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themselves, but there were under-currents of alarm. Jenny Greenteeth and her kin stared at everyone with accusing eyes. Only the thistle-fey seemed calm, taking advantage of the fear of the others, nourishing themselves on the panic that pervaded the room. They all knew that the rumblings of upheaval had already begun. With the reality of a faery death, the inducement to resort to extreme measures was inevitable. There were always factions, murmurs of mutiny: that was status quo. This was different: one of their own had died. That changed the stakes.
    “Move away from the streets”—Irial let his gaze slide over them, assessing the signs of disagreement, determining who would sway toward Bananach when she began rallying them to her cause—“until we know how weakened we are.”
    “Kill the new queen. Both of ’em,” one of the Hounds growled. “Summer King too if we need.”
    The other Hounds took up the cry. The Ly Ergs rubbed their bloodred hands together in glee. Several of Jenny’s kin grinned and nodded. Bananach sat silently among them; her voice wasn’t ever necessary to know her preference. Violence was her sole passion. She tilted her head in her avian way, not doing anything other than watching. Irial smiled at her. She opened and closed her mouth with an audible snap, as if she’d bite him. She made no other movement. They both knew she disapproved of his plans; they both knew she’d test him. Again. If she could, she’d kill him to set the court into discord, but Dark Court faeries could not kill their regents.

    The snarls grew deafening until Gabriel held a hand up for silence. When the rest of the room quieted, Gabriel flashed a menacing smile. “Your king speaks. You will obey him.”
    No one objected when Gabriel snarled. After he’d slaughtered one of his own brethren for disrespecting Irial so many years ago, few ever challenged his will. If Gabriel had the political grace to go with the violence, Irial would try to cede the throne to him. In all the centuries Irial’d looked for his replacement, he’d only found one faery fit to lead them, but that faery had rejected the throne to serve another. Irial shoved that thought away. He was still responsible for the Dark Court, and considering what might have been didn’t help.
    He said, “We are not strong enough to fight one court, much less two or three working together. Can any of you truly tell me that the kingling and the new Winter Queen wouldn’t work together? Can you tell me that Sorcha wouldn’t side with anyone”—he paused and smiled at Bananach—“ most anyone who opposed me? War is not the right path.”
    He didn’t add that he had no desire for true war. It would look like weakness, and a weak king wouldn’t hold his court very long. If there had been someone who could lead the court without destroying them all in unrestrained excess, Irial would step away, but the head of the Dark Court was chosen from among the solitary faeries for good reason. He enjoyed the pleasure of the shadows, but heunderstood that shadows needed light. Most of his court had trouble remembering that—or perhaps they never knew it. They certainly wouldn’t appreciate hearing it now.
    The Dark Court needed the nourishment of the finer emotions: fear, lust, rage, greed, gluttony, and the like. Under the last Winter Queen’s cruel regime—before the newly empowered Summer King had come into his strength—the very air had been sustaining. Beira had been a malicious queen, inflicting as much agony on her own faeries as on those who dared to not kneel to her. It had been relaxing, if not always pleasant.
    Irial said only, “Smaller conflicts can create the energy we need for sustenance. There are plenty of faeries you can use for nourishment.”
    In a voice that would disturb the calmest of the winter fey, one of Jenny’s kin asked, “So we just feed on whatever random faeries we can find like nothing’s happened? I say we—”
    Gabriel