Freed (Imprisoned by the Fae 3)

“Oh.

” I reach into my jeans pocket. The right side is a little bulgy—it’s been storing my bag of gold coins ever since I traded the imps one of my apples for it—but I’ve been holding the crystal Grimly gave me in the left one. I grab it, then hold it out. “Here you go.”

“Wait.”

We all look at Nine.

He nods at the crystal I just dropped into Morgan’s palm. “We want to make a deal.”

We do?

“Oh?”

“Yes. You want to know who’s coming after the Unseelie throne. Because, whether you want to admit it or not, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Play coy with the human, Morrigan, if you like. Not me. I see what you’re doing.”

“Do you?”

Nine ignores the politeness in her tone. “We want to trade that memory for a promise. That’s fair enough. After you watch it, you promise to at least hear Oberon out. You want peace, your majesty? So does he.”

For a moment, I expect Morgan to refuse. I mean, I already gave her the crystal. I’m pretty sure that Nine’s bluffing, that he can’t take it back from her.

But, to my surprise, Morgan nods. “I already have the crystal,” she points out, “but I will make a deal. If this memory shows me my enemy, you wait until I decide how to deal with them, and then I will think about talking to Oberon. Not as the Winter Queen, but as a daughter of Mab. Agreed?”

I think Nine realizes that’s the best he can get. “Agreed.”

Morgan lifts her hand. Just like Saxon did when he played Rys’s prophecy for me, she waves over the crystal. A moment later, it’s like a scene out of a movie. Seriously. It plays on a patch of shadow in the distance. It’s gotta be from Grimly’s angle—he’s looking at the back of a creature much taller than he is—and all I can see is shadowy clothes, pale hands, and long, black hair.

“Collector,” he says, his fae voice dark and deep, “I’ll pay you handsomely for the following items—”

That’s all. Within seconds of Morgan activating the crystal, the scene vanishes. At first, I’m fucking pissed. Jim gave up so much for that? We didn’t even see his face!

And that’s when I realize that the memory didn’t just end. It was cut off when Morgan froze the crystal.

Her eyes have gone white again. “Nyx. It was Nyx. I know that voice. It’s him.”

Nyx. She knows his voice, but I know that name. He’s the same dickhead fae who stole Jim and imprisoned him so that… so that he couldn’t reach the Winter Queen.

“But who is this Nyx guy?” asks Riley.

“Another cousin,” she says before she drops the bomb: “Melisandre’s brother.”

So it turns out that when Morgan told us that she’s the last of Queen Mab’s line, she didn’t count any males. The Unseelie Court is matrilineal—who knew?—so she didn’t mention Nyx.

That might’ve been a bit of a mistake.

As one of the males in the royal line, Nyx helped the nobles in the Winter Court rule over their people while Melisandre controlled all of Faerie from her seat in the Seelie Court. After Oberon took her head and her throne, Morgan figured they would still lead. She didn’t mind so long as she got to stay at her cottage.

Until Nyx decided he was going to get revenge on Oberon for killing his sister and ending her Reign of the Damned.

Because, surprise! Nyx is one of the leaders of the rebellion that had Oberon sending the four of us—plus Jim—into the Shadow Realm to find the Winter Queen.

It didn’t take too long to figure it out. As soon as Morgan identified him from Grimly’s memory, Nine and Riley traveled through the shadows to Scáth to investigate.

It was Nine’s original plan, and it was a good one. As an Unseelie, he fits right in, and so long as Riley cloaked herself, they could ask questions and get answers.

Which is how we found out that Nyx is after the Summer King’s throne. He knows that he can’t take Morgan’s. Even if his plan succeeded and he could control her, none of the Unseelie would follow him; the Unseelie Court only ever has a queen. But Faerie? Before Melisandre became the Fae Queen, there was a king.

Nyx wants to be the next one.