“You’re a fucking hypocrite! I don’t owe you a damn thing! The lot of you enchant mortals against their will, glamour ’em into slaves, and dangle ’em from strings for your amusement. You punish ’em for forgetting to leave gifts on their porches—shit they can’t afford to spare anyway. You traumatize and maim my people. You warp ’em into seeing ogres and hobgoblins when they look in the mirror. You slash messages into their skin. You use the wind, the trees, and the water to petrify ’em. You wipe the floor with their souls and louse up their livelihoods.”
I should take a breath, come up for air, but I can’t. Everything flies out of my mouth, vaulting into the cramped space between us. “You have the nerve to call us worthless when you’re the ones using magic on people who don’t have the means to defend ’emselves? And for what? Your Courts waste their powers fighting over thrones, not because they want to make your world a better place, not because they give a damn about being leaders, but so they can fondle a scepter like it’s a cock, step over the ones they don’t like, and piss on the rest. Meanwhile, you Solitary louts waste your time punishing us instead of dealing with yourselves, then you call it a day.
“Name one time when your magic did any good! Ever use it to inspire, teach, learn, or build? What the fuck else do you creaturesdo all daybesides attack us?
“I’ll tell you what. Magic doesn’t make you stronger or tougher. It makes you greedy and entitled. That’s what makes you weak. That’s what makes you cowards. You expect mercy from us, when you’ve shown none to begin with? Get over yourself!”
Cerulean’s gaze burns into mine. His orbs narrow, the pigment sliced through with shards of white. “Very careful, little Lark.”
That means I should quit while I’m ahead. “Anything else you want to know, you can ask my fist!”
“Come, now. You have wiggle room for one more question.” Grasping the sides of my chair, he cages me in and whispers, “A number of our fauna are no longer here because they became mortal pawns, and a number of young Fae suffered alongside them, becoming causalities of war. Did they deserve it?”
Fuck. That shuts me up.
“You claim to be the braver, more honorable culture. I ask you this: Do your courts not fight the same petty power battles? Do your people not abuse one another, judge one another, abandon one another, ostracize one another? Do you not kill your own for selfish gain or impassioned bitterness? Do you not call someone an enemy merely because they disagree with you? Do you not pass beggars on the street without a second thought, pretending they don’t exist? Do you not sell your consciences and morals to the highest bidder?”
He pushes closer. “And do you not violate your own fauna? Do you not slaughter your animals for reasons other than nourishment and clothing? Do you not treat the creatures of your land as possessions? Do you not mount their carcasses on your walls and display them as trophies? Do you not expand that treatment across cultures and realms?”
“I’m no trade poacher!” I shout. “I don’t—”
“To vanquish us by extension, you mauled our sacred dwellers. Fae animals drowned or dismembered, their wings and hides and horns shredded or severed. Through them, your quest was to lay waste to our very existence.”
“You were glamouring and murdering my people! They were scared and desperate! They were protecting their families!”
“And what about our families?” Cerulean spits, fencing me in until our noses tap. “However rare, we have our own children. Rather than limit yourselves to our elders, you caged Fae striplings as well—anyone, at any age, who tried to save those animals. You wrested them from their parents, their siblings, and their fauna kin. You tossed them behind iron bars and taunted them as they wailed from the blisters. Can you accuse us of that? Can you accuse us of harming mortal youths?”
My ears ring. I was young back then, yet I knew about it. You can’t live in a village full of cluckers and not know about the harshest bits of its history. Aside from slaying Faeries in combat, The Trapping had been the only other way to destroy them.
Cerulean’s right, though. The Solitaries never harm our youths. Reports circulate about changelings amongst the Court Fae, but not in Reverie Hollow.
Yet we trapped Fae tykes as well the fauna. I know, because that’s one thing I did see during The Trapping. That’s one incident I’ve got firsthand experience with.
Cerulean hisses, the temple in his head pounding like a fist. “Here you are, believing in retaliation of the same magnitude. Are you the more honorable ones, then? Is everything in your world fair and kindly? Does it make you braver?” His tongue flicks out the last word. Then he hitches his shoulder. “Granted, that’s more than one question, but I’m a Fae. And we’re so very, very greedy.”
The fire scorches my toes. Didn’t see that speech coming and don’t know what to think. The Fae played dirty, and humans rebelled for their lives by playing equally as dirty. So where does that leave us?
He traces my features, his gaze teetering on a precipice. At the last moment, he shoves himself backward, about to stand.
My hackles rise. This can’t end now, purely because he decides it should.
“Cerulean—” I hook my foot around his chair leg and give it a yank. The furnishing hits the backs of his knees and drops him onto the cushion, and I jolt the seat nearer to me, “—we’re not done here.”
He scowls, otherwise intrigued. “You mutinous thing, you.”
“It’s true. We’ve got our dark sides, same as you. But unlike you, the villagers believed they had no other choice, no other way to fight for their existence. You had magic on your side. All they had was iron and rage.
“The thought of caging tykes and animals makes me retch, and trust me, I’m the last person who’d have hurt any of them. If I’d been older, I would have tried to find another way. In fact, my papa protested the attack plan but was overruled, because not everyone’s merciful in a crusade, or a rebellion, or a war. Don’t tell me you don’t know this.”
Cerulean’s glower might as well be hammered into his face. “Are you quite finished?”
“No, you haughty bastard. I’ve still got my free rule, and I’m playing it now.”
“Indeed? I’m all pointy ears.”
“Never call me a pillager.”
Cerulean startles. “What?”
