The limo door cracked, and the world beyond burned silver and black. Lanternlight dripped like molten stars over the carpet, flashes already strobing against the night as the press jockeyed for the first photo. Their noise hadn’t reached us yet. For one suspended second, the air belonged only to us.

And to them.

The Small Folk poured from the shadows of the car as if they’d been riding in our pockets the whole time. They darted like fireflies given shape, perching on shoulders, braiding, tugging, gifting. Naomi went perfectly still when one landed on her collar, its wings spilling frostlight as it pressed a tiny palm to her jaw. Her ice-blue eyes softened, the faintest curve of her lips breaking through her soldier’s mask.

Cassie’s braid tugged, a pair of the little fae weaving a hidden pattern at the end. She arched a brow at me, trying for unimpressed, but her smile betrayed her—the kind she only gave when she thought no one could see. Queen consort, crowned without ceremony.

Kess let one balance on her knuckles, sharp grin flashing as she spun it like a coin, the little creature laughing in a voice like bells. “Not bad company,” she murmured, golden eyes glinting, and the Small Folk bowed like she’d said something profound.

Lucien looked stricken when a moss-skinned one dropped a feather into his palm. He started to scoff—already forming some jab to shield the flush in his cheeks—but then he closed his fingers around it instead, tucking it into his blazer pocket like he’d been keeping feathers his whole life.

Even Roran wasn’t spared. Two of them clambered up his bracers, planting themselves like miniature sentries. He glanced at me, wordless, the molten in his gaze too steady to be anything but acceptance.

And me—I couldn’t breathe for the way they crowded me, tiny hands tugging my braid, eyes catching the sparks leaking off my glamour. They mirrored me: fingers twitching, three-beat taps on their legs. As if they were reminding me what I was. Who I was.

For a moment, we were only that: a circle of friends and family, wrapped in their reverence. No press. No rumors. No kingdom. Just their gifts and laughter and the warmth threading between us, a tether the rest of the world could never touch.

And then the microphones cracked to life.

The first shout split the night.

“Princess of Eversea!”

The word rolled like thunder over the black-silver carpet, crashing against the press line, the student body, and my chest.

The cameras went feral. Flashes strobed white, every lens hungry for blood, every microphone shoved forward like a blade. Princess. Not Quinveil. Not Firebrand. Not even Small Folk Queen. Eversea.

I’d heard the name plenty. Roran carried it in his blood, mortals printed it on maps, teachers whispered it like a half-believed legend. But never on me. Not since I was a child, when Elias tried to explain why humans needed a name they could hold, and Seara bent low, voice sharp as promise, and told me: One day, when you’re eighteen, the world will call you Princess of Eversea.

It was never meant to be now. Not like this.

My pulse stumbled. My stomach bottomed out. My scent spiked hot and sharp—wildfire smoke over marshmallow bloom, ozone searing the edges of my glamour.

Because Eversea wasn’t what the fae called it. It was the human-world mask my mother’s court fed mortals, glossy branding for a kingdom built on fire and blood and ambition. She’d kept me hidden from it, hidden from them, until she chose the reveal herself. Once the title was spoken out loud, I’d belong to it.

And now it was on every reporter’s tongue, spat like it had always belonged to me.

Cassie’s hand brushed my wrist—hidden, quick. “Breathe,” she murmured, sharp enough that only I heard. Her icy blue eyes never wavered from the cameras.

“They know,” I rasped back. My voice was smoke. “They shouldn’t know—”

“They only know what someone fed them,” Cassie cut in, low, efficient. Her scent—frosted citrus and steel—sliced through the ozone spilling off me. “And someone wanted this to happen tonight.”

A camera flash nearly blinded me. My braid tugged—one of the Small Folk trying to anchor me, their tiny faces turned toward the press with something like fury.

My teeth clenched. Daevan.

It had his reek all over it—the timing, the cruelty, the need to humiliate. He’d wanted me married off to him, wanted to clip my fire into a trophy wife. I’d burned that plan to ash the moment I declared Cassie my consort. Of course he would claw back now. And Zyrella—gods, Zyrella would be smiling herself sick, watching the mortal press do their dirty work.

The students outside the ropes hissed like a hive, their whispers cutting sharp as any blade:

“Did she say princess?”

“Of what?”

“Eversea—like that old map in civics? That’s not real.”

“She’s been hiding it? Here?”

I wanted to scream at them. That it wasn’t my choice. That the name they threw around like gossip wasn’t mine, not really. That Eversea was a mask just like my glamour.

But the microphones lunged closer, a wall of demands.

“Princess, how long have you been at Ravenrest?”

“Was it kept secret for your safety?”

“What does this mean for Eversea’s claim to Dominveil?”

My fire rattled its cage, climbing my throat—I was a breath from hissing at them, from burning the questions to ash—

Roran moved first.

He stepped into the flashes like a wall come alive, broad shoulders eclipsing the microphones. His molten amber eyes scanned the crowd, his arm sweeping out in a warning arc that pressed the reporters back without touching them. Not cousin. Not classmate. He looked every inch the soldier he was, my mother’s chosen leash wrapped in flesh and steel.

“Two armspans, Princess,” he muttered for me alone, voice pitched low as a furnace hum. “I’m your shadow.”

The press bristled harder, microphones lunging closer.

“No comment,” Roran said, flat as iron.

“What of her claim to Dominveil?”

“No comment.”

“Who is her consort?”

“No comment.”

Each repetition landed like a shield slammed into place, steady as the heat shimmer rolling off him. Every time he said it, my fire sagged back, denied the oxygen of my rage.

I clenched my fists against the silk at my hips, teeth grinding as the cameras screamed. And for the first time that night, I let him take the hit, his voice a wall between my crown and the mortal lights.

The wall of microphones finally broke into a corridor, Roran forcing a path with that soldier’s precision—two armspans exactly, his heat shimmer rolling like a second shield.

We hadn’t gone five steps before Bree’s perfume hit me.

She and her clique leaned over the velvet rope, sequins glittering, smiles sharp enough to cut. Every one of them holding their phones aloft like hunting knives, ready to carve us into gossip before we even reached the doors.

“Well,” Bree drawled, loud enough to ride the press microphones. “Royalty at Ravenrest. Looks like the crown’s heavy already.”

Her girls tittered, brittle laughter spiking through the flashes.

Cassie didn’t even blink. She tilted her head just so, the ice catching in her hair, and said, voice cool as frost: “Better heavy than borrowed.”

The words dropped like stones into water, rippling through the rope-line. Bree’s smirk faltered—only a heartbeat, but it was enough. Cassie didn’t need to raise her voice. She never did.

My chest tightened—not just from pride, but from the flare of citrus-bright attraction that burst through her scent, lacing sharp with my fire. The Small Folk clinging to my braid mimicked it, tugging at each other’s hair like they’d heard her too.

Naomi’s low chuckle slipped past her guard, sharp as cracking ice. “Efficient,” she murmured, arms folded, gaze cool on Bree’s clique.

“Almost too efficient,” Kess added beside her, teeth flashing as she twirled a dagger over her knuckles, casual as a pen. “Mira, you should watch out—your consort’s stealing your job.”

Heat flushed my cheeks before I could stop it. I elbowed her lightly, but she only grinned wider, golden eyes gleaming like she’d set me alight on purpose.

And all the while, the cameras kept flashing, feeding on every breath, every glance.

Bree recovered fast—she always did. Her smirk slid back into place, sharp enough to draw blood, her voice pitched for the crowd. “Royalty doesn’t last long here,” she purred, eyes flicking over me, over Cassie, like she was already carving her coronation crown out of our bones. “And Ravenrest deserves a queen who actually belongs to us. Not some… imported title.”

The rope-line hissed with delight, her clique drinking it in like wine. My throat closed, fire clawing again, desperate for release—

—and then Lucien’s voice cut clean through it.

“Funny,” he said, just loud enough for the nearest microphones to catch. His hazel-green eyes narrowed, sharp and unflinching as they locked on Bree. “For someone who can’t even run a pep rally without crying in the bathroom, you sure talk big about running a school.”

The air cracked.

Bree’s smile shattered, her girls gasping like he’d slapped them all at once. The cameras swung in his direction, flashes detonating, voices barking—

“Wait—who is he?”

“They look alike—”

“Is that her brother?”

Lucien flushed, tugging at his collar like it might strangle him, but he didn’t look away. Not from Bree, not from me. His jaw ticked, his ears pink, but his shoulders squared as if to say: I meant every word.

Guilt and pride tangled in my chest so tight it hurt. He shouldn’t have been dragged into this, not like this. But gods, the way he dropped that line—razor-perfect, Quinveil steel—

He was my brother. And now the whole damn city knew it.

I leaned just close enough for the microphones not to catch. “Thanks, little brother,” I murmured.

Lucien shot me a look, half-defensive, half-reluctant, but the corner of his mouth twitched like it wanted to betray him. He gave the tiniest shrug, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets as if to say don’t make it a thing.

I made it a thing anyway—by standing taller. By letting the fire in me settle, if only for him.

Roran’s hand flicked in a subtle command, and we moved again. Cameras tracked every step as we passed beneath the glamour arch—a wrought-iron bloom coiled high above the carpet.

The moment I crossed under, light bled from the runes hidden in the frame. Soft at first, then flaring—burning brighter as if the magic knew me.

The crowd gasped. Phones rose higher. The glamour should have disguised the shimmer in my skin, but under that arch, it bloomed anyway, painting me in molten gold. The Small Folk clung tighter, their jewel eyes reflecting the glow as if they’d been waiting for it.

“Princess Mira of Eversea!” someone shouted again, triumphant.

I bit down hard, keeping my smile blade-thin. Cassie’s fingers brushed mine under the fold of a paper program the moment Ashlyn Dannon’s voice cut through.

“Welcome, students!” she sang out, warm and professional, as though we weren’t standing in the middle of a battlefield. Her honey-blonde braid swung as she reached for the roster, posture perfect treasurer poise.

“Names? Tickets? Tech bands?” she asked with the kind of smooth calm that made parents trust her with bank ledgers and budgets.

Cassie gave hers coolly, Naomi crisp, Kess with a grin that was almost feral. Lucien muttered his with a sigh.

When it came to me, Ashlyn didn’t flinch—not at my name, not at the whispers flooding behind us. She simply checked the list, handed me a band, and smiled like I was just another student showing up for a dance.

The Small Folk clustered behind her, unseen by anyone else, mimicking her exact movements—little arms flicking in unison as she shuffled paper, one of them brandishing a scrap of leaf like it was an official ledger. I nearly choked on a laugh.

For the first time since the limo door had opened, the chaos outside dimmed. Just a little.

Ashlyn slid the last tech band across the table with a practiced smile. “Enjoy the dance,” she said, as though the air behind us wasn’t still howling with questions.

Roran’s heat shimmer pressed steady at my side, Lucien stiff with the weight of cameras still tracking him. Naomi’s shoulders squared like a glacier, Kess’s smirk sharp as a blade tucked in boot leather.

Cassie’s fingers found mine again, hidden beneath the edge of the paper program, her citrus-bright steadiness slicing through the smoke bleeding off me. The tether thrummed hard between us, fire and frost colliding in my veins.

And then we turned—

The school doors loomed at the end of the black-silver carpet, gothic arches lit with silver fire. Every flash of a camera struck their iron surface, each question thrown like a stone against the frame. Princess. Claim. Consort. Future.

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

My skin hummed with Veil-burn, every nerve lit, every instinct caught between fight and flight.

We stood as one—queen and consort, brother and shadow, spark and shield and chaos—poised on the threshold.

The doors yawned open, dark and waiting, the mouth of Gloamhearts swallowing light and sound whole.

And together, we stepped forward.