**Trigger warnings: gaslighting and implied rape.**Arthur, Morgan, and Guinevere were people of color. If they ever existed, they would have been of Roman and Ancient Briton heritage, battling Saxons in the Dark Ages. No anachronisms in shining armor ride through this Arthurian tale. No wizards or faeries, only druids and nature spirits like the water horse.

Dragon steaks, ambrosia, and chimera stew. In the Magic Banquet, one guest always dies of joy. Or so they say. The street waif, Aja, just wants a few mouthfuls of the first course, but this is a party not easily left.The dishes lavished upon Aja do more than entice. They enchant. They endanger. They change her. When she learns that a dragonfruit will make her mature, she eats it all. She is tired of being seen as a child, of being excluded and overlooked by respectable families and that other girl at the banquet, who is the empress in disguise. But Aja ages too fast, too much, and too soon. She is dying. She must replenish her lifeforce by eating a phoenix before she can even think of escaping the mortal banquet.

“Any half-rate tyrant can take over with an army. The truly talented do so with a party.”