Chapter Text
“I still don’t understand why you want to do this,” Nesta said as she wound her arms around Eris’s neck in their bedroom doorway, a brief moment before they made their way down to their respective families, separately. “It’s not that important to the marriage.”
“It’s human tradition not to see the bride before the wedding day,” Eris said, but the way his hands skimmed over her hips told Nesta that he wasn’t happy about this in the slightest. “If we’re to marry in your tradition and mine…”
“I’ll miss you.”
“Honey, I miss you already,” Eris said, pressing a kiss to her forehead, then her lips. “You drive a hard bargain, but the girls will have my head if I steal you away from them tonight. You’ll have fun, I promise.”
“What about you?”
“Evidently Lucien has plans for me as well,” Eris said, cracking a smile. “Something about a bar crawl with the guys. He planned it so we’re on clear opposite sides of the Inferno, so no breaking the tradition.”
“I thought you liked presentation, not tradition.”
“I like that Lucien thought of this,” Eris said, resting his chin on the crown of Nesta’s head. “If you’d asked me a year ago whether he’d ever look in my direction again, I would have said no, and now he’s planning a stag party. It’s… nice.”
Nesta squeezed Eris tighter, savored his embrace: she knew how much he’d done for his brothers, Lucien not least among them, and how much he’d let himself be villainized to keep them safe. He didn’t just gain a mate and wife and a High Lord title out of all this, he’d gotten his brothers back too. “I’m glad,” she said, her thoughts drifting to her own sister, the way she seemed so resigned about her future. It was the kind of resignation she’d been familiar with before all of this, and it was a feeling she’d never wanted her sister to be mired in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“She’ll be okay,” Gwyn said as she led Nesta and Emerie down one of the Inferno’s long main avenues, where they were approaching the tavern where Nesta’s friends were waiting for them. Lucien wouldn’t be there, he’d be off doing whatever was in store for Eris tonight with the other Vanserra brothers, but the Valkyries and her sisters would be there to listen to the musicians and dance and let loose for the first time since before Nesta had left the Night Court. “A lot happened to you guys on that lake. I’m sure it’s a lot to process.”
“She’s been quiet,” Nesta said. “Melancholy, even. It’s not like her.”
“She doesn’t strike me as a female who’s loud,” Gwyn mused.
“Maybe not loud, but she’s always been social. She’s never been melancholy, except right after the Cauldron,” Nesta said. “I don’t know what to do, and neither does Feyre, which is way scarier than me not knowing what to do.”
The three fell into a comfortable silence as Gwyn attempted to lead them through the streets of the Inferno’s downtown, only for Nesta to have to set them to rights once she got lost down a dead end street. She’d only lived in this city for a few weeks and knew her way around like the back of her hand, better than she had known the streets of Velaris. She knew the people of the Inferno well too: she knew the first name of the barista who made Eris’s ridiculously strong espresso shots in the morning, was on friendly terms with all of the staff in the High Lord’s residence, and there was a group of children at the local park who always said hi to her when she was running errands in the area. She was social here, a happy presence to strangers instead of a scary or chaotic one, and it was a welcome change.
“I don’t think I like her very much,” Emerie said suddenly. “Elain, that is. I have a bad feeling about her.”
“Emerie!” Gwyn admonished as Nesta’s eyes narrowed despite herself. As much as she loved Elain, she knew how discerning Emerie could be, and if her friend was speaking so plainly about this, she had to have picked up on something that Nesta herself wasn’t objective enough to, but it was still a knee jerk response to rush to defend her sister. “That’s mean.”
“I’m sorry, Nes, but there’s something just off about her,” Emerie explained. “Dangerous. Like she’d sooner flay my skin than shake my hand.”
“I think she’s sweet,” Gwyn said. “Melancholy, like you said, but if you like her, Nesta, I’m sure she’s great.”
“Death follows her,” Emerie said, like that wasn’t a cryptic thing to say. “And not in a good way. It doesn’t follow her like it’s ready to catch her, it follows like it wants to see what she does next.”
“I don’t know about all that,” Nesta said. “She used to cry whenever Feyre would kill spiders and centipedes before we came here. They kill other bugs, they contribute, she’d say. She’s always had the biggest heart of the three of us.”
“Sometimes the biggest hearts are the most easily corrupted,” Emerie said. “I’m sorry, Nes, I just wanted to let you know…”
“Of course, and thank you for telling me,” Nesta said, squeezing Emerie’s hand as they walked into the tavern. “I’ll keep an eye out for her.”
“And I’ll keep an open mind, I promise,” Emerie said as she waved at someone across the room. Nesta turned to see who it was, only to get pulled along by her friends towards a raised up section of the tavern clearly meant for VIPs. They climbed the steps towards a booth overlooking a balcony with a perfect view of the stage, which was sitting empty, the cacophony of conversation serving as the tavern’s soundtrack.
“The female of the hour is here!” Vassa said, raising her wine glass with bright eyes, clearly happy to be out at night and human among friends. “Happy wedding, Nessie!”
“Thanks, Vassa,’ Nesta said, letting Vassa crush her with a hug as Emerie and Gwyn took open seats at the table, where Feyre was pouring out three shots of firewhiskey with a gleam in her eye that only a new mother out for the first time without the baby could have. “You’re having fun.”
“She’s drunk, lucky her,” Jurian said as he moved over to make room for Nesta next to him, the glass in his own hand full of water. “Even if I could drink, I don’t fuck with Autumn’s alcohol. Not everyone is fireproof that comes here.”
“I like it well enough,” Feyre said, knocking back a shot of firewhiskey to cheers from Vassa, Emerie and Gwyn. “I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks. Being up all night with the baby has been rough. The wing growing pains…”
“There’s a tincture for that,” Emerie said. “It’s pretty easy to make if you don’t want to take the trip to Illyria every time.”
“Thanks, remind me to get that from you when I’m not three drinks deep!” Feyre said with a smile in Emerie’s direction, and no one would ever know that the two had gotten off on the wrong foot in Day months ago. “I can pass the recipe along to Elain, which…wait, where is she?”
A quick glance around told Nesta what Feyre had just now realized: Elain wasn’t in the VIP area, and a scan of the tables below revealed that she wasn’t there either.
“She was right here just a second ago,” Feyre said, her eyes going round with worry. “Could she have…”
“I’m right here, Feyre.” Everyone looked up to see Elain herself taking the remaining seat at their booth, her own wine glass in hand. “I went to get a drink, Feyre. I can fend for myself.”
“I’m not saying you can’t, Elain, I was just…”
“It’s fine,” Elain said before looking away from Feyre and towards Nesta, raising her glass with a genuine smile. “A toast to the bride, everyone!”
“To the bride!” Gwyn and Vassa said before clinking their firewhiskey shot glasses together and knocking them back with the uncontrollable giggles of drunk lightweights.
“Hey, pace yourselves!” Emerie said, but she was laughing too. “We’ve got at least two more stops after this.”
“What exactly are we doing tonight?” Nesta asked.
“We put together a little musical itinerary,” Emerie answered with no small degree of pride. “All the taverns in the Inferno that are playing live music tonight, we’re stopping by to drink and dance and have fun. Eris helped us book the tables since we’re not from here. It pays to be mated to the new High Lord.”
Nesta fought back her happy tears: this was the best kind of party she could have asked for: a night in her new city with her best friends and sisters, following the music where it led. “Thank you,” she said.
“Don’t thank me, it was Feyre’s idea,” Emerie said, throwing her arm around her youngest sister, who was looking at Nesta with an apology in her eyes that Nesta couldn’t make sense of. “A brilliant one, actually, Gwyn and I were in a bit over our heads. Not like we’ve spent a lot of time at parties where we’re from.”
“I thought about the places we’d be retrieving you from when you were in Velaris,” Feyre said as Emerie got pulled into the debate brewing between Gwyn and Jurian about a book Nesta hadn’t heard of. She’d have to find out from them so she could catch up. “You were drunk and angry and I was worried about you, but I realized what all those places had in common after you left.”
“The music,” Nesta said, finishing Feyre’s thought.
“Yes,” Feyre said, and for a moment Nesta’s friends weren’t there, the other people in the tavern weren’t there. It was just her and her youngest sister, finally on the same patch of ground, seeing each other as they hadn’t since before their mother died and their father nearly killed them with his uselessness. “All you wanted was to feel like yourself again, and I kept taking that away from you. I’m so, so sorry, Nesta.”
“We don’t need to do this now,” Nesta said as her friends suddenly became very interested in what was happening on the main floor, looking at that rather than at her and Feyre. “But we can if you want, if you want to do it now.”
“Nobody ever gave you enough credit,” Feyre said, her eyes brimming with tears, threatening to spill over. “When I turned fae, it was because someone who loved me moved the forces of the world to save me. Rhysand gave me something. Hybern took something from you. Of course you were angry.”
“You didn’t,” Nesta said. “You didn’t get us turned, and I don’t blame you for it.”
“Did you?”
Nesta hesitated, the urge to spare Feyre’s feelings coming over her for the first time, but she pushed that instinct away: her sister deserved the truth and her penchant for doling out the truth had never been something to be ashamed of. “A little, at first,” she said. “But it wasn’t you, you know? I blamed you the way I blamed Elain for Father loving her most. It wasn’t something either of you could control.”
“We were awful to you this year,” Feyre said. “You just scared us to death, the way your magic was twisted up inside of you. It would have killed you, Nesta, and I didn’t know what to do except what we did, and then when you pushed us away…” Feyre’s blue eyes spilled over again. “I just wanted you okay, and with us. It wasn’t fair to push you like that.”
“It wasn’t,” Nesta agreed. “But it did work out in the end. If you all hadn’t pushed me to choose the human lands, I wouldn’t be here now, and I’m so, so happy I’m here now. I love my life, I love everyone in it, and…I love me, for the first time.”
“I’m glad,” Feyre said, reaching out for Nesta, who hugged her right back. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily though, moving out here,” she said. “Nyx and I are coming out to visit as much as my schedule allows, and you and Eris…”
“Oh, he’s way ahead of you.” Nesta said with a laugh. “Our honeymoon’s going to be nearly a year long. Expect us in about six or seven months.”
As the first notes of a gorgeous, upbeat song started to play, Nesta’s eyes strayed from the stage to where Elain was watching them closely, the sparkle in her brown eyes going out along with the tavern lights. Feyre didn’t notice, only smiled wide, throwing an arm around her as the lights of the tavern started to dim and the curtain on the stage began to rise, revealing the band behind it. “I can’t wait,” she said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You never told me Eris had dogs, Nesta!” Gwyn exclaimed as the group walked down the street towards the next location. Emerie and Jurian, the lone sober members of their party, were trying to navigate so as not to ruin the surprise for Nesta, but between their unfamiliarity with the Inferno and Eris’s notes being incomprehensible to everyone but Nesta, it fell to her to point the way after all. “Why haven’t we seen them?”
“Elio takes care of them, mostly,” Nesta said as they rounded a corner, the sound of strange music pulsating from inside a different tavern, like nothing she’d ever heard. “He’s got six of them, and I’ve met five so far. Eris has been introducing them to me one at a time.”
“Well, what are they like?” Vassa asked, her arm looped in with Gwyn’s.
“They’re smokehounds, and they’re all very sweet,” Nesta said. “Eris says their names are all silly, but I like them a lot. They’re named after constellations, which is Elio’s thing, astronomy. There’s Orion, Andromeda…oh, I can get them all, give me a second…”
“What is that insane sound?” Emerie said, pulling Nesta’s focus, “Is that supposed to be music?”
“It’s experimental,” Jurian explained as they approached. “They make the songs by layering together all sorts of sounds recorded onto multiple Symphonias in real time. The performance just looks like someone pressing a bunch of buttons, but it comes out as that kind of sound. The fans call it lightning music.”
“That sounds like a strange way to make music,” Emerie said, looking in the direction of the tavern with clear apprehension. “Anything, really.”
“Tamlin’s really into it at the moment,” Jurian said, his cheeks faintly glowing pink at the thought of his boyfriend. “He’s been recording his fiddle into a few of them to try and make it himself. It sounds…not like this. I think there’s more regular sounds in it, not just instruments, so Tam’s version of it is a bit too clean.”
“Lightning music,” Nesta said, already intrigued. There was something dissonant and industrial about the sound that piqued her curiosity already, maybe this was a kind of instrument she could actually learn how to play…
“Wait, Nesta, what were the other dog names?” Gwyn asked, looping the arm that wasn’t with Vassa’s into her own. “Orion, Andromeda…”
“Right! Them, Alpha Centauri, Cygnus, Procyon, and there’s one more I haven’t met,” Nesta said. “Elio said that dog is mostly their mom’s now, not one of the smokehounds. Eris never told me her name…”
“It’s Ataraxia.”
Nesta whipped her head around to see Willow Vanserra approaching with a leash in hand, a tiny white dog on the other end that might have been a puppy if it didn’t look so old. She was wearing a giant swath of a black dress that dwarfed her small frame, and she was looking Nesta up and down like she was cataloguing every single detail. Next to her stood Helion, whose face was a careful mask. “I named her, years ago.”
Ataraxia. “Oh,” was all Nesta could say as her friends moved up ahead, Elain along with them, Only Feyre remained behind, reaching over to greet Helion with a big hug as Willow continued to assess Nesta.
“Inner Peace in the old language, but you know that, don’t you,” Willow said as she approached, handing Nesta the leash with a flourish of her hand that could only have come from her centuries of being the highest female in the Autumn Court. “She’s prickly, and she bites, but she’ll let you know if she likes you.”
The dog blinked wide, dark eyes up at Nesta, who hesitantly bent down and held out her free hand, allowing Ataraxia to sniff at it while also giving herself enough space to yank her hand away should she decide Nesta was not worthy of her presence.
She was pleasantly surprised when Ataraxia didn’t try to bite or otherwise harm her, so Nesta reached down and put her hand on Ataraxia’s head, scratching gently behind her ears. Ataraxia let out a tiny bark in response, a happy noise accompanied by a tail wag.
“That’s no small feat, Nesta,” Helion said with a smile, watching the tiny dog preen under the attention. “Ataraxia still hates me.”
“You took her jogging, Helion. You should have known better,” Willow retorted.
“Next time I’ll take you jogging,” Helion laughed, and Nesta exchanged a glance with Feyre, whose face was carefully blank. What was going on here?
“You can keep dreaming,” Willow said, gesturing for Nesta to hand the leash back to her and reaching into her bag, rummaging around in it before letting out an aggravated sigh, far more petulant than she expected.
“I got your flask there too,” Helion said.
“It’s wine, it doesn’t count.”
“It’s still drinking,” Helion said. “They’re all gone, by the way. If I didn’t get it, Elio probably did, I gotta thank that kid again for doing my dirty work.”
He seemed to have forgotten that Elio wasn’t a kid at all. He was slightly older than Lucien, who Nesta just remembered was pulled out of the Congress meeting by Helion, specifically to keep him, Willow and Elio safe. As much as Nesta had appreciated not having to worry about Lucien while the whole of the Congress was thirsting for Vanserra blood, she had to wonder why Helion had taken his safety, their safety, to heart like that. She couldn’t imagine a High Lord doing that for a different High Lord’s family without a good reason.
Nesta opened her mouth to ask about it, but was met with a slight shake of Helion’s head, a silent not now if there ever was one.
“I’m sure Nesta understands my plight if nothing else,” Willow said, oblivious to Nesta and Helion’s silent interaction or Feyre’s blank, wide stare. “I heard a lot about you while you and Eris were away. You’ve lived quite an eventful life if my…” She trailed off, her hand creeping towards her heart as she let out a long breath, steady and controlled. “I lost my mate. I still have to breathe around that, live around it. It’s been weeks and it hasn’t gotten easier.”
Nesta’s heart sank. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re not,” Willow said. “But I imagine no one is. I don’t even know whether I am or not. My mate was…” Her eyes strayed to Helion, just once, before she looked away, and Feyre’s eyes tracked the space between them in a way Nesta couldn’t make sense of. “What was I saying?” she asked, in a tone so reminiscent of Eris that Nesta ached for him, had half a mind to march across the Inferno to him if it didn’t mean leaving her baby sister on the streets of the Inferno with her mother in law, of all things.
“That Nesta understands your plight,” Helion said, his eyes soft and voice gentler than Nesta had ever heard it, even among the most skittish of the Valkyries.
“Right,” Willow said. “I heard stories while you and Eris were gone. You’re sharp, in more ways than one, and you like your drink, and your males.”
“There’s nothing wrong with either of those things,” Feyre said, her eyes narrowed and her tone just on the wrong side of too sharp to address a wife and mate of a High Lord, even if Beron was gone now. It was far more than Nesta expected of her sister, who’d been angry about her drink and her males this time last year. Everything really was okay between them, wasn't it?
“I never said there was, girl,” Willow said mildly, like she was addressing a lady in waiting and not a High Lady who outranked her in Prythian politics. “I also like those things. There really isn’t anything quite like a vice to orient your days around when there’s nothing but pain around you.”
“I can imagine,” Nesta responded, remembering how deep her sadness had been before she’d sent herself off to the human lands and onto the track for the rest of her life. She didn’t have to imagine anything.
“I don’t take much stock in secondhand stories,” Willow said. “But even if I did, you’ve already claimed each other and the wedding is tomorrow, so there’s not much I can say about that. I just wanted to talk to you properly, since Eris has been hiding you from me since your return. No, don’t protest, he has,” she said as Nesta opened her mouth to deny it. “I know my son. He compartmentalizes, and plays the things he cares most about closest to his chest. He’d have made it a point not to throw you into the flames of our family, at least not right away.”
Nesta’s mouth snapped shut. She and Eris had been mired in wedding planning and the day to day goings on of the Autumn Court, but Willow was right. She probably wouldn’t have used the word hiding to describe what was going on, but Eris had told her how reluctant he was to get too involved with the family again now that he had a mate to protect. They’d stay in with Elio and the dogs from time to time, and they’d gone out to dinner with Flint and Cole once since everything had happened with the Congress, but not much else. It was nice being in their little mated bubble, Nesta thought, but it might be time to emerge from it now.
“I daresay I don’t blame Eris. It wasn’t like there was a whole lot of love in our house.” Willow continued. “Even when his brothers weren’t dying, there wasn’t any love in that house.” She reached down to pick up her tiny elderly dog Ataraxia, who settled into her arms like it was only her due to be there. “We stole love wherever we could find it.”
“Willow…” Helion said, his voice tender like an open wound, and for a moment, Nesta could see something in his eyes that she’d never seen in his face before. She’d seen that thing in Eris’s eyes the day he’d told her his life story before they’d had sex for the first time, and she saw it in Azriel’s eyes whenever he so much as looked in Elain’s general direction. It was the kind of look that poured loyalty and devotion onto the floor to run rivulets in every direction.
He looked at Willow Vanserra not like a peer, but like a lover, and that explained everything, didn’t it? Helion had always been invested in the Illyrian girls who would become the Valkyries, had been from before Nesta had arrived with Eris and the Band of Exiles, had been working with Emerie and her sister for years before she’d met any of them. He would have seen Willow Vanserra in all of them, especially the girls who’d been hurt by their spouses or mates. It also explained why he hadn’t gone to Autumn for the Feast of Fire, only telling Lucien your father doesn’t want to see me. He’d only shown up weeks later for the meeting at the Congress, had been among those who hadn’t minced words about how much he hated Beron Vanserra, and when everyone had turned their blades on the Vanserras, Helion had dropped everything to make sure Elio and Willow were safe, that’d he’d gotten Lucien out of the room personally…
It hit Nesta like a ton of bricks then, Lucien. She could see her friend in Helion now: they had the same nose, the same lip shape. Lucien was smaller and thinner than Helion, so much lighter in coloring that any tan of his could have been explained away by the sun, but the resemblance was almost uncanny now that Nesta had noticed it.They were father and son, and neither of them knew about it, she had to sit Lucien down as soon as she saw him and let him know…
Don’t, Nesta. Feyre’s voice was in her head, she’d slipped through her mental shields that Nesta hadn’t bothered with now that she wasn’t always guarding her thoughts around Rhysand. Leave it alone.
The penny dropped in the distance, another piece of this fucked up puzzle falling into place. You knew?! Nesta thought back.
Yes, Feyre answered. For a while now. Rhys is trying to figure out how to let them know.
Just say it, it doesn’t have to be a big production, Nesta mentally retorted.
It’s complicated, Feyre at least had the decency to look apologetic. With everything going on, with Elain, with…
With us? Nesta asked. Me and Eris?
“That looks like a little mental sidebar, so I think I’ll take my leave,” Willow said before Feyre could answer, her eyes flicking between Nesta and Feyre curiously. “Have fun with your last night of freedom, Nesta dear. I’m looking forward to the wedding tomorrow, and tell Eris to call on me more. He only gets one mother in this life.”
“I will,” Nesta said.
“I’ll hold you to that. I’ve never had a daughter in law, or a daughter for that matter. Perhaps in another life,” Willow said, wrinkling her nose in the direction of the tavern playing the lightning music, as Jurian had called it. “You must let me know how that show you plan to go to is. I’ve never heard something so cacophanous before.”
“You know what we’re doing tonight?”
“You’re not the only one who can decipher Eris’s notes, honey.” Willow’s smile was foxlike, so much like Lucien’s that that was also uncanny, and it reminded her of everything she’d deduced just now. “But we’ll bond another time. Go, have fun!”
“I’ll be seeing you around, girls,” Helion said as he followed Willow back down the street, Ataraxia walking at a little trot beside her. “Congratulations, Nesta.”
Nesta stayed stock still as they left, her eyes fixed on Feyre, who was holding her stare. When they were finally gone, Feyre let out a sigh. “There’s nothing I can do to stop you telling, is there?” she asked.
“No,” Nesta said. She was already trying to find the words to make this make sense to him, once she figured out how to make sense of it to herself.
“At least don’t tell Eris, we need…”
“Consider him already informed,” Nesta said, narrowing her eyes. “And that’s bullshit for you to ask me that. Would you hide anything like this from Rhys?”
“Fair point,” Feyre said. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just make it right,” Nesta said. “Tell them or I will.”
Feyre nodded, her eyes lighting up with pride, an expression Nesta had never seen directed at her. “You’re really Autumn’s High Lady, aren’t you?” she asked. “It suits you.”
“Nes, come on!” Emerie shouted from the door to the tavern, the symphony of lightning music that much louder as she held the door open and Gwyn, Jurian and Vassa stood in the doorway. “They’re starting!”
Nesta smiled wide, her heart full with her friends that were with her, the friends who were elsewhere, the family that she’d built that included in-laws now, the mate who she’d be marrying tomorrow, and the possibilities of her life stretching from her wedding day to the millennia beyond. “I’m not a High Lady,” she said, looping her arm in with Feyre’s as she led them to her friends. “I’m a Valkyrie, and I’m me. That’s more than enough.”