Chapter Two
Bram catches my arm as he bisects the crowd and pulls me into his side tight enough to hurt.
“I thought you were going to rest,” I say sweetly. In fact, I’d counted on it, specifically waited for a revel that Bram was
too exhausted to attend, but it seems my planning has been in vain.
Bram looks down at me, emotion flickering in his gray eyes. “I decided I’d rather be with you. If I didn’t know any better,
I’d be wounded. It’s almost like you don’t want me here.” He keeps his face neutral, his voice soft, but I know Bram well
enough by now to detect the simmering rage underneath. It’s in the bruising pressure against my ribs as he clutches me to
his side. To anyone else in the crowd, it might look like we’re in love. Just as quickly, he lets me go.
Bram ascends the dais in the front of the room and gestures for me to join him. There is no second throne; I am expected to
sit on his lap or stand behind him.
I long for the days when I could glance across a crowded ballroom, catch his eye, and he would smile at me reassuringly.
I know now it was only an act, but he was so good at it, it might as well have been real. It was real to me.
I step up to the dais and plant a kiss on his cheek, making sure his courtiers are watching.
One of the strangest things about Bram is that his body is never warm like a human’s.
His skin is always the same temperature as the air around it.
When my lips brush him, it feels like I’m kissing something dead.
He doesn’t quite smile but his eyes soften as he looks at me. A lock of sun-kissed light brown hair falls across his forehead.
“King Bram!” Some preternaturally beautiful woman with elaborately braided silver hair bounds up to him. “Dance with me!”
“I’m with Ivy,” he says quietly.
She laughs, so big I can see right down her throat. “We don’t know her! She doesn’t matter!”
Bram steps down from the dais and kicks the woman’s feet out from under her, sending her falling to her knees on the marble
floor. He grips a fistful of her hair and yanks her head back, until she’s staring up at me, gasping in pain.
“She’s your queen,” he says coolly. “Apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” she sputters.
“Your Majesty,” Bram corrects her. “You’re sorry to Her Majesty.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” she squeaks. Bram releases her hair almost dismissively.
The woman glances at me disdainfully as she rises to her feet, but doesn’t risk saying anything else with Bram so near. She
is quickly scooped up by the elbow and pulled into a chain of Others, dancing in circles.
I look up at Bram and he plucks a streamer from where it must have been stuck in my crown.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“Of course I did.”
I open my mouth. Close it again. I’m at a loss for how to respond.
It would be easy to imagine he cares for me, in small moments like this. But then I catch a glimpse of the group of enchanted
humans and their blood-soaked feet in the middle of the ballroom and know Bram is incapable of true care.
What exists between us is something stranger and darker: not care, certainly not love.
“You should really be more careful.” His face is unreadable in a way that turns my blood to ice.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Deny, deny, deny. That’s the only tool I have in my arsenal.
“I have a gift for you. It should arrive tomorrow,” he says, still remote.
And then he’s gone, off to merrymake with some other group of sneering advisers.
Across the ballroom, Faith and Marion are doing their jobs flawlessly. They’re positioned next to the banquet table, locked
in conversation with Rhion.
Things with Aurelia may have gone sideways, but that doesn’t mean our work tonight is through.
“Your Majesty.” Faith waves me over to join them. Rhion is difficult to pin down, but I’m hoping Bram seeing me in conversation
with him will make him happy. If I’m lucky, perhaps Rhion will even tell Bram how devoted, how loyal I seem.
Rhion tips his head in a bow as I approach.
“No need for all that,” I say with a gentle laugh. “Not when we’re in your home.”
The insides of my elbow-length gloves are sticky with sweat. Rhion always makes me nervous.
It’s not just his beautiful face—closely cropped black hair, moonlight-pale skin, violently blue eyes—it’s the way he says everything like it’s a joke, like he finds the cruelty of Bram’s court hilarious.
I place my hand on the banquet table for balance but stick my palm directly in the center of a cracked pomegranate. Its jewel-like
seeds squish under my weight, leaving my gloves looking bloodied.
Fiona Devon and Althea Jones saunter up to us, and I can sense Marion’s annoyance. They both came out in society last year
with us. Althea, who bargained with Queen Mor to become more beautiful, is back to the slightly mousy, familiar face of our
youth. I heard a rumor that her new husband, Baron Rousting, was very disappointed when Queen Mor’s bargains were made null
and void.
“Ivy!” Althea greets me warmly. Then she blushes and corrects herself. “Your Majesty, I mean.”
I still don’t know how to behave around people I’ve known my whole life. I want to scream at Althea and Fiona to take their
shiny new husbands and run as far from this court as possible, but British aristocracy has followed Bram to Bath. It seemed
the fashionable thing to do, I suppose, and the humans were unable to resist the siren song of more magic, more bargains,
more inhumanly beautiful Others.
“How have you been getting on?” she asks with two kisses on my cheeks.
“Oh, you know. It’s always so taxing, setting up a new house,” I reply tightly. “My parents stayed in London, and of course
Bram is busy, so I haven’t had much help.”
“Where is Emmett these days?” Fiona asks lightly. The blood drains from my face. I can’t think of him, not here, not now.
“He’s not at court,” I answer flatly. It’s the same answer Bram gives. He’s spread a rumor that Emmett has begged off, shirked
his responsibilities as a prince, and is drinking his life away in a far-off, cozy country estate, seducing all the willing
milkmaids he can find.
Only I and my ladies-in-waiting know the truth, that he’s locked up somewhere for the crime of loving me. Or dead. But I can’t
bear to consider that.
“You’d think Britain’s most notorious rake wouldn’t miss the opportunity to seduce a whole new court of beautiful girls.”
Fiona giggles.
Althea frowns. “You know, he never tried with me. I’m a bit offended.”
Fiona preens. “He kissed me once at Lord Gregory’s Yuletide choral performance. Fabulous kisser. What a mouth.”
“What happened after?” Althea gasps.
Fiona shrugs. “He got bored of me and moved on to Miss Tremaine. Then he got bored of her, and I think it was you next, Faith?”
Faith raises her brows. “Something like that,” she answers tightly. The room shifts a little and I fear I’m going to be sick.
Rhion grabs my hand, the one that’s sticky with pomegranate juice, and tugs. “Come with me to the fires!”
“No, I’d rather stay.” I need Bram to see me performing my role as his devoted, dutiful wife after the disaster with Aurelia,
but Rhion’s grip is strong and I don’t want to make a scene by resisting. Truthfully, I’m a little grateful for the chance
to walk away from Fiona and Althea and their talk of Emmett.
“Nonsense.” Rhion loops my arm in his and we exit the ballroom into the biting night air. The oval lawn in front of the Royal Crescent is transformed at night. It’s dotted by half a dozen roaring bonfires, with groups of fae and humans alike reveling among them.
Some courtiers dance in dizzy circles, while others lounge on an array of velvet cushions, attended to by their human companions.
Perhaps companions is too generous a word. Pets may be more apt.
All Emmett and I ever wanted to do was end Queen Mor’s cruel bargain system. We may have achieved our goal, but now, instead
of one faerie making bargains to contend with, we have dozens. It’s like a hydra from the books my father used to read me.
I chopped off one head, and one hundred others sprang up in its place.
It’s constant now, the faeries playing tricks on the humans, luring them into bad bargains or impossible-to-win games. What’s
worse is the humans were used to Mor’s code of conduct; she made her bargains with some sense of honor. These new faeries
have none of that. The cruelty is the point for them.
Rhion settles us down next to one bonfire where they’re in the midst of a drinking game. A tall blond faerie man is flipping
a golden coin. Heads, he drinks; tails, the human next to him drinks. It lands on tails every time, and the human, in agreeing
to play this enchanted game, is forced to bring his cup to his lips again and again. He’s in tears at the faerie’s feet, begging
him to stop. His glassy eyes droop, nearly unconscious. He heaves and vomits all over his shirtfront.
The gathered fae just laugh and laugh as the man pleads and sputters.
I snatch the coin out of the fae’s hand and toss it into the bonfire.
“Excuse me!” the blond faerie shouts in anger.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” I correct him.
He keeps yelling but I pay him no mind. I kneel down at the drunk man’s level and whisper, “Go home. Go as far from here as possible.”
With the last dregs of his strength, he pushes himself to his feet and wobbles away into the darkness.
But he is just one man and this is just one horror. All around me, the torture continues. One bonfire over, a group of fae
have begun a game that I think is supposed to be some kind of replica of the Wild Hunt, tonight’s party theme. I only know
because they keep yelling “Hunt!” at the tops of their lungs. In a circle, around the bonfire, they chase a girl, who scrambles
on her hands and knees, a deer mask pulled over her face.
I march over, mustering all the authority I have, and shout, “Enough!” But it’s as if they don’t even see me; they just dodge
me on their next lap around the fire.