No wonder Lucien had resented me and yet still tolerated my presence—no wonder he’d been so bitterly disappointed when I left, had argued with Tamlin to let me stay longer. “I’m sorry,” I said, my eyes burning.
Alis snorted. “Tell that to Tamlin. He had only three days after you left before the forty-nine years were over. Three days, and he let you go. She came here with her cronies at the exact moment the seven times seven years were over and seized him, along with most of the court, and brought them Under the Mountain to be her subjects. Creatures like me are too lowly for her—though she’s not above murdering us for sport.”
I tried not to visualize it. “But what of the King of Hybern—if she’s conquered Prythian for herself and stolen his spells, then does he see her as insubordinate or as an ally?”
“If they are on bad terms, he has made no move to punish her. For forty-nine years now, she’s held these lands in her grip. Worse, after the High Lords fell, all the wicked ones in our lands—the ones too awful even for the Night Court—flocked to her. They still do. She’s offered them sanctuary. But we know—we know she’s building her army, biding her time before launching an attack on your world, armed with the most lethal and vicious faeries in Prythian and Hybern.”
“Like the Attor,” I said, horror and dread twisting in my gut, and Alis nodded. “In the human territory,” I said, “rumor claims more and more faeries have been sneaking over the wall to attack humans. And if no faeries can cross the wall without her permission, then that has to mean she’s been sanctioning those attacks.”
And if I was right about what had happened to Clare Beddor and her family, then Amarantha had given the order for that, too.
Alis swiped some dirt I couldn’t see from the table we leaned against. “I would not be surprised if she has sent her minions into the human realm to investigate your strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of the destruction she one day hopes to cause.”
This was worse—so much worse than I had thought when I warned Nesta and my family to stay on alert and leave at the slightest sign of trouble. I felt sick to think of what kind of company Tamlin was keeping—sick at the thought of him being so desperate, so stricken by guilt and grief over having to sacrifice his sentries and never being able to tell me … And he’d let me go. Let all their sacrifices, let Andras’s sacrifice, be in vain.
He’d known that if I remained, I would be at risk of Amarantha’s wrath, even if I freed him.
“I can’t even protect myself against them, against what’s happening in Prythian … Even if we stood against the blight, they would hunt you down—she would find a way to kill you.”
I remembered that pathetic effort to flatter me upon my arrival—and then he’d given up on it, on any attempt to win me when I’d seemed so desperate to get away, to never talk to him. But he’d fallen in love with me despite all that—known I’d loved him, and let me go with days to spare. He had put me before his entire court, before all of Prythian.
“If Tamlin were freed—if he had his full powers,” I said, staring at a blackened bit of wall, “would he be able to destroy Amarantha?”
“I don’t know. She tricked the High Lords through cunning, not force. Magic’s a specific kind of thing—it likes rules, and she manipulated them too well. She keeps their powers locked up inside herself, as if she can’t use them, or can access very little of them, at least. She has her own deadly powers, yes, so if it came down to a fight—”
“But is he stronger?” I started wringing my hands.
“He’s a High Lord,” Alis replied, as if that were answer enough. “But none of that matters now. He’s to be her slave, and we’re all to wear these masks until he agrees to become her lover—even then, he’ll never regain his full powers. And she’ll never let those Under the Mountain go.”
I pushed off the table and squared my shoulders. “How do I get Under the Mountain?”
She clicked her tongue. “You can’t go Under the Mountain. No human who goes in ever comes out.”
I squeezed my fists so hard that my nails bit into my flesh. “How. Do. I. Get. There.”
“It’s suicide—she’ll kill you, even if you get close enough to see her.”
Amarantha had tricked him—she had hurt him so badly. Hurt them all so badly.
“You’re a human,” Alis went on, standing as well. “Your flesh is paper-thin.”
Amarantha must also have taken Lucien—she had carved out Lucien’s eye and scarred him like that. Did his mother grieve for him?
“You were too blind to see Tamlin’s curse,” Alis continued. “How do you expect to face Amarantha? You’ll make things worse.”
Amarantha had taken everything I wanted, everything I finally dared desire. “Show me the way,” I said, my voice trembling, but not with tears.
“No.” Alis slung her satchel over a shoulder. “Go home. I’ll take you as far as the wall. There’s naught to be done now. Tamlin will remain her slave forever, and Prythian will stay under her rule. That’s what Fate dealt, that was what the Eddies of the Cauldron decided.”