Chapter 11

I playedthe violin the next day.

The sound came out all wrong and so poor compared to what Lenna had done on stage last night, but I was smiling ear to ear when I was done. It was music, music that I'd made, and that was enough. I could get better as soon as my hands remembered what it was like to play the one I played at school. I could get better in no time.

But on the fourth night, I ran all out of food to eat, and I needed to be full before training with Quinn. My muscles were already used to the way she made me move—which was a damn miracle and further proof that I was most definitely not the Fall I used to be. Definitely not human anymore. But I still needed to eat for energy, so I was forced out of my tower after three long days, and I had no choice but to go searching in the kitchen before dinner started and the brides went to the dining room. Not that I was afraid of them, but I didn't want to see them, didn't want to see how they openly judged me, how they blamed me when they'd all been there, had all seen what had happened that morning in the clearing.

Unfortunately, at that time of day, even though I made it to the kitchen without running into anyone, the kitchen was full. Two chefs and three helpers, all wearing white, not to mention Vinny and Aster were at the kitchen isle, sitting on stools with books in their hands.

Everyone stopped what they were doing when I went in with my basket, and they all hated me so much it was in the fucking air. It smelled heavenly in there—they were preparing for dinner, I assumed, and I was so hungry I wanted to get a little bit of everything, but I was also too proud.

So even though Aster and Vinny said that they'd be happy to bring a tray to my room for dinner, I said no because it was painfully obvious that they were lying through their teeth. They wouldn't be happy—they could hardly look me in the face. They most definitely didn't want to bring me food, and I was fine with it. I had a kitchen in the tower that I could use, and this time I got everything I could carry in that basket while the chefs and the helpers moved out of my way like they were afraid they'd be contaminated just for breathing the same air as me.

When I went back to the dining room with a full basket, I breathed easier—until I pulled the door open and I found Lucinda standing right there in the middle of the hallway, arms crossed and brows raised, waiting for me.

"How do you even survive locked up in that place? Have you lost your mind yet?" was her greeting.

"You scared me," I muttered, turning to leave as quickly as I could, get back to my tower before one of the Evernights found me out here.

I had no illusion that they didn't know when I walked out those doors or when I was in the woods every night. I had no illusion that they didn't know that I was training with Quinn, either. Of course, they knew—but I didn't care as long as they didn't get in my way.

Maybe they thought I was getting it out of my system. Maybe they thought I'd come around soon and submit to them the way they wanted me to. Whatever their reasoning, I'd take it as long as they left me alone, at least until I was capable of stopping them.

"Well, you scare me every day," Lucinda said as she came after me, her black dress flared from her hips pushing me to the side as she walked beside me. "What are you doing in there? Why won't you let anyone through? Are you sick? Are you?—"

"I'm fine, Lucinda. Really. I'm okay. I just don't want to see anyone, that's all."

"But why? What kind of a life is that?!" she insisted, following me even though I was rushing down the hallway to get to the third tower.

For me, it's a much better life than the one you live, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. Lucinda was always strange, and I didn't even think she hated me as much as the other brides did. I wouldn't go so far as to call her a friend, but we could be civil to one another. We could talk.

So, when we reached the main hall and found it empty, I stopped and turned to her for a moment.

"Grey is gone, Lucinda. I don't belong with any of the others. I don't want to spend time with any of the others, and the brides hate my guts, so they don't want to spend time with me," I said in a rush.

"Well, of course, they do. You got Master Grey banished. Amita and Cynthia are just now gathering themselves," she said.

"Romin banished Grey because he wanted to, even though he knew that Shadow was coming for me. You all know that. You saw that Storm only attacked Shadow to save my life—you were there," I said through gritted teeth, and Lucinda flinched like I'd assaulted her.

"Master Romin is a fair man," she muttered.

I was tempted to laugh. What the hell did I even expect?

"So, keep him. Have your fun with him. I'll be just fine alone in my tower." And I turned around to leave.

"They won't be letting you get away with this for long," Lucinda called, but she was already walking away.

"I know!" I called back.

"And be careful with what you eat! I hear the staff plans to spit on your food before they bring it to you!" she sang, then disappeared around the corner. I cringed so hard every hair on my body stood at attention.

Spit on my food? Seriously?

Muttering curse words under my breath, I pushed open the doors of the third tower, about to breathe a little easier when I felt the energy somewhere behind me, calling at me, as if it was poking me on the back.

I turned.

Valentine was standing near the farthest right corner, hands in his pockets as he leaned against the wall. Shadow was sitting on his shoulder, his long tail wrapped around his neck like an accessory, just like always.

My heart fell all the way to my heels and my muscles locked in place.

Valentine was right there, and he looked…bad.

His hair was longer than I remembered, and all over the place. His shirt was wrinkled, the bags under his eyes deeper than I'd ever seen them before, blue like they were bruises. They made his eyes look even darker in turn. They made him look fucking tortured.

For a moment there, I saw my whole life flashing by, and a part of me was a bit relieved. If Shadow came for me right now, I had no chance of stopping him. Grey wasn't here anymore. Storm was withering away in a cave somewhere, too. Nobody would be here to save me from the tiny dragon or his master. I would finally be free.

But Valentine didn't attack me. Instead, the look in those eyes said he was miserable, and he was miserable because of me.

He wanted to talk to me. He wanted to reach out his hand for me.

It made me sick to my stomach just to imagine it, sick enough to get my body moving again.

I slipped inside the door and slammed it shut as my heart about beat out of my ribcage. Whatever Valentine had planned to do by taking me to Faeries' Aerie or that morning in the clearing when he sent Shadow for my neck, I'd figure it out eventually. Just as soon as I was strong enough to handle him when he tried to kill me again.

Less than two hours later,I was out of the castle, thirty minutes early, my nerves getting the best of me. I'd put everything I'd taken in that basket in the kitchen, and I had more than enough food to last me at least for a week—eggs and milk and cheese and bread and meat, fruits and vegetables. It probably wouldn't be as tasty as what the chefs made on the daily here, but it was food, and I didn't need to leave the tower to get more for a week. That was more than good enough for me.

I made myself an egg and ham sandwich I'd been craving all day, then I went outside to wait for Quinn because I couldn't sit still in one place, not after seeing Valentine looking at me like that. Not after remembering what it had felt like when I'd actually considered him a friend, when I'd felt safe in his presence, when I'd missed him when he went away for two days.

God, I'd given up what I thought was my freedom for him. How naive of me. How silly of me to think that the likes of him would actually give up his life to set me free. I was glad I'd returned; otherwise, I'd have been dead for real now, but my own self still disappointed me.

"I just have to try harder," I said to myself now as I jogged in circles around the trees to get warmed up so that when Quinn showed up, I'd be ready to go.

That was it—I just had to try harder for longer, and I'd get the hang of it. I'd move the way Quinn did, fast and precise, capable of pushing back even a vampire, at lease for a little bit.

That thought spun in my head as I moved, but before ten minutes were over, I felt her.

Magic was near me, close enough that I was sure it was coming from the woods, not the town. The town was too far—I couldn't sense that distance yet. But in the woods, I could pick up the energy so much better by the night, and I had no doubt Quinn was coming.

So, I stopped running and I waited for her to find me.

I had no clue how far I'd gone from the spot where we trained, though. So lost in my head that the world had turned invisible to my eyes, and I'd just kept on moving, thinking I was going in circles.

Now that I was looking at my surroundings, I couldn't be too sure. Everything looked the same in this wood. The trees, the leaves, the branches, the darkness—it was all the same to my eyes.

And Quinn must have been playing games with me because I waited and waited, but she still didn't come to find me, and instead I felt her energy retreating somewhere south, farther away from me by the minute.

Or maybe she was testing me?

I grinned at myself—fine. If she wanted to see how far I could sense her, she was going to be surprised because I could tell even the speed with which she was walking, and she wasn't going to get away from me so easily.

Moving as silently as I could, I took off south, chasing the magic that I barely felt now—she must have gone quite far, and what I could only explain as the signal of her was disrupted several times from whatever radar was now inside me before I picked it up again. I walked and walked, careful about where I stepped, and I was actually surprised at myself, at how easy it was to see twigs and roots raised off the ground, to hear the squirrels and other animals running on the trees, the leaves whispering like they always did.

I must have walked for a good ten minutes again before the magic became strong enough to let me know Quinn was close. Maybe even within sight.

So, I stopped and I spun around slowly, and I waited for her to make a sound, to laugh or call my name, tease me for being too slow to find her.

She didn't.

Instead, within a second, the magical energy near me tripled.

The sensation took my breath away. Bringing both my hands to my open mouth, I forced myself not to make a single sound as the vibrations went throughout me—more than a poke on my back now. More than a nudge. So much more. It was like something was radiating raw energy from somewhere close by, and I was walking toward it even before I knew it.

The first thing I realized was that there was waterahead of me, and I could only see the way the surface of it reflected what little light it could catch from around itself.

The second thing I realized was that that signal, that magic was most definitely not coming from Quinn.

It was coming from the robed person standing at the edge of the wide lake that I saw more and more of the closer to the last trees I went.

But most importantly, it was coming from the siren that had come out of the water only up to her shoulders.

My body froze in place, and I had to hold onto a tree just to make sure I wouldn't fall on my face. I was far still, possibly over twenty feet, and I could barely make out the figures in the lake, which started just a few feet away from the tree line.

The lake wasn't big, just like I'd seen on Romin's tabletop map, and it was quiet, too quiet, surrounded by trees on all sides, so easy to miss if I hadn't felt the energy of that magic.

All that fucking magic.

I'd felt the same just a few nights ago around the sirens at the party, but it had been different then because we'd been surrounded by so many other kinds of magic as well. Here, I felt it with so much more clarity, and it freaked me out.

Muffled voices reached my ears and my heart jumped, my body moving on its own. I could have sworn I wasn't in control of my own legs because I was walking, going closer, hiding behind the trees as well as I could, and I didn't stop until I could hear that crystal clear voice better and understand the words it was saying.

"…must be proud of yourself, are you not? Three times now. You've failed three times."

Laughter.

My eyes closed and I bit my tongue until the urge to scream passed. I knew that voice. I'd heard it in my nightmares semi-regularly since Mama Si first brought me to the Whispering Woods.

It was Sedelis.

Then the other spoke, but their voice was too hushed, and I couldn't understand the words they were saying, couldn't even tell if they were a man or a woman. It must have been the hooded figure kneeling near the edge, and curiosity got the best of me instantly. I had no choice but to move to the side of the tree and take a look.

Right there. They were both right there.

"Yes, yes, yes—all very heartbreaking," Sedelis said. It was her, though I only saw half of her face through the silhouette of the hooded person. It was definitely her—and she sounded pissed off. "Spare me the theatrics. Tell the mistress that I've spoken to the red fairy. They're ready to march into the Woods at our call. All we need is for you to get there. That's it—only you need to do your fucking job."

My stomach twisted and turned a million times as the other person spoke again—and I was sixty percent sure it was a man—but he was much calmer than Sedelis. He was whispering while she couldn't care less how loud her voice, so I didn't catch a single word he said. His magic was perfectly invisible to my senses, too, compared to that of hers, and I couldn't focus harder for the life of me.

"I have, yes. I've uncovered the counter-spell for the Great White. Listen to it for I will only tell you once. Remember it because your life will depend on it," she said, and she wasn't just pissed off—she was irritated, too. "Tara een onya verdinis—to call for his awakening should you need it. Tara een yoris verdinis—to call for his surrender." The man said nothing. "Remember it, or else you're doomed."

I didn't even blink as I tried to take in as much detail as possible. Fuck, I wanted to see who that person was so badly, if he even was a man. But he refused to move even now as he whispered something to Sedelis, so low it was impossible to catch it.

If I went just a little closer, I could hear him. If I went just by the tree line behind which was the edge of the lake, I'd surely see his face, too.

I must have had a fucking death wish because I didn't think about the consequences of getting caught, about the fact that there was a siren in the water, the most powerful being in Ennaris, and she could kill me with a wave of her hand. Or pull me in that lake and drown me slowly…

No, I didn't think of that at all. I just wanted to see who that person she spoke to was, and I wanted to understand what the hell they were talking about, so I stepped to the side of the tree, about to get closer.

Then something moved behind me.

I turned with my heart in my throat, expecting fangs to come for my neck.

Instead, big brown eyes filled my vision, and Quinn said, "What the hell are you doing out here?!"

Every inch of my body was covered in goose bumps. I put my hand over her mouth automatically, thinking, this was it. They'd heard us. They were going to come for us and kill us both right here in the woods, and nobody would even know about it. They were going to fucking throw our bodies in the lake when they were done, and our bones would swim with the sirens for the rest of eternity—UGH!

I turned back again as my mind raced, sure I'd find that hooded person coming for me, but…

He was gone.

The lake was perfectly silent, the edge of it empty. No siren on the surface, and nobody kneeling close by. Nobody.

They were gone.

Moving back, I let go of Quinn's mouth and stepped a bit closer, searching the darkness as well as I could, sure that they were right there, but I just couldn't see them. Somehow, I was just missing them because they were right there. They had to be.

"Fall, what are you doing?"

I went closer to the tree line. Sedelis, or even that man or woman she'd been talking to, had probably heard Quinn by now, so what the hell did it matter? I went all the way to the tree line and stepped into the opening, the lake right there, the surface quiet, undisrupted. Empty.

"Are you seriously going to just ignore me right now? Hey—I'm talking to you!"

Quinn stepped in front of me, and she looked concerned.

She didn't need to be, though. Sedelis was gone, and her hooded friend had disappeared, too.

"Sorry," I muttered, taking another look around. "I just…I thought I saw someone."

She spun around slowly, too, looking at the lake and the trees to its sides. "Nope. Nobody's here. Why are you out of the castle so early? It's still not even ten."

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.

Had I imagined that whole scene? Had my isolation in the tower finally gotten to me? Had I made it all up?

But, no, I'd heard them. I'd heard Sedelis. Her voice was unmistakable, even if I hadn't seen her face, and her words echoed in my head even now. They echoed and filled me with a million questions. Who's the mistress? Who's the red fairy? Who's marching into the Woods and why?

What the hell is the Great White?!

"Fall."

Quinn's voice drew my focus to her face once more, and her hands were on my shoulders. "What's the matter with you? Are you sick or something? What's wrong?!"

No, I wasn't sick at all. "I'm fine," I muttered. "Let's just get to training."

Pushing her hands off me, I went back through the trees, not bothering to look at the lake again—why would I when they were gone? I wasn't going to find that person there, whoever he was, and I sure as hell wasn't about to go into the water to find Sedelis.

But her words, her voice, the feel of her out here in the air—of magic so raw and powerful—had my gut twisting and turning every few minutes. A bad feeling made my entire body heavy, and even though I had no clue what the hell was going on, my instincts said that it was big. My instincts said that it was really, really bad.

"Why were you out by the lake, anyway? That's pretty far from our training spot," said Quinn while we walked back.

"I thought you were here, testing me to see if I sensed you," I said absentmindedly.

"I was here," said Quinn, giving me a pointed look. "And I didn't feel or hear you at all."

The way she said it…

I arched my brow. "Is that an accusation?"

But Quinn shook her head. "Nope. Just strange, that's all. I didn't feel a single thing."

Meanwhile I'd felt the magic of the siren all the way from the lake.

Fuck.

Was it the magic in the Woods or the magic in me—or maybe Quinn was lying through her teeth? Maybe she wasn't half as good at detecting people as she claimed?

Possibilities—too many of them.

By the time we made it to our training spot, a headache had developed behind my eyes and I barely held my head up.

"Here. I got you this," said Quinn before we started moving, and she pulled something from the black hooded sweatshirt she had on most nights. It was a book with a soft-looking leather cover and a silver lock on the side.

"What is it?" I asked but reached for the book anyway, too curious for my own good.

"I paid a good coin for this, so you better make good use of it, Fall," she said. "Open it. It isn't locked."

So, I opened the cover.

Four words were written in black ink on the first page: The Basics of Magic.

"You're joking." I turned the pages, just a few of them, and they were full of that same handwriting, the notebook filled over halfway.

"Nope. It's directions on how to learn magic—in plain English. The best I could find. We don't have anything official as far as I could tell, but I did find this handwritten guide. It should serve to get you started, at least."

I closed the book and looked at her. "Why?" Why would she go to all that trouble to get me this?

Quinn shrugged. "You look so damn scared all the time. If you learn how to use your magic, I'm sure you'll be more…relaxed."

I flinched before I could control it. "I'm not scared all the time," I mumbled, but I was. And I thought I'd hidden it so well, but apparently, I hadn't. Apparently, Quinn had seen right through me.

That's why she rolled her eyes. "Just make good use of it, won't you? You've got the whole day. Unless you're engaging in…extra activities." And she wiggled her brows.

"What do you mean, extra activities?" I was genuinely confused for a moment, when…

"The brothers. The Evernights. Extra activities with them!" Quinn burst out laughing.

Bile rose up my throat—I was that disgusted. "Don't even joke about it," I muttered, putting the book on the ground near a tree trunk until we were done training. "And thank you for this. I'll pay you."

Quinn was still laughing. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're Grey's wife," she said, imitating my voice. "And one day I'll get you drunk enough to tell me why you refuse to get over a dead guy, but tonight's not that night. Let's get started."

My eyes closed. I forced myself to inhale deeply and stop the train wreck of thoughts in my head, and those words that had invaded my mind—dead guy, dead guy, dead guy…

"Fall."

I blinked and my focus fell on Quinn. It took every ounce of will in my body not to scream at her, not to let this heat that had built up in my chest out of me. Right now, I had no clue if it was just rage or if it was actual magic, but I held onto it and I forced myself to swallow hard.

It wasn't her fault. She didn't know Grey. She didn't know me.

And most importantly, she didn't know Grey and me together.

"Don't say that again," I said as calmly as I could, and Quinn must have realized her mistake because she flinched.

"I didn't mean anything by it," she said. And I knew that. I knew she didn't.

But that didn't mean I hated her any less in those moments. "Let's start training."