Page 133 of The Eighth Isle

Mama Si sounded concerned.

Pushing myself up to my knees, I asked Grey, “How long was I out?”

“About ten minutes,” he said, pushing my hair away from my face. “How do you feel? Does it hurt still?”

I shook my head. “No, I feel…I feel fine.” I was fully aware of my body now and I had no pain anywhere, but my skin still felt the aftermath of that layer of magic that had been on me.

“Reeva, come on!” Mama Si urged, her voice turning up a notch, and I grabbed Grey’s hand.

“What the hell did I do?!” Was that me—hadIdone that to Reeva?

“Nothing—she’s okay. Her heartbeat is steady. She’s just lost in the spell,” Grey told me, and when I tried to get closer to Reeva, he helped me.

“Reeva, can you hear me?” I said, reaching out my hand to touch hers—ice-cold. Her skin was ice-cold.

“Just push through. Keep pushing through,” Mama Si said, holding her face still, her eyes closed, the heat of her magic, so relaxing and peaceful, spreading in the air about us.

“Push through, push through, follow my voice,”she chanted, and by the time Reeva finally reacted, I was about ready to burst into tears.

But she woke up.

Drawing in a deep, loud breath, her eyes rolled back in place, and she blinked and blinked until she could see what was around her, holding onto Mama Si’s arm.

I fell back on my ass with a sigh, eyes closed as I reminded myself that it was okay. Reeva was responding—she was awake and she was okay. Whatever had made her like that, it was normal. It wasn’tme.She was going to be just fine.

I just wished that those ugly voices in my head would stop whispering in my ear that everything wasmygoddamn fault.

Twenty-Eight

“It’s hard to explain,”Reeva said, wiping her forehead with a napkin. She sat on the floor, back resting against the wall near the fireplace, and Mama Si and I sat with her.

Meanwhile Grey was restlessly pacing in front of us.

“What exactly did you feel?” said Mama Si because I didn’t know what question to even ask. “And drink your tea, Reeva.”

The witch brought the white cup that Mama Si had produced out of thin air with her magic to her lips and took a slow sip. She was still pale, so pale, her skin sweaty, her eyes wide open, barely blinking as she stared ahead but saw nothing.

So hard not to feel guilty.

“I felt…cold,” Reeva started. “Andwet.”She flinched. “A lot of magic. It’s like…it’s like…” She turned her head toward me, then leaned over a bit until she saw all of me sitting on Mama Si’s other side. “It’s like she’s a siren.”

These words she whispered, and I felt them all the way in my bones.

A miracle I didn’t throw up when my stomach began to twist and turn.

“What do you mean,a siren?” Mama Si and Grey asked at the same time.

Reeva closed her eyes with a sigh and rested back against the wall for a moment. “I don’t know. It’s the magic—it’s the same kind of magic. The magic of a siren,insideher. It’s like she’sbecomeit.”

I said nothing—couldn’t if I tried. I just let them talk.

“Syra trulyunloaded herself in Fall—and in the full sense of the word. It’s not a spell, not a stream or a source or a boost—it’s Syra,” Reeva said, and Mama Si shook her head.

“As a whole?”

Reeva pressed her lips. “Precisely.”

“But that’s impossible” Mama Si said. “We can give our magic, small parts of it or just to charge the other’s—yes, I understand that.” I did, too—that’s what Genevieve had done with me when I gave her my blood. “But to actually putallof one’s magic into another body?Impossible.”

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