re steal­ing from them, but rob­bing them blind—”
“Rhysand does have a point,” Amren said. “Their High Lord is young
and untest­ed. I doubt he’s had much time to cat­a­log his inher­it­ed hoard
since he was appoint­ed Under the Moun­tain. I doubt he’ll know any­thing is
miss­ing. Very well, Rhysand—I’m in.”
No bet­ter than a fire­drake guard­ing its trove indeed. Mor gave me a
secret, sub­tle look that con­veyed the same thing, and I swal­lowed a chuck­le.
Cass­ian start­ed to object again, but Rhys said qui­et­ly, “I will need you—
not Amren—in the human realm. The Sum­mer Court has banned you for
eter­ni­ty, and though your pres­ence would be a good dis­trac­tion while Feyre
does what she has to, it could lead to more trou­ble than it’s worth.”
I stiff­ened. What I had to do—meaning track down that Book of
Breath­ings and steal it. Feyre Curse­break­er … and thief.
“Just cool your heels, Cass­ian,” Amren said, eyes a bit glazed—as she no
doubt imag­ined the trea­sure she might steal from the Sum­mer Court. “We’ll
be fine with­out your swag­ger­ing and growl­ing at every­one. Their High
Lord owes Rhys a favor for sav­ing his life Under the Mountain—and
keep­ing his secrets.”
Cassian’s wings twitched, but Mor chimed in, “And the High Lord also
prob­a­bly wants to fig­ure out where we stand in regard to any upcom­ing
con­flict.”
Cassian’s wings set­tled again. He jerked his chin at me. “Feyre, though.
It’s one thing to have her here—even when every­one knows it. It’s anoth­er
to bring her to a dif­fer­ent court, and intro­duce her as a mem­ber of our own.”
The mes­sage it’d send to Tam­lin. If my let­ter wasn’t enough.
But Rhys was done. He inclined his head to Amren and strolled for the
open arch­way. Cass­ian lurched a step, but Mor lift­ed a hand. “Leave it,” she
mur­mured. Cass­ian glared, but obeyed.
I took that as a chance to fol­low after Rhys, the warm dark­ness inside the
House of Wind blind­ing me. My Fae eyes adjust­ed swift­ly, but for the first
few steps down the nar­row hall­way, I trailed after Rhys on mem­o­ry alone.
“Any more traps I should know about before we go tomor­row?” I said to
his back.
Rhys looked over a shoul­der, paus­ing atop the stair land­ing. “Here I was,
think­ing your notes the oth­er night indi­cat­ed you’d for­giv­en me.”
I took in that half grin, the chest I might have sug­gest­ed I’d lick and had
avoid­ed look­ing at for the past four days, and halt­ed a healthy dis­tance
away. “One would think a High Lord would have more impor­tant things to
do than pass notes back and forth at night.”
“I do have more impor­tant things to do,” he purred. “But I find myself
unable to resist the temp­ta­tion. The same way you can’t resist watch­ing me
when­ev­er we’re out. So ter­ri­to­r­i­al.”
My mouth went a bit dry. But—flirting with him, fight­ing with him … It
was easy. Fun.
Maybe I deserved both of those things.
So I closed the dis­tance between us, smooth­ly stepped past him, and said,
“You haven’t been able to keep away from me since Calan­mai, it seems.”
Some­thing rip­pled in his eyes that I couldn’t place, but he flicked my
nose—hard enough that I hissed and bat­ted his hand away.

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.

T HERE IS A CER TAIN FREEDOM in mar­ry­ing a man when you aren’t
hid­ing any­thing.
Celia was gone. I wasn’t real­ly at a place in my life where I could fall
in love with any­one, and Rex wasn’t the type of man who seemed
capa­ble of falling in love at all. Maybe, if we’d met at dif­fer­ent times in
our lives, we might have hit it off. But with things as they were, Rex
and I had a rela­tion­ship built entire­ly on box office.
It was tacky and fake and manip­u­la­tive.
But it was the begin­ning of my mil­lions.
It was also how I got Celia to come back to me.
And it was one of the most hon­est deals I’ve ever made with
any­body.
I think I will always love Rex North a lit­tle bit because of all that.
  *  *  *  
“SO YOU’RE NEVER going to sleep with me?” Rex said.
He was sit­ting in my liv­ing room with one leg casu­al­ly crossed over
the oth­er, drink­ing a man­hat­tan. He was wear­ing a black suit with a
thin tie. His blond hair was slicked back. It made his blue eyes look
even brighter, with noth­ing in their way.
Rex was the kind of guy who was so beau­ti­ful it was near­ly bor­ing.
And then he smiled, and you watched every girl in the room faint.
Per­fect teeth, two shal­low dim­ples, a slight arch of the eye­brow, and
every­body was done for.
Like me, he’d been made by the stu­dios. Born Karl Olvirs­son in
Ice­land, he high­tailed it to Hol­ly­wood, changed his name, per­fect­ed
his accent, and slept with every­body he need­ed to sleep with to get
what he want­ed. He was a mati­nee idol with a chip on his shoul­der
about prov­ing he could act. But he actu­al­ly could act. He felt
under­es­ti­mat­ed because he was under­es­ti­mat­ed. Anna Karen­i­na was
his chance to be tak­en seri­ous­ly. He need­ed it to be a big hit just as
much as I did. Which was why he was will­ing to do exact­ly what I was
will­ing to do. A mar­riage stunt.
Rex was prag­mat­ic and nev­er pre­cious. He saw ten steps ahead but
nev­er let on what he was think­ing. We were kin­dred spir­its in that
regard.
I sat down next to him on my liv­ing room sofa, my arm rest­ing
behind him. “I can’t say for sure I’d nev­er sleep with you,” I said. It was
the truth. “You’re hand­some. I could see myself falling for your shtick
once or twice.”
Rex laughed. He always had a detached sense about him, like you
could do what­ev­er you want­ed and you wouldn’t get under his skin. He
was untouch­able in that way.
“I mean, can you say for cer­tain that you’d nev­er fall in love with
me?” I asked. “What if you end up want­i­ng to make this a real
mar­riage? That would be uncom­fort­able for every­one.”
“You know, if any woman could do it, it would make sense that it
was Eve­lyn Hugo. I sup­pose there’s always a chance.”
“That’s how I feel about sleep­ing with you,” I said. “There’s always a
chance.” I grabbed my gib­son off the cof­fee table and drank a sip.
Rex laughed. “Tell me, then, where will we live?”
“Good ques­tion.”
“My house is in the Bird Streets, with floor-to-ceil­ing win­dows. It’s a
pain in the ass to get out of the dri­ve­way. But you can see the whole
canyon from my pool.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “I don’t mind mov­ing to your place for a lit­tle
while. I’m shoot­ing anoth­er movie in a month or so over at Colum­bia,
so your place will be clos­er any­way. The only thing I insist on is that I
can bring Luisa.”
After Celia left, I could hire help again. After all, there was no longer
any­one hid­ing in my bed­room. Luisa was from El Sal­vador, just a few
years younger than I was. The first day she came to work for me, she
was talk­ing to her moth­er on the phone dur­ing her lunch break. She
was speak­ing in Span­ish, right in front of me. “La seño­ra es tan boni­ta,
pero loca.” (“This lady is beau­ti­ful but crazy.”)
I turned and looked at her, and I said, “Dis­culpe? Yo te puedo
enten­der.” (“Excuse me? I can under­stand you.”)
Luisa’s eyes went wide, and she hung up the phone on her moth­er
and said to me, “Lo sien­to. No sabía que ust­ed habla­ba Español.” (“I’m
sor­ry. I didn’t know you spoke Span­ish.”)
I switched to Eng­lish, not want­i­ng to speak Span­ish any­more, not
lik­ing how strange it sound­ed com­ing out of my own mouth. “I’m
Cuban,” I said to her. “I’ve spo­ken Span­ish my entire life.” That wasn’t
true, though. I hadn’t spo­ken it in years.
She looked at me as if I were a paint­ing she was inter­pret­ing, and
then she said, apolo­get­i­cal­ly, “You do not look Cuban.”
“Pues, lo soy,” I said haugh­ti­ly. (“Well, I am.”)
Luisa nod­ded and packed up her lunch, mov­ing on to change the
bed linens. I sat at that table for at least a half hour, reel­ing. I kept
think­ing, How dare she try to take my own iden­ti­ty away from me?
But as I looked around my house, see­ing no pic­tures of my fam­i­ly,
not a sin­gle Latin-Amer­i­can book, stray blond hairs in my hair­brush,
not even a jar of cumin in my spice rack, I real­ized Luisa hadn’t done
that to me. I had done it to me. I’d made the choice to be dif­fer­ent
from my true self.
Fidel Cas­tro had con­trol of Cuba. Eisen­how­er had already put the
eco­nom­ic embar­go in place by that point. The Bay of Pigs had been a
dis­as­ter. Being a Cuban-Amer­i­can was com­pli­cat­ed. And instead of
try­ing to make my way in the world as a Cuban woman, I sim­ply
for­sook where I came from. In some ways, this helped me release any
remain­ing ties con­nect­ing me to my father. But it also pulled me
fur­ther away from my moth­er. My moth­er, whom this had all been for
at some point.
That was all me. All the results of my own choic­es. None of that was
Luisa’s fault. So I real­ized I had no right to sit at my own kitchen table
blam­ing her.
When she left that night, I could tell she still felt uncom­fort­able
around me. So I made sure to smile sin­cere­ly and tell her I was excit­ed
to see her the next day.
From that day for­ward, I nev­er spoke Span­ish to her. I was too
embar­rassed, too inse­cure of my dis­loy­al­ty. But she spoke it from time
to time, and I smiled when she made jokes to her moth­er with­in
earshot. I let her know I under­stood her. And I quick­ly grew to care for
her very much. I envied how secure she was in her own skin. How
unafraid she was to be her true self. She was proud to be Luisa
Jimenez.
She was the first employ­ee I ever had whom I cher­ished. I was not
going to move house with­out her.
“I’m sure she’s great,” Rex said. “Bring her. Now, prac­ti­cal­ly
speak­ing, do we sleep in the same bed?”
“I doubt it’s nec­es­sary. Luisa will be dis­creet. I’ve learned that
les­son before. And we’ll just throw par­ties a few times a year and make
it look like we live in the same room.”
“And I can still . . . do what I do?”
“You can still sleep with every woman on the plan­et, yes.”
“Every woman except my wife,” Rex said, smil­ing and tak­ing
anoth­er sip of his drink.
“You just can’t get caught.”
Rex waved me off, as if my wor­ry wasn’t a con­cern.
“I’m seri­ous, Rex. Cheat­ing on me is a big sto­ry. I can’t have that.”
“You don’t have to wor­ry,” Rex said. He was more sin­cere about
that than any­thing else I’d asked of him, maybe more than any scene
in Anna Karen­i­na. “I would nev­er do any­thing to make you look
fool­ish. We’re in this togeth­er.”
“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot. That goes for me, too. What
I do won’t be your prob­lem. I promise you.”
Rex put out his hand, and I shook it.
“Well, I should be going,” he said, check­ing his watch. “I have a
date with a par­tic­u­lar­ly eager young lady, and I’d hate to keep her
wait­ing.” He but­toned his coat as I stood up. “When should we tie the
knot?” he asked.
“I think we should prob­a­bly be seen around town a few times this
com­ing week. And keep it going for a lit­tle while. Maybe put a ring on
my fin­ger around Novem­ber. Har­ry sug­gest­ed the big day could be
about two weeks before the film hits the­aters.”

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.

31
The con­ser­va­tor­ship was cre­at­ed sup­pos­ed­ly because I was inca­pable of doing
any­thing at all—feeding myself, spend­ing my own mon­ey, being a moth­er,
any­thing. So why was it that a few weeks lat­er, they had me shoot an episode of
How I Met Your Moth­er and then sent me on a gru­el­ing world tour?
After the con­ser­va­tor­ship start­ed, my mom and my brother’s girl­friend got
short hair­cuts and went out to din­ner drink­ing wine—paparazzi were there,
tak­ing their pic­ture. It all felt set up. My dad took my boyfriend away and I
could not dri­ve. My mom and dad took my wom­an­hood from me. It was a win-
win for them.
I remained shocked that the state of Cal­i­for­nia would let a man like my father
—an alco­holic, some­one who’d declared bank­rupt­cy, who’d failed in busi­ness,
who’d terri�ed me as a lit­tle girl—control me after all my accom­plish­ments and
every­thing I had done.
I thought about advice my father had giv­en me over the years that I’d resist­ed,
and I won­dered if I’d be able to resist any­more. My father pre­sent­ed the
con­ser­va­tor­ship as a great step­ping stone on the road to my “come­back.” Just
months ear­li­er I’d released the best album of my career, but �ne. What I heard in
what my father said was: “She’s great now! She’s work­ing for us! It’s a per­fect
sit­u­a­tion for our fam­i­ly.”
Was it great for me? Or was it great for him?
How fun! I thought. I can go back to work­ing again like noth­ing at all
hap­pened! Too sick to choose my own boyfriend and yet some­how healthy enough to
appear on sit­coms and morn­ing shows, and to per­form for thou­sands of peo­ple in a
dif­fer­ent part of the world every week!

In Chap­ter 31, Patri­cia and Kit­ty enact a dar­ing and ten­sion-filled plan to escape from James Har­ris’s pres­ence and ensure that they leave no trace behind. Patri­cia, ini­tial­ly dis­ori­ent­ed and phys­i­cal­ly strained, is quick­ly briefed by Kit­ty on the sit­u­a­tion: Gra­cious Cay is on fire, a ruse con­coct­ed to facil­i­tate their escape. Kit­ty has already tak­en steps to ensure their chil­dren’s safe­ty and ali­bi by tak­ing them to See­wee, leav­ing Patri­cia and Kit­ty to deal with the imme­di­ate dan­ger.

The urgency mounts as Kit­ty reveals that the fire at Gra­cious Cay serves a dual pur­pose, one of which involves Mrs. Greene, sug­gest­ing her first act of law­break­ing. Despite this, Patri­cia insists on show­ing Kit­ty a cru­cial piece of evi­dence hid­den in the attic—a suit­case con­tain­ing the remains of Francine, a sym­bol­ic ges­ture to their dire sit­u­a­tion. Kit­ty, after ini­tial resis­tance and shock upon see­ing Francine’s body, agrees to the neces­si­ty of leav­ing the suit­case for the author­i­ties, despite the risk of James remov­ing it.

Real­iz­ing that their escape could be com­pro­mised by the mess they’ve made, par­tic­u­lar­ly the trail left on the car­pet­ed stairs, Patri­cia makes the deci­sive choice to clean up their tracks instead of flee­ing imme­di­ate­ly. This act reflects a deep­er deter­mi­na­tion to ensure jus­tice for Francine, believ­ing that leav­ing evi­dence untam­pered is their only chance to stop James.

Their clean­ing process is thor­ough, marked by an anx­ious but focused effort to erase any sign of their pres­ence. Patri­ci­a’s insight into the neces­si­ty of this cleanup under­scores her com­mit­ment to jus­tice over per­son­al safe­ty. This metic­u­lous clean-up oper­a­tion is car­ried out under the pres­sure of time, as the return of James looms over them, empha­siz­ing the ten­sion and stakes at play.

The chap­ter cul­mi­nates in a high­ly charged moment, with Patri­cia and Kit­ty bare­ly fin­ish­ing their efforts before a car—potentially James’s—arrives. This chap­ter is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of wom­en’s resilience and the lengths to which they will go to pro­tect each oth­er and seek jus­tice, all while under the shad­ow of immi­nent threat.

Chap­ter 31 of Anne Bron­të’s “The Ten­ant of Wild­fell Hall” titled “Social Virtues” unfolds with the nar­ra­tor reflect­ing on Arthur’s depar­ture to Lon­don and even­tu­al­ly to the Con­ti­nent with­out her, under the pre­text of urgent busi­ness. This chap­ter delves into themes of dis­trust, the social oblig­a­tions of women, and the excess­es of male indul­gence in the ear­ly 19th cen­tu­ry. The nar­ra­tive weaves through the com­plex emo­tion­al land­scape of the nar­ra­tor, who grap­ples with her hus­band’s insis­tence on her stay­ing behind under the guise of vis­it­ing her ail­ing father and broth­er. The ensu­ing events unfold against a back­drop of soci­etal expec­ta­tions and the per­son­al tur­moil of the nar­ra­tor, who finds her­self ques­tion­ing Arthur’s sin­cer­i­ty and con­fronting the painful real­i­ties of her mar­riage.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, the nar­ra­tor’s soli­tude at Grass­dale is inter­rupt­ed by the return of Arthur, whose brief absence seems to have done lit­tle to amend his tem­pera­ment or habits. The read­er is thrust into a vivid depic­tion of the social dynam­ics among the upper class­es, with Arthur and his friends engag­ing in irre­spon­si­ble rev­el­ry that stark­ly con­trasts with the nar­ra­tor’s grow­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment and iso­la­tion. The inclu­sion of char­ac­ters like Lord Low­bor­ough and the inter­ac­tions between the guests at Grass­dale serve to high­light the dif­fer­ent soci­etal and per­son­al chal­lenges they face, fur­ther enriched by the detailed accounts of con­ver­sa­tions and inci­dents that reveal the depth of the char­ac­ters’ rela­tion­ships and the pre­vail­ing social mores.

One of the most poignant aspects of the chap­ter is the detailed por­tray­al of the emo­tion­al and moral con­flicts expe­ri­enced by the nar­ra­tor, espe­cial­ly her resolve to tol­er­ate and attempt to shield Arthur from the con­se­quences of his actions. This is set against a back­drop of gen­der roles, expec­ta­tions, and the lim­it­ed agency afford­ed to women, as they nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of mar­riage, fideli­ty, and social rep­u­ta­tion. The nar­ra­tive ten­sion builds as the chap­ter explores themes of vice, virtue, and the quest for per­son­al integri­ty amidst the tri­als of life and mar­riage, cul­mi­nat­ing in a reflec­tion on the nature of per­son­al and soci­etal expec­ta­tions of moral­i­ty and behav­ior.

This chap­ter not only advances the plot but also deep­ens the read­er’s under­stand­ing of the pri­ma­ry char­ac­ters and their inter­twin­ing lives, set­ting the stage for fur­ther devel­op­ments in this com­pelling explo­ration of 19th-cen­tu­ry soci­ety, moral­i­ty, and indi­vid­ual agency.