Chapter 18

My eyes opened wide,and I drew in a deep breath, feeling like I was drowning. I moved until I was on my feet, touching the walls and the frame of Grey's portrait, and I still couldn't convince myself that I was alive and breathing and all alone in the closet for a good minute.

Fuck, I never wanted to do that again. I never wanted to be picked up and thrown in another place where my feet didn't touch the ground and there was no air to breathe.

And I was so afraid to close my eyes again, so I didn't until they burned badly enough to close on their own.

But nothing else showed behind my lids. The mirror room wasn't there anymore, just darkness, because the necklace had fallen off my hands when I'd stood up. The crystal winked at me now from the floor, catching the overhead light beautifully. I stepped away from it as I breathed deeply, still getting used to the air going down my throat like I really hadn't breathed in hours.

"The mirror room," I said to myself, then looked at Grey's portrait as if waiting for a comment. There would be none, I knew that, but… "Could it be?"

I hadn't been to that room since Grey was banished, but I'd always wondered, what if I could get through the glass the way I had that night with Valentine? What if Grey and Romin and all the others were wrong, and us brides could really walk through those mirrors and get to anywhere we wanted?

After all, I'd already done it once, hadn't I? I'd walked right into the mirror, and it had taken me to Faeries' Aerie within the second. I'd been there, despite what they thought.

And according to this necklace, I needed to go there again to search for what I wanted most.

Excitement spiked the blood in my veins and the magic inside me responded instantly, just like the book said it should. According to it—according to Valentine—magic wasconnected most closely to emotions, and the better you can master them, the better control you have over your magic. I was going to learn how to do that eventually, but today was not the day.

Today, I grabbed the chain of that necklace, careful not to touch the crystal, and I leaned in to kiss Grey's portrait right on the lips. Then I ran out of the closet and the room so fast I almost fell on my face three times going down the stairs.

Romin had forbade Tristian and Emil from touching me last night, and I reminded myself of that as I opened the doors of the tower. They would not be coming after me even if they saw me in the hallways. They couldn't touch me unless I specifically asked them to—and I would not be doing that no matter what—so I was safe. No need to panic. No need to cower back—I had to go to the mirror room.

The necklace had finally worked just like Reeva said it would. It had shown that room to me, and I had a feeling in my gut, a good feeling for once that I was finally—finally going to catch a break from this place and everyone in it.

With those thoughts in mind, I walked out of the tower and I closed the doors behind me, part of me a bit sad to do it, but most of me happy at the idea that I might not ever see it again.

I'd walk away. I'd get the hell out of this place that had taken Grey away from me, and the Evernights would never get the chance to even see me again, let alone do with me what they wanted. Have me. Make me theirs.

Fuck that—I was Grey's.I'd made my peace with it by now no matter how senseless it may sound, and Grey's I would remain until the day that I died.

The main hallway was empty, and when I stopped to listen for the sound of beating wings, my heart sank.

Shadow.

Valentine was banished, and I'd seen Shadow after the sky swallowed him, sitting on that apple tree…hadn't I? He'd been there, watching, all alone, and now he was probably on his way to Mount Agva, if he hadn't already arrived. Just like Storm, little Shadow was going to starve himself in a cave somewhere until he died.

Fuck, that hurt. It killed me to imagine Shadow like that, dead on the ground together with Storm. It hurt so much I had tears in my eyes when I finally made it to the big round door that led to the mirror room.

I used to think that door was heavy the first time Valentine brought me here, but when I pulled it open now, it moved with ease. I'd gotten so much stronger in such a short period of time that it scared me.

Who would I become once the magic was done changing me? Did I even want to know?

But as I stepped through into the dark cave where the mirrors were, I forced myself to focus. I forced myself to let go of thoughts of Storm and Shadow and magic and myself. I was here now, in the mirror room, and that necklace was around my neck. I was here and so were the mirrors, and I practically ran to them until I was standing in the very middle near the round couch, looking at the different worlds around me as the sun climbed up in the sky. It couldn't have been any later than nine, and every Isle I could see in these mirrors was buzzing with life—Dragons' Den, Faeries' Aerie, the Blood Barrow, Witches' Wing and Skinwalker Soil. So full, all of them, except the Whispering Woods and Sirens' Lair—and the eighth mirror, the broken one that showed nothing at all.

I was shaking when I stepped in front of the one that showed the cliff of Faeries' Aerie, all the colorful faeries with their torn wings going about their business, coming out of their tree homes and normal looking houses, and from underground. I had been there, on the top of that massive cliff. I'd been there that day no matter what anyone said.

And maybe today I was going to get there again.

My hand shook as I reached out to touch the surface of the mirror. All this time I could have come here, and I could have disappeared. If I'd just given Genevieve my blood the first time she asked for it…

No matter, I told myself. It was over. The wait was over. I was going to go to Faeries' Aerie, and I was going to leave the Whispering Woods behind once and for all.

Taking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and touched the tips of my fingers to the surface of the mirror.

Cold.

Even my heart had stopped beating as I waited for the mirror to give way so I could move, so I could step inside it the same way I'd done that day.

Except it didn't. I touched it, pressed my palm flat against the glass, and it didn't give. It was solid. It didn't budge. It didn't let me through.

A scream tore from my throat before I could help it. My legs gave up on me and I sat on the floor, back against the couch, and I just looked at the blue sky over Faeries' Aerie. I looked at it, at the cliff, and the fairies and the witches and the people walking around the pools at the Paradise in the Burrow, and I cursed the woman who'd condemned me to this life.

I cursed Valentine for challenging Grey.

I cursed Romin for banishing Grey and leaving me here all alone.

It took me a little while to get my shit together again, to accept that the stupid necklace was wrong. The mirror room wasn't going to give me my freedom. Those mirrors were just that—mirrors, not portals. And what if I'd really made up the entire thing? What if I'd never actually gone to Faeries' Aerie?

What if, what if, what if…

My hope had crashed and burned, but I still found it in me to stand up and try to get into the other mirrors. All of them, even the one that showed the deep waters of Sirens' Lair. I tried them all several times, each time thinking, maybe it will work now. Maybe I did something wrong before, but it will work this time. It has to—it will work!

It never did.

"Liar!" I shouted at the necklace, and it was meant for the witch who'd given it to me. She was a damn liar, and her necklace didn't work. All it had shown me was this room. It had shown me these mirrors that I was now looking at— "For what?!"

But…

Something else occurred to me. In that vision, I'd seen these mirrors from deep into the darkness, from the edges of the cave I was in. Could it be that I had to look at them from that same spot now, too, to see whatever this necklace wanted me to see?

Shaking my head at myself, disappointed that I still expected to find an answer, I made my way between the mirrors and into that very darkness, and I went all the way to the edge of the cave, to the uneven stone wall that I could barely make out.

Nothing happened.

I was in the same place I had been in that vision, and I was looking at the mirrors just like I had in it, but nothing happened. Nothing revealed itself to me. No movement, no sound, no change—just that same room.

So, I sat on the floor right there against the stone wall, rested my forehead on my knees, and I tried to become one with the darkness until it hurt a little less.

Hours must have passed.Maybe minutes? I wasn't sure. My whole body was numb, but at the same time, I felt like I wasn't even there. It felt like I'd merged into the absolute darkness of the cave completely, and even the bright sunlight coming through the mirrors from the other Isles couldn't reach me.

I guess that's what happens when you finally admit to yourself that you've lost your mind, that you imagined a whole place and a whole Isle of people.

I had never really been to Faeries' Aerie. I hadn't crossed through that mirror and I hadn't climbed all those half-ruined stairs on the side of the cliff, and I hadn't spoken to Emerald, and I hadn't gone into her Storyteller—and I hadn't, and I hadn't, and I hadn't…

"But the story is real," I whispered to the cave.

The story of Syra and Hansil Knight was real, wasn't it? I'd seen it. I remembered it in detail—not just their faces, but the feelings, the pain, the rage, exactly as the author had described it. I couldn't have possibly imagined all of that, and nobody else had told me Syra's story. I'd seen it myself.

So…maybe I hadn't lost my mind, after all?

God, it was so hard to tell reality from fantasy in this place. So hard to trust my senses, my own damn thoughts.

Then the door opened.

Every inch of my skin rose in goose bumps. I sunk my nails into my shins until it hurt, and I held my breath tightly as I squeezed my eyes shut.

It was the brides. They liked to spend time in the mirror room looking at the other Isles. It was them and when they saw me here, they were going to start shouting those awful words at me again.

Please, please, please, I prayed in my mind. Please don't let them see me. I couldn't handle them right now. I didn't want to. And I didn't even know if my legs would carry me if I tried to make a run for it.

But what I could do was sit really, really still and not make a single sound. So, I rested my forehead on my knees, and I released my breath slowly, perfectly silently, willing my heart to slow its beating all the way until even the cave forgot I was sitting here.

The footsteps coming closer echoed in my head. I didn't let myself panic, didn't let myself think about what would happen if they saw me. I didn't even raise my head at all, just focused on my body, on the cave, on the stone wall behind my back.

Then…

"There's nothing there."

My eyes opened.

It was Emil.

My instincts were already screaming for me to run. Emil was here—that vile man who'd tried to bite me against my will just a few days ago, who thought he'd given me enough time and now he would be claiming what was his. He was in the cave with me, and there was no way I could keep my head down and my eyes closed for a second longer.

No, I wanted to see it when he came for me. I wanted to look the monster right in his mad eyes.

So, I raised my head and I looked.

Emil and Romin were standing in between the mirrors, the sunlight coming off them making it impossible to mistake them for someone else, even though they were both turned away from me.

Even my heart stopped beating for the longest second.

"Are you sure? You don't see anything at all?"

Definitely Romin.

"Yes, brother, I'm sure," Emil said, and he sounded irritated. "You can't honestly believe those absurd tales. She's just a woman!"

Breathe, I told myself. I just needed to breathe because they were far enough away and they hadn't seen me at all. They had no clue I was there, sitting in the darkness; otherwise, they'd have been right in front of me by now.

"I don't believe it," said Romin, hands on his hips as he shook his head. "I don't—of course not. But something's going on here, and I want to know what the fuck it is."

He'd listened.

Fuck, I couldn't believe my own ears, but Romin had actually listened to me. He had become suspicious after our talk, at least a little. That's why he was in the mirror room—to inspect the other Isles. To try to find whatever those people were planning.

Except…

I blinked my eyes a couple of times because I was sure I wasn't seeing right.

Romin and Emil were standing in front of a mirror, all right, but it wasn't the one showing Faeries' Aerie or any other Isle. It was the broken one, the one at the very beginning of the circle of mirrors that didn't show anything, that was always just black.

"You've let her get to your head," Emil said after a minute. "He's gone, brother. Valentine is gone. Even if he did stir something up—he's gone now. It's all over."

Stabs at my gut. Valentine is gone.

The only person who could have shed light on this whole thing for me was indeed gone.

My eyes closed and I took in a slow, deep breath, still not moving a single inch. Part of me was terrified that my minutes were numbered—literally—but another part of me was…calm. Even though I was with two vampires in the same cave, I was calm because they couldn't see me. They couldn't hear me. They couldn't sense me at all because…what was it that Valentine had told me that night in the woods?

You're already incredibly hard to detect when you don't want to be seen.

A deep sigh came from ahead, and I opened my eyes again. Romin and Emil were still where I left them, still in front of the broken mirror, looking at its surface like they'd forgotten it didn't show anything.

And they really, really couldn't tell I was here.

"But what if someone else remains behind?" Romin then whispered, shaking his head to himself.

"Then you'll find them, and you'll bring them to justice—just like you did him," Emil insisted. "Look at it!" And he put a hand over the frame of the broken mirror.

What the hell are you doing? I asked him in my mind. That mirror doesn't work—what are you doing?

"Look—do you see something? Because I sure as hell don't, and my eyes are working fine," Emil said, and no matter how many times I blinked, the view didn't change—he was showing his brother the broken mirror. They were both looking at it.

"No, I don't see anything," Romin reluctantly said. His voice echoed in the cave, making chills run down my back.

"Exactly," Emil said, patting his shoulder. "Relax, brother. This is no way to live. You've been far too stressed lately—relax." He was grinning widely. I only saw his profile when he turned to look at Romin, but it was enough to make my stomach turn.

"Stressed doesn't do it justice," Romin said. "I've banished two of them within a month. That's never happened before." And he genuinely sounded concerned.

"No, it hasn't. But then again, there have never been five Evernights alive in the same timeline before, have there?" Emil actually laughed. "There's a first time for everything."

Romin was nodding his head, his eyes still stuck on that mirror.

What the hell was he looking for on it? It was dark. Black—didn't even show you your reflection. It was broken. So why the hell was he looking at it so intently?

"It's a gut feeling more than anything," Romin said. "I guess it's just these changes—and the fact that none of us has sired an heir yet."

"But we will!" insisted Emil, not even a little bit worried.

"When?" Romin said with a growl that vibrated deep in my chest. "There's only three of us left, brother. We kicked out the old brides just five years ago—remember that?"

What the hell? The other brides had told me that the women who were no longer able to carry children could choose to leave the castle and even go back to the human world if they wished, but I had no idea that the Evernights actually kicked them out.

"Oh, I remember! We kicked out three that were still young, too, and I told you we shouldn't—didn't I tell you? I told you we fucking shouldn't let them go, that the more bodies we have, the better our chances, but you didn't listen." He slammed his hand on Romin's shoulder with enough strength to shake him. "Listen to me now! Let us all try with all of them—especially Fall." My heart all but beat out of my chest. "She's compatible with all of us—that's gotta be a sign. Let us all have her, and I guarantee she will be with child in no time."

Oh, God, please…

"We do not force ourselves on anyone, for fuck's sake. We are not savages," Romin said, but he sounded defeated. Fucking hell, he sounded like he had already given up.

Every hair on my body was standing at attention.

"You know she'll beg for it once you bite her. Let her fight—it makes it that much more thrilling." Emil sounded like a fucking lunatic.

"I don't know, Emil," Romin said, and it was a damn miracle I hadn't started running yet. These men, these fucking monsters were talking about me like I was a thing. A body, nothing more. Just someone they could do whatever they wanted to and try to get pregnant.

I would rather jump off the third tower, said a voice in my head. I'll go to the balcony at the top right now and jump.

None of them was ever going to touch me. Not a fucking chance—and my resolve was so strong it even surprised me. I had no clue where it was coming from, but I took it. These men would die before they laid a hand on me, no matter what I had to do.

"What's not to know? Grey's gone. There's nobody to stand in your way of anything anymore—you can literally do anything you want now." Again, Emil laughed. "Valentine's gone, too. Good riddance."

"What concerns me is what they left behind. What concerns me is that we do not have an he?—"

"We are young! We'll be living a long, long time. Do you really think that we won't be siring an heir before our first century is over? Think about all the other brides that will be coming to us. Think about all the years to come!"

"Yes," Romin finally whispered. "Yes, I guess you're right."

He's not! I wanted to shout at the top of my voice, but I had the good sense to bite my tongue first.

"Of course, I am," said Emil. "And stop thinking about what Valentine left behind, will you? Whatever it was, he's on the Eighth Isle now, probably unconscious already, just waiting to die. You can see that, can't you? Look!"

And he pulled Romin forward, put him right in front of the broken mirror, then stepped behind him with his hands on his shoulders.

"He's gone," Emil whispered, while they both looked at the mirror still. "He's over there now, and you know the Eighth Isle swallows anything that goes to it. He's gone, brother, and whatever he had planned is gone with him."

My ears rang. I couldn't even hear my own thoughts over those three words—the Eighth Isle.

But there was no such a thing, was there? There were only seven Isles, not eight.

"He's gone," Romin said after a minute.

"Yes, he is."

"The Eighth Isle has him now," Romin again.

"It does. He's not coming back."

A deep sigh.

My eyes closed.

"You're right. It's over, whatever he was trying to do," Romin said. "And we'll sire an heir before our death, as is our duty."

"We will," Emil confirmed, stepping to his side, and they both continued to look at the broken mirror.

"We'll sire more than one. Each of us," Romin continued, and he was talking to himself more than he was talking to Emil. "It's what we were born for. It's why we exist."

And despite everything, those words killed me a little. So fucking sad I suffocated on thin air, though I didn't know what the hell I was even thinking yet.

"It is, indeed. So, let's go have a drink. Let's relax—can we do that now?" said Emil.

Laughter—this time from Romin. "I could really use a drink right now…"

The brothers were already walking out of the circle of mirrors and toward the door. They were moving toward it, talking and laughing as they went, perfectly clueless that I was still there. Perfectly clueless that I'd heard everything.

And when they walked out the door and closed it, my body moved on its own. My mind was overcrowded with questions, but my blood was rushing, and I was walking, going to the mirrors again, to the one that was broken. To the one that never showed anything, wondering…

"What the hell is the Eighth Isle?"

I'd never heard of it before. Nobody had mentioned it, nobody had ever even hinted that such a thing existed—another Isle?

Impossible. It was impossible.

Yet Romin and Emil had both said the name, and they'd both looked at this very mirror that was in front of me now, dark and…dead. Exactly like it had been since Valentine first brought me here.

With a shaking hand, I touched the surface with my fingertips, not really sure what to expect. Nothing—just cold, smooth glass. Exactly like the other mirrors.

Except this one couldn't even be considered a mirror, could it?

Letting go of a long breath, I sat at the edge of the couch and I let my eyes adjust to the sunlight in the other mirrors. Seven because there were Seven Isles, what remained of Ennaris.

But there were eight mirrors.

Emil's words filled my mind, and I still hadn't even begun to calm down enough to think straight. It was all just instinctive at that point, and my instincts said that they hadn't been fucking with me. They hadn't known I was there in the first place, and they hadn't just come into the mirror room to fuck with my head.

No, they'd actually meant everything they said.

"What are you hiding from me?" I asked the darkness of the eighth mirror like I expected a goddamn answer.

My mind raced with possibilities—I could go talk to Genevieve, maybe offer her more blood for information. I could talk to the brides, if they didn't start shouting at me to go kill myself the moment they laid eyes on me. I could go talk to Romin and demand he tell me what the hell he and Emil had really been talking about here today.

Except I knew that none of those options would work.

I also knew that it was only a matter of time before Emil convinced Romin to let them force themselves on me. Body, they called me. Called all of us, all the brides. Bodies.

And what about the brides they kicked out five years ago? What did kicked out mean—were they even alive at this point? How come nobody had talked more about this, not even Valentine?

It made me so damn uncomfortable just to wonder about it.

But I stayed there like that, perfectly motionless and staring at the floor for a long time, trying to make sense of anything at all. Trying to see the bigger picture here—when something moved.

A flash of white light.

I saw it through the corner of my eye, and it startled me, so I jumped and turned to it to see it better.

I turned to the eighth mirror.

My heart was already galloping in my chest, my mind perfectly blank, all those chaotic thoughts chased away within the second. Did something really move on the surface of the eighth mirror, or did I really, finally lose my mind for real?

I stood up and went to it again, hardly feeling my numb legs, my unblinking eyes on it. Something had moved there—a light had flashed from it. Small and weak, but it had been there. I'd seen it through the corner of my eye.

And I waited for what felt like a long time to see it again, my eyes burning because I was barely blinking. But just as I was about to give up and go back to my tower, it happened again.

"What the…"

White light blinked three times right in the middle of the mirror as I was looking at it. It blinked behind something, and it showed me the silhouette in detail.

I fell to my knees as a scream caught in my throat.

I fell to my knees in front of the mirror that had shown me the silhouette of a man standing on what could have been a rock—or the top of a goddamn mountain.

A man with wings on his back spread to the sides, their shape so familiar that I knew every curve and every claw as if I'd just seen them this morning.

Both my hands were in front of my mouth as I rocked back and forth, tears streaming from my eyes.

Grey.

That silhouette was Grey, and I knew it with such certainty I would bet my whole life on it.

My hand shook so badly when I reached for the mirror again, and as I did, I touched the cold metal of the necklace around my neck, the one that the witches had given me. The one that had brought me here. The one that was supposed to show me what I wanted most.

I hardly saw the crystal now, trapped between the gold, from all those tears pooled in my eyes. "What I want most," I whispered to the empty room.

It had shown me what I wanted most, and it wasn't my goddamn freedom. It wasn't safety—I couldn't care less about any of it.

What I wanted most was Grey—except I hadn't even considered that that was a possibility because Grey was banished. Grey was gone for good, and nothing anyone did could bring him back, not even Romin.

But that mirror…

My God, that mirror said otherwise. I knew the shape of him in my sleep. I knew the shape of him even if I saw him among a billion men who looked like him. It was him.

The tears kept on coming, and I blinked rapidly, eyes on the darkness of the mirror as reality slowly dawned on me. As three words invaded every cell in my body and became the center of the universe for me, just three words that I now breathed for.

Grey is alive.

Eventually I sat down on the floor and rested my back to the couch because my legs refused to carry me still, and all those tears that had come out of me in silence had exhausted me completely. I didn't close my eyes, though. I just stared at that mirror and waited for it to show me Grey one more time—because it wasn't fucking broken.

Oh, no, not broken at all. Valentine had lied to me through his teeth—and it hadn't been the first or last time. That mirror showed another Isle, just like the rest of them. The Eighth Isle, and that's where Grey was.

Alive. Standing, with his wings spread wide.

Alive, yet I couldn't get to him, couldn't walk through this fucking mirror and into that darkness, to that flashing light that had revealed him to me. I was stuck here on this fucking Isle surrounded by snakes, spending every second and every ounce of my energy trying to survive, even though I knew that it would all be useless when Romin's patience ran out.

They'd turn on me, and I was all alone, even though Grey was still alive somewhere in the world. I couldn't leave this Isle no matter how much magic I harnessed or used. I couldn't fucking get to him.

But…

Everything came to a halt and my ears suddenly rang, my mind wiped of all other thoughts. The idea struck me like a slap to the face.

I couldn't get to Grey, to wherever that mirror showed—that was absolutely true.

But I knew someone who could.