Later that night, Feyre wakes up from a nightmare to the sounds of panicked screaming downstairs. She goes out to investigate and finds Tamlin bringing a screaming, crying, injured fairy in for medical attention.

“My wings,” the faerie choked out, his glossy black eyes wide and staring at nothing. “She took my wings.”

Again, that nameless she who haunted their lives.

Or…and hear me out, now. I know this might be a stretch. But, OR it could be that…there’s more than one female-identifying entity in the world?

I know, I know, a bit absurd. The thought of there being more than one woman in all of fairydom who might be doing something other than playing servant. Of course if two people in two totally different situations with no context or explanation both mention “she” then it must be about the same person. I mean, that’s totally how pronouns work, right?

Feyre comes into the room and helps to hold the fairy down while Tamlin deals with the gaping missing-wing-wounds.

His skin was velvet-smooth and slippery, a texture I would never be able to paint, not even if I had eternity to master it.

…why not? Also, I’m getting pretty sick of things being described like this. Like, calm your tits, book. I know you want Prythia to be all magical and special, but constantly harshing on everything else in the world (especially a hobby which can be wonderfully detailed and talented and expressive like painting) is not the way to do it.

Also, I get that Feyre probably has some esteem issues, but JFC can she paint anything? Is it really necessary to devalue her skill every single time the matter is brought up?

They quickly realize the fairy is too injured to be saved, but they stay with him while he dies in which is, honestly, a very touching scene. Brownie points to the book.

And then we get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Tamlin tries to make Feyre go back to bed, but she wants to help bury the fairy. Tamlin wants to know why she cares so much, since she hated all fairies when she showed up.

“I regret what I did to Andras,” I said, the words so strangled they were no more than a whisper. “I regret that there was … such hate in my heart. I wish I could undo it—and … I’m sorry. So very sorry.”

Look, I get that she’s got a different perspective on fairies and fae now, but come on. She didn’t kill Andras (wolf dude) out of malice, she did it because he was a big scary wolf and also she needed to eat. She didn’t have hatred in her heart, she had fear. Fear which (at least until the book decided RETCON JUST ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING) had a basis in reality. Still has a basis in reality; let’s face it the fairies are still trying to murder her every few chapters.

Feyre was not malicious. Feyre was not hunting fairies. Feyre was not rabblerousing the village about how they need to storm the wall and kill ‘em all. Feyre wasn’t even the quieter sort of hater who just passively hoped all the fairies would die, or hope she’d run across one so she could have a good excuse to kill one of them. Feyre wanted nothing to do with fairies, then killed a giant wolf on the basis of being a big scary thing in front of her with sharp teeth.

But hey, it was a whole 14 chapters ago. Practically a different book, right?

If anything, this comes off as some manipulative shit, where the fae have managed to convince her that she’s constantly in the wrong. I mean, they’ve totally upended her understanding of fairies and Prythia then judge her based on this new information that she didn’t have before, all while spending exactly zero seconds considering her context. And she’s buying into it, at her own expense. This is some pretty devastating shit right here, but I don’t think the book realizes that. I think all the book cares about is “wheeee fairies and shit, fun! Angst! Drama! Humans are stinky!”

The next morning:

I’d been set on finding Tamlin and explaining—truly explaining—how sorry I was about Andras. If I was supposed to stay here, stay with him, then I could at least attempt to repair what I’d ruined.

And, great, we get to stick with the whole “girl who killed what she thought was a monsters now has to devalue herself to beg for forgiveness” line.

Lucien and Tamlin come out “discussing some border patrol or another.” Does literally anything else go on in this world? Tamlin isn’t in charge of shit; he’s just a fluffed up security guard.

Tamlin and Feyre go for a ride, because shippy.

and knew that even if I had been able to paint it, nothing would have done it justice

Oh my fucking god, shut up already, shut up shut up shut up. I’m starting to really super hate this line so much just fuck.

and I do mean

shut up

because

have you even seen?

what painting can do?

Like, I’m sorry if your experience with art is so dull that you think the only thing you can say about it is all the things that can’t be painted, but fuck, go deal with that somewhere else, some of us actually like paintings.

(Any rant that requires me to google awesome art and pick my favorites is a good rant.)

Oh, and I guess Lucien is there for their picnic, too. They banter a bit and then Tamlin and Feyre go off alone, so he can show her a pool of literal starlight.

“That’s impossible,” I said, fighting the urge to take a step toward the water.

“This is Prythian. According to your legends, nothing is impossible.”

Okay, but, humans used to live there until 100 years ago, remember? You don’t remember, but I’m going to keep pointing it out anyway because IT’S KIND OF AN IMPORTANT FACT. Or it should be.

“How?” […]

“I don’t know—I never asked, and no one ever explained.”

Riveting, really.

We get a bit of history on Lucien that includes a murdered female lover thrown in just for angst factor. Excuse me while I go back to googling watercolors.

Mm, yes, much better.

Anyway, Lucien was the son of the High Lord of Autmn, but he didn’t care about machinations or inheriting so after the fridging incident he ran away to Tamlin and Tamlin more or less adopted him.

They go swimming because reasons and also naked Tamlin. *shrug* I guess that’s as good a reason as any other. There’s also some talk about Fey re’s backstory, in which she says that her father inherited a lot of bad debts along with the trappings of wealth, and that finally catching up to them is what sent them out to a hovel in the woods. Also Feyre was 11 at that point; she really should have known how to write.

Also, what’s the point of this pool being made of starlight? They’re…swimming. Just hanging out and chatting and swimming. It could be the world’s most boring hot tub and this scene would play out the same.

After it all they go home and Feyre and Lucien have a moment where he says “sorry” for not coming to save her from the Suriel and also for giving her not-the-best-advice about how to catch the Suriel. (Wait, what…did he say wrong? Alis hinted that snares and chickens aren’t the easiest way to catch one, but she very clearly did catch one with that method so…???) He gives her a knife so I guess they’re friends now or something.