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“Workers,” Rí Túath Crystallo paused as he reached them. “Clean this mundane up and bring her to serve my meal. Put her in something more revealing.”

“A farm mundane?” Seelie Ard Rí sneered.

I looked back at the ground as his hard eyes fell on me, the haughty edges of his face not softened in the slightest by his long black hair, an outward sign of his Seelie heritage.

“She was foolish enough to ask for a boon,” Rí Túath Crystallo said, a cruel edge to his voice. “I intend to reward that presumption with an introduction to Aetheriani anatomy.”

Seelie Ard Rí laughed, bright and sudden.

“I’ve always wondered how long it would take a mundane to die on an Aetheriani dick,” Seelie Ard Rí said.

My heart plummeted as they walked away from me, leaving me kneeling in the dirt.

I just made a horrible mistake.

Chapter

Two

CRYSTALLO

The chair was an insult.

I sat with wings tucked tight, my feathers pinched against the carved back that was shaped perfectly for a wingless individual. A fairy worker wouldn't have made the mistake of providing me something that would be irritating with my wings; they had wings themselves. The Seelie Ard Rí must have ordered the seat to see if I would react. This was always the case every time I came for my yearly spell inspection, as mandated by our tenuous treaty. Once a year, I put myself in danger, but it was the only chance I got to check on my younger brother.

What my brother told me this morning had changed everything.

I had to finish this farce and get back to our people to prepare.

Across the span of an obsidian-slick table, the Seelie Ard Rí, one of the two High Kings, lounged in an ivory tabard short enough to reveal knee-high leggings latticed in gold thread that glittered with small sewn-in diamonds. His black hair spilledlike water over porcelain shoulders, every strand reflecting the light cast from light globes, spelled to the walls.

Between us sprawled a ridiculous feast.

A mountain of powdered donuts flanked bowls of steaming soup; beside them, a platter of blueberry pancakes dripped maple syrup, and then a tray of fried pickles. In front of me was a wine glass with a milky liquid, and small balls of gelatin at the bottom of it. A plate of funnel cake was off to the right, while sticks of candied apples leaned against a tureen of neon-green curry. Someone had stacked what looked like pizza slices, pineapple, and jalapeño into a conical tower, crowned by a single chocolate eclair. The mingled scents, lemongrass, frosting, brine, and melted cheese, fought in the vaulted air with nauseating tenacity.

The Ard Rí lifted a sugar-dusted cronut between manicured fingers, inspecting it. "I've been told that the diversity of mundane cuisine is entertaining." A sneer curled in the corner of his lip. "I'm sure a... creature... such as yourself must enjoy such a thing. Your people do have a taste for mundanes, do you not?"

My wings ached from where they were trapped by the chair.

"You are one to speak on the use of mundanes," I said as I took a slice of pizza with pineapple on it from the odd tower. The crust was hard and brittle, which was how they managed to get it to stand upright. I put it on my plate without taking a bite. "Unless you plan to change the way this school is run? Has your Goddess changed her mind about the best use for mundanes?"

"The Goddess does not change," the Ard Rí spat out the word like it was a curse, setting the donut down on his plate.

"She changed enough to allow the treaty," I pointed out.

"The Goddess decided to wait," the Ard Rí leaned back in his chair as he dipped his sugar-powdered fingers into the bowl of water to his left, wiping his fingers off on the small towel next to the bowl.

"She has awoken," I said. Then I used one of the tidbits of information my brother fed me. "She believes the Chaos God has returned. She announced it to the school. You are moving some of the army onto the campus. Tell me, Adoivencal, do you think the final battle will be fought here? If so, I should bring in my army to provide winged support for the troops. My people are all unbound by the grace of the Goddess, with the exception of one, of course."

It wasn't by her grace, it was by her failure. She hadn't managed to bind all of the creatures of chaos before being imprisoned.

The Ard Rí's eyes narrowed with my use of his first name. Or it could be the fact that I was pretending like we would fight on the same side of the battle. I had been pretending that from the very first moment I came to power.

"I will consider that," he said, his tone neutral.

"With what happened to the headmistress, I would think you would be eager. What would happen if all the dragons came unbound at once?" I asked, pressing my point. If I could get my army in position before the Chaos God called us to fight, even better. "You need soldiers in the air to defend."

"The dragons are loyal to Order," he said.