you. The nobles fight among themselves in all of this, and even if you manage to get the upper hand, I don’t know that they’ll ever stop fighting you.”
“Sounds like a bunch of team players.”
“If you can manage to solidify your Court and keep hold of your power as queen—a monumental task in itself—the next level and difficulty you face will be the game of power between all the fae Courts.” The Paragon grunted as he picked up a rock that was just a little smaller than his head, and dropped it on top of the thumb-sized rock. “The Courts are locked in a never ceasing battle for power. They make alliances over tea and propose murdering their allies at hunting parties.”
The Paragon stood, making his bubble of magic grow around us. “They thirst for power, because they mistakenly think it means survival in this time of dying magic. It makes them ruthless in a way that’s hard to imagine. Your people will stab you in the back without a twinge of conscience. The monarchs of the other Courts would watch the Night Court and everyone in it die without remorse.”
I stared at the rocks and, with a sinking feeling in my gut, rolled them off the bench, revealing the thoroughly squashed clover leaf that was now a smear on the stone bench.
“That’s toxic,” I said.
The Paragon sat back down on his bench with a sigh that sounded as old as he looked. “It is. I wish I could stop it, but on my own I don’t have the power. I’m searching for a way, but…” He met my gaze, and his bushy eyebrows sloped in concern. “Even at my most optimistic I can’t say I’ll be able to enact it before your own Court—or the other monarchs—eats you alive. You’ll have to play this game of power if you want to survive.”
I rested my palms on the stone bench, grimacing when I felt dirt and grit smudge my palm. “And I’m supposed to try to win?”
“I don’t know if ‘winning’ is possible,” the Paragon said. “This game is much like a chess match with a hundred players all on one board. The truth is no one wins for long. The status quo is always changing, nobles are forever falling in and out of favor, and the Courts are always in opposition—though they may temporarily unite against a common enemy.”
I heard scuttling, and through the dim light shed by the moon and the bright stars, I was able to see a creature that shouldered its way through the garden underbrush.
It was a griffin. Not the lion-sized, noble creatures from a picture book, heck no. Not in this grungy place! This cat-sized griffin looked like a combination of a raccoon and a pigeon.
It had the mottled gray wings, the extra round and empty head, and the unnerving orange eyes of a pigeon, but the rotund, fluffy body of a raccoon.
It was dragging a McDonald’s takeout bag through the garden—I had no idea how it found that here in the fae realm—which it ripped open with its stumpy front legs that ended in creepy pigeon feet.
This place is bizarre.
I felt for the charm bracelet that dangled from my wrist—it was a magic tool my mom had gotten for me when I attended magic classes at the Curia Cloisters.
Unlike wizards—who channeled raw, wild magic through their bodies—fae had to use artifacts to wield magic if we wanted to do anything more than the innate abilities we were born with. Artifacts filtered the magic and let us use it to cast spells and charms, but there was a huge variety in artifacts—from modern, mass produced ones like my charm bracelet, to antique items that were made by elves or the occasional overpowered wizard.
The variety of artifacts meant there was also a lot of diversity in fae abilities. Not everyone was capable of wielding an elf-made artifact, but if you were, you’d be insanely powerful with the right artifact.
“How are you taking this?” the Paragon asked.
“It feels a bit unreal,” I admitted. “But the backstabbing and power struggle doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me. Although it seems like surviving will be harder than I thought.”
“You do have some advantages—your friendship with Hazel Medeis and Killian Drake, foremostly. And of course, I shall try to aid you whenever possible as well.” He hesitated, then said, “There is one more thing—which may lighten your load. Though I doubt you’re going to like it.”
I finally pulled