By cursing the Unseelie and making her own people helpless against them, I think, but I keep my mouth shut. The queen is his mother, and she’s dying. I can’t blame him for being blind to her mistakes if he feels like he’s losing her and powerless to stop it. “Why doesn’t she just lift the curse?”
When he only stares at me and doesn’t answer, I remember that he’s not able to speak so directly to the curse. The torment in his eyes weighs on me, and I wrap my arms around his waist.
His hands slide into my hair, and he pulls back as his fingers tangle with the shorter locks I hide beneath my thick curls. “What happened back here?” I lower my gaze, but he tilts my chin up so I’m looking at him. “You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
I already told him what I know about the curse, so I might as well explain how I learned it. “I gave Bakken some of my hair so he would tell me about the curse.” Again, the word curse makes him flinch—as if the word’s a knife in his back every time.
He slides his hand up the side of my face and toys with the locks of shorter hair framing my face. “And these?”
“Back in Elora. He told me that Mordeus bought Jas.” I shrug at his frown. “There are things you cannot tell me, and there are things I didn’t want you knowing I was doing.” There still are. “And I trust Bakken.”
“Goblins’ secrets aren’t usually so easily bought. He must . . . he must believe he has something to gain by staying on your good side. But be careful that you don’t rely too much on their kind. If they discover your weaknesses, they’ll take and take until you find you’ve given everything.”
I pinch his side gently. “Don’t look so worried, Sebastian. I have more where that came from.”
“Not all secrets can be bought with a lock of hair, Brie.”
I thread my fingers through his and smile sadly as I tug on a lock. “I wish they could.”
Sebastian scans the horizon where the golden and red fingers of dusk stretch low across the water. “We need to move inside.” There’s a note of urgency in his voice.
“Why?”
He nods down the beach, and I see a cluster of ravens swarming.
“The Sluagh?” I ask.
“Yes. They roam the beach at night. It’s one of the reasons my mother doesn’t come here much anymore.”
“Why would there be Sluagh here? Who died on the beach?”
Something flashes in his eyes. When he doesn’t answer, I realize it’s not because he doesn’t know, but because he can’t or won’t tell me. Still so many secrets between us, but at least it’s clearer now that there are at least some that he doesn’t keep by choice.
“Come on.” He tugs me toward the palace and I follow. I know better than to linger with Sluagh about.
* * *
Sebastian tells the servants he’ll show me around while they prepare our dinner.
“King Mordeus doesn’t belong on the Throne of Shadows,” Sebastian says when we’re alone, picking up where we left off outside. “And all of Faerie suffers for it. But he will do anything to wear the crown so the throne will accept him.”
He takes my hand and leads me down a brightly lit staircase. As he pushes through a heavy door, I realize he’s brought me to some sort of armory. My eyes go wide as I take in all the weapons—the variety of knives and swords, the rows of armor, and the racks of wooden bows.
He goes straight to the far wall and selects a shining black dagger before turning back to me. “This is made of adamant and iron.” He offers it to me. “It was sharpened with diamond blades by the queen’s own blacksmith, and its magic will leave traces of iron behind in anyone you use it on.”
I take it. It’s heavy but not clumsily so. When I wrap my fingers around the hilt, a strange jolt of power rocks through me. It feels like it was made for my palm.
“Only this can kill the king,” Sebastian says. “Keep it on you at all times.”
My eyes flick up to meet his. He doesn’t know I’ve been working for the king, so why would he think I need a dagger than can kill him?
“Riaan told me that you two talked last night,” he says softly. “He said you admitted to having secrets. Secrets that you’re forced to keep or risk losing your sister.” He pulls a scabbard from a drawer and unbuckles the small belt attached to it. “Maybe the same secrets that made you give me a fake and keep the Mirror of Discovery for yourself.”
I gasp. “You knew?”
“Yes. And I waited for you to explain—to trust me—but now I understand that you can’t.”