“I had to. He made sure I knew at every turn that I was on his shit list for creating the Veil. It was a humiliation tactic—make me write my own name on there every time I passed through to do his bidding. Though I wasn’t responsible for whatever was written around the time of my banishment. He must have scrawled it in, then left the records to gather dust.”

I wasn’t usually the type to wish ill on anyone, but the king really tested my patience, and I hoped every single pair of his shoes had a tiny pebble inside. “If you knew he wouldn’t approve, why open the portal in the first place?”

“He did approve,” Zadok said. “He demanded I open it. That’s what makes it all especially absurd. He wanted to learn about humankind—to gain an advantage over them. For several years, he was toying with the idea of expanding the Fae realm, of leveling out their lands for his own amusement, but as soon as he realized his people were going over there to cohabit instead of intimidate or claim territory as he’d expected, he ordered it closed.

“I managed to convince him to keep it open. Told him the people would shun him, as many had already begun setting up their lives. Luckily, he was still relatively young, so he wouldn’t risk the revolt, but he hated me for changing his mind. He punished me for it, then ordered the Veil moved to the throne room and warded to prevent human access. It let him closely observe who crossed to and from the human realm, to judge them.” He huffed mockingly. “He enjoyed that sliver of control. It kept him relatively content. For a time.”

I was already well aware of the king’s disapproval of interspecies mating. I’d figured that out the second I broke Cair’s bargain. He must have been absolutely seething inside. Good. “Until you met my mother, I’m guessing?”

He nodded. “He kept me close because I was powerful. I was an asset to his reign until I broke the one rule he couldn’t discipline with a simple beating.”

“Many creatures mate with humans, though,” I argued, a temper rising in my belly. “You weren’t the first, so why did he only punish you for it?”

“I was the first so close to the throne,” he said. “He could grudgingly accept lesser Fae bonding with humans as long as they remained at a distance. Mates mean a lot to Fae, so he couldn’t dictate their existence without causing uproar, but he drew the line at sullying the purity of the Otherworld. He knew I had the power and desire to bring your mother through the Veil to start a family, and he couldn’t allow it.”

“Could you not have lived in the human realm with her?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.