“For them to find you?” I smile.
My supervisor pulls up her sleeves to reveal her tattooed forearms.
“No, for another century of work to pay off,” she says. “I just keep telling myself it’ll be worth it. To eliminate their debt before it can ever touch their skin.”
“Whose debt?”
“Any child of mine.”
We near the threshold, and the plane of magic washes over us, undulating in hundreds of directions with High Fae geniuses pulsing and wrestling for control. My stomach twists. Faeries peel off from the group, staggering back outside. Some grab their heads; others drop to their knees and heave. Briar and I grip each other and enter.
The throne room shimmers with a kaleidoscopic cacophony of High Fae, lanky and large, sage-skinned and magenta or coiled-haired, dressed in gowns and tunics of silk, gossamer, and satin. Some tug white fur around their shoulders. Though the fashion styles are wide-ranging from all over Amyria, the one thing the High Fae have in common is their skin remaining untouched by debt. How much wealth and power amalgamates in this room alone? Yet faeries must deny ourselves children to provide for our families.
Two colonnades run along the space lengthwise, propping up a soaring ceiling, painted with a pastoral scene. Craning my neck, I take in the mural of an enormous tree on the far side of the room, its branches spreading out like thousands of arms, its leaves brilliant gold. The thick trunk descends to a raised dais, where hundreds of roots are woven together, forming an immense but simple seat. The throne.
Floating in the air above the crowd is a sea of candles and crystals refracting the light. Briar and I lean against a shadowed column in the back of the room, my skin still hot with nausea, and she rubs her temple to help her genius adjust.
“You’ll get used to it,” a faerie says nearby, his gaze trained on the floating candles and crystals. “Been here for a few hours. They know how to taper their geniuses. They just don’t want to.”
“As with anything else,” I mumble.
“We should get to our spot,” Briar says. As I kick off the column to join her, the other faerie doesn’t follow.
“Where are you stationed?” I ask him.
“Right here.” The faerie keeps his head tilted back against the column, attention above. “About three thousand candles light the space. Only about thirty of us control them.”
Briar gapes as I search the space and spot faeries and halflings tucked in shadows and alcoves, some sweating, others swaying. The faerie before us looks haggard, sweat pouring down his temples.
“Aren’t they enchanted?” my supervisor asks. “How else do they float?”
“It’s the prestige of a crafted flame. Burn too quickly, and it’ll rain wax. Burn too low and it’ll be too dark.”
I marvel at the concentration and aptitude, like the control of a dancer on the most minuscule level. “Do you need water?” I ask.
“No.”
“Do you want to be by the open windows? Get some fresh air?” Briar wonders.
His brown eyes slide to us. “In Remiti, we do not make windows so large, and the High Fae especially do not purchase this much glass.”
“Isn’t it quite hot there?” I reply. “Why not?”
He squints. “Windows can be shattered.”
A candle smacks the floor by our feet, hot wax splattering against the tile, startling me.
The faerie stares at the candles once more. “I must focus.”
Another comes to clean up the mess as Briar tugs me away. We run along the right-side wall, long tapestries draped between the expansive windows, depicting scenes of the Three Planes.
The first tapestry depicts the High Fae with their pale, translucent wings—their truest, most original form—in the celestial plane. The next tapestry shows the earthly plane full of fire and overgrown plants and naked, beastly humans who crawl through mud. The last tapestry centers one descending High Fae, Lucan the Wanderer, wingless but carrying an orb of celestial energy to plant and grow into Lucan’s Tree, which spawned the plane of magic.
Briar and I join the servants in the shadows, carrying trays of water and food and sparkling wine, or cloths to mop up mess. I pick up crumpled napkins, discarded feathers and fans from the growing number of High Fae who traipse around the room. Snatches of tongues and tones I’ve never heard before brush over my ears, and my eyes take in styles of shoes I never could’ve imagined—tall heels that could take out an eye, loafers that curl upward at the tip. Sometimes I forget how isolated the faeries of the palace of Versara are, even if we live in the heart of our country.
“The columns are square. So austere!” one fae hisses.
“You know the old saying, yes?” another answers. “There are no curves in Versara but for its females.”
