pro peace and quiet

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“Lucien will become High Lord of Day!”

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. It wouldn’t matter to Cassian, though, if Rhys’s son inherited his world-shaking power, or barely a drop. 22

“Azriel felt a spark for Gywn! That means they are endgame!”

“Would you like me to grovel with gratitude for bringing me here, High Lord?” “Ah. The Suriel told you nothing important, did it?” That smile of his sparked something bold in my chest. feylin 18

“Gwyn will be with Az because she has flexible bones for Illyrian babies!”

sicko freaks

Gwyn gestured to her large eyes—blue so clear it could have been the shallow sea—and her lithe body. “My bones are slightly more pliant than ordinary High Fae’s, but who cares about that?” Perhaps that was why Gwyn was so good at the balancing and movement. 29

“Azriel is toxic for being jealous of the mating bond Rhys and Cassian have!”

Rhys threw him a wicked smile. “It’s not the fighting I don’t want them hearing.” Cassian grinned right back, even as something like jealousy tugged on his gut. He didn’t begrudge them their happiness—not at all. There were plenty of times when he’d see the joy on Rhys’s face and have to walk away to keep from weeping, because his brother had waited for that love, earned it. Rhys had gone to the mat again and again to fight for that future with Feyre. For this. But sometimes, Cassian saw that mating ring, and the portrait behind the desk, and this house, and just … wanted. 3

“Elain needed sunlight because she doesn’t fit in the darkness of The Night Court!”

Cerridwen moved to shut the curtains, sealing the room in darkness. My heart stumbled, taking my anger with it, and I blurted, “Leave them open.” I couldn’t be sealed up and shut in darkness—not yet. Cerridwen nodded and left the curtains open, both of the twins telling me to send word if I needed anything before they departed. 14

“Elain will live in The Spring Court because she likes to garden!”

“There is a garden—at my other house, ” I said. “I’d like for you to come tend it, if you’re willing.” Elain only turned toward the sunny windows again, the light dancing in her hair. 24

“What now?” Elain mused, at last answering my question from moments ago as her attention drifted to the windows facing the sunny street. That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.” 80

Azriel and Elain remained in the sitting room, my sister showing him the plans she’d sketched to expand the garden in the back of the town house, using the seeds and tools my family had given her tonight. 22

Another kiss, this time to my cheek. “Build a house with rooms for all our family.” He kissed my other cheek. “Build a house with a garden for Elain, ..” 22

Elain was happily ensconced in the new riverfront estate, and had spent the spring and summer planning and nurturing its spectacular gardens—all while avoiding her mate—.. sneak peek at the back of acofas for acosf!

Elain had walked in halfway through. She’d been toiling in the estate gardens since dawn, and had been solemn as Rhys filled her in. 2

Elain, mourn as she might for the life she would have had with Graysen, had found a place, a role here. Tending to the gardens of Feyre’s veritable palace on the river, helping other residents of Velaris restore their own destroyed gardens—she had purpose, and joy, and friends: those two half-wraiths who worked in Rhysand’s household. 3

Elain wrung her slender fingers, nails kept trimmed short for her work in the gardens. 17

“SJM is a fated mates author and they are always endgame!”

“At least he liked you," Rhys countered, then clarified for me, "my father and mother, despite being mates, were wrong for each other." 16

“You said your mother and father were wrong for each other; Tamlin said his own parents were wrong for each other.” 24

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Insight into various things? Almost like a…

“It’s just the story that was finally ready to come out of me was big, really, really, really big. And as I started writing this in like this, like Montana, like energy vortex, like it came outta me in a way that surprised me. And by the time I reached, you know, I like to do like parts like part one part two, part three, by the time I gotta end of part one it was, like, 400 pages long. There’s a certain reality to books like ‘Kingdom of Ash’ had to be, like, two because the glue will not hold books together, but like what I was writing felt right? Like that was what the story that needed to be told. And so I decided I wasn’t gonna approach this project from a, you know, traditional format of a book. And what if this story, like, what if this book was really long? Like, what if it took me more than a thousand pages to tell the story that needed to be told, the arc that I wanted to create from start to finish. What if that took a long time? Like, what if that took me on the constraints of a single volume and what does that look like? How do I tell that story? And so part one was this huge, huge thing. And then I realized it was gonna be four parts. A book told in four parts. So then I wrote part two and part three. And those were really fucking long. And so, like, and then part four has yet to be written because right now I’m trying to just get part one, which is out in October. And then parts two and three to be out in January is like one combined thing. So it’s basically gonna be three physical volumes, but it’s like one thing altogether that like no amount of glue in like any publisher’s factory could ever like hold this. So it’s meant to be read ideally as one massive, massive story as opposed to a trilogy. It’s not a trilogy. Like arcs aren’t wrapped up. It's like if you expand it all of part one, all of part two, all parts, like all part, like it would be huge like that. And so I just decided like, I’ve never told a story that way. This is how it wants to come out.”

Almost like it was divine inspiration, am I right?

When it was ready to come out, when I was re—, when it was ready to come out—like when this right story hit me, it hit me hard. And I had a vision from the start, of like what it would be and how I would deliver it to you guys, and like that’s what I want to do, and getting to be in the driver’s seat and decide like this is how I want to tell stories, and if I want to adapt it for every new book or just like arc, I can do that, like I can do that, like why not? Why do we have to stick to these boxes? Like this is how you tell a story from A to B, I’m like no, what if we do something different.”

•

“But I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d disappoint you all.” He sighed toward the ceiling. “With time and safety, perhaps we’ll see a different side of her emerge.”

“That sounds dangerously close to what Nesta said about Elain finally becoming interesting.”

“Sometimes, Nesta isn’t wrong.”

I glowered at Rhys. “You think Elain’s boring?”

“I think she’s kind, and I’ll take kindness over nastiness any day. But I also think we haven’t yet seen all she has to offer.” A corner of his mouth tugged upward. “Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hands dirty along the way.” (Feysand bonus)