“They’ll notice I’m missing,” he replied quickly.
“Your family will be in Niev,” I reminded him, hiding the frustration from my tone. “You’ll be with us. What does it matter if anyone sees you’re missing?”
The way he mulled it over made me uneasy. I watched him carefully while Alastor moved to stand beside me.
“He said we are close to one of the compounds,” Alastor began, his voice low but steady, as we both kept our attention on Sebastian. “With the map he gave you, we can find it on our own. There is no need to bring his humans back with us.”
Sebastian gaped up at us, scrambling forward with his hands stretched out as if he meant to grab me, before he dropped them to his sides.
“I’ll go with you,” he rushed out. “I’ll take you to each compound and show you where they’re keeping the fae. But”—he seemed to sway forward before he caught himself and wrapped his arms across his chest—“the people, the civilians at the compounds . . . they don’t know about the fae. They don’t know what the military is doing.”
I angled my head to the side. “They don’t know there are fae held as prisoners, being forced to use their magic to keep you humans alive despite the way the iron drains them?”Slowly killing them.
“They don’t.” He dragged a gloved hand over his face, pinching his nose before he dropped it. “They’re innocent in all this.”
“Innocent.” I huffed out an exasperated breath. “I assume these compounds have food and heat.” I gestured to his front pocket, which held the outline of his phone. “Technology. How do they think they still have all that?”
“I don’t know.” His words came out in a frenzied rush. “My wife only just found out about the fae when I told her I wanted her to go to your realm. She was horrified at what they were doing and pissed that I’d helped them.”
“She was willfully ignorant,” I said, my words carrying a snapping bite. I’d been willfully ignorant, not evenconsidering the humans had abducted the fae to use their magic. “Anyone who doesn’t suspect what they’re doing is being willfully ignorant. That doesn’t pardon them.”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” he said, his voice low. “They’re trying to survive, though. That’s all any of us have tried to do since this endless winter came.”
The endless winter I’d brought them, all to reach Teddy. I couldn’t find it in myself to feel remotely guilty about that anymore. Not when I held so much remorse for other things.
“Are you asking me to spare the civilians’ lives?” I asked.
“Yes. I can’t—I can’t be responsible for their deaths.”
“You already bargained each human life, civilian or soldier, for the lives of your family.”
Denying my claim, he shook his head, his throat bobbing at my words.
“You’re responsible whether you go with us or not.”
“They. ..the people of your region said you were fair and kind. I don’t?—”
“This is what fairness and kindness got me.” When my voice rose, I forced it down to sound more in control than I felt. “Your kind has lied to me. You’ve stolen my people from me and are torturing them. I don’t have any kindness to spare for you anymore.” I paused, that knot in my stomach growing with the need to see Teddy so I could feel anything aside from this endless depth of hatred and despair. “Whether I kill them when we get to their compounds or they die when there aren’t any fae left to help them, they’re dead,” I said.
I hated the way my stomach turned with disgust, but they had done this to themselves. While I’d wanted to help them, they’d wanted us out and then abducted my people for their own benefit. Buried deep beneath all thatwas the guilt I tried not to acknowledge, because I’d been the one to destroy their world in the first place.
“If you leave them alive, they have a chance at survival,” he said.
“If I leave them alive, I’m leaving them to suffer,” I countered.
I wouldn’t help them. I didn’t have it in me to care about one more thing. Not when Teddy and my people consumed my every thought.
Chapter
Six
ELIAS
An endless frozenocean spread out behind us, like fragile glass that teetered on a broken edge. The rest of North Carolina sat on the same icy grave. Months of neglect and continuous snowfall had destroyed what once might’ve been a pretty coastal town.
There was beauty in the destruction and the undisturbed snow.
As the sun rose, a faint glow radiated from the compound Sebastian had described. We were close enough to make out the distant murmurs of the humans who lived there, but still, I couldn’t sense the fae.
