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Even so, I still could plead my case.

I held up my dirty hands, palms up towards him, showing him the evidence of what I could offer.

“I am used to hard work,” I said, knowing he could see the thick layers of calluses from years of working in the fields. I was filthy, but I was strong, I was sturdy. I was a woman who had borne the weight of hard labor and come out the other end thicker than I was before. “I have strong hands and a solid body. I will serve you well.”

"Fuuuuu," came the gasp behind me. I glanced back to see the overseer standing there, his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. He spent most of his time lounging about. It didn't surprise me that it took him that long to run across the field. Hewas wearing the silver jacket of a second-year 'Proper Student', one of the students who were born into this world rather than tricked from the mundane. He had the black hair and the pointed ears of an Aos sí, a fae who had the right bloodline to be considered better than the shifters and other 'Proper Students'.

"...cking mundanes!" the overseer finished. "This one got away from me."

"I will deal with this one," Rí Túath Crystallo said.

My heart sank. He wasn't going to accept my request. I'd learned enough by now to know that when someone was going to deal with me, that meant punishment.

"That's my job," the overseer said. He reached out with one hand towards me, electricity crackling around his fist. He could only send small zaps of electricity at a distance, but if he put his hands on me, it would really hurt. "Someone has to keep these weaklings in their place."

I'd show him weakness.

Anger flashed through me, hot and heavy with the weight of the years of forced labor behind them. I shifted my weight, lifting one leg and planting my foot, giving myself that anchor to the ground. In one movement, I dodged to the inside of his reaching, crackling hand, lunging upwards from the ground as I took my clenched fist and slammed it into the underside of the overseer's jaw. A crack of pain radiated down through my hand. It was overshadowed by the joy and terror that flooded me as the overseer's head snapped back and he fell backward like a sack full of mushrooms, thudding down into the ground.

I turned slowly, flexing my hand.

It didn’t hurt at all. I thought it would hurt.

My eyes met Crystallo's, but instead of indignation or anger, I saw... delight?

Rí Túath Crystallo arched an eyebrow at me, a smile slipping across his face as his eyes met mine again, and the spark that flew between us had nothing to do with magic.

“Name your price,” he said.

Hope rose up with wings of relief, and I pushed it back down again, not letting it consume me. He hadn’t agreed yet. He could walk away from this. Even worse, he could tell the school, and I would be punished for daring to speak to him.

“Take me with you,” I said.

He closed his eyes, a shudder running through his whole body, his wings vibrating with the motion. He opened his eyes to pin me with his gaze.

“Being in my service would already do that,” he said, his voice soft and heated at the same time.

“Aetheriani law does not require the service to be done in your presence,” I said. “You could order me to serve you by remaining here. My boon request is that you take me with you, back to your homeland, so I may serve my year and a day there, with you.”

I had heard that mundanes had rights in the Aetheriani homeland. I wouldn’t belong there, not while I was a simple human in a country filled with winged people, but at least I wouldn’t have to spend time worrying about someone offing me on a whim, or worse, trying to put me in the fish hatchery.

“I will grant your boon,” he said, and the words floated through me, a liferaft that could drift out of my reach at any moment. This time, as the hope floated up, I didn’t push it down. I let it fill me. He would grant my boon. He would take me with him. I would finally be able to escape this place.

He looked out across the fields. I followed his gaze, and my heart sank.

Standing in the middle of the road, soldiers curving around behind him to trample the far side of the grass rather thanwalk too close to him, was the man whose face had been put on posters in the dorm to inform us lowly mundanes of his importance. It was one thing to put up banners to celebrate a sports celebrity like Rí Túath Crystallo's younger brother. It was an entirely different level of narcissism for a leader to make sure pictures of their face were plastered everywhere.

“I am going to touch you,” he said, his words coming out quickly, as if he were running out of time.

“Okay,” I said, not sure why he was informing me in advance. None of the other fae bothered.

Rí Túath Crystallo reached out and threaded his fingers through my hair, sending a tingle down my spine as my skin shivered at the gentle touch. It had been years since anyone had touched me like that.

“Hold onto my wrist to support yourself,” he said, his fingers curling as he took a thick handful of my hair. I reached up to grip his wrist with one hand, wincing as the copper brown dusting on my fingers smeared across his skin.

“Both hands,” he instructed. “Pull against my wrist to partially support your weight.”

I lifted my other hand and wrapped it around his wrist, my knuckles whitening.