Chapter 34

Halfof me was sure that I’d slam face-first into the glass, but the other half kept me going because it was already used to the magic, had stopped being amazed and surprised at displays of it, at feeling it growing inside of my body. So, I kept moving, not even raising my hands to stop the impact, but it never came.

Instead, warmth suddenly fell on my skin, and light—so much light around me that I had to blink several times until my eyes began to adjust to the brightness. The salty smell of the sea was already in my nostrils, and something big—huge was right in front of me.

The rock. The giant rock in the middle of the Isle atop of which was the town of Faeries’ Aerie.

Small grey rocks under my feet. The waves crashed against them a few feet behind me, and the sun fell on the side of my face, the sky impossibly blue, just like the vast ocean underneath it.

It took me a good long moment to finally understand what the hell this meant and for the shock to take a step back.

My God, I’d made it. I’d walked into a fucking mirror, and I’d come all the way to another Isle.

I was in Faeries’ Aerie, far away from Grey and Romin and Valentine, the castle, the brides, the darkness of the Whispering Woods.

I turned around with my heart in my throat to find the mirror was right there, stuck between the rocks in the ground, the frame old, the paint of it chipped. It didn’t show my reflection, only the darkness and the infinite trees of the Whispering Woods from far away. I stepped closer to it—it was somehow five feet away, even though I could have sworn I only took a single step forward.

“Valentine?” I whispered, reaching out my fingers to touch the surface. Could he see me? Did the mirror show me to him?

Then the gemstone of my ring caught the light of the sun and reflected it in my eyes, like it was trying to wink at me, to get my attention.

I stopped when my fingers were less than an inch away from the mirror.

Freedom.

I’d gotten everything I’d been hoping for since I climbed on the boat with Mama Si that dreadful day—freedom. I was free, and I never had to go back to the Whispering Woods again. With this ring, I never had to go back!

Tears in my eyes. I turned around as the snickering sound I knew well filled my ears, to find Shadow flying in circles over my head as if he were calling for me.

Leaving the mirror behind, I followed his lead, eyes on the rock that I couldn’t see the tip of, wondering how the hell I was going to get off this place.

“Where are we going, Shadow?” I asked as the dragon led me to the left. Walking on those small rocks even with sneakers on was pretty difficult.

Rocks and more rocks and the sky and the open air—that’s all I saw. A miracle I hadn’t thrown up yet, especially with this heat. I was sweating within the minute, and I had no choice but to take off my leather jacket and leave it right there on the shore. The shawl would stay with me to cover my head just in case, until I figured out a way to get off this Isle and get back to the real world.

“Is there a boat somewhere around here?” I asked Shadow, as if I really thought he could give me an answer. “Is there—oh.”

Stairs. There were stairs carved out of rock where Shadow’s long tail was pointing. Stairs that went up and up and up—all the way to the top of the Aerie.

“Really? You want to me to climb those?” I asked Shadow, whose only response was that sound he made, like a reptile or a squirrel, or something in between.

“A boat would be nice, Shadow. A boat—not stairs.”

Except there was no boat here on this beach, just rocks for about twenty feet around the base of the cliff, which covered over ninety-nine percent of the Isle’s surface. I’d seen it from a distance the day Mama Si brought me here, and I’d seen it through the mirror in the castle and on the map engraved on Romin’s round table. The faeries lived atop the rock and deep inside it, and if I had any hope of finding the best way out of here, I had to ask around. I had to talk to other people. To faeries. To see them from closer up, see their wings and their hair and their faces.

Excitement shot throughout me, and before I knew it, I was walking up the stairs, holding onto any sharp edge I could find because they were incredibly steep. Some steps were missing, some half-ruined, and the farther up I went the more I was sure that I’d be falling back to the ground before I made it all the way up.

Shadow followed me, flying close by every step of the way, but he could do nothing if my foot slipped. He couldn’t carry my weight with that size, and I should have thought harder on that. I should have known my arms and legs would grow numb soon.

But by the time I realized my mistake, I was already halfway up the rock, and to try to descend those stairs again would be insane. Fear had my heart slamming in my chest, and it was a relief not to try to control it for once—not that I could in those moments.

“Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down,”I chanted to myself with every new step I took. I could hardly feel my fingers and my legs, but I moved because what other choice was there?

Then I began to hear the sound.

Shadow called to me with a screeching cry as if to tell me to hurry. As if to tell me that I was close to the surface. Close to the faeries—actual faeries.

The energy boost that sound gave me was incredible. Before I knew it, I gripped the edge of the sharp rock of the surface and pulled myself up with all my strength.

Safe.

Solid rock under me. I sat at the very edge of the cliff, trying to catch my breath, to calm my racing heart, to massage my numb hands. I was cut in several places and I hadn’t even felt it, but most was dry blood and the wounds had already closed. The Enchanted, as the brides told me, healed very, very quickly.

“I made it,” I kept whispering to myself, shocked at my own statement. I’d made it all the way up the half missing stairs of the side of this cliff, and I was somehow still alive.

My legs shook, but I forced myself to stand up anyway to take in my surroundings. Fuck, it felt like I was on top of the world. I saw everything from up here. The sky and the ocean in each other’s embrace. The Isles—Dragons’ Den with its large mountain in the middle to my right, and Sirens’ Lair in the distance to the left, but I could only see its silhouette.

Ahead of me, right in the middle of the other Isles, was the Whispering Woods.

My God, it was massive. I had seen so little from where Mama Si had stopped her boat that day. I’d seen but a small fraction of it, and now the stories about hunting and animals and mountains finally made sense. The Whispering Woods was bigger than all the other Isles, it seemed, and every inch of it was covered in darkness.

I’d been in that darkness until possibly just an hour ago, maybe a little more. I’d been in there, stuck, trapped, unable to see this gorgeous sky, to feel the warmth of this sun.

I turned toward the sound of people walking and talking and laughing, and I was shocked all over again. A big crowd was gathered maybe thirty feet away from me behind a row of smaller trees with big green leaves hanging on the healthy-looking branches. Brown wood. Trees that were alive—not the dead-looking ones of the Whispering Woods.

As if hypnotized by them, I went a bit closer, and I saw colors. So many bright, beautiful colors that I’d missed so much in that castle. Before the minute was over, I was in front of that tree line looking directly at them.

So many people—possibly hundreds, and not only faeries, but others without wings as well. A couple wore black robes and witch hats, and others had scales over their shoulders. People from the other Isles, just like Valentine said.

I stumbled forward, taking in everything that went on around me—the music, the faeries playing it here and there, some with flutes and some with instruments that kind of looked like violins and guitars but not quite, and another with a set of drums in front of him, slamming two round rocks against them in a perfect rhythm. They were all playing the same melody from different parts of this…Bazaar.

That’s what the bright blue ribbon attached to one of the wooden stands said—The Faerie Bazaar, and they sold everything here.

Pulling the shawl around my head tighter, I held onto it and went closer, but nobody was even looking my way. So many people coming and going from all sides that nobody cared about a woman coming up the edge of the cliff on her own, a woman who didn’t have wings. Their eyes skimmed my face as I passed by and entered the crowd, a smile already on my face. Fabrics, jewels, spices, big bowls full of shimmery dust in all colors, glassware and a tattoo parlor right there in the open, where a man with dark blue, half-ruined wings was tattooing on a woman’s arm with his nail. His long blue nail shaped like a claw that released blue ink as he moved it.

Flowers and perfumes, velvet paintings and small sculptures, toys—and even cages full of animals. They had birds with neon-colored feathers, and puppies with blue eyes, and something that looked like a cross between a cat and a rabbit with fluffy white fur that made me wonder if it would glow if I touched it.

The more I walked among these people, the more I saw, and the more I was mesmerized by the entire thing.

When the faeries tending their stands began to notice me, they started offering me whatever they were selling.

“The best fish in all the Isles!”

“You want to glow after your bath, don’t you? Well, this dust will bring out the colors in you!” a woman with pink wings and pink hair insisted as she offered me one of those bowls with orange shimmery dust in them.

“No, thank you, I have no money,” I kept saying as I moved away, elbowing my way through the crowd.

“Everything must be paid,” someone shouted.

“Taste it—it’s the sweetest faerie-bee honey you’ll ever try!” said another man, shoving a wooden spoon right in front of my face with his hand underneath as if to catch any drops.

“Oh!” I stopped walking. The man was huge, his hair white. Not blond—white, snow-white, and he was at least three heads taller than me, a skinny giant with big hands and silver wings on his back. There was something about the faces of faeries, something that made them a tiny bit different, but I couldn’t put my finger on it yet. They looked almost identical, but there was just something about them…

“Come on, out with your tongue. Taste it! My faerie-bees won’t take no for an answer!” he said with a throaty voice, and indeed the faerie-bees that were inside a large glass box in the middle of his stand buzzed in unison as if to agree.

Colorful. They were colorful bees, not yellow and black, but purple and red and orange and blue, and they were bigger, almost like wasps, but their wings were shaped differently, too.

I stuck out my tongue and licked the normal-looking honey off the man’s wooden spoon.

Holy sweetness—it was good!

“Wow,” I breathed, bringing my hands in front of my mouth, eyes wide as the man beamed.

“Told ya. Even dragons lay down their claws for this honey. It’s their favorite taste.” He grinned. “And you can get a full cup for just three silver coins.” And he reached behind me on the table to bring out a small white cup that must have been full of that honey goodness.

“Can I come back later? I’m kind of in a rush right now,” I said and slowly slipped into the crowd as he laughed his heart out, not offended in the least. He just shoved his wooden spoon in the mouth of the next passerby.

My God, the honey was so good I couldn’t stop licking my lips, hoping a little of it remained somewhere on my skin and I could taste it again.

“Faerie-fruit! The sweetest faerie-fruit in the Aerie—come, come!” sang a faerie woman with lime-green wings that were barely there and lime-green hair cut close to her head. She carried a big basket full of fruit that looked like apples, except they were a bit smaller, and they were a deep indigo, a color I’d never seen on a fruit before.

So many things to see, so many people around me. I passed by three witches holding wands in their hands as they went, frowns on their faces, muttering curse words under their breaths every time a faerie popped in front of them demanding they get whatever they were selling.

They were all real. Witches and fire elementals and people who wore fur over their shoulders even in the scorching heat of the sun. Skinwalkers, who used to shift into wolves. Actual werewolves, and I was here among them, all by myself?—

The thought occurred to me and I looked up, eyes searching for Shadow who stood out among even the darkness of the Whispering Woods.

Except he wasn’t there. He wasn’t flying in circles over me like he usually did, and I couldn’t see well enough through the moving crowd, but I couldn’t feel his eyes on me, either.

Shadow was no longer there. He’d left.

I was really, truly alone in a faerie bazaar, surrounded by stands and so many people, while the large trees that served them as homes were farther away. I barely made them out from here.

A long breath left me, and I looked down at my hand, at the amethyst of my ring. It looked so beautiful in the sunlight, twice as bright as it had in the castle. Invisible. It was going to make me invisible to magic, to the curse…or was it just a test?

Was this whole thing just a game to punish me or something?

What would be the point of it, anyway?

“Hello, dear.”

My heart stopped beating for a good second, and I was too stunned to even turn right away when the voice of the woman came from right behind me, way too close. In this place it was impossible to tell who was sneaking up on you with so many people on all sides at the same time, no matter how enhanced my senses now.

She was maybe five feet tall, and only the bottom half of her wings was on her back, a deep, bloody red in color. Her hair was a mixture of silver at the roots and dark red at the ends that fell just below her shoulders. She could have been Genevieve’s age if I had to guess. Her eyes were red, her skin flawless, her lips shimmering just slightly. She wore a long black dress that flared up from her hips down to her ankles, the fabric full of glitter of every color in existence.

“Oh—hi,” I said, stepping back to give myself some space.

“You look like you could use some guidance,” she said, looking me up and down like she was trying to see under my skin.

“No, no, I’m fine. I’m okay,” I said with the best smile I could muster.

The woman smiled wider. “Really, I don’t mind.”

I said in a rush, “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

No idea why.

Did I think she was going to attack me or something? Because she didn’t. She simply shrugged, and she didn’t look offended. “Very well, then.”

She turned around and went back to what I assumed was her stand—a simple wooden roof with a counter in the front, a window, a door to the side, and the words Emerald Stories painted on the wood in red. She slipped inside without another glance my way, and the fabric of her dress literally spit out glitter as it moved around her legs. There was glitter all over the rock and grass blades that led to her stand.

Emerald Stories. What the hell did she sell? There was nothing on the counter, nothing that I could see through the reflective glass of the window that shielded the inside from prying eyes. I moved toward it almost reluctantly until I caught my own reflection staring back at me.

The shawl was still around my head, covering half my hair, and my eyes were wide, green, my cheeks completely flushed.

I looked alive—no, no, even better—I looked free.

And the truth was that I could really use some guidance.

I watched my own lips stretching slowly in the reflection—I was free. There was no need to be afraid of these people. Nobody was going to hurt me. Nobody around here was hurting anyone that I could see. Nobody around here knew who I was.

And if a faerie was kind enough to offer me guidance, why wouldn’t I accept it? I had nothing to pay her with, but she hadn’t asked me for payment, had she? I could just ask her to show me which way I could find a boat. Which way I could leave the Isle.

So, I went right to the door, stepping over the glitter that had come off her dress, and I knocked.

“Come in!” she called almost right away, and I didn’t hesitate even though I had no clue what I’d find on the other side.

My legs stopped moving all on their own when I realized the inside was at least three times bigger than it looked from the outside. It was filled with shelves, and every shelf was filled with books.

So many books.

The smell alone grabbed me and put me back in Mama Si’s library at the Paradise. I remembered myself sitting on those floating shelves, reading—some of the best days of my life. Back then I’d been so naive, so ignorant to what really went on with the world, and I’d been happy. I thought I’d made the greatest discovery in the world. So damn happy.

It was okay, though. Today, my misery finally came to an end.

“You changed your mind.”

The woman was standing the middle of the library with her arms folded in front of her, smiling still.

“I did, yes. I’m sorry if I was rude. I was just—” I said, pointing my thumb toward the door that had fallen closed and cut off all the sound from the Bazaar. The window still showed the outside clearly, which meant the woman had seen me smiling at my reflection like an idiot before I came in here.

Oh, well. It didn’t matter now.

“It’s fine. You weren’t rude at all. Welcome to Emerald Stories,” she said, waving her hands to the sides. “I trust you haven’t been to the Aerie before.”

“No, this is my first time,” I said, taking in the books, slowly going deeper. “Wow, this place is amazing. So many books—and it looks so small from the outside!”

The woman laughed. “Thank you. It’s magic of my own making. Air is my friend. Together we make the best illusions.” And she waved her hand around, creating a small tornado around it that disappeared the next moment. Wow, indeed.

“That’s incredible. May I?” I asked, moving closer to the first shelf with a green lamp mounted on the side. Enough sunlight came through the windows that I saw plenty, but I couldn’t understand any of what was written on the spines.

“Of course. You’re a book lover. I can spot one from a mile away,” she said. “I’m Emerald.”

“I’m F—” I stopped talking when Valentine’s warning popped into my head. “I’m Doll.”

“Doll. What a strange name,” the woman said. “And which Isle is your home, Doll? You don’t look like anything in particular, and I can’t tell the brand of your magic yet.”

I swallowed hard as I turned to her.

Shit, I should have given this whole thing a better thinking. If only I’d known beforehand that I’d be visiting the Aerie, I’d have prepared a name and a story and a plan.

“Blood Burrow,” I said, hoping she couldn’t tell that my voice was slightly shaking. “But I don’t really have much magic to speak of.”

“You’re not the only one. We’ve only had enough power for the Bazaar the past two years since one of our offerings was chosen at the ritual,” she said. She was talking about Rachel, one of Romin’s brides who’d been offered by the Aerie two years ago.

“I remember,” I said with a nod. “This language—what is it? I don’t understand these symbols.”

“It’s Faeish, the language of our ancestors, what most of Ennaris spoke back in the olden days,” Emerald said. “Do you mind if I speak freely, Doll?”

I turned to her again, a bit surprised. “Go ahead.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “You look lost.”

My lips opened as I struggled to find something to say. “I’m not. I’ve just lost my way back, that’s all.”

“We can always find ways. It’s important not to lose ourselves, though. We are the most difficult to find,” she said, and her smile said she was sorry for me. Like she knew me, knew all that I’d been through.

I shook my head. “You offered me guidance out there. I don’t have anything to pay you with, but if you could point me in the direction of some boats that lead out of here?—”

“Because you lost your way back—yes,” she cut me off.

“Exactly.”

Suddenly, I felt very warm in the library. Pulling the shawl down over my shoulders casually, I moved back toward the door again.

“That ring on your finger,” she then said, her eyes never leaving mine.

I pulled my hands behind my back instantly. “What about my ring?”

“Keep it safe. Keep your hands fisted. Faeries are creatures of air,” she said. “And they also like to steal magical jewelry.”

Every hair on my body stood at attention. I forgot about the books completely.

“You know what, you’re probably busy so I’m just gonna let you get back to work. I’ll find my way around the Aerie—thank you!” And I turned for the door.

“Doll,” she said, and she sounded so much like Mama Si that I had no choice but to stop and turn to her again. “I offered you guidance. My offer still stands.”

Goddamn it, I didn’t want to stay here for a second longer. It felt like she already knew too much.

Except, if she told me where to find boats, I’d be out of here by sunset. For all I knew the Aerie was as vast as the Whispering Woods, and I wasn’t keen on spending hours walking around this place, trying to find a way to a goddamn boat.

“I don’t have anything to pay you with,” I reminded her. After all, this was a market. You give something to get something in return. Everything must be paid.

“Well, then you’re in luck because I’m in need of some help with my books downstairs.” And she pointed down at the hardwood floor. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. Magic won’t work on you with that ring on your finger, anyway.”

“How do you know what this ring is?”

She laughed. “I know magic, Doll. Everyone here knows magic.” And she winked at me.

Of course, they did—they were all Enchanted. I was possibly the only human here, even if not a hundred percent anymore. There was magic rushing in my veins. I felt it, even if I hadn’t put it to a test yet, but I was still just me. Just Fall.

“I was told this is undetectable,” I reluctantly said, pulling down the sleeve of my shirt to hide the ring, even though I’d turned the amethyst toward my palm. Genevieve had sounded so sure that her ring couldn’t be detected.

I doubted she’d lied—why would she lie to me?

But if she was mistaken about that part, what if the other wasn’t true, either? What if this ring didn’t really make me invisible to the curse?

“It should be for most. I merely asked you to be cautious,” Emerald said. “And as I said, I can help you, Doll, if you help me. Come, it’s this way to my actual library.”

“The actual library?” Because this looked like a real library to me.

“Yes, dear. This is merely the foyer.” While she walked, her strange, beautiful hair mesmerized me as it bounced around her head, but her dress didn’t spit out glitter anymore the way it had outside.

“Come, Doll. Let’s not waste daylight. This way!”

She disappeared behind the corner, leaving me to stare back at the window for a moment longer, at the outside world and the crowd of people coming and going in all directions.

A setof narrow stairs led us down a story, into the rock upon which Faeries’ Aerie was built. Gas lamps were mounted on the stone walls that Emerald turned on as she went, and then we walked through the wide doorway at the bottom of the stairs.

“Ignite,” she whispered to the room and waved her hands to the sides, and light sprung to life atop torches and candles and more gas lamps on the shelves.

Emerald giggled. “Just a little trick to impress ya—and don’t you worry about the flames catching on my books.” She turned to me and whispered, “They wouldn’t dare!”

With nothing to say, I just looked at the large room the light slowly revealed, with rows upon rows of shelves filled with books in every corner. It wasn’t the size of the one in the Paradise, but this library came very, very close.

“Wow,” I breathed as I followed her deeper inside, toward what looked like a large globe in front of a mirror, a perfectly square mirror in a golden frame taking up the only wall far to the left that wasn’t covered in shelves.

“This is my Storyteller,” Emerald proudly said, waving her hand toward the large ball, but it wasn’t a globe at all. There were engravings on the surface, but when I got closer, I realized it was made out of glass. What it was doing with the light that reflected on it from the candles and the mirror at its side was something magical on its own.

“And, as you can see, it needs a good cleaning.” Suddenly, Emerald shoved a small metal bucket half filled with warm water in my hands. “Here’s the rag. Get the left, and I’ll get the right. Scrub as hard as you can.”

Emerald turned around and went to the other side, and I was left staring at the little tendrils of steam coming out the bucket in my hands.

“Don’t you know how to clean, Doll?”

I looked up at her as she squeezed water off her rag, then began to wipe the glass in circular motions, revealing a much cleaner and shinier surface under what I could have sworn was a thin layer of frost.

“I do,” I said reluctantly. I’d cleaned after Missy and myself since I was about six years old. I’d been cleaning every single day until Mama Si. Cleaning was definitely something I knew how to do.

“So, get on it then!” Emerald dipped her rag in the bucket again, never even looking at me.

Taking in a deep breath, I moved to the other side of the giant ball that was resting on a wooden foundation about twenty inches off the ground. I put the bucket on the floor and started cleaning almost absentmindedly.

So strange. This whole thing—Emerald who was a red faerie, and this underground library so full of books, and this ball of glass—so fucking strange.

Wasn’t that just the story of my life?

The water in the bucket was warm, very warm, and it meltedthe frost off the glass of the ball so perfectly, so smoothly. I moved my hands in the same way Emerald did, in the same speed, to reveal more and more of that thick glass. Soon, I could see the small light burning in the middle, like a tiny lamp was on inside it, and it reflected an emerald-green beautifully.

The more surface I cleaned, the brighter the light became, and I could barely look away from it to rinse the rag in the water, which somehow never seemed to get colder.

For a while, that’s all I did—tried to see through that green light, to understand where it was coming from, in a comfortable silence.

“What’s a storyteller?” I asked Emerald eventually, when the magic of the large ball in the middle of her library started to let go of me slowly. I’d cleaned a good portion of my side already, and it had been so easy. My arms were a little tired, but it was so satisfying to watch that frost melt and disappeared under the steaming rag.

“It’s exactly that—a storyteller,” Emerald said from the other side. “It tells you all the stories these books contain in these pages.” I saw her silhouette through the glass on the other side of the ball because she’d almost cleaned all of her side, too, and she had her arms spread wide to indicate her library.

“Does it project them in images or something?” I wondered, looking with a new eye at all the books surrounding me. So many stories…

“Something like that. It depends on your eyes. It’s a different experience for everyone, for all eyes and all minds are different and see what they need to see, hear what they need to hear from any given story,” Emerald said. “No two people ever read the same story from the same book, if you know what I mean.”

I smiled. “Yes, I’ve heard that before. So, how does it work?”

“It’s fairly simple,” Emerald said as she moved her rag lower now, getting the last bit of the frost near the wooden foundation, and I did the same. I knelt down and squeezed the rag, my eyes never leaving the distorted image of her face through the glass and the green light. “When I open my shop for business, anyone can come in here, pick a book they’d like to know the story of, and I take them into the Storyteller.”

Well, fuck. Now I was really curious. “That sounds amazing.”

Emerald said nothing.

I went back to trying to figure out where that green light was coming from as I got the last of the frost off the glass, and I hadn’t even realized she’d moved until I heard her voice from my side.

“That is a job well done, Doll. You got all of it.”

I looked up to find Emerald with her fists against her waist, nodding at the shiny glass surface like she was proud.

“No bother. It was actually very satisfying.” Dropping the rag in the bucket, I stood up to look at the glass, too—wow. It had become so shiny on all sides and I hadn’t even realized it. It looked so much better from a few feet away.

“Thank you very much, kind one. I appreciate little the way I appreciate honest work,” Emerald said.

I offered her a smile. “I can help with anything else you might need.” The library was really big, and I could imagine it was tiring to take care of it all by herself.

But Emerald laughed. “Thank you, but I’ve already prepared everything else. I’m almost ready to open my doors.”

“Okay,” I said, taking another look around. Everything seemed in order, indeed. No dust, no mess, the books all neatly placed on the shelves…

“But first, I want to tell you a story,” Emerald said. “So, go ahead and pick one. Any of the books will do.” She waved a hand around at the shelves.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” She nodded. “I know you want to hear a story. Tell me, which will you choose?”

“Oh, no, I would rather not. I would rather find my way to the boats.” As much as I wanted to see a story in the Storyteller, all I had was one favor—and not that much time.

“And I will tell you exactly where they are after you’ve seen your story. Don’t be afraid, Doll. Pick one.” With a loving smile, she stepped to the side as if to give me space to move.

“I-I-I…” My voice trailed off.

Damn it, I really wanted to see the Storyteller. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to hear just one story?

“I don’t know Faeish, I’m afraid. No idea what these books are.”

“I can help with that,” Emerald said. “What kind of story would you prefer?”

I thought about it for a second, looking around the shelves, at the many spines. I had no clue what kind of a story I would prefer—I liked all of them. Romance and fantasy and mystery and action and…those based on true events, too.

My lips stretched into a smile as I looked at Emerald. There was one story I had been dying to know since I first woke up in the Whispering Woods and spoke to Valentine.

“The story of Ennaris.” Nobody at the castle had spoken to me about it—not the whole story. Valentine had told me some of the basics, but the rest, they all promised me I’d know after the Blood Call. Since I’d no longer be there for the Blood Call… “I’d love to know the story of Ennaris and the siren’s curse.”

“Of course, you do,” said Emerald, shaking her head with a smile. “I should have known. Wait here.”

She moved lightning fast to the other side of the library and began to search spines on a shelf, running her fingers over the books but never touching them. Her wings looked so strange on her back, half-torn—like part of a costume, not real. I turned to the green light inside the Storyteller glass ball again, wondering how it was going to show me the story. The actual story of Ennaris.

Fuck, I was so excited I could hardly wait.

“There.”

I jumped to the side, the scream catching in my throat. I could have sworn Emerald had been over there by the shelves, and now she was right next to me, showing me a book with a dark brown cover and no title on the front.

“You scared me,” I breathed, holding onto my chest as if to slow down my heartbeat.

“You were distracted by the Storyteller,” she said. “This one tells the most basic, general story of the Fall of Ennaris, how we became the Seven Isles. I think you’ll like it better than others.”

Fall of Ennaris. Those words never failed to send shivers down my back.

“You could fly, right?” I’d already asked Valentine about it once, but I guess wanted to hear it from an actual fairy, too. “Before, I mean. Before the Fall.”

“My ancestors could, yes. Our wings were whole then. Our control of the air element was strong. We weren’t tied to the Isle like we are now. We were free before Syra,” she said.

‘“Syra?” I didn’t think I’d heard that name before.

“Syra, the siren who ruined us.” There was a touch of sadness in her voice and a hint of anger in her strange red eyes. “You’ll see soon. Come, this way.”

With the book in hand, she waved for me to follow her around the glass ball, to the side she’d cleaned, to reveal a set of three steps at the very end, near the wall.

“So how does this work? How will I see the?—”

“Be patient, Doll. Take my hand.”

She offered me her hand, and I took it, too curious at this point to even wonder if I was walking into another trap, just like with Mama Si.

“Emerald, are we just going to walk into the glass?” I asked because there was no door on the surface of the ball, just those thin engravings I could barely make out now that the surface was shiny and clean.

“We are, Doll. Close your eyes—and trust me.”

I looked at her, stopping on the first step. Trust her. She wanted me to trust her.

“Go ahead—close them. I promise to show you a world unlike any you’ve ever seen before…”

Her whisper filled my head as if with magic. I must have lost my damned mind because I closed my eyes, and when she pulled me up the steps, I followed, knowing full well I’d slam face first onto glass.

I didn’t.

“Open your eyes.”

Green light in front of me, all around me. I was floating on air, my feet somehow not touching the ground anymore, though I could have sworn I was stepping on wood just a second ago.

Oh, my God, I thought, but no sound came out of me, as if I suddenly had no voice to speak with. No mouth and no lips and no body. I was light as air, and though I heard Emerald’s voice echoing in my head, I couldn’t see her, either. All I could see was that green light getting more intense by the second.

“Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Ennaris was a vast and beautiful land, untouched by time, separate from the rest of the Earth, home to all kinds of magical beings,” Emerald started. “The dragons lay their eggs in the caves of the Fire Mountain, and the faeries flew from their Aerie to spread their colors to those in need, and witches brewed potions and created charms for a better fortune, and Skinwalkers lived in harmony with their animal halves, and the succubi fed off and gave back to the people all the pleasure an Enchanted could need, and sirens lured pirates and fishermen into their borders and ate their flesh and harnessed their magic to give back to our beautiful land…”

The words began to fade away slowly, and the light in front of me was changing shape and color.

“Until Syra, one of the siren sisters, fell in love with the most notorious pirate of his time…”

Colors exploded in front of my eyes.

From that moment on, I didn’t hear Emerald’s voice anymore. The light that had been in the middle of the Storyteller was moving, shaping itself into images, and I saw everything like I was right there. I saw everything like I’d traveled back in time, like I’d been picked up from that library and thrown into a whole Ennaris, before the Seven Isles were created.

And the story went like this…