Page 148 of The Eighth Isle

“They’ll be prepared. If you go to them, they’ll be prepared for you. You’ll be in their territory,” Mama Si said. “And I assume your plan is to rescue Master Valentine and get away in one piece, but the chances for that, Fall Doll, are less than five percent.”

My stomach twisted and turned a million times. “What if we distract them?” I whispered. “What if we take them away like we did with Syra?” It had beenheridea, after all. And it had worked.

“They’ll see it coming because they’re expecting it,” Mama Si said with such certainty that it was impossible to doubt her words.

“So, what do you propose—we justleavehim there?” I asked because that was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous to me, yet Mama Si said nothing, only lowered her eyes to Shadow, who was still testing his wings. I turned to Grey, who was lost in thought as he stared at his hands. “Grey, we’re not going to leave him to die.” I would never—couldnever. It was Valentine, and as much as that meant he shouldn’t be trusted, to me it also meant that he was the reason why I was alive and had made it this far. He’d helped me—in his own twisted ways, but he had. He didn’t deserve to die at the hands of the sirens.

“I’m thinking, baby,” Grey whispered, then leaned his head closer to Shadow. “Is he being held in the Whispering Woods?”

He purred again, Shadow, his tail swinging to the sides fast. “That’s a yes,” I said, and Grey nodded.

“I know the Woods better than they do. They will be located close to the lake where they have access to water,” he said, and it made perfect sense. The only lake in the woods was near the Evernight castle where I’d been myself not too long ago. Where I’d first seen Sedelis meeting with Valentine. “But they’ll see us coming from all sides. We can’t sneak up on them, especially since they’re expecting us. If I know them—and I do—they will kill Valentine at the first sign of us, then capture us.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “There has to?—”

“Unless she surrenders,” Mama Si cut me off, her eyes glazed over as she stared at Shadow but didn’t really see him. “Unless Fall surrenders and gets close. Unless she doesn’t give them a reason to rush—to chase her or kill Master Valentine.”

“Yes,” Reeva said as she kneeled between Mama Si and me, and she, too, was staring at nothing as she whispered. “Yes, it could work. And we could use Master Valentine and his Ruit instead of trying to make our spells work.” Slowly her head turned to me. “We could do it there. All I’d need is to be connected to the both of you physically, and we could take the magic out. Put it in our storage vessel.”

“Then it would be over,” Mama Si said. “They’d have no choice but to retreat.”

“They’re sirens. They won’t like being outmaneuvered, even if we do succeed,” Grey said. “We need a backup plan.”

“Storm,” I said without having to even think about it. “Storm can stand down and wait, then grab us and take us away when we’re done. When that magic is out of me.” I turned to Reeva. “And we need to be able to protectit, too.”

“We’ll put a unbreakable chain spell on it,” Reeva said. “It’s the most powerful shield magic can create. In its original form, even sirens can’t break through it.” She flinched. “Ifwe manage to cast it right, of course.”

“We will,” Amika said from where she was standing with the other two sisters behind us. “We will—we have the magic.”

God, I wanted to believe her so badly, but Reeva didn’t look very convinced.

“We can’t beat them,” Mama Si said. “The best we can hope for is to get away from them—which will be problematic for the rest of us.”

“You’re not coming,” I told her.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, waving me off.

“I mean it—you don’t have to be there.”

“Fall Doll, that’s not your decision to make,” she said—with such ease, like it was a done deal already—and she turned to Grey. “We will need a way to escape the Whispering Woods quickly.”

“The mirrors.” We all turned to him. “The mirrors in the castle, which is the closest thing to the lake. You all will be able to go through them—and we should, too.” He took my hand in his. “They’re basically portals. We can use them to get back to the Burrow.”

“Sounds good to me,” Reeva said. “But here’s the thing, though—thenwhat?”

“We’ll have made an enemy out of the sirens for good—and we can’t kill them,” Mama Si said, and each time someone spoke, Shadow turned to look at them. It was strange as hell still that we were all kneeling around him as he stood on that pillow, but none of us even thought about moving.

“The Seven Isles would starve without them,” Reeva said. “Not to mention wecouldn’tif we tried.”

“A weapon,” Grey said, rubbing his fingers together as he thought about it. “Reeva, is it possible to create some kind of a weapon with the magic you take out of Fall—with Syra’s magic?”

“Dangerous,” Reeva whispered, eyes wide as she brought her hands to her chest.

“But necessary,” Mama Si said. “It would keep the sirens down, under control. It would basically stop them from killing us.”

“Weare not my concern—the end of the Seven Isles is!” Reeva cried, making shivers break down my back. “How are we to stop the end if all we do is enrage the sirens even more?!”

“But if we simply let them, you think they’ll stop?” Grey said. “They are potentially the only creatures in existence that can bring about the end and left on the loose to do as they please is not an option, either.”

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