These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

“Oh.” I sag into the pillows. I really am very tired, and the idea of returning to the palace and pretending I’m well? I don’t think I could pull it off just yet. “She told me about your brother. Vexius? I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

He nods, but his eyes avoid mine. “Me too.”

What was it Pretha said when Finn was commanding her to heal me? Stop making the same self-righteous mistakes that made me a widow. I want to know what she meant, but I know Finn won’t answer.

“Do you have any other siblings?”

“None I care to claim.” He rolls his shoulders back as if suddenly realizing how stiff he is from hours of sleeping in the chair. “Rest, Princess,” he says. “All your problems will still be here tomorrow.”

I don’t want to listen like an obedient pup, but I settle into my pillows anyway and feel my eyes drifting closed.

“You must be hungry. I’ll call for a tray.”

“Finn?” He stops at the door and turns. “Thank you. For saving me. Again.”

His throat bobs as he swallows. “I hope that whatever you were looking for was worth it.” His gaze dips to the satchel in my lap. “Don’t trust that mirror.”

* * *

“Any leads on the Grimoricon?” Finn asks the next morning. We’re in the library, and his wolves are sleeping on the floor on either side of him—where they seem to prefer to stay.

Considering that he just saved me from the trouble I got into by following the mirror, I don’t want to tell him about the library it showed me. “Not really. Do you have any ideas?”

“The Grimoricon scares the queen, so I don’t think she’d keep it close to her. My sources tell me it’s never been at the Golden Palace.”

Great. “Well, tell your sources that it would be helpful if they could be more specific.”

He grunts. “I’ll do that.”

I’m feeling well enough to be playing with my power, though Finn won’t let me do much. So far all I’ve done is learn to wrap items in shadow so I can hide them on myself. I want to practice turning others to shadow, but Finn said that’s too draining, so I’ve been working up to bigger and bigger objects. I sheath a sword at my side and wrap it in shadow before looking at Finn.

“Well done,” he says, but he doesn’t sound impressed. Nothing I’ve done with my magic impresses the shadow prince. Not that I care. “How’s the boy treating you? Does his schedule allow him time to woo you?”

I frown. “What boy?”

“Prince Ronan, the golden child—I believe you call him Sebastian?”

I snort. “Why would you call Sebastian a boy? He’s twenty-one.” Finn ignores me, but I consider my own question. “How old are you?”

“Older than he is.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He absently scratches the head of a sleeping wolf. “Old enough that I fought in the Great Fae War and young enough that I don’t remember a time that our courts weren’t determined to destroy each other.”

That puts him somewhere between fifty and five-hundred years old. Also not an answer, but more information than I had before. I tilt my head to the side and study him. He’s obviously older than Sebastian, but he looks the same age. Whereas Arya and Mordeus look older. If they were human, I’d guess they’d be my mother’s age. Then there’s Lark, who seems to be aging like a human child. “How does aging work with the fae anyway?”

He sighs. “It depends on the race. Some have very short life spans. Most sprites, for example, live less than five years. Other fae can live for thousands of years.”

Why must he always be so obtuse? “I’m asking about fae like you, and you know it.” When he seems reluctant to answer, I say, “If you don’t answer, I’ll just have Sebastian tell me.”

“The elven fae, like me,” he says, “typically age much like humans until puberty, then age significantly slower after that. Several hundred years between us might look like a decade to your human eyes.”

“Typically? When do you age in a nontypical way?”

He shrugs. “Arya, for example, is closer to my age than to Mordeus’s.”

“Jalek said she’s dying. That’s why she looks so much older?”

“It’s your turn to answer questions,” he says. “How’s the golden prince treating you?”

“Sebastian is fine,” I say. I frown, realizing I don’t know much about how he spends his time. “It’s true he’s busy, but if you think I’m going to tell you something that can be used against him, you don’t know me at all.”

“Oh, I already know you’ll protect him,” he says, his silver eyes narrowing. “You’ve made that abundantly clear. To be fair, he’s been protecting you too.” He nods at my wrist, where my scar remains glamoured away. It used to startle me to see it missing, but I forget about it most of the time now.