“You look amazing,” I say.
She rakes her gaze down my gown with a critical eye. “What in Maia’s name are you wearing?”
“You were the one who’s had a hand in every aspect of my wardrobe, so you can only blame yourself.” I finger the lilac silk. “And I like it.”
“That’s not the point!” she says in exasperation. “Thiago didn’t show you the dress. I had it made just for tonight! It’s black and gold, and the cape is so amazing I might stop breathing! You were supposed to look like a queen!”
“I don’t care, Thalia.” I squeeze her hands. “These boots are perfect for dancing in. And tonight’s not about me. Tonight is about the future. About Evernight.”
She sniffs. “Tonight is about you. Evernight hasn’t had a queen in over five hundred years.”
“Thalia.” I growl. “I’ll be fine.”
“I even managed to get Eris into a dress.”
“You did?” All I’d glimpsed as Eris decorated me was an enormous velvet cloak that covered her from head to toe.
As if summoned, Eris stalks forward. “She did.”
“E!” Thalia grabs Eris’s hands, and the black cloak that Eris wear slips from her shoulders. “Show her!”
Finn catches it just before it hits the ground, and then Eris whirls in circles with Thalia, rolling her eyes with a roughened laugh.
She’s not wearing leathers.
Nor is she wearing the type of dress she wore at Ravenal for court appearances—polished silver chainmail. No, this is a dress, and yet it suits Eris perfectly; a mix of femininity and dangerous smoky allure. A dress fit for a warrior queen.
It’s like a corset comprised of black lace, though the panels that circle her waist are sheer. Little gold stars are embroidered all over it, and a golden rope knots around her waist and loops up around her throat. From midthigh down, her skirts are sheer, with a thousand more little stars, and they wisp around her ankles like the froth of the sea.
Gold-hilted knives are sheathed on her forearms, and a gold mask hides her eyes.
But there’s no hiding the look on Finn’s face as he stares at her as if she just punched him in the throat. Or lower.
Gold tattoos highlight Eris’s dark skin, and they cover her entire décolletage and shoulders. Whimsical, featherlight designs that speak of an ancient culture I don’t recognize. She’s such utter perfection that I know Thalia’s had her hand all over this.
I reach up and close Finn’s mouth with a finger to his jaw.
He shoots me a dark look, then his hand crushes her velvet cloak into a wad and he shoves it at my chest. “I need a drink.”
Then he’s gone, stalking into the crowd.
“Dance with us, Baylor!” Thalia snags his arm.
Baylor scrubs at his mouth, his long silver hair tangling down his back. “I need a drink too,” he growls under his breath, and then he vanishes in Finn’s direction.
I shoot Thiago a helpless smile. “Vanquished by the threat of dancing. Surely you’re made of sterner stuff than that?”
He takes my hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. “Go and enjoy yourself. I’ll dance with you later. If I don’t let Thalia have you for an hour or so, then I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“I intend to hold you to that!” I warn as Thalia grabs my other hand.
She drags me into the dancing, the laughter on her face so infectious that I can’t help laughing back. But it’s Eris who shocks me. Eris who whirls and leaps with such grace that fae pause to watch her for a second. She’s always been so elegant with a blade, but I didn’t know she could move like this.
And I lose myself in the music, in the laughter, in the sway and bump and grind. There are cobblestones beneath our feet, and every so often someone staggers into us. It’s such a far cry from the formal balls my mother held. Such different dancing. A riot in the streets as fireworks crash and shatter in the air above us.
This. This is what it feels like to rule a kingdom with love and not fear.
A pair of handsome fae males push into our group, one of them slinging an arm around Eris’s waist. He’d probably faint if he knew who she was. “I like the way you dance,” he yells over the music.
“Think you can keep up with me?” she demands.
“Oh, I know it.”
With a wink in our direction, she whirls him into the flurry of bodies.
“This way!” Thalia yells, grabbing my wrist and hauling me onto the ruins of an old city wall that looks like it’s been gobbled up by little houses and turrets. People have built onto it, underneath it, over it…. But I catch a glimpse of ivy-choked walls and an ancient city arch that bridges a street.
The view from the top of the arch is glorious. The city square is packed with fae, and I catch a glimpse of Thiago drinking with Baylor and laughing at something Finn says. Our eyes meet across the crowded square—he’s known exactly where I was the entire time.
“Enjoying yourself?” he murmurs.
“Immensely. You should join us.”
He glances at Finn, who’s scowling into his drink as he rests both elbows on the bar in front of him, his back turned resolutely to the crowd.
And I remember what Finn said about violence and the anger he fights each and every day.
“Stay with him,” I tell my husband. And then I dare…. “Does she know?”
“I don’t think he even knows. I’ll find you later, once he’s got a rein on it.”
And then he’s gone, with one last caress against my mind.
It’s quieter up here, and sweat slicks my skin, so I’m glad of the respite. Eris has vanished. Thalia leans against the wall, a glass of wine she’s stolen from
