These Hollow Vows (These Hollow Vows 1)

Hadn’t Lark said that, when I saw her in my dream? I told her I didn’t want to be a queen with so much when others have nothing, and she said I’d lose everything. Was that really the child visiting me or just a dream?

“Hey,” he whispers. “Why the tears?”

I swallow. “Jas would love it here.”

He bows his head. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get her. Mordeus . . . He’s used his essence to hide your sister.” He says this like it’s terrible news.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that as long as he’s alive, we will not be able to physically reach her.” He rolls his shoulders back. “It means the only way I can save your sister is if someone kills the king.”

“But you can’t,” I blurt. “The Seelie can’t harm the Unseelie.” His eyes go wide, and I realize what I’ve said. “Isn’t that true?”

His breath quickens, and he licks his lips. “Tell me what you know.”

Can it hurt to admit what I’ve learned? I hate lying to Sebastian, and pleading ignorance after blurting what I did is pointless. “I know that the Unseelie lost their magic and immortality to the curse your mother put on them.”

I watch him as I say this, but he has no reaction. No denial or confirmation. He can’t talk about the curse.

“I always believed the Unseelie were evil,” I say, continuing, “but I don’t believe that anymore. Some shadow fae are evil and some are good. And some golden fae are evil and some are good. But maybe . . . maybe the Unseelie who seem evil are just trying to make the best of a bad situation.”

Sebastian stops walking and turns his head toward the ocean. “I never told you this, but there was an assassination attempt on my mother on the night of Litha—made by a member of my grandparents’ court who defected after my mother took the throne.” He shakes his head. “The traitor was captured before he could hurt her, but somehow . . . somehow Finn’s people were able to infiltrate the castle, get past my guards and our wards, and free the traitor who’d planned to put a blade in the heart of his own queen.”

I bow my head, but I’m terrified that he can smell my guilt.

“But . . . apparently you knew about that,” he says. The hurt in his voice grates against my conscience. “You knew Jalek wanted to kill my mother, and you didn’t say a thing to me.”

“I didn’t know about Jalek’s plans.” It’s true, and yet . . . I soften my tone before I continue. “But I won’t pretend I would have stopped him if I had.” I lift my chin and look him in the eye. “I know what it’s like to work nonstop and still be a prisoner of your circumstances. Your mother’s camps? It’s hard to not wish worse than death on someone who would do that to innocents.”

“I won’t defend those camps,” he says, his voice shaking. “But with so many Unseelie fleeing Mordeus’s rule, our court has been overrun. Our people are suffering, and the queen is putting her subjects first, protecting them from the shadow fae.”

“What if the shadow fae are the ones who need protecting?”

“Finn told you about the camps, but did he tell you about the hundreds in my court who’ve been slaughtered in cold blood so those running from the mess in his could take over their homes?”

And because of the queen’s curse, those golden fae wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from the Unseelie. It’s a sickening image. “I won’t argue that all the Unseelie are good,” I say, “or that terrible situations don’t sometimes bring out the worst in people, but—”

“They still have free will. They make their own choices, and through those choices they’ve proved who they really are.”

“But you can’t define a whole court on the actions of the worst of them. I believe Finn is good.”

Sebastian’s eyes blaze as he turns back to me. “If you think he’s so good, you should use those powers of yours to find his catacombs in the Wild Fae Lands. See what he keeps there and tell me if you still believe him so noble.”

What could Finn keep in his catacombs that would prove he’s as evil as Sebastian wants me to think?

“I can’t stand how he’s gotten to you, made you think you can trust him.”

“He’s become . . . a friend.”

“That’s what he wants you to think. I’m begging you not to fall for it.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you so against Finn and his people when your own mother is the cause of their suffering?”

“I’m not against the Unseelie.” He shakes his head. “Not at all, Brie. I hate what is happening to them under Mordeus’s rule. Faerie can’t exist without the light and the dark, the sun and the shadow. My mother knew that, and if it weren’t for her, thousands of fae would continue to die every day in the Great Fae War.”