Page 139 of The Eighth Isle

“Are you okay?” he said, instantly concerned, his eyes searching my face.

“I just need some air,” I said with a nod.

“I’ll come with.”

“No. I want to go alone. I’ll be right back,” I said, not just because he was invested in the chanting of the witches, but I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a minute.

Grey didn’t like it, but he didn’t insist. Before five minutes were over, I climbed on the rooftop of the mansion and closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, thankful for the stars in the sky.

It had been more than half a day since Storm came back, bloody and wounded and alone.

Half a day, over twelve hours, and the sirens hadn’t come for us. Valentine hadn’t returned, either.

Half a day.

I breathed in the night air deeply and went close to the edge to look at the horizon that I couldn’t even see. So dark was the surface of the ocean, and darker still the sky, even though stars twinkled everywhere and the moon was at my back, too.

“I will be okay,” I told myself because the witch sisters were working, even if the spell wasn’t right now. Not just Reeva, but her sisters Amika, Taylor and Poppy were relentless, even more dedicated than I’d have believed. They wanted to make this work, and I was already getting used to the guilt of knowing we were lying to them through our teeth,usingthem— “And when the end truly comes?” I asked the night.

What would happen then?

But the night didn’t answer.

Just Mama Si’s voice in my head said,we’ll all be dead anyway.

From the sirens—who still hadn’t found me here. The sirens who still hadn’t thought to come looking for me in the very place I came from.

Why-why-why?!

And when was anything going to start making any sense?

Would Reeva and her sisters even find a spell that would work, when the first failed so spectacularly?

They’d been so sure of it, had made it sound so simple—lure the magic out of me, push it across this bridge that would be the transfer link, and put it in an object that they’d spelled to serve as storage.

After that, I’d be free, they said.Easy,but it wasn’t. Their spell couldn’t even begin to do what Valentine and Shadow had done for Syra.

That’s because things go wrong where I’m involved,I wanted to tell them.Everything goes wrong when I’m involved!

I bit my tongue instead.

“We have choices,” I told myself. “We’ll go to Dragons’ Den—to John and Flakka. They’ll help us. Maybe they’ll even find us another Ruit like Shadow. Right?”

I asked the stars this time because they did speak. They’d foreseen the end of the Seven Isles—twice now—so they knew.

But even so, they didn’t answerme.

With a sigh, I turned around to leave, go back to the basement, to the others, hoping maybe they were ready for me. Hoping the witches didn’t need another break, a drink, food—which wasn’t fair at all. It was after midnight and they were exhausted. Of course they needed breaks, but I needed this over with so, so badly.

My mind was on them when I pulled open the door on the rooftop deck, and I wasn’t looking around me at all. Even so, I heard something just as I began to descend, and that small sound was so familiar to me by now that my instinct knew what it was before I did.

I stopped, heart in my throat and my breath held, and I turned to the darkness.

For a moment, I saw nothing. For a moment, the entire world held its breath with me.

Then something flew toward me, to my side, missing me by barely a couple of inches, fast as a goddamn bullet. It went right by me and I was too stunned to even scream, only followed it with my eyes when it slammed against the deck and rolled all the way to the wall on the other side.

My legs were shaking when I finally moved closer, hands raised, heart racing. My eyes didn’t blink at all as I took in the small black shape, barely moving, and even though I’d recognized the sound of his wings, a part of me still couldn’t believe it.

---