Feyre arms herself with what weapons she can find in the manor, and they head out to do whatever it is a squishy human can do against all-powerful evil magic queens.

Which, in these stories, is somehow always ‘a lot.’

Stay with the High Lord, the Suriel had said. Stay with him, fall in love with him, and all would be righted. If I had stayed, if I had admitted what I’d felt … None of this would have happened.

Yeah, well, if literally anyone at all had told you even a fraction of truthiness this wouldn’t have happened, either. But I’m guessing you’re not going to think about that, just continue to blame yourself.

“There was one part of the curse. One part we can’t tell you. Even now, my bones are crying out just for mentioning it. One part you have to figure out … on your own

Implying that the rest of it they could tell…and just didn’t. Because reasons.

Alis takes her to a cave/shortcut/entrance to Under the Mountain and they part ways there.

Hissing and braying, eloquent and guttural—a cacophony bursting the silence like a firecracker. […]I found the source: a slight fissure in the rock.

[…]

The passage was deathly quiet

???

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

I mean, really? Those descriptions are right next to each other, with nary hint about why the noise stopped or even that the noise stopped. First it was noisy, then it was silent, and she didn’t even note or narrate the change?

This is one of those passages that makes me reread the words several times over, because I keep thinking surely such an obvious mistake didn’t get into the book. Surely I must have missed something. It’s just…how?

Well, Feyre sneaks into the silent/noisy passage, slinking along with no real plan, and gets discovered by the Attor, some monster from earlier in the book who had no purpose at all and yet was supposed to somehow be super scary.

The Attor drags her into the throne room.

had I been able to speak without screaming, I might have asked why it hadn’t killed me outright.

So…this thing showed up once before to (while invisible) chat with Tamlin and Lucien, and thus far all he’s done is say hello, possess bat wings, and not kill her. I’m just really not getting a very dangerous vibe from this thing, so Feyre not being able to do anything but scream isn’t ringing very true. Sure, it’s a world with magic, he could just exude fear. I’d actually be cool with that; a relatively innocuous looking creature who just makes everyone around him frantic with fear because magic. But in that case, the narration really has to sell it, and Feyre’s narration is far too calm. For that matter, her actions are pretty calm, too, near as we can tell. She’s mostly describing the scene as she goes into the throne room. If it weren’t for that one line, this wouldn’t come off as any different from any other point in the book, which is why that one line stands out so badly.

First person narrators are hard, and I think a lot of books don’t really get that in order to convey emotion in first person, you have to give up some of your powers as a narrator. Emotion colors how you see a scene, how you reaction to it, how you process it. That’s why it’s powerful in the first place. If emotion didn’t change how you interacted with the world around you, then it wouldn’t be a big deal, it would be an afterthought. So the emotions of a first person narrator have to change how they view the world and how they report that view to us. Otherwise, they’re not really being affected, are they? And I know it’s hard to sacrifice the impartiality of narration and descriptions and linear storytelling for that, but it’s how this shit works. If you can’t handle narration that’s colored by fear, then write in third person. Because telling a story emotionally from one person’s view is the whole point of writing in first person to begin with. Trying to mix the two is trying to have it both ways, and it doesn’t work, because then you just get cold, unfeeling narrator-puppets. Each style has things it gives up (clear descriptions for one, emotional punch for the other) so decide which one is more important to you and then stick with it. (I mean, you don’t really have to completely give up descriptions or emotion, it’s just that whichever you don’t pick is going to be secondary to whichever you do pick. It sucks, but that’s why writing is hard.)

We get a page long description of Amarantha: she’s pretty, but not too pretty, because unfortunately she knows her own power and of course that always sucks some of the pretty right out of a woman, doesn’t it?

Feyre announces that she’s come to claim Tamlin because she loves him, and there’s some banter and blathering back and forth about the romance plot so far. Tamlin claims he doesn’t know her, I guess to…save her? Although I’m not sure why he thought that would help at this point. Even if she’s some stranger, she’s still dead by now.

Anyway, Amarantha says she’s bored and wants some fun so she’ll give Feyre three tasks and if she finishes all three OR solves some riddle, she’ll break Tamlin’s curse and let them all go.

Does the all-powerful queen of all she sees and magical enchantress really need this to entertain her? I mean, kill the wench and make someone sturdier go through an obstacle course if that’s what you really want. Put on a god damn fairy circus; I bet that would be hella more interesting.

I get that she’s trying to prove a point about humans not being capable of love because blah blah tragic backstory with backstabbing humans but…god damn this is clichéd and trite. I mean, just really the least interesting way to go about this.

You know what would be better? A not all-powerful queen-despot. If Feyre got there right at the end of the curse, where it was arguable whether she beat the deadline or not. If Amarantha wasn’t ruling everything with an iron fist, and she had to bend a little to keep her subjects in line, walking the line between looking all-powerful and appeasing her power base. If giving Feyre a second chance was a matter of appealing to legitimacy because the terms of the curse were questionable. And if the banter had been written with more double-talk and tension, rather than just “lalala, I can do anything I want, I’ll set things up for you to beat me because…IDK, reasons I guess.”

High stakes always make things more interesting, so a villain with nothing to lose who throws it all away anyway is just…dull. Amarantha has nothing at stake until she gives it all away. That’s not drama, that just foolish.

So. Feyre has to do one task a month, and in between she has to serve as a maid to ‘earn her keep.’ Feyre agrees to the terms, then promptly gets beaten up, and I’m sure we’ll find out why next chapter.