“But . . . apparently you knew about that,” he says. The hurt in his voice grates against my conscience. “You knew Jalek wanted to kill my mother, and you didn’t say a thing to me.”
“I didn’t know about Jalek’s plans.” It’s true, and yet . . . I soften my tone before I continue. “But I won’t pretend I would have stopped him if I had.” I lift my chin and look him in the eye. “I know what it’s like to work nonstop and still be a prisoner of your circumstances. Your mother’s camps? It’s hard to not wish worse than death on someone who would do that to innocents.”
“I won’t defend those camps,” he says, his voice shaking. “But with so many Unseelie fleeing Mordeus’s rule, our court has been overrun. Our people are suffering, and the queen is putting her subjects first, protecting them from the shadow fae.”
“What if the shadow fae are the ones who need protecting?”
“Finn told you about the camps, but did he tell you about the hundreds in my court who’ve been slaughtered in cold blood so those running from the mess in his could take over their homes?”
And because of the queen’s curse, those golden fae wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from the Unseelie. It’s a sickening image. “I won’t argue that all the Unseelie are good,” I say, “or that terrible situations don’t sometimes bring out the worst in people, but—”
“They still have free will. They make their own choices, and through those choices they’ve proved who they really are.”
“But you can’t define a whole court on the actions of the worst of them. I believe Finn is good.”
Sebastian’s eyes blaze as he turns back to me. “If you think he’s so good, you should use those powers of yours to find his catacombs in the Wild Fae Lands. See what he keeps there and tell me if you still believe him so noble.”
What could Finn keep in his catacombs that would prove he’s as evil as Sebastian wants me to think?
“I can’t stand how he’s gotten to you, made you think you can trust him.”
“He’s become . . . a friend.”
“That’s what he wants you to think. I’m begging you not to fall for it.”
“I don’t understand. Why are you so against Finn and his people when your own mother is the cause of their suffering?”
“I’m not against the Unseelie.” He shakes his head. “Not at all, Brie. I hate what is happening to them under Mordeus’s rule. Faerie can’t exist without the light and the dark, the sun and the shadow. My mother knew that, and if it weren’t for her, thousands of fae would continue to die every day in the Great Fae War.”
“She ended the war?”
“Through her sacrifice, the fighting stopped.”
He wants to believe she’s good. Can I fault him for that? She’s his mother. But he’s too smart to turn a blind eye to all she’s done. “I don’t see it the way you do.”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“Then tell me—tell me what you can.”
He swallows. “Once, my mother was the golden faerie princess. Young and inexperienced, she was seduced by King Oberon. She fell in love with him, but their kingdoms had battled for hundreds of years, and her parents were sworn enemies of the king and his kingdom. As long as the golden queen and golden king ruled, the princess could never freely be with her shadow king. But when they were able, they would sneak away from their lands and disguise themselves as humans to meet in the mortal realm. There, they wouldn’t be condemned for their love. Their power was so great and their magic so intense that their love could move the sun and the moon, creating what the humans called an eclipse.”
I know this story. My mother used to tell us the story of the shadow king and the golden princess. When he doesn’t continue, I continue for him. “And one day Oberon came to the human realm, but Arya couldn’t make it. Her parents had discovered what she’d been doing, and they combined their magical powers to lock all portals between the human world and Faerie—keeping their daughter from reaching her lover and preventing the shadow king from returning home. The humans sacrificed innocents in an attempt to appease their gods and get the sun back.”
Is that what Bakken meant when he referred to the long night? The same long night I heard stories of when I was a child?
Sebastian waits as his eyes will me to go on.
“But no matter the prayers or the sacrifices, the humans couldn’t end the long night. They had no power over the portals, and the shadow king remained locked outside his world, searching for another way home. His magic grew weaker with every day, until he could no longer disguise his true form. With no magic to protect him from the humans and their prejudice, he was beaten and brutalized, the tips of his ears cut off and his face pulverized with their fists. It was then that he met the human woman. She found him outside her house and took pity on him, giving him the healing tonics she had. She couldn’t stand to see any creature suffer. She gave him a place to stay, tended to him, and used her potions to heal him. As the long night dragged on, they fell in love. He never forgot the golden fae princess, but his love for the woman was too intense to deny. When the portals reopened, he knew he had to return home, but the human refused to join him. She didn’t want to leave her world. Even so, the shadow king knew he could no longer be with the princess. His heart belonged to the human.”