“Be still, cherub.”

Reluctantly, I do as he asks, my body motionless.

All at once he pours the starlight onto the crown of my head.

I raise my eyebrows, still not moving. “Why did you just do that?” I ask, afraid of what will happen if I shake out my hair.

“The stars agreed that for an evening they’d hang the night sky in your hair.”

He’s still giving me that intense look. It makes me want to shyly tuck my hair behind my ear.

A small handheld mirror shimmers out of the ether and into Des’s palm. He hands it to me, and I take it, tentatively glancing down at my reflection.

I suck in a breath.

Hundreds of pinpricks of light glitter from my hair, the starlight clustered into constellations. I shake my head, and the starlight moves with it. It really does look like I’m wearing the night sky in my hair.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, tearing my eyes away from my reflection to look at Des.

It’s more than beautiful. It’s breathtaking, surreal. I glance above us, just to make sure I’m not imagining this, but I’m not. The dark sky overhead is missing its twinkling companions.

Des leans forward and kisses me, just the softest brush of his lips, before he stands. He straightens his fitted shirt, picking off a stray blade of grass. “I hate to cut the evening short, love, but we ought to get going. We do, after all, have another dance to attend.”

Chapter 27

Apparently, there will be dances every day and night, each one called some fancy name that distinguishes it from the others. There’s the Solar Celebration, the Midsummer Eve Ball, and, oh, my personal favorite, the Fecundity Formal. If that doesn’t make you cringe, then I just don’t know what will.

I’m not exactly surprised by all the balls—I sort of figured as much—but the true horror of a week’s worth of dancing, drinking, and schmoozing with fairies is finally starting to set in.

Not to mention the fact that for seven days straight I’m going to have to wear heels.

Ugh, bane of my existence.

The silver lining is that, being associated with the Kingdom of Night, I’m not required to participate in some of the Solstice dances and mixers hosted during the day. Apparently many Night fae like to sleep during that time, so I’m off the hook as far as official Night King mate duties go.

My shoes click against the stone walkway as Des, his retinue, and I all enter the Flora Kingdom’s royal palace.

I touch my hair for the millionth time, oddly self-conscious that the night sky now glitters from it. At the moment, I feel like the cosmos personified, my dress tonight the deep midnight blue of the dark heavens.

We head down flight after flight of stairs, and the farther we go, the more claustrophobic I feel.

Just how far down is this ballroom?

The answer: far enough to make my already sore ass even sorer.

When we finally reach the bottom, the room we walk into utterly takes my breath away. It might be underground, but it doesn’t feel that way.

Intricate, soaring arches hold up the cathedral ceilings, the pale stone faceted. The pillars spread throughout the room are carved into images of fairy maidens, flowers strewn in their hair.

Hundreds of glass lanterns hang from the walls and from several enormous candelabra, the dripping candles illuminating the room in bright, flickering light.

Most surfaces are covered with plants and flowers, some arranged in pots, others growing up the various walls. More ferns cover the food-laden tables that line the sides of the great ballroom.

In the very middle of the room is an enormous tree, its trunk extending all the way to the ceiling, where its canopy spreads out. From it, petals of some strange, fae flower rain down on us.

Des sees me staring at the tree. “It’s said that the first Queen of Flora is buried beneath that tree. That rather than dying, she chose to be buried alive so that her body and soul could continue to nourish her land and people for thousands of years.”

“That is fucking hardcore,” I say.

The giant tree, the fae maidens carved into stone, the high cathedral ceilings … I spin in a circle. “It’s just like your drawings,” I breathe.

Back at Peel Academy, Des had drawn me several pictures of the Otherworld. At least one was of this great hall, I’m sure of it.

“You remember that?” he says, surprised.

“Of course.” I remember everything. “I was desperate to know about your life.”

He doesn’t respond to that, but he doesn’t need to. It’s all in his expression.

It’s yours to take.

“Dark night,” one of the guests murmurs to her companion as they pass by us.

That one little sentence interrupts the moment Des and I were having. A laugh bursts out of me, and the Bargainer’s lips spread into a secretive grin, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Little do those fairies know that the man next to me is responsible for the unusually dark evening.

Des pulls me in close, the action not going unnoticed. For the second day in a row, we hold the room’s attention. It’s not as obvious tonight, more like something I feel rather than see, their gazes warming my skin. I imagine there’s something particularly alluring about the King of the Night, the ruler of secrets, sex, dreams and violence, enjoying a human.

Des runs a finger along my exposed collarbone. “Have you noticed?” he asks.

“Noticed what?”

Des’s eyes flick across the room. “The wings.”

I turn my attention to the fairies around us.

He’s right.

Just like in Somnia, there are several individuals with their wings out. Not many, but definitely more than last night, and then the fairies were toasted.

It’s nearly an hour after we enter the ballroom before Mara makes her appearance, a group of men around her, none of them the Green Man.

The sight is unsettling, and I can’t quite put my finger on why until, a few seconds later, she cups the chin of one of the men and kisses him.

My eyebrows hike up.

“The queen’s harem,” Des explains.

So fae queens have harems too.

“But she has a mate …” I say, my eyes riveted to her.

Today, her dress is a vibrant scarlet color, her bodice cinched with gold ribbon. Her lips are blood red, and they look particularly savage when she smiles.

“She does.” Des grabs two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter, handing me one of them.

Distractedly, I take it. “But I assumed …”

I had assumed that soulmates couldn’t sleep with other people, but what had I been doing all those years Des and I were apart? Just because my heart couldn’t move on didn’t mean I avoided dating other men—or being intimate with them.

Des is gracious enough not to mention this. Instead the two of us spend several more seconds staring at Mara.

“What does the Green Man think of this?” I ask.

Des lifts a shoulder. “I imagine he’s not too keen about sharing his mate. But she’s the queen, and he’s a coward.”

Ouch.

Before either of us can continue, we hear rhythmic stomping just outside the hall, coming from the staircase leading down here.

Ever so slowly, the room quiets, hundreds of gazes going to the huge double doors that lead into the ballroom.

The echoing footfalls quiet, and the doors to the ballroom are thrown open. Two rows of fae soldiers wearing uniforms of gleaming gold file into the room, their movements choreographed and precise.