Shoreless Sea snippet

Instead, she met her sister’s gaze and saw a stranger. Faelit blue eyes shot through in temper, in magic, silver flame and dancing light, more dawn that drawing fire. Opalescent. Sunrise on serene water, like she’d stolen some more magic to match that pearl smeared all over her body.   Of course she had.   “You,” Feyre swallowed, thick. “You’re been in Summer this whole time. I tried to go there, I tried”-   A gentle frown reshaped Tarquin’s handsome face. “Borders are not flexible. Not after what you took from us.”   The first humiliating, furious tear, ran down Feyre’s nose. “To find Amren. To get back my family.”   Silent, they did not need to speak to carry out the charade, Tarquin twisted and Nesta pulled her leg free. Stood in a slide of soft silk layers, fingertips dancing across Tarquin’s back as he leaned forward and away.   Hand held out between them as she moved, Nesta offered a handkerchief, soft grey fabric forming between seconds.   Feyre fought the urge to take it. To throw it back in her face.   The minute went on and one, before Nesta dropped her hand. Squared those familiar, stubborn shoulders, and went stone still.   Feyre swallowed. “What do you want? For access to the Library?”   “What do I want?” Her voice was a whip crack.   A fresh wash of tears tumbled free. “You’re my sister,” Feyre said, choking on the word, “We need the library. We need- people are dying.”   Nesta did not even blink. It was like the words could not even reach her. “The Library is open to all who do not break its rules.”   She couldn’t-   “Do you want to come home?” Feyre offered, frantic. “Money. Jewels. To be Emissary. Anything, just”-   Very slowly, Tarquin rose to his full height. No true menace in the motion, but something worse. Concern, unhidden, bleeding free, the whole of his attention on Nesta’s bone white, stone cold face. He didn’t try to protect her from Feyre’s anger, painting the air with sparks, rug ruined. Did not even bother to try and end the fight; all Tarquin did was reach for Nesta’s hand, cupped in both of his.   “You would like to be High Lady,” he said, without looking up, Nesta’s unmoving hand a dead thing between the gold adored darkness of his grip, “You only have one job. Take care of your people.”   A thousand miles away, Nesta whispered, “Are they dying? Or are they paying?”   Keir, nothing left of his body but a handful of carved bones. Morrigan’s brothers, cousins, eaten whole. It was only low fae who lived, servants and prisoners fleeing, freed. A wraith who’d spit in Feyre’s face, when she’d promised they’d find her a home.   No High Fae could live through that night.