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“I can say with complete honesty that I have no idea why you do any of the things you choose to do.”

“And let’s get one thing straight,” Alastair continued, ignoring what his father said entirely. A waitress walked by with a tray of drinks, and Alastair set his now empty glass down on it and plucked a fresh whiskey for himself. “You didn’t bring me here to socialize. You brought me here for the same reason you always do. You brought me here to wow the aristocrats with what a fine, virile young male your son is. You brought me here to play stud.” Alastair gestured down at his clothing. “And who am I not to play the part in its entirety?”

In his peripheral vision, Alastair saw Dameon finish his conversation with the Queen and leave, and he ground his teeth together in frustration.

Fuck. He’d missed his chance.

Maybe it was for the best. Fey deserved that kill. She deserved to be the hand that ended that fucker.

“I should have brought your brother,” Cassiel deSanguine said, not bothering to hide the disdain in his voice.

“Yeah,” Alastair agreed. “You should have. But he wouldn’t have been able to entertain the Witches here nearly as well as I can since he prefers cock.”

“I forgot how disgusting you can be,” his father snapped.

“Tut, tut, father, don’t be so close-minded. There’s nothing disgusting about liking to suck cock. Maybe if you gave it a try?”

But his father wasn’t listening to his teasing anymore, his focus instead on the Queen as she stood and addressed the room. The room stilled and quieted as guests turned one-by-one to watch her.

“We thank you all for your attendance tonight,” the Queen spoke in a voice carried by Air so that each and every guest could hear her. “But we will be ending the festivities early. Goodnight and blessed Solstice. My guards will be escorting you all from the grounds. Please do not give them reason to use force.”

Chapter 40

The day after she was inducted into the Queen’s Blades, Fey had run away.

It made her cringe to think back on it now, but back then it had felt like her last resort, the only option available to her. Her whole life, Fey had been alone. From the moment her father had turned his contempt on her, from the moment she realized her mother would never do anything to protect her, she had only had herself.

But when the Queen had placed that brand on her arm, all of that had changed. Suddenly, even in her own head, she wasn’t alone. When the initial flash of agony had faded, and the Queen had taken the brand away, she had felt her sisters.

Lilith’s dark approval and pride at how well Fey had handled her induction.

Joy’s swell of excitement and happiness.

And Alice.

Alice’s unconditional love, from the very start. Something Fey had never had before, not even from her own mother. But there it was, real and filling her, from a woman she’d just met a few days ago.

It had been too much.

There is a power in solitude. If you are alone, then no one can hurt you. If you build a wall around yourself, you can make it impossible for anyone to hurt you unless you let them. Impossible for them to love you.

But somehow, these three Witches did. Immediately, unquestioningly, they had loved her. Accepted her.

So Fey had run away. Run from that love and that promise of family. The only family she’d ever known had hurt her, and she had no reason to believe this new one would be any different.

She’d run to the only place she’d ever felt safe, the first place she’d felt like she belonged—her bedroom, in the Solare training camps.

And now, years later, Fey found herself coming full circle.

Even back then her room had been a dump, but now? In the years since she’d been inducted into the Queen’s Blades, enrollment in the Queen’s army had dropped to a historic low. Fewer and fewer Witches were convinced that so many specially trained forces were necessary, and even fewer were in the desperate straits that Fey had been in when she had joined. Solare had been erected to house thousands of Witches, but with only a few hundred recruits to fill the rooms, only one wing of Solare was currently in use. Fey’s bedroom sat in a wing long since abandoned, and the dust and mildew along the walls and floor was proof of that.

She would have been the last Witch to occupy this room, Fey realized, trailing her fingers through the dust on the windowsill.

Every bedchamber in Solare was a tiny thing, barely bigger than a closet, with a single bed, a window that barely opened, and a small uncomfortable desk. Still, to Fey it had been home—her first real home—and even now, with everything going on, it was a comfort to be here.

The day she’d run away from the Blades, Alice had found her. Fey never found out how. Never found out how Alice had even known where to look.

She hadn’t tried to convince Fey to come back, hadn’t scolded or berated her for leaving. Alice had simply sat in the wobbly wooden desk chair next to Fey’s bed and waited. She said nothing, demanded nothing, didn’t even look at Fey. She just sat there with her, staring out the window and waiting.