Page 30 of The Evernight Court

It was all for me. It was all exactly right for me, like Grey had seen into my mind and had pulled images I didn’t even know I’d imagined. God, I’d never been happier and sadder and desperate at the same time as when I went to the easels and the empty canvases, the many colors and brushes on the tall table near them, the wooden pallet and the neatly folded rags at the corner. In my mind, I could see Grey bringing all these things into this room and preparing them for me, excited, maybe wondering whether I’d like it or not. Hoping that I would.

Part of me felt inadequate, like I didn’t deserve all this work, all the effort he’d put in here for me, but another part of me saw me the wayhesaw me. The same way I saw him.

Even so, I would not cry. The tears were there, pooling in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall again. I had this. Part of Grey would always be with me in this very room with the things he’d put together for me, and that was all I’d really need. For now, that was all I cared about.

So, I stayed there for a long time, and when I was driven out by hunger, I tiptoed my way back, afraid I’d run into the brides as they left.

Luckily, I didn’t, but curiosity got the best of me, so before I went to my bedroom on the third floor, I checked the others across from it in the wide hallway. Five of them, all empty, but two were a mess, the sheets unmade and the closet doors wide open.

I don’t know why I was smiling the way I did, but Cynthia and Amita were gone for real, and no other brides were in this tower with me.

Then I went to my bedroom and ate the food from my basket, feeling a little bit calmer than I had since Grey disappeared into the sky.

Rominand the others didn’t bother me. Vinny and Aster didn’t come to bring me food the next day, either, and Amita and Cynthia were most definitely gone.

I walked the halls and rooms of the third tower all alone like a ghost in the dark, feeling more at home and more at war between those black walls with each new step. By the end of the second day, I knew what was on each floor, and I couldn’t wait to spend more time in all the rooms until I knew every inch of the space by heart.

On the fourth floor, there were three rooms with different settings in them—one had clay and a pottery wheel and modeling tools, towels and rags and needles and wires hanging on a wooden board on the wall, and I could have sworn Amita once said that pottery had been her passion, and that she’d asked for a room just like this from Grey once, but sadly she never really used it anymore.

The other two rooms were similar—one full of empty planters and vases and gardening tools mounted on a wall, the other with a big shelf full of baskets and herbs in them. The smell of those herbs threatened to make me throw up a minute in, so I pulled the window half open and left it like that when I left.

But there was one other room on the other side of the hallway on that floor, all alone at the end of a dark corridor, and it was locked. I tried the handle a few times, but it didn’t give, and when I pressed my hands on the engraved surface of the black wood, I felt the magic on it as clearly as I’d felt it on Mama Si and the sirens.

Magic kept this door locked, and I had no clue what was in it, but I was dying of curiosity to know already.

That’s why that night, for the first time, I actually closed my eyes and I searched within me to find the spark, that foreign body that was more and more present inside me since the Blood Call.

I found it so easily that it surprised me. It was right there, like smoke, like steam in the very middle of my chest, and it carried heat within. It carried power.

It was my magic.

I didn’t give myself the chance to be happy or sad or amazed at it right now. It would only overwhelm me to try to figure it out, so I didn’t. Instead, I took in deep breaths and I focused on the door, not really knowing what the hell I was doing. One thought was in my mind as I sort ofpokedat thatsmoke inside me with my mind and urged it to click with whatever magic was keeping that door locked.

A million more thoughts ran through my head at the same time, though—is this how magic works? Does this even make sense? What the hell am I doing trying topokeit with my thoughts? Should I just order it to do my bidding? Can it?—

The soft click that came from the other side of the door made all my thoughts come to a halt.

The magic inside me retreated without my even having to think about it, and the magic that had been clinging to the door was slowly fading away, too. I could feel it against the palms of my hands like one feels the texture or the temperature of an object. Like the magic was concrete.

Holding my breath, I reached for the handle one more time.

It gave.

The door was no longer locked and no more magic clung to it that I could feel. I stepped back and pulled it open, excited to see what it hid, and…

An office. It was a small room, smaller than all the others, round, with a big desk in the middle, a big golden lamp behind the leather chair, about a hundred drawings pinned to the walls, and three shelves full of books. If it wasn’t for my improved eyesight, I’d have never seen a single thing in here. There were no windows, and the only light came from the lamps of the hallway outside. When I stepped in and closed the door, the darkness was absolute, but I used my hands to guide me to that lamp and to find the switch.

It smelled like Grey in here—spicy and dark. My hands shook as I touched the top of the leather chair, running my fingers on the smooth, soft surface, as if I was touchinghisback. In my mind, I saw him sitting there with his books or drawing on one of those white pages, his every stroke precise. I touched the spines of the books on his shelves, and the edgesof his drawings pinned to the walls, completely in awe of everything he’d portrayed on them—such minimalistic things.

The silhouette of a man near a tree. Half of what could have been a sunflower. The back of a rabbit with wings on its back—like the ones I’d seen in the greenhouse. An eye with a tear sliding down a round cheek. The imprint of a paw.

It felt like catching a glimpse of Grey’s mind as I looked at all those shapes, strange and beautiful and half hidden from the world—just like him.

I breathed and I was so full of energy so suddenly, that when I returned to his desk again, I saw even more. I pulled the chair back and I sat in it, just to try to feel what he’d felt. To try to become one with him, to know him better. It didn’t feel like an invasion of privacy to open up those books he had on the table or the sketchbook he kept there with a small black pen between the pages where he’d drawn the last image somewhere in the middle—these ones not torn and pinned, but still in the book, still so fresh that I could almost smell the lead of the pencil in each stroke. The books were all Faeish, but I went through them anyway, even if I didn’t understand what they were saying. I felt so close to Grey here it was almost like he was about to walk through that door any second now. He’d come through and he’d smile at the sight of me trying to figure out his books, and he’d look at me like he used to, like I was the moon to his darkness, like he adored me, even if it made no sense to me that he would. Even if he’d only known me for just over a month.

There were two drawers under the desk, and both opened on the first try. One had matches and two leather bags full of golden coins inside it—which excited me. Golden coins meant money, and I could not only pay Zane the green faerie with it, but I could use it when I found my way to the town he told me about. I could use it to buy weapons maybe—but what kind of weapons would even be effectiveagainst a vampire?

Shivers ran all over my body. Then I turned to the drawer on the other side, and in it I found a single book with thick black leather covers, and a pen on the side. I didn’t think much of it before I opened it, but on the first page, Grey’s name was written in cursive with black ink, and it was like a stab right through my heart to realize that Grey had written this himself.

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