Darby’s debut was far from right. Most people didn’t care one way or another who a person loved. But the aristocracy was another thing altogether. Money complicated things. Love that couldn’t produce offspring and keep the money in greedy hands was not sanctioned. It all came down to money since practically every wealthy Row gentry participated in extramarital relations with people of the same sex. It was hard to live as long as the Fae did and not at least try a little bit of everything. Sex and love were a spectrum. Marriage was another matter.

“What am I missing?” Fordham asked.

Kerrigan looked to her friends and then back to Fordham. “Darby favors women.”

“So?”

“The Season is for male and female courtships.”

Fordham furrowed his brow. “And you call us the barbarians.”

Hadrian laughed. “House of Shadows doesn’t care who you marry?”

“They care,” he said stiffly. “They just don’t care about someone’s gender.”

“Must be nice,” Clover said wistfully.

“We also have a population control problem.” He slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. “We don’t have the space to expand.”

The room buzzed with motion, but the lot of them were silent at that. Kerrigan had never considered how overcrowded the House of Shadows must be if there was only the mountains and every Fae could live past a thousand. She hadn’t seen that overcrowding, but it was likely concentrated in the lower classes. No wonder they went to war so often.

“Let’s get drinks,” Hadrian suggested.

Clover leaned into his frame, and his cheeks tinged pink. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Hadrian cleared his throat and nodded toward a waiter. The man stopped and handed them each a glass of dry, bubbling wine. Kerrigan took a sip to steel her nerves. Tonight was going to be a long night.

Then, an announcement went up for everyone to head into the ballroom. Fordham offered his arm, and they followed the crush of swishing ballgowns. She leaned into him as they waited.

The ballroom was bedecked in a rush of Fae magic. White sheets were strung on the ceiling with faerie lights dancing and glittering across them. The marble colonnades were festooned in white bows. Dual half-circle staircases framed the opposite wall, and the large wooden double doors had been outlined in hundreds of the softest pink blooms.

An attendant cleared his throat. “I present this year’s Season debuts.”

The double doors were pulled open, and a promenade of young women in white dresses stepped into the room. They each walked down one side of the stairs as gracefully as they could manage, curtsied gallantly before the assembled royalty—of which there were many from all of the tribes that still had a royal court—and then took their place before them.