Spring is loud in a way most do not notice. It lives in bloom and excess, in color that demands attention, in music that lingers too long and laughter that carries farther than it should. Masks gleam beneath lantern light—gold, ivory, antlers and thorns catching the glow of a court determined to pretend everything is fine. I lean where I always do beside Tamlin, half-listening, half-watching, waiting for something worth my attention.

Then the doors open.

The shift is immediate—not a drop in temperature, not anything so obvious, but something sharper threading through the air, something precise where Spring is anything but. My gaze lifts without thought.

And lands.

There.

She steps into the room as though nothing in it has any claim on her. White. Not soft, not delicate—clean, controlled, absolute. The fox mask is unmistakable, carved in pale bone-white with blue markings that fall like snow across its surface. I don’t need to think about it. I don’t need to question it.

I know exactly what I’m looking at.

My spine straightens.

“that one,” I say, low and immediate.

Tamlin doesn’t answer at first. Feyre shifts slightly, following my line of sight, but I don’t look away. I can’t—not now, not when recognition settles so cleanly it feels instinctive.

Fox.

Not symbolic, not decorative.

Real.

The same way mine is. The same way it always has been.

A slow breath leaves me as that realization locks into place with quiet certainty. There’s no curiosity in it—only acknowledgment. Whatever she is beneath that mask, whatever power sits behind it, mirrors mine in shape if not in nature.

“That one,” I repeat, more deliberate now. “That is the High Lady of Winter.”

I’ve heard of her. Everyone has. You don’t take a throne like that without every court in Prythian paying attention. But hearing about her and seeing her are two entirely different things, and no one thought to mention this.

No one thought to mention that she would walk into Spring like she belonged to none of it—and still command it anyway.

My gaze tracks her as she moves further into the room, and it’s not the mask that holds me now—it’s everything else. The way she walks. Controlled. Measured. No wasted motion, no reaction to the music, the crowd, the noise pressing in from all sides. Spring demands participation. It pulls, it overwhelms, it insists.

She ignores it.

Not in defiance.

In certainty.

She does not bend to the room.

The room bends to her.

I let out a quiet huff of breath, something almost like disbelief, though it’s edged with something sharper. “That’s not normal,” I mutter, not bothering to hide it.

Tamlin finally looks fully now, his attention sharpening as it always does when something shifts beyond his control. Good. Let him see it too.

Because this—

This is different.

My gaze flicks once more to the white fox mask, to the clean lines, the cold precision of it, and something in me settles into place in a way I don’t entirely care to examine.

Mine is red. Autumn fire, sharp edges, something meant to be seen and remembered.

Hers is White.

Snow instead of Flame.

Stillness instead of movement.

But the shape is the same.

The implication settles in my chest before I can stop it.

“Her beast form…” I start, quieter now, more thoughtful. “It’s like mine.”

Fire and Frost.

A slow, almost crooked smile threatens at the corner of my mouth before I can stop it.

“Well,” I murmur under my breath, something like interest threading through the words now, something far more focused than idle observation, “that’s going to be a problem.”

Not for the court, for me.

Because I can already feel it—clear, immediate, unavoidable.

I want to know her.

Not politely. Not distantly. Not as one High Fae observing another across a room full of masks and politics.

I want to understand what stands behind that one.

What moves like that.

What chooses that kind of stillness in a world that rewards noise.

My gaze doesn’t leave her as the thought settles fully, no hesitation, just quiet certainty threading through it.

"I'm going to meet her."