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Rev is the only one close enough for me to touch. His hand is almost, but not quite, on my arm, like he can’t decide if he should pull me out of the limelight or shove me further in. His expressions cycle so fast I barely catch them—one second, he’s pure prince, eyes weighing up the cost of repairs and how this will play out in the next news cycle; the next, he’s just a man watching his favorite person torch a whole school’s worth of pretentious bullshit. He settles for a wry, half-smile, then leans in and whispers, “Always a showstopper, Sassypants.”

I look around the room again, noting the blue afterimage burned onto everything. The air tastes like adrenaline and fear, something I’ve been able to sense or hear, but not taste before. My throat is raw, and my hands are tingling, like the energy hasn’t quite drained out yet. This must be what it feels like to be the most powerful person in the room, and I see why some of these idiots, even royalty, get off on it. If you let it, it would be addicting to hold the entire room in your grasp every minute of your existence. No one moves, not the headmistress, not the council, not even the cameras. The entire corridor is holding its breath, waiting to see if I’ll say something, or just explode again.

Not a fan, but also… maybe a little?

The thought disturbs me and I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms to keep that uncomfortable glee from being associated with pleasure. I don’t want to be a megalomaniac, and I sure as fuck need to keep my head on my shoulders if people think I’m going to rule a goddamned court some day. Ego can destroy friendships and love, as well as cause inestimable harm to those around you. Letting this go to my head would only turn me into the very thing I’ve always hated and make me into a person I don’t like.

Finally, the headmistress makes a weird noise. It’s a sharp, half-swallowed gasp or maybe a curse, but it hangs in the air. The mothers snap their heads toward her, as if she might give them permission to resume their bullshit and pretend the girl who just broke their world isn’t standing there with her skin still fizzing blue fire. But she doesn’t say a word, and they don’t start up again, so I speak instead.

“I’ll keep this quick,” I say, my voice weirdly loud in the silence. No one’s ever called my voice commanding before, but the way it bounces off the marble and echoes back at me, it’s the first word that comes to mind. “I didn’t come here for a tour of trophies or for the lessons you think you’re teaching. I came because the prince promised to be here, and I wanted to support him. Regardless, everyone here decided ahead of time that I’d be a punchline.” My wrists spark again, the light strobing out so hard a few mothers shield their eyes.

I look at the mayor first, because it’s always the bureaucrats who make the mess and never want to admit it. “You think you can judge people by where they’re born, who they’re born to, what powers they have, or how pretty they look when you photograph them. You want to parade Revelin through a lineup of compliant faces, so you can tweet about forward-thinking while you sell the next generations to the highest bidder. You’re a coward.”

He opens his mouth, but the only thing that comes out is a wet clicking sound.

Next, I turn to Eira. “You knew what you were doing when you brought us here. You engineered every word for maximum pain and you did it with a smile so fake I could see it from the gate. All those stories about legacy, about merit and tradition, about ‘honoring the best of the court’—you tell them to keep everyone else in line. You’re desperate for the approval of these parents who see you as barely a step above their household staff, and it shows.”

Eira’s fingers flutter at her side, as if she’s lost her place in a script and is waiting for someone to prompt her. Fidget pops his head up from my hair and stares directly at her—at least, I think he is. She actually flinches, and for a second, I want to laugh because somehow my tiny baby bat has spooked the moron.

Last, I look at the mothers with their pearls and passive-aggressive frowns. “If I had a gold piece for every time I heard someone say ‘witch’ with the same tone they’d use for a disease, I could buy my own court. But you don’t even believe it; you’re afraid your own kids will end up like me, and that scares you more than any monster you tell stories about at your charity galas. I was a joke, and now you see something you have no idea what to do with. Good.”

I don’t have to yell because nobody interrupts. Even the town guards are just standing with their arms slack, not a single one twitching toward a wand or a weapon. They’re cowards, too, and Tier’s people would eat them alive before they even got in a punch.

That is, if I don’t show them the Fiadh who whipped the ass of a magic tree first.

“I’m done with your games. I’m done with the tours, the fake welcomes, and the rules that only ever apply to people you think are beneath you. I’m not here to threaten you or to prove myself—because I don’t need to.” I flick my gaze to my men, smiling viciously. “Oh, and you can clean up the glass yourselves. I’m not your janitor either.”

Fidget clicks his teeth—loudly, like punctuation—as I reach out, take Revelin’s hand, and squeeze. He squeezes back, and his mouth is twisted in a not-quite grin that says he’d let me torch the whole place if I asked. With one nod to Tiernan and a glance at Dezi and Khol, I turn on my heel. My boots crunch over the glass, each step marking the way out.

No one moves to stop us.

The corridor parts around us, the professors or students flattening to the walls as the mothers shrink back in fear. One of the mayor’s flunkies tries to reach out, but Khol just bares his teeth in a smile so cold she jerks her hand away and hides it in her purse. The mayor starts after us when he realizes the press is still here and he’s just become a secondary character in his own city.

But I don’t look back to see what he’s doing once he stops—I don’t give a shit.

We’re out of here.

Forty-Seven

DEZI

Inside a top-of-the-line, warded black SUV is the only place in Faerie that feels almost as hermetically sealed as an ancient vampire’s coffin. The driver’s seat is molded to Tiernan’s build, the leather still radiating body heat from the security cat that prepped it before hopping out to go in the follow car. The glass is double-tinted and, I assume, spelled to keep the worst of the outside out. I bet you could set a building on fire next to this car and the air would stay at a perfect seventy-three degrees in here. His team has proven themselves to be that good, and I doubt this pickup is any different.

A staccato of slammed doors and the grind of someone’s boot against the running board tells me Khol has climbed into the back like he’s still mad about being born without wings. Once they are all in, I take the passenger seat and click the seatbelt into place. Obviously, I don’t need it, but the click reminds the others of the task, leading to a series of echoing clicks from the back. I want there to be a fighting chance of my family staying safe if some idiot attacks us and the car rolls. I trust the Fae in this court even less than I did in Harvest, a denigration they’ve earned every second we’ve been here.

Revelin is immediately scrolling on his phone, his handsome face pinching as he checks out what’s been posted already. He’s messaging a dozen people about it, probably, but I’m proud that he didn’t make our mate hold back. His career won’t suffer; he’s a fucking prince with enough sales to make even the most risk-aware label willing to ignore any negative PR. Besides, if they did throw a fit, he can fund his own shit, anyway.

Fuck, I’ll fund it and not give a single shit about him or the witchling being unwilling to bend to these assholes.

I catch my mate in the mirror, sitting dead center as she’s flanked by Khol on the left and the texting prince on the right. Fidget is buried deep in her hair, only a faint pip audible as she finally settles in. Her hands are folded in her lap, the right palm down and clamped tight as a vise over the blue-lit moon mark that’s beating out a warning like a soft pulse. She doesn’t look at me, but I can see the tension in her jaw that says she’s not ready to talk about that mess yet.

Khol, however, is in rare form. He peels a dark scale the size of a thumbnail off his jaw—shimmering obsidian, with an edge sharp enough to draw blood—and flicks it onto the mat without a care. He’s silent, but the gesture is a reminder that, if he wanted, he could shed all the gentility and just go totally feral on the next thing that crosses him. My money is on the basilisk cracking first if things get worse, but it’s a close contest between him and me at this point.

My centuries of learning control are often strained by the people trying to harm the witchling, and it’s consistently surprising.

Tier adjusts the rearview, and I lose my view. He’s got one hand on the wheel, one on the stick, and his icy eyes are glued to the road as he pulls away from Silvergate. He’s not much for words in moments like this, but the way he checks the mirror every few seconds tells me he’s expecting something to jump us before we even clear the end of this street. It’s not impossible, and even though we have a contingent of his cats in the SUV behind ours, it would still be a pain in the ass to deal with.

Our SUV vibrates with a faint subsonic hum, as the leopard turns abruptly. The sound is not the engine, but the enchantments layered in the doors and undercarriage, I’d wager. There are sigils visible in faint etchings on the glass; others are embedded in places most wouldn’t spot unless the car was totaled. Every detail of this thing is set for protection, and I have to wonder where the hell those assorted felines got it from. It feels fancy enough to be something a wealthy Fae would drive, and I wonder for a moment if perhaps one of our secret masked friends loaned it to them.