Page 141 of The Eighth Isle

But then he jumped in the air and beat his wings and moved farther up, and I looked around the rooftop and finally saw what was around me. Storm took off flying with Grey into the dark of the night, and Mama Si and one of the witch sisters were on the right near the ledge looking out at the ocean with their hands raised, their magic at the ready, while Reeva with the rest of her sisters were on my left, holding the same position.

Ready—to fight.

My ears rang when I remembered where I was and what was happening—Shadow had come back to the Burrow, alone and bleeding, so wounded he couldn’t move.

Whoever had done this to him had most probably followed him—and who else could have wounded a dragon like Shadow other than the sirens?

The sirens who would be on their way to us right now, and that’s why all these people were standing near the ledge withtheir magic at the ready, and Grey and Storm were in the sky, flying in circles, searching, waiting…

The sirens were indeed coming. It was already as good as over.

I stood up, holding Shadow to my chest still, keeping him warm just in case he needed it.Valentine did not betray me,said a voice in my head over and over again, and I had no idea why that mattered as much as it did when in the face of the actual end.

I moved to the middle of the rooftop and looked around at the night, the sound of the music from the Paradise parties by the pools fading away the more I focused on the magic of the sirens that was so different from everyone else’s, trying to sense if it was close…

“Anything?” Reeva called after a moment, and I turned around, eyes wide and ears sharp…

“Nothing yet,” Mama Si called.

Heart in my throat, I went to her, staring out at the darkness of the ocean, thinking,if I leave now, there's a chance that the sirens will spare the Burrow.They would have no reason to attack. Not just because of the human guests and the staff, but because of Mama Si and Reeva and the other Enchanted who lived here as well. They’d taken me in, and I didn’t want them to die because of it.

“I have to leave,” I said to Mama Si, eyes unblinking as I expected the sirens to pop out of the water that looked as black as the night.

“You’re not going anywhere,” said Mama Si, and again, it was so strange to see her wearing pants and a shirt, but the look on her face was just as regal as always. Her magic vibrated in the air around her.

“I am. If the sirens come, tell them we forced you to keep us in the Paradise, just like we said. I’m leaving.” We’d gosomewhere else, find another place to hide. I raised my head to the sky, to see Grey, to call him back down there, but I couldn’t make him out in the night. Only Storm, flying in circles all around the Isle in perfect silence.

“Hush, Fall Doll. Stand back. We’re ready for them when they come,” Mama Si insisted, then Reeva called again.

“Anything?!”

“Nothing!” said Mama Si, shaking her head. “Where the hell are they?”

“I don’t see anything at all,” Assa then said. “I don’t feel them, Mama Si.”

“What happened toI’ll have to tell them you made me when they come?” I insisted because that’s exactly what she told me the first day. That’s what we agreed on. “It’s safer?—”

But she wouldn’t even let me finish.

Mama Si turn to me, eyes wide and bloodshot, no colors in them.

“By the Burrow, I will knock you out myself if you don’t stop,” she spit. “Step back and let me handle this. You arenotgoing anywhere.”

“I—”

Something landed on the rooftop behind me with a loud thud, and we both jumped, terrified, thinking the sirens were already here. Instead, it was Grey with his wings half spread, eyes to the sky still as Storm roared once.

Nobody even breathed as we all looked at him and waited…

Then Grey lowered his head and his eyes locked on mine. “They’re not here,” he whispered. “The sirens are not coming.”

White noise in my ears. Mama Si and Reeva were already coming closer to Grey, asking him how far he saw and how far he felt, and if he was sure of what he said, but I didn’t bother. Grey knew what he was talking about—there was no point in asking him if he was sure. If he said it, he was.

I turned for the ocean again, to that ledge where Valentine and I had sat the last time he was here, and I brought Shadow closer to my face as he slept. I kissed the top of his head again and felt for his heartbeat with my fingertips. It was there, steady and strong.

“We’ll be okay,” I told him, though I was lying through my teeth.

Because I’d been right all along—that the sirens weren’t here, that they weren’t coming, was a bad sign. That they hadn’t found us until now, that they hadn’t even knocked on Mama Si’s door once, was a very,verybad thing, indeed.

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