These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

“How’d you find me?”

“Dara and Luna sensed you were in trouble. They led me to you.”

I nod, as if this all makes perfect sense. As if running into monsters who can recreate my worst memories is something that happens every day, as if it’s totally normal to have a pair of wolves acting as my guardian angels.

“You’re lucky. A few more minutes, and—”

“I know,” I blurt, cutting him off. I don’t want to hear the rest. I know what would have happened. Mom’s healer friend may have taken away the burns nine years ago, but he hadn’t erased the memory of the flames licking my skin or the smoke in my lungs. I know all too well how it feels to be dying in a fire. I shake my head again. “But . . . It wasn’t real? Or was it?”

“The Sluagh’s illusion becomes real when you engage with it. The fire was very real because the Sluagh became the fire when you believed it was. And you ran right into it.”

“I heard screaming.”

“Your sister?” he asks. “That’s why you ran into the flames?”

I nod. “It seemed . . . real.” I’m glad I’m still in bed, lying against pillows, but my hands tremble nevertheless. “So the fire was real, but she wasn’t?”

“There was no one else in the forest with you. When we chased away the Sluagh, you were alone.”

“My satchel?” I ask, moving to stand.

“Stay where you are.” He bends to get something from under his chair. When he returns to the bed, he places my satchel gently in my lap. “I warned you not to use that mirror.”

“You did.” I lift my chin, but I’m not feeling very confident in my decisions now. The mirror tricked me into going to the cemetery. It led me right to the Sluagh’s trap.

“You can’t trust it,” he says.

“I know,” I grit out. Though I don’t. Not really. It seems to work sometimes, but obviously not always. It showed my mother alive and well and showed her as a corpse in some sort of tomb. Both cannot be true.

“Then why were you out there?” He holds my gaze and waits. “What were you looking for?”

“Nothing. It . . . it doesn’t matter.” I look away. I’ve proved myself to be a careless, human fool, and part of me wishes he would leave so I could hide under the blankets. Another part of me would cry out if he walked away. He saved my life. Again.

“The mirror hasn’t worked properly in years,” Finn says. “It was created eons ago, when the Seelie and Unseelie rulers had an alliance. They made several magical items with their combined powers and divvied them up between the courts as a show of good faith. But the magic was corrupted when the Seelie Court stole it for themselves.”

“It works sometimes,” I say, sounding like a petulant child.

He shakes his head. “You can still ask it to show you someone or something, but you can’t trust what you see. Corrupted magic is dangerous. The things it shows you can lure you into danger.”

“Maybe you could’ve mentioned that sooner?”

“I didn’t realize that Don’t use it was a complicated order.” He sighs and softens his tone. “A mirror like that is dangerous for someone like you.”

I roll my eyes. “A human?”

“No. Someone with so much hope in her heart.”

So much hope? Does he not know me at all? I’m the least hopeful person I know.

Then suddenly I’m aware of where I am. In a bed. In his house. “Is this your . . . room?” I almost say bed but catch myself. Somehow that’s even more embarrassing.

“Yes. It was the easiest place to watch over you, and the bed is big enough to give the healer room to work. But now that you’re awake and more or less healed, I can get you moved to the spare room.”

Why is he being so kind to me? I think he hates me half the time, and the other half . . . I don’t like to think about what I feel between us then. “I need to get back to the palace.” I push myself out of bed, and the room spins. I sit down again and fall back onto my pillows.

“Stay put,” Finn says. “You’re healed, but you’ll be weak for a few days.”

“I can’t just disappear. They’ll come looking for me.”

“Pretha has taken care of it.”

I don’t like this. I could miss something important and make the queen angry. What if she won’t let me remain at the palace and makes me go home before I’ve gotten the final artifacts for Mordeus?

“As your tutor,” Finn explains, “she was able to get permission to take you away from the palace for a few days of training. You are currently visiting a city to the south that’s known for their musical performances.”