Chapter 21

Twenty-One

Magic, warm and intense, came at us, and though Grey tried to get away, he couldn't. The energy slammed onto us, grabbed us as if with invisible hands, and threw us against the ground the next second.

I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I knew that the sirens meant no good. Whatever they were thinking, we needed to keep away from them at all costs.

The fall didn't really hurt that I could tell—we hadn't made it very far up. I jumped to my feet, the view around me spinning still. Grey was beside me, too, and Storm was roaring, flying over our heads.

"Sneaky, sneaky, Syra," Raxae was saying as she slowly came toward me.

I thought she was going to attack me again, and my magic responded. It vibrated as it slipped from my chest and down my arms, ready to explode—but then Valentine stepped in front of me.

"That's far enough," he told Raxae.

I looked at Grey, who closed his hand around mine. He raised his other one up, and Storm stopped roaring the same second. He flew closer to us, too.

"On my mark," Grey whispered, his eyes focused ahead on the sirens, and I nodded.

"Step aside, Valentine. We have unfinished business to tend to, apparently," said Andya.

"We had a deal," said Valentine, and Grey slowly moved behind me, his hands firmly on my waist. Storm was right there, wings beating, talons ready to grab me. Grey planned to throw me at him, I thought, and I had no problem with that.

"Yes, yes, we know," said Fessa.

"Yet you seem to need the reminder," Valentine insisted, arms at his sides, hands fisted tightly. Shadow was on his shoulder with his wings spread, ready to take flight at his call. "I give you Syra at her weakest, and Fall walks away when you kill her. That was the deal."

"We remember the deal, Valentine," said Raxae, her voice getting darker by the second, and she took another step forward. "But the circumstances have changed."

"Changed, how? You killed Syra," Valentine spit, and he moved forward, too. "I gave her to you, called you even sooner than I said I would. Fall walks away now." Another step. "She walks. Away ."

"Get ready," Grey said in my ear, and I braced myself.

"Valentine," I whispered because he had to come with us, too. But if he heard me, he didn't even turn his head.

"Don't you realize what's happened here?" Oreinne said, coming closer to Raxae, her eyes on Valentine. "She's given herself to the human!"

Raxae nodded. "And as long as her magic exists in the world, Syra will never be truly dead."

My stomach twisted into a thousand knots. Grey's hands around my waist tightened.

"She's in there," she continued. "And we need to kill it, if we're going to kill Syra for good. There is no other way."

And the sisters said: "It won't hurt, I'm sure."

"Better now than later."

"We will not leave a single threat against Ennaris unattended."

" Never again!" they sang in unison.

Bile rose up my throat.

Valentine turned his head toward us for just a second and exchanged a look with Grey.

"Jump!" Grey shouted, and Valentine moved forward at the same time.

I jumped, but only on instinct because I had no hopes of controlling my body right now. I jumped as I watched Valentine raise his hands and unleash his magic on the sirens, and Shadow was flying toward them fast, too. He went right through the side of Andya's neck, making a bloody mess of her, and she fell to the ground on her knees, choking on her own blood.

I jumped and Grey pushed me with twice as much strength, and then talons wrapped around my arms in a familiar way. Storm was carrying me with a heart-stopping roar, but my eyes remained down there on the ground, on the siren sisters that were fighting Valentine and Grey as they tried to get to me, tried to attack me with their magic.

Each time they did, Grey would fly in front of me and catch it.

That's when I realized that he wasn't coming with me. That's when I realized that Valentine wasn't running, either. They'd just taken me away, and they were planning to stay and fight.

Then Storm took us so high up in the sky that I no longer even saw them from the darkness.

" No, no, no, no!" I shouted at the top of my voice. "Put me down, Storm! Put me down right now!"

Except Storm didn't take orders from me, so all he did was fly us even higher up until it was a struggle to breathe. Until the air was so thin, I became lightheaded.

Even so, I was crying, shaking with frustration, slamming my fists onto Storm's talons as if I had any hopes of hurting him. As if I could make him let go of me, get me back to the Eighth Isle—which I couldn't even make out in the dark of the ocean anymore because the moon was hiding all the way behind those dark clouds. She was hiding and taking all the light with her, and I couldn't see Grey. I couldn't see Valentine. I couldn't see what the hell the sirens were doing to them at all.

I screamed.

I screamed loud and hard for as long as I had the energy because I couldn't say the words that spun way too fast in my mind.

What the hell had Syra done to me?

God, the face of her, the look in her eyes, the way they'd bled… What the hell did you do?!

We flew for a long time.

Eventually my eyes began to close, and my mind began to shut down because there was too much going on and not enough sense left.

It could have been my imagination, but through the corner of my eye I thought I saw the sun rising somewhere in the distance, just a tiny bit of light. And with that light I could make out a shape below me, close to the ocean's surface—a winged shape, and another below it.

Grey, flying and holding Valentine's limp body by the arms.

I passed out.

The sun was on my face, bright and warm and blinding. I must have blinked a thousand times before I was able to make anything out. I couldn't really feel my body, but I could tell that my left leg was wet.

Not just wet, but in water.

Something close to me moved—something big, and it finally blocked the sun from falling on my face directly, giving me some shade. Giving me the chance to see where I was, what I was lying on that was sticking to my back.

Rocks. Lots and lots of small rocks underneath me, and Storm was standing not ten feet away from me, his talons in the water, too. He'd dropped me on a beach, and someone else was moving on my other side, too.

Birds sang somewhere in the distance, and waves rushed to the shore close by, the sound of it like a lullaby trying to drag me under again. I resisted.

I blinked and blinked but my body was so weak I found I couldn't even pull my leg up. All I could do was focus on those shapes and try to make sense of what was going on, where I was, and which beach Storm had brought me to.

I saw.

White walls hiding pink towers. A door that opened just as my eyes fell on it, and someone came out in a rush, someone I knew well. Someone I'd seen before, plenty of times, albeit never like this .

Mama Si wasn't wearing her famous dresses, skintight and rich in color and revealing, nor did she have one of those hats on her head. Even her hair was straight, just a few waves here and there, and I realized I'd never seen her without her hair in curls. Without her bold lipsticks.

Yet she still looked as beautiful as ever—maybe even more so than before.

Am I dreaming? I wondered.

It could very well be.

Mama Si was looking right at me when she stopped in front of someone else—someone else I knew perfectly well. Valentine, bloody and dirty and with his clothes torn, and behind him Grey on all fours, barely three feet away from me.

His head was up, but he was shaking and I could tell he was about to collapse. My heart jumped and I wanted to get up and run to him with all my strength, but it was impossible. I couldn't move—I couldn't make a single sound.

Then Mama Si was there, leaning over me, no smile on her face, her colorful eyes darker than I remembered.

"You'll be okay, Fall Doll," she whispered, touching my cheek with her fingertips. "You will be just fine."

She released her magic in me, and though my instinct was to panic, it didn't let me. It calmed my racing heart within seconds instead. My eyes were so heavy that they closed on their own, and in my mind I saw Syra, and I demanded over and over again that she tell me what she'd done to me.

But Syra only smiled at me from wherever she was.

She smiled and spit out blood and she said, don't be good.

Unconsciousness took me again.