Previously: Feyre pissed Tamlin off so she could convince Lucien to make nice with Tamlin on her behalf.

tw: censored ableist slurs
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Feyre doesn't panic when she sees her totally-for-real-definitely-her-father. She just grabs her stolen knife and layers on extra clothes and thinks about how her "cr*ppl*d, broken father" had come to save her.

This awful language is doubly terrible because we know that isn't really him, because we HAVE been paying attention for the last 10 chapters, during which we've been told 745 times that creepy things live around this estate. And so the implication is that it is noble for her disabled father to somehow find a way to do what he is physically incapable of doing, except he didn't, which is meant to make the reader feel worse about her father and his disability.

No one has noticed that Feyre's for-real-for-sure-totally-real father is standing outside, so she takes advantage and sneaks out by climbing out the window. (Good thing we randomly know that the window is unlocked!) Feyre briefly wonders, as she watches her father use his cane to walk back towards the gate, how he even got here. She figures that there are some horses nearby and that totally explains how her father got all the way here, to this place he had absolutely no idea how to find.

Feyre apparently also forgets all the reasons she can't leave. You know—the ones SJM has spent almost 100 pages trying to convince us of—and just thinks about how they'll run away with the horses her very real father almost certainly has hidden away somewhere. Just as soon as she gets to the gate, Tamlin appears to stop her from leaving. 

Tamlin is half wolfie, with claws and fangs out, so Feyre is terrified. She thinks he's going to kill her, so she starts pleading with him, saying something about her father. Tamlin realizes what's happening and tells her to look again. 

Feyre looks, and where her father was, there is only a bow and arrows. And then a pack of supplies. And then her sisters huddled together. Oh my shock, it was an illusion! Who could've seen that coming, especially after we spent the last chapter being reminded that creepy fae haunt the forest? 

“Weren’t you warned to keep your wits about you?” Tamlin snapped. “That your human senses would betray you?”

Listen, Tamlin can't snap at Feyre, only I can.

I'm not even hating on the fact that the magic tricked her, really, but that she had absolutely no second thoughts. Not a moment of hesitation. And she is new here, and the magic may be powerful, but have I mentioned how we've spent the last 100 pages hearing over and over again how bad the forest is around Tamlin's land? And isn't this supposed to be our MC, who is super good at survival? Yeah, okay. 

Jesus Christ, speaking of the never-ending cycle of these last 10 chapters:

Somehow, my mouth began working again. And of all the things to say, I blurted, “Can you blame me? My cr*ppl*d father appears beneath my window, and you think I’m not going to run for him? Did you actually think I’d gladly stay here forever, even if you’d taken care of my family, all for some Treaty that had nothing to do with me and allows your kind to slaughter humans as you see fit?”

He flexed his fingers as if trying to get the claws back in, but they remained out, ready to slice through flesh and bone. “What do you want, Feyre?”

“I want to go home!”

This is almost arriving at something. If SJM had stayed here, focused here, it would've made more sense. Tamlin questions her desire to return to a miserable existence, so there was an opportunity to reframe this as not being about her difficulties per se, but about comfort, place, belonging, and going back to the only home she's ever known. That's human and believable.

Instead, we get Feyre telling Tamlin about the promise she made as an 8-year-old, the youngest of her family, to apparently take care of her family for all time.

So, Tamlin has to repeat again again again that her family is better taken care of now than they were when she was there. 

Feyre thinks about her cottage and its chipping paint and how her family will probably forget about her entirely. She thinks about how her dream of just living with her dad, with some food to eat and some paint, was her dream alone and no one else's. Drink up, everyone!

And then Feyre calls herself a stupid human fool for thinking her father would come for her, so we get another shot!

I really loved that Feyre thinks the stupidity is that her father would come for her and not that she thought he could come for her. 

Tamlin tells Feyre she's not giving up on her family by staying here because they are cared for and comfortable while she does.

"Fed and comfortable. If he couldn’t lie, if it was true, then … then it was beyond anything I’d ever dared hope for. Then … my vow to my mother was fulfilled."

I legitimately feel like I might be going crazy, but... we've been over this already, right? Like he already told her they would be cared for and now we are just doing this again???? Except this time, instead of being like "it doesn't count if Tamlin is taking care of them," she's just like "wow! My vow is fulfilled." 

Why does she believe it this time and not the 100 other times we've been over this? WHO CAN SAY.

We just finally believe it, I guess, and now she's going to drop it completely.

Feyre asks Tamlin where his sentries or border patrol are. Tamlin is like, "The border patrol is...... at the border....." It's moments like these that I bet Tamlin is really happy about his decision to kidnap this particular human.

Tamlin says they don't need sentries on the premises when he's around. Like, okay, Mr. Wolf, I'm so happy to see that your superpower is apparently being everywhere at once, which means your castle, surrounded by bad things, needs no security. 

She asks if he was trained as a warrior. This conversation feels so awkward one hot second after Feyre almost skipped into the arms of a fae waiting to eat her, but whatever. We must learn that Tamlin did train as a warrior, and he wasn't the one who was supposed to inherit this land. 

Sensing that this is a bit of a touchy subject, Feyre asks what that thing that almost ate her was. It's something called a puca. Tamlin explains that the nasty fae used to be kept at bay, but because of the sickness infecting Prythian, the nasties are out and about, making it especially unsafe for humans. 

Feyre asks what else is different now, and Tamlin says everything. 

We skip over the next three days. Feyre is feeling empty now that she doesn't have to take care of her family. During this time, she goes on patrol with Lucien while Tamlin is often out hunting the Cold Thing.

Despite being an occasional bastard, Lucien didn’t seem to mind my company, and he did most of the talking, which was fine; it left me to brood over the consequences of firing a single arrow.

An arrow. I never fired a single one during those three days we rode along the border. That very morning I’d spied a red doe in a glen and aimed out of instinct, my arrow poised to fly right into her eye as Lucien sneered that she was not a faerie, at least. But I’d stared at her—fat and healthy and content—and then slackened the bow, replaced the arrow in my quiver, and let the doe wander on.

I just don't know why we need to know any of this. We already covered this the first time Feyre went on patrol with Lucien. She doesn't want to hunt, got it. But no! It is necessary for SJM to tell us everything multiple times, and in language so repetitive, I actually wonder if she's trying to put us under spells.

On that third day after Feyre almost got eaten, Tamlin doesn't even have breakfast with them; he just stalks away from the table. Feyre can tell that Lucien is worried about Tamlin. Lucien says Tamlin gets into moods. Then, Lucien tries to give Tamlin some depth by telling us about how hard it is to have responsibility over powerful and long-lived fae. It means Tamlin has to be brutal. It works on Feyre, who is bothered when she thinks about his lonely position. It doesn't work on me. 

We time jump again, and this time into a nightmare Feyre is having about shooting Andras, this time seeing him shift back into his man form as she murdered him.

Feyre "throws herself awake" and tries to recover from the nightmare, finally admitting to herself that maybe she does feel bad for murdering someone. 

That was 8 Kindle pages and 45 em dashes. 

Let us all pray this is the last time we have to hear about the treaty and Tamlin taking care of Feyre's family. Amen. 

Next time: Does anyone know what a map is? in Chapter 12

♥️

Mari