The guards kept people from setting up the sorts of environmental pranks bullies at boarding schools like to pull, but once I was in a room milling with courtiers and servants, all bets were off. I caught elbows, insults, and cold shoulders at intermittent intervals, but rarely enough and lightly enough that I decided to let it roll off my shoulders. My grasp of fae high society was slim at best, and I knew that there were things I had to be missing out of ignorance, but I tried not to let the thought that I was a private laughingstock eat at me too much.

My bumbling attempts at being a fae courtier must have made people feel bold about their rudeness, though, because at my third revel someone dared to do it in front of Dain. I didn't even recognize that I was being mocked until the friends of the lord talking to me started tittering with the sort of cruel laughter middle-school bullies make when they've humiliated someone who doesn't understand the social code. I flushed crimson, smiling and laughing along as if I was in on the joke and we were all having a lovely time of it, though my stomach twisted and my palms tingled from sweat.

The laughter stopped as if cut off with a sword, and then Dain had the ringleader by the front of his shirt, hauling him up until they were nose-to-nose. I'd never seen him like this, furious, his ears pinned back and teeth bared as he glared into his eyes.

"You dare," he snarled, a growl starting deep in his chest. "You dare!"

"Your highness⁠—" the fae lord started stammering out.

Dain flung him out into the ballroom. People parted like the Red Seas for Moses as he skidded across the wooden floor, leaving him alone with the crown prince. Even his erstwhile friends melted into the crowd.

The crown prince drew his sword with the ringing song of steel, his whole body shifting from fury to the dangerous stillness of a predator. Dain skimmed his eyes across the room, then said in a deathly cold voice, "Allow me to teach you the error of your ways, Lord Destrivan." He pointed his sword at the man, the point unmoving despite the fury displayed through the rest of his body. A sword materialized on the ground next to the fae on the ground. When he didn't move, Dain smiled nastily. "Pick it up or fight without one."

He picked it up and stood, holding it like he knew what he was doing—but unlike Dain's, his sword shook.

A heartbeat later, Dain was on him. He could have taken him out with one blow, but Dain made a demonstration out of it, driving the man in circles and landing blows that would bruise until the other fae was staggering, barely able to lift his sword to get in the way of Dain's.