Chapter 7

I heardthe footsteps around the corner just as I was exiting the last room of the ground floor—another lounge area with a gorgeous library at the corner full of books in Faeish.

My heart skipped a long beat, and my stomach twisted a million times, expecting to see Romin turning the corner, even though he wasn't allowed into this tower.

But he was the ruler of the Isles, wasn't he? He wasn't going to let the likes of me stop him from roaming in his own damn castle any time he pleased. It was only a matter of time before he found reasons, before he came to punish me, and there was nothing I could do to stop him.

Fortunately for me, though, this time it wasn't Romin.

Instead Amita and Cynthia were coming toward me with their hands fisted tightly at their sides and their eyes red with rage.

They stopped walking when they saw me, a good distance of five feet away.

"Good morning," I said when the initial shock faded away—because they were Grey's brides. Of course, they lived in the third tower.It was more shocking that I hadn't seen them before, but that was probably because I stayed locked up in my bedroom every second.

"You," Amita said, pointing her index finger at me. She had long dark hair that seemed black with the dim lighting of the castle and big brown eyes that made her look kind of haunted.

Apparently, when she was pissed off like right now, she looked fucking possessed, too.

"Me?" I whispered, touching my hand to my chest instinctively. I threw a look at Cynthia, who'd crossed her arms in front of her and looked about to burst into tears, her blonde hair tucked under a black shawl, her chin quivering.

"Yes, you!" Amita exploded. "How dare you sleep in his bedroom like you own it, and then forbid the Masters from coming into this tower?!"

I cringed so hard it was impossible to hide it. "Grey's bedroom is my bedroom, too," I forced myself to say. "He gave me this tower, and?—"

Amita burst out laughing while Cynthia just shook her head at me like she both hated my guts and was disappointed in me.

At least she didn't look on the verge of tears anymore.

"Master Grey's bedroom was his bedroom, not yours. And he couldn't have just given you this tower. It's our tower, too! We live here!" Amita continued, and God, she was really, really pissed.

"Listen, Amita, Cynthia—I have no other choice. They have no boundaries. If I let them come in here, they're going to?—"

"Boundaries? Are you serious?" This from Cynthia. "They are the Evernights and this is their castle!"

I clamped my mouth shut.

The urge to tell them that those men would rape me if they were free to come into my bedroom anytime they pleased was strong, but suddenly I realized that these women didn't care. To them, the idea of not wanting to be with the Evernights was completely incomprehensible. If I even said that word, they were just going to laugh harder.

"Let them through," Amita spit. "You will let them into this tower whenever they please. This is our tower, too!"

My palms were already sweaty. Fuck, I really didn't want to do this…

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Amita. I'm sorry."

Pause.

They looked at me like I'd spoken Faeish.

"You can't just keep them out," Cynthia whispered, shaking her head slowly. "You…you can't."

"You come here and you think you own this entire place," Amita spit. "Who the hell do you think you are?! This tower doesn't belong to you!" she then shouted, fists shaking at her sides.

Their rage was basically heat coming at me in waves. And I realized that there was no way I could avoid being utterly hated by these women, not if I wanted to keep myself safe, at least for the time being. As much as it sucked, I took it. After all, Grey was gone, and I was all alone here. It couldn't really get any worse than this, could it?

"I can keep them out, and I will, Cynthia," I said, forcing myself to raise my chin. "And yes, Amita, this tower belongs to me. Like I said, Grey gave it to me—which is why Romin and the others can't come through those doors without my say-so. And they're not going to, not for as long as I can help it." The way they cringed at my words was almost comical. "I'm really sorry, but I won't change my mind."

A second ticked by. I had no doubt that these women would burn me at the stake if they were given the chance.

They gave each other a knowing look, and Amita said, "Then we are no longer part of this tower, either. We are leaving."

Oh, damn.

I tried not to be relieved. I tried not to be happy. I really tried.

"As is your right," I said with a nod.

"You will regret this, Fall," Cynthia whispered, her eyes full of tears again, but she was angry now. More angry than desperate.

I shrugged. "I already do." And I should have, right? I should have regretted getting on that boat with Mama Si and becoming a part of this mad, fucked up world.

I should have, but I couldn't find it in me to wish I'd never met Grey, that I'd never been with him the way I had. It might have only been a couple of days, but in those couple of days with him I found everything I never knew I missed in my life.

So, in the end, no, I didn't really regret being here at all. The only thing I'd have done differently knowing what I knew now was to tell Grey to banish Valentine and Shadow when he won the duel.

Amita and Cynthia turned on their heels and walked away with their heads up, their heeled feet slamming against the wooden floor hard as if they wanted me to know exactly how mad they were. Meanwhile I leaned against the hallway wall and allowed myself to just smile for a moment. Be glad. Not that Amita or Cynthia would have bothered me in any way, but it was better they weren't in here where they could watch me, keeping tabs on me and spying on me for the brothers. To be honest, I wouldn't put it past them at all. They would do anything for the Evernights, same as all the other brides.

And they were free to do so—outside of this tower.

But until they left, I decided to go back to my room, the one Grey had built for me, and hide in there while they packed their things and left. The birds needed to be fed, anyway, and I could listen to their song and let it ease my pain a little bit.

That's exactly what I did.

I had no idea where Cynthia and Amita lived within the tower—we hadn't really talked about it, Grey and I. But I didn't see or hear them leaving while I fed the birds and spent time in my room, looking over the books Grey had brought for me, romance books in English that were exactly the kind I liked to read. I smiled by myself as I read the spines and decided which ones I was going to start on first.

Then I went to the instruments and the record player with a vinyl already inside it. It seemed to be plugged in and ready, so I pressed the old play button, not really expecting it to start.

It did.

The record began to spin, and the needle scratched the surface, the sound of it picking me up and pulling me all the way out of the Whispering Woods. I didn't recognize the song at first, but then I realized it was Sinatra, a song I'd heard before but had no clue where.

Here, though, it sounded infinitely more beautiful. Here, it made sure that I would never forget it again.

As the music played, I touched the flute, the violin, the guitar and tambourine, the cello and the old clarinet placed on the floor near the low armchair in front of the record player.

It was all for me. It was all exactly right for me, like Grey had seen into my mind and had pulled images I didn't even know I'd imagined. God, I'd never been happier and sadder and desperate at the same time as when I went to the easels and the empty canvases, the many colors and brushes on the tall table near them, the wooden pallet and the neatly folded rags at the corner. In my mind, I could see Grey bringing all these things into this room and preparing them for me, excited, maybe wondering whether I'd like it or not. Hoping that I would.

Part of me felt inadequate, like I didn't deserve all this work, all the effort he'd put in here for me, but another part of me saw me the way he saw me. The same way I saw him.

Even so, I would not cry. The tears were there, pooling in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall again. I had this. Part of Grey would always be with me in this very room with the things he'd put together for me, and that was all I'd really need. For now, that was all I cared about.

So, I stayed there for a long time, and when I was driven out by hunger, I tiptoed my way back, afraid I'd run into the brides as they left.

Luckily, I didn't, but curiosity got the best of me, so before I went to my bedroom on the third floor, I checked the others across from it in the wide hallway. Five of them, all empty, but two were a mess, the sheets unmade and the closet doors wide open.

I don't know why I was smiling the way I did, but Cynthia and Amita were gone for real, and no other brides were in this tower with me.

Then I went to my bedroom and ate the food from my basket, feeling a little bit calmer than I had since Grey disappeared into the sky.

Rominand the others didn't bother me. Vinny and Aster didn't come to bring me food the next day, either, and Amita and Cynthia were most definitely gone.

I walked the halls and rooms of the third tower all alone like a ghost in the dark, feeling more at home and more at war between those black walls with each new step. By the end of the second day, I knew what was on each floor, and I couldn't wait to spend more time in all the rooms until I knew every inch of the space by heart.

On the fourth floor, there were three rooms with different settings in them—one had clay and a pottery wheel and modeling tools, towels and rags and needles and wires hanging on a wooden board on the wall, and I could have sworn Amita once said that pottery had been her passion, and that she'd asked for a room just like this from Grey once, but sadly she never really used it anymore.

The other two rooms were similar—one full of empty planters and vases and gardening tools mounted on a wall, the other with a big shelf full of baskets and herbs in them. The smell of those herbs threatened to make me throw up a minute in, so I pulled the window half open and left it like that when I left.

But there was one other room on the other side of the hallway on that floor, all alone at the end of a dark corridor, and it was locked. I tried the handle a few times, but it didn't give, and when I pressed my hands on the engraved surface of the black wood, I felt the magic on it as clearly as I'd felt it on Mama Si and the sirens.

Magic kept this door locked, and I had no clue what was in it, but I was dying of curiosity to know already.

That's why that night, for the first time, I actually closed my eyes and I searched within me to find the spark, that foreign body that was more and more present inside me since the Blood Call.

I found it so easily that it surprised me. It was right there, like smoke, like steam in the very middle of my chest, and it carried heat within. It carried power.

It was my magic.

I didn't give myself the chance to be happy or sad or amazed at it right now. It would only overwhelm me to try to figure it out, so I didn't. Instead, I took in deep breaths and I focused on the door, not really knowing what the hell I was doing. One thought was in my mind as I sort of poked at that smoke inside me with my mind and urged it to click with whatever magic was keeping that door locked.

A million more thoughts ran through my head at the same time, though—is this how magic works? Does this even make sense? What the hell am I doing trying to poke it with my thoughts? Should I just order it to do my bidding? Can it?—

The soft click that came from the other side of the door made all my thoughts come to a halt.

The magic inside me retreated without my even having to think about it, and the magic that had been clinging to the door was slowly fading away, too. I could feel it against the palms of my hands like one feels the texture or the temperature of an object. Like the magic was concrete.

Holding my breath, I reached for the handle one more time.

It gave.

The door was no longer locked and no more magic clung to it that I could feel. I stepped back and pulled it open, excited to see what it hid, and…

An office. It was a small room, smaller than all the others, round, with a big desk in the middle, a big golden lamp behind the leather chair, about a hundred drawings pinned to the walls, and three shelves full of books. If it wasn't for my improved eyesight, I'd have never seen a single thing in here. There were no windows, and the only light came from the lamps of the hallway outside. When I stepped in and closed the door, the darkness was absolute, but I used my hands to guide me to that lamp and to find the switch.

It smelled like Grey in here—spicy and dark. My hands shook as I touched the top of the leather chair, running my fingers on the smooth, soft surface, as if I was touching his back. In my mind, I saw him sitting there with his books or drawing on one of those white pages, his every stroke precise. I touched the spines of the books on his shelves, and the edges of his drawings pinned to the walls, completely in awe of everything he'd portrayed on them—such minimalistic things.

The silhouette of a man near a tree. Half of what could have been a sunflower. The back of a rabbit with wings on its back—like the ones I'd seen in the greenhouse. An eye with a tear sliding down a round cheek. The imprint of a paw.

It felt like catching a glimpse of Grey's mind as I looked at all those shapes, strange and beautiful and half hidden from the world—just like him.

I breathed and I was so full of energy so suddenly, that when I returned to his desk again, I saw even more. I pulled the chair back and I sat in it, just to try to feel what he'd felt. To try to become one with him, to know him better. It didn't feel like an invasion of privacy to open up those books he had on the table or the sketchbook he kept there with a small black pen between the pages where he'd drawn the last image somewhere in the middle—these ones not torn and pinned, but still in the book, still so fresh that I could almost smell the lead of the pencil in each stroke. The books were all Faeish, but I went through them anyway, even if I didn't understand what they were saying. I felt so close to Grey here it was almost like he was about to walk through that door any second now. He'd come through and he'd smile at the sight of me trying to figure out his books, and he'd look at me like he used to, like I was the moon to his darkness, like he adored me, even if it made no sense to me that he would. Even if he'd only known me for just over a month.

There were two drawers under the desk, and both opened on the first try. One had matches and two leather bags full of golden coins inside it—which excited me. Golden coins meant money, and I could not only pay Zane the green faerie with it, but I could use it when I found my way to the town he told me about. I could use it to buy weapons maybe—but what kind of weapons would even be effective against a vampire?

Shivers ran all over my body. Then I turned to the drawer on the other side, and in it I found a single book with thick black leather covers, and a pen on the side. I didn't think much of it before I opened it, but on the first page, Grey's name was written in cursive with black ink, and it was like a stab right through my heart to realize that Grey had written this himself.

Some of it was in English and some Faeish, but most was related to animals. He'd drawn shapes of them, just the silhouettes of four-legged beasts, and some with two legs, some with horns and big ears and long tails and wings. A big drawing of an owl took my attention as it was so much more detailed than the others, and the description below was in English: soundless flight due to unique edges of their feathers. Impeccable flying technique. Tapedum lucidum behind the retina; extremely sensitive to light.

For a moment there as I read those words, I saw life with Grey. I saw it in detail, how he'd sit on this chair and I'd sit on his lap, and we'd go over the journal together, and he could tell me about the edges of owl feathers and what their eyes were made of, and what all those drawings on the walls and in his sketchbook meant. We'd talk for hours, and I could explore the inside of his mind the way I'd yearned to do since I first met him. I wanted to know everything about everything he cared about, and I wanted him to know all that went on in my head in detail so we could pick it all apart together.

My God, I wanted that life so much it took my breath away. The Whispering Woods wouldn't be a prison then. It would be just another place to be in with Grey.

But here I was, all alone and broken, still falling since I remembered myself.

Tears slid down my cheeks, but I pretended not to notice them as I went over the rest of the animals he'd taken notes on in that notebook.

Until I came across the second part of it, and read:

Day 1

She's here.

I knewit was about me like Grey was right there and was whispering it in my ear.

He'd written about me long before we spoke for the first time.

Day3

I watched her sleeping through the window. She might be an angel.

*She was scared when she saw me. I wish she wasn't.

*She plays the piano.

Day4

The cortis kineris I let loose around the castle attacked her this morning. The hatchling killed it even though he knew she was safe under my shield. He did it on purpose to earn her loyalty. I have yet to understand his plot.

Day6

She laughed three times today.

Day12

I don't know how to stop thinking about her.

Day14

She talked to me tonight. The melodies she plays on the piano pale in comparison to her voice.

I wonder if she sings.

*She's very bad at telling jokes. I've never laughed more. She's perfect.

Day15

She wears blue again.

It might be because of me and that makes me feel…strange. I can't put my finger on it. Something I've never felt before, so there's a very good chance I am sick with a virus from the cougar I captured last night, one strong enough to make me hallucinate. I'll research this tonight.

"Oh, my God,"I whispered to myself now, hands in front of my mouth.

All of this. All of these words…

He'd been there when that giant snake wrapped around the tree had attacked me—he was the one to have let it loose around the castle! And he'd been protecting me from it, too.

"Safe under my shield. Of course." That'swhat I'd felt falling on me that day, locking around me. It hadn't been the fear or my instincts, only Grey's magic. Back then, I'd just been too human to recognize it.

He'd been there and I had been safe. That snake couldn't have hurt me even if Shadow hadn't killed it, and I had no clue why that made me smile.

I read page after page where he'd written things about me—she looked especially sad today.

She's mastering the rhythm of her heart.

She knows I watch her.

She's still afraid of me and I don't know how to take it away.

It was like listening to Grey speaking those words himself right into my ear. All this time I'd thought he was this monster of a man plotting ways to murder me, and he'd been up here writing this. Drawing my silhouette. Thinking about me wearing blue.

A cry escaped me—I couldn't help it. I missed him so much it was completely, utterly senseless. How could I miss something I barely even had, with such intensity? How had my entire life tied itself to him in a matter of hours?

Or was the Blood Call really that powerful? Was it simply the magic of the curse that connected us the way it did?

Was it the same for all the other brides?

Maybe that's why they were so infatuated with the Evernights. Maybe that's why they saw no wrong in them and worshipped them like they were fucking gods.

When I was done with the journal, I found what could have been a blueprint of the third tower folded and hidden in the middle of one of his books. It had all five floors drawn on it exactly like they were, and according to it, the fifth floor was one big open room with no walls, only pillars supporting the rooftop of the tower. The same rooftop where Grey had had his way with me that day under the rain, and I had no clue then that I was living one of the best days of my life.

God, I thought watching him being sucked in by the sky was the worst possible pain I was going to endure, but it wasn't. Things like this only added to the nightmare—the party, the dead grey fish, the dragon tooth, his journal, the way he saw me even when I had no clue that he was there, long before I knew who he was…

It was all so heavy, weighing me down more by the minute, and it took me a long time to make it to my feet again.

When I left the office, I took one of the bags full of golden coins with Faeish symbols engraved on either side. I had a plan, and I was going to see it through—tonight, as soon as I saw the fifth floor.

Just like the blueprint said, it was an open space with thick round pillars supporting the rooftop and beautiful metal railings between them. It looked like one big balcony, giving me a gorgeous view of the Whispering Woods beyond the surrounding wall of the castle. There wasn't anything to see except trees and a dark sky, but from the third tower I could actually make out the shapes of the three mountains in the distance, so far away they looked tiny. I hadn't realized how vast the Whispering Woods really was until I'd seen it from the top of Faeries' Aerie. Now I knew that there was even more to it than this, and suddenly I had this urge to explore every inch of it. Suddenly, I could see life again just like in that office. I could see myself in Grey's arms as he flew us from one end of the Woods to the other, and together we saw everything there was to see on this Isle. All of it—every detail.

My heart mourned as it broke all over again. It mourned a life I was never going to have but wanted with my whole being—to be out there in the dark, flying with Grey, even if I was scared shitless.

I just wanted to be with Grey.

But the truth was that Grey was gone. And regardless of the part of me that still refused to accept the fact, I'd seen him disappear into the sky with my own eyes. Grey was gone and he wasn't coming back.

Once again, I was all alone.

And alone I'd try to explore as much of this place as I could and gather enough power so that none of the Evernights dared to even come close to me again.

It was eight p.m. when I left my room, dressed in my clothes and Grey's leather jacket. I ate some bread and dried meat for strength, should I need to run from someone—or something—and I made my way downstairs to the greenhouse again. The animals would all be there. The cougar and those flying rabbits and who knew what else that I hadn't seen, but strangely I wasn't afraid. If Grey felt comfortable living in a tower where those animals slept, then so was I. There was no need to worry—the cages were locked.

And with that thought in mind, I walked in there, breath held and ears strained.

Silence.

It was silent in the greenhouse, the little lamps dimmer than they had been that morning. It didn't look any different—the sky was made out of the same darkness, but a lot more cages were closed now, and a lot more animals watched me through the thick bars—including the cougar.

Her yellow eyes were on me, half closed as she lay at the corner of the cage where very little light fell on her face. She looked like a fucking monster out of a fantasy, with a body made out of shadows and eyes made out of yellow flames. Shivers ran up and down me, but the cougar didn't make a single sound, and I didn't stick around to see if she would later. Controlling the beating of my heart had never been harder, especially when I picked up the sound of the animals moving about in their cages, aware that I was there, curious to see more of me.

I was curious to see more of them, too. So damn curious to know if their fur would light up when I touched it—or was that just another trick from Mama Si to win me over? To make magic seem so much more glamorous than it actually was?

I found the rabbits with the feathery wings folded on their backs—so strange. Three of them were in a cage to the right, and on the other side was a glass box with lizards that looked like they were drawn by hand with bright colors—pinks and neon greens and fiery reds. The deeper into the greenhouse I went, the more eyes were on me, and I realized there were more animals here than I'd first thought. There were cats and what could have been raccoons but with orange-ish fur, and black foxes and snakes in another bigger glass box set with white sand. They all looked almost the same but slightly different, some with horns on their heads instead of ears, and some with colors that didn't belong on fur—like the deep magenta of the small creature that looked like a cat.

By the time I made it to the other side, my sneakers were muddy, my face was itching from all those leaves that had touched me as I went through, too focused on the animals to move away from them in time, and my heartbeat had already gone back to its normal rhythm.

There was a big door half hidden by a tree at the left corner of the greenhouse, next to two empty cages. Before I opened it, I turned and looked at the animals again, at the little jungle growing here under the glass ceiling. It occurred to me that the trees and the grass and everything here looked alive, green, like it was supposed to, not the way it did in the gardens inside the walls of this castle. It made me like this place even more.

The door opened, though with difficulty. Animals growled and screeched and barked and meowed behind me, almost as if to tell me not to leave. I walked out anyway, silently promising them that I'd be back.

Trees in front of me—black ones. Dead ones, but they didn't scare me anymore. I'd memorized the blueprint of the tower, and it only showed the way to the surrounding wall of the castle. But once I found the wall, I'd find the door Zane had told me about, the one the help used. If not tonight, then tomorrow.

So, I started toward the trees, focused on the trunks to make sure no giant snakes were coming for me from anywhere. The night was quiet. Only a distant sound of leaves whispering reached my ears, but the brothers weren't there so far. If they saw me leaving, would they stop me?

Of course, they would. Getting me all alone in the woods outside the tower, where they could do whatever they wanted to me?

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I whispered to myself, picking up the pace until I started to actually run through the trees as fast as I could without making too much noise. I should have grabbed a knife from that small kitchen. I should have searched for a damn gun in Grey's office or something. I should have had the means to protect myself out here in case they came for me.

But it must have been my lucky night because I reached the wall much sooner than I thought.

And I found the door that the help used not five minutes after, following the wall to the west. The problem was the two guards standing in front of it with swords strapped to their hips that they reached for as soon as they saw me.

I stopped in my tracks, and they froze, too. I had no idea what they were, but they were no fairies or dragon riders, just very big men with wide shoulders and narrowed brows, looking at one another, then at me again, perfectly confused.

I would imagine they hadn't seen brides so close to the wall often. From what they told me before they hated my guts, the brides liked to organize trips to the towns near the castle, and they went there with horses and carriages, probably through the main gates.

But the thing was, they could. After the Blood Call, all brides could get out of the castle because they couldn't leave the Whispering Woods if they tried. The curse tied us to this place now, too, just like it did the Evernights, so I wasn't trapped in here anymore. I had the right to walk out if I wished.

"Good evening, gentlemen," I said, before I changed my mind and turned back.

The guards finally let go of their swords and bowed to me deeply without making a single sound.

I felt better already. "I want to go outside for a walk," I said next. "Please get the door for me."

Queens. The other brides always claimed that here, in the Evernight Court, they lived like queens, and queens demanded that doors be opened for them, right?

A second ticked by.

Part of me expected them to start laughing, draw out those swords and call for Romin or one of the other brothers. Mentally I was already preparing to run as fast as I could back to where I came from, into the third tower where they couldn't reach me.

Except the most wonderful thing happened—the guards bowed their heads once more without a single word, and they stepped to the side. The one on the left had a key attached to his armor somewhere, and he unlocked the big wooden door that was twice as tall as me, then pulled it open with ease.

"Thank you," I choked out, not really believing my luck as I walked ahead, barely feeling my legs.

The guards kept their heads down as I went through the door.

Before the minute was over, I was out of the castle all by myself.