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Khol mutters, “Can’t imagine what the untalented wretches are supposed to make of that statement.” His snark gets a stifled snort from Tier, and I see Dezi hold in a laugh. They lag behind, but I clock every echo of my cynicism in the way they scan the space.
The first studio is all white tile, every surface spotless, with benches laid out in perfect geometry. A boy with cheekbones sharp as box cutters and hair cropped so short you’d have to look for the color, sits at the main table. He’s levitating a hunk of marble over the table, spinning it slowly while using a slim black wand to shave off curls of stone. Each flick is measured, and the pile of marble dust building under the block is the only sign he’s done anything at all.
An instructor hovers nearby, arms crossed, and their face set in permanent disappointment. I know that look; my royal tutors wore it like a birthright. The kid steals a glance at his teacher after every pass to gauge how hard he’ll have to fight to make it through the session. He reminds me of the violin prodigies my father used to parade around at Daybreak galas—children who learned to bleed only when the sheet music demanded it.
My blood was often shed in song, and sometimes in fights, if Oliver was feeling vicious that night.
I feign interest, but what I’m really doing is watching Fiadh’s reflection over my shoulder. She’s standing three steps away, arms folded so tight the bat ring leaves a dent in her skin. The blue on her wrists is pulsing faintly, but not enough for people to really notice yet. I see Fidget pressed flat along her hairline and smile a bit. Our mate is holding it together, but we’re still holding our breath to see if she combusts.
I turn to look at the rest of the tour, including Amethyst. She’s trailing the pack with her ever-present clipboard, scribbling notes so aggressively the pen squeaks. Her lips are a hard white line, but I warned her about shit several times before I dressed her down. She has no one to blame but herself, yet I can tell she’s watching Fiadh as well. She’s calculating every twitch my mate makes, and I guarantee it’s not out of concern. She’s definitely out of a job at the end of this tour, but if I can hold out until the end, it will go much easier.
After they take pictures in the sculpting studio, we stroll past a studio where three girls, in matching ponytails, paint a mural directly onto the inside of the glass. The colors change as they work—red to green, green to blue—even cycling through shades that don’t exist in the human spectrum. One girl works with both hands and no brush, drawing the pigment from the tube by will alone. Her friends chatter in a dialect I don’t know, but they don’t sound happy. I get the feeling this mural will be erased and repainted a dozen times before anyone deems it finished.
Eira, sensing a lack of awe from our crew, dials up the bragging. “You see, Prince, Silvergate doesn’t just train heirs and ministers. Many of our graduates have become pioneers in their fields—art, music, even performance that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. We don’t confine our alumni to traditional roles.”
Her boast is directed at me, but her eyes are on Sassy when she delivers the line. There’s a stinger hidden in there—something about precedent and who gets to set it. I let it roll off, making a show of peering into the next room. As long as it’s not obvious, I refuse to engage with this snooty bullshit. Elitest Fae are rife with jealousy despite their privileges, and I don’t know if this chick is really trying to hurt Fi because of the heritage rumors or some ridiculous parasocial thing about me.
Either way, it’s not worth my time, and neither is she.
The mothers drift along the wall in a wedge, as if at any moment one might attempt to breach the glass and correct the students they see inside. The sharp-eyed one glances at Fiadh every few seconds, a tiny tic of her jaw making her dissatisfaction known. Another of the parents whispers to her neighbor, just loud enough for a Fae ear to catch, “I suppose even royals like to keep pets.”
Khol hisses just loud enough to be heard in response. “Some people prefer an exotic pet to a plastic doll soaked in Fae wine and the smell of failure, but there you are.”
For once, I’m glad for the basilisk’s tendency to shoot back at any and everyone, as our girl nearly chokes. I pat her back with a tiny quirk at the edge of my lips, coughing to keep from laughing at the strangled squeak that comes from the woman in question. I wait to see if the mayor or Eira is going to defend the idiot, but they both pretend they didn’t hear the scuffle. Probably wise, but also cowardly as fuck.
The tour keeps moving anyway, heading for the languages corridor, according to the headmistress. This section is so ancient it’s obviously been retrofitted a hundred times. Gargoyles the size of toddlers are perched above an arch and along the wall with carved idioms in High Fae below them. As students pass under the arches, the stone mouths animate, spitting out conjugations and vocabulary drills in various Fae dialects. I know a lot of them, but not all, and Sassy’s face turns white.
I think she just realized that unlike Briarvale and schools on the other side of The Veil, students are often taught a swath of languages before they graduate.
Eira raises her voice just enough to resonate: “Every Silvergate graduate is fluent in a minimum of three dialects, often more. Language is the keystone to understanding our world—and to leading it.”
“Teaching them to love their prisoners, one conjugation at a time?” Khol mutters, and Fiadh snickers as she elbows him. The basilisk has zero fucks to give about impressing anyone here, and I’m a little jealous of that freedom. He won’t start an inter-court incident by calling these jackasses out on their pretend ‘love one another’ shit, and I would.
The mayor seems to shrink a little at his scoff, but it doesn’t even faze Eira. She’s oblivious to anyone not rich enough to produce heirs who attend here, I suppose.
As we pass another classroom suite, a cluster of students in identical navy blazers loiters by the door, waiting for their next lesson. Again, everyone is model-perfect, hair glossy, and not a shirt untucked or hem loose. The accessories are a masterclass in subtle flexes—one girl’s watch has a face made of sapphire, a boy sports a ring with the Silvergate crest in actual platinum, and another wears a tie bar set with a stone I’m pretty sure is illegal to own outside royalty.
It’s always interesting to see the new money Fae flaunting laws that would get even middle-class citizens jailed.
Then I see a girl with the diamond-blade earring. She’s maybe sixteen, eyes like cold smoke, and she glances at Fiadh for exactly one second before looking away—wide-eyed, but not unkind. Just startled, as if she can’t believe someone so obviously not bred for this place is standing on the tour. The earring glints, a tiny dagger at her jaw, and next to her, a boy with a gold fox-head pin at his collar takes the group in. He squints at my hair, the pale vampire, the snow leopard, and our witch with the mostly hidden blue marks and a little bat. He blinks, and then he laughs at something the girl beside him whispers. It’s meant to be cruel, despite my heritage, and I almost gape at the absolute balls of steel it takes to shame a fucking prince.
Fiadh’s hand slips out of mine, finding Khol’s without a word as she stares back at the little shit. The basilisk doesn’t look down, but I see his thumb rub over her knuckles once. I’ve seen that move before, and I know he’s sharing her fury at not being able to give this kid a piece of their minds. But even our two most volatile family members know that attacking a teen would be terrible for everyone, and as much as the fucker deserves a lesson, we cannot teach it today.
I keep my face pleasant and my mouth shut, cataloguing every second, because I know this is the price you pay for touring the inside of the cage. That doesn’t mean I won’t have someone I trust do some digging later via Daybreak diplomacy, and when I figure out who these two are, I’ll make certain their lives take an unfortuitous turn. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s the one I can manage at the moment.
No one gets to make my family feel lesser, and I will use every tool in my belt to make that clear.
Eira steers us to the next corridor, voice gliding over the tension like it’s just another feature of the school’s architecture. The crowd follows, the cameras move, and the parade rolls on, because nothing ever stops at Silvergate, not for long enough to let the air clear. We finally reach the trophy corridor, and I grit my teeth at the sheer gall of people ignoring my wishes. We’re edging far too close to the performance, which I specifically said would start on time, no matter what.
If you believe in symbolism, this is where the tour is meant to break people, I think. The corridor is climate-controlled, like a space you’d expect to be preserving rare artifacts. Every shelf bows under the collective weight of Silvergate’s victories. There are plaques for spell-casting, debate medals in velvet frames, dueling trophies with gleaming handles, and even potion-making awards shaped like little alchemical bombs. There are photographs, too—grads shaking hands with monarchs and professors beaming alongside freshly crowned nobility.
Eira slows in front of a portrait larger than the rest. It’s a girl in a Silvergate blazer, her grin wide enough to border on maniacal, standing beside a Daybreak Court dignitary whose face I know from events at home: Baroness Selka. The caption reads, ‘Ilona Vesper, Class of ’21 — First Fae to lead the Four Realms Youth Parliament’.
Of course, that matters very little compared to the fact that it’s well-known that the bitch is one of my father’s mistresses.
There’s a hush as I approach, and even the mean mothers go quiet. Eira glances at me, and for the first time all day, the veneer chips enough to show what might be smug victory. “Our alumni shape the entire realm, Your Highness,” she says. “That is Silvergate’s true legacy.”
The line lands like a challenge, not a compliment; I feel the warning in it, as clear as a wolf’s howl in the dark.
