Page 34 of The Eighth Isle

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Mama Si wasn’t going to want to help me, not against Syra. Of course not—so what did it even matter what I said now?

“A prophecy,” Mama Si repeated, running the tips of her nails—the gloves gone—on the surface of her desk. “Tell me something, doll. No—tell meeverythingthat happened on the Eighth Isle, won’t you?”

“You know what happened.” She was just wasting my time.

“But I want to hear it from you,” Mama Si said, half a smile on her lips because she knew just how irritated that made me.

I could pick a fight with her over what mattered and what didn’t right now, but that would lead tomorewasted time, so I held myself back.

Shoving down my anger with all my strength, I gave her the shortest version of the story possible.

“Valentine was working with Genevieve and Sedelis to awaken Syra. The first two hoped that Syra would end everything the way she should have five hundred years ago, while Sedelis was secretly planning to kill Syra and take her power for herself. Needless to say, she failed. I was there with Grey when they awakened her, and I was there with Grey when she killed Sedelis. Then she threw us all out of the Isle and raised it out of the water,” I said. “That’severything.”

“But how didyouend up on the Eighth Isle?” she asked, fascinated already—or acting like she was.

“I went after Grey. I was in Agva with Storm when Valentine began to unravel the spell. Storm felt it and took me there with him,” I said, and the more I spoke the more her eyes lit up.

“My, my, Fall Doll,” she whispered.

“We searched for Valentine for three days on that Isle and we couldn’t find him until he began to undo the rest of the spell. By then Genevieve and Sedelis were already there. The rest is history.” And if she wanted more details, I was going to walk out of there just as fast as I’d come in.

But Mama Si smiled, perfectly content, folding her hands under her chin again. “What a story,” she breathed. “You have more balls than most people I’ve ever met in my long, long life, I’ll give you that.”

“Just d?—”

“Hush, Fall Doll. I’m trying to give you a compliment—take it,” she cut me off, and it was all I could do not to scream at her fucking face. She thought I gave a damn about her compliments?

“The longer she’s here, the stronger she’ll get,” I said, trying my best to keep my voice calm.

“I realize that,” Mama Si said. “But even now she is stronger than all of us combined. That’s whatyouneed to understand, apparently, even though you saw her with your own eyes.” Sheleaned closer on the desk. “Do you have any idea how much it takes to kill a siren?”

I could see all the colors in her eyes right now, bright and vibrant—so typically Mama Si I almost smiled.

“You’re afraid.” And I was, too. Everyone was afraid, but they didn’t have somebody they loved in the clutches of that siren right now, so it was easy for them to choose to stand back and do nothing. Maybe I’d have done the same if I were in their shoes.

Mama Si laughed. “Of course, I’m afraid! I’m fucking scared shitless!” And she laughed some more. “I was here when she did it, Fall Doll. Merely a girl, but I remember how the earth wept. I remember the fire.” Her smile faded as her eyes grew wider, then glazed over like she suddenly couldn’t see me at all. “I remember life withering away, fading into nothing. Iremember.”

The thought of her actually being there when Syra destroyed the entire continent sent shivers down my back. Fuck, Mama Si was old. I had yet to believe it or to understand what it meant that she was that old, but it made me so damn uncomfortable.

She then sighed as everyone else in the room held their breath with me. “Yes, I remember it, and yes, I’m afraid. Because when she comes, Fall Doll, be it now or later, it will be over. There will be no point in trying.”

My eyes closed and I pushed back the tears that wanted to spill out of me. “It’s all over, anyway,” I whispered.

Maybe Reeva was right. Maybe I needed to just sit still and wait for the end.Shewas already doing it. Sitting in her rocking chair, drinking lemonade…maybe I could join her so we could wait together.

Wait for Syra to get pissed off at something and decide she wanted everyone gone.

“A moment ago, you mentioned aprophecy, doll. Whatever did you mean by that?” Mama Si then asked in her sweetest voice.

“The witches,” I told her, my mind elsewhere still. “Reeva Lorein read the stars. They foresee the Fall of the Seven Isles the same way they did the Fall of Ennaris. It’s already as good as over.”

Thiscame as a shock to her as well. In fact, when the words registered in Mama Si’s mind, her face transformed completely.

She turned pale as a ghost, paler than usual, and her eyes were dark, no color left in them at all. Her fisted hands over the desk were shaking, and she barked, “Out.”

Assa, Mike and Marissa silently slipped out the door with their heads down without making a single sound.

So hard to breathe.

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