Page 29 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

She knew how to disappear, how to make herself smaller. How to be decorative when needed.

Lachlan did not even glance at the moaning, writhing bodies. “Solstice night,” he said, as if that explained anything at all.

She was beginning to think solstice night was altogether cursed. It should at least come with some sort of a warning. Certainly no one had ever mentioned anything like this. She might have known to keep her gaze on her feet.

Even if she was a tiny bit curious.

One more glance wouldn’t hurt.

Goodness.

She knew for a fact that she could not bend that way.

“That is not how we celebrate in Hallow,” she said. Her cheeks were burning. A knot of tension tightened in her core and then melted. She cleared her throat—then immediately wished she had not. What was one supposed to do with one’s face when strolling nonchalantly by a Fae orgy? No etiquette book she had ever read had prepared her for this. At least not outside of Beltane night.

“On sacred nights, we feed the magic,” Lachlan replied. “And the magic feeds us. Same as wishes.”

“Oh.” She could not look at him. Flatly refused to.

Fighting for her life as a Tithe was one thing. This was something else altogether. And what if he attributed her flushing to…flirting? When in actuality her magic was currently scouring her insides with fire.

And she did not know how to flirt, certainly not with someone like him.

Not to mention the fact that he had abducted her. Mustn’t forget that.

She scowled. She still was not sure why he was with her. Why she was with him. What he had to do with her wish.

He raised an eyebrow. She still refused to look at him, but she somehow heard it in his voice. “Care to linger?” he asked.

She straightened. “I understood I could go home for one more night.”

“Most choose to stay, unless they have family affairs to settle.” His tone was perfectly mild, unreadable. “Do you have affairs, then, Pippa Cavendish?”

“No,” she whispered.

He nodded once.

And then the world tilted, and when she opened her eyes again, she was standing in Hallow, snow falling thickly, the familiar towers all around her. The cold air was dusted with snowflakes, bright with the light of burning candles meant to welcome back the sun. The silence of the cold, cobbled street was punctuated with snippets of carols being sung from some upper window. She smelled smoke and pine and sugar. And amber and ice. Lachlan. Fae magic.

She slipped her iron bracelet back onto her scarred wrist.

“I will see you to your room,” Lachlan said. If Elphame brought out the Fae magic in him, then Hallow knelt to the professor, all serious brow and academic power. They were both hard to ignore.

Together? Devastating.

“It’s not necessary,” Pippa said.

“Nevertheless.”

She planted her feet even though the fever was creeping upon her, ready to pounce. Her fire pushed at the boundaries of her bracelet’s binding spell. “No.”

Lachlan arched a brow, every inch the Fae king.

“It’s not proper,” Pippa insisted mutinously. “If I survive this mess, I still have to live here.” Only she didn’t, did she? She could go anywhere now.

But there was nowhere to go. Nowhere else she wanted to go.

Lachlan nodded curtly. “I’m sending my owl.”