Finally, Kerrigan reached the obscured door and yanked on the hidden handle. “Come on,” she muttered under her breath.
“It’s locked?” Clover gasped. “You said it’d be open.”
Kerrigan steeled her spine and yanked on the door again and again. But the gods be damned, the door wouldn’t budge.
“Can’t you use your…” Clover gestured to Kerrigan as if her elemental magical abilities wouldn’t draw significant attention.
She glared at Clover. She never spoke about her magic in public. Not because she was embarrassed by it. All Fae had some magic. Even a few humans had a bit of magic. But most hybrids, half-Fae half-human, like her, barely had any. The two races crossed infrequently enough and produced children even less frequently. Many thought hybrids were an abomination. That their lack of magical prowess was proof of that fact. Kerrigan just avoided politics at all costs. They never worked out in her favor.
“What are we going to do then?” Clover asked. “Break a lock or not see the opening ceremony?”
Kerrigan cursed under breath. Clover had a point. She looked left and right, tried to determine how many other magical Fae were nearby. It went against her personal rules. What if someone noticed? What if someone could determine her strength? Would she be persecuted for it? The tensions between her two people were near to a fever pitch after a foreign human, Cyrene, from another world had come and upended their entire system of governance.
Kerrigan had thought that what Cyrene had done was amazing. But instead of shifting all of Alandria toward a more open and accepting governance and yielding a new wave of leaders, those in power had buckled down. They’d held tight to the past rules and laws, held tight to the wealth and prominence that had put them in the seat of the Society to begin with. It had been tense ever since. She’d seen a human beaten on the streets for his ego of using magic so flippantly…as if in defiance of those in charge.
She had no intention of being one of them.
“Clover…I don’t know,” she whispered, fear getting the better of her.
“Can we go the other way?”
Kerrigan shook her head. “They’ve closed off all the entrances from Draco Mountain for competitors.”
“Gods,” Clover ground out.
She reached for the handle one more time, wondering how little magic she could use to twist the lock. Just as she’d worked up the courage to try it out, the door was pulled inward. Kerrigan stumbled forward with the force of her movement.
She quickly recovered and looked up, expecting to see Mistress Moran standing there ready to reprimand her for being late. But instead, a boy on the cusp of becoming a man with short blue hair and an easy smile stood with his arms crossed and eyebrow raised.
“I thought that might be you, Kerrigan.”
“Hadrian!” she gushed. Kerrigan threw her arms around his neck. “Thank the gods.”
Hadrian laughed and released her. “Here to save the day, as usual. Where have you been?”
Kerrigan shot him a sheepish grin and then gestured to Clover standing behind them. Clover had her hands in the pockets of her black slacks. She still wore the red button-up shirt and black vest that denoted she worked for Dozan, the biggest crime lord in the city and the proprietor of a dozen gambling rings, where Clover was a dealer.
Hadrian crinkled his nose. “Really, Ker?”
She shrugged. “She can come too, right?”
“If Mistress Moran sees her in that outfit…”
“Hey, no sweat off my back, sweetheart,” Clover said, retreating into street slang as she put up a defensive position against Hadrian.
He looked her over appraisingly. “I think Darby brought an extra set of clothes that might fit you.” He turned his gaze to Kerrigan. “They were for you.”
“Perfect,” Kerrigan exclaimed and then dragged them both out of the throng and into the private box of the Dragon Blessed.
“I’m not sure I’d say it’s perfect,” Hadrian muttered as they went in search of Darby. “You smell like a bar.”
“That’s because we were in a bar,” Clover said with a wink.
Hadrian shot Kerrigan a look that said they were going to have words later. But then Darby appeared around the corner. She was Kerrigan’s opposite in every way. Short and lithe and creamy white skin instead of tall and fit and spattered in freckles. Long straight blonde hair and clear sky blue eyes, while Kerrigan had a tangled mess of curly red hair that never did what she wanted and her eyes were so green they rivaled the emeralds mined in the north. Darby was soft-spoken, ever-polite, and the best in their year for all things dancing, etiquette, and propriety. There was not a part of Kerrigan that was soft and she was always challenging their instructors. She had a sharp mind for knowledge and didn’t care a whit for propriety. Which was probably why she smelled like a bar and Darby looked like a goddess out of legend.
Despite it all, Darby was the only one who had been a Dragon Blessed as long as Kerrigan. Hadrian was older but had shown up later. Darby was more a sister than anything.
“I told you that she would make it,” Darby said with a knowing smile as she took in Kerrigan and Clover together. She sighed a little, polite thing. “I suppose these are for you.” She passed the clothes to Clover then turned back to Kerrigan. “Let me see what I can do with your hair.”
As Clover found a space to change, Kerrigan let Darby try to control the madness on her head. It didn’t help that it was the middle of the summer and Kinkadian humidity was so intense that she felt as if she could drink the air. How did Darby even keep her hair glossy and her dress perfect in this weather?
“Do you want to explain how you ended up at a Dozan gambling hall on the night before the opening ceremonies to arguably the most important tournament of our lifetime?” Hadrian asked with humor in his gray eyes.
Kerrigan winced as Darby’s fingers tugged on her curls. “Uh…poor life choices?”
Darby snickered behind her. “You can say that again.”
“Did you at least win?” Hadrian asked.
“You think I was gambling?” Kerrigan asked accusingly.
“I shudder to think what else you could be doing in one of Dozan’s places.”
“Yes, I’ve taken up casual whoring on the side,” Kerrigan said with a straight face.
Hadrian choked. “You what?”
“Hey, it pays well.”
“Stop teasing him, Ker,” Darby said, tying off her hair with a ribbon. “You’re going to make him go apoplectic.”
Kerrigan smiled at him mischievously and then winked. “How does my hair looked?”
“Lovely,” Darby answered before Hadrian could say anything.
Then Clover stepped out of the shadows in an oatmeal-colored tunic dress with a black belt wrapped tight around her narrow waist. Her black hair was cut severely to her chin, and her black eyes sparkled with gold flecks. The dress accentuated her curvaceous figure and her silky smooth brown skin. Kerrigan felt more than heard Darby’s breath catch at the sight of Clover. She squeezed her friend’s hand. Darby had known from a young age that she was interested in other women. But she hadn’t come out to anyone else in fear of what it would do for her prospects when she came of age.