The Lion Hallers' party was in full swing when we arrived, like heroes out of a goddamn piece of epic poetry.
Sylas held the bust of Queen Victoria over his head, only wobbling slightly under the weight of the marble. I reached out a hand to steady him, but Mason beat me to it, leading Sylas forward to the cheers of the upperclassmen who swarm us the instant they realize what we have.
"Is that—"
"Fuck it is. I saw that the last time I was in Griffin's office."
"A bust of good old Vicky herself, one of the proper ones, before she started wearing the black veil."
One Lion Haller took the bust from Sylas and laughed, a bold, rich sound. "Bloody hell. How'd you even manage to get this?"
Sylas smiled crookedly. "That, my friend, is quite the story."
As Sylas regaled the assembly of Lion Hallers with the story about how we broke into Griffin's office to steal her prized bust of the Eternal Queen, with some noticeable embellishments, I took a moment to do a quick lap of the room.
The other two prizes brought in by the other freshmen in round three weren't anything to sneeze at. A fairy wing pilfered from the junior fey studies classroom, and a singing stone chipped out of the masonry of Snake Hall, but they were no prized possessions of the legendarily hated and feared headmistress of Angitia, so I thought it was relatively safe to say we won the little challenge.
Well, so much as such things can be won, but I still felt rather proud of the accomplishment, even if all I'd done essentially boiled down to picking a lock. Well, that and shifting through Griffin's desk and stealing a piece of her private art collection that still burned in my pocket.
They take the bust of Queen Victoria from us and put on a table in the center of the party for everyone to gawk at. Lion Hallers I'd never met slap me on the back and offer me goblets of beer to try. A sip is all I need to tell it's heads and shoulders above the swill they served nulls during harvest time on the estate.
Then and there I decided to not drink too much. It certainly would not do to make a fool of myself.
***
About an hour, and many, many, beers later, I'm standing on top of a dining table chugging a bottle of something called Chevas Regal. It tastes like fire.
"Drink! Drink! Drink!" A group of Lion Hallers stand around me in rapt attention, cheering me on.
My tongue finally licks the inside of the glass bottle and tasting only air, I throw it behind me in a flourish. It shattered against the golden walls of the hall in a cascade of glass, and everyone cheered.
Head swimming, and feet uncertain, I get off the table with help from Sylas and Mason, who both offer me an arm. Mason grins at me like a mad fool, as sloshed as I am with red-rimmed eyes.
"That," Mason slurred. "Was amazing."
I laughed, almost tripping over my feet. I collide with something and I don't realize that it's Sylas's until he pats me on the back and talks to me.
"Okay, I think it might be time for you to drink some water," Sylas said.
Sylas led me away from the group of still enthusiastically chanting Lion Hallers. Mason was on the table, drinking his own bottle of brown liquor as quickly as he can. We pass Iroha and Rosamund in conversation with a pair of other freshmen, and I almost stop to say hello but Sylas continues leading me on.
"Last thing any of us need is for you to get sick on one of them," Sylas mutters.
Eventually, he sat me down on a couch at the far end of the room where things were quieter, fewer drunken teenagers running about. Sylas produced a cup of water from somewhere while I intently studied a painting on the wall from behind my swimming vision.
"What's that supposed to be?" I asked him.
"Here, drink this," Sylas handed me the glass of water.
I had a hard time gripping it. "Sylass…" I slurred. "What's that painting of?"
Sylas glanced at it briefly before returning his gaze to me and the glass of water he's trying to get me to drink.
"I think it's a depiction of Bridget Cleary being awarded the Silver Star of Sorcery. Now come on, you need to drink this."
"Why is she nude?" I said squinting at the painting.
"She isn't nude," Sylas sighed as he pushed the glass of water against me instantly. "She's clad in a dress made of faerie fire."
"But.."I squinted. "I can see her nips. They…they're very prominent aren't they?"
"Theo," Sylas said tiredly, and pushed the glass of water at me with much more insistence.
I sighed. "But I don't like water…" I protested.
Sylas forced the cup to my mouth, and I reluctantly drank it down.
The change was immediate. Like my face had plunged into a bucket of ice water, then someone had taken me by the scruff of the neck and shaken me viciously until all the wool in my head had been let out. I almost vomited then and there.
"What. The. Fuck." I managed.
Sylas nodded in approval. "Cleansing Waters," he said. "Best thing there is for a man when he's imbibed too much."
I stared at him.
"Look, I wasn't going to carry you home on my shoulders," Sylas said in a defensive tone. "And I always carry some of the potion on me. My grandfather swears on the stuff."
I still felt drunk, but it was more of a pleasant distant buzz rather than the near black out onslaught I experienced only a moment prior. The more rational part of my brain thought I should probably thank Sylas for saving me from what presumably would have been a bitch of a hangover, but the less rational part of my brain wanted to just go back out to the party and keep drinking.
I was having an unexpectedly good time.
It was the most fun I think I'd had in several years, maybe even well before Lord Woodman first enlisted me into his services and I wasn't sure if I wanted that to end just yet.
"Well now," a voice said. "What're you boys doing over here?"
Cecil Baldwin stood in front of us swirling a glass cup of beer like it was a fancy wine from Lord Woodman's cellars. Immediately both Sylas and I stood up and I'm incredibly thankful for whatever Sylas made me drink that helped me get relatively more sober.
"Cecil," Sylas said in greeting, and I echo him.
Cecil smiled at us and took a sip of his beer.
"Fine prize you lot bagged tonight," he said. "Honestly, I'm a bit surprised you retrieved something from Griffin's office, let alone a bust of the Eternal Queen herself."
"We wouldn't have been able to do it without Mason and Theo," Sylas said. "Mason knew where the office was, and Theo picked the lock on the door."
"Really?" Cecil eyed me a bit dubiously, and I forced a smile onto my face.
"My uncle taught me," I said.
"Lord Woodman was it? I've never actually met him myself," Cecil said. "But the stories about him are rather interesting. Did you know he fought an entire contingent of a Wild Hunt?"
"Wild Hunt?" I asked. The term tickles something at the back of my mind, but I can't recall where I heard it before.
"A contingent of faerie knights," Sylas said. "Well, more like a group of faeries bound to a singular common Narrative. 'Hunters and the hunted,' I think?"
"Yes, something like that," Cecil said. "Fascinating creatures, faeries."
Sylas nodded.
"I've read about them a bit," Sylas said, and he leaned forward in interest. "I've always been rather curious about them."
"Really?" Cecil said and took another sip of his beer.
I watched the exchange, and I wasn't really sure what I could say to contribute to the conversation. Though it did feel like an old hat. Cecil always zeroed in on Sylas and ignored the rest of us.
"You know," Cecil said, swirling a cup of beer in one hand. "My family's been making deals with the fey for generations now."
"Really?" Sylas asked, leaning forward slightly.
"Yes, well, my great-grandfather, or was it my great-great-grandfather? Well, it doesn't matter," Cecil continued. "One of those old farts made the initial deal and we've maintained it ever since. Adding on new ones even for better favors, whenever the fancy strikes us. It would surprise you what you can get out of a Faerie Court, even one as small as the one by our manor, if you have the right goods to trade."
I wasn't sure why, but their conversation was making my hackles rise a bit. There was something in how Cecil spoke, the way his mouth curled into a smile around his teeth, that made me uncomfortable. I glanced at Iroha and Mason, but they were trapped in their own conversation with a Lion Hall upperclassman.
For his part, Sylas just looked more interested than uncomfortable. His eyes had locked onto Cecil and gleamed with something almost predatory. "You can really get that much from the faeries? We never had many around where I grew up." Sylas glanced at me, like he just remembered I was there. "Did you Theo?"
"Only the smaller ones," I said truthfully. "Brownies, I think they're called. They tended to some things on the estate." I never saw them myself, but I'd heard they came out at night and fixed odds and ends lying about. Broken shovels, plates, and the like. Mum had sometimes left a saucer of milk out for them on the rare days we had any to spare.
"Brownies," Cecil said. "Adorable little things, but they really can't do much aside from fixing, cleaning, or baking. No, if you want real power, real use, you need to go to the courtly Fair Folk. The ones who have kings and queens of their own and live in palaces under hills. They can give you exactly what you want, for the right price."
"Right price?" I repeated.
"Children," Cecil said. "Well toddlers really. The courtly fairies love toddlers. I think they keep them as pets or something. Or maybe they eat them? It depends on how they feel on the day, I suppose."
"What?" I asked. My mouth felt very dry all of a sudden.
Cecil saw the expression on my face and laughed. "Not our toddlers," he said, waving his hand at me dismissively. "No, don't be ridiculous. We use null children, obviously."
I felt nauseous. I wasn't sure if I wanted to vomit or hit Cecil in his face.
"We have a whole breeding program for it," Cecil said. "We give away three or four a year, though we are trying to increase it to five, I believe. The trick is getting the look of the child right, faeries like especially handsome ones for some reason. Father is forever trying to establish a breed standard among the nulls in our area to make it easier, but it's an ongoing trial to be sure. He's been talking about importing new breeding stock from the Russian steppes for years now."
I took a step back, and the world spun around me. I looked at Sylas, but he had picked up the thread of Cecil's conversation.
"What sorts of favors do you ask for?" he asked, seemingly unfazed by how fucking monstrous it all was.
Cecil said something, but I didn't hear him. I was looking around the room at the Lion Hall students. At mages. They were laughing and drinking, engaging in some sort of merriment.
My eyes finally landed on a null serving girl around our age, walking around the room in a maid's dress. She had a tight smile on her face and kept her eyes downcast as she proffered drinks from her tray to the gathering of wizards.
One Lion Haller tripped the serving girl as she passed, and the null fell to the ground in a shattering spray of glass and the laughter of several other Angitia students.
My Witch's Mark itched.
Null. Less than the dirt you walk on. That's all we'd ever be to these people. The Lion Hall. Mason. Iroha. Sylas. My head swam.
Without looking behind me, I left the party.