Page 13 of The Eighth Isle

Fall Hayes

The smellin the air was familiar, though it didn’t really smell like anything I could name. Just…a place.The furniture. The curtains. The sheets around me.

Sheets, not water.

I sat up with a jolt, blinking my eyes fast to adjust to the bright light coming at me from ahead, a light that had no business being there at all. Because I knew where I was. I’d stayed in this very room for over a month.

It was my bedroom in the fifth tower of the Evernight castle, inValentine’stower—which was in the Whispering Woods.

The Whispering Woods, one of the Seven Isles that was shielded by a dark cloud made of magic, impenetrable by sunlight. It had been this way for the last five hundred years.

So why the hell was the sun shining right outside the window?!

Pushing the sheets off me, I ignored the fact that I was wearing a nightgown, and I had no shoes on. I ignored the fact that I was in the fifth tower, in this very room, and the factthat the hardwood floor was warm against my bare feet. Warm—because the sun had fallen on it.

I just focused on the fact that it was daylight outside, held my breath until I was right by the window, and looked through it.

“Oh, my God…” I whispered, bringing my hands in front of my mouth.

My eyes were telling me that it was daylight in the Whispering Woods, that the trees were green and the castle’s walls full of life, that not a hint of those black clouds was anywhere around me anymore.

Which couldn’t be…could it?

This was the Whispering Woods. The Evernights lived here, bound to this Isle, kept far away from Syra’s senses by that darkness, but close enough that the spell that kept her under continued to work.

Except…the spell no longer existed, did it?

“The spell is undone,” I said to the window.

The spell was undone by Valentine and Genevieve and Sedelis, and now Grey…

Grey was not in the water with me.

I was running before I knew it.

My heart slammed in my chest and the magic in my gut wanted to explode out of me, ruin everything in its path until this whole place ceased to exist. It was a miracle I was able to hold it back as I ran down the stairs and through corridors that should have been familiar to me but weren’t, because now light came through the windows. Where everything had seemed dark and sinister before, now it was bright and lively, and my brain couldn’t make the connection yet.

I walked out of the fifth tower and into the main hall, so disoriented still, and I continued to the entrance doors because I needed to be outside. I needed tobeout there, under thesunlight and the open sky. I needed to convince myself that this was, indeed, real. That it had actually happened.

One of the main doors was already open, and sunlight streamed in almost to the middle of the hallway. The marble of the floor looked so different, so colorful, with a million shades of brown and maroon, not just black and white. So much had been hidden by that darkness—like the deep purple tint to the black walls, and the pale colors of the vases, and the paintings, and the decorations.

And then there was the outside. The sun on my face—warm and bright and real.

Then there was the sky, blue, not a single cloud anywhere that I could see.

Then there were the guards dressed in their uniforms standing by the sides, and the torch hangers, now empty, and the trees so green, and the flowers so open.

It had happened. The spell was broken. Syra was awake, and Grey was in the Eighth Isle with her.

I was running again, too shocked to cry, just trying to hold back the magic that still wanted to burst out of me.Not yet,I told myself with each step. It wasn’t time yet, not until I knew what the hell was going on.

There was one person who could tell me that—Romin Evernight, ruler of this Court, of the entire Seven Isles. He would have the answers I needed, and so I ran all the way to the first tower barefoot, with nothing on but a nightgown that fell to my ankles. I pushed the doors open and climbed to the first floor and went all the way to his office barely breathing in a handful of times.

The doors to it were open, too, and the guards that stood by the walls like always barely looked my way. There was no window here in this hallway nor in Romin’s office. Vampires didn’t much care to see the outside, the brides told me once. Itwas more than enough that they heard too much—they didn’t need to be distracted by the sight of things, too. That’s why this place was still in the dark.

Romin’s voice reached me when I was halfway to the doors—and he sounded pissed off as he yelled at someone. Soon I was at the doorway and saw inside.

All the brothers were in there, standing near Romin’s round desk, Emil and Tristian by his sides as he looked down at Valentine and shouted,“…not a fucking game, do you realize that?! This is not something to mess around with!”

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