A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 46:
Feyre and friends discuss how the Illyrian training camps are supposed to be training girls now as well but aren’t exactly following through on their promises. Instead of training the girls to fight, they send them to do chores.
I appreciate that the conversation the gang is having is supposed to be doing some world-building, but it didn’t suck me in on my first or second re-read because it never felt like it added all that much to the overall story, which is actually my problem with a lot of the world-building attempts. Like Mor’s backstory for instance. Rhys tells Feyre most of the story, not Mor. Mor actually isn’t even in the book all that often because the vast majority is focussed on Feyre and Rhys talking around their feelings. So me knowing Mor’s backstory feels pretty hollow.
During the discussion, Feyre gets up to clear her plate and winds up just heading upstairs with Rhys to go to bed – but not together! Instead, Feyre agonizes for the rest of the chapter over whether she should hook up with Rhys and if that makes her a traitor to Tamlin who I already forgot was a character once in this story.
What feels like months but is only a day later, Feyre decides:
It didn’t need to be complicated. Keeping things purely physical … well, it didn’t feel like as much of a betrayal.
Why are we splitting hairs at this point? Feyre left Tamlin’s ass like 40 chapters ago. We don’t need to play this game.
Speaking of Tamlin, while Feyre and her friends are trekking out in the forrest doing…something? Honestly, I can’t figure out where they’re going or what they’re doing. I asked Matthew about it, and he was like, “Ugh, who even cares?” So I feel better. None of this matters, anyway, because some Spring Court thugs show up. Led by none other than Lucien! Remember that guy? I liked Lucien.
A Court of Mist and Fury Chapter 47:
Lucien declares that they’ve been hunting for Feyre for two months. Somehow we have been reading this book for 3000+ years, but it’s only been two friggen months. Damn.
Feyre has wandered too far ahead of her friends somehow (seriously, what are they doing back there? Tossing pebbles in a stream? Delivering an endless monologue about someone else’s backstory?) and she doesn’t sure how she’s going to get herself out of this pickle.
“That stopped being my home the day you let him lock me up inside of it.”
Lucien’s mouth tightened. “It was a mistake. We all made mistakes. He’s sorry— more sorry than you realize. So am I.” He stepped toward me, and I backed up another few inches.
Feyre knows that she can’t let Lucien touch her or he’ll winnow her away. She talks about how Cassian’s training has kicked in, which I find hard to believe given this whole book has taken place over two months and she just started training with him. Maybe there was some sort of training montage I missed.
Lucien lunges to grab Feyre, but then she has a dramatic realization:
I was not the High Lord’s pet any longer.
And maybe the world should learn that I did indeed have fangs.
This is just nonsense! She’s not a pet but then she’s assigning herself a very animalistic attribute. “I’m not a pizza. And maybe the world should learn that I did indeed have cheese.”
Because apparently she has fangs, Feyre is finally able to winnow out of Lucien’s reach. She just like winnows two feet away, but hey, it’s something!
When Rhys appears, Feyre again breathlessly describes how impassive he is and how it’s incredible how he’s putting on such a cold act to hide his power and the city he loves. I’m not sure why that’s relevant here and how it’s a good strategy when it’s obviously just going to fuel Lucien’s belief that he needs to help Feyre. Remember, Lucien genuinely thinks Rhysand is evil because that was Rhys’ political strategy. It’s frustrating as hell that Lucien won’t listen to Feyre when she repeatedly says she’s fine and doesn’t want to go with him, but that’s also what a kidnapping victim would say under duress, so I guess I can’t completely fault Lucien? I don’t know.
“You gave up,” I breathed.
I felt even Rhys go still. “You gave up on me,” I said a bit more loudly. “You were my friend. And you picked him— picked obeying him, even when you saw what his orders and his rules did to me. Even when you saw me wasting away day by day.”
“You have no idea how volatile those first few months were,” Lucien snapped. “We needed to present a unified, obedient front, and I was supposed to be the example to which all others in our court were held.”
“You saw what was happening to me. But you were too afraid of him to truly do anything about it.”
Yeah, at this point, it doesn’t seem like a kidnapping-victim thing unless Rhys’ coaching was supremely good. Lucien needs to stop spouting nonsense and GTFO. His response to Feyre – who actually makes complete and total sense during this conversation – is to be like, “OH SO THE NIGHT COURT IS BETTER??” Like what the fuck? That’s supposed to make her go, “Oh, yeah. You’re right. It’s terrible. Let me go pack my bags right now so I can trade one prison for another.”
Feyre remembers that the political strategy is still to make everyone think the Night Court is awful, so she has to tread carefully.
“When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.”
I feel like she could have said, “I have freedom.” Or something equally vague and it would have been more effective at convincing Lucien to stop trying to “save” her. Quoting the ending to American Horror Story‘s second season is not a testament to how little saving you’re in need of.
Also, Feyre suddenly shapeshifts and has wings and talons like Rhys, and of course Rhys is loving it. Lucien finally gives up and leaves, and Rhys flies Feyre away to…”another location.” Why were they in the forest again? Where are they going? Sorry, I’m supposed to be summarizing and I’m totally lost. I wasn’t being funny when I said “another location” that is actually what has been presented to me in this book.
Feyre and Rhys talk a bit about how they both expected Lucien to step in to help Feyre out when things got bad at the Spring Court. Lucien’s an interesting character, and I hope this gets fleshed out more in the future because I feel like he could have some either compelling reasons for not having helped Feyre or some great character growth realizing he was a shitty friend. I don’t want to get my hopes up, though.