He nodded, a frown pulling at his lips. “Double-crossed a fae I shouldn’t have. Woke up here. Was promptly arrested. Nice welcoming party.”
He was murdered.Damn.
“Can you tell me about that? The Accords and all that.”
He nodded. “In the beginning, the Light created everything, including the two houses, House of War and House of Light.”
I frowned. “Three houses. The Light created the House of Ash and Shadow as well.”
Pax frowned. “No, the early royal fae leaders of the House of War became obsessed with power in an innocent attempt to protect all fae, but they went too far,” he said. “They are the ones who created the House of Ash.”
I stayed quiet, trying to school my facial expressions because his story had already veered off-course from the one we were taught growing up in The Gilded City.
Pax went on. “They voted and decided that a few of the less-than-desirable House of War families should be experimented on to see if they could create even more powerful magic.”
I held up my hand at this point. “Wait, what? This is nowhere close to what I’ve known my whole life.”
Pax shrugged. “We have tons of books about it in the Outer Stretch.”
I swallowed hard. “Go on.”
“So the Banes, the Wixes, and the Yearwoods were the unlucky recipients of some pretty grotesque dark magic. Stuff that required ritual living sacrifice and blood magic. Dark stuff, bro.” He gave me a look, but I couldn’t respond. I was frozen in place, my hands shaking slightly as I was held captive by this story. I didn’t want to believe it; I wanted to tell him it was total crap, but somewhere deep down inside, I felt that Pax was speaking the truth.
Pax sighed. “They were enticed into the experiments by being told they would be made powerful royal families and given mansions and riches beyond their wildest dreams. But once they started going dark and losing their minds to the magic, the royals in House of War realized they made a mistake they couldn’t undo. So the House of War royals distanced themselves from them, segregated anyone with that dark magic into their own house, House of Ash and Shadow. This was all in the hope that they wouldn’t be blamed if House of Ash killed everyone or burned them in their sleep.”
I could barely breathe. I hung on his every word.
“What does this have to do with the Accords?” I managed to ask.
He nodded. “A century or so later, House of Ash had spread quickly, building up a nice little population of a couple hundred fae. When the House of War decided they couldn’t control House of Ash anymore, they killed them off. Nearly all of them in one fell swoop. The Realm of Eternity was suddenly filled with a bunch of angry fae whose magic no longer came from the Light. Then the Grim dealt them the hardest blow. Since they had been changed from their original creation, they were not permitted to enter the Realm of Eternity. They had to go to another place where their previous fallen ancestors had already been sent, separate from the other fae who had passed on, for fear that they would infect Eternity itself with their darkness.”
I felt like I was on the verge of tears, which was so stupid. It was just a story, probably not even true. But also…what if it was? What if Fallon and her ancestors were experimented on and made to be evil?
“The House of Ash families were shuffled into this shithole,” he continued, gesturing around the cell, “and told that all of them would be given one chance at new life, reborn as magicless fae. A penance for their years of dark magic.”
“Okay now, this just sounds fake,” I told him.
“So,” he went on, “they were given the opportunity to be reborn but must remain magicless. If you were reborn, remained magicless, and died, you would get to rejoin the fae in the Realm of Eternity, but only if you proved your worthiness of such a place. Proved that you could let go of the temptation of the dark powers. But if you were reborn and were drawn again to dark magic, all you would need to do would be to feed on the blood of a fae with magic to restore your House of Ash powers.”
“You’re saying that Nightlings are reborn magicless at first?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
He nodded. “Yes, in a fully functioning fae body, but there is a catch. If you feed upon blood and become a Nightling with your dark powers restored, then you must constantly feed to be corporeal in the world, lest you be turned to shadows.”
Holy Fae.If what he was saying was true, it explained everything—why the Nightlings fed on blood, why they turned into shadows, how when they were in shadow form, their souls came here…
I swallowed hard. “So, if you kill a Nightling in the real world…” I wanted to know what would happen if I tried to kill Marissa Bane. Would she just keep coming back here?
Pax looked somber. “They are thrown into the Bottomless Pit, disappearing forever.”
That part was good news at least, but the rest was…crazy. I slumped in on myself. I didn’t know why the story affected me so much, but it did. Pax hadn’t specifically said that the Madden royal family did these experiments, but it was implied that all the royal families of House of War were guilty, which included mine.
“So”—Pax gestured—“the Accords were drawn up as a rule book for handling souls from the House of Ash that cross over. How they must all be given a tribunal, a chance to be reborn. No one having a family feud can just deny you the right to rebirth orthrow you on the hot coals of the Bottomless Pit for no reason. There is order, and if a Nightling dies topside, then there are protocols that force them to the Pit.”
I sat up straighter at that. “So the Bottomless Pit is…the erasure of your soul?”
Pax’s face grew serious. “Yes. If you lose the tribunal or if you decide not to be reborn and you piss someone off down here, your soul is thrown into the Bottomless Pit, where it is eaten up and disappears forever.”
I frowned. “So, if I win and get reborn, I won’t be a Nightling.”
