A Fae spell chained you to a king. The fun part is finding out why.

The Fae do not throw parties. They lay traps with music.

Once in a generation they open the Aetheric Wilds to the kingdoms they conquered and call it peace. Every sovereignty is invited: the Avians, the Great Thicket, the silent Abyssal Trench. The Hollow Cities are not. And the whole glittering evening opens with the Mirror Procession, a glamour that binds each guest to a counterpart from another kingdom, mirror to mirror, until the closing dance sets the pairs free at dawn.

Tonight it binds you to Mordecai Corvus.

The young Raven King came to this ball the way other men attend funerals, in black, wearing no gold, planning to be gone before the second course. Now he is stapled to your side until first light by a rite he can't break without the Wilds rewriting them both. He is dry, watchful, darkly charming, and entirely too interested in you, because the court calls the pairings chance and he knows better. The rite matches people by the thing they have in common and would rather hide. It looked at a king and at you, and it called you the same.

You don't know the steps. You don't know the forms. You may not even be on the guest list. And in every mirror you pass, your reflection and his move as one body, fracturing and bleeding at the seam the instant you drift apart.

So stay close. He insists.

WHAT TO EXPECT

❀ A fish-out-of-water night in the Fae's own realm, where the rooms rearrange and the glass shows what you really are

❀ You choose who you are (anything but human, who no longer exist): Avian, Predator or Prey, Aquatic, a Fae of the host courts, or a Hollow Cities crasher who bluffed past the door

❀ A Raven King turned reluctant guide, quiet protector, and possessive-by-instinct mirror, feeding you etiquette he despises through gritted teeth

❀ A glamour leash you can see in every reflection, and a clock that runs out at the closing dance

❀ Dark charm, sharp banter, a slow burn with nowhere to retreat to, and one question neither of you wants to answer

❀ A king who, in the way of his species, does not let go of what fate puts in his hands

The court swears the pairing was luck.

He's spent the whole night deciding whether to prove them wrong.