✔ Mrs Mandray

2. The Other Side

Cassian

"What are we looking at here?" I question the cold tone of the General matching our dismal surroundings. Even in a place of apparent refined luxury the mortal realm still lacks the life Pyrithian holds.

Yet there is still laughter and joy and life here. It felt wrong to talk to my brothers as Spymaster and High Lord in a place so mundane. But should we fail this manor will become a battlefield.

It was a lot to ask. To take over the estate, to use it as a meeting place, to bring fae into the home of humans.I could do nothing but pray for their cooperation as Feyre steps forwards to ring the bell. Even though Feyre insisted her family would help, I can't help but think we're asking too much. Expecting too much of them. This isn't their fight, they didn't start it and now we stand here hoping for them to help end it.

Feyre had described Elain as so sweet and nice, a gentle woman who wouldn't let the world go to ruin. Except all I can see is the look on Feyre's face the first time we'd met. How she told her tale of poverty so akin to my own. That dinner had revealed much about this family. Neither of her sister's had been inclined to help Feyre, to follow her into the forrest or find work of their own. Why would she expect them to help now when they didn't then?

It won't help that we don't just bring tidings of war but of Feyre's own death. Of her... rebirth, into one of us. If that doesn't send them running for hills then its highly unlikely they'll be present for a rational discussion and meaningful alliances.

But we're here now, relying on an unknown variable that could easily turn against us.

I check the daggers strapped to my limbs, impatiently twitching as Azriel listens to those shadows of his. I take a deep, steadying breath, filling my lungs with air that felt wrong, tasted off and set thick on my tongue. A single glance to Az has him realising the question was for him now that Rhys seemed to have his attention wholly fixated on where Feyre waits at the door.

"The manor is a good trek from the nearest village, no house between their land and the main road. Once the staff leave to the village it would take them an hour, maybe two, to get back here. Two main entrances, this one and the servants' round back but there are various opening balconies and summer doors. There are too many windows to count but there is only one gate in and out of the estate, their walls are high and strong."

It's as if he were reading from a list. Ticking each item off one by one. This was a discussion we'd had many times before, a plan so smooth it was practically a dance or a play. The familiar rehearsed steps of a spymaster reporting to his General only displaced by the High Lord's absent input.

He's far too fixated on Feyre and his imagined mate bond with her. I think they have one, Azriel says that's bullshit.

"Her father isn't here." Rhys adjusts his cuff, picking up the conversation where Azriel left it. "He had plans to go away for a few months, told Feyre when she visited before coming back to break the curse. He shouldn't be back for a few weeks." He pauses, eyes finding the once mortal-girl as though he could still picture her as she was before. I did too, seeing the brave, mortal Feyre, who had sacrificed everything to save my brother and our people. All for another male, which is why Azriel claims there isn't a mate bond between the two. "It's just her sisters we have to convince." Rhys finishes. His voice is forcefully light and I almost snort at the twist of his lips that betray his bitterness. He's clearly unhappy about letting Feyre go in first, go in alone.

My own lip twists at the thought of how much convincing Elain would need before she let them use the Archeron estate for negotiations - whether she would let us at all.

"Just the two sisters then?" I ask, thinking back once more to Feyre at the table in the House of Wind. I have three older sisters, Elain and the twins - Nesta and Isabella.