“You cannot. He is hiding where even we have been unable to track him. He slips in and out of Unseelie through portals unknown to us. We are hunting him, the other Seelie princes and I.”

“How can a mere human elude you and move in and out of Fae realms?” I goaded. I was angry. They’d made this mess. They’d dumped Darroc into our realm because they’d been having problems, and it was my world that was suffering, my sister who’d been killed because of it. The least they could do was clean up after themselves, and fast.

“My queen did not strip his knowledge from him, an oversight she now regrets. She believed he would die quickly. It is why we did not suspect him of being the one behind the trouble in your realm. Once human, Darroc had no immunity against the many illnesses that plague your kind, and those who live as gods tend to underestimate the brutality of the herd when they walk among it.”

“He’s not the only one who underestimated something,” I said frostily. Herd, my petunia. With so much inhuman power at their fingertips, they certainly were humanly fallible, and we humans were the ones paying for it.

V’lane ignored the jibe. “We believed if he did not contract a mortal illness, he would anger a human with his arrogance, and become one of your violent crime statistics. Contrary to our expectations, since Darroc has been mortal, he has acquired immense power. He knew where to look, and how to get it, and he has always had allies among the Royal Hunters. He promises them freedom from the Unseelie prison where they are stabled; a promise no other Fae would make. Hunters cannot be trusted.”

“And other Fae can?” I said dryly.

“Hunters go beyond all bounds.” Here V’lane momentarily flickered, as if struggling not to revert to another form. “They have taught Darroc to eat the flesh of Fae to steal Fae power!” He paused, and for a fleeting moment, the temperature plunged so sharply that I couldn’t draw a breath and the ocean, as far as I could see it, iced. Abruptly, all was normal again. “He will die very slowly when we find him. The queen may make him suffer immortally for it. We do not savage our own.”

I looked away hurriedly and stared out at the sea, owning the same sin, feeling it flashing in incriminating neon letters on my forehead: FAE EATER. Darroc had taught Mallucé, Mallucé had taught me, and I’d taught Jayne. I had no desire to suffer immortally, or otherwise. “What can I do to help?”