Bri’s mind flashed back to the attack on Remy. Bri and the others had arrived just in time to see Hale hacking apart the last of the witch hunters trying to capture Remy. Bri turned her golden stare on the witch hunter before her. “Your friends tried to behead my friend.”

He shrugged as if it were nothing. “They were doing a job sanctioned by the Northern King.”

“And my comrades were doing a job ordered by the Eastern King, and here we are in the Western Court and none of that fucking matters,” Bri growled.

“You can be angry that they’re gone, but blaming Hale for defending his Fated is ridiculous,” Carys said with an even, steadfast tone.

“I suppose you’re right, Southerner,” he said, pointedly sneering at Carys.

Carys didn’t even blink.

“You are supposedly the king of the witch hunters . . . a sovereign with no nation.” Lina took another menacing step toward him and the other fae in the shadows visibly tensed, as if preparing for a battle they were all itching to start. “Tell me, were you there the night my mother died?”

His eyes flitted to Lina, a smile pulling up his cracked lips. “I wasn’t there that night.” He bellowed out a laugh, smacking the armrest as he slung an elbow over the back of his chair. “You still don’t realize it, do you? How muddled up in this your mother was all these years?”

Lina stilled, narrowing her eyes at him.

“The Northern King might have been the one lining our pockets with gold,” he said with a wolflike grin, “but it was your mother we worked for. She commanded the hunts and organized our crew. She willingly built the wealth of your kingdom on the heads of red witches.”

“No,” Lina whispered. “She didn’t stop it, but neither did she sanction it. That can’t be true.”

“I think deep down you know it is, Princess,” he snickered, reading Lina’s hollow expression. “We are not interested in allying with Augustus Norwood. His kingdom’s wealth is controlled by Hale now while the East waits to choose its new ruler. Queen Thorne knew the red witches had too much power in Okrith, that they threatened the fae way of life, and now they are gone. Our job is done.”

“It was you. It had to be,” Lina insisted.

“Does it look like we have a wealthy patron?” The king scrubbed his hand along his stubbled jaw. “If we’d been paid to kill the Queen, do you think we’d still be living in this squalor?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Bri snarked. “Squalor suits you.”