Don’t look at us, I think. Don’t look.
As Valerian passes, he grabs one of my braided horns. The others move on through the throng as Valerian sneers down at me.
“Did you think I didn’t see you there? You and your sister stand out in any crowd,” he says, leaning in close. His breath is heavy with the scent of honey wine. My hand balls into a fist at my side, and I am conscious of the nearness of my knife. Still, I do not look him in the eye. “No other head of hair so dull, no other face so plain.”
“Valerian,” Prince Cardan calls. He is glowering already and when he sees me, his eyes narrow further.
Valerian gives my braid a hard tug. I wince, useless fury coiling in my belly. He laughs and moves on.
My fury curdles into shame. I wish I had smacked his hand away, even though it would have made everything worse.
Taryn sees something in my face. “What did he say to you?”
I shake my head.
Cardan has stopped beside a boy with long copper hair and a pair of small moth wings—a boy who isn’t bowing. The boy laughs and Cardan lunges. Between one eyeblink and the next, the prince’s balled fist strikes the boy hard across the jaw, sending him sprawling. As the boy falls, Cardan grabs one of his wings. It tears like paper. The boy’s scream is thin and reedy. He curls up into himself on the ground, agony plain on his face. I wonder if faerie wings grow back; I know that butterflies that lose a wing never fly again.
The courtiers around us gape and titter, but only for a moment. Then they go back to their dancing and their songs, and the revel spirals on.
This is how they are. Someone gets in Cardan’s way, and they’re instantly and brutally punished. Driven from taking lessons at the palace, sometimes out of the Court entirely. Hurt. Broken.
As Cardan walks past the boy, apparently done with him, I am grateful that Cardan has five more worthy brothers and sisters; it’s practically guaranteed that he’ll never sit on the throne. I don’t want to think of him with more power than he has.
Even Nicasia and Valerian share a weighted glance. Then Valerian shrugs and follows Cardan. But Locke pauses by the boy, bending down to help him to his feet.
The boy’s friends come over to lead him away, and at that moment, improbably, Locke’s gaze lifts. His tawny fox eyes meet mine and widen in surprise. I am immobilized, my heart speeding. I brace myself for more scorn, but then one corner of his mouth lifts. He winks, as if in acknowledgment of being caught out. As if we’re sharing a secret. As if he thinks I am not loathly, as though he does not find my mortality contagious.
“Stop staring at him,” Taryn demands.
“Didn’t you see—” I start to explain, but she cuts me off, grabbing hold of me and hauling us toward the stairs, toward our landing of shimmering stone, where we can hide. Her nails sink into my skin.
“Don’t give them any more reason to bother you than they’ve already got!” The intensity of her response surprises me into snatching back my hand. Angry red half moons mark where she grabbed me.
I look back toward where Locke was, but the crowd has swallowed him up.
As dawn breaks, I open the windows to my bedroom and let the last of the cool night air flow in as I strip off my Court dress. I feel hot all over. My skin feels too tight, and my heart won’t stop racing.
I’ve been to Court before many times. I’ve been witness to more awfulness than wings being torn or my person insulted. Faeries make up for their inability to lie with a panoply of deceptions and cruelties. Twisted words, pranks, omissions, riddles, scandals, not to mention their revenges upon one another for ancient, half-remembered slights. Storms are less fickle than they are, seas less capricious.
Like, for example, as a redcap, Madoc needs bloodshed the way a mermaid needs the salt spray of the sea. After every battle, he ritually dips his hood into the blood of his enemies. I’ve seen the hood, kept under glass in the armory. The fabric is stiff and stained a brown so deep it’s almost black, except for a few smears of green.