His own eyes danced. They were golden-brown, the color of autumn leaves falling from the trees. “You’ve broken protocol. They expected you to stop one step lower. Instead, you’ve put yourself at the same level as me. The fact that I’m not chastising you means I’m treating you as an equal, like royalty. You should be flattered.”

I crossed my arms. “I’ll be more flattered when we have the private talk.”

He tsked me. “So impatient. So human. You’ve asked for my hospitality. You can’t expect me to not give it now.” He made a gesture with his hands, and spirit servants appeared, bearing serving platters of food. For some reason, I suddenly started thinking of the song “Hotel California.” “We were about to eat when you so kindly dropped in. Dine with us, and then we’ll have as many ‘private encounters’ as you like.”

“I’m not stupid. I won’t eat anything in the Otherworld. You have to know that.”

He shrugged, still sprawled out on his throne like a comfortable cat. “Your loss. You can sit and watch, then.” He rose gracefully and offered me his hand. I stared at it blankly. Shaking his head with mirth, he simply walked with me down the steps, not touching.

“Where’s the rest of my group?”

“Your servants and human friend are safe, I assure you. We’ve given them their own accommodations since they don’t have a guest-of-honor seat at my table, that’s all.”

He beckoned toward a low, polished table, a bit larger than the others in the room. Like the rest, it was surrounded by sumptuous-looking chairs and sofas, patterned in bright brocades and velvets. Dorian settled down onto a small loveseat and patted the spot beside him.

“Keep me company?”

I didn’t dignify that with an answer, instead sitting down in the chair next to his sofa. It was a single seat. No one could sit with me. We were soon joined by about a dozen others, including Rurik and Shaya. She reported to Dorian that the people I’d injured had been healed and were recovering.

True to my word, I didn’t eat any of the food set out before us, but I confess, it looked pretty good. Stuffed Cornish game hens. Fresh bread with steam still rising from it. Desserts I would have committed murder for.

But I didn’t give in. One of the first rules of the game was to never eat outside your own world. Stories and myths abounded about those foolish enough to ignore that precaution.

The other diners tried hard to pretend I didn’t exist, but Dorian was fascinated by me. Worse, he flirted with me. At least he wasn’t as crass as every other gentry I seemed to encounter, but I didn’t rise to any of it-even if it was charming at times. I took it all in with a stoic face, which seemed to delight him that much more. The other women at the table were less resistant. Any look, any word, and they practically melted with lust.

In fact, many other people in the room also seemed to melt with lust. Very explicitly so. During and after dinner, I watched as people-couples usually, but sometimes more-touched each other brazenly. It was like being in junior high again. Some of it was just kissing. Some of it was heavy groping-a hand fondling the breast or sliding up the thigh. And some of it was…more. Across the room, I saw one woman climb on top of a man and straddle him, moving up and down. I was pretty sure they had nothing on beneath the voluminous folds of her skirt. At a table nearby, one woman was on her knees in front of a man, and she was I hastily averted my eyes, turning back to my own table. I found Dorian’s gaze on me and knew he scrutinized my every reaction. Through some unspoken command, a blond slip of a woman slid into the empty seat beside him, the one I had refused. She draped a leg over his lap and wrapped her arms around him, kissing his neck. He moved one hand up her leg, pushing up the skirt to reveal smooth flesh, but he otherwise seemed oblivious to her as he regarded me and the other guests.

Aside from the free love and utterly medieval setting, there was almost something, well, normal about this place. The gentry I’d run into were always causing trouble in my world. Luring humans. Using magic indiscriminately. But this was like any other social occasion or party. People knew each other and regarded their friends with warmth. They discussed love and children and politics. True, they were still foreign and other to me, but I could also almost see them as human. Almost.

Needing to do more than sit there and stare, I reached into my coat and pulled out one of the two Milky Way bars I’d brought along. It was also a utilitarian move, seeing as how I was so hungry from watching all the feasting around me. Dorian immediately became intrigued.

“What is that?”

I held it up. “It’s a Milky Way. It’s…candy.” I didn’t really know what else to say about it. I wasn’t even sure what was in it. Nougat? I had no idea what the hell that foamy stuff was, save that it was delicious.

He eyed it curiously, and I broke off a piece, tossing it over to him. He caught it deftly.

“Your majesty,” exclaimed one of the men, “don’t eat it. It’s not safe.”

“It won’t hurt me here,” rebuked Dorian in annoyance. “And don’t even start in about poison or I’ll let Bertha the cook have her way with you again.”

The man promptly shut up.

Dorian popped the piece into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Watching the expressions his face went through was almost hilarious. It took him awhile to work through all that gooey scrumptiousness, and I fostered a compelling image of him with saltwater taffy.

“Entertaining,” he declared when he’d finished. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know. Some chocolate and caramel. A bunch of stuff sort of fused into other stuff.”

One woman, her hair curly and brown, fixed me with a combative look. “That’s so typical of them. They twist nature and the elements for the sake of their perverted creations until they no longer know what it is they do. They are an offense to the divine, bringing forth monstrosities and abominations they cannot control.”

A snappy retort rose to my lips, but I bit it off. Volusian had warned me to be nice. In light of their relatively civilized behavior at dinner, I could do no less, so my voice stayed calm. “Our monstrosities do great things. We can fix injuries you can’t. We have plumbing and electricity. We have transportation that makes your horses look like dinosaurs.”

“Like what?” asked one of the men.

“Bad analogy,” I replied.

Shaya shook her head. “We can achieve many of the same results with magic.”

“Magic couldn’t do much against my gun earlier.”

“Our people survived. Only a human would brag about her ability to wield death.”

“And you in particular would have good reason to,” pointed out Rurik. “No other human in memory has killed as many of our kind-spirits or shining ones-as you. You would have killed me last week if you’d had the strength. You would have killed our people in the woods today if you could have.”

“I don’t always kill. I even avoid it if I can. But sometimes I have to, and when I do…well, then, that’s the way it goes.”

Glowers regarded me all around the table. Only Dorian’s face stayed politely curious.

“Rumor has it you’ve killed your own kind too,” he noted. “Doesn’t it keep you up at night to have so much blood on your hands?”

I leaned back in my chair, as always trying to keep my emotions off my face. It did bother me sometimes, but I didn’t want them to know. I hadn’t killed many humans-only a handful, really-and most of it had been self-defense. They’d been humans working with gentry or other creatures to do harm in my world. That had justified the kills in some ways, but I could never ignore that I was taking a life. A human life. A life like my own. The first time I’d seen the light fade out of someone’s eyes-wrought by my hand-I’d had nightmares for weeks. I’d never told Roland about that, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell this group.