Chapter 23

Feyre and Tamlin spend a leisurely afternoon in an enchanted glen where Tamlin offers to expand her senses to perceive the Fae world through magic. After kissing her eyelids, Feyre gains the ability to see glamours and perceive magic itself, witnessing Tamlin's true radiant form as a High Lord before he returns to his masked appearance. The chapter ends with Feyre falling asleep beside him.

Feyre and Tamlin are alone in a beautiful grassy glen with a weeping willow and clear brook. As they lounge together, Tamlin mentions that the willow sings, but Feyre cannot perceive it due to her human senses being sealed off from the Fae world. He offers to grant her the ability to see and experience his world, proposing a kiss as payment. Despite initial resistance, Feyre agrees. Tamlin kisses her eyelids, and her senses expand dramatically—she can now hear birdsong as a complex symphony and detect magic as a scent like jasmine and roses. She perceives Tamlin without his glamour: a devastatingly beautiful High Lord with golden skin, a circlet of sunshine around his head, and eyes containing every hue imaginable. When Feyre attempts to remove his mask, she discovers it cannot be lifted; Tamlin explains he uses glamour to appear normal and that the mask cannot be removed. Feyre asks if anyone in another court knows how to fix the magic that cursed the mask, but Tamlin dismisses the question. After some flirtation about his appearance, Feyre becomes drowsy and falls asleep beside him in the glen as Tamlin strokes her hair and murmurs that she is exactly as he dreamed.