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"Yeah, I kinda understand." And I thought back to all the lies I'd told as a kid to keep from getting in trouble.

Not that I'd always been in the wrong, but the accusations had followed me anyway. I was the foster kid. I was supposed to be bad, so even if I wasn't, the blame still fell on me. It had been as if the whole world was ready to convict me for the crime of surviving the hell of my own family.

But the door opened again, and someone else made their way in. Since this room was massive, I didn't think much of it until the girl kept walking, aiming straight for us.

"Hey, Hawke," she said, flashing him a smile. "Babysitting Torian's girl today, huh? Worried she'll break down or something? Heard the Hunt went after her."

"Fuck off, Camila," he warned.

The faeling paused, completely ignoring him. "You can hang with me."

"I'm good," he told her.

She huffed. "Fine, but so you know, being Torian's little bitch isn't doing you any favors. I could get you some friends who actually respect you, you know."

The sound Hawke made was almost feral as he stood and turned to face her. "Leave!"

The girl, Camila, almost squeaked in surprise, but she did leave. Walking so fast it was almost a jog, she scurried to the far side of the room, then ducked behind one of the bookshelves in here that divided the space.

"Fucking bitch needs to learn to respect her betters," he grumbled, sounding terrifying.

My skin began to crawl. My heart was pounding too fast. Realizing it, I pulled in a breath and closed my eyes, focusing on how the air filled my lungs. It was something Liam had taught me the other night. Breathe slowly, focus on it, and the fear would pass.

"Rain?" Hawke asked.

"I'm fine," I promised.

He grunted. "You're not." I felt his hand land on my knee. "Look at me?"

"Rain…" Jack said softly, sounding worried.

I lifted my lids to find Hawke kneeling before me. "I'm trying," I said, aware that was true.

He nodded. "And you're doing good," he said soothingly. That gripping feeling in my chest began to let go. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"It is," he breathed. "I didn't mean to set you off. It's going to be ok now. I won't do it again, but she pissed me off, acting like I'm nothing more than Torian's little bitch!"

That growl had returned, but it didn't trigger me this time. Maybe his anger had been too close to the way the Huntsman had talked? I didn't think so, but Liam said it could happen. Triggers were stupid things, and they hit without warning.

"Um..." I forced a smile as I tried to find a subject that would get my mind off everything. "Do wildlings think like that? Betters, I mean?"

Since, if Torian was the monster people accused him of, I was curious. If Hawke was pissed about being seen as below him, that meant there had to be something there, right? Fae rankings were still a little confusing to me.

I could follow the hierarchy of one court or the other, but when they started mixing Winter and Summer, I couldn't keep up.

I wanted to think a duke was a duke, regardless of court, but it didn't seem to work that way.

From the little I'd heard, marrying into the opposite court changed someone's ranking, dropping it a lot.

But when I added wildlings into the mix, it only got worse. Jack was a bastard prince. That meant there was a king, right? They called his father the Crow King, after all.

"Like Jack?" he asked carefully.

I shrugged. "Or the jevadu thing people are talking about. Or anything else on Faerie."

He chuckled. "Oh. Yeah. I guess you didn't forget about that, hm?"

"They're still talking about it," I admitted. "And you said 'betters,' so, yeah. I was just wondering how the court thinks about it, I guess?"

"In the court, we think of rankings as friends, allies, and everyone else," he explained. "It's not about the rank we would've had on Faerie. It's about the people we can rely on, regardless of the monarch they'd follow, the magic they'd use, or anything else that should no longer matter."

"I like that, because I don't really want to be a weird one."

He grinned. "Sorry, Rain. You're the Morrigan.

That's unique by its very definition, but yeah.

Wildlings have their own rankings. I mean, in English we'd use the words king or queen, but that's just a loose translation.

I think it'd really be more like an alpha wolf, you know?

Or whatever they use for bears, since a lot of wildlings are solitary. "

"Do the other courts respect it like they do with each other?" I asked next.

He shook his head. "No. They should, but wildlings are considered monsters, Rain. Terrifying beasts who can't be trusted. They have magic that is harmful and unstoppable."

"What does the court think about wildlings?" I asked gently, making sure I didn't put Hawke in a position where he couldn't talk about it.

Instead, the guy smiled. "In the court, we don't judge someone for who gave birth to them, Rain. We all judge each other based on what we do with the magic we got, regardless of how. It's why you belong with us."

"Yeah?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Kinda nice, huh?"

"It really, really is."

He just nodded again, but his smile had turned warm. From above us, Jack rattled in his crow way. To me it sounded like agreement.