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I might no longer be a bastard by name, but I’m a bastard by deed.

“You smell like ale and sex,” Malaki says when I enter the mansion later that evening.

He sees my sleeve, and whistles. “You got a tattoo.” It’s not exactly an accusation, but it might as well be. We’d planned on getting inked together.

In the end, like everything else in my life, I had to do it alone.

Phaedron storms through the room, his eyes locking on mine. “Where in all the realms have you been?” he says when he sees me. “I needed you an hour ago.” His nose wrinkles. “You smell like woman,” he growls. “Is that what you’ve been doing while your brothers waited for you? Wetting your prick?”

“I needed some time to think.”

“Balls deep in some female?” Phaedron growls. “If you’ve taken another lord’s wife, I swear to the gods I won’t bail you out this time. I’ll let them take your head.”

I’m not entirely sure I’d mind.

When his words elicit no reaction out of me, he sighs. “You and Malaki, get your arses to Memnos. We need to move our cursed water shipments within the next ten hours or the deal’s off.”

Fifteen minutes later, after I’ve rinsed myself off, Malaki and I leave the mansion together.

“You didn’t need to wait for me,” I tell him gruffly.

“What am I supposed to do, let you get into trouble all by yourself?”

I crack a smile.

The two of us are quiet for a minute.

Then— “Why do you put up with Phaedron’s shit?” Malaki asks.

He’s the boss,” I say simply.

“Only because you wouldn’t take Hermio’s place that night,” Malaki says carefully.

That night.

The shadows, the screams, the fairy dust that remained behind.

I bid the memory away and look at my friend, really look at him. It took Malaki two years, but he finally decided to broach this subject.

“You think I should’ve,” I state.

My friend gives me an incredulous look. “Of course I think you should’ve. Don’t take offense, Eurion, but why else are you here? You killed off the brotherhood’s previous leader. Fairies only do that if they want to take over an establishment—or end it. But you did neither. Instead you gave the position to Phaedron and became just another errand boy. Why?”

Because I had been beneath other fairies all my life, and suddenly I was expected to be above them when I simply wanted to beone of them.

“Why not?” I respond.

Malaki shakes his head. “If I’d been given the chance to be a leader, I’d have taken it.”

“I got what I wanted,” I say.

“By stopping the skin trade into Barbos? You could’ve also done that as a leader—and you do realize that all you’ve done is given business to our rivals,” he responds. “Remember that I can see into their heads when they sleep.”

I stare grimly ahead of us. “Have you looked into mine?”

If he had, he’d learn just about every damnable secret of mine. My dreams love to parade my secrets around my mind.

Malaki reels back. “You know I haven’t.” He looks wounded by my question.