Page 61 of The Evernight Court

It could have been fucking funny. “I’d choose death first,” I whispered.

The bitter smile on his handsome face hurt like hell. “I’ve never begged anyone for anything before in my life.”

“And I’ve never loved someone who was trying to kill me behind my back. Does that make us even?” I said, in case he thought he was going to make me feel bad for not buying his lies now.

Love.Such a…strong word, and it surprised him just like I knew it would. It had surprised me, too, when I first realized that I had loved Valentine. I’d really, truly cared about him. I’d traded my life for his and never once regretted it.

Yes, I’d loved him.

Look at me now.

“I’m sorry, Sunshine,” he said, stepping back just as Shadow came and landed on his shoulder again.

“Your sorry doesn’t change anything.” It didn’t change thefact that Grey was gone. It didn’t change the fact that I was stuck in this life now.

“I know,” he said, moving farther back still. Like…like he reallywasn’tgoing to kill me. “I know it doesn’t. And I know you love him, even if I hate it. I know a lot.” Spreading his arms to the sides, he smiled. “This is my home, Sunshine. I know what goes on here. Which is why I’m telling you not to worry. Work on yourself. Train as hard as you can. You’re already so incredibly hard to detect when you don’t want to be seen. Protect yourself until you don’t have to anymore.”

I shook my head, my knees weak, because that word. That fucking word again—love.

“What the hell are you up to, Valentine?” I called, refusing to believe still that he was backing away. That he wasreallynot going to kill me.

His laughter reached my ears in a caress. He stopped almost at the tree line and sighed deeply, shaking his head.

“I miss you,” he whispered, and without these new ears, I’d have missed it.

Then Valentine moved left so fast he turned to a blur and disappeared from my sight completely.

My legs gave up on me three seconds in. I was all alone in the woods, I could tell. I couldfeelit. My back hit the trunk and I pulled my knees to my chest, holding them tightly, just breathing in.

So many words spun in my mind—how was I still conscious?

I’m sorry.

How was I to know you cared?

I know you love him.

I miss you.

“Goddamn you, Valentine Evernight,” I whispered to the night. “Goddamn you.”

What could have been halfan hour later, Quinn found me right there, still shaking.

The animals didn’t help.The instruments didn’t help. Writing everything down in one of Grey’s journals didn’t help, either, and so dawn found me sitting in the closet in front of his portrait. The rose mirror Mama Si had gifted me was next to it, showing me my reflection because I didn’t have the energy to even take it out of the closet. It showed me my reflection, my skin pale and my hair bright, that necklace that Reeva Lorein had given me at the party in my hands. Sometimes I looked at the smooth surface of the white crystal trapped between the vines of gold, hoping maybe the witch hadn’t lied to me. Hoping maybe that thing could really show me what I wanted most, which was, I thought,to know.To understand what the hell was going on around me, but most of all, to understandmyself.

Why was I hard to detect? Why didn’t any of these tests in the book Quinn had given me work for me? The book said it should—it wasbasicsof magic that any of the brides could do in their sleep. Was I really so weak still because I wasn’t with Grey that even these simple tricks were impossible to accomplish?

“Come on!”I demanded of myself, of my magic, as I held open my hand and tried to conjure up a flame. A single flame. One teeny tiny spark of magic to come to life—that’s all I needed.

Of course, it didn’t work. And when I caught my reflection in the mirror again, one hand clutching that necklace, the other spread open in front of my face, I realized I looked fucking ridiculous.

This wasn’tme.I was not Fall, the bride of the Evernights,an Enchanted. No, I wasn’t that at all! I was just Fall—human. So incredibly human that I was way out of my depth in this place since I was first thrown into the Whispering Woods.

By Storm.

Storm, who was away in a cave, starving himself, and I couldn’t get to him to join him. I couldn’t get to him so he didn’t have to die alone. He was a part of Grey and so I felt like he was a part of me now, too—not to mention he’d saved my life.

But I was stuck in this tower because I was weak. Because Mama Si had thought I waspretty. Because I’d been possibly the easiest prey in the world for her.

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