them to show I was okay.
The guards exchanged a few hand signals before one settled in to watch Rigel and me and the others went back to scanning the surroundings.
“I take it now you want me to tell you why I held the social here?” I guessed.
Fae aren’t known for their generosity. They expect equivalent exchange.
Lord Rigel fell back on his old goodie behavior and stared at me.
“I’m going to require a verbal answer for this one,” I drawled.
“I want to know how you intend to play this game of power.”
I snorted. “Buddy, have I got news for you—I am not telling you my entire strategy. That’s not worth knowing the contract was canceled!”
“It’s obvious you’re hoping to change the game,” Rigel ignored me and continued. “You held a social here—correctly assuming that the foreign setting would challenge the Court and shake them out of their usual behaviors.”
Huh. I would have thought he’d vastly underestimate me, not totally miss how little I actually care about how the Court feels.
“You have sold the sun stallions and brought in the night mares to disconcert the Court because it underlines how the night mares—a creature of the Night Court that symbolizes our power—have been neglected, and you have given the wild glooms and shades ridiculous names to accomplish the same as well.”
“HAH! I knew I saw you that night I met them!” I pointed a finger at him. “But that’s a solid miss.”
Lord Rigel narrowed his dark eyes. “Then what are you trying to accomplish? You dare to shoot back at a fae that bothers your companion—”
“—shooting at Indigo is way more than bothering her!”
“But you don’t immediately eliminate a threat against your life.”
“Yeah, because due process is a thing! I’m not gonna let heads roll without evidence!”
“You act strong when your life is in danger to impress your Court, but then make your personal seal the vermin of our realm?”
Oh-ho-ho, we’ve got ourselves a nosebox here!
“You are wildly unpredictable, and you’re acting in an unstable way that could topple what little balance of power we’ve managed to achieve in the Court,” Lord Rigel said.
Never mind. He’s just obsessed with this stupid game of power.
“As best as I see it, you are either wholly oblivious and an idiot in your humanity, or you so deeply despise fae that you intend to destroy us.”
“Hey, now. I don’t dislike fae. I just find you all excessively annoying.”
“Queen Leila,” Lord Rigel said in a tone of voice I was pretty sure most people didn’t survive hearing.
I blew out a breath of air. “You’re overthinking things, and trying to connect my actions in patterns that a fae would move in.”
“You are not a naïve human.”
“No.”
“Then that makes you a threat, because the way you plan to play the game—”
Something in me broke. I don’t know if it was the irritation of all the fae pressing me to try to see the world in the broken, horrible way they saw it, or if it was the sheer frustration that the Night Court was so backwards no one could even fathom escaping these politics.
“I don’t want to play the game,” I shouted. “I want to destroy it!”
Lord Rigel fell silent, but he’d pushed me into talking.
“I am sick and tired of all these time-consuming, energy-wasting politics the fae play, when the Night Realm is crumbling around us, the Court is in debt up to its ears, and the fae want to use stupid, sneery little insults to try to score a point over one another? Who has time to care about that?”
“While your motive is…noble, you can’t break out of this game. It’s been going on for centuries, and no one has successfully been able to stay out of it,” Lord Rigel said.
“I never said I wanted to break out—I said I wanted to end it,” I growled.
“It’s the same thing.”
“You are a fae, and you’ve escaped the game!”
“It might appear so, but how do you think I got everyone to avoid me?”
I paused.
Is he—no. No, he can’t be saying he became an assassin to keep everyone away? I just figured it was an example of his terrible morals.
I set my jaw. “I don’t care. I’m going to end this game. I don’t know if it’s because I’m half human, or because I’m only half fae, but I can see that these stupid ploys are going to be the end of the Night Court if someone doesn’t change something. And if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s bringing