She didn’t say anything and I wasn’t sure if she was awake. Her face was cast in shadows. I moved in closer, trying not to alarm her.
“Bella?” I whispered, reaching for the curtain and shifting it.
When the moonlight struck her face, I gasped. She was sitting there, perfectly still, her eyes staring right through me. She didn’t blink.
Alarm and fear flooded me.
I stood there for several moments trying to decide whether to run for help or go to her, but neither sounded like a good plan. Then, her voice hardened my stance even further.
“I’ve been lying,” she said, her voice quiet and soft.
My heart raced and I searched her face for a hint of a smile, or a mischievous curve of her cheeks, but it wasn’t there.
“I saw my father in the village today. He’s not my father,” she continued, her hollow gaze still boring right through me. “I don’t know who he is. I don’t even know who I am.”
Sucking in a breath, I tried to regain some composure, and I noticed the same scroll on her side table. She had been selected, too. But what was happening to her?
“What do you mean you don’t know who you are?” I asked.
“I’ve been to the Realm. I remember it. I was small,” she said. “My mother was there.”
I gaped at her, shocked by what she was saying.
“Is she still there?” I asked.
Isabella still had not blinked.
“I see her sometimes,” she said. “She looks different from the way she did back then.”
“Different how?” I asked.
“Well, she’s dead,” Isabella said. “She doesn’t look as pretty as she used to.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“You mean you have nightmares about her?” I asked.
Isabella looked rapidly to the left.
“No, I see her. I can see her now.”
I didn’t breathe as I looked, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
A moment that stretched an eternity left me with a chill that rivaled the one the night my mom was killed. Isabella’s gaze snapped onto mine.
Her giggle resonated deep in my veins, chilling my everi into stillness.
She raised an eyebrow, her cheeks rosy as a grin spread across her lips. “You should see your face. You totally bought that.”
I didn’t sleepat all that night.
Isabella, insisting she was kidding, dismissed me to go to bed and I couldn’t remember getting from my spot by her window and under my covers, but there must have been a trail burned onto the carpet. Isabella was always bubbly and excited and last night was weird. It reminded me of that time on the balcony, before her and Saryna were attacked.
I thought about talking to Roslyn, but as an Aurkai I wasn’t sure what she would be bound to do. I didn’t want to put Isabella in any danger.
I checked on her before classes and she was singing as she put on her makeup as if nothing had happened. Perhaps she was experimenting with too many cocktails lately or this was Malakai’s doing somehow. My everi burned through me as I thought of his sneering face.
She waited for me after, like she always did, and fell into step beside me.
