Page 163 of The Eighth Isle

So different, yet it was the same place.

“I don’t…” The words escaped me for a moment. “I don’t understand. What now? What happensnow?”

I turned to the others again, and they, too, looked very confused as they took in the lake—so much greener than it had been. The sky, too—I could swear it was bluer, even though the sun had already started to set somewhere beyond the trees.

Storm was still there, too! He was flying over the woods, high enough that I barely made him out—but it was him. I’d recognize the shape of him, now, too—anywhere.

“Now, we go home,” Reeva said, smiling at her sisters, who were a mess of blood and tears, but alsohappy.

All of them were happy—except Grey, who wasn’t alarmed, but he was concerned.

Concerned aboutme.

“But what about the end? What about the Nella Lexis and the stars—what aboutthem?” Because I had no bad feeling in my gut right now. Nosomething’s wrongwhispering in my ear, and it felt so strange. I didn’t know what to make of it.

Reeva began to laugh, and she let go of Amika to hop on one leg all the way to me. I reached out my hands to help her carry her weight. She was smiling so big and her eyes were full of tears, and though she looked just as tired as she had when she first performed that spell to get the magic out of me, she wasglowing,too.

“I’m afraid we misunderstood what the stars were trying to tell us,” she said, reaching her hand to my cheek.

“We did?”

“Absolutely! Five hundred years ago, when they predicted the Fall of Ennaris, it was evident what it meant when it came to be weeks later,” she told me. “But this time, when they predicted the Fall of the Seven Isles?” She came closer and slowly kissed my forehead. “They meantyou.” Big tears slid down her cheeks. “They meant you,young one. I see it now.”

“Does that meant the end isnotcoming then?” Mama Si said from behind her, and someone laughed.

“Yes, dear Mamayka, it does,” Reeva said as she turned to her. “And we have a lot of work to do, to see how the lands came together, to figure out how to coexist again on the same continent—oh, so much to do!” And she hopped her way to Amika again, while Grey came to me.

“How are you feeling, baby?” he asked, looking me over, still concerned.

And I shook my head once more, looking at the others, at their smiling faces, all that blood and dirt on them.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t…I don’t understand how it happened still. I don’t understand what happens next. I don’t…I don’t knowwho I am.” And that was the whole truth to it. I still had no idea who I was.So muchhad happened, and now that I had nothing else to carry on my shoulders—so suddenly—it was eating a hole in my chest, that thought.

Mama Si and Reeva were laughing again—straight from the heart.

“From where I’m standing, doll, you are exactly what Reeva said—Fall of the Seven Isles,” Mama Si told me, and together they all turned to around to leave. “But you’ll figure it out. Be gentle with yourself—and let’s keep going. I really do need a bed now.”

My ears whistled when Grey put his arm around me and guided me behind them.

Step by step, through the woods. More trees and more birds and so much more green than I had ever seen before.

It was all like a dream, a bit blurry around the edges. The others were talking and laughing, and Reeva was still hopping, and then there were doors—no,gates.There were people.

“We’re here,” Grey told me, forcing me to blink my eyes and clear my view. Forcing me out of this cold that my mind was stuck in because Valentinedidn’t make it.And that seemed just too absurd to me. I couldn’t—couldn’twrap my head around it, and I was trying.

But now we were in the Evernight castle, and when I focused hard enough, I saw the magnitude of it the way I never had before. I saw the towers and the large stone blocks, and it looked so much lighter in colorthan it had before. I saw the guards and the windows and the grass—I saw the dragons flying over us incircles. I saw the brides right there by the open doors to the main entrance of the castle, one I’d never been to before.

I saw the three Evernight brothers, Romin in the middle, Emil to his left, and Tristian to the right.

Tristian—with wings on his back, smaller than Romin’s and Grey’s.

“Brother, you made it,” Romin said, confused. Half smiling as he took us in. “What happened? The land moved—was thatyou?”

“Yes, it was. It was us, all right,” Reeva said with a laugh. “And we require your hospitality now, Master Romin. If you’ll be so kind.”

“Of course, Reeva,” said Romin, looking her over, and then his eyes landed on my face.

To say he wasshockedto see me there was an understatement. “You’re alive.”

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