Crown of Shadows (Court of Midnight and Deception #1) - K. M. Shea Page 0,101

secretive about them and apparently only showed them to those they really cared about.

I had no desire to see anybody’s wings. Skye probably didn’t have them either, Chase was a werewolf so he didn’t have any, and since Indigo was a brownie, she wouldn’t have them.

Lord Linus was the only member of my inner circle who had them, and if that doofus ever even tried to show me his wings—or talk about if he showed my mom his wings—I’d strangle him with my bare hands.

“Oh,” I said when it clicked. “You’re warning me not to fall in love with you. How very melodramatic and proper for a brooding fae like you. No worries, bucko. Murderizing snobs aren’t my type.”

I meandered back up the aisle, calling to the night mares. “I’ll be back later today, boys and girls! I need some sleep—and I’ve got to get out of this dress!”

Lord Rigel quickly caught up to me with his longer legs. “I will be surprised if, by the end of your reign, you haven’t offended every noble in your Court.”

“Ohhh, now that sounds like a challenge. I accept!”

“It was an observation.”

“I still accept!”

“If you anger so many people, there will be repercussions.”

“Hah—none I care about!”

Rigel glanced down at me. “What are your other rules for surviving with fae?”

“Don’t eat or drink anything a fae has made to avoid getting spelled. Pay attention to the way fae phrase things because even if they can’t lie, they will manipulate until the horses go back into the barn. Oh—never put yourself in a fae’s debt. And mind your manners since fae value them greatly.”

“And this summer is an example of you minding your manners?”

“I’m queen. That rule shouldn’t apply to me.”

“Shocking.”

“Hey, I do all the little speeches and stupid events and dinners—that ought to count for something!”

“Certainly, if your small donkey counts as a night mare.”

“You’re just jealous you have to use your brooding looks to get out of this kind of thing.”

“Brooding?”

“You say that as if you don’t do it on purpose—hah!”

“The last rider dropped out this morning, and all requests for new derby participants among the Night Court have gone unmet,” Skye said.

“These are the repercussions for getting engaged to my dashing assassin, I imagine,” I said.

“Most likely.”

I shrugged and looked around Magiford—the “race track.”

The city was cleared for the occasion. Lots of barriers were erected to block out pedestrian areas, keeping humans from accidentally wandering into the course—which was marked out by colored flags.

The Midsummer Derby wasn’t like your typical race—oh heck no.

It started on the north west side of the city and ended on the east side, but there were all kinds of different ways to get between the two spots, and the riders decided where to go.

The areas marked out for the course included several parks, downtown, and even the lakeside boardwalk. Technically two of the lakes were included in the area we could ride through, but neither water nor flying mounts were allowed, so that was a bit of a moot point.

There were pockets of spectators—this was one of the Curia Cloisters’ “good will” events that trotted us fae out for the humans to see, but I wasn’t convinced it actually bought us much popularity since all the downtown shops had to close for almost the entire day.

Skye fiddled with her tablet. “The derby begins in twenty minutes. We need to scratch our entries now.”

Lord Linus—yes, he’d returned from whatever hole he had crawled into after my engagement announcement—frowned and scratched Bagel’s head, then adjusted his hold on the donkey’s lead rope. “That’s not going to look good. Even under Queen Nyte, the Night Court has always managed to enter the derby. It’s going to make our reputation suffer even more.”

“Actually, it won’t, because we don’t have to scratch.” I held up my helmet and gestured to my riding clothes. “I came prepared.”

“You’re one rider, Queen Leila,” Skye said. “We still need five more.”

“No we don’t, because I have six night mares,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Lord Linus asked.

“I read all of the race rules in excruciating detail. It says six horses are required per Court, but it never actually says each mount has to have a rider. And I’ve been working with the night mares—they’ll race with me. That’s why I insisted we bring Bagel and Fax, too.”

I gestured to Lord Rigel, who was holding Fax’s lead rope, and hadn’t said more than two sentences since we arrived here via a portal from the night mares