Feyre nodded her approval, but her mouth tightened. “These two males have families who are surely worried about them. We should be as quick as possible.”
Cassian shut out the thought of all the males whom he hadn’t left standing—who all had worried families as well. Every death had a weight, sent a ripple into the world, into time. It was too easy to forget that. He glanced to Az, but his brother’s face was stone-cold. If Az regretted what they’d done, he revealed no hint of it. Cassian tucked in his wings. “We’ll be as fast as we can.”
They left the males in the room, blood still trickling down to the writhing beasts.
Up they walked, out of the dungeons of the Hewn City, out of the wretched place itself, until they stood amongst the moonstone pillars of the beautiful palace above it. Rhys aimed for the room with the Mask. He opened the door and went stiff.
Nesta sat at the table, staring at the cloth-covered Mask.
“How did you get in here?” Rhys asked, night swirling at his fingertips. Cassian knew his brother had made the wards on the door impenetrable. Or they should have been.
“The door was open,” Nesta said numbly, and scanned their faces as if looking for someone. Cassian stepped into the room, and her eyes settled on him.
He offered her a grim smile.
“The Mask opened the door for you?” Amren demanded.
“I found myself beckoned here,” Nesta said, even as she looked Cassian over.
Checking for injuries, he realized. She was looking to see if he was harmed. As if he were the one with a brutalized mouth, neck marked by claws, calves and shins lacerated. Her wounds had stopped bleeding, already scabbing, but—Cauldron damn him, he couldn’t stand the sight of one bruise on her.
“Does it speak to you?” Feyre asked, angling her head.
Cassian had told them everything—as far as he’d been able to gather. Nesta had been attacked by a kelpie, dragged under the water, and had somehow found the Mask. Summoned the dead of Oorid to her to slay the kelpie. And emerged triumphant.
“Only a desperate fool would don that Mask,” Amren said, keeping well away from the table. Whether it was to put distance between herself and Nesta or to avoid the Mask, he had no idea. “You’re lucky to have been able to pry it from your face. Most of those who have worn it could never remove it. In order to sever it, they had to be beheaded. It’s the cost of the power: you can raise an army of the dead to conquer the world, but you can never be free of the Mask.”
“I wished it to let go, and it did,” Nesta said, surveying Amren with cool disdain.
“Like calls to like,” Rhys said. “Others could not free themselves because the Mask did not recognize their power. The Mask rode them, not the other way around. Only one Made from the same dark source can wear the Mask and not be ruled by it.”
“So Queen Briallyn could use it,” Azriel said. “Perhaps that’s why the Autumn Court soldiers were in Oorid: she can’t yet risk setting foot here, but she found a unit to go in for her.”
The words rippled through the room.
Nesta again stared at the Mask. “It should be destroyed.”
“That’s not possible,” Amren said. “Perhaps if the Cauldron had been truly destroyed, the Mask might have been weakened enough for the High Lords and Feyre to join their power and do it.”
“If the Cauldron had been destroyed,” Feyre said with a shiver, “then life would have ceased to exist.”
“So the Mask remains,” Amren said wryly. “It can only be dealt with. Not eliminated.”
“We should dump it in the sea, then,” Nesta said.
“No taste for the living dead, girl?” Amren asked.
Nesta slid her eyes toward Amren in a way that had Cassian bracing for the worst. “No good can come of its power.”
“If we dump it in the sea,” Azriel said, “some wicked creature might find it. It’s safer to keep it locked up with us.”
“Even if it can open doors and undo spells?” Rhys asked.
“Like calls to like,” Feyre said into the puzzled quiet. “Perhaps Nesta could ward it and lock the room. Contain it.”
“I don’t know how to do those spells,” Nesta said. “I failed at the most basic of them while training with Amren, remember?”
Feyre’s head tilted to one side. “Is that what you think, Nesta? That you failed?”
Nesta straightened, and Cassian’s chest tightened at the wall that rose in her eyes, brick by brick. At the truth Nesta had let slip with that one word. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, her old self rearing its head as her chin lifted. “Tell me how to do the spells, and I’ll try.” She directed the last part to Amren, to Rhys.