Page 85 of The Eighth Isle

My heart fell all the way to my heels. I looked at where Valentine was lying on his side on the ground, and Shadow was pushing himself to stand, too, holding onto Valentine’s hair with his small talons.

“I should have known!” Syra continued, still laughing. “I should have known that nobody can be trusted.”

I looked up at Grey—was he hearing what I was hearing?

“So, then what was the plan? You thought you could just barge in here and kill me? Really?” said Syra, not a hint of fear anywhere on her as she paraded naked in front of her sisters, ignoring us completely. Ignoring Valentine, too, who wasn’t moving at all.

Was he dead?

The thought terrified me just as much as when Syra laughed again.

“Well, yes. Pretty much,” said Mea, nodding. “We were hoping to make it quick, too.”

“We thought we had more time, to be honest,” said Andya as she stepped away from the tree line and onto the engraved stone plaque on the ground. “We prepared this grand spell for you, sister dearest.”

“But you were never the patient heart. Always in a rush, our Syra,” said Oreinne, shaking her head as she looked at Syra lovingly.

“Oh, I do apologize for ruining your latest plan to kill me,” Syra said, bringing both her hands to her chest. “Have pastevents not taught you anything, though? Each time you try to kill me, more of you die.”

“Doesn’t mean we’ll ever stop trying,” Raxae said with a shrug, completely unbothered, and all the sisters came out of the tree line together, spreading to the sides.

“You deserve to die for what you’ve done to Ennaris. The very land we were born to protect,” said Andya, and Grey pulled at my hand, telling me to move back with him.

Except…my eyes went back to Valentine, and I could have sworn that his hand was moving. Just a bit, but it was moving. Shadow was already testing his wings, recovering from whatever Syra had tried to do to me through him. Through the both of them.

Had she succeeded, though? I looked down atmybody, too—it had hurt. It had hurt a lot, her magic, but now I was fine. Shaken, and my limbs were weak, but I was gathering more strength by the minute.

Whatever Syra had tried to do, it must not have worked. There was no change and no blood dripping down between my legs. She hadn’t killed the baby—mybaby. I was still alive, and so was Grey.

“He’ll be okay,” he whispered in my ear as he pulled me back again. “Valentine will be okay, baby, but we need to get out while we can.”

And he was right, of course he was. Syra was a mad woman, a psychopath, and she was no longer even focused on us. She wasn’t our problem anymore—her sisters were here, and they were more equipped to handle her than we were, but…

Valentine was pushing himself to sit up, arms shaking, his head barely rising.

Somehow, in some fucked up way, these sirens claimed thathe’dplanned this. These sirens claimed thathe’dspoken to them, had called them here—even when just a few days ago hewas expressing his concern about them swimming around the Isle to Syra during breakfast.

Or had he been bluffing?

But then why had he signaled Syra tonight and hadn’t let us leave, hadn’thelpedus get out of this place for good, and disappear?

Impossible to know for sure what went on in Valentine Evernight’s head. Impossible to know just where his loyalties lay. But if there was a chance that he’d really arranged this, then how could we leave him behind?

“We have to take him with,” I told Grey, and he flinched because he knew that’s what I’d say. And he felt the same way—he would never forgive himself if he turned his back on Valentine now.

Because Syra would kill him. He wasn’t strong enough to protect himself from her, or any of the other sirens. He would die.

Grey suddenly put his hand around the back of my head and kissed my lips for just a second. “Then I’ll come back for him.”

My heart jumped. “No—” But he wouldn’t let me speak.

“Baby, there is no way in hell I’ll risk your life again right now. I take you up there with Storm, and I’ll come back for him.” Another kiss. “That’s non-negotiable.”

I screamed when talons wrapped around me for the second time that night and took me up in the air. Storm was beating his wings furiously, and Grey had spread his, too, flying right below my feet as we went higher and higher until I saw all of that plaque on the ground, all the symbols in Faeish that were half hidden away by vines and grass.

And then Syra moved.

She’d been talking to her sisters, and though their voices were in my ear, I hadn’t heard a word they said, too caught up on Grey and Valentine and surviving. But she moved both handsto the sky and magic spread around her with such ease and such speed it was impossible to see it coming.

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