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Lucais was so powerful that he could control the wards all over Faerie. Single-handedly, he held the vicious and unnamed threats at bay without letting a flicker of his struggles with them show. Lucais shielded me, shielded Sthiara, and shielded Belgrave.

Why couldn’t he return the magic to the rebels after their nefarious plans went wrong? How close had he come to succeeding? What made him give it up?

“Lucais,” Morgoya beseeched from where she trailed a few steps behind me.

The High King continued his determined march towards the staircase, leading us to a part of the palace I’d never seen before.

I tried to piece together the sections I’d visited—the foyer, the museum, the floor of my bedroom, the dining room, the observatory, the hallway with tall arched windows, the throne room, and the destroyed wing—but I was completely lost. My mind grew hazier with every attempt.

“Lucais,” the High Lady tried again. He began to jog down the stairs, ignoring her. “Lucais, you’re not thinking clearly.”

He leapt from halfway down the stairs, landing nimbly on the next landing, and his head snapped up. “On the contrary,”he shot back, pausing for only a second before he sat on the railing and slipped down the next flight of stairs, sailing along the banister. “I am thinking with more clarity than I have in a very long time.”

I snorted.I’d believe that.

Arriving at the end of the staircase, he jumped to his feet and turned to gaze up at me. His eyes were on fire again in the way that made me feel nervous and disorderly. The look on his face was fiendish, but brimming with temptation. I wondered if he made everyone feel that way or if it was a side effect of the Oracle’s prophecy.

“The thing in the lapsus needs to be dealt with, one way or another,” Lucais decided. “If Blythe is alive, this is our best chance at recruiting her to our side—and wewantBlythe on our side. We have Enyd, but we know Gregor is with the Malum now. That leaves us with Owain and Ulyssa. Even if we get both of them, Blythe being on the enemy’s side will render all of our efforts useless.”

“How come?” I asked, huffing as I finally met him at the bottom of the stairs. Internally, I cursed my weak human body and the pitiful capacity of my lungs. My sense of gravity and balance, too. “I thought Gregor was the most powerful.”

“He is,” Morgoya replied, stopping beside me. “But it’s not about the power.”

“I’m sorry?” My gaze bounced between them, brow furrowing. “Then what is it about?”

The High King tilted his head to the side, snaring my eyes in his golden glow. He pursed his full, pink lips, and then sighed in resignation. “Blythe is Unseelie.”

“Un…what?”

“Unseelie,” he repeated. “It’s not about balancing power in situations like this. It’s about balancing faith.”

“Faith?” My eyes narrowed into slits.

“Adjacent to the High King is the High Court,” he informed me blandly. “It’s an establishment made up of the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. They preach about protecting the image of the High Mother and claim to have established linkages to the Otherworld, but they’re categorically useless for all legitimate purposes.” He waved a hand through the air like he was shooing a fly away. “During the Gift War, the whole damned lot of them went into hiding. They claim neutrality but stand decidedly on the other side of everything corporeal. It’ssoannoying.”

“It’s a little more nuanced than that,” Morgoya interjected. “They’re not the equivalent of Heaven and Hell—”

“Oh, yes, they are,” Lucais argued under his breath. He threw a disparaging glance at her. “That’s what I based it off when I rewrote a little bit of our history into your world,” he told me. “The idea of God and Lucifer came from the High Court, but if they asked me, I would categorically deny it.”

Morgoya let out a long-suffering sigh behind me, and he grinned shamelessly at her.

“So Seelie and Unseelie are good and bad faeries,” I said.

“No,” Morgoya answered at the exact same time as the High King replied with, “Yes.”

Feeling the effects of whiplash setting in, I looked to Wrenlock for support. He pulled a face at me as if to say that he didn’t know and he didn’t wish to get involved.

“Basically,” the High King elaborated, “the Seelie faeries believe that all life forms should be protected and cherished. They’re bleeding hearts. They developed a particular soft spot for humans when the Gift War ended and it was safe for them to come out of their little hidey-holes.

“On the other hand, the Unseelie faeries believe that certain life forms should be used for entertainment or hunted for sport because everyone can fend for themselves. Survival of the fittest type of mindset. There was an Unseelie ruler in the Aboveworldduring the Dragon War and that’s how we ended up with a whole lot of dead dragons. They also just so happen to be the ones who used to throw humans into portals with monsters for bets.”

I shivered. “What are you?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t made up my mind.”

My eyes flicked to Wrenlock. “You?”

“Seelie,” he answered quietly.