“Who are they all?”

Fordham also looked around in awe. “I don’t know. All social classes though. Look at the clothes.”

She saw what he meant. Some people were dressed as elegantly as she and Fordham, but the majority wore inexpensive spun cloth and practical shoes. She noticed a table along the wall had rows of cheap black masks, and much of the crowd was wearing them. Because Kerrigan had only seen the court and her attendants, she hadn’t considered that there was an entire city of people of all social classes living in the mountain. Just as trapped as everyone else.

“I’m surprised she’d go to the masses.” It seemed beneath her.

Fordham’s jaw was set. “She’d do it if it meant having enough support to go up against our father.”

“You think that’s what she’s doing?”

“Don’t you?”

Kerrigan couldn’t disagree. With this many people in attendance at one meeting, it was a veritable legion. And Wynter was mad enough to try it.

“Plus, if everything I’ve been dealing with this week is any indication, these are the people most upset about our continued isolation.”

“What does it look like on your end?”

“The poor are taking the brunt of the strain on products. The human village we trade with, Lethbridge, heard about me leaving and are withholding most trade.”

“What? Why?”

Fordham glanced at her. “The city of Lethbridge fear it means the House of Shadows is soon going to get out of the mountain. Apparently, a sizable number of their citizens has already picked up and left. They said they wouldn’t be subjugated again.”

Kerrigan sighed. “Well, I don’t blame them.”

“No,” he agreed begrudgingly. “As a result, prices have increased for all goods. There aren’t enough jobs to satisfy everyone. Not enough land to feed everyone. Meanwhile, the court is feasting every night. It doesn’t look good. The inequity is going to get my father killed before his enemies ever touch him.”

Kerrigan had seen kids starving on the streets of Kinkadia while the Society ate fine and the wealthy on the Row lived like kings. Couple that with a thousand years of forced isolation, their only source of trade evaporating, and she hardly blamed anyone for wanting to do something about it.

“One thing is for sure,” Fordham said as he maneuvered them closer to the stage at the front of the room. “With this many people, it cannot be beyond my father’s notice.”

That pronouncement made the meeting seem all the more precarious. As if at any moment, the king would rush in here with his guards and stop the meeting. Kerrigan tightened her grip on Fordham’s hand, and then a flash of light circled the room.

“Wynter’s magic,” he breathed to her.