Velaris · The Inner Circle's home
House of Wind
Ten thousand steps up: the family's home, and a house with a mind of its own.
The house at the top of the world.
Red stone carved into the peak above Velaris, ten thousand steps between it and the ground — unless you were born with wings, in which case, show-off. It's where the Inner Circle actually live: kitchens and training rings and a bedroom for everyone who matters. And then it spirals downward, into a library so deep nobody's mapped the bottom, which is the part we can never quite stop thinking about.
Who Lives Here
Home to the Inner Circle.
The ones who climb the steps home.
Silver Flames
The house that was kind first.
They sent her up here to fix her. The house is the only one that didn't treat it like a sentence.
She arrived at the end of everyone's patience — including her own. This was the family drawing a line: dry out, train, get better, or else. Exile with a nicer view. Nobody climbed those steps expecting her to make it worth the trouble, and she knew it.
And the house — which thinks, which decides — quietly disagreed. It warmed her rooms before she came in cold. It left romance novels where she'd find them, the good kind, no note. Tea appeared. A meal she hadn't asked for, still hot. It looked after her in a hundred small ways while she was still convinced she deserved none of it.
So she climbed. The ten thousand steps, until the day they stopped costing her everything. She found the library folding down into the dark and found Gwyn there, and Emerie, and between the three of them woke the Valkyries back up. The place she'd been dumped to become someone survivable turned out to be the place she came back to life. The house saw it before she did.
Everything under the house.
Below the living floors the library spirals down past the light, level after level, into a dark that keeps its own counsel. The priestesses who tend it came here the way so many did — to hide, to heal, to be somewhere terrible couldn't reach them — which is the whole House in one line: it was built to be a fortress, and it decided to be a refuge.
Enter Velaris →
We're Caffeine and Curses. The Library started as my design research — I can't put the House of Wind on a shirt without knowing there are ten thousand steps up to it — so we keep the notes here where everyone can use them. The pages are fan-made, not official; the licensed designs are in the shop.
Officially licensed
Join the Night Court.
Admit one obsessive reader.
You're on the list — welcome to the Library. ✦
For library updates and new releases.
The House, answered.
Everything we'd want to know before we moved in.
What is the House of Wind in ACOTAR?
A red-stone fortress carved into the mountain above Velaris — the Inner Circle's home in the Night Court. It's sentient, which becomes very relevant, and a library spirals down into the dark beneath it.
How many steps are there to the House of Wind?
Ten thousand, if you're walking. Cassian counts them; Nesta climbs them; the winged ones just fly and don't mention it.
Who lives in the House of Wind?
The Inner Circle — Cassian, Azriel and Nesta keep rooms there, and it's Rhys's house too. Priestesses tend the library beneath, Gwyn among them.
What is the library beneath the House of Wind?
A vast one that spirals down into the dark, staffed by priestesses and kept as a refuge for women who've survived terrible things. It's where Nesta finds Gwyn and Emerie — and where the Valkyries begin.
Some houses you live in. This one looks after you.
These pages are fan-made. For officially licensed merch, see our shop.
FAN · MADEDESIGNED · AUSTRALIASHIPPED · WORLDWIDE
A Court of Thorns and Roses, ©2015-2021, Sarah J. Maas. Artwork © Caffeine and Curses.