The following is Sarah in an interview talking about how she kept the ending of HOSAB close to her chest and barely told anyone, that she was so excited to finally talk about it after keeping it a secret for so long. She also says how though she kept the ending a secret, she still left hints along the way.
And this is an interview where she talks about the secrets she kept before the reveal of Feysand ending up together, how she was so excited to finally gush about her love for Rhys despite others believing Tamlin was going to be Feyre's endgame since at the time he was the "obvious" choice.
I always think back to these two interviews when people say she no longer cares about Lucien, that she never talks about him excitedly in interviews anymore and that because he and Elain were in the background for SF and HOFAS it means they aren't going to be important to the next books.
Then I think how she said just because she kept things a secret - only sharing them with her editor and a couple of critique partners - she still left clues.
Cassian didn’t know why he’d expected an update regarding the High Lord of Spring. Lucien only gave those in private to Rhys.
Lucien stared out the window—as if he could see the lake across a sea and a continent. As if he were setting his target.
Eris’s face filled with cool amusement. “I wanted to feel out Vassa and Jurian.” He didn’t mention his brother, oddly enough.
It wasn’t a guarantee that a High Lord’s firstborn would be his heir. The magic sometimes took a while to decide, and often jumped around the birth order completely. Sometimes it found a cousin instead. Sometimes it abandoned the bloodline entirely. Or chose the heir in that moment of birth, in the echoes of a newborn’s first cries.
“Let’s focus on helping one sister before we start on the other.”
We need the Spring Court’s forces.” “So we’re to hide her pregnancy from him?” “No. But we need to summon Lucien,” Azriel said, just a shade tightly, as if he didn’t like it one bit. “We need to tell him the news, and permanently station him at the Spring Court to contain any damage and to be our eyes and ears.”
But Elain … The Spring Court had been made for someone like her. Too bad her sister refused to see her. Nesta would have told Elain to visit this place.
Helion shuddered, and Nesta threw the cloth over the Mask. As if the cloth somehow blinded it to their presence. “Perhaps an ancestor of mine once used it, and the warning of its cost is imprinted upon my blood.”
Cassian nodded. Rhys as High King: he could think of no other male he’d trust more. No other male who would be a fairer ruler than Rhys. And with Feyre as High Queen … Prythian would be blessed to have such leaders.
And do not forget that Nesta herself—and Elain, with whatever powers she has—is here. Feyre is here. All three sisters blessed by fate and gifted with powers to match your own.
“He’s spent months helping them sort out the politics of who rules Prythian’s slice of the human lands,” Cassian said slowly.
“Easy,” Lucien said. Cassian snarled. “Easy,” Lucien repeated, and flame sizzled in his russet eye. The flame, the surprising dominance within it, hit Cassian like a stone to the head, knocking him from his need to kill and kill and kill whatever might threaten—
“Very well then, Rhysand.” Amren also turned from the desk and the blades Rhys’s magic now sheathed and set upon the surface. “But know that the Cauldron’s benevolence will be extended to you only for so long before it is offered to another.
Her gaze shifted to the carved wooden rose she’d placed upon the mantel, half-hidden in the shadows beside a figurine of a supple-bodied female, her upraised arms clasping a full moon between them. Some sort of primal goddess—perhaps even the Mother herself. Nesta hadn’t let herself dwell on why she’d felt the need to set the rose there. Why she hadn’t just thrown it in a drawer.
she pulled the small, carved rose from her pocket and set it upon the gravestone. A permanent marker of the beauty and good he’d tried to bring into the world.
