Opening
Chaos shatters the coronation, and a mortal seizes her moment. Across five chapters, Jude turns fear into leverage, snaring the last viable Greenbriar prince, exposing Oak’s secret lineage, dueling her own twin, and forcing a confession that flips her enemies-to-lovers dynamic into dangerous new territory.
What Happens
Chapter 21
In the massacre’s aftermath, Jude Duarte hides beneath a banquet table, nauseated by the sight of the slain Prince Dain Greenbriar and the royal family, and gutted by Madoc’s treachery. A masked figure lifts the cloth: Prince Cardan Greenbriar, drunk, grieving, and—besides Prince Balekin Greenbriar—the only living Greenbriar who can crown the new High King.
Jude recognizes his value and punches him, dragging him under the table. They crawl through overturned platters and spilled wine while Cardan mutters about his dead kin and Madoc’s betrayal. To slip past guards on the palace steps, Jude lets her hair fall, steals a mask, and lets Cardan lead. He flashes his royal signet and unspools silvery lies, claiming to be an emissary with his “delight” from the revel—just enough authority and audacity to get them through.
Alone in a quiet corridor, Jude drops the pretense. She presses a knife to Cardan’s throat and names herself. He reels at hearing “Jude” from her lips. She revels in the reversal—her tormentor trapped, her fate finally in her own hands—marking a decisive turn toward power.
Chapter 22
Jude tightens her grip by confessing she killed Valerian, making her threat real. She leads Cardan through a hidden passage into the Court of Shadows, ties him to a chair, and ransacks Dain’s desk for proof of Madoc’s motives. The Roach and the Ghost return, wrecked with grief; the Bomb is missing.
The Ghost, faithful to Dain, wants Cardan dead to stop Balekin’s crowning. The Roach argues for selling Cardan to Balekin and fleeing. Jude stakes her claim: Cardan is her prisoner. Then Cardan detonates their certainty—Dain wasn’t clean. He had Liriope poisoned to keep her unborn child from jeopardizing his path to the crown.
The revelation shakes the spies’ loyalty. Jude bargains: she will return to Madoc’s estate to gauge Balekin’s price for Cardan. The Roach and the Ghost swear—one day and one night—to keep Cardan alive and hidden. Jude steps back into the lion’s den.
Chapter 23
Jude finds her family alive but fractured. Vivienne Duarte clings to her, livid at Madoc. Then Jude overhears Taryn Duarte and Oriana discussing Locke, whose secret meetings with Madoc expose Taryn’s betrayal—she has been with Locke all along.
Humiliation ignites into fury. Jude challenges Taryn to a duel. Live steel rings in the great hall as they trade cuts and confessions. Taryn admits Locke engineered a “test of love,” shifting Cardan’s circle’s cruelty onto Jude; Taryn chose appeasement over defiance to belong. Vivi, horrified, orders them to stop with glamour. Jude, protected by Dain’s geas, resists—but drops her blade rather than risk killing her sister.
Summoned by the commotion, Madoc separates them, grants Taryn leave to marry Locke, and confronts Jude. He confirms Locke’s viciousness, then bares his true goal: Cardan’s location. He offers Jude anything—rank, revenge, even Locke—if she delivers the prince. Jude leaves with a sharpened understanding: Cardan is the linchpin of the entire game.
Chapter 24
Vivi pleads with Jude to abandon Faerie’s blood-soaked politics and flee to the mortal world with her and Taryn that night. The offer tempts Jude—the chance to step off the knife’s edge—but she asks for one day.
The next morning, a stray remark from Oriana about Balekin’s coming feast collides with a detail on her balcony: a golden acorn, twin to one Jude found in a gown that belonged to Locke’s mother, Liriope. That acorn, Dain’s sonnet to a hidden lover, and Oriana’s past as the High King’s consort snap into place. Oak isn’t Madoc’s son—he is the secret child of Dain and Liriope.
Oriana confirms it: Dain had Liriope poisoned to stop a prophecy that her son would block his crown. Oriana saved the child and shielded him by marrying Madoc. The coup wasn’t merely to hand Balekin the throne; it was to clear Dain and pave the way for Oak—so Madoc could rule as regent. Jude now holds a secret that can crown a king—or topple a usurper.
Chapter 25
Back at the Court of Shadows, Jude finds her authority undone. Cardan sits free, drinking and playing cards with the Roach, the Ghost, and the newly returned Bomb, having charmed them with hidden-treasure lore and princely charisma. Furious, Jude hauls him into Dain’s office, levels a crossbow, and demands the truth.
A brutal reckoning follows. Cardan peels back the roots of his Cruelty and Bullying: jealousy of Madoc’s favor toward Jude, years of Balekin’s belittling comparisons, and Locke’s manipulation that used Jude to wound Nicasia. He claims he never wanted Jude dead, only afraid. Pressed to the edge, he confesses the ugliest truth of all.
"Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop."
Jude tests him, knife at his throat, searching his eyes. Panic mixes with desire. Accepting the truth, she takes control in a new way—she kisses him— detonating the line between power play and genuine longing.
Character Development
Jude and Cardan shed old masks as politics tightens its vise. Family fractures deepen, and a hidden heir becomes the prize everyone bleeds for.
- Jude: Seizes Cardan, orchestrates deals, and outthinks assassins; channels rage into a duel with Taryn; deduces Oak’s parentage; wields both blade and psychology, ending with a calculated kiss that rewrites the battlefield.
- Cardan: Grieves, then proves cunning at the gates and with the spies; drops bravado for honesty about jealousy and desire; shifts from flat tormentor to conflicted, dangerous ally.
- Madoc: Reveals long-game ruthlessness—every move serving a regency over Oak; offers Jude power and revenge, exposing “family” as leverage and creed.
- Taryn: Embraces appeasement, choosing Locke and Gentry approval over her twin; her path embodies Belonging and Otherness.
- Vivi: Stands as a lifeline to another life, forcing Jude to weigh ambition against escape.
- Oak: Recast as Dain’s hidden heir, the silent center of the coup and the kingdom’s future.
Themes & Symbols
These chapters crystallize Power, Politics, and Ambition. Jude weaponizes proximity and information—stealing a prince, bargaining with spies, and unmasking Oak’s lineage—to become a player. Madoc’s plot reveals power as a generational project: eliminate rivals, fabricate legitimacy, and rule through a child.
Family, Loyalty, and Betrayal bleeds through every scene. Madoc betrays a sworn prince to enthrone his ward. Taryn sacrifices sisterhood for acceptance. Vivi counters with fierce loyalty, offering Jude an out. Jude’s duel with Taryn literalizes a rift that politics and love have carved open.
Jude also overturns Fear and Powerlessness. She refuses terror’s script—capturing her bully, negotiating from the shadows, and turning desire into leverage—while Cardan’s confession reveals how fear once puppeted his cruelty.
- The Royal Ring: Cardan’s signet carries instant authority at the gate. When Jude later pockets—and slips it onto—her “unworthy” mortal finger, it becomes a symbol of stolen legitimacy and her audacious claim to shape Faerie’s order.
Key Quotes
"Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop."
Cardan’s confession collapses the distance between hatred and obsession, reframing his past cruelty as a shield for vulnerability he can’t control. For Jude, the admission is both weapon and revelation, allowing her to test, then claim, a new kind of power over him that blurs politics with intimacy.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence pivots the novel from survival drama to full-bore succession crisis. Jude’s capture of Cardan and her discovery about Oak transform her from pawn to kingmaker, while Madoc’s true objective—regency through Oak—exposes the coup’s deeper architecture. The duel with Taryn severs the twins’ fragile unity, showing how Faerie warps love and loyalty.
Cardan’s honesty and the closing kiss entangle desire with strategy, complicating every alliance going forward. With a hidden heir, a missing prince, and a mortal holding the most dangerous secrets in Elfhame, the stage is set for a climax where crowns, oaths, and hearts are all up for the taking.