These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows, #1)(24)



“You want me to trust a mirror?”

He arches a brow as if to say, You want me to trust you?

“Let me see my sister, and then we can discuss this task you have for me.” What if he doesn’t have her? What if he’s hurting her right now? What if she’s already gone? The thought makes the simmering rage steam in my blood. “You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get me here, so the least you can do is take me to my sister. This isn’t negotiable.”

“You think you’re in position to negotiate?”

I yank against my invisible bonds again. When they don’t budge, I spit at him. Mordeus’s eyes flash and his nostrils flare. He lifts his open hand in my direction and sends a ball of darkness rolling toward me.

I jerk away from it, but I’m too late. The moment it hits me, I find myself in a brightly lit room that smells faintly of mildew and urine. My thin dress does nothing to insulate me from the ice-cold stone floor, and my teeth chatter as I push to my feet.

Where am I?

There are no windows, no doors. At least none that I can see. Just four stone walls, a stone floor, and blinding light that seems to pour from the ceiling. Does the shadow court use light to torture their prisoners?

Shaking—half with cold, half with rage—I walk the perimeter of the room, pushing against the walls, searching for cracks between stones, anything, but I don’t see a way out.

I wrap my arms around myself and squint against the light as I try to make out a trapdoor above me. This must be some sort of oubliette, but all I can see above me is blinding brightness. “Hello?” My voice echoes off the stone. “Is anyone there?”

No answer.

“I demand to speak with the king!”

No answer.

I kick the wall, and pain lashes through my foot. “Get me out of here!”

No answer.

I stare at my hands, willing them to disappear into shadow the way they did at the castle, but there’s no shadow here. There’s no darkness to hide in or slip through.

I slide down the wall and wrap my arms around my legs. I’m so tired. I haven’t slept since the few hours I got on Nik’s floor before running from Gorst’s men, and a full day has passed since I came through the portal.

I don’t have the energy for tears, and my rage ate up what little I did have. I’m drained from my journey, but I refuse to believe I’m stuck. I didn’t come all this way for nothing.

I rest my head on my knees and close my eyes. I imagine my sister curled in a ball in a room much like this one, crying herself to sleep. I think of the tenderness in Sebastian’s eyes as he gave me the crystal pendant of protection. When he returns to Fairscape, what will he think when I’m not there?



* * *



I’m two places at once. Two people at once. I’m the sleeping would-be rescuer curled against the wall in Mordeus’s oubliette, the girl who failed to save her sister. And I’m the eight-year-old protector, the girl who’s snuggled under the blankets with my little sister, spoon-feeding her hope so she doesn’t drown in the sadness.

Dreams can be so strange. I know I’m dreaming, but I don’t want to wake up. Because Jas is with me in this dream. And if she’s with me, she’s safe.

We’re in the upstairs bedroom that we shared before Uncle Devlin died, and I wipe away her tears as she cries. She’s missing Mother tonight. I am too, but my grief will only intensify hers, so I lock it up tight and brush her chestnut hair from her eyes.

“I miss her,” Jas says on a shaky sob.

“I bet she misses us too,” I whisper. “So much that she’s planning a way to come get us.”

Jas sniffles. “Tell me a story?”

I sweep her hair from her face and weave a story of faerie castles and elven royalty. The story comes, and I feel like it’s important, but it’s almost like I’m watching myself from a distance. I can’t make out my own words. They’re as fuzzy as a murmur from another room.

Jas grips my hand, and I know I’ve gotten to an exciting part. “Now what?” she asks.

“The cruel king waits for the day the princess of shadows will come to his castle.” I’d forgotten this tale—one our mother told us only once, the night before she left for Faerie. “The false king knew she could command the shadows, but he didn’t know that her big heart and her endless love would cost him his throne.”

Jasalyn closes her eyes, and her face softens with sleep. I don’t know if she’s dreaming or half awake when she says, “The prince will help you find me.”

I blink away from her to the darkness at the foot of the bed. The silver-eyed male I saw at the ball is there and then gone, flickering like a fading, precious memory.

“Who told you that story?” he asks. He’s more shadow than corporeal.

I sit up and smile at him, oddly comforted by his appearance and my sister’s words. I feel safe here, under the intense gaze of this faerie who is all but a stranger to me. I feel less alone. The prince will help you find me. I climb out of bed and tuck the blankets around Jas. “Our mother told us many stories.”

“Then why do you feel so powerless?”

Suddenly our bedroom becomes the cold, doorless, windowless cell in the evil king’s castle. And I remember. I’m a prisoner. This is a dream. “Because I am.”

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