Dew nodded in approval at Teigan’s modest dress and simplistic pin-up. Engaged as she was, Teigan should remain lovely but inaccessible to those at the banquet. 

Efa joined them in the hallway with droopy eyes. One of the maids braided her hair tightly back in two rows that hung off her shoulders. Her hands blistered red from the raw scrubbing.

Both sisters surrounded Efa hissing curses under their breaths and cool hands petted the wounds. 

“We are going to be late,” Maeryn appeared behind them with a stern scowl. 

“Look!” Teigan tugged Efa forward by her wrist to show Maeryn. 

“She needed to get the charcoal off,” Maeryn brushed the concern away and hushed Teigan’s argument. “We are going to be late.” 

Maeryn pushed Teigan forward, leaving Efa and Dew to follow behind. 

“I will get you a salve and a cool cloth tonight,” Dew whispered the promise in Efa’s ear. She tugged her sister close to her side and they looped their arms together. 

They entered the banquet as guests filed in. Their father sat with the knight to his right, too distracted by stories to notice his daughters’ entrance. 

Maeryn claimed her spot to their father’s left, Teigan filling in second, then Efa and Dew. 

Dew’s heart pounded painfully in her chest as she saw Ifan enter the banquet with his dashing smile and dimples. His pretty wife hung off his arm with a matching smile, completely in love and happy with her husband. 

A good match for her that Dew did not begrudge. She only resented the horror in Ifan’s eyes that terrible night a year ago. The beginning sneer of disgust that he quickly fought down before he covered her torn dress with his cloak. 

Efa clutched her arm suddenly and forced Dew from her memories. 

“What is it?” Dew leaned in close and tried to follow Efa’s gaze. She couldn’t see what scared her sister. “I don’t see anything…” 

A shadow flickered in the corner of the room. The size of a man. His head turned from the guests he watched to the baron sisters who spotted him. He tilted his head to the side as he caught their gaze. 

Dew could discern nothing of his features. A black helmet covered his face completely, the sharp points of his armor becoming more defined as she continued to stare. He towered over the tallest of her father’s guards. 

As he left his corner, walking to the center of the hall’s entrance, his head remained turned in her direction. 

Efa’s grip on her arm tightened to the brink of pain and Dew cried out. 

Guests’ chatter dropped to silence and they glanced up at her. 

Baron Cymmer shoved his chair back, the screech hurting ears and several jumped as a fist slammed down on the table. His nostrils flared as he turned to Dew who dared interrupt the gratification of the evening. 

Before he could speak, several guests screamed and fled from their chairs. Guards unsheathed their swords as the shadow became apparent to everyone in the hall. 

The baron snapped his head to the commotion. 

The knight lept to his feet. 

More figures stepped from the flickering shadows, armored and tall like the one in the center. 

Fae. 

“Lysander,” the knight bellowed the greeting. “King of the Fae.”

Teigan slammed a hand over her mouth to cover her gasp at the title. 

Maeryn tugged her sisters to their feet and forced them away to where a few guards waited behind them. 

Lysander silently stepped forward, face turned to the daughters. He ignored the stammering of the baron as he reached the high table. One gloved finger pointed to Efa and it crooked in a ‘come hither’ gesture. She refused to move and he growled low at her defiance.

Dew shielded her sister with shaking limbs. 

“Speak. Did you murder my people?” A gravelly voice echoed from the helmet. It roared in Dew’s ears like the ocean crashing against the Great Hangman. 

“I did not,” Dew murmured through the lump in her throat. 

“You know who did.” The ocean’s tide reeled back a fraction. 

Dew heard her sister’s plea to leave them alone, somewhere behind her. Maeryn still shielded Teigan, no doubt. 

Dew gazed up at him, searching for the eyes she knew would be there. She saw nothing but darkness. Not a single detail. 

Slowly, her eyes glanced to where her father and the knight stood. 

Lysander turned his attention to the two humans. He huffed like a bull and returned his hidden gaze to Dew. 

“How many?”

“Four heads, Your Majesty,” Dew bowed her head as she spoke, a tremor nearly choking her. 

Lysander growled low, utterly inhuman. 

Dew whispered, unable to help herself, “Four heads… one small-” Maeryn hissed for her to be silent “-like a child’s.”

His growl petered out at the confession. He turned from them, at last, to stand before the baron and knight. 

Her father whimpered in the shadow of the Fae. 

The knight refused to bow. 

“He called me ‘Lysander’,” his gaze returned to Dew. “Why?”

“It is a human name,” Maeryn answered. She grabbed Dew’s elbow and shoved her further back.

Lysander hummed a sound that rumbled from his throat. He held his hand open, palm facing up. Little dark wisps swirled, faster and faster and faster until they merged together. A sword manifested in his grasp, beginning from the hilt and ending at the point of sharp steel. It glinted in the torchlight. 

He swung the blade around to press against Baron Cymmer’s throat. 

“Please…” The baron held up his hands, cowering. 

“You killed four of my own.” Lysander’s blade cut into the baron’s flesh and a trickle of blood slide down his neck.

“I’ll give you anything-”

“You offer gold and glory for the heads of my people.” Lysander sliced the baron’s neck. Not a deep wound that it would be fatal, but enough for blood to squirt and the baron fell to his ass. 

“Anything!” The baron shouted desperately. 

Lysander turned to the knight and before the knight could plea for his life or unsheath his blade, Lysander swung his blade as fast as a hare. The knight’s head rolled to the floor. 

Screams of horror filled the banquet and chaos erupted. Guests tried to rush from the hall but the Fae multiplied instantly. Doors became blocked by tall shadows. Guards disarmed with little effort, some lying dead on the floor as they tried to fight back. 

Dew tucked Efa under her arm and forced her to the floor. Maeryn did the same with Teigan. 

The guards behind them crumbled to the floor. Blood painted the walls. 

Lysander quietly waited for the chaos to cease. He planted his blade into the floor and waited with hands on the hilt. His gaze remained on the blubbering baron. 

Efa’s tears soaked into Dew’s sleeve. She shuddered in Dew’s grasp, breathing short and wet. 

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Dew kissed the crown of her sister’s head and rubbed her shoulder. 

Dew heard nothing beyond the beat of her heart. The thump filled her eardrums completely. She could only feel Efa pressed to her side, the wetness of tears seeping through her wool. Her sister’s smell of honey with the last traces of charcoal from today’s sketching drifted into her nose and blocked the scent of death.

Then, something brushed along her cheek, the one not pressing to Efa’s hair. Her eyes fluttered open to a shadow looming over her. 

Lysander crouched before her, unreadable in his armor. One of his fingers pressed to her cheek and wiped away her tears. 

“I will take you and spare the rest.” He nodded before he stood and turned to the baron who watched on with wide eyes. “She is mine.”

Baron Cymmer offered no argument and nodded quickly. 

“She is yours,” her father agreed.