A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 35:
Feyre searches for the Book while Rhys and Amren hold meetings to distract Tarquin. What do you think these meetings are about? I like to think they’re getting increasingly mundane and transparent in their true purpose. “Why yes, I do believe the Summer Court could use better access to pencils, how fantastic that the Night Court can improve pencil trade and court relations.”
Once breakfast had finally been served and consumed, I made sure to look a bit bored and aimless when I finally strode through the shining halls of the palace on my way out into the awakening city.
Oh good, I’m just pretending to look bored and aimless while I read this chapter too. It is also part of my secret plan.
Feyre mentions that no one in the city recognizes her because only the High Fae were kept Under the Mountain and everyone else was left here “to be tormented.” Didn’t all the tormenting go on Under the Mountain? Wasn’t it better for these fae to get to stay Above the Mountain? Also seriously was anyone really there; basically everyone we meet in this book somehow avoided that fate.
Finally Feyre figures out where the Book is:
I was about to turn back to the stairs when I beheld the bit of land that had been revealed near the tidal causeway. The small building.
No wonder I hadn’t seen it, as I’d never been up this high in the day when the tide was out … And during the rest of the day, from the muck and seaweed now gleaming on it, it would have been utterly covered.
I guess Feyre’s finding powers are nullified when something is covered in muck and seaweed. Feyre isn’t 100% sure the Book is in the building, so she decides to find out.
Feyre tries to casually ask if Tarquin will take her on a walk to the mysterious building, and Tarquin tries to casually act like that place is no big deal. Oh the games we play. Feyre then uses her incredibly creepy mind-invasion abilities to slip into Tarquin’s head and convince him she’s not a threat.
Like lapping waves, I sent my thoughts washing over his. She is harmless. She is kind, and sad, and broken. You saw her with your people— you saw how she treated them. How she treats you. Amarantha did not break that kindness.
I poured my thoughts into him, tinting them with brine and the cries of terns— wrapping them in the essence that was Tarquin, the essence he’d given to me.
I obviously only have my own thoughts to base this off of, but how can Feyre be tinting his thoughts with these things? How would he not find this strange and alarming? Although, I have to admit I like the idea that if someone was going to invade my mind and somehow send me thoughts tinted with something it would probably be the smell of pizza and the sound of the Attack on Titan theme song. Then I would just believe any of those fake thoughts.
Feyre has the decency to feel guilty about what she’s done, but she’s also pleased when Tarquin offers to take her by the temple tomorrow. Later, Rhys tells her it never feels great using their “daemati” powers to infiltrate people’s minds, but this is for the greater good. I mean, I guess I agree because I don’t really have a choice, but I still don’t fully understand why if they both want to be BFF with Tarquin and think he’s so great they can’t be honest with him.
Amren shows up and they come up with a plan to infiltrate the temple. I don’t get why Feyre convinced Tarquin to take her on a walk around it so she could determine if the book was there if they’re already planning on breaking in anyway. Now they’ve just roused suspicion for no reason!
“So how do we get in?” I said.
“It’s likely warded against winnowing,” Rhys said, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “I won’t risk tripping any alarms by trying. So we go in at night, the old-fashioned way. I can carry you both, then keep watch,” he added when I lifted my brows.
…This place is warded against winnowing but has no security system to prevent people from walking in “the old-fashioned way”? Feyre clarifies that she hopes that she can trick whatever locks there are into thinking she’s Tarquin, which is apparently how magic locks work.
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “We note the guard’s rotations tonight at low tide— figure out where the watchers are. Who we might need to take out before we make our move.”
“You think like an Illyrian,” Rhys murmured.
Or like anyone with basic planning capabilities.
A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 36:
Given how quickly Tarquin and Cresseida had glanced at each other, guided me away from that temple … I’d bet that they wouldn’t have handed over that book. For whatever reasons of their own, they wanted it.
What I don’t get is why they could just influence their minds again. Rhys was so powerful he could make people forget he was hiding a whole city, so why can’t they convince Tarquin and friends to hand over the book and forget about it? Or make them think they were giving it as a grand donation to Rhys and Feyre’s new library?
That night, they head into the temple to retrieve the Book. It is apparently going to be a muddy trip, and Amren muses that they should have brought a shovel. Given Rhys was able to conjure a mug of tea out of thin air, a shovel seems like it too could be summoned.
There is a lot of mud digging and then they finally reach a locked door, and as theorized, Feyre is able to trick the lock into thinking she’s Tarquin by thinking very obviously non-Tarquin thoughts at it:
I am Tarquin. I am summer; I am warmth; I am sea and sky and planted field.
I barely know this dude, and I know he would not be thinking this. Get a new Fae locksmith, Tarquin.
But then I think Feyre literally shape-shifts into being Tarquin by thinking these stupid thoughts, so maybe that’s what gets her in? I found this chapter thoroughly confusing.
The power of the Book begins to overwhelm Amren and Feyre as they continue the descent. At the next locked door, Feyre just repeatedly thinks, “I am summer” at the door, and it opens without any shape-shifting. I can’t.
Finally, they reach the book, and apparently it can communicate with Feyre:
And now I heard, clear as if Amren herself whispered it: Who are you— what are you? Come closer— let me smell you, let me see you …
How in fuck’s name is this book smelling anything!
Amren warns Feyre to hurry since the tide is coming back in. Feyre argues with the Book about who she is and finally manages to grab it. But then,
An ancient, cruel voice hissed: Liar. And the door slammed shut.
This ending had made me excited for a moment. An evil, sentient book was actually an interesting plot, but then I read the next chapter and realized I was a fool for expecting interesting plots in ACOMAF
An evil, sentient book would be an interesting plot, but it’s also the plot from the Care Bears Movie, so I couldn’t take it seriously anyway…