“I presume the favor you’re asking has something to do with that.” Val folded her arms.

“Yep.” Sinatria hesitated. “The faerie king offered a compromise. He’ll allow Fourth to live, but only if she is banished from the faerie kingdom, never to return. She can never set foot in Fernwood Deep again. That leaves her in the hands of Eternity Law.”

“Okay.” Val nodded. “What does Eternity Law say?”

Sinatria shuddered. “Banishment to the prison realm, where the magic-eating monsters that live there will consume her magic, leaving her a stone statue in a silent wasteland.”

Val blinked. “Not a whole lot better than capital punishment.”

“A little better, now that Qtana has developed a way to bring paras out of the realm and reverse the magic eaters’ effects. The sentence doesn’t have to be forever, but it’s still a fate I can’t imagine for my sister. What Eternity Law doesn’t allow for is that Fourth was simply doing what her culture demands.”

Val shrugged. “Not a great excuse for trying to murder your adopted sister. You grew up in the same culture. Would you do the same to her?”

“No, so I understand that Fourth still has to be punished.” Sinatria sighed. “Her only other option is to become a vassal to a trusted person. Someone loyal to the Eternity Throne.”

Val frowned. “Vassal?”

“It’s ancient Lunar Fae magic. They’ve only recently rediscovered it, thanks to King Arthur’s and Morgan Le Fay’s research on the magic that was lost during the First and Second Pendragon Wars.”

Sinatria hugged her shot glass tightly. “Basically, the vassal is magically bound to another para, their liege. The liege has total control over their vassal, and the vassal is magically compelled to do whatever their liege tells them for a certain period. King Arthur’s court commonly used that punishment during the First Golden Age.”

“Uh-huh.” Dread curled in the pit of Val’s stomach. “I’m hoping you don’t mean what I think you mean.”

Sinatria set the shot glass aside and leaned forward. “You’re the only person I trust to be the liege without destroying relations between the Eternity Throne and the faeries or turning my sister into a slave.”

Val wanted to refuse, but she bit back her words, given the desperation in Sinatria’s eyes. “Why do you care about someone who tried to murder you? You remember that assassin. He was deadly serious about ending your life.” She touched the spot on her belly where his katana had pierced her flesh.

Sinatria drew her knees to her chest and draped her arms over them. “The truth is, I don’t. She’s a real bitch. But my vision of peace for the faeries is more important than personal grudges.” She shrugged. “Maybe I made a mistake when I saved her, or maybe this is my chance to show my people a better way.”

Val chewed her bottom lip, though she knew what she had to do. “I don’t like the idea of being anyone’s liege,” she hedged.

“That’s precisely why I trust you with it, Val. You would remove Fourth from Avalon and anyone who wants to hurt her. You could make sure she uses her punishment period productively. Who knows? Maybe she’ll change.” Sinatria ventured a smile. “Trust doesn’t come easily to a faerie, but I trusted you the moment I met you. I still do.”

The weight of her trust hung on Val’s shoulders, but they were strong. “If I do this, do you think it’ll avert war between the Eternity Throne and the faeries?”

Sinatria nodded. “Queen Julia and the faerie king will patch things up if he sees that she’s committed to punishing Fourth.”

“Okay.” Val nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Sinatria sprang to her feet, wasp wings humming. “You will?”

“I’m supposed to protect, right?” Val shrugged. “This qualifies.”

“Oh, Val!” Sinatria flew a loop around Val’s head. “Thank you!”

Val held out a hand, and the faerie perched on her palm.

“A better future for the faeries, right?” Val grinned. “That’d be cool. I’m all for that.”

“We’ll make it happen!” Sinatria offered her fist.

Val bumped it with the tip of her index finger. “When do we start?”

“Can you be at the Eternal Palace first thing tomorrow morning?” Sinatria asked.

Val nodded. “I don’t have any security contracts right now. I’ll be there.”

“Thank you, Val. I owe you. I mean it.” Sinatria’s humming wings lifted her off Val’s palm.

Val avoided looking at the chaotic kitchen. “Any idea how we’ll get all those faeries out of my house?”

“I’ll lead them out. They’ll follow me if I scream bloody murder,” Sinatria assured her.

Bloody murder was indeed what she screamed when Val pulled the spare room door open. The faeries zoomed out of the room in a yammering, yelling, squabbling tide. Val bounded downstairs after them and bid Sinatria goodbye before excited faeries engulfed her at the front door. They disappeared into the night, leaving their chaos behind.

When Val checked the time difference app on her phone, Avalon’s magic fluctuations put it an hour ahead. She had a couple of hours to sleep.

She groaned. After grabbing a party-sized bag of cheese curls from her kitchen cabinet, the only package still intact, she plodded upstairs to bed and fell asleep eating them while watching an episode of Castle for the third time.

Val’s alarm blared two minutes later. She blinked awake in the dark and groped for the phone under the covers. How had she managed to set the alarm for two minutes instead of two hours?

She hadn’t. The two hours had passed in a blink, and it was time to get up.

Val buried her face in a pillow and moaned into the cheese-dust-covered fabric. Did I really agree to be the magical overlord of a homicidal faerie? She lay there for a few minutes, questioning her existence, but eventually dragged herself to her feet.

A shower did little to wake her up, and her eyes burned as she pulled on a court-appropriate outfit, a tailored black suit with a sprinkle of rhinestones on the lapels, and stumbled downstairs into last night’s chaos. A mush of milk, eggs, yogurt, and raw rice mingled on the kitchen floor. Her microwave was a big blob, and the toaster lay on its side, exposed wires spilling out.

“Nooo,” Val moaned at the sight of the coffee machine. Mangled plastic revealed its inner workings, which looked melted. A sad puddle of coffee had spilled from the countertop to the floor.

Val checked her phone, but there was no time for cleanup.

“That is future Val’s problem,” she muttered, storming to the garage. The McDonald’s down the block would have to do for breakfast.

Sensing her urgency, Genevieve started her engine with a roar as Val approached, also opening the garage door. Val paused, as she often did, unable to resist admiring the magnificent car. The Mach 1 was a symphony in speed and beauty composed of metal and glass. Her engine purred with latent power.

Val’s bad mood instantly lifted. “We’ve got to get to Manhattan before the traffic starts, Gennie.” She slid into the driver’s seat, and the leather surrounded her like an embrace. “Oh, and I need to get breakfast along the way. Think we can do that?”

The thunderous bellow of Genevieve’s engine was all the answer she needed. The Mustang peeled out of the garage with a screech and surged into the streets of Bay Ridge, her three hundred seventy-five horses charging in unison.

Genevieve skidded sideways into a parking spot within a cobbled courtyard surrounded by crenelated walls. The driver’s door swung open before her wheels stopped, and she practically ejected Val from her seat.

“Thanks, Gennie!” Val hit the ground running.

She jogged across the parking lot toward the magnificent domed edifice that housed the throne room. Early morning in Avalon was always breathtaking, but the warm sunlight that poured from the unmarred sky seemed lovelier than ever as it glinted on the stained-glass dome. Its colors caught her eye, but she didn’t slow down.