“Yeah, well, if they wanted me to be confident, they should let me wear shoes I can actually walk in,” Sophie grumbled, holding up her impossibly slender heels.

“I guess you’ll have to settle for looking beautiful—and so grown up! If any of your boys were here . . .”

Edaline didn’t finish the sentence—or name the boys—and for that, Sophie gave her a hug.

“And you understand what’s going to happen at the dinner?” Edaline asked as she knocked to let their guards know they were ready.

Sophie fussed with her teal gloves. “I’m going to try not to cause an interspecies incident when I’m introduced to the other leaders. Then we’re all supposed to eat fancy food in a stuffy room while everyone pretends they’re not secretly wishing they could kill each other.”

Edaline smiled, looping her arm through Sophie’s as they started the long trek to where dinner would be held. “Not everyone hates each other. The animosity exists mostly between the goblins, ogres, and trolls. The dwarves and gnomes are generally content to live and let live, so long as everyone extends that courtesy to them.”

“Then let’s hope we’re seated next to them,” Sophie mumbled. “And that none of the food requires knives.”

“I’m sure it won’t. Did you notice they didn’t even give us any hairpins?”

After seeing the damage Lady Gisela had done with one, Sophie wasn’t surprised.

“Are we going a different direction than the way we came?” Sophie asked as they started up a winding staircase. “I can’t get my bearings.”

“And you won’t,” Bunhead explained. “The paths are intentionally ambiguous to ensure that no one will ever find their way through unless they’ve been trained.”

“Or get really lucky,” Righty added.

“Don’t be nervous,” Edaline told her when they finally reached a set of embossed golden doors. “All you have to do is smile and act natural.”

Sophie felt anything but natural as she took in the splendor of the room. The elves were never shy with their displays of wealth, but this? This was something else entirely. The space had the feel of a moonlit terrace garden, but they were still very much indoors, and every fragile flower, every graceful tree, every cascading vine, and every sweeping balustrade—even the stars winking across the swirled black ceiling—had been intricately carved from jewels or cast from precious metals. It was the perfect marriage of nature and craft—a new level of mastery—and everyone in the room could only stare in wonder.

Well, everyone save for one.

King Dimitar couldn’t have looked more bored as he leaned his gorilla-size body against the trunk of a tree—a Panakes tree, Sophie realized, which made her wish she still wore her Sucker Punch. He wore his usual metal diaper—though the waistline had been rimmed with glittering black jewels, which matched the stones set into his earlobes—and idly traced a clawed finger along the tattoos crowning his bald head.

“A child in a Peace Summit,” he said as Sophie tried to hurry past him. “And yet they criticize my people for training our children to defend themselves.”

“If it were only for defense,” Councillor Alina said, swishing over in an iridescent gown that shifted from green to purple with every motion, “I doubt anyone would have a problem.”

“And yet the greatest defense is a strong offense, isn’t it?” Dimitar countered, smiling to show his pointed teeth.

“Is that what you’d call the warriors you sent to capture my family?” Sophie asked, ignoring the warning squeeze Edaline gave her arm.

King Dimitar straightened, his bulging muscles flexing with the motion. “If I’d planned that mission, your mother would not be standing at your side—though I’m not convinced your family was even the target. Not everything revolves around you, Miss Foster.”

He stalked away, leaving Sophie to drown in the fresh wave of questions.

If Dimitar wasn’t lying about the attackers being unsanctioned rebels—which she was far from ready to believe—who else would they have been after?

Lady Cadence? She was one of the ogres’ most loyal supporters.

“There you are, Miss Foster,” Councillor Bronte said behind her, drawing her back to the present. Sophie turned to find him standing with Councillor Oralie and Councillor Terik, all looking resplendent in their suits, gowns, and capes in the same jeweled tones as their circlets.

Edaline had been right about the elves screaming wealth, power, and confidence. It was like having the prom kings and queens milling around the room.

“Empress Pernille was just telling me she hadn’t had the privilege of meeting you,” Bronte told Sophie. “Perhaps you’d be willing to let us make the introduction?”

Sophie nodded, letting the Councillors lead her away. But her mind was still so stuck on the idea of Lady Cadence being the target that she nearly trampled a small, strange creature that looked like a cross between a sloth, a pot-bellied pig, and a small child, with fuzzy skin, an upturned nose, and a short chubby body dressed in a purple tutu.

“Empress Pernille,” Councillor Oralie said, dipping a graceful curtsy. “Forgive us for not seeing you.”

The creature chirped a reply, and it took Sophie’s Polyglot skills a moment to realize she was listening to the ruler of the trolls.

“I’m so sorry,” Sophie said, fumbling through a curtsy. “I should never be allowed to wear something this huge—it will only end in disaster.”

Empress Pernille blinked her round, yellow eyes. “Rarely do I ever hear an elf address me in my own language—and with such a precise accent.”

Sophie stared at her gloves. “I wish I could take credit. But my ability made the shift unconsciously.”

“Intelligent, talented, and humble—I see why I hear often of your influence,” the Empress said, before turning to Oralie. “Perhaps we could have a word?”

Oralie motioned for the Empress to follow her through an arch lined with cut amethyst flowers, to a more secluded corner of the room.

As soon as Bronte and Terik had wandered away, Sophie whispered to Edaline, “That’s what trolls look like?” She’d seen images of them as fierce beasts with lots of claws and muscles—meanwhile Empress Pernille could’ve easily been mistaken for a Muppet.