The soldiers move to shackle us, their metal restraints clanging together. The sound fills me with no little amount of dread. For a split second, I’m vividly back in Karnon’s prison.

“Cuff her with iron, and you’ll lose your balls,” Des says, pulling me back into the present.

One of the soldiers hesitates, then squints at Des, a mean look in his eye. “Is that a threat?”

“Naw, he’s just reciting poetry to you,” I say.

The fairy’s glare moves from the Bargainer to me, his lips pressed together like he’s tasted something bad. All at once, he swings the back of his palm at me.

He never lands the blow. His hand freezes inches from my face.

“Ah, ah, ah. Hasn’t anyone told you it’s impolite to hit a girl?” the Bargainer’s voice is beguiling, but at his back his wings have appeared. They spread out menacingly.

The display is so obviously a warning, but the soldiers close in on him anyway.

In an instant, Des’s magic lashes out, knocking the fairies to the ground. With another pulse of his power, the soldiers’ weapons are yanked from them, the swords and cudgels turned on their owners. They lay pinned in place, held hostage by their weapons.

The only one not held up by their weapons is the soldier who tried to hit me. He lays on the ground, his eyes wide as his arm rises in front of him. As he watches, his fingers begin to curl into a fist.

He stammers out, “W-what in all the—”

His fist strikes out, slamming into his face with a meaty slap. It pulls away only to land a second blow—then a third, fourth, fifth. The soldier cries out as blood begins to drip from his nose.

“Aye, you fools,” one of the fallen soldiers says. He’s staring at Des’s wings, “that’s the Night King!”

The Bargainer’s eyes sweep over them. “I’m done playing games.” His voice drips with menace. “Take us to your king.”

The Banished Lands actually has a society. You can almost call it a civilization, except civil has no business being in the name.

Since descending into the Otherworld’s buttcrack—a.k.a., the crevice in the ground—I’ve gotten a quick and thorough introduction into Maltira, the City of the Banished.

So far, I’ve seen six fights break out, four passed out fairies, three couples going at it (seven if you count the very questionable dancing we walked by) and dozens of people wearing jewelry made from fae bones.

Apparently bone necklaces are a thing.

Early on, a few fairies catcalled me and another grabbed his crotch. That all came to a fun little end when the catcallers mysteriously started confessing to having grandma fetishes and venereal diseases, and the crotch-grabber began squeezing his bits until he was begging for mercy.

The entire time Des’s face remained pleasantly passive, but through our bond I could feel the cool breath of his magic, stirred to agitation.

Don’t piss off my boyfriend, yo.

When he catches me staring, he drops the façade to flash me a devilish little smile. Then the façade is back up and he’s the cool but implacable Bargainer once more.

Around us, our guards walk stiffly, their spears and knives out and their expressions menacing. None of them, however, get too close to me or Des, lest they tempt the Night King’s anger again.

I glance at the cavern ceiling high above me. All those stories about fairies living Under the Hill were true, after all.

Our armed escorts lead us past buildings that rise from the earth into the air, looking as though they’d been formed from a single lump of clay. We pass rows and rows of these buildings, each one occupied by cagey fairies who’ve carved out some life for themselves.

Just like the land above, the air here is parched of magic. But it’s not just magic that’s missing from this place. I’ve come to expect a certain fae elegance with the Otherworld, yet most of the buildings are devoid of decoration; no one’s attempted to carve designs on lintels, or paint on adornments. Just as noticeable as the lack of aesthetics is the careless disrepair of the place. There are bits of litter here and graffiti there. The building across the way is stained and partially collapsed. The one next to it has been crudely patched up with mud and hide. It’s all so very un-fae like.

We leave this city-center through a corridor cut into the rock. Already we’ve descended hundreds of feet, but judging by the passage’s downward slope, we’re about to head even deeper into the ground.

I glance at the wall sconces where flames flicker; the scent wafting from them closes up my windpipes. It smells like burning hair and rotting flesh, and I’m seriously concerned that’s what the odd candles are made from.

After a dizzying number of switchbacks and a few flights of stairs, our group comes upon two armed fairies who block the passageway. One of them is a Fauna fae, his soft fox’s ears poking from between his red hair. The other could be from any of the other kingdoms, his hair a bright blond and his eyes the color of moss. Both wear the same patchy, homemade uniforms.

“The King of the Night and his mate request an audience with the king,” one of our escorts now says to the fae standing guard.

The one with the fox ears grunts, taking a nice long perusal of me, his gaze lingering on my tits, hips, and legs because apparently every criminal here has to act like a fucking cliché.

His attention moves to Des, and his lip curls. “If the king can’t drain them, he doesn’t want to see them.”

For a beat, nothing happens.

But then Des’s magic rips across the room, throwing the banished fairies against the dank, earthen walls.

Not going to lie, it’s been a real rough day for this group.

The Night King’s power pins them there, and it’s so obvious that if we so wanted to, we could waltz right in to see this king, and none of his lackeys could stop us.

“You have to forgive your fellow soldier,” Des says, stepping up to Fox Ears. “He didn’t word our demands correctly. This isn’t a request. It’s an order. But go ahead, defy it. I do so love to hear fairies scream.” He touches Fox Ear’s cheek.

The fairy shakes his head back and forth, whimpering as though he can feel the first tendrils of pain.

Des assesses him for a moment, then with a flick of his wrist, he releases all the men.

They crumple to the floor, rubbing their formerly pinned limbs.

The fairies’ posturing appears to be over, but before any of them can pick themselves up, Des looms over Fox Ears. “Oh, and a word of warning: look at my mate again with anything other than respect and benevolence, and you’ll lose your eyes.”

Damn.

Fox Ears bows his head, his ears drooping, his posture turning submissive. He nods, and with that, he and the other guard step aside and let our entourage pass by.

“Got to threaten every damn grain of sand in this place …” Des mutters under his breath.

I can’t help but agree with him. The only thing anyone seems to respect around here is power.

We pass three more sets of guards (two of which also need to be threatened) and descend deeper into the mountain before we finally arrive at a massive stone door.

This far beneath the earth, where the sky is only a distant memory, I can feel the barest breath of magic.

So the Banished Lands haven’t been reaped of all power. Just the vast, vast majority of it. And now I understand why the citizens of the Banished Lands built down. Because the lower you go, the closer to magic you get. And in a world where everyone’s suffocating in its absence, even the barest hint of it is precious.