A Court of Silver Flames - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,223

She carefully set the materials upon the nearest table.

Nesta and Emerie rose to survey the variety of threads: all colors and hues, all carefully bundled. “Show me how to do it,” Emerie said softly. Nesta wondered if Gwyn’s words had resonated with her, too—what pain and hope Emerie might be holding within her.

But Gwyn grinned, beginning her demonstration by selecting three colors that she thought matched Emerie’s spirit, she claimed. Green, purple, and gold. Nesta refrained from snickering and selected colors for Gwyn: blue, white, and teal. Emerie, in turn, selected Nesta’s colors: navy blue, crimson, and silver. Nesta and Emerie dutifully tried to copy Gwyn’s “easy” steps: doubling up the thread, knotting it, cutting the looped bits, then pinning the top of the bracelet beneath a heavy book as they separated each length by color. And then began a process of looping and pulling, back and forth. Emerie’s knots were flawless. Nesta’s …

“Your bracelet is going to be an eyesore, Gwyn.” Nesta scowled at the wobbly, bunched-up mess that was her first ten rows.

“Keep going,” Gwyn said, leagues ahead on her own bracelet and beginning to add pretty patterns within the rows. “The knots will get better-looking with practice. Just tell me when you’ve gotten to the halfway point and then we’ll add the charm.”

They worked in music-filled companionship, idle chatter bouncing between them, Emerie and Gwyn occasionally laughing at Nesta’s awful workmanship. “Now,” Gwyn said when they were halfway through, “we make wishes for each other.” She reached for one of the tiny coins. “I’ll just hold this in my hand, think of something for Emerie, and—”

“Wait,” Nesta said, catching Gwyn’s hand before it could touch the charm. “Let me.”

Her friends regarded her curiously, and Nesta swallowed. “Let me make a wish for all of us,” she explained, gathering the three charms. A small gift—for the friends who had become like sisters.

A chosen family. Like the one Feyre had found for herself.

Nesta squeezed the charms in her palm, closing her eyes, and said: “I wish for us to have the courage to go out into the world when we are ready, but to always be able to find our way back to each other. No matter what.”

Gwyn and Emerie cheered at that. And when Nesta opened her eyes, palm unfurling, she could have sworn the coins glowed faintly.

CHAPTER

60

Cassian had been gone for five days. Five days, to inspect every single one of the Illyrian legions, and remember how to behave like a normal, sane male rather than a lovesick puppy. But somehow, by the time he returned, a shift had occurred.

Not just the world-altering shift that had happened on Winter Solstice between him and Nesta. But a shift between Nesta and Emerie and Gwyn.

He emerged into the frigid morning to find the three of them already in the practice ring. They stood around the beam, the ribbon drifting gracefully on the icy wind. Gwyn held a blade in her hand, and Emerie and Nesta stood a few feet away. All three wore braided, colorful bracelets with silver charms dangling from them.

Cassian lingered at the doorway as Nesta murmured to Gwyn, “You’ve got this.” Azriel came up beside him, silent as the shadows that wreathed his wings.

Gwyn stared the ribbon down like an enemy on a battlefield. It rippled in the wind, dancing away, its motions unpredictable as any foe.

“Do it for the miniature pegasus,” Emerie said. Cassian had no idea what it meant, but Gwyn’s lips twitched upward.

Nesta laughed.

The sound might as well have been a lightning strike to his head for how much it rocked him, that laugh. Free and light and so unlike anything he’d ever heard from her that even Azriel blinked. A true laugh. “The miniature pegasus,” Nesta said, “was an illusion. And is now back in his make-believe meadow.”

“He loved Gwyn most,” Emerie teased. “Despite your efforts to woo him.”

They fell silent again as Gwyn shifted her feet, angling the blade. The wind waggled the ribbon again, as if taunting her.

Cassian glanced over at Az, but his attention was fixed on the young priestess, admiration and quiet encouragement shining from his face.

Gwyn whispered, “I am the rock against which the surf crashes.” Nesta straightened at the words, as if they were a prayer and a summons. Gwyn lifted the blade. “Nothing can break me.”

Cassian’s throat tightened, and even from across the ring, he could see Nesta’s eyes gleaming with pride and pain.

Emerie said, “Nothing can break us.”

The world seemed to pause at the