Page 78 of The Evernight Court

“Theyare not you.” And I said this simply to stroke his ego. Even if Romin had only tried to kiss me and hadn’t come after me when I kneed him in the balls, that didn’t make him good. He knew exactly what his brothers were up to. He knew what Emil did that morning, too, and he still had done nothing about it. That made him even worse than them—but I was at his mercy here. And I was finding that I was willing to do pretty much anything to survive these monsters wearing men’s faces.

“They are not you, Romin. They’re not in control of themselves. They don’t care. They’ll hurt me and convince themselves that I enjoyed it.” My voice shook, which I hated, but maybe it was for the better.

Because Romin raised a brow, then turned to his brothers. “Nobody will touch you without you specifically asking them to, then. Not until I figure this out, at least—and that’s an order. How’s that?”

I gasped.

I genuinely gasped in disbelief, and Tristian and Emil were now looking at Romin like they couldn’t believe he’d said those words, either.

“I…I-I-I…” My voice was hardly working. “Yes. Thank you,” I finally choked out.

“Good. Now get out.” And he pointed at his brothers. “You two—get in here. We have a lot to discuss.”

I walked out, right between Tristian and Emil, and neither of them even reached their hands toward me. My God, they didn’t even whisper a single word.

With every step I took back to the tower and the greenhouse, I had trouble believing that Romin actually said that. For real. He ordered his brothers to leave me alone.

Safety.He’d literally given me safety with just a few words. Emil and Tristian would not be touching me again, at least until this was over. I was free to go about the castle at any time now.

But even so, I spent the next few hours sitting with the animals in the greenhouse, thinking about Valentine.

I could shrink things now.I could make them really large, too—like the pen that was in my hand a moment ago, that was now on the floor, fifty inches tall and thick enough that I doubted I would be able to carry it. It stank of magic. It buzzed with it—I felt it clinging to its surface.

“See that?” I asked Grey’s portrait, then sent another blast of magic to the pen, and watched as it shrank and shrank and shrank to a miniature version of itself. Tiny. I could hardly even see it on the wooden floor of the closet. “I did that. Me. Withmagic.” Then I laughed at myself like a damn lunatic and looked at Grey’s face.

He was so beautiful I wouldn’t have believed this was a painting of a real person if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes. If I hadn’t kissed that face with my own lips and touched it with my own hands.

“You probably think I’m crazy,” I told him and wasn’t it sad that Imeantit?

I sighed. “I miss you.” And I meant that, too. Maybethat’swhy I had gone really crazy. Missing him and wanting him and thinking about him dying was indeed a disease with no cure. It was slowly killing me, and maybe it had started to do so by making me lose my mind first.

I hadn’t gone out to meet Quinn the night before. Part of me wanted to, just to confront her. Just to see the look in hereyes when I told her that I fucking knew who she was. I knew she wasn’tmy friend.I knew she was just working for Valentine. I knew that they were all against me—each and every person in this castle and on this Isle.

They were all against me, and that made me want to rebel. It made me angry, gave me strength. It made me want to make them regret it with all my being.

But I’d stayed inside, and I’d slept on the floor of the closet again. And ever since I woke up at six in the morning, I read what remained of the book Valentine had quite possibly written just for me, about how to access magic and how to make reality bend to my will.

It worked. His tips worked—I was doing it. Conjuring things out of thin air. Moving them across the room. Shrinking them.

It was working—he’d really meant to help me with it. Now he was gone, and I didn’t even know why.

“Mirror mirror on the wall,” I whispered to myself when I caught my reflection in the mirror that Mama Si had gifted me. I didn’t look nearly as sick as I felt—on the contrary. I looked rested, well fed, full of life.

Who knew mirrors could be such liars?

I needed food.

When my stomach first began to growl, my instinct was to panic because I didn’t have food in the tower kitchen. But then I remembered the day before. Then I remembered the talk with Romin and his words. Nobody could touch me against my will again until he figured out what Valentine had been up to. For now, I was safe—or at least safe from Tristian and Emil—to go to the kitchen, get me some food, and make it back here in one piece.

That’s exactly what I was going to do—but then my eyes caught the golden chain of the gift the witches had given me.It was half hiding behind the frame of Grey’s portrait. I must have pushed it there accidentally while I was sleeping.

Which was funny because I’d been sleeping on the floor since the day Grey was banished and not a part of my body ever hurt when I woke up.

“So pretty,” I told the necklace because talking to paintings was not crazy enough for me, apparently.

It was indeed gorgeous. The colorless stone wrapped up in gold was such a beautiful thing. Reeva Lorein, the ruler witch of Witches’ Wing, said it would show me what I wanted most, but it hadn’t worked until now because I hadn’t had any magic to speak of. Not nearly enough to feed it with, like she’d instructed me.

But now I did, didn’t I? I’d gotten that boost from Genevieve, and regardless if it had been a mistake to make deals with her or not, it had worked. The tiny pen on the floor was proof.

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