Page 32 of The Evernight Court

“Safe under my shield.Of course.” That’swhat I’d felt falling on me that day, locking around me. It hadn’t been the fear or my instincts, only Grey’s magic. Back then, I’d just been too human to recognize it.

He’d been there and I had been safe. That snake couldn’t have hurt me even if Shadow hadn’t killed it, and I had no clue why that made me smile.

I read page after page where he’d written things about me—she looked especially sad today.

She’s mastering the rhythm of her heart.

She knows I watch her.

She’s still afraid of me and I don’t know how to take it away.

It was like listening to Grey speaking those words himself right into my ear. All this time I’d thought he was this monster of a man plotting ways to murder me, and he’d been up here writingthis. Drawing my silhouette. Thinking about me wearing blue.

A cry escaped me—I couldn’t help it. I missed him so much it was completely, utterly senseless. How could I miss something I barely even had, with such intensity? How had my entire life tied itself to him in a matter of hours?

Or was the Blood Call really that powerful? Was it simply the magic of the curse that connected us the way it did?

Was it the same for all the other brides?

Maybe that’s why they were so infatuated with the Evernights. Maybe that’s why they saw no wrong in them and worshipped them like they were fucking gods.

When I was done with the journal, I found what could have been a blueprint of the third tower folded and hidden in the middle of one of his books. It had all five floors drawn on it exactly like they were, and according to it, the fifth floor was one big open room with no walls, only pillars supporting the rooftop of the tower. The same rooftop where Grey had had his way with me that day under the rain, and I had no clue then that I was living one of the best days of my life.

God, I thought watching him being sucked in by the sky was the worst possible pain I was going to endure, but it wasn’t. Things like this only added to the nightmare—the party, the dead grey fish, the dragon tooth, his journal, the way hesawme even when I had no clue that he was there, long before I knew who he was…

It was all so heavy, weighing me down more by the minute, and it took me a long time to make it to my feet again.

When I left the office, I took one of the bags full of golden coins with Faeish symbols engraved on either side. I had a plan, and I was going to see it through—tonight, as soon as I saw the fifth floor.

Just like the blueprint said, it was an open space with thick round pillars supporting the rooftop and beautiful metal railings between them. It looked like one big balcony, giving me a gorgeous view of the Whispering Woods beyond the surrounding wall of the castle. There wasn’t anything to see except trees and a dark sky, but from the third tower I could actually make out the shapes of the three mountains in the distance, so far away they lookedtiny. I hadn’t realized how vast the Whispering Woods really was until I’d seen it from the top of Faeries’ Aerie. Now I knew that there was even more to it than this, and suddenly I had this urge to explore every inch of it. Suddenly, I couldsee lifeagain just like in that office. I could see myself in Grey’s arms as he flew us from one end of the Woods to the other, and together we saw everything there was to see on this Isle. All of it—every detail.

My heart mourned as it broke all over again. It mourned a life I was never going to have but wanted with my whole being—to be out there in the dark, flying with Grey, even if I was scared shitless.

I just wanted to be with Grey.

But the truth was that Grey was gone. And regardless of the part of me that still refused to accept the fact, I’d seen him disappear into the sky with my own eyes. Grey was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

Once again, I was all alone.

And alone I’d try to explore as much of this place as I could and gather enough power so that none of the Evernights dared to even come close to me again.

It was eight p.m. when I left my room, dressed in my clothes and Grey’s leather jacket. I ate some bread and dried meat for strength, should I need to run from someone—or something—and I made my way downstairs to the greenhouse again. The animals would all be there. The cougar and those flying rabbits and who knew what else that I hadn’t seen, but strangely I wasn’t afraid. If Grey felt comfortable living in a tower where those animals slept, then so was I. There was no need to worry—the cages were locked.

And with that thought in mind, I walked in there, breath held and ears strained.

Silence.

It was silent in the greenhouse, the little lamps dimmer than they had been that morning. It didn’t look any different—the sky was made out of the same darkness, but a lot more cages were closed now, and a lot more animals watched me through the thick bars—including the cougar.

Her yellow eyes were on me, half closed as she lay at the corner of the cage where very little light fell on her face. She looked like a fucking monster out of a fantasy, with a body made out of shadows and eyes made out of yellow flames. Shivers ran up and down me, but the cougar didn’t make a single sound, and I didn’t stick around to see if she would later. Controlling the beating of my heart had never been harder, especially when I picked up the sound of the animals moving about in their cages, aware that I was there, curious to see more of me.

I was curious to see more of them, too. So damn curious to know if their fur would light up when I touched it—or was that just another trick from Mama Si to win me over? To make magic seem so much moreglamorousthan it actually was?

I found the rabbits with the feathery wings folded on their backs—so strange. Three of them were in a cage to the right, and on the other side was a glass box with lizards that lookedlike they were drawn by hand with bright colors—pinks and neon greens and fiery reds. The deeper into the greenhouse I went, the more eyes were on me, and I realized there were more animals here than I’d first thought. There were cats and what could have been raccoons but with orange-ish fur, and black foxes and snakes in another bigger glass box set with white sand. They all looked almost the same but slightly different, some with horns on their heads instead of ears, and some with colors that didn’t belong on fur—like the deep magenta of the small creature that looked like a cat.

By the time I made it to the other side, my sneakers were muddy, my face was itching from all those leaves that had touched me as I went through, too focused on the animals to move away from them in time, and my heartbeat had already gone back to its normal rhythm.

There was a big door half hidden by a tree at the left corner of the greenhouse, next to two empty cages. Before I opened it, I turned and looked at the animals again, at the little jungle growing here under the glass ceiling. It occurred to me that the trees and the grass andeverythinghere looked alive, green, like it was supposed to, not the way it did in the gardens inside the walls of this castle. It made me like this place even more.

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