Page 117 of The Eighth Isle

The rabbits were the first to let me touch them again, just like last time, and when their fur began to glow, I almost burst out in tears.

“Goddamn it, baby,” Grey said as he slowly came closer but not all the way.

I looked back at him. “Come on, come here. Look how they glow!” So many gorgeous colors, and the fox was slowly leaning in under my hand, too. She glowed brighter than all—a beautiful orange, just like magical fire.

“No, I’m good. I’m perfectly fine,” Grey said, leaning against a tree with his arms crossed and a grin on his face. “I’ll stay right here and watch you forever.”

I laughed, but there was really no time to talk to him when the animals were squeaking for my attention, and even the birds and the owls were watching us from the branches. It was so easy to see the magic on them now, that glow that came alive on their fur, tosmellit and feel the heat of it as it left their bodies. It even lasted longer now. The light didn’t fade away immediately when I stopped touching them, and before I knew it, there was so much light around me it was hard to see.

Fuck, it was like I went back in time and I was that same Fall I had been then while I played with them, told them about the Whispering Woods, about the winged rabbits I’d seen, and the neon-colored lizards. The animals enjoyed it, and more and more gathered until I had a big crowd surrounding me on all sides.

When I stood up, they complained, jumping and trying to reach my hands, and the orange fox even walked beside me, looking up like she wasfascinatedby me just as I was by her.

“What a sight,” Grey said, when I reached out my hand to call for him so we could get going, find the clearing where I used to play my piano.

“Did you see them?” I said, smiling so big my cheeks hurt. The fur of a few animals was glowing just a bit now, almost completely faded away, but he’d seen.

“Yep,” he said, and suddenly grabbed my chin, turned my head toward him, and kissed me deeply. “You rock my world, baby.”

I laughed. “I do?”

“Every second of every day, especially when you make animals glow for you,” he said with a boyish grin.

“They always did that since day one,” I said,proud—as if that was an accomplishment. But to me it was. Right now, one of only a few. “Is that normal?”

“Not really. Some animals do—depends on the magic of the Isle, to be honest. But they have to choose to glow,” Grey said. “They have to want to basically make their magic visible to you.”

“Well, then Mama Si made them do that,” I said with a flinch, and I don’t know why that made me sad. Maybe because the magic of these animals was the first thing that made me realize that there was so much more to the world than I ever knew.

“I don’t see how. It’s not something you can force them to do any more than you can make them come closer to you if they don’t want to. Impossible,” Grey said as we went, and the animals stuck to my side, walking together, some ahead and some behind.

“Really? Are you sure?” Because Mama Si had admitted to my face that she’d orchestrated the whole thing of how I came to even find this place.

“Oh, I know animals, baby. I’ve studied them for most of my adult life to keep away from people. I’m sure,” Grey said with a grin.

I let go of his hand and wrapped my arms around his, snuggling closer. “I saw your journals, by the way. In your office at the tower. You wrote about owls,” I said because that’s oneof the few things he hadn’t written about in Faeish. “And about me.” He’d written plenty about me, too.

“I did. You caught me off guard when I first saw you. I was trying to make sense of these feelings.” He touched his fist to his chest.

“Yes, yes, the feelings straight out of your dead heart,” I teased, cheeks flushed.

“Out of my fucking soul,” he said, and before I knew it, he grabbed me by the waist andthrewme in the air until I screamed, then caught me again and spun me around fast enough to turn everything around us to a blur.

He kissed all the remaining air out of my lungs, too, and it was one of those moments that makes you say,I might have been through hell, but every flame that burned me was worth it.

“I love you,” I said when he put me down on the ground again.

“I love you, too, baby. And I know that everything will be just fine,” Grey said against my lips.

“How do you know?” Because I didn’t, and I hated it.

“Because there’s nothing in the world that could possibly stand in the way of this.”

I smiled sadly. “Have you forgotten Syra’s story? They loved each other, too. They literally lived on a beach away from the entire word, and…” My voice trailed off. I’d already told him the story as I’d seen it. As Syra herself had showed me.

“But Syra and Hansil had nobody to learn from,” Grey said. “We do.”

“Don’t trust anyone,” I whispered.

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