“Prince Ash.” The troll took a step back but didn’t move aside completely. Facing a prince of the Unseelie Court, she turned almost sniveling. “Your Highness, of course I would let you in, but…” She glanced over Ash’s shoulder at me. “The boss says absolutely no Summer blood in here unless we’re going to drink it.”

“We’re just passing through,” Ash replied, still in that same calm, cool voice. “We’ll be gone before anyone notices us.”

“Your Highness, I can’t,” the troll protested, sounding more and more unsure. She glanced back over her shoulder, lowering her voice. “I could lose my job if I let her through.”

Very casually, Ash dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword.

“You could lose your head if you don’t.”

The troll’s nostril’s flared. She glanced at me again, then back at the Winter prince, claws flexing at her side. Ash didn’t move, though the air around him grew colder, until the troll’s breath hung in the air before her face.

Sensing her dire predicament, the huge faery finally backed off. “Of course, Your Highness,” she muttered, and pointed at me with a curved black claw. “But if she gets stuffed into a bottle and served as the next drink special, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Ash, and led me into the Dungeon.

The Dungeon, for all its eerie decor, turned out to be nothing more than a bar and nightclub, though it definitely catered to the more macabre crowd. The walls were brick, the lights dim and red, casting everything in crimson, and snarling monster heads hung on the walls over the bar. Music pounded the ceiling from an overhead room, AC/DC screaming out the lyrics to “Back in Black.”

There were human patrons at the bar and sitting throughout the room with drinks in hand, but I saw only the inhuman ones. Goblins and satyrs, phouka and redcaps, a lone ogre in the corner, drinking a whole pitcher of a dark purple liquid. Unseen and invisible, the Unseelie fey milled through the throng of humans, spitting in their drinks, tripping the drunker ones, stealing items from purses and wallets.

I shivered and drew back, but Ash took my hand firmly. “Stay close,” he murmured again. “This isn’t as bad as upstairs, but we’ll still have to be careful.”

“What’s upstairs?”

“Skulls, cages and the dance floor. Not something you want to see, trust me.”