He sighs heavily, then flashes those pointed teeth in a horrific grin when he sees me. “Fire Girl. I told you not to summon me inside the queen’s palace.”
Indeed he did, but I’d forgotten. I shrug. “Too bad.”
He stands with surprising grace and extends a hand. “Payment, then?”
I grab a lock of hair from the back, pulling it from along my hairline near where I cut the last one. I shear it off quickly and hand it over. “What do you do with it?”
“Is that what you wish to know today?”
“No!” What a waste of hair. I don’t actually care. I probably don’t want to know, truly. “I have another question. Tell me about the disease that makes the Unseelie age and heal like mortals.”
“There’s no disease.”
“Then tell me why! Why do they heal like mortals?”
He strokes my orange-red hair between two fingers, saying, “She grows wiser.”
“She grows impatient,” I say, watching my bedroom door. I’m supposed to leave for the summer palace with Sebastian tonight. When I returned to the palace, I sent my maids down to tell him I was preparing to go and needed another hour. I can’t risk Bakken being here when Sebastian comes to my door, but I can’t wait any longer for answers either. “Tell me.”
“Twenty years ago, when King Oberon returned from the long night in the human realm, Queen Arya rushed to him, desperate to be reunited with her first and only love. But Oberon rejected her. While the king was locked in the mortal realm, he had fallen in love with a human woman. He said he couldn’t be with the queen when his heart belonged to another. Heartbroken and angry that he would choose a weak mortal over her, the queen cursed the Unseelie king and all his people. Under the curse, they were no longer immortal, as before. They would age and be weak like humans.”
“Then why does Mordeus have so much power? Isn’t he Unseelie?”
“Ah, but the queen was vindictive. She wanted mortals punished alongside Oberon and his people. So she provided the Unseelie with a way to maintain their powers and their life. If the king didn’t want to die or become weak, he would have to take the life of a human—many humans if he wanted a long life, and many more if he wanted to use his magic during that life.”
The hair stands up on my arms. Why do humans wish for magic when this is what is done with it? I can’t imagine a world in which the greediest of my kind could wield that kind of power.
Then the implications of this click into place, and I have to wrap my arms around myself. They have to take human lives to heal or have access to their powers, and that was why the tribute showed up when Finn was sick. But no. Finn wouldn’t do that. He’s not a murderer. He must have found some work-around for the curse.
I lock the thought away and rub my hands over my arms, trying to find warmth. “Why don’t they just . . . curse her back?”
“Their power is too weak, even as they sacrifice human after human.” His eyes grow distant—as if he’s not even there. As if he’s looking far into the past and not at me.
“How is this even possible? Why hasn’t this happened before if it’s so easy to cripple an entire court?”
He shakes his head. “Because the cost of such power is too great. The queen was mad with jealousy when she made this curse, and alongside her summer solstice sacrifice, she gave something else to bend the magic to her will. She made the Seelie powerless to hurt the Unseelie—thus the end of the Great Fae War.”
“That can’t be true,” I say, shaking my head. “Finn was hurt by one of the queen’s sentries. I stitched him up myself.”
“Perhaps the sentry worked for the queen, but the Seelie cannot wound the Unseelie.”
I remember what Finn said about assuming that the guards were Seelie when they were actually Wild Fae working for the golden queen. I couldn’t understand why the Wild Fae were more dangerous to him than the Seelie. Now I know. “Why did no one tell me any of this?”
“The curse prevents the fae from speaking of it—a clever loophole the queen included to keep humans from learning the truth.”
“Then why can you speak of it?”
“Goblins are the keepers of realms. We gather the secrets, the histories, and the stories. No curse or spell can keep us from gathering or sharing any information we wish, though my kin and I know better than to anger the queen by sharing her secrets widely. Her wrath is great. Just ask the Sluagh that lurk about the seaside palace.” He grins at this.