The Howling Moon Tavern had decided tonight’s theme was enchanted midnight carnival, because apparently the building had seen my life, my pregnancy, my political situation, my wife’s increasingly unhinged protective instincts, and thought what this girl needs is glowing circus nonsense in a criminal district.
Grimwall was damp when we arrived, all wet stone, old brick, rusted fire escapes, and neon signs flickering above shops that were definitely not shops if you knew how to read the wardwork humming behind their windows. Normal humans walked past the alley without seeing the archway at all. Their eyes slipped over it the way eyes slipped over things that did not want to be believed in. I had loved that about the Howling Moon when I was younger. The secrecy. The wrongness. The way the city folded around it and said no, not for you, while Naomi, Kess, and I slipped inside like we owned the shadows. Tonight, I stood in front of the hidden door with one hand resting over my stomach while my wife scanned the alley like the bricks might attack me.
Cassie wore black jeans, heeled boots, a fitted ivory sweater under a leather jacket, and the expression of a woman who had become personally responsible for the safety of my uterus and was willing to make that everyone else’s problem. Her blonde hair fell in soft waves over one shoulder. She looked expensive. Beautiful enough to cause traffic accidents. Not at all like the feral sire-brained father of my child currently deciding whether the puddle near my left boot had hostile intent.
I looked down at the puddle. “It’s water.”
“It could be warded,” Cassie said, still watching the alley like the brickwork might confess under pressure.
“It is reflecting a broken sign that says discount noodles.”
“Discount noodles can be suspicious.”
You are hovering, I told her through the bond, because saying it out loud would only encourage everyone else.
Cassie did not look at me. Her hand rested at the small of my back anyway, warm and steady, with just enough pressure to guide without pushing. You are pregnant in Grimwall.
I am pregnant everywhere.
Yes, and I dislike several of those places too.
I bit back a smile because smiling at Cassie when she was being unreasonable only made her think she was charming. Which she was. Unfortunately. “I spent an embarrassing amount of time sneaking into this part of the city before I had an entire court stuffed under my skin. If Seara or Selene heard half the places I used to visit in Grimwall, they’d both have a collective royal aneurysm.”
“You also made several terrible decisions during that period,” Cassie said aloud, like she had not recently threatened a puddle.
Naomi snorted behind us. “Several is kind.”
I turned, and for half a heartbeat the alley blurred into an older version of itself. Naomi in a tank top beneath an open jacket, pale hair pulled back, shoulders broad enough to block a doorway without trying. Naomi with her hands shoved in her pockets, looking like she would rather fight a van than discuss emotions. Naomi without Kess beside her. That absence hit before I could brace for it. Kess should have been here already, draped against the archway, smirking, making some horrible joke about Cassie’s territorial wife energy, probably stealing my mocktail before I had even ordered it. Kess should have loved the fact that the Howling Moon had put on a carnival theme like it was dressing for a crime date. Instead she was tucked away in Starveil where it was safe, or as safe as anything involving Kess could be.
Taryx had dragged her back wrong. Not dead. Not alive. Not fixed. Just Kess-shaped enough to make every update feel like someone handing me a puzzle with half the pieces melted together. We’d gotten her away from him. We’d saved her. The fixing part was still above our pay grade. Naomi saw me notice, of course she did, but her expression did not change much. It never did when the grief was sharpest. She just looked at me for a moment, and I looked back, and neither of us said anything because we both knew where Kess was. We both knew she wasn’t ready to be here yet.
Then Naomi jerked her chin at the door. “You going in or waiting for Cassie to interrogate the alley?”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed. “I can hear you.”
“Good. Saves time.”
I laughed, which helped and hurt. “Please do not start fighting before I get my mocktail. If I have to be sober in a tavern, I deserve emotional preparation.”
The door opened before I touched it, because the Howling Moon had always been dramatic. Warm air spilled into the alley, carrying the scent of fried dough, spiced meat, citrus syrup, beer, wet wool, candle smoke, hot metal, and something sweet enough to make my stomach consider rebellion. I paused, waiting for nausea to decide whether it wanted to ruin my evening. Cassie’s hand tightened instantly.
“I’m fine,” I said before she could ask.
“You made the face.”
“Everyone keeps telling me I have a face.”
“You have several,” Naomi said, stepping past us toward the doorway. “That one means the baby is voting against the room.”
“Lily does not get a vote yet.”
Cassie’s mouth curved. “Lily absolutely gets a vote.”
“Do not side with the fetus.”
“She is my daughter.”
“She is currently a very tiny squatter with opinions about scent profiles.”
She is our very tiny squatter, Cassie corrected, and the softness in it slid right under my ribs. Then, because she was Cassie and could not let tenderness remain undefended for more than three seconds, she added, And I am still checking the bartender’s citrus syrup for suspicious ingredients.
I put my head in my hand. “Gods help me.”
Naomi opened the door wider. “Too late.”
Inside, the Howling Moon had become utterly ridiculous. The ceiling had vanished into a false night sky striped with violet and blue auroras. Floating lanterns shaped like crescent moons drifted between red-and-gold carnival banners, and tiny paper wyverns swooped overhead, occasionally breathing harmless sparks that popped into glitter before touching anyone. The floor looked like polished black glass with constellations moving under it, though I knew better than to trust tavern floors here. Booths had transformed into velvet circus wagons with little curtained arches. The bar curved like a carousel, complete with carved wolves, ravens, foxes, and one deeply judgmental unicorn rising and falling slowly on brass poles while people leaned against the counter drinking like none of this was strange. A sign above the bar read: TONIGHT’S THEME: MOON-CURSED CARNIVAL. PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ACROBATS. I stared at it long enough that Cassie leaned closer.
“Are the acrobats real?” she asked.
“Usually only on weekends.”
“Mira.”
“I do not run the tavern.”
Naomi looked at the ceiling, then the carousel bar, then the sign. “Kess would have stolen the unicorn.”
My chest tightened. The words landed softer than I expected. Maybe because Naomi said them plainly. No performance. No tragedy dressed up for an audience. Just truth. Kess would have stolen the unicorn. She would have named it something obscene, ridden it around the bar, and somehow convinced three strangers to help. I swallowed and said, “She would have looked me dead in the eye and said it was a rescue.”
Naomi’s mouth twitched. “Then made you distract the bartender.”
“I was young and impressionable.”
“You were a menace.”
Cassie slipped her fingers through mine. “Still are.”
The host stand was a barrel with a top hat on it, because of course it was, and a little animated moon-face painted on the wall opened one eye as we approached. “Reservation?”
“Mira,” I said.
The moon blinked. Then its painted face went very still in the particular way enchanted objects did when they realized the person standing in front of them had become magically inconvenient. “Ah. Yes. The large party.”
“The emotionally unstable one, probably.”
“Mira,” Cassie warned, which was rich coming from the woman who had threatened a puddle.
The moon’s painted mouth smiled far too wide. “Back room, Your—”
“No,” I said.
It cleared its throat despite not having one. “Back room, Miss Quinveil.”
“Better.”
Naomi snorted and led the way.
The back room was not a room so much as a magically expanded tent pavilion pretending to be attached to the tavern. Red velvet draped the walls. Lanterns floated above long mismatched tables pushed together under strings of tiny star-lights. A small stage had appeared at one end, currently occupied by a self-playing fiddle, a drum with no drummer, and a tambourine that shook itself whenever someone laughed too hard. The air was warmer here, thick with food and magic and too many people I cared about in one place. My nervous system immediately filed a complaint, but then Rori waved from a table near the middle, and Caelan leaned down to say something against her ear that made her roll her eyes and smile into her glass. The complaint vanished under my immediate need to be annoying.
“Oh no,” I said, stopping just inside the pavilion.
Cassie followed my gaze. “They are cute.”
“They are intolerably cute.”
Rori looked up as we approached. Her glamour made her look human enough, but nothing could hide how happy she was. It softened the soldier edges she had worn for so long that part of me still startled when they loosened. Caelan sat beside her, one arm along the back of her chair, not claiming space so much as existing in a way that said he would move if she asked and dismantle the building if she needed. His gold-brown hair caught the lanternlight, and the Dawn warmth of him looked almost absurd in a moon-cursed carnival tent in Grimwall.
“My storm,” I said before I even sat down.
Rori closed her eyes. “I regret telling you anything.”
Caelan’s brows lifted. “Has this become public?”
“It became public the moment I heard it,” I said. “That is how friendship works.”
“That is not friendship,” Rori said. “That is extortion with affection.”
“Exactly. Friendship.”
Caelan looked at her. “I think I like her definition.”
“You would,” Rori muttered, but she leaned into him half an inch, and because I had eyes and was a generous friend, I made gagging noises until Cassie pinched my side.
“Behave,” she said.
“I am pregnant. I am allowed to be feral.”
“You are not allowed to weaponize Lily against basic manners.”
“I absolutely am.”
Cassie’s hand slid to my stomach, quick and instinctive, like Lily had been invoked and therefore required paternal acknowledgment. That was the thing I had not expected. Not the touch. Cassie had always been touchy once she let herself be mine. I meant the quality of it now. The way she settled her palm over me with this fierce, quiet authority that made half the fae in a room glance twice, because whatever human shape Cassie wore, the mating bond had decided she was Lily’s father in the old magic’s language, and Cassie had embraced that with terrifying sincerity.
Naomi noticed because Naomi noticed everything. “Still in full sire mode?”
Cassie gave her a cool look. “I am sitting right here.”
“That was a yes.”
I dropped into the chair beside Rori and accepted the mocktail a server immediately placed in front of me. It was pink, sparkling, rimmed with sugar, and decorated with a tiny paper moon on a stick. I stared at it. “Is this pity?”
The server, a horned woman with silver freckles and tired eyes, smiled. “It is alcohol-free blood orange fizz with ginger, mint, and anti-nausea bitters. The blonde threatened the bar staff in advance.”
“I did not threaten them,” Cassie said, and when the server looked at me, I looked at Cassie. Cassie lifted her chin. “I made expectations clear.”
Naomi sat across from me. “Threatened.”
“Lovingly,” I said, taking the drink. “She threatened them lovingly.”
I tipped well, Cassie said through the bond.
You did both.
They seemed motivated.
The drink was actually good, which was annoying because it made Cassie right. Ginger cut through the sweetness, and the mint cooled the back of my tongue. Lily did not immediately object. A miracle. A carnival miracle, which felt legally questionable but still useful.
More people filtered in around us, but I only caught pieces at first. Tarin laughing too loudly at something Jules said near the stage. Sela pretending not to enjoy the self-playing fiddle. Micah carrying three pitchers in one hand like glassware was a personal challenge. Chula arriving with Tera and Lireal, rain still in their hair, all three of them looking lighter than they had the last time I saw them. Ferox burst in behind Kiernan a moment later, magenta hair half loose, jacket crooked, talking with her whole body while Kiernan watched her with the expression of a man in love so obvious it should have come with warning bells.
I leaned toward Cassie. “Do you see that?”
Cassie followed my gaze. Kiernan had just taken Ferox’s wet jacket from her before she noticed she was handing it to him. Ferox kept talking at him, gesturing toward the ceiling with both hands, while he folded the jacket over his arm and smiled like she had hung the stars personally. “Painful,” Cassie said.
“Right?”
“Does she know?”
“It is Ferox. She probably thinks he has supportive posture.”
Ferox spotted me then and beelined toward the table, nearly colliding with a floating lantern. Kiernan caught it before it hit her head. She did not notice that either.
“Mira!” she said, dropping into the chair across from me. “Your tavern is weird.”
“It is not my tavern.”
“You have queen energy. Everything weird becomes yours eventually.”
“Please do not say that where Starveil can hear you.”
Kiernan sat beside her with considerably more grace. “Hello, Mira.”
“Hello, hot owl cousin.”
Ferox immediately made a strangled noise. Kiernan’s ears went pink, and Cassie looked between us with immediate interest. “Hot owl cousin?”
Ferox pointed at me. “She overheard me say it once.”
“You said it out loud?” Kiernan asked, sounding betrayed.
“It was accurate,” Ferox said defensively.
“I do not know what that means,” I said, delighted. “But I support you.”
Kiernan put his face in one hand.
He is very pretty, Cassie said privately.
Do not encourage this. He is my cousin.
Exiled cousin.
That does not make it better.
It makes it literary.
I took a long drink of my mocktail because I was not equipped to deal with my wife’s commentary while Ferox tried to explain that “hot owl cousin” was a valid descriptive category and Kiernan looked like he was considering turning into an owl and flying directly into the ceiling.
A loud voice near the entrance saved him. “Well,” Kael said, “this is horrifying.”
I turned so fast my braid smacked Cassie’s shoulder. Kael stood at the threshold in black leather pants, a deep red sleeveless top under a cropped jacket, and boots that looked like they had opinions. Maelion stood beside her in dark, tailored clothes that were probably the most casual garments his ancient ducal soul could survive wearing. He had no crown, no visible court regalia, and the expression of a man who had entered a Grimwall tavern, found a moon-cursed carnival, and was deciding whether love justified this. Kael’s hand was in his. I grinned. No, I beamed. Like a terrible person.
“Aunt Kael!” I called.
Kael’s head snapped toward me. “No.”
I waved harder. “Over here, Aunt Kael!”
Maelion looked at her. “Aunt?”
“She is doing this to hurt me.”
“I am doing this because family is beautiful.”
“You are doing this because you are a menace,” Kael said, crossing toward us with Maelion in tow.
“Both can be true.”
She stopped beside my chair, looked down at my mocktail, then at my stomach, then at Cassie’s hand still hovering near me as if I might fall out of existence. “You look disgusting happy.”
“I am sober in a carnival tavern. Nothing about this is happy.”
Cassie said, “She is happy.”
“Betrayal,” I whispered.
Kael bent and kissed the top of my head, quick and rough, like affection had ambushed her and she wanted it over with before witnesses made it sentimental. “How’s the spawn?”
“Rude. Lily is a lady.”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed. “Lily is a baby.”
“Lily is currently making me crave salted peaches and then punishing me for eating salted peaches, so Lily is an agent of chaos.”
Maelion, who had been surveying the room with restrained horror, glanced at Cassie. “This is normal?”
Cassie considered. “For Mira? Yes.”
I pointed at him. “You do not get to judge me. You came to the Howling Moon.”
“Under duress.”
Kael laughed. “He chose his boots for thirty minutes.”
Maelion’s dignity took visible damage. I gasped. “Uncle Maelion, were you trying to look hot for Grimwall?”
“No.”
Kael’s grin turned wicked. “Yes.”
Maelion looked down at her. “You are enjoying this.”
“I am enjoying you being out of your natural habitat.”
“My natural habitat is not as narrow as you imply.”
“You asked whether the tavern had a wine list.”
“It is a reasonable question.”
“The bar is a carousel.”
“That does not preclude standards.”
I stared at them, delighted and slightly horrified. “You two are flirting.”
Kael gave me a look. “Adults do that.”
“I know adults do that. I did not know my stodgy old uncle could.”
Maelion’s brows rose. “Stodgy?”
Cassie leaned closer to me. “Perhaps do not antagonize the ancient duke while pregnant.”
“He won’t smite me. I’m family.”
Kael dropped into the chair beside Ferox. “Sadly true.”
“You’re a Firebrand now,” I told her.
Her expression shifted, just a flicker. Pride, panic, tenderness, irritation. All the Kael food groups. “Duchess Consort,” she said.
“Aunt.”
“Captain.”
“Mom.”
That one landed differently. Kael looked away first, toward the stage where the tambourine had started shaking itself because Jules was laughing. Her mouth softened before she covered it with a smirk. “Careful, Mira. You say one sincere thing and people will expect growth.”
“Gods forbid.”
Maelion rested a hand on the back of her chair, not possessive exactly, just present. Kael leaned back into the touch like she forgot to pretend she had not. I caught it, and she caught me catching it and narrowed her eyes. I sipped my mocktail innocently.
The next hour dissolved into movement, not a blur. I hated when people said things blurred when they really meant they stopped paying attention. I paid attention too much. That was the problem. The tavern pressed into every sense: the sticky sugar on the rim of my glass, Cassie’s frosted citrus and chilled vanilla musk grounding me whenever the room got too loud, Naomi’s winter-pine steadiness across the table, Ferox’s citrus-vanilla brightness spiking every time Kiernan leaned too close, fried dough turning my stomach until Cassie silently replaced it with salted crackers from her jacket like a woman prepared for war. I heard laughter from the stage, the clink of glass, the low murmur of conversations I did not need to follow, and the self-playing fiddle sliding into a song that sounded like an old street tune Kess used to hum when she was drunk and pretending not to be.
Naomi heard it too. I knew because her glass stopped halfway to her mouth. I slid out of my chair before I could overthink it and moved around the table to her. Cassie’s attention followed me instantly, but she did not stop me. Progress. Or she knew Naomi could bench-press most threats.
I dropped into the chair beside Naomi. “This theme is stupid.”
“Very.”
“The unicorn at the bar is judging me.”
“It judges everyone.”
“Kess would have stolen it.”
Naomi looked at the carousel bar. The unicorn rose slowly on its brass pole, silver mane glittering under lanternlight, expression somehow smug despite being carved wood. “She would have made it worse.”
“She made everything worse.”
Naomi’s mouth twitched. “Better.”
“Both.”
For a moment, we sat there while the room moved around us. Tera leaned over Lireal near the stage, saying something that made them flick his ear with two fingers. Ferox was trying to convince Kiernan to drink something blue and smoking, and Kiernan looked like a man deciding whether love required poison. Rori and Caelan were dancing badly on purpose near the edge of the floor, except Caelan was too graceful for bad dancing and Rori was laughing with her whole face.
Naomi watched them too. “Kess would be mad.”
“Kess?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“At what?”
Naomi tipped her glass toward the room. “Missing this.”
My throat tightened, and I looked down at my mocktail because pregnancy already made crying too easy and I refused to be defeated by a paper moon garnish. “She is not gone.”
Naomi did not answer immediately.
I swallowed. “She’s wrong. Lost. Changed. Pissing me off. But not gone.”
“I know,” Naomi said.
“I’m going to get her back.”
“I know that too.”
The certainty in Naomi’s voice hit harder than doubt would have. I looked at her, and she was already looking at me, eyes steady, face calm in the way a frozen lake was calm because everything violent lived underneath.
“You saved me,” Naomi said.
I froze.
Naomi looked back at the room before the words could become too intimate. “At the start. With the cell. With Kess. More than once.”
“I also caused several problems.”
“You are a Firebrand. That’s assumed.”
“I am also Quinveil.”
“That explains the stubborn.”
I let out a wet laugh I was definitely blaming on ginger bubbles. “Naomi.”
She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t say it enough.”
“You don’t say anything enough.”
“I say things efficiently.”
“You once said ‘move’ as an entire emotional essay.”
“It worked.”
“It did.”
Her fingers tapped once against her glass. “I’m glad you made us come tonight.”
“I did not make you.”
“You absolutely did.”
“Naomi Inari, are you accusing me of emotional leadership?”
“Unfortunately.”
I smiled, and this time it did not hurt as much. “Kess would be proud.”
Naomi looked at the unicorn again. “Kess would be drunk.”
“Also proud.”
“Also proud,” she agreed.
Cassie touched the back of my neck when I returned to our table, her thumb brushing the sensitive place just beneath my hairline. She did not ask. She felt enough through the bond to know not to. I leaned into her for two seconds, which was all the public vulnerability I was willing to donate to the evening.
You okay? she asked.
No.
Her hand stilled.
But in a survivable way, I added.
Good. I prefer your suffering survivable.
Romantic.
I am very romantic. I got you anti-nausea bitters.
I laughed and turned into her enough that she could kiss my temple. That should have been the end of it, except Lily chose that moment to move, a strange little shift low in my abdomen that made me inhale sharply.
Cassie went rigid. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Her hand was already there. “Mira.”
“She moved.”
The entire table heard because of course they did. Rori’s eyes went soft. Kael’s expression did something complicated and quick. Ferox leaned forward so fast Kiernan caught her glass before it spilled. Naomi smiled, small and real. Maelion looked politely terrified. Caelan looked at Cassie with the kind of understanding men got when ancient mating instincts were being ridiculous and everyone knew it.
Cassie’s palm spread carefully over my stomach. “She?”
“She, they, tiny internal tyrant, whatever we are calling her today.”
“Lily,” Cassie said, and there was so much in her voice that everyone wisely pretended to look elsewhere, though not wisely enough.
Kael said, “You look like a fae male about to challenge the room over a kick.”
Cassie did not blink. “I might.”
Rori covered her mouth while Caelan coughed, and Ferox whispered, “Hot.”
Kiernan gently said, “Ferox.”
“What? It is.”
I pointed at her. “Do not encourage my wife’s feral sire-brained era.”
Cassie’s eyes slid to me. “Feral sire-brained?”
“It means the bond decided you’re Lily’s father, and now your instincts think every chair, drink, puddle, bartender, and passing breeze is a threat to your pregnant mate.”
Naomi lifted her glass. “Accurate.”
Cassie looked offended for exactly one second before her hand settled more securely over my stomach. “The puddle had suspicious energy.”
“You are proving my point.”
She leaned close enough that her breath brushed my ear. “Firefly, if anyone in this room threatens you or Lily, I will become much worse than affectionate.”
My whole body heated. Pregnancy was unfair because my hormones heard that and apparently voted yes.
You cannot say things like that while I am trapped in public with a mocktail, I told her.
Cassie’s mouth curved against my temple. I can.
I hate you.
No, you don’t.
No. I didn’t. That was very inconvenient.
Selene and Ryven arrived late, which meant they arrived like people who thought arriving late could somehow make them less noticeable. It did the opposite. Selene entered in deep gold and soft cream, her hair half pinned and half loose, elegance following her like a legal requirement. Ryven came beside her in black and violet, one hand resting lightly at her back, his expression composed but warmer whenever he looked at her. They looked like a royal portrait had escaped a palace and wandered into a carnival bar.
I immediately abandoned my chair and headed straight for them. “Mira,” Selene said, already wary.
“You came.”
“Ryven insisted.”
Ryven looked at her with open amusement. “I suggested.”
“You arranged a car.”
“I supported the suggestion with logistics.”
I clutched my heart. “Gods, you two are adorable.”
Selene’s eyes narrowed. “Do not.”
“You are. Look at you. Two beautiful political weapons in love at the murder carnival.”
Ryven looked up at the paper wyverns. “Is that what this is?”
“Probably.”
Selene’s mouth twitched despite her best efforts. “This place changes themes?”
“Every day.”
“How charming.”
“You mean horrifying.”
“I was being polite.”
“I know. Stop it.” I took her hand and started dragging her toward the table. “Tonight you are not Princess Perfect. Tonight you are Selene, my sister, who is marrying her very pretty shadow prince in two weeks and needs to learn how to sit in a weird tavern without looking like she is about to negotiate a border treaty.”
“I can sit without negotiating.”
Ryven murmured, “Beloved.”
Selene looked at him. “I can.”
He smiled. “Of course.”
That smile was criminal. I decided I liked him more.
I sat them near Kael and Maelion because part of me wanted to see what happened when old court dignity met newer court dignity in a tavern where the tables occasionally sprouted striped carnival umbrellas. Selene sat carefully. Ryven sat beside her. Maelion inclined his head. Ryven returned it. They looked very serious for three seconds before a tiny paper wyvern landed on Maelion’s shoulder and sneezed sparks.
Kael lost it, not a polite laugh but a real one, head tipped back, hand on Maelion’s arm, completely delighted. Maelion closed his eyes like a man enduring fate. The paper wyvern chirped. Selene pressed her lips together so tightly I knew she was dying inside. Ryven looked at the wyvern and said, with grave courtesy, “It suits you.”
Maelion opened one eye. “Do not begin.”
I leaned against Cassie, wheezing. “This is the greatest night of my life.”
“You are easy to please,” Cassie said.
“I am absolutely not.”
“You cried yesterday because I peeled an orange correctly.”
“That was a sacred moment.”
Rori lifted her glass. “To correctly peeled oranges.”
“To Lily’s tyrannical food preferences,” Naomi added.
“To hot owl cousins,” Ferox said.
Kiernan choked.
“To not calling him that,” Selene said, though she was smiling now.
“To Firebrands surviving social environments outside palaces,” Kael said, and Maelion gave her a look.
“Some of us are doing better than others.”
“To old men in carnival bars,” I said.
“Mira,” several people said at once.
I raised my mocktail. “What? It’s a toast.”
Cassie clinked her glass gently against mine. “To being alive for one night.”
That quieted us, but not badly. Not like grief slamming a door. More like everyone remembered the same truth at once and chose to lift their glasses anyway.
“To being alive,” Naomi said.
The words moved around the table, different voices, different tones, some soft, some rough, some half-laughing because sincerity was embarrassing and we were all allergic. Glasses lifted. My mocktail fizzed. The paper moon garnish wobbled. Cassie’s hand found mine under the table, fingers sliding between my fingers, thumb brushing my ring.
I looked around at them. Not all of them. Not in a census way. Just flashes my mind caught and held. Rori’s head tilted toward Caelan’s shoulder while she argued with him about whether his dancing counted as unfair use of Dawn grace. Kael stealing a sip of Maelion’s wine and making a face before kissing him anyway just to be annoying. Ferox leaning across Kiernan to grab something, completely missing the way he froze because her hand landed on his thigh for balance. Tera offering Lireal a forkful of fried something and pulling it back at the last second just to make them glare. Chula laughing at Sela’s deadpan comment from the next table. Naomi watching the room with Kess-shaped grief in her shadow and something like peace in her hand. And Cassie beside me, always Cassie. My wife. My mate. Lily’s father in every way magic understood and biology had decided not to explain politely. The girl who had once looked at me like I was a nuisance, then a rival, then a wound, then a want, and now looked at me like I was her entire world and she would fight the world for failing to understand its place.
Stop looking at me like that, she said through the bond.
I blinked. Like what?
Like you love me in public.
I smiled. I do love you in public.
Her eyes darkened slightly. Dangerous.
You are literally touching my stomach like a possessive fae lord.
That is different.
Is it?
Yes. I am protecting my family.
The warmth in my chest went molten and stupid. I turned my hand under the table and squeezed hers. We’re your family?
Cassie’s expression softened so fast it almost hurt to look at. You know you are.
I did. Of course I did. Sometimes I still needed to hear it anyway.
The self-playing fiddle shifted songs, faster now, something bright and ridiculous that made Tarin drag Jules toward the open space near the stage. Rori laughed when Caelan bowed to her like they were at a formal ball instead of a Grimwall tavern. Kael shoved Maelion toward the floor with the expression of a woman about to win another argument by force. Selene tried to refuse Ryven and failed the second he offered his hand without pressure, only patience. Naomi stayed seated until Chula said something I did not catch and both of them smiled in a way that made the grief ease back from the table for a breath.
Cassie stood and held out her hand to me. I stared at it. “Absolutely not.”
“You love dancing.”
“I am sober.”
“You love dancing sober.”
“I am pregnant.”
“You can sway.”
“I am very dignified.”
“You just toasted old men in carnival bars.”
I took her hand. “Fine, but if I puke, it is your fault.”
“If you puke, I will hold your hair.”
“Romantic.”
“Always.”
She led me toward the floor, one arm sliding around my waist with careful confidence. Not too tight. Never too tight. Her other hand held mine, and she adjusted instantly to the slower way my body wanted to move. The music bounced around us, bright and silly, while lanterns drifted overhead and the floor constellations swirled under our boots. I could smell ginger on my own breath, Cassie’s perfume, sugar, rain, magic, and the faint smoky sweetness of the tavern’s enchanted candles.
I rested my forehead against her shoulder for half a second while the music bounced around us and the lanterns drifted overhead. “Still okay?” she asked near my ear.
“No.”
Her body tensed.
I lifted my head and smiled at her. “But survivable.”
Cassie’s eyes softened. “Good.”
“You are ridiculous tonight.”
“I am always ridiculous where you are concerned.”
“That is unfortunately true.”
“You like it.”
“I tolerate it because you’re pretty.”
She dipped her mouth close enough to mine that my thoughts scattered. “Only pretty?”
“Do not fish for compliments while I am vulnerable and mocktail-bound.”
Her laugh was low and warm. Then she kissed me, soft enough for public, deep enough that my toes curled inside my boots and Lily apparently objected to the hormonal shift by fluttering low in my stomach again. Cassie felt me react and smiled against my mouth. I groaned. “Do not be smug.”
“I would never.”
“You are glowing with smugness.”
“That might be love.”
“Worse.”
She kissed my cheek this time, and I let myself stay there, held in the middle of a tavern that should not have been able to hold all of us without breaking. The room spun gently around us. Kael’s laugh cut through the music. Ferox yelled something about the unicorn being rigged. Selene laughed, actually laughed, and Ryven looked at her like the sound had rewritten the evening. Naomi’s voice rose in dry warning from somewhere behind me. Tera protested innocence. Lireal called him a liar. Someone dropped a glass. The tambourine applauded.
For a few hours, no one asked me to be queen. No one asked me to solve Summer. No one asked me to wake my mother, sentence a monster, prepare for war, understand Starveil, manage my father’s campaign, or explain what the Silent Council wanted from the cracks beneath the world. I was not naive enough to think peace had found us. The Shroud was quiet because it was hiding. Mother was still unconscious. Starveil still waited under my skin. Summer still had teeth. The war coming for us had not changed its mind because a tavern decided to dress itself in carnival lights.
But Cassie’s hand was warm in mine. Naomi was laughing. Rori was happy. Kael was flirting with my ancient uncle in public and making him survive it. Selene was learning how to be a woman in love outside a palace wall. Ferox was missing the most obvious romance in the room so badly it qualified as performance art. Chula had let herself come. Tera and Lireal were pretending they were not circling each other. Lily was turning my insides into her personal drum set. And for once, when the Howling Moon’s false stars drifted overhead, I did not feel like the sky was falling. I felt like it was watching, like maybe, for one night, it had decided to let us dance.