These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows, #1)(109)

Mordeus knew I’d want to believe she was in better conditions. He knew the mirror would show me what I hoped to see.

Another sob rips from my chest.

“I’m so sorry, Jasalyn. I’m so, so sorry.”

The mirror helped me find Sebastian once when it was inconsequential. It showed me Sebastian at his desk and later showed me the book. But I didn’t know enough about the book or even about Sebastian’s life to have any hope for those things—unlike my hopes for my family. Even my mother, who I believed abandoned me, I hoped even for her.

“Show me my mother,” I whisper. When I’m shown the tomb with a corpse inside, I’m not sure what I feel crumbling in my chest, but I fear . . . I fear it’s what little hope I have left.

I take slow, measured breaths and wait for the elixir to set in, but my mind won’t stop spinning. I wear the crown.

I pull myself off the floor and square my shoulders. I didn’t need the Banshee to visit me last night. I didn’t need Lark visiting my dream and telling me her call was inescapable. I knew how this would end when I entered the portal. Part of me . . . part of me knew I wouldn’t be going home.

The woman who escorted me to the restroom sags in relief when I return to the hall. I want to ask her why she works for the king. I want to ask her if she counts the days until she becomes his next tribute and if whatever she sold herself for was worth it.

How ridiculous that I once believed I’d live long enough to save women like her. How ridiculous that when Lark talked about me being a queen, I thought it might mean I’d have a chance to make a difference.

I’m numb as I follow the girl back to the throne room, but it’s not from his poisoned wine. No. I must have taken the elixir in time because I no longer feel the effects of the drug. This numbness is something else.

Resignation.

Disappointment.

A hopeless heart.

The king’s eyes are cautious as he watches me approach his throne. Does he see the sobriety in my movements? In my face?

I sway a little on my feet, unwilling to let him know he doesn’t have the advantage. “If I do what I must to fulfill my part of our bargain, you will be true to yours?” I ask.

His eyes glow so brightly the silver looks almost white. Greedy. “Yes.”

My eyes flick to the throne he never sits in. The throne that denies him its power as long as he doesn’t wear the crown.

“This can all be over by sunrise,” he promises me. “The ceremony is simple. We choose a rune, we say a few words, and I have the Potion of Life waiting.”

In my dream, Lark told me to remember our bargain. She said that Mordeus would be true to it. What were the words of our bargain, precisely? Return the artifacts to him and . . . no. Not to him. I’d specifically twisted his original offer on some hunch that his court was more worthy than he was.

Once the three artifacts are returned to my court where they belong, I will send your sister back to a location of your choice in the human realm.

Where they belong.

I take a step toward the dais and then another. “The Grimoricon has been returned to its rightful place in the Unseelie Court,” I say.

Mordeus’s greedy eyes dilate with excitement. “Yes.”

I offer him the mirror. “And this? Where does it belong?”

He snaps his fingers, and it floats from my hand through the air to a glass case behind the throne.

“Now all that needs to be returned to the court is Oberon’s crown,” I say, my heart racing. “But I am not going to die today.”

He opens his palm, offering me that pile of runes again. “You will make a beautiful faerie, but we must complete the bonding ceremony first. Otherwise, the potion won’t work.”

I lift my skirts and climb the three steps of the dais.

Mordeus beams at me. “Good girl.”

Drawing in a breath, I offer a prayer to the gods above and below that I am right about this. Then I make a quarter turn away from the false king and take a seat on the Throne of Shadows.





Chapter Thirty-Three


THE POWER OF THE THRONE and the crown and the court pumps through me.

The crown has been returned to its rightful place in the Court of the Moon.

Mordeus’s eyes go wide. He steps back and stumbles down the stairs. “What have you done?”

“Your turn,” I say, mustering all my bravado. I still don’t know if this will work. “Return my sister safe and alive to the mortal realm—send her to Mage Trifen’s so he can tend to her.”

His mouth twists with rage, but he snaps his fingers as he glares at me. “It is done.” He steps toward me, but I’m still too numb to object to his nearness. “You think you’re so clever,” he says. “But you never said I had to return you to the mortal realm, and now you have signed your own death sentence. I would rather see my peasant-loving nephew on this throne than let a human woman take charge of my court.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

Mordeus straightens and opens one big hand. Suddenly the scar-faced servant girl who took me to the restroom is between us. He holds a blade to her throat. “You’re not. But she is,” he whispers. “And I hear you’re like my nephew in your fondness for protecting the weak.”

A thin line of blood appears on the blade where it bites into her skin, and her soft whimper is more piteous than the loudest cry for help.