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“And why not?” Ruskin asks, his voice quietly threatening as he shows some pointed teeth. He’s reminding them that he’s still dangerous.

“Because it’s not your place!” Lady Petra continues. “These humans attacked the court; it’s for the monarch to say what should happen to them.”

Ruskin spreads his hands. “And where is your precious monarch?” he asks. “Why, when she has all that impressive power at her fingertips, would she disappear just when her subjects need her?”

Ruskin prowls closer to the tables, sliding loose his claws, and letting one of them drag against the wood, leaving a deep furrow in its wake. The noise makes many of the High Fae flinch. I meet Destan’s eye and we both suppress a smile. We can tell he’s enjoying settling into his old role again. And frankly, this spoiled, vicious bunch has it coming. Whether they ally with us or not, they need to learn that some kinds of behavior won’t be tolerated.

Lady Petra doesn’t immediately respond, clearly lacking a good answer to Ruskin’s question.

“I must say I’m surprised you, of all people, would be siding with my mother, Lady Petra. After all, it was my mother’s iron that killed your son.”

Lady Petra goes pale at the mention of him. I’d feel sorry for her, but then she did try to attack me almost as soon as it happened, so my sympathy has its limits.

“It wasn’t her iron then,” says a small, wiry male. “It was a curse,” he says, glancing at me, “And she learned how to control it in Interra.”

Ruskin releases a brittle, mirthless laugh. “You’re not telling me you actually believe that story? When every spell she casts is dripping with the stain of dark magic?”

I see a few of the fae exchange sheepish looks. They have noticed the changes in Evanthe, the nasty flavor of her magic, and they have been turning a blind eye, more interested in maintaining the status quo than challenging it by speaking up. But I can tell she’s far from universally beloved.

“It’s time that you know the truth, my court,” says Ruskin, settling down against a table. He surveys them with a cool demeanor, but I’m sure he’s nervous underneath. This is his bid for their hearts and minds, and they’re biased against him from the start. They always have been. This won’t be an easy battle for him to win.

“You think the humans coming to the palace is coincidence? Do you think that they stumbled upon the secret of cold iron? Evanthe has made an alliance with a king of the human realm. Why else would she have hosted those humans for the last few weeks? She told him how to make cold iron, how to kill us, and in return he agreed to use his men to keep her court under control while she sets her real plan in motion.”

“This is some kind of deception,” hisses Vanis, seconded by other members of the Wild Hunt. I glare at them, disgusted at the sight of them. They know what Ruskin is saying is true. They’ve seen the proof of Evanthe’s true nature. But they don’t care—not as long as she lets them do whatever they want. As far as I’m concerned, they should already be behind bars.

“Yes,” says an older fae seated beside Galaphina’s sister. “You’re nothing but a usurper, Ruskin Dawnsong, hoping to trick your way back onto the throne. It’s all you’ve ever been interested in: power. Gathering it, keeping it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the queen’s illness wasn’t all a plan engineered to steal her High Monarch powers.”

“It was,” says Ruskin.

There’s a collective intake of breath from the fae.

“But not by me. You may remember my sister, Cebba, and her father? They told the human king how to make cold iron—and how to use it to trap my mother. They set her up to be tortured and killed in the hopes that they would be able to seize the throne. The only reason my mother lived—and that our vulnerability stayed secret for so many years—was that I rescued her and eliminated the king.” He glances around the room, cold eyes lingering on the members of the Wild Hunt. “I imagine even those in the room who schemed and hunted with Cebba don’t know the real reason she was banished.”

I watch the High Fae carefully, wanting to see how they’ll take this, and find even the Wild Hunt looking genuinely shocked. That surprise only deepens when Ruskin tells the rest of the story: how the dark magic that Cebba seeded inside Evanthe grew, poisoning the queen they once knew and turning her into the unhinged tyrant she’s become, a traitor to her own kingdom as she seeks to destroy it.

That seems to be a bridge too far for some of them, because the old fae pipes up again.

“You are the traitor, Ruskin Dawnsong. You bear a Seelie name, but we all know the moment you can make yourself High King, you’ll have your father’s kind marching in here and?—”

“Oh, bite your tongue, Cressweir,” snaps a High Fae lady with blue hair. “Let him talk.”

But Ruskin is smiling, as if he finds Cressweir’s words amusing.

“It’s interesting you should theorize what would happen if I were to become High King,” he says. “Because I have been High King of the Seelie Court for the last two centuries.”

For a few moments, the Seelie Court almost resembles its Unseelie counterpart, the orchard erupting with the same kind of baying and babbling that I’ve seen in Lisinder’s cavernous throne room.

I exhale. That’s it now, one of Ruskin’s biggest secrets, out in the open at last. I know how much he’s resisted it, fought wearing the mantel of High King for all to see, but now it’s out, it has power. Ruskin goes on, explaining how he took over the role from Evanthe, though editing certain personal parts. What he’s revealing is more than enough to have stunned them—the pure, blinding truth of it.

Ruskin has never been as honest with his court as now, and it’s more effective than I could have imagined. I think in this cutthroat world, the truth has surprised them more than anything else could. It’s the one tactic they could never have expected—and it’s something they can’t ignore. Cressweir sits, wan and stunned-looking, in silence, and when Lady Petra tries to raise another sneering point, Lord Zastel quickly cuts her off.

“For star’s sake, don’t you see? Prince Ruskin had the High King’s power, and this kingdom lived in relative peace for hundreds of years. Now Queen Evanthe is back on the founding stone, and we have been overrun with iron and jingoistic humans. Present company excepted,” he says, looking apologetically at me.

“Which brings us to the matter at hand,” says Ruskin. “My mother means to do serious harm to this kingdom, and I plan to stop her. So, will this court pledge itself to me and my cause?”

Lord Zastel stands almost at once. “You have my vow,” he says. Lady Naniva quickly follows suit.

“And mine,” she says.