These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

“She’s right,” I say. “I could do it.” And if the thrill that rushes through my blood at the thought of stealing from fae nobility is more satisfying than the prospect of finding my mother, so what?

“You two are forgetting one possibility.” Sebastian slides down the wall and onto the floor, props his elbows on his knees, and looks back and forth between us.

“What?” Jas says, annoyed.

His steady gaze meets mine, and I see the worry there.

I reach for Jas’s hand and squeeze. “He means that maybe Mom is dead. Maybe that’s why she never came back.”

Jas shrugs. “One can hope. It’s the only excusable reason for not returning for us.” She says it with such lightness, I might believe it if I didn’t know her so well. But I know Jas better than anyone, and she doesn’t hope that our mother is dead. No, she’d rather forgive the woman for abandoning us during our most formative years than accept that she won’t ever see her again.

Personally, I don’t hope. Not ever. Hope is addictive, and you start relying on it. In a world this cruel, I won’t be caught needing a crutch.

“It would be nice to know,” I admit. “But I’m still not convinced a visit to Faerie is in our best interests. We are humans. Even Mother, for all her romanticizing of the fae, warned that their realm was dangerous.”

Jas bites her lip, her eyes dancing. “But maybe—”

“I can’t decide right now.” I’ve put off sleep too long, and exhaustion falls over me like a heavy blanket. Yawning, I stretch my arms over my head before curling up on my side. “Someone blow out the candles. Or don’t. I don’t care. I’m sleeping.”

“Abriella! Jasalyn!” Cassia calls from upstairs. “There’s a bug in my room!”

“I’ll get it,” Jas says, squeezing my arm. “You sleep.”

“Thanks, sis,” I say without opening my eyes. I’m faintly aware of her leaving the room, the sound of her feet on the steps, then the soft puff of breath as the candles are extinguished.

“Good night, Brie,” Sebastian says softly.

“Good night,” I mumble, half asleep.

But then there’s a hand on my forehead, smoothing back my hair, and the tickle of lips against my ear. “Don’t go to the ball.”

I smile. It’s sweet that he’s so concerned. “Don’t worry. I want nothing to do with that place.”

Then a kiss. Lips on my forehead—there and gone in a breath.

I open my eyes to see Sebastian’s silhouette shrinking toward the cellar door.

And now I’m wide-awake.

* * *

The click of raqon clanging together gives me a stomachache. Each month, for nine years, Jas and I have counted out our money to give to Madame Vivias. Sometimes we’ve had enough. Sometimes we had more than we needed and headed into the next month with a head start. But too often we’ve fallen short. With each short month, all the following payments increased and the penalties compounded until, without what I could steal, it became impossible to scrape together what we owe.

“How much?” Jas asks, voice shaking.

“We’re seventeen hundred short.”

She flinches. I hate that she understands what this means for us. I want to save her from that. Maybe I need her to be the one who always believes in the best when I can’t. The idea of this world beating that out of her makes the pain in my stomach sharper.

“We have to go to Faerie,” she says softly.

I shake my head. “Sebastian’s right. It’s too dangerous.”

She swallows. “For humans, yes.” She lifts her gaze from the pile of raqon on the bed and meets my eyes. “But what if we attended as fae? We could buy potions for an elven glamour from Mage Trifen so we’d look like fae nobility. Wouldn’t that be an added protection?”

I drag my fingers through the coins; the tinking is a delicious torture. We’re killing ourselves to get out of this contract, but the hole sinks faster than we can climb. Something has to change. “Let’s do it,” I say, nodding. “Let’s try.”

She grins so widely I know I never had a chance of denying her. I love my sister, and if searching for Mother will make her feel that she’s done her part in obtaining our freedom, then we’ll make it happen.

“We’ll need dresses,” she says. “To fit in!” she adds at my cringe. She pulls a bolt of muslin out from under the bed and practically squeaks with delight. “I’ve wanted to make a dress for you forever.”

“Well, don’t get used to it,” I say. Still, I can’t help but smile.

“When I’m done with you, Prince Ronan won’t be able to take his eyes off you—whether you want him to or not.”

I strip down to my underwear and let her wrap me in the muslin she uses to plan our cousins’ new dresses. She has me pinned into a mockup of a dress when there’s a rapping at the door.