Chapter 29

“It’ssomeone you haven’t met before. She leaves her chambers very rarely,” Valentine said.

“Who?” I asked because I was pretty sure I’d met everyone who lived in the castle. All the brides had coffee or tea together at least once every day.

But Valentine said, “You’ll see. She lives in the south wing, so we’ll need to walk for a little bit.”

The curiosity inside me grew the size of a mountain within seconds.

Valentine took me down a maze of corridors and hallways and so many turns I lost count, but about five minutes later, we seemed to have reached the doors he was looking for.

“Quit stalling—who’s in there?” I asked. I had never been to this part of the castle before, but the dust here was much thicker, the paintings on the walls less shiny, and the lamps dimmer, too. Or maybe it was just me.

He tsk-ed me. “So impatient.” Pushing the doors in front of us open, he stepped to the side to let me through.

A lot more light was coming from the other side, but the air that filled my nostrils was…different. I couldn’t really put my finger on it, and I couldn’t even move for a second, either.

“Shall I carry you, Sunshine?” Valentine said.

I must have been stuck at the doorway longer than I realized.

“Thanks. I can walk by myself,” I muttered, and continued through.

“For now, yes.”

I threw him a look. “Are you planning to tie me to a chair or something?” I said this on purpose, just to tease him, and the way his eyes widened so suddenly as he came through behind me was totally worth it.

“I am now,” he said after a second. “And I’ll also be making sure you can’t walk without assistance.”

I laughed. “That was good, Mr. Evernight. Very good.”

“Yet you seem perfectly immune to it,” he said, almost in wonder.

I was tempted to tease him again, but I felt bad because he did try. “Don’t take it personally,” was all I said, and I focused on where we were going.

A large spiral stairway made entirely out of metal was in a middle of a round room, and it went up at least three floors that I could see.

“Genevieve lives up on the fifth,” said Valentine when he saw my reaction. The stairs were wide and beautifully engraved with large roses and thorns as big as my thumb. They reflected the light of the many lamps dotting the walls because there was nothing else in this room, just the incredibly high ceiling atop the stairway—five stories up. The walls were full of those lamps, and they reflected on the chrome of the stairway, making it look like it was underwater.

“Who’s Genevieve?” I asked when he took my hand in his and pulled me toward the stairs. They looked like glass from so close up. The way those lights reflected on the surface was masterful, and it was no doubt done on purpose.

“She’s the eldest living bride in the Whispering Woods—well, not a bride any longer, but she was one of many to my father,” said Valentine, and his voice was heavy. Almost like he was sad.

Up and up we went together, and I held his hand through every step, afraid I’d slip and fall and break my neck before I saw what this stairway led to.

“She gave birth to an heir, and once a bride does that, she’s considered sacred. About half don’t survive giving birth, but those who do become incredibly powerful, too,” he continued when we were almost at the top and I couldn’t even look down anymore without getting vertigo. So damn high.

I looked at Valentine. “Is she your mother?” He’d talked about his mother before, but I hadn’t asked him if she was alive then.

“No, my mother died a long time ago,” he said, and finally we were at the top of the stairs. “Genevieve is Grey’s mother, and she’s been wanting to meet you since you arrived.”

“Wow,” I breathed when I took in the room in front of me, so much of that chrome material on everything—window frames and tables and edges of furniture, and the ceiling was made out of it completely. It looked like daylight in here.

My God, the way the ceiling, basically a large mirror, selected the blue light of the lamps strategically placed all over the room made it look like the sky on a warm February day. A bit of blue and grey and white meshed together, and the way the lights twinkled when their reflection hit right gave it an even more natural feel.

“She designed it herself,” Valentine said. “Go ahead, Sunshine. I’ll wait for you by the stairs.”

I turned to him. His eyes looked almost blue. Fuck me, I thought, daylight looks good on him. “Aren’t you coming with?”

“No, she wants to see only you. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.”

“I can take care of myself,” I reminded him, though that was an absolute lie in this place.

Valentine knew it, too. That’s why he only chuckled before he turned for the stairs.

I walked ahead, mesmerized by my surroundings again, so curious already to see who it was that had designed this. The floor wasn’t exactly made out of wood. It wasn’t metal or marble or anything I could name, but it was grey and it was slightly reflective, too. It reflected the ceiling and it almost gave you the illusion that you were walking on clouds.

Again, wow…

“Does the sky still look like this out there?”

I stopped walking, turning to look around me, sure nobody else had been here with me two seconds ago. But I must have been more distracted than I’d realized because there was someone in the far-right corner by the window that reflected the ceiling, too. Everything here reflected everything, and I don’t know why I loved it so much.

The woman was sitting in the recliner, feet up, a book in her hand and a soft smile on her lips.

My God, she was beautiful. Her hair was silver and curly, and she’d pulled half of it behind her head, but the shorter curls framed her face perfectly. Her eyes were blue, too, a light blue, and her pale skin had wrinkled with such grace. Her lips were long and full, painted a blush-pink, and she wore pants. Not a dress—pants that reached her ankles and a white shawl around her shoulders, covering her grey shirt almost completely.

“Yes,” I said, nodding my head. “Yes, it does, actually. In February, it looks exactly like this.”

Her smile grew, and I felt like I’d accomplished the biggest mission in the world. “I’m glad. Please forgive me for having Valentine bring you up here like this. I just like to ask every new bride about the sky. I miss it terribly, and I want to make sure it hasn’t changed color.” Her voice was soft and sweet, just like the image of her.

“It hasn’t. It’s still blue,” I assured her, knowing she probably knew that the sky hadn’t changed color, obviously, but she wanted to know me. She was curious, I guessed. And I was curious about her, too.

“That is certainly good news,” she said and waved her hand to the side. By the time I looked, a small round table made out of that same reflective material had appeared right next to another recliner, the same color and the same size as the one she sat on.

“Care to join me for some tea, Fall?” She put the book down, and by the time she did, a kettle and two cups had appeared on the tabletop.

I don’t know why the hell I wanted to giggle like a little girl.

I’d seen magic—all the brides used it. They’d showed it to me so many times, but this was different. It was so…in sync with her —like she put her book down, and I saw it, but the book disappeared as if the tabletop had swallowed it slowly, gracefully, not flashy at all. Her magic had taste. It had finesse.

“Thank you,” I said and went to sit across from her. “I had no idea you even existed. The other brides never told me about you.”

She nodded. “As it should be. When you leave here today, I will ask you to never speak about me to the new bride next year, too. I prefer it that way.”

My brows raised. “Then I won’t.”

Genevieve smiled. “Thank you, Fall. Now tell me, how are you getting used to the Whispering Woods? To the Evernights? They can be a handful and I know you’ve had a rough start.”

“You do?” Could she really see outside those windows when they were that reflective?

“Yes, Valentine told me about Mamayka Sionne and how you came to offer yourself to the ritual. I’m terribly sorry about that,” she said.

Valentine told her—Grey’s mother, whom he obviously had no love for.

I gave her the best smile I could muster. “What else did Valentine tell you?”

“That he’s afraid you’ll find your way out of here somehow,” Genevieve said without missing a beat. “He thinks you’re stubborn enough to pull it off.”

Yes, I had stubbornness in spades, but that wasn’t going to get me out of this castle, unfortunately.

“Well, he shouldn’t worry. The first and last time I tried to walk out of this castle alone, a snake almost ate me.”

She nodded. “You don’t have your powers yet. Of course, snakes scare you,” she told me. “But when you’re strong enough to defend yourself against mere animals, you’ll understand who the real snakes are.”

“I understand that just fine.” Mama Si was one of them. “The Evernight brothers all seem very…cunning.” Grey was her son, so I didn’t say monstrous.

But Genevieve laughed a bit, and it was such a beautiful, heartfelt laugh. Maybe that’s why I liked her so much—she seemed so authentic. So natural. One hundred percent herself.

“Oh, we both know they’re more than that. Beasts wearing man’s skin. I should know—I gave birth to one of them myself,” Genevieve said, and she sounded a bit sad about it.

I swallowed hard. “Grey, yes. I’ve met him.”

“He is his father’s son,” she said with a nod. “I knew he was going to be challenged to a duel—and win—since he was about five years old. Vampires grow at a much higher speed. They’re basically teenagers at seven, and adults at fourteen. Their personalities develop so early.”

She looked down at the floor for a minute, shaking her head in wonder, while a million questions filled my head.

The most important one was, Grey had been challenged by his father?

“I can imagine it is scary for you, Fall. I only had one Evernight, and I loved him dearly with all my heart, but his nature still terrified me.”

“Thank you for saying that!” Laughter burst out of me. I had no idea how frustrated I’d been because of this. I felt like I was the crazy one among brides who adored the ground the Evernights walked on. They made me feel like I was insane because I couldn’t find it in me to believe that they were the angels they painted them to be.

Genevieve laughed again. “You’re very welcome. Rassin was a handful, I’ll tell you. Like I said, I loved him, and it was still too much most of the time.”

“But how?” I wondered, hoping my questions didn’t insult her. “How can you love someone like that? Someone who has a…dark side. A monstrous side.”

But she shrugged. “We all have a dark side. Theirs is just deadlier,” she said. “And I loved him because of how he treated me. How he made me feel. He respected me, gave me everything I asked for. He loved me, too.”

“I…” My voice trailed off—I didn’t want to say it.

“Oh, come on. Say it already—I’m an old woman. You’ll find it’s very hard to offend me.”

My cheeks flushed a bit. “How can a man love you but have children with four other women? Did it not bother you? The brides, they…” I shook my head. “They don’t mind. They couldn’t care less that they share a partner, but the thought of my partner being with someone else makes me want to break something.”

I didn’t understand how the others could be so okay with sharing—I couldn’t even think about it without my stomach turning, especially after I caught my boyfriend cheating that day that felt like years ago now.

She reached for the cup of tea on the table and took her time before she answered. “There were times when it bothered me, I’ll admit. Especially in the beginning, but it’s crucial to understand the way of Ennaris. It’s crucial to fully grasp the concept of the Evernights. Once your blood picks your partner, Fall, you will understand so much more. You will know exactly why it’s so important that the world is never without an Evernight, and the more of them there are, the better our chances.”

I narrowed my brows—she sounded genuinely afraid. “The better our chances for what?”

“You’ll know,” said Genevieve. “You’ll know in time.” Then she put her cup down again and reached for something in the pocket of her pants. “I want to give you something that’s reminding me of you, Fall. Look at this.” She leaned closer and opened her hand to show me a ring in the middle of her palm, a beautiful golden ring with a gorgeous purple gemstone in the middle, surrounded by tiny white ones.

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” I whispered, and it really was, especially the way that purple stone looked under all those reflections.

“It is. That’s an amethyst surrounded by small diamonds. It’s the stone of peace and clarity. I think the latter is what you need in bulk right now,” she said and offered it to me. “Take it. It’s yours.”

“It’s far too much. I can’t accept this.” It was a golden ring with precious gemstones—way too much for me.

“It isn’t, and you can. I want you to have it.” She reached for my hand on my lap, put the ring in my palm and closed my fingers around it. “Wear it—the amethyst will bring you the clarity you seek. Sometimes that comes in the form of options, more options. Sometimes it comes in the form of acceptance. We never quite know.”

I looked at the ring in my hand, shaking my head. “Thank you.” It was indeed gorgeous. I wouldn’t mind keeping it on me at all.

“Try it. Go ahead,” Genevieve said, and I did. It fit my middle finger like it was made for it. “And thank you for coming to see me, Fall. I was so curious ever since Grey and Valentine told me about you.”

My heart jumped. “It’s my pleasure,” I said with a nod, eyes on the ring still. “Out of curiosity, though, what exactly did they say about me?” I’d already asked about Valentine, but I wanted to know about Grey, too. So badly it scared me.

“Well, Valentine said that I was right about everything I told him of the sun and the sky out there in the world. It surprised me, to be honest.” She laughed and my cheeks flushed bright scarlet.

“Oh.” I grabbed my own tea from the table just to do something with my hands. Now I wished I hadn’t asked at all, but Genevieve kept going.

“Grey surprised me even more. He visits me so rarely, and he never says anything when he does, but that day you arrived, he said, I understand.”

I blinked at her. “Understand what?”

“His father,” Genevieve said. “He said he finally understood his father.”

I narrowed my brows. “That’s not about me, though.”

But Genevieve laughed again—so relieving to hear that sound. “Oh, but it is! It’s about you, all right.”

I didn’t get it. Not even a little bit, but I was afraid of what she’d tell me if I kept asking.

Out of all the brothers, Grey was the most…intense when it came to pretty much everything: how he carried himself, how he behaved, how others behaved toward him, how little he said, how he looked, how he looked at me. I was fascinated and curious and terrified of him all at once, and as much as I was dying to ask Genevieve all about who he was and how he thought and how he laughed, I couldn’t. She was his mother.

But I could ask a general question about all the brothers, I guessed. “Do you talk to them often?”

“Oh, I do. Like I said, Grey rarely comes here, but the others do. I think they like my chambers better than any other place in the palace because it’s a glimpse of the outside world.” She leaned closer. “Little do they know that this doesn’t even come close to what the actual sky looks like. Oh, how I miss it, Fall.” She brought her hands to her chest. “It can get tiring to live in isolation like this. How I miss the real sky.”

“It does look a lot like this, actually. I don’t know how you did it, but it really does.” Especially at first glance.

“Magic,” she told me with a wink. “Soon, you’ll have more than enough to keep yourself safe from pretty much everything around here.”

“I doubt that extends to the brothers.”

“But it does!” she said, voice pitched high like I caught her by surprise. “That’s the thing about the brides of the Evernights—they become more powerful than their masters with time. I could kill all five of them easily if I wished with the amount of magic I’ve gathered by being here for almost fifty years.”

Holy shit—how old was she? “That’s a really long time.”

“And a lot of magic,” she said with a nod. “I could even give you a good energy boost right now, but your body wouldn’t be able to handle it, unfortunately. Not before the Blood Call. But maybe when you’re strong enough you can build your own sunshine room. Should you decide to stay, of course.”

I smiled. “It doesn’t matter what I decide anymore, does it? There’s no way out of this place.”

She thought about it for a second. “To be honest, I’m of the mind that the toughest part of anything is convincing ourselves that we’re right and that we’re going to go for it. Because once we’ve done that, once we’ve planted that seed within ourselves, there is absolutely nothing and nobody that can stop it from growing as big as we wish,” she said. “Once we convince ourselves that something canbe done, impossible becomes just a word.”

It was a nice philosophy, but one I didn’t share, unfortunately. But before I could say so, she said, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, dear. This old lady is tired. I want to get some rest.”

Here I was, hoping I’d get to spend the whole night here with her.

“Of course,” I said anyway.

She thanked me again for coming to see her and reminded me to never talk to the other brides—or to new ones—about her.

Then, she watched me leave the reflection room with her ring on my finger and a million more questions in my head until I was at the bottom of the stairs and found Valentine by the door, waiting for me.