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Even the base of the floating island, appears to have been cut, chiseled, and faceted to look like more buildings. I make out columns and balconies, spiraling staircases and light flickering in cut glass windows.

“Wow,” I breathe.

Out of my periphery, I can feel Des’s gaze on me again, but for once, I’m too distracted to glance at him.

More pixies circle around us as we begin to descend. Soon I can make out the streets that run between buildings, and then I notice the fairies.

Most pause to watch our entrance. I feel every one of those foreign, predatory eyes on me, and I’m painfully aware that I’m a human in a land that enslaves my kind. I’m also aware that the Bargainer is holding me closer than necessary, and he’s making a very public entrance, as though he’s proud to show off the human in his arms.

Or that he just doesn’t give a fuck.

Knowing Des, I’m actually kind of betting on the latter.

He beats his wings faster as the white stone courtyard in front of his palace gets closer and closer. An elaborate bronze gate encircles the palace. Beyond it, men and women with pointed ears gather, their curious eyes trained on us. Several fae guards dressed in white and silver keep them back. They appear to be just as curious about us as I am about them.

Des and I land softly, his head bowed over mine. I step out of his hold, but I don’t attempt to shrug off the arm he keeps looped around my waist.

The crowd gathered around us is silent. Then, one by one, they begin to cheer.

I stare out at them, my eyebrows hiked up. Next to me, Des’s wings are splayed out, the span of them dwarfing us. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’d like to curl up in one of them and hide.

“Why are they cheering?” I whisper to him.

“There’s much you don’t know about the Kingdom of Night.” With that enigmatic response, he nods to our audience and then leads me towards the castle.

There are dozens of people gathered in the entrance hall—what I can only guess are his soldiers, officials, and aides—but none of them approach us, and Des doesn’t stop to speak to them, though he does acknowledge them with the tilt of his head.

My eyes move everywhere, because everywhere there is some enthralling sight to take in, whether it’s the massive bronze chandelier overhead whose flames spit and flicker like sparklers, or the ceiling that’s made to look like the heavens outside.

It’s all so impossibly lovely.

Des bends towards me. “I’ve wanted to show you this place for a long, long time,” he admits.

I tear my gaze away from my surroundings to look at him. “You have?” I don’t know what to make of that.

“I wanted even more for you to like it,” he admits.

My eyes move over his face before I catch sight of the simple circlet of hammered bronze that rings the fae king’s head.

His crown.

I touch his simple headpiece. “When did you put this on?”

“When we landed.”

He wasn’t carrying it on him, which meant … magic.

“It looks good on you.” It really did.

“I hate it,” he confesses quietly as he leads me down one of his halls.

“Why?” I ask.

“I’ve never felt particularly kingly.”

I realize then, as he leads me through his palace at the center of his kingdom, that a king isexactlywhat Des is. It isn’t just some pretty title, it’s all of this. Whatever parts of him I got all those years ago when he visited me, those were something else.

Back then, I had only seen his wicked side, his dirty deeds. I’d never seen his righteousness.