Page 61 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

So perhaps Lachlan was right and she needed to make alliances. And she may as well take advantage of a night she was unlikely to ever experience again, even if she survived. People sold off their inheritances, made ill-advised bargains, or promised future firstborn children just for a chance to spend a single night dancing at a Fae Revel.

If she was meant to be the meal, she may as well fatten herself up.

So they could choke on her.

Feeling somewhat bolstered, Pippa followed Lachlan between the willows, into the castle. Hare Hall was made from golden stone and filled with flowers and flowering trees. Lachlan did not go far, his glances finding her wherever she went. She realized the cloud of moths hovering high above her made her easy to keep track of. An owl landed on a windowsill, also watching her.

Was it consideration?

Or warning?

Lachlan was no less inscrutable than his owl. She wished Sorcha were here—she could speak to birds and knew how to throw a decent punch. Nothing fazed her. Not even a Fae king who looked like a devil.

“Try the gingerbread. It tastes just like the solstice eve from my childhood.” Molly’s chestnut-brown hair was braided like a crown of snakes. There was a gold snake around her throat, more at her wrists. Pippa was not entirely convinced they weren’t real. Her mask was made of gold beetle wings, meant to look like scales.

“The strawberry honey tarts are even better,” Jude added. There was a wound across the back of his hand, sewn with gold thread. He wore a wolf mask and ate three pastries in the time it took for Pippa to blink at him.

“You’re not supposed to eat the fruit,” she said, but it was too late to stop him.

He chuckled. “I’m bound, love. A strawberry tart isn’t going to make a difference.”

Molly nodded and took an enormous bite. One of the snakes coiled in her hair reached out with a tiny red tongue to snatch a crumb away. Molly took another bite, eyes bright. She shrugged when she noticed Pippa staring. “I wished for this. I may as well enjoy it.”

“You wished for a fairy feast?”

“When you’re that hungry, you’ll wish for anything. I would have eaten raw oysters with a mermaid.”

“Ah.” Mermaids shared lovers and drowned sailors. They did not share food.

Molly shrugged again. “Die hungry or die with a full belly drinking wine that lets you taste music and dance underwater.”

She was right. It was a stunning night. And it would be churlish and downright foolish not to take what pleasure she could from it. She drank it in for a full quarter of an hour.

And then she itched to find the castle library.

It was not that she did not appreciate the finery and the extravagance, or the sheer, glittering overindulgence of a masquerade in a Fae castle. It was only that most of the Fae here were quite keen to cheer as she was gruesomely murdered in front of them.

It did rather put a damper on things.

Or it would have, were it not for the feasting tables and the fairy wine and the music. It was all too impossible to resist. By design, she reminded herself. But she wasn’t really listening. She had promised herself she would not waste her chances.

She may as well start with the feast table in front of her.

She avoided the ripe green pears, red apples, purple berries. The bright lemons and dark plums. Instead, she chose a soft cheese baked with honey into a cake on a bed of crushed pecans rolled in cinnamon. She had to stifle a moan on the first taste. There was gingerbread dusted with fine sugar, rosewater creams, and liqueur made from the roots of flowers. Carrots roasted in butter, potatoes mashed with cream. Pastries made into castles and chariots and bees.

“Try the soup.” Someone passed her a goblet of fragrant green. The spinach soup was the best thing Pippa had ever tasted, and she could not even remember if she even liked spinach. It was smooth and rich and dotted with pomegranate seeds that burst with unexpected, tart sweetness in her mouth.

Pippa paused.

Pomegranate.

Something about that seemed important.

The goblet slid from her grasp, the deep green spattered over the lace tablecloth.

But too late, too late.

The fruit-laced soup slid down her throat. The moths above her circled and circled. The owl gave a loud screech. She did not think it was the first time, but she could not be sure. She could not be sure of anything except the taste of pomegranate seeds and the shimmer of magic sharpening around her like knives.