Chapter 36

I was not okay.

All of that—what the hell was that?!—was still replaying in my mind so fucking vividly, and all that I felt was going to drive me insane.

All that pain. All that rage…

“I picked this book because this author does the best job at describing the feelings. She focused a bit more on Syra than the other books about the Fall of Ennaris. I thought you might appreciate it,” Emerald said.

She’d squatted in front of me because I was still sitting on the floor, trying to get my head together, and she was looking at that book like she was in love with it.

“My Storyteller can only reveal to you what the author of the book has already written, and the better the job they do in describing the emotions of their characters, the more authentic they’ll feel to you. Perhaps it was a bit too much for you, now that I think about it,” she then said with a small smile. “Perhaps I just wanted to make sure that you really didn’t know the story of Syra—something each and every Enchanted in the Seven Isles has heard of at least a dozen times a year.”

My stomach fell, my mind wiped clean instantly.

The way Emerald was suddenly looking at me…

“So, you see, I can put two and two together. You’re not really an Enchanted, but you have magic in you, which I feel, and that only leaves me with one option,” she said, and she finally stood up, offering me her hand.

I took it reluctantly, half of me hoping that she hadn’t really figured anything out. Half of me cursing myself in my head for revealing to her that I didn’t know the stupid story. Fuck. I should have known better. I should have known that not knowing this story wasn’t a normal thing for an Enchanted.

“Here’s a question for you, Doll,” Emerald said, holding her book to her chest as she watched me curiously, those red eyes like they were filled with blood. “How did you manage to leave the castle, I wonder?”

Oh, God… “What castle?” I choked, suddenly mortified. Suddenly terrified.

“Don’t play dumb with me,” she said. “I am not going to tell on you or hurt you. I’m just curious—how did you manage to escape the Evernight brothers?”

One of them brought me here himself, I wanted to say, but I swallowed hard. “I just want to go home.”

That was all I wanted—to go home.

But like a fool I’d stayed here, and I’d gone in that glass ball and seen all of that story, and now my chest was aching with all that pain. Whoever the author of that book was, they’d really outdone themselves because I still felt all the fucking pain exactly like Syra had felt it.

“Of course. That’s something I understand,” Emerald said. “Rumor had it that Mamayka had tricked her offering into the ritual, but I didn’t really believe it. She might be a seductress, but she’s always played fair before.”

I shook my head. “If you tell someone, I’m dead.” And just as I said the words, I realized they were true. If someone found out, they were going to kill me.

Because I’d seen that story. I knew the story of how Ennaris came to be the Seven Isles—but most importantly, I now knew exactly how important it was to continue the bloodline of Hansil Knight.

“I won’t,” Emerald said calmly as she went to put the book back in its place.

“Why?” I asked despite my better judgment. If I were smart, I’d be running out of here already, but the problem was that I was still in shock. The problem was that I had no clue where the hell to go from here.

Emerald turned to me. “Because it’s not any of my business. What would I gain from it, really?”

“My capture,” I whispered. “My death.” She knew the story. She knew what would happen if the Evernight brothers didn’t have children. Not that I was the only one who could bear one, but more brides meant more chances, didn’t it? Even if none of them had gotten pregnant yet.

“I have nothing to gain from your death, Doll,” she told me as she approached. “Not the way you gain from his.”

“I—wait, what?” Did she said you gain from his?

“His death,” Emerald said with a nod, like I was supposed to know what she meant.

I shook my head. “Whose death?!”

“His death—the brother who chose you!” she said, half-smiling, half-confused. “Once he’s dead, you’ll be free. None of the others will be able to find you out there again. Of course, you might want to change your appearance, and maybe your name…”

My mouth opened and closed, but I had no clue what to say.

“Don’t you understand—you don’t have to be afraid at all!” Emerald continued, mistaking my silence. “Once you leave and the brother who chose you gets banished, you’ll be free forever.”

And shouldn’t that have been music to my fucking ears?

Instead, my eyes closed and my heart hammered in my chest harder by the second. No, no, no, no…

“Where did you find the ring, though? I doubt you made it yourself—you were only human until recently.” Emerald stood in front of me, smiling genuinely, her eyes sparkling.

It took me a little while to gather myself and speak again.

“Emerald, what do you mean by that? Can you explain to me why…how?” I was about ready to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until all the answers came out of her lips.

“You don’t know?” she said a beat later, red eyes wide. She wasn’t smiling anymore.

“No, I really don’t.”

“The Evernight brother,” she whispered. “The one who chose you in the ritual. You haven’t gone through the Blood Call yet, so you are his responsibility.”

I shook my head. “How do you know that, though? How do you know I haven’t gone through the Blood Call?” And how the hell did she know about the ring?!

“You wouldn’t have been able to leave the Whispering Woods after,” Emerald said.

I flinched—of course. The Blood Call would have tied me to that Isle forever.

“So, what happens if I leave?” I choked, even though I already knew the answer. I just needed her to spell it out for me again.

“The Evernight will get banished, which is the only way to get a vampire out of the Whispering Woods without breaking the spell. And we all know what happens to vampires when they leave their Isle,” Emerald said reluctantly.

“They die.” Those words sounded so strange on my tongue, but I knew them to be true. Valentine had talked about it. The brides had talked about it. I’d seen Grey with my own eyes—if they so much as went close to shore, the magic of the curse would kill them.

“Precisely. So you never have to worry because they can’t find you without him.” Emerald’s fingers were under my chin, and she raised my head until I looked into her eyes again. “Who gave you that ring, Doll?”

Genevieve.

Because Valentine had asked her to.

My eyes squeezed shut tightly and I barely breathed. I moved back to the stairs through which we’d come down here, and I sat on the first just to catch my breath, just to try to calm down a bit.

Valentine had brought me here knowing I had the ring to leave. Knowing I would leave. Knowing he’d be banished from his home and die when I did.

And he’d still brought me here.

“I truly am sorry, dear,” Emerald was saying, squatting in front of me again. “I had no idea you didn’t know.” But he did. Valentine knew. He fucking knew he would die if I left, and he brought me here with this fucking ring. “I honestly thought you’d be happy about it.”

Happy, she said.

Of course, I wouldn’t be happy! How the hell was I supposed to live my life knowing he’d die when I left? How was I going to live knowing Valentine no longer existed anywhere in the world because of me?

My heart ached. My stomach kept on turning. Every inch of my limbs had turned numb.

A deep sigh left Emerald’s lips. “Come, Doll. I’ll guide you, just like I promised. Follow me.”

She stood up and turned toward a shelf somewhere to the right. I watched her, my mind so chaotic it felt blank at the same time. She pushed a couple of books down on one of the shelves, and the wood suddenly moved. With a weak groan, the shelf slid against the floor and pushed back with a click, revealing a corridor on the other side.

Emerald turned to me before she stepped through. “This way.”

My body moved on its own as if I was being pulled by invisible strings as I followed. All the while I tried to tell myself that Valentine knew what he was doing. He would never kill himself just to let me leave—he knew what he was doing. He wouldn’t sacrifice himself like that…would he?

Shit, shit, shit, I chanted under my breath as I followed Emerald down the dark corridor, not entirely sure I cared where she was taking me at that point. It could be a trap—she could be taking me straight to the Whispering Woods again, and I had no clue why that thought appealed to me. It fucking appealed to me when I’d gone through all of this to get out. To be free. When I’d suffered every day locked up in that tower and had mourned my freedom.

Now, I found I didn’t mind it one bit if I just went back.

Easier. Simpler. So much less guilt.

And Valentine would remain alive.

I only saw glimpses of where we were going—a kitchen with red cabinets and a hallway with a painting of a pink winged fairy on the wall; two sets of double doors and another library, this one much smaller. Then we were in a wider space, though still underground, but the corridor that looked like a tunnel was so much bigger, the ceiling higher, and other faeries werethere, going about their business all around us.

“Keep going, Doll. Just keep going,” Emerald said when she found me staring at the maze of corridors we were in with my mouth wide open.

We walked for a good few minutes, and fairies watched me suspiciously every step of the way. I pulled my shawl around my head tighter. Not that it helped, but I focused on Emerald’s torn wings as I went, and I tried not to let my thoughts get the best of me.

I failed.

“Here we are,” Emerald said after turning corners and finally stopping in front of a dark doorway carved into the grey rock, as if to remind me that we were under the Aerie’s surface still.

“What’s that?” I whispered, unsure of anything anymore with images in front of my eyes that made little sense and feelings in my chest that weren’t even mine—as well as the guilt that was trying to squash me under.

“Come,” said Emerald, taking my hand in hers as she pulled me forward. “We’re in the first of nine levels of the Aerie’s Cliff, and this room here leads upstairs to the surface…” She was pointing at an opening on the ceiling in the small round room, with a ladder made out of rope hanging on the edge. I could barely make out the sky outside it. The sun was already setting.

“And this little rabbit hole will lead you to the human world on the other side.” Half the hole she pointed at now was on the floor, the other half on the wall, and it was as dark as the sky of the Whispering Woods inside it. “It’s a long slide, and I’ve never actually been myself, but it’s supposed to take you all the way to a place…I forget the name,” she muttered, rubbing her fingers together as she searched her memories. “Georgia, I think. Georgia—is there such a place?”

“There is,” I choked. Georgia—a country in the real world. A real place where I could have my freedom.

“Well, then, just jump in. The magic won’t stop you,” Emerald said. “And like I said—don’t be afraid. The Evernights will never be able to find you again.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “You’re safe!”

She was smiling so lovingly at me that I was instantly reminded of Mama Si.

She’d seemed so genuine to me, too, once. She’d said the right words, had smiled the right smiles. She’d told me everything I wanted to hear, too.

A second of silence passed as I tried to pick an instinct to stick to.

“Go ahead then. Off you go. Home, where you belong,” said Emerald with a wave of her hand.

My eyes were stuck on that hole on the side of the room, then the one on the ceiling, showing a deep grey sky over us that was getting darker by the minute.

This was everything I’d wanted. This was everything I’d prayed for—a way back home.

So, what the hell was I doing, thinking about guilt and Valentine and fucking Grey?

Why wasn’t I moving yet?

Move, Fall!

“Thank you, Emerald,” I whispered, moving toward the dark hole that looked like a monster about to swallow me whole. “I appreciate your help, even if I don’t know why you’re doing it.”

She shrugged. “You really look desperate, Doll. Maybe you should try on a smile every once in a while.”

I shook my head. “Do you mind giving me a second?”

Her brows shot up. “Of course, yes. I need to get back to work, anyway. I open with nightfall.”

“And I’m just going to take a second to stop shaking before I go. That okay?”

“Of course. But if someone asks you, be sure not to mention my name,” she whispered and winked at me.

“Promise,” I said as she slowly retreated down the tunnel outside the doorway.

“Farewell, sweet Doll. May you find happiness where you’re going,” she told me, waving her hand, that same smile on her face.

The words got stuck in my throat and I couldn’t even say goodbye to her one more time. The best I could do was watch her until she disappeared.

Then I sat on the ground and listened to the footsteps from the maze of tunnels while faeries went about their business, and I tried not to throw up.

I couldn’t fucking move.

My arms were wrapped tightly around my knees, back against the smooth stone wall. I was all alone in the dark, and I still couldn’t move from the floor. The sun had set what could have been an hour ago, and the dark sky outside didn’t have enough stars to illuminate this hole I was in, but who cared? Light was not what I needed.

A pair of balls to choose myself for once and do what I wanted to do, what was convenient for me, on the other hand, would have been nice.

Still, I couldn’t do it.

To leave this place behind knowing what would happen to Valentine? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk away and let him die, no matter how I’d been brought here. And maybe he had a plan to save himself—he probably did—but I needed to know first. I needed to see it for myself. I needed to talk to him, maybe even convince him to join me. Would this ring on my finger extend its magic to Valentine, too? Was there a way to take him with out there in the human world?

And if I could…what about Grey?

Laughter burst out of me, and the sound bouncing off the stone walls startled me. I couldn’t even believe the thoughts in my head—what about Grey, Fall? WHAT ABOUT GREY?!

Eventually, the laughter died, and I was so sick of the thoughts in my head. So fucking sick that my body was physically exhausted by them.

But I had no choice other than to accept the simple truth—I couldn’t leave, not right now. Not without knowing with certainty that my escape wouldn’t cost Valentine his life.

Once I accepted that, I got up on my numb legs, eyeing the hole in the ceiling that Emerald said led to the surface of the cliff. It could save me time, but I had no idea in which part of the town this would take me, and I also wanted to see that fairy again. I needed her to know that I hadn’t left so that when I came back here, she’d bring me to this rabbit hole once more. She’d been kind enough to do it the first time, and if I was honest with her, I was sure she’d agree to bring me here again.

My focus had been shit on my way here with Emerald, but by some miracle my legs knew the way back to that door that had led us out into these corridors. Faeries of all sizes and colors—some were barely three feet tall, and they didn’t look like children—watched me, but nobody stopped me.

Then I knocked and knocked on Emerald’s door, but she didn’t answer. I knocked some more and called her name, but nobody came to let me in. She was probably busy in her library, tending to customers who’d come to see stories in her Storyteller. She wasn’t going to hear me even if I knocked a thousand more times.

But before I found someone else down here to tell me how to get to the Bazaar on the top of the cliff, I tried the handle just in case.

It gave. The door was open.

No time to think. I just walked inside like I owned the damn place.

Small library. Hallway with the pretty painting. Living room. Red kitchen.

I passed by them in a blur, until I found the same shelf that had opened like a door into Emerald’s library.

My heart was about to beat right out of my chest. I was going back—back to the Faerie Bazaar, and down those steep, half-ruined stairs on the side of the cliff, and to the mirror I’d left behind on the shore. I knew the way and I’d get there in less than a couple hours. I could be back in the castle before midnight, find Valentine, and talk to him tonight, then return to the Aerie by tomorrow.

I was so consumed by my own thoughts that I almost missed the voices coming from Emerald’s library when I pushed the shelf door open.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, and I stopped in the doorway to give Emerald a second to finish speaking to her customers. I shouldn’t have barged in here like this. I should have stopped and knocked first, and I was going to do just that to announce my presence, but…

Then I heard the words.

“Are you certain it was her?” said a male voice, low and rough, and it was coming from farther into the room, to the other side of the Storyteller ball.

“Of course, I am,” said Emerald—her voice crystal clear, ringing in my ears.

“It was her. You’re absolutely, one hundred percent certain?” said another man, and my heart sank.

Every inch of my body rose in goose bumps and the fist I’d raised to knock on the wood of the shelf froze halfway. Instinct took over and I strained my ears to hear better, barely breathing.

Emerald said something, but the whisper was too low, so I didn’t catch it.

Without even realizing it, I moved farther into the library slowly, on my tiptoes so I didn’t make a single sound.

“…the hair and the eyes—and most importantly, the ring. She had the ring on her finger. It was her.”

My eyes closed. I took in a deep breath slowly, trying to shut down the voice inside my head that insisted Emerald was talking about me.

“Very well. I’ll believe it,” said the same man. “The new bride is no longer in the Isles. She’s gone.”

Yep. Definitely me.

My eyes popped open. I wanted to see their faces so badly, so I moved. Just slightly, I moved deeper into the room to see around the corner of the shelf better, and I saw.

Emerald was standing next to the Storyteller, her back turned to me, her hair, silver and red, her wings torn, impossible to mistake for somebody else’s. And in front of her were two men, one wearing fur on his shoulders, the other a plain black fabric with a round silver brooch over his heart. Neither were faeries that I could tell—ordinary dark hair on both of them, and there were no wings on their backs.

“She is, indeed,” said Emerald. I could hear the smile in her voice just fine. “We’ve been blessed, gentlemen. It has finally begun. The Evernights will never see it coming.”

Oh, my God…

My hand closed around my mouth.

“I hope we’re all prepared for what comes next,” said the guy with the grey and brown fur on his shoulders.

“I pray so,” said the other with a nod, and when he raised his head again, so suddenly, his eyes found mine.

Stuck.

I couldn’t fucking move, too shocked still to step behind the corner and keep myself shielded in time.

Now it was too late.

“What the…” the man whispered, terrified at the sight of me, and Emerald turned.

Her red eyes zeroed in on me.

Whatever spell the shock had put on me broke. I turned around and I ran back where I came from as fast as my legs could carry me.

“Stop!” the men and Emerald called after me, and they were coming.

My God, they were all running after me through the rooms and the hallways and the library at the end. I didn’t dare turn to look at them, to see how close they really were. Were they faster than me? Could the guy with the fur actually shift into a wolf and catch me between his jaws?

What the hell were they going to do to me if they caught me?

Run, run, run! I chanted in my mind as they called for me to stop again and again. I’d never run faster in my life.

Down the maze of corridors and past faeries who looked at me like they were afraid of me now, I made it all the way back to that hole in the wall, the one that led to the human world, as well as up to the surface of the cliff.

I wasn’t thinking, could hardly breathe, and my shirt stuck to my back uncomfortably, but Emerald and the other men were coming, and there was no time to rest. I climbed the ladder like a monster was right behind me, and I breathed in the open air what felt like a blink later.

The Bazaar. I was still in the Bazaar, though in a different part of it—and the others were coming up the rope ladder after me, screaming their guts out.

No time to appreciate the pretty lights and the glitter and how beautiful the Bazaar looked under the night sky. No time to breathe in the scents or to marvel over the half-moon decorating the dark sky that I hadn’t seen in such a long time. All I knew how to do was run, try not to slam onto the people I passed by too hard, and make it all the way to the edge. To those stairs.

I’ll make it even if it kills me, I told myself, even though everything looked the same and I had no clue if I was even moving in the right direction.

By some miracle, what felt like hours later, I heard the voice of the faerie-bee guy.

“The sweetest faerie-bee honey you’ll ever try!”

I could have fucking cried.

While the tall, skinny fairy shoved his spoon full of honey in people’s mouths, I ran and ran in his direction, clinging to the sound of his voice like it was my lifeline.

And I made it. I somehow made it back to the way I’d come here, and I slammed against the trunk of one of those trees that shielded the edge of the cliff from the Bazaar.

Emerald’s scream filled my ears: “Stop right this second! Stop running!”

I didn’t even turn to look at her, afraid I’d freeze if I realized she was close enough to catch me.

Like that, I made it through the trees and to the steep stairs at the edge of the cliff.

In this darkness, they were going to be the death of me for sure before I reached the mirror. Even so, I didn’t hesitate.

Throwing the shawl away so I could breathe easier, I began to climb down the stairs.

It was very dark out there, but still not as dark as in the Whispering Woods. And I kept forgetting that my eyes were enhanced now. I saw so much better under the moonlight and it wasn’t half as difficult to climb down those stairs as I thought it would be—or maybe the fact that I could see those men and Emerald coming after me helped in keeping me moving.

I slipped. I gripped the edges of rocks and almost fell way too many times to count, but my mind was sharp and my body responded. Whatever these people were planning, I had to tell the Evernights. They had to know. Emerald and those men had wanted to get rid of me for whatever reason, and I wouldn’t leave, not until I told the brothers what I’d heard.

“Stop it, you fool!”

I jumped when I was still ten feet off the ground, no longer patient enough to keep climbing. I landed on the rocks on my side with my arms around my head, still breathing.

Everything hurt but not enough to stop me from moving. I was on my feet again and I started running right away, the anticipation of finding that mirror again giving me a boost of energy and sending me forward. My jacket was still where I’d left it when I first came here, so I was definitely moving in the right direction.

Emerald and the men were still after me, still shouting at me to stop.

The mirror was right there, as dark as the last time, waiting for me, half buried in the rocks of the beach.

I made it.

“Stop it—what are you doing?! Are you mad?!”

Finally, I stopped in front of the mirror and had enough courage to turn and see Emerald yelling at me, those men coming right behind her.

I knew there was something about her. That sweet smile and those sweet words were too sweet. Fake—just like Mama Si’s had been.

“You could be free!” Emerald shouted, slowing down now that she knew I was as good as gone, the mirror right in front of me, my hands on the frame. I shook my head—she’d played her part well. Whatever the hell she was planning, she’d really played her part well.

“Don’t do it. Don’t go back. You can go home! You can be free again! Don’t?—”

I heard enough.

With my breath held I stepped forward, straight into the mirror, and back to the Whispering Woods again.