Faithless Vows

Prologue

Alannah O’Connell, Age Twelve

My first morning in Boston smells of coal smoke and salt from the harbour.

I press my forehead to the cool glass of my bedroom window and look down at the street below. There isn’t a patch of green anywhere, only grey pavement and buildings packed close together. A delivery truck rumbles down the road, cutting off a car. The horn blares so suddenly I flinch.

It’s nothing like home.

In Ireland our houses sat together on my grandda’s land, tucked between green fields and stone walls where most mornings the loudest sound was the wind off the sea or my cousins shouting across the yard.

Boston feels different. Closer. Louder.

“Mick! Alannah!” my da calls up the stairs. “Get yourselves ready. We’ll have visitors today.”

Visitors already? We’ve only just arrived.

I go to the wardrobe and pull out one of the dresses Mam bought for me in the shops before we left Ireland. By the time I come downstairs, she’s nearly finished setting the table, with soda bread, jam, and tea laid out beside a small jug of milk.

A knock sounds at the door, and my father goes to open it.

A woman steps inside, her light brown hair swept back in a neat twist. She’s beautiful, with a wide smile that softens when her gaze lands on me.

“Oh, Seamus, look at her,” the woman says warmly, striding forward.

She pinches my cheeks as though we’ve known each other for years.

“A little sidhe, isn’t she? Strawberry hair and eyes bright as summer sky. A fae come over the sea.”

I’ve heard that before. Back home people always said my hair and eyes made me look like one of the fae. Being small never helped either. Heat floods my face, and I duck my head as she laughs and smooths my hair. “I’m Eileen, dear,” she says softly.

And then a boy follows her inside.

He looks like he might be the same age as my older brother Mick, only taller and broader. His dark brown hair is cut shorter on the sides and longer on top. But it’s his eyes that catch me. Green and bright, like the hills back home, and looking straight at me.

For a second I forget everything else and stare back.

Then heavy footsteps thunder down the stairs behind me.

“Mam, Da—did you see—” Mick stops short when he reaches the bottom step and sees we have company.

“Well,” he mutters, running a hand through his hair.

“Didn’t know we were having company.” He strides forward and sticks out his hand toward the boy. “Mick.”

The boy takes my brother’s offered hand. “Ronin.”

An older man steps inside next, carrying a pie tin in his hands.

I recognize him right away from my parents’ old photo albums. Cormac Byrne.

Da’s oldest friend and the reason our family moved here from Ireland.

He crosses to Mam and hands her the tin, pressing a kiss to her cheek before turning to the room.

“I see you’ve met my son Ronin,” he says.

My father’s hand settles on my shoulder. “This is my daughter Alannah,” he says. “And my son Michael.” My brother shoots Da a look but says nothing. He hates when anyone uses his full name.

“How do you do?” I say quietly. When I chance a look at Ronin, I find his eyes still on me.

My father and Cormac begin walking toward Da’s new office, their voices fading the farther they get down the hall.

Eileen slips her arm through Mam’s. “Come on,” she says.

“Let’s have a slice of that pie while it’s still warm.

” Mam laughs and lets herself be pulled toward the kitchen.

When I look back to where the boys were standing, Mick and Ronin are heading toward Da’s office as well.

Ronin glances back once before disappearing around the corner, and I watch him go.

There’s something about the way he looked at me that I can’t quite explain. Even after the hallway grows quiet, I stay where I am, still trying to make sense of it.

I don’t know it yet, but the green-eyed boy my father welcomed into our home that morning will one day be the man who breaks my heart.