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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How are you feeling about ending these characters' stories?

SARAH J. MAAS:It’s a bittersweet feeling, actually!

A Court of Wings and Ruin[1]

Credit: Bloomsbury USA Childrens

I’ll definitely miss them, but who knows?

Maybe they’ll make an appearance in the upcoming installments (if they surviveACOWAR.).

But I’m really, really excited to explore more of this world and the characters in it!

Is it weird if I say there’s nothing I won’t miss?

I love these characters so much, and loved writing Feyre’s voice.

Oooh, this is a tough one to explain without spoiling anything!

Excerpt fromA Court of Wings and Ruinby Sarah J. Maas

Chapter 1

The painting was a lie.

A bright, pretty lie, bursting with pale pink blooms and fat beams of sunshine.

Incessant, unrelenting spring.

Not too happy, but gladly, finally healing from horrors I carefully divulged.

I would have left the gilded halls stained red.

Not yet, I told myself with every brushstroke, with every move I’d made these weeks.

Swift revenge helped no one and nothing but my own, roiling rage.

The paintbrush snapped between my fingers.

I’d cleaved it in two, the pale handle damaged beyond repair.

Cursing under my breath, I glanced to the windows, the doors.

This place was too full of watching eyes to risk throwing it in the rubbish bin.

I held my hands before me, one half of the brush in each palm.

The markings of my true heart.

High Lady of the Night Court.

Half a thought had the broken paintbrush going up in flames.

The fire did not burn me, even as it devoured wood and brush and paint.

Perhaps when my task here was done, I’d burn this manor to the ground, too.

Starting with those roses.