I’d only had them for a few seconds with Lucien in the Steppes—I hadn’t realized how heavy they were, how complex the muscles.

Azriel’s hands, for all their scarring, were featherlight as he grasped and touched certain areas, patting and tapping others. I gritted my teeth, the sensation like … like having the arch of my foot tickled and poked. But he made quick work of it, and I rolled my shoulders again as he stepped around me to murmur, “It’s—amazing. They’re the same as mine.”

“I think the magic did most of the work.”

A shake of the head. “You’re an artist—it was your attention to detail.”

I blushed a bit at the compliment, and braced my hands on my hips. “Well? Do we jump into the skies?”

“First lesson: don’t let them drag on the ground.”

I blinked. My wings were indeed resting on the rocks. “Why?”

“Illyrians think it’s lazy—a sign of weakness. And from a practical standpoint, the ground is full of things that could hurt your wings. Splinters, shards of rock … They can not only get stuck and lead to infection, but also impact the way the wing catches the wind. So keep them off the ground.”

Knife-sharp pain rippled down my back as I tried to lift them. I managed getting the left upright. The right just drooped like a loose sail.

“You need to strengthen your back muscles—and your thighs. And your arms. And core.”

“So everything, then.”

Again, that dry, quiet smile. “Why do you think Illyrians are so fit?”

“Why did no one warn me about this cocky side of yours?”

Azriel’s mouth twitched upward. “Both wings up.”

A quiet but unyielding demand.

I winced, contorting my body this way and that as I fought to get the right one to rise. No luck.

“Try spreading them, then tucking in, if you can’t lift it up like that.”

I obeyed, and hissed at the sharp pain along every muscle in my back as I flared the wings. Even the slightest breeze off the lake tickled and tugged, and I braced my feet apart on the rocky shore, seeking some semblance of balance—

“Now fold inward.”

I did, snapping them shut—the movement so fast that I toppled forward.

Azriel caught me before I could eat stone, gripping me tightly under the shoulder and hauling me up. “Building your core muscles will also help with the balance.”

“So, back to Cassian, then.”

A nod. “Tomorrow. Today, focus on lifting and folding, spreading and lifting.” Azriel’s wings gleamed with red and gold as the sun gilded them. “Like this.” He demonstrated, flaring his wings wide, tucking them in, flaring, angling, tucking them in. Over and over.

Sighing, I followed his movements, my back throbbing and aching. Perhaps flying lessons were a waste of time.

 

 

CHAPTER

20

 

“I’ve never been to a library before,” I admitted to Rhys after lunch, as we strode down level after level beneath the House of Wind, my words echoing off the carved red stone. I winced with every step, rubbing at my back.

Azriel had given me a tonic that would help with the soreness, but I knew that by tonight, I’d be whimpering. If hours of researching any way to patch up those holes in the wall didn’t make me start first.

“I mean,” I clarified, “not counting the private libraries here and at the Spring Court, and my family had one as well, but not … Not a real one.”

Rhys glanced sidelong at me. “I’ve heard that the humans have free libraries on the continent—open to anyone.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a question or not, but I nodded. “In one of the territories, they allow anyone in, regardless of their station or bloodline.” I considered his words. “Did … were there libraries before the War?”

Of course there had been, but what I meant—

“Yes. Great libraries, full of cranky scholars who could find you tomes dating back thousands of years. But humans were not allowed inside—unless you were someone’s slave on an errand, and even then you were closely watched.”

“Why?”

“Because the books were full of magic, and things they wanted to keep humans from knowing.” Rhys slid his hands into his pockets, leading me down a corridor lit only by bowls of faelight upraised in the hands of beautiful female statues, their forms High Fae and faerie alike. “The scholars and librarians refused to keep slaves of their own—some for personal reasons, but mainly because they didn’t want them accessing the books and archives.”

Rhys gestured down another curving stairwell. We must have been far beneath the mountain, the air dry and cool—and heavy. As if it had been trapped inside for ages. “What happened to the libraries once the wall was built?”

Rhys tucked in his wings as the stairs became tighter, the ceiling dropping. “Most scholars had enough time to evacuate—and were able to winnow the books out. But if they didn’t have the time or the brute power …” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “They burned the libraries. Rather than let the humans access their precious information.”

A chill snaked down my spine. “They’d rather have lost that information forever?”

He nodded, the dim light gilding his blue-black hair. “Prejudices aside, the fear was that the humans would find dangerous spells—and use them on us.”

“But we—I mean, they don’t have magic. Humans don’t have magic.”

“Some do. Usually the ones who can claim distant Fae ancestry. But some of those spells don’t require magic from the wielder—only the right words, or use of ingredients.”

His words snagged on something in my mind. “Could—I mean, obviously they did, but … Humans and Fae once interbred. What happened to the offspring? If you were half Fae, half human, where did you go once the wall went up?”

Rhys stepped into a hall at the foot of the stairs, revealing a wide passageway of carved red stone and a sealed set of obsidian doors, veins of silver running throughout. Beautiful—terrifying. Like some great beast was kept behind them.

“It did not go well for the half-breeds,” he said after a moment. “Many were offspring of unwanted unions. Most usually chose to stay with their human mothers—their human families. But once the wall went up, amongst humans, they were a … reminder of what had been done, of the enemies lurking above the wall. At best, they were outcasts and pariahs, their children—if they bore the physical traits—as well. At worst … Humans were angry in those initial years, and that first generation afterward. They wanted someone to pay for the slavery, for the crimes against them. Even if the half-breed had done nothing wrong … It did not end well.”