A Court of Wings and Ruin Chapter 43: It’s Finally The Minor Characters’ Big Meeting

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Previously in ACOWAR, it is finally time for this gosh dang meeting with all the High Lords except for Tamlin because Tamlin tooooooootally isn’t coming. We’re at the Dawn Court, and I guess it’s finally time to meet some other High Lords who may or may not be important and/or have distinct personalities.

A Court of Wings and Ruin: Chapter 43

Maas manages to somehow break her own record after last chapter’s “If the palace above the Court of Nightmares had been crafted of moonstone, this was made from … sunstone”:

The chamber was and was not what I expected.

I guess by book three of a bestselling YA series, editors just can’t do shit anymore, huh.

If the Illyrians had batlike wings, these … they were like birds.

Seriously is Maas ok did she just get locked in a room until she wrote 700 new pages what is going on

Rhysand infodumps the Dawn Court to Feyre (and since they can just talk telepathically, it’s easier than ever for this book to just become paragraphs of sudden infodumps). We learn that the winged high fae of the Dawn Court are Peregryns, its High Lord is Thesan, and the male captain of his army… IS HIS LOVER. THAT’S RIGHT. LGBTQ REPRESENTATION CONFIRMED. Excited? Don’t be. He doesn’t get a name.

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— The Mothmeme Prophecy (@Goodwithcolour) May 6, 2018

Much like in Ariel’s chapter, Feyre spends a great deal of time freaking out about interior design. Instead of a table, they’re meeting around a reflection pool! I wish this book were written twenty years earlier, then you know for sure this meeting would end with someone falling into it. Maybe Tamlin! Except Tamlin toooootally isn’t coming to this meeting.

Thankfully, this doesn’t last terribly long, and most of the chapter is an endless string of meeting interchangeable minor characters over and over again. Thesan steps away from Unnamed Gay Male to have more of that classic “clever” banter with Rhysand we all know and love, and to… stare at Feyre…

“Welcome,” Thesan said, his voice as deep and rich as those eyes. […] “Or,” Thesan mused, “since you’ve called this meeting, perhaps you should be doing the welcoming?”
A faint smile ghosted Rhys’s perfect face […] “I may have requested the meeting, Thesan, but you were the one gracious enough to offer up your beautiful residence.”
Thesan gave a nod of thanks […]
We stared at each other while my companions bowed behind me. As a High Lord’s wife should have done with them.
Yet I simply stood. And stared.

The staring continues and progresses to shrugging.

Thesan’s attention had gone to the tattoo. […] Then the crown atop my head. His brows flicked up.
Rhys only shrugged.

OK THAT’S ENOUGH ABOUT THESAN, APPARENTLY. HE’S GAY, ISN’T SURE WHO’S HOSTING THIS PARTY IN HIS HOUSE, AND LIKES STARING. TIME TO MOVE ON AND MEET THE NEXT HIGH LORD.

They meet Kallias (the High Lord of the Winter Court) and his wife, Viviane. Viviane and Mor squeal when they spot each other and run and embrace. Feyre makes a big deal about how they actually “squealed. Squealed.” No big deal is made about the men’s comparatively super normal interactions.

“I tried to suggest she stay at home,” Kallias said drily, “but she threatened to freeze my balls off.”
Rhys let out a dark chuckle. “Sounds familiar.”
I threw him a glare

Viviane turns to Feyre and thanks her for helping her return her mate to him (since she helped end Amarantha’s reign), which prompts Mor to flip out that Viviane and Kallias are not only married, but are also mates. The mates shit makes even less sense than ever, guys. Sometimes it’s the most important thing ever, but then sometimes it’s like finding there’s an onion ring in your order of fries and everyone’s like “whoa, bonus!”

Then the High Lord of the Sun Court shows up and his name is Helion and he wears a crown of golden spikes, because this is our last High Lord and we’re all out of subtlety.

The sun personified. Powerful, lazy with grace, capable of kindness and wrath.

Ah, yes, I wake up every day and gaze up at the sun and smile as I think, wow, so lazy with grace.

Everyone loses their shit when Helion points out that Feyre is clearly High Lady of the Night Court. Viviane asks Kallias why she isn’t High Lady. Finally, some characters addressing some systemic inequality in this book! I hope we get to see more of these new woke AF characters Viviane and Unnamed Gay Male.

Remember how Nesta is there and how she nearly didn’t come because she was deeply offended that Feyre p much wanted to use her victimhood for political gain and ignore her agency in the matter? Yeah, as soon as someone asks who Nesta is, Feyre does exactly that.

“She is my sister, and our emissary to the human lands,” I said at last to him, stepping to her side. “And she will tell her story when the others are here.”
“She is Fae.”
“No shit,” Viviane muttered under her breath […]
“Who Made her?” Thesan asked politely, angling his head.
Nesta surveyed Thesan. Then Helion. Then Kallias.
“Hybern did,” she said simply. Not a flicker of fear in her eyes, in her upraised chin.
Stunned silence.
But I’d had enough of my sister being ogled. I linked elbows with her, heading toward the low-backed chairs that I assumed were for us. “They threw her in the Cauldron,” I said. “Along with my other sister, Elain.”

Feyre tells everyone that Hybern threw her sisters into the Cauldron after Tamlin and Ianthe turned on them. Helion points out that this is a serious accusation. “But what about a long account of Kallias and Viviane’s love story?”, asked no one.

Well, the book then tells us how Kallias and Viviane were childhood friends (don’t ask how they didn’t know they were mates then, this is how the rules work now). Kallias was overprotective and stationed her on border duty for decades, away from court scheming, which kind of worked out when Amarantha took over. When Amarantha’s spell began to take hold, Kallias used “the remnants” of his magic (this is how the rules work now) “to warn her”, tell her he loved her, and “begged her to protect his people”. And then when Feyre broke Amarantha’s spell and freed the High Lords, they got engaged.

And they fucked.

They went an hour later to a temple and swore their vows. And that night—during the you-know, Viviane grinned at Mor—the mating bond at last snapped into place.

This is one of those times I feel compelled to assure you I’m not making this up and that this is really what’s in this really real book.

After sexy story time, we’re reminded that this is actually a diplomatic meeting as heads of state who aren’t their bros arrive. Tarquin arrives. And then Beron and all of his sons arrive. Thesan calls the meeting to order, since everyone’s here except for Tamlin, who totally isn’t going to come.

Thesan, as host, began. “Rhysand, you have called this meeting. Pushed us to gather sooner than we intended. Now would be the time to explain what is so urgent.”
Rhys blinked—slowly. “Surely the invading armies landing on our shores explain enough.”
“So you have called us to do what, exactly?” Helion challenged, bracing his forearms on his muscled, gleaming thighs. “Raise a unified army?”
“Among other things,” Rhys said mildly. “We—”
It was almost the same—the entrance.
Almost the same as that night in my family’s old cottage, when the door had shattered and a beast had charged in with the freezing cold and roared at us.
He did not bother with the landing balcony, or the escorts. He did not have an entourage.
Like a crack of lightning, vicious as a spring storm, he winnowed into the chamber itself.
And my blood went colder than Kallias’s ice as Tamlin appeared, and smiled like a wolf.

It’s so awkward when your ex is invited to a party and you don’t think they’ll actually show up but then they do show up, and also you’re all heads of state and trying to figure out if they’re going to side against you in a war with an actual fascist.

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