Evie had heard it whispered at more than one table—mostly from humans, a few dwarves. She even heard a table of werewolves join in.

  That they wished they had gotten to the bride first.

  Disgust clawed at her ribs.

  There were always gross men like that, no matter how high the ceilings or how polished the silverware. They stared like scavengers circling a feast, not caring that the so-called prize was still breathing and already married.

  But it wasn’t just the gross men.

  Every guest in the opulent Great Hall stole glances at the bride. The women were no different. Their petty, jealous whispers continued to cut the Princess down. Harpies who always coveted someone else’s garden.

  They called her an eerie little waif, said the men were bewitched—swooning over some fairy tale princess with haunted eyes and an obviously fabricated air of innocent damsel.

  A well-kept secret, hidden even from the Vampire Lords for centuries—until she was plucked from her ivory tower and laid out like a demure and dainty diplomatic offering.

  No one could imagine her dowry being any less than a royal’s welcome.

  Evie glanced back toward the head table. Her face grim. She knew Sullivan could take the backstabbing whispers, but she couldn’t help but worry for his wife. Her apparent new aunt on paper.

  The Princess hadn’t spoken a word all night, but that didn’t stop every delegate from sharpening their smiles, baring their teeth, desperate to get close. Desperate for whatever riches Sullivan managed to pry out of the territory ruled by fairy magic and mania.

  Bloodthirsty mongrels. They’d bleed her dry the second they got close enough.

  Evie could spot it plain as day—every table had at least one person seething over their lack of access. But she just smiled, smug and satisfied, knowing exactly why they hadn’t gotten within arm’s reach.

  Because they never would. Never could. Not when the groom was the Head of Clan Drakovich.

  Sullivan wasn’t known to be friendly.

  So what did the ruling classless do when they couldn’t get what they wanted? They turned it sour.

  A subtle, but more dangerous rumor churned with the tide. An escalation of the Glass Chapel Sheriff’s earlier concerns.

  That the Princess wasn’t a princess at all, just a changeling plant sent by the Crystal Forest to spy on Elysium.

  What a load of bull. How the hell was the Princess, a vampire, the Vampire Queen’s own daughter, supposed to leave the fucking Sanctum?

  “It’s an enchanted forest! A godsdamned fairy ring. You’ll get lost the moment you step foot in it.”

  Evie caught the indignant cry of an elf trying—and failing—to inject common sense into a goblin conversation. She was happy for the levity.

  “Listens. We’s just paves a road in,” one goblin slurred, sloshing their ill-gotten floor pint. “If it moves, we’s paves it again. If we’s can’t escape the parking lot, it means no one else cans either. That’s security, baby.”

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  Evie nearly choked on her own drink.

  She was pretty sure they were talking about the Crystal Forest itself. A place none dared tread lightly. At least, from what Evie’s heard about the place.

  It was not only treacherous, but woven with the latent magic of the Umbral Veil after its fall. Back when the Old World was intact—when the Umbral Veil still kept the realms apart—the fairy circles that dotted the human realm would lead them directly to the fey themselves.

  But now that it was gone, the Veil itself collapsed entirely into the Crystal Forest, sealing it from the world with no entrance in sight.

  It became a living, breathing entity unto itself, shifting with an unseen will. A place where paths twisted on a whim, the fey impeding every turn, all beneath a sky that never darkens, never dawns.

  The endless twilight sky.

  No map could be drawn. No cartographer ever returned. Wander without a guide, and the fey would gleefully take you.

  So, it wouldn’t matter if you paved the entirety of it in concrete or mana crystals, you would be trapped in a literal endless parking lot.

  But did the Goblins care? No. No, they did not. Much to the Elves’ utter dismay. The Goblins were too impenetrable in their logic.

  The goblins, rowdy and intoxicated, were already dreaming of bulldozers and blacktop. Their “boss”, Sullivan—tightly wound and far too bureaucratic for their tastes—was still somehow respected in their circles. They couldn’t wait for his go-ahead to turn the most fabled forest on Earth into a gleaming hellscape of industrial promise.

  Evie could practically smell the tar fumes already.

  “What part of “It never forgives, but always forgets” do you not understand?” The elf cried out, desperate to give reason where reason could not possibly reside.

  ”So’s it gots a memories problem. Who are we’s to judge?” Belched the goblin.

  Oh, how the elves hated the goblins.

  With a joyous gleam in her eye, Evie continued on through the crowd.

  The storm outside played second fiddle to the music and gossip within. So many voices and so little time. Evie hoped for more intel—but there was nothing else of value.

  Well, almost nothing.

  With a subtle shuffle between two lunar-touched werewolves, Evie overheard an interesting conversation.

  One whisper lingered—quiet, careful, flammable. More potent than the bride, the Forest, or even the Treaty. Something so dangerous, no one dared speak it aloud. Something no one dared give voice to. Words too taboo—too criminal—to even think, let alone speak.

  For if the rumors were true, it would not merely change Elysium. It would rewrite the world order.

  Because rumor had it: the Bitch Queen is dead.

  Evie smirked to herself. Of course she was. She was up against her uncle after all. She didn’t stand a chance.

  Just then, she passed a gaggle of Mortasheen vampires. One grabbed her, reeled her into their circle with a laugh and an arm slung around her shoulders.

  “Long live the Bitch Queen!” they howled—mocking, gleeful as they clicked their glasses with Evie’s.

  Between flickering pools of light, glasses clinked like distant thunder. Laughter burst like gunfire, sharp and easy. There wasn’t a dignitary in the room who hadn’t heard the name Tempesta whispered like a curse—the self-proclaimed Vampire Queen who crowned herself in blood and ruin.

  Ruler of the Crystal Forest.

  Correction: former ruler.

  Because her own son, Ilios, now sat upon her vacant throne—and it was Sullivan himself who had lifted him there.

  Not a soul in the Vampiric Court could fathom why.

  The Mortasheens who’d pulled her into their drunken circle had the wildest conspiracy theories, each more unhinged than the last. They refilled her glass as they shouted their discourse at each other, loud and proud.

  Evie’s eyes sparkled as she watched each member of their motley crew get slipped a few drops from their shared bottle of green. A couple casually dropped into her own glass.

  Wary. Distrusting. Utterly surprised. Her marble-black eyes flitted from one Mortasheen to the next.

  Not a single one mentioned her half-blood status. And for the life of her, she couldn’t find a shred of malice in their faces no matter how hard she tried.

  Then again, knowing the Mortasheens, maybe she was being a little too sensitive. They did rely on her to deliver not only their portion of the blood supply, but their ill conceived wares back to the black market.

  So she took tentative, polite sips.

  Their questions piled higher and higher, stacking into a tower of secrets to rival the glittering mountain of gifts in the corner.

  Evie eyed those gifts.

  She was gonna make a killing once she hawked them on the black market.