Got a question, Honey?

“Awww!!” the two wail in unison.

They’re like puppy dogs deflating the instant their owner steps outside and shuts the door behind him. Chihuahuas, Jamil thinks. They are chihuahuas. Packed full of energy and releasing it in all the wrong ways.

Rielle awkwardly scratches his cheek. “That’s too bad. I was really looking forward to celebrating making a new friend… but it’s too much to ask, then I have don’t want to make trouble.”

“Please, Jamil!” Kalim pleads, latching onto his vice dorm leader by the arms. “Come on, when’s the next time we're going to see Rielle?"

("Hopefully never," Jamil mutters, just quietly enough to not be perceived by the others. Once per year for the interscholastic competition is already too much for my liking.)

"We should take the chance and throw the party while he's still here," Kalim continues. To Jamil’s horror, his face suddenly lights up in the way that the sun does before a heat wave. “I know!! How about I help with the prep? If we split up the work, we’ll get it done way faster.”

Jamil inhales sharply.

IT ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT.

Have you already forgotten what happened the last time you attempted to “help”? You dumped the entire spice cabinet into the curry and ruined the batch. You accidentally released the peacocks from their pen and I had to run all over campus collecting them. You hired three separate bands without accounting for them fighting for the same space.

Everything you touch turns into a logistical nightmare that I have to clean up for you. If you really wanted to “help”, then you could stay put and not do or say anything unless spoken to!!

“Having one extra set of hands won’t make much of a difference,” Jamil sternly points out, arms folded. “Organizing an event involves much more work than just…”

“What if I helped too?”

Jamil robotically cranes his head toward Rielle, like it swivels on a rusted axis.

“I can help!!” the merman repeats sunnily. He spins, waving at the various Scarabia students lounging on carpets and cushions. “We all can! If each of us pitches in, then we can make this party happen! Each of us has our own talents we can contribute to the group.”

Frowning, Jamil rushes to intervene. “That’s not really what—”

But Rielle’s already walking over and hauling people up by the hands. He’s yapping so much that no one can get in a word. “Oooh, you look like a good chef! With your height, you’d be perfect for hanging up decorations! You can put together a music set!“

The Scarabia mobs helplessly look to Kalim. He, unfortunately, meets them with glittering eyes and fists clenched in determination.

“Rielle’s right!! We can’t give up so soon!” Kalim declares. “Alone, we won’t be able to pull it off—but when we come together, nothing’s stopping us. Let’s go, guys!! With our powers combined, we’ll make the best darn party Twisted Wonderland’s ever seen!”

A rallying cry. Jamil’s lip curls. Typical RSA. Typical Kalim.

“… Once again, you two appear to have made the decision on your own and charged ahead. Isn’t there someone here you forgot to ask?” Jamil asks flatly. His patience, rapidly wearing thin.

“Hm?” Realization dawns on Kalim. He bonks himself in the forehead with the heel of one hand.“Gah, you’re right! I forgot to ask you what party prep activity you’d like to do this time!”

NOT what I meant!!

“I would prefer to be doing no activity at all,” Jamil clarifies, sharpness slipping through into his voice. Today was supposed to be slow, not stressful.

Someone smacks him on the back from behind. Too strong to be Kalim. The wind goes flying out of Jamil’s lungs. A painfully cheery voice rings in his ears—he feels the beginning of a migraine.

“That’s okay! You can relax for now. Kalim and I can take the lead!”

Memories sound off like war flashbacks. All color drains from Jamil, his pupils dilating. He throws himself in Rielle’s path to the kitchen, spreading his arms out to block him.

“I’ll… supervise.”

Rielle’s smile falters into a pout. “I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t need someone to watch over me and boss me around.”

“I insist.” Jamil presses, stepping forward-to force Rielle back. “This has nothing to do with age, maturity, or control, I assure you.”

“Yeah, Jamil keeps an eye out for me all the time!” Kalim chimes in (much to Jamil’s chagrin). “He’s looking out for us, that’s all.”

Rielle’s mouth pinches. Hurt swims in his big, blue eyes. “But…”

Good grief, what a child. Not even Kalim’s youngest sibling acts as like this.

“… I understand your concerns, Rielle-sama. Far be it from me to ride above my station and issue orders to a prince. I will limit myself to instructing the students under my jurisdiction. Does that sound acceptable?”

“Well…” Rielle trails off, uncertain. “Yeah, I guess that’s fine.”

Idiot. Nothing’s stopping me from telling a Scarabia student to intervene with whatever you get up to. Figures that a slapdash solution like this would placate a petulant prince.

“Yaaay, I’m glad you guys were able to make up!” Kalim cheers, clapping both boys on the shoulder. “We can get to know each other even better once we get this party started!!”

Jamil lowers his head. The bow, stiff, like a stick forced to bend.

“I am happy to be of service.”

With a lot of one-sentence-one-line description, Feyre winnows onto the Attor's back and stabs it with the convenient ash arrows that were lying around before. Again, what are their other weapons made of? If ash is the only thing that can harm faeries, then surely all their swords and daggers and whatnot are made of ash as well? What's the point of using swords made of anything else?

It shrieked, wings curving as I slammed into it. As I plunged those poisoned ash arrows through each wing. Right through the main muscle.

Pretty sure the main wing muscles are in the back, not the wing itself. Or in the little arm-bits, at least.

More Dramatique description.

I angled my dagger over the Attor’s bony, elongated rib cage. “This is for Rhys,” I hissed in its pointed ear.

And the next line tells us that the dagger is steel. So...... steel can kills faeries? Why all the fuss over ash arrows, then? Just tip them in steel if steel works. Oh, also...... why are you stabbing the Attor for Rhys? What has it done to him? Isn't this supposed to be your personal beef with it, Feyre? It's got nothing to do with Rhys.

“This is for Clare.” I plunged my blade in again, twisting.

Er, again. Rhys told Amarantha about Clare, and then Amarantha tortured her. You're just kind of assuming that the Attor was also personally involved in that. And if the Attor is guilty by association, well, aren't all of Amarantha's underlings, then? Including Rhys? Are you going to stab all of them, too?

.....promise?

Well, she delivers a "and this is for me" cliche third line.

“I’ll see you in hell,” I whispered, and left my blade in its side.

At least she recognises that she'll be going to hell, I suppose? I wonder if the book realises that that's what it's said.

Well, anyway, Feyre winnows away, we point out that the Attor's wings, specifically, are ruined, before remembering that oh yeah, it hit the ground from a great height so kinda everything is ruined, and then Rhys arrives.

No one cried out at the star-flecked cascade of night that cut off all light.

Yes, this sounds like a perfectly natural reaction to being plunged into sudden darkness. And the whole "well it's the Night Court, ofc they'd all like the dark" thing kinda falls apart when...

I thought I heard vague grunting and scraping—as if it had sought out hidden soldiers lingering in the Rainbow, but then … The wave vanished. Sunlight.

...the book itself can't even commit to it. We retconned the whole x Court = Eternal x so that the Night Court could be Better than Spring and also Rhys could be tan, remember? God, it's so contrived.

Blah blah, they're reunited, Rhys does vaguely mind-controlly things to her.

My mate murmured, “Feyre Cursebreaker, the Defender of the Rainbow.”

Is it possible to cringe so hard that your soul leaves your body? I think that's what just happened to me. Bitch, she's the wife/mate/fucking whatever of the High Lord, defending the people is one of her expected duties. She doesn't deserve a fancy new title for it.

And even as his city wailed, the High Lord of the Night Court held me until I could at last face this blood-drenched new world.

So 1) Rhys is ignoring the suffering of even the people in Precious Velaris (his "true" people, in the book's mind) in order to comfort Feyre. Excellent quality to have in a leader. See, this is what people mean when they say that leadership often requires sacrifice. You have a duty to more people than your significant other. If you can't handle that, then you shouldn't be a leader. And 2) fucking hell, get over yourself, Feyre. This "blood-drenched new world" has been reality for everywhere except Velaris this whole time. And the only reason it was as bad as it was is because all the soldiers are considered too poor/evil to be allowed in the city. Your segregation bit you in the ass. I have no sympathy.

Next chapter.

“Velaris is secure,” Rhys said in the black hours of the night. “The wards the Cauldron took out have been remade.”

Okay, but... well, if the Cauldron took them out the first time, what's to stop it from doing it again? Surely, you need different wards, that can't be broken by it, right?

We had not stopped to rest until now.

I mean, we literally just came from a crying break where Rhys was ignoring the people, but go off I guess.

Sprawled in an armchair built for Illyrian wings,

What does this mean? What does this mean???? What is the actual difference between an armchair "built" for wings and one that isn't???? Is it backless? Is it just really big? What is the actual fucking difference, please book, I'm begging you! I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does.

We get some description of everyone's post-battle state, and a paragraph devoted to how Amren killed people, for some reason.

[C]"...Hybern knows about this place, thanks to those wyrm-queens. Who else will they sell the information to? How long until the other courts come sniffing?

....why would the other courts give a flying fuck about Velaris? No, really. Why is Velaris so special? Surely, there's nice cities in the other courts? The Summer city we visited seemed pretty nice, war damage aside. Why are they so convinced that everyone will immediately attack them just because they learn Velaris exists???

I'm trying to decide if it's something like "because the other courts are Evil and Petty and Spiteful, so of course they would attack Perfect Velaris because they're Just Jealous." Or if it's something more like "having one (1) nice city means everyone will think we're weak and attack randomly because uhhhh idk predator and prey and being nice makes you prey, or something. Even though all the evil shit that they're afraid of still exists and still fucking happens."

Or maybe it's something else. There's a lot of times I've pointed out things like how the writing in these books lacks empathy, or how social situations are approached in a kind of "they're our enemies so we have to trick them" default. It honestly kind of gives sociopath vibes? It only seems to be able to view things from a combative stance, where information about other people (e.g. their interests, nice things about them, etc) are just tools to use against them in some way. Which is why Rhys hides Velaris, because he's convinced that everyone and their dog will attack it to get to him, or will otherwise "use it against him," somehow.

And it's just... what would they gain from doing that? The sheer self-centredness of the assumption that "getting to you" is enough to motivate people to attack a city, to the point that you assume everyone will do it just because? Boggles the mind. I just cannot comprehend it. The only other thing it could be is that Rhys is actually just that awful that everyone would sack a city because he liked it, but I'm sure the book doesn't want us to think that. Believe it or not, book, most people actually don't like hurting other people.

I hated to add to that burden, but I said, “If we all go to Hybern to destroy the Cauldron … who will defend the city?” Silence. Rhys’s throat bobbed.

Gee, if only you had like, whole armies of soldiers you hadn't segregated out of the city or something......

Well, no, we can't have that, Amren volunteers to stay behind instead.

And it was Azriel who added, his voice raw with the aftermath of battle-rage, “And then we retaliate.”

"Retaliate." Interesting that the book chose this word, specifically. While it's not an inappropriate word to use for the context, it does feel a little bit.... I don't know, petty? Small-scale? Like how you retaliate against a bully or a frenemy or something, not another nation with whom you're at war. But that being said, I can't really think of a better word, necessarily. Hmm....... maybe it's more, the focus is on retaliation being the natural next step, instead of, say, shoring up their defences, or rebuilding, or securing their borders, etc. It's like, "nah, payback is the most important thing." Again, speaks to that combative mindset I was talking about. It's all a personal fight, nothing outside the tit-for-tat matters. Least of all the innocent people who might be caught in the crossfire.

Skip to later that evening. Feyre finds Rhys angsting on the roof of the townhouse.

I only traced the lines of his face, then brushed my thumb over his mouth. “It is not your fault,” I said quietly.

Isn't it? He is the one that insisted on segregating all the soldiers away from the city, after all. I don't know what he expected.

His eyes shifted to mine, barely visible in the dark. “Isn’t it? I handed this city over to them. I said I would be willing to risk it, but … I don’t know who I hate more: the king, those queens, or myself.”

Ugh. But, even if we go with the argument that Velaris has been hidden for so long, and thus has never needed a garrison.... well, if you were that worried about an attack, wouldn't you move some soldiers there after revealing the city's existence to outsiders? Like, is that not a logical thing to do if you're so sure anyone knowing about it will lead to attack? It's a fail on so many levels.

Anyway, he berates her (the book tries to disguise it as praise, but yeah) for daring to completely block him out (because apparently it actually worked this time, and he is Not Happy that his backdoor failed). But, he also thanks her for helping his people.

He kissed my neck. “I don’t deserve you.” My heart strained. He meant it—truly felt that way.

No, he's putting himself down in order to guilt-trip you and make you want to comfort and reassure him. Don't fall for it.

Amren cracked the code the next afternoon. The news was not good.

IT'S NOT A FUCKING CODE OH MY-

Okay. I'm going to have to rant about this. Mostly because I like ranting about language. Sorry in advance.

Codes and languages are different. With a code, you start with a sentence written in a particular language, then you do something to it that either obscures the meaning (e.g. using the word "dog" for "meeting place") or you substitute letters to make the message completely unreadable (this is actually called a "cipher", apparently, but us lay folks tend to use "code" to describe this as well). In order to be able to read a code, you need a key, which tells you which substitutions have been made so you can decipher the original message. You can then use this exact same key to decode other messages that use this code. It's possible to brute-force guess a code, and this will be easier or harder depending on the complexity of the code (because there's all sorts of complexities - I'm referring to this website, if anyone's curious).

Consider the following sentence:

Rain comes from the clouds.

Now, let's say I didn't want anyone to read this, for some reason. I might decide to encode it thusly:

Sbjo dpnft gspn uif dmpvet.

Which is utter gibberish no matter what your native language is. But, if I tell you that all I've done is substitute each letter with the next one in the Latin alphabet, well, now you'll all easily be able to work out the original sentence. Probably some of you worked it out just by looking at the two sentences, because this is a very basic cipher. There's nothing unusual about the grammar, no ambiguities in word meaning, the word order and syntax is perfectly normal English. If you can read English and know the key, then you will have 0 problems working out the encrypted sentence.

Now, let's write the same sentence in another language. Old English, because my Old English book is within arms' reach. And also, since the text of the Book of Breathings is meant to be the old fae holy language (aka the Jewish holy language of our world, apparently), it might make for an apt comparison, being an older version of a language we currently use.

Reġnas cumaþ of þǣre lyfte.

Straight away, you can see how this is different from the coded version of the sentence. If you speak English (and know what the sentence is meant to mean), you can probably take a guess at what words mean what. But, er, why does the word "rain" have a g in it? What's the dot for? What's that funny-looking p letter, and that ae thing? Dafuq is a lyfte? And unlike a code, me telling you that "oh, that p-thing is pronounced "th" and the ae thing is like the a in "ash", and the dotted g is pronounced like a y" doesn't really help much with understanding it. There is no "key" for understanding this sentence, that you can just hand a native speaker of the target language (Modern English) that will enable them to understand it perfectly. Let's look at another Old English sentence, to really hammer home the point.

Ōswealde þūhte þæt þæs oxan wyrd wǣre swā stearc swā þæs ierþlinges wyrd, and þæs cnapan wyrd ēac.

There's probably some words a speaker of modern English could guess at, but overall, without a translation dictionary and some basic OE grammar knowledge, the meaning will largely remain a mystery. And if the "key" you give someone is a 1-for-1 substitution of each word in the sentence... well, it's not really a key, then, is it? It's not helping you understand the code (and thus any other sentence written with the same code) - it's telling you what this specific sentence, arranged in this specific way, means (which is "Osweald thought that the ox's fate was as harsh as the farmer's fate, and the boy's as well," for those that are curious).

But, what about those codes I mentioned where you substitute whole words, you say! Couldn't you just make a key that substitutes the other-language words with the target-language words? Well, unless you're willing to make a key that includes every possible grammatical variation of a given word (which would make your key significantly longer than a standard x-to-y language dictionary), then no, you can't. Grammar and syntax are generally bigger barriers to understanding the target language than raw vocabulary. We learn new words in our native language all the time, after all. Consider:

þone catt ǣt sēo mūs

And all I told you was that catt = cat, etan = to eat, mūs = mouse and þone/sēo = the , what would your first thought for the meaning of the sentence be? The cat ate the mouse? Nope! Other way round! But what if I wrote it like this:

ǣt þone catt sēo mūs

or this

sēo mūs ǣt þone catt

or this

þone catt sēo mūs ǣt

or this

sēo mūs þone catt ǣt

How does that change the meaning of the sentence? Trick question, it doesn't, because Old English doesn't give a shit about word order, like Modern English does, and is all about the cases instead. But, if we were treating it like a word-substitution code, unless you also knew Old English grammar as well as Modern English, there'd be no way for you to tell if all these variations have the same or different meanings, because the key you'd be given for them would be exactly the same: catt = cat, etan = to eat, mūs = mouse, þone/sēo = the.

(If you wanted to actually write "the cat ate the mouse", it would be "sē catt ǣt þā mūs." And the only thing about your key that would change is it would say "sē/þā = the" instead of þone/sēo. Which, again, isn't really helpful unless you already understand the grammar)

And that's even before we start throwing spanners in the works with things like plurals or different tenses. For someone who doesn't already speak the code language, you'd need to list every possible grammatical variation of all the words you might ever want to write in your key. You can probably see why that's not practical. Even language dictionaries only have the base forms of words, and grammar textbooks only include tables with a few examples.

I suppose, essentially the difference is, all that should be needed to be able to read a coded message is the ability to read in the target language, and the key. You can then read any message that uses that code. Whereas for messages written in other languages, it doesn't matter if you can change the letters into an alphabet you can read, or if you're told a handful of words, you're not going to understand shit unless you also speak that language.

One more example, because I'm feeling obnoxious today:

猫が鼠を食べました。

Oh, you can't read that encoded writing??? Don't worry, I'll give you the key to change it to English writing!

猫 = neko が = ga 鼠 = nezumi を = wo 食 = ta べ = be ま = ma し = shi た = ta

Now you definitely know what the secret meaning of the coded sentence is, right? Yeahh, nah, unless you also know Japanese, you don't.

Yeah, so, er, anyway. Got a bit sidetracked there. Where were we?

Amren cracked the code the next afternoon. The news was not good.

Ah, right. So, if we wanted be generous, what the book probably meant here was "Amren finished her translation the next afternoon." But, that's not what it's shown us - if Amren was translating, they'd learn different sections of the book as she goes through them. Instead, it's being treated as if the whole thing is a complete mystery until bam! Suddenly it isn't, because you've just worked out the key. So yeah, the book really does think other languages are just English written in code. Fucking hell. I mean, I know SJM has trouble understanding that things exist outside of her bubble, but come on. This is ridiculous.

Amren tells Feyre what she must do.

“...you must touch the Cauldron—and speak these words.” She had written them all down for me on a piece of paper.

Naturally, we don't get to see them. That would require some imagination from the book, and we can't have that.

Mor elbowed her way between them, staring at the two assembled pieces of the Book of Breathings. “What happens if we put both halves together?” “Don’t put them together,” Amren simply said.

........

.....staring at the two assembled pieces.....

????????????????

I mean, no wonder the book doesn't understand that languages and codes are different, it apparently doesn't even understand plain fucking English.

Well, whatever, the two halves are assembled, but also not, and you shouldn't put them together because it will be Bad for unspecified reasons.

[Cassian] jerked his chin to Rhys. “Since you can’t winnow without being tracked,

Yeah, they keep saying this, but have also said several times in the past few chapters that Rhys is winnowing anyway for excuses of varying levels of hand-wavey-ness. Don't know if I pulled any out, but, they're there. And hey, maybe that's how Hybern found Velaris, and it's got nothing to do with the queens at all! It's all Rhys's fault. Yeah, I like that better, gives the tracking actual purpose and makes his actions have consequences.

They keep discussing their plans and how all the groundwork for it has been done conveniently off-page. God, how much more fun would it have been to watch Azriel doing his spy thing than having to put up with Feyre and Rhys's gross-ass "romance?" But, I should know better by now. And.... hold up. Just before, Cassian said this:

“Since you can’t winnow without being tracked, Mor and Az will winnow us all in,

And, just a paragraph or so later.....

Mor said to him, “But the King of Hybern could notice Rhys’s presence the moment he arrives. And if Feyre needs time to nullify the Cauldron, and we don’t know how much time, that’s a risky variable.” Cassian said, “We’ve considered that. So you and Rhys will winnow us in off the coast; we fly in while he stays.”

Which is it, Cassian???????? You didn't include Rhys in your original version of the plan, which would make sense with you having considered this. But then, in response to Mor raising concerns about Rhys's presence, you then say that Rhys will just winnow you to the border, and fly in??????? Is his winnowing tracked, or not???? Is he coming, or not?????? Like, this isn't even inconsistencies between books or chapters, these parts are literally just a paragraph apart.

They’d have to winnow me, I realized, since I still had not yet mastered doing it over long distances. At least, not with many stops in between.

....did you mean not *without* many stops in between, Feyre? Fucking hell, this conversation is a mess.

“As for the spell,” Cassian continued, “it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

I don't know, is there nothing you can test it on? Or even just have Feyre recite the spell now and see if anything happens? It may well not - the spell may only work in the presence of the Cauldron - but if they're that worried about things going wrong, surely they should at least try to test it. They're allowed to fail and realise they'll have to go in blind. If anything, it makes the tension better, because we see evidence of their being worried in the form of the testing, instead of the book just kind of handwaving it away because we're almost at the page quota.

Azriel pushed, “It’s a solid plan. The king doesn’t know our scents. We wreck the Cauldron and vanish before he notices … It’ll be a graver insult than the bloodier, direct route we’d been considering, Rhys. We beat them yesterday, so when we go into that castle … ” Vengeance indeed danced in that normally placid face. “We’ll leave a few reminders that we won the last damn war for a reason.”

Okay one, it's not a solid plan, you were literally just talking about all the unknown variables. And two....... which fucking is it???? Are you going to be in and out before he notices, or are you going to leave a trail of damn corpses with the express intention of having him notice them? Which. Fucking. Is it??????

Anyway, Rhys starts getting stroppy because they dared ask him to stay outside while his mate goes in to the castle, but pleasingly, Azriel stands his ground.

[A]“If Feyre can’t nullify the Cauldron easily or quickly, we steal it—send the pieces back to the bastard when we’re done breaking it apart.

......is there any reason why this isn't plan A? I feel like it would be way easier for Azriel to go in solo and swipe the Cauldron, instead of having to worry about getting Feyre (and Mor and Cassian, I guess?) in there as well.

[A]"....Feyre calls you through the bond when we’re done—you and Mor winnow us out. They won’t be able to track you fast enough if you only come to retrieve us.”

............okay, maybe they wouldn't register his presence in Hybern, but, wouldn't they be able to detect his power when he lands, too? And if not, well, isn't any winnowing "too fast" to be detected, then? Since it happens between one instance and the next.

Seriously, this whole tracking subplot is woefully inconsistent.

Anyway, Rhys (and Feyre's narration) gives a whole grand speech about how Feyre can go if she wants and he won't lock her up and #BetterThanTamlin, #AlwaysFeyresChoice, and I can do nothing but wish for the sweet release of death. This guy is such a fucking hypocrite.

And then a scene break, for more #BetterThanTamlin shit. Feyre is confused about which room she goes to, and Rhys says that either he'll move into her room, or she'll move into his, #HerChoice. Notably absent: options such as both moving into a third space, or keeping their own spaces. Though Feyre does ask about that last one:

“Don’t you—you don’t want your own space?” “No,” he said baldly. “Unless you do.

All that means is that you're overbearing and/or co-dependant, Rhysand. Everyone needs their own space (even if it's not the bedroom, could be anywhere). It's not as sweet as the book seems to think.

I jerked my chin toward his bedroom. “Your bed is bigger.” And that was that. I walked in to find my clothes already there,

Ah, so Rhysand already decided and moved your stuff pre-emptively, did he? Was it just a lucky guess on Feyre's part that she picked the "right" option? Or did Rhys mind-control her into choosing his room? We'll never know!

And then.... Rhys gives Feyre his mother's ring. The one he made her go into the Weaver's house to find.

[R]"...My mother gave it to the Weaver. And then she told me that if I were to marry or mate, then the female would either have to be smart or strong enough to get it back. And if the female wasn’t either of those things, then she wouldn’t survive the marriage.

.......why wouldn't she survive the marriage, Rhys? What are you going to do to her that means she wouldn't survive it? And also, uh. Can we just talk for a second about how this plan basically means that Rhys and his mother are okay with potentially killing random girls just because they weren't "strong" enough to be "worthy" of Rhys? Like, what the actual fuck? Those are people's lives you'd be throwing away there. And it's not even that they're bad people, or that they did anything wrong, no, they just weren't "strong" enough to steal a ring from an eldritch monstrosity of unknowable power. And if how cagey he was about it when Feyre went in there is any indication, none of them would have been able to prepare properly even if they were "strong enough." I swear, it's like.... every time I think Rhysand can't get any worse, the book will chuck in a random throwaway detail like this, and yup! Looks like there's an even deeper layer of hell that he can sink to. We're re-writing theology here.

[F]“So my trip to the Weaver—” “It was vital that we learn if you could detect those objects. But … I picked the object out of pure selfishness.” “So I won my wedding ring without even being asked if I wanted to marry you.” “Perhaps.”

Er, no, not "perhaps." Yes is the answer you're struggling for there, Rhys. #AlwaysFeyresChoice, but you don't even ask if she wants to marry you before sending her on a potentially fatal mission to retrieve her own wedding ring? And yeah, it was pure selfishness. There is absolutely no reason they couldn't have tested her quest marker on something not guarded by the Weaver.

And like, if you wanted some sort of trial like this to see if his bride is "worthy", it could definitely work. All that would need to happen is this:

Rhys AND Feyre decide they might want to get married. Not just Rhys on his own

Rhys tells Feyre that, if she wants to marry him, there's a test she'll have to pass

Rhys tells Feyre the details of said quest, without being cryptic or smarmy about it, including the truth about how dangerous it potentially is

Feyre, now fully informed of the nature and dangers, agrees to do it

Like, that's it. Just fucking ask first, and tell her the plain truth. All this does is make it look like Rhys was setting up for a gotcha or something.