Page 126 of The Evernight Court

“They’re harmless now,” Grey said.

“Why do they look like that?”

“The magic of the curse. It’s concentrated here the most, and it mutated them. Turned them rabid. To be honest, I have no clue how they survived.” Shivers washed down my arms and Grey chased the goose bumps away with his hands. “Baby, I could take them when I was on the verge of dying, even without Storm. Stop worrying.” He sounded as sure as always.

“I want to see,” I said reluctantly, turning to him. “In there—I want to see.”

“Are you sure?”

No, I wasn’t sure. But to be here, to come to an Isle nobody even knew existed, to be so close to the actual siren who doomed this entire continent seemed like such a waste. And I could handle my fear, but I couldn’t handle the regret I’d surely feel if I left here without seeing.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I told Grey. “I have to.”

I expected him to try to change my mind, but he nodded instead. “If you promise to be really quiet.”

Quiet?I narrowed my brows. “Why?”

“You’ll see.”

With my hand in his, he took us through that dark hole between the rocks, and Storm remained out there with the monsters.

Thirty

We walkedfor a little while in the complete darkness, down a narrow tunnel with a low ceiling to get to the heart of the mountain, but with my hand in Grey’s, my step didn’t falter.

When I reached the other side, though, I was frozen in place at the sight in front of me.

Half my mind was made up that this was an illusion or a hologram or something. Definitely not real. The way the walls made out of rock rose to the sides and met over our head, so high I hardly saw where they connected. The way that turquoise water glowed and produced bright light in the middle of the uneven ground—the same way the water of that fountain at the Paradise had glowed purple. The massive space around us and the shadows cast by the rocks on the walls that would have you thinking you were surrounded by ghosts.

And the white dragon that was sleeping on the raised ground on the other side of that pool.

He took my breath away completely. His head alone was the size of Storm’s body. He had large spikes over it like acrown, his scales a silvery white and his claws taller than me. His tail was so long I couldn’t even see the whole thing. On the scales of his back, around the spikes going down his neck, ink the same turquoise color as that water marked him with circles and squares and other shapes I couldn’t see well from here.

A white dragon. I’d never seen one before and I could have never imagined they could look like this. So…unreal. So fucking beautiful.

Sofamiliar.

My heart skipped a long beat and my lips moved on their own. “The Great White,” I whispered.

“Yes, that’s the guardian of the Eighth Isle,” Grey said. “How did you know?”

An image came in front of me—of a lake at the edge of the woods. “Sedelis.”

“The siren?” He looked confused as hell.

“Yes, Sedelis. I saw her at that lake near the castle talking to someone. I think…” My eyes squeezed shut. “I think it was Valentine. They talked about a red faerie and about someone being ready to march into the Woods and…and…” I looked ahead again, at the sleeping dragon. “And the Great White.” Except back then, I’d had no clue what the hell that even meant, and I’d beaten myself up over it so many times, trying to figure it out.

“Sedelis spoke to Valentine about the Great White?” Grey whispered, and he suddenly sounded afraid. I nodded. “What exactly did she say?”

So, I told him. I told him everything I remembered about that conversation, and Grey kept shaking his head.

“How?” he finally said. “How would Sedelis not know you were close enough to spy on her?”

I flinched. “Something about my magic,” I whispered. “There’s something wrong with it, I think. One night, I followedValentine in the woods, and he didn’t hear me until I stepped on a twig. He said that I was incredibly hard to detect when I don’t want to be seen—and he was right about that, too. I confirmed it with Romin and Emil. They literally couldn’t tell that I was sitting in the mirror room. And Emil and Amita! They didn’t even hear me when I approached them in the hallway, while Emil was f?—”

The words died on my lips.

I looked at Grey and he raised a brow. “While Emil was doing what?”

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