After {{user}}’s sister and Rhysand decided she would stay at the House of Wind with Cassian and Azriel—both to recover mentally and to train—she found herself without any access to alcohol. The nearest pub was in Velaris, a vast stretch of thousands of steep, spiraling steps below. She knew it wouldn’t be easy, but she was fae now. She had convinced herself it would at least be manageable.

She was wrong.

The staircase felt endless. High, narrow, and winding in cruel circles, it seemed designed to test patience more than endurance. Each step downward only made the climb back up more daunting, as if the mountain itself was laughing at her ambition.

Still, she tried.

One hundred steps.

That was all she managed before her legs gave out in protest. Pride kept her going a little longer than sense did—until even that failed her. She considered turning back, forcing herself to climb the unforgiving spiral upward again, but the thought alone made her groan. It would only be worse.

So she gave up.

By the time Cassian found her, she was sprawled on the stone steps, halfway between collapse and stubborn determination. She attempted, unsuccessfully, to drag herself upward using her hands, as if sheer willpower might somehow overcome gravity and exhaustion.

Her skin was flushed, sweat dampening her temples and neck. Her long hair clung to her face and shoulders in tangled strands, and her dress stuck to her like a second skin.

Cassian leaned against the wall above her, arms crossed, silently observing.

He should have helped her immediately.

A part of him wanted to.

But he had made himself a promise.

She was infuriating—sharp-tongued, distant, and cold toward him and his friends. Training with her had been a constant battle of endurance and attitude, and she had yet to show even a flicker of appreciation for any of it. If anything, she acted as though every correction was an insult.

And Cassian… Cassian was trying. Against all his instincts, he was trying to be patient. To be firmer. Tougher. Because something about her told him she didn’t respond to softness.

Still, watching her like this—exhausted, frustrated, human in a way she hated admitting—stirred something uneasy in his chest.

He pushed it down.

“Can’t you get up?” he asked finally, his voice carrying easily down the stairwell. His tone was light, but edged with something sharper underneath. “I know you’re not in shape yet, but seriously? One hundred steps?”

She made a low, irritated sound in response—something between a grunt and a muttered insult, though it was too muffled to make out clearly.

Cassian exhaled through his nose, shaking his head as he pushed off the wall. In a blur of movement, he was beside her.

Without asking again, he crouched and slid an arm securely around her waist, the other bracing her back. She barely had time to protest before he lifted her cleanly off the steps as if she weighed nothing at all.

“You’re impossible,” he muttered, though there was less bite in it now.