Chapter 30

Thirty

Shadow was still alive. He hadn't woken up yet—a lot of magic was put on him, according to Reeva, and it was going to take a while for his body to expel all of it, but physically speaking there was nothing wrong with him now. All his wounds had closed. He was fine—he just needed a bit more time, just like after the duel when Storm stomped him half to death. It had been physical then, and now it wasn't—but he just needed time and he was going to be back in the air in no time, I knew it.

Then he could tell us where Valentine was.

Still early, though—or that's what I told myself. It was only nine in the morning, so it hadn't even been twelve hours since Shadow came back. Since he fell unconscious. Since the witches put their spells on him.

"Not even twelve hours," I whispered to the blue sky. For the past hour, I'd been out here by the pool, staring at the dark clouds in the distance that seemed to get angrier by the minute.

No cloud was over the Paradise, though. It was Mama Si's magic, I was sure of it, because she only let it rain when she wanted, and that was usually at night or early in the morning when there were no parties in the yards. Those clouds wouldn't make it to us no matter how much I'd have appreciated some rain. Just so it could give me a distraction. Just so I could focus on it for a second, not on Shadow. Not on Valentine.

I'd slept for a few hours and that had been bliss. But then dawn came and my mind was racing even before I opened my eyes. Even Grey couldn't keep the dark thoughts at bay with his kisses and his hands. I was too distracted, too afraid, too impatient to see if Shadow had woken up, so I made him get out of bed not half an hour after I woke up.

But Shadow was still asleep.

"There she is!"

"Someone finally decided to come down here and say hi!"

"It's so good to see you, Fall!"

My heart almost beat right out of my chest when I heard the voices, and for a moment, my body froze in place and I was taken back in time. Back to the beginning, to when I was still just a normal twenty-year-old going through heartbreak, through a traumatic experience, without any clue about what really went on in the world.

Back to when I was just one of the girls at the Paradise—Mama Si's doll. A real-life princess by day, and an escort by night—or at least I thought I was supposed to be.

But, no, Mama Si had had other plans for me. She'd never expected me to be an escort for humans—but a bride for the Evernights.

Wasn't it funny that her plan had worked better than she had even dared to hope?

Now here I was, a bride of an Evernight indeed, looking back at the girls who were coming closer to me with smiles on their faces—Amber, Eve, and Peanut.

I had missed them so much, even though I hardly knew them, or maybe I missed the idea of what could have been my life if things were as simple as they'd seemed then.

When I made it to my feet, Amber basically attacked me with a bearhug. My feet were wet because I'd been sitting by the pool and had dipped them in the water, and we nearly fell in together. But then Eva and Peanut grabbed us, too, and we laughed, and they all talked at the same time, as if we had been the best of friends once and hadn't seen in each other in years.

"Oh, my God, Fall!" Amber said when we finally let go and they joined me to sit by the pool. "You've changed so much! You've become even hotter— how ?"

"Tell us the secret. Is it a new mask? Or a new laser treatment? Come on, spill it!" said Peanut.

"Just let her talk for a minute—why did you leave?" Eva said. "Where did you go? Mama Si wouldn't tell us anything."

I smiled. "I just…left the Paradise." The girls had no idea about what went on on the other side of the Paradise. They were human , as strange as it was for me to even think that.

Human. Like I used to be. Like most of the world was.

Like Annabelle, Brandon, and even Missy.

And I wondered, was she even alive? Did my grandmother even care about what happened to me, whether I'd died or not?

Would she even see me now if I ever went to visit her?

Not that I would.

"But why?" Eva insisted.

"You were happy here, weren't you? I know you were. We had a good time." Amber's eyes were wide and honest, and she had no clue about what really happened in the Burrow, either, even though Mama Si had used her to get me where she wanted me before. She'd used Amber to show me the fountain with the statues of the siren sisters, and the triangle room, and to kiss that glass so that I'd notice it was gone.

"We did, yes, but I couldn't do it," I told the girls, smiling at their curious eyes, at the way they looked at me. Like they were fascinated. Like I was a different Fall from the one they knew.

And I really was. A completely different person now. Grey's wife. Pregnant. Possibly the cause of the end of the world—or the magical world on Earth, at least.

"You couldn't do what—fuck hot strangers for money? That's, like, the dream! " said Peanut, giggling with her hands in front of her mouth like she was trying to hide her smile.

"It isn't necessarily sex," said Amber, waving her off. "Mama Si could have given you other jobs instead."

"I agree," said Eva. "Not everyone has the stomach for it, but Mama Si would have set you up nicely."

"She hasn't stopped talking about you at all—Fall Doll this, Fall Doll that, blah blah blah ," Amber said, imitating Mama Si with her hand gestures.

"Stop it—she'll hear you!" said Eva, turning to look behind us as if she expected Mama Si to appear out of thin air.

"It's fine," I reassured her. "And I had no idea she talked about me, to be honest." I thought for sure Mama Si would have killed me that day if Shadow hadn't bitten me and I hadn't been chosen.

"She did," Peanut said. "She would have given you another job. Just ask her, will you? Come back to us!"

"Yes, yes, come back!"

"It's still as amazing as when you left, and summer is already here!"

"We'll have so much fun. You'll see—the parties are wild."

They went on and on about what they did at night, all the pool parties and balls and masquerades and trips to the human world they had scheduled for this month. Just like in the old times, they were bickering and laughing and talking over one another, and I was right back to that first day I was invited to hang out with them by the heart-shaped pool, and life was so fucking simple. It had been so damn simple then and I hadn't realized it, and now my eyes were full of tears and I loved these girls to death.

They begged me again to just talk to Mama Si, assured me that she would do anything to have me back here, and then we could all enjoy the summer properly. Together.

A part of me wanted nothing more than to be that girl again, to live that life. To only worry about what to wear and how to look and which fucking lotion to put on my body for the day.

Such a beautiful life it had been, albeit only an illusion, and for the first time since I set foot in the Paradise, I was thankful to Mama Si for giving it to me. I would carry the time I spent here as one of the dolls with me forever.

"Go on, dolls. Go have your breakfast. Leave my Fall Doll alone, won't you?"

Mama Si's voice pierced right through me, and the girls jumped to their feet so fast it was almost funny. I turned to look at her—a white sundress on her tall, thin frame, her lips painted red.

"Of course, Mama Si."

"We were just catching up."

"We miss her, that's all," the girls said, and I loved them a little more for it.

I stood up, too, and smiled at them. "It was so good to see you, dolls. Say hi to the others for me, will you? I'll visit when I can."

They made me promise that I would, that if I continued to stay in the Paradise I wouldn't stick to the rooftops like a weirdo, Peanut whispered in my ear, but that I'd come down here and talk to them again. Hang out like in the old times.

Again, I said yes, and I would if we somehow survived this thing intact. I would definitely be coming back to the girls and sip colorful drinks through swirly straws near a pink heart-shaped pool.

After all, it had once been a dream of mine.

When they left, Mama Si remained. The sun fell on her face because Assa was not holding up an umbrella behind her like usual, so her eyes looked like miniature rainbows. I saw all the colors in them as clearly as I saw the sky.

"They do miss you," Mama Si said as she slowly came closer to me.

"I miss them, too," I said with a nod, then turned around and sat at the edge of the pool again, dipping my feet in the water. "Any news?"

"Still asleep," she said, making my stomach twist. "Reeva is thinking about charging him with some magical electricity to see if that does the trick."

If Reeva thought it would work, I had no doubt that she could make it happen. "What would it do to Shadow, though?" To force someone to awaken like that, it couldn't be anything good, could it? "Valentine didn't push it the last time he was like this."

"I'm not sure," Mama Si said, shaking her head. "Have you rested, doll? How are feeling? Are you nauseous, maybe?"

"No, I'm—" fine, I was going to say, but she didn't let me.

"I've been doing some reading yesterday—it seems nausea is one of the main symptoms in the beginning of the pregnancy. And also we should know how far along you are, and if the baby has a heartbeat yet. I want to set up a check-up?—"

" No. "

She didn't care. "Right here, in the Paradise. I'll have them bring over the equipment and everything, and Doctor Danielson seems to be the best in the country at the moment, so I'm thinking about flying?—"

"Mama Si— no ."

Again, she just continued. "—him down here next week. Maybe a Monday? Or maybe the weekend is better—what do you think?"

"Stop it," I told her, and she blinked her eyes like she was surprised to see me there. "Stop it, Mama Si. Don't you dare fly anyone here on my account. I don't need a checkup." I needed Shadow to wake up and to find Valentine right now. That's what I needed.

"But we need to know how far along you are," she said, like my words sounded completely ridiculous to her.

"We have much bigger things to deal with right now. I'm fine. I feel fine. We'll take care of the rest in due time," I said, and it was so strange to be talking to her like this. So fucking strange to see that hopeless look in her eyes.

I realized I wasn't the only one who had changed these past few months—she had, too. Mama Si was a completely different person.

"What did you do to her?"

The words left my lips before I could stop myself. It was just something that had always stuck with me about Mama Si, and I could never really make up my mind about it.

She was genuinely surprised. "What did I do to who ?"

"The girl who came before me," I said. "This year's offering for the ritual. The one who fell in love."

Mama Si flinched. "Oh. Nadia. " And the way she said that name, with so much hate…

"Did you…did you kill her, Mama Si?" My words were barely a whisper, but she heard.

And she burst out laughing.

It mesmerized me as much as it made me want to close my ears with my hands. That's because she wasn't trying to be seductive—if she were, she'd have hypnotized me with that sound alone.

"Oh, Fall Doll, I did something far worse than that," she told me, making my heart skip a beat. "No, I didn't kill Nadia. I just took her out there and wiped her mind of memories since the day she came into the Paradise. I wiped away the memory of the waiter she fell in love with, too. She didn't recognize him at all, and he didn't recognize her."

"You're fucking kidding me." Was she serious?

"Well, human minds are really easy to manipulate—when they're not in love. Compulsion only works if your heart belongs to you still, and so my magic would only work on her until she fell for a waiter—a waiter, Fall Doll. After all I did for her." She shook her head like she was disappointed. "I had to resort to witch potions to wipe her mind—she was that deeply in love with him."

"But that's…that's just cruel. That's evil." Maybe even worse than actually killing her.

"Eh, I gave them back," she said with a wave of her hand, looking away at the other side.

"Gave them back, what?"

"Each other, of course," she said, and she sounded a little pissed off about it, too. "After you were chosen, I found them and I arranged a meeting, planned a beautiful night for them to fall in love again." She shrugged. "They're getting married in September."

Her every word rang true.

I bit my tongue to keep from smiling.

"That's awfully generous of you." I was being sarcastic, but…

"Thank you! I am, am I not? I did all of it, planned it all to perfection. Gave them both good jobs and a nice apartment, paid for the best wedding they could have dreamed of. I did that— me!"

"After you tore them apart first, yes." The pointed look she gave me made it impossible to keep from smiling any longer.

"Well, she cost me months of preparation," she insisted.

"But you got me, though. So, your luck evened out."

She suddenly grinned mischievously. "That, it did. I'm thankful for you every day, Fall Doll." She reached out her gloved hand for my face, but I moved away on instinct—when she touched me, she used to release her magic on me, manipulate me without even trying. She manipulated my decisions since the first day I came here with that calming magic of hers, and my body hadn't forgotten.

But Mama Si didn't seem offended when she put her hand down on her lap, then continued to swing her feet forward and back in the water of the pool.

"You're different with me," I said, despite my better judgment. "The girls said you talked about me."

"Of course, I did. You are different," Mama Si said.

And I knew half of it was probably manipulation and she was going to sugarcoat things for me, but to this day I still wanted to figure this woman out. Even after everything, I still wanted to understand her somehow.

"Why, though? Why am I different to you? I'm not the first bride to be chosen by the Evernights." The first of Emil's brides—Zoe—was from the Burrow, too.

"Of course not. They've chosen many human offerings from me through the centuries—I frankly lost count after the twentieth." Right—because she'd been alive since Ennaris became the Seven Isles. "And there have been others who've… remained with me, in a way. None as much as you, though."

"But why?" Because I'd been naive and unlucky enough to fall in her lap at the right time?

"Because you're honest," Mama Si said with a shrug. "Because you're courageous. And most importantly, because once someone wins you over, you're loyal to a fault, Fall Doll. Even in the face of the end, a time when anyone at all would have caved, you choose to stick it out. You choose to fight. People don't do that anymore, you know. They don't fight. They just"—she thought about it for a second—"settle . "

"They do fight. Grey always fought. And Reeva, too," I muttered, as uncomfortable as ever when receiving a compliment, especially from someone like Mama Si.

"Of course, yes. Master Grey, who kept to himself and didn't get close to anyone, who never tried for anything different, who always stuck to the sidelines—until you. And Reeva, who gave up on living the moment she saw the end," Mama Si said, smiling sheepishly at me. "Which is not to say it's wrong. Most people do that—they need guaranteed hope to push through, whereas you…"

I pursed my lips. "I'm delusional enough to just go with it." Except it wasn't as noble as Mama Si thought. I simply went with it because I didn't care about myself, about dying.

Or, at least, I didn't care before Grey.

She laughed again. "Delusional enough to go after a mad dragon on a frozen mountain, yes," she said, laughing. "That was very inspiring, by the way. A breath of fresh air—and a miracle you didn't die."

I shook my head, smiling. "I had no choice." It was about Grey. I was going to die anyway, so I'd figured I might as well do something to try to find him first.

"We always have choices, Fall Doll."

"Not me." I'd had choices taken away from me more often than not.

"You could have chosen any of the brothers—or all. You could have chosen Master Valentine. I keep thinking, you know, if you'd chosen him, I don't think he'd have gone through with it."

My fault, my fault, my fault.

The words were like bees stinging me everywhere at once.

"Valentine doesn't love me in that way." He and I knew this perfectly well.

"Yes, but I do wonder if. If ," Mama Si whispered.

If I'd chosen Valentine. If I'd figured out what he was planning to do in the beginning.

If I'd chosen one of the others after Grey. If I'd just sucked it up and chosen power.

If I'd even chosen to side with Syra.

If, if, if…

"But I didn't. I chose Grey. I chose to keep my word to him. I chose to go after him," I said, more to myself than to her. "And I still choose to fight." Something told me that I always would, if only because I was stubborn. If only because I knew of no other way to go through life.

"That, you do," Mama Si said.

Something moved behind us, and my heart jumped so fast I almost broke my neck when I turned to find Assa by the doorway, her eyes on Mama Si.

"You need to come downstairs. The dragon is moving."

I had no idea how I made it to my feet, but I was running down the corridors with my breath held and my heart in my throat without really seeing anything.

Two minutes later I burst through the basement door to find Shadow in Grey's hands, his eyes wide open.

Finally.

Watching Shadow eat was so strange—he devoured a big piece of raw steak on the floor like it was nothing. The steak was easily twice the size of his body, but I could have sworn he ate it in ten bites, and he was barely standing on his hind legs, holding himself up by his arms that were also his wings.

I tried to hold back, not to bother him with questions yet, not to get him as panicked as I was, for a long time. I let him eat, and then he lay down on that pillow again, curled up on himself with his tail wrapped all around him. The others stayed away, and Reeva said it might be a better idea to let him rest for a little while longer, but that was as far as I had the patience to go.

So, I sat on the floor near him sometime in the afternoon, and I said, "Shadow, where is Valentine?"

He raised his little head and his eyes were wide open, black beads in which I almost saw my reflection when he didn't blink for a few seconds. And then he made that snickering sound from deep in his throat.

I leaned closer to the floor. "Where is he? Does Romin have him?"

Nothing. No sound, he just spread his wings halfway and looked at me.

"Fall," Grey warned, and I understood that he was a little worried—Shadow was sitting so still and watching me in a way that would have you thinking he was about to attack me. But he wasn't, he was only waiting.

"It's okay," I told him, never breaking eye contact with Shadow. "Do the sirens have him?"

His wings spread all the way and he couldn't even beat them fast enough to take himself in the air, but the screeching sound that was his roar made everyone in the room put their hands over their ears.

My heart fell all the way to my heels. The sirens most definitely had Valentine.

"Did they send you here for Fall?"

Grey was squatting right next to me, and I hadn't even noticed. Shadow looked at him, head twisting to the sides.

"Did they send you here for Fall on purpose?"

"Grey," I whispered, but he shook his head.

"It's a trap," he told me, eyes dark and hands fisted as he stared at Shadow.

"They have him. Shadow wouldn't lie," I said because that I knew that with all my heart.

"No, he wouldn't," Grey said. "But they let him go on purpose. To find you." And he turned to me. "They want you to go to them."

"Most probably," Mama Si said from the other side, watching Shadow curiously. "It could be the reason why they haven't come looking for you yet, Fall Doll." Her colorful eyes met mine over Shadow's head. "I don't doubt it for a second that they have Master Valentine."

At the mentioning of his name, Shadow roared again, and even I flinched.

"It's okay, Shadow," I said, offering him my hand, and he immediately leaned into me. I rubbed his chest with the backs of my fingers like Valentine always did. "It's fine. We're going to get him back, don't you worry."

He purred this time, trying out his wings once more, but they weren't fast enough yet. "Hush, it's fine. Stop trying—save your energy," I said. "I'll carry you. You don't?—"

"Fall." Grey's voice sent shivers down my back. "It's a trap. They want you to go to them—it's a trap."

"I know that," I whispered. "But they have Valentine." And I'd be damned if I could sit here and do nothing—even if I wanted to, which I didn't.

"They'll be prepared. If you go to them, they'll be prepared for you. You'll be in their territory," Mama Si said. "And I assume your plan is to rescue Master Valentine and get away in one piece, but the chances for that, Fall Doll, are less than five percent."

My stomach twisted and turned a million times. "What if we distract them?" I whispered. "What if we take them away like we did with Syra?" It had been her idea, after all. And it had worked.

"They'll see it coming because they're expecting it," Mama Si said with such certainty that it was impossible to doubt her words.

"So, what do you propose—we just leave him there?" I asked because that was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous to me, yet Mama Si said nothing, only lowered her eyes to Shadow, who was still testing his wings. I turned to Grey, who was lost in thought as he stared at his hands. "Grey, we're not going to leave him to die." I would never —could never. It was Valentine, and as much as that meant he shouldn't be trusted, to me it also meant that he was the reason why I was alive and had made it this far. He'd helped me—in his own twisted ways, but he had. He didn't deserve to die at the hands of the sirens.

"I'm thinking, baby," Grey whispered, then leaned his head closer to Shadow. "Is he being held in the Whispering Woods?"

He purred again, Shadow, his tail swinging to the sides fast. "That's a yes," I said, and Grey nodded.

"I know the Woods better than they do. They will be located close to the lake where they have access to water," he said, and it made perfect sense. The only lake in the woods was near the Evernight castle where I'd been myself not too long ago. Where I'd first seen Sedelis meeting with Valentine. "But they'll see us coming from all sides. We can't sneak up on them, especially since they're expecting us. If I know them—and I do—they will kill Valentine at the first sign of us, then capture us."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "There has to?—"

"Unless she surrenders," Mama Si cut me off, her eyes glazed over as she stared at Shadow but didn't really see him. "Unless Fall surrenders and gets close. Unless she doesn't give them a reason to rush—to chase her or kill Master Valentine."

"Yes," Reeva said as she kneeled between Mama Si and me, and she, too, was staring at nothing as she whispered. "Yes, it could work. And we could use Master Valentine and his Ruit instead of trying to make our spells work." Slowly her head turned to me. "We could do it there. All I'd need is to be connected to the both of you physically, and we could take the magic out. Put it in our storage vessel."

"Then it would be over," Mama Si said. "They'd have no choice but to retreat."

"They're sirens. They won't like being outmaneuvered, even if we do succeed," Grey said. "We need a backup plan."

"Storm," I said without having to even think about it. "Storm can stand down and wait, then grab us and take us away when we're done. When that magic is out of me." I turned to Reeva. "And we need to be able to protect it , too."

"We'll put a unbreakable chain spell on it," Reeva said. "It's the most powerful shield magic can create. In its original form, even sirens can't break through it." She flinched. " If we manage to cast it right, of course."

"We will," Amika said from where she was standing with the other two sisters behind us. "We will—we have the magic."

God, I wanted to believe her so badly, but Reeva didn't look very convinced.

"We can't beat them," Mama Si said. "The best we can hope for is to get away from them—which will be problematic for the rest of us."

"You're not coming," I told her.

"Don't be silly," she said, waving me off.

"I mean it—you don't have to be there."

"Fall Doll, that's not your decision to make," she said—with such ease, like it was a done deal already—and she turned to Grey. "We will need a way to escape the Whispering Woods quickly."

"The mirrors." We all turned to him. "The mirrors in the castle, which is the closest thing to the lake. You all will be able to go through them—and we should, too." He took my hand in his. "They're basically portals. We can use them to get back to the Burrow."

"Sounds good to me," Reeva said. "But here's the thing, though— then what?"

"We'll have made an enemy out of the sirens for good—and we can't kill them," Mama Si said, and each time someone spoke, Shadow turned to look at them. It was strange as hell still that we were all kneeling around him as he stood on that pillow, but none of us even thought about moving.

"The Seven Isles would starve without them," Reeva said. "Not to mention we couldn't if we tried."

"A weapon," Grey said, rubbing his fingers together as he thought about it. "Reeva, is it possible to create some kind of a weapon with the magic you take out of Fall—with Syra's magic?"

"Dangerous," Reeva whispered, eyes wide as she brought her hands to her chest.

"But necessary," Mama Si said. "It would keep the sirens down, under control. It would basically stop them from killing us."

" We are not my concern—the end of the Seven Isles is!" Reeva cried, making shivers break down my back. "How are we to stop the end if all we do is enrage the sirens even more?!"

"But if we simply let them, you think they'll stop?" Grey said. "They are potentially the only creatures in existence that can bring about the end and left on the loose to do as they please is not an option, either."

"I am not just going to sit here and let them kill Valentine," I told Reeva. "I won't do it. And right now, the sirens are power-hungry, and they want to kill me, and if they do, so be it, but?—"

"Never," Grey said from my side, and he said it matter-of-factly, like it just wasn't going to happen.

"I'm just saying," I continued. "Right now, they're not themselves with everything that has happened, but they settled once after Syra, didn't they? They'll settle again, but you have to give them a good reason to want to stand down. Think about it." I reached out my hand to Reeva and she took it absentmindedly. "If you can force them to stand down like Syra did once, the Seven Isles will be just fine."

"Unless we all die," the witch said.

Shadow purred deep in his throat, and his long tail reached out for my hand as if he were calling me.

"Well, then, if we do, my dear friend, the end of the Seven Isles won't mean much to us, will it?" Mama Si said, eyes glistening as her fake smile stretched her lips. "We win one way or the other."

"We lose, " Reeva insisted. "We will have left no home, no safe space for the future generations—there will be no future generations!"

"Then what do you propose, Reeva?" I asked again, and my voice shook. "Tell me, what do you propose? If you have a better idea, we all would love to hear it." I, for one, would jump at the opportunity if there was any way to ensure that none of us died, and the sirens were defeated.

Reeva blinked at me but for the longest moment, she said nothing. So, I continued.

"We either confront the sirens ourselves, fight them, try —or we sit here and wait for them to get tired and come searching for us instead. This power is in me. If we can't get it out, they won't stop." And she knew this—it's why she was here in the first place.

"So, really, when you think about it, we don't actually have a choice, any of us," Mama Si said. "They're not coming to my Burrow to destroy my Paradise. I would rather go to them."

"We can make it," Grey said after a minute. "If we're fast and precise, we can make it."

"We can," I said even if I didn't believe it. "I'll be the bait?—"

"No," he cut me off. "You will not be the bait."

"Grey, it's?—"

"Baby, they're not stupid. If you simply surrender to them, they'll know something's up. But if we make them believe that they caught you trying to save Valentine, they'll be much more at ease," he said.

"That's very good, Master Grey," Mama Si said. "I like the way you think—and you're very right. If they catch her, they'll be much more at ease, and it will be simpler for the rest of us to get close."

Well, when they put it like that… "Then we'll make it easy for them to catch me." That way they wouldn't expect the others at all.

"They'll catch both of us," Grey said. "It will give me a chance to get close, so that when the rest of you come forward, I'll be in a position to give you an opening." Meaning, he was going to attack the sirens.

That did not sit well with me at all. My heart skipped one too many beats, and Grey turned to look at me because he heard it. "We'll be just fine, baby. We're going to get that magic out of you today."

Today .

Shivers ran down my back.

"Then we will," said Reeva with a nod. "We have the storage vessel. We're as ready as we're going to be. And if we make it, if we survive and get out of the Woods, we can create whatever spell we need to keep the sirens under control until they settle." She stood up, and we all stood up with her as if she'd pulled all our strings. "We will be ready in an hour."

"I'll be damned," Mama Si said when Reeva turned to her sisters, and together they walked out of the room. "We actually managed to agree on this!" She laughed her heart out as she, too, made for the door. "I'll be ready in an hour as well, I suppose. Good times, good times!"

Shadow jumped off the pillow and on the floor, his wings faster now, but he was still having trouble flying. I leaned down to grab him in my hands. "Rest, Shadow. We're going to need you at your fullest if we're gonna get him back."

Grey suddenly leaned in to kiss my forehead, and I felt his frustration in that kiss clearly.

"I know you think this is dangerous," I started, but Grey didn't let me finish.

"It is , but it's also necessary. The longer that magic is in you, the more it could be damaging you and our boy." When he said those words together— our boy —my knees almost gave up on me. "Ultimately, that's the only thing that matters, and Valentine could be the only person who can undo what he did to you with Syra."

"Through Shadow," I said, putting down the little dragon on the pillow again so I could hug Grey. I needed his warmth right now as much as I needed to breathe. "He did it through Shadow."

"And he will undo it the same way," Grey said wrapping his arms around me when I fell on his chest.

"God, we should have talked to Reeva first before we let him go. We should have?—"

"Stop, baby. There's no point in beating ourselves up over this. We were navigating in the dark since the get-go. We did the best we could," he said, and he was absolutely right. Everything had been different in the beginning—we thought the sirens would be at the Burrow within a day.

"We'll be okay, right?" We had to—the alternative was just incomprehensible.

"Of course we will," Grey said, and once again, he sounded so sure I had to believe him. "And then we can decide where we want to settle—how's that? I'll take you to every Isle, to every country in the world if you want to, and you can choose any of them."

I smiled so big my cheeks hurt. "That sounds like a dream."

Grey kissed the breath out of me, squeezing me to his chest. "And I promise to make it come true."