i wanna brainwash you into loving me forever

They were probably the reason one of the men had a wild look in his eye, like the rabbit Feyre once found caught in a snare set up by one of the groundskeeper's sons just beyond the hedges that ring the outer edges of the estate. The son, when Feyre freed the poor thing and carried it to the hothouses to see if Elain knew how to set its broken leg, had gotten the same look in his eye until Feyre promised not to tell her father that the groundskeeper and his boys were poaching on Archeron land.

He still got a shifty look about him whenever Feyre took her rabbit out into the gardens on nice days, and she'd long since committed it to memory. The rapid eye movements, the ruddy cheeks, the thinned lips—

The men dropped the crate like it was on fire, and the frightened one turned away, scrubbing his hands on his trousers.

His fear was contagious, it seemed. Even the footman who opened the door had backed himself against the wall, fingering his iron cuff links, and the maids waiting in the slim doorway leading to the servants' staircases stood stock still, frozen.

No one made any move to sweep up the dust and splinters that followed in the crate's wake.

One maid—the one who'd warned Feyre last week that she could not lay the fire in the hearth in Feyre's bedroom as long as she was thirteen, because thirteen was an unlucky number—spun herself in three circles and made a superstitious sign over her apron.

It didn't matter much to Feyre that she did so, not at the time. Whatever was in the crate was clearly not a birthday gift for her—it was rare that anyone but Elain remembered—and so the crate and the servants' superstitions were nothing to concern herself with. Her father wouldn't bring a live faerie into his own home, if only out of shrewd self-preservation than any sense of paternal protectiveness for his daughters, so Feyre didn't bother getting invested.

It wasn’t like she had ever seen hide or hair of any faeries below the Wall, nor any of the smoking rubble or mushroom rings they supposedly left behind whenever they broke through the barrier between the mortals and the fae. And although the girls Elain invited over for tea sometimes whispered stories of kidnapped maidens to one another, Feyre always found it hard to believe any of them, since Nesta so delighted in meanly poking holes in their flimsy tales.

Besides, even if it were true, what faerie lord would want a pretty mortal girl? Were there not enough breathtaking faerie ladies above the Wall for them?

All in all, she didn't feel particularly compelled to cross herself or count the beads on the iron bracelet around her wrist or reach for one of the hideously costly ash branches her father had conspicuously placed inside the umbrella stand beside the door.

The maids would have been better off fearing the oily noblemen from the continent who came to bargain for Nesta's hand with Father or the rats that sometimes hid under the sacks of flour in the pantry. There were all sorts of dangers an intrepid servant girl might stumble across in the line of her work worth fearing.

A dusty old crate did not seem like one of them.

And Feyre was so amused with her list of all the sensible things the maids ought to fear instead—loose stair treads, stomach bugs, possibly even a pack of rabid wolves that somehow developed a taste for pretty serving girls—that she almost didn't notice when Father appeared in the doorway of his study across the hall, a proud grin splitting his face.

But how could she not when he clapped his hands together loudly enough to make everyone else jump a foot?

"Perfect, perfect," he said, rubbing his hands together at the sight of the crate, "I heard there was some trouble over the channel, but I knew my men were tougher than a little storm!"

His tone was lighthearted, and he clasped hands with each of the men, smiling as if they were good friends. No one smiled back.

"Well, come on then. In here," he continued after an awkward pause, but his own smile didn't fade. He simply waved the men inside that mysterious den of dark wood and leather, and with a symphony of grunts, the crate disappeared.

Feyre, sensing the excitement was at an end, turned back toward the drawing room—

“Feyre!”

She startled at the sound of her name in her father’s voice.

“…Yes?”

The superstitious maid sucked in a breath and shot her a furtive look.

Father did not notice, even when Feyre raised a brow at the girl. He was too busy watching the men in his study as he jerked his chin at her. “Come, come see.”

He seemed especially proud. He must have been, if he had decided one of his daughters was a worthy audience for the unveiling of his new… whatever was inside the crate.

Feyre waffled for a moment over the paintbrush and palette she was still clutching in one hand; she'd been too nosy and curious when the fuss started to waste time setting them down. But this was the first time in recent memory that Father had bothered to look at her, much less address her, and if she disappeared back into the drawing room—even for just one second—to free her hands, he might forget about her again.

And, a plaintive, wounded little voice whispered, in the most distant reaches of her mind, it's my birthday.

So she held them close but carried them with her, angling herself carefully in the study's doorway so her paint-smeared pinafore did not mark Father’s fine suit.

The men had already set the crate in an empty space between two tall windows. The rabbit-eyed man looked horrified when he looked up and saw her, the same way Father’s business associates used to look horrified when he dragged his three small daughters along to meetings when they were very young—only worse. Much worse, somehow, in a way Feyre could not quite put her finger on.

But Father did not notice him either, too busy snatching up the crowbar one of the men pulled from a loop on his belt and offered to him. He wedged it between the slats of the crate eagerly, working and pulling until the painted panel came loose.

Feyre watched and tried to pretend she wasn't hoping that he'd finally remembered to buy her a birthday gift. A large one, to make up for all the birthdays he had forgotten since Mother died.

The front panel fell forward, and the men caught it before it could hit Father's hand-knotted Scythian rug.

Oh.

Feyre's heart stuttered in her chest.

A tall, broad suit of dark armor stood at attention inside the crate. It was breathtaking, unlike anything Feyre had ever seen, all sharp points and lethal edges, fashioned from scales of ebony leather and onyx metal that seemed to gobble up the light rather than reflect it. The helm was carved from the same black metal, its overlapping ridges resembling feathers or scales—or perhaps folded wings. Feyre could not quite decide.

Two black hollows marked where the eyes should have been, tilted upward. Feline.

Some trick of the shaping made the forged faceplate appear almost amused. Feyre stared at it, not quite as unsettled as she knew she ought to have been by the thought of amusement stamped into a suit of armor.

There were nicks in the leather and dents in the metal, signs that whichever warrior had worn it had seen battle.

She wondered if that cold, cruel amusement had been the last thing his enemies ever saw.

At her side, Father put his hands on his hips, beaming. “A little reward from one of my business partners on the continent for the success of the Bharat shipment. A suit of faerie armor, left in one of the camps they fled at the end of the War.”

A hand fell on Feyre’s shoulder, and she jumped, the paintbrush and palette rattling against one another, only to discover it was her father, trying to pull her into his side.

"Rumor has it," he whispered down to her, "that it belonged to a High Lord's son."

Feyre let out a squeaking sound.

“What a prize,” he chuckled, squeezing her.

Beyond the wide windows, the sun shifted behind a cloud, and the shadows that fell across the room seemed to gather in the hollows of the armor’s cut-out eyes.

Feyre's teeth sank into her lower lip.