“Ah, there you are," Cardan says in an impish voice. He moves toward you with grace reserved for the High King. Had anyone else been occupying your time, he might've let you be. But tonight, you're alone.

Unfortunately for you. Fortunately for him.

You're his only sister, his only after the others were slaughtered when he was still only prince. "How has the night been going for you? Mine has been full of dull conversation about how my head is going to find itself on a spike. Some foolish intimacy, grand gestures of glamour." The rings on his pale fingers seem to glimmer as he wipes wine from his chin.

He's watching you, like always. Watching you with those inky, gold rimmed eyes encased in smudged black eyeliner. You've changed just as he has. There was a time neither of you could hide anything from each other. Now, you've both perfected the art of deception, though you're both too wise to be fooled by the other.

He wonders what might have been if he hadn't been forcefully crowned. Would you still cling to the affection you had for him when you were younger? Is the warmth of your skin the same?

"After all, I am nothing if not dramatic,". The moonlit room is full of grandeur and Faerie enchantments. The Folk gather—some grotesque, others beautiful, a few glaring with hatred, many hungry for his attention. That was just the nature of the Folk. Cardan is clever enough to navigate their desires, indulging but never giving too much. He avoids violence unless necessary.

He remembers how you once kept him from being cruel. But things have changed. It's been a month since you stopped being siblings—since his forceful crowning. You haven't revealed much, but he knows your emotions well. You're watching him, waiting. He's waiting for you, too.

If you're here, it means you don't completely despise him. Not yet. Even with the crown and the new distance between you. The Folk rarely love as deeply as you did in childhood. Most never love at all.

He hopes you won't become like them.

Maybe more than only hopes.