Page 139 of The Evernight Court

“Good evening, children. Missed me?” Sedelis said.

It was a goddamn miracle I didn’t pass out.

Thirty-Three

She madeeye contact with me for a split second, and I saw exactly what people saw when looking at a siren when she was wrapped up in her magic, or before Syra broke Ennaris—flawless skin and beautiful eyes, cherry-stained lips and gorgeous, shiny, thick hair framing the beautiful heart-shaped face.

But thankfully, Sedelis didn’t give me attention for too long, and when she turned to Grey, I saw right through her magic, saw her true face, her blue eyes, her dead skin.

This,I told myself.Thiswas who she really was, and I would remember it the next time she was looking at me.

Then she burst out laughing.

Grey grabbed me by the hand and pulled me back, toward the wall of the cave, away from Valentine and the pool and the siren in it.

“My, my, Grey! Who would have thought you’d still be here?! I’m genuinely impressed,” Sedelis said. “I thought you were dead!” More laughter, and it cut right through me like a goddamn blade.

“Grey, what is happening?” I whispered, holding onto hishand with both of mine as he continued to walk backward. He turned to look at me, and I already knew the answer to my question, but I just needed him to say it for me, spell it out for me—because how could I trust my own mind?

“They’re trying to awaken Syra,” Grey whispered with barely any voice, but I heard him anyway. I read the words on his lips, too.

Awaken Syra.Exactly what I’d thought, except… “But we know.” We all knew what happened if Syra woke up, didn’t we?Everybodyin the Isles knew that if she did, it would be the end. She would destroy Ennaris just like she’d planned to do in the beginning—and she could! She was the most powerful being in the universe, and she could wipe out the entire world if she wanted. She would destroyeverything.

“We do,” Grey said, in his eyes the same surprise, the samesorryI was afraid I’d find. We both turned to Valentine, still not quite believing our own thoughts.

My God, he’d meant it. He’d meant everything he told us.

He really wanted to bring the end of Ennaris.

“Valentine, no,” I whispered becausehewas sorry, too. I knew him, I knew that face and his dark eyes, and I could read him well enough to understand.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine,” he said. “But it’s the only way. The right thing to do.”

Was he fucking serious? “Killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people is therightthing to do?!”

Another laughter from Sedelis. “What doyoucare, youngling? You hate our kind, do you not?”

“You will not awaken Syra,” Grey said, hands fisted and wings spread, the one on his right behind me curving up around my body just slightly. His voice was almost robotic.

“Oh, Grey. I always liked you,” Sedelis said, and with her hands on the edge of the pool, she pushed herself out of the water.

I saw her fishtail clearly, the way her skin merged into the grey scales, the muscles underneath, the fins that started on her back and moved down to the tip of the tail before spreading into a grey fin—and I also saw it when it began to change.

The process lasted maybe three seconds, and by the time she sat down on the rocks near the pool, her fishtail was gone, in its place now long legs that were able to carry her easily. She rose to her feet completely naked, her dark hair like snakes sticking to her skin, covering her breasts, reaching all the way to her hips, but the rest of her was bare. She smiled at Grey, her face straight out of a fucking nightmare.

“Stop this, whatever you think you’re doing. Stop it now, before it’s too late,” Grey tried again, though he knew it was a lost cause. I knew it, too.

Because she was here.

Sedelis was here, and if it had been just Valentine, I really believed I could have gotten through to him eventually. But, of course, it wasn’tjust Valentine.Something so big—of course, he was not alone in it. That he was able to unravel the spell—that he even knew the counter spell to do it—said that he had help. He had a lot of help, and it wasn’t only from Sedelis.

The sound of laughter came from the left, right by the dark entrance of the cave. My heart stopped beating altogether, and I held my breath, dug my fingernails into Grey’s hand as we both watched and waited…

“Always the straight arrow, my Grey.”

A second later, Genevieve stepped into the cave, and she was smiling with the same ease as always.

Impossible,my mind insisted. My eyes had to be liars because no way was Genevieve really here. No way was she coming closer with that fucking smile on her face.

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