Chapter 17

The soundof the doors closing behind me echoed in my head.

I was still shaking, but when Romin finally took us into his office, closed the doors with a wave of a hand, and produced his precious wine on the table with another, it got worse.

The reality of the situation dawned on me all of a sudden.

Valentine was gone. Romin had banished him.

And now I was all alone with him in his office again.

"You certainly have my attention, Fall. Come. Sit down." His wings folded and disappeared on his back, right in front of my eyes, and then he sat at the head of his table and waved for me to sit near him. "Let's have some wine and perhaps you can tell me why the moment you come to my Isle, two of my brothers get banished within a month. Please—do me the honor." And again, he waved at the chair and the glass of wine he'd summoned with his magic for me, while he slowly sipped on his own.

I sat, only because I doubted I'd be able to stand for much longer. My body was so, so weak.

"Tell me, then," Romin said. "Tell me—and drink your damn wine."

"No, thank you." My mouth was so fucking dry.

Valentine is gone.

My God, what the hell is happening here?!

"Why not?" Romin said, and his voice was strained, like he was trying to keep himself calm, to keep his tone down.

"Because I haven't eaten in a day."

I figured that would get him off my back, but then he waved that fucking hand again.

"Let me see what they have in the kitchen, then. I told you I would be at your service, didn't I?"

Before the minute was over, magic was fading away from the air, and I had four different dishes in front of me on the table. Meat and salads and vegetables and rice and perfectly sliced pieces of bread.

As if on cue, my stomach growled, and Romin heard it.

"There. Now eat. And talk—what did you mean out there in the garden?"

I looked up at him, trying to decide whether it was a good idea to eat right now.

On the one hand, there was a good chance I would throw it all back up again if I did. On the other, there was an even better chance that I'd pass out soon if I didn't.

"Exactly what I said," I whispered, reaching for the smallest slice of bread in the basket. "Valentine has been trying to get you to banish him since he first tried to kill me."

I thought for sure he'd laugh in my face exactly like he'd done when I came to warn him about Genevieve. And Romin thought about it. He thought about laughing and mocking me and calling me a damn liar, but in the end, he decided he wanted to hear more.

So, he leaned back in his chair and sipped his wine, his unblinking eyes on me as I slowly chewed on the bread.

"Explain," he ordered.

And I did.

"He took me to Faeries' Aerie through the mirror in the mirror room that night of the Blood Call. He told me that the ring Genevieve had given me would make me undetectable to the curse, and I'd be able to slip out unnoticed. Needless to say, he lied."

"Yes, I've heard that before," he said, irritated already.

"I am not done," I said because if he kept interrupting me, I wasn't going to get to the end of it. I'd fucking lose it before I did.

Romin raised his brows, but I didn't give him the chance to speak again. If he had something to say to me, he would have to wait until the end of my story.

"While in the Aerie, I found out that if I did leave, it would be his responsibility, and he'd get banished for it. At that point I had no idea that the ring didn't really work. I just thought he was sacrificing himself for me—so I returned. That is the first time Valentine tried to get banished." I'd just been too naive to see it then. "The second time was when he challenged Grey, knowing he'd lose. He hoped Grey would demand you banish him when he won, but Grey didn't. He let them both stay." Because I'd wanted him to. Because I'd begged him to not go to that challenge at all.

My fault-my fault-my fault—the thought got so loud so suddenly in my head that I had to stop and take a breath.

"So, he sent Shadow after me, pretending he was going to attack me, knowing Storm would see it. Knowing Grey would see it. Knowing you would see it, too, and banish him right then and there." I looked up at his wide dark eyes. "But you banished Grey instead." Because he was a goddamn coward.

With a sigh, I shook my head, smiling bitterly. "And I have no idea what the hell he did this time around to get you to actually do it, but whatever it was, Romin, he planned it. He planned all of it."

"Nonsense," he said through gritted teeth, his knuckles white with how tightly he was holding his glass.

"He was smiling as the sky pulled him up—or did you miss that, too?!" I said, my voice rising with each word. "He was smiling, Romin. What the hell does that tell you?!"

Romin didn't speak for a long, long time. It gave me the chance to eat that entire piece of bread and then a piece of meat, too. Just a little so I didn't pass out, but not so much that I would throw it back up.

It's okay, I kept whispering to myself, needing to get that food in my system. It's okay, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it all out. It's fine.

Except it wasn't—and Romin knew it, too.

"He stole from me," he said reluctantly, then closed his eyes.

"He didn't steal from you," I said, my mouth still half full. And I was still trying to process my own words, too.

"Are you calling me a liar, Fall?" he demanded, leaning closer to the table again. "He stole from me. I caught him. I have proof. I've found all the paperwork. He was fucking stealing from me, from his own home, and paying common swindlers to build himself weapons—weapons, and for what?!"

I moved farther back on my seat with each new word he spoke. His voice turned low, almost robotic, and I could feel the energy coming off him, the raw magic his skin let out, I'm sure involuntarily. He put the glass on the table, too, because he knew he'd break it if he kept tightening his grip around it for a second longer.

"I found it. I have the proof. He was going behind my back. That is one of the six crimes punishable by instant banishment," he ended, visibly trying to calm himself down now.

But I was about to piss him off again.

"You found proof because he wanted you to find proof, Romin."

His eyes turned bloodshot so suddenly I was literally expecting him to jump on my neck. "I found proof because I caught him."

"Valentine is smarter than you'll ever be," I said in a broken whisper. "If you found proof of something he did, it's because he wanted you to find it." Valentine was his brother, and he knew him better than I did.

His fisted hands over the table turned completely white.

"Listen to me, Romin. It is done. He's already gone, but you need to figure out why he did what he did. Why would a vampire want to get banished? Think about it—what could be his reasoning?"

By some miracle, my words seemed to redirect his thoughts like I'd had little hope they would. "There is no reasoning," he finally said. "Banishment means certain death for a vampire. There is no way he can survive the curse taking back its magic. No way."

We both stared at nothing for a good, long moment.

"Where do they go?"

My voice echoed in the tall ceiling of his office.

Romin met my eyes. It could very well have been my imagination, but he suddenly looked…afraid.

If not afraid, more uncomfortable than I'd ever seen him before. "Nobody knows. The dragons go to Mount Agva—Shadow is halfway there already. The rest…nobody knows."

Liar. He was a goddamn liar because he knew.

"You don't have to tell me. I don't need to know," I forced myself to say. "But is there a way—any way to see into that place? To see Valentine? To send someone after him?—"

"Impossible," he cut me off. "It's impossible to send anyone after him."

I flinched. "There has to be a spell. Something—someone who could tell you where he is and what he is doing. Because he's doing something, Romin. If Valentine wanted to get banished, there was a reason behind it. A very good reason."

"Death! That's all there is to banishment—certain death. Don't you understand that?!"

"I do." I nodded. "But do you understand that a man like Valentine would never do anythingwithout a plan?"

He did. I could see it in the way his eyes widened when the words made sense to him. He did understand it.

"Something's going on here, and it's not just Valentine. I told you that morning of the duel about Emerald, the red faerie I met in the Aerie. I told you how I heard her and two men talking about you guys, about something you would never see coming. About something beginning."

His brows narrowed and he took his glass of wine in his hand again, but he was calmer now. He was thinking, not just enraged, though his eyes were still bloodshot, and I could have sworn the tips of his fangs were peeking out right under his upper lip.

"Yes, you did tell us that," he said.

"And there's something else, too."

At that, he looked up at me and laughed. "Oh, is there? Here I thought you were hiding away in your tower and going to town to mess around in the woods every day—but no. You've been doing work, haven't you." It wasn't even a question.

"It was actually an accident, but I went all the way to the lake behind the woods surrounding the castle one night, and I saw…I saw Sedelis, Romin. I saw the siren speaking to someone with legs, but I don't know who it was."

"Sedelis, huh," he said, keeping that bitter smile on his face, but it didn't matter. So long as he was letting me speak, I didn"t care.

"Yes, Sedelis. And she was talking about a mistress, and about the red faerie—and I think it's the same faerie I met that I told you about—Emerald. She said that they were ready to march into the Woods, too—I told you this last time."

Romin jumped to his feet so fast I almost screamed as I fell back on the chair again. "The siren. When did you see the siren?"

"Eight days ago."

"And you didn't think to warn me about it right away?!" he demanded, his voice a goddamn roar.

I stood up, too. "I did! I tried, remember? In this very room, I tried, and you didn't fucking listen." He'd just laughed in my face and had tried to kiss me. I'd ended up kneeing him in the balls for the second time, too.

"You came to me with tales about Genevieve," he spit, but at least he wasn't coming closer to me. Instead, he was pacing in circles near the wall.

"Because Mama Si warned me about her. Think about it—you know who Mamayka Sionne is, right?" He threw me a look. "So, you know she wouldn't be warning anyone about anyone she wasn't threatened by." Romin stopped walking and drank the whole glass in one sip. "I don't know about you, but if a woman like Mama Si is threatened by someone, I'd want to pay close attention to that someone. And Genevieve gave me that ring. Genevieve told me that it would be undetectable by the curse—she and Valentine planned to take me to the Aerie together." It made such perfect sense to me now that I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it before.

Right there, in front of my fucking face.

"Here's a question for you, though," said Romin, coming to stand in front of me, that smile on his face, murder in his eyes. His fangs had extended halfway to his chin, too. He looked about ready to break me in half.

"Why?" he whispered.

I lowered my head. "That, I don't know." I had no fucking clue why anybody around here did anything. "But you can figure it out, Romin. If there's anyone who can, it's you." He was the ruler. He had everyone on this Isle in the palm of his hand. People would walk all over themselves to please him. His word was law.

"And how am I going to do that?" he said, as if he were talking to himself more than me.

I answered anyway. "Figuring out if there is a way to remain alive when banished sounds like a good start. And I think you know who can answer that for you most accurately."

Genevieve. She could tell him if there was magic that could enable Valentine to escape the Seven Isles when banished. To stop the curse from eating away at him. To survive out there in the human world without magic.

"Maybe I should pay her a visit then," he said—again, more like he was talking to himself as he looked down at me.

"And the faerie," I said. "Her name is Emerald. You'll find her in the Bazaar." I'd told him this at least twice before.

"Emerald, the red faerie." He was smiling now, and he looked like a monster with those eyes and those fangs on display—such a beautiful monster.

"And the swindlers," I said, feeling more conscious of my own weakness against him by the second.

But I wasn't that weak anymore, was I? No, because I'd given Genevieve my blood in exchange for a power boost.

Shit.

"The, um…the swindlers maybe know something about what Valentine was planning. Maybe you want to question them as well," I continued, and his smile widened, and he reached out his hand to touch my cheek with the tip of his finger.

"That's a good idea, too," he said. "I didn't think you were that smart, to be honest. Beautiful women usually aren't."

I could have fucking laughed.

Instead, I just moved away from his reach. "You'll come to find that women can be whatever they want to be regardless of how they look," I spit. "And don't touch me again, Romin. I am not as helpless as the last time I was here."

That certainly surprised him. And maybe it wasn't my best move to flat out threaten him like that—we both knew what he was capable of. But I was still shocked and pissed off and irritated like all hell at his absurdity.

"Is that so?" He grinned, perfectly amused.

"Yes. I gave Genevieve my blood and she gave me magic. Raw magic—and it works." Just in case he thought I was joking.

But he didn't. He didn't laugh and he wasn't amused anymore, either—he just looked like I'd kneed him in the balls again. "Blood?"

"Yes, blood."

"So, that's why you smell different…" he whispered. I had no idea that I smelled different, so I said nothing. "Why blood?"

I shrugged. "It's what she asked for."

He raised a brow. "And you thought it was a good idea to give your blood to a woman you claim tried to kill you?"

My stomach twisted and turned uncomfortably, but at least I didn't feel like I was about to throw up what I'd eaten yet. "I didn't have another choice, did I?"

He and his brothers would have fucking devoured me—they tried. Emil almost bit me and raped me in front of Tristian.

Before Valentine stopped him.

Something's wrong, my own mind insisted. Something's very, very wrong…

"You've certainly given me a lot to think about," Romin said with a deep sigh, and his fangs finally retreated.

"Not just think but act. Talk to people. Talk to Genevieve. Figure out what Valentine can do out there—just figure it out." He shouldn't have wanted to even sit downbefore he did. "Talk to Sedelis, too—talk to all of them."

Without a word, he raised his hand and the doors of his office opened wide to tell me that I was dismissed.

I turned to find both Emil and Tristian right there in the hallway, one on either side of the doors leaning against the wall, watching me.

"Go back to your tower now, Fall. I'll be taking your stories under consideration." And Romin started walking toward the open doors.

"Consideration?" I followed reluctantly. "You can surely do more than that. All I ask is that you speak to these people. All I?—"

"And I will, if I see it reasonable. But I've just lost the second brother within the same month, and I need a moment to gather my thoughts. It's only fair, don't you think?" I couldn't be sure if he was just fucking with me, or if he actually meant it, but he stopped by the open doors and said, "Now, go. Get out of here."

Fuck.

I looked at Emil and Tristian, grinning ear to ear as they waited for me to pass them by, and bile finally rose up my throat.

Were they going to attack me again? Was one going to try to eat me while the other watched?

"Is there something wrong?"

I looked up at Romin. He couldn't be seriously asking me that, could he?

"Come now, beautiful Fall. Let us walk you back. It will be an honor," said Tristian, and shivers broke all over my back.

"I'm sure you know what they plan to do, even if you don't want to admit it to yourself," I told Romin.

"My brothers would never hurt you. They?—"

"They are not you." And I said this simply to stroke his ego. Even if Romin had only tried to kiss me and hadn't come after me when I kneed him in the balls, that didn't make him good. He knew exactly what his brothers were up to. He knew what Emil did that morning, too, and he still had done nothing about it. That made him even worse than them—but I was at his mercy here. And I was finding that I was willing to do pretty much anything to survive these monsters wearing men's faces.

"They are not you, Romin. They're not in control of themselves. They don't care. They'll hurt me and convince themselves that I enjoyed it." My voice shook, which I hated, but maybe it was for the better.

Because Romin raised a brow, then turned to his brothers. "Nobody will touch you without you specifically asking them to, then. Not until I figure this out, at least—and that's an order. How's that?"

I gasped.

I genuinely gasped in disbelief, and Tristian and Emil were now looking at Romin like they couldn't believe he'd said those words, either.

"I…I-I-I…" My voice was hardly working. "Yes. Thank you," I finally choked out.

"Good. Now get out." And he pointed at his brothers. "You two—get in here. We have a lot to discuss."

I walked out, right between Tristian and Emil, and neither of them even reached their hands toward me. My God, they didn't even whisper a single word.

With every step I took back to the tower and the greenhouse, I had trouble believing that Romin actually said that. For real. He ordered his brothers to leave me alone.

Safety. He'd literally given me safety with just a few words. Emil and Tristian would not be touching me again, at least until this was over. I was free to go about the castle at any time now.

But even so, I spent the next few hours sitting with the animals in the greenhouse, thinking about Valentine.

I could shrink things now.I could make them really large, too—like the pen that was in my hand a moment ago, that was now on the floor, fifty inches tall and thick enough that I doubted I would be able to carry it. It stank of magic. It buzzed with it—I felt it clinging to its surface.

"See that?" I asked Grey's portrait, then sent another blast of magic to the pen, and watched as it shrank and shrank and shrank to a miniature version of itself. Tiny. I could hardly even see it on the wooden floor of the closet. "I did that. Me. With magic." Then I laughed at myself like a damn lunatic and looked at Grey's face.

He was so beautiful I wouldn't have believed this was a painting of a real person if I hadn't seen him with my own eyes. If I hadn't kissed that face with my own lips and touched it with my own hands.

"You probably think I'm crazy," I told him and wasn't it sad that I meant it?

I sighed. "I miss you." And I meant that, too. Maybe that's why I had gone really crazy. Missing him and wanting him and thinking about him dying was indeed a disease with no cure. It was slowly killing me, and maybe it had started to do so by making me lose my mind first.

I hadn't gone out to meet Quinn the night before. Part of me wanted to, just to confront her. Just to see the look in her eyes when I told her that I fucking knew who she was. I knew she wasn't my friend. I knew she was just working for Valentine. I knew that they were all against me—each and every person in this castle and on this Isle.

They were all against me, and that made me want to rebel. It made me angry, gave me strength. It made me want to make them regret it with all my being.

But I'd stayed inside, and I'd slept on the floor of the closet again. And ever since I woke up at six in the morning, I read what remained of the book Valentine had quite possibly written just for me, about how to access magic and how to make reality bend to my will.

It worked. His tips worked—I was doing it. Conjuring things out of thin air. Moving them across the room. Shrinking them.

It was working—he'd really meant to help me with it. Now he was gone, and I didn't even know why.

"Mirror mirror on the wall," I whispered to myself when I caught my reflection in the mirror that Mama Si had gifted me. I didn't look nearly as sick as I felt—on the contrary. I looked rested, well fed, full of life.

Who knew mirrors could be such liars?

I needed food.

When my stomach first began to growl, my instinct was to panic because I didn't have food in the tower kitchen. But then I remembered the day before. Then I remembered the talk with Romin and his words. Nobody could touch me against my will again until he figured out what Valentine had been up to. For now, I was safe—or at least safe from Tristian and Emil—to go to the kitchen, get me some food, and make it back here in one piece.

That's exactly what I was going to do—but then my eyes caught the golden chain of the gift the witches had given me. It was half hiding behind the frame of Grey's portrait. I must have pushed it there accidentally while I was sleeping.

Which was funny because I'd been sleeping on the floor since the day Grey was banished and not a part of my body ever hurt when I woke up.

"So pretty," I told the necklace because talking to paintings was not crazy enough for me, apparently.

It was indeed gorgeous. The colorless stone wrapped up in gold was such a beautiful thing. Reeva Lorein, the ruler witch of Witches' Wing, said it would show me what I wanted most, but it hadn't worked until now because I hadn't had any magic to speak of. Not nearly enough to feed it with, like she'd instructed me.

But now I did, didn't I? I'd gotten that boost from Genevieve, and regardless if it had been a mistake to make deals with her or not, it had worked. The tiny pen on the floor was proof.

Suddenly excited, I held the necklace in both hands in front of my face and gave it magic. I gave it as much as I had, the same way I'd given it to that pen, except here I didn't imagine it changing the way the book said I should. I only gave it magic and willed it to show me what I wanted most.

It didn't work.

I looked at the crystal, but it didn't change a bit. The clean-cut surface of it was half the size of my palm, and it didn't move, it didn't reflect any kind of light. It didn't show me what I wanted at all.

Maybe it was broken. Or maybe Reeva had just fucked around with me.

And here I'd hoped it would finally reveal to me a way out of this place once and for all…

Fuck it, I thought, closing my eyes for a moment to gather myself because I really needed to go find food in the kitchen before I collapsed.

That's when it hit me.

A vision, for lack of a better term. It was right there behind my closed lids, and it hit me like a fucking fist to the face as soon as I closed my eyes.

So, I opened them instinctively, gasping for air, feeling like I'd been picked up and thrown somewhere far, far away.

"Oh, my God…" I whispered when I realized what had happened.

The necklace. It was the magic I gave to the necklace.

It didn't show me what I wanted on the surface of that clear crystal. It showed it to me in my mind when I closed my eyes instead.

A smile was on my face when I held it tightly between my hands in front of my chest again. Freedom. Safety—that's what it was going to show me. How to get out of this place and be safe from the brothers forever.

That'swhat I wanted most, wasn't it?

Holding my breath, I closed my eyes without an ounce of hesitation, and again, I felt like I'd been picked up and was no longer touching solid ground. I was suspended on air and there was only darkness around me. Deep, raw darkness that made me think I was stuck in some timeless space. I could hardly breathe, and my anxiety was getting the best of me faster than ever before, but…

Then I saw color. Just a tiny bit of color somewhere to my right, and I turned toward it, gave it all of my focus. The harder I tried to make it out, the bigger it became, the brighter it burned against the darkness, and the more colors I could count.

My heart hammered in my chest. I was floating toward those colors and the shapes that were revealing themselves to me faster by the second.

A minute or a day could have passed, but the vision was complete, and I finally was able to understand what I was looking at.

It wasn't safety. It wasn't freedom.

It was a place—a place I knew. A place I'd been to before, many times.

The necklace was showing me the mirror room.