“I really don’t…” I trailed off, watching the stillness underneath.

  One of the Fae standing near the door, a man in a fine, moss green suit covered in golden embroidery took a step forward and slapped a trumpet against his mouth. He sounded off, a sharp, high-pitch tune erupting from the tip of his trumpet. An instant later, two other trumpeters joined in, creating a harmony of sound that wasn’t nearly as grating against my ears as the first few notes had been.

  “Introducing,” the lead trumpeter called out, “The House of Jade!”

  The doors behind the trumpeters opened, and a couple of people came rolling into the room. They were wearing black, skintight suits that covered their hands and feet like gloves, and came all the way up to their mouths like bandanas. I couldn’t tell whether they were men or women, but both of them had long, platinum hair held up in ponytails; hair that whipped around, back and forth, as they performed feats of acrobatics like I’d never seen before.

  One of them rolled on the floor ahead of the other. The second one then rushed toward the first, used them as a stepping stone, and leapt into the air in a way that seemed to defy gravity. At the apex of their leap, they popped their hands up, and out came bursts of light and sound that dazzled and sparkled through the air.

  The sudden shock startled me, but I couldn’t help admire the rest of the show these two put on. They spun, they leapt, they rolled, all the while creating bursts of light and sound from nothing at all—from literal thin air. After a few moments, once the Fae assembled along the balcony started clapping, more people began to enter through the front doors.

  Two men wearing all-black suits stepped in carrying something between them—it looked like a roll of fabric. In unison, they placed the roll on the ground, and then one of them kicked it, allowing a long, black carpet to go streaking across the foyer, stopping once it reached full extension.

  On it was a gorgeously embroidered picture of a jade-green crystal in the shape of an island rising out of a golden sea. The man who hadn’t kicked the carpet to unroll it stomped on the ground near its head, and the crystal came to life, escaping the ground and beaming into the air like a hologram. Underneath it, the words “House of Jade” burned their way into existence, like a crown atop the crystal island.

  “Holy shit,” I blurted, once again catching the attention of the Fae standing next to me. “Uh, I mean…”

  “Wow,” Thea put in. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  “It’s incredible.”

  “Cheap parlor tricks,” Rell said, in a low voice. “Anyone can do that.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Well… no, but still.”

  “Then shut up.”

  One of the trumpeters stepped into view again, turned his nose up at the sky, and declared. “Introducing, his Lordship, Duke Clement, and the Lady of the House of Jade, Lady Violet.”

  No sooner had the trumpeter stepped back that several servants walked through the doors, surrounding the two people who had surely just been introduced. The Duke was a tall, round man with deep black hair held up in a tight bun and a black beard to match. He was wearing a robe of the deepest greens and blacks, and was covered in all manner of gold and jade jewelry. There were so many charms, and bracelets, and necklaces on his body, they clattered as he walked, signaling his entrance into a room.

  Next to him was a woman who was almost as tall as he was, but looked like she was several times more athletic. Her skin was fair, her makeup was dark, and her long, dark hair was tightly pulled back and wound into a single, long braid that fell around her shoulder. But what struck me the most about Lady Violet wasn’t that she wore a cheeky smile like she knew a secret nobody else did. It was that she was also wearing a god-awful black dress as boxy and as ridiculous as mine.

  It, too, had those totally unnecessary shoulder balls.

  “You’re kidding,” I said, the words falling past my lips.

  “What?” Rell asked.

  “Look at what she’s wearing. What is happening?”

  “It’s probably a tradition or something. This isn’t the first Favoring ceremony you know, and the Fae love their pageants.”

  “Yeah, but I mean… did these people forget how to dress or something?”

  “Or something.”

  Duke Clement and Lady Violet were offered food and refreshments, the Emerald Hall staff working as if like clockwork to make sure every member of their delegation felt welcomed and at home. While all this was going on, my eyes caught on something—someone—I hadn’t seen until now… and my heart surged when I saw him.

  The Viscount.

  He had moved into view behind the line of servants standing in front of the open archway into the study. I hadn’t seen him since the night he sent me to talk to the Duchess. Not really. Maybe we’d traded glances here and there, but we hadn’t had so much as an exchange of words since.

  Anger filled me when I saw him, but that wasn’t the only emotion to bubble to the surface. There was more there, more feelings, all of them wrapped up inside and around each other, dependent of each other. Seeing him made me angry, but the heat that came up with that emotion coiled its way into the pit of my stomach like a snake, and squeezed it hard.

  Desire.

  Anger and desire.

  Maybe I was the one with Stockholm syndrome and not Rell, maybe I had gone full-on insane in this place, but none of that mattered in the face of the conflict raging inside of me. Seeing him made me want to slap him in the face, because after all, he was the reason I was here. On the other hand, I’d have to have been a total idiot to deny the chemistry I thought we had.

  For an instant we locked eyes, and the moment stretched.

  Like me, his appearance was also different from the night where we first met. Back then, he’d had short, dark hair, dark eyes to match, and ears that were totally, and normally, round. Now, he had slightly longer hair that fell to about his shoulders, chestnut in color, and a little wavy. His eyes were still dark, and deep, but his ears—they were all too pointed, too Fae.

  But something about him was off.

  Though he normally towered above the people around him, right now he seemed to exist in the background, almost in the dark. Nobody had spotted him, and if they had, no one had made a fuss. A path wasn’t cleared for him. The servants didn’t move. It was as if he didn’t want to be noticed. He took a step closer, toward the light, and I realized with a sudden wash of cold that he looked way too pale.

  He almost looked… sick.

  When he turned around to leave, I almost made a move to go after him. Thea had to grab my arm and stop me. “Where are you going?” she whispered, her violet eyes narrow.

  “I…” he was gone. “Nowhere…”

  “Look, another house is about to show up.”

  Thea was right. The entire House of Jade delegation was through. A whole court of servants, nobles, and other extravagantly dressed Fae had made their way into the grand hall, but they were only the first. The first of many.

  After them came Vermillion Manor, making an entrance nothing like the first group to come through. There was no magic display here, but a martial one; a man and a woman fighting, swords clashing, the sound of metal-on-metal ringing out across the entire foyer to accompany their choreographed grunts and shouts.

  When they were done with their routine, the servants and the court made their way into the house, followed by the nobility. Duke Khan and Lady Isolde were the last of the party to make their way into the house, and what struck me about them was the color of their skin.

  Until now, all the Fae I had met were either pale or sun-kissed, but Khan and Isolde were dark skinned, and covered in white and gold livery, accented with spots of orange and yellow—and weapons. Both the Duke and the Lady were armed, with ornate and decorated swords strapped to their sides.

  Isolde strode into the room with the confidence of a cheetah. She was all eyes, narrow and searching, watching the many faces of the servants around her as they passed, offering drinks and little bits of food. She took none of it, choosing instead to cross from the front door to the arch beneath the stairs as efficiently as possible.

  The final house through the doors was called Blossom House, and they arrived inside of a shower of petals and flowers that filled the foyer with colors and fragrant smells. The Duchess, Lyra, and Lady Petal—I had to admit, I snorted-laughed a little at that one—were understated in the way they arrived.

  There was no carpet, no display of athletic skill this time, just a constant trickle of flower petals that fell in front of them as the delegation walked along the house’s grand entrance into the hall beyond.

  The Lady, Petal, she looked like the youngest of the girls to arrive. She had long, platinum hair held in a network of tight braids, fair, unblemished skin, and the widest, most confused doe-eyes I’d ever seen in my life. It looked as if she had no idea where she was or what she was supposed to be doing, unlike the Duchess, whose eyes immediately found me.

  She watched me the entire time like she couldn’t get enough of me. I wasn’t sure what to do with the weight of her gaze on me. Smile? Nod? Bow? Elaith hadn’t prepared me to have the full attention of a Duchess on me.

  I let her pass without acknowledging her attention, not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. A moment later, the front doors to Emerald Hall closed, and the servants arranged to create a corridor followed the other courts into the grand hall.

  “That’s it?” I asked. “I thought there’d be more…”

  “These are the best,” Rell said. “The competition will be pretty stiff.”

  “I guess I’m glad there’s only a few of them, then. Where are they all going to stay, though? I don’t think even this mansion is big enough for all of them.”

  Rell turned his head up. “Oh, that’s right… you don’t know what happens to these Great Houses, do you?”

  “No… what are you talking about?”

  The little dragon grinned, then gestured with his head across my shoulder. “They grow.”

  Turning my head slightly, my mouth fell open. “Holy shit…”

  CHAPTER 3

  Rell was right; the building had grown. The entire space behind me, the walls, the doors, the floors, all seemed different than they’d looked a minute ago. I remembered the walk from my bedroom door to the foyer, how it hadn’t taken more than a few seconds to cross from my room to the balcony.

  My bedroom door was gone, now, replaced by a corner and a hallway that hadn’t been there earlier. Frowning, I turned my eyes upwards, scanning the walls and the ceiling, all the way to the skylight high above us. It was still there, but it was much higher than it had been the last time I’d looked up. Even the chandelier had doubled in size.

  “What is this?” I asked, once the Fae standing near me had started to move away.

  “This is Spring,” Rell said. “These houses aren’t built, they grow.”

  I shook my head. “I totally don’t get that.”

  “Well, there are many great houses spread all throughout the Kingdom of Spring, and the story goes that at one point, each of those houses was only a seed—a seed that began to grow, and grow, as it was cultivated by the Fae around it.”

  “Cultivated? Buildings aren’t vegetables.”

  “These buildings are. I don’t know how much of it is true, but I know that the Fae are forbidden from trying to add or remove parts of their Houses themselves. They grow along with the prestige of the family that holds it. Emerald Hall just hosted this season’s Favoring, so it’s gained enough prestige to house the circus that just waltzed through the front doors.”

  “That’s… insane. A house that grows?”

  “It doesn’t just grow—it shrinks, too.”

  “Let me guess, if the family loses prestige?”

  Rell tapped his snout. “Who says humans aren’t smart?”

  I frowned. “Hey, who says that?”

  “The Fae,” Thea put in, “Literally, all of them.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Seriously, it’s all some of them talk about. How are humans so stupid? How did they survive as a species?”

  “Alright, enough of that.” I took a deep breath to compose myself. “I have to head into the grand hall to greet the other courts. I guess I was expecting there’d be more of them.”

  “This is probably more nerve-wrecking, though, isn’t it?” Thea asked, her violet eyes narrow.

  “What? How so?”

  “There’s less of them… which means there will be more attention on you, right?”

  I stopped in my tracks just as I was about to start descending the grand staircase. “Damn,” I sighed. “That’s right. What the hell am I going to do?”

  “You’re just going to be yourself.”

  “No, I absolutely can’t be myself. I’m a stray cat that lives in a dumpster even compared to other humans, let alone the Fae.”

  “True…” Thea trailed off, suddenly out of ideas.

  “I agree,” Rell put in, “You’re pretty rough around the edges. Just remember your training. You haven’t spent all week with Elaith for nothing.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah… exactly, I’ll remember my training. I am Kadeera Nightbloom, right?”

  A series of trumpet blasts stole my attention—it almost made me jump out of my skin, in fact. From between the arches set into the center of the grand staircase I was about to descend I heard a voice, loud and clear, boom all through the manor.

  “And now, distinguished guests of Emerald Hall,” someone called out, “May I present to you, the pride of this House, Duchess Invidia Nightbloom, and her daughter, Lady Kadeera!”

  “Oh shit!” I shrieked, “That’s my cue!”

  I dumped Rell in Thea’s arms, picked up the hem of my dress, and started running down the stairs, around the corner, and through the tunnel beneath the staircase. Already I could see the people arranged inside of the grand hall, a sea of faces, and suits, and servants walking between them offering drinks, and food, and anything they wanted.

  The trumpets blared again, just as I was about to reach the mouth that led into the grand hall. That was when a hand jerked out of a small staircase set into the wall. It grabbed my arm and rooted me to the spot with the strength of five men, causing me to jerk back, but there weren’t five men in that staircase, or even one man.

  It was the Duchess, Invidia, the head of this household, the rose with the sharpest thorns. She had to crane her neck down and under the lip of the doorway so she could fit through it, and when she stood upright again, I remembered how much taller than I she was; and how much more stunningly beautiful.

  I’d only really crossed paths with this giraffe of a Fae a handful of times, and each time I’d been somehow a little more intimidated than the last. Even when she wasn’t around, I couldn’t help but feel like her cold, blue stare was never far from the back of my neck.

  Maybe sizing me up, deciding whether I had a shot at this.

  Maybe trying to figure out whether to bring the axe down once and for all and be done with it.

  She watched me now, her silver hair held neatly in a tight updo to compliment the elegant black dress she was wearing. No square neck for her, and no shoulder-balls, either. Apparently, the latest and greatest fashion was reserved only for the ladies of the house, and not for the Duchy.

  “Your, uh, grace,” I said, offering a curtsy.

  “Uh, Grace?” the Duchess asked. “Is that how Elaith has taught you to speak to me?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m nervous.”

  “Right… well, at least you can bow correctly, so that’s a start.”

  I felt the warm flush of anger rise into my chest, into my throat, but I had to swallow it down and keep quiet; at least in front of Invidia. She was the Duchess, after all, and I was supposed to be Kadeera. If I wanted to get back home, I had to play nice, do what I was told, and pretend to like it.

  “Thank you,” I said, through gritted teeth.

  Invidia’s eyebrow arched, having clearly picked up the subtext. “Now, chin up, back straight, shoulders tight, and let’s show these other Houses why we’re hosting this season’s Favoring and not them, shall we?”

  “Yes, mother.”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  Invidia walked a couple of steps ahead of me, as was customary here. This way, the Dukes and Duchesses are the ones who received the initial fanfare, the applause, the adoration. That was how it had worked with the other three houses, and it was no different this time.

  The Duchess entered the grand hall to a chorus of applaud, trumpets, and cheering. She didn’t wave, didn’t nod at any one particular dignitary or another, didn’t stray away from her path toward the main podium at the end of the hall. She stayed her course, walking softly, with purpose and with me falling into step behind her.

  But even though I stood in her shadow, I was bathed in light as I entered the grand hall. I had never been in this part of the house before, so I couldn’t have known if it had always been this big, or this bright, or this airy, but none of that mattered right now.

  The grand hall was filled with people cheering, and clapping, with the sounds of trumpets blowing, and a colorful display of magic unfolding overhead. The ceiling was tall, easily three stories, topped with a round, glass dome that let the sunlight pour in. Underneath it, streaks of green, and gold, and red light danced like ribbons. Wherever the lights went, they rained glitter on the Fae beneath them—glitter that smelled like spring flowers in bloom.

  Like life itself.

  It was magic. Like something out of a dream, or a nightmare. A cold wash of realization poured over me like a bucket of ice water. For all the beauty of this place, for all the splendor and the magic, I was swimming in water, surrounded by sharks on all sides, and I had bags of chum strapped all over my body.

  The slightest misstep had the ability to pierce any one of those bags, and if that happened, the sharks would be ready to rip me limb from limb in a bloodied frenzy.