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“Why not?”

“Because a mortal with power like yours would only mean one thing to the fae.”

“A mortal with fae blood?”

Perl nods. “Exactly.”

“What if I do magic by accident?”

“That is best avoided,” Perl says as if that is an end to the matter. “And we should make ready to go.”

Kerik lifts the collar.

Perl watches. “Do you want some help with that?”

“I think I will find it easier to bear this indignity if I put it on myself,” Kerik says, placing the collar around his own neck. It closes with a soft sound he feels in his gut. Lastly, he brings his wrists together behind his back and feels the cuffs join to each other. With a small act of will he finds he is still able to break them apart and connect again. He leaves them unconnected for the moment.

Perl watches him before saying, lightly. “And now we are almost ready.” There is a heavy sound to his voice and Kerik dreads whatever final humiliating touch he is about to reveal will be part of his outfit for the evening. But then he says, “The vulgar protuberance is not the only thing that is different about my ensemble. There is also this.”

He turns. Kerik sees that the back of Perl’s outfit is different. It seems to be the same leather jerkin, but Perl has adjusted it somehow. The high neck of it still wraps all the way around his throat, but beneath it some of his back is bared on either side of the lacing that closes it along his spine. Two long slits are cut vertically from his shoulders to his waist. Through them Kerik can see Perl’s pale skin.

“That is a strange addition,” Kerik says. The skin revealed by the slashes in Perl’s jerkin looks delicate. Perl’s perfect skin. Perl, for all his power, the power he has over Kerik and the power he wields, seems so vulnerable in that moment, Kerik feels a thickness form in his throat.

He finds himself wondering when anyone last touched that skin. Perl has told him that he is chaste. But he hasn’t always been so? Kerik knows Seridil was once his thrall, so he must have coupled before. But that was before he left Vylenor. A century ago.

Has he had any lovers in all the time he was in the mortal realm? Kerik feels sure he has not.

Does he miss it? The touch of another?

Perhaps Perl’s cock has withered and fallen off his body like Emperor Selim’s.

All these questions fill Kerik’s head, but the one he asks is, “What manner of design is this? For what purpose?”

“Let me show you.” Perl turns back around to face Kerik. He takes a breath. He sounds exasperated. Like he is about to do something he finds deeply demeaning.

He blinks his blue eyes softly…

And wings explode from his back with a great rushing sound like a high wind.

The wind subsides after a moment, but the wings remain in place, moving slightly as if still ruffled by the movement of the air. “Oh,” Kerik says. He can’t think what else he could say. Perl has wings.

The wings seem to hang weightless in the air behind his body. They are like nothing Kerik has ever seen. So tall they arc above Perl’s head and so long they almost reach his heels. They are completely white excepting their feathery tips which are a delicate pale blue. The same shade as Perl’s irises. They are a little translucent and seem to shift before Kerik’s gaze as if he is looking at them with lidded eyes, on the brink of sleep.

“You have…?” is all Kerik can manage.

“Wings,” Perl says, finishing the sentence in a flat tone. “Yes.”

“I saw wings on some of the faeries in the hall. Do all…?” Kerik pauses and swallows to try and get the strangled tone from his voice. Perhaps this would be easier if he wasn’t standing before winged-Perl half naked, with jewelled clasps on his nipples. “Do all fae have wings?” he manages in a more even tone.

He can feel it now. The magical energy pouring off Perl’s wings like pollen from blossom-heavy trees.

“Yes,” Perl says in the same emotionless tone. “We all have them. Only here. There is not enough power for them in most other places. Some of them are quite ridiculous. I prefer not to wear mine, but for an event like this they are required.”

Kerik smirks up at Perl. “So, can you fly?”

Perl’s eyes go so narrow they almost vanish behind his high cheekbones. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“But can you?”